What I Played At Some Point: JoCoCruise

One Night Werewolf, Imperial Settlers, Red7, Sheriff of Nottingham, Concept, Glass Road, Battlestar Galactica, Exploding Kittens, Johann Sebastian Joust, AquaSphere, Two Rooms and a Boom, Pairs, Lost Legacy, Dixit, Story Wars, The Resistance, Rock Band, Fantasy Life

I have been away on a cruise! A hip cruise, named after a guy with long, puffy hair, so it's okay, I'm not a huge nerd. That's not what this cruise is about, despite the insistence of literally everyone else I was with on the boat.

ANYWAY, this trip was mainly about playing board games in the best game room on the high seas. New games, old games, any game! That's why I went, for the great game room and maybe for some showing off. So let's go through what I played over the long week, possibly in alphabetical order.

What I Played Today: August 21

Kitsune, Battlestar Galactica

At the game store, some guy walked in and demoed this game that was like Munchkin, but with dice, and I wasn't the hugest fan. The art was really good though, that's nice. But I don't know, it's being kickstarted, look it up, I guess.

AND THEN BATTLESTAR GALACTICA! You may not have heard, on account of it being insane, but they just recently released another expansion based on the much maligned fourth season that went off the air four years ago! Holy crap! Anyway, the majority of this expansion are weird bandaids for things didn't need huge fixes to begin with, which is ODD. Like, it goes out of its way to fix Cylon Leaders (good fix!) and help an issue with the chase fleet expansion and make the treachery deck have a lot more teeth and ONE MORE fix to the imperfect balance issue, why am I paying for these changes? But it adds another brutal scenario with some huge implications and some neat new characters and I would have bought this regardless so...

So we set up a game of five and I made the decision to just play with base and Daybreak. (I discovered a good 25% of the way through the game that this kinda screwed things up, as it accidentally nuked the politics deck whoops) So we pulled out all the previous expansion stuff and put the rest in, and select our characters, and I decide to be a Cylon leader because I'm a jerk. We get into the game and play as normal; everything is going pretty well, with not too many losses and we gained a lot of resources somehow. Morale took a huge beating (which I didn't like because I wanted it to stay above four) but we have three inspirations speeches succeed, which was weird! And then I make a miscalculation and we have a really crappy check in which we learn the true power of the treachery deck when it dumps three or four bad things on us, as well as nuking the score, and so everyone has a mutiny card, and then everyone starts gaining them and going to prison, so that slows things down a lot. The mutiny adds just this huge issue because it is outrageously easy to get them, so you gotta use them and most of the time it's not a great idea.

Then the Cylon realized that time was slim and it was time to start cracking skulls! So he reveals (it was who I thought it was), and starts trying to talk me into hanging with him, and so I saw, "Listen, if you can end this quickly, I'm in," because my Cylons objectives is to make the game end with both morale and population pretty high. My human objectives are easier to achieve, but the humans kept on doing things I didn't want them to do, so I went full Cylon, and the humans just kept getting fantastic rolls and the Cylons didn't have a chance. At distance 8, we eventually called it for the humans, and while I MIGHT have been able to win, it wasn't guaranteed. But I think they have finally nailed down all the problems (I HOPE), and this expansion just feels good. The new Cylon motives are great, the mutineer adds some wackiness, the new treachery deck is BRUTAL but also a bit of fun, and who knows about the new scenario. I should really get some patient people and play through all of those one day.

What I Played Today: March 1

Shadows Over Camelot, Incan Gold, Battlestar Galactica, Spaceteam, Skulls and Roses

To start the game night, I suggest a game of Shadows Over Camelot. I ended up being dealt the traitor card, and just kinda sat back and watch the goddamn chaos. We made a few bad calls, and when the turn came to me, I sat back and waiting to hear if someone had a bad idea, then went with it, why not. We sat at six black swords and everyone knew that as soon as it was the traitor's turn, they would accuse someone and the game would be over, so we had a sitdown, trying to figure out just who the traitor was. It was between me and another guy, and...I just did nothing, pointing out facts, and voila, someone else was accused and I won. Hurray.

Then I guess Incan Gold? I won for once, because whenever there were five or more points just sitting in the dungeon, I ran, and it worked out for me. I was on a winning streak!

And then there was a call for Battlestar Galactica. I will never say no! So I pulled it out, quickly explained the various expansions I love to play with, and we were on our way! Our first Cylon made a crucial mistake by throwing in cards that would quickly identify him as the only one who could have possibly blown the check (rookie mistake), and we had Cally in the game, so of course he got SHOT IN THE FACE! (Man, I love Cally.)

Then...shit went bad after the sleeper phase, when President Baltar had both a Personal Goal to have the President in jail and an Arrest Order, and a complete lack of understanding how shit can go completely wrong during the sleeper phase. So on his turn, he throws himself in jail (WHAT?) and the turn right after, Cally goes to the Admiral's Quarters and says, "Josh is a Cylon, let's throw him in the Brig." This is WRONG, but he tosses all of his cards into it, and nobody backs me up, so I get brigged and he immediately changes his attitude to "Yeah, I'm a goddamn Cylon!" So, two humans in jail (out of three), and our fuel just DRAINS, and it's game over at the next jump phase when we just don't have enough to keep going. Still, the circumstances were a bit hilarious.

Then we started bitching about MOBAs? I don't know, I wasn't paying attention, I just knew that a new addition to the game group had an iPhone, so I pushed Spaceteam. For a good fifteen minutes. But we started playing, and he realized that this game was in fact incredible (it always happens), and I wait patiently for the Android release, because apparently Apple is a four-letter word here in Minnesota.

We considered going to the pizza place, but we balked, so instead we played Skull and Roses (I lost), and went to Perkins instead. I feel I am giving you too many details. If you were an insane person who followed this blog, you might be able to follow me and then murder me. Luckily, I am not nearly that popular.

What I Played Today: February 27

Battlestar Galatica, Guild Wars 2

Some people were excited to play Battlestar Galatica, and I was one of them! It has been a while! It was the base game, although pretty much everyone knew the rules for the expansions and we kept talking about them, because why not? Why not talk endlessly about a game we aren't actually playing.

