Board Games

I love these lists. Keep 'em coming!

Here is a list of games that I own that I particularly like (some have been listed, others haven't):

Mice & Mystics - Persistent RPG campaign. Plays great solo, or with up to 4 people.

Quarriors - Mentioned above. Good game, but I'm not able to get it to the table often.

Smash Up - Decent 4 player card game with fun factions and gorgeous art.

Mage Knight - Plays amazingly well solo. If you've got the time and don't mind learning how to play, this game is incredible.

Seasons - Phenomenal card game with cool mechanics, big chunky unique dice, and beautiful artwork.

King of Tokyo - Pretty fun game for up to 6 people. Glorified Yahtzee, but great art and fun card effects to spice things up.

The Duke - Elegant game for two. Like Chess, but way cooler. Easy to learn and teach, plays fast.

Splendor - Relatively simple game. Those who can strategize on the fly will do well. My group really enjoys this one.

Lords of Waterdeep - Pretty much everyone enjoys this one, whether they're gamers or not, whether they like the fantasy theme or not. Just a great game.

Summoner Wars - Awesome tactical game for two. Fantasy themed, amazing art, simple mechanics, and a wide variety of very different factions to play as.

BattleCON - One of the best 2 player games out there. It's a fighting game in board game form. Lots of strategizing and guessing at what your opponent might do. Tonnes of unique characters, great mechanics.

I'm great at Monopoly. I also quite enjoy any Wheel of Fortune games.

Played a few games yesterday - Takenoko at home with family. Then went to a friends place for dinner, there were 5 (which seems to be a tricky number for games), we played Hanabi and Tokaido (I also bought 7 wonders) during the day, I'm putting Antoine Bauza's kids through college.

@aquablak: Lords of Waterdeep seems to get a lot of love - something I think I'll have to check out.

I really like Splendor. It's simple but really enjoyable

Coup, Masquerade, Love Letter, Resistance/Avalon, Cataan, Block Mania, and Shanghai Trader are all favourites of mine.

This reminded me to order an organizer for my copy.

@sergio: a zombie's in there all contaminating those helpless survivors.

@sin4profit: Unfortunately I cannot save them, since this is an image from The Broken Token and not my copy of the game. RIP.

@captain_insano: Yea 5 can be a little tricky to find games for. My go to game with 5 players is Power Grid personally. It's an oldie but a classic. It's a resource management/auction game if you're into those types.

Another great option is Battlestar Galactica. It's one of those cooperative games where someone can be the traitor or cyclon in this case. Similar to Avalon that they played on the site but a little more mechanics heavy. And now that I'm thinking about it Shadow's over Camelot is excellent with 5 also and that's my personal favorite in that genre.

If you want something a little more on the "lite" side if your playing with people newer to board games Ca$h 'n Gun$ is an excellent little game that plays well with 5 or 6 and has an expansion Cas$h 'n Gun$: Yakuzas that allows you to go up to 9 players.

What did you think of Hanabi and 7 Wonders? I've been curious about those, and I'm tempted to buy them at some point.

I've already played King of Tokyo twice today, and probably 20 times over the weekend. My son is totally hooked on it to the point that he's cut and drawn like 10 of his own custom cards for it and he's currently drawing up his own game called "King of Canada".

I'm a big Dominion fan, especially the Prosperity expansion. I also really like 7 Wonders, Waterdeep, Kemet, Small World, Pandemic and Wizwars.

I think Zombies is the only board game that I've played that I actively dislike. I'll play it, but I will roll my eyes of you choose it :P

I'm good at film-based Trivial Pursuit games. I used to play the Star Wars one a lot. My family has owned a lot of Star Wars games, even though we're not huge fans.

@aquablak: 7 Wonders is GREAT. My wife and I play it all the time. It's really simple to learn, plays pretty quickly and its a ton of fun.

I played Arkham Horror for the (2nd) time this past weekend. I've been playing board games for years now and I don't know how I never got around to playing it. I found it SUPER fun. I really love the setting and randomness that happens with it. I dig co-op games where everyone works together rather than someone quaterbacking (like in say Pandemic - which don't get me wrong, is also a great game).

I also recently bought Spelndor which is a pretty fantastic quick game for 2-4 people. Again, VERY easy to learn, 30 mins to play give or take. Really nice artwork and pieces too!

