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The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)

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AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
You can apply that to almost all board games

It counts double though for games that are either/both fairly complex to teach and long to play. It's like some people in my regular group dislike 7 Wonders and even King of Tokyo, but those never have problems hitting the table for obvious reasons I suppose. Direct conflict in particular is something some players are just violently allergic to. Kind of like me and zero-randomness games. :p
 

MeatZilla1

Neo Member
I'm new to the board game scene and had a question. I'm kind of interested in Heros quest. Is it worth looking for and buying a used copy or is there a newer game that does it better ?
 

zulux21

Member
You can apply that to almost all board games

that's true of any game in general, but when I say that I mean a very special right group. My group can get through most any game we have tried, we have had some bad games here and there, but we have never played any other game that remotely failed as hard as eclipse did. Usually with a board game, with skilled players you can get through most any game. Some will have more fun than others, but I can't think of another game where some of the table was having fun, and the other half just wanted it to end or leaving in a rage because the game was sucking so hard for them. It likely is just an end result of it's genre, and perhaps the games like that are more like that and if you like that genre you are fine, but it seems to be a very very niche genre compared to the rest of the games out there and easily something that you should look into more then lets say... the next eurogame that comes out whether your group would like it.

Eclipse really hits home with a lot of people because it threads the needle nicely between Euro and thematic/confrontational. Kinda like how Twilight Struggle does too. But yeah it can take maybe an hour to learn well and the playtime is usually 2.5-3.5 hours for 4-6 players unless you have people who can take turns quickly. Other issue is if you get attacked early it can really cripple you, but you did usually play some role in this (e.g., not responding to an opponent's buildup) AND even better then you can turn the game into a minigame of doing anything you can to screw/hobble the person who attacked you (pretty fun imo, and a fair part of the cost of being ruthless in that game).

I love it ... but that said I own both expansions and have these nice playfield things and I haven't played it since BGG.Con, so yeah you really need the right setup for it to hit the table.

the guy that rage quit was indeed crippled, I don't recall him having much of a chance to build up though, due to the random nature of the placement of places he ended up having a bunch of difficult to take over places put near him and couldn't do much.

I do hear the expansions help with some of the issues I had with the game... for example the expansion that adds an alliance seems to help one of the major issues I had... where I was trying to work with someone to build back up to take down a powerful player, but he had to cross through my space which by the rules meant we had to attack each other (If i am recalling right) but the alliance system means we could actually work together.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
That's weird...maybe you guys don't play a lot of direct-conflict games? Because Eclipse is probably one of the most kind ones in terms of giving you the ability to defend yourself early and also having it not be so horrible if you do get hit early. Obviously you can get stuck but I'm speaking relatively.
 

zulux21

Member
That's weird...maybe you guys don't play a lot of direct-conflict games? Because Eclipse is probably one of the most kind ones in terms of giving you the ability to defend yourself early and also having it not be so horrible if you do get hit early. Obviously you can get stuck but I'm speaking relatively.

in general we didn't play a ton of them, they rarely ended up with everyone having fun, but even among those we didn't have any go as bad as eclipse. I think some of it was just some extreme bad luck for one side (due to random placement of worlds) vs good luck on the other side... my memories of eclipse are a bit fuzzy though, as none of us wanted to talk about it when we got together next time as it came close to ending our game group lol. (it did eventually break up but not because of that, but because life got in the way with someone moving away)

I know games like eclipse wouldn't remotely work with my new group... the farthest we go with having the ability to screw each other over is something like dominate species neither my wife (she remembers eclipse and refuses to play anything remotely like it lol), nor my wife's friend enjoys playing competitive games against their SO as their SO tends to just win :p so we stick more with kinder games, or co op games now.
 

Apenheul

Member
For International Tabletop Day my local store had a couple of tables and lots of games to play, so I finally had the chance to play two games I'm almost ashamed to admit I'd never played: The Forbidden Desert and Dominion (with a couple of expansions). To make a long story short, I liked The Forbidden Desert much better than I expected and Dominion a lot less. I just didn't think that the deckpooling mechanic was all that interesting, at least not as the focus of the game. Later this month there's a Star Wars X Wing tournament, I'm just going to watch to see if I'd like the game.

