• Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:

    1. The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
    2. Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration

    Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.

The Board Game Thread!

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I recommend getting little plastic containers if it's a game you play a lot (not necessarily this one, and certainly not at this price, which seems high—but about this size). Dump the tokens in the containers, either at the start of the game or permanently. They're a lot easier to manage that way, and if you're still storing in baggies it's easier to dump back in from a box like this.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Yeah, those look nice. I have some of these guys that I use for Dominion and Concordia. I haven't been taking them out for Spirit Island though. That would probably help.
91741b2a3f3975626bc6d4ad71064eb8.jpg

I'm thinking that I might get something like this if I end up getting Jagged Earth:
41-F328-qm-TL-AC-SL1500.jpg

That way I could hold invaders, dahan, energy, blight, and the new tokens in one container that I just take out when we start. I'll have to take some measurements to make sure it fits in the box and there's space for all the tokens. I'm not sure if/when I'm going to expand though, so for now I'm going to stick with bags and the tray that came with the game.
 

John

(he/him)
I definitely spend more time organizing games than I do playing nowadays, it's a mini hobby in its own right, just less fun. I've recently been getting back into Lord of the Rings LCG, now that it's getting a revised edition. I had all my cards in Ultra Pro premium sleeves, which were okay, but were slippery, and had the dumb watermark on one side of the sleeve. I've since found I prefer the Dragon Shield Matte clear sleeves, which are twice as expensive, but shuffle well, and they actually stay in a stack. I found someone on eBay who sells packs of 10 for $75, so I'm covered for what I have now.

I've actually made a deck and played a few games, and really like it. It'd been about 9 years since I last played, and I stopped buying expansions a little while afterwards, so there's a lot out there that I don't have. I've ordered some of the Saga expansions to close out some gaps, but am holding off on reprint info before going crazy and trying to fill in all the missing items. The best thing from a solo perspective is it's a relatively easy game to setup (after you've built the decks). Two or three decks of cards, three small sets of tokens, and one or two threat dials.

The little cork coasters are nice, but I use little silicone cupcake liners for most of the tokens. Doesn't help much with setup, but they're cheap and stand out on the table.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I like how the cork looks better. I think they were about $1 each from Ikea. Either way, it is nice to have something to put components in while playing.

it's a mini hobby in its own right, just less fun

I have a lot of fun with extra-game stuff, but to each their own. I also GM D&D games, which is like exponentially more time consuming.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I definitely spend more time organizing games than I do playing nowadays, it's a mini hobby in its own right, just less fun.
Less fun in the moment, but the time and trouble you save on setup and teardown when you finally play? Priceless.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Okay, so we got Root from the library and I'm really overwhelmed by it from a first glance through the box. The good thing is there seem to be a lot of walkthrough videos, anyone have a recommendation for a particular one?

We were originally thinking of trying it first with just the two of us, then inviting another two friends over to try a four player game, but it definitely looks like four player is better? We do have the little walkthrough booklet with the game that does the first couple turns for everyone and plan to use that for four player. Also going to see if any coworkers have played it before and try to recruit them instead of friends since we're already around each other so much anyway and seems like way more of my friends traveled for Christmas than I expected, bah.
 
Last edited:

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Two works fine, but play cats and birds to start with. Birds are trickier to play than cats, require more advance planning each round. It definitely seems designed around 3-4 players. But it’s less complicated than it initially appears. The Vagabond is the one you all but need need 4P for.

I like this guy for tutorials.
 
Last edited:

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Root is a fairly complex game. None of the factions on their own are too difficult, but since they all have their own rules it adds up to a lot.

When teaching, I like to start with the rules that are common to everyone. You win the game by being the first to 30 VP. You can earn VP by crafting items, removing cardboard pieces in battle, and in a third way that is unique to each faction. Then, explain how ruling clearings and movement works, followed by battle, then crafting.

Once everyone understands the common rules, do a quick overview of the factions and then start the game. Each player just needs to follow the steps on their board on their turn. They probably won’t get the best strategy right away, but that’s ok in a learning game. I think the walkthrough is helpful.

And Root is definitely better at higher player counts because it opens up a lot of interesting interactions between factions. But, for learning the mechanics, a 2 player cat/bird game is solid.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Oh and we got A Little Wordy in our continued quest for 2 player games, and I like it! Not terribly complicated but quick, it's been a good thing to do when we're waiting for dinner to finish in the oven or something like that.

