The new games keep
coming thick and fast and we are definitely not managing to keep up! Most of
the new stuff we’re trying are games we own – we’re not even getting the opportunity
to test out other people’s exciting new goodies!
· Zombicide was really not high on my
priority list to play, simply because of the zombie theme, but given how much
we love co-ops it was worth a try. In Zombicide
you each take on the role of one or multiple characters who are trying to fend
off the zombie hoards to complete a given mission (chosen from many in the rule
book). Each turn you can use your action points to move around the town, attack
zombies using your weapons by rolling dice or search for new equipment. At the
end of all the player turns zombies spawn at the edges of the city and zombies
on the board move towards people they can see or sources of noise. Zombies also
spawn when you break into a building and they spawn in greater numbers if any
of the player characters becomes more experienced at killing zombies. Some
zombies are slower, some are quicker, some are fatties and take more fire power
to kill and they all want to eat your face. I surprised myself and actually
enjoyed this game. It certainly feels quite thematic ie. it really feels like
zombies are after you and it looks great on the table. I’m not sure I prefer it
to any of the co-ops in our collection, but Amy was really taken with it, so
maybe we’ll have to seek this one out.
·
Raptor has been hotly anticipated in
our household since the prototype was hyped up by the Dice Tower after GenCon 2015.
Apparently it’s a pasted on theme, but the dinosaurs are a theme I love. The
game is two-player only and plays with two asymmetrical sides – the scientists
and the raptors. The victory condition for the raptors is for three babies to
escape or to eat all the scientists. The victory condition for the scientists
is to capture 3 baby raptors or fully tranquilise the mother. You achieve these
goals with tactical card play which will either allow you special actions or
generic action points dependent on the cards that you and your opponent
simultaneously select. Unfortunately I found our first three plays of the game
really frustrating. I simply didn’t seem able to achieve anything playing as
either the dinosaurs or the scientists. Maybe this is too much like an abstract
strategy game of chess for me to be able to feel competent and enjoy it. I will
persevere and hope that practice makes perfect, but on first impressions I’m
pretty gutted that I didn’t really enjoy Raptor.
·
Cash ‘n’ Guns is party game for 3-8
players in which you point foam guns at each other to try and eliminate players
from the game. In each turn if you do not get shot and you do not run scared
from all of the guns pointing in your direction you can claim your share of the
face up loot in the centre of the table. The game is often billed as a bluffing
game because you have ‘bang’ cards and ‘click cards which mean your gun is
firing blanks or is loaded respectively, so on each turn you want to convince
the person you’re pointing a gun at that it is loaded to make them run scared
and give you a larger share in the loot. I our game at least the bluffing was a
bit lost and it was more of a case of random luck or a gung-ho attitude that
won the game. I much prefer the style of bluffing in a game like Sheriff of Nottingham which seems to
lend itself far better to role playing and bare faced lies!
·
X-Wing Miniatures Game – Millennium Falcon
and Lambda Class Shuttle are our first two big ship expansions to our
X-Wing collection. For this game I played as the rebels and my selection was
dominated by the Millennium Falcon with Hans Solo and 3 upgrades – totalling over
55 points. What I ended up with was a pretty invincible ship with a few
shields, 8 hull damage and upgrades which allowed me to duck out of a damage
and gain a shield as well as make an opponent re-roll an attack dice. Sadly,
because the Lamba class shuttle is far more economical, I faced a swarm of
Imperial ships and just could shoot at enough of them, frequently enough to be
able to secure myself victory. It was a close game though! The ability to shoot
360 degrees from the Millennium Falcon really allows you to worry less about manoeuvring
and making stressful about turns, which is also really fun. We didn’t see a lot
of what the Lambda class shuttle could do so I look forward to playing around
with that one soon!
We’re really enjoying
getting back to playing some of our old favourites at the moment too and have
set up a list to make sure that these get to the table. This week XCOM, Dominion and Lost Cities hit the table
and we realised just how much we enjoy them. games we’re desperate to keep
playing are Castles of Mad King Ludwig,
Ghost Stories and Lewis &
Clark. Maybe this week?
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