@aquablak: Both are excellent. 7 wonders is really straightforward and plays simply - takes a little bit working out all the symbols and their meaning - the concept that you have to swap hands each turn with your opponents is really cool. At the end of the game you look at your 'city' and, like a deck building game, it's cool seeing how much you did from initially having nothing.

Hanabi was a big hit with my group the other night. It's incredibly stressful and frustrating (in a good way). Basically you all need to play cards from 1-5 in order and in the right colour, which is a pretty simple task. Except that you don't see your own cards and if you make 3 mistakes the game's over. You are allowed to give limited information to each other "You have a yellow card" or "These cards are #1", but you can only do this 8 times before you run out of tokens to do so (you can earn tokens back by discarding cards). Trying to give people information without breaking the game was fun - watching someone do the complete opposite of what you wanted them to do or misinterpreting why you told them a particular piece of information was great - can't recommend Hanabi enough.

@professoress That's awesome, how old's your son? Great that he's making his own cards and version.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a card game that functions similar to MtG, but it's co-op so you don't end up getting into fights with your friends, and it's non-collectible, so it doesn't eat up all your time and money. It's also genuinely fucking great. Our gaming group played it almost exclusively for months. Now we just play the Android version in between gaming sessions. (The port's kind of sloppy. It might be better on iOS.)

Hanabi is pretty good. I picked it up on a whim since it was made by Antoine Bauza. I actually ended up with two copies of the game, since I bought the card version first. Then I saw the deluxe version that uses tiles instead.

Top 10 game of 2014:

1) Fire in the Lake - GMT's COIN System covering the Vietnam war, with 2 and a half decks (a half deck for 1964, and full decks for 1965 and 1968). It has the most developed bots for unplayed factions yet in the series.

2) Fields of Arle - Uwe Rosenburg's autobiographical heavy farming euro for 1 or 2 players. Each turn is either summer or winter with each season having its own actions to choose from.

3) The Battle of the Five Armies - War of the Ring sequel.

4) Star Wars - Imperial Assault - Descent reskined as Star Wars.

5) Arkwright - A very heavy economic Euro where you buy factories, manage their efficiency, compete to sell their goods, buy stocks in your company and increase the value of those stocks to win with the most valuable portfolio.

6) La Granja - A Farming Euro where you play cards from your hand onto your farm board. Each card offers 4 possible improvements to your farm and you choose one.

7) Kanban - A Heavy Worker Placement where you manage the R&D of new cars. Heavy emphasis on the order in which chosen actions are resolved, ala Caylus. The banking time mechanic give a lot of freedom in what would otherwise be a very strict board.

8) Wir sind das Volk! - Like Twilight Struggle but about East and West Germany.

9) Saint Petersburg (Second Edition) - Classic updated to include expansions, new art and rules.

10) Roll for the Galaxy - Race translated into a dice building game. Thrilling custom dice like Quarriors but with actual depth.

Thanks so much for the input, all! I'm pretty sure I'll be getting 7 Wonders sometime soon, and Hanabi is so cheap that I might as well grab it next time I order from Amazon. It's good to hear that 7W plays fast and is relatively easy to learn.

Another 5 player game that I'm interested in is Sheriff of Nottingham. It's got gorgeous art, and it sounds like a lot of fun.

This past week I've gotten even more hardcore (read: nerdy) by getting a couple of free print-and-play games printed up at Staples. I'm trying out a couple of great-looking solo games by Todd Sanders:

Shadows Upon Lassadar

Shadows Upon Lassadar: Seige at Dalnish

I'm pretty excited to check them out. Got the cards all sleeved and ready to go. Hope they're good!

Anyone have any opinions on Eldritch Horror? It's sitting on my shelf unplayed at the moment - I'm really keen to have a go at it but it's hard to find the time and to convince my family to give it a try.

Kill Doctor Lucky is one of my favorites. It's the opposite of clue. Instead of finding out who killed Mr. Body, you try to kill Doctor Lucky without the rest of the players witnessing it.

I've played a lot of Fantasy Flight's other H.P. Lovecraft themed games: Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness, and both of those are pretty awesome, so...

