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Dudes on a map and wargames, what's your best? Worst? Is STEEV right that pushing carboard HoN and 2 dice is better than the buckets from Memoir '44?

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dominion has no theme

>HoN and 2 dice is better than the buckets from Memoir '44?

Heh, Memoir 44 - buckets...

Ork / Imperial Guard / Tyranid players from 40K would like to have a word with you about what 'Buckets' of dice really is...

A Question about Descent.
Anyone tried the Automated Overlord?
Are there any other such options? different rules / tools that change the game?

Go to bed Sam.

One could potentially create a deck of cards that controlled the actions of the Overlord (sort of like the enemie AI cards for Gears of War) that could allow the game to run without a human Overlord player. But I don't know of anyone having created such a deck.

Fair enough, but when someone asks me for an intro "wargame" those are the two I'd recommend, and I generally ask how much do you wanna just chuck dice?

Ogre is the best wargame and everyone knows it

I mean the original ogre

>fresh oc for fresh bread

so i have been taking the knife to my boxes. wether it is the actual box, a new box or making an insert that will fit all expansions in the main box.

here i made a new box that snugly fits all of tempus components in literally half the box.
imgur.com/a/Yo3yO

i was going to make a foam insert but decided that everything fits so neatly there really was no need. (also wouldnt even fit, so small is the box now.)

soon i will have three times as much space.

also. i was just gonna print out the tempus name and glue the paper on the box and sides. i think it will do its job well. just wondering if anyone has a better solution.

Anyone else hype for Gloomhaven?

Looks better than KD:M tbqh

Yeah, my one real gripe with HoN is the criticality of single d6 rolls. Having your tanks all whiff their shots on the same halftrack for two rounds in a row could drive a nun to murder. Single die keeps combat simple and fast, but larger numbers would normalize better.

I've considered splitting the difference between dice and deterministic resolution by giving each player a set of playing cards marked 1-6 to use each turn instead of a die, having the player pick one of those to play facedown (and then discard for the rest of the turn), and then the opponent picks whether to accept that card's result or substitute a die roll and chuck the card without seeing it.

poorfag detected.

I'm at a solid 9/10

I'm ready to be disappointed

>Card or dice houserule
My first instinct is that any opponent will expect you to spend your high cards on the critical rolls and just always make you throw the dice on thsoe, rendering the houserule moot, and then make you take the card for the less-important rolls in the round, assuming you gave those the low cards.
But then you'd just play the low cards on the critical rolls assuming the opponent makes you take the dice anyways, and then get guaranteed success on the weaker ones when the other guy thinks he's feeding you a 1.
And once the other guy thinks he's being out-mindgamed he can just decline to participate and always give you the die.
Might end up being just as random as the dice, but at least people would feel a little more responsible for it.
Let me know how it works out.

My favourite strategic wargame is Virgin Queen, but for two players I'd go with Pax Baltica. My favourite tactical wargame is probably Commands and Colors: Ancients, but I'll admit I haven't played many.

the absolute worst wargame is an old shitshow called Dark Emperor, "a game in which the ground itself is your greatest enemy". It's a strategic game where one player is the Dark Emperor, invading a world iwith ring-shaped continents, and the other player is the inhabitants, and you have to rally the nations and coordinate defense.

I absolutely love the premise, but it is a game where every single move you make with your armies is going to cause attrition, which will consist of losses much greater than any battles you will fight. There is no way to reduce attrition, so your best bet is to simply stack as many dudes in a square as possible, which will lead to inevitable losses, but fewer losses than if you march divided and fight concentrated.
The shape of the continents also means you can't really maneuver anything, except your heroes who can fly around as much as they want.

Oh, and the designers notes include him jerking off to his world-building, while admitting he didn't spend a lot of time playtesting.

That exists already, its called redjak automated overlord

Available on BGG forums

I think this would be more interesting if you only allow the defending player to ignore something like 3 or 4 of the cards in a round, so they still have to make a choice about what they think the other player is prioritizing and can't just stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to participate.

I'm very hype. Probably too hype.

While I don't own Descent, posting that tidbit was greatly appreciated.

How hard is it to make a decent Dune pnp

>there will never be a spiritual successor to space hulk death angel

Shouldn't be that hard, someone posted full files on BGG for a version themed around the Sci-Fi version of the film. Believe there were a couple mispellings, but everything was there to do either on cardstock/sticker paper or upload to one of the game crafting pnp websites.

It has no fun either.

I feel like vanilla trash without my own independent opinion whenever I say it, but Twilight Struggle is that fucking good.

