I'm curious to see what everyone else likes, here. I've become a pretty big fan of board games over the course of the year. I'm asking because I'm a little bit of an addict, and I'm always looking for games to take the edge off and round out my collection with different game styles. I'm not including PnP RPGs here because there's already a thread for that.
Here are my five favorites at the moment:
Strategy/Co-op: Pandemic (Z-Man Games)
Short Games: King of Tokyo [by Richard Garfield] (IELLO)
Action: Zombicide (Guillotine Games)
Paranoia/Deception: Battlestar Galactica (Fantasy Flight Games)
Tactical/Wargaming: X-Wing Miniatures (Fantasy Flight Games)
Oh, I should include some reasons as to why I like them, huh? Otherwise this is a pretty boring thread.
Strategy/Co-op: Pandemic (Z-Man Games) Summary: This is a very fun and very popular Board Game (it's on Retail Store Shelves) that pits all the human players against four diseases threatening mankind. Each player gets a role that gives them a special ability, and all have to work together to keep the diseases from spreading. At the end of every turn, additional cities are infected and if there are too many infections in a city, you have an outbreak, which is one of the most terrifying things I've encountered in a board game. Feels Like: A co-op game of Risk.
Short Games:King of Tokyo [by Richard Garfield] (IELLO) Summary: Garfield sure knows how to design games. King of Tokyo is a King of the Hill-style monster battle game... played with dice. You roll the dice to accumulate health, energy points (which can be spent on upgrades) and deal damage to monsters (Monsters in Tokyo damage those outside of Tokyo, those outside damage the Monster inside) Feels Like: Any dice game where you've ever DESPERATELY needed that one last die roll, combined with a Destroy-All-Monsters (or Pacific Rim) slug-out.
Strategy and Co-op: Arkham Horror, Sentinels of the multiverse, Pandemic
Deck building: Resident Evil, DC Deck Building Game
I think that's all the table top games I play. Arkham is like Pandemic on steroids. Resident Evil DBG has enough different game modes to really go in any category once you have all the expansions for it. and DC has an expansion coming out very soon that will hopefully beef it up a bit.
Strategy and Co-op: Arkham Horror, Sentinels of the multiverse, Pandemic
Deck building: Resident Evil, DC Deck Building Game
I think that's all the table top games I play. Arkham is like Pandemic on steroids. Resident Evil DBG has enough different game modes to really go in any category once you have all the expansions for it. and DC has an expansion coming out very soon that will hopefully beef it up a bit.
I've been thinking about getting Arkham Horror - can you give me a run down on how it plays?
I've been thinking about getting Arkham Horror - can you give me a run down on how it plays?
You play as a group of investigators(2-8) trying to stop one of the Great Old Ones from entering our world and destroying it. You do this by going through gates to other dimensions that are popping up around the city of Arkham, then sealing the gate when you get back. However, each time a gate opens, monsters come through, which need to be dealt with before the town becomes overrun.
All players take their turns more-or-less at the same time, though it's more like a tactical combat game. Your turn consists of your upkeep, a movement step, and then an encounter at the location on the map you're at. This encounter generally involves making a skill check of some sort, with a generally good outcome if you succeed, and a generally bad outcome if you fail.
After the players have an encounter, their is a card drawn from what is essentially an event deck. This card tells you where the next gate will spawn, as well as where a clue token appears (used for sealing gates), what direction monsters move, and then has some kind of other effect that is nearly always terrible.
Players win by sealing 6 gates, by having no gates open on the map while having a number of gate tokens(gained by closing a gate) equal to the number of players, or by defeating the Great Old One when it awakens (not possible for Azeroth).
I've found the game plays best with 5-6, if you play with less it's pretty easy generally, and if you play with more it tends to drag on. With 5 players who know about what they're doing, the game generally lasts 2.5-3.5 hours.
All of the expansions add a great deal to the game, and seem to be well worth the money, though I'd look for them online and not pay full retail. I currently have the Innsmouth and Yellow King expansions, and I'd like to get the Dunwich Horror and Dark Pharoah ones as well.
Any other questions I can answer about that game or several others, let me know. I'm part of a pretty big board gaming group here, the guy running it has roughly 300ish board games, and we've got several game developers that come to our monthly events as well.
Word of advice, like Ravnos said all the expansions add a lot to the game I wouldn't buy more then one at once and I would try to learn the base game before picking any of them up or you will be overwhelmed the first few games by how much to remember. But the game is well worth it.
