by Bobby Warren
I’m becoming more and more jaded by the newer board games and their lack of anything compelling to make me want to play them. I suspect that if taken as a whole, the number of good and really good new games might be down just a little, but the pure noise of all the mediocre and really crappy games that are getting released.I’m playing a lot of DreadBall and expect that will remain the case since I am going to be starting an 8-team league with a structured schedule and have been thinking about starting a more open-ended league.
I’ve also been playing a lot of Warmachine and Hordes. Alex has been playing since the game started and hadn’t been playing for a while and Mike and I have played a few times. Add to it that we now have Ben hooked and Nico has some Cryx figures so he could be hooked as well. Alex and I have been playing early on board game days, then moving onto board games. Mike and I are going to be trying out Dystopian Legions and we both still want to play Malifaux and try out Warpath, though those seems to be a little on the back burner right now.
Last month, I played 31 games a total of 74 times and seven expansions a total of 21 times. Four of the games and two of the expansions were new to me. I played 16 of the games and three of the expansions in November.
So here are the games I played to finish out 2012.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
I ruled this deeply strategic game. Well, some might call it deeply strategic. (Keep reading to find out who…)
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 1/07
My Rating: 7
After a really long time of not playing this, I got it to the table when we were looking for a game for five players.
Michael and I ended up tied, but because he finished two turns before me and thus was the fastest around the globe.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: New to me
My Rating: 5
We all decided to go into the creepy house at sundown. One of us was really a zombie master. We all died, became zombies, and the Hispanic lady killed everyone, saving the town from zombies. Thanks, Jeff.
The second time had the house being teleported to an alien dimension by Michael. We had to figure out a way to get home before the atmosphere killed us. We didn't, but we did kill the one responsible for transporting us, so even though he won, he lost. Alien bastich!
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: New to me
My Rating: 6
A decent enough game. I don't know if it would hold up to multiple plays so I will likely not be buying it, though it is possible I would trade for it at some point.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 10/12
My Rating: 9
Expansion Played:Normandy for one of the games.
Mike and I beat the Pegasus Bridge map. Then later in the month Michael and I went up against Sword Beach again, this time with two other co-invaders. Unlike the last time when we broke the map, we lost just as we got outside the bunker.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 2/12
My Rating: 7
I had not played this in a long time and had thought about bringing it to the store sometime soon. Instead, Mike pulled it out and he, Rob, and I played it. I need to remember to bring this on occasion to play at the store.
Times Played:4
Last Month Played: 8/09
My Rating: 9
A game which should be played more than it is. It's one of the greatest fillers, ever, and a fun push-your-luck game.
In one of the games we played, I was able to claim the 17-gem card all for myself. :)
Times Played:5
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 9
Mike and I played what we hoped would be our last game without the having a full copy because copies had been reported as arriving on the shores of the U.S. His Marauders caused much pain on my Humans and he ended up winning 1-0. We both had a 4-point score during the game and I might have fared better if one of my strikers hadn't fallen flat on his face while making a dash for the scoring spot.
A couple of days later I played Alex. He played the Veer-myn and I played the Marauders. We ended up going to overtime and he had just a few rats left on the field. I tried to knock them out of the game so I wouldn't have to worry about them scoring. I didn't do a good enough job and the rats actually made a clutch scoring play. Who knew they would be able to pull it out?
Game 3 of the month was the first one with the full game. I taught Eric how to play and he was the Marauders and I played the nimblest of races, the Forge fathers. This was the first game I played which ended early due to a landslide victory.
Next up was me vs. Mike again. This time it was Veer-myn against his Humans. We went through a lot of cards and I had a chance to take the lead on my last action of my last turn, but in typical rat form the striker couldn’t hit a wall in a outhouse if his life depended it on it. (It did, by the way. He’s now being served at your favorite fast food restaurant.)
Finally, I played the Humans against Ben’s Marauders. Apparently his dice wanted to make up for the less-than-stellar rolls he had in our Warmachine and Hordes games. By the time we came to the end of the game, he had killed six of the eight players I had. I managed to keep the game close, but once I had only a jack and guard left, the game was over.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
Yog-Sothoth. Not so bad.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 10/12
My Rating: 9
Expansions Played:Urban Structures x1 and 2nd Story x1
Michael bought both expansions and the group ended up losing both houses and many inhabitants to the ravages of fire.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 5
Wow. The BGG description says "Fleet is an exciting, strategic card game with in-depth decisions and thrilling game play that new and experienced gamers can enjoy!" whoever wrote that must get excited by paint drying, sees depth in Tic-tac-Toe, and finds waiting in line at grocery stores thrilling or they are talking about a different game. Or they sell used cars with fake VINs from a tiny lot. Neither is commendable.
This game is none of those things (though better than my counter list, for sure). The limited choices of licenses available each turn, as well as not knowing which ones are removed from the game makes it a significantly tactical game and not very strategic. I found it amusing that one of the defenders of the game in a negative review in the forums listed what I considered two major design flaws as thinks which might not be for some people.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
I won a copy of this with the Kickstarter bonus dice for each player. I taught it to Michael, Trent, and Alex and they liked it, though not as much as I did.
One complaint was that they were not able to think about their turn until they rolled the dice. One thing to try would be for each player to have screens so they could roll their dice during another player turns and begin to plan their turns.
Times Played:9
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 7
I actually like this best with two players. When there are two, each player gets two adventurer/weapon pairs and decides which one to use against which monster in the gauntlet. It allows for just a hint more strategy and doesn't add too much time to this short, sweet filler.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 12/11
My Rating: 7
Wow, did we score a lot of tiles for a two-player game.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 10/12
My Rating: 8
Lookin' for something which plays with six players and in 30 minutes or less? This will!
