The Board Game Thread

[Victor Mildew]

We beat the tutorial finale on descent last Saturday, it was a great and challenging campaign. We're going to tackle a proper campaign next, which apparently is a good 20 or so hours split across 2 acts.

[fry87]

Bought and received a few games in the run up to and over Christmas.

Tried 7 Wonders: Duel at the weekend. An interesting change to it's bigger brother and made for a compelling 2 player experience. Having initially feared I'd lose to military power I ended up winning with science. Definitely see us playing more of this to see the different strategies. Would certainly recommend to anyone after a good 2 player game.

Our new favourite though is Terraforming Mars. Such a well designed game. It's slow and regularly takes us between 2-3 hours to complete (largely down to my slow rate of play ) but there's so much strategy that even in our limited plays we've seen very different strategies pay dividends. May look into the expansions once we've enjoyed the base game some more, although it's hard to see how they would significantly improve such a good game.

[Hexx]

Our new favourite though is Terraforming Mars. Such a well designed game. It's slow and regularly takes us between 2-3 hours to complete (largely down to my slow rate of play ) but there's so much strategy that even in our limited plays we've seen very different strategies pay dividends. May look into the expansions once we've enjoyed the base game some more, although it's hard to see how they would significantly improve such a good game.

One of the xpacs (I want to say Prelude but don't hold me to that) speeds up the start of the game a fair bit

[fry87]

Our new favourite though is Terraforming Mars. Such a well designed game. It's slow and regularly takes us between 2-3 hours to complete (largely down to my slow rate of play ) but there's so much strategy that even in our limited plays we've seen very different strategies pay dividends. May look into the expansions once we've enjoyed the base game some more, although it's hard to see how they would significantly improve such a good game.

One of the xpacs (I want to say Prelude but don't hold me to that) speeds up the start of the game a fair bit

Yeah I'd read something to that effect. Sounds good as it's true the early rounds can be slow as you try to increase production - and this is just playing 2 player so would likely be even slower with a higher player count I'd imagine!

[Zilnad]

I love Terraforming Mars and bought an analogue copy after getting into the digital version on Steam. But I think it's a bit too slow and mathsy for my wife and maybe my group as well.

Do you reckon the Prelude expansion will change the pace enough to save it from joining Twilight Struggle and Star Wars Rebellion in my pile of "best games that no one will play with me"?

Good call on 7 Wonders Duel by the way. It's probably mine and my wife's most played game together and we're very evenly matched. Every game is a real clash. I've considered buying the expansion when we fill up the scoring notepad but I've heard it makes the game a bit too long and busy for what it is.

[fry87]

Good call on 7 Wonders Duel by the way. It's probably mine and my wife's most played game together and we're very evenly matched. Every game is a real clash. I've considered buying the expansion when we fill up the scoring notepad but I've heard it makes the game a bit too long and busy for what it is.

Yeah 7 Wonders Duel is very good, along with Jaipur it's probably one of the best 2 player only games I've played.

Hadn't really looked into the expansion but I'm not sure I like the idea of the game being extended too much as I found the base games play time good!

[Zilnad]

I was looking to buy Twilight Imperium 4th Edition this year but it now appears to be sold out everywhere in the UK, unless you pay twice as much for it on eBay.

I suppose I should be glad that I haven't parted with £100 but I was really keen to get some friends together for a big TI day.

Has anyone here got, or played, TI4? Is it all that?

[Zilnad]

My wife and I finished Pandemic Legacy season 2 today and we were both disappointed overall. Not a patch on season 1. The story wasn't as immersive and the difficulty was all over the place. Brutal at the start, too easy in the middle and impossible by the end. I'd honestly find it very difficult to recommend this game to anyone and season 1 is perhaps my favourite game ever.

Then we played Wingspan and I love it

[fry87]

My wife and I finished Pandemic Legacy season 2 today and we were both disappointed overall. Not a patch on season 1. The story wasn't as immersive and the difficulty was all over the place. Brutal at the start, too easy in the middle and impossible by the end. I'd honestly find it very difficult to recommend this game to anyone and season 1 is perhaps my favourite game ever.

Then we played Wingspan and I love it

Wingspan really is a lovely game. Easily the most played game in our collection for me and my girlfriend. What I like is that there's no single strategy that wins and it's nearly always competitive. We recently got the expansion which introduces some interesting changes with end of round powers.

Intending to start Pandemic Legacy Season 1 with some friends soon. Looking forward to it based on all the positive stuff I've heard and read about it!

[FatDaz]

My wife and I finished Pandemic Legacy season 2 today and we were both disappointed overall. Not a patch on season 1. The story wasn't as immersive and the difficulty was all over the place. Brutal at the start, too easy in the middle and impossible by the end. I'd honestly find it very difficult to recommend this game to anyone and season 1 is perhaps my favourite game ever.

