Board Games!

[Illogictree]

This thread is relevant to my interests.

I semi-recently got back into board games after discovering the Watch It Played channel on YouTube earlier this year.

I've enjoyed Catan for quite a while (despite some people looking down their nose at it), and last Christmas I got the latest Explorers & Pirates expansion. I haven't yet had a chance to play the 6-player version but hopefully that will change. One of my ambitions is to some day gather and figure out how to play all the expansions together (I can dream that the currently German-only expansions will someday come out over here, right? ). I suspect I will have to ditch the frames for one thing...

I have Munchkin in both Original and Kung-Fu variety (Munchkin Fu I found for $2 at a local Value Village!), with a pile of expansions for the former. Sadly I only have one friend around here so far who will play Munchkin with me; oddly Munchkin Fu seems to play much better 2-player than the normal version, possibly because of the far nastier cards therein.

I picked up a game by Sirlin Games called Flash Duel - I think Puzzle Strike was mentioned earlier in this thread? Same company, same characters. This is a rather interesting game that's a bit like a fighting game; each player picks a character (set of 3 unique power cards) and play cards numbered from 1 to 5 in order to move, attack, block, etc. It's fairly simple but quite strategic and with a lot of variety - there's a solo mode, 2-on-2 mode, even a vs. boss game that supports up to 4-on-1 (with an optional traitor mode!).

I also just downloaded and printed the BattleCON demo game. So far I haven't been able to play a complete best-of-5 match, so I've only tried Eligor (who is a freaking TANK) playing against Hikaru. I may have made a tactical mistake here; I crushed my opponent twice in a row, then before our next round I gave him my analysis of what he was doing wrong - and he won our next round I guess my advice was correct. But yeah, it's been a blast so far.

I've been invited to a game of Descent: Journeys in the Dark next week. Hopefully that goes well, I'll have to re-watch a few how to play videos before I go.

Up on my want-to-try list: OGRE, Battlelore 2nd edition, Twilight Imperium, Summoner Wars, Space Hulk

[Erloas]

So after having been sucked in by Dice Masters just last week I've been looking at various board game related sites and saw a few things for Shadowrun: Crossfire. It seemed like a pretty good game, anyone here have much experience with it? (it is pretty new)

[Fjolnir]

I just playtested a game called Mech Deck yesterday, it was a lot of fun and had a lot of things going in the right direction with it. It's a giant robot tactics game with two phases, the first is drafting robot parts and pilots, the second is taking these robots onto a field and doing combat with them. They are in the process of trying to get the rules finalized and get production method down, with the intention of eventually starting a kickstarter for it. One of the really nice selling points for the game is that the robots are designed to be modularly assembleable, with pieces for torsos, legs, backpacks, and two arms. The pieces they have right now are going to be switched for something more robust for connectors as during testing, the treads piece was broken on one of the playtest sets. (right now it is post and slotted tab, I think they are switching to something more akin to post and hole...)

[Erloas]

That sounds interesting. Do they have any information up anywhere? Having some exposure *before* a kickstarter is a great way to get some momentum going ahead of time and get a good boost when it launches. The funding rate for kickstarters has gone down since there are so many of them.

As for modular models, while it is probably one of the more complex ways of going, magnets seem to be the best option in many cases. A lot of experienced wargamers already do that with their models.

[Fjolnir]

They are working on a website, and have some information on their facebook page. I did neglect to mention that there is a 60 card deck of actions that players draw from as well. next time I see them I will mention magnets as a possible solution to the post thing.

[Illogictree]

That's really cool, sort of like Armored Core as a board game. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

I've also been mucking around with a mecha themed board game of my own, though I haven't even gotten as far as testing it yet. It'd look sort of similar to this, except it's a co-op game and has an element of resource collection.

I wonder if mecha will become the next overused theme once everyone gets tired of zombies? I probably wouldn't mind.