Times Played:4
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
To begin the month, I broke out the "remainder" Trollbloods. In other words, these were the figures I had bought but hadn't assigned to one of the two lists I planned to play. Parts of both of those lists are off being painted, so I couldn't play either of them so I thought I would create a list of the other figures.
Alex again played the Old Witch of Khador and beat me as bad as I have been beaten by him. Playing the Trollbloods is much more different than playing the Rhulic mercenaries and the Gatormen minions. I decided to change the list up a little before playing it again so I would have less new things to worry about while playing, which would hopefully help my learning curve. Did it work?
The answer is a short and simple "no."
Sure, my little changes ended up being the entire list except for the warlock, Grissel Bloodsong, but the results were not much better when facing off against Alex's shredder spam list. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) I learned that I like the Fennblades much more than the Kriel Warriors, the Runeshapers are a lot of fun and need to be made available as plastic models, and the Dire Troll Mauler is aptly named and an worth the points.
Game three had me breaking out Barnabas with a slightly different list than I had played before facing off against the shredder spam for the third time (the second game is under Warmachine below). Alex forgot about Barnabas’ feat and got too close with Lylyth who ended up being Wrastler food. Yes, I beat Alex!
Game four was with the same Barnabas list against Ben’s Menoth list. It was a win as well.
Times Played:3
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 7
Three two-payer games against Mike.
Times Played:9
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
Expansions Played:Power Up! for all the plays.
The expansion doesn't add a lot, but it does give you something for rolling three hearts. I don't know how balanced the different decks are, but they seem pretty equal from what I've seen during our games.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: New to Me
My Rating: 6
A clever little game which might be raed higher if I play it some more. I don't see myself buying it, though, because it doesn't have a box for storage.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 6
This time I completely avoided piracy and that strategy failed miserably.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
Our brave band of mice fought through to the courtyard, with a detour by the kitchen to warn the cook, then scampered up the tree with our loot in hand.
The next time we played the mission was to rescue Lilly, the archer, but we failed miserably because of the sheer amount of cheese the bad guys were rolling.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 5
Meh. Only my second playing and my rating drops two points. The bad parts of RoboRally are too prevalent. They are the shooting and having to shut down, but being shut down is bad because you can still be in the line of fire. Fail...
Times Played:4
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
Expansions Played:Rise of the Demons, Quarmageddon&Quest of the Qladiator for all but one of the games.
Beginning in January I will not be tracking the expansions played. There are just too many of them and all of them are in the mix every game.
I like the new expansion. The lock dice add a nice twist, though they are unreliable to count on. I need to sell my original copy of the game and get the new one which comes in a box instead of a crappy tin. Anyone interested?
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 5/12
My Rating: 7
Played for the first time in a long time. I got 10 early disasters for not feeding because I couldn't roll any food. I did roll a lot of workers, which let me jump out in getting cities and monuments built. Luckily, those 10 disasters were all I collected the whole game. When the dust settled, I beat Mike by five points and Hilary was a little behind him.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 9/12
My Rating: 8
It was great to play this with Jayson and Michael. It was even better to run away with the win because we were close before end-game scoring and I had managed to double the number of aristocrats that they had.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
We were looking for a game for four, so I took the plunge and bought this since I both like the game a lot and felt comfortable explaining it after a few plays without needing to completely go over the rules again. It was a little difficult for me to find the few things I did need to reference, but that was because I hadn't read the rules before and not because of the quality of the rulebook.
Michael, Rob, and Jeff were all new to the game and it ended up really close, with Michael surprising us by advancing the counter three spaces causing the game to end when I was counting on the one more turn. I ended up losing by two points because of the card I drew on the previous turn that I was going to be able to get out if we had that turn. It was a fantastic play on Michael's part to end it when he did.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 6/12
My Rating: 8
A quick race with five players. I wanted to jump in front of everyone because I had the cards to maneuver through the forest, but I didn't have enough speed to take the lead, so I followed the others. They knocked down some trees and my card draws weren't great, but I wasn't too far behind. When I finally was in a position to make a move, it was just a turn too late, as Michael ended up finishing ahead of me.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: New to me
My Rating: 5
Glory to Rome 2.0, or 2.1, or 3.0. Does it really matter since it is just that stinker of a game with the cards split into two different types?
Times Played:4
Last Month Played: 10/12
My Rating: 8
I decided to bring the newest warcaster available to the Rhulic forces to the table: General Ossrum. He faced off against Lylyth and her Shredder madness.
My plan worked pretty well, except for the whole rolling the dice thing. I was left to ask why the dice in this game hate me so much?
Later in the month I played Ben. He had the Menoth figures from the two-player Battle Box plus a Vassal and Choir of Menoth, so I decided to field the Khador figures from the box with the Widowmakers and a War Dog. He failed to realize how dangerous it would be to leave Kreoss exposed to a charge from Sorscha and her ability to get Pathfinder. So I won a game. Wow.
And on the last day of the month I played two different Rhulic lists against Ben. The first was a Gorten list and his feat let me score a quick kill against Kreoss. The second was the Ossrum list I played against Alex earlier in the month with the sizes of the units tweaked a little. That was a long, and close game which ended when I couldn’t make the kill shot on Kreoss and he then finished off Ossrum.
Times Played:6
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
Unlike the Warmahordes dice, these dice actually like me.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 8
I kept drawing my name in our secret Santa at work, so I told everyone if I drew myself again I would keep it. I did, so I bought this. At the exchange, which was at lunch, I made everyone play and then gave it to whomever asked about it first. My gift was everyone playing a game during work (lunch) hours. :)