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."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2300ad 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech bayern beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1