I've been playing David Sirlin's Fantasy Strike games online. The online version is just a digital implementation of the actual, physical games. It's free to play, although if you don't have an account you can only play one character, which rotates every week. There's three games, Yomi, Puzzle Strike and Flash Duel.
Yomi is a card game that simulates a fighting game. Your cards are either attack, throw, block or dodge. You can do stuff like combos and knockdowns, much like in an actual fighting game.
Puzzle Strike is a deck building game that simulates a puzzle game (if you've played Puzzle Fighter, this should be familiar, otherwise, think multiplayer Tetris, where every line you clear results in lines being sent to your opponent). Every turn, gems fall into your field. You lose if your gem pile totals 10 or higher at the end of your turn. You buy chips (basically cards) to make your deck stronger. You have crash gems to send gems from your pile to your opponents', or to cancel out gems that other players send at you.
I haven't played Flash Duel yet, because the interface looks terrible.
EDIT: OK, I've played Flash Duel. It's a board game and while the flavor behind it is that it's a fighting game, it's more about positioning, like backgammon, where you have to be careful not to land on a space where your opponent can hit you. Seems like a simple game; both players draw from the same deck and the discard pile is public information, so it's somewhat easy to guess what's in your opponent's hand, especially later in the game.
That didn't stop me from sucking at it, though - I played against the bot, did a rushing strike with a pair that I knew he couldn't block because there were 3 copies of that card in the discard, only to have him retreat. I rushing strike-d again and pushed him all the way to the edge, then he blocked. Then the round ended because there were no more cards in the deck, and it turned out that the bot had 2 copies of the tie-breaking attack while I only had 1, so I lost the round. LOL WUT
mostly Marvel's Legendary deck-building game, and occasionally Descent. My friends and I have tried a game, name escapes me at the moment, where you play as one of several extraterrestrial species exploring and claiming territory-- haven't played it in forever because it takes forever to set up and with a big crowd, turns take forever and we didn't have a big enough area to leave it and return at later dates.
Twilight Imperium is the game my friends and I have played once... i'd like to play it again, if we have room and time to play a full game.
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Thanks for the info on Arkham Horror. I got into board games with that board game day back in March (I think that was it), at a friend's house. I already had a couple.
Anyway, here are more of my descriptions
Action: Zombicide (Guillotine Games) Summary: Your group plays as a group of survivors of a Zombie Apocalypse. The board is set up in 9 squares designed like streets and building interiors (the manual comes with different mission set-ups and the website has more). You need to scavange in buildings to find better items to help you survive the waves of zombies that spawn at the end of every round. The reason I like this over similar games is that the Zombies move automatically, there doesn't need to be a player devoted to playing the villain. The game can get pretty frentic, with misplays frequently becoming last stands as your calculated risk goes badly quickly. Feels Like: Left 4 Dead the Board Game
Paranoia/Deception:Battlestar Galactica (Fantasy Flight Games) Summary: You play as crew members on the Galactica (or survivors in the fleet) and have to survive Cylon Attacks, Event Cards representing challenges to the fleet (which are resolved by playing cards of certain colors, each character gets different cards and has a different role). However, at the beginning of the game and at the midpoint, alignment cards are dealt for Cylons in the fleet. Cylons try to covertly sabotage the fleet by playing the wrong cards for challenges (which subtract from the total) and making decisions that hurt the fleet. If they're found out, they can actively work against the fleet and have a different set of abilities. Feels Like: ... Battlestar Galactica as a Board Game
Tactical/Wargaming:X-Wing Miniatures (Fantasy Flight Games) Summary: Like most war games, you have a certain number of 'points' with which to build your squad. Each ship has different stats and different ability modifiers. I won't go into detail here, because the Fantasy Flight website has a fantastic video tutorial here. The way they set-up how movement works makes this unique, I think, from any war games I've tried in the past. Anticipating movement becomes vital to winning the game (as it should in a Starfighter Battle Game). Feels Like: A Star Wars tactical game, lots of fun.
