More Sunday Board Game Fun!

Well, we had another great Sunday of board games.  Didn't get in a
ton, but having three kids to juggle makes it harder.  We did get in
three good games though and I introduced my friend from work to our
wonderful boardgame world.

The first game we played was World Without End by Michael Rieneck and Stefan Sadler and published by Mayfair Games.  World Without End is based on the bestselling novel by Ken Follett.  And boy, this is a nasty little game, but very innovative.  The way you win is by scoring victory points.  The best way to score those is to help build different projects in the town by donating building materials to them.  Also, half-way through the game, the plague hits and you have to help save people from it for more points.

A lot of wool early on meant no money problems late in the game.

The best part of this game is the first thing you do every turn.  You draw a card read the event and deal with it.  Sometimes it can be quite nasty and cause you much grief.  There are also four icons of different things you can get off this card and an arrow.  You orient the card with the item you want pointing at your seated location and then everyone else gets what's on the icon pointed at them.  Pretty neat mechanic there.  But you also have to pay attention to that arrow, because there's a track at the bottom of the board and the pawn there will move the number of spaces that the arrow is pointing to on the card.  There are 4 numbers where you place the card.  It will be 0 to 3 spaces and then you get the bonus or negative of the space the pawn moves to.  You really have to be careful with this, because there are outlaws on the bottom track that will otherwise take your money. So you may take something you don't want as much, but you avoid losing money.

Mike is quite the charmer, I assure you!

This game was pretty close and I thought for sure my wife was going to
win as she had gotten a ton of points curing people.  However, Karen
balanced it all out very well and was able to make some key donations
at the right time.  There's tons of other interesting mechanics in this game, but I won't go into them.  I didn't do too well at the game, but I didn't do too terrible either.  Like I said, a pretty close and evenly matched game here.

Mike, Karen and I would then go on to play Caylus.  I had to break this game out as I hadn't played it in a long time and I love it for some odd reason.  I can't remember when the last time was that I won. Heck, have I ever won?  I had to teach Karen the rules real quick and we're off.  Supposedly there are multiple paths to victory in this game, but I always end up going in different directions and not doing any of them well.  I always tell myself what I'm going to focus on and then suddenly, oh crap, I need to build part of the castle of lose two
points.  Is losing two points that much of a disadvantage?  If I took a strategy and stuck to it, I might do fine.

Early on in the game.  I just love pictures of Caylus even.  Great game!

In this one, Mike was a bit nasty during the first turn with the provost and I'm going to claim that it caused me to lose.  But really, building the place where you can buy gold and then letting Mike have the first turn that round and him buying two gold pretty much caused the tide to turn.  I thought I should do it, but reality isn't a street on which I travel.  I really thought he might ignore it and I could put my money into this thing, net six more points and potentially win.  Didn't happen, stupid move, but Mike played well.  I still love this game a ton!  Other people don't like it as much, but it has some painful, but important decisions to make.  I love building things, collecting resources, the pink "meat" cubes, and just the feel of it.  Still the best worker placement game there is.

Finally my friend Noah came over.  He, my wife, Mike and I played
Stone Age.  I figured that Stone Age would be a great intro game for
Noah to play.  I think he really liked it too.  The rules explanation took a little bit longer than I thought it would, but we dove in with much gusto.

My favorite thing about this game is the dice rolling to collect resources based on the amount of people you have there.  It kind of
makes sense, but some bad dice rolls can make things tough.  That's
why I usually invest heavily in tools.  This game I took the card strategy route and focused specifically on the ones that gave you
points for your food production and the amount of tools you had.  Then
I collected the different sets of items as well.  I really found that just collecting any card that comes up isn't the greatest idea unless it's cheap.  I really focused on just those particular cards and improving in those particular areas.  I scored 200 points and left everyone in the dust.

We’re both very deep in thought.  Can you tell?

To be honest, some of it fell into my lap.  Some people weren't focusing on increasing their food production and I would usually get the cards early that allow you to roll the dice to get a random item and improving tools and cultivation that way as well.  Noah went towards more of a construct huts area and did pretty decent at that. My wife had to put the boys to bed so she had Karen take over for her. To say that Becca left Karen in a bit of a car wreck was an understatement.  Mike had some decent points in the end, but not
enough to counter my insane point run.  I think it got Noah interested
in the type of board games I play, which is good.

After that Mike and Karen left.  Noah and I went through some Heroclix
duplicates he brought and sold me some on the dirt cheap side of
things.  Now I can amass some decent themed teams.  I was pretty
excited to get Black Flash and Flash from the Justice League set.  I
love my speedsters!  Beta Ray Bill is definitely sweet as well.  The
next day my awesome wife who is getting out of scrapbooking cleared
out her scrapbook cart for me to use for my Clix.  They sit in there
pretty well.  So thanks to my wife for helping out there!  How awesome
is that?