Me and my group are currently really into Terra Mystica, we've banned one race since it seemed overpowered (every time someone played that race he/she'd win if the strategy was carried out correctly), and Sid Meier's Civilization is already in the backlog for whenever we're burned out on TM.
 

zulux21

Member
For International Tabletop Day my local store had a couple of tables and lots of games to play, so I finally had the chance to play two games I'm almost ashamed to admit I'd never played: The Forbidden Desert and Dominion (with a couple of expansions). To make a long story short, I liked The Forbidden Desert much better than I expected and Dominion a lot less. I just didn't think that the deckpooling mechanic was all that interesting, at least not as the focus of the game. Later this month there's a Star Wars X Wing tournament, I'm just going to watch to see if I'd like the game.

Me and my group are currently really into Terra Mystica, we've banned one race since it seemed overpowered (every time someone played that race he/she'd win if the strategy was carried out correctly), and Sid Meier's Civilization is already in the backlog for whenever we're burned out on TM.

no shame with forbidden desert, it's not that old of a game (though you should have tried forbidden island at some point) desert is the more enjoyable game to me. As for dominion, don't feel to bad for not finding it amazing, it's one of the most boring card games I have played (and I own a number of them :p) I consider it about on par with killer bunnies (which has a horrible end game lol) I just don't get the appeal of a card game where the optimal path is almost always clear from the very start (aka since the cards aren't all that well balanced (with a number of them only being really useful when played together with a set of other cards or when only 1 that gives extra actions shows up) it's usually pretty obvious what 1 or 2 cards you want to go after as soon as possible unless you manually pick out what cards you are playing with, but that tends to leave the owner of the game as the winner most of the time :p) and the winner is determined by whether your deck lines up nicely for you or not :p (or if no one else takes that optimal path because that path is usually worth twice as many points as any other option if you are the only one to take it)

I much prefer a game with more chance like Ascension where at least the optimal path isn't clear from the start since it's always changing. (I'm really enjoying marvel legendary though as it's basically ascension just with more going on and working together with people yay co op)
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
no shame with forbidden desert, it's not that old of a game (though you should have tried forbidden island at some point) desert is the more enjoyable game to me. As for dominion, don't feel to bad for not finding it amazing, it's one of the most boring card games I have played (and I own a number of them :p) I consider it about on par with killer bunnies (which has a horrible end game lol) I just don't get the appeal of a card game where the optimal path is almost always clear from the very start (aka since the cards aren't all that well balanced (with a number of them only being really useful when played together with a set of other cards) it's usually pretty obvious what 1 or 2 cards you want to go after as soon as possible) and the winner is determined by whether your deck lines up nicely for you or not :p (or if no one else takes that optimal path because that path is usually worth twice as many points as any other option if you are the only one to take it)

I much prefer a game with more chance like Ascension where at least the optimal path isn't clear from the start since it's always changing. (I'm really enjoying marvel legendary though as it's basically ascension just with more going on and working together with people yay co op)
i like ascension better for the randomness but i can respect what dominion brought to the table and usually have fun playing it the rare times that i do.
 

zulux21

Member
i like ascension better for the randomness but i can respect what dominion brought to the table and usually have fun playing it the rare times that i do.

