I finally got to play a couple games of imperial assault. Very fun. Campaign is great.

The show-stealer for my family was Evolution. We already ordered the wings expansion.

We played Colt Express with some friends, and they've lent us Robinson Crusoe as well. Really enjoyed Colt Express, haven't gotten to play Crusoe yet.

I got my wife Lagoon: Land of Druids, and we've played it once. Clouded, its future is.

My wife also received Once Upon A Time and the "Prosperity" expansion for Dominion. We've played Once Upon A Time twice, and it was great fun! I had a horrible first experience with Dominion 5 years ago, so I've played it once since then (when I met my wife), and we're now in the middle of a game.

I received my KS copy of Zombicide: Black Plague. It's my introduction to the Zombicide series, so I can't comment on how it stacks up to the earlier iterations.

This one is good fun for a bit of a dungeon-crawl style romp. A big plus is the co-op format, which can make for a more mutually enjoyable gaming experience than getting your arse beaten at some other game or putting off a tentative gamer.

The only thing I think it lacks is a campaign style format. I find it weird that the quests are linked thematically, chronologically, and by difficultly, yet the great characters you forged in the previous quest go back to zero Xp and lose all the cool gear they found.... that strikes me as the only thing that is amiss. Otherwise if you look at each quest independently it's good fun, has plenty of
re-playability and more than suited to having a few drinks along the way. I've only played it two player, but I'm sure it would be a hoot with a group of four or more mates.

I finally got to play a couple games of imperial assault. Very fun. Campaign is great.

The show-stealer for my family was Evolution. We already ordered the wings expansion.

I've avoided being drawn into Imperial Assault... but could be tempted... FFG already has me hooked on X-Wing and Armada plastic crack, plus Rebellion looks like a must buy.

I've heard some criticisms of Imperial Assault that the Empire needs to be played with a DM/GM perspective rather than from a competitive/WAC approach - what are your thoughts?

Not a new game, but December 31 we played some Catan games, the Ancient Egypt and Europe Settlers boxes. Quite an experience to play with a 78 years old lady and a 11 years old little wise person. Uhhhh...grandma...you can't do that move.

Why???

I've heard some criticisms of Imperial Assault that the Empire needs to be played with a DM/GM perspective rather than from a competitive/WAC approach - what are your thoughts?

In my experience, this is definitely true. My campaign for most of last year was with 2 guys who have no tabletop experience other than Monopoly. Every scenario I have pretty much engineered to be as close as possible; and they've usually won. It would be very easy to stomp them, especially with the time limits, but then they would be dissatisfied and we'd probably never have continued!

Carcassonne. My gift to my wife.

Lessee, I got the second expansion for Machi Koro, my wife got Cuttthroat Caverns. Her brother got Nyet!, Legends of Andor, and Dominion.

Then we picked up a copy of Sherrif of Nottingham while we were at the LGS to wish them a happy new year.

We're still in a campaign of IA, up for our third game of Pandemic Legacy and about to try some more games.

I received my KS copy of Zombicide: Black Plague. It's my introduction to the Zombicide series, so I can't comment on how it stacks up to the earlier iterations.

This one is good fun for a bit of a dungeon-crawl style romp. A big plus is the co-op format, which can make for a more mutually enjoyable gaming experience than getting your arse beaten at some other game or putting off a tentative gamer.

The only thing I think it lacks is a campaign style format. I find it weird that the quests are linked thematically, chronologically, and by difficultly, yet the great characters you forged in the previous quest go back to zero Xp and lose all the cool gear they found.... that strikes me as the only thing that is amiss. Otherwise if you look at each quest independently it's good fun, has plenty of

re-playability and more than suited to having a few drinks along the way. I've only played it two player, but I'm sure it would be a hoot with a group of four or more mates.

I also got Black Plague early from kickstarter. It's better than previous Zombicide by a longshot. So many core engine improvements! Also the lack of a "campaign" is one of it's strengths. This way you can always get together with any size group and just pick a game and play. No need to commit, no need to remember what each person had. It's just a good time fun game to waste an evening and drink and snack.

I played a bunch of Imperial Assault and Ticket to Ride and finally – finally! – picked up GF9's Firefly game, which is superb. So superb that I quickly picked up all the expansions. And am now eyeing up the "Whole **** Verse" playmat...

But seriously, it's a great game. Pretty simple to pick up, but with lots of depth and flavour, and doing illegal jobs and dealing with the complications that arise (in the wonderfully named "Aim to Misebhave" cards) feels like an episode of Firefly, as much as a game of X-Wing feels like a dogfight from a Star Wars movie. Highly recommended.

I've heard some criticisms of Imperial Assault that the Empire needs to be played with a DM/GM perspective rather than from a competitive/WAC approach - what are your thoughts?

In my experience, this is definitely true. My campaign for most of last year was with 2 guys who have no tabletop experience other than Monopoly. Every scenario I have pretty much engineered to be as close as possible; and they've usually won. It would be very easy to stomp them, especially with the time limits, but then they would be dissatisfied and we'd probably never have continued!

I think it depends on the experience of the players. For example, if my X-Wing group were to play Imperial Assault, I wouldn't hold back. If I'm playing with my nephews, I'll play it more like a GM.