So Sunday was a pretty excellent day for fun and gaming.  I, at least,
won a game.  I'm hoping to get Noah addicted to gaming in general so I
can add more people to this excellent hobby.  Now I just need to hook
more new people.

Technorati Tags: sunday,board games,world without end,ken follett,stefan sadler,michael rieneck,caylus,heroclix,stone age

More Sunday Board Game Fun!

Board Game Review: Forbidden Island

Publisher: Gamewright
Designer:  Matt Leacock
Number of Players: 2-4
Approx. Minutes to Play: 30 minutes
Suggested Ages: 8 & Up
Suggested Retail Price: $14.99

Forbidden Island is a game in which cooperation and working together is the key to victory.  It is very much you and your friends or family against the game as you try and get ancient artifacts off an island before it is completely submerged underwater.  You move about randomly placed tiles that make up the board attempting to do this and get on the helicopter before the island sinks.
The game plays very simple.  On your turn you can do up to 3 actions.  Some of the things you can do are move 1 space (up & down, left or right), shore up the island (to help prevent it from flooding), give a treasure card (to another player on the same space as you), or capture a treasure (via discarding 4 cards of an artifact at a matching location).  Then you draw two treasure cards (you can have only up to 5) and hope you don’t draw a nasty Waters Rise card.  Then once you’ve done that, you draw flood cards to see what tiles flood an then it’s the next player’s turn.

Photo from Mike Hulsebus from the Boardgamegeek.com website
Now there are some extra things to this.  Namely, if you draw a Waters Rise card, you move the water level up 1 tick and shuffle the flood pile discards and place them on TOP of the flood card deck.  That means that the tiles that have started sinking first are going to keep sinking and you know you don’t have much time left.  If a tile is flooded (meaning you drew the flood card and flipped the location tile to the flooded side), if you draw the flood location card again, it will sink into the ocean floor, leaving you with nothing but water.  If you’re on that tile, you are going to have to swim for safety.
There are some special action cards that add a bit of spice and can really save your butt from time-to-time.  Everyone also has a special ability based on what color they get assigned and that adds some good flavor. You win if you have all 4 treasures captured and everyone is at the helicopter tile and somebody in your group has a Helicopter Lift card. You lose if the water level reaches the skull and crossbones level or if it becomes impossible to complete the objectives.  It’s really about that easy.  So what did I think of it:
Replayability: out of 5.  If you lose, you’ll want to play it again and again until you finally win.  And you can adjust the level of difficulty.  You can play with a different ability than you have last time.  Really, you can get a decent amount of replayability because the island changes every time.  You might get bored of it after awhile, but it might take awhile.
Theme: out of 5. This game feels like you’re running around and trying to get the treasure before the island sinks.  You know you’re in a race against time and the sinking island thing is kind of a fun idea.  Nothing ground-breaking, but the theme really works quite well for this game.
Price: out of 5.  Talk about bang for the buck!  You can pick this up for $14.99 or less!  With the amount of replayability, this is truly a spectacular deal!  Simply put, you can’t beat it.  For the price of taking two people to a movie, you can have many evenings of entertainment out of this!
Mechanics/Rules: out of 5.  While there is nothing groundbreaking here, the rules are well put together and thought out and easy to understand.  The mechanics aren’t anything really new, but work well given the theme.  Pretty solid overall job here.  Not too difficult at all to learn and get younger kids in the game.
Components: out of 5.  Pretty decent tiles, the artifacts look pretty cool.  I hate the tin box, but it’ll last longer than the typical boardgame boxes, so who can complain?  I can because the tin boxes don’t seem to fit on my shelves quite as well.  Card stock might be a tad flimsy, but not any worse than any other Gamewright game.
Overall: out of 5.  As far as a game goes, I give it 4 out of 5.  As a FAMILY game, I would give it 5 stars.  The reason is, it’s easily accessible for adults and kids alike.  The theme is pretty decent and working together as a family is going to be a LOT of fun.  Since it’s a cooperative game, you don’t have to compete with each other.  You can all discuss you strategy and find the best paths to victory.  Sure, there’s a good amount of random element here, but that doesn’t hurt.  Being unsure of what is going to happen really ads to the fun.  For $14.99 or less, this NEEDS to be on your game shelf.  And the fact that it came from Gamewright (who usually makes below average games) amazes me and gives me hope that they’ll continue on the path.  Buy it folks, show Gamewright that we appreciate games like this, ones that actually require us to use our brains!
For more information on boardgames like this one, please visit Boardgamegeek.com.