"A rich man thinks all other people are rich, and an intelligent man thinks all other people are similarly gifted. Both are always terribly shocked when they discover the truth of the world. You, my dear brother, are a pious man." - Strahd von Zarovich
Card Battle/Strategy: Smash Up Summary: You pick two deck types: Pirate, Dinosaur, Ninja, Zombie, Robots, etc. and combine them into your deck, combining two different strategies (Zombies are Reanimators, Ninjas are snuck into play or destroyed, etc). The purpose of the game is claim 'bases'. Each base gives you points if you win it, and the first player to 15 points wins. You have two card types to play: Minions and Actions, and you can play one of each every turn. You play your minions (who have different power levels) on bases, trying to reach the bases 'total', or play actions to create effects like sorceries or enchantments in Magic. Feels Like: Magic Lite. This game plays like a much simpler version of magic, but it's great for playing with people who don't have the time or money to get into a TCG. Plus the artwork is pretty fantastic.
Strategy/Puzzle: Blokus Summary: This one actually surprised me with its depth. Essentially you have 12-20 game pieces that you need to find a place for on the board. Your pieces can only touch your other pieces at the corners, meanwhile other players are competing for the same board space. The pieces feel like Tetris. Pretty great game, with a surprising amount of depth and room for cutthroat moves. It's on the shelves of pretty much every retailer out there right now, too. Feels Like: Playing Tetris against someone on the same screen.
Lords of Waterdeep is a current favorite of mine. It is essentially an intrigue-based resource gathering/management game set in the Forgotten Realms. It's seriously awesome. They just released an expansion called Scoundrels of Skullport which adds quite a bit to the game.
Also, the Reiner Knizia version of Lord of the Rings is a good one as well. It's also pretty difficult. My wife and I have played quite a bit and we've only destroyed the One Ring maybe 25% of the time.
Any cooperative board game (playing as a team against the board, essentially) is a winner in my book.
There's a Tabletop gathering that I'm attempting to go to more regularly, lots of great games played there.
My favourites are currently:
Ascension
DixIt
Lords of Waterdeep
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullfyre
For Sale
Sentinels of the Multiverse (Best superhero game I've played yet - doesn't use any IPs so that means they parody/homage all of them!)
I recommend the Tabletop videos on the YouTube channel Geek and Sundry. Has famous people play the games so you get a feel for it, and you can cheer for random person you may care about. There's also Shut Up and Sit Down with Penny Arcade TV that list a variety of good games.
I also play a wargame called Infinity. It is a lot of fun mostly due to both players having actions despite whose turn it is. Sci-Fi Skirmish objective based game, you play as a Black Ops team trying to complete your objective/prevent the enemy from succeeding.
I play lots of games: Killer Bunnies, Arkham Horror, Munchkin, Settlers of Catan, Dicecapades, Zombies!!!, Nuts!, Ascension, Descent, and Starcraft (don't have the expansion for the board game though).
Arkham Horror is long on flavor and experience, but short on strategy. In Magic terms, it's for Timmy, not Spike. There is too much randomness in the events for you to do much planning or tactical thinking. You just sort of explore the town and hope for the best.
This is of course not necessarily a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with being Timmy. And it has a special value in a cooperative game, firstly because your fellow players can revel with your successes and commiserate with your failures along with you, and secondly because there are no obvious "right moves" that more experienced players will keep pointing out to less experienced players. Feeling like it would be better if somebody else was playing for you is the death of a cooperative game.
Besides Arkham Horror, I also play a lot of Cosmic Encounter, Smallworld, and Illuminati!, about which more later.
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Arkham Horror is long on flavor and experience, but short on strategy. In Magic terms, it's for Timmy, not Spike. There is too much randomness in the events for you to do much planning or tactical thinking. You just sort of explore the town and hope for the best.
This is of course not necessarily a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with being Timmy. And it has a special value in a cooperative game, firstly because your fellow players can revel with your successes and commiserate with your failures along with you, and secondly because there are no obvious "right moves" that more experienced players will keep pointing out to less experienced players. Feeling like it would be better if somebody else was playing for you is the death of a cooperative game.
Besides Arkham Horror, I also play a lot of Cosmic Encounter, Smallworld, and Illuminati!, about which more later.
Thats a pretty good description of AH. I like to think the randomness sort of adds to the horror of the game experience. Some of the expansions also make it more interesting and even more random. Its fun but sometimes its too easy and sometimes its too hard.
Oh yeah I should also mention big world as a other game I would recommend.
Thats a pretty good description of AH. I like to think the randomness sort of adds to the horror of the game experience. Some of the expansions also make it more interesting and even more random. Its fun but sometimes its too easy and sometimes its too hard.
