Board Games!

[Jet_Engine1]

Been raining a lot (Typical Florida weather) and got tired of the kids playing Video Games or being cooped up in their rooms so I figured we could play a board game... all we had in the house were Clue and an old Monopoly Set (Had NO interest in playing either) so I took them to a game and comic book store the other day... Place was HUGE, with RPG games, board games, toys, comics, and a large room just set up for gaming nights. Pretty cool place - a real Nerd Haven... I don't know crap about any of that stuff, and wasn't going to try some D&D type thing so I asked the employees about a good strategy board game that DOESN'T involve buying a million Figures, painting models or any of that... and they were nice and friendly but their suggestions were kinda meh. Then we found this:

 

 

I

 

Star Wars Rebellion... based on the OT and a very large scale game. Crazy detailed and after reading the rules, we went on YT to WATCH a couple of tutorials to figure out HOW to friggen' play it!

 

 

As you can see, its a BIT more involved than a standard old school board game, but less ridiculous or insane than an RPG WoW or Warhammer 20K type game... and last night we played it... Kids played as the Rebellion (of course) and I was the Empire. 4 Hours later, I managed to find the Rebel Base and annihilate it with one of my TWO fully armed and operational Death Stars... lol. Next time, I'll play as the Rebels... kept trying to remind the boys that it was an asymmetrical strategy Game that the Rebels CAN'T win militarily, but they kept trying to attack my fleet.... 

 

Anyway, we had a great time and will probably start doing Game Nights on Fridays or Saturdays (While Mrs. Engine retreats to our enclave to watch Hallmark Movies or something) ... just wondering if anyone else plays this type of Strategy Game and if there are any suggestions... I will DEFINITELY be picking up a new Axis and Allies to play - but I asked if they had that at the store and they do, but it's now a $150 GAME! WHAAAT?? This one was $90 but comes with 200 small figures/models for gameplay.

 

Anyway, any suggestions?

 

 

 

[bicketybam]

1 hour ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

Been raining a lot (Typical Florida weather) and got tired of the kids playing Video Games or being cooped up in their rooms so I figured we could play a board game... all we had in the house were Clue and an old Monopoly Set (Had NO interest in playing either) so I took them to a game and comic book store the other day... Place was HUGE, with RPG games, board games, toys, comics, and a large room just set up for gaming nights. Pretty cool place - a real Nerd Haven... I don't know crap about any of that stuff, and wasn't going to try some D&D type thing so I asked the employees about a good strategy board game that DOESN'T involve buying a million Figures, painting models or any of that... and they were nice and friendly but their suggestions were kinda meh. Then we found this:

 

 

I

 

Star Wars Rebellion... based on the OT and a very large scale game. Crazy detailed and after reading the rules, we went on YT to WATCH a couple of tutorials to figure out HOW to friggen' play it!

 

 

As you can see, its a BIT more involved than a standard old school board game, but less ridiculous or insane than an RPG WoW or Warhammer 20K type game... and last night we played it... Kids played as the Rebellion (of course) and I was the Empire. 4 Hours later, I managed to find the Rebel Base and annihilate it with one of my TWO fully armed and operational Death Stars... lol. Next time, I'll play as the Rebels... kept trying to remind the boys that it was an asymmetrical strategy Game that the Rebels CAN'T win militarily, but they kept trying to attack my fleet.... 

 

Anyway, we had a great time and will probably start doing Game Nights on Fridays or Saturdays (While Mrs. Engine retreats to our enclave to watch Hallmark Movies or something) ... just wondering if anyone else plays this type of Strategy Game and if there are any suggestions... I will DEFINITELY be picking up a new Axis and Allies to play - but I asked if they had that at the store and they do, but it's now a $150 GAME! WHAAAT?? This one was $90 but comes with 200 small figures/models for gameplay.

 

Anyway, any suggestions?

 

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4815/the-campaign-for-north-africa-the-desert-war-1940

Hours and hours of fun!

