Forum: Public Forum

Fellow board-game players,

Yu-Gi-Oh flu.

It appears that the trading card game war is not abating, with the Yu-Gi-Oh players using biological weapons. The collateral damage is done though: Andrew is suffering from a serious bout of flu. The poor man could not even join a game of DOOM yesterday.

Opening game.

As usual, early arrivals play a short game before the session, yesterday it was Citadels, making a change from The Settlers of Catan.
Joining an ongoing game, I masterfully developed a high scoring strategy, scoring crappy little district cards at first while others were murdering and stealing their ways during a relatively slow, but eventful game. Having picked the Bishop several times, hoping to protect my buildings from Warlord obsessed players, I got "murdered" a lot more than expected. While the game tends to call for the King to be murdered or stolen from, picking a man-of-the-cloth was not the best option yesterday!

Main course.

Tim has run us through another DOOM scenario, one involving driving a little buggy/rover/car... we never really got to call it "Rover" I think.

Three marines again, and again we got pretty close to winning the mission but failed a round or two short!
Despite a lucky card-draw, allowing a buffed-up marine to play the tank (extra piece of armour and extra health), we found the game a bit tougher than last time. Health packs were a bit scarce and our unlucky rolls led us to lose ammunitions a bit too quickly. Still we got lucky with an utterly inept mini-boss monster who never managed to score a hit on anything either through straight misses or abysmal damage rolls.
Our damage rolls with the rocket launcher were a bit crap too.

Next session.

Oooops... again.
We left way past the expected ten o'clock finish, so we did not even discuss what to play next week. I guess it will again come down to what people bring.

Laurent,

Fellow connoisseurs of superior table-top recreational diversions,

DOOM

A mixed session for me. I got the impression at one point that people were kind of zoning out, which is why I asked if we should just pack it up and forget about it. Perhaps I am just being a little oversensitive, with it being a homebrew scenario!

Ian also mentioned that the difficulty level went off the scale a bit here and there. Hmm, well it’s all grist to the mill. Thank you for the feedback.

Regarding The Great Blow-Through Controversy, I have had a ponder about it – and I wonder if the problem is actually the name. Both ‘Blow-through’ and the icon that goes with it imply a single projectile that moves from figure to figure - and yet that is not what the rules themselves are modelling. Very confusing and misleading. Perhaps if ‘blow-through’ was renamed ‘Strafe’ or ‘Spread Attack’ or something similar that might help.

Anyway I shall now Commune with the Great Infinite Cosmic Pool of Board-Gaming Wisdom, then retreat to my lab and concoct another elixir in my quest for The Essence of Pure Doom. With the blessing of you fine chaps I may then distil this onto the material plane and entice you into (or threaten you with) another scenario at some point in time...

Fellow board-game players,

Tomorrow, like last time, I shall bring Cuba with the El Presidente expansion.

Laurent,

Fellow board-game players,

The session on Monday should see Arkham being played. Yes, it should happen this time!

Laurent,

Fellow board-game players,

We came, we played Arkham Horror with the Innsmouth expansion and we lost.
To be fair, we had some fun losing as we got slaughtered by the big boss in the end after reaching a terror level of ten. Yeah!

Not sure what will be on offer next week yet, but "something" shall be played.

Laurent,

Fellow Board-game Players,

Kettlers of Satan.

Ian had brought the original version of the game, with the tiles that can get properly randomised and all. I think I join in the second half of play, pairing with Andrew as there were already the maximum four players in the game. Ian's mammoth road building enterprise was no match for our cunning victory, collecting knights and a stealthy "+1 VP" card. True, our roads were either very mushy with wheat or red with sheep blood in 4:1 trading craziness, but the orange settlers won.

Cuba.

After weeks of carrying Cuba in my bag, we got to play a five player game last night. Two small rum producing estates and two big tobacco industries battled with the "water baron". A lack of tobacco shipping opportunities led me to give it away to the local population via a cigar smoking saloon for much needed victory points, while my competitor flooded the market for cash, collecting an impressive twenty-seven pesos in one round of "tradeswoman" card! The water and hotel baron won...
Due to time limitations from two of the players, the game ended two rounds short of the eight it was due to run, considering we used the El Presidente expansion.

Next week's game.

As usual, we left without deciding upon anything.
I have been asked to have a look at the rules of My Dwarves Fly for next week; we shall see.

Laurent,

Investigators with Holey Pockets

A jolly good game of Arkham Horror was had. We all did pretty well, closed a load of gates but always seemed one a way from winning the game. Beat some tough monsters. Plus we did a heck load of damage to the final boss, whose name I forget but he did have nasty children.

I think we would have done a whole lot better, if we hadn't all lost a skill, a common item, and a spell/special item (one of the two). But that's the game.

I'm not sure how much the expansion board added to the whole setting, but extra character choices etc were nice.

Fellow board-gamers,

It is a bit late to provide a report of the last session, as the new one is about to take place later tonight, but hey, better late than never.

Bang!

A couple of games went on before the "official" start of the session.

Arkham.

As usual, we lost, this is a weird game, best enjoyed with a feeling of "We're going to lose, but let's make the most of it anyway" kind of motivation.

Battle-star Galactica.

Matt was the Cylon and happily destroyed those pesky humans from what we saw of the final moves in the game.

Pandemic.