Yeah. I played two games over the weekend.
In the first, we stuffed Azathoth hard. We were in complete control the whole time. Late in the game, there were a couple of turns where we had a perfectly clean board, and we just sat around waiting for the last gate to open so we could jump in and seal it. We ended with the doom count at 5 (out of 14).
In the second, we were absolutely swamped with gates and monsters, and could not hold on to items to save our lives. One turn I was jumped simultaneously by a Byakhee, a Shoggoth, and a Dhole, armed with just my starting kit and no clues. I was Michael McGlen, so I actually killed two of them, but still. The sixth gate soon opened, the Ancient One awoke... and we won anyway, because it was only Yig.
Besides Arkham Horror, I also play a lot of Cosmic Encounter, Smallworld, and Illuminati!, about which more later.
Illuminati! is a sort of casual strategy game. It's like Arkham Horror in that you're too much at the mercy of the deck for a "serious" strategic experience - at least at the beginning of the game. Late game, as players have built up their positions, the deck starts to matter less, and it can get pretty damn cutthroat. And throughout, you can all laugh at the absurdity of situations like the Tabloid Magazines (secretly controlled by the South American Nazis) launching a campaign to destroy California. Timmy/Spike.
Smallworld is ultimately a derivative of Risk, but cleans up and speeds up the gameplay immensely. The beating heart of the game is the two-part race generation system; you can play as such peoples as the Aquatic Ratmen, the Dragonmaster Wizards, and the Berserk Halflings. In addition to being hilarious, this adds a lot of variety to the strategies you pursue. Fun and easy to teach; a good introduction to board games. Timmy/Spike again.
Cosmic Encounter is, simply speaking, a masterpiece of design. Like Arkham Horror, it is heavily randomized; but like poker, the winners are separated from the losers not by the deal, but by how they play the hands they're dealt. The game comes with fifty alien races to play (ninety with expansions!), each of which has a special power that completely breaks the game. You have to use your power creatively, in combination with the cards in your hand, to exploit situations as they arise. And you cannot win on your own; you have to spin a web of ever-shifting alliances with other players to come out ahead. Haggle, bluff, calculate, and combo. Johnny/Spike.
EDIT: Oh, and if anyone is at all interested in board games, I cannot recommend enough that they follow Shut Up & Sit Down.
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Join the club, I got a copy of Arkham Horror a couple of years ago along with some of the suplements but haven't been able to play more than a couple of games.
One Suggestion is a while back someone attempted to run a couple of Battle Star Galatica games onsite over in Forum games. If we found someone to run it. (Suggesting Blinking Spirit) Would that be something people would be interested in for Arkham Horror?
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I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
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Incidentally, have you played Diplomacy or Byzantium: Beyond the Golden Gate? I was thinking of picking them up on the off chance I might eventually get to play one of them.
Diplomacy is a great game to ruin a friendship of years due to the sheer number of backstabbery and *******ry that is required to play.
If you've got friends with tough skin, its great. If people love keeping grudges, also good. It is not a game for the faint of heart.
In the first, we stuffed Azathoth hard. We were in complete control the whole time. Late in the game, there were a couple of turns where we had a perfectly clean board, and we just sat around waiting for the last gate to open so we could jump in and seal it. We ended with the doom count at 5 (out of 14).
In the second, we were absolutely swamped with gates and monsters, and could not hold on to items to save our lives. One turn I was jumped simultaneously by a Byakhee, a Shoggoth, and a Dhole, armed with just my starting kit and no clues. I was Michael McGlen, so I actually killed two of them, but still. The sixth gate soon opened, the Ancient One awoke... and we won anyway, because it was only Yig.
Illuminati! is a sort of casual strategy game. It's like Arkham Horror in that you're too much at the mercy of the deck for a "serious" strategic experience - at least at the beginning of the game. Late game, as players have built up their positions, the deck starts to matter less, and it can get pretty damn cutthroat. And throughout, you can all laugh at the absurdity of situations like the Tabloid Magazines (secretly controlled by the South American Nazis) launching a campaign to destroy California. Timmy/Spike.