[SAM SAM HE'S OUR MAN]

[SAM SAM HE'S OUR MAN]

[hadserub]

Sounds like a fun adventure! I totally get the need for a new game after all that rain. It’s cool you found a huge store with so many options. Sometimes the choices can be overwhelming, though. A while back, I had a similar experience looking for a board game, but the store didn’t quite hit the mark. We ended up trying spider solitaire. It was a hit! The simplicity and challenge of sorting the cards were perfect for a rainy day. Sometimes the best finds are the ones that don’t require a whole lot of extra stuff.

[PFSIKH]

On 6/30/2024 at 12:45 PM, SAM SAM HE'S OUR MAN said:

This.

 

[Warfish]

[Nolder]

On 6/30/2024 at 8:46 AM, Jet_Engine1 said:

Anyway, any suggestions?

I can’t speak to strategy games (which look fun but often a time investment most aren’t willing to make) but I do have a couple other games to suggest.

 

Betrayal at House on the Hill

So the premise of this game is you’re exploring a haunted house as a team and eventually a series of unlucky rolls will lead to one member of the game becoming a traitor and trying to kill the rest of the group. The traitor can become a mummy you’ve awakened or possessed by a ghost. The game comes with a lot of different scenarios and they are chosen depending on where you are in the house so there is a lot of replayability and even if you’ve played a scenario before maybe this time it’s a different person who gets chosen or the monster won last time and you want another crack at beating it. One thing, you’ll want a lot of table room for this one.

 

Pandemic

Pandemic is a cooperative game about stopping the outbreak of a deadly Jets fans are the best (and long predates C19 btw). I’ve never played but everything I’ve ever heard or read about the game is that it’s actually really hard and you’ll probably just lose a lot until you really learn the ins and outs of the game as well as how to work together. What’s cool about Pandemic is there are a lot of expansions to the base games as well as close to a dozen spin offs which I’ve mostly heard good things about. So if you get bored of the base game (which I’m told is very addicting as long as you don’t get put off by losing a lot) you can always pick up an expansion or spin off. I forget which ones but some of them are more like an episodic mystery which you star in and the outcome of “episode 1” effects what happens in “episode 2”. I think those aren’t really replayable because once you know the “right” things to do it’s a bit like cheating and sort of pointless. But anyway I’ve heard people rave about these being really fun for game nights and doing like a weekly thing really fits well with those ones.

 

Dominion

Dominion is a deck building game which spawned its own genre of games and has 15 expansions just by itself. Basically imagine Magic The Gathering but take the random collectible aspect out of it and you start to have an idea of what Dominion is. Instead of collecting cards you get them all at once when you buy the base game (or an expansion). The way it works is there is a shared group of cards which do different things and a currency you use to “buy” them into your deck. You can buy more currency, victory points for winning the game, or cards which have different effects when played such as drawing more cards from your deck. It’s one of those things that is simple to pick up but can be brutally competitive. What I like is the limited amount of cards available to buy so for example I might try to buy all the cards which allow me to draw more cards and if you didn’t buy any you’re out of luck or maybe you race me to buy them out or maybe you focus on victory points over card draw. It’s also very modular with expansions and you decide which cards to include in your game. I don’t know about other games in the deck building genre but based on Dominion I’d always give one a try.

Disney Lorcana TCG

Ok so first of all, yes Disney. I’m not a fan of this company to say the least but I have to give credit where it’s due. Disney partnered with Ravensburger (the puzzle company) to make their new card game. If you are or ever were into any TCG you will have to appreciate the card quality and packaging just for starters (Pokemon please pay attention you’re killing me!). The art is great it really “pops” and their rarest cards, called Enchanted, have this cool shimmering effect. Also of note is every pack comes with a “cold foil” which is basically like a holographic card but it can be any rarity so trying to collect an entire set in cold foil would cost a lot of money. Speaking of which packs are $6 MSRP. Yeah. Chew on that. But if you can get past all the downsides there is a really good game here. I’ve played a number of TCG and CCGs over the years including but not limited to: Magic the gathering, Pokemon, Scrolls, Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra, and Elder Scrolls Legends. So I know my way around and I’ve got to say imo this is one of the better ideas I’ve seen in decades. 
 

