Board Game General /bgg/

Actually, Twilight Struggle has a steam version that's pretty good. The interface is a bit clunky, but the A.I. plays extremely well, and the software follows the board game rules explicitly thus allowing you to learn the board game version of the rules correctly. Very thematic as well.

Lewis & Clark for 25 bucks
yay or nay?

Oh, has it improved? Last I checked it was getting some rules incorrect (e.g. USSR playing The Iron Lady) and the AI was trash (as in, literally playing suicide cards).

Just bought mage knight. Is the game engaging?

Very, but lots of downtime between turns if you're playing with more than 2.

Are the expansions worth it for The Resistance or should i just get Avalon?

Some people from work are interested in getting a Diplomacy game going, anyone have experience with those? Never played it before but it sounds fun.

They're ok, though I'm of the opinion they exist for the people who play Resistance a lot, and start to have too much meta gaming and everything playing out too similar. When people ask me I tend to say pick the art/theme that appeals to you more, because even if you get Avalon, you're likely going to have to teach the base game several times to any new players before adding in the roles to tune the difficulty to your particular group.

considering grabbing seasons. I've only really heard good things about this game and want to hear some of the negatives. What did you hate about seasons?

Friend is a teen librarian at a suburban public library and she has $500 in grant money to buy board games for a game night program.

/r/ recommendations for games to purchase for 13-18 year olds. Maybe 20 to 30 will show up.

Party games first and foremost. Codenames, Resistance, Dead Last, Cash n Guns, etc. Intro games after that, probably something no more complicated than Splendor.

Kingdom Death.

I would probably get forbidden desert/jamaica.

Look up the Board of Education segments on the BoardGameBlender series, middle school teacher (think it's 7th grade) who does an after school game group. That'll get you the low end of the age range, look at as many gateway top 10s, from every reviewer out there to fill in the upper end.

Opinions on Rex: Final Days of the Empire?

Are these work associates friends? If so, they won't be for much longer.

Favorite 6 player game, period.
Fantastic asymmetry, loads of hidden information, love it to death. If I thought killing Brian Herbert would get it reprinted with the original dune lisence, police would have given up looking for the body years ago.

Anything good on clearence at Mini Market?

It's fun because of the intrigue and the social interaction/manipulation element. There's no dice, which I like since it removes luck.

Everyone acts like this ruins friendships or something. If your group of friends have reached emotional maturity past high school they'll understand to differentiate acts from a game and from real life.

>If I thought killing Brian Herbert would get it reprinted with the original dune lisence, police would have given up looking for the body years ago.
Also if we could remove those new novels....

For those that play Mage Knight regularly, what are your favorite scenarios to play? I recently started playing dungeon lords and it's so much more fun to me than the standard conquest scenario because of how much your power ramps up. I ended with a deck of 38 cards which seems ridiculous to me (I did get 2 training type advanced actions though so that helped a lot).

Also any custom variants floating around people like?

Just played Saboteur 2, 3p, and wow that was satisfying. Like, satisfying enough to play in the place of other hidden traitor games that are taken more seriously, even. It works and is totally balanced at such a low player count, that's what surprised me the most, with it being in the social deduction genre and really quite fast. Like in Dead of Winter, every move can be explained as "Oh, I'm not really the traitor, I just have a weird specific role that needs me to x." and that's what makes this sort of thing great. The last round was the weirdest - I was a Geologist, who has a goal entirely unaffected by other people's win conditions, but because it was the end, the others sabotaged themselves just to block off my crystals, knowing they'd win me the whole game. They tried to scramble for a win after that, but it actually did kill them, and the one Saboteur who really was one proceeded to reap the rewards and win the game. Crazy, compelling stuff.

Do avoid Saboteur 1 though. It's just bollocks and not even fun. This has to be the biggest leap in game to expansion quality I've ever seen.

BGG rank is absolutely worthless, the algorithms behind its calculation are broken.

Highly overrated in my opinion. It looks fantastic, but the gameplay is that of a low-medium complexity eurogame with zero player interaction.

On top of this, it's got balance issues.

I see that mage knight has heroclix addon characters, do I have to choose between using the clix dial characters and the generic ones included in the base game or can they be used at the same time during a campaign?

>zero player interaction.

So you've never played it or seen it, got it.

