Board Games!

[Cristo Meyers]

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?

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a superhero-based card game that we've used as a stand-by for quite some time now. Simple mechanics (Play card, use power, draw card, done), co-op, and lots of replay value in multiple villains to fight. Tops out at around 5 or 6 players, though.

[Illogictree]

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?

There's always Bang! and Bang! The Dice Game, which is up to 8 players, and the old standby of Werewolf. One Night: Ultimate Werewolf is supposedly pretty good. I just got my brother a copy of The Resistance for Christmas, but we haven't had a chance to try it out. That's 5-10 players. All of those suggestions have a 'guess the secret identity' sort of mechanic to them.

Depending on your group there's also Dixit, which I've never tried but have heard good things about. It's only 3-6 players, though.

Speaking of the recent holiday, who gave / received games as gifts? I received a copy of Star Wars: Imperial Assault and already got a chance to try it out with some of my cousins, one who's never played any board game more complicated than Monopoly before. He later said that he'd never gotten that into in a game before. I played the Empire since I was the most experienced by virtue of having read the rules first.

[Kerrin]

As is usual with us, there was much game giving and receiving this holiday season!

For myself, I received Fortune and Glory, Jamaica, Bang! the Dice Game, an expansion for Descent, and a new track for Formula de.

Our boys received several analog games as well as video games.

We also gave several games as gifts!

All in all a typically great game gifting holiday season for us!

[ShadowFighter15]

Well, if anyone was curious about Dreadball Xtreme, I have my copy and I have to say; the terrain alone made a huge difference in how you play. Although that was probably more from the explosives inside the smaller pieces than the terrain itself. Not having to worry about fouls gives some extra options and having the sponsors intimidating their team or threatening an enemy player give some extra flexibility.

And the new Sabotage cards are just pure awesome.

[Fri]

And for us.

We got thrown away from a food court for playing board game!

Typical, really

[CantigThimble]

So I now have Mage Knight and Diskworld: Ankh Morpork.

Mage Knight instantly became one of my favorite games of all time due to the fluid interweaving of many interesting mechanics without becoming the kind of mathomancy-optimization off that some games are. (There is mathomancy but no more than a roleplayer or wargamer would be used to doing easily) I see it as an excellent example of how limited resources can create interesting scenarios and decisions.

Diskworld: Ankh Morpork was purchased mainly to get a few laughs with my friends who also read Diskworld but I was pleasantly surprised by the the gameplay as well. Fast paced and unpredictable but not so much so that the decisions you make lose their impact. I only wish it was a bit smaller and shorter as the mechanics could lend themselves very well to a quick replayable game but the length and large board prevent that.

What my group really needs right now are some fast paced games that work for at least eight or nine people. Whenever we all get together the only things we can play are Resistance and MTG. Which are fun, but I'd like to get some variety. Most games we try on a large scale, even with 5-6 people get quickly bogged down as people's attention starts wandering in the 15 minutes between their turns, which leads to 20 minutes between turns, which leads to 30 minutes between turns. I really want something that can keep people engaged constantly or get the turns done in under a minute. Part of the issue is the mix of tactical thinkers who like to weigh options carefully with players who like act quickly, I doubt there's much that can resolve this besides MOAR MTG or playing games in 2 groups, which kinda defeats the point of all getting together, but I'd like to be proven wrong.

[Xondoure]

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 ;)

Just the faction owner, definitely.

Edit: Smash Up is great. I highly recommend picking up the expansion sets. There's some amount of power creep, but the increased levels of diversity more than make up for it.

[Vaynor]

I received Carcassonne and Alhambra as gifts for Christmas, and I'm enjoying both of them quite a lot. Carcassonne especially so, but most likely because I've mainly been able to play them as 2-player games and Carcassonne has a lot more depth with a two player setup than Alhambra does. I've been looking into possibly purchasing a Carcassonne expansion, does anyone have any recommendations for which one would be the best to get if all I have is the base game (+ the River)?

[Haruki-kun]

I got Red Dragon Inn! Two boxes, for a total of eight players!

[Xapi]

So I now have Mage Knight and Diskworld: Ankh Morpork.