Then we played Wingspan and I love it

Exactly my thoughts on season 2. Felt so un balanced it really wasn’t fair. It was brave to try something different and I liked the scratch panel character sheets but overall it was a real let down.

[Hexx]

My "Regular" campaign group (We did Imperial Assault and the Pandemic Legacy 1) decided to skip PL2 and go onto 7th Continent based on mixed reviews

[Rex Kramer]

Bought Dungeon! for cheap off Wordery and had a fun hour this evening playing through it with my 10 year old. Some simple to play, materials are a little bit substandard (the cards are a bit too small and thin) but the board itself is quite nice. If you've got kids then it's a definite recommend.

https://wordery.com/dungeon-board-game- ... 0786965557

[fry87]

Completed our first two months of Pandemic Legacy S1 this weekend.

It's good so far, although it's not deviated too much from the tried and tested formula of normal Pandemic. Given that I'm curious to see how it changes and develops as the game goes on, with more objectives to worry about, etc.

[Hexx]

7th Continent

We'd had a brief taster of this before and found we progressed to the end of a starting area without 2 key items to make something work. Backtracked a fair bit a worked out where they were. we left our taster here.

Months later we try again (from scratch) with a wee bit foreknowledge of that area and make it off the starter area and onwards to lift the first curse...

Like the mechanics of the game - the hand limit is punishing but pushes card cycling. The Cards/HP mechanic is also interesting. I played as Frankenstien and got to make a monster (thank god we got 25 cards back)

But the game was very very punishing (medium). We didn't explore too much off the map clue path, and what we did often punished us. 3-4 hours later we reach our destination (we think) and it turned out we'd missed a mcguffin or two (we think) to lift the curse. We don't really have enough cards in our HP pool to go back.

Very "huh" moment from the group and a oddly disappointed/quiet air. I'm not sure if we missed hints we'd need the McGuffins (we think we know where one was but we didn't have much chance of getting it without a decipher skill person) or there weren't any. And annoyingly you just lose. There's no "You got a bad/medium ending" try again another time. You can't progress to "Endgame" without the items, so we're left to just run out of cards as we run.

Some of that might be poor play (I think we needed to play a little bit more survival/hunt/explore and less "play the objective" - but there's no way to know if each side route will be rewarding or punishing...) and not knowing card/HP temp...but it really felt...unfulfilling.

Which is a shame as we'd all enjoyed the journay there...we were wanting a narrative/campaign style game and this just means Misson 1 ends in failure because we didn't do it right...without telling us what right was.

Maybe we're meant to replay with knowledge? But it's a lot of time (and not that much variation) to replay. Just felt like we were missing something either in expecations or execution.

Edit - I think we've retroactively decided to play on Easy - so when we die we get all our HP back and start again...it is our first game after all

[Hexx]

I’ve been entered into an Xwing tournie!

I don’t even own it and last time spent the entire time with my TIE Fighter going backward

This will be fine..

[Joer]

We picked back up with Pandemic S1 last night after not playing it since August and did three games in a row and... lost them all.

It seems impossibly tough at times. We've just got to September and had some serious gooseberry fool go down including my character Cornholio being killed off, but we were nowhere near winning, even with 6 event cards in the desk and countless cards equipped with over actions too!

And i'm another who loves Wingspan. I've got that and the expansion on my shelf and they're regulars for my game group.

Has anyone played Tapestry? I've had that for a while and still haven't bothered making the effort to learn it. My list of games to learn at this point is about 20 games long and it's just such a daunting task that I keep putting off!

[Hexx]

Has anyone played Tapestry? I've had that for a while and still haven't bothered making the effort to learn it. My list of games to learn at this point is about 20 games long and it's just such a daunting task that I keep putting off!

Yeah it's nice.

Have a look on BGG - the creators released some changes for the factions to make them more balanced based on player feedback

[Zilnad]

Just treated myself to Brass Birmingham.

[Hexx]

I’ve been entered into an Xwing tournie!

I don’t even own it and last time spent the entire time with my TIE Fighter going backward

This will be fine..

This is tomorrow and I'm bricking it. We're going to be lynched for sure for light hearted behavior/rules knowledge.

Team Name "It's over, we have the TIE ground"

[Hexx]

I’ve been entered into an Xwing tournie!

I don’t even own it and last time spent the entire time with my TIE Fighter going backward

This will be fine..

This actually was fine! Everyone was lovely and welcoming (and forgiving)


Won 1 lost 4. Came 23/26 (higher than friend who's kit I borrowed).


Second turn of first game flew ship of edge as I got left/right wrong