Anyway, we used a variant that got rid of the sympathizer, because everyone hates the sympathizer, and had just a disaster of a first jump, with two deployment cards flipping and losing a skill check that would have bumped us up on the jump track, which really put into focus who was a potential Cylon. After getting down to 4 (4!) population, we jump, and then continue to get banged around in space. Someone I trusted got to check a Cylon card and managed to find one, but we let him stay running around for a little while because he was a pilot, but eventually he was brigged.

Then I started to put together some info, and called out the last Cylon, confident I had enough information to brig him, since he had been less than helpful and he had to be a Cylon if our current brigged mate was a Cylon. My first brig attempt failed because he used his once-per-game (maybe the first time I saw someone actually use Chief's once-per-game), but after a miscalculation on the Cylon's part where he was caught in a lie about what he had in his hand during a check, we brigged him, and hoped that maybe they would sit there quietly while we tried to get through space with exactly one population.

They didn't, they revealed, and the crisis deck HATED us, so we ended up losing, even though we should have lost a long time ago. It was a little frustrating just going through the motions, because none of our decisions mattered, really. Why do we have to spend 45 minutes just to lose the game? We found the Cylons! I don't know, it's my least favorite part of the game, when you are spinning your wheels trying to get past the crappy difficulty curve of the game. But hey, I caught the Cylons!

Also played some Guild Wars 2, did the daily quest, mostly by just running around like a lunatic around a zone. One of the objectives was kill 30 ambient critters, you know, squirrels and rats and stuff, and I felt like a psychopath. "I need to find another rabbit to viciously murder!"

What I Played Today: December 29

Race for the Galaxy, Glory to Rome, Battlestar Galactica, Guild Wars 2

Some dudes wanted to play some board games, and I said sure. There were only three of us, but a couple of guys who are apparently huge in the Twilight Imperium scene joined us for some games. First a game of Race for the Galaxy, which went fine, I got second, I managed to nail some good achievements. I really don't understand why my group in the Bay Area never wanted to use the achievements, they really help drive some strategies.

Also got to crack open the new set of Glory to Rome that I acquired. Sure, I already owned the game. After some slow explanation, the game started, and I must admit, this game is weird. It has a very obvious early-mid-late cycle to it, in which everyone is on even ground early on and suddenly everything sucks later, in which a lot of actions become invalidated later on that there is somehow little interaction at the end of the game. I managed to tie for last after an obvious leader kind of forced us to end the game before he got too far ahead. But....I like it. It's a little complex, and it would really work better as a computer game because the playmat just doesn't work, but I think I like it.

Then a game of BSG suddenly! With four people, which the worst idea! We were doing alright at the beginning, as expected, with a huge dump of invasions early on, but a Cylon admiral who managed to trick me completely trusting him kind of tanked us, as we got stuck with a huge invasion force that we couldn't combat and a whole ton of civilian ships blew up in a single turn. And...of course, I realized ten minutes later that we made a critical mistake and I should have seen it. But it was fun, at least.

And then I really fell into the Guild Wars 2 rabbit hole. I played for HOURS. HOURS! I went to the Charr homeland and fought a bunch of Ascalon ghosts, which made me feel super shitty, because I liked those guys, but I managed to march through the zone like a boss, and I am really just tunneling through the levels. I respect the decision to de-level you to an appropriate level based on where you are standing, because it makes the game constantly challenging, and really recreates the sense of vanquishing that I enjoy from Guild Wars. Sure, I still have a number of skills based on my overall level, which makes it slightly easier, but still, challenging. And frankly, in some games, I love doing everything.

What I Played Today: October 24

Battlestar Galactica, Hey That's My Fish, Lemonade Stand

A night specially for Battlestar, pretty good. Okay, first, a warm-up game of Hey, That's My Fish, but then Battlestar!

Because it was mostly new players, it was the base set, and while I missed some of the things I was used to (Treachery Cards, 0-power cards, etc.), I had included some crises from the expansion and I don't think it was too terribly unbalanced. We were doing alright to the halfway point, when someone I thought might be a Cylon used his power to effectively clear another player. Then, the game was cut in twain to me, and I figured the Cylons were among two groups. Of course, I was wrong, but I was able to say, "Hey, don't give that guy an Executive Order, he's going to reveal if you do." And then I was right!

The lone revealed Cylon continued to act like a jerk to most everyone, and the other players all acted human. However, most of us were acting more human than the others, and it became clear that the other Cylon was doing a bad job of fooling us, and the revealed Cylon was getting angry because he thought the human team was doing quite well and he really wanted help. Eventually the last Cylon revealed, right when the thought the humans were home free, and then...we just never drew any jump cards. Like, five or six crises with no jumps in a row. It was poor luck, and the humans lost. Phooey. But luckily, our compatriots at the other table managed to pull of an unlikely victory for the humans, so at least it was evenly split.

Then I played a game in a bar, which went as well as it usually does, but the game was kinda fun, Lemonade Stand. It's a simple press-your-luck game involving selling lemonade. You prepare your lemonade and hope it doesn't rain. During the game we played, it always goddamn rained.

What I Played Today: April 16

Battlestar Galactica, Gosu, Lords of Waterdeep

I got BSG to the table! Everybody start applauding! I did have some help, someone wanted to play, and I really played up the "playable in one and a half hours" part. We did finally get five, and we got into space! I...kinda love the short variant. The game still is reasonably difficult, the intrigue is still there, and it still feels like Battlestar. We had an interesting game, in which one of the Cylons just kinda...forgot he was a Cylon, but the humans still lost because we got slammed with damage at the end of the second jump, and there was a boarding party just walzing up. Even with some serious deck stacking, we couldn't pull it off, and the lone revealed Cylon was able to take up to task. But I enjoyed it, although it might have been better if the two new players didn't pull Cylon. And all it took was lending a game of mine to someone whose last name I don't know! That can't end badly, right?

Then moved to a new location and played Gosu, with all expansion cards, and I just could not keep up. I started with a strong play, but my opponent killed it, and it was downhill from there. I just couldn't handle his card engine, and he kept killing my guys every chance he got. The new tribes do play pretty well, lot of interesting synergies, but most require very specific cards. The dragon clan I don't like, because to really use their specials, you have to do some ridiculously impossible things. Come on, make those dragon tokens easier to get, fellas.

