Be Excellent To Each Other

Board Game Geek has a challenge where you aim to play ten board or tabletop games on ten occasions through the year. The rules are pretty straightforward and relaxed: you don’t have to choose your games now, but build your list of games organically as you play them. You can swap games out if you have no intention of playing them again and you’ve already hit ten for the year.

I would say digital representations don’t count, but you have to sit around a table and play them, either alone or with company.

I’ll start us off with:

1. Fog of Love – 2
2. X-Wing Second Edition – 1

Sal and I got Fog of Love for Xmas. We’ve played the Sunday Morning Date scenario through twice, once with the tutorial (which is excellent and more board games should have) and once without. It was enjoyable but a bit short and not really possible to achieve our relationship goals. Looking forward to the other scenarios.

I also got the X-Wing second edition core set and Rebel/Imperial conversion kits for Xmas, and braved going along to my local board game cafe for their regular Tuesday X-Wing nights. Everyone was very friendly, but my scummy rebel list got annihilated first by some scummy droids, then some cartoon rebels. I will be going back next week probably!

Is X-Wing second edition a big change from the original?

It streamlines a lot of stuff and removes the power creep, broken combos and complicated rules they introduced in some of the later expansions. Also introduces Force as an ability and the Clone Wars/prequel factions. And all the cardboard/card art is much cleaner and nicer to look at too.

There are no longer points values printed on the cards, but it’s all controlled by an app/pdf and they amend individual values every six months in case something gets overpowered or want to encourage little played ships/pilots back onto the table.

Basically the only thing that survives from First Edition are the miniatures, plastic pegs and bases. Everything else is replaced and it’s a much better game.

Netrunner - Final soiree for the Jemison Aeronautics and Gabe decks which, predictably, didn't fire well. Got £43 of new cards from China so next week new decks, new dreams.

Talk me through the new cards. What sort of builds are you going for? Assume I know nothing about Netrunner (this is true anyway).

1. Terramara - 1
2. Kingdomino - 1

Terramara - typical worker-placementy, ore-to-iron-resource-upgrady, numerous point-salady game. I liked the way you could use all the possible actions, but ones further down the board you had to wait until a particular turn to get your person back, and how over time your options narrow. But with all these games, multiple plays will bring up multiple ways to get points, but theme and mechanics weren't just doing it for me to warrant an immediate return to the table.

Kingdomino - surprised I hadn't played this before. It's like Dominos, but with auctions! Simple and fast.

NB: throughout the year I'll be marking wins with a . If I get 10 I'll be doing well.

I'm waiting till I've a full set of painted minis then it's all about Space Hulk this year.

1. Pandemic Legacy : Season 2
2. Gloomhaven

Season 2 was bang tidy, not as well put together as season 1, but a good romp and a good story. The main issue we had was that it was a little easier than season 1 (maybe because we played through season 1 and knew what to do this time around) which meant we couldn’t get all the content done at the point it should have been done, as we just didn’t have enough games. (You move on to the next month immediately if you win, redo the month if you lose. We won our first 7 games IIRC)

Gloomhaven our new obsession, so not sure anything else is going to get a look in for a bit. 9 scenarios completed so far, and I’m almost sorted when it comes to board and piece admin. A combination of the Gloomhaven Helper app, the Gloomhaven Scenarios app, and judicious use of plastic containers and Jiffy bags means that setup and tear down only takes 10 minutes.
I’ve also learnt how to play my character so that I don’t exhaust myself halfway through a scenario, which is helpful.

That’s good that Gloomhaven has clicked. It sounded a bit like you were overwhelmed at the start.

Ooo, something I can contribute to. Luckily I spent the New Year with friends playing board games...

1) Cthulhu: Death May Die - 1
2) Smash Up! - 1
3) King of Tokyo - 2
4) Wizard Wars - 1

Wizard Wars probably doesn't count as that is a homebrew affair using 1st Edition AD&D rules for a group of Magic Users slugging it out (but played with minis on a gaming mat).

Sounds like it counts to me!

1. Fog of Love – 2
2. X-Wing Second Edition – 1
3. Revolution! – 1

Introduced my parents to this last night, and after some initial trepidation of learning a new board game in their late 60s, they actually ended up loving it!

I won, but my mum came second and actually played really well! My dad was rather unlucky and kept getting outbid every turn and pretty much only had coins the entire game so finished dead last. Sal had a slow start but started cheaply mopping up all the categories no one else was interested in at the end and finished a strong 3rd.

I’ve played it a few times but it’s the first it really clicked for me. We may play this again! Tempted to get the 5-6 player expansion for the cottage.

