Board Game General /bgg/

>It's actually surprising how many games you can end up with this way
Amen, in the first 3-4 years back into the hobby I got 20 or so games and spent less than $200 on em just by grabbing what I could during major sales, at cons in bundles, and via math trade.

>I must be the cheapest guy in /bgg/; I spend like $300-400 a year on gaming

Good for you! I'm a student, so I don't have much disposable income, so I've been trying out more PnP games lately.

I had more disposable income as a student than I do now; God I miss being paid to drink. Good on you for the pnp stuff, it's a good way to help expand the hobby, and leads into all that other stuff like painting minis, making inserts, building boards or other components. Lotsa good ways to up your gaming without spending a bunch, or at least using what's easily pilfered from work/school for it.

>How much do you spend on boardgames and other components?
I try to keep my nerd shit hobbies on a budget. Video games, tabletop products, and board game purchases combined really shouldn't tip over 50-60 bucks a month at most. Gift money is exempt from this, so I just bought like $250 dollars of board game at the start of this year.

>Are you a compulsive buyer or do you rely more on discounts and used games?
It really depends on the product. If I am really into the game and I want it soon, I'm perfectly happy spending MSRP on it. For stuff I want eventually like expansions, I might wait on the a while to see if a sale pops up. I will wait between print runs though and can't see myself paying scalper prices for stuff when supplies get scarce.

>Do you buy boardgames or just go to game nights?
I happen to know a lot of friends that are more into board games then me. For a while I was one of those people that would happily come to a board game night and play games, but couldn't see myself buying one. Anything I was interested in was already owned by a friend. However, I've discovered two player games to play with the grill friend outside of our friend group's board game nights, and I'm happy to spend money on that.

Getting paid to drink? That sounds pretty sweet.

BGG has regular PnP contests and there are some gems in there, especially in solo games department, because my group rarely meets up.

>That sounds pretty sweet.
I went to a Big 10 university known for drinking; roommate was the #3 (seniority) bartender at the busiest place in town. The management is known to use the place to help clean their other business ventures, so they didn't care about comped stuff as much. On slow mid-week nights we'd get called in by managers, or the other bartenders asking us to come in. They'd cover our tab because they knew we'd bring enough to make money. I don't think I paid for dinner/beer on a Wednesday for the entire summer before my senior year. Best part was other people would give us cash to "help for the drinks you covered" so you'd walk out with money every time.

With you on BGG for the PnP selection; also I highly suggest going through the geek weekly news thing they put out. There's always cool threads/images that lead to fun projects. The guy who made his own molds and then cars for Thunder Alley was pretty sweet and almost had me wanting to do it, even without owning the game.

What games were they?

That I got last year?
>Diamant, For Sale, Rhino Hero, Coconuts, X-Wing (both cores, and a few expansions) Survive, couple trash game freebies at a con
Needed to get more casual stuff since I lost half my local group. Got Coconuts for like $10-15 off I think at Gencon, and they tossed in an extra bag of tri-colored coconuts as a bonus; Rhino Hero was free since I bought somethin else at HABA for my niece, Diamant/For Sale were french versions off amazon and I got lucky they were both deep discounted (someone dumping stock). Wasn't exactly my best year for acquisitions (Panzer Leader & Panzer Blitz for the brother-in-law for $10, Resistance for $5, or Flash Point big expansion for $8 are prolly tops) but it's not like I paid retail, or got stuff that won't hit the table.

>Panzer Leader/Resistance/Flash Point
I retract that, best deal ever was $2 event ticket to playtest Hanabi in 2012 at Gencon. Afterwards the group running it was giving away freebies, I got Qin (Knizia abstract) which was ok, got a few plays, then math traded it for Elder Sign and a couple plano boxes the owner had used to sort components. Prolly got $50 value outta that $2 ticket.

>Prolly got $50 value outta that $2 ticket.

That's kick-ass.

>spending on boardgames
since I'm in Australia and have to deal with the ass end of shipping, spending an average of $100 per game does not feel like an issue for me

of course, I also have a habit of buying expansions even if I don't use them often because I prefer to have a complete experience available to me

>compulsive buyer or discounts
I'm pretty much compulsive because I tend to buy OOP and low-run indie games more often than not

>buy boardgames or go to game nights
I'm almost always the game provider

Can anyone comment honestly on whether Blood Rage is worth picking up? I want something to play with my folks, and it's also attractive right now because I want miniatures to paint and it's $45 on Amazon (close to $1 per miniature). I know it's popular so the correct contrarian position will be "it sucks", but is this real? I don't want to get it if it's straight up garbage.

its a card drafting game where you place dudes on a map and upgrade what they are capable of. the cards you drafted are heavily used against other players, often in the form of changing the outcome of combats. its one of those slightly higher difficulty than casual but not quite complex games. if high quality minis and an experience you can enjoy with people who are not hardcore gamers are what you are looking for its probably a good bet.

i actually hate blood rage for the record, but for entirely subjective reasons

Thanks user.

