5/8 Featured Games

Greetings everyone!

On May 8th we will be hosting our regularly scheduled game night at 6:30 PM.  There is another event happening at the church that night, however as of right now I have not been told of any location change, so unless you hear otherwise we're going forward assuming we're in the normal spot.  If a change happens, we'll be moved the children's atrium where we were this past session - if you were there, you know this is not a big deal at all.

For this upcoming session, in honor of the ever-important and quickly-approaching holiday of May the Fourth, we will be featuring games that involve space!  (I'd love to do just Star Wars games, but there aren't enough good ones yet!)

First, if you haven't watched the new Star Wars trailer, watch it now - that will definitely get your blood flowing for some good space games!  (I'll decline to share how many times I've watched this trailer, but know that it's in the double-digits.)

Okay, now I think you're ready to hear about the awesome space games we'll be doing.  Again, since I think it's a fun format, I'll list them in the form of my 'Top 10 Favorite Space Games.' Of course that is incredibly subjective and you are more than welcome (in fact, you're highly encouraged) to bring your own space games!  You're also welcome to forget the theme entirely and bring whatever games you want!

So, without further adieu, here we go....

10.  Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game

This game is incredibly popular and while I enjoy it, it's not my favorite game.  Nevertheless, it is a very good and fun game in which players simulate the dogfights of the Star Wars universe.  It can be played as a 2-player game, in teams, or even with three sides with the newly released bounty hunter content.  I will have my personal set which contains only rebel and imperial ships but others are welcome and encouraged to bring theirs.  The miniatures are stunning and Fantasy Flight continues to knock it out of the park with the production quality of this simple miniatures game.

9.  Imperial Assault

This is the only game on this list I don't own and have never played, however I have played (and own) Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition, which is essentially the same game with a fantasy feel (and I know at least a couple of people in our group that own Imperial Assault).  Imperial Assault takes characters into the Star Wars universe via tactical ground combat.  Most of the players take on the roles of heroes while one player acts as the Imperial side.  The games excels as a campaign-style game but works quite well in a stand-alone even for the evening.  Yet again, great miniatures and components really help bring this Fantasy Flight production to life.

8.  Among the Stars

I suspect with more plays this game will go higher as it combines two of my favorite things in games - space and drafting.  In this game you are 'drafting' cards, much like in Sushi Go or 7 Wonders, in order to build the most efficient space station. I backed the recent Artepia Games release on Kickstarter so my set has not only the Ambassadors expansion, but all of the promos as well.  There are so many cards and the artwork is awesome.  By the end you have a really need, functioning space station in this relatively simple game.


7.  Alien Frontiers

Speaking of Kickstarter, Alien Frontiers, the next game on this list, is the first game to make it big on Kickstarter.  Circa 2010 this game first hit the aforementioned publishing site to terrific success.  Since then a number of subsequent campaigns have gone up, featuring expansions, better components, and plenty of promos.  In this game you are rolling dice and then using those dice to take actions (the dice are space ships, of course).  Ultimately the goal is to control the bulk of a planet that is being colonized.  If you reach a certain number of victory points, largely through area control, you win the game!  There are a lot of parts that intertwine in this and the expansions really add flavor to the game.

6. Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker is definitely the silliest game on this list.  In it you are taking on the role of a space trucker who is delivering different types of sewage parts to a foreign planet.  Your company is full cheapskates, though, and your ship is actually made of the parts you're delivering.  This game is broken into two phases - the first is a timed free for all in which players are desperately trying to get pieces for their ship and make sure they actually fit together!  After this, players test their hastily made ships in the rigors of space - a number of event cards are revealed and if your ship survives them all, you can make some serious space bucks!  If not, well... You probably had some laughs along the way!  I do have the Anniversary Edition complete with both expansions!

5.  Cosmic Encounter

Cosmic Encounter could give Galaxy Trucker a run for its money in terms of 'silliest game' on this list.  In this game players take control of one of a great variety of alien races, then attempt to be the first to take over five total planets controlled by opponents.  The game mechanisms are very simple - you send ships, invite allies, offense and defense pick a card with a number on it, the highest number wins after combining the number on the card with the number of ships on your side.  The thing that makes this game so great is the alien races - each one has a unique way in which you can 'break the rules' and this creates for interesting and often hilarious situations.

