Board Games

@adamdork:

Fair enough. As someone coming from playing Descent with my friend GMing, he often had to tweak the difficulty on the fly to make for a fun round for us vs a fair round for him. I enjoyed it being a bit more rough on the invader (GM) since it allows me to go all out on my play group and feel really good about my turn instead of dialing it back on them so that the 4 people I am playing with have fun and get to feel clever. If you are playing with less than 4 soldiers I can totally see what you are saying though, I didn't try it much but the balance mechanic for less than 4 seemed too... simple, and it just made a good player too good from what I could see. I gave away a fully sleeved Dead of Winter because it just wasn't hittin for me for the same reason you mention for DOOM, so I getcha. Do you have other 1 vs Many games that you like?

I think Board Games have definitely been enjoying a bit of a reinassance over the past 20 some odd years and it still tickles me to see Catan on a Target shelf. For me my favorites are:

1. Catan

2. Pandemic (especially Pandemic Legacy)

3. Firenze

4. Tammany Hall

5. Junk Art

@captain_insano: I heard that about Adrenaline. DOOM tries to capture the fast-paced action and especially with the glory kills. You get mega powers for doing a glorykill.

@citan359: Dead of Winter was not good to me either. Theme was too dry for me the first time I played it and the instant death rolls at the beginning of second game just nailed the coffin shut. I enjoy Imperial Assault (though full campaign's are too long), Last Night on Earth, TMNT (only played it once as a big group though), and Nuns on the Run (kind of different). Don't know if I played too many 1 vs many games outside of those.

Picked up a couple good two player games a couple weeks ago; Patchwork and Caverna: Cave Vs Cave. Have played lot of both games over the last couple weekends and I'm loving them. So quick and easy to set up. A good amount of strategy in both. I kind of wish there were a few more tile pieces in Caverna that you alternated between (the action pieces in particular), but I get that it would probably throw off the balance quite a bit.

The other game I'm really into right now is Orelans. I see there are a couple expansions out for it. Has anyone here played either of them? Are they just "play with more players" type expansions or do they make a two player game better?

@phish09: I have both Orleans expansions but so far have only played Orleans: Invasion. I really like the solo scenarios in it. I haven had a chance to play its co-op board yet but I hear that is very good. Invasion is a big expansion which adds lots of little modular components so I'm very happy with it.

Trade and Intrigue I've heard great things about the 'Trade' additions and negative o the 'Intrigue', but I've not played either yet.

Orleans is a great game - probably in my top 5 or 10

How would you rate the two player Caverna for someone that only has a passing interest in board games? I like getting two player games for my wife and the Uwe game's I've gotten have been hit or miss. Patchwork is one of our favorite games of all time, however Agricola: ACBAS didn't land with her as well as it did me. Does Caverna lean closer to Patchwork or ACBAS?

@jakoo_p: I don't like ACBAS either. I enjoy regular Agricola, but ACBAS was just not as much fun. I haven't played regular Caverna, but my understanding is that the two player version really loses very little in terms of features, but just instead of collecting a bunch of pieces of wheat, flax, etc, you are just moving an individual piece of each kind up a track to keep track of how many pieces you have. So it makes set up and clean up a breeze. It might even be a bit quicker than Patchwork to set up, but a little bit longer to play...not much though...say 40 minutes instead of 30 minutes. The more I think about it, it's just a really well balanced game. Every game my gf and I have played we've come within one or two points of each other with scores in the 50's and 60's. To answer your question, I think it leans more Patchwork in terms of simplicity and brevity....and doesn't really have all that much in common with ACBAS at all. I think you'll like it.

@phish09: damn you said just about everything I wanted to hear and I didn’t even know about this two player implantation until you mentioned it! I’m gonna definitely check it out.

My favorite board game is Betrayal at House on the Hill. It's the only board game that I will always say yes to. It's just too much stupid fun, especially if you do some light RP. Even if you manage to play through every scenario the outcome will still be different based on the people you play with and the circumstances leading up to the betrayal.

@matticus: I don't know if you have any affinity for DnD or for CRPG games but I am hearing very positive things about Betrayal at Baldur's Gate.

I usually play a good few mentioned on new years eve, got Scythe, Secret Hitler and the X-Com board game lined up for this one.

So I'm one of the lucky few that managed to get a Mondo copy of The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, and had a game tonight.

It's really good. It's a fantastic mesh of the ideas of Resistance and Battlestar Galactica, using the best parts of each to solve the biggest problems of the other. Heavier than Resistance, lighter than Battlestar. If you've played either a lot, it may not blow your socks off, but my Resistance playing group liked it a lot.

The minis are good for their size, but could be better. That's probably my biggest criticism.

