Board Game Purchases

[Camel]

For me, this summer has been THE SUMMER OF BOARD GAMES. I've managed to get an awesome group of people together to try out new games, and it has been amazing. I know that there's a lot of people on the site who like board games, and I figured it would be good to have a general thread to talk about some of the recent games we've played.

Here's what I've played this summer:



Ticket To Ride



I've had this one for a few years, and it is great. At the beginning of the game, you get some mission cards that have routes on them (things like Boston to San Francisco, or New Orleans to Phoenix). These routes are made up of lots of little pieces, some of which are specific colors. In order to build part of your route, you have to have the corresponding color cards (which you can pick up on your turn). This would be super simple, if it weren't for the fact that all of your friends are building their routes as well, many of which will cut you off and block you from your destinations. The last time I played, my wife had to go way out of her way to connect some trains, and I ended up forcing the last turn before she was able to complete it. Take that, wife!

It's a super easy game to play and learn, and it is what really got me and my friends interested in some more complicated games.


Dominion



A game I know a lot of people on this site play. You build a deck of cards which lets you buy more cards and play actions to help yourself and possibly harm the other players, such as spies and libraries and blacksmiths. The point is that you are building up a kingdom, but you have to use your imagination to actually get into the theme. All of these cards eventually allow you to get victory points, which you need to win the game. This summer I got the Cornicopia expansion, and am waiting on Thought Hammer to deliver the Seaside expansion. This game is easy to learn and very fun to play.


Thunderstone




I first heard about Thunderstone from Rock Paper Shotgun (their Cardboard Children column is a good way to learn about games). It's like Dominion in that you are building up a deck of cards, only this time there is a better theme – DUNGEON CRAWLING! There are two areas you can visit – the Dungeon or the Village. In the village, you can recruit heroes, buy them weapons, and get other items and followers to help you out. This is important, since you start off the game with some daggers and milita men who aren't really strong enough to kill anything. As you get stronger, you'll eventually go to the Dungeon, where you can kill monsters that give you victory points (needed to win the game). The monsters also give you experience, which you can use to level up your heroes. Thunderstone is great fun, and different enough from Dominon that it's worth having both. Our group goes through phases of wanting to play either game – Thunderstone is about slowly getting stronger and stronger, while Dominion is more about getting cards that work well together and give you more things to do on your turn.

We've been playing Thunderstone: Dragonspire (stand-alone expansion – if you get this you don't need to get the original) along with the Thornwood Siege Expansion.



Small World



I've owned this game for over a year, and finally got around to playing it this summer. The premise of the game is that you are playing as a race (humans, dwarves, amazons, ratmen, trolls, etc.) who are all trying to conquer an area. Unfortunately, it's a small world and you'll have to fight over the available land. You start the game by picking a race and a special power, all of which are randomized at the beginning of the game. Some of the combinations are things like Seafaring Halflings, or Mountain Wizards, or Diplomatic Orcs, all of which give different bonuses and allow for different strategies. Eventually you'll spread yourself out a little too thin while trying to conquer areas, and you'll chose to put your race into decline. On your next turn, you get to pick a new race-power combo and start fighting again.

This game takes a while to get used to (there are tons of clarifications on different powers and races in the instruction book), but everything is fairly well spelled out in the manual and once you've played the game once or twice you'll barely need to look for help. This game definitely looks way more complicated than it actually is (like most board games, I think). The artwork for the game is also really funny and well-done. Highly recommended.

[Camel]

Pandemic



This is a cooperative game, where you and your friends play as a team of specialists (doctors, dispatchers, engineers, etc.) who are trying to stop viral outbreaks around the world. You have to research cures for the various diseases before they spread too far and end up killing everyone. The game is pretty easy to learn, but HOLY CRAP is it difficult. We have yet to win, although we've came close. It's a fun game, but can get stressful when shit starts to hit the fan and viruses start spreading like crazy.


