Board (bored?) gamers, unite!
11Been meaning to start this thread for a while, and while the weekend may not be the best time… fuck it, eh?! I know I’m not the only modern/euro board gamer here. I think I’m aware of at least four others. So, reveal yourselves! Let us know what you’re into as of late! And anyone who isn’t playing deep-ass Uwe Rosenberg crap, if you’re hitting the old-school Milton-Bradley stuff, hell, share that too!
I’ll start with where I’m at… While I have played and do play a lot of games, I tend to like the most streamlined examples, which often means the simplest. I’m always up for a game of Carcassonne, and my box couldn’t possibly fit another expansion. Cacao is another big one with my people, Tokaido is always a winner. Just recently coaxed my best friend into pick-up-and-deliver mechanics with Cinque Terre, which… that and Merkator are about the only games in that genre I’ll deal with. Isle of Skye was a bust with her on the same day, but I still love it; just wish the cities were bigger in the end. Oh, and I am all about the Stone Age if anyone wants to hit me on iOS or Yucata.
So, anyone else? What have we been playing recently?
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We don’t even sort out the expansion tiles in Carcassonne anymore. The thing covers the table before the game is over.
We also enjoy Sheriff of Nottingham, Oh Gnome You Don’t, and a local creation called Ghoulash: The Last Game on Earth. The first time I played Ghoulash was at Pensacon with the creator of the game. I won. Rematch coming up in a week.
Last spring I was playing a lot of Puerto Rico with some friends. More recently it’s been Ticket to Ride in its various expansions because my sister is kind of addicted to that game. I seem to be the only other person in the family who likes it, though, and I definitely don’t like it as much as she does.
@jqubed My youngest is a steam-age railroad enthusiast and loves that game, but nobody else wants to play
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@compunaut My brother’s pointed out there’s really no interaction in the game. I think he likes games where he can win at trading, though.
@jqubed Not much love for Ticket to Ride in our house either, including me. I dunno, I guess it just seems boring compared to all the other games we could play.
@pitamuffin @jqubed I’ve only played Ticket to Ride a few times, and while I’m always willing to play, I don’t have a strong desire to own a copy. I’ve heard some of the maps that aren’t the base game are a bit more aggressive?
@brhfl ticket is good. But so much faster and thus better game play on the app
We play Bohnanza, a card game (about farming beans, of all things) or Pocket Farkel when it’s board game time (on vacation w/ poor internet connection). Also found an original release of Acquire we’re ready to play (kids and I used to play a clone version on an old Palm pda; maybe 6-8 years ago?)
@compunaut Bohnanza is great fun, though I have a hard time convincing people that will be true what with the bean theme, ha!
Have never actually played Acquire, have been going through Sid Sackson’s book, A Gamut of Games lately, though.
@compunaut I really like Scoville, which is about raising chile peppers. Don’t own a copy, though, I am a cheapskate and wait for games to come down in price. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/145659/scoville
@moondrake I’ll admit, I’ve been waiting for a deal on Scoville as well. Looks super fun, but for whatever reason I haven’t felt like plonking down ~40 for it yet. Not convinced I’ll be able to get it to table, I guess.
I’ve been playing quite a bit of Netrunner lately, and I’m headed to a tournament tomorrow with a Core Weyland deck and my beloved Hayley stealth build. Wish me luck.
As for things that aren’t competitive deckbuilding, I’ve recently received a copy of Roll for the Galaxy I picked up that sadly hasn’t hit the table yet, the expansion to Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, and a copy of Zombicide Season 2 I’m looking forward to working through with my wife when she’s not so dang busy.
@dashcloud, I just realized we still need to play Dominion. HMU some evening soon if you’ve got a moment. The license went to a new company and the new interface is pretty slick.
@harrison I used to play MtG, but have really lost interest in deckbuilding these days. I think Netrunner would fry my brain.
Didn’t know there was an expansion to Lanterns, that’s exciting!
@brhfl Netrunner is a lot of math and economy considerations. It’s a fantastic game, with great theming and interesting mechanics, but it’s definitely something you have to put a lot of thought into.
As for the Lanterns expansion, you should buy it because it’s good and also i’m friends with the dude that runs the publisher, but also it’s sincerely good
@harrison Thanks for the reminder!
Our recent plays include:
Machi Koro
King of Tokyo
Smallworld
Ra
Pandemic
Escape: The Curse of the Temple
I love Stone Age, but have never played the online type.
@pitamuffin Machi Koro is a great little game. I definitely prefer it with expansions, where not every building is always available, but the base game is great if you just want something to do over beer & chit-chat. Never played Smallworld, Ra, or Escape, been meaning to try Escape out though.
Wow. I can honestly and sincerely say, I’ve never heard of any of the above games. (At least those posted as of now.)
Have I been living in a cave?
Does Pente count as a “board game”? We like it quite a bit, especially with 3 or more players.
@RedOak Yes, like chess, a classic. If you like Pente you should look at Go. It’s the foundation of Pente, Go is a game that’s been respected for thousands of years.
