BOARD GAMES GENERAL: Santa Is Coming Edition

/bgg/ - Board Games General

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>Santa Is Coming Edition
Do you plan giving someone a board game as a christmas gift - or receiving?

How's your gaming group during the holidays - do you play with your relatives?

What do you prefer playing on the holidays - and how's not going to work this year?

Share that awkward bg related experience with your family you never told anyone of

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=X0XRVTacNxI
indiegogo.com/projects/dwarf-war-first-contact-3d#/
kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/mythic-battles-pantheon
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

I have a lack of and desire for some simpler games, maybe some party games.

Any suggestions?

A couple i have in mind are once upon a time and loomy quest

Any experience with these?

A friend of mine is looking for a Game of Thrones-themed game for her boyfriend.
I have already talked her out of getting the GoT editions of Monopoly and Risk, but since I'm not a GoT fan myself, I don't know which games I can recommend instead.

What might be a good pick?

There's GoT the board game by FFG. Also a card game I think.

I know what's there. I want to know what's good.

New stretch goal revealed

So, who backed Mythic battles?

The GoT game from FFG is an Ok-ish Diplomacy clone. Some people swear by it.

I could never get over the fact that the factions are so asymmetric... yet so constrained to their roles. Lannisters must always try to treaty their way in the beginning of the game, the Grayjoys can be shafted by events in the beginning. Starks expand to the north...

The game is very static at later stages when the seas are occupied. Once someone has their entire flotilla out there's no way to break that.

I may be discouraging you from the game but this is only my opinion, I played less then 10 games and I know people do seem to love this game.

Check out the rules introduction here: youtube.com/watch?v=X0XRVTacNxI

I did. With $498...
Part of my Christmas bonus is already gone. Hopefully it's worth it. Wasn't that hyped for something in a long time.

i kind of wanted to but i am going for KD and i dont feel like getting just the core game when all expansions have kickstarter exclusives.

The core game should hold decent resale value,
the all in pack is too expensive for too little exclusive/resale value.
I might even drop it before 8pm tonight.
unlike conan not a lot people will be willing to pay for kickstarter content. ickstarter has a big spotlight now unlike 3years ago when monolith funded conan so all the people interested in the game will already have preordered it.

Eh, there will be enough people who will only find out about the game after it's hit retail.

I backed at $99
None of the add ons had compelling enough exclusives (or were compelling enough as exclusives themselves) for me to not just wait until retail to get them if I get them at all.

People pay over $400 on ebay for the collectors edition of scythe because the box is numbered when you can get everything in it for well under $200. Some people are obsessed with the FOMO but you don't need to throw in a bunch of exclusives to trick people into buying your product if the game is good enough to sell on its own merits.

I keep seeing people saying that these huge miniature kickstarters are such a good deal because of all of the plastic in them but are you really going to use those Greek people in different poses miniatures in your D&D campaign if the game sucks? Are you going to display the cheap plastic pieces in a glass display cabinet like some sort of grognard?

The most expensive game I own is Food Chain Magnate that I've slowly upgraded the components of and based on this criteria, it's a terrible "value" but it's one of my very favorite games, I've played it tons and it costs what it costs to get that experience.

Not many people would (or did) buy mythic battles if it was cardboard standees, and I doubt a single person in this thread would buy a big bag of the Greek minis as toys. Its mainly this gee-whiz feeling from getting "so much stuff" that's, along with GW artificially inflating the perceived value of cheap plastic toys, driving the kickstarter.

Loony Quest is good fun for just about anyone for a one-shot, but I don't see much attraction to it past the novelty factor. I don't know how much it costs, but I don't think I would recommend a buy unless you have lots of different people to show it to and/or children who would likely enjoy replaying it.

99$ cuz a poorfag

Like user said, aGoT: The Game is a reasonably good game - but it has some problems, and I'm convinced that Rex is straight-up better for doing nearly exactly the same things. But Rex isn't flavored for A Song of Edge and Tits, so probably not what you're looking for.

