Board Games!

[TheEmerged]

So, my June gaming budget came early and I scored - Boss Monster! Only managed a couple of games so far, and a good part of my enjoyment is the nostalgia involved.

I gotta say though, whoever wrote the rules needs lessons in rules writing. We didn't get to the third turn before we ran into something the rules barely touched. The first game definitely fell into the "playing solitaire together" trap, but more spell cards came into play the second time and that's clearly where the interaction happens. The luck is a bit swingy too - game #1 saw a 8-heart hero on the first turn, and game #2 saw the town get stacked to 4 mages that ended up going through one dungeon all at once & that player winning that turn.

On the other hand, I can't wait to play it again :)

[Fri]

Anyone here into making and playing print-yourself free board games? There are many great ones out there, me and my friends are having a blast with them. The one we're having fun with most currently are Black Vienna and Kill Dr Lucky.

Of course, as with any DIY project, making them is a chore first, but that's part of the fun.

Here's my Black Vienna cards, which I printed from the files got from board game geek.

Spoiler

Show

And my friend made quite an effort to print Cheapass Games' Kill Dr Lucky, making it look like a profesionally made board game, if not for

Spoiler

Show

[Cristo Meyers]

And my friend made quite an effort to print Cheapass Games' Kill Dr Lucky, making it look like a profesionally made board game, if not for

Spoiler

Show

Nice. Cheapass did put out a full version of Kill Doctor Lucky (and Save Doctor Lucky, if I remember correctly), but I always preferred the homemade versions.

Have you checked out the card game version, Get Lucky? I think it just hit shelves and it's really good.

[Balain]

At last count ( about 4 years ago) I had something like 82 board/card games. Many are at my girlfriends currently, but here is a list of what I have here and what I can recall is over there.
Descent journey in the dark (1st edition + a bunch of expansions), samurai swords ( formally shogun), axis and allies, robo rally, a touch of evil, all wound uo, mind trap, mind trap 2, gangster, unspeakable words, tanhauser( plus 2 or 3 expansions), tsuro, star base Jeff, diplomacy, stock ticker, shadows over Camelot , burn in hell,Markham horror ( almost all expansions), torches and pitchforks, paranoia, Ra, Titan, Tower of Babel, star fleet battles, democracy, pirates of tha carabbean DVD, monopoly 65th anniversary, cosmic encounter, Battle of Britain, kingmaker, mid evil, star traders, the. Nacho incident, chez geek and expansions, pirates of the burning seas (many many many shops), xanth the board game, mah Jong titles, 3 or 4 Sherlock home mysteries. Mystery of the abbey, gloom, plus expansions, Cthulhu gloom, skallywagslunch money, beer money, Delbert corporate shuffle, king's blood, clay-o-Rama, twilight emporium, air wars, air supremacy, lord of the rings checkers, Star Wars trivial pursuit, dr. Who trivial pursuit, get out, auto duel, original illuminati with expansions, new illuminati with expansions, nuclear war with nuclear escalation, age of Conan, la bomb, caverna, bang. With all expansions, Agricola with all expansions, 7 wonders with all expansions, apples to supples, Napoleon in Europe, mertwigz maze, the great khan game, fortune and glory, the order of the stick adventure game with expansions, the be Star Wars miniature ship game forget the actual name, Takenoko, zombie dice, zombies by twilight creationsion with expansions, 20 or more munchkin games and expansions, the new dungeon, lords of water deep, Elba, pandemic with all expansions, Dix it with all expansions, formula d with most expansions, forbiden island, princes of Florence, purteo Rico, merchants and mauraders, castle panic with expansion, Sherwood, deadwood, Ben hvrt, collusem, British rails, Australian rails, Russian rails, munchkin quest,get bit, el grande with expansions, dominion with all expansions, carcass one with most expansions, bootleggers,, dragon's gold, citadels, castle, lord of the fries, kill doctor lucky, save doctor lucky, unexploded cow, pimp,the adventures: pyramid of ?????(I forget the name now), pirate flux, werewolves of millers hollow and expansion, infinite city, terra mystica, small world and expansions, world of Warcraft the board game, ugh tech, war of the roses, kings and things, flash point and most expansions, pirates cove, red dragon inn and all expansions, there is a bunch more but my memory is starting to fail me at this late hour.

