Board Games

DeLLy_sl said:

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Ashley Johnson! Yay!

How do you guys deal with boxes? I could throw them all away but it would be nice to have something valuable in 50 years time because it's in good condition.

I've really been enjoying Catan Seafarers but even the two boxes feels silly and preventing me from buying anything else.

Game goes into one box. Extra box goes on shelf.

I guess a house would help with obtaining shelves.

I toss boxes personally - but I am willing to take the slight loss on the value of the box itself for sale - if you store stuff efficiently it doesn't seem to impact ebay value on stuff in my experience however.

I used the superfluous catan expansion box to house my print and play version of spyfall.
It seems appropriate for it to be hiding out in a different game.

BTW speaking of selling games and taking losses/tossing out boxes...

Just to promote my sales a little bit - got four games I'm parting with on Ebay right now if any of y'all (probably not faille though - I don't care to get involved in international shipping, sorry bro) want to get involved and net me a few more bucks.

Horus Heresy - currently going for $10 (honestly never played it no opinions on it - bought it because Amazon had it for $20-25 and it was $80-ish retail - but wife never wanted to play and 2 player only makes it not work with our get together days):Warhammer 40K Horus Heresy Board Game Fantasy Flight 2010 | eBay
Arkham Horror w/ all official expansions - Currently $40 - excellent game, needs tons of time if you start adding expansions though -Arhkham Horror Board Game Fantasy Flight Plus All Official Expansions | eBay
Mage-Knight - Currently $28 - I can't stand it, concept is great lack of randomness with the deck based concept and "wounds" going to the deck are neat, but I just cannot stand the game overall - normally love Vlaada, not here for me though -Mage Knight Board Game Vlaada Chvatil | eBay
Dominion (Core Set) - 0 bids, $8 min - Eh, I'd rather play it online the rare time I want to bother -Dominion Rio Grande Games | eBay

Played Alchemists for the first time last night. Was really fun. Before you play it with a group, you should probably make sure everyone understands how to do Logic Puzzles, though. We had a player who had never filled in a logic puzzle grid before, and that player lost hard.

Oh interesting - another app required game?

Kind of. If you have a moderator you can play without the app, but it's much smoother with the app.

You have 8 "ingredients" and 8 Atomic Structures that the App randomly assigns them when the game starts. You brew potions using ingredients, and they produce different colors/effects based on the combination of elements. You then reverse-engineer that using a deduction-grid (logic puzzle) to figure out what the underlying element of each ingredient probably is.

Once you have a decent idea you publish your "theory", and put a points-marker on it. If it gets disproven, you lose that many points, if it ends up being correct, you gain that many points. Whenever you test a combination you have to show the result to everyone, but you don't have to show them the ingredients, so people kind of know what you *could* know based on the final results, so they can call you out on bullshit theories that you published for quick points.

If people think you know your stuff, they can "support" your theory, basically cashing in points on the idea you're correct. Which is hilarious if you made a theory knowing it was probably wrong, but used one of the "hedge your bets" point markers that prevent you from losing points when it's disproven. Won our game last night because the other two players had 5 point markers on a wrong-theory while I had a hedge there.

The ability to get more resources/test resources/sell potions/buy artifacts/publish theories is all worker placement, and it uses the weird "pick your wake up order" mechanic from Fresco, where choosing to go less-first rewards you with materials.

So bluffing, logic/deduction, with some worker placement. The Tom Vasel review makes it sound quite interesting.

Played first game of Shadows over Brimstone last night. Pretty cool game. Probably went a bit too long but that was mostly because it was first game for everyone, so lots of explaining and discussion along the way.

Holy shit does it have a lot of pieces. So glad it's not mine and I didn't have to put it together. Also seems to take up a huge amount of space to play.

First mission was pretty straight forward. We got pretty lucky on a lot of rolls, particularly the darkness ones, so weren't in any real danger, though a couple of people came close to being knocked out. Having the preacher and Saloon girl was great for healing though. Looking forward to some more of the more challenging missions.

Preacher + Saloon Girl = Someone got both boxes. But still takes up a ton of space even with just one box. (Even FFP suggests removing pieces that fall too far behind as you progress though - even when we're using out 10x4 table we run out of space with Brimstone quite often)

But yea, the gluing on the minis is awful - great game otherwise though. Much like Descent really replaced Heroquest, it seems to have replaced Warhammer Quest.

