RogerBW's Blog

Boardgaming At Home, November 2016 12 December 2016

A seven-player games session where we actually stuck with a single group of seven all the way through. Images follow: cc-by-sa on everything.

We started the day with Captain Sonar, one of my Essen purchases this year. Several of the players rejected the idea of the real-time mode, so we ended up playing three turnwise games, with the other moderately experienced player (one previous game versus my two) on the other team: on my side that ended up as a win, win, draw. I am best captain. Definitely one I'd like to try more, getting off the Alpha map, and maybe some day I'll persuade a large group into the real-time version. (I'm trepidatious about it myself, but I'd like to try it.)

Next we tried Don't Mess with Cthulhu, a reskin of Time Bomb, with the extra cards from the Necronomicon expansion to allow seven to play. It does get a bit random, and after three plays one player had been on the losing team every time, but for a social deduction game with no secret setup phase it does a reasonable job. Not one I suspect will be a favourite, though.

(Though I still reckon the Crazy Cultist Lady, middle image here, knows more than she's saying.)

Someone suggested Secret Hitler, which I haven't played in the flesh before (I was in a play-by-forum game last year, on the basis of which I backed the Kickstarter). It's very obviously a descendant of The Resistance, which I still love, but with tweaks: "missions" are just two players, and a mission can fail (a Fascist policy be enacted) even if they're both acting in good faith – or sometimes Liberals will deliberately enact Fascist policies in order to get more power against the Fascists. (This is generally a bad idea.) I'm a bit dubious about anything that takes table time away from The Resistance, but I have to say it worked pretty well. (Fascists won both times; the second time I was one of them.) I do think there's a bug in that, if Hitler plays entirely as a Liberal, and the Liberals get everything right, it's purely random whether or not he becomes chancellor before the Liberals win.

To round off the evening, a quick Tsuro, where I came a credible second.

Next boardgames at home: Boxing Day!

[Buy Captain Sonar at Amazon] [Buy Don't Mess With Cthulhu at Amazon] [Buy Secret Hitler at Amazon] [Buy Tsuro at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

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