[late for dinner]

It's been forever since I have been on the GITP forums, and I am thrilled to see this post, so I had to respond. I have a 60+ board game collection, and am the board game guy in almost all of my friend groups...(I have one friend that trumps me with over a 100 games...some people have problems) I'm about to drop my Top 5 favorite games,
Top 5 Favorite (In no particular order...except for #1)

5: Twilight Struggle: Probably the best 2 player only game I have ever played. It's stressfull and brilliant. Basically, it's playing the entire cold war...or at least until someone nukes the world. One person is USA, the other USSR. Each person, every turn, has a hand of cards that they HAVE to play. The only thing is, is while each card has a benifit for you in terms of influence points, but some cards you have in your hand may include an event that takes place...and that event may be benificial to the other player...so you are forced to make decisions on when and what to play, pretty much the whole game.

4: Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures: Fly X-wings and Tie Fighters around a table and shoot each other out of the sky...and you can customize your squad to anything you want. If you are a Star Wars fan, there is nothing to dislike about this game. Set up and tear down can be a bit lenghthy though...especially if you are new and don't know who you want to play with.

3: Cosmic Encounter: I introduced this game to my friends a few years ago. You can play 3-8 people. Basically, you are an alien that has a mission to explore the galaxy. Your goal is to colonize on 5 different planets (Not your own). You have no choice on who you have to have an encounter with, but when you draw the destiny card, you and that person must commit ships to the battle, then you get to ask anyone/everyone around the table if they want to ally with you. (Defensivly and Offensively) Once allies are chosen, Both main players lay down a card with a number on it or an Negotiate. You flip the cards over at the same time, add the ships to your card number. Highest number wins. Pretty Straight forward, right? Now take into account that you are one of over 130 different aliens, each with it's own game breaking power rule. Also, there are other cards in your hand that completely screw over the other people. It gets hilarious and heated. You could probably rename this game "Be the biggest Jerk in the Galaxy". Don't play this game if your group doesn't like lying and direct confrontation.

2: Carcassonne: It's a classic and should be in everyone's game collection. It's straight forward and loks cool on your table the bigger it gets. You draw a tile and place it, like a puzzle piece, next to another piece...then put a guy on it if you want. This game has like 6 expansions too! And 4 of them are great! It's good for families and great for teaching people who have never played a board game before.

1: Twilight Imperium: This game is my #1 game. This game is more like an event. It's Star Wars in a box without the Star Wars Trademark. You can win this game in multiple ways. It's long. (5-8 hours normally). You start by building a galaxy of planets, all revolving around one planet Mecotal Rex. You are an alien race. Each race has its own special abilities, but none that really change the game...the just make certain playstyles more accessable. Wanna build a giant fleet of ships and Death sta-err War Suns and spread destruction and fear across the galaxy? You can. Want to be trade master and get rich and use that money to strike deals with others and gain prestige throughout the galaxy? You can. Want to explore the galaxy and gain political influence on tons of planets, then take the senate by storm? You can. In fact, politics are a huge part of this game. Everyone around the table gets to vote on game changing laws. You get more votes the more influence you have. Some planets offere Influence, others resources...some both. Just depending on where you explore. There are so many ways to win this game and it creats a wonderful story...even if you lose...you will remember what happened for months to come when you get to play this game again. My last game, I decided that the pen was mightier than the sword. I built up a political dynasty, and used beuracracy to manipulate the victory conditions and end the game early once I had the lead. Was it as glorious as blowing up my neighbor? No. Was it sneaky? Yep. Did everyone around the table feel blind sided when their goals of becoming the emperor of the galaxy were crushed by a politician? Yes. Will they ever make the mistake of letting me run the senate again? Probably not. This game is glorious.

Now, these are my favorite games, but I don't get to play them that often. Mostly cause they aren't super accessible (Except Carcassonne). Normally I am pulling out King of Tokyo, Love Letter, Formula D, Smash Up, or something else that's easy to teach new gamers. But yeah...board games are my favorite. Thanks for reading.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Have you played Rex? It's a Twilight Imperium retheme (and slight revision) of the classic Dune boardgame, and it's definitely in my Top 5, maybe my Top 3. The supreme "dudes on a map" game, as far as I'm concerned. Tense negotiation and power struggle with a different power for each faction.