The aGoT reflavor of Cosmic Encounter, I think they're calling it The Iron Throne, is liable to be a decent negotiation game, might look into that when it releases. Oh shit, it's released. Yeah, maybe get that.

>indiegogo.com/projects/dwarf-war-first-contact-3d#/
What the fuck, any thoughts on this? The Intro video is hilarious imo.

forgot pic

>people backing Mythic Battles: Pantheon and not Kingdom Death: Monster

>backing either, or any other game that's 15x as expensive as it needs to be because muh three million models

So I own and enjoy Chaos in the Old World, and I'm curious to pick up another deep Dudes-On-A-Map. I'm curious about how much conflict there is in Kemet and Blood Rage, and how long they actually also take to play. I like the idea of the variable player power selection, as it's something I enjoy from CitOW as well.
Also, how strong/important is the card drafting in Blood Rage? It's a mechanic I enjoy from 7 Wonders and other games as well.

kingdom deaths main cost doesnt even lie in the models

KD:M models are high quality though. Thank god I don't like the aesthetics at all. I would back it if it had wooden pieces though.

There is only conflict in Kemet. You literally get VPs from attacking and winning (or holding positions via entire turn).

The game starts symmetric but as different people get different upgrades everybody will vary.

Blood Rage is a point salad with a draft that's themed as a dudes on a map game. It's a good game and my big ding on it is the draft is used as a way to put balancing the cards onto the players and not as a clever or central gameplay mechanic. I wouldn't get it over kemet or Inis if you're looking for another dudes on a map game unless you really just like the thematics of conflict. Blood rage might be a good pickup anyway though as it's different enough and good enough to warrant its purchase. BR is also fairly light with its fiddlyness exceeding its depth but it's still not too bad in that regard.

Wasn't sold on the system, so not me..

>Are you going to display the cheap plastic pieces in a glass display cabinet like some sort of grognard?
STOP JUDGING ME!

Scythe has a lot of hype for a dudes-on-a-map, seems to have the potential to become a classic, but despite the theme isn't as combat oriented as CitOW.

I've never really timed our Blood Rage games but I'd say about three hours. It goes by fairly quickly though, if I compare it to Dogs of War for instance. I feel like I do more in those three hours in Blood Rage, possibly because there are more actions per phase and more mechanics and pieces involved.

It's definitely not all about fighting though, and that's something I like about it. You can make a ton of points by having your units die in the right place at the right time or just camping down in specific provinces to complete area control quests (most of my group typically ignores those quests early in drafting, except for one guy who dominates when he goes all in with them). Once you get a feel for the different upgrades, you have a good number of options as to how to orient your strategy.

The center province is also a huge magnet with its three stat upgrades instead of one that drives everyone to push for it early and whoever gets it to try to hold on to it the entire game. But wrestling it away from everyone else is so resource-intensive that it's not actually OP, it's just another objective you can choose to focus on at the detriment of other scoring opportunities.

I've probably played it about ten times now (I don't keep track) and I haven't bothered to put the expansions in play because it still feels different every time, depending on the monters that get put in play and the strategies each player goes for.

Get your boy Battles of Westeros.
It's an AGoT retheme of Battlelore which is a reimplementation of Commands and Colors, a Richard Borg classic. It's a fucking great wargame.
>but user, there's miniatures in it, that's not a wargame, it's an amerithrash plastic pusher
fite me fgt, this is as good as light wargames get

I feel I didn't really address your core questions, actually. Regarding conflict, there's definitely a lot of interaction even though winning battles isn't the only to make points. The ability to join combat in an adjacent province with one unit ensures that no one can just pillage for free every time they put the first mini in an area and is part of what makes Yggdrasil so hard to pillage. It's smack in the center so every other player with a mini on the board (ships excepted of course) is liable to jump in and fuck you up if you're not well prepared. Some cards also let you steal action points or gain VPs when you lose fights, so you have that incentive to interact even if you're not competitive "militarily."