Just wanted to update that I gave my partner this as an xmas present and we've played a few rounds and really enjoyed it!
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Two works fine, but play cats and birds to start with. Birds are trickier to play than cats, require more advance planning each round. It definitely seems designed around 3-4 players. But it’s less complicated than it initially appears. The Vagabond is the one you all but need need 4P for.

I like this guy for tutorials.

Root is a fairly complex game. None of the factions on their own are too difficult, but since they all have their own rules it adds up to a lot.

When teaching, I like to start with the rules that are common to everyone. You win the game by being the first to 30 VP. You can earn VP by crafting items, removing cardboard pieces in battle, and in a third way that is unique to each faction. Then, explain how ruling clearings and movement works, followed by battle, then crafting.

Once everyone understands the common rules, do a quick overview of the factions and then start the game. Each player just needs to follow the steps on their board on their turn. They probably won’t get the best strategy right away, but that’s ok in a learning game. I think the walkthrough is helpful.

And Root is definitely better at higher player counts because it opens up a lot of interesting interactions between factions. But, for learning the mechanics, a 2 player cat/bird game is solid.

Awesome, thank you both!

Just wanted to update that I gave my partner this as an xmas present and we've played a few rounds and really enjoyed it!
Nice, I'm glad!
 

John

(he/him)
I've been digging into some old and new (to me) games recently.

Descent: Legends of the Dark - I saw a good deal and bought this for myself a while back, which ended up being wrapped up for Christmas. Haven't played it, but did punch it out and put the silly cardboard dragon together. For the price, I would've liked an actual plastic sculpture instead of cardboard, but eh. Looking forward to learning the rules and doing some solo runs.

Pandemic Legacy Season 0 - Just ran through the Prologue, and liked the little tweaks to the format. I'm excited to see how all the changes will inevitably get torn down.

Marvel Champions - Asked for this mostly because my wife doesn't like Arkham Horror anything at all, and the LotR LCG was a little too much when I was into it ten years ago. I ran through an intro game, and liked it quite a bit. Same style as all the LCGs, but this one seems on the easier side, less fiddly at least in the base game. I also appreciate that the deckbuilding aspect is toned way down, because that's my least favorite part of the LCG experience.

Lord of the Rings LCG - Speaking of, I had bought the first few cycles of this back when it came out, but fell off of it for many years. The upcoming Revised edition spurred my interest, and I dug out my old set to try again. I've played more now than I did when it first came out, partly because I upgraded my sleeves from Ultra Pros to Dragon Shield Matte. I went and purchased almost everything I was missing from the newer cycles, barring the Nightmare decks and a few print on demand exclusive ones that aren't reprinted. I'm having a blast going through Ringdb for options, and seeing how different decks would fit the scenarios.

As an aside, If anyone is interested in any Ultra Pro sleeves that have sat on cards for ten years and are mostly never shuffled, hit me up. Pay the shipping and you can have as many as you want. I'll tally everything up soon, but I have between 1500-2500 sleeves put back into the Dragon Shield boxes. The Ultra Pro sleeves are fine, just more slippery than the Dragon Shield ones.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Honestly a mold big enough for the DLOD dragon statue (which honestly isn't used that much) would probably have made the game another $15. I don't love everything about how it was put together (the head is weird), but it serves well enough for what it is and does, which is a decorative terrain piece.

The sculpts we DO get, though, wow they are nice.

In addition to receiving Unfathomable, I ordered a copy of the new edition of Clash of Cultures, which I started on the playtesting group for but had to drop out. Looking forward to that.

Also I'm running an official Aces High X-Wing event at Games of Berkeley next week, I'm very excited.
 

John

(he/him)
Pandemic Season 0 - January - We only completed one of the two objectives, but could've been helped if I had remembered the rule that Teams can clear out cities they end a turn in (the Mop Up step). We still get to move on to February, but I don't feel it was warranted, just based on how we did. Ah well, if they want us to progress in the story, that's fine.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Okay, so we got Root from the library and I'm really overwhelmed by it from a first glance through the box. The good thing is there seem to be a lot of walkthrough videos, anyone have a recommendation for a particular one?