Alhambra



Just played this for the first time last night. It's a game where you purchase buildings in order to build up your little palace. You have to have the right currency to buy certain buildings, and certain buildings are worth more than others when it comes time to get points. It's fun, fast, and pretty easy to learn. The worst part was waiting for your turn, but we played with six people (the maximum), which felt like too many. I think it would definitely be better with less. I'd recommend this game if you like Settlers of Catan (another game I've played a decent amount of this summer).


7 Wonders



I just got this game and played it for the first time last night. We all had fun, and agreed that it would definitely be better the second time around since everyone understood what was going on. Every player gets one of the Seven Wonders, which can eventuallly be built in order to gain bonuses during the game. The gameplay consists of everyone getting a hand of seven cards, picking one, and then passing the rest to the next person. The cards could give you things like raw materials (needed to buy buildings), trade buildings (which let you buy resources off of your neighbors in case you are having trouble getting them), military units, victory points, and other things. Everyone comes up with a basic strategy after a while, and it's really fun to get a hand of cards and try to pick out one that will best support your town. The artwork and components of this game look great as well, which always helps.



Cosmic Encounter



This game is probably my favorite out of all the ones I've played this summer, but only a few of my friends ever really want to play it. Everyone is playing as an alien race, which all have various powers. The point of the game is to establish colonies on other players' planets, and to do so you're going to need allies. The interactions between other players are the best and most hilarious parts of the game. Sometimes people don't want to help you beause you're close to winning the game, and sometimes they don't want to help you just because you screwed them over or didn't help them when they needed it. The powers that the aliens have let you do all sorts of crazy things like making it so a person who loses a fight actually wins it, allowing you to use your home planets as giant world-ships, punishing people who won't help you in an alliance, and a ton of other different things.

The best part of this game is that you are always getting to do something (joining alliances, complaining about not being asked to help, attacking others or getting attacked, using your powers to help or harm), even if it's not your turn. If you've got friends who hate confontation (read: MY WIFE), however, this may not be the game for them.



Talisman



Unfortunately, not all of the games I played this summer were hits. Compared to the other things I played, Talisman was just kind of...boring. You play as a hero who explores the world and is trying to make it to the center of the game board. Along the way you get stronger, gain weapons and followers, and defeat monsters and other bad guys. The game looks great, but we all felt pretty bored. Even when it's your turn, you don't get to do all that much, and it makes the whole game feel sloooooooooow.


So that's been a lot of my summer so far. We've been playing games once or twice a week for the last couple of months, and fun times have been had by all. I should also mention that besides Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan, NONE of us had any experience with these more complicated types of games before.

There are a bunch of other games out there I want to take a look at (Quarriors immediately comes to mind – it's like Dominion only with dice involved I guess?), and I still have one game I bought I haven't tried out yet – Ghost Stories, in which you play as a team of monks who have to defeat ghosts being controlled by the evil Wu Feng. My wife wants to get Carcassonne, but I think we should just keep playing it on the Xbox since it makes setup and scoring easier. Any thoughts on that one?

If you have people to play with (even just one, a lot of times), board games are a great hobby. These games can be pretty pricey, especially if you're buying them at a local store. I tend to go through Amazon or Thought Hammer (thanks to Tayaya who directed to me this site a while back), although I always take advantage of ales when my local shops have them.

Anyone else play any fun games recently?

[Camel]

I have also spent a bunch of time checking out reviews at Board Game Geek, although I always take the advice with a grain of salt (there are some super hardcore fanboy weirdo uberdorks there, for lack of a better term) and make sure I read multiple reviews before forming an opinion.

Some other games I'd love to hear more about if anyone has played them:

• Survive!
• Stone Age
• Dixit
• Any of the Catan expansions
• Battlestar Galactica
• Battle of Westeros
• Race for the Galaxy
• Citadels
• Defenders of the Realm
• Puerto Rico
• Descent - looks unbelievably hardcore, but also sounds awesome

[violent]

Recently purchased Arkham Horror. Now I need to learn how to play.