Another one I just remembered that's a whole shitload of fun with 5+ people is Coach Ride to Devil's Castle. (Oops, I guess the latest version changed the name.) Think Werewolf but with cards, much more strategy and way less lame. With a good group of people, it's some of the most fun I've ever had.

Been playing quite a bit of Shadows of Brimstone lately with my girlfriend. We've been enjoying it quite a bit more than Descent. It really scratches the loot/dungeon crawl itch.

It's a purely co-op experience with leveling, loot, mutations, injuries, skills that move from one game to the next. There's a town you visit between missions to sell loot, buy stuff, and other mini-game-esque stuff. The map is procedurally generated from the exploration deck, and each map card in turn has further instructions.

Unless you're playing hardcore mode, if you get KO'ed as a group, you just fail the mission, which means part of the town burns and you suffer permanent injuries. Though, not all of them are bad. A wound may give you a scar that makes you more fearsome. And if you do get screwed over, a trip to the doctor might fix it up. Or make it worse.

Everything out of the box is nice. The card stock is thick. The tiles are oozing theme. Unfortunately, the minis in the box suck. I think they were going for tabletop wargaming level detail, but their models are soft on the detail side of things. Worse yet, the push to assemble models have parts that don't quite line up. Dry fit first, or you'll end up with the giant gaps on your model like the big monster on the right. I'll probably just use Reaper's Chronoscope line for a lot of the models.

@captain_insano: One thing about that game is that it seems to only have a certain amount of plays in it. I have a feeling that most will only ever do each scenario twice, and the second time around there might already be some repeat stuff. That being said it could work after a while and with a complete different group of people.
All in all if you compare it to spending money on movie tickets you are still coming out way ahead. You'll easily spend 10-15 hours with 4 or more people on it.

And just as in some videogames. This one is very narrative driven. There are a ton of things that offer a more compelling gameplay experience, but this is something unique.

I like Eminent Domain a whole lot even if I've not gotten to play it much. It's a card game with a space 4x theme. Was a kickstarter thing back in the day.

That 7 Wonders is a thing of beauty.

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft (and the other games in this series), glorious simplified 4th(?) edition D&D goodness with miniatures and dungeon tiles that you attatch to your dungeon as you move your way forward. Doesn't need a DM, and you can play it solo if you want. Cool stuff.

Carcassonne is perfect for everyone. SO easy to understand, so fun.

Haven't played a lot of these yet, but I bought Krossmaster Arena and Super Dungeon Explore some months back, both of them seem really fun and I'm looking forward to trying them some more. Krossmaster is essentially Final Fantasy Tactics in board game form (Or Dofus, if you're into that). Super Dungeon Explore is just a super fun dungeon romp where one plays the dungeon and its monsters, and the rest plays chibi characters with abilities and whatnot.

I love board games, me!

I really like the civilization board game. It's like $60 which is crazy but it's pretty awesome and the board you play on is different every time. There is also expansion packs that add new features and more landmass squares. It's great for 2-4 players so even if it's just my wife and I we can still have a good time.

If you are looking for specific recommendations based on the number of players you have this list is pretty essential:

How Many Player? Play this....

Sheriff of Nottingham is a neat, simple game that is a lot of fun with the right crowd. It's a game about lying and deception so you need people that don't get angry if you lie to them in any context. That given it's a cool game well worth the money.

Has anybody played Warhammer: Invasion? I'm wondering if the expansions are worth it/necessary.

It all depends how much you are going to play it. If you really like the game, have someone to play with, and see yourself putting 10+ plays into the game, then the buy an expansion. Otherwise the base game is fine.

If people are looking for a light bluffing and negotiation game i would definitely recommend Cosmic Encounter over Sheriff on Nottingham.

Anyone have opinions on Eldrith Horror vs Arkham Horror? I love the latter, and am interested in the former. I'd also be interested in hearing if Legendary Encounters Alien (or Predator) is any good.

@brackstone: Eldritch Horror is a MUCH better game than Arkham. The first expansion, Forsaken Lore, feels essential because it adds a lot of location card variety which is a little lacking in the base game.

Legendary Encounters Alien is very good, maybe even better than Eldritch Horror. The scenarios are brilliantly designed to draw out the feeling of each movie. Although as the years go on I find myself liking Deck Building mechanics (ala Dominion) less and less. If you aren't bored of this mechanic, Alien might be the implementation of it yet.

