The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)

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The Technomancer said:
Also in Dominion what is the point of Feast? You can spend 4 so that later on when you re-draw it you can trash it and gain a card costing 5? And the gained card doesn't even go to your hand? That just seems awful
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It's not the greatest card ever but its not awful. Can't count how many times I've been short a single coin to buy a 5 in early game. And it clears itself from your deck to keep bloat down. And it doesn't count as a buy, so you can get that 5 and still purchase something else in a single turn. And it combos great with stuff that lowers the costs of cards, and Throne Room, Procession, etc etc.

Some games don't have a lot of great 4-cost buys, and that just makes Feast better.
 
Some dominion cards depending on the random nature of your game set ups can make certain cards totally useful, or totally worthless. By themselves just looking at many cards will give you a "eh" reaction, till you get it in a game where its perfect or combos just right with another card, especially when you toss in expansions and you create lot of new combo possibilities
 
God, we're really not liking Risk Legacy after 5 games with the family (4 players). Once you're screwed in a game, there's basically no way to come back, and all the events etc seem to favor the current leader, unbalancing things even more. On top of that, people who win get great (and permanent) advantages that mean they tend to continue winning. For me, as the only person who hasn't won a game yet, this is getting pretty frustrating. It also retains all the usual flaws of RISK (the huge reliance on luck, blob armies steamrolling the board, games that can drag on and on etc), and the rest of the family agrees that it's just... not that much fun. It's impossible to feel like the winner won because they played great and vice versa, and instead everyone just feels frustrated and/or bored. This was supposed to be the highlight of Christmas, but instead it's been a huge disappointment.
 
The Horror the horror said:
Played a solo game last night.

This game is pretty tough. On my very first game, I played with all the Spheres, which, in hindsight, was stupid. Then on my game last night, I played with two. I did better but I'm still getting my ass handed to me. Are my chances better playing a single-sphere deck?
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LotR LCG is my favorite card game of all time. Check out some of the amazing blogs and these sections for new players:

http://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/beorns-path/
http://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/new-player-guides/
 
The Technomancer said:
Also in Dominion what is the point of Feast? You can spend 4 so that later on when you re-draw it you can trash it and gain a card costing 5? And the gained card doesn't even go to your hand? That just seems awful
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It's much easier to hit $4 in hand than it is to hit $5 in Dominion. Coincidentally, the power gap between cards is probably greatest between the $4 cost cards and the $5 cost cards. Think of stuff like Witch, or Mountebank, or Councilroom.

Workshop costs $3 and doesn't trash itself to get you a $4 cost card, but most $4 cost cards are marginally stronger than $3 cost cards anyway. If you keep using the Workshop soon the Workshop becomes a card you don't want in hand since you want stronger cards.
 
Ledsen said:
God, we're really not liking Risk Legacy after 5 games with the family (4 players). Once you're screwed in a game, there's basically no way to come back, and all the events etc seem to favor the current leader, unbalancing things even more. On top of that, people who win get great (and permanent) advantages that mean they tend to continue winning. For me, as the only person who hasn't won a game yet, this is getting pretty frustrating. It also retains all the usual flaws of RISK (the huge reliance on luck, blob armies steamrolling the board, games that can drag on and on etc), and the rest of the family agrees that it's just... not that much fun. It's impossible to feel like the winner won because they played great and vice versa, and instead everyone just feels frustrated and/or bored. This was supposed to be the highlight of Christmas, but instead it's been a huge disappointment.
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Are you playing with drafting at the beginning? That would eliminate people getting too strong, since you can just take a faction/etc if it's too strong. I found while playing that there are mechanics in place to stop people doing too well on successive plays (and if all else fails just gang up on the leader) it took me about 5 or 6 games before I won and in the end everyone who played had won at least once.
 
I was hoping to get some advice here:
Im looking to get a (few) new games for my playgroup (which more often then not just consists of just 3 people). Do you have any advice considering the following games:

- 7 Wonders
- Lords of Waterdeep
- Chaos in the Old World
- Nexus Ops
- Shadows over Camelot
- Lord of the rings LCG (it is possible to play with 3 right? or do i need to buy extra stuff?)
- Mage Knight (i heard the game is good, but that it takes way to long, anyone played it)?
- Eldritch horror maybe, i have AH and i dont know how big the difference is.

