What game is hitting your table?

[XtianHardy]

That's good to know. I've been really thinking about picking this up because I'm sure I can convince AT LEAST one of my friends or my fiancee to play Descent with me, whereas if I were to buy Chaos in the Old World, which I'd also like to get, it's a total crap-shoot and likely I wouldn't be able to play with anyone I know.

I know it's a very subjective question, but is there enough story in Descent to satisfy for an RPG-lite experience?

[Mike Friesen]

Iv'e been looking into the new Descent the last week and from what I see/hear it looks like a really fun game. Do you find the game easy/fast to set up and is it fairly easy to learn?

[celticgriffon]

Last night at the German Club I managed to get three games in:

Tichu - a staple with our group.  It has been a while since I last played and it is still the premier trick taking game for four (besides Bridge).

German Railways - there are a bunch of really neat things happening here..  First of all there are eight train company's.  Up for grab are three shares per company.  One share is auctioned from each at the start.  On your turn you can only do three things: 1) auction a share (the third share of a company cannot be auctioned until two of all the others are sold).
2) place track to increase the railways value (i.e. by connecting cities).  This action may also trigger a dividend round if railways connect.
3) pass

Each company has a unique rule when it comes to dividend payouts and placement of track.  Some build faster, some pay less for different terrain, some don't pay dividends until they reach Berlin, etc.

Like many money games having the correct shares in companies which are likely to merge is a key.  And having more shares than your opponents helps as well.  I felt my opponents overspent their cash in the opening sell.  I had a bunch of money so everytime my turn came around i bought a new share for relatively cheap.  This in essence helped me lead most of the game and I won with a large margin.

There is only one other caveat.  Your current position in the game determines how many tokens you put into the bag for turn order. 

Example: Let's say I own one share of the blue, red, and black lines.  If the value of these companies is 18 that is my current position.  If opponent a has a value of 10, opponent b has a value of 15 and opponent c has a value of 19 here is what would happen: opponent c puts one token in the bag, I put two, opponent b three, and opponent a four.  Four tokens are then pulled one at a time.  This determines the turn order for the next round.

With my early jump I likely played only half of the game and I still won.  Only one token was going into the bag each turn.  I deliberately created some ties with my opponents to mitigate the effects of the system (i.e. they put less tokens into the bag).

I am not sure if this runaway leader problem would happen often.  It did in our first game but that definitely wouldn't stop me from playing it again.  Simple and fun!!

The only thing I want to gripe about is the colour choices made.  Player colours were the same as railway company colours.  And the yellow and orange were hard to tell apart as were the brown/black.

I am sure next game the money will remain much tighter.

On a different note, I cannot get Wings of War out of my head the past few days...!!

Michael

[celticgriffon]

I forgot to mention the third game:

The Bottle Imp.  This is another trick taking game but their are only three suits (red, yellow and blue).

The price of the bottle at the beginning of each hand is always 19.  The player left to the dealer leads the first trick.  Players must play in the led suit if possible.  If all players play above the bottle value high card takes the trick.  If one or more player plays below the bottle value it is sold to the highest card below the current value.

Example: The bottle value is 19.  The lead is a yellow card above the bottle value.  Second player plays a yellow 14 (not sure if the 14 is yellow - just as an example).  Next player plays their yellow 3 and the fourth player plays their yellow 2.  The second player takes the trick and now owns the bottle and it's value changes to 14. 

In the end you want to avoid ending the hand without taking the bottle cause  you only score negative points.  All other players score all cards (coin symbols) earned.

First player to 200 or 500 points wins.

Some players cannot get their head around the game.  There is a certain groupthink that needs to be altered especially if you are used to more standard trick taking games.

I think it is beyond clever and it is a wonderful three player experience!!

Michael

[ChrisRoberts]

Iv'e been looking into the new Descent the last week and from what I see/hear it looks like a really fun game. Do you find the game easy/fast to set up and is it fairly easy to learn?