[TheEmerged]

Did you guys ever hear the statement about one of the signs of getting old is when your kids beat you at your favorite game? I have no kids of my own, but this happened at our last gaming session. As I've mentioned before our gaming group is old enough that some of the members at the table are the children of the original members. Well, last session one of the kids won at Dominion against her father - handily too, more than twice the victory points he had. It was partially his own fault (he bought the Mint card too early and paid for it), but a victory is a victory.

I was also introduced to a game named Hive by a guy at work. It's a charming game, obviously not something that's going to be my Favoritist-Game-Evah! but good enough I'm going to have to hunt a copy down.

July's gaming budget went for Android: Netrunner. I remembered playing this back when it was originally released, and one thing I remembered about it remainded true - the Runner thinks Corps are too powerful, and the Corps thinks the Runners are too powerful, but in the end whoever gets their "economy" cards fastest wins.

Another old game I picked up recently didn't go over as well as I'd remembered - The Awful Green Things From Outer Space. This is a classic "cardboard chit with 3 numbers" game, where one player\team controls the crew of a space ship that just got infested with the AGTFOS (the other player\team) and each side is trying to wipe out the other. The core mechanic of the game is that the crew has no idea what weapons are going to have what affect against the AGTFOS - the effect is randomly drawn when each type of weapon is first used. The effects range from "none", to 3-5 dice of damage, making the AGTFOS's grow, making them shrink, and the dreaded\beloved effect of blowing the target up into 1d6 fragments. There are enough effect chits that not all of them will be used each game. Well, the crew got quite frankly the worst selection of effect chits I've ever seen. They were on their 5th weapon before they got something that damaged the AGTFOS and their 7th weapon before they got a good one, and managed to get a "1d6 fragments" on one of the area-effect weapons. Needless to say this was not fun for either side - the crew players were getting mopped up on and the AGTFOS players were bored.

The monthly game of LNOE (Last Night On Earth) went much better, essentially in a dead heat when we ran out of time. Yes, pun was intended. We drew the Plague Carriers scenario, which starts the human heroes in the middle of the board instead of their usual buildings - but compensates this penalty (you have to be in a building to search, and therefore draw the cards that give the humans abilities & weapons) by starting the players out with some cards right out the door. It also starts out with all 7 of the "red" zombies on the board (take two victories to destory, roll two dice just like the humans, but only move when a player is within 2 squares), and the human objective is to kill all 7 before the sun sets or the zombies kill 3 humans. Well, there were 2 red zombies left and the zombies had killed 2 humans when we had to stop (human heroes are killed & turned into zombies, but the human players just draw another hero when that happens).

[Cristo Meyers]

I was also introduced to a game named Hive by a guy at work. It's a charming game, obviously not something that's going to be my Favoritist-Game-Evah! but good enough I'm going to have to hunt a copy down.

Hive's a great game. Very thoughtful.

If you're looking for a copy, try and find the Hive Carbon edition. It comes with two of the three expansion pieces (the ladybug and the mosquito).

[Balain]

A friend got the firefly card game. We were not impressed by it. It seemed to have potential but the rules were lacking and didn't explain a lot of things well or at all. I would say get the firefly board game and forget the firefly card game.

Another friend picked up the cd comics deck building game which was great. Worth picking up in my opinion.

[Beacon of Chaos]

I played Tzolk'in a few days ago. It took a while to learn the rules, but the game itself was quite fun. Played it three players and it was great to see how each player had their own strategy (I mostly went for skulls). Would definitely play again.

[Melquiades]

Had an amazing game of Chaos in the Old World yesterday. I was playing Nurgle, and while Khorne and Slaneesh battled for the dial win, I lucked out and won by VP while they both got stuck with just 1 dial-spin. It was pretty amazing, I needed 2 cultists alive on Troll Country since it was going to be ruined, and I had 4. Khorne rolled 5 dice and killed one, Slaneesh rolled another 3 and just managed to kill another one. yay

[Fri]

I was looking for family-friendly simple board game on the other day, and someone in a local gaming forum was selling red november, so I bought it!

