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The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)

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mercviper

Member
Almost everyone I try to get into Eclipse hates on it till they actually play it. The whole euro aesthetic is so strong in it with all the odd symbols and gazillion pieces that it scares people away.

If possible it's best to have most of the game already set up as much as possible and on the table, because it does have a heavy set up time that just makes things worse as you keep putting out more and more components.

I split the upgrade piles into 4 groups: one for basic upgrades and one for each upgrade category (e.g. Grid). Since I found that setting up those seem to take the longest, I think that just leaving them in the bags as such and only fetching when purchasing the upgraded parts will reduce setup a lot. The rest of it is pretty easy: player board + discs/cubes, colony ship and storage token distribution, round marker/starting player, monoliths/orbitals/exploration tiles which you can again leave in a bag, research tiles you pull from a bag, player ships, and hexes that you can store in the insert such that they don't mix when the box is shaken. With leaving pre-organized stuff in the bags, I think I can do setup in about 5 minutes, separating players ships taking the longest and also something I'm probably going to buy extra bags for to reduce that time as well.
 

Has anybody here purchased those population trays from this guy?:
http://www.beklaser.com/en/6-eclipse

Like I was saying, we haven't played the game yet, but I'm wondering how essential something like this is. Looking at how the game is setup, I suspect not bumping all those little cubes would be near impossible, especially once the wine starts flowing..... I figure if I put in an order for the trays now they'd be here by the time we actually started playing. But then, $25 is $25.
 

Giard

Member
I'm currently translating Cards Against Humanity in French (it'll be better translated than the one on their official website) and adding insides jokes for me and my friends. Should be fun!
 
Has anybody here purchased those population trays from this guy?:
http://www.beklaser.com/en/6-eclipse

Like I was saying, we haven't played the game yet, but I'm wondering how essential something like this is. Looking at how the game is setup, I suspect not bumping all those little cubes would be near impossible, especially once the wine starts flowing..... I figure if I put in an order for the trays now they'd be here by the time we actually started playing. But then, $25 is $25.

Don't really see any of it as essential. Game comes with baggies that everything is easily organized into, but during play the sheets are very clear where everything goes, even if something gets knocked aside it's easy to just fix up your sheet. You would have to be pretty rough with the cubes and table to really make any mess of it.
 

Azar

Member
I'm currently translating Cards Against Humanity in French (it'll be better translated than the one on their official website) and adding insides jokes for me and my friends. Should be fun!
Interesting, how many cards have you come across that don't really play well due to language or cultural differences? I imagine The Three Fifths Compromise wouldn't carry quite the same weight.
 

Keasar

Member
Don't really see any of it as essential. Game comes with baggies that everything is easily organized into, but during play the sheets are very clear where everything goes, even if something gets knocked aside it's easy to just fix up your sheet. You would have to be pretty rough with the cubes and table to really make any mess of it.

Still, I tend to get kinda fuzzy with my cubes when they are not in neat little rows all the time, a tray like that would help put them in organised rows alot faster.
 
Still, I tend to get kinda fuzzy with my cubes when they are not in neat little rows all the time, a tray like that would help put them in organised rows alot faster.

Well it's easy to know where things go especially since almost all the cubes on the board are assigned to the color coded world. So even if you have an accident, a quick look at the play area shows you where the cubes on your sheet would go.
 
Has anybody here purchased those population trays from this guy?:
http://www.beklaser.com/en/6-eclipse

Like I was saying, we haven't played the game yet, but I'm wondering how essential something like this is. Looking at how the game is setup, I suspect not bumping all those little cubes would be near impossible, especially once the wine starts flowing..... I figure if I put in an order for the trays now they'd be here by the time we actually started playing. But then, $25 is $25.
I did. The trays are really thick acrylic and feel sturdy. I didn't bother with the lid solution because I'd rather keep the cubes in baggies and just use the trays for gameplay.
 

Switters

Member
Has anybody here purchased those population trays from this guy?:
http://www.beklaser.com/en/6-eclipse

Like I was saying, we haven't played the game yet, but I'm wondering how essential something like this is. Looking at how the game is setup, I suspect not bumping all those little cubes would be near impossible, especially once the wine starts flowing..... I figure if I put in an order for the trays now they'd be here by the time we actually started playing. But then, $25 is $25.