I've heard some criticisms of Imperial Assault that the Empire needs to be played with a DM/GM perspective rather than from a competitive/WAC approach - what are your thoughts?

In my experience, this is definitely true. My campaign for most of last year was with 2 guys who have no tabletop experience other than Monopoly. Every scenario I have pretty much engineered to be as close as possible; and they've usually won. It would be very easy to stomp them, especially with the time limits, but then they would be dissatisfied and we'd probably never have continued!

Thanks Sbloom - good to know.

I received my KS copy of Zombicide: Black Plague. It's my introduction to the Zombicide series, so I can't comment on how it stacks up to the earlier iterations.

This one is good fun for a bit of a dungeon-crawl style romp. A big plus is the co-op format, which can make for a more mutually enjoyable gaming experience than getting your arse beaten at some other game or putting off a tentative gamer.

The only thing I think it lacks is a campaign style format. I find it weird that the quests are linked thematically, chronologically, and by difficultly, yet the great characters you forged in the previous quest go back to zero Xp and lose all the cool gear they found.... that strikes me as the only thing that is amiss. Otherwise if you look at each quest independently it's good fun, has plenty of

re-playability and more than suited to having a few drinks along the way. I've only played it two player, but I'm sure it would be a hoot with a group of four or more mates.

I also got Black Plague early from kickstarter. It's better than previous Zombicide by a longshot. So many core engine improvements! Also the lack of a "campaign" is one of it's strengths. This way you can always get together with any size group and just pick a game and play. No need to commit, no need to remember what each person had. It's just a good time fun game to waste an evening and drink and snack.

Thanks Crabbok. That aspect of pick up and play is certainly an overall positive. Some of my players were feeling a bit bummed out by losing all their cool skills and kit that helped shape some character and personality around their hero. In fact we got it wrong early on and carried over all the xp and toys to the next quest - it was a very one sided affair!

I think some sort of optional campaign dimension would really add to it - even if it buffs the Zombies too!

Also - super impressed with the production quality of ZBP - very well thought out box, with the mini trays and great tiles too.

There ARE some campaigns for the original zombicide that tried that. And the game is SOOO modular that you'll Easily be able to homebrew it. Especially once your kickstarter stuff comes in.

I just prefer games like Imperial Assault if I want to carry over progress, and games like zombicide if I want a 1-shot.

I was able to give Zombie 15' a good run. Alas, I'm the only one in my house that liked it

Pandemic Legacy Season 1 blue box was one of my X-mas gifts. My wife and I played thinking we would give it a once or twice try.

We played it till the end.

We lost both starting games and then won and then lost then won all the rest. Was a challenge and a half but got in some good quality gaming/bonding time with my wife.

Not boardgames but:

Recently accuired both AGOT (1st ed) and Pathfinder the adventure card game at good prices (50% off for pathfinder, 70% off on AGOT) and manged to get them to the table.

New spiderman dice masters. Several games with several new builds. (The Vulture is pretty boss for an old guy with wings.)

Smash up munchkin: Pretty cool on its own, next game night we're gonna mix them up with the base game.

I picked up the Betrayal at Calth boxed set, but haven't bothered to play the board game. I'm excited for more mainstream support for 30k, a game that is arguably much, much better than it's 41st millennium equivalent.

Oh, and I plan to try Heroes of Normandie at some point in the near future.

We played a lot of 'lords of waterdeep' over christmas, really cool game and quite amusing if you're an old D&D roleplayer to be assuming the role of the one giving out quests that to you are something done quickly but to a party of adventurers is *days* of play.

I love Lords of Waterdeep, great thematic eurogame.

I've also been playing some games of Pandemic legacy with my friends over the past couple of months. We got a bit burnt out by the fourth game in a row though!

Got my sister hooked on Sushi Go of all things over Christmas.

This topic does remind me that I need to pick up a copy of Fury of Dracula.

Sushi go is great.

We've also been playing

Guilletine

Kings of Tokyo/New York

Thunderbirds

Seven Wonders

I've got Fury of Dracula (the old 80s GW version with metal minis) but have so far yet to play it with a group of people, played it two player with the wife and it lacks something without a couple of extra hunters

Oh yeah. That reminds me that I got SushiGo as well. I've only played it once with my wife. She enjoyed it well enough.

Also this year my brother-in-law got into Magic. He just got a bunch of cards from friends that had too many cards and didn't want them anymore. We played some games over break and it was pretty fun. I made a scorpion/spider deathtouch deck. I study scorpions and such so the deck was right up my alley. When my game store went out of business, I got 4 boxes of about 1,000 cards each for $40. So I guess now I own Magic cards.

Oh yeah. That reminds me that I got SushiGo as well. I've only played it once with my wife. She enjoyed it well enough.

Also this year my brother-in-law got into Magic. He just got a bunch of cards from friends that had too many cards and didn't want them anymore. We played some games over break and it was pretty fun. I made a scorpion/spider deathtouch deck. I study scorpions and such so the deck was right up my alley. When my game store went out of business, I got 4 boxes of about 1,000 cards each for $40. So I guess now I own Magic cards.

Sushi go is definitely a good time, but I don't feel it works that well with only two players. Makes it too easy to track what's in what hand.