I like to kill people. The cards that make this more efficient are good, such as ones that give you a draw after you did a successful run, then you look at the top two, bottom one, and draw the other. Gets combo pieces together quickly.

1) Forbidden Island - 2

Bought this on a whim over the weekend. Quite fun, but we lost on both occasions!

Get used to that.

Expansion you say?

http://www.sjgames.com/revolution/thepalace/

The Palace adds a new location worth 55 support and components for a 5th and 6th player.

The King's Dilemma - 2

This year's legacy/campaign game is "The King's Dilemma". We all represent competing noble families advising the king. Each game, we're given a series of scenarios and two options. We're also given an indication of the likely effects of our choice, but not the actual one. We vote, then read what happens and adjust appropriate values on the game board, representing the kingdom's prosperity, knowledge, strength, reputation, and other indicators. We might have to place a sticker on the board affecting subsequent games. Different decisions lead to different scenarios, so over the course of the circa 15 games we'll get our own history of our little world.

Of course, it's not just about doing what's right for the country. We also have our own long-term goals for the entire campaign, and specific objective cards for each game. So I might be wanting to push the country's wealth indicator into the red on this round and boost our defences. Another player might want to keep all the indicators stable, or push the king to an early grave. By negotiating and bribing each of us tries to get the result we want.

We really enjoyed our first two games, and everyone quickly got into the light roleplaying aspects of it . One of the interesting things that's developing is we've already started to make decisions that might not be beneficial in game terms but make more sense for our character. At least that's my excuse for one or two costly mistakes last night.

3) Brass: Birmingham

It was quite good fun, but it isn't a game I'd buy myself. It's pretty much a more complex version of ticket to ride, and loses something in the extra complexity.
I'd happily play it again though, should the opportunity arise.

1) Forbidden Island - 2
2) Fluxx - 2


Two quick goes with the vanilla Fluxx while waiting for a birthday party to finish earlier today.

4. Codenames - 3 (as team member in one round; cluegiver in the other victorious one)
5. Trivial Pursuit - 1 (team game - hooray for my eosteric knowledge of Shakespeare and the Beano)

3.The King's Dilemma - 4
4. Codenames - 3 (as team member in one round; cluegiver in the other victorious one)
5. Trivial Pursuit - 1 (team game - hooray for my eosteric knowledge of Shakespeare and the Beano)[/quote]

6. Wavelength - 1
7. QE - 1

Might write about one or both of these later. I've played 'QE' before and enjoyed it, and 'Wavelength' is a fascinating twist on hidden word games like 'Codenames' and 'Decrypto'.

I've got a fairly big bunch of 1st Ed sets, and only play with the family - I'm not currently planning on playing at a games club (although that might change). In terms of the improvement to the game mechanics, would you say it's worth getting the conversion kit(s?) even if not playing with people at a club? Is it that much better? I do love the game

If you enjoy the game and plan on playing it a decent amount then I would say yes. It’s a much better game. However be warned you’ll also need a new core set for the amended manoeuvre templates, rule book and certain pilots. But hey, it comes with an X-Wing with movable S-foils!

However if you’re just going to play on the kitchen table twice a year then I’m sure first edition is fine for that.

Cool - thank you - we will be playing a fair bit so if it improves that much I'll definitely look for a core set and a conversion kit!

If you only have a couple of ships for a particular faction then individual ship conversions from firestormcards.co.uk are probably better value.

I had a smallish Imperial/Rebels collection but found lots of cheap first edition expansions on clearance, which made the conversion kits much more worthwhile. I converted my Scum ships individually as I only have a couple.

Do we count the numbers as how many different sessions you played them in, or how many times you played through the game?

Like I played Codenames the other day for hours.

Anyway.

The Mind
This game is brilliant (I played it last night and have already bought it). You get cards numbered 1-100. In round one you get one card each. Round two you get two cards, etc. It’s a cooperative game for 2-4 players (you can have more, but 4 is best).

All you have to do is play the cards in the right order. But without telling each other what you have. You just have to judge how long it has been and how eager your teammates are to play their next card.

There are a couple of additions that can help you out that I can’t be bothered to explain, but it’s so much fun. Really tense.

I'm counting plays. Would have won this on Cottage "Flamme Rouge" alone last year.

This!

Giphy "agree entirely":
https://media0.giphy.com/media/xUA7b1ISQ2ubgCIoso/giphy-loop.mp4

Number of plays is fine, I think, although is does skew towards playing shorter games being optimal for the challenge.