Then played Lords of Waterdeep, which is a pretty alright worker placement. You slowly build up teams of adventurers and send them out of quests, as well as build buildings and play some intrigue cards. It's kinda random, but fairly well balanced besides...nobody can really jump ahead, and they can slowed down if you need them to. I don't know, I like it better than Finca.

What I Played Today: September 10

Revolution, Quarriors, (Darts), Spot It, No Thanks, Battlestar Galactica, Sentinels of the Universe

I went into the woods today to play games! I really don't know why I had to go into the woods to do that, but it was pretty fun. I also may not have remembered all the games, because apparently first rule of Cabin Games is you must play while buzzed.

First on the table was Revolution, which I lost badly. Like, 100 points behind the other two players badly. I just was not getting the resources I need and kept getting ganked by spies. So...that sucks.

I showed off Quarriors, and the players liked it a lot. The games do move really quickly though, as once a player has a really good turn, there's nothing stopping them from having another really good turn after they cull. The winner managed to get two turns of three assistants, which really boosted her score, and after that it just avalanched.

We played darts too, and it definitely was darts. I only put it in scare brackets because I cheated to end the game, because it was just going nowhere, so I don't count that as playing.

A couple of short games. The first was No Thanks, which I had never played, and it's an interesting game. A numbered card will flip, and you can either take it and add to your score (which you don't want), or put a chip on it and pass to the next player. Each chip is worth negative points, so eventually it's worth it to take the card, and you only count the lowest card in a sequential set, so you also want to grab numbers close to ones you already have. It's a tense little affair, I said at one point if all games are played in terrified silence, but it seems like a good plan. Also played Spot It, a cute kid's game where each card has a bunch of images on it, and you want to match them up with the card in your hand. Nothing I can really say about it.

Then the party really got started, because it was BSG time, brothers! This was a long long game. I choose to be a Cylon Leader, because I've never been one, and I got the super easy mission of playing on the human side while making sure at leave five spaceships blow up. In every single game I've ever played, all the spaceship blow up, so this was a no brainer, just a matter of getting the table to trust me and make sure they win, which I tried a bit by making the cylons think I'm on their side. It's a weird dynamic, and I like the reversal, trying to get the bad guys to think I'm on their side. The game went really really well for the human though, as they passed nearly all their tests and were able to gain back the majority of the resources they had lost. It didn't even become a problem until after the cylons revealed. There were a couple of intentional executions, which I hadn't seen before. The weirdest thing was when the president had a choice to brig any character. I was on the ship, so I assumed I was about to get the can, but he instead put himself in the brig, and managed to acheive two personal goals in doing so.

Eventually time and alcohol began to wear on the game though, as we entered the fourth hour of play and we just kinda wanted to finish. The humans were not in danger of losing, but were also trucking through space really really slowly, and at one point, there was some drunken doubt that there weren't the right number of cylons. In a move I regret, I did eventually give in to the complaints and checked everyone's loyalty cards real quick, and of course there were the right number, one of the cylons was just extra helpful to throw off suspicion, and because he liked blowing up spaceships. Eventually the game did boil down, and the humans won. It was an odd game.

Then a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse, this time against Grand Warlord Voss and his army of dumb jerks. This one came down to the wire, with one of the players dying from moving too fast, and we were only saved because an environment card through down a defense bubble on the game, giving us time to relax. I played as Haka, which has an interesting dynamic where he has a few powers that allow him to can a bunch of cards for a one time effect, but no real way to build up his hand. I don't know, he seems to be the least thematically consistent.

Then I watched Wacky Races! I can't explain how exciting this seems at the time.

What I Played Today: August 28

Battlestar Galactica, Gunstringer, Guild Wars 2, Penny Arcade: Gamers vs. Evil, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Quarriors

I had one goal today, and I achieved it. I was trying to read the rules to another Asmadi game (I do not get these guys), when I saw a call on Twitter for more players for BSG, and I was in. Although I think my evil streak is officially over, as I was neither a cylon nor did I win. The game started easily, we got out of the mess pretty quickly, and were a bit at a loss of what to do. I noticed a lot of blue cards were showing up, which was weird, so I started to suspect Chief, and when Adama decided to use his once-a-game to fill his hands with blues, my cylon radar went off. After the flip, Boomer went to jail, but immediately broke out and insta-won a really good crisis for us, and while this was really nice, it was also so suspiciously helpful that I still suspected her.

BUT it was all for not, as during a player's turn, they had the feeling they should give an executive order to Adama. I told them not to do it, because I did not trust him, even though he just threw five cards into a skill check that we passed, but it was too late, and Adama revealed. Shortly after, Chief revealed, and they let us know they were at it from the beginning of the game, which I hadn't realized. Space soon became a disaster, and we couldn't keep up, especially after the mass assault supercrisis, so the humans lost while the cylons high-fived. I tried to warn the first guy, is all I'm saying.

At the Kinect booth, I got in to try the Gunstringer, and it works pretty well! You just move your one hand to get the guy to move, and then you shoot with the other. It is good enough for me to buy with money!

In the last hour of the convention, the line for Guild Wars 2 finally let up, and even though I could only manage to get 20 minutes in, I realized it was worth it, and played that for a little bit. I was on the fence with all the hype, the game showing up year and year, the radio silence with the last class, the no release date nonsense. Then I played it, and it's really dang good. I like a lot of it, I like the character creation, I like how they handle skills, I like their active event system or whatever they are calling it, I like it. Now, I realize that it is not Guild Wars, but you know? If it's as good overall as it seemed in those few minutes, then it doesn't need to be. If this game will just show us that they actually want us to play it before the heat death of the universe, I am totally down.

Then, after the con, the game of the show (the literal game) was played again, and it went fine. Lot of PVP Attacks, we ran out of PAX POX, which is their cheeky name for the curse card. One thing I notice is that at the end I never really know who won or lost, because by that point it is not important. It's also not very easy to ramp up to buying a high victory card every turn, because there is never a reason to flow towards all-power or all-tokens. You want to spend all your currency every turn, and so you always have just not enough to buy the boss cards.

