Tabletop & Board Games

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Grath
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Grath » Fri May 01, 2015 2:56 pm

Mothra wrote:So, my younger brother asked for Arkham Horror last year, for Christmas, and I picked it up for him. We haven't played it yet. Not until now.

I got a group together for this Saturday, including my brother and his girlfriend, and we're gonna take a stab at it. I've been watching some tutorials online in preparation, and sweet jimminy christ is this thing complicated. We're also gonna be taking jello shots, so, oof.

Anyone have any advice before this nightmare gets started? I'm expecting it to run about 4-6 hours, with 5 players.

The reductions in sanity and health loss is only to involuntary effects, so you aren't allowed to do what I did last time I played Arkham Horror and have the professor go super saiyan by casting like four or five spells per turn because "oh, well, he takes 1 less sanity loss from everything so spell casting is free!"

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Mothra
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mothra » Fri May 01, 2015 3:28 pm

Noted.

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Büge
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Büge » Fri May 01, 2015 4:20 pm

It's a co-op game, so work together. Have the players split into teams to accomplish goals: some of them go fight monsters while others work the gates. Clue tokens are your friends!

If you're allowed to pick your investigators, I've found that Ashcan Pete is a good all-around character.
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hngkong
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby hngkong » Sat May 02, 2015 7:09 pm

If your plan is to go portal hopping, the typewriter lady is one of the better characters to do it. She draws two events when she's in a portal and picks one.

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nosimpleway
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby nosimpleway » Sat May 02, 2015 8:19 pm

She's one of my favorite characters, since somebody needs to go into portals to win the game.

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Friday
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Friday » Sat May 02, 2015 10:51 pm

Playing with Mandy Thompson, who can reroll all failed dice on anything on any character once per round is like playing on easy mode (and thus it's good to use her when first learning the game.) Once you're familiar with how the game works, stop playing with her, because while she's a nice crutch to help out newbies, she's idiotically broken and by far the best investigator not only in the base set but also through all expansions, by 10 miles.

I'd also recommend playing against Nyarlathotep for your first time. He's not as disruptive with his power as most other (harder) Ancient Ones, though if you get unlucky and get several Mask Monsters at once it's usually gg. Failing that, play against Yig.

Avoid playing against anyone else until you've got the hang of it. The rest of them affect the board in a really disruptive way, and Azathoth is just plain boring as shit. He doesn't do anything, takes forever to wake up, and just kills you without a fight. He's by far the easiest to play against but also by far the least fun.

Avoid playing against Shub-Niggurath and Yog-Sothoth at all costs. Cthulhu is technically harder to kill once he's awake (he's by far the hardest fight, unless you count Azathoth's one shot auto-win as a 'fight') but Shub and Yog's board effects almost guarantee you'll fail to stop them from waking up (Shub increases the toughness of all monsters by 1, and Yog increases the difficulty of closing/sealing gates by 1 AND makes it so any character lost in space/time is instead devoured, which is even worse than killed.) and any Ancient waking up is probably a game loss unless you've got really good gear and characters that are good at fighting.

The optimal strategy is to spam the newspaper for retainers to increase cashflow, then spam the rare shop for gear/elder signs. Spend your gate and monster tokens pretty much exclusively on Blessings from the church, and give them to whoever needs them the most. Blessings are stupidly powerful unless you are unlucky and roll a 1 right away and drop them.

The number one thing to win games is to work together. I've lost several games because people selfishly hog all the best gear for themselves.

Also, play with four people (of just use the monster spawning rule for four or less people if playing with five or more). At five people plus, monster spawns are doubled, which makes the game much much harder.

Bonus points if you play as Joe Diamond and use your power (and a ton of clue tokens) to one-shot Yig with a shotgun.

Yes, this is awesome to actually do.

GO BACK TO THE VOID, BITCH
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Friday
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Friday » Sat May 02, 2015 11:19 pm

Fuck it, I'll go over all the (base) Ancient Ones in detail, because they are the biggest influence on how the game goes.

Azathoth: (Difficulty: Super Easy)

Boring as shit. Hardly affects the board at all (all he does is make cultists slightly tougher) and isn't a fight if he wakes up, instead just auto-killing you. The least fun to play against. My advice is to literally never run a game against him.

Cthulhu: (Difficulty: Hard)

Tough. He makes cultists somewhat dangerous, and also reduces everyone's Max Health and Sanity by 1, which really hurts. He's also the hardest fight in the game if he awakens, regenerating 1/13 of his HP per combat round, which means you've got to have insane DPS to stand a chance vs him.

Hastur: (Difficulty: Medium)

Nothing really super interesting here. He makes the cost to seal a gate rise from 5 clue tokens to 8, which sucks, but you can bypass this by using Elder Signs. He's not particularly hard to kill if he wakes up unless your terror level got really high during the game.

Ithaqua: (Difficulty: Medium)

Winter boy is actually one of the most interesting Ancients to play against, since he drains one health for ending your turn on the street. Because of this, players find themselves taking shelter in places they'd normally never go to, leading to new and hardly ever seen events.