My aim is to have something to paint that I can also play with my sister, brother, and his fiancee (gamers) but that is potentially simple enough to play with my parents (not gamers but intelligent people) without so much esotericism that people get turned off before we can really get into the swing of the game.

then ya id say its probably what you're looking for. if you like the look of the models and like the price id do it. maybe just watch like half of a video of some people playing to make sure you don't hate the actual gameplay. theres also a watch it played if you want someone to explain the whole rulebook to you

Anyone participating in this on Saturday?

It was one of my luckier moments; the play group was me and a family of 4, who'd never been to a con and were run ragged by that Sat morning. They let me have the "MVP prize" I think because the idea of hauling more stuff scared them. I have made it my mission since then to always try and schedule myself for playtests from smaller gamer oriented groups, rather than big publishers; more free stuff.

>Wheaton themed bullshit
Fuck that guy; total douchenozzle.

Seriously though? New store opened in my sleepy farm suburb late December; apparently they're running 15% off, so I might go in and see if they've got anything unusual/OOP. Up til now there's only been 4 stores in the hour radius from downtown; one is a comic store that has games, and one is the most toxic place ever; would be nice to see if the new one 10 min from home has as good of stock as the place 45 minutes away I have to go to get paints.

Yup, going to a store run by some guys I know. Bringing a mix of games from Scythe and Millennium Blades to Sushi Go and Good Cop Bad Cop.

>Good Cop Bad Cop
Enjoy it, was hoping to see the company do more stuff, but each time I read about Overworld Games it's another deduction filler/party game that looks exactly like what they've already done.

>Playing spartacus tonight
>Irascible Irishman player doing nothing but accumulating infinite body slaves
>Other players express doubt at the efficiency of paying ten denarii for a slave that gives back one per round, in a game likely to only go another three rounds.
>Cue noisy, possibly drunken dissertation on the infallibility of GRAB EM BY THE PUSSY economics.
Send help.

STEEV if we could just get you over your fear of co-ops I'd game with you daily; ya know if I was anywhere near the lefter side of the country. Such wonderful battle report stories
except for that TI3 thing, that's never gonna happen

>Idaho
>Lefter side of the country
You what now
Probably going to get first martians when it releases, we'll see if that cures me.

I meant geographically; you're definitely more righter than Michigan politically, well assuming you're not talking about all our gun toting rednecks innawoods.

First Martians does look pretty nice tho; Ignacy hasn't done much I don't love and Robinson Crusoe is just plain mean.

>we're gonna build the best whorehouses in Rome, they're gonna be the best yuge houses. And we are gonna make the Christians pay for it!

Potatoes are symbol of communism.

So I got my copy of Dark Souls: The Boardgame and I immediately set out to play it one player with a few little tweaks to speed it up a little (took me a long time to setup and play I will admit though because I am new to this and I had to keep looking at the manual to understand how it all works. Still not quite so sure actually).

What I did was cut the loot deck in half, leaving in a good spread of useful equipment and items for my character as well as some crappy ones. Then I gave my Knight one starting gift (a ring), which he didnt honestly use much because the guys a goddamn tank with his default equipment. Throughout the whole campaign the knight dodged about three times.
Definitely was smart picking the gargoyle as the first miniboss on your first go. His attack pattern is mostly defensive and his range isnt too threatening. Even with the knight you are always better off dodging his thrust attack since its dodge difficulty is low despite its high damage. Rush in, hit, rush out. Just like in the game.

16 soul pool to start with should be applicable to both single and multiplayer I think. Of course in multiplayer you would have to share it all between yourselves, and ai think that inital starting pool cuts down on the grind a ton. I only used the bonfire twice in my little test playthrough.

Overall strategy with the Knight that worked well for me: Rush to take down the archer, then go back for the undead knights. Archers can actually hit you pretty hard because your starting armour doesnt resist that sort of damage well. Soldiers and even silver knights dont cause much trouble for the Knight character. He can just absorb most of their damage. I didnt even use his special ability once.

I had fun. The figures look really nice and I plan to play another solo game this evening with the same parameters but a different class and a different miniboss.