@moondrake we have Go. It sits, lonely, on the shelf. Sometimes we raid the stones when we have one Pente player too many. 4-5 players is loads of fun and a completely different game from the base, 2-player game.
@RedOak If you’re into abstracts like Pente, I might suggest looking into the Gipf series… or even a silly little game called Battle Sheep which definitely looks like it’s for children but has quite a bit of thought that can be dumped into it.
As far as living in a cave is concerned, there has been a pretty impressive renaissance in board game design over the past decade or so. If you’re interested in checking out modern games, I think of the ones mentioned in this thread, Lanterns, Carcassonne, and Machi Koro are great introductions.
@brhfl Yah, pretty traditional around here. Most popular other than Pente… Bananagram, Scrabble, a few other word/definition games whose names escape me at present.
Great to know that, in this high tech video game world, the old tech can be reinvented tho! (The renaissance.) They encourage face to face social interaction.
Edit: just noticed Catan mentioned below - our kids love it.
I am playing Candy Land with my son right now!
@mfladd I never made it past Chutes and Ladders
/image Chutes and ladders
@Barney Never really played that one as a kid, but play it now with my granddaughter. The new graphics are horrible. Squares are very poorly delineated.
@walarney I didn’t know they changed it. Why do people think that newer is better?
Used to play Mah Jong and Literati (knock off scrabble) on Yahoo games for HOURS back in the day. Still play Scrabble and Banana Grams from time to time.
Kids and I went looking for a game at Walmart tonight. Found a silly game called Yeti in my Spaghetti. Reviews online were great. Won a 2015 toy of the year award. You no what? Great fun. Kids loved it. It is a Kerplunk type game.
@mfladd Cute!
In the past month we’ve added a few new players to our group so we are in teaching mode. We’ve played Carcassonne and Carcassonne New World, Castles of Burgundy, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Lanterns, Splendor, the Big Book of Madness, Pandemic, Ticket to Ride Europe, Trains, Istanbul, Lords of Waterdeep and Dominion. We want to teach them Iron Dragon, Five Tribes, Codenames, Dixit and Mission Red Planet in the coming weeks. I just got Power Grid in the mail but none of us have played it before so someone needs to read the rules and run a learning game. I also play some with a Meet up group, I don’t recall most of them but Oracle at Delphi and Agricola were two recent ones.
UNo Attack. My 5 yr old niece LOVES hitting the button
I love Balderdash, but have no one to play with.
Getting ready to play Gloomhaven with friends today after we get through the 40 page manual.
I also like Arkham Horror, Carcassone, Ghostbusters, Colony, and Risk…apparently anything that takes forever to set up and more than forever to play.
@evbarnstormer Gloomhaven looks cool, but also like a heck of a commitment…
Carc has zero setup time, guess that’s your exception?
@brhfl haha yeah good point, kinda sets up as you play. Gloomhaven was cool but daunting to learn.
@evbarnstormer have you tried the Arkham Horror card game yet? It’s really great.
@harrison no but I actually just saw that for the first time a few days ago. Is it less of a setup? Faster?
@evbarnstormer It is very different. Has the Arkham Horror name on it, but is played in scenarios and campaigns, so it’s sort of like Mansions of Madness if it was a deckbuilding game. Easier setup for sure. A full campaign might take you as long as an Arkham Horror game (at least, your first time through), but it’s broken up into multiple sessions.
Only downside is that the way they’re doing expansions, you get the first two scenarios of the new campaign in the big box, and then the following 6 in the cycle of packs that come out after. So if you’re wanting to play all the way through new campaigns, it’s an investment, but the core set alone is a very fun game even if you don’t want to go all in. Highly recommended.
things I used to play back in the day
Nuclear War - ftw still fun, beat MTG all around.
Munchin - much better with uberwater, and fizbin rules.
Loved Catan back in the day too.
Used to do UNO with a bunch of people where I was the only sober one at the table, was fun.
Back when I used to help run game cons, and often did the board game check out booth, every time would have different things that tweaked peoples interest. And I would play whatever someone was willing to teach me. Does that make me fickle? prolly.
They have game nights in the complex where I live. If I brought a copy of Arkham Horror or some of the other even mid-range complexity ones I used to play, they’d probably run screaming, LOL. Semi-small city mentality
@Cerridwyn Never played Nuclear War, will have to look more into it… Originally from the '60s, that’s… pointed…
My ‘beats MtG’ is Blue Moon. Or, at least, it’s the ‘let’s have a crazy fight with cards’ that has stuck with me. Been tempted to get Legends just for the decks I’m missing, but I like my old sets too much…
@Cerridwyn Nuclear war is great, my copy is actually in sight on the shelf, simple and I think about half the times we played fittingly ever one loses in a chain reaction blaze of fire.
@Cerridwyn Is Mnuchkin the one where players buy increasingly shiny shoes for their generic corporate marauder characters and level them up until one of them has enough gold to buy a Cabinet seat?