Games we like to play: Kingsburg, Arkham Horror, Descent 2nd ED, MTG, Dominion.
 
I have a question for the rest of BGGGaf, I've been kind of out of the loop for the last 18 months and would love to know which great releases I've missed. The only "new" games I've bought are Agricola 2P and Suburbia which I've greatly enjoyed.

This is my bgg collection I'd love to hear recommendations for hidden gems and games I've missed. The only restriction is that I'm not big on deck building or games with a fantasy theme (so no FFG releases).

I think I remember a bunch of smaller japanese games that seemed interesting since they were pretty small and simple but can't remember the name of most of them.
 
During the past three days I've played a lot of board games with family and friends.

Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear 2nd edition took some time to get into but I had a blast playing the first scenario even if it took like three hours, On the computer I often play turn-based strategy games and CoH really scratches that itch for me. I expect to play this almost weekly now.

We played The Resistance with 10 players, some people in their 30s and some in their 60s, and this worked surprisingly well. The game scales really well between 5 and 10 players but I really do like it better with as many players as possible.

The next day I was playing Sentinels of the Multiverse with my brother and a friend of mine. I had already played this game once so I thought I knew the rules but after a while we found out that I made a mistake with the environment deck, I was replacing environmental effects each time we had to draw a new environment card. This watered down the difficulty significantly as you can imagine. Still we had a great time and I might actually buy the other expansions. That's how much I enjoy the game.

The next game we played was Escape: The Curse of the Temple and this might well have been the last time I played that game. It's just really not my taste. We added all modules that come with the base game and still we won three times without breaking a sweat. If there's one game in my collection I might sell it's this one.

Then, I introduced the same players to Love Letter which I hadn't played myself yet either. The game's even much easier to play than I had anticipated, it's nowhere near the complexity of Citadels or Mascarade but for the same reasons it's very quick to play and still a lot of fun. I might actually prefer it over Citadels because the thing I dislike about Citadels is how the winning condition depends on the cards you draw rather than the roles you pick and deduct. I'm looking forward to the next time I can play Love Letter, although the maximum of 4 players prevents it from being a party-game IMO.

And finally, yesterday we played another game of Battlestar Galactica with the Pegasus, Exodus and Daybreak expansions. We included the Mutineer, Exodus Cylon Baseship, Daybreak Cylon Baseship, Pegasus, Demetrius, Personal Goals and all skill cards (except the Pegasus Treachery cards) and Crisis Cards, but took out Final Five, Cylon Leaders, Trauma, Crossroads, and Allies, One player was a (hidden) Cylon player from the start but he didn't get any opportunity to rig skill-checks and the Human players were doing really well. Halfway the game all resources were still almost full, I recieved the Mutineer card and this is where we expected things to go wrong but it was really easy to get rid of Munity cards and we just gained resources from them. Meanwhile the Cylon player revealed himself while the humans still had to jump 4 distance and then one last time. The very last round was the only exciting one in the game because morale was at 1 and fuel at 2, so we couldn't afford to lose morale.. but we didn't and we one. I think I might shelve BSG for a while since the last couple of games were so uneventful that most of us want to move on to another game for now.
 
octobot said:
Are you playing with drafting at the beginning? That would eliminate people getting too strong, since you can just take a faction/etc if it's too strong. I found while playing that there are mechanics in place to stop people doing too well on successive plays (and if all else fails just gang up on the leader) it took me about 5 or 6 games before I won and in the end everyone who played had won at least once.
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We are, but things like cities and continent naming are individual and not tied to a faction.
 
BomberMouse said:
I have a question for the rest of BGGGaf, I've been kind of out of the loop for the last 18 months and would love to know which great releases I've missed. The only "new" games I've bought are Agricola 2P and Suburbia which I've greatly enjoyed.

This is my bgg collection I'd love to hear recommendations for hidden gems and games I've missed. The only restriction is that I'm not big on deck building or games with a fantasy theme (so no FFG releases).

I think I remember a bunch of smaller japanese games that seemed interesting since they were pretty small and simple but can't remember the name of most of them.
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I see you own Cyclades. If you like that even a little bit then you owe it to yourself to get its superior little brother, and my GOTY: Kemet.

