I played a game of Battle Line.
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on What game got you into war gaming?
1775 is great – by far my favorite team game, it plays so super smooth! Another great one from Academy Games is Mare Nostrum: Empires, again, a super smooth playing game with lots of great moments and stories playimg out.
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on What game got you into war gaming?
For me it was Polis: Fight for the Hegemony – I know, not a real war game, but that one made me look for more games on the border of euro and war games, stuff like Wir sind das Volk or the COIN series, CDGs and stuff like that. Games where grognards usually complain that they are not war games 😉 – sooner than later that drew me deeper into war game territory with stuff like Paths of Glory, Washington’s War, Twilight struggle. Then solo gaming got me closer to other publishers, since some of them have great solo variants, so now I have stuff around like Comancheria, War Fighter, Churchill, Pericles, but also things like Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear (with the solo expansion) and Night of Man. And COIN. These games always feel like they were built for me.
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on Beautiful and relaxing small box games
Military wins happen only when the right science is up for grabs and even then it often needs help by either military wonders or double-turn wonders to grab juicy fat military cards. More often than not a military win means your opponent didn’t pay attention or was too greedy. Science wins on the other hand are happening quite often, as that is a good way to go when you notice a runaway leader problem early enough. But again, without the help of double-turn wonders or the mausoleum allmost impossible.
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on Wargames, Who Plays and Should I?
Well, there us one answer for any eve online lover, because it also is called spreadsheets in space, and that is Space Empires 4x. The base game is allready a cool beast with teching up your civ and building your fleet and killing your neighbours, all …
Oct
02
2017
Reply: 1 Player guild:: General:: Re: Triplock as a solo experience
by TheGargoyle
Only played once so far, but ut feels really i teresting to me. Maybe because I don’t have memory games in my collection outside this title. And I would never have expected such a title to have solid solo rules. It is very puzzly, so …
Oct
02
2017
Reply: 1 Player guild:: General:: Re: Solo card game
by TheGargoyle
Something more in the feel of Friday: The Lost Expedition. It is not a deck builder, but you still have hand management with a nuce survival theme on top. I quite like it as an experience, and it just feels great with the nice big cards with large art pieces. Gives a Tim&Struppi vibe (no idea how it is named in english, I mean that belgian comic series about that advemturer, his little dog and Captain Haddock).
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on Beautiful and relaxing small box games
If Onitama is on your list of favorites, take a look at The Duke. It is an abstract, but the different pieces give it quite a bit pasted on theme. And it plays differently from other abstracts, as the random tile pull and the tile flipping (and the tot…
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on Beautiful and relaxing small box games
The thing is, after you really dive into it, you start to notice how super cutthroat it is. It turns into a really nasty game of denying your opponent needed ressources and setting up chains to grab what you need and things like that. After 80 plays we…
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on Best games for 6+?
My favourite for up to 8 is 7 Wonders (you need an expansion to go beyond 7, though), because the game length mostly stays the same. We played quite a bit out of it in our game group. For lighter stuff nothing can beat Codenames for me (we play the pic…
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on What’s you favourite game with cool dice mechanics?
One I really like is Viva Java: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game. Dumb name, neat yahtzee like game where you have to invest into opening rerolls and other manipulating powers first, then later sacrifice them for points. And I like the theme quite a bit….
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on What’s you favourite game with cool dice mechanics?
That is another one of my favourite dice games, especially solo. Quick play and neat system, for me the so far best tiny epics.
Oct
02
2017
/u/bboomslang on What’s you favourite game with cool dice mechanics?
I really like that one, even better than the bigger Pandemic. Just plays quick, easy to setup and tear down, and the colorful dice just look and feel great.
Sep
30
2017
/u/bboomslang on New To You – September 2017 – What New Games Did You Play This Month?