'Zero player interaction' just means "I haven't figured out the common strategies in this game".

Are there really? I never knew that.

I will always be sad that the original Mage Knight game died out. I picked up a lot of mini's years ago when I was little because it seemed like such a fun game and I did manage to get one or two friends to play with me (using my mini's). But by the time I was old enough to actually be going out and playing tabletop games, heroclix took over and I wasn't anywhere near as interested. Mage Knight actually had cool lore to it and I really liked the style. Plus I was smart enough to not start dumping money into another mini's game...

Any idea if there are people who still play Mage Knight, as in the miniature game? I dunno if it's one of those random games that still has obscure cult followings or something.

Yea I saw that mage knight had the basic game setup with miniatures and the 3-ish expansions then a new expansion that has the new characters with heroclix dials and there are also mage knight add-on character grab bags with heroclix dials also. I want them but idk if they're usable in the main game

What expansion is this? To my knowledge the only figures that have click dials are the castles and volkare, which just denote their levels. If there's a new expansion/content, I would love to get my hands on it. It's probably my favorite game. I'm still hoping for some kind of super special edition with all the expansions included; if it was nice enough I honestly would not mind shelling out the money even though I own it all already. It's the kind of game I'll be playing for years and years, so I'd love to have a nice version of it.

I believe it's the lost legion expansion

Unless there's some new version of it, lost legion has 1 mini with a click dial which is volkare. He's the big baddie of the expansion, which most if not all the new campaigns revolve around. He has a dial for a similar reason that the cities do; to show you what level he is/his strengths. He's not a character that can be used by a player, and as far as I remember his dial never clicks up or down during the scenario, as it's just set to show you his stats for the scenario.

I'm pretty sure mage knight mini's exist of all the characters in the board game, but they're basically the same mini's just on a click dial instead of a flat base. I don't actually think they add anything to the board game. If I'm wrong and there's more content I could have, I'd love that, but as far as I know and can see, there's nothing that uses click dials outside of setting a level and no reason to have minis WITH dials.

besides all the cheapo stuff like
-hanabi
-no thanks
-set
-kwatro

i would put at least some stuff like
-stoneage
-isle of skye
-carcassonne
-catan

maybe get 1 game like
-caverna
just because its something they would never buy themselves. its a special game and this is a public library, not some party. there will be tons of different people. so having 1 really special expensive game would probably be cool.

Played Millennium blades for this first time this weekend, good thing we played it last because jesus does it take alot of energy out of you. What and amazing but exhausting game.

Avalon is same price as the resistance so it's sort of a no brainer really unless you really can't handle the theme. (I feel like it fits better personally and gives the special roles alot more flavour)

Played Virgin Queen yesterday. We actually almost got to turn 7; it took 11-12 hours. I feel like I've been beaten to a pulp, but man what a game, really intense

>but the A.I. plays extremely well
No more t1 ar1, Coup in the Philippines with the China Card...?
No more "let's play Olympic Games" while DEFCON is at 2...?

It's probably ok to learn to play the game, though since it's largely mindgames, I don't think you'll know how to play it well.

I know one my friend got really frustrated by a combination of cards that were constantly stealing crystals and a card that added a crystal cost to cards. By the time he recovered and got to play stuff, he was way behind. Expansions waste a lot of their effort adding optional modules that just aren't fun and make you kinda wish it was only the new cards and made cheaper. Hmmmm, what else can I add to this. I wish transmuting was a bit more valid of a strategy. The stock market of elements could be fun to play if the cards to help that strategy were a little better.

Anyone here have thoughts on 'Giant Killer Robots'?

We all have

None of them are worth anything

Any tabletop/board games with mecha?

>11-12 hours

I would have slit my own throat after 7 hours.

Was it worth it user? Would you do it again?

This gets asked every fucking thread STOP

Raptor!

I dunno I just want to talk about Raptor finally getting wins in with the raptors after 14 games.

Just played today
Truly disappointed...
Maybe I shouldn't expected a 4X experience
It's an OK euro tho

How hard is the game to learn?

The only mech board games I've found are Battletech and Robotech. Battletech is sold out everywhere and being scalped at incredibly high prices so you'll have to wait for another printing run. You can buy robotech but I've seen a lot of complaints about it online.

