Board Games!

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Cosmic Encounter - Play an unique alien race, and win the colonization race.

I've never won this game.

I still have a blast every time. It's just utter ridiculousness in a great way.

And some day, I will play as the Squee.

[Xondoure]

Cosmic Encounter - Play an unique alien race, and win the colonization race.

There's a copy of that game in this house that's a fair bit older than I am and in some cases has fallen apart. I've considered picking up a new edition but it just wouldn't feel right.

[Komatik]

Hey, me and my friend is thinking to buy a good board game for two players, any recommendation? We're thinking to just buy an LCG like android netrunner, but I'm not sure about its replayability. I'd rather have a real board game. You know, something like a skirmish game, or a dungeon crawling game, that's good to be played by two players and got a lot of replayability... Any recommendation?

The Netrunner Core Set is quite replayable. Just use the purpose-built teaching decks from here instead of what the box says:
http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/22...-core-versions

With the Weyland deck, at least, you want to get rid of Research station because the card is just that bad, teaching or no. Just remember to run a lot as the runner early on and you'll be fine. (this is the most common reason for corp seeming OP in new players' games)

[banjo1985]

A game I've only just played recently that I really enjoyed was Blood Bowl Team Manager. Great fun with some nice mechanics and a number of different teams to play as. Probably helped that I won too, that usually colours my outlook a little.

[TheEmerged]

Furu Of Dracula (sic) - One player plays Dracula, the others are chasing him through Europe as a team.

I probably won't be buying this since horror isn't usually my cup of tea (I held off on buying Last Night On Earth for the same reason) but I am curious about one detail. FoD sounds like it's an 'upgunned' version of an older game called Scotland Yard - a game I got a lot of mileage out of back in my late teens\early college years.

Anybody here familiar enough with both to give a yea\nea on that?

[Avilan the Grey]

I probably won't be buying this since horror isn't usually my cup of tea (I held off on buying Last Night On Earth for the same reason) but I am curious about one detail. FoD sounds like it's an 'upgunned' version of an older game called Scotland Yard - a game I got a lot of mileage out of back in my late teens\early college years.

Anybody here familiar enough with both to give a yea\nea on that?

It is based on Scotland Yard, AFAIR, but with cooler cards and more diverse abilities (again, AFAIR).

And yes, I just noticed my typo.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Side note on Scotland Yard, by the way: Letters From Whitechapel is an amazing upgrade to Scotland Yard. It takes the core mechanisms, adds in a couple new elements, and makes it just so. I've played it 4-5 times (don't remember exactly), and it hasn't gotten old yet.

[IthilanorStPete]

One game I've enjoyed (though I haven't played it in a while) is Gloom. Very flavorful, very darkly hilarious - you have a group of characters, you play cards on them that make them more miserable, and the objective is to kill them once they're as miserable as they can possibly be.

[Eldan]

Scottland Yard is a game that never worked for me. After the first two or three trial games, no one ever caught the suspect. Not even with six players working against one. An intelligent suspect can run away forever, using just taxis.

Had a really fun game of Arkham Horror this weekend, with seven players.

I was the Magician. Through some luck and fun combinations, I ended up as Arkham Deputy with a combat modifier of +12 (a good weapon, base skill and a free spell that gave +6 to combat) or +15 if I really pushed it (a +9 combat spell, but it cost me sanity). So, I just raced my car around Arkham, killing one or two monsters every turn to keep the terror level down. We won with terror level 2, which is quite low and I ended with 17 monster tokens (plus the 10 I had to exchange for Deputy rank).

The funniest occurence, however, was this:

One player moves to Innsmouth and is thrown into prison. He gets his prison card:
"The guards put a black bag over your head and move you out of your cell. After a while, you hear the ocean and are put into a boat. After ten minutes, the guards pull the bag off and throw you overboard. You are now in the middle of the ocean. Move to devil's reef and have another encounter there."

Then, in Devil's Reef:
"You swim for your live but, just before you drown, you find an empty boat drifting on the ocean and manage to pull yourself in. You wonder what happened to the people in it. Move to the shore and have another encounter there."

Then, on the shore:
"As you stand on the shore, you see some fishermen running away, pointing behind you. A giant tidal wave moves in and pulls you back out to sea. Move to Devil's Reef and have another encounter there."

Then, in the Reef, he moved back to the shore, had another encounter there and found out he was a fishman. Game over.

It was hilarious. We called it wave ping-pong.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

That's great. The absolute best part of Arkham Horror is the encounters and when they create emergent stories like that.

[Kerrin]

Arkham Horror can have some interesting things happen that make you go, "Wow, that was neat."

Once in the cave my character heard a breeze whisper his name, then later at the newspaper some spilled ink spelled out his name. Awesome roleplaying opportunity ensued - they really ARE out to get me!

We recently got Eldritch Horror but haven't sat down for a game of it yet. Really look forward to it.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Eldritch Horror is really fun; I think it's a lot more mechanically interesting than Arkham.