I did, they haven't arrived yet. Everyone in my group has a bad case of thunder fingers, and hopefully these trays will help alleviate that as well as provide some extra aesthetics.
 
Well it's easy to know where things go especially since almost all the cubes on the board are assigned to the color coded world. So even if you have an accident, a quick look at the play area shows you where the cubes on your sheet would go.

That's kind of what I was wondering - if/when the cubes do get bumped, how easy is it to fix them. We'll try playing without the trays at first and see how necessary they would be for us, and then go from there. Thanks
 
played a game of citadels with 7 and wanted to gouge my eyes out... it was interminable. nothing worse than a game that majorly outstays its welcome

found it OK with 3/4

We had just 6 people. One of the reason I bought it was because every game I own is 4-5 and we often have 6-9 in group situations and it's not ideal to split the group up or exclude people.

I know there are suggestions in the original post, but does anyone have any "must haves" for 6-10 player party games. I picked up Times Up! Title Recall, and was looking at Dixit. It looks quite fun, but i'm not sure if it's quite right.
 

jstevenson

Sailor Stevenson
We had just 6 people. One of the reason I bought it was because every game I own is 4-5 and we often have 6-9 in group situations and it's not ideal to split the group up or exclude people.

I know there are suggestions in the original post, but does anyone have any "must haves" for 6-10 player party games. I picked up Times Up! Title Recall, and was looking at Dixit. It looks quite fun, but i'm not sure if it's quite right.

Formula D is good with a large group.

7 wonders can be too.

I love Citadels personally, but it takes a few games for people to know each others tendencies and for the thief/assassin fuckery to be at a maximum
 
Formula D is good with a large group.

7 wonders can be too.

I love Citadels personally, but it takes a few games for people to know each others tendencies and for the thief/assassin fuckery to be at a maximum

I should probably have noted that its a really mixed group, including a few girls that enjoy social stuff like Cranium, Charades etc. (hence, Times Up! seemed a good fit.) - games that sort of facilitate a lot of conversation, move fast and are often very funny.
 

Erudite

Member
Just ordered Cyclades to play with the family. Love the setting and the board+pieces are beautiful. anyone play this?
It's my latest purchase, and I love it. It's a nice change of pace from my previous go to games (Dominion, Catan, etc) and not too hard to teach to new players.

Likely going to be buying it's expansion this week.

Thinking about adding something else to my purchase this week as well. It's a toss up between Infiltration and Blood Bowl Team Manager right now.

How accessible & enjoyable is Blood Bowl for individuals who have no prior experience nor interest in the franchise?
 

mercviper

Member
I should probably have noted that its a really mixed group, including a few girls that enjoy social stuff like Cranium, Charades etc. (hence, Times Up! seemed a good fit.) - games that sort of facilitate a lot of conversation, move fast and are often very funny.

I've had a lot of success with Liar's Dice and Wits & Wagers being popular hits for large party games.
 
I did. The trays are really thick acrylic and feel sturdy. I didn't bother with the lid solution because I'd rather keep the cubes in baggies and just use the trays for gameplay.

Maybe I'm just being stupid, but once the cubes are in the tray, how do you get them out again in an easy manner? It seems like you won't be able to pick them up again easily.
 
For parties, I like really simple games or heavily themed games. Zombies!!! is just about as simple as it gets, but people enjoy screwing each other over. You can also grow or shrink the game with expansions depending on how many people are playing. I perfer 2-3 fast games over a single, gigantic game though. Betrayal at the House on the Hill is heavy on theme and gets better the more people you add IMO.
 
I should probably have noted that its a really mixed group, including a few girls that enjoy social stuff like Cranium, Charades etc. (hence, Times Up! seemed a good fit.) - games that sort of facilitate a lot of conversation, move fast and are often very funny.

The Resistance/Werewolf, Dixit and Liars Dice are all nearly universal filler/party hits for me.
 
Finally got Dixit to play with my "party games" crowd and everyone actually really liked it which made me happy. I wasn't even sold on the game myself, but everyone picked it up really quick after some initial hesitation and was begging to start a second game immediately after the first. Playing with 7 people though made us churn through the cards really quick. I'm guessing 6 people is the sweet spot for that game...but if we play again I may end up buying the Xpack just to get more cards in there.