The Japanese game you're referring to is probably Love Letter. Also really good.
 
timetokill said:
My family has totally given in to my board game obsession! My Christmas haul :D

sFui3Kf.jpg
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An update! Over the holidays my family and I spent time playing board games pretty much every night. Lots of fun. I kept it to the light fare (meaning I didn't bother opening Terra Mystica yet) and here's how it went with our group of 5:

- Ticket to Ride: A lot of fun! We played it twice, and everyone enjoyed it a lot. My wife and I actually tied the second game, so much so that the rules didn't even have a tiebreaker rule that went far enough to break our tie. We both had the longest route, we both had the same number of tickets completed, we both had the same number of points, etc. Funny way for the game to end up. We played with the 1910 expansion for the cards, but not any of the changed rules.

- Mascarade: Really enjoyable, and surprisingly fun for how little information the game gives you. For a game where you hold a single card, it's pretty impressive how much concentration the game demands of you. Led to a lot of fun moments, and I think it might've been the favorite overall.

- Dixit: Everyone enjoyed this one as well. It was a sort of relaxing game to play but still fun, and everyone loved when a good set of cards came out for the clue. My sister liked it so much that she bought Dixit Jinx the next day, thinking it was an expansion, but it's a different game. Didn't get around to that one though.

- King of Tokyo: I brought this one up with me, and it was the first one we played. Everyone had a blast, as we played it three times. The first time we played vanilla, and then I introduced the Power Up! expansion which I absolutely recommend to anyone with the game. It makes going for hearts more useful and the evolutions can be pretty awesome.


All good stuff! We didn't get to Guildhall, and Love Letter was passed over since we had 5 players the entire time and that game caps at 4 apparently. Cosmic Encounter's expansion will have to wait until I pair it with my copy of the base game.

Thanks again to everyone for the recommendations to my question earlier in the thread, as a lot of your choices made it to the table to great success!
 
BomberMouse said:
I have a question for the rest of BGGGaf, I've been kind of out of the loop for the last 18 months and would love to know which great releases I've missed. The only "new" games I've bought are Agricola 2P and Suburbia which I've greatly enjoyed.

This is my bgg collection I'd love to hear recommendations for hidden gems and games I've missed. The only restriction is that I'm not big on deck building or games with a fantasy theme (so no FFG releases).

I think I remember a bunch of smaller japanese games that seemed interesting since they were pretty small and simple but can't remember the name of most of them.
Click to expand...


Race for the Galaxy?
 
Got to play some games over the weekend and thought I'd share some impressions.

The big hit was Lords of Waterdeep. Oh boy is this game awesome. We played the base game twice and with the Skullport expansion once. We preferred the base game mechanics but agreed the next time we'd play we would use the under mountain part of the expansion but not the skullport additions as we didn't care for the corruption aspect and added game length. As far as game length, the base game moves quite swiftly and a session can be completed in an hour which is great for our group. We had 3 players each session and 1 player was different for the very first session and everyone had no problem with the pick and play rules that are basic enough for even novices but enough strategy to allow for some depth too. Impressed with the high production values as well. Right down to having labels and places for all the doodads and cards was a nice touch.

The other game we tried out was Firefly and we all enjoyed this one as well although due to the long session time once was enough for everyone. We played this one with 4 players and it was everyone's first time. It took about 45 minutes for everyone to feel comfortable with rules and there is a lot going on at first seemingly. 12 different decks of job/shop cards will do that lol. But once you focus in on what you need to be doing turn to turn and mesh it with your overall goal it became clearer as the game went on that it was going to take a while to complete the game as many turns don't necessarily end with you getting a lot done. I spent about 3 turns just trying to reach one destination and another 3 to get back to finish a job. Some bad luck involved with cards and I didn't get much closer to accomplishing anything with almost 45 minutes gone by on the clock. Again though overall, we did enjoy it despite the long playtime.
 
NeoZylom said:
I played Mascarades a few times and I can't get what's fun about it. It is so random.
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What? The only random part of the game is the initial draw. After that point it's all about trying to remember who has what card and then where that card may have gone with potential swaps. Also you need to be decent at bluffing and detecting bluffing. It's a deduction game where your moves are about efficiently reducing chance wherever you can.
 