[Avilan the Grey]

One game I've enjoyed (though I haven't played it in a while) is Gloom. Very flavorful, very darkly hilarious - you have a group of characters, you play cards on them that make them more miserable, and the objective is to kill them once they're as miserable as they can possibly be.

Gloom is great BUT it's a game you should NOT get the expansions for. The more cards, the worse it gets, for some reason.

[Knaight]

One game I've enjoyed (though I haven't played it in a while) is Gloom. Very flavorful, very darkly hilarious - you have a group of characters, you play cards on them that make them more miserable, and the objective is to kill them once they're as miserable as they can possibly be.

You need a group that is playing the storytelling aspect to the hilt, but it can still be glorious. Our entire board game group has several running jokes from it, which were often amazing at the time - there's the presentation of the story from incompetent radio news hosts, and then there was the "Dead girl, dead girl, sitting in a tree. R-O-T-T-I-N-G." song. Good times.

[IthilanorStPete]

You need a group that is playing the storytelling aspect to the hilt, but it can still be glorious. Our entire board game group has several running jokes from it, which were often amazing at the time - there's the presentation of the story from incompetent radio news hosts, and then there was the "Dead girl, dead girl, sitting in a tree. R-O-T-T-I-N-G." song. Good times.

Yep, like Betrayal at the House of the Hill, it really depends on atmosphere and immersion. Unlike Betrayal (usually), it's for the service of hilarity.

[TheEmerged]

Gloom is great BUT it's a game you should NOT get the expansions for. The more cards, the worse it gets, for some reason.

I'm not familiar with Gloom but I've seen this aspect kick in on other games - Conquest of Planet Earth (COPE) being the most recent. Essentially the expansion added some nice material, but it also added bulk to the decks. This meant the chance of that nice stuff actually showing up went down.

Key example: the expansion for COPE added some really nice Space Stuff cards. However, it added no event cards that allowed you to draw Space Stuff, and as a result that type of card is now about half as likely to show up.

[Cristo Meyers]

Yep, like Betrayal at the House of the Hill, it really depends on atmosphere and immersion. Unlike Betrayal (usually), it's for the service of hilarity.

Hey, the image of a murderous jock and his pet shade dancing uncontrollably because of a cursed music box while the others take their sweet time finding the necessary candles is pretty funny.

No, really, that's what happened the last time we played Betrayal. I and my poltergeist got hit with the music box and never got out.

Pretty sure we played it wrong, but hell if it wasn't funny.

I'm not familiar with Gloom but I've seen this aspect kick in on other games - Conquest of Planet Earth (COPE) being the most recent. Essentially the expansion added some nice material, but it also added bulk to the decks. This meant the chance of that nice stuff actually showing up went down.

Key example: the expansion for COPE added some really nice Space Stuff cards. However, it added no event cards that allowed you to draw Space Stuff, and as a result that type of card is now about half as likely to show up.

I've found that Killer Bunnies also doesn't work well with a bunch of expansions. We only have the first three and even then sometimes we have issues.

Sentinels of the Multiverse, on the other hand, only gets better with each expansion. And there's a new one coming out this week.

[Avilan the Grey]

I'm not familiar with Gloom but I've seen this aspect kick in on other games - Conquest of Planet Earth (COPE) being the most recent. Essentially the expansion added some nice material, but it also added bulk to the decks. This meant the chance of that nice stuff actually showing up went down.

Key example: the expansion for COPE added some really nice Space Stuff cards. However, it added no event cards that allowed you to draw Space Stuff, and as a result that type of card is now about half as likely to show up.

Of course then there's games that has a few expansions that ruin everything, and the others are good:

Munchkin is an example. The game essentially gets better (and you really should have at least 2 expansions to get enough monsters to not have to play rounds and rounds without a fight) except for Demented Dungeons, which just gets annnoying.

[Balain]

I have been looking all over for the 1995 version of condottiere. But so far no luck. It just seems to be the new one every where. Even. Boardgame geeks seems to only list only the new one.

[banjo1985]

Sentinels of the Multiverse, on the other hand, only gets better with each expansion. And there's a new one coming out this week.

Seconding Sentinels, that is a magnificent card-game. Personally I think there are a few balance issues amongst the heroes you can pick from, but overall it's great fun. I'll have to let my friend know there's a new expansion out, and by 'let him know' I mean 'bug him to buy it'.

[Cristo Meyers]

Seconding Sentinels, that is a magnificent card-game. Personally I think there are a few balance issues amongst the heroes you can pick from, but overall it's great fun. I'll have to let my friend know there's a new expansion out, and by 'let him know' I mean 'bug him to buy it'.

Apparently one of my wife's co-workers already got their hands on it, though Amazon shows the release as this coming Saturday.

We're kinda hoping Amazon's wrong since we'll be at the store tonight.

