Kevin's Watch

This seems to be as good a forum to post this topic as any, so here it is!
This topic is about board games, from Milton Bradley to euro games, this past time can be both varied and fun. However, it can be a little costly if out of control, so what are some board games (and card games, I guess those can be allowed ) that you've enjoyed and why, or are there board games out there you've tried that you wish never crawled their way up to our plane?

I'll start with a tile laying game called Carcassone. I've only played the base game without any of the expansions, but this game is very fun and varied. It's a shorter game that may last anywhere between half an hour to forty five minutes, and most of the rules are very easy to comprehend (as a result, it is often refered to as a "gateway game", or a game that is a good introduction to specialty board games).

What are the cons? To some, there is to much of a bit of luck in the game (which I've never have a problem with, luck should be a part of any good game), and the farmers rule is a little bit complex (though not too bad as I've taught this game to others).

Now let's see if I can get some photos....




And that's how it's done!

Just last week I bought a new updated version (fantasy characters rather than military) of Stratego and have been playing it with my 8 year old son. He is finally starting to get the grasp of using strategy in his decisions rather than blindly moving through the board.

There is an option to play a 'special powers' version, but we have been sticking to the classic version.

I loved this game when I was a kid.

Monopoly, although we all consistently lose to Beorn and a game will take days.
Trivial Pursuit, genus (original with expansions), Hyperception and I love trivia.
Trivial Pursuit, LotR, we would much prefer an edition based on the books instead of the films, but this is still fun.
Backgammon
and once in a great while, Yahtzee.

I used to really enjoy Gin Rummy for a card game, but haven't played in a very long time.

Talisman. I love this game more than any other board game I've ever played. It's sort of a halfway point between board games and tabletop roleplaying. There is no actual roleplay involved, but it's always had that sort of of feel to it, for me.

There have been several editions, but I own the second edition, back when it stull used little cards standing on bases rather than plastic miniatures, and all the art was still by the unique Gary Chalk.

The Lord of the Rings Board Game, and all of the little additions for it.



It is vicious. It is kinda all of you versus the game. And speaking of which...



Nightmare - This also had two additions to it that were supah fun, but sadly I think I was the only one who picked them up.

Nightmare was fun. Played in the barracks back in the day.

I have a very old version of Risk. And then there's -

Sadly, I have a newer version of Sorry. I liked the older style better.

God, I love boardgames.

Arkham Horror is my favourite:



I also love Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition:



Axis and Allies Anniversary edition is pure gold (also own two other editions of Axis & Allies, as well as Europe, Pacific and Guadalcanal):



I also own A Game of Thrones, which is very very good:



Tide of Iron is excellent:


I payed a huge amount of money to purchase Samurai Swords from a rare game dealer in the US two years ago.



I have been playing Junta since 1990.



The conflict between Eurogames and American games annoys the crap out of me. I just do not get it.

Also a member on BoardgameGeek.

My favorite boardgame: Diplomacy

Loremaster wrote:Arkham Horror is my favourite

...

I also love Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition

They both seem quite intriguing. Board games are criminally under-appreciated.

My brother used to have (and probably still has, in storage somewhere) the board game version of '80s children's game show Knightmare. It probably wasn't an exceptionally good game in its own right (I don't remember it that clearly) but we loved it, because Knightmare was such a great series.



EDIT: Also, I've wanted to play Dragon Masters since I read about it in White Dwarf years ago. I don't know if it's any good, but it sounded right up my street. Unfortunately, it's all but impossible to find.

Fist and Faith wrote: My favorite boardgame: Diplomacy

Wow, Fist, that was my favorite when I was at university...but I haven't played since about 1978.

The wonderful thing about Diplomacy (our pet name for it is not suitable for a family forum, but roughly translates to non-consensual intimacy with one's friends) was that there is really no element of chance in the play -- it is all based on the interaction of the players.

In present time, I am a member of a group that gathers monthly for board and card games. While there are many that I play, one of my current favorites is Apples to Apples, a game where the players are try to match examples to a given concept or generalization...but we often tend reward the person who has chosen the most ironic, inappropriate, or nonsensical example, or the one that best plays to the judge's interests.

Savor Dam wrote:The wonderful thing about Diplomacy (our pet name for it is not suitable for a family forum, but roughly translates to non-consensual intimacy with one's friends) was that there is really no element of chance in the play -- it is all based on the interaction of the players.

EXACTLY!!! (The bit about chance, not the intimacy thing.) Actually, I really enjoy Risk, too, but Diplomacy eliminates the dice. Much, much better, imo.

Fist and Faith wrote:

Savor Dam wrote:The wonderful thing about Diplomacy (our pet name for it is not suitable for a family forum, but roughly translates to non-consensual intimacy with one's friends) was that there is really no element of chance in the play -- it is all based on the interaction of the players.

EXACTLY!!! (The bit about chance, not the intimacy thing.) Actually, I really enjoy Risk, too, but Diplomacy eliminates the dice. Much, much better, imo.

Another Diplomacy fan here - I played it a lot growing up. My dad used to hate it because invariably he'd be the one betrayed...

Scrabble is my all-time favorite boardgame.


2nd favorite is Star Wars Monopoly. Actually just as fun and addictive as Scrabble. I just suck at Monopoly, that's all.


I enjoy Scrabble because I loved doing crossword puzzles in the newspapers as a kid. I love to play with words.