I like that dominion helped bring back card games (at least a little) and I don't tend to hate playing it, I just find it boring to play. I play plenty of games that aren't very deep or don't have a lot of choice and can enjoy it. I think I would have enjoyed dominion more if the owners of the game didn't repeatedly try telling me that it's a super deep stratagy card game where it's not over until it's over... I've yet to play a game where after a few turns of someone taking what I saw was the optimal path from the start and no one else taking that path that they didn't just dominate the game at the end... heck I have played too many games where someone had a lucky line up after their first shuffling, was able to buy a single higher price card well before anyone else could, and then use that card to just destroy the competition.

again I am not saying it's a terrible game, just boring, and very over rated. I don't see the mass appeal it seems to have, but I can't fault people for enjoying it... I have played many mind numbingly boring games that I enjoy for some reason or another lol. I also find 7 wonders quite over rated, but it is one of the better 7 player games, even if who wins or loses is often decided by who you sat next to (way to often does someone seem to be missing multiple resources while most other people have access to all of them because their neighbors didn't take any :p)
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
yeah i think dominion is deckbuilding for people who prefer eurogames. personally i prefer more thematic and random games like ascension and legendary though.
 

zulux21

Member
yeah i think dominion is deckbuilding for people who prefer eurogames. personally i prefer more thematic and random games like ascension and legendary though.

I could see that, in general while I don't mind eurogames (heck I often win them which helps :p) I tend to have a lot more fun for time invested vs enjoyment with a game like red dragon inn or king of tokyo... I mean there are very few things less fun in board gaming then making a few early mistakes in a eurogame (usually while playing it the first time) and just being stuck way behind everyone else knowing you can never catch up the other people make some very stupid moves, given how long most eurogames take.
 
Had a great day yesterday for International Tabletop Day. Had the chance to play a few new games.

Games played were:

Ruse
Coup
Love Letter
Battlestar Galactica
Bang!
Castle Panic
Saboteur

Battlestar Galactica is still one of my favourite games and was the stand out for me. Coup again was amazing. Saboteur had some good ideas but didn't really pull it off. Love Letter and Ruse don't have much happening in them. Castle Panic was ok but seemed more a game you would play with people that a new to gaming.
 

Apenheul

Member
I think I would have enjoyed dominion more if the owners of the game didn't repeatedly try telling me that it's a super deep stratagy card game where it's not over until it's over...
My expectations were really high because I know such a person, so after my playing session today I questioned my understanding of the game. I think I'd like the game a lot better if there were multiple paths to victory, so that you still can switch strategies halfway the game, or maybe take advantage of tactical opportunities, as opposed to sticking as close to the optimal path as the randomness of drawing cards allows.
 

Hero

Member
So can anyone comment on Zombicide Season 1 or 2? Since the sale on Amazon right now is so huge I was thinking about getting either version but want to know if it's good or not. My group already really enjoyed Last Night on Earth and kind of overplayed it a bit in the beginning. Does this compare at all?
 

Mista Koo

Member
Didn't go anywhere for International Tabletop Day. A few people from my group went to the Wil Wheaton party but only told me after it was sold out :(

Last game night plays:
  • Small World: I think I was last with a margin. Seems to be one of those games that I enjoy but will never be good at :p
  • Last Night on Earth: Neat game played at the worst time ever, no one knew the rules and half of the players weren't that interested to start with and we played the boring base scenario. I felt bad for choosing it, I think this is one of the first times I actually chosen which game to play and it was an utter failure.
  • Ultimate Werewolf: As the moderator I messed up by revealing who did the priest protect. As a villager I got The Resistance curse in which no one trusted me.

Edit: Missed the Amazon sales, probably for the best since I would've made some impulse purchases. Although $10 for Forbidden Island sounded good.
 

fenners

Member
So can anyone comment on Zombicide Season 1 or 2? Since the sale on Amazon right now is so huge I was thinking about getting either version but want to know if it's good or not. My group already really enjoyed Last Night on Earth and kind of overplayed it a bit in the beginning. Does this compare at all?

Season 1 is the best jump in point. Less complicated set of rules/"toys" than Prison Outbreak.

At its heart, it's not a complicated game - you have a group of survivor characters & each turn you get three actions - move, shoot zombies, search for items, etc. Every player moves, then every zombie on the board moves/attacks, and more spawn in. Simple. When you open a door, you do a spawn in each room. Simple. Combat against zombies is as simple as rolling the dice for the weapon(s) you have in your hand & assigning hits (e.g. a pistol rolls one dice & hits on 4+). Simple-ish.