Smallworld is ultimately a derivative of Risk, but cleans up and speeds up the gameplay immensely. The beating heart of the game is the two-part race generation system; you can play as such peoples as the Aquatic Ratmen, the Dragonmaster Wizards, and the Berserk Halflings. In addition to being hilarious, this adds a lot of variety to the strategies you pursue. Fun and easy to teach; a good introduction to board games. Timmy/Spike again.
Cosmic Encounter is, simply speaking, a masterpiece of design. Like Arkham Horror, it is heavily randomized; but like poker, the winners are separated from the losers not by the deal, but by how they play the hands they're dealt. The game comes with fifty alien races to play (ninety with expansions!), each of which has a special power that completely breaks the game. You have to use your power creatively, in combination with the cards in your hand, to exploit situations as they arise. And you cannot win on your own; you have to spin a web of ever-shifting alliances with other players to come out ahead. Haggle, bluff, calculate, and combo. Johnny/Spike.
EDIT: Oh, and if anyone is at all interested in board games, I cannot recommend enough that they follow Shut Up & Sit Down.
Thanks for the great input, BS. My friends and I have gotten more and more into board games lately, partly because there is a lack of truly great same-console games at the moment, but mostly because consoles limit us to 4 people (5 with specific Wii U games), while we have anywhere from 5-8 people hanging out on a regular basis (if everyone brings their wife/girlfriend).
Board games have been a way for us all to enjoy games together. The problem is we got really into it really fast and one friend in particular bought more board games than we can hope to reasonably play. I didn't want to invest too much, so I'm being very cautious about future purchases to make sure it's something that will be popular and I didn't just blow $50+ on a board game no one wants to play.
I'm seriously considering Arkham Horror, but what about Mansions of Madness? Does it stack up against Arkham Horror for replayability/Strategy?
Edit: I'm also a bit of a completionist, so I'd rather not get something that's going to cost me a lot of money tracking down all the components. Looking at Mansions of Madness a little more, it looks like it could get pricey trying to get everything together.
Incidentally, have you played Diplomacy or Byzantium: Beyond the Golden Gate? I was thinking of picking them up on the off chance I might eventually get to play one of them.
I've played Diplomacy. It requires exactly seven players. I would never buy it unless I knew I had six friends interested.
One Suggestion is a while back someone attempted to run a couple of Battle Star Galatica games onsite over in Forum games. If we found someone to run it. (Suggesting Blinking Spirit) Would that be something people would be interested in for Arkham Horror?
I'd be interested. Just off the top of my head, I don't think there's anything in the game that'd be difficult to run online.
I'd be interested. Just off the top of my head, I don't think there's anything in the game that'd be difficult to run online./QUOTE]
I'd actually be interested, too. Isn't there a Fantasy Flight app for the game?
[QUOTE=Blinking Spirit;/comments/12609439]I haven't played Mansions of Madness.
I tracked down some reviews after I posted that and it basically said it's awesome about 1/2 the time, the rest of the time the game doesn't really work. So no buy, despite looking amazing.
Agricola is a great game if you enjoy commodity based resource strategy games.
I find it much more enjoyable then puerto rico because the randomized (or drafted) occupations and improvements that change the way each game is played.
It is an incredibly deep and fun game to play - not for those new to board games however.
Here are my five favorites at the moment:
Strategy/Co-op: Pandemic (Z-Man Games)
Short Games: King of Tokyo [by Richard Garfield] (IELLO)
Action: Zombicide (Guillotine Games)
Paranoia/Deception: Battlestar Galactica (Fantasy Flight Games)
Tactical/Wargaming: X-Wing Miniatures (Fantasy Flight Games)
What is everyone else enjoying?
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[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Deception/Paranoia: Battlestar/The Resistance
Deck Building: Legendary
Commerce: Power Grid
Strategy/Co-op: Pandemic (Z-Man Games)
Summary: This is a very fun and very popular Board Game (it's on Retail Store Shelves) that pits all the human players against four diseases threatening mankind. Each player gets a role that gives them a special ability, and all have to work together to keep the diseases from spreading. At the end of every turn, additional cities are infected and if there are too many infections in a city, you have an outbreak, which is one of the most terrifying things I've encountered in a board game.
Feels Like: A co-op game of Risk.
Short Games: King of Tokyo [by Richard Garfield] (IELLO)
Summary: Garfield sure knows how to design games. King of Tokyo is a King of the Hill-style monster battle game... played with dice. You roll the dice to accumulate health, energy points (which can be spent on upgrades) and deal damage to monsters (Monsters in Tokyo damage those outside of Tokyo, those outside damage the Monster inside)
Feels Like: Any dice game where you've ever DESPERATELY needed that one last die roll, combined with a Destroy-All-Monsters (or Pacific Rim) slug-out.