I just want a board game where I can blow up a shit ton of mechs. Is that so much to ask?

So, what are the best RPG-inna-box board games? I'd like to avoid Descent2E or these gigantic kickstarter games, but I'll do what I must.

Why avoid Descent?

I've played it, the experience (in out experience) can easily tilt in favor of the overlord or players for the whole campaign, and it has more expansions than a japanese CCG.
It's still quality, but I'm sure there's other stuff out there I should be playing.

Has anyone used the Renegade Official App that gives you a really beautiful animated AI to play against in Clank! ?

I don't own the game myself, but a friend has a copy and I've fiddled with the app, it looks really cool and fun. I don't know if it's worth buying the game for solo play, though.

I've been using my battletech minis and boards to play Arsenal: Arena Combat, which is an unrepentant dice-chucker driven by cardplay mechanics, but it's a hell of a lot more fun than core battletech.

That's good to know, I'll look into it. Thanks user

I was going to buy Santorini from CSI but it ran out of stock today, anyone knows when they restock stuff like this?
Is there even a restock available for Santorini?

it's successful enough that it's certain to get restocked eventually, but kickstarter games can sometimes be a while between prints

Just as I was typing 1 came in stock, lucky!
Lets hope it wasn't a mix up.

You have 2 more days to late pledge. After that it's done.

>plastics pusher

Don't worry, another will be along in a week.

>you have 2 more days to preorder this. After that it's done.
No thanks.

I really wanted to back this, but being a completionist they really added too much shit.

No way I can spend 700+ $ on this game (I already have Shadows of Brimstone to keep up to)

I have thought about starting to collect Descent 2nd ed. but I too have been slightly put off by all the smaller extra stuff you can buy.
'
Is it worth it overall?
Some expansions/extras that I definately should get/avoid?
Is it actually fun for players not accustomed to roleplaying games?

Been playing since 2014 and ive managed to keep my collection very strict and luckily have had chance to play other boardgames via friends or boardgamecafe

>Lords of Waterdeep + Skullport
>Eclipse + Rise of Ancients
>The Resistance + Hidden Agenda
>Coup + Reformation
>Hanabi
>Android Netrunner

Ive been wondering if Scythe would be my next purchase, but havent had a chance to try it out, is it only good with 4 players?

First game will most likely be a drag of course, but the rules are pretty short (like 6 pages), there isn't much to do (4 actions) per round, mostly the timing is key (which isn't hard to understand, but difficult to do it well naturally).

The main thing will probably be remembering the cards, but even my gf who is usually pretty bad at this got it in 2-3 games for the critical cards. It's not such a hard part, it comes faster than you would think, it helps that every card is very thematic and it's not such a big deal anyway.

It's not that hard to learn (rules-wise) for a game this size, not really hard to see what's to be done, but there's still a lot of strategy and timing of how to do it, how to do it not to obviously, how to counter bad luck or bad cards, it's not easy to master but after just one-two games (regardless of chosen sides) you should be good to go seriously.

Best game ever

contemplating whether i should order caverna in english or buy the cheesy dutch version.

my lgs bough like the last 100 dutch caverna's and the 2 mini expansions. they give those 2 mini expansions away with every caverna. not sure how much value i should put on that.

>Have you ever had an idea for a board game? If so, what stopped you from realizing it?
I'm currently trying to think up a game that can be played on your lap to give you something to do while you were riding in a car/bus/plane, or when you're out and wanting to pass time (obviously it'd be a solo game)

Space hulk death angel lap version?

I wrote up some stuff about my perfect dice placement game but I'm gonna have to do something to the rules cuz the way I wanted it to play had too many addendums and such

Oh yeah, absolutely, but I'm a sucker for that stuff. I'm just glad I have a small, dedicated group of people that are as masochistic as I am

Possibly. I had thought about making it kind of Indiana Jones-like where you sneak into some cave, steal some stuff, and then try to escape while everything tries to kill you. I literally had this thought yesterday.

$500 plus shipping.

No game is ever worth that much

>500 dollar for a single game

...

a local store had krosmaster arena's Frigost expansion but not the base game.

i've been considering getting it for a while and was surprised that the base game goes for about $60 as opposed to $100 nowadays. Would anyone give me a good reason to NOT get it? Anything glaringly shitty about Krosmaster as a whole that i wouldn't find out until i opened the box up and played a few games?