After dinner, we played the little indie game I bought, Sentinels of the Multiverse, and it's a pretty good time. It's a coop game, four heroes against a villain, and it's real simple. Each players gets their own unique deck based on their hero's flavor. Just have the villain play a card, then each hero plays a card, uses a power, and draws a card, then the enviroment plays a card, and so forth until everyone dies or the villain is defeated. It's low of materials, as all you get is a lot of cards, and there's quite a bit of tracking needed, but which such a simple idea and has so much room for expansion and variety that I like it a lot. Also, the fact that it was only $40 in a tiny box when any other company would have charged $60 is a nice bonus. I want to play it more.

One late fast game of Quarriors; I managed to win because I got rid of nearly all my dice except a few pretty good ones, and I just ramped quickly towards victory, and then the fun times were done. But it was a great PAX, I had a great dang time.

What I Played Today: June 26

Trenched, Star Trek, Dixit, Nightfall, Battlestar Galactica

I invited everyone in town over for a game day, and we played some games. While everyone walked in, I was in the middle of a mission in Trenched, which is getting harder, as I had to defend two bases and had some jerks show up every few minutes to blow up my turrets. I had made an error in turret placement, and because I needed to bring a particular type of turret, I was in the tiny mech, making combat difficult. I managed to pass with 21% health on the bases, but I am going to need some more experience to acquaint myself on how this game actually works.

We played a game of Star Trek with a full crew, which has the noticeable advantage of often allowing you to get bonuses in skill checks for having multiple helpers, but your turn also comes around a lot less often, meaning you might have to swing the check with Uhura when it would be more useful to have Spock do it, but you just can’t wait two more turns to try it. But we did pretty well, getting the silver palm, and if we had concentrated in space more, we could have gotten the highest honor. Now I think it’s time to try it on moderate difficulty.

We also played a game of Dixit, which went pretty well, everyone had fun. I never have anything to saw about Dixit, it’s a pretty abstract game.

There was a mild attempt to get some people to try out Nightfall, but then the pizza showed up and somebody was playing Portal 2 and everyone stopped to watch him play that for a good hour and so we didn’t even make it thorough the first round. It was alright, my feelings aren’t hurt, but it was weird to have a game abort itself like that.

After much waiting, Battlestar Galactica made it onto the table again. We had tried to get everyone to play, but some people just started getting tired, so we had five players and a few onlookers. I finally got the Ionion Nebula expansion on the table how I wanted, so we started playing with that. Someone was the Cylon leader, and he immediately started the game trying to get a Super Crisis, so I assumed that he wanted us dead and now. We had no problem in space, which was weird, and after the first jump, it looked pretty stable.

Then, it became clear that people wanted to leave soon, and we would not be able to complete a game, so I made the executive decision to fast forward the game. I gave everyone their second loyalty card, destroyed a bunch of ships, knocked down the dials down by half and said, okay, let’s go from here. The cylon revealed immediately because he realized the game was afoot, and started to tear us apart. Two of our crew were sent to sickbay, but we had no trouble making the jump to the nebula. There the final decisions were made, and I really like this part of the game. I like how the decisions really impacted the game and who got screwed or helped. It turned out that we all ended up with few enough trauma tokens that nobody got expelled from the game, and we raced towards the last jump, with our morale and population in the tank and the decision points constantly trying to tick away our last strength.

Suddenly it was the Cylon leader’s turn, and after I reminded him that his once-per-game is super awesome, giving him three actions in a single turn, he jumped onto the Battlestar and immediately slammed on the FTL button, with our bar half-way done. He played the +2 to any die roll card, which confused me, but I quickly activated my once-per-game to force the die roll to be an 8, winning the game for the humans. It turns out the cylon leader wanted the humans to win, but had to play a supercrisis card, which was why he did what he did. Although he still left the game to a 50-50 chance, which seemed a bit cavalier. If only he had revealed what he was up to better, so I could have announced the die result sooner.

But I had fun! Hurray fun!

What I Played Today: June 15

Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Rez


Game night with a couple of easy going new players. Before they showed up, a quick exhibition game of the new Star Trek cooperative game, which is pretty good, if a little brutal at times. You have to manage three different missions on the surface while worrying about the encroaching klingon warbird that’s bearing down on you above, all before you run out of time. It manages most of its challenges with die rolls, but the dice are unique by being labeled 1-5 and then 7, with the 7 forcing you to take damage when you roll them. It’s a bit of a mess, and we kept getting waylaid by non-essential missions that prevented us from leaving, but after we realized we were stronger together than alone, we started tearing through the missions, and won the game with a commendation.

Battlestar Galactica was on the table again. We played the most basic game, only adding the new 0 and 6 cards from the newest expansion (mostly by accident), and teaching them the ropes. There was a lot of space battle in this game, and while I spent the first turn getting the presidency (because I want power), we mostly struggled to tamp down crises in the beginning, while our population dropped to 4 before the sleeper agent phase. Then, when this flipped, two of us were sent to the brig. I managed to escape easily, but the other player spent about six rounds there, first because I refused to help him, then because the card flops just weren’t working. I figured that the cylon was one of two new players, but just could not tell because they were both helpful, so at the fourth player’s suggestion, I helped get both of them in the brig, because either way, at least they couldn’t hurt us. The true cylon used a special card to leap out, but didn’t reveal right away, and further attempts to get her in were unsuccessful, while our poor ally spent the entire time just sitting in prison. The cylon FINALLY revealed, but it was too late, we were already on the winning trajectory, and we finally busted the last human out of jail and jumped to Kobol. I apologized profusely to the new player, hoping that he was, in fact, having fun, despite the fact that he had done nothing important for the last half of the game. Both players had a good time though, which was good to see, because this game can be such a friend blender, and these people were only acquaintances. But I won again!

Somehow I also ended up playing a few minutes of Rez, which was fine.

