Category: Cardboard

My board game version of A Game of Thrones has been languishing in my basement for almost 5 years without being played, until last night. Granted, I used to bring it almost every time to board game nerd night– it just never got selected for play over the euro of the week or The Great Khan Game. In fact, it was played so long ago it was before I really started tracking my (too infrequent) board game plays on boardgamegeek.com. With the show out and everyone pretty happy about it, this finally got a chance to hit the table. Probably would have a week or so ago, but one of the essential order counters was replaced by Fantasy Flight after going through the wash (man they are a great company for supporting their games) and I had to wait for the pieces to come in the mail (shockingly in it was only a week!).

The infrequent play is sad really because last night was a cracking game even with all newbs but me–I still had a run for my money FTW as the Lannisters. Greyjoy was totally wiped off the map after attacking both Stark and Lannister. Being in the middle, they had little hope to survive without help from Tyrell who stayed out of the game until the end. Bearathon started to beast with power early in the game, but couldn’t get up the supply track to really get an offense going. In the end it was Stark, Lannister and Bearatheon with 5 cities each and the tie breaker was the Supply track. Lannister is tough to play, even though you can get to a boatload of supplies early and get some big armies, you are the ‘in the middle’ house who more likely will get steamrolled off the board, a lot like Austria-Hungary in Diplomacy.

All in all, it was like looking at the game with fresh eyes and it is SOLID fun. Plays fast, lots of very difficult choices. Getting a wargame this scale done in an evening (it took about 3.5 hours) and have people not be bored is quite a feat of design.

Shuriken Attack!

5th player, Horned Rat, ’nuff said!

Looks like AGTFOS is getting a new printing from Steve Jackson games with an actual real board and thick counters.  I’ve gotten about 10 games of this since I picked it up for 3$ on clearance at Kay Bee toys when I was 12 or so and  it’s solid 2 player fun and one of Tom Wham’s best.    Now if we could get The Great Khan game printed on a real board with real cards and a few tweaks to speed up combat that would be pure dwarven gold.

I got in on a 4 man, 4 planet game with the new expansion and it was great, though I got my ass kicked all across the galaxy during this particular game.  Fantasy Flight continues to prove that they are making the ultimate version of Cosmic Encounter with no let up in sight.  The new expansion is mostly about the new set of 20 aliens, but the 7th player cards and ships helps (black looks much better than I thought it would).

As for new rules and stuff in the box, the Hazard deck was entertaining in our first game, but it definitely made the game more crazy.  One of the Hazard cards shuffles all the cards in the hands of the player and redistributes them (same number of cards, just random ones) and this was a game changer as the landscape of Flare cards was instantly different.  A second hazard card is proof that the fantasy flight version of Cosmic Encounter will never have the Reverse Cone as one of the new Hazard cards did just that (Defensive allies get a base, offensive allies get cards).  Really thinking about the Reverse cone and the hassles surrounding it (it comes up too often in the Mayfair version) I don’t think I will miss it in the FF version.

Though others may dig it, the alien power I played in this first game did I was not a huge fan of: Warhawk.  Essentially, the Warhawk never negotiates and gets either a free Morph or a negotiate card converts to a 00 attack card.  I am a wheeler and dealer and not having the option of negotiating with other aliens is tough to swallow tactically, and also means you are always going to have to fight for your bases. With so many better combat powers out there, Warhawk is going to have a tough time competing when he can only fight it out all the time.

All in all, art, components and new rules in Cosmic Conflict are top notch and if we needed even more excuse to just play Cosmic Encounter over all other games, here it is.

It’s not quite around in stores (at least around here) but FF posted that the expansion is for sale.  Now that this is out– will there be another?  Really only your cash on the galactic barrel-head can determine it.   I read the list of aliens, as well as the list of previously published aliens that didn’t make it in and my only slight sadness is no Silencer this time.

Here is the list of (non Lucre) alien powers that are still out there to be included in a new expansion.  The bold ones are Aliens I absolutely think should be in the game. (thanks boardgamegeek’s ‘Barney Bustoffson’):