What's the last board game you played?


Windseeker
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Hi Anatess, 

 

Your family might enjoy Pandemic. It's been mentioned on this thread. In that game you and the other players play different characters with different skills all trying to prevent a disease from spreading over the world. It's pretty fun from what I have heard. There are many cooperative games that are very satisfying. 

 

Here are some others - 

 

Ghost Stories

Flashpoint

Mysterium (a new one I have on preorder)

Samurai Spirit
Robinson Crusoe

Eldritch Horror

Shadowrun:Crossfire

 

The only cooperative games I have now are Hanabi and Dead of Winter

 

In Hanabi you play with your cards facing outward so everyone can view everyone else s cards and no one is able to view their own. On a turn you either give a hint (limited) or place\draw a card. The goal is to build the best fire works display together. 

 

Dead of winter is semi-cooperative because one person could be a traitor. You can play without a traitor and make if fully cooperative if you want. In that game you are trying to survive a Zombie Apocalypse. 

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This summer the wind has betrayed me and left me stranded on the beach with a gun in my hand, staring at the sea, starting at the sand. J/K about the gun part. Needless to say it's been horrible. 
 
So it got me looking for a new hobbie. Since my hobbies have up till now have been too extreme for my kids, I've been searching for a way to spend more time doing something a little more engaging and interactive. 
 
Enter board gaming. 
 
I've never been a fan of board games (Monopoly, Sorry, etc..). But these new games are allot of fun and can be deeply satisfying. 
 
I also have a theory that with the overwhelming increase in online social activity and online gaming we seem to missing the face to face interaction as well as opportunities to engage senses other than sight and sound. This is one of the reasons I believe that board gaming has had such a dramatic increase this year.  Plus it engages your brain in ways that online gaming doesn't. It's much more strategic and requires more engaging interaction. 
 
Look at the rise in attendees at board game conventions, they actually went down in the early 90-2000 (which I believe can be attributed to the rise in online gaming) but then all the sudden it just took off around 2005. (GenCon)
 
300px-Gen-Con-Attendance.svg.png
 
Anyway I started my collection and here it is so far listed from light to heavy board/card games. 
 
Dixit
Love Letter - Hobbit
Hanabi
Ticket to Ride 
Summoner Wars
King of Tokyo
Resistance Avalon
Coup
Hive Pocket Edition
Splendor
Mysterium 
Sheriff of Nottingham
7 Wonders
Dominion
Lords of Waterdeep (w/Skullport Expansion)
Castles of Mad King Ludwig
Five Tribes
Dead of Winter
Castles of Burgundy
Roll for the Galaxy
Agricola
 
I'm pretty happy with most of them. I don't honestly know how to play them all well...I went a little crazy in starting my collection. But I have played most of them. 
 
My family loves Resistance Avalon which is bluffing game and handles a large group really well. My 12 year old loves playing King of Tokyo. I've been trying to wrap my brain around Agricola and have played a couple solo plays and think I'm ready to introduce it to my wife.
 
So what are your favorite board games and what was the last game you played?

 

impressive.

The last one I played was either Battletech or Zombies. Both are really good.

I highly recommend these titles:

Checkers

Chinese Checkers

Chess (and I would really really really really siggest getting the Knightmare Chess cards which modify the original game)

Stratego

Go (really easy to learn, very hard to master.. favor in this game will flip on a dime) - awesome game

Kings Court (a really fun board game.. very distantly related to checkers)

othello

mexican train Dominoes

Uno

Risk (personally i've enjoyed Risk 2210 of the modern variations, but the Lord of the rings, Halo, and War of the Gods variants are also real good.)

once you've done risk you need to try Axis and Allies classic.

Munchkin - fun card game.... hilarious if you catch any of the stuff it's poking fun at.

Zombies

Carcassonne (It's spelt weird pretty sure I've mangled it)

Loot

The Farming game.

Laser Chess

of the more complicated tabletops;

Heroscape

Battletech

Battlespace

 

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How could I ever have forgotten to mention BATTLESHIP!

 

Yes, wars have been fought at my house over this game.  Several of which is someone waging war against the family for yet again losing one of the ships... to the family dog.

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...Risk (personally i've enjoyed Risk 2210 of the modern variations, but the Lord of the rings, Halo, and War of the Gods variants are also real good.)

once you've done risk you need to try Axis and Allies classic.

I actually enjoyed Castle Risk more than traditional Risk. (Looks like I should have kept my old copy. It is currently selling for $150.)