It's not as simple as I thought, but the theme looks pretty funny. Russian Gnomes in submarine! Haven't got a chance to play it though.

And in the mean time, managed to talk my friend from my gaming group to buy a secondhand nexus ops. Hopefully it's worth it and won't make him hate me.

[Cristo Meyers]

I was looking for family-friendly simple board game on the other day, and someone in a local gaming forum was selling red november, so I bought it!

It's not as simple as I thought, but the theme looks pretty funny. Russian Gnomes in submarine! Haven't got a chance to play it though.

Maybe take a look at Scotland Yard too. It's a really simple cat-and-mouse game. Once you get the rules for moving down you're pretty much ready to play.

[Xondoure]

I played Tzolk'in a few days ago. It took a while to learn the rules, but the game itself was quite fun. Played it three players and it was great to see how each player had their own strategy (I mostly went for skulls). Would definitely play again.

After five games of losing horribly at this game, I have to say the appeal is fading quickly. (It's very fun though, my pride aside.)

[Beacon of Chaos]

After five games of losing horribly at this game, I have to say the appeal is fading quickly. (It's very fun though, my pride aside.)

It's a tricky game, I'll give you that. :P


Last week I played Caverna. Very complicated worker placement game, though much of that was because it was explained quite badly to me (I wasn't told the scoring rules, I had to look them up midgame :/). Still, I enjoyed it enough that I ended up downloading the prequel game, Agricola, on my phone. It's a good game too, also it has a solo mode where you try to get a high score without having to deal with the AI. Recommended.

I'm thinking my next purchase will be Archipelago. It looks pretty good.

[Xondoure]

It's a tricky game, I'll give you that. :P


Last week I played Caverna. Very complicated worker placement game, though much of that was because it was explained quite badly to me (I wasn't told the scoring rules, I had to look them up midgame :/). Still, I enjoyed it enough that I ended up downloading the prequel game, Agricola, on my phone. It's a good game too, also it has a solo mode where you try to get a high score without having to deal with the AI. Recommended.

I'm thinking my next purchase will be Archipelago. It looks pretty good.

Yeah Agricola is very fun. If you liked both it and Caverna I recommend Le Havre. It's Agricola but with boats and the card game element slightly mitigated in that the random cards are available to everyone (so it's less like playing one really long hand.)

[Knaight]

Anyone here into making and playing print-yourself free board games? There are many great ones out there, me and my friends are having a blast with them. The one we're having fun with most currently are Black Vienna and Kill Dr Lucky.

I generally like Cheapass, with Witch Trial being the big self-print game. I've played a fair amount, and while the production values are pretty terrible (we didn't exactly put a lot of effort into making it look nice), that almost adds to the charm.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I've considered getting into print-and-play games. Now that I've discovered the print shop nearby my house...

[TheEmerged]

Yeah Agricola is very fun. If you liked both it and Caverna I recommend Le Havre. It's Agricola but with boats and the card game element slightly mitigated in that the random cards are available to everyone (so it's less like playing one really long hand.)

Agricola & Caverna fall under the same rule as Twilight Imperium for me - really big games I want to buy\play but cost too much (in terms of money, time, and shelf space) relative to how often I'd be able to play them.

[Beacon of Chaos]

Yeah Agricola is very fun. If you liked both it and Caverna I recommend Le Havre. It's Agricola but with boats and the card game element slightly mitigated in that the random cards are available to everyone (so it's less like playing one really long hand.)

Cool. I'll look into it.

I got Archipelago the other day. Beautiful looking game; I just want to build little islands out of the hexes all day. Rulebook was poorly written and we ended up playing the rules wrong, but I found a faq that helps explain most of the questions I had. Hopefully I can get people to play it again.