One of the things that's interesting is how little the card churn really matters though.... repeats aren't a huge dealas people have different cards to play for the repeat, and a lot of cards tend to end up in your hand and stay there forever. At least, that happens to me. But yeah, I want to expansionize too.

Got in a mock game of eclipse last night. That game is still soo intimidating during setup. Pieces everywhere! Once we got the rules read though, play moved very fast. Definitely like this game a lot. I had a more materials based empire and my buddy ran a huge econ based one, so I had to strike before I fell behind too much. We had explored such that the central tile was the choke point to both our areas. I built a couple dreadnaughts and took out the GDS, but I waited a round too long to move into attack his base, so he managed to upgrade and research a million things with his huge economy and defend. We ended up calling it a draw because it was late, I had more VP through battles with only 2 rounds left, and even though he took out my fleet, we realized he had gotten a few key sectors w/o having to fight ancients with his interceptors. All in all, pretty fun and will definitely play it again now that I don't have to sort out all the chits at the beginning and have pre-existing knowledge of the rules and board placements.

I also played my first game yesterday. My wife and I screwed up at least one rule (haven't done the full check to see what else we screwed up), but we really liked it. It's like Through the Ages, in space, with area control. Pretty awesome.

That's kind of what I was wondering - if/when the cubes do get bumped, how easy is it to fix them. We'll try playing without the trays at first and see how necessary they would be for us, and then go from there. Thanks

I had a pretty catastrophic tray slide (pieces on the floor and everything). My table isn't really big enough for Eclipse, at least... it was cramped with 2, would be impossible to do more. It wasn't too difficult to fix, though a little memory was required.
 
This thread needs more Space Hulk, the best board game.

Space Hulk really is my favorite game. I have the first version with both expansions. I even bought metal minis and painted them all for that edition. When 3rd edition came out, I bought 2 copies because the limited edition aspect freaked me out. I have yet to paint the minis, but it's on my "to do" list. My second copy is still unopened.
 

Hero

Member
Finally got around to playing some Citadels, rather disappointing. Game dragged on a little too long, wasn't very involved and just didn't really grip anyone. Not sure if it'll even get another play.

I should probably have noted that its a really mixed group, including a few girls that enjoy social stuff like Cranium, Charades etc. (hence, Times Up! seemed a good fit.) - games that sort of facilitate a lot of conversation, move fast and are often very funny.

So you introduced a light political game to a mixed group including girls who only like social games? Sounds like it was doomed from the beginning. Citadels is a great game but only if people are into it and want to win. It's not a conversation game at all. Except the conversation when the assassin and thief go and fuck someone over for the round.
 

Keasar

Member
Well it's easy to know where things go especially since almost all the cubes on the board are assigned to the color coded world. So even if you have an accident, a quick look at the play area shows you where the cubes on your sheet would go.

Yeah but one accidental bump and they are all over the place. :p
 
So you introduced a light political game to a mixed group including girls who only like social games? Sounds like it was doomed from the beginning. Citadels is a great game but only if people are into it and want to win. It's not a conversation game at all. Except the conversation when the assassin and thief go and fuck someone over for the round.

Hah. Well no, not really because the group I played Citadels with is a group of people that really enjoy board games...(BSG, Catan, Pandemic, Munchkin etc.) and there was none of those female folk around.
 
Any good meaty games for 6+ players? Keep having trouble with the summer vacation and friends bringing their non gamer girlfriends. Forced to do simple card games/party games and then they whine about not playing the better real gamer games. Seems like most good stuff is 4-5 players. Of course also has to be something that that's not going to take 4-5 hours to play. Group is getting tired of us pulling out 7 Wonders and for some reason a couple hates Formula D. 7 Wonders is also on the verge of too difficult to comprehend for some of these girls.....

Yeah but one accidental bump and they are all over the place. :p

Well it would be one hell of a bump heh. Course we play on a very sturdy heavy table that would require hardcore player SMASH to ruin a player area. After using crappy fold out tables and all the trouble it brings wiht accidents, we figured investing in a good sturdy table for gaming is best.
 
I play board games once or twice a year at a get together, and only when it's 6 people or less. For better or worse, when people come over I usually have twice that amount. The majority of the time it's video games like Rock Band, You Don't Know Jack, and other games where people can just swap controllers like Rayman Origins and House of the Dead: Overkill.