We were originally thinking of trying it first with just the two of us, then inviting another two friends over to try a four player game, but it definitely looks like four player is better? We do have the little walkthrough booklet with the game that does the first couple turns for everyone and plan to use that for four player. Also going to see if any coworkers have played it before and try to recruit them instead of friends since we're already around each other so much anyway and seems like way more of my friends traveled for Christmas than I expected, bah.
Root is definitely pretty complex to approach at the start, and I was definitely overwhelmed my first few games (and my first few back after not playing for a long time). I'm happy to play online with you guys over TTS sometime, or even one of the app/game versions, and help sort things out! (As in pleeeease I want to play boardgaaaames!) @CaliScrub and I have a weekly board game slot that started out mostly playing Root, and it's been a while since we've been able to make it happen.

*gazes forlornly at all the Root expansions on his shelf and sighs...*
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
*gazes forlornly at all the Root expansions on his shelf and sighs...*
And the new expansion on the way! Marauder was delayed by the shipping situation, but it should be here in the next few months.

I find that I can get groups of friends who are moderately interested in board games together pretty easily. But, we usually spend a lot of time hanging out and catching up, and then play one or two light board games, decided by the tolerance of whoever there is the least into board games. The last time we played 2 games of Dominion. I love Dominion, so I'm not complaining about that. But more complex stuff is just really hard to get to the table.

So, I talked to a few friends and I'm going to organize a board game club, focused on more complex stuff. I have Root, Spirit Island, and Concordia (a bit long for casual game nights), and one of my friends just picked up Eclipse 2e. I'd like to get a physical copy of Race for the Galaxy too. I figure that even if we get together once a month, it would be a lot more gaming than I have played in the last few years.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
@CaliScrub and I have a weekly board game slot that started out mostly playing Root, and it's been a while since we've been able to make it happen.
I'm sorry to keep tapping out of this, it seems like we're always busy on Sunday afternoons.

Aside from a couple outdoor group game nights in the fall and the occasional TTS Trivial Pursuit with some friends of ours, I haven't really played any board games at all since August.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Root is definitely pretty complex to approach at the start, and I was definitely overwhelmed my first few games (and my first few back after not playing for a long time). I'm happy to play online with you guys over TTS sometime, or even one of the app/game versions, and help sort things out! (As in pleeeease I want to play boardgaaaames!) @CaliScrub and I have a weekly board game slot that started out mostly playing Root, and it's been a while since we've been able to make it happen.

*gazes forlornly at all the Root expansions on his shelf and sighs...*

We tried it last weekend and after about five minutes of everyone looking through stuff nope'd out because it was just too much. I did get to teach them Wingspan which was a ton of fun. Second attempt to get a group together got cancelled due to snow. So @Lumber Baron and I played the 4-player walkthrough with each of us controlling two groups and it really wasn't clicking for either of us.

But this sounds like a very good time to see if my new computer can handle TTS, and having someone who knows how to play it show us would be great. I'll ping you about it later this month.
 

John

(he/him)
I thought they had crossed the line when they came out with DOS, but this is a bridge too far.

orgstxryyw9mih6usmtc.jpg


Also, if anyone has played UNO with a small child, you know the action cards are tear magnets. It takes a special type of sadism to play a game where EVERY card is an action card.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Yeah, but then they just get to do another special right back! I see the appeal in cranking every slider to max and going completely nuts now and then.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Root is definitely pretty complex to approach at the start, and I was definitely overwhelmed my first few games (and my first few back after not playing for a long time). I'm happy to play online with you guys over TTS sometime, or even one of the app/game versions, and help sort things out! (As in pleeeease I want to play boardgaaaames!) @CaliScrub and I have a weekly board game slot that started out mostly playing Root, and it's been a while since we've been able to make it happen.

*gazes forlornly at all the Root expansions on his shelf and sighs...*
What Root module do you use on Steam? There are a lot to choose from, ha!
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
The Root Ultimate Collection is the most up to date. It has a lot of extra stuff, but it’s all optional.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
I don't know, actually, I've never set up the game for that one! @CaliScrub would know. Finding one that's well-scripted is usually the name of the game on TTS, I find, so that you don't have to do as much fiddling with all the fiddly-bits.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
The Root Ultimate Collection is the most up to date. It has a lot of extra stuff, but it’s all optional.

I don't know, actually, I've never set up the game for that one! @CaliScrub would know. Finding one that's well-scripted is usually the name of the game on TTS, I find, so that you don't have to do as much fiddling with all the fiddly-bits.
Oh wait, I think I forgot how TTS works. Only one person needs it, huh? Well I'm up for playing sometime this weekend if anyone else is, and then again on January 23rd.
 