[late for dinner]

Have you played Rex? It's a Twilight Imperium retheme (and slight revision) of the classic Dune boardgame, and it's definitely in my Top 5, maybe my Top 3. The supreme "dudes on a map" game, as far as I'm concerned. Tense negotiation and power struggle with a different power for each faction.

No. My friend has it, and it's on my list of "I really wanna play it!" I love those epic style games. If you like "Cubes on a Map Representing Dudes on a Map" Games. Might I also suggest Wallenstein. It comes with a really stinkin cool dice tower that you do all your battles in.

[Chen]

5: Twilight Struggle: Probably the best 2 player only game I have ever played. It's stressfull and brilliant. Basically, it's playing the entire cold war...or at least until someone nukes the world. One person is USA, the other USSR. Each person, every turn, has a hand of cards that they HAVE to play. The only thing is, is while each card has a benifit for you in terms of influence points, but some cards you have in your hand may include an event that takes place...and that event may be benificial to the other player...so you are forced to make decisions on when and what to play, pretty much the whole game.

Agreed this is a fantastic game. Unfortunately you really do need to memorize the cards and know which can come up in a round to properly plan strategy. That's the main reason why I don't play this as much with my wife (plus she has a tendancy to accidentally cause nuclear war in this game :P)

4: Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures: Fly X-wings and Tie Fighters around a table and shoot each other out of the sky...and you can customize your squad to anything you want. If you are a Star Wars fan, there is nothing to dislike about this game. Set up and tear down can be a bit lenghthy though...especially if you are new and don't know who you want to play with.

Haven't played this, but I have the Star Trek version. Very similar mechanics but more focus on a smaller number of ships with more upgrades than the bigger squads of X-wing, from what I hear. A lot of fun as well.

1: Twilight Imperium: This game is my #1 game. This game is more like an event. It's Star Wars in a box without the Star Wars Trademark. You can win this game in multiple ways. It's long. (5-8 hours normally). You start by building a galaxy of planets, all revolving around one planet Mecotal Rex. You are an alien race. Each race has its own special abilities, but none that really change the game...the just make certain playstyles more accessable. Wanna build a giant fleet of ships and Death sta-err War Suns and spread destruction and fear across the galaxy? You can. Want to be trade master and get rich and use that money to strike deals with others and gain prestige throughout the galaxy? You can. Want to explore the galaxy and gain political influence on tons of planets, then take the senate by storm? You can. In fact, politics are a huge part of this game. Everyone around the table gets to vote on game changing laws. You get more votes the more influence you have. Some planets offere Influence, others resources...some both. Just depending on where you explore. There are so many ways to win this game and it creats a wonderful story...even if you lose...you will remember what happened for months to come when you get to play this game again. My last game, I decided that the pen was mightier than the sword. I built up a political dynasty, and used beuracracy to manipulate the victory conditions and end the game early once I had the lead. Was it as glorious as blowing up my neighbor? No. Was it sneaky? Yep. Did everyone around the table feel blind sided when their goals of becoming the emperor of the galaxy were crushed by a politician? Yes. Will they ever make the mistake of letting me run the senate again? Probably not. This game is glorious.

I like this game but it suffers from the same problem I have with other long games (like Eclipse which is similar). The problem is that sometimes one or two players WILL get into a situation where they CANNOT win. When that happens 2 hours into a 6 hour game, it's extremely frustrating and really those hopeless players just end up kingmaking in some way instead. I mean if I build up a whole fleet and still have zero chance of winning I want to use that fleet and DO something. But all I'm going to do if I all out attack someone is likely take them out of the game too and really just make whoever is next in score be the winner instead.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

No. My friend has it, and it's on my list of "I really wanna play it!" I love those epic style games. If you like "Cubes on a Map Representing Dudes on a Map" Games. Might I also suggest Wallenstein. It comes with a really stinkin cool dice tower that you do all your battles in.