Mage Knight instantly became one of my favorite games of all time due to the fluid interweaving of many interesting mechanics without becoming the kind of mathomancy-optimization off that some games are. (There is mathomancy but no more than a roleplayer or wargamer would be used to doing easily) I see it as an excellent example of how limited resources can create interesting scenarios and decisions.

Diskworld: Ankh Morpork was purchased mainly to get a few laughs with my friends who also read Diskworld but I was pleasantly surprised by the the gameplay as well. Fast paced and unpredictable but not so much so that the decisions you make lose their impact. I only wish it was a bit smaller and shorter as the mechanics could lend themselves very well to a quick replayable game but the length and large board prevent that.

What my group really needs right now are some fast paced games that work for at least eight or nine people. Whenever we all get together the only things we can play are Resistance and MTG. Which are fun, but I'd like to get some variety. Most games we try on a large scale, even with 5-6 people get quickly bogged down as people's attention starts wandering in the 15 minutes between their turns, which leads to 20 minutes between turns, which leads to 30 minutes between turns. I really want something that can keep people engaged constantly or get the turns done in under a minute. Part of the issue is the mix of tactical thinkers who like to weigh options carefully with players who like act quickly, I doubt there's much that can resolve this besides MOAR MTG or playing games in 2 groups, which kinda defeats the point of all getting together, but I'd like to be proven wrong.

I will unfortunately give an answer that doesn't truly qualify but might help:

Coup and Bang are great short/medium lenght games that work very well, Coup plays 4-6, but it shines at 5, and Bang is best played with 5 or 7. Coup's turns are really very short, while Bang's turns are a little longer but not that much.

If you get one of the Kickstarter editions of Coup: Reformation with the base game thrown in, you can play it at 8/9 people, but it will feel a bit more random.

[Xapi]

I will unfortunately give an answer that doesn't truly qualify but might help:

Coup and Bang are great short/medium lenght games that work very well, Coup plays 4-6, but it shines at 5, and Bang is best played with 5 or 7. Coup's turns are really very short, while Bang's turns are a little longer but not that much.

If you get one of the Kickstarter editions of Coup: Reformation with the base game thrown in, you can play it at 8/9 people, but it will feel a bit more random.

I'd also recomend getting some fast moving 4/5 player games and split the group in two, instead of pairing people up to play Magic.

[Xapi]

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?

3 to 10 players is basically hell.

I mean, there is no game that will work well with 3 and also with 10.

As I said for Thimble, you are better off finding games that work well for 3/5 players, and splitting the group when you go over that.

My favourite games per player count (I'm not precisely a great connoseur, but I've played some games):

3 or 4: Forbidden Desert / Dominion / King of Tokyo
5 - Coup / Bang
6 - Coup / Dungeon Fighter
7 - Bang
8 o more: Some variation of Werewolf

[Gandariel]

Games for up to 10-12 people?

There are some fun ones, but mostly they're not really "strategy" games, simply because turns would get too long and ruin the gameplay.

So.

Best two i've played are Compatibility and Dixit!

Compatibility: Everyone is paired into couples, everyone is given the same deck of cards (which are pictures/drawings)
Someone names a "theme" (love, war, etc), and everyone has to put in order the 5 cards that most represent this theme to him.

Points are given if you pick the same cards as your partner, and more points if you get them in the same order too.
Obviously works only with an even number of players, but handles perfectly well on 8-10 players :P

Dixit!
This one is hard to explain, but it's actually fun. Basically, everyone draws 6 cards from a deck of really weird drawings.
A player says a phrase, a word, sings a song, whistles or whatever he wants, and places a card face down (which represents what he just said). Everyone else chooses the card that fits the most from their own 6. The cards are shuffled and shown to everyone.

Now everyone has to guess which one is the card that the first guy played.

if EVERYONE or NOONE guesses right, everyone (except for the first player) gains points.
If some guess right and some don't, everyone who guessed right (plus the first player) gets points. Also, everyone who played a card that was voted gains points.
I know it sounds confusing, but it really makes sense. And it's really fun!
Basically, you (as first player) want SOME but not ALL of the others to understand your "hint" and guess your card.

Other games that handle well with many people...