@drbroel: What about Eldritch makes it better than Arkham? My issues with Arkham are mostly long turn cycles and long playtime in general.

Good to hear that Legendary Encounters Alien is good, I'll probably grab that one next. I'm not the biggest deck building guy, but the Alien license and 4 different scenarios sound like a blast.

A couple suggestions for people wanting a war game or risk style map control game are Shogun (if you want a little less combat and more economy) and Cthulhu Wars (pricey, but great combat focused strategy with asymmetric factions. A strictly better version of Chaos in the Old World). I've also heard good things about Cyclades, but haven't played it myself.

Hello, I started play board games around a year ago, and have even replaced my video game itch by playing them. They are a bit more social and its always good to see your friends expression when you have lied and bluffed your way passed them, especially in sheriff of nottingham. Since starting, I have joined a meetup, and attend twice a month.

Games I have enjoyed:

Coup - good 20 minute quick bluffing game

Masquarade - see above, but a bit more a head fuck..... as you never know what character are

Eurogamers you should play - castles of Burgundy (£20 on amazon) and Concordia

Cyclades - has a cool bidding mechanic

Dead of Winter - is an ace game, especially the mechanic of not know if someone is the betrayer.... there is always that tense atmosphere because of this.

Cosmic encounters - I did not enjoy this at all, it was a very simple game for all the pieces you have on a table

Machi koro - a very simple game, I found this quite relaxing to play, and has cool artwork. Good to play at the end of the night after you have sank a few hours into a eurogamer

Star realms - I do not get the hype round this game

Has anyone played keyflower.... ?? I heard it is very good and has a few mechanics that i like.... Would also like to try battle star galactic and find a cool dungeon crawler/deck builder

Is there any London board gamers around?

Keyflower is fantastic. There is some debate over the balance of some tiles and unfairness if a winter tile you need doesn't come out in winter. It is also the most cutthroat two player game I've ever played, so maybe play with more than two if you aren't okay with that.

All that said it is probably one of the most inventive and elegantly design games I have ever played. Amazing production value as well.

@drbroel: thanks for the response. I'll probably hold off on buying any if there isn't an expansion that is an absolute must have.

@brackstone: I like Legendary Encounters, it's a pretty brutal game, and i like co op games that are difficult to win. Along with the different scenarios it has game variants that mutate the game into an, "Alien players VS human players" game mid way through and another variant that adds a social deduction element.

Word of warning though, the out of box setup is kind of a pain in the ass, just remember to look on the bottom of the cards, in small black text it'll say what deck the card belongs to (took me awhile to notice it) and the barracks cards (characters from the movies; the building deck) should be organized per-character name ( Ripley will have 4 different decks based on the four movies she's in).

Legendary: Predator is rumored to be released on August 19th and has the option of playing as humans (co op game) or as Predators ( player vs player game; as Predators the players will be competing for trophies) It's also said to be fully compatible with the Aliens game. I'll be checking it out when it comes out.

@brackstone: If you're curious about Eldritch Horror, I'd recommend watching Shut Up & Sit Down's review here. They pretty thoroughly explore where it improves over Arkham Horror. They didn't recommend it overall, but they also didn't strongly recommend against it.

Eldritch Horror is more streamlined than Arkham and has higher variety between the Old Ones you choose for each game. Each Old One has its own research deck that you resolve cards from to get clue tokens. Each Old One also has its own randomized objectives, which you have to beat 3 of to win the game.

Playtime should be shorter in Eldritch (a little over 2 hours) but depending on how things go it can still get pretty long, but your longest game of Eldrich (3 hours) will never be as long as your longest game of arkham (5 hours).

Eldritch Horror is really good, I'm glad I own it, but if you are looking for a large highly thematic co-op game I'd recommend Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island over it. It tells a more cohesive story and the theme is just completely engrossing. But both are worth getting and if you are a big fan of the Lovecraft theme then Eldritch is the one you should get.

@gnosislord: @drbroel: @sin4profit: Thanks for all the recommendations guys. I'm definitey going to get legendary Encounters Alien next, it seems like a no brainer, but after that I'll check into Eldritch Horror.