4.  Twilight Imperium Third Edition

Okay, so it's really unlikely this will get played at our game night, but I had to put it on the list.  This is the epitome of the epic space game.  It is a long, 5-8 hour slugfest between different alien factions.  You build ships.  You explore.  You conquer.  There's political intrigue.  Trading occurs.  Everything you could possibly want in a space game is in this box.  Why isn't higher?  Because it takes so long that I barely get to play it.  Nonetheless, this game is absolutely terrific and if people really want to try it out, it is possible to get it done in 4 hours, but people will have to be quick!

3.  Eclipse

Eclipse is similar to TI3 in a number of ways - you have unique alien races, you build ship, you research technologies.  However, Eclipse is significantly shorter than TI3, usually coming together in 2-4 hours, rather than 5-8 hours.  In addition, Eclipse is a lot more of an economic game than TI3 is, so just because you like TI3 does not necessarily mean you'll like Eclipse.  That being said, I like Eclipse just a touch better, largely because of the blueprint system with the ships. Not only do you get to research ways to make your ships better, but you get to decide how they fit onto your ships.  Want a ship that has so much hull it's basically invincible?  You can do that.  Wanna light your opponent up with a million missiles before they get a shot off?  You can do that!  Eclipse is a lot of fun and is a beautiful looking space game.

2.  Roll for the Galaxy

This is the newest game on this list by far.  Roll for the Galaxy just game out in the late moments of 2014 but really didn't hit stores until January of 2015.  It is the successor to an immensely popular space card game called Race for the Galaxy (which I'm not a huge fan of, hence it not being on this list).  In this game, players roll a lot of dice in an attempt to be the person with the most points.  It's really a euro-game, unlike many of these other games, and is based around building your economy, trading goods, and building/settling.  It's a little thinky and the rules are not super simple to grasp, however I find this to be a highly rewarding game.  Plus it's fast!  A group that knows what they're doing can knock it out in 45 minutes!

1.  Battlestar Galactica

Finally, we have one of my all-time favorite games: Battlestar Galactica.  I love this game because it combines a cooperative game (which I like), with Battlestar Galactica (which I really like), with a traitor element (which I love).  This is, in my opinion, the premier traitor-game.  Dead of Winter is nice, but it doesn't touch Battlestar Galactica in terms of tension.  This game produces an element of stress and paranoia that no game can rival as everyone works together, except one or two people depending on player count.  There's a lot of lying.  A lot of backstabbing.  A lot of manipulation.  It is incredibly fun and well worth the 3 hours or so it'll take to play.


Conclusion

As in the past, this is a list based on my on subjectivity and personal collection!  There are a lot of great space games on here that I simply don't own!  Race for the Galaxy, Starcraft, Rex, Star Trek: Fleet Captains, Space Alert, Space Cadets, Dune, Xia: Legends of a Drift System, Merchants of Venus, Firefly: The Game, Eminenet Domain, Core Worlds, Starfarers of Catan, and more all come to mind when it comes to terrific space games!  Not to mention other Star Wars titles that I don't own yet - Queen's Gambit, Star Wars the Card Game, Armada, and more.

Again, if you don't like space game, then play whatever you want!  If you're interested in these games, they'll definitely be available and at least a handful of them will be played.

Hopefully we'll see you out!!

Many blessings!

4/24 Recap

Greetings!

This past Friday we had the pleasure of hosting 35 people to play games with us!  A number of them were new faces as many of the church's youth group came down to have a good time.  It was incredibly rewarding to see a table of teenage boys skeptically sit down to play Camel Up and then watch them want to play a second game immediately, finally leaving the table with expressions of "I never knew board games could be so fun!"  That is but one of the reasons we think it is important to host this game night!

In addition to that terrific sight, a number of other games we're played!  We were featuring games that played well with six or more people and a lot of these were played.  We saw a game of Ca$h and Gun$ 2nd Edition, Camel Up, Telestrations, and a couple of great games of Ultimate Werewolf.

In addition to these games, we saw Castles of Burgundy, Roll for the Galaxy, Say Anything, Sushi Go, Aquasphere, and even more games I can't remember get played.  I'm loving the diversity of our group - that we have had heavy Euros like Aquasphere get played side-by-side with a light game like Sushi Go.

