Board Games
- Thread starter Balroc
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Qhue
Trump's Staff
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Its what Hasbro does for products that they want to make but which aren't guaranteed enough sales via market research to be absolutely viable. So weird fan stuff or outrageous things like the Star Wars Jabba Sailbarge etc. In this case they can use the format to potentially enable all sorts of extra stuff that would never be approved in any reasonable product proposal process.
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It looks like it's mainly a reprint with updated models. I kind of like the old 90s GW models more, especially the goblins, but will still probably go all in. Never had the expansion packs for it (didn't even know they existed until they were long out of print) so it will be fun to give it a go.
Edit: Ouch, $30 shipping charge and sales tax. Deluxe edition is almost $200 with all that.
Edit: Ouch, $30 shipping charge and sales tax. Deluxe edition is almost $200 with all that.
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Hateyou
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I hope it's a little more than just a reskin. I already have everything shown, it's just 30 years old and kind of beat up. Like some new classes, spells, maps would be enough for me. It's a simplistic game so a few new things would be cool, just as long as they don't go overboard and screw it up.
skylan
Trakanon Raider
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So a few months ago I asked for some recommendations for my wife and I - my wife being a little less willing to take on complex games like Mage Knight, etc.. and needing a "random" aspect of a game to beat me. I'm not amazing, she's just bad at strategy.
Was recommended Dice Throne and Clank (among others, but this is what we've tried).
Well, both have been a huge hit. I bought every season 2 character for Dice Throne and she loves it, though she really only plays Seraph and Vampire Lord. I find the tactician to be pretty overpowered so I try to stay away from him, the gunslinger and samurai to be fun but not up to the level of the others so I avoid them too, but I play all the others. Clank is a blast although the setup is super tedious for me, and she tends to lose a lot of those since there's still a ton of strategy involved; I've been screwed over by a few 5+ dragon attacks where they came out all my color.. still fun though.
Anyways, I've been considering a few others:
Star Realms looks fun and was recommended as well
Dominion is always recommended on all the searches I do
Blood Bowl looks like something I would absolutely enjoy but not so sure about her.
My problem with these 3 is they're all expansion heavy. I don't want to drop $100+ on a game she might not like, but I also don't want to just buy the base game if it's going to be very vanilla. Was wondering if anyone could recommend what versions of the above games I should go with, and if I should avoid blood bowl?
edit: so yeah watched a blood bowl playthrough, the wife wouldn't be into it.
Thanks in advance!
Was recommended Dice Throne and Clank (among others, but this is what we've tried).
Well, both have been a huge hit. I bought every season 2 character for Dice Throne and she loves it, though she really only plays Seraph and Vampire Lord. I find the tactician to be pretty overpowered so I try to stay away from him, the gunslinger and samurai to be fun but not up to the level of the others so I avoid them too, but I play all the others. Clank is a blast although the setup is super tedious for me, and she tends to lose a lot of those since there's still a ton of strategy involved; I've been screwed over by a few 5+ dragon attacks where they came out all my color.. still fun though.
Anyways, I've been considering a few others:
Star Realms looks fun and was recommended as well
Dominion is always recommended on all the searches I do
My problem with these 3 is they're all expansion heavy. I don't want to drop $100+ on a game she might not like, but I also don't want to just buy the base game if it's going to be very vanilla. Was wondering if anyone could recommend what versions of the above games I should go with,
edit: so yeah watched a blood bowl playthrough, the wife wouldn't be into it.
Thanks in advance!
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I love Dominion and there is a free online version at
That you can try out before taking the plunge.
There is also a companion app that makes set up a bit easier as well.
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I like Dominion, but once you get deeper into it, you realize it is more of a straight skill game since there is usually an optimal strategy for any set of 10 buy piles you can create. This was especially apparent once I started looking online and seeing the community solving the game using Monte Carlo simulations.
My deckbuilder of choice is Ascension. Also expansion-heavy, but most are large stand-alone expansions. There's an app for that as well you can use to try them all out much more cheaply, and the having access to the online game hasn't really ruined the in-person version for us.