Most impressive is an oldie I played for the 1st-16th time, 6 of them on one evening, and that is Battle Line. I eyed the GMT edition quite a bit, but the art felt a bit flat. And the original Schottentotten just looked too goofy. Then I found this nice medieaval retheme, and I really like the art, so I got that one. So far we only play the base game, as my wife doesn’t understand english, but we are havong a blast with it and it went to the top of our list immediately.
The next one was Triplock which I just received. Really nice solo memory game with puzzle szenarios that slowly get more complicated. Really cool idea for some quick solo where you play something really different from many other games. The game system really stands out for me from my collection.
Sep
30
2017
/u/bboomslang on Hoplomachus?
I own Rise of Rome and Origins. Both are great solo games. Origins is smaller, cheaper and faster, where the solo mode is more like given situations that you try to break – if you find the key to win one, it won’t be too special later on. The higher scenarios try to change that with some randomness in selections of units, and of course you can always mix things up yourself. But it always feels more like those “checkmate in 5” puzzles. But due to its fast setup and play it still is my favourite of the two boxes. RoR delivers much more epic play with the titans and is a much deeper experience, not just a quick skirmish. Play time is longer and strategy deeper, a ton of fun, but for me the longer play time keeps it from hitting the table as often as I would like. The already mentioned army of one expansion is great for RoR, as you get some more titan stuff.
For me, Origins is the best place to start, since you get the core fighting experience at a lower price point. Next would be RoR because titans are awesome.
Sep
29
2017
/u/bboomslang on Great game SAGRADA but so disappointed and annoyed!!
exactly. color as the only distinguishing feature will allways clash with some people. Usually a good way out is to have graphic symbols or patterns in addition to differentiate things. no idea if that could have been done for Sagrada.
Sep
28
2017
Reply: 1 Player guild:: General:: Re: Gloom of Kilforth + Expansions launching on Friday…
by TheGargoyle
ninjadorg wrote:If I say yes now is that a spoiler? Because, well, in the future, yes. ;)Well, it’s the only thing I need to know 😉
Sep
27
2017
Reply: 1 Player guild:: General:: Re: Gloom of Kilforth + Expansions launching on Friday…
by TheGargoyle
Happy you go with Schwerkraft for the german version, one of my favorites for translations, they do very good work. But since I am much mire a 1066 guy than a fantasy guy: will there be a german 1066, too, some time in the future?
Sep
27
2017
Reply: Days of Ire: Budapest 1956:: News:: Re: Announcing the SEQUEL
by TheGargoyle
TDaver wrote:
powerwis wrote:
David,
is it also a card-driven game like DoiB ?
Yes it’s card driven, but no it’s not like DoI.
The Hungarian side plays a light block wargame with area movement, where the stronger actions require an icon on the block to match an icon on the card. It’s a bit of action allowance and a bit of card management. Cards are randomly drawn, but the deck is small enough to guarantee a reshuffle in every game, so you see every card roughly twice.
The soviet side plays more of an hand building-action management game. He has 12 cards, each with a mix of actions and a mix of combat values. At the beginning of every round the Soviet picks 6 cards he’ll play one at a time for his actions. The remaining 6 cards are shuffled together into a “combat deck”. Every time he attacks, he flips the top card of that deck and uses the appropriate combat value on it. The more hits he suffers, the less cards he can pick from.
If you held a gun to my head and asked me to compare it to other games, I’d compare the Hungarian side to Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan. The Soviet side I had no direct inspiration for, some of the “feel” was inspired by the Empire’s metagame in Star Wars: Rebellion, but it’s an extremely thin comparison. (As opposed to DoI’s Soviet cards which were directly influenced by Twilight Struggle and Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001 – ?)
A few things in the game have the feel of a COIN game (both Brian and I were very conscious of that) – flipping units, asymmetrical actions, but it’s less “inspired by COIN” and more “how can you do it differently than COIN”.
I would say the luck element is even smaller than in DoI.
And sold to me. Block war game with an AI opponent? Wow. Now just make sure the game is language independent, so I can play it with my wife together!