Forgot to mention, Resistance and First Order are separate factions now, so if you bought the TFA core set or any of the expansions with a blue logo you’ll need the appropriate conversion kits for those too. However they are priced significantly cheaper as there wasn’t a lot of 1E content set in the sequel trilogy time period.

This sounds like it would be Extremely My Jam, but I can't find it in the usual shops (Amazon et al)

I think I’m going to count sessions only. I played two games of X-Wing a couple of weeks ago but in one session. It makes me more likely to get the games out or go to my local game store.

Thanks Myp - I only have Rebels and Imps so that makes it easier

And to the point of the thread:

1. Boss Monster - 6
2. Exploding Kittens - like, 20?
3. Bears vs Babies - 6
4. Catan - 5

We got a lot of board and card games for Christmas

It does! It’ll also make you think “ooh, I’ve got four conversions for Z-95s here so I’ll just buy four models from eBay at £4 each to make this kit better value.”

Before you know it you’ll have a significant Rebels v Imperial fleet like I have.

I’m not really fussed about the four new factions, I expect I’ll just stick with the OT three for the foreseeable future, as I’ve just started dipping my toe into Scum and Villainy.

Ha, I expect you're not wrong there I only have 4 tie fighters - I definitely need AT LEAST double that. And then a second carrier for them. Etc.

I would like to get into the scum stuff, but mainly because I want a Slave I...

Slave I was originally Empire, got a Scum conversion in Most Wanted, then they’ve made it Scum-only in 2.0. It makes sense thematically but it’s a shame for anyone who is Empire only.

All of this. We had some great games of it on Saturday night. I'd been to have a game of Parks with visiting friends, but in the end couldn't face setting up and explaining the rules.

The Mind is brilliant in its simplicity and set up, and is incredibly compelling.

Still haven't concluded on where the line is in terms of communication. You can't sit there in stony silence... can you?

My usual group tend to be pretty good at silence, with most of the communication being the look of agony on people's faces as they tentatively move towards playing a card. I'd say that doing anything that indicates the value of a card or expressly suggesting someone shouldn't act is out but the rest depends on group norms.

As we learned how to play we initially allowed some talk about the game (tank of other things was fully allowed), and body language about not needing to play for a while (I put my cards on the table and sat back, for instance).

So, if two people were sort of hovering about playing a card, one might ask the other, “confident?” In subsequent games we just made enquiring noises. It’s amazing how often you have consecutive cards in those situations.

I like enquiring noises. Adds a potentially humorous dimension to it.

1) Forbidden Island - 3
2) Fluxx - 2
3) Trivial Pursuit (Harry Potter Edition) - 3
4) Codenames Duet - 3
5) Dixit - 2

Another game of Forbidden Island, 4 players this time instead of 2. An incredibly fortuitous island layout made it reasonably straightforward and we got out with very few problems.

First couple of games of Dixit - surprisingly hard to be good at!

I've found it to be one of those games which works best if you're playing with people who know each other well and have plenty of shared experiences to draw on.

Yeah, we were playing with Zeppo and his wife Lyndsay, and there were definitely some occasions where they were able to draw on their shared experiences with subtle references that Jem and I wouldn't understand.

1. Fog of Love – 2
2. X-Wing Second Edition – 2
3. Revolution! – 1

Lost both games tonight. I flew Han in the Falcon with two Blue Squadron X-Wings.

First game was a tight, edgy affair against Maarek Stele in the TIE Advanced, Duchess in the TIE Striker and four Academy Pilot TIE Fighters. I destroyed one of the TIEs early on, but my opponent focus fired on Han and got half points on him to take the lead. I got half points on another TIE in the last round but not enough to win. Final score after time was 47-33.

The second game I faced off against a Scum list of Fenn Rau in the Fang Fighter with Dengar and Manaroo in Jumpmasters. All my ships got destroyed but I killed Dengar and got half points on Manaroo. Final score 200-98.

I’m probably going to drop proton torpedoes on the X-Wings as they’re expensive and didn’t even get them off in the second game, and when I did in the first they didn’t do a lot of damage. I might have room for another ship or beef Han up a bit.

Some photos and that

NEEEEEEERRRRRDDDDD

1. Fog of Love – 2
2. X-Wing Second Edition – 3
3. Revolution! – 1

Went 1-2 tonight. Lost badly to 5 X-Wings and a Separatist droid swarm, then beat Vader, Duchess and three Academy TIEs on points 84-59. I flew Luke Skywalker and a generic Red Squadron X-Wing with Arvel and Jake in A-Wings.

Feel like I’m getting better at the actual flying, but my lists and strategy could use work.

NEEEEEEERRRRRDDDDD