RF Generation Message Board

If you have a regular board game night, this is where you can post what you played, how great or not great it was, and pictures of the festivities if you like.

Last night was the first time I attended the Open Board Game night at Battlegrounds Gaming in Norwalk, CT.  Went there with a couple of friends and made a couple new ones.  I taught the group how to play Carcassonne:

[img width=700 height=700]http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m503/wildbil52/photo1.jpg[/img]

And we finished the night with Ticket to Ride:

[img width=700 height=700]http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m503/wildbil52/photo4.jpg[/img]

Hope to learn a few new games next time.

Some friends and I are playing Munchkin tonight, and maybe Zombies!! :)

I have yet to play Munchkin.  We almost played Cutthroat Caverns last night but we didn't have enough time.  I'm reading up on Eclipse right now.  I REALLY want to try it.

A group of my friends are thinking about having a monthly event in which the host goes to a thrift store and purchases a random game for everyone to play.  The worse the better.  That's what beer is for.  I recently found a copy of "Trump," which looks genius.

Cosmic Encounters every Saturday morning.

You can follow that up with...

[img width=400 height=400]http://a1708.g.akamai.net/7/1708/110/AH0562216453537/www.shopnbc.com/media/products/N/N52309_400.jpg[/img]

As for myself, the only board game I'm really interested in is Battleship. And even then, it's the electronic Advanced Missions edition, complete with air strikes, torpedoes, and radar scanning.

[img width=467 height=500]http://0.tqn.com/d/boardgames/1/0/T/G/tf06-battleship_advanced.jpg[/img]

Now that I think about it, it's right on the fence between a proper board game and a video game.

Sadly, I rarely have time to play it with others, so usually I play with by myself against the computer.

Considering how reclusive I am, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with holding a board game night...

Last Wednesday we played Ascension and Dixit.  I had played Ascension on iOS so I knew how to play but playing on a board for the first time was great.

I had never heard of Dixit.  It was very interesting.  Each player is dealt 5 (oversized) cards, each with a picture on it.  One player then creates a sentence, sings a song, makes a sound, anything that relates to what is on their card.  Then every other player chooses a card in their hand that relates most to the sentence/song/sound.  The cards are then placed on the table and each player has to guess which card the sentence was made from.  It was a VERY interesting and fun experience.  Great board game for the casual crowd, or to play in between a couple of more serious or complex board games.

I bought Puerto Rico for my wife's birthday.  Hopefully it arrives by tomorrow so we can play it at the net board game night.

Board Game Night at Battlegrounds again last night.

One of the regulars bought a game called Hex Hex.  He described it as a "stab your friends in the back" game.  Not usually my kind of thing, but we decided to give it a try.  Every player is dealt a hand of 5 cards, each with an action written on it like "deflect left", "deflect right", "send across the table".  When the first round starts, the first player takes a cardboard chip, the hex, and chooses a player at random to target.  Once the hex is in front of that player, they must play a card to deflect it away to someone else.  There are also defensive cards that can be played like "send the hex back to the player who targeted you", and "deflect right and boost" which then makes the hex more powerful.  When the hex lands on a player who cannot deflect it away either because they have no card that can be legally played or they have no cards left, the hex explodes and damages that player.  It's like an extreme game of hot potato but you use cards to determine where you are able to send the potato

I did not like this game.  The idea is kind of cool, but there are SOOO many cards that cancel, reverse, nullify, and destroy cards that you intend to use that the game becomes more about luck than skill.  If I was dealt the 5 cards that the winning player was dealt, I would have won that round.  I hate to say something like "it would be a good game for $10" but...it would.  It would be a cool "ice breaker" type game to play once before you get into something better/deeper.

We then played a card game called Werewolf.  This game sells for about $12 and is easily the best $12 that I have spent on a card game.

If you've ever played Mafia, Assassin, or Witch Hunt, it's essentially the same game.  There are 9 players total, which makes it a great party game.  In the standard version of Werewolf, one player is the mayor and the other 8 are villagers or werewolves.  The players are dealt one card.  There are 6 villager cards and two werewolf cards.  Once the players know what role they are playing, "night falls", everyone puts their heads down, closes their eyes, and continuously taps their hand on the table to make it harder to tell what is about to happen.  The mayor calls for the werewolves to put they heads up, the werewolves then see each other, and then put their heads back down, then the mayor wakes everyone up and is killed.  Everyone, as a group must then try to figure out who the werewolves are.  Everyone votes, including the werewolves, and the two players with the most votes get 30 seconds each to convince the group that they are NOT the werewolf.  The group votes again just between those two players and the player with the most votes gets lynched.  Night falls again and the net round begins. From now on, every time night falls and the werewolves raise their heads, they can choose one player to kill in the night.

The object is to kill both werewolves before they kill all of the villagers.  Very simple concept, very fun.  Highly recommended if you are looking for something simple with a large group of people.

Had a few friends over last night for beers, Rangers playoff hockey, and Ticket to Ride Europe.  I love Ticket to Ride.  Super fun, easy to learn, and a surprising amount of depth for how simple it is.

Europe adds ferries, which require locomotives to claim, and tunnels, which allow you to use an opponents route as your own.

If you are considering playing designer or euro board games and you aren't sure where to start,  I would recommend Ticket to Ride (US board) and if you love it, definitely give Europe a try.

Actually, my roommate and her friends played a variant of that this weekend, using Uno cards. ;D

I personally HIGHLY recommend 7 Wonders! With or without the expansion. This is your basic card-draft-and-pass game, but with it's simplicity comes a surprising degree of strategic depth, especially with experienced players. Everyone gets a wonder from the ancient world, and then has to balance investing into cards that develop science, military, community, and economy. Most points wins. This one's available on brettspielwelt.com for those that want to try it for free. I LOVE this game!

A great party game is King of Tokyo (up to 6 can play). But this one's getting hard to find. I've reserved my copy at the vendor booth that will be at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH May 31-June 3rd. 8) If any RFG'ers in the Ohio area are going to be attending, let me know so we can meet up. It's a fun Yahtzee-type game where you play as a monster from a pseudo-Godzilla universe and gain points for each turn you survive in Tokyo. There's also energy cubes to collect and use for purchasing ability cards to enhance your monster along the way. This one is a blast!

Another strong game is Power Grid. However, this isn't as newbie-friendly. It's a pretty intense strategy game that will likely take about 2 hours to play.

I haven't bought Ascension yet, but I've played it and really like it's mechanics. And it's different enough from Dominion that it provides a unique experience. I haven't tried Thunderstone yet, but after playing Ascension I don't think I'm interested in Thunderstone any more.

7 Wonders and Power Grid have been on my radar for a while but I haven't been able to play them yet.  king of Tokyo sounds like fun!  I'll have to keep an eye out for it...

Played the Resident Evil card game this weekend. Also, sounds like we're picking up 7 Wonders and Dominion some time soon.

Showed Dominion to a friend a few weeks ago and he bought it the next day.  It's a great game.  Let me know how you like 7 Wonders.

I've actually heard really good things about the Gears of War board game.  Maybe I can give that one a try this Wednesday at Battlegrounds. 

Going on a cruise in a few weeks and their website says they have board games in the game room but I'm afraid that they mean Monopoly and Sorry.  Wondering if I should sneak Puerto Rico on board...