I'll post more later
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[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Deck building: Resident Evil, DC Deck Building Game
I think that's all the table top games I play. Arkham is like Pandemic on steroids. Resident Evil DBG has enough different game modes to really go in any category once you have all the expansions for it. and DC has an expansion coming out very soon that will hopefully beef it up a bit.
I've been thinking about getting Arkham Horror - can you give me a run down on how it plays?
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[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
You play as a group of investigators(2-8) trying to stop one of the Great Old Ones from entering our world and destroying it. You do this by going through gates to other dimensions that are popping up around the city of Arkham, then sealing the gate when you get back. However, each time a gate opens, monsters come through, which need to be dealt with before the town becomes overrun.
All players take their turns more-or-less at the same time, though it's more like a tactical combat game. Your turn consists of your upkeep, a movement step, and then an encounter at the location on the map you're at. This encounter generally involves making a skill check of some sort, with a generally good outcome if you succeed, and a generally bad outcome if you fail.
After the players have an encounter, their is a card drawn from what is essentially an event deck. This card tells you where the next gate will spawn, as well as where a clue token appears (used for sealing gates), what direction monsters move, and then has some kind of other effect that is nearly always terrible.
Players win by sealing 6 gates, by having no gates open on the map while having a number of gate tokens(gained by closing a gate) equal to the number of players, or by defeating the Great Old One when it awakens (not possible for Azeroth).
I've found the game plays best with 5-6, if you play with less it's pretty easy generally, and if you play with more it tends to drag on. With 5 players who know about what they're doing, the game generally lasts 2.5-3.5 hours.
All of the expansions add a great deal to the game, and seem to be well worth the money, though I'd look for them online and not pay full retail. I currently have the Innsmouth and Yellow King expansions, and I'd like to get the Dunwich Horror and Dark Pharoah ones as well.
Any other questions I can answer about that game or several others, let me know. I'm part of a pretty big board gaming group here, the guy running it has roughly 300ish board games, and we've got several game developers that come to our monthly events as well.
Yomi is a card game that simulates a fighting game. Your cards are either attack, throw, block or dodge. You can do stuff like combos and knockdowns, much like in an actual fighting game.
Puzzle Strike is a deck building game that simulates a puzzle game (if you've played Puzzle Fighter, this should be familiar, otherwise, think multiplayer Tetris, where every line you clear results in lines being sent to your opponent). Every turn, gems fall into your field. You lose if your gem pile totals 10 or higher at the end of your turn. You buy chips (basically cards) to make your deck stronger. You have crash gems to send gems from your pile to your opponents', or to cancel out gems that other players send at you.
I haven't played Flash Duel yet, because the interface looks terrible.
EDIT: OK, I've played Flash Duel. It's a board game and while the flavor behind it is that it's a fighting game, it's more about positioning, like backgammon, where you have to be careful not to land on a space where your opponent can hit you. Seems like a simple game; both players draw from the same deck and the discard pile is public information, so it's somewhat easy to guess what's in your opponent's hand, especially later in the game.
That didn't stop me from sucking at it, though - I played against the bot, did a rushing strike with a pair that I knew he couldn't block because there were 3 copies of that card in the discard, only to have him retreat. I rushing strike-d again and pushed him all the way to the edge, then he blocked. Then the round ended because there were no more cards in the deck, and it turned out that the bot had 2 copies of the tie-breaking attack while I only had 1, so I lost the round. LOL WUT
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Big Johnny.
My friends and I have tried a game, name escapes me at the moment, where you play as one of several extraterrestrial species exploring and claiming territory-- haven't played it in forever because it takes forever to set up and with a big crowd, turns take forever and we didn't have a big enough area to leave it and return at later dates.Twilight Imperium is the game my friends and I have played once... i'd like to play it again, if we have room and time to play a full game.
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"Do ya feel lucky? Because you'd better start runnin' while you still can."
375 Misfortune {+3 signed AP's} & 104 Rocket Launcher (41 AQ/ 63 Rev)
Edgar Rice Burroughs, forgotten legend of the word.