Heres the basic rundown on how the game works without getting too bogged down in the rules. There are five colors of cards in the game: Ruby, sapphire, amber, amethyst, emerald, and steel. They have different traits and archetypes so for example Steel has “big guys” (think Green in MTG) while Emerald focuses on Control through discard and “evasive guys”. You can choose up to two to make your deck out of. When you go to play you’ll draw your cards and most will have an “ink” symbol. Once per turn you take an inkable card from your hand and place it face down in front of you. It doesn’t matter what the card used to be now it’s just 1 ink. You use your ink to play your cards so if you have 3 ink you can play a card that costs 3 ink but not one that costs 5 which is why you’ll often ink your bigger cards at the start. When you play a character there will be a symbol on the card for how much “lore” it can “quest” for. First player to 20 Lore wins the game. When you use a character to “quest” for lore you add it to your score right away but when you “quest” your character becomes vulnerable and may be attacked and killed (I’m sure Disney doesn’t use this phrasing but whatever). What I like about this game compared to many others is the course of the game is VERY dependent on the choices you make which means there is a very high ceiling for skill. So many things come into play such as knowing what’s in your deck, reading your opponents deck as well as them and anticipating their decisions, choosing when to quest or when to ink and when not to, choosing what cards to ink and what cards to hold onto. This game was released in August 2023 and the 5th set Shimmering Skies recently released so it’s still pretty new and a good time to jump in if older games like Magic the Gathering or Yugioh are too intimidating. Because it’s Disney it’s very easy to pick up and understand and play with kids and you can have a good time without getting too deep or serious with it but like I said the ceiling is high if you want to be competitive.

 

One last thing, in case you were somewhat interested but don’t want to fully commit, Lorcana has come out with two products to help new players learn how to play without needing to buy a lot of packs. The one I would personally recommend is called Deep Trouble which is an Illumineers Quest. Basically it’s a cooperative game using prebuilt Lorcana decks to defeat a special deck “played by” Ursula which is essentially on autopilot. This is a good way to get used to the game in a non competitive manner. It also has different difficulty settings you can play by for an extra challenge. I haven’t beaten it past normal myself, I’m guessing you might need a custom deck to do that not the prebuilt ones. I had fun playing this with a buddy and I’ve seen a lot of people say they enjoyed playing it solo or with their kids or girlfriends or whatever so I think it was a hit and I hope they make more of these cooperative scenario games which can be played alongside the competitive aspect of the game. The other product is new and I think it’s a very guided experience to teach new players called Lorcana Gateway. I haven’t picked this up and probably won’t because I know how to play but if you have younger kids or you think a more guided experience is better it might be a better choice.

 

Overall I actually really like Lorcana and can’t recommend it highly enough if you’re someone who likes card games or even Disney lol. When learning how to play I found the following video extremely helpful and informative. You can see that, at least for the co designer, this is not a Disney cash grab but a project he’s very passionate about and I’m excited to see where he takes this new game.

 

[Nolder]

Just realized after typing all that that this is just a necro’d thread. Well hopefully someone finds my post useful lol.

[Jet_Engine1]

On 9/5/2024 at 2:55 PM, Warfish said:

Axis and Allies now costs about $150!! I was shocked! Had that as a kid, loved it. 

[Jet_Engine1]

On 9/8/2024 at 7:09 AM, Nolder said:

I can’t speak to strategy games (which look fun but often a time investment most aren’t willing to make) but I do have a couple other games to suggest.

 

Betrayal at House on the Hill

So the premise of this game is you’re exploring a haunted house as a team and eventually a series of unlucky rolls will lead to one member of the game becoming a traitor and trying to kill the rest of the group. The traitor can become a mummy you’ve awakened or possessed by a ghost. The game comes with a lot of different scenarios and they are chosen depending on where you are in the house so there is a lot of replayability and even if you’ve played a scenario before maybe this time it’s a different person who gets chosen or the monster won last time and you want another crack at beating it. One thing, you’ll want a lot of table room for this one.