Dominion is really good. optimum for groups of 3-4 players, but with expansions, we've played 7-8.

Actually sat down and played dominion all day yesterday, with a game of Catan to end the night

I have Dominion and all the expansions. 8) It's also a great 2-player game.

Not a fan of Catan. I've never been able to figure out how to strategize in that game other than trying to get on a 6 or 8 (and having no one roll a 6 or 8 for 50 turns!) or trying to get longest road (only to get overtaken a turn or 2 before the end). And I suck at games that involve trading goods with other players. :P

Played a couple new games last Wednesday and I loved them both. 

The first game was Penny Arcade Rumble in R'lyeh.  It's a deck building game that is similar to Dominion and Ascension but with a much lighter feel.  I'm not a regular Penny Arcade reader like some of my friends are but that didn't take away from my enjoyment of the game.  If you like deck builders, I'm sure you would enjoy it.  One of the players had never played a deck builder and it was easy enough for him to catch on within about a half dozen turns.

The other game I played was Survive.  this game has been around for a LONG time but I had never heard of it.  The large square board is covered in hexes and three types of tiles are placed randomly within the center of the board.  Players then place their meeples on all the tiles and 5 sea monsters are placed in pre-determined spots on the board.  Then each player may place one boat on the edge of the land tiles they just placed in clockwise order until all boats are placed.  There is an island on each corner of the board and the idea is to get your meeples safely to one of the islands.  At the end of every turn, each player removes one land tile (displacing the meeple onto in into the water if there is a person on that tile.  The tile will either be an action that happens right away like a shark, whale, sea monster, etc, or it will be a tile that the player can keep and use at a later time like a dolphin that moves one swimmer 3 spaces or a card that protects you from a whale attack (I call this the Get out of Whale Free Card).

I loved both games and I would recommend them to anyone.

Played and really enjoyed King of Tokyo, Power Grid: The First Sparks, and Alien Frontiers. I played all 3 in Columbus at the Origins Game Fair a few weeks ago. I bought King of Tokyo and went online to order Alien Frontiers. I'm going to wait on Power Grid: The First Sparks until I know I can get it with a batch of games through Thoughthammer & take advantage of free shipping 8) (King of Tokyo and Alien Frontiers have been on back-order for MONTHS at Thoughthammer!).

King of Tokyo plays out like a Yahtzee king-of-the-hill type of game. Up to 6 players choose fictional Godzilla-type characters and battle with dice and can buy cards to gain points and control of Tokyo. Last man standing or the 1st player to 20 points wins. It was designed by Richard Garfield and it shows! Great party game.

Alien Frontiers is a dice-placement game similar to Kingsburg, but is much more dynamic and there's no direct path do victory (like I've heard as the major complaint of Kingsburg). The basic objective is to build up colonies and take over territory bonuses on a small moon. An excellent game, but takes longer to play (about an hour - 90mins), so it may not be for everyone.

PG: The First Sparks is an excellent gateway game into the Power Grid universe. Players try to expand their tribes and gain tools & technology to do so the first. You have to feed your tribe, though, otherwise you'll start losing ground quickly! And like true Power Grid, the later you are to a territory (where you can obtain resources), the more expensive it is to get there. This one takes about an hour to play, and after you've taught it to a group of players, it seems like it's a game that you'd want to play again right away.

All are recommended! 8)

Played 2 new games last night.  Well, new to me.

The first game we played was a card game called Fluxx.  There are many different versions or themes of Fluxx and they all work pretty much the same way.  There is Space Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx, Stoner Fluxx, Family Fluxx, Pirate Fluxx, etc.  We played Monty Python Fluxx.

Each player starts with 3 cards and the rules are: Draw one card, play one card.  Simple, right?  What makes it complex is that there are "New Rule" cards that players can play to alter the game.  Each New Rule card is ADDED to the list of rules unless it is a rule of the same kind.  So if someone has played a "New Rule:Draw 5" card and someone plays a "New Rule:Draw 3" card, it replaces the previous card of the same rule but there can be several other New Rules that stay in play like Draw 5 instead of 1, Play 4 instead of 1, Treat any 3 on any card as a 5, and Sing a Monty Python song to draw 1 additional card (draw 2 cards if it's a song no one has sang yet).

You don't really need to learn how to play because the cards you get in your hand explain what they do.  There is also always a "Goal" card on the table and as soon as any player satisfies the conditions of the goal card, they win.  Of course, new goal cards can replace the current one at any time.

It's a pretty good icebreaker and the Monty Python theme added a few laughs (and songs).  

Also played a very short game of Munchkin just to learn the mechanics.  I don't know enough about it yet to comment so I'll wait for another day.

Own Fluxx and Munchkin, but I've yet to play Munchkin.

It's not the type of game I'm usually in to.  I've never been a fan of the "stab your friend in the back" mechanic but it's a super popular game and a friend has been asking me to play for a while so we gave it a shot.

Another quick board game note, the amazing Le Havre is out on iOS today.

Had some friends over yesterday for a small pool party and ended up playing a few games.  Taught them Puerto Rico and we also played Fluxx and Red Dragon Inn.

I really should try to take more pictures when I play games.  I'll make an effort to do that from now on.

Played just 1 game last night.  Miskatonic School for Girls.  It's loosely based on HP Lovecraft lore, Cthulus and all.  You play as a "house" in the Miskatonic school for girls where you are trying to hold onto your sanity because the faculty are monsters, literally.  

It's a deck building game where you purchase girls for your house and faculty to add to your enemies decks for them to fight on future turns.  Each turn consists of purchasing a girl, purchasing a faculty member for the player on your left, fighting the faculty in your hand, and losing some of your sanity if you can't defeat them.

It's an interesting premise for a deck builder but it breaks one of my cardinal rules for what makes a great game: Winning this game is based WAY more on luck than skill.  For me, winning is not the most important thing.  If I have fun playing the game, that's usually good enough.  It's just a shame that the player who makes the best decisions is almost never the one who wins.

The artwork is FANTASTIC.  I met the game's artist at PAX East and she was nice enough to sign a few cards for us to put in our game box.  This was a kickstarted game that can be found at many retail game stores now.  I do feel like there are better deck builders out there for $50 like Dominion and Penny Arcade, but if the premise sounds interesting and you can appreciate excellent artwork, it's worth a try.

Ordering Power Grid right now.  I'll take some pics and maybe even do a full write up once I've played it a few times.

Pick these or anything up yet?

Unfortunately, no - been broke as of late. However, my roommates played some of the expansions for Cosmic Encounters and were raving about the new races. We also played an expansion for Resident Evil, which added the ability to play with partners, which was awesome.

Nice,  I've heard good things about Resident Evil.  I was going to buy Power Grid this week, but decided to save some cash.  We have plenty of games to play already, I just love learning new ones.

I broke down and bought Power Grid.  Played a "learning the game" game with my wife and it was pretty cool.  I do not recommend playing with two players, but we do have a better understanding of the game now.

[img width=700 height=700]http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m503/wildbil52/RFGen/IMG_1061.jpg[/img]

It's a train game, but it's way more complex than Ticket to Ride.  It's very math heavy.  If you are good with numbers or an accountant, you will be comfortable.

Each player represents a different power company.  You buy power plants at auction and you buy resources for the plants to produce energy.  You earn money by producing energy and then can expand your power network to more cities and buy more efficient power plants. 