[OUX]

Originally Posted by violent

Recently purchased Arkham Horror. Now I need to learn how to play.

Step 1: Take out of box.
Step 2: Set it up.
Step 3: Punch yourself in the nuts.
Step 4: Cry, seriously. It won't really help, but it feels like it.
Step 5: Try to get a job at a newspaper.
Step 6: Spit on your broken soul.

[drobvice]

Pretty nice collection! I was looking at Dominion at the Borders liquidation but most everything there is still basically full price. I did get Zombie Dice, though. Fun little game. Let's see, I got the red box for D&D awhile back. Also ordered the Fortress of the Archkyrie for my HeroScape collection. Got a great price on Amazon for this one. Aaaand I'm contemplating starting up a Warhammer collection. I got the rule book a couple weeks ago and have been steadily reading through that.

I wish I had more comments for you on what you are considering but haven't played any of them. It's tough having a board game addiction without a gaming group.

[cppcrusader]

Battlestar Galactica can be a fun game. Fair warning though, it's pretty complex even using the basic rules. The basic gist of it is everyone is a character from the show and you draw resource/action cards based on that character's abilities. A player performs whatever actions they want during their turn (launching a raptor, firing weapons, moving to different sections of Galactica or Colonial One, etc) and their turn ends by drawing a Crisis card. A crisis could be anything from Cylons jump into the system, a planet is discovered, basically any type of event that occurred on the show. All players can then choose to contribute their resources or not to helping beat the crisis, but cards are all played face down for this and players do not have to say how much they are contributing.

The fun part comes from the fact that at the beginning of the game everyone draws from a Cylon deck that tells them whether or not they are a Cylon, which is kept secret of course. So those who know they are Cylons can contribute the wrong resources to cause the humans to fail the crisis and make some bad things happen. It's all about subterfuge and espionage. Your first playthrough will be shaky as it takes that much for everyone to get a feel for the game, and may take most of your game night to play.

Race for the Galaxy I haven't got a chance to play yet, but someone brought it into the office recently so it won't be long before I've played it.

Something everyone here should play is Last Night on Earth. The short description is basically Left 4 Dead as a board game. We play this one pretty regularly and it's a ton of fun.

[Camel]

Originally Posted by cppcrusader

Something everyone here should play is Last Night on Earth. The short description is basically Left 4 Dead as a board game. We play this one pretty regularly and it's a ton of fun.

I had a friend just buy this and I am pumped for him to come back home.

BSG sounds awesome to me because of the Cylon trying to mess everything up. I love crap like that in games. There's a game coming out about ninjas where the three-player variant has one guard, one ninja, and one guard who is working either with the ninjas or entirely for his own benefit. It sounds pretty cool.

Let me know what you think of Race for the Galaxy once you get to play!

Some other games I am keeping an eye on: two upcoming board games based on Discworld. Could be fun, and I like the way the board looks.

[TheKeck]

Originally Posted by Camel

I have also spent a bunch of time checking out reviews at Board Game Geek, although I always take the advice with a grain of salt (there are some super hardcore fanboy weirdo uberdorks there, for lack of a better term) and make sure I read multiple reviews before forming an opinion.

Some other games I'd love to hear more about if anyone has played them:

• Survive!
• Stone Age
• Dixit
• Any of the Catan expansions
• Battlestar Galactica
• Battle of Westeros
• Race for the Galaxy
• Citadels
• Defenders of the Realm
• Puerto Rico
• Descent - looks unbelievably hardcore, but also sounds awesome

I've played cities and knights of Catan. I didnt really like the complexity it added. I sort o hate Catan anyway, though, so take that with a grain of salt.

I think I might have played race for the galaxy. Sounds familiar.

I love Citadels. It's got crazy mind games going on and some real satisfying take-that gameplay.