Bang, probably. 7-8 is a great spot.

Also, i've just received Mice & Mystics, a new-ish game with tons of positive reviews. Pretty fun d&d-like game with cool story and engaging and fun mechanics. Works perfectly well with 4-6 players (and works with 1 or 2 players too)

Dungeon fighter is really fun too. Similarly dnd-related, but on a much funnier note. You deal damage by throwing a dice on a target, and you can increase your damage by throwing the dice in weird ways (standing far away from the table, eyes closed, from your nose, etc). Great for 4-6 players too and really fun.

[Knaight]

Taboo is also pretty fun with huge groups. It's a word game involving trying to communicate a bunch of words as quickly as possible to your team without using the banned words that are on the card they come with. It's fairly simple, but it works with very large groups and has some level of strategy to it.

[Drake S.]

Four of some of my favorites include:

The Omega Virus - A classic talking board game which was surprisingly very ahead of it's time. Play one of 4 Commandos sent to a space station to destroy an alien entity known as the Omega Virus, hellbent on using the station's laser defense array to wipe out all life on Earth. It's sort of a race against time kind of game where you collect items, access cards, and seek out the deadly virus and destroy it before it's too late. A very fun game and pretty easy to learn. The talking virus adds quite a bit of fun to it as well.

Mansions of Madness - Based on the Lovecraft, Cthulhu mythos, one player plays as the dreaded keeper, while the others play as investigators. Very cool storytelling game where you are fighting not only to keep your life, but your sanity as well. Includes many different stories to play, each with different outcomes to choose from for definite replayability. There are also a few expansions which add in even more depth, more monsters, and more stories to choose from. For the Keeper, this brings out your dark side. For the Investigators, gets your adrenaline pumping as you slowly try to anticipate and discover clues to what really is going on and the true threat that lies against you and your fellow investigators. Pay attention to the clues that you discover and the story as it unfolds while you work to unravel the dark plans of the dreaded Keeper.

Mice and Mystics - This one really surprised me. I didn't think I'd like it as much as I did, but man oh man, this was fun. You work together to defeat the minions that have been summoned against you, plus a host of other creatures you never thought would be a threat unless you were the size of a mouse. The storyline in this game is very solid. You are literally thrown right into a storybook about former-humans-turned-mice working to defeat a dark sorceress. What adds to this is the fact that there is a campaign mode. So you play one "chapter" and continue onwards to the next chapter for your next session furthering the telling of the story.

Forbidden Island - Fun little game where you work on a fast-sinking island to uncover relics and use your abilities to gather them together and escape before the entire island sinks into the sea forever. Each character has specific abilities that help you work with your teammates with voctory as the goal. Not a very long game either, and the rules are very simple, yet it is definitely a challenge. The island is never the same, so it adds to the replayability factor. There is a part two as well, not necessarily an expansion, called Forbidden Desert. Haven't played it yet, but if it's anything like it's predecessor, it will be good.

[Knaight]

Forbidden Island - Fun little game where you work on a fast-sinking island to uncover relics and use your abilities to gather them together and escape before the entire island sinks into the sea forever. Each character has specific abilities that help you work with your teammates with voctory as the goal. Not a very long game either, and the rules are very simple, yet it is definitely a challenge. The island is never the same, so it adds to the replayability factor. There is a part two as well, not necessarily an expansion, called Forbidden Desert. Haven't played it yet, but if it's anything like it's predecessor, it will be good.

Forbidden Desert is by far the better of these two games. I strongly recommend giving it a shot.

[CantigThimble]

I'd also recomend getting some fast moving 4/5 player games and split the group in two, instead of pairing people up to play Magic.

I was looking to avoid precisely that situation where we split the group, which we don't for MTG, just big games.

I'll look at Bang and Coup.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Space Cadets: Dice Duels is tailor-made for large groups! The first game plays 8 people: two teams of 4 people, with a variety of roles on each team. It's like Artemis Bridge Simulator: the boardgame. You command a starship, send it careening around the board, and try to blast the enemy starship out of the sky. In real time. Work fast, because the other ship is doing all of that too!