The auction phase was pretty lackluster with just 2 players, but I imagine that with 4-6 players, the auction phase could end up wiping out a few players' money.  I'll see if I can get a group of people to play on Wednesday and give another verdict then.

Been a while since I posted in here.  Haven't been going to bard game night recently, preparing for the move and all, but I have been mildly obsessed with Eclipse lately.  I don't even own the game yet, I just keep reading the manual! Hopefully I can grab it next month.

Played my first game of Settlers of Catan.  It was very cool. Easy to see why it's a staple in so many collections.

Anyone ever play Laser Attack?  Came out in 1978 I think.  I just got back into it a year or two ago after digging it out of the closet and replacing the light bulb in the laser.

You can have as few as two players, but it's not really that fun (I'll get into that...).  Whether you have two to all four players, you put every single spaceship and spacepod piece on the board.  What you do is you go around collecting all pieces of your ship together.  The plastic pieces are monstrously cool!  Then you spin the enemy laser, and wherever its light lands on you move all pieces forward a notch.  The board is divided into several zones, the worst one is where you move forward but one spacepod on your ship is taken off and is moved back.  So that sucks, as you have to go back and get it, giving your opponents a chance to move quicker around the board. 

Also, there are commands at the end of each row; wherever the laser lands, you have to do what the command says, like if you move someone's ship one space.  For those that have said on here they don't like "stab your friend in the back"-type games, you might not like this one!  (Hence why you need at least three players; it's boring to move the other player's pieces every single time...) So I guess it's like Sorry! in a way.

After you get all your pieces together you go to the laser base and stick them in; whoever's pod the laser rests on if you've plugged that port up is the winner.

[img width=700 height=321]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/darrylb/miscellaneous/laserattackpieces.jpg[/img]

Pics can't really capture how cool these pieces look, really

[img width=647 height=600]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/darrylb/miscellaneous/laserattackboard.jpg[/img]

The board looks great too (cat not included)

[img width=551 height=470]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v467/darrylb/miscellaneous/laserattacklaser.jpg[/img]

The dreaded enemy laser (ok, so it's like a strobe light)

Also, it's cool to turn the lights down when you play this, due to the laser effect on the colorful pieces.

Stopped at the Northgate mall outside of cincinnati yesterday. Interesting store in there called Sci Fi city, filled with tons of board games and geek stuff. pretty neat, because you rarely see stuff like that in a large commercial mall. At least i never have. I picked up, finally, catan. I have logged hundreds of hours on catan for xbox live, and now i finally have the real deal! although getting players will be a tough task :/ haha

There is a sci fi city in the Orlando area too.  I thought it was the only one.  Glad to see they are expanding.  Finding players is easy.  All of those places have open board game days/nights.  Just show up with a friend or two or by yourself and you will have a regular group in no time.

well unfortunately that sic fi city was 3 and half hours away from me. haha

Just donated to this KickStarter for a copy of the game once it is funded.  It's only been active 3 days and it's over a third of the way there.  Looks like it's going to be a great game.  Also picked up copies of "It From the Pit" and "Forbidden Bridge" this week to play with the kids:  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/632512774/salem-an-innovative-new-strategy-board-game?ref=search

Hmm, you've stopped by there? :P

Just picked up all of the Dominion expansions except the newest one on cragislist.  Any tips or recommendations?

Played King of Tokyo at my local shop's board game night last week and it was great!  It was very easy to learn and we had lots of fun with it.  The strategy really changes depending on how many players are left.  With lots of players, it doesn't make sense to stay in Tokyo for too long because you will just take damage but with just a few players, if you can hold out, you get the 2VP bonus for starting the turn in Tokyo.  VERY cool game!  We played a friend's copy but I would definitely pick it up if I could find it for a good price.

On a side note I finally broke down and ordered Eclipse.  It's a pretty strategy intense 4X game (imagine multiplayer Civilization in space).  I absolutely can't wait to play it.

I'm a big fan of kids board games, because well.......sometimes you just gotta drink with your friends and dumb it down completely.  I was in Toys R' Us the other day and noticed that they had a game there I have been trying to find for a long time.  Apparently, Loopin' Louie was recently rereleased.  If you don't have a copy, it's easily worth the $20.00.  Great game!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOgi3W3sgcs

I had that game as a kid.  So many hours of fun with that one!

Just picked up Race for the Galaxy and the first expansion, The Gathering Storm.  Also backed Boss Monster on Kickstarter. 

Race for the Galaxy is  card game with mechanics similar to San Juan.  Very excited to play this one.

Played some Survive! this weekend with friends.  I picked the game up at a thrift store a few months ago and this was my first time playing it.  Great game, I highly recommend picking one up.

Survive! is great!  I was honestly blown away.  Relatively simple, but LOTS of fun, also highly recommended!  What kind of deal did you get, Banana?  I think retail is around $40.

I got a few more board games for my birthday this week.  Agricola and Pandemic on the Brink.  Hopefully I'll be able to get a few play sessions in soon but this is my wife's crunch time with her shop so most of my free time is going to be helping her.

I picked an original copy up at a thrift store for $2.26. :)  We've actually played it a few times, since that first night and it is a hit in this house.

Oooh, you lucky dog!

My buddy brought some modern card games over the holidays (I know they're not technically board games but I'll mention them). The first game we played was "Fluxx", which I found to be mediocre, but we were only playing with 2 players and I suspect having more people involved makes it better. We then enlisted my sister to join us for a game of "Saboteur" which was actually very enjoyable.

Later on in the evening, we played my all-time favourite board game called "Hotels". It's a monopoly style game where you actually add buildings to your hotel as you play. It's been my favourite game since I first played it in the late 80's (as it turns out, it's actually quite rare as Milton Bradley only produced one run of it in 1987).

Fluxx is very popular.  My wife and I have Monty Python Fluxx and it's decent enough as a warm up game but I'm with you, it's not my favorite.  Never played Hotels, I'll have to hunt it down.

I received Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catania for Xmas. Really excited about digging into both of those.

Both excellent games.  It really helps to play Settlers with someone who has played before but it's not necessary.  Ticket to Ride is still the best gateway designer board game.

Over the past week I've had the privilege of introducing a handful of people to the absolutely amazing (and probably NSFW) Cards Against Humanity (http://www.cardsagainsthumanity.com). If you've never played this, think Apples to Apples but astonishingly inappropriate. It's not for everyone but it's some of the most fun I've ever had playing a party game.

I like how you say "probably" not safe for work.  It is an awesome party game.  Totally inappropriate, and if you don't mind printing and cutting out the cards yourself, it's free.

Girlfriend got me Space Fluxx, I've played other ones before and I guess she thought I liked it. I'm with you guys though and not crazy about it.

"Probably" not safe for work? We could get away with it in the office. :P

Roommates got a ton of board games for Christmas this year. They got:

Pandemic
Cards Against Humanity (Both expansions...original doesn't come in stock until January 5th)
Smash Up
Nightfall
All expansions for Cosmic Encounters

I've yet to play the Cosmic Encounters expansion, and we haven't tried Nightfall yet (trying it after this post).

