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Board Games - Arcana has pretty cards and it's a fun game!
Posts
Anyway.
Favorite Games of the Moment:
Chaos in the Old World: I've only gotten to play this once but I really liked it. It manages that weird balance between being a risk-style strategic combat game and being an abstract, goal-based game.
Mare Nostrum: This will probably be supplanted by CitOW once I get a few more plays of it in but it's still my area control game of preference for the moment.
Thunderstone/Dominion: I love both. Probably Thunderstone more just because I'm a sucker for a good theme.
Twilight Imperium/Race for the Galaxy: I don't know why I feel like these are the same game but I do and I love both.
Power Grid: This game was super popular when I was getting into boardgaming and seems to have fallen off the map recently. I think it should come back because it is awesome.
Games I Want to Play (more of):
Mystery Express
Battlestar Galactica
Agricola
Chaos in the Old World
Tomb (I don't own this one but it's currently topping my to-get list)
Games I Will Happily Never Play Again:
Munchkin: My wife loves this game so hard. I don't hate it as much as a lot of gamers do, but I'm tired of it. Not so much the cards themselves as we've not played it so many times that I know them all; just the mechanics making the game play out the same way every single time.
Fearsome Floors: It has like a 6.8 or something review on BGG. I have no idea why. We bought it one year near Halloween to add to the stack of holiday-theme-appropriate games (Last Night on Earth, Betrayal, Arkham, etc.). Played it exactly once. Everyone involved agreed that it was a terrible, stupid game and it was never spoken of again.
I think someone recommended putting Mystery Express in the OP for Clue-style games? I second that motion. It's a better Clue-type game than Mystery at the Abbey, which isn't a bad game at all, but can be a bit bland depending on which cards are drawn.
There's a big difference between Descent and rules-light RPG systems. Descent plays like the combat portions of D&D. Rules-light RPGs usually play like the non-combat portions of D&D. You go to them for different reasons.
If I want to play a game where my friends and I do cooperative story-telling but I don't want to break out a real game system like D&D, one of the WoD games, WHFRP, or something then there are a lot of rules-lite packages out there to select from. We can get through the rules in a few minutes, make up characters quickly, and then on with the roleplaying.
If I want to bash some monsters but don't want to spend an hour making a D&D character while the DM spends 4 hours putting together a dungeon, Descent (or one of the other, similar dungeon-crawl games) is the way to go. No rules-lite game that I've encountered does well with combat. Usually if they address combat at all it's some sort of cinematic system or a weird dice mechanic (I'm looking at you, Above the Sky). The kind of granular combat that D&D and the various dungeon-crawl games produces requires a big whack of rules.
It's possible to get the same sort of experience by buying a published adventure module and playing some pre-generated characters in it, but it still requires more prep-work and effort on the part of the DM. Descent is DM'ing-lite in that the DM doesn't have to do more work than reading a single page of text and assembling some tiles into a map before game-time. You don't need to worry about reading a full module or keeping a bunch of special abilities and combat tactics in mind for every monster. You needn't worry about encounter areas and how the PCs will use their abilities given the context, or worry about making a context to allow PCs to use the abilities that make them special. You just slap together some cardboard puzzle pieces, put down some plastic badguys, and roll the color-coded dice on the monster cards.
Small World
Battlestar Galactica + expansion
Shadows over Camelot
Chaos in the Old World
Pandemic + Expansion
Puerto Rico
Others like Citadel/Forbidden Island are guaranteed since they're small enough to pack no problem. I'd like to take 3 of the ones above. Suggestions?
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My favorite zombie boardgame is Mall of Horror. It doesn't sound like what you're looking for, a combat experience fighting a shambling horde, but it's great fun and you should try it if you haven't.
Pandemic only takes half an inventory slot, and you can fit all the BSG stuff in one box. So those two seem like winners to me!
Since BSG came out we haven't played Camelot once.
There's a game whose name is now aggravatingly escaping me which is basically Hey! That's My Fish, but with zombies. It's not awful, we played it at Origins last year.