I've been curious to play Wallenstein, because I really enjoy Shogun. Which, as I understand it, is Wallenstein but in Japan. The cube tower is an awesome feature.

[Brother Oni]

I picked up Scotland Yard as I've heard it recommended (plus it was on offer) and this is going to take me a couple of games to get my head around the map (longest I've lasted is 14 turns as the Agent). Both my children seem to like it although it's taking them some time to grasp where the agent can move based on the movement chart.

[Knaight]

I hosted a board game night yesterday, which involved four games. I've played most of them before, but don't think I've mentioned them, and that oversight needs to be fixed.
Dutch Blitz: This is a simultaneous action card game with special decks. Basically, you have a hand of three cards (down on the table), a stack of ten cards, and a deck. You can put cards with 1 out into the main play area, stack cards of the same color on top of each other in the main play area, stack cards of certain colors on other colors in your hand, and cycle through your deck. Everyone is doing this, and the goal is to eliminate your stack of ten cards and get as many cards out in the main area as possible. It's fast paced, it's deep enough to be somewhat strategic, and it's a lot of fun.

Forbidden Desert: Forbidden Desert is up there with Pandemic: On The Brink as far as cooperative games go. It's an exploration and tile flipping game, where you try to find 8 clues that locate 4 parts of a flying machine, get it to a landing pad, and escape the desert. It has moving tiles, accumulating sand, and an excellent water mechanic where cards in the antagonist deck force you to drink when the sun beats down (unless you're in a tunnel), but you can replenish your water supply by flipping over one of the two well cards - provided you don't run into the mirage.

Love Letter: Love letter is a fairly simple game, mostly about figuring out what everyone has in their hands (which are always changing), and maneuvering to get the best card at the end of the game or eliminate everyone else. Think of Coup or Resistance, and you've got the core understanding of the game.

Gloom: Gloom is a mixed card game/story telling game involving playing cards on top of your house of family members. The goal is to make your people as miserable as possible, then kill them while they're at the worst of their sorrows. Meanwhile, you want to keep everyone else's people alive and well. It's not a super deep game and is probably the weakest of the four from a pure game play perspective, but it's a lot of fum.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Dutch Blitz! Good times, there! I remember playing that! Very classic game.

If you like Love Letter, you should check out Seiji Kanai's other games. Lost Legacy is currently getting an English version, and it's the one that's most like Love Letter. The cool thing about Lost Legacy is that it comes in sets, and you can mix and match cards from different sets to create a custom set!

[Fri]

I have Forbidden Island, the predecessor of Forbidden Dessert, and yes, it's a really great game. I heard Forbidden Dessert is better though.

And I did a retheme of Lost Legacy, which is basically a retheme of Love Letter, with characters from Grandia, the PSX rpg.

Spoiler

Show

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I should totally do a retheme of Lost Legacy! It lends itself far better to rethemeing than Love Letter does.

[Erloas]

I liked Love Letters quite a bit. It was also easy enough for non-gamers and younger kids to pick up, which was nice.

Anyone else play Dragon's Horde?
It was recently kickstarted, I didn't get it from there but it seems to have made its way to amazon too.

So far I've only had one game and it seems pretty good. I think it would be better with more players, we played it with just 2. There isn't nearly as much strategy with only 2 people because you don't have to compete for colors and the chance of loosing cards to thieves and angry mobs is considerably reduced. It plays pretty quickly and is simple enough that non gamers should pick it up quickly too. The only real problem I have with the game is that blue and purple are surprising close and it can be hard at times to tell them apart. They could have easily picked another more distinct color, and with the great artistry on the cards they clearly had someone that understands art and color theory and should have caught that and put a more distinct color in.

[late for dinner]

Love Letter is on my list of games that gets brought to the table the most. While not in my top 5, it's easy to get new people in to it.