Hopefully if you didn't make it out but are reading these blogs, the continued success in numbers of these game nights will encourage you to make it out to our next one on May 9th!

Until then, many blessings!

-Lee

4/24 Featured Games - Games for Large Groups!

Hi Everyone!

Before I get to our upcoming session I want to take a brief moment to mention that we are now officially a meeting site for the Game Club of Maryland (GCOM).  GCOM is the largest state-wide gaming club in the entire country and has meeting site all across MD as well as PA, DE, and VA.  It's a great group and should provide even more advertising!


Our next gaming session will be on 4/20 at the regularly scheduled time.  There is another church event that night (Family Movie Night) that will be using our normal space.  As such, we will be using the children's area atrium - the part of the atrium outside the bathrooms.  This is right next to the normal spot and is still a very large, accommodating area to play games in (and slightly more convenient for using the bathrooms!).  Please don't let this prevent you from coming!


Since we'll be using a smaller space I thought this would be a great time to feature games that play larger groups - thus we can have more people around each table and save some room.  At first I was thinking there wouldn't be as many games to choose from, but there are actually a reasonable amount that accommodate at least six, and not just party games!  Last time I did the feature in the form of a 'Top 10' and while I don't want these features to be just my personal favorite games, it seemed to be a popular format, particularly over at boardgamegeek.  It's also more fun to do!  Since our game group's library also happens to be my personal collection, it doesn't seem completely unreasonable.

So!  Without adieu, here are my ten favorite 6+ player games as well as a number of others that you can expect to see on Friday, 4/24!

10.  Camel Up

Camel Up won the 2014 Spiel de Jahres (German Game of the Year Award - it's a big deal) and is a great game.  Despite many people not thinking it deserved the award it is in fact quite fantastic as long as you know what to expect.  In Camel Up people are betting on a camel race.  The race is quite silly - when the camels land on the same spaces of the track, they climb on top of each other and who ever is highest is considered to be winning.  It's very random and there's little in the form of planning - but that's what makes it so fun!  You pick a camel you think could win and root that it does!  Few game evoke the atmosphere this game does and it plays up to eight people!


9.  Viticulture

Viticulture is  Euro-game (meaning it is more about resource management and strategic planning) in which the players take control of vineyards.  Throughout the course of the game the players place workers and attempt to have the most prestigious vineyard - marked by victory points.  They plant seeds, grow grapes, convert them to different types of wines, build buildings, and more.  It's a very fun Euro and is not particularly complicated.  I haven't played it with six and I suspect with that many it may be a little slower than ideal and it will be very competitive.  I like this game a lot and I own the Collector's Edition which means the components are amazing.   The new edition just came out and is definitely worth a try.

8.  Cosmic Encounter

Cosmic Encounter is a delightful game where players take control of different alien races.  The first person to take control of five different foreign planets (meaning other players home planets) is the winner.  The gameplay is very simple - the person whose turn it is draws a card to see who they attack, they invite any players they want to ally with them, and then the offensive and defensive players play a card from their hand - whoever has the highest total between the number shown on the card and the number of ships being sent is the winner.  It sounds simple and not terribly exciting, but what makes the game is all of the alien races.  I have one expansion and so in my set there are around 90 different aliens.  Over 150 have been released and all have different and unique ways to 'break the rules.'  The game is light and fun and full of laughs.  It also can play up to 6 with the expansion I own and more if you own more expansions.

7.  Letters from Whitechapel

In the opposite direction from Cosmic Encounter (which is light and often funny) is Letters from White Chapel - a game in which 1-5 players take the roles of police officers tracking down Jack the Ripper (who is played by a player as well - thus it plays up to 6).  Jack plots his paths through the streets of London after committing murders and the police use teamwork, wits, and deduction to track him down before he can get to his hideout.  This game can get thinky (and a bit long) but is my absolute favorite deduction game.  The seemingly heavy theme is very tastefully done (it's not graphic or gorey at all) and the board and components are very nice.  If you like deduction, this is one you have to try!

