I’ve banned new
games from being purchased in 2014 to allow us a year to play through all the
games we’ve already got. If a brilliant,
must-have game emerges this year I’ll just have to wait to see if it survives a
few months of fair reviewing and the cult of the new to become a lasting
classic, and if so I should theoretically have no problem picking it up in 2015
anyway.
So here’s a list of the games we’ve managed to play recently to try and
get through the remaining half of the games list. Looks like we’re falling behind schedule so
far if we’re going to play everything by year’s end, so we’ll have to try
harder to fit in multiple games in one session, or maybe see if we can have
some day sessions. It also doesn’t help
the mission when we play other games that were never on the list in the first
place, but that doesn’t stop it from being a ton of fun!
Fortune and Glory:
The Cliffhanger Game
I reviewed this game a couple of years ago here:
One criticism I had back then was the limited number of Danger cards, so
I ended up designing a bunch more to help flesh out the decks:
I still have wave 2 of this in development actually, need to finish that
off some time. But FFP have also fleshed
out the array with their new expansion material Treasure Hunters, Rise of the
Crimson Hand. They’ve also got some
small card packs of web only expansions – I ordered a couple of these years ago
for A Touch Of Evil and got absolutely and generously tax-shafted by Her Majesty’s
Customs Reprobates on them. But in spite
of this, and at the risk of tipping my hand too early on my latest opinion of
this game, I just last week went ahead and ordered a bunch more of these
web-only packs for Fortune and Glory too (Sands of Cairo and Danger Pack
1). As with most of FFP’s games, FANG
really comes together with the expansion material added in. If it was cost effective I’m sure they’d
release all the expansion material up front, sort of like they’ve done with
Shadows of Brimstone, just so they could share everything with you and get you
properly into the adventure.
We went for a competitive game with me as Nigel Harrington and Sam as Grant
Jackson, and we were up against the Mob this time, who are slightly less
aggressive than the Nazis, but with the Zeppelin floating around dropping Nazis
off around the world anyway, just for good measure. The Mob still managed to give us a good run
for our money/fortune, and whilst Sam ‘remembered how to play’ (i.e. mucked
around with personal missions and hanging around the new Docks encounters) I
set off on my adventures and bagged an early artifact. Sam finished racking up some cheap glory and
went chasing artifacts too and the race was on.
As the Mob influence spread we were hard pressed to keep up. We also misplayed the new City encounters for
the first few turns too, we were having a roll on the City tables no matter
what City card we drew (instead of the Just Another Day cards), which altered
things a little, but not game-breakingly so.
Although FANG is very much a dice fest, so luck is a huge factor
anyway. Given the theme, I don’t find
this to be a problem at all however.
Whilst Jackson tooled up and went about punching mobsters to bits, I
flew around the world, bagged my last artifact and headed home to Bombay to
sell it. The Mob had spread too far and
wide and would almost certainly win on the villains’ turn. I needed to survive one city encounter and
sell my loot to win. I drew the Robbery
card: roll a die, 1-3 = your artifact gets nicked, 4-6 = safe. So I rolled the die…
Players = 2
Expansions = Treasure
Hunters, Rise of the Crimson Hand.
Games played in
2014 = 1
Rating in 2013 = 8
Rating in 2014 = 9
Zombies!!!
“Shall we just play Zombies and get it scratched off the list?” Sam
asked. I sighed and agreed.
I’ve got expansions 2 and 3 and 3.5 and just recently sold off number 4,
so we went with the base game, with 3.5 already shuffled in. I have a strange fondness for Zombies!!! just
because of nostalgia really. I’d just
bought my first place with my then fiancée, now wife, who begrudgingly played a
few games with me over the summer as we listened to tunes and enjoyed the wine
and sunshine, and it just encapsulated another little peaceful and pleasant
chapter of my life. It was also just
before I started really getting back into board games after a 10 year hiatus of
college, university, work, and going out and getting smashed, and it was
something of a gateway game for me. If
you ignore the years of Games Workshop board games and HeroQuest and Space
Crusade and so on, which I played to death as a kid. So, a return-way game. A stepping stone to the cosmic terror of
Arkham Horror. I even went so far as to
redesign Zombies!!! with a medieval theme… just before they released
MidEvil. Only mine had orcs. Anyway.