Pandemic
4-player co-op experience where you are all working together to find the cures for the 4 major diseases of the world. Even on the Novice level, it's a very intense experience that often results in failure. We often either find ourselves being overrun by outbreaks and running out of infection cubes, or focusing too much on keeping infections down that we run out of Player Cards. Since I saw that Bil got the expansion, we're looking into picking it up as well. Everyone wants me to play the Bioterrorist, since I love playing tactical games and I have no problem with everyone against me. :P

Smash Up
Deck-building game for up to 4 players, though you can combine 2 sets for 8 players. The basic premise is that there are 8 separate decks, each with a different theme - Aliens, Dinosaurs, Ninjas, Pirates, Sorcerers, Tricksters, Zombies, Robots. You pick two and combine them, and try to conquer the various bases. Each base has a value (VP) for the winner, runner-up, and third place person, as well as text for the action when the base is scored. Bases are scored when you exceed the power total, which is calculated based on the power of the minions placed on the base. Each turn, you can play a minion and an action card, and draw two cards at the end of your turn. I've won every game except one so far, where we tied because I failed to read the base text properly numerous times, but Zombie/Robot is utter destruction. There seem to be some errata issues with Pirates, but other than that, it's a great pick-up game.

Cards Against Humanity
Adult version of Apples to Apples. 'nough said that hasn't been said here.

CoolGames, one of our local distributors, just built their flagship store next to the office here, so I'll likely be picking up quite a few more board games now. My co-workers have also been bringing in async card and board games for the office so we can make moves between working and get a game or two completed during the day. Path of Tsuro is an interesting one we've been playing, and I'll make a write-up on that one soon. Also been playing the staples of Carcassone and Fluxx.

Coolest thing about the bio-terrorist is that they are mostly invisible to the rest of the group.  They have a pad where they write down their starting city and keep track of their movement.  When they fly from one city to another, they annouce "the terrorist was spotted in "whatever airport they flew from"  They also become visible when they infect cities with additional cubes. 

Also, as if the game wasn't hard enough already, the exp adds a virulent strain that can do more damage, another epidemic card for a 7 epidemic legendary game, and a 5th disease that behaves differently than the others.  It's my favorite game that I lose more often than I win.

I have a game called Seven Card Samurai that I haven't even gotten a chance to play with anyone. Anyone here play it?

I really, really like Pandemic... I also very much enjoy Cards Against Humanity (though some cards are a little bit topical and will be dated soon). A very similar game I played about a decade before was called Dirty Minds. I preferred that one because it required a bit more creativity on the player's part.

I just tried to buy my own copy of Hotels (the one I played over the holidays belongs to my sister). I thought I made a serious commitment (tossed out a proxy bid that put me in for $70 with shipping). I wasn't even close. It sold for $125.50 + $12.00 shipping. It was kinda depressing.

Played a card game called "The Resistance" which was pretty fun. Sort of a tricky subterfugal deductive reasoning type deal. Only suggest it if you have a 5-6+ group to play with though.

I have a few friends who are loving the Reststance lately.  I think I'm playing it on Wednesday night.

It's funny what a $50 board game shop gift card will do to a person...

I have been completely obsessed with board gaming for the last few months and often neglecting RFG in the process. Thank god this thread exists or I'd have nothing to talk about.

Lately, I have been really into Kingsburg (a really cool dice placement game), the above-mentioned Pandemic and Galaxy Trucker, which might be the best failure simulator I know.

Well I had an interesting Board game night ... first I played Risk, and Then a similar game called Power Barons... I got to say... it is pretty fun to take over the world... ;)

I know exactly how you feel.  I go through phases where I get really into one thing and neglect some of the others for a few weeks.  Tomorrow is a big board game day for my group.  We will be playing lots of stuff.  I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Have you tried Risk Legacy?  Very cool twist on the standard Risk game.  I don't want to spoil anything but the game changes the more you play it.  If you are into world domination, I'd also recommend Fortress America, though it is quite a bit more complicated than RISK.  Game of Thrones the Board game and Eclipse are also great empire expansion/battle games.  Also, War of the Ring.  God, so many great board games.

I had an old Fortress America game I got for a buck at a garage sale. Mostly liked the little figures, and never could get anyone to play with except my six year old sister.

Nice!  I've only played the newer version of Fortress America from 2008 but it is a re-printing of the old game so I think they are pretty similar. Getting people to sit down and play is one of my challenges as well.  It's best to find a local gaming shop that has an open board game night.

I have an as-of-now unopened Risk Legacy box on my board game shelf. I can not wait to get into this.

I am also (hopefully) getting a lot of board gaming done tonight. I will try to post a report/pics as well.

I hope I dont get sucked into space like on the movie, but this is my board game night tonight..

(https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/538728_4683227995461_1184765842_n.jpg)

Just picked up a game from my childhood, Screaming Eagles. Fun, fighter pilot game.

Recently played my first game of Agricola.  Excellent worker placement game that pretty much defines what a Euro is.

Going to try to play X-Wing Minis at Board Game Night tomorrow.  I have all these ships and haven't played yet!

so many obscure board games, i can't think of any that i've played beyond some classics.

I had one called Dogfight that was a World War I fighter pilot game. Shit was legit. Also had one called Broadsides by the same company that was a war of 1812 sea battle game. I should go dig those out.

Most of the great tabletop games are definitely not mainstream games that everyone has heard of but I wouldn't exactly call them obscure either. 

If you are interested, take a look at some of the top rated games on bgg.  http://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame

That site is amazing.

Played my second game of Agricola last night.  Seriously great game. 

Just dropped a little cash on a Kickstarter I wanted to let you guys know about.  I was an English major in undergrad/grad school, so this game is right up my alley. Plus, Moby Dick is my favorite book of all time. The game looks really good, so be sure to check out the trailer (?) as well as the two gameplay videos. Would really love to get this one over the $100,000 mark for the custom dice reach goal.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/827765657/moby-dick-or-the-card-game

Going to be playing my first game of Lords of Waterdeep tonight.  Been looking forward to this one.

Played my first ever game of Munchkin (Zombie Edition) the other day. I very much enjoyed it.

my wife got that one for Christmas and we have yet to play it.  She likes zombies.

I couple of weeks ago I played my first game of Twilight Imperium. The time commitment is pretty crazy, but I found it was entirely worth it. It's seriously incredible.

TI3 has been on my list of things to play for a while now.  It is a huge time commitment but I love epic space games.  You should try Eclipse.

I've heard Eclipse described as a simpler, quicker version of TI. That sounds pretty great, but given enough time and people I think I'd rather just play TI. Perhaps they're less similar than I think, though.

That seems to be the way that TI fans describe Eclipse.  I really think they acre different enough to warrant at least trying the other.

Since moving took some time playing:

Kazume Goddess
Super Dungeon Explore
Boss Monster

Had a pretty good time with all three. Super Dungeon Explore may need some house rules as playing as the "Consul" three times I was never close to winning.

Some of my favorite board games I still have are the Adams Family, pizza party, and monster mash.
I had a cool role playing type one but never had anyone to play with. I would play with the figures myself and look at all the cards. Ill have to see if I still have it.

Are you talking about Heroquest or Dragon Strike? Both great games and Hero Quest still has people making quests for it and for free, so its pretty cool to own a game that has been having expansions being made for it by fans for quite awhile now.

Yes! That's it. Ill have to track down a box. That's so cool

Picked up TI3 in a trade a few weeks ago and read through the rule book.  There are some similarities to Eclipse but I definitely feel that they are different enough to give both a try.