[Chen]

Agricola & Caverna fall under the same rule as Twilight Imperium for me - really big games I want to buy\play but cost too much (in terms of money, time, and shelf space) relative to how often I'd be able to play them.

Agricola takes up far less space than Twilight Imperium (both table and box). It is absurdly expensive (comparative to other games) in most places though.

[Brother Oni]

I've been trying to find a game that I can play with my children and I got a recommendation for Labyrinth, which I'm waiting on to be delivered.

Other than that, we're playing Monopoly City which is quite fun and doesn't quite drag on as much as regular Monopoly (except when they gang up on me, giving each other interest free loans and 'forgetting' to charge rent for each other ).

I'm waiting for my eldest to get a bit bigger before putting her through the likes of Heroquest/Space Crusade though, although she might get a bit frustrated with Space Hulk though.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I've been trying to find a game that I can play with my children and I got a recommendation for Labyrinth, which I'm waiting on to be delivered.

Which Labyrinth? (I'm guessing not this one.)

Also, if you're looking for more recommendations, Carcassonne and Tsuro (especially Tsuro) are easy games for the younger set to play. Tsuro, in fact, is my ideal family game, because it's the only game big enough for my entire immediate family to play.

[Logic]

I'm looking for a new board game, preferably one that doesn't break the bank. Anyone care to recommend a new one for me? I already own and like the following:

Catan (and several expansions)
Munchkin* (and many variants)
Axis and Allies
Risk Godstorm (Probably the best version of Risk IMO)
Game of Thrones (The Fantasy Flight Board Game)

*Yes, this is a tabletop card game, and I am not ruling these guys out in my request for a recommendation.

I like the sound of a game like Twilight Imperium, but it also sounds like it would work better as a Computer Strategy game than a board game due to complexity and length of play. Plus, it is over $100 where I live.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

What do you like about them? Here's some of my thoughts...

Power Grid is a nifty economy game where you manage a bunch of power stations. You buy fuel, spend it to power up your power plants, then deliver power across Europe to earn money. Each turn, you can buy another power plant in an auction, and the power plants keep upgrading.

RISK: Legacy doesn't have all the wild variants of Godstorm, but what it does have is a "campaign mode", where you gradually mark up the board (PERMANENTLY) and open new packets that add rules. There's one rules packet that I think adds a massive improvement to RISK. (Also, the core game is much simpler and faster than RISK. We played one game in 30 minutes.) It's great to do if you have a bunch of friends to play it with.

Chaos in the Old World is an awesome, long (as in, 3-4 hours), really fun "dudes on a map" game from Fantasy Flight where you shuffle around your mortal followers (you play a Chaos God from Warhammer) in order to gain power and points.

Kemet is a vicious "dudes on a map" game where you can buy special powers for your army, creating really cool power combos and aggressively reaping points by conquering your enemies, who then bounce back and do the same to you.

Rex: Final Days of an Empire is a Twilight Imperium-verse re-theme of the old Dune Avalon Hill boardgame. Dune was amazing, and it's a shame they didn't use the theme for the reprint. If you liked Game of Thrones, you'd like this. It's got the same elements of diplomacy and maneuvering and backstabbing, plus every faction has a unique power. If you ally with another faction, you get to combine their power with yours, which leads to some potent situations.

[Knaight]

I'm looking for a new board game, preferably one that doesn't break the bank. Anyone care to recommend a new one for me? I already own and like the following:

Catan (and several expansions)
Munchkin* (and many variants)
Axis and Allies
Risk Godstorm (Probably the best version of Risk IMO)
Game of Thrones (The Fantasy Flight Board Game)

If you like Catan, you'll probably like Puerto Rico. It's a lot like Catan in a lot of ways, where you gradually build up and manage various resources. However, instead of rolling dice, everyone selects an action from the action pool (preventing anyone else from getting it), and then everyone gets to take the selected action in order.

I would also reccomend Pandemic. I don't see anything cooperative in your list, and Pandemic is a pretty good point of entry into that genre.

[Fjolnir]

So, my June gaming budget came early and I scored - Boss Monster! Only managed a couple of games so far, and a good part of my enjoyment is the nostalgia involved.