MedIC86 said:
I was hoping to get some advice here:
Im looking to get a (few) new games for my playgroup (which more often then not just consists of just 3 people). Do you have any advice considering the following games:

- 7 Wonders
- Lords of Waterdeep
- Chaos in the Old World
- Nexus Ops
- Shadows over Camelot
- Lord of the rings LCG (it is possible to play with 3 right? or do i need to buy extra stuff?)
- Mage Knight (i heard the game is good, but that it takes way to long, anyone played it)?
- Eldritch horror maybe, i have AH and i dont know how big the difference is.

Games we like to play: Kingsburg, Arkham Horror, Descent 2nd ED, MTG, Dominion.
Click to expand...

I like 7 Wonders a lot, and while I think it's better with more, it'll play well with three as well. It looks daunting at first but it's a very simple game once you get going.

Lords of Waterdeep is excellent but I personally like The Manhattan Project a lot better.

I personally don't like Mage Knight at all, but it has lots of die-hard fans, so it must be doing something right. As I've said on here before, I find that things develop too slowly for my taste (deck building while adding one card to your deck every half hour) and the randomness is in the wrong places (you'll know if you can win a battle, but can't tell how far you'll be able to walk next turn).

Ever think about Puerto Rico or Race For The Galaxy? Those are two of my favorites with three.
 
MedIC86 said:
I was hoping to get some advice here:
Im looking to get a (few) new games for my playgroup (which more often then not just consists of just 3 people). Do you have any advice considering the following games:

- 7 Wonders
- Lords of Waterdeep
- Chaos in the Old World
- Nexus Ops
- Shadows over Camelot
- Lord of the rings LCG (it is possible to play with 3 right? or do i need to buy extra stuff?)
- Mage Knight (i heard the game is good, but that it takes way to long, anyone played it)?
- Eldritch horror maybe, i have AH and i dont know how big the difference is.

Games we like to play: Kingsburg, Arkham Horror, Descent 2nd ED, MTG, Dominion.
Click to expand...
Shadows over Camelot doesn't really play quite right with 3 people. It requires playing the game quite differently than normal. The strength of the game is in bigger numbers.

LotR LCG does work with 3 and you kind of don't need to buy extra stuff. We've done it just by building another deck for someone. It just limits the makeup of those decks a bit (as you can't mix as much between the Spheres of Influence).
 
I started playing Race for the Galaxy last night, online at Board Game Arena. The rules/iconography were actually a lot less difficult to learn than I had heard mentioned. The game is a lot of fun and moves so quickly, though I'm not very good at the strategy yet.

PSA time: I still need someone to help with the new OT. PM me!
 
Can I get a quick reply from the neogaf experts??

Two player game for me and girlfriend. We are not hardcore board gamers.

Ticket to ride or Carcassonne??

Was also getting this game called love letter for sure but need input on the above and fast if possible!
 
natjjohn said:
Can I get a quick reply from the neogaf experts??

Two player game for me and girlfriend. We are not hardcore board gamers.

Ticket to ride or Carcassonne??

Was also getting this game called love letter for sure but need input on the above and fast if possible!
Click to expand...

Carcassonne is IMHO more of a 2player game than Ticket to Ride, since ticket to ride gets better with more players in terms of having overlapping goals. And I also like Carcassonne better in general. :P

Also Love Letters is a GREAT choice. Absolutely great game and for the price it's a must-have. It gets so much playtime with my friends and me.



Also, someone took the old Star Wars miniatures game and made an ENTIRE Pokemon game from it:

Cards
Rules
Items

Some pretty amazing stuff and POKEMOOOOON. Here's the reddit thread from it: http://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/1u0lmt/its_taken_me_four_months_but_i_made_a_pokemon/

The guy says that since you're only allowed 100 points worth of cards in a deck anyway, there's really no need to print off all 900+ cards right off the bat. Might be worth a try haha.
 
Smiley90 said:
Carcassonne is IMHO more of a 2player game than Ticket to Ride, since ticket to ride gets better with more players in terms of having overlapping goals. And I also like Carcassonne better in general. :P

Also Love Letters is a GREAT choice. Absolutely great game and for the price it's a must-have. It gets so much playtime with my friends and me.
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Thanks for the quick input. NEOGAF can be counted on.
 