@whogots
http://www.worldofmunchkin.com/game/
@Cerridwyn …
Mostly I play Pathfinder, the RPG, but between me and my group, and just what I see from scanning entries on boardgamegeek that I recall playing, not counting expansions, and probably missing a dozen or more:
Pandemic
Puerto Rico
Agricola
Lords of Waterdeep
Nations
Navegador
Catan
Zombicide
Archepelago
Arkham Horror
Battlestar Galactica
Clash of cultures
Carcassonne
Twilight imperium
Blood bowl
Netrunner
7 wonders
Dominant species
Star Wars: X-Wing
Nations
Small World
Tikal
Civilization
King of Tokyo
Game of thrones
Blood Bowl
Red Planet
Pathfinder Card Game
Cards Against Humanity
Lost Cities
Anti-Matter Matters
…but still, mostly RPGs.
@jchancep I used to play AD&D back in HS & college; love the social aspect of RPG campaigning w/ friends.
Seems hard to find a friendly group that’s dedicated to (long term) playing these days. What part of the country are you?
@compunaut This has been my issue too; used to DM back in the day, now I just don’t have access to a group of people willing to deal with a long-term RPG.
@jchancep
Pandemic -fun
Puerto Rico one of the best
Agricola very good
Lords of Waterdeep never tried how is it?
Nations never heard of
Navegador never heard of
Catan classic awesome meh catan expansion one would trade goat for speakerdocks
Zombicide interesting title is it good?
Archepelago nice concept but not my favorite
Arkham Horror too long
Battlestar Galactica fun more fun if like tv show
Clash of cultures never heard of it
Carcassonne love if 3 or fewer
Twilight imperium very fun but long
Blood bowl never heard of it
Netrunner never heard of it
7 wonders meh
Dominant species not my thing
Star Wars: X-Wing never heard of it
Nations never heard of it
Small World good occasionally
Tikal never heard of it
Civilization classic
King of Tokyo never heard of it
Game of thrones never played it
Red Planet never played it
Pathfinder Card Game good with right crowd
Cards Against Humanity awesome with right crowd alkward with wrong crowd
Lost Cities never played
Anti-Matter Matters i ike title is it good?
@CaptAmehrican Lords of Waterdeep is a great game if you like worker placement. I think of it in the same class as Istanbul and Five Tribes, although all three have very different mechanics. King of Tokyo is a fun rowdy game with very little strategy. I find Mission Red Planet pretty meh but my friends like it.
@jchancep I’m aware of most of those, but have only played a handful.
Have definitely played (Settlers of) Catan, so… lol @CaptAmehrican:
(Side note, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of King of Tokyo given your knowledge of the other games listed, @CaptAmehrican. I agree w/ @moondrake, it’s not deep but it is lots of silly fun. Great gateway/filler…)
Our group finally busted out Pandemic Legacy after completing Andor. But when it’s just two of us, which is more likely than not these days we are all about War of the Ring, Battles of Westeros, and some classic combat commander (Pacific is my favorite).
I’m love Stone Age! Didn’t know they had an app thanks for the tip.
@march5th00 My girlfriend and I played through Pandemic Legacy together as our game crew is so dispersed. We were so sad when we finished I think the 17th game and completed the story.
@Nikodemus Season Two of Pandemic Legacy is slated for release this year, right?
D&D. Star Wars Saga Edition. Played much much more in college. Now just a few times a year. Also, pandemic (they made a great app for it now).
Nottingham has been one of our go to quick game for when we have non-game people over though not to be mistaken for the better known Sheriff of Nottingham. I actually got it one of the meh box exchanges from @pitamuffin
@Nikodemus yay!
Been playing Pandemic Legacy with some friends who haven’t found much time to game since they reproduced. Just introduced them and one of their kids to Insider this week, too. At home, we have played so much Eldritch Horror that my husband got sick of building the mythos deck and made a javascript page to automate it instead. Oh, and yayz Mysterium.
The three P’s beat all this new stuff as far as I am concerned, though: Power Grid, Puerto Rico, and Princes of Florence are forever.
I like Cosmic Encounter.
@DrunkCat I was just moving my Cosmic Encounter to a different shelf this morning and surprised by how heavy it was. I forgot how many components it has, we haven’t played it for years. Mine is the original version before the version with expansions.
next up Tesla vs Edison
@mehod there is a tesla vs Edison game??? I want links.
@CaptAmehrican It’s an economic game… I haven’t played, myself, though the theme does interest me. Links, links.
@CaptAmehrican Artana is the game developer. some youtube reviews on the base games KS page
Weekend bump-it-up! Anybody busting out their meeples on this holiday weekend? Lots of Cinque Terre again tonight, no complaints there… Really boils down pick-up-and-deliver into a game that doesn’t feel like a chore.
But I also convinced the bestie to try Akrotiri, and I’m so glad I did, haven’t played this game in quite some time and it’s just so… neat! It has a strong pick-up-and-deliver element, but that’s not the core mechanic, that’s just a side quest almost. It’s a tile-layer (with giant, lovely tiles), and the core mechanic involves ‘discovering’/‘excavating’ temples based on this feature being north of the temple, that feature being to the east, and these two being toward the west. Cannot recommend enough.