New addition: Ankh Morpork.

Simple, easy and quick to play with gorgeous artwork on the cards and the board even though the theme is kinda slapped-on it still fits the way the game plays. simple area control and area denial for a low price.

I don´t know when I´ll be able to play it with other people but it seems like a decent light fillergame with 4 people.

Does it have Pratchett humor in it?

The After Turkey Day 48 hour game fest is coming up. My favorite place to buy games online (RC hobbies, google it, I am no spambot) will be there and are bringing 3 games I just ordered there so I don't have to pay shipping. Kingsburg, the new Thunderstone expansion and Elder Sign will soon be mine.

Hm, not really, I mean every Pratchett-fan will get a chuckle out of Death´s Card which is not called "Death" but "HELLO!" but most of the charme is transported through the artworks. The game mechanics themselves don´t leave much room for any kind of humor since this is a eurogame at heart and the cards don´t have any flavortext on them, Death for example only has the ability to kill off two thugs and place another one of your own thugs.

It´s a good game but it doesn´t do the source material any justice.



I bought Summoner Wars on a whim and boy was I suprised how good the system is.
For those who don´t know, Summoner Wars is a tactical, grid-based card game, a little chesslike but not as dull (I hate chess). Each of the...what, 14 factions plays differently and each trooptype has it´s own special ability. Orcish Warriors can get a second move if you roll lucky, Goblins can attack out of turn, Elvish Archers can shoot farther, things like that.

I don´t want to go into too much detail right now but if you like tactical asynchronous battlegames, try it out, it´s really really good.

I think some armies in Summoner Wars are a bin imbalanced though

Somewhat bad news for me on the game front, I will not be getting Elder Sign this Friday because RC Hobbies is out of stock on it.

I guess it would be too utopic to have a game with 10+ different factions and having them completely balanced...it´s hard with 3-4 factions already...but well, those stronger armies are something beginners can play with (or people I want winning at the game so they like it more ;))

Elder Sign...I´m still not sold on that. I played a bit of the iOS-Version and it felt kinda bland somehow. It´s all just 99% chance and that doesn´t fit the theme very well I think. The investigators should have a method to actually dominate a specific task. Not all of them of course, Hastur has to win after all but still...it´s another one of those games where the theme feels slapped-on to me...

I DID see Core Worlds though in a shop in Düsseldorf and I´m kinda thinking about investing the 45 or 50 bucks if it´s still there tomorrow...hrrmmm....

Gonna find out either way cause I took advantage of the price dropping on it due to Amazon's Black Friday sale and purchased it, hopefully it gets here Wednesday so I can try it out for this weekend's game fest

How much did you pay then? Sadly, we don´t profit from Black Friday :D

I believe it dropped down to 25 bucks US plus shipping cost

Okay, I´d buy it too if it was that cheap here :D

So it just got here and I played a 1 player game (yeah it can be played 1 player apparently)

It seems to be a quick play version of Arkham Horror. each investigator does have some pretty good ability (such as altering a die roll, auto healing a stamina or sanity once a turn, and the like) The game is haaaaaard to win. I played it solo and the elder awakened pretty fast, and it gets downright ugly from there becuase beating them is virtually impossible.

That being said, t is still a fun and pretty easy to learn card and dice game.

I´m sure I´ll get it someday for cheap and try it out but hey...SO many unplayed games sitting on my shelves...it´s kinda stupid :)

I´ve played a bit more Summoner Wars, trying out the four starter-factions a bit...mostly just against myself but simulating a real game is not very hard if you ignore the other "player´s" cards.

So far the Phoenix Elves gave the Tundra Orcs a really hard time basically because of really bad luck for the Orcs.
Against the Dwarves, the Elves waged a very intense battle (or it would´ve been intense if I had played against someone else than myself ;) ) but in the end, a lone Guardian broke through and autohit the enemy Summoner for the final 6th hit. Both forces basically killed of all enemy troops each turn, it was really nice.
Then the Goblins showed up to try their luck against the Elves and what do you know, they won and didn´t even break a sweat. Rushing through the Elve´s defenses and double-attacking everything in sight cleared the way for one final Berserker attack, killing off and Archer, Warrior and the Summoner himself after he suffered a rush attack a few rounds before that.


