Board Games

[Baladar]

Anyone here play big box board games, like Descent or Archam Horror?

[Wittgen]

I will whenever I have the chance, but that doesn't happen often. I don't really own any, and finding people can be a real challenge. Finding common time is even worse.

That being said, they can be tons of fun. Civilization is a great board game. I've never really bothered to put in the time to understand how the computer versions works (tutorials are for wimps) but the board game version is awesome. It mixes strategy, trading, lying, and a map well designed enough that natural population pressures will lead to the recreation of certain historical battles. Go Civilization.

Machiavelli is another board game well worth playing. It's out of print and super hard to find, but it has the finest military strategy that doesn't require calculus that I've ever seen. Also, the formation and destruction of alliances happens frequently. It really lives up to the name.

And I just realized that these might not be the kind of board games you're talking about. Sorry. I've heard about Arkham Horror, but never played it. I really want to though.

[SilentWasteland]

Settlers of Cataan!

I used to play that back before I dropped out of college, but now I don't have much of a chance too.

[U2P]

I'd like to say that any of you foolish enough to challenge me to checkers will suffer a humiliating defeat. Personally though, I love mordheim, but no one has ever heard of it.

[MrRigger2]

I don't get a chance to play any more, but I used to frequent the floor "House on Haunted Hill" games pretty often.

MrRigger

[bibliophile20]

I don't get a chance to play any more, but I used to frequent the floor "House on Haunted Hill" games pretty often.

MrRigger

Good game, sadly out of print. :(

I have played Arkham Horror a few times though; great game, that one. :D

And over winter break, I introduced my family to the fun that is Settlers of Cataan; they enjoyed it enough that they bought their own copy, and my sister's getting a travel version to take with her for her year in Israel.

[nfk]

My friends are board game junkies. They buy new ones all the time. They bought some strange yet fun German boardroom game, where you have to wheel and deal with each other.

And Settlers of Cataan is always fun.

Has anyone played Scotland Yard? I've never played a game quite like it, it's like a 1 on 3 tag team.

[Wittgen]

Scotland Yard is great. It really captures the feeling of fleeing a coordinated search team, I think.

Not that I actually know what that's like, I guess. Still, great game.

[Baladar]

If you like Scotland yard, you're going to love Fury of Dracula. One player is Dracula, moving in secret accross Europe; while the other players are the four hunters (Mina, Van Hellsing, Lord Godalming, and Dr. Seward) searching for Dracula. Dracula wins if he gets enough points and the hunters win if they kill the master vampire prior to his victory.

[ecs05norway]

My boardgames collection includes...

Arkham Horror
Settlers of Catan
Starfleet Battles
Advanced Squad Leader
Avalon Hill Gettysburg '77
Panzer Grenadier
Great War at Sea
Cosmic Encounter
Landships
NATO: The Next War In Europe
Silent Death
Wooden Ships & Iron Men
Avalon Hill Starship Troopers

Why yes, I -am- a grognard. When I got into gaming hex-and-counter wargames were -the- way to play. RPGs were kind of a new and different thing, and minis were mostly historicals...

Just to date myself: D&D 2nd edition, the first Vampire: The Masquerade, and Magic: The Gathering were all released when I was already a long-experienced gamer. To me, all of these are 'newfangled gizmo' stuff.

Card games? Sure. Illuminati. Hacker. Nuclear War. Modern Naval Battles. Collectible card games? That was a whole 'nother ball game. The idea of not being able to plop down your money and have a complete game was... unsettling. It certainly took off as a play format and marketing gizmo, but there are still a lot of people who go for complete sets just so they can say they actually have the whole game.

[Wittgen]

Having the whole game makes it impossible to draft, though. And drafting is fun.

[viridian]

I love Starfleet Battles, but damn it's a lot easier to play the computerized version.

We actually gamed out the Carrier War campaign, but it took three weeks playing 2-3 hours a day. (In the end, I didn't have to crash the CVA MacArthur into Remus to knock the Romulans out of the war, but it was a close thing.) I can see where it would massively appeal to detail-oriented players, but the flow of strategy almost gets lost in the forest of SSDs and Energy Allocation Forms...