 

Pandemic

Pandemic is a cooperative game about stopping the outbreak of a deadly Jets fans are the best (and long predates C19 btw). I’ve never played but everything I’ve ever heard or read about the game is that it’s actually really hard and you’ll probably just lose a lot until you really learn the ins and outs of the game as well as how to work together. What’s cool about Pandemic is there are a lot of expansions to the base games as well as close to a dozen spin offs which I’ve mostly heard good things about. So if you get bored of the base game (which I’m told is very addicting as long as you don’t get put off by losing a lot) you can always pick up an expansion or spin off. I forget which ones but some of them are more like an episodic mystery which you star in and the outcome of “episode 1” effects what happens in “episode 2”. I think those aren’t really replayable because once you know the “right” things to do it’s a bit like cheating and sort of pointless. But anyway I’ve heard people rave about these being really fun for game nights and doing like a weekly thing really fits well with those ones.

 

Dominion

Dominion is a deck building game which spawned its own genre of games and has 15 expansions just by itself. Basically imagine Magic The Gathering but take the random collectible aspect out of it and you start to have an idea of what Dominion is. Instead of collecting cards you get them all at once when you buy the base game (or an expansion). The way it works is there is a shared group of cards which do different things and a currency you use to “buy” them into your deck. You can buy more currency, victory points for winning the game, or cards which have different effects when played such as drawing more cards from your deck. It’s one of those things that is simple to pick up but can be brutally competitive. What I like is the limited amount of cards available to buy so for example I might try to buy all the cards which allow me to draw more cards and if you didn’t buy any you’re out of luck or maybe you race me to buy them out or maybe you focus on victory points over card draw. It’s also very modular with expansions and you decide which cards to include in your game. I don’t know about other games in the deck building genre but based on Dominion I’d always give one a try.

Disney Lorcana TCG

Ok so first of all, yes Disney. I’m not a fan of this company to say the least but I have to give credit where it’s due. Disney partnered with Ravensburger (the puzzle company) to make their new card game. If you are or ever were into any TCG you will have to appreciate the card quality and packaging just for starters (Pokemon please pay attention you’re killing me!). The art is great it really “pops” and their rarest cards, called Enchanted, have this cool shimmering effect. Also of note is every pack comes with a “cold foil” which is basically like a holographic card but it can be any rarity so trying to collect an entire set in cold foil would cost a lot of money. Speaking of which packs are $6 MSRP. Yeah. Chew on that. But if you can get past all the downsides there is a really good game here. I’ve played a number of TCG and CCGs over the years including but not limited to: Magic the gathering, Pokemon, Scrolls, Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra, and Elder Scrolls Legends. So I know my way around and I’ve got to say imo this is one of the better ideas I’ve seen in decades. 
 

Heres the basic rundown on how the game works without getting too bogged down in the rules. There are five colors of cards in the game: Ruby, sapphire, amber, amethyst, emerald, and steel. They have different traits and archetypes so for example Steel has “big guys” (think Green in MTG) while Emerald focuses on Control through discard and “evasive guys”. You can choose up to two to make your deck out of. When you go to play you’ll draw your cards and most will have an “ink” symbol. Once per turn you take an inkable card from your hand and place it face down in front of you. It doesn’t matter what the card used to be now it’s just 1 ink. You use your ink to play your cards so if you have 3 ink you can play a card that costs 3 ink but not one that costs 5 which is why you’ll often ink your bigger cards at the start. When you play a character there will be a symbol on the card for how much “lore” it can “quest” for. First player to 20 Lore wins the game. When you use a character to “quest” for lore you add it to your score right away but when you “quest” your character becomes vulnerable and may be attacked and killed (I’m sure Disney doesn’t use this phrasing but whatever). What I like about this game compared to many others is the course of the game is VERY dependent on the choices you make which means there is a very high ceiling for skill. So many things come into play such as knowing what’s in your deck, reading your opponents deck as well as them and anticipating their decisions, choosing when to quest or when to ink and when not to, choosing what cards to ink and what cards to hold onto. This game was released in August 2023 and the 5th set Shimmering Skies recently released so it’s still pretty new and a good time to jump in if older games like Magic the Gathering or Yugioh are too intimidating. Because it’s Disney it’s very easy to pick up and understand and play with kids and you can have a good time without getting too deep or serious with it but like I said the ceiling is high if you want to be competitive.