It really felt that immersive and engaging and I´ve played against myself there...I really need a good Opponent for this game, it´s amazing. :)

So a friend and I broke down and split the cost of a 3rd edition space hulk. A bit pricy but man are the pieces fucking sweet. Once we get a few painted I'll post some pics.

Is that a new Space Hulk Version or one of the old ones (Space Crusade? Is that the same game?) I remember we had it over here but it was called Star Quest and all weapons were retconned to be non-leathal. Truth be told, I only found out about that last year when I realized the fucking Meltagun was changed to...I don´t know some Time-distortion gun or something that removed the enemies (which were all described to be robots btw) from this plane of existence or some such shit. Retrospectively I think the supposed weapon effect are pretty cool though, even if they are apparently non-leathal, freezing someone in time or banishing something from it home-plane is some sinister stuff...


Oh by the way, for those that have an interest in the hobby and don´t know them yet, you HAVE to check out Shut up & Sit down, a british videoshow about boardgames with two really talented guys :) You can find it at http://www.shutupshow.com/

Someone already posted a few episodes of that, I want to think it was FZ. Seen all 5 and a half episodes :)

I do have one pretty big, but correctable, critique of Elder Sign. Honestly Smallworld has spoiled me for packaging, they have it spot on when it comes to how to put a game away. Elder Sign has a couple hundred small cardboard parts of many different varieties, and all you can do is throw everything into one place. Gonna head down to Container Store today and get some small plastic boxes so this crap all stays somewhat sorted.

What´s FZ?

Concering the packaging-problem, I hear you, Smallworld is pretty much the benchmark for good boardgame storage-concepts. Using the weight of the board to basically seal the rest of the box and keep the things in place is simple but genius :)

Its kind of like a colecters edition they released back in 09. Its basically the best parts of 1st edition and both of its expansions as well as 2nd edition (that I never played). It has something like 13 unique marines while the genestealers have a handful of unique models themselves as well as a sweet broodlord. But yeah people die. People die all over this game.

FZ is probably Fathom Zero

IT'S PRONOUNCED FIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

I've been playing Chinese Chess (Xiangqi, Elephant Chess). I like it a lot more than western chess, it's more exciting. You've got cannons, elephants; the board has a river and each team has a palace. Also things happen a lot faster, you don't have a full rank of pawns obstructing you so it's easy to get your more versatile pieces into the action.

I've been peeking around at different chess variants. It's interesting how the original game evolved in different places. I saw this modern variant that I want to play, it's called Khet.

Khet always seemed like a cheap gimmick to me...hm.

But, concerning chess and chess-like but better games...I have a hard time thinking of a more boring game than chess...I really hate chess (but I like Shogi, etc.) Chess and Monopoly are THE games to get me angry instantly, I hate those :D

I think, if I want to play something kinda like chess, I´ll just play summoner wars :)

Chess bores me too, I hate the slow opening moves. I haven't played much Shogi but it seems like it'd have especially slow openings. I mean you only have two pieces that can jump across the board, not counting the lances, all blocked by a row of pawns that can't move diagonally until promoted. Things probably pick up once you start dropping and capturing pieces but who can keep their attention up that long?

http://www.cabalsgame.com/play.php

I've been playing this for the past two hours, but I can't tell if it's good or not. But I have been playing it for two hours, so I'm confused, I guess. Occult CCG, for those of you wondering.

Why why why must I always listen to that Vasel-Podcast...FUCK. Okay, long story short, I ordered Risk Legacy or "Risiko Evolution" as they call it here. I find the idea of that game strangely fascinating...

And another new addition (an my excuse is that it´s christmas soon and I should reward myself moreoften for being such a wonderful person):

Earth Reborn.

It´s...way smaller than I thought. Sure, it comes in a BigBox but it all fits into the inlay without even filling half the box after you´re done punching out all those tokens. Good thing a friend of mine really wants to play...now I´ve just gotta learn the rules and yes, it´s a 50 page rulebook but at least it´s written in modules...

Sounds like they left extra room for expansions they plan to release later, that is both thoughtful and confident.

I just tried Eruption, a game where you have to protect your island village from lava while assuring your opponents villages burn down before yours does. It is actually simple mechanics but gameplay is kind of slow at the start and end of the game.

Indeed. As far as I can tell, the game is really good AND it has a scenario-generator build into it.

I´ve heard about Eruption a while back...can´t you build straw-blockades to halt the flow of lava? I wonder how that´s supposed to work :D