OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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coopasonic
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

My oldest and I played through the first set of scenarios for Crack the Code and we had a lot of fun with it. It's basically a co-op puzzle game along the lines of Hanabi, but a bit easier. There is hidden information (your "hand", just like Hanabi) so it's at least resistant to alpha player syndrome.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Mrs. Skinypupy and I connected last night with a new couple in the neighborhood who are big board gamers. We played Quacks of Quedlinburg for the first time last night and really enjoyed it. Even Mrs. Skinypupy loved it, which is a huge step forward as she typically hates board games. Now I'm bummed because it seems nearly impossible to find through any of my usual online gaming stores. :(

I know I kinda poo-pooed it a bit after my first attempt, but I picked up the iOS version of Wingspan. I actually quite enjoyed playing a digital version, especially since its one that would be too complex for anyone at my house to pick up.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

Skinypupy wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:27 pm Mrs. Skinypupy and I connected last night with a new couple in the neighborhood who are big board gamers. We played Quacks of Quedlinburg for the first time last night and really enjoyed it. Even Mrs. Skinypupy loved it, which is a huge step forward as she typically hates board games. Now I'm bummed because it seems nearly impossible to find through any of my usual online gaming stores. :(
FWIW, you can order Quacks of Quedlinburg directly from CMYK. So you can at least feel gratified about directly supporting "a tiny game design studio and publisher" of one of the rare few games your trouble & strife enjoys playing.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by paulbaxter »

Somewhat limited gaming time this weekend, but we went through three sessions of King's Dilemma. This game keeps growing on me more and more every time I play it. Unfortunately at some point the whole thing will run it's course and I'll just have to toss it, but we had quite a lot of fun with it.

For those unfamiliar, it's a little tricky to describe. Each player is a noble house in a kingdom, and between the houses we push policies according to out own agendas until the current king dies a natural death, or the whole kingdom enters such chaos that the king is forced to abdicate. Each turn of the game one dilemma card is drawn and we all vote on it with weighted vote mechanics. You can spend influence to try to force the vote the way you'd like it, or you could just sit that one out and accumulate more power for future turns.

The various dilemmas follow story lines, so it all has a nice organic feel to it. It's often hilarious influencing your fellow players into backing what would be some really horrible choices in real life.

It's rather unlike any other legacy games I've played in that most of them are a normal sort of game with some legacy elements tacked on to them. King's Dilemma is just legacy all the way down. Every decision you make has long term consequences. Of course you might be only vaguely aware of what they might be, you might not care, and you certainly won't do anything that will wreck the whole game permanently. Also, getting through the rule book for the first playthrough is pretty confusing. But once you get through a couple of session, it really hums along and lends itself to lots of fun, light roleplaying.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Skinypupy wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:27 pm
I know I kinda poo-pooed it a bit after my first attempt, but I picked up the iOS version of Wingspan. I actually quite enjoyed playing a digital version, especially since its one that would be too complex for anyone at my house to pick up.
I may have undersold this…I’m completely addicted to the Wingspan app. Enough that I’m seriously considering buying the game now.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

I can't sing the praises of Wingspan enough. It took several mechanics I don't really like - point race against an Automa, set collection, tableau building, etc. and melded them into a game I absolutely love. I find it an incredibly relaxing game, more so than any other in my collection.

I will say I prefer the game without the Oceania expansion, however. I'm not a big fan of the nectar tokens. I typically play with just base and European.

I love the app as well, but the game has such a great tactile feel with the cards and the little wooden eggs and chunky dice that I always play physical over digital when I have the time.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Not big on the theme, but the game mechanics are solid and addicting.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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YellowKing wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 9:23 am I can't sing the praises of Wingspan enough. It took several mechanics I don't really like - point race against an Automa, set collection, tableau building, etc. and melded them into a game I absolutely love. I find it an incredibly relaxing game, more so than any other in my collection.