My deckbuilder of choice is Ascension. Also expansion-heavy, but most are large stand-alone expansions. There's an app for that as well you can use to try them all out much more cheaply, and the having access to the online game hasn't really ruined the in-person version for us.
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I'm curious why that is? I played it online I want to say somewhere between 2012-2016 and it was a good intro that got me to snag the physical game and I never went back to the online. I don't think any xpacs existed at that point and it definintely didn't require registration to play so a lot has changed. It was basically a glorified tutorial.
Onoes
Trakanon Raider
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I bought a bunch of the Star Realm expansions, but 100% not needed. The base game is super cheap and straight forward. I probably played several hundred games of that with a coworker (sometimes you have like 5 minute games, average is probably 10-15 minute) before any expansions came out. While the expansions have some neat added features, most of the expansion appeal for us was just "new cards with more different art!". Nothing essential as far as I'm aware.
Hateyou
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Star Realms is probably the best bang for the buck game I can think of. The expansions aren’t necessary at all. I do like the expansions that just add new ships and bases. Never really used the expansions that added new mechanics like commanders and stuff. The base game mechanics are good enough.
Ever played anything co-op? You might try Aeons End with her if so. It’s simple enough my complete non gamer neighbor picked it up in one game with us and really enjoyed it. It’s a co-op deck builder.
Glad you liked DiceThrone, it’s probably the most often played game for us, everyone really likes it. Season 1 remaster should be shipping in the next couple of months, so you should see that available some time soon. It has eight more characters, and they’re all balanced with season 2, can mix and match from 16 characters instead of 8.
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If I had to guess, it's that Dominion is also fairly non-interactive, so you really don't lose much by going to the online game, which also streamlines all your shuffling and bookkeeping. If you have access to all that for a relatively non-interactive game, why bother playing it in person?
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Hateyou
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I feel that way about ascension too. There’s really no interacting with each other, it’s just math as you play the cards. The tablet version is really good so I’d never consider owning the card game.
skylan
Trakanon Raider
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Yeah, star realms was a no brainer from reading everyone's responses so I went ahead and ordered it.
I didn't realize that Season 1 was going to be up to par with season 2, I thought you had to keep them as standalone. That's really good news (well not for my wallet, because I'm going to buy them all).
I guess I have to consider Aeons End too because everyone recommends this one. I guess my only coop experience has been Pandemic, which while pretty appropriate for the time, I found to be kind of boring. Maybe it was the game, maybe the coop aspect. I'll look into this one though.
Wondering if anyone has played Dice Forge? That one looks interesting too, and maybe more up her alley.
Again thanks Hateyou and everyone else, you guys are really helpful in this boring-as-hell time.. board games and beer / wine are the only thing keeping us sane.
Hateyou
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When they made s2 for Dice Throne they play tested them against s1 as if it were existing content for s2 already. They were getting ready to do s3 but the demand for a rereleased s1 was so high they decided to do that first. They reworked all of the player mats, cards, art, packaging to match s2 because the original s1 looks wildly different. They did not change any mechanics though other than adding two brand new characters. The original s1 had six.
They are doing the same thing for the eventual s3 for play testing as well, so we will have 24 characters all balanced against each other. Pretty fucking amazing to me. Dice Throne and Aeon’s End are the two most tightly balanced games I’ve ever played. We almost always end extremely close to killing each other in Dice Throne, and have tied by killing each other at the same time many times.
Aeon’s End games have almost always ended in a “if we draw the enemy’s turn card next were dead, if we draw our turn we can kill him”. Unless you have a truly terrible card pool setup, which we’ve done before.
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Hateyou
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Its definitely a should. It hits the table constantly, my steady gaming friends love it. I’ve taken it to open game nights before to play with strangers and everyone loves it. One night I had to apologize that I had to leave and take my game with me because the nerds had formed up a “I’m going next” queue at my table.