Nyarlathotep: (Difficulty: Easy)

Probably the best first time Ancient. He's easy, and unlike Yig, doesn't almost always wake up, leading to a more "normal" game. He can get really hard if you get unlucky and spawn a bunch of his special "Masks."

Shub-Niggurath: (Difficulty: Very Hard)

Shubby is a nightmare, plain and simple. Her ability doesn't LOOK bad (all monsters have +1 toughness) but in practice this fucking kills you. A lot. Take my word on this. Also, she drains fucking monster trophies if she wakes up, and the optimal strategy is to avoid fighting (because everything is so tough) which means if she DOES wake up she's probably going to kill you.

Yig: (Difficulty: Easy)

Ah, Yiggy. Yiggy Yiggy Yiggy. He hardly affects the board at all (only buffing cultists) but because he's got the shortest doom track (10) AND whenever you kill a cultist or anyone gets lost in space/time gets +1 to his doom track, he's by far the most likely Ancient to awaken. Optimal strategy against him is to usually gear out the ass and blow him up instead of winning by sealing gates. This tends to work very well, since the actual fight isn't hard (especially if you go into it with a Blessing so his auto-curse at start of fight gets negated)

Yog-Sothoth: (Difficulty: Very Hard +1)

Want to lose a game? Want to play with Mandy and still lose a game? Play against this fuck. He makes gates harder to close/seal, which means it's harder to win that way, and if he wakes, he's got Magical Immunity, a combat rating of -5, and drains gate tokens (which are harder to get in a Yog game) as your HP. The biggest dick move is that he devours any investigator lost in space/time, which means that certain events can result in perma-death on a single failed die roll. He also buffs Cultists on the side just in case all that wasn't enough.

tl;dr: For your first time, play with a Mandy, against Nyar.
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Büge
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Büge » Sat May 02, 2015 11:30 pm

I still think my most memorable Arkham Horror moment was when I (Monterey Jack) used an Elder Sign at 1 stamina and 1 sanity to seal the last gate. The world was saved and I was devoured.

Friday wrote:Playing with Mandy Thompson, who can reroll all failed dice on anything on any character once per round is like playing on easy mode (and thus it's good to use her when first learning the game.) Once you're familiar with how the game works, stop playing with her, because while she's a nice crutch to help out newbies, she's idiotically broken and by far the best investigator not only in the base set but also through all expansions, by 10 miles.


You're just saying that because she's a busty redhead in glasses and an open blouse.
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Friday
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Friday » Sun May 03, 2015 12:28 am

I still think my most memorable Arkham Horror moment was when I (Monterey Jack) used an Elder Sign at 1 stamina and 1 sanity to seal the last gate. The world was saved and I was devoured.


Haha, yeah. One-shotting Yog from full HP while playing Diamond and using a shotgun is probably never going to be topped, for myself.

You're just saying that because she's a busty redhead in glasses and an open blouse.


As if she needed more reasons why she's the best character.
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Mongrel
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mongrel » Fri Jul 03, 2015 10:45 pm

So as you may know by now, the new Warhammer Fantasy Battles stuff is coming out. As feared, they're basically grotesque monstrosities and/or fantasy Spehss Mehrines and they've gone to skirmish (though ostensibly it's a scalable skirmish that can be upsized to large-scale games). The new rules have been pretty widely panned since GW themselves are stating that they're making no attempts at all to balance figures (!) and the rules are grotesquely simplified, bearing no relation to old WFB rules and are now essentially "40k ultra-lite" with minimal core rules and proprietary unit stat cards (not that unit stat cards is something I'm necessarily against, but the implementation here is screamingly bad).

My own suspicion is that WFB will be effectively killed by this for good. In theory, blowing off a dedicated but dwindling base of players in order to make a bold play to acquire new blood is usually a sound move and often the only way a game can survive. But in this case it seems like the new game they're making is so awful that they'll be hard-pressed to even find replacements for the alienated diehards, let alone increase the overall numbers. At this point, I'm not even sure they'll have a short-term surge of shiny-object magipies you usually get with a new game.

Interestingly, anything that was in-print before the announcement is still in print, for now. Not sure if they're hedging their bets here or what.

But never mind this boring stuff, check out this awesome sample from the new rulebook:

Braying Warcry: Red-hot rage festers in
the savage minds of Wargors, their only
desire to rend and destroy. You can add 1
to all hit rolls made for a Wargor if, before
rolling the dice, you let loose a primal
warcry. Your warcry must use no actual
words, but angry grunts and raging snorts
are encouraged.

I copied and pasted this from an actual GW PDF. These are actual rules.


Or the names of some of the new units:

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Yes, that's what the "Sigmarines" look like (you can have any weapon, so long as it's a hammer with lightning bolts):

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Büge
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Büge » Fri Jul 03, 2015 11:10 pm

Here's some rules I saw posted on Talking Time.

The Grail Vow: You can re-roll all failed hit rolls for this unit if, before rolling the dice, you hold aloft a grail or goblet and shout ‘For the Lady’ in a heroic voice.


Pride of the Reiksguard: Helborg’s skill is as legendary as his moustache is magnificent. You can re-roll any failed hit rolls when attacking with the Runefang so long as you have a bigger and more impressive moustache than your opponent.