I will say I prefer the game without the Oceania expansion, however. I'm not a big fan of the nectar tokens. I typically play with just base and European.

I love the app as well, but the game has such a great tactile feel with the cards and the little wooden eggs and chunky dice that I always play physical over digital when I have the time.
Indeed, in my experience, the included Stonemaier Games components go a long way towards making it a highly appealing gateway game.

The base game alone includes the better part of 200 bird cards with painstakingly-detailed artwork and illustrations -- if memory serves, I recall reading somewhere that one drawing of a barn owl took something like twenty hours to illustrate -- all printed on extremely high quality card stock. It also includes five chunky custom wooden dice as you observed, a Game Trayz custom tray for deck storage, X-trayz-equivalent component holders to organize the egg and food tokens, along with a nifty bird feeder dice tower. Suffice to say, the game looks and feels spectacular in action, even without any additional bling.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Lorini »

I found Wingspan boring but that's me, the heavy Euro queen :).
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Like AB mentioned it's more of a gateway so you aren't really the target audience. It's still pretty and relaxing (and pretty random).
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Conversely I find heavy euros to basically all be the same bland game repeatedly renamed. :wink:
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Lorini »

hepcat wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:01 pm Conversely I find heavy euros to basically all be the same bland game repeatedly renamed. :wink:
Really? Even 1830 vs Food Chain Magnate? Ah well different strokes an all....
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Only one solution. We get together at a 2022 con and force hepcat to play splitter games until he cries for mercy.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

No thank you.

I will say that David Turczi does a pretty good job of creating heavier euros that feel like they actually have a theme that doesn’t highlight the same mechanics used over and over in that genre, though. I actually love Anachrony. Teotihuacan also does a decent job of it too. So I guess I do like a couple of them. :D
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Took an short in-state road trip this weekend, hitting the water slide park, a retro arcade, the dinosaur museum, the aquarium, etc. We had one night at the hotel, so we stopped by a game store to grab a few "family" games we could all play together:

- One Night Ultimate Werewolf: Fun idea, but doesn't work great with 8 year olds who have absolutely no ability to bluff or lie convincingly.
- Clue: Dungeons & Dragons: The kids played Clue at my mom's house a few weeks ago (the same box I had as a kid!) and loved it. Been begging me to get it for them ever since. Since they're nuts over anything D&D, I figured this one would be a no-brainer. It's mainly a pallet swap with D&D characters, weapons, and locations around Baldur's Gate. It also adds a "Rumors" mechanic where you land on specific spaces and can draw cards that might give you an added bonus (i.e. Crystal Ball where rolling a 3 or higher allows you to look at someone's card, Boots of Speed that double the next die roll, etc.). It was fine, but I was really disappointed with the quality of the components. The cards were all incredibly flimsy and cheap (maybe the worst I've ever seen0, the weapons were all very small, and I can only assume the box insert was from another game entirely as it had about 25 slots for cards that were completely the wrong size for the cards in this game. It's also strange that this version seems to be completely different that what's on BGG. Different characters, different weapons, different mechanics, etc. This is the one I got.
- Dice Miner: Dice drafting game with a cool 3D mountain that you use to "mine" the dice. Really enjoyed it with a group, but it's incredibly lame solo.

Also, the game store I went in had 15 copies of the new Descent, each of them selling for $180/pop. I suspect they're going to take an absolute bath on those. :doh:
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

I've been seeing enough positive impressions of Descent in some of my solo gamer forums that I'll probably give it a chance eventually. Not at the current price point, but down the road when it hits a decent sale.

We're finally somewhat settled in from the move 3 weeks ago, and it was the first day I've ever actually felt like breaking out a board game. I found a great storage solution with some Better Homes & Gardens Kallax clones, so I got everything unpacked nicely. But my current office is much tighter than my old one and my gaming table just doesn't feel "right" in here. My wife doesn't like it in here either as it's pretty much the first thing you see when you walk in the door.