We scanned the rules and shuffled the deck and set off into the fairly
bland looking town full of zombies. I
love that there are so many zombies, something Last Night On Earth (a way
superior game) struggles with. The
evolving modular map is cool too - something I’ve always really liked in games
is that feeling of exploration and discovery.
That’s as many plus points as Zombies!!! gets though. The game went kind of long, not as long as it
has done in the past. Sam had the most
zombies by miles. Then he died a couple
of times. Then he drew the helipad, at
which point I had the most zombies. So
he placed it near him. Then I played a
card which teleported me to him, and then I rolled higher on my movement dice
and escaped, because we’d already placed all the zombies so the helipad was
pretty empty. I don’t know if we were
supposed to take the zombies from somewhere else to fill it up but by then it
was late and we wanted closure, and that was that. It’s a nice game for casual gamers
maybe. I like the idea of it very
much. But this is going on eBay and I
won’t feel the need to play it again. In
fact, if someone wants my copy of Zombies!!! 1, 2, 3 and 3.5 I’ll be happy to
do you a very fair deal? I could even
throw in When Darkness Comes and The Nameless Mist??
Players = 2
Expansions =
Zombies!!! 3.5 Not Dead Yet
Games played in
2014 = 1
Rating in 2013 = 4
Rating in 2014 = 3
Gears of War
Having beaten all the mission scenarios previously we decided to try Horde
mode for the firs time. Sam is an eggs-Box
GoW veteran and informs me how true to the video game experience this board
game is, which I see as testament to the game, because I really dig this board
game. A sort of finessed cooperative
Doom with sexier tiles and minis there is a shit ton of replayability in this
box because of all the different scenarios and monster types – particularly how
the monster types themselves change each mission too. Horde mode is very tricky indeed, and though
we beat the first couple of waves barely breaking a sweat in the process, the
baddies started piling up thick and fast, and getting tougher in the
process. We had a neat little layout,
and I was the guy who can pick up ammo and weapons without discarding cards (Sam
was the dude who can cover during other players’ turns even after cover fire
has already been used), and I was nipping around and grabbing stuff till we had
ammo up to our ears. But it wasn’t meant
to be. As soon as the boomers started
showing up the tide turned and the game, as it often does, amped up the
difficulty and began to crucify us. We
couldn’t seal emergence holes fast enough, or get to the ammo drops, as we got
hemmed in and ambushed again and again.
Before long we were shot to ribbons and bleeding out around wave number
4. It’s a shame that FFG doesn’t seem to
be going anywhere with the license on this (they should really retool this
system to another theme too), though there are mini expansions available
through Print on Demand I believe. Would
happily take another bash at this game any day of the week, probably the best
sci-fi minis shooter out there at the moment.
Players = 2
Games played in
2014 = 1
Rating in 2013 = 8
Rating in 2014 = 8
Eclipse
Finally got around to playing what might be my favourite board
game. I absolutely love everything about
this game, from the tech developments, to the ship upgrades, to the
exploration, to the crap shoot (with my rolling) ship battles, to the scale of
the conflict. It could be because I
recently finished the Mass Effect trilogy and have been reading some mind
blowing Iain M Banks sci-fi stuff recently, which I don’t usually go for, but
this game just really taps into everything I enjoy about games. Then when you throw in all the expansion
goodies it really just becomes a great, great gaming experience. At one point I stepped away from the table
just to look at it all.
We played 2 games back to back both as the Terrans with 4 ancient home
worlds. In the first game I wiped out
Sam early on with a quick push to the galactic centre. I started to worry it was “broken with two
players” etc. But we were both just
unprepared for such a quick rush game. So
we played again and had an absolutely epic battle this time. It certainly shines in multiplayer but two
player is also an excellent experience once you throw in Rise of the
Ancients. We both drew hives early on,
which balanced out beautifully when we both chose to keep them in play, ending
with Sam taking the centre and annihilating my dreadnoughts. I had a tricky early start having drawn my
hive on the first turn, and with the ancients attacking my peeps three turns in
a row. But when we totted up the points
those early battles paid off with their reputation rewards and I won 45 points
to Sam’s 44. If I was only allowed to
play one board game for the rest of the year I would be fine if this was it. Perfect 10, can’t say enough good things
about this game. It’s up there with
Through the Ages.
