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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Board Games

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09:06 / 13.01.06

Advanced Space Crusade was basically the template for Tyranid Attack, iirc.

Space Hulk is a model of simplicity; it's incredibly basic, you have a very limited range of actions, so it comes down to how you make use of APs, a little tactics, and a little luck.

Space Crusade was fiddly and boring - the "Evil Alien Player"'s deck of cards was practically game-unbalancing at times. It was also designed for too many players - it works best with 3 Marine players working together against one Evil Alien Player, but you probably end up with about one Marine player at the end. Still, it was enlivened considerably during a "beer and Space Crusade" session by the Evil Alien Player interpreting that manual literally and deciding that part of being Evil was being able to to stack his deck however he liked, and throw away bad cards.

Hulk is a lot tighter because it's a 2 player game, and, really, that's that. You probably could play it with more, but it has a simple purity. Also, all the stupid dice in Space Crusade never helped it (though the second - or perhaps third, I forgot) version of Space Hulk does use custom dice.

Tyranid Attack's not bad, but it's more about wide-open spaces that are constantly shifting than the tight corridors of Hulk, again, iirc.

Tom Paine's Bones

19:57 / 13.01.06

Another blast from the past and a relatively quick and simple game that I used to enjoy is Junta.

I absolutely adore Junta. It's probably one of the best political backstabbing games that's been created. It's just been reissued by a new company as well.

If you like games in that kind of style I'd also recommend the Avalon Hill games Kremlin (you control factions trying to put your people into positions of power in the Politboro) and Republic of Rome (very much about political struggles as opposed to being a wargame, which I prefer). They're both out of print though, and Republic of Rome in particular is going for a fucking mint on Ebay at the moment.

*

04:25 / 14.01.06

Just reporting back that Polarity is, in fact, really good.

The game board and pieces are deceptively simple. There's a cloth mat with a center dot and a large circle. The game pieces are 52 magnets which are black on the south side and white on the north side, and one red magnet. On the center dot, you place the red magnet. The player who goes first distributes six magnets with their color facing up, flat on the playing surface. The second player then does the same, with their own color facing up. No magnet may touch any other magnet, most particularly the red magnet.

This is where it gets harder. The players then place magnets one at a time on the board, leaning them against the magnetic force of the magnets already on the board. No magnets may be placed flat. If any player causes two magnets to snap together by any means, these now become her opponent's points. The player with the most points— that is, the one who has forced her opponent to create the most faults (magnets touching) when all the pieces have been played— wins.

The game demands a steady hand, a light touch, and an ability to intuitively grasp the flow and force of magnetic attraction and repulsion. If you have the first two, you may quickly learn the third. It's interesting.

Plus, I don't hate it, because when I screw up I'm prevented from getting frustrated by the sheer amusement of watching magnetic pieces fly around.

All Acting Regiment

06:28 / 14.01.06

Oh yeah. Does anyone remember:

Man O' War? No, not the metal band, though they probably play it quite a bit. It was a Games Workshop game, set in their fantasy world (hence pictures above), except it took the fairly unusual route of putting the whole thing in a nautical setting.

What made it good as a board game was that despite having to buy the stuff, each model had a fair amount of actions you could do with it, and could sustain a fair ammount of damage before it was destroyed, if I remember correctly.

And in a more objective sense: look at the ace pieces! Look at them! I mean I think the one guy in the area good enough to paint them like that had to be quietly taken away and turned loose in a mock Saxon village, but even so.

Whisky Priestess

14:39 / 27.01.06

I loved and have always loved Monopoly - but sometimes it's over a bit quickly (especially when you're as good as I am) and I've always thought the skill factor could be higher.

So, I present my invention: the beautiful bastard baby of Trivial Pursuits and Monopoly, which I have called (rather brilliantly I think) Triviopoly.

The rules are simple: you play it just like normal Monopoly, except that every time you land on a property, you can't buy it unless you correctly answer a Triv question of the category closest in colour to that property on the board (eg if you landed on green Oxford Street you would have to answer a green Science and Nature question).

If you can't answer the question, it's put to the other contestants in order of whose turn it is next. Whoever answers the question right gets the option to buy the property, but if they decline the other players can't buy it instead - it goes off the market until someone lands on it again.

If you land on the Electric and Water Companies and the Stations, the questioner gets to choose the colour of the question you are asked, making it that bit harder cos the stations especially are so good to own.

I am teh genius inventrix, no?

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