So I got the idea today to move it upstairs - we have a big bonus room and for now it will fit nicely along one wall out of immediate sight, and in a position where I can leave it up indefinitely without anyone bothering it. We'll see how that works out. Most likely I'll be setting up Middara again and leaving it up there for the long haul.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Skinypupy wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 8:58 pm
- Clue: Dungeons & Dragons: It's also strange that this version seems to be completely different that what's on BGG. Different characters, different weapons, different mechanics, etc. This is the one I got.
The one on BGG you linked to was released over 20 years ago by Hasbro. The one you got is newer and from a completely different company, Usaopoly
YellowKing wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:57 pm I've been seeing enough positive impressions of Descent in some of my solo gamer forums that I'll probably give it a chance eventually. Not at the current price point, but down the road when it hits a decent sale.
I'll probably do the same someday. However, I really dislike that they moved essentially the bulk of the game into the app. This includes all the dice rolling, from what I've read. At some point, the game becomes less integrated app and more integrated board game.

App integration should mirror Mansions of Madness. It's there to give you the story in pieces as you discover what is going on. Then it randomizes monsters and other encounters to an extent (well...and those annoying puzzles). Other than that, it should stay out of the way.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

A work friend that I recently discovered was into board games happened to be in town tonight, so we spent a few hours at the table. We played Lords of Waterdeep, Lost Ruins of Arnak, and Clank!, first time for him on all three. By the time we were done, he had ordered all three from Amazon. :lol:

Was awesome to actually play with another human being at my table, instead of either solo or with the kids.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

Skinypupy wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 8:58 pm Also, the game store I went in had 15 copies of the new Descent, each of them selling for $180/pop. I suspect they're going to take an absolute bath on those. :doh:
Generally speaking, the reviews seem positive - which isn't what I expected.

No Pun Included is usually pretty critical, but he seems to have liked it.

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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Oh damn you...just...damn you.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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I am...The Enabler.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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I should get another job to pay for all this stuff. I hear Governor of New York is open...
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

:D

I didn't know there was crafting in this new version or that you're jumping around playing all the characters, not stuck just playing one. Their review definitely made it sound more interesting to me.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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I wanted hear more about how this wasn't just playing the app. That was literally why I sat through the whole video. I put a lot of money in one of Descent Journeys into the Dark games and then rage quit buying FF games when they up and put out yet another edition and wanted me to drop that money all over again or even later buy what was reportedly insufficient conversion kit.

I do have a concern that $140 gets you 13 scenarios, but then if a scenario is good enough to take a full gaming session then that's $10 a session and that's not bad in the scheme of things. They also made it sound like you couldn't replay the scenarios. I wonder what the mechanic of that is.

I'll wait for reviews here before bringing it up with others. I'm not convinced I got my $200 out of Gloomhaven before we set it down, probably because we never got that far.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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The discount game store near my office had it for 122 bucks. I couldn't resist at that price point. What kind of fool would I be if I did? I mean, come on.

p.s. I heard it was 16 scenarios, not 13. :wink:

My hope (and i'm sure it will happen) is that they'll also release new campaigns that you can use with just the base set...and then eventually the expansions. What I don't want is each expansion being the same price as the base game. That would end my dalliance with this series pretty quickly...

...or until Smoove said it was okay to buy them.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

In the past, my game group has split the cost of high-priced campaign games. We all chipped in for Gloomhaven, and also for all three Pandemic Legacy Seasons. It's a great system, as it's allowed me to play some fantastic games for a "rental" price of $15-$25 which usually equates to several weeks (or months) of play. That's a hell of a bargain, even if I don't ultimately wind up with the game.

So who does wind up with the game when the campaign's over? We've surprisingly never had an argument over it. Two of our group are guys who just show up to play - they're not collectors, they always give up their claim. Between me and the other guy who *are* collectors, we tend to just assign according to need. If the game has a bunch of minis, I usually wind up with it since I'm the only painter. If it's fairly low complexity and would be a good fit for the other guy's family, I'll let him have it.