Card drafting is definitely crucial as you may have gathered from my area control quest anecdote. Each of the gods has a certain theme to it, so it's a good idea to stick to one or two types of upgrades and keep filling out your combo as the years come. There can be a lot of synergy between your unit upgrades and clan upgrades for instance, but you also want to grab some of the badass monsters before other players do because they can be game changers.

Your timing for playing cards is also important since you *have* to play a card in combat, and if you're unlucky you can end having to waste quests or upgrades in unwanted confrontations. That encourages you to pick a few of every type of card (quests/upgrades/combat bonuses).

Anyone have any interesting thoughts on what FFG should do with the lost FFG properties?

Personally hoping for Fury of Richelieu.

GW is gonna end up producing, re-licensing or selling FoD eventually. Having such a coveted IP in their portfolio, it's only good business sense.

...am I overestimating a company that's famous for shooting itself in the foot?

It isn't dudes on map it engine building worker placement with area control bolted on

More probably it will be Fury of Vader

Holy shit stoob I didn't know how bad I wanted this. Fuck you.

And fuck you too.

There was something about a Lord of the Rings hidden movement game a while back I think, where the "Dracula" is now the ring bearer.

So the other players take Sauron and his forces, trying to get the Ring back and doom Middle Earth?
Don't see that happening, because even if it's a neat idea, that would be too grimdark for a LotR license.

Is it me or is Zombicide really boring?

kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/mythic-battles-pantheon

15 minutes until the celebration stream starts. One hour until the campaign is over and then another hour of streaming and drinking and celebrating. With a surprise!

If you haven't pledged yet do it! It's worth it!

Fury of Geralt of Rivia.

With hunters being monsters [spoilers]or assassins[/spoilers] .

If I pledge will you stop shilling until the game is actually out?
God, the things I do for this general.

I'm not a shill, I'm a fanboy. But fine... I'll restrain myself.

It looked pretty complete if I'm remembering it right, with some sort of mechanic for when they do catch up. Doesn't feel too out of place or grimdark honestly. Maybe I'll stumble on it again whenever and post a link then.

Ever heard of Middle Earth Quest?

Today I bought this. Will unpack soon.

Well done

>about three hours
Holy moly, you had some serious AP problems somewhere. Played Blood Rage just this weekend. First game I played teaching the game and stopping to look up rules, took me 2 hours.

...

It's an entry level rpg-lite (losing the role playing, keeping the hackneyed, random combat system). What were you expecting?

Drafting takes us a while. The rest is fairly smooth, and as I said, I'm just estimating.

Now Dogs of War, that brings out the AP in everyone in my group.

What would the next logical step be? I'm thinking of Eldritch (or Arkham) Horror.

>Do you plan giving someone a board game as a christmas gift - or receiving?
I know my parents are getting me the Missions expansion to Galaxy Trucker. We share an Amazon Prime so it's kinda hard to hide.
>How's your gaming group during the holidays - do you play with your relatives?
I want to play with my relatives but my plan to bring board games to thanksgiving failed miserably. I'll try again for Christmas, but we'll probably just end up playing You Don't Know Jack again, as much as I hate it.
>What do you prefer playing on the holidays - and how's not going to work this year?
I want to get my family to play Codenames or Cash n Guns. I think they would have no problems understanding those 2. We'll see though. I don't understand the second part. Unless you have a special job, you're generally not working christmas already.

I hate christmas with all my soul.

>giving or receiving a board game as a christmas gift?
A few years back I gave 3 friends each a copy of a custom hand-made 150 tile !Carcassonne. I spent over 120 hours on the project, doing research, cutting fiberboard squares, photoshopping images, printing, cutting, gluing and varnishing. One guy enjoyed the gift. The other 2 were "Oh hey, a boardgame. Thanks I guess?". So no, I won't be giving anyone hand-crafted shit or board games.