Yeah I have the game too, but I missing 3 of the combat dice. I found some random fantasy miniatures for another game at goodwill the other day, and added them to my game. I think I am going to just make up some stats for them, and add them to some adventures. That is what is so cool about the game, its really easy to add to.

I'll have to check it out. Have you played TI3 yet?

Over the weekend I finally got a chance to take a crack at Space Alert. It is...interesting. I think I might be in love with it.

Tried out Legendary, which is a co-op deck-building Marvel game, and Epic Spell Wars. Legendary was decent for a deck-building type of game, but it's certainly more enjoyable if you're a Marvel fan. Epic Spell Wars is a quick card game where you have to RP your choice of wizard and attempt to construct spells out of cards you draw to defeat the other wizards. Interesting concept for a board game group that likes RP, and very quick to play.

http://www.cryptozoic.com/games/epic-spell-wars-battle-wizards-duel-mt-skullzfyre

Been studying the rulebook, first game most likely in Sept when I can get 6 people over here.

My first couple of games have been with just 3 players, and while it's great I feel like the trade and political things are very limited. I am possibly playing an 8-player game this weekend. If I survive, I'll post my experiences.

So you have the expansions too? I may pick up shattered empire.  I've read it balances the game out really nicely as we'll as fixes a few things with the base game.

Parts of Shattered Empire are pretty much essential. The base set is generally fine, but the original 'Imperial' strategy card is flat-out broken. The cards in SE are a lot more interesting in general. The new races are interesting too, but they're hardly essential. It also enables 8 player games if you're feeling particularly masochistic. Shards of the Throne has a lot of cool stuff too (I REALLY like the flagships), though some of the other stuff it adds isn't as interesting.

But yeah, Shattered Empire makes a great and epic game even greater and more epic.

That's what I've heard about it.  Lots of people played the house rule that Imperial is worth one victory point but the Imperial II card makes it even harder to get a VP which is good.  The first time I read Imperial gives you 2 VPs in a game where it takes 10 VP to win, my first thought was "I bet they ended up changing this" and they did.  I really like the idea of a variant set of Strategy cards to change the entire style of the game.  All in all, pretty excited to get it on the table.

I bought a copy of King of Tokyo and the expansion at a local coffee shop yesterday. Pretty excited about playing this one in my group.

It's a fun little game.  Remember to us your energy to buy abilities, they can be killers.

Ability whore. I make sure to eliminate you first before you get any points. ;)

Have any of you ever played the ludicrous VHS board game Atmosfear (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1881/atmosfear-the-harbingers)? I found a copy of this last week and I'm still beside myself a bit...it was a favorite when I was a kid. I bet I'll find it terrible now and I don't even care. Nostalgia!

Nostalgia! Yes, I have a copy of Screaming Eagles for the same reason. And really want a copy of Krull, though I bet it's terrible.

Tonight got together with some pals and played a card game called Gloom, a round of Settlers of Cataan, and a game I can't think of the name of...It was a co-op game wherein you had to gather four artifacts before the map flooded over. It was OK. I think Cataan is still one of the best board games. Perfect blend of randomness and strategy.

Ah, Forbidden Island is the name. Fun, quick co-op game. Played it a few weeks ago and was so close to a win.

That's it! Yeah, we got down to a last move quandry. Was like, we needed a helicopter to win and one more water rise to lose, and we drew both. Half of us argued that meant we lost because the water rose, but the other half (me included) argued that the helicopter card says "use anytime" therefore we won. So we kind of just left it at that. Was a pretty intense endgame.

Depends on which card you drew first.

Eh that was also part of the argument, the water flipped first but it says draw two cards. Directions just weren't clear enough about order of play.

I believe the directions state that cards are played/acted out in order of the draw. That's the way we play anyway and makes sense. That game is brutal even if you get a good board from the onset. Fun with a good crowd. Love the co-ops.

Last night we played El Grande, which was kind of meh in my opinion. It didn't really click as well as other games.

We also played a round of Last Night on Earth which I thought was pretty fun. The heroes pulled out a very tight win.

Had some friends over on Sunday night and played a round of Formula D. Pretty fun risk/reward dice game.

Last night did a round of Dominion which I lost hard because I thought it was a lot longer game. Then we played Ticket to Ride and I came in third after leading the whole time (didn't take enough routes). Then we played Carcassone and I tied for first.

Played a bunch of Resistance last night. It was my second time playing the game and up until the third round last night I had never been a resistance player (always picked a spy card). I did actually play as resistance twice last night, twice...So out of ~15 rounds of the game I've been a spy 13 times...Someone better at math should do the probabilities of that. Granted you would need the number of players both times, but I don't remember.

attempted to teach my 2 and a half year old niece checkers today. didn't go too badly, she wasn't following the rules very much but that's fine, she seemed to have fun.

Game night tonight! We played a game of El Grande wherein I, realizing I was locked for third no matter what I did, catapulted my girlfriend into first place much to the chagrin of my friend who would have otherwise won.

Then we played Elder Sign, a stupidly complicated but pretty fun co-op game. We barely pulled off a win again Cthulu.

Played "Pandemic" for the first time tonight. None of us had played before, so we started with only 4 epidemic cards in the deck. We actually had no outbreaks the entire game, but still lost due to running out of player cards.  Losing this way sucked and was kind of mind-boggling, but it kind of keyed us into the strategy of the game. Sometimes you just have to let some of the outbreaks occur and develop more research facilities. Fun game, but the more I play co-ops, the more I realize that you are suppose to lose the majority of the time.

I am not super big on Pandemic, especially after playing Flash Point: Fire Rescue (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/100901/flash-lpoint-fire-rescue), which I think does a much better job of creating a fun-but-out-of-control scenario.

If your gaming groups ever get into higher numbers, I also recommend Kickstarting Two Rooms and a Boom (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gerdling/two-rooms-and-a-boom), which looks like a lot of fun as well.

Yeah, we never have groups this big. My typical group is 4-5. I've Kickstarted a few others including Moby Dick (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/827765657/moby-dick-or-the-card-game?ref=live), Drum Roll (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magecompany/drum-roll-the-board-game?ref=live), and Salem (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/632512774/salem-an-innovative-new-strategy-board-game?ref=live).

I've watched some video on Flash Point, but didn't know if it was something my group would be into. I'll do some more research.

Just out of curiosity, are any of you asking for any games for Christmas? And if so, which ones?

Here is my short list:
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Small World
Gloom

Fillers:
Tsuro
Get Bit!

If Rampage is out by then, that's definitely on my list. That looks sweet.

I let my friends buy all these overpriced games :P

Played Kemet for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It's REALLY good.

The wife and I were a little lit after my office party, so we stopped into a local coffee shop that was having game night. We won a game of Forbidden Island together and played about 4 games of Tsuro with some others

Actually pondering buying Lords of Waterdeep. Been playing on my phone and it's a blast.

I Kickstarted this game and just got it in the mail yesterday. I haven't played it yet, but am really happy with the quality and have enjoyed watching the instructional videos the makers posted before and during the campaign. This is my favorite book of all time, so it's really awesome that it was made into a game. I really love the style of the artwork and I think the multiple passages from the book that were used make it all the better.

[img width=700 height=938]http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/y359/necrom99/MD_zps581a8c7f.jpg[/img]

Here is a short gameplay video of a portion of the game. There is much more to it than this, but this will give an idea of what the cards look like and a portion of the gameplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8udhxyJdw4

That's pretty cool looking.