Getting non-board gamers into a board game is usually more trouble than it's worth IMO. I kind of sweat if people will like the game or concept well before the day of the event. There are usually a lot of compromises playing to the lowest common denominator in the group of friends and at that point we would likely be better off playing a "traditional" board or card game. Besides, a lot of the time people want to get in side conversations with others before coming back into a group conversation and board games are not really conducive to that. If I had a group of "regulars" that would make things a lot easier, but that's not the case.

I think the best board game situations for me involve 4 players that know what they are in for and plan an entire day and evening around it with food and some background movies. Geez, I want to plan one right now, lol.
 
I play board games once or twice a year at a get together, and only when it's 6 people or less. For better or worse, when people come over I usually have twice that amount. The majority of the time it's video games like Rock Band, You Don't Know Jack, and other games where people can just swap controllers like Rayman Origins and House of the Dead: Overkill.

Getting non-board gamers into a board game is usually more trouble than it's worth IMO. I kind of sweat if people will like the game or concept well before the day of the event. There are usually a lot of compromises playing to the lowest common denominator in the group of friends and at that point we would likely be better off playing a "traditional" board or card game. Besides, a lot of the time people want to get in side conversations with others before coming back into a group conversation and board games are not really conducive to that. If I had a group of "regulars" that would make things a lot easier, but that's not the case.

I think the best board game situations for me involve 4 players that know what they are in for and plan an entire day and evening around it with food and some background movies. Geez, I want to plan one right now, lol.

So you usually have approx 12 when people come over for Rock Band? I have a good solution for you. Start off with social/party games. Telestrations, Cranium, Apples to Apples (even though I hate it), and move into WEREWOLF. These games are designed around having fun so they're an easier sell and easier to learn/teach. While playing these games, you will find out who would be into hobby board gaming. Not necessarily this, but then it'd be easy to say, "Hey, you're pretty good at Werewolf, I think you'd really like this game called Battlestar Gallactica" etc.
 
I play board games once or twice a year at a get together, and only when it's 6 people or less. For better or worse, when people come over I usually have twice that amount. The majority of the time it's video games like Rock Band, You Don't Know Jack, and other games where people can just swap controllers like Rayman Origins and House of the Dead: Overkill.

Getting non-board gamers into a board game is usually more trouble than it's worth IMO. I kind of sweat if people will like the game or concept well before the day of the event. There are usually a lot of compromises playing to the lowest common denominator in the group of friends and at that point we would likely be better off playing a "traditional" board or card game. Besides, a lot of the time people want to get in side conversations with others before coming back into a group conversation and board games are not really conducive to that. If I had a group of "regulars" that would make things a lot easier, but that's not the case.

I think the best board game situations for me involve 4 players that know what they are in for and plan an entire day and evening around it with food and some background movies. Geez, I want to plan one right now, lol.

Yea that's usually what I like is the smaller dedicated groups. We tend to have usually 2 game days a week right now, but because of certain circumstances, we have almost every week a day where a bunch of casuals or non gamers are being brought over as well now and it's getting annoying especially with one who obviously is not into the games. I tried to hint to my friend that his girl was not into it maybe and that he shouldn't force her to come, but it seems like shes just tagging along cause she thinks she should? I don't get it. For the past couple months this has been a weekly thing with other casuals also who just have hard time if it's not simple party like games. Easier once in a while but it seems to have become a thing to go to my place for the game night now that people expect. I obviously don't want to tell people not to come or to not bring so and so.

Because of scheduling at least we have been able to get a 2nd game day in the week often which is smaller group of dedicated gamers.

Cards against humanity is great, but in the past month have played it so many times that I'm pretty sick of it, the cards and joke combos coming out of it are repeating now too much that it's lost alot of the fun factor for me.
 

mercviper

Member
Cards against humanity was a great hit in a bigger group.

That game is pretty funny and wrong at the same time. Someone got "What gives me uncontrollable gas?" or something similar and I won it by playing a card that said
Auschwitz
. So wrong, yet so good. :x

We ended up running through the entire deck of questions, and none of us even like Apples to Apples.
 
My yucata game count is getting perilously low, who's still active on there? Anyone set their favorite/liked games so we can try their random game feature? Mine are set.
 

