Board Games: Favorites. Recent Plays. Regrets. Quick Reviews. Etc.

Discussion in 'Geek Cave: Computers, Tablets, HT, Phones, Games' started by imackler, Sep 7, 2016.

  1. imackler

    imackler Key Lime Pie Infected Aberdeen Wings Spy

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    Sure, there are whole forums devoted to board games. But they're massive. And I like you guys.

    I have a bunch of euros, though not as many as I did once. I've sold a bunch, especially when we needed adoption funds! The two games I regret selling the most are Notre Dame by Stefan Feld and El Grande. El Grande is an amazing game. Glad to see it reprinted. I also regret letting go of Race for the Galaxy. Impressed my wife liked that as much as she did.

    I enjoy the same games as lots of you board gamers. Some lesser known favorites are the Year of the Dragon and Gates of Loyang, which is a fun two player. Stone Age is sadly one of our most played games... we can get guests to play it, though, so i keep it around.

    I've tried wargames like Combat Commander, etc. and though I wish I loved them, I just don't have the time. Recently, I'm thinking about getting back into Memoir 44 (yeah, definitely not a real war game). I've owned almost all the Memoir 44 stuff in the past; same thing with Battlelore. But honestly, its not fun if you buy everything. There are too many parts and you spend all the time sorting them. That's true of lots of games now.

    Most recently I played Castles of Burgundy and really liked it. Also tried Star Realms with my wife. I'm meh on it so far. Looking forward to opening 7 Wonders: Duels next.

    Recent find: I found a guy on Craigslist who had a bunch of stuff for sale: Eclipse (not the movie, fortunately); Mage Knight (not the heroclix thing, fortunately); Runewars (w/ the mountains!); Descent (2nd Edition base set with all the 1st Edition figures and conversion cards) and War of the Ring (1st Edition). There were some expansions, too, but he ditched the boxes on those. Oh well. Not sure what of that I'll keep yet. The boxes are too big to ship! Playing Imperial Assault recently made me want to try Descent, since Imperial Assault is supposed to be a derivative in a Star Wars theme.

    Oh yeah, smart alec, you know who you are: I'm not talking about monopoly or parcheesi. (Though, come to think of it, I have a lot of fondness for both of those games.)

    Anyone else out there?
     
  2. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    I've really enjoyed Legendary Encounters. It's a deck-based board game where the players cooperate to achieve certain goals and overcome obstacles/defeat enemies. The game is based on the Alien films and you play through the plots of each movie. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of it with my friends because the deck element adds some randomness to it, and there are modifier cards so you can adjust the gameplay.
     
  3. SoupRKnowva

    SoupRKnowva Official SBAF South Korean Ambassador

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    Ive got some favorites, but dont get to play nearly as often as I would like to. My friends that I used to play with live in Seattle now.

    Puerto Rico is easily my favorite euro game, but i also enjoy quite a few others, like Race for the Galaxy or Dominion, which is an excellent non-collectible deck building game.
     
  4. imackler

    imackler Key Lime Pie Infected Aberdeen Wings Spy

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    Puerto Rico is almost the only game you'd never need, if only it played 2 well. Race for the Galaxy, on the other hand, does.
     
  5. Pyruvate

    Pyruvate Friend

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    I've acquired a pretty large game collection over the years: Agricola, Dominion, 7 Wonders, Castles of Burgundy (similar mechanics to Stone Age), Arkham Horror, Pandemic, Runewars, Small World... Just to name a few. I need to recheck with my brother who currently has them.

    @imackler Descent is a great game. I have the original. It's a nice dungeon crawler (like D&D) without all the complicated rules. I recommend you trying it next.
     
  6. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Settlers of Catan was the game of choice in my social group for a while until the spite and rage built up to intolerable levels.
     
  7. TRex

    TRex Almost "Made"

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    Very true. Once I had a round with anther person; we finished in over an hour. Too long to the point of ragequit.
     
  8. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I actually find the game most fun with relative newbies, before they've had time to built up resentment o_O

    Best win I've ever had: got stuck early on with 3 points having upgraded one settlement to a city but getting boxed in. I couldn't even get enough ore at any one time to upgrade the other settlement, so I just sat there buying dev cards the entire game while everyone else fought and stalled out around 8-9 points. By this point I've actually purchased 4 victory point cards, and I notice I'm within grasp of the longest road card as the longest is only 5 and I had 4 from my initial placement. So I trade for some clay which I've had none of all game, play road-building for 2 points and snake out to the desert where no one else has built and drop a settlement, show 4 victory points, boom and done. |\/|
     
  9. zonto

    zonto Friend

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    Not huge into board games, but hung out last weekend with some friends that were. We played Ticket to Ride: Europe, and it was pretty sweet. Saw a few of the other games mentioned in this thread in their closet.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2016
  10. SanjiWatsuki

    SanjiWatsuki Friend

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    Mage Knight is the best game that I'll never play with my gaming group. It just takes entirely too long to play with a group. I love the game mechanics, though.
     
  11. imackler

    imackler Key Lime Pie Infected Aberdeen Wings Spy

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    Have you tried it solo? I heard its one of the best...
     
  12. SanjiWatsuki

    SanjiWatsuki Friend

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    I haven't actually played it solo yet. The only times I've played has been with my girlfriend, who also loves the game. It's just such a time commitment of a game that we normally opt for other games in the collection.
     
  13. vtrinidad87

    vtrinidad87 New

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    For years I've had a fondness for Bang!, a Spaghetti Western card game that's pretty easy to get going, once the rules are sorted out, and it's always good for some laughs as well (e.g., "I'm going to Bang [shoot]...you!").
     

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