Board Games!

[Knaight]

I've been playing a fair amount of Sentinels of the Multiverse recently, along with Bang!. They're both excellent games, though Sentinels is probably the deeper of the two. Basically, it's a cooperative game where each player plays a superhero with a power and a deck, building up by playing ongoing deck cards that affect them and playing one shots for individual attacks, defenses, and effects. It also has environments and villains, with the goal being to defeat the villain before they take you out - or, in some cases, have a villainous plan go through. I strongly recommend it.

Bang! is basically the spaghetti western shootout game. I've enjoyed it, but that might say more about the group dynamics it brings out than the game itself.

As a group, we aren't highly competitive, so cutthroat games with a lot of heavy player interaction (like Risk or Diplomacy) aren't our cup of tea. So games like Ticket to Ride, Power Grid, Dominion, Race for the Galaxy, and Lords of Waterdeep are games we like.

We play Dominion very differently.

[IthilanorStPete]

I've only played a few European-style/more complex board games; I don't often get the chance to. Games I've played:
-A decent bit of Settlers of Catan, which is fun.
-Betrayal at the House on the Hill, which has always seemed more interesting than it ends up being. It seems like it depends on atmosphere and immersion, and it's just never clicked for me.
-Arkham Horror, which I've very much enjoyed.
-I've played Dominion, don't really care for it; it's a bit too fast-paced for me. I end up feeling rushed and stressed, which is not what I'm looking for from a game.
-The OotS Adventure game, that's a load of fun.
-Space Hulk Death Angel, as CarpeGuitarrem mentioned. Nice and simple, though the balance feels a bit off.
-Chrononauts, for simple, wacky fun.
-I've played a bit of a racing game called Formula D, which seems very interesting - I want to try it with more players.

Games I want to try:
-Ticket to Ride
-Carcassone
-Pandemic
-Power Grid

[Joran]

We play Dominion very differently.

Witch early, Witch often is our motto! Those games hurt the most though if there's no easy way to dispose of Curse cards.

[Altaria87]

On the subject of Dominion, my group (which consists of a College Game Night which inevitably starts with Articulate then The Resistance: Avalon, then something small like Settlers when most people have left) haven't played it before, and I've never been able to get into it back at home, but I've heard it's one of the bets of its genre. Does anyone know a good way to get in to the game, and deckbuilders in general?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

On the subject of Dominion, my group (which consists of a College Game Night which inevitably starts with Articulate then The Resistance: Avalon, then something small like Settlers when most people have left) haven't played it before, and I've never been able to get into it back at home, but I've heard it's one of the bets of its genre. Does anyone know a good way to get in to the game, and deckbuilders in general?

Dominion's a great introduction to deckbuilders, simply because most other deckbuilders clone it to some degree. (Though you might wind up developing some habits that you have to unlearn for deckbuilders, I dunno...) It's simple to grasp, though.

You can be perfectly fine with buying the core set and not getting any of the expansions. That'll get you large amounts of play. (If you look into expansions, consider Prosperity or Intrigue.)

Also, I personally think that the "first play" setup isn't terribly good. Not a bad intro to the rules mechanisms, but don't judge the quality of play by it. There's more interesting setups in the rest of the game.

[Knaight]

You can be perfectly fine with buying the core set and not getting any of the expansions. That'll get you large amounts of play. (If you look into expansions, consider Prosperity or Intrigue.)

Intrigue is a complete game, I recommend getting it before the original. It just has a better set of cards (Swindler and Torturer are way more fun than Witch, in particular).

[Gandariel]

Bang! Is pretty awesome. Good for 4-7 people (2,3 and 8 are possible but less fun).

I play it with friends at lunch break almost every day, and it's really fun and never gets old:

Basically, everyone has a role in a western city (sheriff, vice, outlaw, renegade).
All roles are hidden except for Sheriff.
Everyone also has a charachter with a special power.
People take turns drawing cards and playing them to attack other players or defend themselves. There's a lot of dynamics going on, because everyone has a purpose:
Outlaws win if the sheriff dies
Sheriff wins if every outlaw and renegade die
vice wins if sheriff wins
Renegate wins if he defeats the Sheriff in a 1 on 1 battle (so after everyone else is dead).

Renegade may look harder to pull off, but basically in the game what happens is that the Renegade always switches "side", acts like a vice when there are too many outlaws, and helps the outlaws when the sheriff is too strong. Also, while it's relatively easy after a while to figure out who is a vice or outlaw, it's harder to figure out who is the damn renegade.