The joy of the game comes out of the emergent chaos from what items you draw, what particular zombie spawn card happens when, and one particular combat rule that people either love or hate - for any ranged weapon combat, hits go against any survivor (except the shooter) before any zombies. Melee weapons don't have that limit. So a lot of the tactical moment to moment play is how you manage the zombie hoard (their movement is predictable & automatic), survivor grouping, and weapons.

A couple of people I've played with just couldn't get past that ranged vs melee weapon ruling.

I'm a big fan of the game, so take my comments with a pinch of salt ;) It's gorgeously produced, minis are great, and the set of missions available in the book & officially online are good quality too.
 
So after playing a few sessions of it (one by myself to learn the rules, one with 2 players, and the introductory level through the website with 3 players) I'm pretty confident to say that Myth is a pretty great cooperative board game.

It's got a lot of the usual stuff of a dungeon crawl, but your hand of cards determines what sort of attacks you can do. It is entirely open-ended, which I can imagine would drive some people crazy, down to determining what quests or tiles or enemies your encounter.

There's a lot of fudging it in your favor, or making it harder for yourselves, so you can really tweak the difficulty based on your group's tastes.

I can already see this one getting played often, but looks like if you didn't get in on the kickstarter with all the included upcoming expansions, or want to get more stuff, you'll be investing quite a bit of money in this game on top of the base game.
 

Lexxon

Member
So after playing a few sessions of it (one by myself to learn the rules, one with 2 players, and the introductory level through the website with 3 players) I'm pretty confident to say that Myth is a pretty great cooperative board game.

I just started getting into tabletop in the past few months, and went to my first meetup yesterday for Tabletop Day. Played a game called Dungeon Run, thought it was fun....then looked at the reviews: There's so much more to be done with the "dungeon crawler" board game!

D+D has always been a bit too deep for me, but this type of game looks awesome. Definitely going to keep an eye on Myth, and hope that maybe someone brings it to PAX East next weekend!
 

EYEL1NER

Member
Pretty intense day yesterday. I planned on going to a FLGS and browsing a bit before going to a library where a local gaming group was meeting to play for five hours.
I ended up starting a game of Smash Up at the game store at noon or so and I finished the day at 3 AM Sun with a game of Quarriers. I played a fucking ton of games over that 15 hours and learned some cool games that I have been wanting to buy. Played Smash Up, King of Tokyo, Love Letter, Quarriers, Guillotine (really enjoyed this one), 7 Wonders, Alien Frontiers, Lords of Waterdeep, Tsuro, Takenoko, Sentinals of the Multiverse, Tsuro of the Seas, Forbidden Island, and several more. I actually can't remember some of the smaller, quicker games we played. The only things I already knew how to play owned were Smash Up and Forbidden Island. Also played some Krosmaster promo giveaway game but did not know what the hell I was doing. Playing it got you entered into a contest to win it, but myself and another guy were the only people that played all day I think. Neither of us really wanted it after trying it. Didn't win any promo items or get awarded anything for buying specific items (only bought two Small World expansions and some Arkham Horror dice) but I wasn't bothered by that. Only thing I wanted was the Smash Up Geek deck, but that was just a voucher; I'll buy it upon release anyway.
I really want to buy Takenoko, Lords of Waterdeep, Alien Frontiers (hope this sees a reprint sometime), Tsuro and Tsuro of the Seas, Guillotine, a couple other Love Letter variants to go with my regular version, and King of Tokyo. Not sure about 7 Wonders, since I didn't feel like I understood it after the game we played. Kind of felt the same about Quarriers.
The game store was pretty cool and there were some really cool dudes there during the day that I played with. I'm not good in new social situations but I felt at ease pretty quickly. I think I might go back for one of their late night Tuesday game nights before I leave the country again.
There were a couple downers though. I got to see a lot of games I have previously wanted but was only now seeing them in-person, which sucked when I saw how big of boxes they came in (meaning I can't really buy them now and get them in my luggage to take back to work in the Arctic). Prices at the game store on some things were pretty high compared to any online retailers; I did expect higher prices but not as high as some that I saw. And seeing the amount of games there in-person made me want to buy a shitton of them, but the prices gave me pause. I will buy some stuff if I go back though, to show some support and appreciation for sitting around until after 3 AM (something that I hear regularly happens when a bunch of people are there playing). My wife was also pissed that I didn't get home until 4:30 and didn't try to get a hold of her all night or let her know where I was, but that isn't any fault of the store, people I played with, or Tabletop Day; that was all on me. And lastly, I missed some great prices on Amazon for games, but I was without Internet, preoccupied by games, and an hour from home the whole time until the sales ended. Once again that one was my fault though, same as how me being hungry all day was my fault because I didn't eat anything all day.