So I'm going to bring up the possibility of splitting Descent at game night tomorrow. We are a bit between games right now, and they've collectively kind of decided Middara is too big an endeavor to tackle after the time we spent on Gloomhaven. A 13-week campaign for $35? They may be interested, and it would allow us all to play it without the accompanying financial hit. Stay tuned!
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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16 week
Together with your unlikely companions, you'll begin an unexpected adventure — an adventure told across the sixteen quests of the "Blood and Flame" campaign.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Warning: if you purchase Descent LoD, do be careful when trying to take the miniatures out of their bins. Those little bastards are like razors in many cases.

However, I will say they are fantastically detailed. They’re also on hollowed out bases and are super light because of that. I may get some washers and glue them to the bottoms to weigh them down a bit.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Faiyum is quite good, or at least that's my impression based on my first play last night. It has a great old-school Euro vibe, with a relatively simple ruleset, lots of engine-building opportunities, and plenty of player interdependencies.

That vibe extends to the art, which also feels like it emerged from the mid-2000s. It looks a little crap, but also kind of nice and I like it?

Anyway, Faiyum is all about the cards (and the map that the cards let you build). There are 100+ unique cards, and we had a good time exploring them and trying to come up with combos that would churn out resources and points. I did great in the middle game, collecting a hand that let me build workshop after workshop, keeping myself well-stocked with resources. But there are a limited number of workshops in the game, and once they ran out my engine ground to a halt.

The cards ramp up in power over the course of the game, and by the end you can earn huge swathes of points from a single card. Our game was won by the one player who planned ahead for end-game scoring, accumulating resources that he could turn into bucketloads of points in the last few turns.

Very fun with lots of strategic space to explore.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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This weekend I played two short games of Nevsky: Teutons and Rus in Collision, about the Teutonic Knights' campaign against Russia in the 13th century. It's a wargame without much fighting: the biggest challenge is keeping your armies fed and your feudal vassals happy, so that they don't pack up their knights and go home.

In our first game, I was winning as the Teutons but failed to keep enough coin in reserve to pay my vassals. They all quit at the same time, ending the game. It wasn't entirely a surprise; I had already decided that two of my lords weren't worth keeping in the field and was planning to muster replacements. But then my marshal decided that he was also tired of fighting, and I didn't have any money left to convince him to stay.

The second game was a lesson in the futility of siege warfare. The Russians were on the attack, and spent almost the entire game trying to starve, and then storm, the fortified city of Pskov. It was still in Teutonic hands when the game ended.

Nevsky reminds me a bit of Sekigahara, because of the central importance of vassal relationships. It's not as elegant as that game, but the additional systems in Nevsky provide a satisfying mental crunch.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

So I bought Wingspan to see if it will ween us off Terraforming Mars. I see it has two expansions. Are they worth jumping right to and buying or should we settle on the original for a bit? We'll be giving the base game a once through tonight with two players.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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LordMortis wrote:So I bought Wingspan to see if it will ween us off Terraforming Mars. I see it has two expansions. Are they worth jumping right to and buying or should we settle on the original for a bit? We'll be giving the base game a once through tonight with two players.
Personal opinion, European expansion is worth getting right away. It adds more "stuff" (more birds, more bonus cards, etc.) to the base game and includes several minor tweaks that make the game better IMO.

The Oceanic expansion you can wait on until you get a more comfortable. It adds an entirely new food source and scoring mechanism that is nice if you feel like you've mastered the base game, but I generally play without it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

Thank you for the insight. We did two rounds of 2 player last night. The game was light and quick and not very deep. I liked it. I don't know that I liked $60 worth but there were $60 worth of components. I was hoping this could be the "engine builder" that weens us away from all Terra-forming Mars all the time but I don't think it will. I think it is too light for that. I'm going to think on the expansions before just going out picking them up. I really need to find that next thing. TM has been a great game for a very long time but it's a long game that is getting to be a too much MotS in pursuit of a very specific engines. Even then, I still enjoy the game, just not all TM all the time.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