The Mad Count: Marius Leitdorf is an exceptional swordsman, even if he is totally insane. If, during your hero phase, you pretend to ride an imaginary horse, you can re-roll failed hit rolls for the Averland Runefang until your next hero phase. If you actually talk to your imaginary horse you can re-roll failed wound rolls as well.


Lord of Forbidden Pleasure: It is wise not to gaze long upon the splendour of a Lord of Slaanesh, lest terrible notions begin to form. If an enemy unit finishes its pile in move within 3" of a Lord of Slaanesh, you can tell your opponent that they are in danger of being beguiled. From that point on, if your opponent looks you in the eye before the unit has made its hit rolls for that combat phase, subtract 1 from any of those rolls which target this model.
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Mongrel
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mongrel » Fri Jul 03, 2015 11:18 pm

Remember these are being marketed as actual serious rules.
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Blossom
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Blossom » Sat Jul 04, 2015 1:25 am

Disappointed the Slaaneshi ability didn't involve an instruction to beat off on the table.
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Mothra
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mothra » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:16 am

Friday wrote:
I still think my most memorable Arkham Horror moment was when I (Monterey Jack) used an Elder Sign at 1 stamina and 1 sanity to seal the last gate. The world was saved and I was devoured.


Haha, yeah. One-shotting Yog from full HP while playing Diamond and using a shotgun is probably never going to be topped, for myself.

You're just saying that because she's a busty redhead in glasses and an open blouse.


As if she needed more reasons why she's the best character.

Oh yeah, so, this gal I knew from another forum and her boyfriend joined up with me, my brother, and his girlfriend, and we played us some motherfucking Arkham Horror. That game is pretty godddamn complicated, but two hours in, most of us had the rules and objectives down pat and we were moving along at a decent enough rate.

It was at this point we started going through the jello shots, which, due to an oversight on my brother's part about how many shots each package of jello made, were about twice as numerous as we needed. It then became kind of a Thing for us to finish them.

I played as the raving homeless guy with one dollar, eventually gaining two fellow drifters in my entourage before journeying into the void. I died, as did half of the other players that tried to enter the netherverse. All of my rolls were shit.

We managed to seal a majority of the portals, but failed too many netherverse ventures, and swiftly became overwhelmed by monsters and that was that. We finished all the jello shots by the end and had quite a bit of fun.

Probably going to do anther game with the same group in the near future, plus two more I saw Fury Road with (bringing us to 7). We're thinking Battlestar, which I can see being either a delightful disaster or a frustrating slog.

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Blossom
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Blossom » Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:25 pm

An exciting new fantasy rpg is taking the gaming press by storm, written by none other than musical sensation Varg Vikernes. Take a gander!*

*goes to a review, not the actual site, don't worry.
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Mongrel
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Mongrel » Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:38 pm

That swimming chart, oh man.
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Newbie » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:43 pm

A couple years ago, I was insecure about the quality of my Dirty Santa packages, so I wound up including a zip file (the "goodybox") containing a random collection of some game-relevant PDFs that I emailed to a couple fellows. I don't remember who all got these, but since my computer melted in December, I'd really like to get my hands on these again. Anybody happen to have such a goodybox lying around?
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Newbie » Sat Feb 06, 2016 6:44 pm

A couple years ago, I was insecure about the quality of my Dirty Santa packages, so I wound up including a zip file (the "goodybox") containing a random collection of some game-relevant PDFs that I emailed to a couple fellows. I don't remember who all got these, but since my computer melted in December, I'd really like to get my hands on these again. Anybody happen to have such a goodybox lying around?
tiny text

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Sharkey
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Sharkey » Thu Feb 25, 2016 4:25 am

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I'm in the woods. I think I just paid myself three bucks I don't have as reward for the recovery of my own dog, who wasn't lost. My sanity is hanging by a thread, so I'll probably never know whether that three dollars actually did magically appear in my pocket, or if I had it the whole time secreted away somewhere in my crackly trousers and only just remembered after a pointless fantasy about rescuing Duke, who was right fucking there because he's always right fucking there. So I paid myself magical fairy money for saving him from... being a bit nervous, apparently. It's not like he'd have run away if I failed the check or didn't feed him.

I'd feed Duke if I could. He's my only friend. In fact, after failing my personal quest to finally maybe get a good night's sleep, the rules stipulate that I'm not allowed to have any friends anymore. Besides Duke. I don't have any food, though. Otherwise I could have paid myself magic money for feeding him, as opposed to paying myself magic money for catching and comforting him. He probably needed it, honestly. We've seen some shit. Though after this little schizophrenic clusterfuck I'm pretty sure the thing with all the eyes that I punched to death and have been lugging around with me all over town for no apparent reason... that was probably all in my head. Still is in my head. I wish Duke would eat Shuggoth.

This game perfectly captures the experience of being an urban outdoorsman with a rich inner life.
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Kazz
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Re: Tabletop & Board Games

Postby Kazz » Thu Feb 25, 2016 3:15 pm

as a person who now has a mattress and PC on the floor in a city I can't afford, i too want a magic dog
the best kazz around

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