Snowy Sunday

It's a lazy, snowy Sunday here in western Nevada, so while we're waiting for the Pro Bowl (yes, some people still do watch the Pro Bowl!), we're playing King of New York and Star Wars: X-Wing. Just wish I had more takers for Zombicide and Ghostbusters.

"He's an ugly little spud!"

Although the map tiles are kind of bland in comparison to the flavorful maps from Zombicide, the Ghostbusters miniatures are top notch. Each of the four Ghostbusters has his own distinct color, and the ghosts are generally translucent. Below, you can see Slimer flanked by some of his ghostly compatriots.

One of the main boss villains, of course, is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, shown below with Peter for a size comparison.

And yes, it is possible for the Marshmallow Man to step on a Ghostbuster...

"Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back."

The boys and I tried out the Ghostbusters board game this morning, and it was a lot of fun. Here's a pic of our team as we successfully completed the first mission (by closing all the portals to the spirit world)...

Each hero has a limited number of actions per turn, and you really need to consider the most efficacious way to spend them. Do you work toward shutting the portals (the most common way of winning any given scenario) or do you try to hold down the rapidly increasing ghost population (your team loses if all available ghosts arrive on the map)? If a fellow hero gets slimed, do you spend your own precious actions to clean him up?

In our game, we ended up with three heroes (Winston, Peter, and Ray) on portal duty, while the last (Egon) was bustin' ghosts and attempting to deposit them back in Ecto-1. We had parked the car so far away, however, that Egon spent half the game trying to reach it. In the future, I think we need to do a better job of actually driving the car closer to the action. In any case, we're now ready to move on to the next scenario in this campaign.

Holiday Game Action

It's going to be a fun holiday vacation. We aren't going anywhere this year (staying home for Christmas for the first time in eight years!), but we'll have plenty to do. We'll have The Cloud Dungeon and Ghostbusters for new tabletop options, an old Lego Heroica game that Matthew desperately wanted for Christmas, some new Imperial ships for X-Wing, Shadowrun: Dragonfall (thanks, Matt!) on the computer, and, if I can muster the fortitude, the last round of battles in the iPad Injustice: Gods Among Us. Can't wait to get started!

I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable holiday season!

Ameritrash...and proud of it!

A term I wasn't familiar with until I started getting heavily into board games is Ameritrash, which refers (disparagingly, as you can probably guess) to games with a strong genre theme (sci-fi, fantasy, zombies, etc.), usually involving individualized characters and a kind of narrative that unfolds during gameplay. Mansions of Madness, for example, would fall into this category. In contrast to Ameritrash games are the more "critically acclaimed" (scare quotes added to be snarky) Eurogames, such as the members of the Catan family and Carcassonne. Eurogames tend to have streamlined rules and very little dice rolling, and focus on competition for resources rather than direct combat. I don't have anything against the Euro style, and I own and enjoy many such games, but I'm kind of getting sick of the board gamers who look down their noses at anything that comes with plastic minis. I've got
Ghostbusters and Zombicide on order, and damn, they both look like a lot of fun. Isn't that the whole point of board games, anyway?

"We got one!!!"

Thanks to a nifty Amazon deal, the new Ghostbusters board game is now on its way to our house. Will I be able to hold out until Christmas, or will I drop this big box of ectoplasmic awesomeness on my boys as soon as it arrives?

If Someone Asks If We're a God, We'll Know What to Say

My boys love all things Ghostbusters -- the movies (even the second one), the '80s animated series, the Lego Ecto-1 set, etc. Now, as if in answer to prayers we had yet to pray, there's going to be a Ghostbusters board game...with minis! Click here to see some preview pics!