Good variant idea here: Boss rush mode. Preset equipment. Fight boss. Upgrade. Fight next boss. Upgrade. etc.

Where in Michigan? Grand Rapids here and looking for another player / group since mine tends to be flaky.

Where in australia are you?

>How much do you spend on boardgames and other components?
I'm wanting to buy Splendor just because of how good it is at being an intro level game but when I do I'm planning on buying little plastic gems so that you're actually buying gems instead of poker chips

Work in Lansing but live in farm country like 30 minutes east of it, and most of my gaming is done further south-east. Been meaning to get up your way for Grandcon one of these years; it's supposed to be pretty solid for a regional. Plus the GGA guys up in Belmont have been awesome every time I've done stuff with them at Gencon.

First time I'm hearing of GGA, which sounds very cool. Probably haven't heard of them because I haven't been to Grandcon yet. I only just moved back to GR from Lansing almost two years ago now and unfortunately missed Grandcon that year, so hoping to go to my first this year.

There's a place called Out of the Box games I go to to purchase games about ten minutes from my house but I have yet to go for a game night. For some reason gaming with strangers irks me but I should just get over whatever social anxiety I have and try it out one of these days.

Also, I assume you live near Howell/Brighton. I used to LARP there.

You mean Idaho is full of communes and smelly hippies? The horror! THE HORROR!

Bump

Can someone who has played cry havoc tell me about it? Is it really as bad as people say it is?

Anyone ever play the Warhammer adventure card game? Amazon has it for $19.99, is it worth snagging at that price?

Yeah Grandcon is supposed to be one of the better regional cons in the country; I tend to do WYC more, but only because it's free and I have friends who let me crash on a couch in Indy. The GGA guys do pretty much every midwest con and do a great job teaching games, plus they're the ones who hooked me up with

And no I'm not quite that far east, I'm in Williamston, which just got a game store. Hopefully it's better than driving to Holt for AFK games, or braving the dungeon that is The Fortress in East Lansing. Last time I was there I waited 20 minutes to buy paint because they only had one staff member who was too busy talking MtG to do his job. Worse the place does paper receipt credit cards, and he doesn't even have a register, guy figured the tax out on a TI-83 calculator, their computer up front is apparently only for looking up buy-back prices on CCGs. Most of my gaming is down near Brighton/Pinckney/Chelsea area tho; either that or Indy when I'm down every other month. That's a city with a good gaming scene I wish was closer

Is anyone able to tell me what the similarities and differences are between roll for the galaxy and race for the galaxy? Aside from using dice or cards, obviously, are they the same game?

Why are all Lovecraftian games so bad?

Why waste time making a game good when you know that it'll sell from the theme alone? That way you can spend more of your time designing other good games or more trash that'll sell just because of the theme

A good many of them are bad because it's an open copyright so the theme is easy to paste onto anything (helps it's popular). Some are meh because the theme allows you to put more random elements into the game which can remove your meaningful decisions. It's like asking why there's so many bad generic fantasy games. If you're into dice placement you might look at Kingsport Festival, it's basically AF/Kingsburg with the theme swapped.

The Fortress in Lansing is absolute shit. If you're that way and don't mind going a bit further west Evolution Games has a small board game selection but are pretty friendly and can order anything. There used to be a place called 21st Century Comics and Games which was very good but unfortunately closed down.

Either way I'm lucky that I do live where I do since Lansing really wasn't too active. Detroit is also great with places like Pandemonium, for what it's worth.

Yeah Evolution isn't bad, and The Summit (formerly Clem's) is not awful (although I've had nothing but indifferent service) but AFK is good selection and the owner is really nice. Problem is it's outta the way for me since I'm almost never on the south end of town; and half the time they're too busy playing games or cleaning the shop to actually check you out at the counter. And yeah Lansing area is dead; I checked out the meetup group that started forming at The Avenue and it was just hipster trash bringing TtR/CAH/Munchkin; the LBG group that runs a con in Okemos is the far other end of the spectrum, 40+yr old grognards. I ended up saying fuck it and converting family/friends, easier to make gamers out of people I already know are decent than deal with unknown quantities.

Now if only I could get a decent Pathfinder group without driving an hour or more.

This review does a solid job of listing the pros and cons so you can decide for yourself if the game is for you.

youtube.com/watch?v=H76npXYE6FE

Why are all shit-posters incapable of actually contributing something useful to a thread?

I mean, they got at least a little discussion going, unlike your post

Its better to have no discussion than a flamewar. Saying things like is just a way to start flamewars and shitposting for something thats just personal taste.