You should take a look at Imperium Classic or Imperium Legend. The more I play it, the more I'm impressed by how they abstract a standard civ builder into a small deck builder/engine builder.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by LordMortis »

It looks like Through the Ages after about 20 seconds on Google. is that a reasonable thunk?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Well...not really. It's not nearly as complex as that. At its heart, it's a very simple deck and engine builder. What makes it interesting is that every deck is asymmetrical (and there's 8 in each box-real life nations in classic, mythological civs in legends....although they can be played against each other) and you don't get to your "good" cards (called development cards) until you "ascend" from barbarian to empire. You do that by cycling through your deck. Every time you reshuffle, you can take a card that's placed horizontally across your ascension deck. When that ascension deck is finally empty, then you flip your state card from barbarian to empire and you can start playing cards/acquiring cards that require that you be an empire.

However, because it's asymmetrical, some decks don't observe all those rules (Vikings never become an empire, they always remain a barbarian nation, for example). So each deck plays quite differently in many cases.

Games can be long, fair warning. But I love the thought that went into crafting the decks so that they encompass a great deal about the nation or people they represent. They all have their strengths and weaknesses you have to learn to exploit as you play. And with 16 decks, I've got a lot of learning to do.

Oh, and the great David Turczi designed the solo AI for it. I haven't tried it yet, but he's like the go to guy for any solo AI these days. He really knows his stuff.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Daveman »

Very late to the party, but I picked up Street Masters and am really enjoying it, so much so I had to stop playing so I could start painting them to truly enjoy the game :)

From a quick glance online I gather expansions for this are pretty much impossible to find right now, but that a Kickstarted expansion + reprints are nearly finished and ready for the long slog of the COVID shipping mess? Hopefully some stuff might trickle down on their website or retail?

Not that there isn't a bunch of content in the core box, and I don't need everything, but the Aftershock set looks kind of neat.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

Daveman wrote: Thu Aug 19, 2021 11:59 am Hopefully some stuff might trickle down on their website or retail?
Yes, all things Blacklist are in a shipping black hole right now. I think they're too small (size of publisher) to be able to get priority on the limited shipping containers so every single project of theirs is delayed. I feel really bad for them. I think the plan it to get it into retail channels, but if you can pre-order things on their website, I'd probably recommend that.
Not that there isn't a bunch of content in the core box, and I don't need everything, but the Aftershock set looks kind of neat.
Depending on your budget, I own everything, because I love (still love) the game system. I think it's their best in terms of speed and depth. The other versions of the MDS that they've created offer additional elements (Brook City, Altar Quest), but the setup and upkeep also increased dramatically. Mechanically I still like them, but Street Masters is still the best iteration for me and the one I keep going back to because it's so fast to setup and replay.

In terms of what to get that I think is mandatory for the original core box it's redemption. While the add on boxes will get you more characters, minis and bosses, the Redemption deck will allow you to actually play as the boss enemies in the core box, which is a huge content bonus for relatively little money.

Everything else (all the add ons and expansions) just add tons more options.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
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hepcat
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Location: Chicago, IL Home of the triple homicide!

Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

My copy of Hour of Need is sitting in a warehouse in China right now. And I don't expect to see it before Christmas...maybe even later.

I may just put a knife in between my teeth and start swimming to China.
Covfefe!
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Tao
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Joined: Sat Nov 20, 2004 3:47 pm

Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Tao »

Just an FYI, the Street Masters Aftershock KS did not include Redemption, although it did include a couple other earlier expansions. The new Tide of The Dragon expansion KS did include Redemption and also a Redemption II. It's been a while and I don't recall where Blacklist is at as far as the pledge manager and late pledges but Tides of the Dragon is the one to watch if your looking for the Redemption stuff.
"Don't touch my stuff when I'm dead...it's booytrapped!" - Bender Bending Rodriguez
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