Features

Pentegarn · #1

Played 7 Wonders and Stone Age

7 Wonders is a pretty fast paced card game where you are trying to accumulate victory points by playing a card from your hand, then passing the hand to the left or right and playing the next hand you get in the next turn.

Stone Age is a resource management game where you scramble against other villages to gain huts, farms, more villagers, various resources, and tools. It is pretty much a foot race that has a decently steep learning curve.

OxBlood · #2

I think Stone Age can cause the same problem Agricola does: New players don´t realise they´re losing badly until the very end. Still it´s a nice game and 7 Wonders is an absolute favorite around here, mainly because it´s so fast.

Some new additions to my collection:

Dungeoneers: Rather light and fast card-based dungeoncrawl, very streamlined and pretty handy to carry around since it fits in a normal deckbox.

Dungeon Raiders: Even more streamlined and simple but kinda cute in it´s own way because of that. 5 Floors of 5 Rooms each. Your only goal: Grab as much treasure as possible without suffering the most wounds. Players have to play together to beat monsters but everyone has to try to come out on top at the end so you might want to set off that trap that costs the richest player some treasure and stuff like that. Simple filler-fun.

Alien Frontiers: Finally Germany got another batch of those and I even got those little promo-rockets and the mind control helmet-cards as well. I know AF is some kind of hype-game right now but it IS really appealing. Simple and kind of elegant with easy to understand goals and tactics. Partially luck-based because of the dice-rolling but the multiple placement-options negate a big chunk of luck as there´s always something useful you can do with your dice. The Tech-cards add another layer to the game as they allow you to manipulate your dice(ships) and mess with other players. At the same time, the card-mechanic is ballanced out by the fact that other players can steal them and if you want to unleash the more powerful card-effects, you have to get rid of the card and it´s out of the game. Since there are only 2 copies of each card (24 cards total), losing a card can have a major impact on your strategy.
Though the game seems to reward the quick builders, I already saw a game where the last-ranked player really muscleled his way through the ranks on the last 3 turns and won by one point. Pretty cool game, a definite recommendation.

OxBlood · #3

Aaaand new stuff again.

Roll through the ages: I like dicing for ressources so this should be fun and it´s pretty fast too

Ohne Furcht und Adel: Also known as Citadels in english. I bought this on a whim since I´m always looking for good entertaining card games

Btw, finding out that your Girlfriend is into boardgaming is one of those beautiful moments in a relationship

Pentegarn · #4

Quote:

Originally Posted by OxBlood

Btw, finding out that your Girlfriend is into boardgaming is one of those beautiful moments in a relationship

That = truth

OxBlood · #5

Even better is when someone like that listenes to you explaining a game and asks "could you...bring that over this weekend?"

Pentegarn · #6

About 18 hours and some change till Origins 2011!

10,000 Volt Ghost · #7

That looks awesome Pent. I didn't even know that was a thing. I take it you're going?

Pentegarn · #8

I go every year, and if I am responsible about remembering to take pictures, I will make an Origins thread

10,000 Volt Ghost · #9

I wish it wasn't in columbus.(too far for me at least for a casual drive) definitely take pictures.

OxBlood · #10

I´d be really interested to see pics of Origins too, since I´ve heard so much about it in the Podcasts. I´ll try to take some Pics of Essen too this year

Pentegarn · #11

Quote:

Originally Posted by OxBlood

I´d be really interested to see pics of Origins too, since I´ve heard so much about it in the Podcasts. I´ll try to take some Pics of Essen too this year

I wonder if it is the same guys who were at the Dice Tower Podcast booth, they were giving away a couple prizes and such at their booth

OxBlood · #12

Concerning Origins, all my info comes from the Dice Tower so I guess it would be Tom and Eric or whoever was at the booth

Something new, the last thing for a while as it seems:

Nightfall. Agressive Deckbuilding, a variant I didn´t have in my collection until now. The whole comboing and kicker-mechanics seem really interesting, I´ll guess I´ll be playing it this weekend or something like that.

Also played 7 wonders in the 2-player-variant. Works really well and has a slightly different feel to it as both players manipulate the 3rd board to fit their plans. Not the same as with 3 or more players but still highly enjoyable.

Pentegarn · #13

I have pics of the Nightfall demo in the Origins 2011 thread. I liked it, GF thought it was too confusing.

A CABS member told me about the 2 player variant of 7 Wonders while I was working off my free pass on the last day of Origins

OxBlood · #14

My GF thought so too, especially since she doesn´t read and speak english as much as I do, so she had difficulties understanding what the cards do.

But, as she got the keywords, she was pretty interested AND she won the first round by a long shot...I think she had 4 wounds and I had 14 or something like that :D

I think the hardest thing, apart from teaching the game in a different language in my case, is explaining the chains and kickers, plus the fact that you actually lose your starting deck and that you can keep as many cards in your hand as you want.

Anyway, so far I think it´s a really decent game. Fast, easy to play, kinda elegant. The theme...meh, I think I´ve had about enough of Vamps and Dogboys but whatever. My GF thought so too so the strange noseless Vampire is little Fritz now and Tag-Team-Takedown is now Giant Hug or something :D

Looking forward to playing it some more this weekend.

Pentegarn · #15

I agree that the Vamps vs. Lycans thing is tired. But I was tired of it back before Twilight made it even worse so I am kind of numb to the theme itself

Another Vamps. and Lycans game you gotta try though is Shadow Hunters, but you need at least 6 players for it to be really fun. Think Clue but everyone can hurt/kill each other.

OxBlood · #16

I actually happen to own Shadow Hunters in both the japanese and german Version (Jäger der Nacht). A really really nice partygame but I agree, the more people play, the more fun it is. Clearly superior to all those "normal" Werewolf-hidden-team-games since no one has to leave the room or close his eyes when someone tries to identify someone else.

Btw, I never understood where the whole Werewolf versus Vampire matchup-stuff came from. I mean yeah, about the same geopgraphic origin but still, you don´t match up a sphinx versus a mummy, do you?

Grislygus · #17

Quote:

Originally Posted by OxBlood

Btw, I never understood where the whole Werewolf versus Vampire matchup-stuff came from. I mean yeah, about the same geopgraphic origin but still, you don´t match up a sphinx versus a mummy, do you?

Don't want to derail the thread, so I'll just quote-link to the answer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grislygus

Vampires vs. Werewolves

OxBlood · #18

Okay, 5 games of Nightfall later, we still like it, and that darn woman is in the lead with 3 wins

Luckily she likes the game a lot.

As for my opinion...it´s really good. The lack of different cards is bad and good at the same time, as always. Bad because the game has less combinations that way, good because you learn the existing ones better when they show up all the time.

The speed of our turns has vastly inceased taking under 30 seconds most of the time, making Nightfall a really quick game. The only time the whole thing slows down is when one of us needs more time to work out his chain or when reworking our hands to react to the opponent´s chain. Both of us use the Kickers way more often which makes us stronger but also more predictable because each card can only kicker 2 other cards in the base-set.

If you like destroying your opponent, managing your ressources, having a combination-element like in UNO (or Mau Mau, the game that inspired Uno) all together in a quick small game, I´d really recommend Nightfall to you. Really good stuff.

OxBlood · #19

Hmmm...I think I want a Ticket to Ride-Game...looks like easy-to-teach fun

Pentegarn · #20

I see a lot of peeps play it at CABS, but I never tried it myself

OxBlood · #21

I think the combination of tactical planning and set-collection might be a lot of fun...well, aparently it is, considering how many people love that series.