Puerto Rico is pretty heavy, but fun. We flubbed at least one rule the first two times we played. We have the card game variant called San Juan. It's much lighter and works great as a two player game or with up to four. We used to play it a TON.

[TheKeck]

I HAVE played race for the galaxy. I remember it being reasonably fun although my game group only played it once or twice.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by violent

Recently purchased Arkham Horror. Now I need to learn how to play.

Arkham Horror is incredible. I'd fly to Florida just to play it with you I like it that much. Currently have the Kingsport and Innsmouth big expansions and the King in Yellow smaller one.

This summer all I've actually purchased is Battlestar Galactica and the LOTR LCG. Battlestar has been a blast though having played it three or four times now with each game coming right down to the wire (twice now it's been the final move of the game that decided things) and the humans have miraculously won every time. I've only gotten to be a toaster once and the more people you play with the better it gets. I'm amazed at how well they captured the show and I'd really like to snag an expansion for it.

The LOTR LCG I quite like as well though the solo component is a little lacking. It'll get better with expansions (speaking of, the Hunt for Gollum just hit I believe) as you'll get some stronger cards to help out going alone. The base game comes with three scenarios and I can only beat the first two - get trounced every time on the third. Need to play it with another person I think in order to get over the difficulty hump. Either that or build a stronger deck which will come with expansions.

And speaking of Arkham, Elder Sign looks to hit sometime this month and I'm desperate to get my hands on it. Seems like a "lighter" version of AH with a stronger storytelling focus and more a dice/strategy game than its big brother. Rumor has it it'll hit this week and I keep checking in every day to see if it has.

As a Lovecraft whore I picked up Mansions of Madness as well but it's terribly cumbersome and overall a bit of a letdown unless the rules are greatly tweaked but everything I've seen and heard points to Elder Sign being a great buy.

Save for a couple games I own (maybe three), everything else is either co-op or solo. I get together occasionally with some buddies to play but I typically end up playing alone as my wife isn't too into them so that's what I gravitate towards most. I really wish the Cthulhu LGC had a solo variant as well. I'd pick that up in a heartbeat.

[TheKeck]

Played some Pandemic ourselves this evening. We barely managed to eek out a win in the last turn of the game. That one is always a challenge.

[Blue]

I dig Pandemic but I enjoy it more solo than I do with a group. For some reason it tends to play better that way in my mind. Haven't tried the expansion for it.

[TheKeck]

I can totally see playing Pandemic solo. It's such a concerted effort. It's easy to pretty much dictate what others do on their turn or have it dictated to you.

[Panthera]

Originally Posted by OUX

Step 1: Take out of box.
Step 2: Set it up.
Step 3: Punch yourself in the nuts.
Step 4: Cry, seriously. It won't really help, but it feels like it.
Step 5: Try to get a job at a newspaper.
Step 6: Spit on your broken soul.

Judging from my last attempt that sounds more fun than actually playing it.

[Mot Wakorb]

Originally Posted by Panthera

Judging from my last attempt that sounds more fun than actually playing it.

Disagree. The first time you play it's a pain, after that it's pretty easy, especially once your players understand the rules. It's a gem and I love it.

[Panthera]

Originally Posted by Mot Wakorb

Disagree. The first time you play it's a pain, after that it's pretty easy, especially once your players understand the rules. It's a gem and I love it.

We had no trouble with the rules. None.

[Mot Wakorb]

Originally Posted by Panthera

We had no trouble with the rules. None.

So what was the problem with the game?

[Thanasimos]

Originally Posted by Mot Wakorb

So what was the problem with the game?

I've been told there are about a million pieces, and that the setup takes longer than playing some other games.

[Mot Wakorb]

Originally Posted by Thanasimos

I've been told there are about a million pieces, and that the setup takes longer than playing some other games.

I'll totally agree with this. To setup a 3-board game (I have two expansions that expand the board), it's anywhere from 15 minutes to a half-hour to get setup without other players helping (shuffling decks, handing skills and such out). That's my only pet-peeve with the game experience.