What game is hitting your table?

[Bix Conners]

Last night at ChewsDay Challenge, I played the following games:

Battle Line
Played a quick game of Battle Line while I was registering people for the event. This is a great filler game that plays quick and transports well. I think it is a must for most collections.

Antics!
A fun Fragor Games production. This game has rival ants collecting prey and leaves to score. Each player has an anthill which they are building higher to give them more powerful actions. The game plays well and plays quite quickly. The theme and the mechanics tie in quite well together. Great game.

Snake Oil
This was a hoot. Chad brought this out and I played a 5 player game. Lots of laughs and silliness. "Shame Glove" is now a phrase that will live on in infamy.

Mamma Mia
An evening of games at a Pizza Restaurant cannot be complete without a game of Mamma Mia. Played with 5. I got my butt kicked. Fun game that rewards good memory skills.

Looking forward to future ChewsDay Challenge events.

[Jolo]

Last night I played two games and was soundly thrashed in both!

First up was K2, a game of climbing Mt Everest (or in my case, making it to 8000 feet and being eaten by the Simpsons). It is an interesting race game, we played the winter side.

Second up was Small Worlds: Realms, we played "A river runs through it" or whatever the second scenario is called. I like it, it should breathe new life into the already great Small World franchise. Maybe next year we will do a Small World: Realms tourney at ToonCon.

[Bix Conners]

Last night I played the following:

Ballonrennen
Played a three player game of this 1977 German Balloon Race game. It is a bit chaotic and luck driven, but was a short fun game to play and the pieces are cool. This was especially topical as my darling wife surprised me with a real Hot Air Balloon ride Sunday morning. Awesome!

Dungeon Command
Played a three player game of this. I am really liking this game and I look forward to additional factions / warbands. Three player was fun, but I think the game will come alive even more in a four player setting.

[Jolo]

Sid Meier's Civilization, we played a 5 player game last night with three players that had played before and 2 n00bs.  We played 7 turns and the game probably would have ended on the 8th with a capital crushing

[celticgriffon]

Played a few games lately...

Wed night I played a game of the original Crossbows and Catapults with my nine year old.  What an amazing game.  The rules as listed are pretty vague but imagination takes over.  Flicking those discs and making plastic blocks fly is always fun fun fun.

At the German Club last night I managed to get in two games.  First off was Africanus.  I must admit my second play was a lot better than my first, even though I lost this time.  I think Michael Schacht (spelling) got the balance pretty exact.  I picked up three wild cards through the books but I needed one more turn to overcome the 10 point penalty and alas it didn't happen.

To end the evening we played Union Pacific.  UP is one of my favourite games of all time.  I struggled this time through, however, not able to get any majorities.  You need majorities in some of the larger companies by mid game to stay on top.  For those of you who are newer to the scene I heard Airlines Europe (the third incarnation of this system) is just as good.

Cheers,
Michael

[Jolo]

Sid Meier's Civilization, we played a 2 player game last night, The People's Republic of China was two turns from winning when we quit.

Fun game, I like it.

[R Newell]

I played my first few games of Carcassonne against the wife.  Nice casual game, but I can see it being a bit nasty and competitive with the right people.

I took the week off to do some yard work but, what with the crap weather, I've had the opportunity to spend some time soloing a few games to learn/re-learn the rules.

I recently bought a bunch of expansions for Arkham Horror, so I now have all three expansion boards.  I tried a solo game with all the fixings, playing as three investigators, to learn the new stuff and refresh myself on the basics since it has been a few years since it's hit the table.  A bizarre combination of Great Old One (who limited the number of clue tokens I could carry and whose strength was based on the number of clue tokens left on the board) and Guardian (who's supposed to make the game easier for me by adding lots of clue tokens to the board) caused an insta-lose when the GOO woke up -- it had a modifier of -24 when it awoke (basically, it would cancel out my first 24 successful die rolls each turn).  Overall, I like the additions to the game, but holy cow does it have a huge footprint now.  It no longer fits on my relatively large dining room table.  I need to surround myself with end tables for the decks of cards.

I also played two solo games of Mage Knight, one with a dummy hero and one without.  I probably missed a fiddly rule or two, but the basics were easier to learn than I thought they would be.  Very fun game, but dense, with all kinds of co-op, competitive, and solo scenarios and optional rules.  This is the kind of game that should be played 20, 50, or 100 times to get the most of it.  Otherwise, you're only scratching the surface (and having to relearn that surface if you don't play it regularly).

[Colin Dearborn]

Got  a few games in with the kids this weekend.

We started out with Talisman, first edition, they where a little put off by the black and white cards, but soon got into the game. Amanda stomped all who opposed her with the Troll and cruised to an easy victory. It helped that Alex got hit by Raiders and then later was turned into a Toad......poor little Ranger. Amanda was able to scoop all his belongings both times. Forgot how fun and simple this game is, I know it will be coming out again.
8/10

Later on we played Tiki Topple. This is a decent little stategy game. All you want to do is get your colored tikis to the top of the pole. Problem is, everyone has their own order they want. Great quality in the box too. Recomended for families as a light 20 minute game. Works with fairly young ones too.
7/10


Finally Alex had to try out his newest game, FRAG. It is billed as the first person shooter board game. A true dice fest. Shoot and kill, die and respawn.......a little monotonus after the first 20 minutes, but it does let you blow away family members with Gauss Rifles. 
4/10

[Mac Grassick]

Finally Alex had to try out his newest game, FRAG. It is billed as the first person shooter board game. A true dice fest. Shoot and kill, die and respawn.......a little monotonus after the first 20 minutes, but it does let you blow away family members with Gauss Rifles. 
4/10

I recently picked up this game but I haven't found the time to get it to the table. I'll have to pick your brain on that one.

Played my 3rd game of Talisman as well this weekend. It was a strong showing for this game by the looks of this board. We played with a couple of expansions as well. I like the game but it needs something to speed it up a bit. We haven't finished a game in 3 tries. We've spent so much time trying to build up our characters in the early stage of the game, by the time we're strong enough, we seem to fade & lose interest. I've enjoyed the game each time I've played but, for me, it needs a little help to get moving.

[Tempest]

Re: Talisman, I know in 4th edition, they have a rule or two for making the game quicker. I think the basic thing is instead of requiring 7 strength or craft worth of trophies, you can trade in 6 points for a 'level up' or what-have-you. I think t