So I guess after Predator the next Legendary Encounters will be Firefly in late 2016. That sounds pretty awesome.

@physicalscience: Bloody "Australia" tax also applies to board games. $60 would be cheap for a board game. The cheapest one I've bought is Hanabi at $20, the most was Eldritch Horror at $90 (which is pretty standard). Most are around the 70 - 80 dollar mark.

I've heard good things about the Civilization Board Game, but I've been banned from buying games for a while.... :(

I play Monopoly pretty regularly

Can anyone recomend any quick games? Preferably card games..... the group i play in often plays Avlon, Coup, Masquerade and Cypher...... preferable interactive, maybe bluffing.....

@dr_unorthadox: Bang! is a good, easy to learn, western themed party game that should't take too long, though I tend to change the rules about healing, since a long, boring grind between the last two players can happen. Also, it has hidden identities and bluffing, so it fits the bill.

@dr_unorthadox: I would highly recommend:

7 wonders - card game where you build your own civilisation. You swap hands with other players each turn. Not so much 'bluffing' but a mix between deciding what cards you should use vs using a card just to make sure someone else doesn't use it. (2-7 players)

Dominion - deck building card game that plays quickly and simply but with a great deal of depth and strategy (I think 2-4 players)

Hanabi - co-operative card game where you don't see your own hand - not 'bluffing' but you need to be really good at giving information, interpreting information and reading signals from others (I think 2-5 players)

Love Letter - I've not played this but everything I know about it is that it's a quick, bluffing style card game and that people really really like this game.

All of these are interactive and I don't think you'd go wrong with any

A new day, a new board game update as i try to recommend games where i completely screw up the rules:

Played

• Cash N' Guns (SU&SD Review) - It's amusing, played with the basic rules and there was confusion as how the Bang/Click cards were discarded, issues with how the godfather was picked, and problems with the "Courage" phase. There are "special power" cards you can use which may make the game more interesting but the base game felt somewhat sloppy, at least from my experience. I'll have to try it again with a better understanding of the rules. As of now, i don't think i'm that hot on it.
• Mascarade (SU&SD Review) - The game is fairly simple but hard to wrap your head around and not made any easier when you completely screw up the rules and add all characters (excluding the 8 player characters) to a 5 player game. There were some fun bluffs in my our game but the overbearing amount of characters i added on accident made it too much of a memory fry to really have a fair opinion on it, as i'm not sure if some of the problems (13 point end game seems too quick) are related to the rule screw up.
• Coup (SU&SD review) - Coup was the best of what we played. Despite screwing up the rules early on it plays fast enough that i was able to adjust and correct it. The game plays very quickly, mostly because we were quick to call "bullshit" on each other only to eat crow shortly after, but it's a fun, fast game. The only problem is, people who lose one influence card tend to mentally bail on the game, feeling crippled and knowing the next game is soon to come, they just kinda give up early.

Coming Soon

Behold my future as i await more ordered games and more rules to inevitably botch! Actually i got Sheriff Of Nottingham in my last batch BUT my Amazon.com order didn't have the merchant bags that come with the game so i went directly to the Game's publisher (Arcane Wonders) and they were nice enough to send me the bags and included two promo cards for the game. So i haven't played it yet. Today i ordered Love Letter: Batman because i hear Love Letter's good and Batman, he's cool too. I also wanted to try a "real time" board game so i ordered Space Cadets: Dice Duel. If things go well there are some other "real time" games i'd like to try, Escape & Space Alert.

Questions

Have any of you had any experience with the Werewolf games...Or Ultimate Werewolf? Are they even the same thing? There seems to be so many variations that i can't tell what's what. One Night Ultimate Werewolf seems like a completely different game and if so then what is One Night Ultimate Werewolf Daybreak? Can i get some clarity on these?

I have really gotten into Twilight Struggle, but damn.... that learning curve.

@sin4profit: If you want to try Werewolf, just get the Ultimate Werewolf one. It comes with a bunch of different roles that you can either choose to play with or not. One night Werewolf is a completely different game. You can play one night with far less people than regular werewolf and it takes much less time. One Night Werewolf Daybreak is an expansion to One Night, it can be played by itself but I'd recommend just getting the base game and figuring out if you like it first, then add in Daybreak.