What sort of Board Games do you Play (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

I have a review copy of Tiny Towns.

You are reviewing games now?

 

[BobO'Link]

You are reviewing games now?

Not exactly... I'm an Amazon Vine member and that one came up in my queue so I claimed a copy. I will take a eurostyle board game if it's offered. I'll do a bit of research to see if it might be compatible with our likes and if so will go for it. I wish I got more of 'em in my queue. I've gotten 3 or 4 in the past few years - not nearly enough though. Most of the game offerings are those flash-in-the-pan type kids games (the kind you dread your kids wanting) or Ameritrash type games (true junk type stuff - the ones you inwardly groan about if at a party when one gets broken out).

 

[Sam Posten]

Neat, I may have to look into that

 

[DaveF]

Tiny Towns is a solid Euro game. Well worth trying out.

 

[Sam Posten]

Not my bag unfortunately.

 

[DaveF]

Played Mechs vs Minions last night. I’ll try to say more when I’ve got time. In short I think you folks would like it or love it.

 

[BobO'Link]

I generally like that type game and it has minis too (I'm a sucker for good minis)! WOW!

I look it up on boardgamegeek and see it's $120+ (with the low prices for used copies) at Amazon!!?!?! Well... that's a deal breaker no matter how good it might be. I then looked at some reviews:

Tom, Zee, and Sam (dicetower reviews) all gave it 2 thumbs up. Rhado loved it (a big deal as he's 2-player only and that's what I get into quite frequently).

Tom says it's only available *officially* from one place, and only $75, so I look that up expecting a price increase (after all, that review is over 3 years old):

https://merch.riotgames.com/en_US/collection/board-games

The direct order price is more like it - still just $75 + shipping. For me that'd be ~$86. It's still a bit steep but I can justify that at some point. And the amount of stuff in that box is absolutely amazing! Even more so at the current price!

 

[DaveF]

The production quality is exceptional. The parts quality is superb.

 

[Sam Posten]

View attachment 59164
Played Mechs vs Minions last night. I’ll try to say more when I’ve got time. In short I think you folks would like it or love it.

It goes for $150 or I'd already have it

 

[BobO'Link]

The production quality is exceptional. The parts quality is superb.

And there's a *ton* of stuff in that box... I was amazed watching that dicetower review as they kept pulling layers out of the box and there would be another below it. I think there were 4 layers of minis and stuff.

 

[DaveF]

The MSRP for MvM is $75, as Bob found. I’ve not looked into it myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if, like WingSpan, it’s in short supply and going for well above list price.

 

[BobO'Link]

The MSRP for MvM is $75, as Bob found. I’ve not looked into it myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if, like WingSpan, it’s in short supply and going for well above list price.

It's apparently still available from the manufacturer at the link I posted above. It's on "Wave Three" which I'm taking to mean is the 3rd printing. You can add it to a cart and I went though as far as the entering payment information page and had no issues so I'd guess an order will go through. It would be $86.17 shipped for my address.

 

[DaveF]

I’m not sure my wife and regular gaming friends would be into it. But if I could play it I’d buy.

 

[Sam Posten]

OK some other day tho! I have seen it played and it looks really cool, gotta save for WWDC tho =)

 

[BobO'Link]

My oldest granddaughter (12) and I played "Cytosis: A Cell Biology Game" a couple of nights ago. Wow! What a fun game! You have so many options that it's hard to get completely "locked out" in a turn. There are fun bonuses you can earn with strategy playing a large part. There's a bit of luck with cards that determine what cell structure you're building but you get choice in those via a purchase mechanism. You really need to keep up with what other players are building plus plan your own path to completing the cells you're building. You're constantly thinking about what's next. Learning the game meant an almost 2 hour session but it didn't feel that long. It's supposed to take 60-90 minutes (depending on player count - it supports up to 5) and I can see that feeling much shorter. I'm ready for another session with this one.

And it's a *learning* game as the mechanisms to create your cell structures is accurate. I'd have never thought a learning game would be this much fun!

 

[DaveF]

Recent purchases:

• Dixit 10th Anniversary pack
• Gravwell (good tactical fun for 2; chaos for four )
• Imhotep (solid Euro)
• Barenpark (played it at Mox Games and bought it for anniversary present. Must buy if you like Patchwork)
• Ganz Schön Clever by BrettspielWelt (meh four player roll and write. But a quick and fun little single player game)
  https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ganz-schön-clever/id1411348057

 

[BobO'Link]

I have Barenpark on my various wish lists. It looks much more interesting then Patchwork. Maybe it's the theme that resonates with me better as they look very similar.

I picked up a copy of Imhotep a few months back as a blind buy when it was on sale really cheap (~$16) as it looked interesting. We've yet to play it. It's nice to see another positive comment on it. There's an expansion for it that's calling my name in spite of not yet getting it to the table. It looks like more of the same but different.

 

[DaveF]

Barenpark is a four player game with multiple avenues to when and a more complex puzzle aspect. Initial play left us very impressed, and top of our list to buy sooner than later.

Patchwork is simple elegance as a two player game. Barenpark appears to be inspired by Patchwork in its basic gameplay theme of fitting tetris pieces together. But they are quite different games.

At initial play, I'd get Barenpark before Imhotep. At least insofar as Barenpark was a better two player experience. Haven't tried Imhotep with 3 or 4 players yet. I think it will get more interesting.

 

[BobO'Link]

This afternoon my son, daughter, 2 oldest grandkids, and I played Cytosis. There were 3 new-to-the-game players which slowed things down a bit but everyone had a good time. It sped up after 4-5 rounds as everyone was catching on to what they needed to be doing. We took about 2 hours for the game which I felt was quite reasonable as that included a pre-game explanation of how to play. The plus is everyone indicated they'd play again with my grandson (age 15) saying he really enjoyed it. He also won and I came from trailing everyone by ~15 points to take 2nd with my final cell completion and adding end-game bonus points. Last place was only 8 points off first.

While I really enjoyed the 2 player game the additional challenges presented by a full 5 players made it even better. You really have to be on your toes and plan alternate moves for your turn as it seems someone will always scuttle one of them. It's a very tight game.

I'm looking hard at picking up the virus expansion. This originally came in the box but they removed it to lower the cost and put a 2 player board on the back of the 3-5 player board. The first edition has a board geared towards the virus expansion on the reverse with rules on what cards to remove and spaces to "black out" on the main board for a 2 player game.

 

[Sam Posten]

If you like Cytosis try their other game Virucide.

Dixit:

Actually I like Dixit waaaay more than Mysterium but still those clue type games are not my bag. Others in my game group really dig them so YMMV. I'm just grumpy.