I enjoy Star Wars Monopoly because I love Star Wars. The idea of amassing property in the Star Wars universe tickles me.

I'm not a fan of Scrabble, but I love Take Two. Some of us played it during Seafest. Whatcha do is you take Scrabble tiles (no board), lay them all face down on the table.
Then everyone takes 4 tiles to begin. You flip the tiles over at the same time, and plays essentially a solo form of Scrabble.



In other words, everybody forms their own Scrabble like structure (but without a board so there is no 3 letter score or anything like that). The object is to use up all your tiles forming words. After someone has used their 4 tiles forming a word or two, the person shouts "take two!" and everyone takes two more tiles, regardless of whether or not they could use up their tiles. Play continues like this until all the tiles are used up.
If at any point everybody agrees they cannot use up their tiles, everyone just takes two more tiles and play continues.
The interesting part of this game is that you can completely rearrange your entire structure at will. It will put you behind in the race to use up your tiles to do so, but can be nice if there are a lot of tiles out and nobody can play. At lot of times, restructuring opens up many new possibilities. I sometimes do it for aethetic reasons too, because I can form a long and cool word.
You can play this a number of ways, from whoever uses all their tiles first wins and you add up the wins, or you can keep score off of the number on the tiles (like Scrabble scoring without the bonuses), and unused tiles count against the score; for example, Bill used tiles to score up to 30 points, but had 20 points from unused tiles, so for that round he receives 10 points. In this score variation, play stops once someone uses all their tiles. And if someone, after the game stops, has a misspelled word or a made-up word and is caught doing it, they have to take the word out and dismantle their structure accordingly. However, if it is something like "sometheming," any words that exist in there can remain. So in the case of "sometheming," "some" or "them" can remain, but the rest of the tiles drop off. If this kills half of someone's structure...them's the breaks.

You can also award bonuses for being the person who uses all the tiles, or for the longest word, or vote for coolest word, or most number of words. We've even played where somewhere in the structure you must have a word in some theme, such as an animal, or you cannot say you have used all your tiles.
Oh, and another way to play it is by having a dictionary on the table for anybody to use, but the game does not pause while the person is looking up a word. It's good to look things up while stuck, and everyone else is too, but it will take you out of the game if you are not careful.
It's a fun game and gets pretty crazy, especially when you are hoping for vowels (or the opposite and have too many of them) and someone keeps shouting out "Take two!" every few seconds, leaving you with a jumble of tiles that you can't think to do anything with. It's one of my all time favorite games, mainly because I like the idea of Scrabble, but hate the slow pace that it always has.


Back on topic - I just remembered another favorite board game: Dark Tower.

Cagliostro wrote:I'm not a fan of Scrabble, but I love Take Two. Some of us played it during Seafest.

danlo totally rocked at this during Seafest Denver.
Once he joined in, it was all over.
But it was serious fun!

Sounds like fun, I'll have to give it a try

I used to play a lot of board games in my H.S. and college days. A favorite was Kingmaker, from Avalon Hill. A game based on the War of the Roses. I always wanted to play Diplomacy, but could never find a group big enough. 

In college I used to play quite a bit of Risk. Jenn found out a couple of weeks ago that I didn't forget how to play the game.

Damelon wrote:Jenn found out a couple of weeks ago that I didn't forget how to play the game.

That was an awesome story Congratulations! Hopefully I'll be able to find some people who'll play Risk with me, seems like most people don't want to give board games of any sort a try....

But now to add some more games, this time in the Zombie genre!

The first game I shall speak of is Zombies!!! This game is very easy to pick up and fairly competitive. It plays on some "tiles" that you set up throughout the game, giving some variety to the gaming experiance. The point of the game is to fight your way through hordes of zombies to reach the helopad in order to escape the city, first person there wins. However, the zombies are everywhere, and you only have limited ammo!


Though the mechanics of the game are easy to understand, there is one major drawback to the game: depending on how cut-throat your game buddies are, this game could last a very, very long time. One time, I played a game with a friend and his cousins that lasted over seven hours because we cared more about messing other people up then winning. Also, if you don't have a decent size playing area, you'll find that the board will seem cramped as it grows.

The next game is Last Night on Earth. This uses some similar mechinics as Zombies with some interchangable boards, though this board is set up at the beginning of the game. As a result, the size of the board is always the same. The object of the game is to accomplish a goal (such as kill 18 zombies, destroy zombie nests, or survive the night in a mansion without being overrun with zombies) that must be accomplished within a certain amount of turns. This is a team game with two teams involved: you have zombie players and human players. Human players pick at random a character sheet with specific stats and try to use those stats and find weapons and objects that'll help them accomplish their goal. The zombies try to eat the flesh of the humans.


The team aspect of the game and the time limit make this a fun one, however, the rules are a little bit more complicated then those of Zombies!!!

And finally, Zombie Fluxx. It's Fluxx with zombies, or, in other words, it's a card game where the rules and goals are constantly changing (dare I say, always in flux? ) This one, due to its changing nature, can be picked up and played immediatly with little problem.



Thus concludes my post on zombie games

I own Last Night on Earth, too. It's a very fun game, and games do not last long so players can have turns being the heroes or zombies.

My girlfriend got me into Carcassone and it's pretty damn addictive. There's a good online version too called 'Toulouse'.