Running away from them would also be okay, in my book. I've looked at Mall of Horror a number of times but never actually tried it. It's some sort of competitive system, isn't it?
It's kind of a negotiation as to who should be thrown out of the limited space to stave off the zombie hordes with an offering of flesh, then running to a hopefully safer location of the mall. Not to be played with those that hold grudges or have hard feelings about being sacrificed to the zombies.
Granted it's space zombie things instead of actual zombies, but they combined an easy way to do swarms (a group of genestealers are a token up until they are relevant, reducing the number of figures to move), with alot of tactics (putting guys on overwatch to guard specific points, the flamer who is really tricky to use effectively but awesome when you do), and good balance.
Honestly, if you replaced the genestealer figures with zombie figures and the marine figures with random human ones, you'd have a pretty good zombie boardgame right there.
This is true.
The biggest issue you will have with Mall of Horror is finding one to buy. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think its been OOP for some time now. The easiest way I would guess is searching Ebay. Its a fun game but I don't know if I'd pay collector OOP prices for it.
If you don't mind going the PnP route I'd track down a copy of Dead of Night. I did a quick search and found a link Dead of Night Downloads. I think it works better than LNoE because its human players vs. the zombies. And if you want to take it up another notch the miniatures game All Things Zombie by 2 hour wargames is a great game. There is a boardgame version of it that I have never played, but the tabletop game rules are excellent once you get your head around how the system works.
Was it Zombiegeddon? I've never played Thats My Fish but it looks like they may be similar.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39914/zombiegeddon
Mall of Horror is indeed fun, unfortunately it is very hard to find, unless of course you want to spend over a hundred dollars.
That's the one, yeah.
Honorable Mentions
Hoping to play next
Wilderness War 2010 reprint - this edition has a fully mounted map board, leader boxes for all the leaders, and it looks like the rulebook has been improved with layout and more examples of play.
My location's under my avatar.
That's what Death Angel is for.
EDIT: Man, the more I think about it, if all these new releases that are on the boat make it in time for GenCon, FFG is going to be getting like all my money at the booth. Dust: Tactics, Dungeonquest, Cadwallon, Death Angel...
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
That said, I'll probably have mystery express and perhaps some version of small world for the train ride up and down.
Any word on when Death Angel is coming out? I preordered that a week ago, wondering when It'll show up.
Space hulk is amazing and totally evokes a completely surrounded cramped feeling. When I have the means I'll be looking for one, completely worth it.
Edit: Worked myself into a fervor and bid on space hulk. Glee!
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Switch: US 1651-2551-4335 JP 6310-4664-2624
MH3U Monster Cheat Sheet / MH3U Veggie Elder Ticket Guide
Not sure, to be honest. It's listed as "On the Boat" on the Upcoming page. It slips my mind when it changed to that. Pretty sure it's been listed as that for at least a few weeks, and they say that it usually takes four to six weeks to get to their warehouse. Could go faster or slower depending on how big of buttholes Customs decides to be. Once it's in the warehouse, add on another week for it to get to distributors and then to game stores.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I was reading an article that manufacturing is starting to come back to America because of the "on the boat" issue. China is going through a unionization process and local manufacturing costs are skyrocketing. Given the long transit time, companies are starting to see the low additional cost of U.S. manufacturing as more beneficial, because they can get product on the shelves months quicker. Here's to hoping our boardgames will have much more accurate and timely releases!
I sold my copy of Decent and few other games on Ebay to great success. it was easy.
Wreckage
Micromutants: Evolution
Doom + Expansion
Atlanteon
Lord Of The Rings (co-op knizia)
Mystery Of The Abbey
to start off with, then see how my cabinet looks.
Also one game that I really enjoy that I don't see discussed around here ever is Nuns On The Run. I hate on Fury of Dracula pretty hard, but I loved the hidden/hunter concept. This makes 2 hunters against many hidden and greatly increases the fun.
