Games for the weekend

[Graham]

When I lived up in Green Bay I became friends with a guy who turned out to marry one of my friends.  We hit it off when I saw his classic game collection.  About twice a year we get together for a full weekend of gaming and junk food away from the wives/girlfriends.  While a few video games are played, we play a lot of board games.  Here are the games that we are looking to play this weekend:

Risk/Risk 2210 A.D.
HeroScape
StarCraft
Nexus Ops
Arkham Horror + expansions
El Grande
Carcasonne
Settlers of Catan
Last Night on Earth
Lord of the Rings
Shadows over Camelot
Ticket to Ride (original with 1910 expanion, and Europe edition)

While a lot of these are mine, some are being brought in.  I doubt that we'll be playing all of these games, but we are going to try to get in as many as we can.  Should be a fun weekend.  It just sucks that we can only do it about twice a year because of distance.

[Boudreaux]

Wow, I would start with Starcraft and Last Night on Earth and probably never move on.  That's a weekend of gaming goodness just in those two.

[Doopri]

boudreaux you have great taste! i was going to suggest starting off with arkham horror and then moving on to those exact two

(tomorrow im swinging by my local game shop to pick up a game ive been waiting for, and i may also grab last night on earth while im there - in another boardgame thread today i was lamenting my lack of boardgamer friends but im hoping i can get in a few games of this just because its supposedly pretty easy and obviously laden with zombies)

[Doopri]

oh yea and graham nice set up for a great weekend - i havent played all of them but even the ones i havent ive heard great things about (for the most part) - care to follow up in the thread with a play by play of the weekend later?

[Graham]

oh yea and graham nice set up for a great weekend - i havent played all of them but even the ones i havent ive heard great things about (for the most part) - care to follow up in the thread with a play by play of the weekend later?

I will do what I can.  I just got StarCraft for my birthday a month and a half ago, but one of my friends is seriously pumped to play it, so I'm sure we all we be doing it.  I think that we are going to be doing Arkham Horror once all six of us are by my place.

My friend has a "trophy" game where we all have a small competition.  We are going to play an hour and a half of regular Risk with some scoring mechanics.  Then we are playing a game of Risk 2210 A.D. (the best version of Risk ever) with the top four scorers.  I've won the trophy twice, once for Nuclear War and once for Ticket to Ride.  Other trophy games were Poker, HeroScape, and Settlers of Catan.

I might be willing to do some Saturday afternoon board games sometime if people were willing to drive to Wheaton, IL.  I don't have room for 30, but we could easily do 12-15, with two or three games going at once.  As long as those that come over aren't scary....

[hentzau]

If you set something up, Graham, let me know.  If I can get a hall pass, I'd be happy to join in.

[Butterknife]

We'll be hosting a board game night at our place tomorrow night.  Two couples will be coming over as well, which is fun for the ladies since they can all chat as we play.

Probably Arkham Horror is on the agenda, although we may play Talisman again.

[kronovan]

boudreaux you have great taste! i was going to suggest starting off with arkham horror and then moving on to those exact two

Heh...Arkham Horror would have been my suggestion too, especially if you'll be starting Friday night. 

I've got plans for some Battlelore and Star Wars Mini's this weekend. If there's too much drink involved we'll probably wind up playing Gang of Four.

[Mikagami]

Man.. Risk 2210 can go by so fast..  stupid screw over cards.

Think the highest we've done was a 3 day lasting classic Risk game.
4 players, lotsa "alliances" and even more backstabbing to go with them heh.

I may just be a fanboy, but I say Risk it up!

[Graham]

Well, here's how the weekend went:

We played Rock Band as we were waiting for people to arrive.  We started a game of Last Night on Earth when there were four of us, and when the other two came we had them take over characters we were already using.  After that we played a short D&D module and I think we turned in about 3:00 AM.

Saturday morning we woke up and had breakfast.  After that we tried playing StarCraft.  We got a couple of turns in, but it was difficult because of all the rules and it is hard to get the turn order idea straight.  My friends do want to play it again when we have more time.

We had two groups playing Risk, and we had a limit of an hour and a half.  My group finished in about 45 minutes, so while I grilled hamburgers and brats, the other two guys played some Caracassone while waiting for another group of three to finish.  We then played a game of Risk 2210 A.D.  It was a good game, including a nuclear attack of "The Mother" card on Asia that wiped out one player's control on about half those countries.  The game took too long because one guy took about a half-hour to play, and it gets really frustrating to play games with him.

After that we played a game of Arkham Horror with all of the expansions.  We had to face the bad guy early, and although we defeated it, we forgot about the -4 on combat, so it was a moral victory.  Some guys played a game of Dune after that.  Others went to bed.

Sunday morning three of us played Munchkin Cthulu with expansions.  Once five of us were up we played Shadows over Camelot and beat the game.  It helped that the traitor was uncovered early.

There was a lot of Rock Band dispersed in there, as well as some playing of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  It was a lot of games.  I did want to try to get Nexus Ops in there, and I'm surprised we didn't play HeroScape.

I would like to get a group together that would be interested in doing a playthrough of StarCraft and learn the rules.  It would probably take an afternoon, but I think it would be worth it.

[Boudreaux]

Sounds like fun.  I'm always amazed after a weekend-long gaming session at how few games actually get played.  In the days leading up to it I'm always excited, "Wow, two whole non-stop days!  We'll play dozens of games!"  Then the weekend is here and we play maybe 5. 

[Graham]

Sounds like fun.  I'm always amazed after a weekend-long gaming session at how few games actually get played.  In the days leading up to it I'm always excited, "Wow, two whole non-stop days!  We'll play dozens of games!"  Then the weekend is here and we play maybe 5. 

Well, we did get quite a few games in.  I must say that Rock Band was a bit of a...um..distraction at times.

[kronovan]

I did want to try to get Nexus Ops in there, and I'm surprised we didn't play HeroScape.

Just by coincidence I got into a game of Nexus Ops for the 1st time last Thursday night shortly after I posted in this thread. It impressed me a lot and I found it quite a bit faster to get going with in comparison to Starcraft. Can't say I loved the turn system in it as it seemed unecessarily complex, but damn if all those alien figures aren't the coolest.