Is memoir 44 a good first wargame
I feel like my brother would dig it since it's ww2 themed and it's days of wonder (and I really love em)

There's a lotta people who deride it as playing with a bunch of army men (and it is but fuck you that's fun); those same people often love Commands/Colors Ancients. The system can be learned in under 5 minutes, the card system does a decent job simulating fog of war; but it is pretty swingy based on your dice, and I've heard some of the missions aren't perfectly balanced. Personally prefer it to HoN, but the downside is parts of it are OOP/hard to find.

Am I alone in wishing games were more mechanical than thematic?

I've been getting really into the abstract strat games of the 60s and 70s with some of it due to the lack of theme. Does theme matter to people? Have you guys taken a chance due to theme, or steered away from?

I think theme is incredibly important for providing a mental framework for what you're doing. You could strip, say, Pandemic of its theme and you're just working to get rid of colored cubes because that's the goal of the game, but I guarantee that it would be harder to learn or play, because when you're engaging it you're drawing on (on some basic level) your knowledge of how disease works. Even with something relatively theme-light like Dominion uses what flavor text it does have to make cards stick more easily in your mind. Also, a lot of game design comes from looking at a real life thing and figuring out a clever way to boil it down into a set of rules that's fun to interact with.

That's not to say you can try to trade on theme alone. You can't just say "Zombies!" or "Cthulhu!" and have a good game. There's a lot of shitty theme-heavy games out there. But I don't think it's something you can neglect.

That's sort of the thing with me though is I've been playing a fair amount games that are devoid of theme entirely and I love it, so much so I've taken to liking other games that are more theme heavy less. I see what you mean about attachment to rules through more light information to hold onto as well as pre association with something thematically.

It's mainly just interesting to me given everything I play lacks theme, but it seems like everything I see people post is very theme oriented.

Good luck convincing anyone to play an abstract version of twilight imperium.

What are some good competitive non dexterity based games?
Preferably something around 20-70 USD, looking to round out my collection since the closest thing I have to that would be TTR.
Also preferably one that scales well from 2-6 players, and is on the lighter side (or at least something that isn't more than 3 hours when learned)

Help me out bgg, I bought some card sleeves for my space hulk death angel game (base set only). I put all of my cards in the sleeves but now the stacks are too tall to fit into the box, any advice on how to make them fit?

The only games that fit your description (minus, potentially, good) are Ticket to Ride abd Catan.

dang really?
i was thinking about getting another ttr like europe but i kinda want something with combat
maybe ill look at kemet to see if it'll fit my groups

2-6 is an awkward count, truly great 2p games generally aren't as good at higher counts, and there's not a lot of games balanced from 3-6. There was a pretty decent Dice Tower top 10 on games that scale well, that might be a place to start for you, just expect if you want to cover that large a player count, you might be better off with 2-3 really good games that don't fit every situation, vs one unicorn.

Also if you've already got TtR your first purchase should be either the 1910 expansion for better card shuffling, or Asia for team variant.

bought snake oil for my cousin
now i wish i had something like that
any suggestions? was thinking of funemployed but i wanna know what else is out there in that same category... something thats just fun and creative but not super taxing... a party game i guess but not something as mindless as cards against humanity yet something that's not as mindful as lets say, once upon a time.
greatly appreciated c:

caverna

Wait, did you mean competitive as in not co-op, or competitive as in having a tourney scene? I assumed the latter.

What do fa/tg/uys think about First Martians? It's in preorder now, expencive as fuck. But I'm hyped for this.

Euphoria

New box, or unsleeve them. What other options are there?

If I was going to buy a co-op this year, that would probably be it

Take out the insert

If you are looking for a "fighting" game, my recommendations are
2-5 players - Kemet, Cosmic (can be 6 with expansion)
2-6 players - Rex, a bit heavy and is really best played at 6 players.
3-7 players - Cutthroat Caverns is a great Take That game, you work together yet against each other. Lots of backstabs and fun to be had.

hi guys, i am looking to get chaos in the old world, does it have any merits beyond the setting? Is the game actually fun? I have looked at the good reviews, but i thought you might have some more insight.

Played it only once years ago, but it was enjoyable. Different strategies for different Chaos gods brings replayability. But don't take my word for it.

Do you sleeve your games?

I don't have many games but yes, I recently actively looked for sleeves to fit my Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu game because we use it very often. I've been thinking about doing the same for Bang! but I'm growing disinterested in this game due to the elimination factor. The rest of my games either don't need those (glass chess game, dice game, etc.) or I haven't had the chance to use them often (like Descent which is almost brand new).

I'd go for transparent sleeves everytime because it's both cheaper, it keeps the spirit of the game and heavy to find/easy to replace a damaged sleeve.
The only occasion I'd use themed sleeves is for a TCG game like MTG but I gave up on this game quite long ago and am selling my cards.