Appears you can buy it for the Kickstarter price for a limited time until January 1st if anyone is interested.

http://www.mobydickgame.com/officialsite/buy/

It's funny, but my family (mom & dad) were never much into board games. My in-laws on the other hand, really enjoy playing games. Mostly card games. My wife's family is going to be up this weekend, so I decided to purchase a copy of "12 Days" a Christmas themed game. I think it's going to go over pretty well and should be a lot of fun.

I grabbed Risk and my old Star Wars Episode 1: Queen's Gambit games from my parents. Played them both with my girlfriend, the Star Wars game is pretty involved and it took us like 5 hours combined playing time to finish. I won but it was pretty close.

Then Risk, two player is always kind of boring, we started playing and I seized N America and the S. Pacific continents in like three turns and I just called it to save us from a bunch of dice rolls while I picked her off the map.

Tsuro is quick but fun.

Played a new game called Rampage last night. The theme is similar to King of Tokyo (giant monsters wreaking havoc), but instead of dice and cards there are physical buildings that you need to knock down. Drop your playing piece onto it, try to blow it over, flick cars at them, etc. It's fantastic.

My girlfriend got a free brand new copy of Carcassone from the coffee shop she works at. The coffee shop is across the street from a hobby/board game shop, and someone came in with the game and just left it. The person didn't come back to claim it for a month so she grabbed it.

We played it last night, good fun.

Also got Lords of Waterdeep, a Chess set, something called Quelfs, and something called Tetris Link for Xmas.

Lords of Waterdeep is a great worker placement game set in the Forgotten Realms world. It's a really solid game, easy to learn and easy to play. Best of all, the hundreds of pieces that come with it are all fitted into the board and not just in little random baggies.

Ya'll know Chess.

Haven't played Quelfs yet, it looks kind of like a Cranium knock off.

Tetris Link is kind of like connect four but seems to have relied more on selling to people who recognized tetris than on making gameplay interesting. Also, it would be better if it played the tetris theme.

The wife got me several games for Christmas including Small World, Gloom, and Tsuro.

a friend bought me an official Battlestar Galactica board game for christmas that we finally sat down to actually try out over this past weekend. took forever to get all the setup and rules sorted out because we kept getting sidetracked by unrelated conversation, but once we figured everything out it seemed really good. it's semi cooperative, everyone starts as human and you all want to survive to reach the planet Kobol together, but at the same time one of you (or more if it's 4+ people play) could be a cylon. the person who's a cylon knows they are via "loyalty cards" that each person gets face down, so no one else knows who might be the cylon (if anyone). there's also a sleeper agent element where it's possible someone who was human could "become" cylon. so a lot of suspicious and subtlety involved, just like the show. i highly recommend it even if you haven't seen the show before, though that really adds to it obviously.

A buddy and I are trying to get a game night going where we play board games and tabletop RPGs and wargames. I have some tabletops and a couple board games, but I just got this in the mail from Amazon. Picked it up for about half off its regular price too, and the box is huge!

[img width=700 height=525]http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g436/gpro83/20140325_174638_zpsrtbo1umz.jpg[/img]

Cleaned out a few boxes with old boardgames in them.

More standard kind of stuff on my end.

Recently played
Phase10 - My cousin said she was going to cut off my face when i finished a phase and went out before anyone got to draw a card. We like this game.

Life - Insurance is for suckers! Next spin house is destroyed by tornado.

Trivial Pursuit Jr. - Are Zebras black with white stripes or white with black stripes? Probably 10% of the questions in here still could stump us. So we rifled through the deck trying to stump each other.

Monopoly Jr - from the 90s not sure if the new version is any different. WAY shorter than Monopoly + basic math and reading as added bonus for the kids.

Sorry - thankfully was an easy transition from Trouble since they have the same basic rules. Again added bonus of being forced to read cards. Added bonus for me of no goddamn die popper.



Thinking about getting Cards Against Humanity/expansions for the next get together at my aunts.

Picked up CAH and all expansions. Should be here in time for Easter :D

Have played CAH a couple times now. It is tons of fun.

Got Boggle, Uno and Munchkin yesterday as gifts.

Munchkin i have actually played once before but i don't remember it going over too well. I think it was largely due to a group who wasn't really interested in learning the rules and the owner not being very familiar with the game and making things more confusing.

There are a few things in life that I'd like to accomplish at some point and one of those is designing and printing my own board game. About a year ago, I came up with a pretty great idea for one and have been gradually been working on it since. I have several friends who like to come over and play and there is an especially good and trusted friend who I have confided with on my idea. I've already hashed out a draft of a rule sheet, created some specialty dice, drawn up plans for a board, and even designed some cards for a prototype deck. I was stuck concerning one part of my game (the map movement) until about a week ago and once I figured that out, I have now hit full stride in finishing a prototype. This game is still very, very young and I know will change with multiple gameplay. My wife and I intend on playing it with my buddy and his wife (3-4 player game) several times until we feel it is good enough to share, and then maybe create some more prototypes to try out at a local board game night. Again, it's going to be some time before we get to this latter point, but if any of you guys are in game groups, I might consider letting some of you try it out so that I can get some feedback.  

Also, if anyone has created their own board game, or know someone who has, I'd like to bend your/their ear about cost and how to go about creating it. I have a buddy who teaches art at a college and I am trying to work at incorporating an art project with him for his students to find an artist for the game. My thought is that this would be the cheaper way to go and might help a student increase his/her portfolio. Interested to hear you guys thoughts on this.

I have a couple co-workers who are quite familiar with the process that I can ask.

That would be awesome! Any contact they might have or general ideas about how much funding I might need to start would be great.

Ooh! Is it a pinball-based board game? What I wouldn't give to see that!

Meanwhile: I'm still playin' my electronic Advanced Missions Battleship game from time to time. And if there's anyone out there who's up for a little Scrabble or UpWords, please let me know. Don't be intimidated by the fact that I was my middle school's two-time spelling bee champ...

Ha, ha! No, not pinball themed, but that's one hell of an idea. :)

That really should be something you should take a shot at, just to see if it would work. Judging from what I heard in the latest CollectorCast, you'd be the best person to figure it out. Probably gonna need a Kickstarter campaign to fund such an endeavor, though.

Your roll would dictate the path taken by the ball.....hmmmm. Has some promise.

Sounds very RPG'ish. Not sure it would work as turn-based one, and it might be too fast-paced to be RTS.

Would you have to do a roll for how many times you hit the pops at the top of the field, and a roll for how many points per hit?

Touch base with the woman who just did(or tried to do) Cads Against Matrimony. (I read about it via twitter.) It was only a card game spoof of CAH so pricing would probably be different for a full blown board game but she seemed to have it all figured out. Believe she already had full prototypes and was just seeking funding for final printings.

We'll talk about this more off the record. If not, we might have to start sending out assassins.
[img width=486 height=394]http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/auberginefleur/imgs/a/f/afe23a03.jpg[/img]

A game for cads who are against matrimony? Count me in!

Seriously Rich - just give me the board game version of the screenshot. I'd play that all day. I SPENT A SUMMER PLAYING THE NEUTERED SNES VERSION.

Hey now,

Just picked up Stick the IRS, a locally-produced board game from the early '80s.