Players = 2
Expansions = Rise
of the Ancients, Ship Pack One
Games played in
2014 = 12
Rating in 2013 =
10
Rating in 2014 =
10
Bonus Game Plays!
Shadowrun:
Crossfire
Played the downloadable demo mode version of the game – what a great way
to garner interest in the game, with a try before you buy system. Well, it worked for me. It’s essentially icon/colour matching but
with cool art, interesting theme (fantasy meets cyber punk), and is actually quite
brain burny. Challenging too. Started out with a Human Samurai and Elf Mage
combo and got smashed twice in a row by the Hard level obstacles. Then the understanding of how the cards
interplay started to kick in, and more caution and careful planning paid
off. The third attempt was our first victory,
albeit a close one. Then we set off
again with a Troll Decker and Orc Face (?) guy, and the extra HP on these chaps
was really helpful, especially with Crossfire and obstacles dishing out so much
damage. Starting out with lower cards
and cash (nuyen) feels like less of a hindrance, and victory came more easily (one
loss, one win), though it does get hairy when you can’t stock up your decks with
Black Market cards as easily. Definitely
interested to see if the campaign play is as addictive as the Pathfinder Adventure
Card Game became. I never played the RPG
but the setting always intrigued me. The
art is very pretty too, and whilst I’m a bit tired of deck builders in general,
and the gameplay is kind of simplistic, it’s also satisfying and a bit
nail-biting. I think this will be a nice
introduction to the Shadowrun world for me.
Players = 2
Games played in
2014 = 5
Rating in 2014 = 7
Innovation
BGGer Boom04 very kindly sent me a copy of this game, which we had been
discussing at length. It sounded very interesting, but lay outside of my no new
games policy. I’d mentally shelved it
for this year, but thanks to Dicky it has now been added to the list. Got to play a couple of games with Sam and I
have to say we were both very impressed.
The art and design is pretty shocking, as we’d been warned (I think this
was a KS prototype copy, though the final version doesn’t look dissimilar),
though it did pan out to be very readable and accessible during play. And the game play is cruel, fiendish even,
and addictive too. A super-pared down
civilisation building game based solely on technological innovations. We started the first game and realised soon
that we were misplaying the cards and not carrying out the second effects, or
drawing cards for other people using our own effects, so we restarted and went
again and Sam wiped the floor with me.
There can be an early head start issue which is very difficult to come
back from.
Then in the second game Sam stepped ahead early on too. I managed to come back later on by splaying a
card that allowed me to look ahead and bring in later cards (Democracy
maybe?). It came pretty close as he was
still achieving monumental wonders for his developing civ whilst I was just
playing catching up. Then I brought in
Piracy, a card we had both learned to fear from the previous game. But he nicked my piracy and I thought it was
all over. He used it once and then left
it unused for the rest of the game, allowing me to pile up my later cards and
just keep achieving and catching up, eventually overtaking him too quickly for
him to beat and winning the game. Both
games were good fun, filled with tense decisions and lucky draws. It did feel a bit swingy sometimes, but on
the whole was pretty awesome, and I look forward to playing it again. I even introduced it to one of the guys at
work for a lunchtime play, though we only managed to actually squeeze in a game
because I beasted achievements from the outset and stole the win early on. It can go quite long otherwise.
Players = 2
Games played in
2014 = 3
Rating in 2014 = 7
X-Wing Miniatures
Game
This shouldn’t really count in the list to be honest, as it was late at
night after our Eclipse session so we just had a quick run through of the basic
game only. My single X-Wing vs Sam’s two
TIE fighters. However, it deserves a
special mention because it was - unexpectedly really - stupidly fun. Way more fun
than it has any right to be in fact!
This was a bonus birthday present for me, which had the added bonus of
widening my little boy’s eyes at the sight of the miniatures. He’s at the stage now where he’d like to play
anything, and if I can develop an even more simplistic version of the game he’d
be all over this. I could see myself
getting into this in a big way if I had the storage for all the extra ships. The session lasted about fifteen minutes as
we refreshed on the rules, and flew directly at each other from opposite sides
of the table wondering how it was going to play out. As we closed for impact we fired off lasers
at each other and I expected to be taken out immediately by the two TIEs. But after surviving the first pass the
gameplay really kicked in, and all of a sudden we were bluffing each other,
rolling and banking and manoeuvring around desperately to try and get each
other lined up for those all important shots.