Anyone know if Hanabi is playable by 8/9 year olds? I've watched a couple reviews but can't really get a good feel for the difficulty level. And is it fun in general? Looks interesting to me from what I've seen.
 
Slacker said:
Anyone know if Hanabi is playable by 8/9 year olds? I've watched a couple reviews but can't really get a good feel for the difficulty level. And is it fun in general? Looks interesting to me from what I've seen.
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I think it's a really neat game. Kids might find it boring. I think it's a great game to play with people at a bar, but there will be people (dumb people) who will hate it because they are dumb.
 
Pretty disappointed...
I decided to cave in and buy Ticket to Ride finally. I had a price point I was waiting to get it at but it seems like I'll be waiting forever. It happened to be in my Gold Box on Amazon today for $35.80 and I figured that was as good a price as I would get. A coworker moves over to night shift next week who would play too, so after the three weeks or so it would take to get here, I could have a lot of fun with it.
Go to change my address from the default stateside email to my APO address and it informs me that the game cannot be shipped outside of the US.

So no Ticket to Ride for me just yet I guess...
The waiting continues.
 
I bought Ticket to Ride Europe just before New Year's Eve and played it with my family. I really need to play it a couple of times more to form an opinion about it but I did enjoy it quite a bit. I had played the original Ticket to Ride online before and to me it seems like there are more choke points in the Europe version of the game so cutting off other players made more sense.
 
I am a little tired of Ticket to Ride to be honest. I played way too much of that game, but I got to play Ticket to Ride Asia Map Collection this last w-e. It has a team mode, it's really fun. It changes the dynamic of the game! Really looking to play more of Ticket To Ride in team :-)
 
When ticket to ride peters out, I find Airlines Europe is a pretty good step up. Adds in an aquire-esque stock thing while staying pretty simple (take one of four easy actions on your turn).
 
BattleMonkey said:
Yea we just hanged out drinking, playing games here and there and watching bad movies.
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Our evening consisted of Wizards (really just a basic card game with regular playing cards and 2 extra cards, but I looooove regular card games, so there's that), 7 Wonders and Catan. it was great. I was still jetlagged so kinda tired though, sadly
 
TTR is kind of like Dominion in that the base game gets tired but the expansions breathe a lot of new life into it and are frankly better. I really enjoy the series still but I have almost every expansion at my disposal.

For NYE we played lots of Legendary. Really been into that and Arkham since I jumped back in on both over the holidays.
 
Same here. I only bring out the US map when introducing new players to TTR. I find the expansions really good and it is amazing how much the small rule changes alters the game dynamic when playing. Favourite expansion has to be Legendary Asia (the non-team one) followed by Heart of Africa.
 
I've just placed an order for Ticket to Ride Nederland, I've played Europe with 3 players yesterday and wanted it to be a little more cutthroat.
 
We don't play any games too much that they get tired, constantly playing and buying too many games. Course it creates the issue of not being able to just pick up and play anything since we keep forgetting the rules for games.

Only game we burnt out on was CAH because of a camping trip where that was played way too much.
 
Apenheul said:
I've just placed an order for Ticket to Ride Nederland, I've played Europe with 3 players yesterday and wanted it to be a little more cutthroat.
Click to expand...

It's awesome with 4 or 5. I haven't played it with 3 yet but I bet that will be great too. Jury's still out on how well it works with two (my wife and I found the "dummy" player to be kind of fiddly to keep up with).
 
I might (might) be able to pick up Robinson Crusoe from my FLGS, if (if) they get it in today. Unrelated, but has anybody in here played Caverna? I've stayed away from Agricola because the complaints about it fall in line with things I don't particularly like in games. But from the reviews I've watched so far, Caverna improves on these areas.
 
Affeinvasion said:
I might (might) be able to pick up Robinson Crusoe from my FLGS, if (if) they get it in today. Unrelated, but has anybody in here played Caverna? I've stayed away from Agricola because the complaints about it fall in line with things I don't particularly like in games. But from the reviews I've watched so far, Caverna improves on these areas.
Click to expand...


What complaints?
 
Yaboosh said:
What complaints?
Click to expand...

Having to feed everyone every turn is really stressful, and you have to play a certain way if you want to win. You have to diversify. I've heard caverna makes feeding people easier and you can still win if you want to just focus on mining or just focus on farming.
 
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