I guess plenty of people disagree. I am fortunate enough to be in a fincnial situation that allows me to make such borderline insane purchases once in a while without thinking back.

kickstarter.com/projects/grimlordgames/village-attacks/

Have you guys seen this? What do you think?

i also noticed there's a Krosmaster Arena 2.0 edition and something called Krosmaster Quest. is all this shit distinctly different or am i only supposed to buy 1 version and stick with it?

color me uninterested
the minis look nice at least
also >ks exclusives

>Dungeon tiles
>Minis for the sake of minis
>80 pounds for what looks like a shallow co-op with quarterbacking (because minis)
Would have been cooler if it was dungeon keeper esque and no fucking minis driving up the price.

Which reminds me, I'd love to see a boardgame adaption of the psp game where you play as an evil dungeon lore

>$100 plus ca. $15 for shipping for this

You know what pisses me off the most? The game sounds really fun and looks cool, but the price point so fucking high and you know why? Becuase they decided that it's necessary to include a couple dozen peasant minis. Fucking why? Nice minis for the players/monsters, okay I would totally get that. But why the fuck not just use tokens or chits or cards for all the other shit? Without all those unnecessary minis the game could be 50 dollars, maybe even less.
I'm not one of those people who hate on everything mini. Minis can add a lot of flair to a game, but in this case it's just idiotic. Also, even with that amount of minis that price still seems really high.

Minis make money. In the future even Uno will come with minis.

The designers know that the only way to get funding on KS is to include minis and preorder bonuses.

Formula D seats 10 and is about RACECARS and therefor rad.

Really. Explain how there is player interaction in Scythe. You don't block off other people's actions as you do in most worker placement eurogames, your workers are generally not in much threat and if you DO need to retreat them you can bring resources with you.

I own the art connoiseur edition. I've played the game multiple times. It's decent fun, but it IS highly overrated and in no way deserves #5 on BGG.

Again, tell me how there is player interaction in this game. I'm waiting.

>What have you been playing recently?
Codenames, Star Wars Risk (the good one) and Nefarious. Star Wars Risk was kinda awkward, as an old man who'd come along to the meetup hoping somebody would play his new copy of Risk with him...

Well, he saw us setting up he was obviously keen to play ANY kind of Risk. What ended up happening was me having to explain the rules for the second time, to somebody who clearly wasn't listening - I even gave him the rulebook to read, but he didn't read it. I ended up just telling what cards to play and how many dice he should roll, and even letting him kill off more ships so he wouldn't feel left out.

Didn't help that he was taking up a lot of space in the booth (this meetup was at a trendy bar/restaurant) and I occasionally got a whiff of Old Man Smell every now and then. I felt sorry for the old guy, as he was clearly in the wrong place... but not sorry enough to play his version of Risk.

On a more positive note, a middle-aged woman came in with her son and grandson, and she was delighted to see everyone play all these different games that she'd never seen before. I told her about how meetups worked, and pointed her in the direction of HABA for her grandson
>What games are at the top of your wishlist?
I've got everything, but I guess Star Trek Catan might be neat to have, or maybe the latest edition of Fury of Dracula
>Have you ever had an idea for a board game? If so, what stopped you from realizing it?
Card-based game about students tidying up their rooms before their parents stop by for a visit. Currently on permanent hiatus due to my laziness.
Guillotine - it's (sort of) educational AND sick as fuck!
It's the opposite for me - I love base Saboteur's simplicity, and think Saboteur 2 is juggling too many eggs to be fun

Gloomhaven if you can find it.

Star Wars Imperial Assault is also good, pretty much perfects the Descent formula.

Still too much.

It's pretty cool that Kickstarter allows players to get the game and a bunch of expansions right away (especially for that kind of game) but shit... when you go over a certain line... Maybe you should spread it out a bit ?

Then it won't get funded. There's nothing fun about having something that non-pledgers have access to.

Looking for a 4 player game for bar nights and found out about Skull, is it any good? Any recommendations?

I mean spread it out over time.

Instead of making one 500 $ KS, make two 250 $ KS separated by a few years. Nobody ever delivers on time anyway. (but I also understand that you have to sell your shit fast before the hype dies down... this shit is bananas.)