Best thing aboyt it was learning Love Letter. I bought Love Letter before getting home to the country so I could play with the wife, but had not even opened it yet. I learned it super-quickly yesterday and then asked the wife to play tonight. She picked it up really easily and I believe she enjoyed it. So I feel a bit better about when we get to Jaipur, Hanabi, Lost Cities, and feel like I might be able to get her to try Rampage as well.

Fuck, I want to buy a lot of games now...
 

EYEL1NER

Member
CardHaus had some okay prices on stuff and temporarily had their free shipping set at $100 instead of $150, so I just bought Elder Sign, Thunderstobe Advance: Towers of Ruin, Tsuro, and Lords of Waterdeep. Also buying Guillotine and some sleeves off of Amazon at the moment.
I think before I go back to Greenland I will buy Takenoko and King of Tokyo since I enjoyed those so much on Saturday. Buy them a week before leaving home and they might make it there a week after I get there.

My coworker I usually play with said they got Zombicide and Ghost Stories in and are really enjoying them. So as much as I hate having to leave my wife and daughter here alone again, I am slightly looking forward (just a tiny bit!) to going back, so I can play both of those.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Still don't think there is a better all-purpose co-op out there than Ghost Stories. It's just such a reliable classic in my book. (And I play a ton of co-ops.) Was actually just re-reading the White Moon expansion rules again to play with it tomorrow at game night. We're good enough on base to where we've won a couple in a row on Nightmare, so going to give White Moon on Nightmare a shot tomorrow, but we've gotten so many hours out of the base game alone.
 

Keasar

Member
Anyone got any experience with Arctic Scavengers? I am hovering over the buy button after the latest Shut Up & Sit Down review and would like to hear if GAF has any experience with it before making the purchase.
 
Anyone got any experience with Arctic Scavengers? I am hovering over the buy button after the latest Shut Up & Sit Down review and would like to hear if GAF has any experience with it before making the purchase.
It's a great deckbuilder. It was ahead of it's time when it first came out but now feels a bit samey as other deckbuilders that have come since. I'd buy it because the game is still fun.

A little word of warning, the support for this game will be non-existant. RGG is hell bent on killing this game. There was/is talks about releasing an expansion by the designer but RGG is not going to put it out and making it very difficult to for the designer to so himself. While the game does have expansion modules in the base game box there aren't that many cards and after repeated plays you might find things will start to feel the same after awhile.
 

Keasar

Member
It's a great deckbuilder. It was ahead of it's time when it first came out but now feels a bit samey as other deckbuilders that have come since. I'd buy it because the game is still fun.

A little word of warning, the support for this game will be non-existant. RGG is hell bent on killing this game. There was/is talks about releasing an expansion by the designer but RGG is not going to put it out and making it very difficult to for the designer to so himself. While the game does have expansion modules in the base game box there aren't that many cards and after repeated plays you might find things will start to feel the same after awhile.

That explains this BGG thread. Still really interested after Quinns was so enthusiastic about it (which is hard not to get swept along with, damn these people) and making it sound really fun to play.
 