As usual this game designed for four players was stretched to its limit with a seven-players contingent. We also lost, in part because of I who decided to let those New-Yorkers die of a blue virus outbreak just for the sake of finding a cure for red that was not going to help much anyway. As usual, we came close to winning but failing by missing a round of card-draws. The black virus was the one who got us in the end.

Non-existent organisation.

As usual, we do not know what will be played tonight because we are just too lazy to discuss it beforehand.

Fellow board-game players,

Enough people for two games last time, but only one crowded table in the end.

Arkham Horror.

We played a standard game and somehow managed to win. By "somehow" I mean that the session was not very focused with discussions going on about everything but the game. Oh well, we won and it was Cthulhu!

Next session.

I have read the rules for Battlestar Galactica so I would not mind playing it. I bought Red November this week and we could also play that.

Laurent,

Fellow board-game players,

I shall bring Cuba at Andrew's request. If Dan brings Battlestar Galactica we could end up playing that instead.

Laurent,

Fellow board-gamers,

A good gaming session last night, only seven people but two tables.

Red November.

My recently bought game was put to the test. Good fun was had, the first game saw the demise of our three-gnome submarine, with a lone death for Matt's character before the final disaster. He was brought back to life item-less straight away.
The second game was much better, with four players this time. Despite blocked hatches all across the ship and a few fires and leaks, we managed to last long enough for rescue.

Settlers of Catan.

From what I have heard, some resources were drawn on low-probability rolls repeatedly. I guess the game went well.

Cuba.

Maximum number of players (five) with four novices and humble me. I have managed to explain the game in five minutes - Yeah! - to originally overwhelmed players. Cuba does have many, many, many little titles, cards and markers to play with. We dropped most of the extension in order to simplify things a bit and played only five rounds out of the standard eight with the El Presidente additional law cards.

Next week.

I have met Tim yesterday and he should be back with us to play board-games. He should be bringing The Lord of the Rings. He recommends having it played with four players.
I could bring Cuba and Red November again. As usual, there is always Arkham Horror, Settlers and other favourites.

Laurent,

What I had in mind was War of the Ring.
Confusingly it is Lord of the Rings but also not Lord of the Rings.

Anyway I just set it up for a quick game to refresh my memory on the rules.

Eight Hours Later the "quick game" is finished...

I think I will put this one on the backburner for the moment -
apologies to anyone desperate to destroy the World of Men.

Fellow board-game players,

Oops, sorry, Lord of the Rings, War of the Rings... There were "rings" in it, weren't there?

I shall bring the games mentioned earlier. We shall see who brings what tonight.

Laurent,

Fellow board-game players,

Short-games.

While people were gathering for the evening, Family business and Braggart were played.

R3D NOV3MB3R.

While I was busy running away from monster tokens at my table, a game of Red November took place at the other.

Arkham Horror.

Now a staple game for us, as we play it on average at least every other week nowadays, Arkham Horror was not very compelling last night. Nothing we could do about it: average bad-luck, gates popping up open here and there, tough monsters limiting our movement options and overall slow but steady decline to a sure defeat. The Dunwich Horror expansion was on, but beside the extra cards, the so called horror has yet to materialise!

Mag Blast.

With Arkham Horror being as usual a longer game, our fellow gamers at the other table switched to Mag Blast.

Gaming next week.

Please discuss what you want to bring or play on Bank Holiday Monday. I shall skip the next session though, so see you in a fortnight for whatever will be on the menu.

Laurent,

for those who are interested ginga has said games will be going on all day due to the bank holiday. so from 10 -10 come down to play

Fellow board-game players,

Jubilee Monday all-day session.

I have only attended the afternoon session on Monday, so I cannot report on what happened in the evening.

Ticket to Ride.

In order to stimulate the local economy, I bought Ticket to Ride and we played a couple of games with it. Someone also brought the european version of the game earlier on, which was also played.

Various games went on, like Bang! and some-such. I won one of them by killing the sheriff!

Next session.

Matt has asked me to bring Cuba, so this shall be on offer. I may also bring Ticket to Ride. James could be joining us, with or without a game to play. In any case there should be some action.

Laurent,

Fellow board-game players,

Last week.

I had forgotten to drop a line about the past activity.
From memory: a couple of sessions of Ticket to Ride and some Settlers of Catan at a second table. There could have been a game or two of Citadels.

Battlestar Galactica.

I would have liked to play, but I had promised to bring Cuba and play it with five players with the expansion; so I did. From what I have heard both the president and the admiral had been Cylons.

Cuba.

A very interesting game, a pity that Matt had to leave near the end though. Amazingly I won it, which had not happened in ages, this time tied with Andrew but victory on Pesos!

The Red Dragon Inn II.

An old classic that we had not played for a very long while. Always fun, I shall strive to bring it back again next week for those who have yet to play it.

Next session.

Hmmm... still not a clue about what will be played, sorry.

Laurent,

I have spent the weekend coughing and sneezing from a bad cold I caught thanks to the stupid weather we have had of late.

I will not be able to show-up tonight, sorry.

Laurent,

Not technically a boardgame but I was wondering how interested people would be in playing Fiasco. If there's enough interest I'll get it but I want to avoid the book on the shelf that never gets a look.

For those that are interested they played it on TableTop, which on a general note sucks up about 30 mins of my time every fortnight. (Stupid internet, always something that I have to do before I can start working).

David,

I agree that work tends to get in the way of my gaming and leisure time in general.
We should ask to be paid to play at Vague Connections, thus solving all of one's problems as one would not need to hold a salaried position anymore.

Laurent,