What I Played Today: March 19

7 Wonders, Ascension, Battlestar Galactica, Taboo

Unexpected game day today, where I went to play with the Tuesday night group for the afternoon. We started with a game of 7 Wonders, which I like but hadn’t played in months. As it turns out, everyone else either had played it way too much (because it hosts a lot of players, so it was popular at the store) or didn’t like it much, but the game plays fast, so it was over quickly. I did not win, focusing on only building things that were free to me so I didn’t have to waste time collecting resources, but it didn’t work, and while I found a workaround that allowed me to build the best victory card in the game, it wasn’t nearly enough.

I also finally played Ascension, which is…fine. I really don’t understand why the first thing anyone says about the game is that it was designed by a professional Magic player, because the gameplay isn’t exactly revolutionary and frankly seems like it’s easily unbalanced. All the cards come from a common deck, and come out pretty much at random, so you have little control over building a strategy, because the cards that will be available to buy and the cards you’ll have in your hand are completely out of your control. The game looks great, and I like the different factions, but it doesn’t seem exceptional, and I’m confused why the designer’s “credentials” are so regarded.

Battlestar Galactica, baby! We set up and were ready to go. There was a lot of Cylon envy on the table, so of course we got the popular players, Baltar, a Cylon leader, and then I picked up Ellen Tigh, because she is the most destructive as a Cylon. So I was a bit guilty of it too. The game started fine, as it usually does, although the Admiral made a lot of strange decisions, including sending us to a destination I’ve never seen before, where you lose half your fuel but the next jump takes half as long. Neat card…if you can handle it. The Cylon leader jumped on board, and we immediately brigged her, because we couldn’t be sure. I wish we hadn’t, because she went into full aggro after that, being really mean.

Then the card flip, and I somehow didn’t get to be a Cylon, but only because there was one Cylon in the deck, and it went to the one person whose been a Cylon every other time we’ve played. She tried to play it cool, but made some really unfortunate decisions that made me certain she was evil, including refusing to be executed when the other option was much worse, and spending a turn in which we were in deep trouble scouting ahead, which was not at all useful. I tried to lobby to get her into the brig, but the quorum wasn’t convinced (because I have a reputation of not being trustworthy, wonder why), and she flips and we are in deep, being pushed back down the jump and then getting quite a few crises that didn’t move us forward, so we languished and died in space. The new expansion really requires you to have multiple pilots, because if you lose a pilot to the toasters, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have all the civilian ships get exploded. I tried to pull our bacon out of the fire, but no luck.

Then a game of Taboo, a game where you guess things. It went about as well as every guess things I’ve played, fun enough, but eventually it gets a bit nervewracking as you worry about if you’re going to get things right or not. There were some moments of culture clash with my partner where we weren’t on the same wavelength, but we eventually got it together. There was also a hilarious moment in which one team got the word “Joe,” which is the name of one of the guys playing with us. So the describer says to effect, “That guy over there.” The guesser misinterpreted the clue and assumed the describer was talking about her neighbor and guesses “Douchebag,” which was probably the worst possible thing that could be said that wasn’t actual profanity. The room erupts in laughter, and we have a story that she will be unable to live down. Hopefully nobody’s feelings actually got hurt.

What I Played Today: January 11

Innovation, Battlestar Galactica

Someone made a promise that they would bring Battlestar to game night, so of course I rushed over there after work. Before that game, I played a game of Innovation with someone whose been asking to play it for what feels like months now, so that he could show it to his wife, and she didn’t like it. The problem with Innovation is that a lot of your actions are dependent on the cards you get; get bad cards, or cards that combo with cards you don’t have, or get rocked by a demand that you didn’t see, and it just sucks. The fact that I wanted the game to end as soon as possible also didn’t help, I guess. But one player got in a great scoring position, able to grab up a lot of points when everyone else was sitting on nothing, and he eventually and inevitably won.

Then onto Battlestar, and wonder of fucking wonders, I was a Cylon again. I didn’t even touch the loyalty deck this time around, so it must be a case of me just being naturally deceitful. I am completely shocked that anyone trusts me anymore. Anyway, we started off pretty well, playing with only the personal goals and the cylon fleet (I can understand not wanting to play with the Ionian Nebula, it can be a bit of a hassle, so this was probably the best bet.) Everything was going great for the humans, with two pilots and adequate space battles when the crisis that shut down peeking at loyalties if it failed came up. The first two to put in balked and refused to assist, which should have been the first sign, as I put in a card to sabotage, as did the person to my left, and then the fifth person, who seemed willing to assist…didn’t. So we end up with only seven cards in the check, four of them bad, which points a huge sign at both of us, while telling each other that we are friends in need of human death. Unfortunately, it was a very public display, and we were both on the rack unless one of us implicated the other.

Luckily or not, I had the perfect opportunity, because I was playing the character who could execute someone once per game. After trying to make an impassioned argument that he MIGHT have tried to sabotage the check so that no one inadvertently looked at his Final Five card, causing unwanted destruction, when he says, “Oh, we aren’t playing with those.” Which was pretty stupid, because now I had no choice but to shoot him in the head, or I was getting brigged. So I pull the trigger, he is a toaster, and I’m in the clear. He moped on the Resurrection Ship for a few turns to draw super crisis cards, while I decided that it would be best if I was president, so that I could bang down food as fast as possible if I needed to. I also got a few really sweet opportunities to throw checks and be useless. Because I had to throw in at least two cards and got a large spread, I would toss in cards that equaled zero together, so it looked like I was helping, but also draining my hand. One time I threw in a 5 and 6 that would really help the check…and also the new 0 card that removed all 5s and 6s from the skill check. That was really clever and no fingers could be pointed. “I tried to help, really!”

But it turns out the Cylons didn’t need to work that hard. We were getting nowhere on the jump track for a few cycles and a lot of shitty rolls prevented us from getting rid of any basestars, and the humans couldn’t quite get focused, unable to take care of space and getting constantly flustered with skill checks. I withheld my repair cards as I watched the vipers slowly break until there was one left, and revealed to slap a centurion onto the ship, then sat back and watches as the board slowly was overwhelmed with raiders with no way to get rid of them. The game mercifully ended when population hit 0, but we could have called it five turns earlier than that.