John

(he/him)
Pandemic Legacy Season 0 - We had to play March twice, because the disease cubes snuck up on us. Didn't help that we totally botched the earlier objective in February, so had three infected cities in play. We got down to the wire at the end of March, and had a 50/50 guess to where the unknown objective was. The coin flip was in our favor though, and we beat both objectives with no time to spare.

I'm liking the theming, up there with Season 1 so far. I feel I'm in the minority that I liked the first season better than the second. I appreciate the ambition they did, but it just didn't gel for me as a meld of gameplay and story.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I picked up Clash of Cultures: Monumental Edition. It's very nice, and has what look like some notable improvements on the (already very good) original.

I was briefly a playtester for this game but had to drop out, so no free copy for me! But I finagled an almost "free" one, by using a playtesting payment for something else to buy gift cards at Miniature Market and get a free $20 gift card they were offering as a bonus for purchases. Total out of pocket beyond that was about 78 cents.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Played the Old West Ticket to Ride expansion (it's part of the France pack) that @Johnny Unusual got me for Festivus, and I really like it! Adding cities that control scoring of certain routes is a cool idea. I like that the box has two expansions, I've played France digitally before and like it but we didn't have time to try both this weekend.

Also it gave me another excuse to use the Alvin figurine which I picked up a long time ago on clearance and have never gotten to use.

We debated adding a house rule for bonus points of having Bend as one of your cities since everyone was as excited as me to see Bend on a map, but ultimately decided that would complicate things too much.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
My partner and I just impulse bought another batch of 2P-compatible games from a local toy store and tried them out:

House of Plants - a fairly simple resource distribution game themed around decorating rooms with houseplants. For anyone into Euros this will be slight and breezy but that's an advantage in many contexts, and the visual design is gorgeous. Placing the plants you finish caring for is purely aesthetic but probably the most fun part.

Words Over Easy - A Boggle-like with a dice tower and somehow even more frantic quick rounds. Much more variable than Boggle; depending how the dice land you can run out of words quickly or have waaaay more than you can possibly write down, but we had a fun time with it and will probably keep playing (alternating with Big Boggle which has been our quick game standby for a long time now).

Sew Fast - A physical gimmick game of spatial recognition and dexterity, where you try to thread three colors of string (using attached plastic "needles") through a board as quickly as possible to match a given pattern. Kinda fun once but really needs like 10x as many pattern cards (it comes with 40 and we played them all in one sitting) to have any staying power. I should check whether there's some expansion pack or something...
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Kirin, you might consider Cthulhu Wars Duel. It uses cardboard cutouts instead of giant plastic minis, and is a version of the game designed for two!
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Played a few rounds of Unfathomable (it was getting cold and dark so we cut it short). Good reskin of BSG with some significant changes. Among them:

• No nukes for the "Basestars" Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, who can now be attacked by various means by characters and who do slightly different things (Dagon spawns Deep Ones onto the ship while Hydra attacks it directly).
• Characters no long have a drawback; instead they have something specific that happens if they reveal as a traitor, which also take the place of the Super Crisis cards from BSG. Each has an intrinsic ability and a once-per-game power card.
• The Cylon Fleet expansion board is incorporated into the game as "The Deep," which is where fishy folk gather to attack. They then appear in the water, and there are both exterior deck (much like the "space" areas from BSG, but you don't need to hop in a fighter; now characters can attack directly) and interior areas that they can invade, menacing passengers and attacking players. The Cylon boarding track is gone entirely.
• No traitor-specific spaces, nor any Colonial One analogue (though there are "president" and "admiral" roles). Revealed traitors stay on the ship and can attack passengers and characters directly, among other things.
• The Jump track has been split into two independent tracks: reach the end of one and you advance in distance; reach the end of the other and everything in the water and the outer deck areas is wiped out, including passengers. Player characters are sent to sickbay. This is probably the biggest change gameplay-wise, since in BSG you were often trying to jump away for the sake of clearing the board, but here you are separately manipulating the timing of "jumping" and clearing the board to make sure one or the other happens at an opportune (or inopportune) time.

We were just getting the hang of it when we had to stop, but those are my impressions of it so far. It's BSG otherwise, which is to say, good.
 
Top