They also added in an expansion which lets you play with extra players. Or, if you have 12 people, you could buy two copies of the base game and have a 2v2 battle (with three players on each team).

[Peebles]

Resistance is a good 10 player game, as is Snake Oil. Once you get to that number of players, you're basically down to the lighter touch stuff with few other options for anything deeper.

Happy with my post Christmas purchase - Power Grid Deluxe plays quite well, though it's a bit dry like a lot of Eurogames can be. My The Captain is Dead kickstarter came through too, which is an excellent 'escalating panic' cooperative style game, with lots of roles and replay value. Not as tough as Pandemic, but more fun.

Two others I've been enjoying recently are Pandemic: Contagion (become the disease, wipe out cities to win) and Shadowrun Crossfire. I don't usually enjoy cooperative games, but The Captain is Dead and Crossfire have really bucked that trend.

[Felyndiira]

I didn't even realize this thread existed until now. How silly of me.

I don't really have a huge game collection of my own - my friends, coworkers, and the people in our various local board game groups have the crux of them, and my library consists of a few impulse buys for the most part. I do have quite a few favorites, though:

Seasons: I was surprised that this wasn't already mentioned in the thread. The story is that you are a candidate for the archmage of Xidit, and you have to summon powerful artifacts and familiars using the power of seasons to earn the spot against other competitors. Seasons is probably my favorite competitive, non-solitare board game, and a strong contender for my favorite board game period. The game is extremely dynamic - you have to constantly watch out for attacks from other players while building your own methods to victory, and there are plenty of limits (summoning size, energy costs, penalties imposed by other players) that you have to constantly be mindful of and plan ahead for. The one weakness of Seasons is that it's a difficult game to teach, as you have to know the metagame to play it well, but it's extremely fun when everyone knows the game.

Power Grid: Probably the only game on my favorites list that I will likely never play again. Power Grid really appeals to me because it's a heavily mathematical game; every turn, I can visualize what my opponents will do, how much money I should need to accomplish my objectives (factoring in things like other players overbuying resources), how much money I will likely need on the next turn and thus what power plants I can buy, etc. Despite loving the game, I have a tendency to take 3+ minute turns because I couldn't help but math everything out in my head, which meant that I also will try to not play the game out of respect to other players.

7 Wonders: Everyone knows Seven Wonders.

Dominion: Everyone knows Dominion.

Cards Against Humanity: After much deliberation, the mayor of Detroit finally announced that it solved the problem of a Bop-It.

Sentinels of the Multiverse: The only game other than 7 Wonders I have all of the expansions (including promos) for. I fell in love with the silly humor of Sentinels when someone in my gaming group introduced me to it and immediately purchased all the expansions for it on the spot (just got my shiny new Wrath of the Cosmos box with promos today, in fact - looking forward to playing Omnitron vs. Omnitron inside Omnitron). Sentinels is a co-op game where you play DC-style superheroes, each with their own deck of tricks, against randomly drawn villains in a random environment that may help or harm you at any moment. It can be very easy (Baron Blade vs. top tier heroes) or brutally difficult (Iron Legacy Advanced vs. Fixer, Expatriate, and Chrono Ranger), but is a ton of fun.

Shadow Hunters: Shadow Hunters is a light, mafia-style game. Players are given a random role with powers, and have to figure out what role the other players are and kill the other faction (or if you are neutral, accomplish your own objective). They do this by moving around between six areas, collecting equipment for themselves, using hermit cards to try to deduce information about others, and attack players. There's no deep or complex strategy, and a lot of it is just lighthearted fun, but surprisingly fun nonetheless.

Lords of the Waterdeep: The dungeons and dragons board game, and a work-replacement game. I didn't think I would like it at first, admittedly, but it really grew on me after playing it for some time. The objective of the game is to get as many quests done as possible; you do this by placing your meeples in various locations to recruit adventurers, gain money, get quests, and to do other things. The game is really completed by its expansion, as Skullport adds crucial new areas and more options to the game.