Musan

Member
Anyone going to pick up Lewis and Clark? Second printing just came out, so it should be widely available. Just tried it last weekend, I really liked the mechanics.
 

zenbot

Member
I mean there are very few things less fun in board gaming then making a few early mistakes in a eurogame (usually while playing it the first time) and just being stuck way behind everyone else knowing you can never catch up the other people make some very stupid moves
I love Dominion but this is a problem even (or especially) with experienced players. My coworkers and I used to play it daily at lunch and had a bunch of house rules to try to prevent early game dominance (e.g., we'd decide whether a 5-2 start was allowed only after picking a deck). We typically played with four people, as well, which introduces even more issues; Dominion has really been tuned for one on one.
 

Phthisis

Member
Anyone going to pick up Lewis and Clark? Second printing just came out, so it should be widely available. Just tried it last weekend, I really liked the mechanics.

Picked it up last night. Despite reports to the contrary, my second printing copy was just fine, no components damage (sleeve the cards though, they're Mage Knight quality, in that they are super thin and flimsy)
 
So my wife and I are going to grab an Emissary from Geek Chic for our new house.

I've been wanting one of their tables for years, but we pretty much couldn't fit one in our current place. Super pumped!
 

Blizzard

Banned
I think the former Inceptor (Inception board game) kickstarter is nearly over, if anyone wants in at the last minute.

The poll ended and the game was renamed to Dream Heist due to copyright/trademark/whatever concerns, with the roles also renamed, but the new names don't seem bad.
 
So my wife and I are going to grab an Emissary from Geek Chic for our new house.

I've been wanting one of their tables for years, but we pretty much couldn't fit one in our current place. Super pumped!

Good luck.

We been looking at getting one for a while, but speaking to one of the company owners at a con few weeks ago, he said they currently have a backlog of about a year going on most of their products, which killed all our enthusiasm. Friends of ours got their table in 9 months about a year ago, but even with extra staffing and such, they are just getting so much more popular and wait times are getting killer. Kinda seems odd for them to be doing so many cons and pushing product when they can't meet demand, but they are getting money.
 
The price tag just killed mine. ;)

They are expensive, but are super nice and they customize the whole thing with you to your liking. Serious pros about this, but we were almost ready to commit and just hate the idea of ordering furniture a year in advance. They have brought down their shipping prices since the last time I got a quote from them, but back then it was also 6 months or less wait.
 
Good luck.

We been looking at getting one for a while, but speaking to one of the company owners at a con few weeks ago, he said they currently have a backlog of about a year going on most of their products, which killed all our enthusiasm. Friends of ours got their table in 9 months about a year ago, but even with extra staffing and such, they are just getting so much more popular and wait times are getting killer. Kinda seems odd for them to be doing so many cons and pushing product when they can't meet demand, but they are getting money.

Yeah, we know the wait list is long, but we have our crappy K-Mart table for the time being, so we don't mind waiting
 

Experien

Member
Anybody got any recommendations for playing Eclipse on a table that isn't quite big enough? I got a large rectangle table that comfortably sits 6 but we've squeezed about 10 people for a game of Munchkin (I know, horrible idea). Never had problems with large games like Zombicide, but my friend who owns the copy said my table wouldn't be big enough.

tldr; how do you get around playing Eclipse on a big but not big enough table?
 
I don't put the ship parts out on the table, I just leave them in a bag. I also had to use TV trays for everyone's play boards, and only have the galaxy map and the technologies on the main table.
 

Neverfade

Member
Played Quantum tonight for the first time. Really fun game. We played with three and I think I'd enjoy 4 even more (more conflict) and using the advanced map with all 7 Quantum Cubes (for a longer game) would round it out nicely for me. Simple to learn. Very cool combos with the various ship abilities. Wish I had picked this one up earlier.
 
I picked up Zombies!!! 12, Smash Up, and Survive from a little shop in Schaumburg, IL that was having a nice sale. I got all 3 for 1/2 off retail.

I was really tempted to pick up all of the Last Night on Earth expansions for the sake of completion at that price, but instead opted for new, faster games for my family to play together. It was the first day of my vacation and I didn't want to blow all of my petty cash at once! I need to spread it around. Afterall, there are Lego stores to visit!
 
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