>gaming group during the holidays
What gaming group?

>what do you prefer playing on the holidays - and how's not going to work this year?
>this year
Yeah.

>awkward bg related experience with your family you never told anyone of
No family stories to share here, but once a friend's dad came in the middle of a DnD session to take him away and asked me to never talk to his son again because I was leading him into damnation. He also said that if I feared for my soul, I should burn my RPG books and surrender myself to god.

They already teased the next Mythic Battles. Mythic Battles: Ragnarok. People assume they will release it in 2018.

Yay.
So excited.
Can't wait.
This is totally not sarcasm.

It's okay that you are not excited for it but you don't have to be a dick about it to the people who are.

Dealing with morons a lot tends to shorten your patience when you come across them.

Picked this up, haven't played it but heard it was good. Is it?

Yes, but not as combat-heavy as a lot of people were hoping.

>bought a 90$ game sight unseen
Brave.

Doesn't it MSRP for $60?

Takes a bit to get into, don't expect casual players to pick it up easily and don't show it around people that get offended by word gulag. Other than that it's golden.

Well, once you drop to 0 popularity you can keep rolling. You just won't have any to spend on Encounters (or production, but if you're going that way you're probably not prioritizing building up workers anyway).

People were expecting combat? I thought they made it pretty clear from the start that fighting other players would be a waste of resources in most circumstances.

Doesn't stop idiots from going
DIESELPUNK ROBOT BATTLE?
DIESELPINK ROBOT BATTLE!

>and don't show it around people that get offended by word gulag
???

Good pick.

>A few years back I gave 3 friends each a copy of a custom hand-made 150 tile !Carcassonne. I spent over 120 hours on the project, doing research, cutting fiberboard squares, photoshopping images, printing, cutting, gluing and varnishing.
Sounds awesome, got any pics?

In for a treat. Well done user!

>..am I overestimating a company that's famous for shooting itself in the foot?

No, no... I'd say you're vastly UNDER-ESTIMATING their ability to shoot themselves in both feet many many times. It's probably the primary reason firearms have largely been outlawed in the UK...

>that would be too grimdark for a LotR license.

Are you stoned or just clueless? The very first LotR game licensed was SPI's classic "War of the Ring" which was the whole damn war with all of Sauron's and Saruman's forces trying to find / kill the Ring Bearer and company.

I'll go with clueless. Maaaaaaybe a wee bit stoned.

Aaaanyhoo. A war where there's both sides fighting for terrain and objectives is well... a war. There's 2 sides, forces meet in battlefields, good vs evil, good has an infinitesimally small chance to prevail else the land is overrun by the evil forces of evilness and all that jazz.
So yeah, pretty grimdark overall. And it got licensed. Go figure.

Dunno, a game where there's a single ringbearer trying to evade Sauron's forces and sneak his way into Mordor to destroy the ring while being chased by Nazgûl seems a cool concept, but it's sorta darker IMO. Players trying to find and murder the good guy... Maybe it'd still get licensed, yeah, but I think I'd feel a bit uncomfortable playing it as Sauron's forces... I'd root for the Hobbit, (he'd be paranoid as fuck) and maybe play suboptimally so he gets a break or something. But it's still be a cool game tho. I'm rambling now, and you're all breathing manually now. You're welcome.

There's though, not sure where it is in the timeline, but 3 players will go around rallying up the Free Peoples(?) and the Sauron player is advancing plots while hunting them down with his lieutenants. One of the things that can happen is the hero can get captured and held in Mordor I think, and has to escape, while suffering relevant traumas. That's kind of dark?

I don't know, flipping the sides is a cool idea I think, and it's not like the ring bearer isn't without allies, which could make for some heroic instances. Maybe you just feel for the single guy getting chased down by 4 people, which I can kind of empathize wi-

>you're all breathing manually
I will cut your limbs and throw them into the volcano one by one.