Eldritch Horror: A co-op Cthulhu game like Mansions of Madness, except set in the open world and without a narrator. As investigators, players must travel between major cities to obtain clues, increase their stats, and accomplish objectives listed by the eldritch horror that they are currently fighting. I like it better than the other Lovecraft games (Mansions, Elder Sign) mostly because the game plays very fluidly and the open world feels much more epic than the other games, and because it has much more complex mechanics with lots of options. I haven't played the expansion yet, but the base game is very excellent.

I'm sure there are other games, as well, that I've just forgotten. Our group has a huge collection of games that gets cycled in and out frequently, so there are some games that I liked at the time that was only played once, so I may not remember them anymore.

I definitely need to get Mice and Mystics for my collection, though. Also, does anyone know how good Tanto Cuare actually is in play? The otaku in me is pushing for me to get the game, though I'm a bit hesitant until I can be sure it won't be sitting in the dust.

[TheEmerged]

7 Wonders: Everyone knows Seven Wonders.

*cough* not everyone *cough*
It's on my "games I'd like to try eventually but can't justify purchasing yet" list, at least.

Star Realms. So, having played the game a bit more, here's a bullet point review.

Good: it really does do a good job alleviating the "playing Solitaire together" issue many deck-builders experience (this is the one problem I have with Dominion, for example).
Bad: it's nowhere deep as Dominion. It's not quite as light as, say, Love Letter but there's a definite sense of wanting more mechanics-wise.

Hinge Point: whether or not you like this game or feel it's total\mostly luck seems to hinge on how you feel about how the Trade Row works. Those who like it (myself, about 2/3 of the regular gaming group) feel that this is an interesting drafting-style mechanic that keeps an optimal strategy from dominating. Those who don't (a vocal co-worker of mine, the rest of the regular gaming group) feel that the game gets dominated by what does/doesn't show in Trade Row, that there aren't enough controls on that mechanic, and the "strategy" of the game boils down to "buy the best card available and get the weaker ones out of your deck."

I'll definitely be picking up another deck once I can find one for sale and sleeving them soon. It's just not the hit with everyone it was with me.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Hinge Point: whether or not you like this game or feel it's total\mostly luck seems to hinge on how you feel about how the Trade Row works. Those who like it (myself, about 2/3 of the regular gaming group) feel that this is an interesting drafting-style mechanic that keeps an optimal strategy from dominating. Those who don't (a vocal co-worker of mine, the rest of the regular gaming group) feel that the game gets dominated by what does/doesn't show in Trade Row, that there aren't enough controls on that mechanic, and the "strategy" of the game boils down to "buy the best card available and get the weaker ones out of your deck."

I'll definitely be picking up another deck once I can find one for sale and sleeving them soon. It's just not the hit with everyone it was with me.

Yeah, I've found that this huge point is what makes it a love/hate game for people. Me? I'm totally onboard with it, and I don't agree with their assessment. I've been in a lot of situations where there's multiple cards in purchasing range, and I had to make a call on what to buy, based on what I had. Plus, tanking towards one main color will yield more consistent results than buying willy-nilly.

Now, it is almost always the best play to buy a 6+ cost card. Which means it's usually the best play to start concentrating your money. But not always. Spending time investing in one of the colors can reap huge dividends. Maybe you go out of your way to power-buy the two Machine Cult scrappers on the board, instead of the Blob Mothership. Later in the game, you win by merit of having a 6-card deck that plays itself every turn. Planning ahead and sticking to a color strategy works well.

Of course, the Trade Row also means that it's a tactics game, not a strategy game. Dominion puts all the cards out on the field, so it's 90% strategic planning and engine execution. Star Realms makes the available cards unpredictable, so it's 90% tactical adaptation, because you can't plan ahead.

Then again, "you can't plan ahead" seems to upset self-styled "hardcore gamers" a lot.

[BRC]

Eldritch Horror: A co-op Cthulhu game like Mansions of Madness, except set in the open world and without a narrator. As investigators, players must travel between major cities to obtain clues, increase their stats, and accomplish objectives listed by the eldritch horror that they are currently fighting. I like it better than the other Lovecraft games (Mansions, Elder Sign) mostly because the game plays very fluidly and the open world feels much more epic than the other games, and because it has much more complex mechanics with lots of options. I haven't played the expansion yet, but the base game is very excellent.