This week, my family took a trip to Disneyland. However, Sunday night we did not go to Disneyland. We had a night in, at the hotel. Luckily for them, I brought my newest game: Chinatown. Holy smokes, if you like interaction and trading, you will like this game. Basically you are handed a bunch of random stuff: Shops and building lots...then told to make money. However, if you can't build your shops big enough, they wont make much money. You can only make shops bigger by placing multiple shop tiles, with the same name, next to each other. You can only place them next to each other if you have the corresponding lot numbers....however, at the beginning of the round, everything is dealt out randomly.

Thus comes phase 3 of the game: Trading. In this section, the rules start off by saying, "In this portion of the game, Anything Goes." There is no turn order, so it's just a back and forth cluster of people trying to get what they want for as little as possible....and some of the deals are crazy. You can trade money, properties, business tiles, birth rights....whatever. The trading session ends when everyone is satisfied that they will get nothing more.

It's a great family game. It's good cause it's not a "Take that/lying" kind of a game. Everyone has a goal, and you mostly laugh with people instead of at them. You can't attack anyone either. You just make trades, build your businesses, and profit.

[Knaight]

I've been playing card games of late, including one with a name that nobody actually knew, but which was purported to ruin friendships. Specifically, it was a trick taking game with two decks where everyone had a suit, where everyone played one by one and pairs (played between two people) beat high cards. It also involved lots of negotiations, backstabbing, and outright deceit.

Anyone know what it's called?

[TheEmerged]

RE: Forbidden Island versus Forbidden Desert.

I bought both at the same time when a local bookstore was having a clearance. Both find their way to the table; although I personally prefer Desert, Island is a fine game too.

In my experience, Island is better at *feeling* urgent. The tiles disappearing and therefore not being recoverable is the reason for this. In Desert, the sand covering can get high but there isn't the constant sense of "I could be one or two bad draws from game over". The flip side of that is that I've seen more failures in Desert due to the "run out of sand tiles" condition than the "player runs out of water" condition.

Desert however has an exploration element that Island lacks, and that's the point that makes me feel it is the better game of the two. In Island you could theoretically sit at the same strategically placed tile for most of the game - you always know where you need to go. The notion of having to find the tiles in Desert keeps the players moving.

I also like Desert's wider variety of powers (thanks to the gear cards).

Scotland Yard. I have an old copy from when it first came out, back when the world of gaming was what was available at K-mart I had to order it from a magazine I'd seen an advertisement for it in, which just seemed bizarre at the time. It's a good game for teaching process of elimination to kids.

RE: Other Stuff.

As I've mentioned in the thread before, Love Letter is a popular "let's play one game in the ten minutes we have left today" entry. I'm looking forward to trying some of the variants.

HIVE, an abstract strategy game, was a bigger hit with the gaming group than I expected (I thought the two-palyer limit would hurt its popularity). In particular, the kids went for it with gusto.

The last few rounds of Dominion - our first time with the Seaside cards - developed an amusing pattern. I won all of them... by 1 point ahead of the 13-year-old daughter of one of the other players. She has taken to the game very strongly and regularly kicks her dad's posterior at the game :) The third hand I actually thought she'd beat me but I had apparently miscounted her VP card purchases.

[Xapi]

For folks who enjoy the light card games such as "love letter", may I reccomend Coup?

It's a brilliant little game with lots of choices and possibilities to bluff and counterbluff.

Works great with any group, including non gamers.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Coup is fantastic. The counterbluffing possibilities are amazing, and I really like that it's a game where you have to adapt to circumstances. I'm not great at it, but...

[TheEmerged]

Coup is fantastic. The counterbluffing possibilities are amazing, and I really like that it's a game where you have to adapt to circumstances. I'm not great at it, but...

Well, for people with any skill at bluffing games anyway. That counts me out, and hard

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Well, for people with any skill at bluffing games anyway. That counts me out, and hard

Yeah, there is a level of minimum bluffing required--at the very least, you have to bluff well enough in the early game to falsely claim the Ambassador, if you don't like your power combination.

[Knaight]

RE: Forbidden Island versus Forbidden Desert.