Just picked up a couple of great semi-dexterity but really puzzle games in Dr Eureka, Dr Beaker and Go Go Gelato

Also recently played Azul at a friends' house and it was fantastic. Decided to purchase Stockpile and Manhattan Project Energy Empire after playing them.

My Rising Sun KS arrived but I don't actually know if I will ever get it to the table. Minis look really cool though.

Recently played Battle for Rokugan which I had a blast with. It's like Risk lite. No dice rolling, hidden objectives, smaller board, and limited turns. But a more covert and mind games play style. It helps if you like L5R but I had a great time of it as someone who doesn't have the time to play Risk anymore.

@fateofnever: Yeah it's a fun game. Currently undefeated in 3 games as Phoenix clan. It's also pretty much a reskin of a Game of Thrones board game they did a few years ago, so if you get bored with it and want to try a different map, that's an option.

Recently we've been playing a TON of Gloomhaven. It's a really good persistent RPG/board game with some fun mechanics, and a ton of value for the price. Literally 20 pounds/9 kilos of game for about 120 bucks, although online retailers have the price jacked up because it's murder on shipping costs, what with it weighing more than a small child.

Was excited to see this thread come back, but it was a bot that did it.

Anyway,

I just ordered

Criss Cross

Happy Salmon

Santorini

Was considering the Star Wars: Rebellion expansion

Had a few sessions of Pathdiner the card game with 4 of my family members and we are having a blast! As a group that love RPGs and fantasy but struggle to feel comfortable with actual role-playing, this is hitting the spot.

@avantegardener: What is Secret Hitler like?

It's fun, got a fair bit in common with Avalon, Werewolf and Coup, only thing is you need a minimum of 5 to play.

Coolios. I played a lot of the Pathfinder app game and it's fun though missing co op. I would totally suggest playing Arkham Horror LCG. It's another great co-op rpg game that keep getting new expansions!

@herrheimlich: is there character progression in Arkham though?

Reccomendations for fantasy games suitable for a 6 year old girl? Thinking of getting my daughter involved in the genre I love so much! My first thought was something like Dungeon! ?

@frodobaggins:

If you can find it, Mice and Mystics if you want a cooperative story based dungeon crawler. Really simple rules, the boards are basic, and its a very cartoony-fantasy story.

Munchkin, maybe? It's been a while since I played it, but there was nothing offensive about it that I remember and the rules were simple enough.

You could run the Pathfinder or D&D starter box.

Zombicide Black Plague has really simple rules, but if I were 4 the zombies would probably scare me. Otherwise, rules wise its really basic.

Massive Darkness is a modified Zombicide engine. The minis are more cartoonish and it's more dungeon crawly than Zombicide is. I feel like the price of this has skyrocketed, though...

I think the Tales & Games series is really neat. It takes various fairy tails and turns them into quick and easy to play games. We own a few, the games are fun, and they look really nice on the bookshelf.

These I have 0 experience with, but they look family friendly:

Welcome to the Dungeon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UQZGG3E/

Five Minute Dungeon

https://www.amazon.com/Spin-Master-Games-Minute-Dungeon/dp/B01N4PN3ZP

Yes! I love board games, though my pool of friends is quite limited...

One of my favourites is Love Letter really simple card game, quick rounds, perfect to play when there's alcohol involved. And perfect for 3-4 players.

I don't know if you're interested in pen and paper role playing games but i would suggest Dungeon World as something simple and broadly open to imagination.

Sticking with the pen and paper theme we have Gloomhaven, which captures the complexity of a pen and paper combat encounter in a board game. It is kinda difficult to grasp at first, and is intended for 3+ players, but the GM can play too!

Then we got social deduction games like the Resistance and Secret Hitler, both fantastic games if you can find at least 5 people.

Dixit is a very creative and fun game about linking abstract and fantastic images to feeling emotions or phrases, and can really show how well you understand the thoughts of your friends.

Codenames is excellent too and is usually a favourite, best played in a 2v2 or 3v3 setting. One person on each team is the spymaster and gives hints to his team, and they have to locate the right agents on a board filled with codenames.

Hope these are interesting to you!

Always been a fan of them but only recently (past few years) have I really sat down and played them properly.

Current favourites are Arcadia Quest (with pets and hell of a box add ons) and Descent

Unfortunately the forums don't have a good search function, but I wanted to ask, has anyone tried Charterstone and would they recommend it? I love the aesthetic and I've not played a legacy game before, so it has me intrigued. I'd probably be looking at playing with about 4 players (including myself).