I do realize that there’s a bit of a problem with the game; sometimes the actions of the cold unfeeling board just slaps the humans harder than they can handle, and the addition of cylons just make things worse. It’s almost as if at the beginning, you deal out the loyalty cards to see who gets to win and have a good time, and who gets to feel hopeless for three hours. It kinda sucks for the humans, but I’ve never gotten a chance to experience it because Lady Luck really likes it when I’m an asshole, so I keep getting the evil switch. It has made some of my friends not want to play the game at all once; I don’t really want a repeat.

What I Played Today: Finishing Out the Year

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Battlestar Galactica, Descent, Alibi

Man, December is killer for doing things every day. Family obligations always getting in the way, parties making you a bit foggy-headed so you forget what you happened to play that day, those kinda things, so I’ll talk about four experiences that I clearly remember happening last year.

While my sisters were in town, I still got to play a lot of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood because they apparently liked watching me play it, which rocked because I still got to play a lot. It was a pretty typical experience, and the only thing that I really have to comment on is that in one match, I ran into a player who had the name “taqweenie.” Which resembles my usual tag not a small amount, and it took some small investigation to convince myself that he was not making fun of me. It’d be a really ineffective way to make fun of someone, now that I think about it.

On Thursday night, I ditched my sisters and went to play a game of Descent, which went fine. I realize that my experience with the campaign mode makes me a bit languid towards the experience, as I found myself paling. I also did die four times, so that may have influenced my lackluster experience. But I did have fun, and we won pretty effectively, mainly due to picking some top-tier dudes and an inexperienced overlord. We did set him up to kick our ass a number of times, clustering around a chest, for example, but a dude with 5 armor really got him down during a round when he had 10 monsters on the field. They continued to play after I left, which I couldn’t even imagine, because it was already midnight.

New’s Year Eve saw a couple of parties, first a gamer party, where I cracked out the new hotness that is the Battlestar Galactica: Exodus Expansion. I like some of things this adds, although it is pretty execution happy in some cases, which can cause some stupid moments. But the pursuit board really works, I think, and the added loyalty cards add a nice dimension. I’m still on the fence about the Ionion Nebula, just because I saw it go so wrong for a couple of players, but I like the idea behind it a lot. Part of the problem is that we kept adding players until we were at tipping point at 7, with a Cylon leader (who I still am not sure how to approach) and a lot of time waiting for your turn to come around again, as well as a lot of mechanics that nobody has played with. There was a weird scene when the second turn, the only Cylon on the table was randomly killed by an ally and had to reveal, but that just put the pressure on pretty thick. We were kicking ourselves throughout, losing a lot of ships and the population dropped to 4 before the sleeper phase, where, wonder of wonders, I got the Cylon card again. Having neatly already gotten every title, President, Admiral, and CAG, I proceeded to set two ships on fire and then jump us way early, prepared to use my character’s reroll to really bone everyone. It was a decisive victory for me, and even the Cylon Leader lost as she was hoping the humans would win. I’d really like to play this again with only 4 or 5 players, because it was just too hectic the way we played.

At a second party, a friend of mine brought a game called Alibi, which is a huge stinker. It’s a high-concentration Clue, without the board and instead with a hand of cards that you ask another player about, then pass off cards. The only problem is that pretty much every question you ask in going to provide absolutely useless information. As there are over 20 different card types, and each of those has three cards a piece, each with a different symbol or name. We played for about half-an-hour before we declared it quits and just flipped the cards. It is not a party game and it does not play well with a large number of people. Thumbs down.

What I Played Today: December 10

7 Wonders, Battlestar Galactica

An unexpected gaming night, in which I got to play a new game and an old classic. First were a couple of games of 7 Wonders, in which you try to build up a small tableau of cards using a drafting system to try to score enough points using a vastly weird and complicated scoring system. You can get points from certain buildings, points for building up a military, points for collecting certain symbols from “research,” points from the unique boilerplate you start the game with, points for collecting coins…let’s just say there are a lot of points. The game gets a lot of crunch from the fact that you’re only going to get 18 cards in total, and you have to make tough choices over what you’ll keep, what you’ll bury, and what you don’t want the next player to have. It’s quite good, and it’s a bit difficult to tell who’s going to win at any given moment. I wound up winning twice, with some implication on the table that I’m just so good at this that they were all playing for second anyway. (I don’t really know how to react to this; pride seems wrong, but o lord, it’s hard to be humble.)

Also, a game of Battlestar Galactica, which I was very excited about. I recently described to a friend that I would shoot a man in the knee for an opportunity to play Battlestar Galactica, and luckily this situation didn’t call for that. We got into space from the beginning, and for reasons that I cannot explain, I was once again deal the Cylon card from the beginning. I don’t understand why people just don’t brig me from the get-go at this rate.

(I’m reminding of a story, during my Magic playing days, in which we played a lot of multiplayer games. After another game in which I suddenly jump from nowhere and take out a player, one of my comrades decides to give himself a little note by writing the words, “Josh is tricky. Kill him quick.” on one of his lands. So, whenever I played him in the future and he drew that particular land, he would go, “Oh right!” and immediately attack me, regardless of how well I was actually doing. I am half expecting that to happen again, in which someone will scrawl, “Josh is a Cylon! Brig him!” on one of the You Are Not a Cylon cards. Heck, I’m half tempted to do it myself.)

So the game went pretty well for a while. I was playing Boomer, so I knew that if I was going to move to the resurrection ship, I had to do it before the sleeper phase, because there’s no way I was getting out of the brig after being tossed in by my downside. But then, one of the humans made a mistake, adding the wrong color to a check, an event that is unfortunate for him, but the perfect opportunity to grab onto and say “Hey, let’s brig him, just in case.” He went in, I got out, and everything was looking great for me. Of course, after he was in jail, the player to his left did the same thing, only this time not on accident, and she revealed, dropping another into jail, showing me my ally. I waited until it was my turn again, and revealed, leaving two Cylons on the loose and two humans stuck in jail. After a sad go-around trying to get them out, our super crisis cards hit them hard (mine put the whole fleet in space and tanked the jump track) and it was only a matter of time before the raiders blew up the fleet and the cylons won. They didn’t even jump again after the sleeper phase, which I’d never seen before. Well, I had fun, but the humans knew they were screwed for a good 20 minutes, which must have sucked.