I wanna see a screencap of your pledge management page. No need for personal info, just settle once and for all that you're not attached to the project and have actually yourself pledged it

>Giving a board game gift
I'm giving Onitama to a friend who made the mistake of buying me something without my permission
I also give one gift to my game group every year, specifically handed to a different friend each time. I was going to give Unusual Suspects (and slip in cards from this trash Target game I picked up called What the Face, which comes with a bunch of crack addict mugshots). Then today I remembered Mission Red Planet. I think that could be a better gift if I can get a good price
>Receiving
Maybe, but I'm not asking for any because I'd rather get practical items like socks, a travel backpack, a new phone
>Group during the holidays
A lot better than over the summer. Summer is the busy season for many of my friends and me, so we barely get to meet. Thankfully the meetup always has people.
A lot of out-of-town friends are around during the holidays which usually means lots of party games
>Relatives?
The only extended family I normally get to see actually plays hobby board games, though the only games we've played all together as a family is Liar's Dice or *gulp* LCR.
I played Las Vegas with just the cousins last week and it was great.
>Awkward family bg experience
I hate when my immediate family plays Cards Against Humanity. It's so shit
Also: trouncing my mom at Scrabble last summer. She got frustrated, which made me sad. She only tries games every once in a while and I wish she'd give a shot at one that's actually fun to play

Why a griffon and not a hyppogriff?
Weren't griffons mostly a medieval thing?

Zombicide to get used to shit combat and thoughtless dice chucking, Castle Ravenloft to get used to critical failure and randomness screwing you over completely. Then Eldritch Horror to ultimatedly kill your hopes and dreams of having any control over your life.

What are the best games that create competing teams. 2v2, 3v3, 2v2v2, whatever. Games where you get a partner or partners you're working with against an equal opposing team.

Mythic Battles: Pantheon.

seriously, fuck off

I would also like to know that.

I know that Cyclades with the Titans expansions provides for 3v3 or 2v2.

In StarCraft you can go with teams but it defaults to FFA.

There's the Captain Sonar game for team vs team.

glad i didnt back this one.

i like norse myth. waaaaay more then greek. or egypt would be cool to.

codenames

...

y that game was fucking great.

to bad the 4+ players was bad, its best played with 3 players. but it does it amazingly.

Personally I've been having a huge problem with Kemet, and its this: Every game I've played (seven total I think?) has essentially been decided on the final few actions on the final turn. That doesn't sound like a problem, but get this. In two of the games, the winner came down to: Player A and player B are tied for first. Player C is out of the running, but as her final action, player C can either attack A or B, cinching the win for the other player. In another of the games the player to my left essentially stopped playing because he was tired and annoyed the game was taking longer than he wanted. He was just going through the motions but once again, as the literal final actions of the game this asshat swept in and managed to go from 4 VP to 10 VP and get the win. I can't remember the other games but they similarly were decided at the very end.

Now that last one is some butt-hurtedness over losing to a player that "didn't deserve it, I'll admit. But I'm having this weird issue where I like the IDEA of things always being razor-close, and no one ever being out of the game, but in practice what that means is that it feels like the first 90% of the game doesn't mean anything, and that victory is often outside of your control.

Kemet is so highly regarded and there's a lot to like, is there anyone out there to back me up n this? Does expansion help with any of this?

I haven't played the expansion yet (only got it yesterday) but it tries to mitigate it by two mechanisms
1. Bidding for turn order
2. Victory condition is now applied when you're the active player but before you put down the action pawn.

Even in the base game as you play more you get to see those moments.

A 6VP differential is... not something I've seen with even moderately competent players - are you sure you're doing the rules correctly?

You can get 3VP in one move by taking over someones (fully built) city but this is usually dangerous because recruiting is a free battle and there's no way to have a full-strength troop in an enemy city in one move. It's hard to even get into an enemy city in one move unless you have either the Phoenix the DI card or the Red upgrade tile.