Anyway, here are more of my descriptions
Action: Zombicide (Guillotine Games)
Summary: Your group plays as a group of survivors of a Zombie Apocalypse. The board is set up in 9 squares designed like streets and building interiors (the manual comes with different mission set-ups and the website has more). You need to scavange in buildings to find better items to help you survive the waves of zombies that spawn at the end of every round. The reason I like this over similar games is that the Zombies move automatically, there doesn't need to be a player devoted to playing the villain. The game can get pretty frentic, with misplays frequently becoming last stands as your calculated risk goes badly quickly.
Feels Like: Left 4 Dead the Board Game
Paranoia/Deception: Battlestar Galactica (Fantasy Flight Games)
Summary: You play as crew members on the Galactica (or survivors in the fleet) and have to survive Cylon Attacks, Event Cards representing challenges to the fleet (which are resolved by playing cards of certain colors, each character gets different cards and has a different role). However, at the beginning of the game and at the midpoint, alignment cards are dealt for Cylons in the fleet. Cylons try to covertly sabotage the fleet by playing the wrong cards for challenges (which subtract from the total) and making decisions that hurt the fleet. If they're found out, they can actively work against the fleet and have a different set of abilities.
Feels Like: ... Battlestar Galactica as a Board Game
Tactical/Wargaming: X-Wing Miniatures (Fantasy Flight Games)
Summary: Like most war games, you have a certain number of 'points' with which to build your squad. Each ship has different stats and different ability modifiers. I won't go into detail here, because the Fantasy Flight website has a fantastic video tutorial here. The way they set-up how movement works makes this unique, I think, from any war games I've tried in the past. Anticipating movement becomes vital to winning the game (as it should in a Starfighter Battle Game).
Feels Like: A Star Wars tactical game, lots of fun.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Tanto Cuore
Kanzume Goddess
Puzzle Strike
Yomi
Ascension
Citadels
Card Battle/Strategy: Smash Up
Summary: You pick two deck types: Pirate, Dinosaur, Ninja, Zombie, Robots, etc. and combine them into your deck, combining two different strategies (Zombies are Reanimators, Ninjas are snuck into play or destroyed, etc). The purpose of the game is claim 'bases'. Each base gives you points if you win it, and the first player to 15 points wins. You have two card types to play: Minions and Actions, and you can play one of each every turn. You play your minions (who have different power levels) on bases, trying to reach the bases 'total', or play actions to create effects like sorceries or enchantments in Magic.
Feels Like: Magic Lite. This game plays like a much simpler version of magic, but it's great for playing with people who don't have the time or money to get into a TCG. Plus the artwork is pretty fantastic.
Strategy/Puzzle: Blokus
Summary: This one actually surprised me with its depth. Essentially you have 12-20 game pieces that you need to find a place for on the board. Your pieces can only touch your other pieces at the corners, meanwhile other players are competing for the same board space. The pieces feel like Tetris. Pretty great game, with a surprising amount of depth and room for cutthroat moves. It's on the shelves of pretty much every retailer out there right now, too.
Feels Like: Playing Tetris against someone on the same screen.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Also, the Reiner Knizia version of Lord of the Rings is a good one as well. It's also pretty difficult. My wife and I have played quite a bit and we've only destroyed the One Ring maybe 25% of the time.
Any cooperative board game (playing as a team against the board, essentially) is a winner in my book.
My favourites are currently:
Ascension
DixIt
Lords of Waterdeep
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullfyre
For Sale
Sentinels of the Multiverse (Best superhero game I've played yet - doesn't use any IPs so that means they parody/homage all of them!)
I recommend the Tabletop videos on the YouTube channel Geek and Sundry. Has famous people play the games so you get a feel for it, and you can cheer for random person you may care about. There's also Shut Up and Sit Down with Penny Arcade TV that list a variety of good games.
I also play a wargame called Infinity. It is a lot of fun mostly due to both players having actions despite whose turn it is. Sci-Fi Skirmish objective based game, you play as a Black Ops team trying to complete your objective/prevent the enemy from succeeding.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
I'll pretty much play anything though.
This is of course not necessarily a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with being Timmy. And it has a special value in a cooperative game, firstly because your fellow players can revel with your successes and commiserate with your failures along with you, and secondly because there are no obvious "right moves" that more experienced players will keep pointing out to less experienced players. Feeling like it would be better if somebody else was playing for you is the death of a cooperative game.
