Board games

[jan paparazzi]

So what's your favorite board game? And what's your favorite category of board games?

[Skywalker]

Mansions of Madness. Its the best at invoking a roleplaying game like experience.

Dungeon crawling board games, as they invoke a roleplaying game like experience.

[misterguignol]

I'm not sure if I can pick a favorite, but we've got a bunch that we enjoy:

Forbidden Desert - fun co-op game about finding the parts to an airship out of the desert you're stuck in racing against running out of water, being buried by a desert storm, etc.

Castle Ravenloft - co-op dungeon crawler based on Ravenloft + stripped down 4e rules.

Elder Sign - co-op dice rolling game where you try to "solve" adventures and keep the Great Old Ones out of the world.

A Touch of Evil - it's like a Hammer Horror movie in a box. (We only ever play it co-op, never competitively)

So yeah, co-op games are my favorite.

[Aos]

I like Wrath of Ashardalon, which is like/iusable with the Ravenloft one mentioned above.
I like Dungeon and Last Night on Earth.
I have Descent, but we have only played it a couple of times, similar to wrath, but a touch more complex. It's okay.
My buddy left his Arkham Horror here last week for me to decipher, but it looks way fucking complex so I have yet to tap into it.


Wrath is probably my current favorite. I like co op dungeon crawls the best. I am thinking of  modifying descent for that, actually.

[jibbajibba]

Tannhauser is great.
Arkham Horror is great.
A Game of Thrones is good
Lots of love for Warrior Knights, Civilisation, Block mania,
But I love Backgammon, Go, Kwirkle, Axis and Allies, Diplomacy, Supremacy, Shogun (dispite the single winning strategy exploit) and the game I play most is scrabble.

We have a bunch of home brewed board games that were great fun and after the Thief campaign thread I have been working on a thief boardgame this week and I am basically done I think. So will play test it this weekend If I can get the board and cards printed somewhere.

[Doom]

Pulled out Lords of Waterdeep...not awesome, but quite playable.

I'm trying hard to put together a full, 4 player game of The Mage Knight Boardgame--it's a hypercomplicated multiplayer solitaire game, but still darn fun once you get over the hump of the rules and the insane amounts of tiny print.

[Shipyard Locked]

Space Hulk. Perfect execution of theme, design, and nail-biting gameplay (as long as you don't wuss out and use the timer like you're supposed to). It's too bad it's really only two-player (and no, dividing up the marines really doesn't cut it).

[ArrozConLeche]

I'm actually quite addicted to Le Havre at the moment, since I got it for the iOS.  Tigris & Euphrates a close second.

Before that my favorite was probably Chess, if I had to pick one, but it's been replaced by those two.

[Doughdee222]

I love board games although I haven't played any in a long while.

Favorites include much of the old Avalon Hill line: Rail Baron (played a lot of that 25 years ago in college), Midway, Submarine, Titan, Merchants of Venus, Stellar Conquest, Civilization, Africa Korps, Kingmaker, Wooden Ships & Iron Men.

Others: Empire Builder, the original Illuminati (not really a board game but what the hell) Battle Tech, Talisman (only played it a couple times at a convention but it seemed pretty fun.)

Cosmic Encounter is one of the classic greats I have but never played. Circus Maximus looks fun too. Someday I'd like to play Dune with a full slate of people.

[Shipyard Locked]

Cosmic Encounter is one of the classic greats I have but never played.

I dunno, I found it kind of swingy and random, especially with the gimmicky cards, ending games way too quickly and with too little real strategy beyond "gotcha!" Maybe we played it wrong.

[JamesV]

We've played plenty of Carcasonne, and Ingenious. When we're not playing D&D, the group prefers to keep things casual, something that lets us talk while playing.

So interestingly enough, we're more into card games. Two weeks ago we played Uno for about 3 hours, and the last game ended so absurdly we needed 3 minutes to laugh our asses off, and 3 more minutes to recover.

[jan paparazzi]

I checked out some dice tower reviews this week and I am getting more into it than I was before. I really like Tom Vasel. He is like Kurt Wiegel from boardgames. Enthusiastic, straight to the point and not too much going into all the details, which would just slow it down.

I noticed there is some sort of a divide between Ameritrash and Eurogames. Is this really an American - European divide? Or are Ameritrash games more aimed at nerds like me with fantasy, sci-fi and horror themed games and Eurogames more aimed at a mainstream audience and families?

[ArrozConLeche]

I checked out some dice tower reviews this week and I am getting more into it than I was before. I really like Tom Vasel. He is like Kurt Wiegel from boardgames. Enthusiastic, straight to the point and not too much going into all the details, which would just slow it down.

I noticed there is some sort of a divide between Ameritrash and Eurogames. Is this really an American - European divide? Or are Ameritrash games more aimed at nerds like me with fantasy, sci-fi and horror themed games and Eurogames more aimed at a mainstream audience and families?

I've started reading some of the criticisms and I guess two criticisms/differences are that Eurogames lack theme, or that often the theme feels tacked on. People have also said that they lack interaction between players, so you're all sorta playing against the game alone even as you sit together.

[Doctor Jest]

So what's your favorite board game? And what's your favorite category of board games?

Impossible question. My collection of board games is only rivaled by my collection of RPGs.

Board games that I am currently enjoying the most (subject to change) are:

Thunderstone Advance
The Captain is Dead

Perennial Favorites include:

Lords of Waterdeep
Zombicide
Myth
Level 7 Escape
Chess (hard to beat a classic)

Game I am most looking forward to:
Xenoshyft Onslaught (backed the kickstarter)

[Doctor Jest]

I noticed there is some sort of a divide between Ameritrash and Eurogames. Is this really an American - European divide? Or are Ameritrash games more aimed at nerds like me with fantasy, sci-fi and horror themed games and Eurogames more aimed at a mainstream audience and families?

There was a big gaming movement in Europe (mainly Germany) during the late 1990s and early 00's that introduced a lot of gaming mechanics with little or no luck elements, they were more like solving a puzzle. The key of these was that the mechanics were developed without a theme in mind, instead of the more traditional way of coming up with a theme and then developing mechanics to suit. These games tend to be abstract and have little or no player interaction.

Proponents of these games felt they were superior to more traditional games with some American games being held up as the "example" for these traditional games, and so used the term "Ameritrash" as a derogatory term. Fans of thematic games eventually reclaimed the term and used it as a badge of pride instead.

I think both terms are incredibly stupid, but Ameritrash bugs me enough I refuse to use it. I prefer "Thematic" games for what are called "Ameritrash" not only because a great many are anything but trash, but because a good number come from other countries, including in Europe. Thematic is also the category used by Boardgamegeek.com

As you can imagine there are a lot of games that sit partially in both camps (Lords of Waterdeep is the obvious example) and some which defy categorization.