[ecs05norway]

Yeah.

One of the changes they've introduced with Federation Commander is to ditch all that. The only thing you pre-allocate energy for is movement, and even then you can tweak it from phase to phase a bit.

[Kodra]

I have to agree with Wittgen, Drafting is hella fun. I don't actually collect Magic Cards, or play in constructed, but I will gladly pay 14 bucks for a draft, and take the packs I win to my Local Game Shop and trade them for store credit to feed my new WARMACHINE addiction.

As far as board games go?

I really love WAR! Age of Imperialism. It's a bit luck based, but some of the tactics in that game are just awesome. It's simple enough in it's concept, unlike some games, but there are some underlying mechanics that just make it brilliant.

Lately though I've been playing lots of Puerto Rico, another awesome game, and Tomb. And Hex Hex whenever I can.

[Greybane]

Gotta love the draft.

I play MTG very casually, and I generally don't go to the FNM events so it just my friends and I, but drafts are fun.

[viridian]

Drafting???

[unknown369]

You open a series of card packs/ a fat pack, and draft the cards similar to the way pro sports draft.

Then you make a deck from your drafted cards and play against everyone else. I've never done it, but I've heard that drafting well takes a lot of skill.

[SLAMU]

Gotta give a shout out to Settlers of Catan. It's one of the few games I know whare you play to win a peace than a war, and damn fun too. I'm also a player of Magic: the Gathering, but I have trouble finding new players, so it's kinda just a 'meh' sort of deal. But yeah, die Siedler von Catan. Yay. :D

[ecs05norway]

Indeed, Catan is quite fun.

And then, speaking of CCG's, there's another game I've just been getting into:

MONSTERPOCALYPSE.

The collectible minis game of B-movie Kaiju city-stomping.

Pick your monster - will it be one of the heroic defender robots of GUARD, the mysterious biomechanoids of the Shadow Sun Syndicate, the Gojira-alike Terrasaurs, the Martian Menace, the terrifying Planet Eaters, or the mind-shattering Lords of Cthul?

Line up a few 'popcorn' infinitely-respawning units, like tanks, helicopters, ninja, dinosaurs, flying saucers, or brain-eating alien worms...

And set up a few buildings to knock down.

Then sit back and watch the action, and try to vape your opponent's monster before he can vape yours.

Pick tanks up and chuck them through buildings. Body-slam monsters. Combine several units' fire for massive attacks to turn the nuclear power plant he's hiding behind into a radioactive wasteland.

Blow. Stuff. Up.

Coming soon is set 2: I Chomp New York.

[SLAMU]

Oh, I think I want. Where can I get one?

Monster-stomping FTW

[ecs05norway]

In the logical place: Your Friendly Local Gaming Store.

A starter pack gets you one random Monster (and its Ultra form), two Buildings, and a handful of popcorn (one from each faction), plus maps, rules, dice, and a handy little widget for tracking your monster's hit points. $25

A booster is $13, and contains either a) a monster (and its Ultra form), or b) a building and a handful of popcorn.

The models are pre-painted plastic, so you can buy 'em, sit down, and play. It may take a little horse-trading among people to get the right units to go with your monsters, but it's worth it.

Monsters have three forms, Alpha (normal), Ultra (powered-up), and Mega (a different power-up). The Ultra form, as noted, comes with the Alpha; the Mega forms are special promos - there are sendaways for a couple, and others are tournament prizes or con exclusives.

We had a tournament today, it was all kinds of fun...

[Kodra]

There's a new game that I've just fallen in love with. Dominion, the game of deck building. It's a victory point based game, but the trick is that you build a deck and stock it full of Resources (money) and Action Cards that you can use to try and either buy more Resources and Action Cards, or buy Victory points to try and win the game. It calls on all of your MTG deck building skills combined with a end point that makes it a fast paced exciting game.

[Kal]

In order of favs....

Munchkin
Video Clue (out of print)
Quiddler
Wise and Otherwise
Axis and Allies
Origins
Ingenous
Cranium
Set
RummyCube
Tripoly
Euchre
Liverpool Rum (min 2 decks)