Pictures of your recent tabletop games...

[TheCommandTent]

Good stuff AB thanks for the pictures

[bayonetbrant]

AB - I saw Agents of Smersh in your acquisitions above.  I ran into those guys at Origins and the dude seemed really nice and the game looked neat.  Any thoughts on it?

[Arctic Blast]

Looks like fun!

But you haven't painted yer mini's yet!?!  :o

Two reasons :

1. I haven't even owned it for a week, and this was the first time I've actually had a chance to bust it out.
2. I've never painted a mini in my life. These would be a GREAT choice for a first project...if I wanted to quickly hate painting and never do it again.  ;D Something much lower detail would be a better first shot. I may paint up Last Night on Earth at some point...how can you make a walking rotting corpse look wrong?!

that's a good read - you really ought to set that up as its own AAR thread :)

Thought about that about two minutes after I posted this.  ;D

AB - I saw Agents of Smersh in your acquisitions above.  I ran into those guys at Origins and the dude seemed really nice and the game looked neat.  Any thoughts on it?

I'm a bit mixed on it.

Quick synopsis for those who don't know what it is : Agents of Smersh is a storytelling game set in a campy 60's setting. Each of you plays a cheezy spy trying to thwart Dr. Lobo from destroying the world. You have your own ability scores that can be changed during the game as rewards for successfully completing encounters. Basically, eacvh player moves to a location on the board and an encounter is read from the book (which is massive). Having certain abilities lets you auto-succeed, otherwise you need to roll dice. There are custom dice in a draw bag, and you draw one die for each point you possess in the listed attribute. Some are great dice, some are horrendous. Roll success, and you pass. Fail, and you...fail. As you play, you gather evidence tokens that need to match what Lobo has at the level he's reached by game's end.

Anyway, back to my thoughts. It's a lot less chaotic and random than Tales of the Arabian Nights typically is. On the other hand, that lack of random chaos makes it a bit more predictable. I've soloed it a couple of times and we've played it as a group once. All three times, the game ended up being a complete cakewalk. There's an expansion either out now or coming soon that apparently can help deal with that, but I already dropped $60 on the game. So I'm thinking about putting it up for trade, but I'm not sure yet.

[BanzaiCat]

Seeing those Space Hulk pics reminds me of Doom: The Boardgame a bit.

[bayonetbrant]

OK, we need your thoughts on Kingdom Builder and Castles of Burgundy.  I've been eyeing both of those off and on for a while.  If I was still back in Columbus, I'd've checked 'em out at CABS.  But I'm not, so that limits me to begging for feedback from other places  :D

Kingdom Builder is a fun little game that plays better with 4 people than 2 or 3.  Each game is a bit different as you arrange the various boards together to make the playing surface.  Then random objectives are drawn that all the players use to score their "Kingdoms" with at the end of the game.  It is very easy to learn and would be a great family game.  Simple mechanics and rules.  There is also alot of good thinking and planning ahead that could go into the game.  It doesn't really compare to any other game I've played so its hard to give a reference point.  There are no dice.  Each turn the players draw a random terrain card and then play three of their buildings in the corresponding terrain adjacent to their existing builds if possible.  If not they can place them in that type of terrain anywhere on the map (this is where the planning and thinking ahead comes into play).  It would probably not keep a Grogs attention for very long but it would be great for the family or someone just getting into boardgames.

OK - I got to play this one at lunch today, and it's a fun game, at least the first time through.

Because of the "you must play adjacent to your existing pieces if you can" rule, there's a LOT hanging on your initial play on the map, so you need to be very careful about where you drop your initial settlements.  After that, you're adjusting on the fly, but a lot of that adjusting is reacting to your opponents' disruptions of your plans.  If you don't have a plan when you start, you're fooked.

[TheCommandTent]

OK, we need your thoughts on Kingdom Builder and Castles of Burgundy.  I've been eyeing both of those off and on for a while.  If I was still back in Columbus, I'd've checked 'em out at CABS.  But I'm not, so that limits me to begging for feedback from other places  :D

Kingdom Builder is a fun little game that plays better with 4 people than 2 or 3.  Each game is a bit different as you arrange the various boards together to make the playing surface.  Then random objectives are drawn that all the players use to score their "Kingdoms" with at the end of the game.  It is very easy to learn and would be a great family game.  Simple mechanics and rules.  There is also alot of good thinking and planning ahead that could go into the game.  It doesn't really compare to any other game I've played so its hard to give a reference point.  There are no dice.  Each turn the players draw a random terrain card and then play three of their buildings in the corresponding terrain adjacent to their existing builds if possible.  If not they can place them in that type of terrain anywhere on the map (this is where the planning and thinking ahead comes into play).  It would probably not keep a Grogs attention for very long but it would be great for the family or someone just getting into boardgames.

OK - I got to play this one at lunch today, and it's a fun game, at least the first time through.

Because of the "you must play adjacent to your existing pieces if you can" rule, there's a LOT hanging on your initial play on the map, so you need to be very careful about where you drop your initial settlements.  After that, you're adjusting on the fly, but a lot of that adjusting is reacting to your opponents' disruptions of your plans.  If you don't have a plan when you start, you're fooked.

Agreed.  You can really screw yourself over if you don't pick a starting spot that will do well to help you achieved the conditions listed on the point cards.

[TheCommandTent]

This past weekend I got a chance to game with the one buddy of mine who enjoys wargames. 




Here were the games we decided to pick from

Unfortuantly I didn't get pictures of everything we played.




The above is a small scenario we used to learn Infantry Attacks: August 1914





An ambush scenario from Combat Commander: Pacific

The Combat Commander series may be my favorite wargames at the moment.  I really enjoy the mechanics and the scenarios.

[bayonetbrant]

I've played about 4 of those

[TheCommandTent]

I've played about 4 of those

I am a bit surprised by that.  Is it due to not having time/opponents or lack of interest in the period or game itself?  Or just never getting around to them?

[bayonetbrant]

Mainly playing other stuff.  You don't have any W@W games in there, or ADP, or Maneouvre, or any of the old SPI games I've got :)

To be fair, you're not going to have any pix of Orange Crush, either, since I'm still working on it ;D

[TheCommandTent]

Mainly playing other stuff.  You don't have any W@W games in there, or ADP, or Maneouvre, or any of the old SPI games I've got :)

To be fair, you're not going to have any pix of Orange Crush, either, since I'm still working on it ;D

Key word there is old  :P

So now we have a name to this "secret game to rule all games" that you are making.

[bayonetbrant]

So now we have a name to this "secret game to rule all games" that you are making.

hardly a secret (it's been on CSW almost 7 years now... sigh...), and not the game you're thinking of

[TheCommandTent]

So now we have a name to this "secret game to rule all games" that you are making.

hardly a secret (it's been on CSW almost 7 years now... sigh...), and not the game you're thinking of

Ahh, my bad on that.  So does the one I thinking of have a name or is that still just an idea?

[bayonetbrant]

still just an idea?

show up at Origins and you'll find out ;)

[TheCommandTent]

still just an idea?

show up at Origins and you'll find out ;)

I would if I could.