The Syndicate

You may have a board game addiction when you are drooling over the board gaming tables that cost a few thousand dollars... I'd say it may be time for a 12 step program but I have no intention of quitting.

Also I saw a video ad for the Vault Gamefolio system. I'm torn honestly. I mean I can see how it would make storage neater and more uniform, and transporting games for a game night would be easier, but I am kind of attached to the boxes. Is that weird? Not all of them though, I mean with expansions such as with Firefly we condensed them down into one or two boxes instead of keeping all the boxes. We condensed Machi Koro (side note, I always want to call this one Mari Kocho, I wonder what, if anything, this translates to in Japanese...) as well.

I saw a picture of shelves someone had designed that slide out. Pretty cool.

These are the tables I was drooling over. I would go straight for the Titan. Need moar space for Firefly!!!

I was just reading back in this thread and I think g-man and Nutella have sold me on Tokaido being the next game I purchase.

We got a bunch of board games from Russtifinko and his lovely lady for our wedding gift. They bought into three kick starter campaigns so we got these brand new games in the mail unexpectedly. We got Vast, Tricksters, and Bears vs Babies. We really enjoy them all, but here's some points about each:

Vast: it's asymmetrical game play, so each player will have a character with different abilities/weaknesses and a different win con. It can be played with 2-5 players and it has the five following roles that the players can be: The Dragon, The Knight (which is a kickass woman!), The Theif, The Goblins, The Cave. The difficulty for us has been that outside of game nights it's just the two of us and it's hard for it to be a well balanced game with just two. The Knight may balance out the Theif, but the Dragon balances out the Knight and so forth. It really is probably best with the full five players. It can be a little complex since each role has its own rules and pieces and so forth, but it is very interesting to play.

Tricksters: This one was a slower start for us, because the rules are very unclear on some important aspects of gameplay. It took a bit of research for me to figure it out. And it takes a bit to get a handle on the variety of strategies involved, but once you do it makes for a fairly interesting game actually. Because there are so many possibilities for how you can approach it. This is a solid two person game, I haven't played it with more but I think it would be a lot of fun and enhance the decision making aspect even more.

Bears vs. Babies: This is from the makers of Exploding Kittens, so that might give you an idea of the type of silliness involved. It's the least complex of all three games and their introduction to the rules was brilliant. They actually walk you through a few rounds of play. The concept is you are using cards with various monster parts to build an army in order to defeat one of the three evil baby armies. The goal is to have the most baby points at the end to win. While simple there are a few different strategies you could use, and some of them can be fairly be cut throat. I think this would be a good one for family play too with kids that aren't too young.

Nice! I love Smallworld. My only complaint is the amount of time it takes to set up. I really like the ten rounds and done part of it. We have the Underworld expansion and some of the other race expansions. It's been ages since we played, we should crack that one out sometime. Maybe at the next game night...

Oh it's been a while since we shared our new additions to our collection. I don't know if we shared this or not but quite a while ago we got Alchemists and never got around to trying it. Well we finally did and it was fantastic! It has a high complexity rating, but it's mostly because there are a lot of fiddly bits and what not, but it's all super easy to understand really. It just takes a bit the first go round to learn it all. But it sticks easily. And the app is awesome, nice interactive touch. but you don't have to use the app either, you can do it manually or online at a website. It's really interesting.

Also, last time birdwithteeth came to visit we went to Emerald Tavern in Austin and we can never leave without getting a game. This time it was my choice and i went with Above and Below. I really really recommend this game. It is a great blend of worker management and role play. So much fun, especially if you get into using voices and so forth when you read the encounters. I could not speak highly enough of this game.

Seriously? Must check this out....

What are the ages, all adults or children as well?

[mention]speedchuck[/mention]

We could organize that sir.

As far as board game recommendations... I'm grouping these into three kind of loose categories. Basically Simple Play Strategy are ones that I think are super easy to learn and play quickly, but still require a fair bit of strategy in order to win. Straightforward Strategy Heavy are games that I don't think are particularly unconventional, and may have more parts or take more time to learn or play, but they rely heavily on strategy in order to win. Unconventional, but still strategic games are ones that have a very different kind of game play or some aspect that I don't feel like fit it well into the other categories, but they are still are pretty strong strategy games.

Simple Play Strategy:
7 Wonders (2-7, best with 3 or more) - Very simple, lots of strategy. Lots of fun for large groups.
Dominion (2-4) - Deck building, quick play but loads of fun. They have quite a few expansions too. This is one of my all time favorites.
Splendor (2-4) - Very quick game play. Very easy to learn. But very competitive, be ready to screw each other over in this one.
Forbidden Desert or Forbidden Island - These are cooperative. Both very simple play and quick play time, but there are deceptively difficult.

Straightforward Strategy Heavy:
Power Grid (2-6) - strategy heavy
Castles of Burgundy (2-4) - Lot of pieces and setup, but it's not too hard to pick up on and is one of our favorites.
Pandemic (2-4) - Cooperative play, and if you like the standard Pandemic then try Pandemic Legacy which is fantastic as well.
Ticket to Ride (2-5) - Easy to play, not too long but not quick play either. This is a pretty standard game in most board gamers library and there are a lot of variants too.

Unconventional, but still strategic:
Firefly (1-4?) - This game is absolutely fantastic. Most spin offs from TV shows or movies wouldn't get more than a Meh from me, but Firefly is just so perfect. However, it has a LOT of pieces and it takes up a LOT of space. It also takes a long time to play, 2 hours at least. There are also like four to six expansions that you can add, this will expand the game to up to 6 players I believe and add a lot more variation options onto the game. But I cannot give this game enough of a rave review.
Time Stories (2-4) - This is a cooperative game, but it's unconventional for a couple reasons. It set out to encapsulate the feel of roleplaying, and does it very very well. The second reason is that it is a single story you play through. The base game contains the board and pieces needed and one story. The expansions provide new stories to play. Once you've played through the story it doesn't hold the same replay value for you. That said, it's also VERY difficult. We have played our base game four times and still haven't beat it yet, so... take that as you will. We really enjoy it though. Play time can get quite long too, so make sure you have a chunk of time when you start. And be open to playing it up with crazy voices and put some fun into the roleplay aspect of it. It makes it awesome.
Alchemists (2-5) - This is like Clue crossed with a resource management game. And it uses an app, so every game is randomized and it's really interesting. We still are learning to find the balance in our strategy in order to get a win. It's easy in this one to get obsessed with figuring out the elements, and not get enough reputation points. So it's hard to find the balance in order to win in six rounds. It's got a lot going on in it. Can be a little more overwhelming to learn too, but worth it once you do. Please note that if you play with 5, one of you has to play like game director and you wouldn't use the app. Only four people can compete against each other.

Golden wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:04 pm

Spacedaisy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2017 12:30 amAlso, last time birdwithteeth came to visit we went to Emerald Tavern in Austin and we can never leave without getting a game. This time it was my choice and i went with Above and Below. I really really recommend this game. It is a great blend of worker management and role play. So much fun, especially if you get into using voices and so forth when you read the encounters. I could not speak highly enough of this game.

The sequel, Near and Far, is even better in my opinion. And it is available with an expansion of sorts on Kickstarter right now.

I got Near and Far for Christmas and I LOVE it! We did add a house rule though because we found that if someone just rushes through and throws camps out all over it ends the game too quickly for anyone to play any kind of strategy. It's kind of a good way to lose friends. So now we play it so if you build a camp on the map it ends your turn.

Otherwise a fantastic game!