[img width=700 height=391]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/irsgame1_zps3c5f0e34.jpg[/img]

[img width=500 height=555]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/irsgame2_zps8cdf0119.jpg[/img]


While I thought the game's premise was novel, the object of sheltering as much of your income as possible from "the man" sounds like it'd make a boring game. But hey, who knows.

Oh, and another thing:

[img width=504 height=250]http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y409/Zagnorch/irsgame3_zps4fe188ce.jpg[/img]


'Late

Found this for $1.50, I was really hoping it was rarer, but only ranging between 20-30 bucks depending on condition. Everything is here and the box is in great shape, but there are a few stickers from all the stores it has been in over the years.

1965 original release Trouble board game

[img width=700 height=418]http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m232/Scott_Breaze/WP_20140616_002_zps852f1d32.jpg[/img]

That is an awesome box! Great find.

Thanks, man.  :P

Capcom approved a Mega Man board game, and it looks nice so far.

http://www.gamnesia.com/news/mega-man-card-game-approved-by-capcom-and-progressing-nicely1

Had some friends over last night and taught them how to play two new games. We played each game two times. The first one was Survive!, which is a game from the 80's that was remade not long ago. Also played a few rounds of For Sale, which is a fun filler game (10-15 minutes).

Monopoly or bust!

Did anyone get any new board games for Christmas? The wife got me a copy of Tokaido and Once Upon A Time.

Finally got to enjoy a board game night with the Crabmaster and another good guy named Mike, who lords over the high scores on Crabby's Time Crisis II arcade cab. Anyways, I brought over 2 D&D games: Wrath of Ashardalon and the classic Dungeon!. I hadn't played Dungeon! in probably 25 years, and had been itching to play my 2012 edition, that I had purchased a couple years ago. We started out with a quick round of a Trivial Pursuit card game first, then we played Dungeon!  It was a good couple rounds of that, as its a very easy, basic, intro to the classic D&D dungeon crawl. I lost both games miserably, but I blame that largely on a gross misunderstanding of one rule, that none of us figured out until almost the end.

After 2 games of that, we decided to have Crabby take us through a new card game, that he sold me from his store. Boss Monster. Boss Monster is a cool card game where the object is for the players to draw a Boss card, build your dungeon, than lure heros into your dungeon and kill them! The cards are cool looking, with the art done in classic pixelated side-scroller art, with subtle nods to some familiar game villians. The player that kills the most hero's and is wounded the least, Wins! I also got my ass handed to me after two rounds, as I was trying to just figure the game out, and wasn't able to develop any kind of strategy. We never did get to play the other game, as it was getting late and Crabby was forgoing any kind of sleep, to play with us before he had to work his other job. Trooper!

At any rate, all three of us had a blast, and we have another board game night (tentatively) planned for in another two weeks.

Had another Tabletop night with the Crabmaster again, last night. We played Wrath of Ashardalon, for the second consecutive tabletop night, and again, got our asses handed to us.

After that we played, Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre. Awesome card and dice game that was super easy to pick up and very fun to play. Another game to add to my collection.

Ahhhhh. I really want this game, but it's rather pricey right now. I think it's OOP. Sincerely, Fey Tickle Bottom

Epic Spell Wars was fun to play. I've had a turn at it once.

They played it on TableTop a few weeks ago if anyone is interested in seeing how it works.

I played as Krazznar too, but didn't use the same voice as Wil Weaton.

Talk to Crabby, man!

Played Sheriff of Nottingham on Thursday night, with Crabby and our other semi-regular tabletop gamers. Quick fun game, involving bluffing. I lost. lol. After that we played my new Legend of Drizzt game, which plays exactly like Wrath of Ashardalon, with a couple minor differences.

I have Sheriff on my Amazon list. Ended up having Crabby sending me a copy of Spell Wars. ;). We are having friends over tonight to game, so I'll report back.

Played two more games, that I had never played before tonight. Crabby brought both. First up, was Tokaido. The first time I watched Tokaido being played, on an episode of Tabletop, I couldn't be less interested. The basic premise of going for a walk from one end of Japan to another, while trying to maximize your whole experience along the way, seemed like such a boring pursuit. But then I watched the episode again with less distractions so I could focus more on the game, and it started to hook me a little.

Happy to say, that I enjoyed my Tokaido experience, and will probably add it to my collection at some point.

To mix things up, we played a game of....... Redneck Life!!! This is a screwed up take on the game of LIFE This game was so awesome in terms of hilarity, that I feel the need to add it to my collection. To give examples of how humorous this game was, my player was named Cletus Lee and my profession was monster truck announcer, which paid $320 per payday. My first wife was named Mary Beth, until I got a divorce, then married Bertha Sue. By the games end, I had one daughter named Dottie Jane, and nine sons named Darryl. Oh, and the winner was determined by the most teeth, which turned out to be a total of 19!! I was dead last. I think I had like 14 teeth left or something.

I got a copy of Tokaido from the wife for Christmas. Glad to hear that you enjoyed it.

Redneck Life? I dunno. Probably based on a few of my relatives and would hit too close to home. ;)

Went to dinner at my folks place last night. I brought along Batman Love Letter, Samurai Spirit, Zombie Dice, and Tsuro. My old man LOVED Tsuro and Zombie Dice. Got out the other two games, dad saw them and said: "Let's play more Zombie Dice." lol I knew dad would love Tsuro, as he is a big, Chinese Checkers fan (Those two games are nothing alike but they are both simplistic in play with a bit of strategy) . I ended up trying to play a solo round of Samurai Spirit, but got tripped up in a rule. Waiting to play a quick round on game night Thursday, with Crabby, so he can take us through a round or two (he played it with friends last weekend)

Tsuro and Zombie Dice are great in-between breaks (10-15 min max) if you're playing larger games. I own them both, along with Get Bit!, for this reason.

In this case, they were time killers before more company arrived, and the game playing ended :( My folks are big card players with their friends, playing for a few hours at a time, sometimes. Quick and easy games are their favorite.

 We used to play a great board game called Rat Race by Waddington games. Only problem is, my dad got so good at it, that he started winning almost every game and it became no fun anymore. lol. I am looking to get a vintage (1980) copy. Exact version I had as a kid. Going to subject the guys at my tabletop group to it someday.

Legend of Drizzt is awesome, especially if you've at least read the Icewind Dale trilogy.

Does Graphic Novel form count?

That's a great game!

I will be getting Temple of Elemental Evil at the end of this month or beginning of MAY! Look forward to seeing that one, as they seem to make small improvements over the previous games.

Temple of Elemental Evil is a classic D&D mod. Glad to hear its getting a board game treatment. I am interested in how it might play. The mod was very difficult, I hope they keep it that way.

I am hoping for as difficult as the other games. I am willing to bet that, Zuggtmoy will be the big bad boss, for this one.

Another awesome night with Crabby and our fellow regular Thursday night group members. This time we played Betrayal at House on the Hill, to kick things off.

I knew I would like this game, based on the the episode I watched of Tabletop. Besides, it's Wizards of the Coast. Pretty solid game company, owned by the almighty Hasbro. Anyways, this game sort of has an adventure feel to it, similar to the D&D games I have played, but plays quite a bit differently. It is cooperative until a certain gameplay mechanic, causes an event to be triggered, which (I believe) always causes a player to become a traitor to the group. 30 scenarios are included with the core game. I am a little bummed that I didn't get to be the traitor, but me and Crabby survived and won the game, so that was awesome.