6.  Power Grid

If we were simply ranking my favorite games this would be really high as I very much enjoy Power Grid.  I don't think it's at its best per say with six players (the most it plays) but it is still very good.  This classic came out originally in 2004 and has been extremely popular in that time.  I own the recently released deluxe edition and enjoy it very much.  Players own a power plant company and are trying to be the first person to own a set number of power plants across a map (either North America or Europe) and also be able to power them (the number changes based on player count).  The game features several interesting and interlocking mechanisms including auctions, resource management, and more.
5.  Ultimate Werewolf 


Ultimate Werewolf is the only game I own that will play over 70 people at one time (which is crazy).  It is very much like the popular card game Mafia - players have secret roles and the entire game is based around deducing which ones are bad.  In this case, players are either Villagers or Werewolves.  There are further special abilities within these two camps but the basic idea is that each nights the werewolves secretly discuss and decide to kill somebody.  Each day the villagers try to figure out who the werewolves are and vote to kill somebody.  If somebody dies they're eliminated from the game.  The villagers don't know who anybody is - the wolves know who each other are.  It is a game of social deduction that is very fun.  We will be trying to get a large-ish (hopefully 15-30 or so players) game of this going around 10:00 PM on game night so if you're interested in joining, plan for your games to end at that time.

4.  7 Wonders

7 Wonders is a card-drafting game in which players are building up their civilization.  It is played over three rounds and each round has several turns.  Players have a hand of cards and get to pick one card out of their hand to put into play.  That hand then passes around the table and the next turn they do the same thing with a new hand of cards (which was handed to them from the player in the opposite direction).  Different cards give you resources or points or other special abilities and by the end of the game you want to have the most points.  It is civilization themed so there are things like aqueducts, mines, military, trade routes, and more.  It is a somewhat easier game and with the expansion plays up to eight players.  It is a classic and is very worthwhile.

3.  Eclipse

Eclipse was easily the hottest game of 2012 - everyone wanted to play it!  Since then it's popularity seems to have fizzled a bit, but I think it is still a fantastic game.  It is an epic 4X space game in which players are exploring the universe, expanding their empires, fighting other players, discovering technologies, and developing their economies.    Each player plays a unique alien race that has different special abilities and you can further customize yourself by adjusting the blew prints for your different ships with various weapons, engines, shields, computers, and more.  This is a great space game and can play anywhere from 2-9 players (with the expansion).  I think it's great with as many players as possible!

2.  Telestrations

Telestrations (the party pack that I own at least) plays up to twelve.  It is by far the funniest game I own.  I didn't put a lot of party games on this list because most of them play at least six, but I made an exception for this because it is by far my favorite.  This game is the telephone game meets pictionary - a player draws a word, then the next player writes what he thinks the first player drew, the following player draws that guess, which is again subsequently guessed by the following player.  By the end the original word is extremely convoluted, usually in incredibly hysterical ways!  This game is great for a laugh and one that anyone can play!

1.  Battlestar Galactica

Finally is one of my absolute favorite games - Battlestar Galactica.  I love games with an element of deceit and I think that BSG is still the absolute best at it.  If you've seen the show you probably can guess the premise but if not, that's okay!  It's still a great game even without having seen the show.  Most of the players are on the same team but one or more (depending on player count - two with six players) are secretly Cylons (robots that look like humans) that are actively thwarting the crew.  There are many opportunities for sly coercion and deception and that's what makes this game so great.

There are a host of other games that play 6+ that are also great, particularly in the party game genre, so please bring you favorites and share those as well!  Write your favorites in the comments if you'd like!

Invite your friends and family and hopefully we'll see everyone out on Friday!

4/10 Recap

Greetings everyone!

This past Friday, April 10th, we had our regularly scheduled session.  As it was only our second session and came on the heels of Easter services at The Church at Severn Run (where are group was announced to over 2,100 people!) we featured and play many a gateway game.

We had just over thirty people come and play games with us, including many new people.  We had a lot of families come which is fantastic and Game Night at Severn Run is never meant to just be for experienced gamers.  While we were playing Caverna another family was playing Yahtzee and that is great.

Some of the gateway games we played included Lords of Waterdeep, Ticket to Ride, and Carcassonne.  We also played some more gamer's-games such as Galaxy Trucker and Caverna.

I was very excited about the evening's activities and the enthusiasm shown! If you didn't make it out tonight hopefully we will see you next time!

Many Blessings!

-Lee