I find most of its rules to be fairly intuitive and simple.  I also had a background in at least two similar games, so I am coming at from what might be called an "insider's" perspective.  That being said, I've taught the basics of the game in under half an hour.

Setup, from opening the box to taking the first turn, I would say takes about 10-15 mins.  There are a lot of tokens and card decks that need to be set up, especially if you're playing a campaign.  It helps that my wife and I added several baggies to the equation, and labeled them for specific purposes.

I know it's a very subjective question, but is there enough story in Descent to satisfy for an RPG-lite experience?

I would say so.  The games comes with 19 Quests, 9 of which are played in any one Campaign, and each has it's own story blurb (or two, or three).

[R Newell]

King of Tokyo with three players. One guy was eliminated early. The other guy was holding Tokyo and had a card that enabled him to use energy to heal while he was in there. He had 19 VP and 8 health to my 13 VP and 4 health. If I failed to get 7 VP in one turn, he had the win. Lucky for me I had a card that gave me 9 VP for rolling all different die faces, and I got it without even having to reroll. There was much screaming and fist pumping. I can't imagine ever getting a bigger come from behind victory than that.

Ghost Stories with four players on normal difficulty. I love co-ops that have you thinking victory is well within reach right before drawing a card that screws you royally. Ghost Stories seems to do that pretty well. I hope my friend breaks it out more regularly.

Small World with four players, using elements of SW, Underground, and Realms. This game took FOREVER. Open information + a million options + AP-prone players is a bad combination. Not a bad game with the right players (read: fast players) I'm sure, but I'd rather be playing Cosmic Encounter with this group.

[XtianHardy]

I played Game of Thones: The Board Game, Second Edition this weekend with some close friends. This was my fifth time playing Game of Thrones with this group, and it was our most aggressive game yet. Alliances were forged and broken within the first two turns, and everyone was at each other's throats for the rest of the game. It ended very close, with Baratheon (my fiancee, Courtney) and Stark (me) each having six victory points, and the Tyrell's (Marcel) narrowly taking the lead with seven. A great game, but tensions ran so high that we all agreed to play something co-operative next time.

I also picked up the Pathfinder: Beginner Box at Comic Readers and Elder Sign on Amazon.ca. Courtney and I have been looking for a good RPG to play with friends and Pathfinder seems like its exactly what we've been looking for. Can't wait to get some friends together and begin the short campaign that comes in the box. For 34.99 it was a wicked deal!

[Jolo]

Iv'e been looking into the new Descent the last week and from what I see/hear it looks like a really fun game. Do you find the game easy/fast to set up and is it fairly easy to learn?

They have a demo copy at the Den, you should check it there.

[Mac Grassick]

Dungeon command

I played my first game of Dungeon Command last weekend. I had the Heart of Cormyr squad against the Sting of Lolth squad. I thought that I had a big advantage using the adventurers over the drow just on pure strength & power the characters but I found out how valuable the extra speed the drow possessed. I had the upperhand at the start of the game but as I futilely tried to chase the drow around the board I quickly found out that speed & numbers are no match for brute strength. Needless to say I got smoked. My opponent Zac played a masterful game & even though he crushed me like a tiny little pea, we both really enjoyed the game. With upcoming squads like The Curse of Undeath, Tyranny of Goblins & Blood of Gruumsh, I think I'll be playing this one for a while.

[ChrisRoberts]

I played Game of Thones: The Board Game, Second Edition this weekend with some close friends. This was my fifth time playing Game of Thrones with this group, and it was our most aggressive game yet. Alliances were forged and broken within the first two turns, and everyone was at each other's throats for the rest of the game. It ended very close, with Baratheon (my fiancee, Courtney) and Stark (me) each having six victory points, and the Tyrell's (Marcel) narrowly taking the lead with seven. A great game, but tensions ran so high that we all agreed to play something co-operative next time.

I have a copy of the first edition of this game, and have been curious as to how the 2nd edition compares.  Can you shed any light on that?