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I actually enjoyed Castle Risk more than traditional Risk. (Looks like I should have kept my old copy. It is currently selling for $150.)

cool well looking at the wiki on it.. it really looks like the biggest difference it introduces compared to the other variants is the hidden armies rule. the capitol rule strictly as it is in castle risk isn't used in other variants so far.

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I've also enjoyed LIFE, Monopoly, mancala, Magic the gathering (warning on that some of the pictures can be a bit extreme), Cranium (combination of trivia, picitonary, charades, and a couple other good ones), apples to apples.

 

Last night I broke out Five Tribes and played with my daughter (19) and nephew (14). It was allot of fun. It uses the Mancala mechanic to great effect with a nice colorful theme. I would highly recommend this one. We are planning on playing again now that we know the game a bit better. 

 

five%20tribes%20photo.jpeg

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Although it is not a board game, we recently bought a used Family Feud game for our old Nintendo Wii. (The Wii typically does little more than gather dust in our home, other than streaming Netflix for us.)

 

We tried the game this weekend as a family and were pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was.

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Although it is not a board game, we recently bought a used Family Feud game for our old Nintendo Wii. (The Wii typically does little more than gather dust in our home, other than streaming Netflix for us.)

 

We tried the game this weekend as a family and were pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was.

 

If we include not-technically-board games...

 

My family can get super cut-throat over the Karaoke game... we have this Magic Mic karaoke that gives a score at the end of the song... it can also randomly select songs to sing to if we want to make it more challenging.

 

Yes, I've contemplated signing my kids up for Killer Karaoke.  They are very competitive karaoke singers and love snakes!

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Another really fun game is BANG! (card game). needs at least 4 people, who assume different character types that vye for a different goal; Sheriff, deputy, outlaws, and a rogue. The sheriff has to eliminate the outlaws and the rogue, the deputy has to make sure the sheriff survives, the outlaws have to eliminate the sheriff, and the rogue has to be the last man standing.

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We love Bang! When we play with my cousins and siblings we even break out the cap guns, bandannas, and any other old wear dress up gear we have around. I'm pretty sure a lot of the decision making that went into my nephew's recent cowboy-themed 2nd birthday was to get more of these items, and other accessories for the game. It has been suggested that his older brother's birthday in December should have a medieval theme, no doubt influenced by another favorite game, "the great Dalmuti."

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If you don't mind having a deck of face cards (or poker cards) there are tons of games that can be played with set of those.

 

 

My cousin and I came up with a nice variation of the popular "War" which made it more interesting and a lot less flat, and actually requires a little bit of strategy. mainly for 2 people.

Numericals are = to their face value, Jacks = 11, queens = 12, kings = 13, and aces = 14
The idea is to win battles by having numerical superiority, when you win a battle you get the opposing players cards involved in that battle. The ultimate goal is to gain all your opponent's cards.

there will be 6 fields for cards to be in, in front of a player (7 if you count the hand); Draw pile, discard pile, the Pot, and three battle fields (flank, center, and second flank which are based on how you put down army piles in relation to each other).

to start off, divide a deck evenly between 2 players.
Then both players draw a card for a bid which is done after every war is resolved. The bid will alternate between high and low (if it was high last time then this time it is low) between wars. The first bid is high, so whoever draws the highest card wins the bid (or if it is a low bid, whoever draws the lowest card for subsequent plays). Both bid cards are then put into that players "Pot" pile. if both cards are a tie then they both are put in the pot pile and new cards are redrawn to decide the bid (repeat this action if both cards are again a tie).

Once a bid is won, then you prepare for the war, which will be 3 groups of army cards facing off against each other. The winning bid card will decide how many army cards you will draw for your army in the war- you draw as many cards as the winning card equals, and these go to your hand. At this point  you can look at the cards in your hand and you will have to decide how you want to divide up your cards into 3 separate army groups, the only exception will be if the winning bid was the 2 card, in which case you will only have 2 armies. Or when you only have 2 cards left, even after shuffling in your discard pile.

After both players have decided how to divide their armies, the player who lost the bid will place his first army group facedown first into the battlefield . then the player who won the bid places their first group. after the first placement, it goes back to the player who lost the bid to place their second army group which is then placed to the left or the right side of the first placed army (the player can choose either side). The other player then does the same thing with their second group (however it should be noted that the player does not have to choose the same side to place theirs that the other player chose).
Repeat for the third and final army group (it can be placed to one or the other side of the previous two armies).
It should be noted that there has to be at least 1 card in each of the 3 army groups. (save for when there are only 2 cards to put down)
 

once all 3 armies are down in the battlefield, there should be 3 piles facedown in a row in front of each player, each pile is considered to be in a battlefield (going from left to right); Left, Center, and Right. At this point the battles need to be resolved.