I had a chance of buying it new in shrink for 80$, I skipped it.

While it looks nice, I just cant overlook the dice combat.

Yes, and I have a collection of over 200 games including many deckbuilders and fantasy flight sprawling messes of cards.

It's the bane of my existence, but I can't stop.

i mean. are you ready to pay like 200 bucks?

i found it for 50€.

Quick question about Kemet.
When you decide what you are going to do in a turn, do you need to already have a single token on every row before you can put 2 in a row?
As in do I need to have
1 X
1 X X
1 X X X
Before I can put 2 tokens in a single row? or is the only requirement is when you finish the 5th turn you'll have a token in each row?

Can I put a token in the first row in my first and 2nd turn?

Quartermaster General

No, just the cards

In my opinion, it's one of the best dudes-on-a-map games. Personally, I like the asymmetry being built-in form the start, unlike in Kemet or Blood Rage. The expansion improves it further, as it adds a fifth player and gives each god multiple feasible paths to victory.

Would you prefer card-based combat like in Kemet or Game of Thrones? I created a variant that does that, but none of my friends mind the dice so I haven't tested it. I can prove it's balanced on my own (in mean and variance of number of hits and in probability of getting at least one hit) but I can't test whether it's fun without playtesters:

Each player has four combat cards:
Murderous Swarm: +2 Attack if you have any Attack.
Reckless Carnage: +2 Attack if you have any Attack. One opponent with any attack power assigns +1 hit to you.
Lurking Shadows: -1 Attack. +1 Defense. (you have one HP that must be removed before hits can be assigned to your units)
Vile Hordes: (no effect)

When there's a combat, each player involved simultaneously reveals one of their combat cards. After modifications to their attack power, everyone assigns hits equal to their attack power/2, rounded down. After you use a combat card, you don't get it back until you've used all four of your cards.

Obviously, there's room to make this a full expansion with different cards for each god, but this small version works as a simple replacement for people who don't like the dice.

might be weird. but what are good games that i can sleeve with swans. 57mm x 90mm sleeves. i bought 2 packs and they didnt fit for my game. so i might as well buy a new game based on card size.

No, you only have to have a token on every row by the end of your last turn on a day.

>still deciding whether to sleeve millennium blades plus all the mini expansions or not and get ready before it comes out

That's the size I bought for Space Hulk Death Angel if you don't have that one

I couldn't imagine trying to keep the store deck upright with sleeves. I just tell my friends to be careful when we play - that game is a treasure.

I was thinking about getting and using a card shoe instead of keeping it upright

Only ones that I value highly or are out of print.

I have 100% of Thunderstone Advance and it is 100% sleeved.

Anyone here who owns Capitan Sonar and can tell me the dimension of the boards? (the ones each person gets according to his role).

yup, just sleeved it. still have 1 pack left. is saboteur a good game ?

Did you have trouble getting to fit back in the box?

I haven't played saboteur in about 4 years but I remember that it was a fun and simple deduction game. Games are quick too so it only takes maybe 30-40 minutes to play. I think it's a good one to get

I'm wanting to buy a LCG to learn and try out, what are some really good ones?

Netrunner is really, really good. I think the best, certainly the most unique. Also probably the hardest to get into, massive cardpool at the moment, though a large chunk is about to rotate out of competitive play, which might make now/soon one of the easier points to jump in.

Conquest isn't as good or as unique, but it's very solid in it's own right if you're into the 40k theme. Move quickly if you want to get into this one though, it's dead in the water and may not get another reprint before it's gone for good.

Ashes is a pretty good twist on the MTG style and does some fun stuff with dice as resources, but a really slow release schedule, for better or worse.

Doomtown is probably in second place behind netrunner for most unique, but I don't like it quite as well. Also dead, so there's no upcoming releases - which both means it'll stay stagnant but that you won't have new releases to keep up with.

Epic is more or less an LCG that does a good job of being MTG on a cocaine/speed cocktail for cheap, excellent for drafting.

LOTR if you want co-op.
Arkham if you want fancier co-op.

Competitive in the sense of it being no co-op

(You)
Meant to respond to Player boards are 11 1/16" x 8 1/4"

Yeah, Saboteur is a blast, but shit only starts to get real at 6+ players. It can be a tense family game or a shit-spewing beer and pretzels bonanza with drunk friends.

Not pre-ordering for MSRP + shipping to euroland, will be picking it up on release though.

Thanks STEEV. I know you hate co-ops but are LOTR and Arkham fun and well done games for someone who does enjoy co-ops? By Netrunner being hard to get into were you referring to just the massive cardpool or is the game also difficult to learn/teach?