Besides Arkham Horror, I also play a lot of Cosmic Encounter, Smallworld, and Illuminati!, about which more later.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Thats a pretty good description of AH. I like to think the randomness sort of adds to the horror of the game experience. Some of the expansions also make it more interesting and even more random. Its fun but sometimes its too easy and sometimes its too hard.
Oh yeah I should also mention big world as a other game I would recommend.
In the first, we stuffed Azathoth hard. We were in complete control the whole time. Late in the game, there were a couple of turns where we had a perfectly clean board, and we just sat around waiting for the last gate to open so we could jump in and seal it. We ended with the doom count at 5 (out of 14).
In the second, we were absolutely swamped with gates and monsters, and could not hold on to items to save our lives. One turn I was jumped simultaneously by a Byakhee, a Shoggoth, and a Dhole, armed with just my starting kit and no clues. I was Michael McGlen, so I actually killed two of them, but still. The sixth gate soon opened, the Ancient One awoke... and we won anyway, because it was only Yig.
Illuminati! is a sort of casual strategy game. It's like Arkham Horror in that you're too much at the mercy of the deck for a "serious" strategic experience - at least at the beginning of the game. Late game, as players have built up their positions, the deck starts to matter less, and it can get pretty damn cutthroat. And throughout, you can all laugh at the absurdity of situations like the Tabloid Magazines (secretly controlled by the South American Nazis) launching a campaign to destroy California. Timmy/Spike.
Smallworld is ultimately a derivative of Risk, but cleans up and speeds up the gameplay immensely. The beating heart of the game is the two-part race generation system; you can play as such peoples as the Aquatic Ratmen, the Dragonmaster Wizards, and the Berserk Halflings. In addition to being hilarious, this adds a lot of variety to the strategies you pursue. Fun and easy to teach; a good introduction to board games. Timmy/Spike again.
Cosmic Encounter is, simply speaking, a masterpiece of design. Like Arkham Horror, it is heavily randomized; but like poker, the winners are separated from the losers not by the deal, but by how they play the hands they're dealt. The game comes with fifty alien races to play (ninety with expansions!), each of which has a special power that completely breaks the game. You have to use your power creatively, in combination with the cards in your hand, to exploit situations as they arise. And you cannot win on your own; you have to spin a web of ever-shifting alliances with other players to come out ahead. Haggle, bluff, calculate, and combo. Johnny/Spike.
EDIT: Oh, and if anyone is at all interested in board games, I cannot recommend enough that they follow Shut Up & Sit Down.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
One Suggestion is a while back someone attempted to run a couple of Battle Star Galatica games onsite over in Forum games. If we found someone to run it. (Suggesting Blinking Spirit) Would that be something people would be interested in for Arkham Horror?
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
Diplomacy is a great game to ruin a friendship of years due to the sheer number of backstabbery and *******ry that is required to play.
If you've got friends with tough skin, its great. If people love keeping grudges, also good. It is not a game for the faint of heart.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Thanks for the great input, BS. My friends and I have gotten more and more into board games lately, partly because there is a lack of truly great same-console games at the moment, but mostly because consoles limit us to 4 people (5 with specific Wii U games), while we have anywhere from 5-8 people hanging out on a regular basis (if everyone brings their wife/girlfriend).
Board games have been a way for us all to enjoy games together. The problem is we got really into it really fast and one friend in particular bought more board games than we can hope to reasonably play. I didn't want to invest too much, so I'm being very cautious about future purchases to make sure it's something that will be popular and I didn't just blow $50+ on a board game no one wants to play.
I'm seriously considering Arkham Horror, but what about Mansions of Madness? Does it stack up against Arkham Horror for replayability/Strategy?
Edit: I'm also a bit of a completionist, so I'd rather not get something that's going to cost me a lot of money tracking down all the components. Looking at Mansions of Madness a little more, it looks like it could get pricey trying to get everything together.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
I'd be interested. Just off the top of my head, I don't think there's anything in the game that'd be difficult to run online.
I haven't played Mansions of Madness.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I tracked down some reviews after I posted that and it basically said it's awesome about 1/2 the time, the rest of the time the game doesn't really work. So no buy, despite looking amazing.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
I find it much more enjoyable then puerto rico because the randomized (or drafted) occupations and improvements that change the way each game is played.
It is an incredibly deep and fun game to play - not for those new to board games however.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.