 

Resolve battles by flipping over army piles related battlefields (center faces off against the opposing center battle, and left will face off against the other player's right battlefields and vice versa) and comparing the total numerical value of the cards, the highest sum total in a battle wins that battle. The bid winner gets to decide which battle to flip over first (one side or another or the center) and resolve.
The winner of a single battle takes the cards from both the winning pile and the losing pile, of that battle only (other 2 battles still need to be resolved and can have different outcomes).
If a battle results in a tie then all the cards involved go to the players pot piles.
once the first battle is resolved, then resolve the second and third battles.

If a player wins at least 2 battles, they win that war, and receive all the cards in all players' pot piles. However if neither player wins the war then the cards in the pot pile stays in the pot pile until a war can be won. Even if a player does not win the War they do get to keep any cards they won in a battle (both theirs and their opponents)

A war is resolved once all battles have been resolved and the players who have one 1 or more battles have received the cards from those battles, and if they have won the war, received all the cards in the pot piles.
At this point put all the cards won from the war (both battles and pots) into the discard pile.
 
Once a war is resolved start the process over again with a new Bid draw (remember that if the last bid was for high then the new bid will be for lowest, or vice versa).

once a player runs out of cards to draw, shuffle the discard pile and put it in the draw pile. If a player has no cards they can put into a battle they lose.
 

 

 

------------------------ if you want to do this with more than 2 people, one rule needs to change; when comparing battlefields instead of having one players left battle facing off against the other player's right battlefield it should change to left facing off of everyone's left battlefield and right battlefield facing off against everyone elses right battlefield.

 

Edited by Blackmarch
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Memoir 44 and Carcasonne again.

 

Currently my gaming collection is on hold for two years until we purchase a home, which is fine because it's pretty large.A Memoir 44 is on my short list and it bums me out that I didn't get it because I'm re-watching Band of Brothers. Since I don't have a war game I had pre-ordered Blood Rage which is a Viking themed game and looking forward to playing that.

 

Friend of mine has Carcasonne Big Box and I really enjoyed it. The only thing I struggled with was calculating scores at the end of the game. With 5 players it took a long time.  

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I'm shocked and offended at the lack of mentions of Settlers of Catan! It's a cut throat one though, dealing with resources and trading.

I once played dungeons and dragons, never with miniatures, and I could only play with this one group of friends I had growing up, we just had a blast making our own worlds.

These days I'm teaching my 6 year old chess, don't get a lot of time to play much of anything unfortunately.

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Guest MormonGator

 I have the redbox, but haven't played since I was in middle school. Would love to play again. Do you have a group you play with?

 Yes. A bunch of us play up here using 3.5. We are all hardcore gamers who play Magic, Rifts, DnD and a few more RPGs. 

We play live at each others houses and the like. We don't play online or anything. 

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Currently my gaming collection is on hold for two years until we purchase a home, which is fine because it's pretty large.A Memoir 44 is on my short list and it bums me out that I didn't get it because I'm re-watching Band of Brothers. Since I don't have a war game I had pre-ordered Blood Rage which is a Viking themed game and looking forward to playing that.

 

Friend of mine has Carcasonne Big Box and I really enjoyed it. The only thing I struggled with was calculating scores at the end of the game. With 5 players it took a long time.  

 

We score completed cities and roads as they happen.  It speeds up the game in that regard.  I have the big box and purchased two original boxes to give us more tiles.   I also have The River 2 expansion.  We don't use all the rules/expansions, it complicated the game too much.  We use commodities, the mayor, the builder and the orange tile that let's you finish any one tile placement.

 

I'll have to take a look at Blood Rage.

 

Memoir is pretty simple but a lot of fun.

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I play Dungeons and Dragons frequently. That's a board game/lifestyle.  

 

Our group has been on hiatus for about six months.  We are starting up again Friday night.  I am running them through the Giant series.  There are occasional "trips" into Ravenloft.  Currently they are in the upper level of G1.  My group consists of one of my old high school friends, his son, my sons and some other kids in the ward.  Unfortunately I am the DM, so I don't get to "play" as it were, but I enjoy creating the stories.  We use AD&D/First Edition rules.

Edited by mirkwood
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