What I Played Today: October 31

Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica, Infector

Lot of Battlestar today; first the board game, then the roleplaying game, plus what I think was a pretty successful hosting event.

It started with a playing of the Battlestar Galactica boardgame (Battlestar 4 Life). After having to explain the basic premise of the game three times as people sporadically walked it, we finally sat down with Helo, Adama, Apollo, Dee, and Baltar. It was an interesting set-up because people picked their characters based on wildly different criteria; Helo was picked because he was the only person in the series who wasn’t an asshole, Adama was picked because he looked like a crotchety guy, Baltar was picked because that player really wanted to be a cylon, Dee was picked based on looking nice, and I picked Apollo because someone had to be a pilot.

The game went smoothly for a while, trying to explain what was happening slowly, and without any flagrant cylons, it went well. Then the sleeper phase happened, and once again, I got the infamous switch flipped. I swear I am a traitor more times than not. It was doubly good because Galactica was already partially damaged with 2 sites down, and I got the cylon card that hit it twice more. However, I couldn’t keep up the façade for long, as the other cylon, Dee, was sabotaging the skill checks, and I got fingered despite only contributing when I could be helpful. But they didn’t jump on the chance to brig me, which I found weird, maybe I didn’t explain it well enough, so I revealed while I was the only viper in a space area with 5 other ships. Dee helpfully left a bunch of populated ships there to explode once I resurrected, which was awesome. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Helo wasn’t really looking forward to a space battle, so he let a space fight flop after a scout. That was their undoing. They also let the skill checks go reckless quite a bit, which allowed for a lot of treachery cards to trigger.

So it came down to 3 population when Scar gets flipped. I had never seen the Scar card, and frankly I’m unimpressed. It activates twice when raiders activate, but he joins the board in an extremely vulnerable position, only him in a far-off quadrant away from any civilian ships. I also couldn’t tell if his special “can only be killed on a 7 or 8” applied to just regular attack rolls, or all opportunities to kill him, like the Pegasus’s guns or nukes. I voted for the latter, because he’s intended to be a threat for pilots to handle and actually be helpful, but I may have also voted that way because his presence allowed the cylons to win in two turns. I’ll need to check the geek to see if I cheated. Overall, I think everyone had fun, although one of the players was amazed the game actually took as long as I did.

Then we moved onto the Battlestar Galactica roleplaying campaign, back on Caprica after the bomb goes off. We got our way to the military base, only to find it gone. My character, the brainy paranoid guy, finds a cylon CPU and decides he wants to hack it, to find out what their plan was, only to find it was STILL ALIVE, which causes another PC to blow up his computer. (Long story.) Then we hear another attack and take in the survivors after killing the cylons, a grumpy police officer, some guy, and a lady who goes comatose from being shot up. We take them in and have our NPC doctors patch them up, only for the lady to look suspicious…almost exactly like the corpse we have been hauling around. Not to raise suspicion, I quietly ask the doctor to ensure she stays under for as long as possible, and we hightail it to a secure facility that I apparently knew about the whole time.

After getting resupplied and fed, my character is in the computer room searching for signs of life while the combat team, including the other PCs are chilling in the lounge. Suddenly the lights go dim and all the doors lock. I use my hacking skills to figure out what happened and get the doors back open, while the other PCs…throw grenades at their door. Not only do I manage to get the doors open before they managed to blow open the door, but their efforts warp the door, preventing it from opening electronically. I go around to see what happened to find the lady has risen from her coma, and killed the two NPCs who weren’t trapped in the lounge. I quickly help the combat team get the door open and notice the woman, now obviously a cylon, driving away on the surveillance camera. The two fighter PCs go after her, taking out the van, but not before one of them takes an assault rifle barrage to the chest, knocking him out instantly, a few ticks away from death. The other PC kills her though, and in the aftermath, we discover that her coma drip had been pinched, meaning she was intentionally awoken, and all footage from before the lights going out were missing. Worried that we may have another cylon in our midst, one player goes up to the only surviving member of the convoy we saved at the military base, asks him if he can take a look at his gun, and then puts a bullet in his head with it. It was an awesome moment, despite how horrible it was. I had decided that my character decided he was responsible for all the deaths (it was his paranoia that led to him not informing everyone about the cylon suspicions), and we ended the session with him holed up in the computer lab, refusing to leave.

It was a fun session, and the GM really put some effort keeping me involved, despite the fact that my character was built to focus on computer stuff, not fighting, like the other two characters. It was also awesome that my character was the only opposition against the killer cylon in the bunker while other players managed to get themselves trapped. Nothing came of it, but it was tense.

Also dicked around some on Kongregate, this time with a stupid game about zombies. Because seriously, zombies. In this game you’re trying to infect a batch of zombies that will go forth and wreck havoc, except it starts really slow, with only one zombie effectively and it only lasting five seconds before falling over. But once you ramp up the research, the game starts getting out of control. The only problem I have was how much work it took to get a single easy badge. Most of the time those are handed out after playing for ten minutes, this time it took a good 30 before I achieved it.

What I Played Today: October 24

Nanuk, Innovation, Battlestar Galactica (the RPG)

It was the 6th anniversary of my local gaming store, and circumstances caused me to not show up until about two (had to do laundry), so when I showed up all the food was gone and only the regulars were still hanging around. So I played some games with them, why not?

First was Nanuk, which is a bluffing game similar to Liar’s Dice, but with a larger crowd. Everyone makes bets based on how many of a given animal you think you can catch. Once someone is convinced the bet is too risky, they can say they think the party is doomed, and then everyone around the table divides into two teams…those who think it can be done, and those who don’t. Everyone on the go team plays cards from their hand to try to get the total, and then cards are drawn from the deck. If a bear comes up or there aren’t enough of the animal in the draw, the party is doomed, and all those not stupid enough to go along split the pot. Otherwise, the party wins the pot. It’s a nice twist, moves quickly, and easy to learn, as well as pretty good with lots of people. I had fun, and I also won, so.

Then a game of Innovation, which went alright, although it was a bit slow. Some of the higher level cards are intense, and there was a bit of a problem earlier, where a player went all tower cards and made demands that drained everyone’s field, which was a bit of problem early on. There was also an odd case where two players got to share a dogma that went on forever, and it was really hard to track. So…it’s tough with all new players and four people, this may be better with two players.

