Board Games

Eldritch Horror is the fucking bomb.

Got introduced to Kemet last night at our NYE gaming shindig - enjoyable wargame and the time table on it wasn't oppressive.

On the other end of the spectrum - I'm thinking about buying Twilight Imperium because it sounds incredible - any opinions? (I know LOOOOOONG is one part of it - but thinking of a Master of Orion itch scratcher)

Djay_sl said:

Sorry if this has been covered in here before, but does anyone have any recommendations for a good 2-player game? Looking for something the girlfriend and I can play without inviting a bunch of people over.

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Agricola - All Creatures Big And SmallFun, easy, but still challenging game that uses little animal meeples.

Twilight Imperium is probably my favorite board game. To truly enjoy it tho you have to have the right group playing it as its not for the faint of heart rules wise and time wise. With the right group its an amazing game tho.

Thanks for the suggestions. Ended up going with Legendary for a deckbuilder game. We played it a couple times last night and it was fun, although I want to shoot whomever decided to pack the cards like they did. Took me an hour for the initial setup because I had to separate and organize everything. (Instead of having all the Rogue or Wolverine cards together, for example, they'd have 1-2 of each hero in a bunch of different stacks. Obviously it will be a simpler setup next time now that I have them arranged correctly, but it was initially a huge pain.) She really liked the idea of working cooperatively instead of competing against me. The initial setup campaign they recommended was really easy, though, so the first game wasn't fulfilling. The next game I switched things up and it was a little better. I think I might have to further increase the difficulty by giving the Mastermind more power or something, though, because we were never really in danger of losing.

My girlfriend also decided she wanted a Zombie-themed game. I really liked Last Night on Earth, but didn't think it would be good for 2-people. One of the employees recommended Zombies!!! and they had it available for us to test in the store. I think it would be better with more people, but she liked it, so we ended up getting the Defcon Z version. Main problem with so few players was that we ended up on opposite sides of the map and once I drew the helipad and put it near me, there was no way for her to get over to me in time to challenge me getting there first. Obviously with more people, there would be more people near and more turns that people could have used to hinder my path.

I think we're going to spend some time on the tables at our local store to try some of the other games that were mentioned here. She picked up Werewolf last week before realizing that we didn't have nearly enough people to play it, so hopefully we can find a group to play with.

@Djay zombiecide.

@Djay: It's Coop only for 2 players which definitely isn't AS good, but if you want something that expands amazingly for a 3+ group (with a chance of hidden betrayer) - Dead of Winter is an amazing Zombie survival game, the Walking Dead fans in our gaming group are constantly requesting it since I brought it the first time. Definitely not a "kill tons of zombies pointlessly" game with many of the missions though, many you'd want to avoid combat as much as you can since every combat has a 1/12 chance of death from a bite (barring special cases like weapons/character abilities).

LNoE falls into a similar category I believe, but generally gets lower marks from the people that I've spoken to that have played both.

Dead Panic from the youtubes looks like a really nice fun and pretty light "killing a zombie horde" type game as well - not played it yet. And it's of the "monster mash" style of zombie game. (As is Zombicide as Hatorade suggested)

Dead Panic, you mean?

Hathe_sl said:

Dead Panic, you mean?

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Oops. Yea.

I playedEscape: Zombie City | Board Game | BoardGameGeekrecently which is a good little coop zombie game. It's real time though, which is an interesting mechanic that you'll either love or hate. Also quite short since you need to escape within 15 min or you lose!

Cool. Dead Panic was the first one that caught her eye, but I had never heard of it, so I didn't want to impulse buy it. Zombicide was there, too, but for some reason it didn't appeal to her.

I mentioned Escape to her after I saw your post and I think she liked the idea. We did a Panic Room last week where you're in a house with 7 other people and you have to find clues to unlock the other rooms and get out before your hour is up...and she loved that, so I think the time aspect is a bonus for us.
Actually, I just remembered she was carryingZombie-15'around the store with us until we decided on Zombies!!! It sounds similar to Escape...have you played both?

Nope, haven't played zombie 15, but it does sound familiar. Either would probably suffice.

Hatorade_sl said:

@Djay zombiecide.

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I concur

As far as Twilight goes, it's a really good confrontation game. If everyone has read the rules and you put turns on a timer you can pound out a game in 6 hours but more likely 8 is where it will end up. The game that we replaced it with is Eclipse (Eclipse | Board Game | BoardGameGeek) because it runs in like 2 hours. It's not as deep and tile laying is much more important but you can finish it and move on

Battle for Souls is a amazing 2man game. Highly recomend.

Djay_sl said:

Sorry if this has been covered in here before, but does anyone have any recommendations for a good 2-player game? Looking for something the girlfriend and I can play without inviting a bunch of people over. Thanks.

Edit: Guess I should add that I prefer strategy over games that come down to the luck of the draw/roll, but I don't know what's available for 2 people. I'm guessing some sort of MTG type card game would be the main option.

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If you were thinking a MTG type game, pick up Netrunner for sure.

My g/f plays it with me and her only CCG experience is some Hearthstone.

Legendary - The packaging of that was indeed befuddling. The expansions that we got were packed sensibly, however.

Suburbia - Played two games of this over the weekend and enjoyed it. It's a kind of drafting game. But instead of buying cards and adding them to a deck, you buy hex-tiles and place them immediately, building a city. Adjacency often matter. It's thematic and favorable. The first game all the stuff I wanted got bought and I had to resort to low-end cheap stuff, which didn't have nearly the payback as what the others were buying. Yet, I still had fun. The second game I made sure I wasn't last pick again (was 2nd) and I made sure I had money inflow (unlike previous game) and I was churning out my purchases. But like Ticket To Ride, there are objectives that give massive points. My tactic was front running without the goals. afterwards I squeaked out of not being last.
End result: Fun game, even when I lost both games. [we played with 4 people]

Seananigans_sl said:

I played my Shadows of Brimstone yesterday for the first time. This game is pretty hilariously awesome, and scratches a pen and paper itch, despite being a "board game." It's a Wild West meets Unspeakable Horrors from Another World mish-mash, in a miniatures board game style, and fully Co-op. It's hellishly complex, and there are a ton of components/cards, but if you're willing to throw a chunk of time at it, we've found that it's quite entertaining and rewarding! We're chomping at the bit to play more.

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Good to hear, it's on my eventual list - fan of Descent so WW/Cthuhlu Descent just sounds like lots of win.

We gotAmazon.com: Tomorrow Board Game: Toys Gamesfor XMas and played it this weekend. I really enjoyed it even if I was losing so bad I just went full on salty mode and forced us to all lose the game so no one would win. I was China and everyone was dropping bios in North India and infecting my shit. You think I'm not gunna nuke you, son?