So basically the game goes on as people try to figure out what role are the others and shooting each other (And you get a laugh when you "bang" your friend thrice in a row)

Really really fun =)

[Knaight]

So basically the game goes on as people try to figure out what role are the others and shooting each other (And you get a laugh when you "bang" your friend thrice in a row)

In my experience, there's also a lot of throwing arms into the air and yelling "Mancato!" whenever anybody dodges, provided that there aren't reasons to keep the noise down.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I love the Italian cards.

For the gameplay, though, I like Shadow Hunters better as a Bang!-style game. There's more chances to actually get information on people (a big flaw with most hidden role games) and different ways you can leverage game mechanics. Plus, the characters are a bit more balanced.

[Gandariel]

Took me a while to get that, since i'm actually Italian :P

And yeah, some dudes in Bang! are a bit unbalanced (Santa claus, "dude whose Bang! has to be dodged with 2 Missed!", "Dude who can hold 10 cards in his hand", and a couple others)

But really, if a player gets a particularly strong charachter he usually gets killed first by everyone else. And if it's the Sheriff who gets a strong charachter, the renegade just sides more with the Outlaws and the game is even again :)

[Santa though, is really powerful: Aside from giving friends good stuff and enemies bad stuff, he basically gets to pick his cards from a HUGE pool of cards, and can pull off some nice combos, like picking 2 Bang! for himself for a couple turns, then picking a Volcanic and going nova on the Sheriff]

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Ahaha. When there's a big group (I've usually played with massive groups), Claus tends to be a very unpopular character. Mainly because of all the time he adds. Heh.

[warty goblin]

Picked up Descent 2nd Edition and the first hero expansion for Defenders of the Realm today, as my 'I survived Christmas vacation/tomorrow is the first Monday of the semester' reward. Spent the rest of the day playing them.

Descent seems pretty fun, though a bit tricky to play on one's own, since I end up basically doing the work of three people. The tactical combat is pretty fun though. Really need to find another player...

I think I like the new heroes for Defenders of the Realm. I'm not sure why a group would ever choose not to include the Assassin though, she's a one-woman murder machine with excellent mobility and survivability. Comboed with the Captain of the Guard's ability to give other players actions, I could see her being rather obscene, particularly after she offs a general or two. I'm less sold on the Adventurer; getting more cards is nice, but in practice after about turn 3 where you go is so dictated by which batch of minions you need to kill, it's very hard to actually take advantage of.

[yougi]

Yeah to board games!

I've been playing Guildhall a lot lately, and it seems all those who play it enjoy it. I'm getting the expansion for it this weekend, and I can't wait. It's a rather simple card game, where each card has a profession and a color. The goal is to make guilds of 5 members of the same profession, 1 of each color. When you play a card, you also take an action depending on the card played, and the more members you already have in that guild, the stronger the action.

I'd say my top 5 favorite games are:
1- Race for the Galaxy
2- Dominion
3- Pandemic (although Ghost Stories may take is place soon)
4- Kingsburg
5- Kemet

And the game I play most is Telestrations, where you alternate between guessing what the person before you drew, and drawing what the person before you wrote, without looking at other players' drawings/guesses (only the one right before you). In large groups, it's a hoot and a half, and because the rules can be explained in 3 minutes, it's great with non-gamers too.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Oooh, Kemet! I've only played it twice, but that is a fun game. Keeps me on my toes, because you have to always be proactive.

[yougi]

Oooh, Kemet! I've only played it twice, but that is a fun game. Keeps me on my toes, because you have to always be proactive.

Indeed. I love the fact that they force you to attack, and that everything is more or less one move away, and can be attacked at any time.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I spent so much time counting all the board spaces to check that. Literally every city is equidistant.

[warty goblin]

Apparently Fantasy Flight is making a Witcher boardgame. I'm hoping for nipple tokens.

[Cristo Meyers]

Apparently Fantasy Flight is making a Witcher boardgame. I'm hoping for nipple tokens.

If there's no trading cards I'm not interested.

--

I just remembered how much my copy of Empire Builder hates me. First I get stuck in Mexico City because of an earthquake, then can't pick up the coffee I need because of a longshoreman strike, and then get stuck at the border because the Rio Grande flooded and took out the bridge...

...and I still came in 2nd.

[warty goblin]

If there's no trading cards I'm not interested.

'At the end of his phase, the Geralt player may draw up to two cards from the Ladies deck...'

[ShadowFighter15]

Only boardgame I've been looking at lately is Dreadball, but a boardgame club here in town (which I keep forgetting about until the meet's half-over) gave me a chance to play Zombicide and Ninja Burger, both of which are awesome. And Munchkin, of course, but that one should go without saying.

Really hoping to find a Dreadball League around here or start one myself. Although that could require me to have the minis painted, and my rate of painting from Warmachine is generously described as 'glacial'.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Just finished my second play of A Game of Thrones with the A Dance With Dragons expansion. That expansion is interesting; the game starts you off with a lot of hard choices.