I've been playing Dominion online since I saw you mention it...and I either suck or they have the computer on god-mode to try to get you to buy boosts. Or both.

Anyway...I have the option of playing Descent or Imperial Assault this weekend. I'm leaning towards Star Wars, but I'd be willing to go with Descent if it's considered the better game. Any thoughts?

Also, what other games have good representations online? I used to play Catan online, but can't remember the site now. I know of a place to play Werewolf and I found the Dominion game...anything else good in the browser?

Not played IA yet to compare, the rules read very similarly. The turn order seems more sensible though (1 Hero/1 Imperial vs. all of each side each)

Something to remember with Fantasy Flight is that they put all their rulebooks (at least the core parts) online to evaluate yourself and get a feel.

Also note, if expansion is a concern - IA has zero expansions right now and all the upcoming ones are going to be delayed because of the west coast shipping dispute.

So looking to get 1 or 2 of the following games that I've recently heard/seen that I'm planning to get soon(also taking suggestions on others I should look at) which should I pick up or stay away from?

Small World
Pandemic
Ticket to Ride
Sheriff of Nottingham
Lords of Waterdeep
Zombicide
Star Realms
Dead of Winter
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game

Also trying to find some older games my dad got me to play when I was young, if anyone knows a decent place to get them let me know.
Rail Baron
wabbit wampage
Snits Revenge

Most of those have Tabletop videos if you haven't watched them yet. Really depends on your style and level of complexity that you're looking for.

I find Small World a bit tedious to set-up and score.
I absolutely love Pandemic...great cooperative game and it would be one of my choices off that list.
Ticket to Ride is a great entry-level Eurogame. Easy to pick up and explain.
Never played Sherriff, but looked like a fun bluffing game from the Tabletop.
Waterdeep was another game that turned me off by the level of complexity.
Dead of Winter was the latest Tabletop and looked pretty fun, but I haven't tried it yet.
I own Legendary, but have never played Encounters. Legendary is a fun cooperative deck-building game. It's a little hard to explain so I give a quick overview, then just explain things as we play instead of trying to throw all the rules at everyone before we start. I like it, but as with most deck-builders, the game ends just as you start to feel like you have a strong deck.

Personally, if I was taking two games off that list, I'd go with Pandemic and Ticket to Ride.

Waterdeep isn't complex at all - if you can handle Ticket to Ride (anyone really can) - you can handle Waterdeep. It's basically just Ticket to Ride with a few "screw you" cards with the intrigue and the quests (tickets) being public vs private.

Pandemic is a love it or hate it game - it's brutally difficult - and honestly if you're looking for a "save the world" itch, it's the standard but many other things are delving on it's territory now.

So if any of you enjoy Euro-style economic games, I recommend 1830, which is the base game for all of the "18xx" games. I have played some lighter print-n-play variants in the past but my group finally got around to playing the original 1830 last Saturday and it's awesome. It's a straight forward most-money-wins game with three robust core mechanics:

1. It has the private capital vs. company capital distinction along with the opportunity to buy/sell stock in anyone's company every round (a la Baltimore & Ohio). The buy/sell stock phase determines how much money each train company has to operate and affects stock price, which in turn determines turn order. The first person to start funding a company sets the par stock price, the train becomes fully funded and can operate when 6 of its 10 shares are purchased. The person with most shares decides how the train operates (what tiles to play, how to spend its money, whether to keep income in the company or pay to dividends, etc).
2. It has a tile placement mechanic very similar to Age of Steam and you are competing for certain map locations that provide more income similar to Power Grid and like Power Grid, the cost to get to build to better map spaces is higher, etc.
3. The last mechanic, which primarily drives the game, is the availability of train engines. There is a deck of train cards that have a number showing how many stations you can have in your income producing operating round. The lowest is 2 so the basic train lets you have a starting point and ending point. They cost money (more $ for higher numbers), and each company is forced to buy one if they don't have one. If the company doesn't have enough money, the controlling shareholder is forced to dip into his own money (victory points) to buy it. If he can't then he is bankrupt, which is an end-game trigger. Number 4 trains make all number 2 trains obsolete (they disappear), and number 5 trains make all 3 trains disappear. This mechanic very much encourages aggressive cut-throat play, so keep that in mind if there is a big disparity in experience among the players; you don't want to make new players rage quit and swear off the game.

It's not for the faint of heart, but is very fun if you have a core group of experienced gamers.