 

One last thing, in case you were somewhat interested but don’t want to fully commit, Lorcana has come out with two products to help new players learn how to play without needing to buy a lot of packs. The one I would personally recommend is called Deep Trouble which is an Illumineers Quest. Basically it’s a cooperative game using prebuilt Lorcana decks to defeat a special deck “played by” Ursula which is essentially on autopilot. This is a good way to get used to the game in a non competitive manner. It also has different difficulty settings you can play by for an extra challenge. I haven’t beaten it past normal myself, I’m guessing you might need a custom deck to do that not the prebuilt ones. I had fun playing this with a buddy and I’ve seen a lot of people say they enjoyed playing it solo or with their kids or girlfriends or whatever so I think it was a hit and I hope they make more of these cooperative scenario games which can be played alongside the competitive aspect of the game. The other product is new and I think it’s a very guided experience to teach new players called Lorcana Gateway. I haven’t picked this up and probably won’t because I know how to play but if you have younger kids or you think a more guided experience is better it might be a better choice.

 

Overall I actually really like Lorcana and can’t recommend it highly enough if you’re someone who likes card games or even Disney lol. When learning how to play I found the following video extremely helpful and informative. You can see that, at least for the co designer, this is not a Disney cash grab but a project he’s very passionate about and I’m excited to see where he takes this new game.

 

Good stuff! Thanks! I think I'll skip the Pandemic one, though... lol

[Nolder]

9 hours ago, Jet_Engine1 said:

Good stuff! Thanks! I think I'll skip the Pandemic one, though... lol

Yeah it’s supposed to be brutal lol. I think I have a preference for co op games so that’s why it appeals to me. Win together or die lol.

[jgb]

Some of my wife and my current favorites

[jgb]

15 hours ago, Nolder said:

Yeah it’s supposed to be brutal lol. I think I have a preference for co op games so that’s why it appeals to me. Win together or die lol.

PS the Horrified series from my post above is co-op (you can even play solo). There are three version. The original is classic Hollywood monsters with a European feel (eg Dracula, Frankenstein), the second is American monsters (eg Big Foot, Mothman), and the latest is monsters from Ancient Greek mythology (eg Minotaur, Medusa).

They also increase in complexity from original to latest.

[Nolder]

9 hours ago, jgb said:

PS the Horrified series from my post above is co-op (you can even play solo). There are three version. The original is classic Hollywood monsters with a European feel (eg Dracula, Frankenstein), the second is American monsters (eg Big Foot, Mothman), and the latest is monsters from Ancient Greek mythology (eg Minotaur, Medusa).

They also increase in complexity from original to latest.

Sounds cool I’ll check it out! I like the different themes they have going just from the get go. The distinction between European monsters and American monsters is a nice touch.

[hadserub]

Board games are such a blast, aren’t they? I love how they bring people together for some good old-fashioned fun. I’ve been diving into a few lately, and it’s like a mini adventure every time. My favorites must be those strategy games where you can think ahead. It feels like you’re planning a heist or something!But I also enjoy lighter games, like party games, that get everyone laughing. It’s incredible how a simple game night can lift the mood after a long week.Have you ever tried using a coin flipper to decide which game to play? It adds a fun twist and takes the pressure off choosing! Overall, there’s a perfect game for every crowd, so keep experimenting until you find what clicks.

[chirorob]

On 9/5/2024 at 1:55 PM, Warfish said:

I loved that game, and own it, but it is SO hard to win as the Axis.