I bought both at the same time when a local bookstore was having a clearance. Both find their way to the table; although I personally prefer Desert, Island is a fine game too.

In my experience, Island is better at *feeling* urgent. The tiles disappearing and therefore not being recoverable is the reason for this. In Desert, the sand covering can get high but there isn't the constant sense of "I could be one or two bad draws from game over". The flip side of that is that I've seen more failures in Desert due to the "run out of sand tiles" condition than the "player runs out of water" condition.

I've played a fair amount of Desert, and that dwindling sand feels a lot more urgent to me, for the simple reason that Forbidden Island is just way easier. I played Desert first, and Island was just a disappointment after that.

[TheEmerged]

RE: Desert vs Island.

As it happens, Wil Wheaton's Tabletop did Forbidden Desert recently. And in typical Wil Wheaton Tabletop fashion, gets something wrong almost immediately

Aaaaaaand I didn't even make it to the ten minute mark before I'm cursing their inability to do obvious strategy.

As I continue watching... wow, they're getting more wrong than they are right. Wow, guys, read the flipping manual or something.

I guess I'm keeping the link here for comedy purposes, then.

[TheEmerged]

I believe 1 month is within the necromancy rules...

Star Realms. Haven't introduced this to the full group yet, but early results are encouraging. I'm probably going to buy a second box so we can do the four-player game. It's a deck-builder (ala Dominion) that is much better about my one complaint about that genre. It's still not reactive enough for me, but since it is a "do X damage to your opponent" victory condition it doesn't feel quite as high on the "playing solitaire together" scale as most other deck-builders.

Timeline. I bought the Americana and American History boxes. This was better-received at the table than I feared. The full group is about half/half split on being history buffs or not, but the non-history players still enjoyed it (and enough of the items were recent enough to work out).

Dominion. Well, I finished sleeving my own three boxes (base+Prosperity+Seaside). Our last time playing represented the first time I've genuinely been stomped by this gaming group. Smithy (a key early-game card) was one of the ten kingdom cards this time and I scored it during my usual 3/4 opening - but so was Rabble, which one of the other players picked up. Turn 3, his Rabble put my Smithy in the discard. Turn 5, it happened again. It then happened a third time. By the time I was finally able to play Smithy the first time, we were in the mid-game and I was noticeably behind. I managed to close the gap but still came in last.

We've been toying with coming up with a better way to randomize the kingdom cards. What we're considering right now is...

• There will always be a fourth Victory Point card and fourth Treasure card in the supply, randomly chosen. Right now for VP cards that means Colony, Garden, and Island.
• There will always be at least one attack card in the remaining ten Kingdom cards. If one is not chosen in the first nine, the attack cards will be separated and drawn between this them - this preserves the chance of having two or more.
• We're considering doing that with Treasure cards as well, so there's a chance of 2 alternate treasure cards. Currently we don't have enough alternate VP types for that to be meaningful.

[Xapi]

That sentiment Re: Dominion is natural at first, and when teaching the game to new players.

Once you've played the game quite a few times, you'll prefer to just play with whatever the random gods gave you, and try to figure out a strategy for that setup.

[zilvar]

I just snagged Smash Up (latecomer to that game) recently and love it quite a bit. So far I've only run into one card that is confusing me, and I can't tell if I'm overthinking it or not. (It's an ongoing zombie action..'they just keep coming' or something. It reads 'on your turn you can play a minion from your discard pile into this base'. I can't decide if 'your turn' applies to the faction owner, or the reader.)

Great game. Love the robots ;)

[Sliver]

Hey guys (and gals), hoping to draw in on your knowledge. I'm looking for some games to play with my friends, something that's easy to carry would be preferable, but not a must. I'm hoping that you know something that can be played from 3 to 10 players, easy to pick up and isn't too long per play session.

We have a few, but not many, games which we played and tried, but I'm always looking for something new. We have Fluxx, Munchkin, Game of Thrones and Mage Knight, and planning on getting Cards Against Humanity as well.

So, any suggestions?