Netrunner's a LITTLE tricky to learn teach, but about half of that's just getting used to the terminology, which is thematically appropriate but a little unintuitive. The cardpool can be rough at first, but the list of really critical things to know about isn't really that long. Even at a casual competitive level just a vague idea of what kind of threats the other side might be able to present is usually sufficient to keep the match from being a surprise blowout because you didn't see something coming. Outside of really janky navel-gazing combo decks, of course.

I've only played a very small amount of LotR, but found it fairly unsatisfying - too much subversion of theme for a nominally thematic game.
I haven't played Arkham, but several friends with opinions I mostly trust think it's really, really good, and a huge improvement over LotR.

>I've only played a very small amount of LotR, but found it fairly unsatisfying - too much subversion of theme for a nominally thematic game.

Yeah the Arkham Horror LCG improves hugely on this, it's super successful in delivering a cohesive thematic experience in my opinion. Great game.

Thoughts on Imperial Assault vs Descent?

But Wait There's More

i can easily get it in. with an elastic band the lid even stays on.

I played RAOV recently and while descent is just generally fun to play and it was great that the one friend that always gets stuck playing overlord was able to be a hero for once, the system is kind of easy to beat.

an example being in one encounter (archive of arrizon 2) a pack of archers spawned with basically a clear shot to the overlord objective (killing arrizon) but because of their programming they instead just took potshots at the hero group which was holding a choke point against an Ettin group.

A human overlord would have probably been able to bumrush the objective and won the encounter because of some poor preparation on the heroes part but the AI overlord couldn't.

Its still fun to play though, just not as exciting or depthful as having a human overlord.

I'm never worried for Millennium Blades. You only shuffle once, and that you can all do yourself. Otherwise you're just drawing and holding cards, and I for the most part trust my friends with that.

Same but different. Which flavor do you prefer?

why is this game so expensive.

It should be cheaper. Should be around 60-70. It just sold it is all. Everyone is waiting for the reprint to arrive, so scalpers are just selling it for like 200 on Amazon. The game will be back in stock middle of February.

okay. i am guessing its an american focused market though?

and that the mini expansions wont be reprinted.

I don't trust my friends or myself
Or cards
Or anything
I'm insane when it comes to sleeving I wish I could be normal

They're pretty much the same idea from what I've heard. Take it how you want to but I believe shut up & sit down said that Star Wars improves the problems that descent had

can somebody enlighten me on kemet? I just don't understand how people can like it. It seems to me without luck factor the game will become stale fast, way too fast.
I am not a hater, i am considering buying it and the overwhelmingly positive reactions of people make me think i am the onw in the wrong. Is it just an impression?

A great deal of the appeal is that it has a lot of variety and longevity without leaning on luck or random elements.

i considered that too, but the otpions dont seem nearly enough to make up for the lack of variance.I mean how many times can you play it before you know all the possible ways to build yourself?

There's what, twenty tiles in each of four colors, and in a given game you'll probably get something like 6-8 of those? Permutates out to a shitload.

>math is hard for me
no wonder you'd rather rely on random chance, retard

>tfw so bored im organizing my games to sit sideways

20 n taking 6 at a time is 38,760 combinations and 27,907,200 different permutations for each player

20 n taking 8 at a time is 125,970 combinations and 5,079,110,400 permutations

so even if there's an optimal strategy found, the re's quite a lot of possibilities

how's it coming?

Paging Mr STEEV.

It's actually 80n, but with easy access to only 60n, and actually slightly less than that since there's some duplicates and you double up.

yeah I don't know the precise tile distribution, was just following up on user's thought

Has anyone played this yet? I saw a review of it and it looks pretty fun

I'm sure my clever, eloquent, and original post will change the heats of many people.

I understand that, but I learned to let go under some simple rules like only certain snacks allowed and keep the drinks on the side tables. Only one friends I keep my eye on now who once forgot to eat and came up to the table with a plate of pizza slices.
I'm not sure the international-ness of it. There's copies being shipped to Europe as well, and these include those mini expansions for the stores. I'm kinda curious though with the printing of this game. Usually I say if it sells well, it'll keep printing, but this sold well and they need a second kickstarter to print more. In any case, the mini expansions are pretty throwaway. For the most part, they just add way too much of something you'll get limited use of each game as is. Get ready for some statistics:

The core game comes with 6 characters. Set Rotation comes with 4 more. Mini expansions add 2 more. You'll use 1 per player a game.

The core game comes with 28 booster pack options. Set Rotation comes with 12 more. Mini expansions add 4. You'll use 12 a game.

Here's where the majority of the mini expansions are. Promotional packs. You have 10 by default. Set Rotation adds 9. Mini expansions add 28. You will use 5 a game.