Ruling the Board: Shaw Gaming 6/20/12: Dune

Apparently, when our group jumps into something, we jump in with both feet, full body, bringing everything with us.  Our gracious hosts decided to do a movie, diner, board game night with the ceterpeices being Frank Herbert's Dune.  The movie was bonkers and the food was good.  Afterwards, we sat down to the beast that is:

Frank Herbert's Dune: Space Civilization Power Struggle Game

Our Game

We all chose a faction and taught ourselves how to play.  Things went slowly as we plodded along, but picked up a bit as people figured out how to play.

I had the seers and could choose a player and turn on which they would win.  If I predict it correctly, then I win instead.

Oddly enough, this nearly happened and it took a player two ahead happening to do something that kept this player from winning on this round that kept me from winning.

Final Thoughts

We had a really fun night overall, but this was not one of the better board games I have played and did not work all that well for a bunch of first timers.  This is one that I would try again, but its not that high on my list to do so.

Dixit Tales: #1: Beginning

Dixit looks like a really fun game and I'm hoping to play it soon for the first time.  However, since I have three expansion packs of cards and no need to use them in the near future, I wanted to do something more with them.

The art is great on the cards and I decided to use them as inspirations for little stories.  I'll be posting these ever so often as I get time.

In the Bag: Silent Auction Winnings

The Silent Auction at The MidWinter Gaming Convention was allot of fun and due to a gap in may playing schedule, I was able to take in quite a bit of it.  I made a number of bids throughout and ended up winning one outright and four during the bid off at the end.

Games Won:

Amun-Re - I have played this one a couple of times and really like it so far.

Battle Wizards - This had a really neat look to it and could be really fun at a small price.  Another player mentioned she have friends that recently bought this one and love it.

Citadels - This is a game that vaguely registered in my memory and at the price, I wanted to see what it was.

Combo Box of 3 Games

Loot - A priate themed card game.

Pirate's Plunder - Another pirate themed card game.

Kill Doctor Lucky - Instead of trying to find out who killed someone, the object of this game is to be the first to kill him.  I had multiple people comment on how fun this game is at the Con.

I plan on doing separate In the Bag posts as I learn more about the games.

In the Bag: Tentacle Bento

Tentacle Bento Funding Page

Tentacle Bento is a match making game where certain combinations give more points than others.

This is a bit of a taboo game at the moment as it is based off of a subset of Hentai having to do with tentacles and unfortunate girls.

The fury around the game from some angles seems to have died down a bit and this game was the feature game at the MidWinter Gaming Convention in Milwaukee.  It had it's own table setup, girls working the booth playing the game and showing it to others, sales of the version for backers, and a giveaway of the themed box to hold them with as a raffle.

I have not yet played this game.

In the Bag: Dixit Odyssey

Dixit Odyssey is one of the three expansions for Dixit.  Where Dixit 2 is only cards and Dixit Journey is cards along with a more traditional scoring board, Dixit Odyssey is cards along with a few new bells and whistles.

Dixit Odyssey adds a there and back again track for scoring and allows for up to 12 players where the others were only setup for up to 6.  It also gives rules for a number of variants of the original rules such as team and party rules.

In the Bag: Dixit

In Dixit, players get a hand of cards and one player uses a word, phrase, verse, story, action, mime, whatever to describe the card.  The challenge comes in that all other players play a card face down that they believe others would think matches the description.  Everyone votes on the card they think was the one described.

Scoring:

If everyone or nobody guesses your card, they all score points, but you do not.
If one person, but not all guess your card, you score and those correctly guessing score points.
If someone picks your card, but you were not the giver, you score points.

In this original version, your points are counted up by moving your bunny around the garden.  A fun, whimsical setup that can be really good for families and lighters crowds.

I have not yet played this game, but hope to very soon.

In the Bag: Miskatonic School for Girls

Miskatonic School for Girls - Funded Kickstarter Project

In this game, players draft cards for both themselves and the other player as they try to build the deck that allows their girls to stay sane until the other player's girls go insane.

The cards are themed for Lovecraft with lots of odes to the stories while not always being direct correlations.  The faculty cards are pretty funny as many are representations of The Elder Gods in very flimsy disguising.

I have not yet played this game.