I've been crushed twice--once as Greyjoy, once as Lannister. Perhaps someday...I'll get the hang of this game.

[warty goblin]

Speaking of all things Game of Thrones related, after spending a morning with epoxy gluing little army men together I finally sat down and really figured out how the hell Battles of Westeros works. Once I figured that 'must move all ordered units before any ordered units attack' only applies to units being ordered right now instead of over the entire round, things actually worked. The one time Fantasy Flight could have really used an example, they don't stick one in... figures.

It seems a decent enough light tactics game. Combat seems perhaps overly stochastic, but the scenario I played was mostly lower rank units who are more subject to the vicissitudes of fate than the tougher ones.

Now I just need another tube of epoxy. I only got about a third of the way through the monstrous pile of House Baratheon miniatures.

[TheEmerged]

So, had a day off yesterday and tracked down a different gaming store in the area I'd never heard of before but has apparently been there for >decade. Amusingly I got to the street that the directions said "if you see this street you've gone too far," immediately pulled over... and found myself at the store's front door.

In addition to finally getting a copy of the Love Letter card game (which was an immediate hit when I introduced people to it last night) and an older HERO product I had never managed to find, I scored the Growing Hunger expansion to Last Night On Earth. In addition to the new players, new human & zombie cards, and new optional rules, the expansion also addressed one of my complaints about the base game.

Heavily abbreviated version: human heroes can either move or search on their turns. Since some of the human starting spots are further away from a zombie spawning spots than others (and a few other factors), too often a human hero is able to stand in one building and keep searching it - with little encouragement to leave while the other heroes fight the zombies.

Well, GH added the exploration markers to the game. These encourage the heroes to move from building to building so they have a good chance (16 in 20) of getting a free search without having to spend the move action.

I didn't get a chance to test it in a live fire exercise, but I'm wondering if we'll run into one of the problems we ran into with Conquest of Planet Earth when we added the expansion. For COPE, the added cards from the expansion diluted the original decks more than they added to it. For LNOE, GH looks to add some needed diversity to the Zombie Deck (waaaay too many of the cards there in the base game are duplicates). For the Human deck, at least a few of the cards from the expansion are essentially duplicates of cards from the base game (Rusty Keys serve as Keys for the purpose of scenarios for example).

I also like the addition of the card that serves the same purpose as "Faith", but remains in play for Law Enforcement characters. We've had two games now where the Priest of all people (who can't use any ranged weapons) was turned into a better fighter than the Sheriff (who essentially always has a ranged weapon) :)

[warty goblin]

Spent some more time with Battles of Westeros. I think it's growing on me.

For starters it looks excellent. I'm a total component-whore when it comes to boardgames, so seeing all the little cavalry and infantry mixing up, banners flying, is a lot of fun for me.

I like the command system as well, since it makes commanders exceedingly important, and absolutely vital for executing all but the most basic of tactics. The battle I was playing last night for instance was essentially two different fights on opposite sides of the map, with the objectives in between. Stark won in no small part because their elite infantry were able to knock out the Lannister commander on one flank very early, allowing the Lannister survivors there to be out-maneuvered at every turn. Lannister fared better on the other flank, since Gregor Clegane is the next best thing to indestructable. But he's a terrible commander, only able to issue one point of orders a round. Even though he knocked Karstark out of the fight, the other's two orders a round meant by that point Clegane's command had been pretty well diced by Stark cavalry flanking actions.

The level of differentiation between lower and higher level units is nice as well. Green troops are easy to order, move fast, but only roll two dice and die if you look at them funny. Red troops are a lot harder to order, move like a snail on crutches, but get four dice in combat and are hard to knock out. Once they make contact, they're simply brutal. Blue troops are happy medium.

[Kaww]

My group plays a lot of board games actually. We enjoy Arkham Horror and 7 Wonders most, but there are other titles slowly creeping in. Lords of Waterdeep are just one more worker placement game, but we know so much about the city from D&D that it makes the game a lot more fun. Haven't played the expansion though if anyone has please let me know how you liked it. Robinson Crusoe is mechanically similar, but has so much more going on and it really delivers the flavor.

Aside from that a friend of mine and I really like Descent 1.0 we have the full game, but no time to play it. A thing I want to play, but have no time is Twilight Imperium 3. I'll have to try it when I get some vacation time and kidnap my friends for two days.

