Cardboard Children meet-up thread

[Xercies]

Got to play Chaos of the Old World, I thought it was...Ok, it didn't really light my fire as much as some other games but I did think it did have some interesting machanics. Khorne was a little overpowered I have to say.

What did light my fire was Agricola, which really did make me feel that I was a medieval farmer trying to survive all the harvests. There is so much to juggle in it its unbelievable, you got your food that you have to have nough to feed your family every harvest, you got other people blocking you from doing certain things, you have to manage to fill your farm full of things, and the various different occupations and minor improvements you can have, also you got to at the end have at least 1 thing of everything because otherwise your points go down. I definitly loved it.

Beginning to really like these complex boardgames. Also sorry Temple I didn't get to play anything with you.

[Daave]

I'm prepared to host something at my house, it's large enough for about 5 or 6 and I haven't murdered anyone in ages. I live a little out of the way but can be got to in about 30/40 minutes from Victoria or Clapham Junction (or London Bridge for that matter). Perhaps some sort of RPG-style game would be in order as it doesn't make sense to have a load of RPS peeps round and play Mousetrap.

Suggestions welcome. I was thinking something along the lines of Descent, Arkham Horror or even Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader. Possibly with a quicker, friendlier game to kick things off (maybe Settlers of Catan for want of a better idea).

[McDan]

Annoyed that going to festivals and pre-planned events have so far stopped me coming to one of these things. I just want to play boardgames! And not get murdered, but that's optional DLc, and I'll be buggered if I pay for it. Anyway, seeing as that went of into nowhere I really want to come to one, so I will? Yes, that seems right.

[Temple]

Curse you Xercies, so far you got to play Game of Thrones and now Agricola. I was addicted to that game before it came out, but gave up on boardgames just before it was actually released.

Sunday was good for me even if I did run off very early. Got to demo Battlelore again, this time to Chris who returned the favour with Chrononauts.
Was very interesting and something I'd love to try by myself. Just before we started I mentioned to Chris I don't like solo boardgames much -too much like solving a puzzle. After playing Chrono though I think I'd prefer to play it slow either alone or with other people willing to take their time, and create/pay attention to a story as you flip events through time.

Nice night last night went to LoB on Tuesdays. Spur of the moment thing. Initally, no one was there and I had to convince myself it was the right day. Ended up being shown Cuba and Brass both of which I'm glad to have seen, oh, and I won both :)
Cuba is a cube trading/economic engine thing about fruit (and Rum) and Brass is a Martin Wallace 19th century Northern England wool trading game. Heh, I don't understand how people can think boardgames are boring...
Starting to think playing this many new games is like demos for computer games in that I just go on to the next one.
So many games to play. For Free!

Anyway this post is to say that LoB on Sunday is happening on the 31st July as an extra date (I asked and received. Hey I want a meeleon dollas....) The Tour is over so I'm going for a full day session.
I'd be interested in getting a game of Runebound going. I'd suggest the vanilla game option just to check it out and see who likes it or otherwise. There can be a bit of downtime between turns, so maybe not too many players.
Chris says he is a bit fantasy adventure stylee played out due to Talisman so maybe the Midnight expansion (I have it, but never played it) with him as the bad guy might float his boat -I've been looking at reviews though and people seem to think the bad guy role is sort of boring.
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I feel way too conscious recommending games to play.

[Vexing Vision]

Agricola is a brilliant game. It took me ages to find an English version (plus Swamp-expansion), but it was worth it. I love how infinitely replayable it is.

If you guys are looking into lengthy games, I definitely recommend someone buy the Starcraft Boardgame, which is actually really good as well (though Zergs are unbalanced, but the Expansion which I don't have yet is supposed to fix that.)

[TillEulenspiegel]

Agricola is a brilliant game. It took me ages to find an English version (plus Swamp-expansion), but it was worth it. I love how infinitely replayable it is.

But playing with an English-speaking group and using German game terms is half the fun! :-)

I always like to grab the original version of a game rather than a translation; thankfully, most are either English or German.

[Vexing Vision]

I usually agree with you, but Z-Man games actually make really, really good translations of Rosenberg games. And a lot of our boardgaming friends are non-German.

And explaining 500+ cards before starting to play a game is a bit of a pain.

[BaronWR]

@Xercies: so you were the Slaanesh player then? I was playing Nurgle. I don't think that was the ideal way to play Chaos in the Old world: some crucial stuff (like how important ruination is) was not really explained fully, and Khorne is definitely overpowered in the hands of an experienced player. I liked the fairly strict limit on the number of turns and the way the world basically ended in the last round though. Playing it again might be interesting. Still haven't played Agricola and probably should.