I don't get to play them as often as I like, but they are definitely my favorite genre of boardgames. Particularly the medium complexity, 3-5 hour playtime variety. I like games longer than 5 hours too, but it's more difficult to fit them in my schedule.
I'd like to explore real wargames, as I'm getting kind of burnt out on Axis and Allies. Suggestions? Accesible for beginners, preferably.
The Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kits are pretty accessible, but it really depends on what field and scale of conflict you're interested in.
Well I'm going to PAX and BGG.Con so far. Already have everything for the first, and just need travel arrangements for the second. I will be taking the WCTT up for PAX and flying back down.
I will make a new list of things I might bring closer to con time.
Switch: US 1651-2551-4335 JP 6310-4664-2624
MH3U Monster Cheat Sheet / MH3U Veggie Elder Ticket Guide
Thinking about my collection:
Zombie/Cthulhu dice
Citadels
Magic (duh)
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Link.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I think it's crowd sourced, so they won't know until day of, I imagine. There was some talk of improved matchmaking systems, which would include some kind of library listing, but I don't know if that went anywhere.
Where are you getting on the train? I'm on in Oakland.
As for line games -
Fluxx
Citadels (for longer lines)
hive
lost cities (this one was a big hit last year)
magic (at pax east they passed out these playable, 30 card, single color themed decks. I played for hours in lines that day, and I signed up for Friday Night Magic sealed deck. I hadn't played for 5 years before hand. It was brilliant. I know they gave em out at Anime Expo in LA earlier this month, so mayhaps they'll carry them over to Prime)
That's one of the greatest ideas.
Favorite Games:
Chaos in the Old World
Battlestar Galactica
Race for the Galaxy
Le Havre
Cosmic Encounter
Agricola
Die kutschfahrt zur teufelsburg
Pitchcar
Heroscape
Games I dislike - I will try to be controversial:
Too simple - Pandemic, Lost Cities
Too much chaos - Mystery of the Abbey, Steve Jackson Games, Looney Labs games
Columbia games have some nice titles, I am fond of Wizard Kings, it's a game I tend to crack out once a year but I could certainly see how people would treat it as their regular Saturday night game.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Last week I play my first war game that wasn't Memoir or Command and Colors.
Have you tried Men of Iron, Volume I: The Rebirth of Infantry?
Having no experience in the war game genre, I really enjoyed playing this. It took a while for things to heat up. The scenario we were playing had me playing an army that's trying to break through my opponent's wall. Once I did that the battle got very heated and pretty chaotic. It really did feel like a crazy war you see in Braveheart. People running around with swords, shields, pikes, etc fighting anything and everything.
I'd recommend trying it if you can.
starmanbrand: Are you looking to sell or trade? If trade, my BGG account is linked in the OP so just look at my games see if any catch your eye. If you're going to sell, name a price for your games.
I'm interested in a few of your games.
I would get it, but I'm on a no buying board game policy.
But this is very difficult.
As much as I like Descent conceptually, aesthetically, and (to a lesser extent) as a hero-player, it's been a fairly tedious experience for me when playing as the DM. The amount of downtime between DM turns is enormous (particularly once people start going back to town via portal on their turn to shop for items) and even on your turn you rarely have very many options. The card mechanism for spawning monsters and using traps/events is neat, but seems to uniformly leave me with only one or two viable cards on any given turn. Either I'm trying to save up enough doom tokens to play some high-cost card or I just don't have the kind of card I want when I want it. The monsters all seem to be under-powered compared to the PCs as well. Adding some kind of fixed, non-card-dependent doom-token expenditure powers that can be used during player turns as well as on the DM's turn would, I think, make it a bit more fun for that player, but would probably only drag the game out even longer.
But for all I know the expansions address this. I've heard that Road to Legend makes the game faster, at least. I've played it maybe a half dozen times now and have never actually finished an adventure scenario as-printed. After about 4 hours we all get tired and the DM player shuffles the map around to make the next room the last room.