Eldritch Horror is great. It's a streamlined, Improved (IMO anyway) version of Arkham Horror. It's one of my friends go-to games.
Star Realms: is the deckbuilder that ruined me for other deckbuilders because of its sheer efficiency. The joy of Deckbuilders is in getting, and using, your shiny toys. Star Realms gives you some very shiny toys indeed. In fact, that's kind of its biggest flaw. Because the purchased cards are so much more efficient than the starter cards, there is a ton of pressure to focus on the "Machine Cult" faction and cut the starter cards out of your deck ASAP, which kind of makes the other (very cool) Factions underplayed. Early control of Machine Cult ends up defining the game.

[TheEmerged]

Eldritch Horror is great. It's a streamlined, Improved (IMO anyway) version of Arkham Horror. It's one of my friends go-to games.
Star Realms: is the deckbuilder that ruined me for other deckbuilders because of its sheer efficiency. The joy of Deckbuilders is in getting, and using, your shiny toys. Star Realms gives you some very shiny toys indeed. In fact, that's kind of its biggest flaw. Because the purchased cards are so much more efficient than the starter cards, there is a ton of pressure to focus on the "Machine Cult" faction and cut the starter cards out of your deck ASAP, which kind of makes the other (very cool) Factions underplayed. Early control of Machine Cult ends up defining the game.

It's funny, BRC, because you could almost replace that faction with the other three and make a similar argument ("Whoever gets early control of...") albeit with different reasons. When I first went through the web looking for strategy articles* on it I literally ran into a board that had separate threads for each faction arguing they were overpowered. Even with the yellow faction, I've had games where I was essentially discard-locking my opponent early on because of them. The only card I would personally argue as "clearly too powerful for its cost" is the Machine Cult's "Stealth Needle", ironically enough, and even then I think it should probably cost 5 or 6 instead of 4.

*I've installed the smartphone app for the game and can't seem to beat the third campaign mission to save my life, so I figure I'm still missing some key mechanic or something.

[BRC]

It's funny, BRC, because you could almost replace that faction with the other three and make a similar argument ("Whoever gets early control of...") albeit with different reasons. When I first went through the web looking for strategy articles* on it I literally ran into a board that had separate threads for each faction arguing they were overpowered. Even with the yellow faction, I've had games where I was essentially discard-locking my opponent early on because of them. The only card I would personally argue as "clearly too powerful for its cost" is the Machine Cult's "Stealth Needle", ironically enough, and even then I think it should probably cost 5 or 6 instead of 4.

*I've installed the smartphone app for the game and can't seem to beat the third campaign mission to save my life, so I figure I'm still missing some key mechanic or something.

It's not that Machine Cult is overpowered (All the factions are powerful, that's what makes it so fun), it's more that ignoring Machine Cult can make early game a lot less fun, since your shiny toys come up less often in rotation.

The other Factions are not necessarily less powerful, but everytime I play I find myself really wanting to go Machine Cult so I can avoid dealing with endless turns of starter cards.

if your opponent goes early machine-cult, it can be frustrating to see them play good cards in frequent rotation, while you stare at a hand full of starters.

so it's more psychological than practical. All the factions are powerful.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

So what you're saying is that the Machine Cult lures you into joining its dogmas of absolute efficiency.

Though, that particular ability does make it a great combo with any other faction. Red + Whatever works fantastically.

Red + Green: lots of card draw and heavy damage every turn
Red + Yellow: a good amount of card draw, damage, and discarding every turn
Red + Blue: all the healing
Pure Red: BEHOLD THE SWARM

[TheEmerged]

Gaming Report
The last round of Dominion went amusingly. One of the player's favorite attack card in the base set is Thief - and it came up in the randomized supply without any defensive\reaction cards. As it happens I was going last in turn order, and everyone had bought a Thief in the initial round, figuring the only way to counter it was going to be to fight fire with fire. I had a feeling that wasn't going to work, and decided to try that "coinless" technique I'd heard about, even though the only such cards were [url=http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Festival] and Moneylender. Well it worked - barely, I ended up 3 VP ahead of the Thief fan, and only got to use the Moneylender once. I did have 3 straight turns of buying a Province toward the end... I was a little surprised nobody tried the Thief + Moneylender combo, but there you go.