In my opinion the best case scenario for an end game is having a battle on someone's pyramid and winning as the last player. That's a 2VP swing. As a last player you can also go into someone's city and take over all of their pyramids (for a +3VP) if they're unguarded but if somebody doesn't guard their pyramids in the last turn it's their own fault for being a dumbass.

In my opinion and in my group Kemet does somewhat suffer from kingmaking. Our games usually went down to
> I can get 1VP this turn enabling A to win or 1VP enabling B to win.

I haven't seen a FFA game that doesn't have kingmaking problem, though.

>But I'm having this weird issue where I like the IDEA of things always being razor-close, and no one ever being out of the game, but in practice what that means is that it feels like the first 90% of the game doesn't mean anything, and that victory is often outside of your control.

That Idea does not work as it is self contradictory.

Either the early game is relevant and players can be eliminated effectively or the game is short/the early game is meaningless and everybody is relevant until the end.

If i remember correctly as his final three actions he:
upgraded his last pyramid to level 4 (+1 VP)
successfully attacked the sanctum of all gods (+1 from attacking, +1 for saccing end of turn)
successfully attacked a river temple temple, so that he controlled 2 temples end of turn (yes, not counting the sanctuary) (+1 attacking, +1 controlling the temple, +1 for two temples)

I think that's how it happened, at least. I bring it up as it was such an aberration, and we shouldn't have let it happen. But it wasn't like we were leaving him alone either. One of the other players in the 5 player game was almost exclusively picking on him all game. In the last turn we must have been focusing on tearing down the other players that were higher in VPs while disregarding win-from-nowhere guy.

Unless a game lets you set up for the late game while still having presence during the early game, of course.

I'm getting the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game for xmas,
has anybody played it?


and I got my niece CandyLand for xmas

How old is your niece? Surely it'd be better to get her something with at least a little bit of decision making.

4 or 5?

2 nieces, one is a year younger than her,

and a 1 year old nephew

I don't fully agree. There are games, I'll take bloodbowl as an example, where one player's good play early can give them the advantage and start to put the game out of reach. The other player is never out of the game however, but they may need to do higher risk plays and even then only be a long shot to win.

Bloodbown of course has a decent luck element with the die-rolling, but I'd be interested to see games that have no dice other other randomizer that uses the same principle.

That's like saying you can be wet and not wet at the same time. Just does not work.

>I don't fully agree. There are games, I'll take bloodbowl as an example, where one player's good play early can give them the advantage and start to put the game out of reach. The other player is never out of the game however, but they may need to do higher risk plays and even then only be a long shot to win.
If you have a perfectly random mechanic involved such as dice, of course the dice might suddenly decide to fuck the winning player. This however is rarely a sign of good game design. At the same time, without such elements you can not really come back from being behind if the game is otherwise deterministic.

>Just does not work.
Best example I can think of is Netrunner, which has a whole runner faction about 'late game inevitability'. The idea is that you focus on setting up your board state until eventually, unless you fuck up or your opponent plays well, you basically cannot lose the game, even if you were horrendously behind on points.

On the flip side, if you focus too much on setting up, your opponent may score out first, which is why you need to strike a balance between attacking to keep your opponent on their toes, and working up towards that late game, even at the cost ceding a few points.

Well shit.

So it turns I fucked up the rules. I thought that VPs for controlling the temples come after the day phase.

I've been playing this game wrong for nearly a year

But then you can obviously prevent him from setting that up, ultimately ruining his chances of winning, thereby eliminating him early.

Certainly, but he can also prevent you from preventing him from setting up, or have failsafes from getting disrupted. You can fall behind in Netrunner, and there are definitely situations from which you basically cannot come back from, but most of the time you can't really "eliminate" your opponent, aside from actually winning. Even the decks that are the closest to an 'early elimination' tactic (tag me decks) are in danger of an abrupt loss via explosion.

>aside from actually winning
what stops him from winning if he manages to deny you the early game?