It would be more accurate to say a discussion occurred in spite of, rather than because of their post. Any of the below questions would have been far more constructive:

Are there any CoC / Lovecraft based games that stand out as having good or excellent rules / mechanics?

How would you rate CoC game X in terms of setup time and rules complexity vs enjoyment?

Hell, even "What is the most popular CoC / Lovecraft based game? And why is it popular?" would have provide more discussion fuel than Shit-Poster-kun managed to do...

Local church hall is having two events; one in the afternoon for families, and one in the evening for grown-ups.

I assume that means it will involve games like ONUW and Shadow Hunters, as opposed to a mass orgy.

Fucker hasn't posted a new review since January.

What? You mean he has a life and obligations besides just making game review videos, and he isn't required to slave away selflessly on our behalf? It's almost as if he isn't our personal servant...

He used to put one out every month, and it's really just ranting in front of a camera with maybe a couple pictured edited in here and there.

Hopefully he's working on a different camera angle, up-nose isn't a great look. Either that or there's no game out that everyone likes that he feels the need to find a flaw in and rant about.

My group has a 70 person space reserved. I'm expecting less than a dozen. A blizzard tonight isn't going to help.

True, but if it's going to be worth watching, then it has to be an intelligent rant with some substance to it. And that isn't exactly an 'off the cuff with no preparation' kind of thing unless you're extremely good at it. I'm guessing he's probably just busy. That said, he's only got 15 videos on his youtube channel.

Does anyone on BGG actually trade games? I got Yashima and it sucks gigantic dick. I've offered twice to trade it to people who JUST LISTED wanting it but both have timed out instead of getting a response.

Eight player Memoir 44 Overlord, Y/N?

>LISTED wanting it
Tons of people on BGG have a list like hundreds of games long, and some (including me) log on once in a blue moon.

Trades can be tricky on BGG; your best bet is a math trade (no-ship is even better if you can work being at a con or a location) but if you go singles expect to try 5-10 times before you get a win. Most people are willing to trade, but they want the better deal, or at least a very good deal. Also whatever you do avoid boardgameco, just trust me on that one.

This too

Worth trying, but not for everyone.

How fun is elder sign? Im looking for a game that is small enough so i can carry around and its not troublesome

It's not small enough to travel with, there's loads of tokens and the cards are full sized tarot so it's got table sprawl. The app also beats the snot outta the physical copy, it automates all the upkeep and the music/effects add thematic flavor; only problem with it is you don't get to physically roll the dice.

Good to know! Any suggestions?

Some small box games I have that I lug around everywhere are:
Cockroach Poker
Arboretum
Archaeology the New Expedition
Epic
Cthulhu Realms

Depends what you're looking for I guess. For Sale is pretty portable (although the box is larger than needed), solid gateway/auction game. If you're gonna ditch the box Splendor is also really small. The Duke/Jarl can be played on a sheet of paper, or with a piece of chalk marking up whatever surface you're using and just the two bags of pieces. Codenames, and Resistance are both pretty portable deduction/team games. The Kosmos 2p line has a lot of options that aren't table hogs. Star/Hero Realms are just a deck of cards; "micro games" Tides of Time/Madness, Love Letter/Lost Legacy, stuff like that. Hanabi is very portable, and a solid co-op; it'll get easy over time as you get used to playing with the same people though. Rhino Hero is the most portable dexterity game I can think of, and good drinking fun at the bar. While you're there ask the waitstaff for extra coasters and a set of crayons for kids, make your own copy of Skull.

Because the source material doesn't translate well to boardgames. So instead of a Lovecraftian experiance, we get evil space tentacles that go bump in the night.

>and one in the evening for grown-ups
Strip Cataan?

No. First, let me get this out of the way.I am a hardcore wargamer. I play ASL. It is complicated as fuck.

8 player overlord is a bunch of complicated shit tacked on to a game whose one-and-only mechanical strength is it's simplicity. It's self defeating.

If you want a fun little war-themed game, play '44, and have fun. If you want a wargame, play a real wargame, don't try to force a game to be something it isn't.