Star Realms went over well with the full group as well - a few are reporting they like it better than Dominion (there are still some holdouts). I've bought the expansion cards but we haven't played with them yet. I'm underwhelmed with the Heroes, the Events seem a mixed bag, but the new bases and ships are mostly nice (one of the red ones might be too nice for its cost - again). Oh, and I actually saw someone lose after buying the Stealth Needle during the first shuffle during this last session as well. Oh, and I finally beat the "normal" campaign mode that comes with the smartphone app for free. After I finally beat #3 the others went down quick.

The new game at the table was Stone Age. Hey, it was new for us at least. I tend to be the worker-placement fan of the full group, and this one was light enough the kids could join in. I ended up winning primarily on the strength of the civilization cards that gave bonus points - I was able to stack the +Meeples bonuses enough to overcome one of the other guys who'd done a much better job of building houses than I.

[Knaight]

Coinless can be fun. I've run a deck which was a pretty standard loop decks (lots of extra actions, extra cards), except for I used Festival as the action source. It wasn't as fast as it needed to be, and I didn't quite balance the cards right, but when it worked, it was a thing of beauty.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

So, I started reading David Sirlin's articles on game design, and listening to his podcast, and that got me back around to checking out Yomi on the Fantasy Strike website.

It's a really fun game, now that I've gotten past the initial learning hurdle. Aka, the game no longer looks like a confusing incoherent mass of numbers and symbols to me. And now I can start understanding the underlying strategies of the game. It's very interesting.

Short summary: BattleCON is the other main "based on fighting games" board game, and the differences between the two are pretty apparent. Where BattleCON is the Super Smash Bros of the two (heavily based on positioning, characters often interact with the stage in particular ways for their unique schtick), Yomi is the Capcom fighter of the two (heavily based around chaining combo moves into one another, and on countering your opponent's move).

In Yomi, you have a hand of cards (each character has a unique 52-card deck), and each card has one of two actions associated with it. Attacks deal damage and counter Throws, while Throws deal damage and counter defensive moves (Blocks and Dodges). Blocks and Dodges counter Attacks, and a Block lets you draw a card (and returns to your hand)...while a Dodge lets you play a counterattack card. You and your opponent play simultaneously, so it's very rock-paper-scissors. (A little artificial, but eh. The different effects of the moves are cool.) Moves also have assigned speeds (lower speeds take priority over higher speeds, if there's two Attacks or two Throws) and can sometimes be comboed into one another (if you hit with an attack or throw that allows combos, you can keep playing moves that chain forward, until you hit your character's combo limit or you play a combo-ending move).

The neat thing about Yomi is that it's a fighting game that feels like a CCG in its gameplay: a cool mechanical core with different cards that vary your options on a given turn. The fact that hand management is a central mechanic in the game is very clever--and it helps to make the Attack/Throw/Block/Dodge decision non-arbitrary.

I'll reiterate, though: there's a learning curve. I had to read the rules, play through the tutorials, then play through the tutorials again before I started to grasp how the game worked. But now that I'm no longer playing almost randomly, it's really interesting.

[TheEmerged]

The rule on thread necromancy is 1 month, right?

Last month's new game was Qwirkle, which has been a surprise hit with my less-hardcore friends. This is the first game I've tried out in years that my mother not only will play but actually like - she actively asked for it at the last family get together, surprising me quite a bit.

This month the gaming group split a bit with Dominion. One of the members bought the Dark Age expansion, while I bought the Guilds expansion. I was hoping to playing with Rebuild but it hasn't made it to the table yet. You've got to love a card where the game's designer admits it didn't get fully tested

I've also been playing around with the Crisis expansion for Star Realms. Machine Cult \ Red got a couple of nasty additions, including two more of those "trade or damage" cards. Blue got an intriguing new member that works kind of like Workshop in Dominion - you can score a low-cost card for free instead of directly adding to trade, and it goes right onto the deck instead of the discard.

I also FINALLY got in a game of Fortune and Glory. Now to try it at full power instead of the beginners rules to see if the horror stories I've heard about the Nazi's turn are warranted...