[Xercies]

Yes i was Slaanesh. I have to agree on the Ruination thing, I was really surprised after it happened that I shot up like most of the board because of the points it gave you. If I knew about it before maybe i would have felt i actually earned those points instead of feeling like it was a little bit of luck.

I'm very tempted in buying Agricola, its quite cheap on Amazon from the looks of it.

[desvergeh]

I'm very tempted in buying Agricola, its quite cheap on Amazon from the looks of it.

Have to say Agricola is perhaps my favourite game. Deep, surprisingly engaging (considering the theme), but with enough variability to stop it going stale. Scales real well too. Not many games work so well 1 player and up to 5 players.

I think boardgameguru have it on special offer along with farmers of the moor. Also check out Through the Seasons, a free expansion for it that you just download and print-out.

Now off to setup a game of Dominant Species :)

[EndelNurk]

If you've been enjoying these economic games then I recommend Glen More. It's a pure euro-type city- (well village really) building game with some trading and resource production/management stuff. It's also based in Scotland and involves making lots of whisky. My group don't seem to really enjoy the euro stuff (I'll admit that I can only take it in small doses myself) but I really enjoyed Glen More and Puerto Rico. Will try and get someone to bring along Agricola as it sounds pretty great for me.

[DarkFenix]

@Daave: Does somebody actually currently own Descent? That'd be handy.

@Temple: I'd love to try Runebound to get a taste of that kind of thing. I'll be going on 31st, all day again.

[desvergeh]

I know most of you are London based... but just in case anyone from slightly further north is lurking around here -

Have found a birmingham group who meet every 1st sunday of the month:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/afternoonplay

Usually meet at a central bham coffee shop, but the next one on august 7th is a picnic event at a local park.

Will go along and report back.

[Daave]

I'd be prepared to buy it if I was convinced that people would play it with me, and maybe some of the other people could buy the expansions. Post in this thread if you're prepared to make a semi-long term commitment to a game and are up for not getting murdered*

[DarkFenix]

I'm officially up for committing to something fairly long-ish term, also have the spare cash to go towards Descent/expansions.

I believe we need exactly 5 people who can commit on a fairly regular basis.

[aravar]

This all sounds great! Some bigger games would be good to play. I like to Arkham Horror definitely, and if there's a motion to play Descent I'd be really interested. I'm happy to make semi long term commitment, but how often are people thinking of playing? I might be limited to once/twice a month, since I'm north of London. I'm also up for not getting murdered, so I think that makes me a suitable candidate.

On a related note I have the old Warhammer quest game from Games Workshop, but I don't know how it compares to Descent, and it's been ages since I've played it, although I was really keen on it when I was 14!

As for LoB events, I might actually be able to get to the one on the 31st, but I think I'm supposed to be going on a pub crawl the day before, so I wouldn't take it as definite.

[Temple]

So it ate my message at 2am this morning. It was witty.

My question is does anyone have Arkham Horror as I'd love to try. Looking for a big game I can play solo -I play WOW:the boardgame solo and love it.

I put a link in the group to my games list I just put up on BGG.
Some for a group of us are:
Twilight Imperium (large, long and complicated)
Starcraft (never played)
Warrior Knights (Quinns liked for the backstabbery)
War of the Ring (only ever half-played)
Quest for the Dragonlords (bit like Conquest of Nerath I think)
WOW: the adventure game (same scale as Runebound)

A bit like aravar with WQ, I've got Advanced Heroquest we could try for dungeon slashing -though saying that I'd need to check the pieces (also the D&D game I mention in the above link)
Happy to chip in on Descent and expansions as well. Holiday 13th-20th August, but other than that I am around.

Dunno if you got the email from the LoB organiser. He's quitting and wants someone else to take over. I felt he was getting more and more pissed off. He stopped selling games at LoB. Now telling people off for not RSVPing and playing two-player games on Tuesday nights.

@desvergh -you'll want to check with them that you will not get murdered before you go. Not everyone offers you the same cast-iron guarantee as our little group you know.

[DarkFenix]

Any idea what was getting under his skin? A bit of a surprise, seeing as he's been doing it for years.

[Temple]

Mentions he wanted more time to game :)
People were bothering him all the time and stopping him from getting his game on.

The (great) guy who demoed Cuba and Brass for a bunch of us told me how happy he was because he got to show games he actually liked playing rather than some of the crap ones.
He also complained about the super-nerd who was one of the group he was showing the games to -that dude lacked some social skills- so I cannot imagine how much worse it must be to be the boss.

[BaronWR]

@Temple, I do indeed have Arkham Horror: I'd organise a game, but I'm horrendously busy at the moment, and don't really have the 6 hours or so it takes to play at the moment.

In principle, I'd be quite keen on Descent, but it'll have to wait until at least some of my current stresses are out of the way. Once I have some idea where I'll be living next month I'll be able to give people a better idea.