Then it was on to RPG night, and this time we played Battlestar Galactica! …the roleplaying game. This worked off the Cortex system, which is nice and simple. We played a small team of survivors of the events that kicked off the Battlestar Galactica pilot. I played an engineer who suddenly got pulled onto a project to investigate an odd corpse that was discovered flirting with cylons, while my brother was a security officer who happened to get assigned to the same secret bunker. The bombs go off, the third character, a Marine, falls out of the sky, and it becomes a case of trying to survive. I was really excited to play a character who knew the secret before everyone else, but couldn’t reveal it and slowly unraveled his mind. He spent a good amount of time clutching his head afraid that every NPC was a cylon. It was fun.

The only issue I took was that without the Battlestar Galactica dressing, this was exactly the same setup as the zombie RPG we played three weeks ago under the same DM. It’s odd that he gave us the exact same build to work off of…I hope he has some other ideas.

What I Played Today: May 24

Battlestar Galactica, 30 Second Hero

Tonight I got to play Battlestar Galactica with the guys, and although I had fun, a mess of a few considerations that went astray led to a bit of an uneasy feeling at the end. We started later than we should have and didn’t make sure that everyone had enough time to play, and we were having trouble keeping everyone engaged, so that the last half-hour was tense and we just tried to rush to the end of the game.

It was an interesting game though, with a Cylon leader who immediately joined the human fleet, while I was handed a cylon card from the beginning. I tried to engage in a long con, trying to convince everyone that those who were playing a bit poorly were doing so on purpose; the admiral who was inching us along a jump at a time, the president who kept wanting to repair locations when a whole cylon fleet was bearing down on us. The mistake I made was giving them a way to prove themselves with crisis cards, making it clear exactly what side they were on, or at least making it known. So, after accidently clearing the other people on the table, I couldn’t get aggressive without immediately painting a target on my face. By the time we distributed some new loyalty cards, the dials weren’t down far enough, and we suddenly hit the accelerator to end by midnight, and I couldn’t deal enough damage before the game was over. The Cylon leader didn’t win either, mainly because he was too friendly and needed those dials down as well with the humans winning (that card is pretty difficult).

I also played some 30 Second Hero on the train, and I’m starting to realize how clever the game is. Each level is short, able to finish in under five minutes, but each has a new trick; a new weapon to try to get, different considerations to handle, trying to understand what needs to be and how fast. There are a lot of secrets and a lot of ways to approach it, something you don’t expect from something so short.

What I Played Today: April 25

Battlestar Galactica

Did a bit of dicking around playing various games today, but I also got to hang out with some friends and play one of favorite games, Battlestar Galactica. We were running with half new players, including a couple of people I swore had played with us before.

Anyway, we were off in space, and I get the Cylon card immediately. I had always wanted to win as an unrevealed Cylon, and things go much better for the Cylon if he just played along the first half the game, so I kept my cool, offering as much advice as I can manage, and even letting opportunities to mess something up that would be awesome for me (like wrecking the cylon detector so that nobody could pick at my card) go, so that nobody suspected me of wrongdoing. It helped that half the people weren’t sure how to play, so my advice was all there was to back on.

We were doing pretty well up to the halfway point, time to show the sympathizer who happened to be Baltar. Baltar goes up to the sky and given a sympathetic agenda, and I become president. He gives his other cards to another player, and everyone agrees to brig him immediately, because the math was not in his favor. I use an arrest order to get him to jail, and decide that a guy in jail is a guy wasting everyone’s time, so I work hard to keep him there while I continue to play the others, watching the dials tumble.

The sympathetic Cylon decides to infiltrate and is generally helping, but also helping ruin a lot of skill checks, so I figure I have an ally, but also brig him to keep him under control. The original brigged man decides that he’s had enough and uses his once-a-game to reverse a decision to make it much worse, so I know I’ve got an ally in the brig, and I bide my time until my turn, where I take the admiral’s role and jump us, taking a huge hit to population and making it quite clear that they are boned. After an unsuccessful attempt to throw me out the airlock, a crisis card gives the president an option to either take some treachery cards or burn some civilian ships. Naturally, I burn the ships, and it’s game over, with no revealed Cylons.

I had a really good time, mainly because I had a lot of fun playing the table, and I hope everyone else had fun too. It’s both a tough coop game, as well as the most compelling “discover the traitor” game I’ve ever played. I’m glad I have such easygoing friends who can enjoy playing the game even when it goes tits up, although sometimes it really sucks being kept in the brig for an hour or more. Still, love playing this game.

What I Played Today: March 25

Zombie Fluxx, Battlestar Galactica

I was on an airplane last night, so I didn't get a chance to play anything, but I did get into Boston today in preparation for PAX East. I'll definitely get some gaming in over the weekend, and tonight I spent some time in the Sheraton Lobby playing board games with some of the ENWorld forum members who were there for the D&D festivities.

We started with a couple of rounds of Zombie Fluxx, and as much as I think to myself, "Man, I should hate Fluxx," I really don't. The game itself is sound, if a bit longtoothed, but it's not overly complex and frustrating like Munchkin, and it's just light enough to be really entertaining. Plus, the zombie aspect proves for some silly goals that are on message. There's some lame ones like having a donut and a sandwich, but silly ones like Zombie Baseball provides a few well-meaning laughs.

Then I got to sit down and play the Battlestar Galactica board game. I really like this game, it's a co-op that offers the right amount of tension, the right amount of secret play and suspicion, and always comes down to the wire. I was Saul Tigh, and we were playing with a couple of newbies. It seemed all clear until the halfway point, and we were doing great until the sleeper agent revealed and threw me in the brig, and I was suddenly under the spotlight of suspicion and it wasn't until someone made a bad play to try to sabotage a check and practically identified himself that I was in the clear. It still came down to the end, partly because I made a bad choice in terms of what resources to keep high, but the humans eventually won the day. I found out afterward that most people on the table were thinking I might be a Cylon from the get-go because of the perceived quality of my suggestions. That surprised me.

There will be a lot of gaming going on tomorrow, so here's hoping I remember all of it.