Flynn

Member
So you usually have approx 12 when people come over for Rock Band? I have a good solution for you. Start off with social/party games. Telestrations, Cranium, Apples to Apples (even though I hate it), and move into WEREWOLF. These games are designed around having fun so they're an easier sell and easier to learn/teach. While playing these games, you will find out who would be into hobby board gaming. Not necessarily this, but then it'd be easy to say, "Hey, you're pretty good at Werewolf, I think you'd really like this game called Battlestar Gallactica" etc.

The danger here is that they'll always want to play Werewolf.
 
The danger here is that they'll always want to play Werewolf.

I'm all about "The Thing" version of Werewolf, which I was introduced to while in France, by a Bulgarian.

It needs a moderator, so that's a slight downside, but the moderator gets to have a bit of fun. The premise is exactly the same as the movie The Thing. You all sit in a circle and are handed cards. A single one of the cards is marked, indicating if you get it you are the one containing the symbiote. The goal is simple, the humans win by killing the infected, the aliens win by having a greater number turned than the humans left. Each round operates as follows. Players go to sleep. The moderator walks around the outside of the circle and talks during this time. He indicates that the alien should wake up, signaling the player playing as the alien to look up. That player then selects a victim and indicates it to the moderator thru glancing. The moderator taps that person on the shoulder (a good moderator will continue to say that he is waiting for the victim to be chosen even after they have been). Note, that person does not wake up when tapped, so for the next part, they are unsure who infected them. So after an infected has been chosen, everyone wakes up. The humans get two "tests" to try to kill the aliens. So that is where the bluffing and deflection comes in. They majority vote on who to test, if they choose an alien, that player is eliminated. If the second test is unsuccessful, the sleep phase starts. From there on out, all aliens wake up and together chose a victim.

It's super ruthless. I'd throw players I'd just infected under the bus to save my own ass, since they had no idea I was the one that infected them. I'm proud to say I never lost as either alien or human (and I even started as the alien too) but it also means I'm apparently a damn convincing liar.

But yeah, we had werewolf in the mansion (was for this thing put on by Ubisoft, long story) but just ended up playing this almost every night for two weeks.
 
I'm all about "The Thing" version of Werewolf, which I was introduced to while in France, by a Bulgarian.

It needs a moderator, so that's a slight downside, but the moderator gets to have a bit of fun. The premise is exactly the same as the movie The Thing. You all sit in a circle and are handed cards. A single one of the cards is marked, indicating if you get it you are the one containing the symbiote. The goal is simple, the humans win by killing the infected, the aliens win by having a greater number turned than the humans left. Each round operates as follows. Players go to sleep. The moderator walks around the outside of the circle and talks during this time. He indicates that the alien should wake up, signaling the player playing as the alien to look up. That player then selects a victim and indicates it to the moderator thru glancing. The moderator taps that person on the shoulder (a good moderator will continue to say that he is waiting for the victim to be chosen even after they have been). Note, that person does not wake up when tapped, so for the next part, they are unsure who infected them. So after an infected has been chosen, everyone wakes up. The humans get two "tests" to try to kill the aliens. So that is where the bluffing and deflection comes in. They majority vote on who to test, if they choose an alien, that player is eliminated. If the second test is unsuccessful, the sleep phase starts. From there on out, all aliens wake up and together chose a victim.

It's super ruthless. I'd throw players I'd just infected under the bus to save my own ass, since they had no idea I was the one that infected them. I'm proud to say I never lost as either alien or human (and I even started as the alien too) but it also means I'm apparently a damn convincing liar.

But yeah, we had werewolf in the mansion (was for this thing put on by Ubisoft, long story) but just ended up playing this almost every night for two weeks.

that sounds great, what would you say how many people to you need as minimum?
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
My yucata game count is getting perilously low, who's still active on there? Anyone set their favorite/liked games so we can try their random game feature? Mine are set.

I am always down. Yucata's one flaw is lack of email notifications meaning games can drop sometimes but I still love it.
 
that sounds great, what would you say how many people to you need as minimum?

Six is probably the minimum (5 + moderator) If the game is that small though, only one test per turn for the humans. above 8 is when two makes sense.

Its obviously better the more people you have though. Everyone kept picking on the British dude in our group though. The group dynamic is awesome in subsequent games too. You learn who people don't trust, so if you're infected and want to draw heat off of you, you turn them then accuse them. It's great stuff.
 
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