Aside from these I've played:
- Tales of Arabian Nights (ok game, but not much staying power. I believe my kids will love it one day, since it's very simple)
- Summoner Wars. Cool for two players, but we prefer What's my word. However sometimes I'm too tired to play it and SW comes as a nice light two player game. I know that's not what it is, but any game can be played in many styles.
- Shadows over Camelot. Hmm. I like the theme, but zero staying power in my group. Disclaimer: We play Arkham Horror with two heralds and all other rules that make the game harder and we win almost every time.
- D&D boardgames. We've played them. Beaten all scenarios. Little staying power, superb production and an excellent number of minis for such a small price.
- Small World. I hate it. Really. I am the guy they all gang up against from round one. I don't play it. No. Even if they promise not to team up against me they all play like the do - because it's good strategy.

I haven't mentioned all of them, just those that left an impression. Hope someone finds this helpful.

[TheEmerged]

Okay, got to try the LNOEarth expansion in a live fire exercise. The exploration tokens had the effect I thought they would and should be part of the base game (I effectively can't see playing the game without this option now). At least in the sessions we played, the expansion didn't dilute the hero deck the way we saw in COPEarth.

On another note, Love Letter has continued to be a hit with every group I've taken it to. I'm not going to say it's deep - it's not. It is a fun, light card game that can be picked up quickly.

[warty goblin]

Got the guys together last night for some Descent. It was the first time any of them had played, and the first time I had played with somebody not myself. Everybody picked it up pretty fast though, so we managed to get through the first two encounters in about 3 1/2 hours or so. I think everybody had a blast, so hopefully this can be a regular thing. Since we've been wanting to get an actual RPG group going for eighteen months now, and have only been stymied because nobody's been willing to commit to GMing, this seems like a good compromise.

Picked up War of the Ring as my February boardgame. Plays very well one person, and is just loaded with excellent flavor; I'm not sure I've ever played a game with its theme baked that deeply into the mechanics. The bit where the servants of Sauron get infinite reinforcements, while the Free Peoples can run out is simply ingenious.

[Knaight]

I went to a local annual board game gathering (it's jokingly called a con, but it's really not) yesterday. Discoveries:

• Puerto Rico is a glorious, glorious game and I love it.
• Seven Wonders is actually a pretty solid title, and I could see playing it again.
• Skull and Roses is a quality social game, and it takes only ten minutes or so.
• Taboo is still extremely fun, and still has glaring holes in the words banned list that make some words entirely too easy to convey (e.g. Jewel, which you can get your team to say easily with the non banned "Newton Meter").

[Fri]

Man, boardgaming has been my main RL contact with people outside of my work for a while now. My group played a lot of board games, though we're kinda worried about the existance of our group now, since one of us got married, and another got a serious girlfriend.

The main thing that we play is A Game Of Thrones: The Board Game. It's the first board game our group ever had, and it's kinda nostalgic for us. It's really tiring to play though. I always ended up with a headache after playing it.

We used to play Descent a lot too, though now the owner had sold it because we've kinda bored with it. Personally, I still like it, but eh, we could buy more game with the money!

I'm personally more interested in card-based board games. I personally currently have Dungeoneer (cool card-based dungeoncrawler, just kinda too many step in a round though), Anima (I like concept, really lots of small texts in a card, so annoying to play), Munchkins, and Forbidden Island (Cool, simple cooperative game that's easy to teach to beginner).

What our group currently have are: AGOT, Lords of Waterdeep, Burgundy, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Eldritch Horror, Twilight Imperium, Twilight Struggle, Carcasson, and maybe more, but I forgot.

What we used to have: Battlestar Galactica, Descent, Mansion of Madness, Seven Wonders, Small World, Last Night on Earth, and more, but I forgot too...

If you're wondering about any of those games, you could ask my impression about them.

Anyone know more cool card-based board game? I'm currently eyeing Space Hulk: Death Angel, is it any good?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Anyone know more cool card-based board game? I'm currently eyeing Space Hulk: Death Angel, is it any good?

Death Angel is pretty fun, in my experience, if a bit random. But in that case, it's about minimizing your risks, if you can. Very brutal. Also, it's best if each player controls one pair of space marines, so it plays well with certain numbers of players.

Eminent Domain is one you might look into, depending on how you define "card-based board game". It's a role-selection game with a deckbuilding element: you build your deck by choosing a role each round, and the role determines the action that everyone takes. The more cards of that role you have in your hand, the stronger your action is.

The board element comes in as you amass an empire of planets, colonizing or conquering them, and then proceed to use them to produce resources and trade them off for points. The cool thing is, victory is multi-faceted and very 4X-based (but with lighter gameplay than, say, Eclipse). (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate...yep, all four X's are covered in the game as distinct roles.) You also have to tech-tree your way up to gain advantages for your empire.

It's a really cool hybrid of card-based gaming and eurogame concepts. Highly recommended.

Knaight: Nice! I remember Puerto Rico being very involved gameplay, but definitely fun to work out the engine. 7 Wonders is a fantastic filler with a great amount of depth.