Technorati Tags: forbidden island,matt leacock,gamewright,board games,reviews,inexpensive,cooperative

Board Game Review: Forbidden Island

How to Play Heroclix with Kids (or Awesome Fun Time)

My boys love super heroes and they love action figure.  So I figured why not try to play something with my 3 year old that combines the two?  Yeah, probably not the greatest idea, but I tried to simplify it.

As you can see, there was a lot of enthusiasm going on with our 2 players!

So I basically made it a game of counting squares based on the movement he could go and then counting the dice to see if his attack worked.  I still used some of the mechanics from the game, but I may have calculated a few things in his favor.

My son contemplating how many spaces he can move and how he can crush his dad into two!

My youngest boy (2 years old) watched on as a spectator and seemed to enjoy it.  Well, he enjoyed the extra figures he could pick up and look at.  He didn’t really horn his way in and try to get in on the action.  I think he’s finally learned not to interrupt games being played by other people.

My two year old admires the cool looking guys we purchased.

In the end, the 3 year old got tired of having to count more than he would like.  He said it made him tired.  So after a minor skirmish we called it quits.  He already fondly remembers this little battle we had and it was the favorite part of his day.  And he saw three elephants today, so that’s saying something.  Of course, I think he might have accidentally forgotten about the elephants.

Our minor skirmish!  An epic battle with Gorilla Grodd!

Heroclix might be our new thing.  Thankfully Rainbow Sports Card and Comics on Hamilton carries it and I’m pretty sure ACME Comic on Pierce has it too.  I just figured it would be a game we could grow with since the boys love comics.  It has the depth, in the end, to be entertaining for Dad as well too.  Isn’t that what really matters?

Technorati Tags: heroclix,boys,family,fun,game,rambling

How to Play Heroclix with Kids (or Awesome Fun Time)

Another Fun Sunday of Board Games

Ah, life is good when you get to play some board games.  Our friends from Holstein (Andy, Mike, and Karen) visited us so we could play a good amount of board games, despite my kids running around like crazed banshees.  I do believe that banshees are much more quiet though.
Our day began as we dug into a game called “Founding Fathers” by Christian Leonhard and Jason Mathews and published by Jolly Roger Games.  This is, by far, their best game yet.  The theme feels a bit pasted on, but overall a pretty interesting game.  The thing I found the MOST interesting is how the Constitution could have been very different.  I also learned a lot about how the politicians back there were very similar to today.  Some wanted to be governed like England still, some wanted more power for the big states, etc.  So I got a bit of historical education along with a very solid game experience.  I want to play it again before I get a solid opinion on this one!  Andy won this.
Next we grabbed another new game, “Forbidden Island” by Matt Leacock and published by Gamewright.  Gamewright hasn’t exactly put out tons of great games, but decent kids games.  Well, Forbidden Island brings the concept of a cooperative board game to a mass producer of games in the U.S.  It worked out rather well too.  I really felt like I had to hurry up and get my butt off that island and we scrambled and scrambled to get the artifacts, but we couldn’t pull it off and everyone ended up drowning.  I really like this very simple cooperative game and is one the whole family can enjoy.  Best of all, it is SUPER cheap!  Link included! 
Next up we broke out an old game with much neglect.  "California” by the infamous Michael Schact and published by the defunct Uberplay Games.  I don’t know, it is a silly concept to furnish your mansion and try to get guests to come over and bring you gifts, but hey, winner winner chicken dinner?  Sure.  Not a bad game at all, pretty fun really.  I had a good time playing it and should probably break it out again soon.  Be looking for a review on this game coming up!  Andy won this as well.  Whipping us so far!
Then we broke out Defenders of the Realm.  For my thoughts on that game, see my review.  I absolutely adored this game.  We were overrun in the end and I still blame Mike for it.  He decided to attack a General when we had almost no dice for it instead of clearing out potential overrun areas.  I think what really lost it for us was how much we sucked at dice rolling against the General Sapphire.  I think we rolled about 21 dice and only managed to roll three 5’s or 6’s.  Typical day of dice rolling for me.  So we all lost this one.  Can’t wait to play it again though.  Very challenging.
We closed our night with a grand game of “Innovation” by Carl Chudyk and produced by Asmadi Games.  This one is a card game with a civilization/technology advancement theme.  It’s basically a rummy type of game with lots of little things going on and sometimes trying to figure out the cards can take awhile.  It has some really interesting mechanics going on, not sure if 4 players is the best for this.  I’m thinking 3 might be optimal.  Be that as it may, still a fairly interesting little game.  My wife somehow won this without really ever feeling like she had a clue as to what was going on.  This card game felt almost like there was too much going on at once, but I’ll give it another whirl.
Overall a fun day of gaming with great friends!  Can’t wait til next time, although we’ll probably have a new gamer born by then.
As always, check out www.boardgamegeek.com for tons of boardgames you’ve never heard of before but SHOULD!