Next up we played Samurai Spirit. Initially when I heard the premise of this game, I was brimming with enthusiasm. Seven Samurai (1-7 players) must defend a village protected by barriers and containing: 6 houses and 3 families. Every player must survive 3 days to win. We died on the second day. I liked this game, but it didn't quite resonate the same way, that Tokaido did. It was also a bit tricky and frustrating to understand the rules/objectives at first. I would like to try it again at some point.

And lastly, the guy that hosts our Thursday game nights, agreed to sell me his sealed copy of Cards against Humanity...for $10!!! I just checked the exchange rate and that's under $8 US!!! So it was the perfect excuse to break the seal and play that sucker. Very amusing game and well worth the $10.

I also have Betrayal at House on the Hill and it is also one of our favorites. We've had some really good games and some poorer ones and this seems to basically be based on the strength of the haunting. Pretty cool game and plays like 2 separate games. I'm really glad they went back and did another run of this game, because copies were selling for around $120 at one time.

Cards Against Humanity is our go to for nights with our more non-geeky board game crowd. Always seems to unveil how twisted some of your friends are and you really learn a lot about them. Fun game if you have the right crowd (aka. people with a darker sense of humor) :)

You got me interested in Samurai Spirit. I did not know it was based upon Seven Samurai.  Can you explain in detail what was wrong with it.  Would like to see about getting the game, but only if it is not totally broken.

I wouldn't say anything was wrong with it. I think our group was just a bit too rushed when we played, and it seemed like a struggle to figure it out from the get-go.

Alright, good to know. Will keep a look out for it next time, I go to the gaming store

I watched a video of the game and really like the mechanics. I ordered it from Amazon today. Surprisingly, a cheap title. :)

I missed out on Fiasco last night due to work. I have/had no interest in this game, until Crabby and the other guys in my gaming group played last night. Crabby told me about how the game went down, and I am still on the fence, but a little more interested than I was before. Just not sure how I feel about a story telling game.

Next Thursday shall be: Small World and Munckin Deluxe. I love my tabletop night.

A group of 6 of us played Samurai Spirit last night more the first time. We are all pretty decent board gamers and strategists when it comes to coop games, so we decided to play on "Normal" instead of setting up for "Easy." Before playing, I hooked up my laptop to our TV and we all watched a tutorial. I watched it a few times prior and also watched a series of playthroughs for the game. The mechanics of the game weren't all that difficult, but understanding the strategy surrounding the game is pretty complex. Like many coop games, there are multiple ways to fail, but there is only one condition that has to be met to win (save one farm and one group of villagers). The game consists of three rounds and gets progressively harder as you lose more and more barriers/farms to invaders and villagers when you don't meet all of your defense requirements.

Needless to say, we made it to the third round last night, but still had a little less than a half a stack of invader cards remaining before we failed. We lost a good deal of barriers (6) in the first round and had whittles down to two farms and an additional barrier (villager bonus) before the start of the third round. As a result of trying to keep our barriers and farms alive, we lost a samurai and thus, lost the game. Nevertheless, we all enjoyed the game and are really looking forward to playing again after getting our feet wet.

Two takeaways: filling your defense conditions early each round and keeping barriers/farms up in the first two rounds is key. I think that we were so worried about keeping our samurai alive, that we did not do enough to protect our defenses. This is definitely a game of give and take at the right time, but there is also quite a bit of luck (in the draw of the cards) involved. Another thing we will do is add the 7th samurai and just ghost play it. Since it's a coop game anyway and we make all decisions together, it can't hurt to play the game as it is suppose to be played. It also helps to have all of the special abilities of each samurai available.

Sounds like you made a good go out of it. Crabby and I enjoyed it as well but unfortunately, two out of four in our regular group, have expressed a firm lack of desire to play this one again. They didn't like the strategy, which as you said, is complex.

We played Small World (which every one of us loved) and Munchkin Deluxe. Both games were well received, and I will be acquiring a copy of Small World from Crabby, when he is a vendor at our first ever Pop Culture Convention, dubbed Northern Fan Con.

Our group is actually sitting down this Thursday to play Settlers of Catan. Two of our group (myself included) have never played Catan before. We would like a crash course in the game, as there is going to be a local tourney set up, during FanCon.

I've owned Catan for a year and a half. Still in the wrapper. Love to play it.

Catan is a great game.  Open it.

Betrayal is another great game.  Great story and it changes every time.  You never know who the betrayer is.

Yeah, I know it's a great game, but we only have people over for board games about once a month. My buying of games (like video games) overextends my playing of them. Plus, people get a little annoyed when you play new games all the time and would like to replay others, since you have to spend a good deal of time going over and figuring out the rules. I will certainly get around to playing it tough. My Small World and Carcassonne are also still sealed.

Sorry, our conversation reminded me of this and I had to post it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-thbQlaMIc

That sucks about only getting together to Tabletop once a month. So far, our small group of 4, are very enthusiastic about our Thursday game night. Its really nice for me, cause I am single and live alone, so I look forward to my one game night a week. Couldn't ask for a better group really. It seems like every week, one of us will say at the end of the night: "I really like these Tabletop nights!"

So far we have played something new every time. This serves another purpose though. Crabby is doing market research.

Yeah, it is what it is. My kids are pretty active in sports, friends are in bands or have other commitments, and my family lives out of town and visits often. No time during the week to tabletop, so have to make the best of it. I'd love to play more of course and I'm happy my wife really digs it. Looking forward to playing with Bil, Floyd, Duke, and fingers crossed, Crabby in October.

So I enjoyed Catan. I would like to play more to develop a decent strategy, cause one game did not prepare me for the tournament I entered a couple weeks back.

Last week we played Lords of Waterdeep. I really enjoyed this game (maybe not quite as much as Crabby; he didn't finish dead last) and I am glad I purchased that one on a whim. One thing I feel I need to start doing in my gaming, is be more competitive. I am completely non-competitive by nature, but unfortunately, that causes me to lose at a lot of games and forces my interest elsewhere. That is why I love the D&D adventure system games. Because they focus more on co-operative play.

This past Thursday we did Arkham Horror. I liked this game, but it also left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Generally, when I sit down to a tabletop game, I am expecting an hour to 3 hours max to finish. With a new group that had never played this game before, it took us 5 hours to get to a midway point in the game. I understand that new games have a learning curve adjustment when you first play, but 5 hours!?!  I was actually bored and ready to play something else at the 3 hour mark. It just never felt like this game took off. It seemed like we spent 5 hours trying to figure out what makes this game so appealing.

I will give Arkham Horror another chance, at a later date, when I have 8 hrs to spare to play a round. In the meantime, give me ANY of the D&D adventure board games, Small World, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, or even Tokaido, instead. I wish I could play one of those games every week.

Sounds like this week will be: Conquest of Nerath, which from all reviews I have read, is a D&D skinned version of Axis & Allies.

Arkham Horror and Waterdeep are both great games.

Lately, it's either X-Wing Miniatures or Heroclix.

Played Legends of Andor last night with a group of friends. Really fun, it also had a really nice tutorial that helps you learn the game a lot faster

Believe it or not, I played Catan last week for the  first time. Fun game and will definitely play it again.  Like Mike said, I'm interested in getting better and developing a strategy.