[Knaight]

Seconding Sentinels, that is a magnificent card-game. Personally I think there are a few balance issues amongst the heroes you can pick from, but overall it's great fun. I'll have to let my friend know there's a new expansion out, and by 'let him know' I mean 'bug him to buy it'.

I actually like the balance issues - the game is short enough that you aren't stuck with a hero, and it's a way to modify the difficulty - particularly as regards synergy. If you want to just kick some butt, Ra, Absolute Zero, Legacy, Argent Adept, and Tempest have you covered. If you want a challenge, time to break out Chrono Ranger, Wraith (without proper support), etc.

[erikun]

Recent board games I've played at the game shop:

Survive! Escape from Atlantis! was a fun one, in some ways cooperative but technically competitive. We played with three players, which is apparently the "easiest" number of players for escaping; things fall apart a lot quicker with four players, apparently.

I played the Star Wars card game today. It was rather good, from what I saw, with steps of the game being quite clear. The biggest thing to note is that the game sells card sets, not randomized boosters, so you always know what you're buying - a nice bit of change for people who dislike that aspect of CCGs, but still like building decks.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Had a playthrough of Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings co-op game. I played solo, controlling both Frodo and Sam on their way to Mount Doom. Frodo got overtaken by corruption halfway through Shelob's Lair.

Really, really ace game. There's a lot of mechanisms and timers behind it; you're constantly staving off multiple Countdowns of Doom, and your resources are scant. Tense!

[Binks]

Went to an open board game event at my FLG. Played a bunch of games, had a good time. One game in particular caught my eye though, it was a short (5-10m) game called Coup that we played 4-5 rounds of. It seems like (based on limited exposure, I plan to pick it up in the near future but the store didn't have it in stock) a great bluffing game that's more about playing the other people in the game than the hand you were dealt. One of the guys (an experienced player) was barely even glancing at his hand and paying more attention to what everyone else was doing to give an idea of how it went.

Lots of fun, and a game I will definitely be looking to get a copy of in the short term. Thought I'd mention it here since I hadn't heard of it before that event.

[Knaight]

Went to an open board game event at my FLG. Played a bunch of games, had a good time. One game in particular caught my eye though, it was a short (5-10m) game called Coup that we played 4-5 rounds of. It seems like (based on limited exposure, I plan to pick it up in the near future but the store didn't have it in stock) a great bluffing game that's more about playing the other people in the game than the hand you were dealt. One of the guys (an experienced player) was barely even glancing at his hand and paying more attention to what everyone else was doing to give an idea of how it went.

I played a few hands recently - it was excellent. As far as glancing at hands, you have a total of two cards and they aren't exactly complicated, so it's hardly necessary.

It's by the same people who did The Resistance, and I'd consider it the better game of the two.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Went to an open board game event at my FLG. Played a bunch of games, had a good time. One game in particular caught my eye though, it was a short (5-10m) game called Coup that we played 4-5 rounds of. It seems like (based on limited exposure, I plan to pick it up in the near future but the store didn't have it in stock) a great bluffing game that's more about playing the other people in the game than the hand you were dealt. One of the guys (an experienced player) was barely even glancing at his hand and paying more attention to what everyone else was doing to give an idea of how it went.

Lots of fun, and a game I will definitely be looking to get a copy of in the short term. Thought I'd mention it here since I hadn't heard of it before that event.

I love love love Coup. It works really well with 3-4 players, I've found. You have to build a plan to eliminate everyone else, and at the same time figure out when you're going to bluff...while adjusting to your opponents. And figuring out when they're bluffing. It's a game of counters (most cards seem to have counters, though I haven't figured out how to counter the Duke), so it's tightly-balanced.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Holy smokes!

I just got to play two rounds of BattleCon: Devastation at Indines. What a game! All the tactics of a fighting game in card form, with card synergies and cool combos and everything. Highly recommend, and I've hardly seen all the characters in the game. It's everything I think is cool about fighting games minus the one thing (reflexes and having to think in realtime) which makes me totally terrible at them.

[Kerrin]

Ooo, yes it is a pretty cool card fighting game. I have the War of Indines.

For some reason it took me quite a while to get the hang of it. Sort of like trying to write on a waxy piece of paper. It took a long time to stick for me.

Really cool game. I never thought a video fighting game would translate to cards, but the game does a good job.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

There's absolutely a learning curve; it didn't start clicking for me until after my first match. There's a lot to compose your strategy out of. You're cycling moves, keeping track of what your opponent has at their disposal, and managing range--while your opponent is doing the same thing. And that's just at the Novice level! The friend who brought it over ran through all of the other heroes with me--and the Master-level stuff is just crazy in its potential...but wow, it requires you to keep track of a lot in your head.

What impresses me the most is that it doesn't fall back on the "rock-paper-scissors" concept that seems pasted into similar games. Sure, some moves are natural counters to others, but there's no artificial "A beats B, B beats C, C beats A" rule.