It seemed the X-Wing was slightly more manoeuvrable and tougher, but
slower. I kept getting clipped by his
attacks and was stacking up damage cards before I managed to take down his rookie. With only one damage point left on my X-Wing the
chase was on to destroy his Obsidian (?) pilot before he could land that final
point of damage. We were both flying
around his end of the table, and since we didn’t have an official play-mat we may
or may not both have flown out of the allotted 2’ square playing area, but in
the closing moments of the game I managed to swoop past him and U-turn just in
time to deliver the final payload with a pew pew pew, which would destroy his
evil TIE fighter once and for all. This game
had been recommended to me a number of times and I’d avoided it because of the
collectable nature, but yeah, stupidly fun.
Can’t wait to play a proper game with all the actual rules and stuff…
Players = 2
Games played in
2014 = 1
Rating in 2014 = 7.5
Pathfinder
Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords - Base Set
It’s already been ticked off the list for the year, but has come back
into circulation via… Solo adventures! Now that all 6 adventure packs have landed I
decided to embark on a solo campaign with Valeros, since he’s the closest to
the kind of character I would have RPG’d as a kid because I was never really a
gnome-druid kind of guy. I don’t think
you could even be a gnome druid in 1st or 2nd edition
D&D! Anyway. There was no way we were going to fit in a
full campaign as a group this year and still play through our entire game collection
so I cracked on alone in the evenings when it was the wife’s turn to put the
boy down. I quickly abandoned my old
rule of ‘mandatory exploring’ for a single hero as it would have made the perma
death rule way more deadly. So I picked
my way carefully through the first couple of intro scenarios, remembering that
they are generally more deadly than the 1st adventure path. My last few solo efforts had ended up in
death at the hands of Nualia at the climax of adventure path 1, so I was also
wary of tooling up to meet her too.
Last time we left off with this I remember thinking it was good, with
great potential, a bit repetitive, and not as inspiring as other similar games. Well now it’s gone back up another
point. I got hugely suckered back into
this and started battering through the scenarios. Not afraid to run away and live to fight another
day I raced through the adventure packs, and took great delight in getting to
choose a role for the first time ever, but also kicking myself for choosing
Valeros, whose main power is to help other heroes. Clearing out basic cards from the decks felt very
satisfying, and growing my own deck full of magic weapons and allies to boost
my lower stats was the big appeal. As
others have mentioned, that’s the main quality of this game, almost to the
exclusion of actually playing through the scenarios themselves: developing your
hero over the course of the campaign. I
still find the Blessings deck as a timer wanting. It could have been a cool events deck that
may or may not have affected play, especially since Blessings of the Gods are generally
the first cards to leave your deck, so neutering interaction with the Blessings
deck itself. Also the arbitrary nature
of the encounters, monsters inside village houses and such, can be grating, and
the fact that they don’t stick around but disappear back into the decks if
undefeated, and random items suddenly appear, when there could have been a loot
system for defeating barriers or monsters. But they’re small complaints, and all in this
is a very tight game experience. I’m so
sold back on this I might even look into Skulls and Shackles after all, which I
had written off altogether previously due to the personally unappealing pirate
D&D theme.
Players = 1
Expansions =
Adventure Packs 1-6
Games played in
2014 = 25
Rating in 2013 = 8
Rating in 2014 = 8
Here follows the
rest of the games we want to get through this year, slowly but surely we’re
getting there....
1. Arkham Horror
2. Call of Cthulhu: Collectible Card Game
3. Constantinopolis
4. Dark Darker Darkest
5. Descent: Journeys in the Dark
6. Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)
7. Doom: The Board game
8. Dungeon Command: Sting of Lolth
9. Dungeon Lords
10. Dungeoneer: Vault of the Fiends
11. HeroQuest
12. Lord of the Rings
13. Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport
14. Magic Realm
15. Omen: A Reign of War
16. Race for the Galaxy
17. Return of the Heroes
18. Space Crusade
19. Space Hulk: Death Angel - The Card Game
20. Tales of the Arabian Nights
21. Talisman
22. The Ares Project
23. The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
24. Twilight Struggle
25. War of the Ring (first edition)
26. Warhammer Quest
27. When Darkness Comes: The Nameless Mist