I gotta say though, whoever wrote the rules needs lessons in rules writing. We didn't get to the third turn before we ran into something the rules barely touched. The first game definitely fell into the "playing solitaire together" trap, but more spell cards came into play the second time and that's clearly where the interaction happens. The luck is a bit swingy too - game #1 saw a 8-heart hero on the first turn, and game #2 saw the town get stacked to 4 mages that ended up going through one dungeon all at once & that player winning that turn.

On the other hand, I can't wait to play it again :)

I play boss monster a lot, it is on rotation at my weekly game night and I agree it is a little swingy, I am curious though, what rules thing did you run into?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

If you like Catan, you'll probably like Puerto Rico. It's a lot like Catan in a lot of ways, where you gradually build up and manage various resources. However, instead of rolling dice, everyone selects an action from the action pool (preventing anyone else from getting it), and then everyone gets to take the selected action in order.

Goodness yes! It's an incredibly interesting game. (And if you like it, Eminent Domain and Race For the Galaxy both have that action-selection component as well.)

I would also reccomend Pandemic. I don't see anything cooperative in your list, and Pandemic is a pretty good point of entry into that genre.

Oh, absolutely! Mind you, it starts to get a bit stale once some people learn how to solve the game for a given situation; then you get "alpha player" syndrome. But it's a very good game.

Anyone else played Dead of Winter yet? It's an interesting semi-cooperative zombie survival game: each player has their own individual win condition, but to win, you have to make sure that the colony survives, or else you lose anyway.

[Fjolnir]

re: dead of winter: I have, you could remove the zombies pretty much wholesale from the game and still have a good game...

this does not make it a bad game or a bad system, just that the zombie theme was very take it or leave it. there are better zombie games and probably better survival games (both coop and otherwise), but this did both well

[Chen]

If you like Catan, you'll probably like Puerto Rico. It's a lot like Catan in a lot of ways, where you gradually build up and manage various resources. However, instead of rolling dice, everyone selects an action from the action pool (preventing anyone else from getting it), and then everyone gets to take the selected action in order.

Hmm I do agree Puerto Rico is a great game, but it's completely different than Catan. The luck factor is MUCH lower (only the tiles are randomized) and it is far less "fast paced" than Catan. I'll grant the theme is similar in that you're gathering resources and building things (though not with the resources in Puerto Rico). I'd really consider them on the opposite ends of a the generic board game spectrum though.

[Knaight]

Goodness yes! It's an incredibly interesting game. (And if you like it, Eminent Domain and Race For the Galaxy both have that action-selection component as well.)

I'm not actually familiar with either of these. What's the pitch?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'm not actually familiar with either of these. What's the pitch?

Both of them are similar in some aspects. You manage resources to build an empire and score points, and you do it by using different types of actions (like drawing cards, producing trade goods, etc).

1. Each turn, players perform one or more actions, out of a pool of several possible actions.
• In Race For the Galaxy, each player has a list of actions they can choose from, and secretly selects one. That turn, the actions selected are the only ones performed during the turn, and the player who chose an action gets a special bonus.
• In Eminent Domain, all actions (there's five basic actions) are cards that go into your personal deck. When it's your turn to lead, pick any action and take its card from the piles in the center. Then, you can boost that action by adding any cards in your hand that have the same action. (For instance, the Scan action lets you look at planets and add one to your empire. The more Scan cards you have in hand, the more planets you can look at.) All the other players follow, but they don't get the special bonus that you do (and they don't take a card from the center).
2. You build up an empire of planets, some of which produce resources for you to trade in for points.

The neat thing about Race For the Galaxy is that it's geared towards building up awesome point-scoring combinations. Every card has keywords of one type or another, and those can give you bonus points if you build up to later cards.

The neat thing about Eminent Domain is that your deck will grow and change according to the actions you take when you're the leader of your role. If you keep taking the Technology action when you're the turn leader, your deck will slowly become filled with Technology action cards.

Both games are about building an efficient engine that gets you more points than anyone else.