@bollard: I've not played it but heard that it's a pretty solid and fun experience from a guy that I regularly game with. I have little interest in picking it up myself as I would realistically only be able to go through the campaign with two players, for which the experience is apparently fairly average. With 4 people, it's meant to be a pretty solid and fun game and campaign, but nothing mindblowing. I don't think you'd regret it. If you've not played a Legacy game before that could be novel enough to be something different. Keep in mind it is fairly reliant then on getting a regular group together.

@captain_insano: Ace, thanks for the information, I'll see what my group think and see if the numbers add up before I give it a go.

I recently got to try out The Thing: Infection At Outpost 31 in a group of 6 and that game was a bloody blast. At its heart it is a social bluffing game but has enough little mechanics and mini-games in it to muddy the waters and keep you guessing, which is ideal really. The Things got very close to winning but a bit of very good luck, some shrewd metagaming and a need to wrap up the game because it was late handed it to the humans. Mankind survives another day.

@bollard My friends and I have just started a 4 player game of Charterstone. We are two games into it and it starts as a very simple worker placements game. Everyone starts with 2 workers and places them on a variety of buildings throughout the land. There are some common buildings in the middle of the board and custom buildings in each players village. Whenever you go on those buildings you get the take an action or collect a resource, this is much like many other worker placement games, e.g. Lords of Waterdeep. The winner of each game is those who have the most Victory Points. You will also collect assistance that will give you point multipliers or bonuses when you perform certain actions. Throughout each game new packages or cards can be introduced that will provide more advanced buildings or new rules.

The game is a quick, solid worker placements game that is fun to play, but is not mind blowing in terms of introducing new board games concepts. It quite fun and engaging that you get to name everything from your own character to the name of your village. There are also some quirky rules that are quite fun. Like all the other players get to choose the name of the village for the winner of the first game. Rules, new cards and assistants are introduced into the game really quickly after the first game. IF people keep choose to open packages then the more new cards you have to keep up with. I have enjoyed the first two games though, and I have high hopes for it, and I like the legacy side of the game. But after two plays the worker placement part is nothing new, so if you like worker placement games I would say go for it.

@dr_unorthadox: Thanks for the detailed post, it sounds likely to be something I'd like then.

FFG recently announced their partnership with WOTC is ending and as a result Android: Netrunner is ending. It's sad, that game had just gotten a soft relaunch and things where looking up. Tomorrow I'll pick up the last expansion for it and add that'll be that. There'll likely be a small community for a while to come.

Hopefully FFG have another LCG in the Android universe lined up to replace it.

@jesus_phish: I would be more on the lookout for actually netrunner to appear once again in a different form.
Although I am more a fan of their Legend of the five rings anyways.

Even though the warhammer and ffg thing has hit me harder, I think now it is starting to become a concern. With most of their stuff actually based on stuff that isn't theirs.

I wouldn't. If Netrunner comes back, it'll likely be WoTC doing it, which means a CCG. Even if anyone else was to do it, it'd probably be a CCG. FFG own the Android property. They own all the lore and characters that they made for A:NR. They could make another Android LCG like Lo5R or like Arkham. They just can't use the Netrunner rules system.

I agree on your last point too. I think if they lost Star Wars it'd be unrecoverable for them and Asmodee would probably just shut them down. Out of all the games they make they own

• Android - just killed the biggest part of it due to licensing
• Arkham - does ok
• Runewars - basically DoA
• Lo5R - seems to be doing ok

Other than that it's all nearly licensed stuff and some big box stuff that wouldn't be huge monthly sellers.

I've heard scuttlebutt that they are making the Star Wars license a living hell to work with to try and get them to relinquish it, but I agree FFG would completely fold without out it, as much as I like their other non-Star Wars games. I think they still have 10 years left on their licensing contract though, and I don't think they'll give it up anytime soon, especially with X-Wing 2.0 launching soon.

Does FFG have the Game of Thrones licence as well?

I tried Eldritch and Arkham but those games really aren't for me. I am far more into Euro style games, so they just didn't do it for me.

That being said, I've enjoyed Star Wars Rebellion a lot - it plays really well and matches the theme nicely.

Naw, Fantasy Flight to too big of a piece of Asmodee's push into North America, they wouldn't be folded any time soon. Fantasy Flight thrived before they had Star Wars, they'll be fine if they lost it. That said, I am concerned about the degree they've leaned on it in recent years at the expense of their own properties.

Speaking of FF, anyone here play their Fallout game? Kinda interested in the theme but it looks awfully random even for ameritrash.

I hate the FFG Fallout game so much. Scoring is based on random objectives and there is zero strategy involved. I played a game where I passed every single objective I attempted, but since none of them turned up score objectives I came in dead last, but with max experience and a mountain of caps.