Technorati Tags: board games,card games,review,recap,innovation,defenders of the realm,california,michael schact,uberplay games,asmadi games,forbidden island,gamewright,founding fathers,jason mathews,christian leonhard

Another Fun Sunday of Board Games

Board Game Review: Defenders of the Realm

Publisher: Eagle Games
Designer:  Richard Launius
Number of Players: 1-4
Approx. Minutes to Play: 90 minutes
Suggested Ages: 13 & Up
Suggested Retail Price: $84.99

Defenders of the Realm is a cooperative board game that takes roughly 90 minutes to play.  In it, you will take part of a band of adventure heroes (our rightly titled Defenders) who are working together to thwart 4 evil Generals who basically want to kill everyone and stomp on the nearby major city.  Really bad people here, generally bad dispositions, you’ll want to smite them.

In the game, each turn you will have a set number of actions.  The amount of actions you have is your health.  Therefore, if you take damage and lose health points, you also lose actions.  You can heal by visiting the city of an inn or just by finding an empty relaxing spot on your turn.  But during your turn you spend those actions, you draw 2 hero cards, and then Darkness Spreads, which is a set of cards where the bad stuff happens.  Rinse and repeat.

Also, talk about a pile of stuff when you open this box!  A lot of plastic miniatures, a pretty nice looking board, about everything you could want in what seems to be a pretty solid box.  Big monstrous bad guys, gotta love it.

The game is really simple, the most a space will ever have is 3 evil minions and maybe an evil general.  You roll dice equal to the color and number of minions and based on the color of the minions you have to roll a certain number.  Some minions are tougher than others and a few have some bonuses effects going on.  When you fight Generals, everyone can team up together and attack the big bad.  Those battles can be pretty fun and once again, really simple.  Everything uses common six-sided dice.

One of the things I love is that there are several different characters you could play with.  Those characters have different abilities that will affect you through-out the game.  It adds some nice flavor to the game and makes your hero really feel useful when played correctly.  If the Generals ever make it to the city they will destroy it, if there are ever 6 minions in the city, you lose, and if you run out of these things call corruption stones, you lose.

I’ve left out a few parts, but there are cards that also assist you in moving faster and are what you also use to determine how many dice you will be rolling against a General.  The cards can be of limited use, but there are special ones that are quite powerful as well.  They also added in quests without making it too quest heavy.  It is very well blended in and the quests are good to help you beat bosses or prevent total defeat.

So what did I think?  Let’s read on:


Replayability: out of 5.  The bosses are always the same, not a ton of characters to chose from, but expansions will add to this.  The general feel of the game make it pretty replayable as you try to win with your friends.


Theme:  out of 5. I love this theme!  The classic high fantasy adventure, but on a cooperative scale.  You feel like you’ve got a lot on the line and with the different abilities it feels very much like a fantasy type of adventure.


Price:  out of 5.  Here’s the weak point, the price.  $84.99 is the MSRP, mainly because Eagle isn’t a huge publisher and they have a limited print run.  You can get it discounted and maybe find it for around $60 or so.  At that price, it’s no worse than a video game and a tad more reasonable.  A lot of fun in this, but at the price, you will definitely want to try it out first.


Mechanics/Rules:  out of 5.  Very easy to understand and play.  The mechanics are streamlined down to the essentials to make this game play fairly quick without too much downtime.  They’ve done an awesome job with this one.


Components: out of 5.  Overall the components are fantastic!  The colored figures and everything is well done.  Maybe not quite up to par with Fantasy Flight Games, but it’s getting close.  Job well done here.

Overall: out of 5.  Very good game, probably not for everybody though.  The price is steep for a cooperative, but there will be expansions for it.  I really like the feel of it.  It’s like what Castle Panic should have been, but wasn’t.  Much easier to understand than Shadows Over Camelot and shorter than Battlestar Galactica.  The theme sells me on it.  A good, but pricey buy if you like the theme!

For more information on boardgames like this one, please visit Boardgamegeek.com.

Technorati Tags: board game,boardgame,reviews,defenders of the realm,eagle games,shadows over camelot,castle panic,battlestar galactica

Board Game Review: Defenders of the Realm