ANkn with the 3D printed pieces for Diplomacy here. I was going to paint them last weekend but living in Mississippi means that it rains way too often. The weather should be clear tomorrow so I spent today organizing all of the pieces so that it should be quick and simple to paint them tomorrow. I have plenty of spares that I'll use to test the paints on but fingers crossed it works

Of course I meant user and not ANkn, I don't know how my phone autocorrected to that

>tfw just wrapped up a game of Arkham Horror yesterday
>tfw that was the third day we'd left it set up

TBF it's a boardgame version of an RPG loosely based on the pastiches of Lovecraft's setting cobbled together by his peers after he was dead, so I don't think he can fully be blamed for it

Cool! (And yeah, it always fookin' rains or is too damn humid here in Ohio when I want to paint or prime minis.) Just tape them down to an old pizza box or piece of card board so they don't slide around and stick to each other / fall over while being sprayed and you should be good to go. Make a few lighter passes from 10 to 12 inches away. Don't try to heavy coat them up close or you'll likely have issues with the paint being too thick / pooling on the minis and obscuring detail, etc.

Looking forward to seeing the results

Do you guys like Fairytale? I dont currently own any drafting games so I think it looks like a good one to introduce to the group.

Roll is the simpler, dumber game but with much more tactile fun.

>So instead of a Lovecraftian experiance, we get evil space tentacles that go bump in the night.
user, "evil space tentacles that go bump in the night" literally _is_ the Lovecraftian experience.

I just bought Marvel Legendary and Dark City expansion. If anyone has any question let me know. Ill be penny sleeving the entire game tomorrow so you most likely will get your answer tomorrow. I have played about 10 games now.

2 Solo, 2 playing solo with 2 hands, and 6 playing with another person.

So far one of the best investments I have made but I knew I liked deck building games like Ascension before I ever bought it and I had tried it once before at a store.

Jet.com is running a sale for new accounts which is the cheapest the base set has been in literal years. This goes for any board game they sell though sadly they dont sell dark city which is a massive improvement to the base game.

Explain Pickman's Model.

It's a story about monsters that go bump in the night.

I'm actually making my own RPG/Board Game based on a Pathfinder campaign I've created, for play on Tabletop Simulator. I'm using MSE to make the cards, though, since I don't know how to make cards otherwise.

Oh yeah? Well I'm making my super duper heavy mech co-op 4vs4 4x megadungeon that's totally not based on transformers meets GI Joe and also? I'm totally not jealous of you.. And your group you're totally not playing this with, ever.
Hmph. I guess you got told, didn't you!! I'm involving an image to this now to escalate things.

B-but it's so fun making it...

Oh yeah, I remember you.

Considering how many spare pieces you have, I hope you'll use some of them for your own game, because it's just such a waste to leave all those pieces unused.

Creating stuff is a nice part of the hobby too. Bonus point if you do it PnP. I would gladly try it out.

Oh I'm not discouraging you at all! I was jk. I hope it rocks. I'm not the biggest fan of pf but I think it has potential to be good because it's fluff and lore is pretty decent. Godspeed, user chopi!

Love Letter
Mijnlieff
Saboteur
One Night Ultimate Werewolf
Pocket OGRE

Yeah, but it's real important that you can't fight back against them unless they're a GOO/human hybrid.

Hi lads! New to board games.

Yesterday I bought Carcassonne and the 1st expansion of the game.

I played a few games with my fiancee and her mother but I don't understand one thing about Meeple placement. In the expansion, you get the big Meeple. Let's make a scenario: I put a normal meeple as a knight in the city, can my opponent put a big meeple (or any other kind of meeple) in the city after he contributed to the construction of the city or there's just one knight/city.

It's been a while since I've used the big meeple but I'm almost positive it functions like two meeples when you compare the amount of meeples assigned to somewhere.

In regards to your example, if you have played a knight in a city then no other player (yourself included) may play any other meeple (big or regular) in that same city. What can happen is if another player starts to build a city that is seperate than yours and puts a knight in there, and then later in the game their city connects with yours, that's fine. Both of you would be co-owners of that city and earn the points together...unless one of you has more meeples in the city, then that person will get all of the points (and this is where the big meeple comes into play)

Thanks for the advice user! I've got all the tape and spare cardboard I think I'll need.

I hadn't thought of trying to make my own game. I've never been the best at being creative like that but summer is coming so I should have more time to try it out.

The spare pieces in that photo are going to be used as the spares for the game in case sometime in the future pieces get broken or lost. I do have plenty of pieces not pictured that I'll try to do something with. Thanks.

Thanks a lot , user!

No problem! I love Carcassonne, it's one of my favorites

As my first (real) board game, besides scrabble I love it too. There are so many combinations and it's so much fun. I want to buy more expansions after getting used to Taverns and Cathedrals or whatever it's called the 1st one. Also , I need a bigger table to play on.

Glad to hear buddy, Godspeed

I've been playing Eldritch Horror a few times the past week. I don't know how people do it, but I can't seem to win it. Maybe it's because they take out all the hard cards, or they get just get lucky.