@captain_insano: FFG do have the GoT license as well. I don't think they have ASOFAI though or at least that was optioned off to someone else to make a table top war game.

@jesus_phish: CMON seems to have the ASOFIA license, at least for a miniature wargame.

But same as the Netrunner license or warhammer license, that might be gone from one day to the next. At this point I doubt it, but with the series ending next year I think that might slowly be on the way out after next year. Not stop it right away, but it might slowly start to shrink till it gets less support. Hard to see see how GOT popularity will hold up, is going to depend heavily on the ending.

@cheappoison: That was the one I was thinking of thanks, couldn't remember who had it, I just remember the kickstarter.

FFG had the license for GOT before the series so I think they'll be ok even after the series goes away at least for a few years. It was a fairly popular game and property for them even before the show made everyone away of what GOT is. If I remember right it was their first LCG and had a card pool that was incredibly large because they decided that everything printed would be playable. It was one of the thing that pushed me towards Netrunner. I'd been looking to get into a new card game, liked the LCG model and liked both cyberpunk and GOT. But the clerk explained that to get current with GOT would cost thousands of euro so I went with Netrunner instead. Now today I'll collect the last of the expansion boxes and have a complete playset.

@jesus_phish: Legend of the Five Rings shares a lot of the play mechanics of GoT as well as a few from Netrunner (such as Influence) and is still relatively easy to get into if you're looking for a new LCG. The first pack of the second cycle just came out today, although they blitz them out at a rate of 1 a week for 6 weeks.

Oh damn, i don't even remember if i mentioned the last few new games i've played on this thread.

Dice Town - hated it. With everyone at the same odds, the poker feel just isn't there for me and most of the strategy is, "try to get the most aces" or you feel you need to counter that strategy by being the guy who gets to steal cards. It was just kinda crap to me.

Small World - I liked Small World. It's basically a Risk variant with dynamically changing character traits. When i played it though, the two other people i played with kinda just wanted to pick on each other so the game was far too easy for me to win in that scenario. So it's a case where it depends on the group you play with. If they're aggressive and strategic, it's a good game.

Viticulture - I think this is my first worker placement game that i've played and i don't feel like it's blowin my socks off. Mostly everybody just tends to their own fields and the only time you feel any player conflict is setting up the turn order. Could be i just haven't caught on to the strategies or my play through may have been tainted by finding out i was missing a meeple out of the box (they sent a replacement).

Champions of Midguard - being the second worker placement game i've played, it struck me as a bit better than Viticulture but i'm still not fully getting the appeal. The more restricting placement areas made player conflict more obvious, which i liked, but it all still seemed like you were just doing your own thing. Could just be i need more playthroughs to fully get it, but playing board games has become a twice a year event at this point as i don't have a very committed group of players.

Seems like i have to put my asocial ways aside and find a boardgame meet up group if i want to get back into board games.

That said, i did recently manage to order Snake Oil: Elixir (more adult themed version of snake oil) to complete my Snake Oil collection as Snake Oil is still the best party card game and the reason no one should ever play CAH.

Played a few games new to me on Friday:

Railways of Nippon:

I was desperate to get in a play of Railways of the World, in this case, Railways of Nippon. I really enjoyed it. I think the auction mechanic is the weakest component, as in our 3 player game, none of use were particularly interested in turn order, so the auction was just an oft ignored phase. That being said, I can see it being of more importance when you know more about the game. We played the Nippon map and it got pretty stabby. Mainly due to me initiating the stabbiness and perpetuating it. The problem with that is that myself and another player were fighting over one corner of Japan, while the other player was free to build links and routes in Western Japan with almost no interference, and he won comfortably. I'd really like to play this again with more knowledge.

Transatlantic:

Also played a 3 player game of Mac Gerdts' Transatlantic. Similar in some of its mechanics (namely the play a card, do what it says, copy another players card, play a card to get back your cards) to Concordia. I ended up winning this game, although the way the scoring works, while it eventually made some sense to me, is still a little odd. A good game, which I would recommend to others. That being said, between Concordia and Transatlantic, Concordia is the far better game. It has just a bit more going on with the almost area control aspect of the map. I also prefer the theme of Concordia, but the theme in Transatlantic does come through pretty strongly.

Century: Golem Edition:

I really enjoyed Century:Golem Edition. To the extent that I looked into maybe buying it, though, even with some sales, I did resist. It is similar in some aspects to Splendor, but I think it is different enough (with the card deck building aspect to get an engine running, which is different to Splendor's engine building) that you could happily own and play both. Not sure which I prefer as I've only had one play of Century. I'd like to see how it plays with 2 or 3 players, as Splendor is still pretty fun with those numbers. If you are on the fence about Century though, I would recommend it.