So... Board Games?

[dyeager]

Excellent point.

[xpsychedelico]

I would totally give Risk Legacy another try. I was also under the impression the game only gives a limited number of plays--what happens when the units are fully leveled and the board is fully labeled? Does it become a customized Risk game from then on?

P.S. Risk Legacy is now ranked 100 on BGG.. that has to mean it's doing something right.

[Aeolus]

I would totally give Risk Legacy another try. I was also under the impression the game only gives a limited number of plays--what happens when the units are fully leveled and the board is fully labeled? Does it become a customized Risk game from then on?

P.S. Risk Legacy is now ranked 100 on BGG.. that has to mean it's doing something right.

As I just said in the other page; you get to keep the board with all the personal changes you made over the course of the early games. It has the sum history of your gaming group recorded on its surface and has effectively become your gaming group's personal Risk Legacy board.

[Jotacon]

As I just said in the other page; you get to keep the board with all the personal changes you made over the course of the early games. It has the sum history of your gaming group recorded on its surface and has effectively become your gaming group's personal Risk Legacy board.

Yup, with all the great things that happened (like the founding of Eastern and Western Nixon City) as well as the stuff that makes you infuriated (the complete nuclear apocalypse of Western Nixon City). I am a really big fan of Risk, but I understand why people don't like it - luckily Risk: Legacy is almost a totally different thing. My only regret is having only 3 consistent players while the other 2 swapped out with different friends and family. The memories would be even better if I had a consistent group to play with.

[kofvscapcom]

I think a lot of people have probably played it but Settlers of Catan is quite a blast, as well as Terra Mystica(although this one is quite pricey). Haven't played too many board games in quite a while but I just discovered the youtube series Shut up and Sit Down(as well as their website) where they review boards games and it's tempting me. Considering getting into the Resident Evil deck building because it's quite cheap andI enjoy the flavor of the series. If anyone has played that tell me how it is.

[xpsychedelico]

I've only played the base game and Mercenaries expansion. I think its winning point are the different modes and scenarios you can play. Unlike Dominion, multiple draw + actions deck are rare or expensive to build; though expansions may change that. Character balance (gives each player a special power that can be leveled up) is debatable... some are clearly stronger in co-op modes while others dominate in versus. Theme wise it is strong. Gameplay has few "brilliant combo moments" that other strong deck builders have. Monsters are similar to Thunderstone as they could have combat or death effects, and you can buy AND kill, which is nice (ammo is money and also used to load weapons). The base game alone is decent but feels lacking.

Has anyone tried the other expansions? What I've played is promising and it would be nice to see the game fully blossom.

[kofvscapcom]

Might just bite, the main game and each of the expansions are about 20 each and I just dropped $40 for the Settlers of Catan expansion. Just don't know if I have enough free time to play all this stuff.

[Marshmallow]

Oh man, board games! In the past three years or so I've gotten pretty deep into collecting and playing board games. I started out with stuff like Settlers of Catan, Dominion and Carcassone, and I've found that I tend to enjoy super complicated Euro-style games the most. My current favorite in that realm is Agricola, but Le Havre and Castles of Burgundy are also in my favorites.

I also really like 4X games like Rune Wars and Eclipse, but I don't own any myself. I plan to get Eclipse eventually, because it is awesome though. For those who don't know anything about it, it's a space-themed game of exploration and territory control where you need to strike a balance between expansion, defending your territories, and managing your economy. You get four classes of ships that you can build and you can customize them with different weapons, engines and defenses. There are also a bunch of different races with different advantages and disadvantages, so it's very replayable!

My other favorite game at the moment is Mice and Mystics, which is a dungeon-crawler-esque board game where you control a group of humans-turned-mice as they explore the castle they used to live in. It's a cooperative, chapter-based game, so my wife and I are running through it together, and when we get through all the chapters we plan on playing it with a full group of people.

[xpsychedelico]

If you end up getting Resident Evil and its expansions, let me know how things go! I feel the same way about my collection of board games... I have some that haven't seen the light of day in a year or so, and I feel bad but there are too many games to play and not enough time.

I'm curious about Mice and Mystics, which sounded very interesting when I first heard about it; how does it hold up to other co-op games like Arkham Horror, and dungeon crawlers like Mansions of Madness in terms of gameplay? Do you gain things like level ups and stat boosts, and do they carry over into subsequent chapters? Another concern is replayability--how different do you think your second playthrough with friends will be without considering the added numbers?

Castles of Burgundy is currently on my "I will play right now as long as someone wants to" list and I've been meaning to learn Le Havre for awhile. How does it compare to Rosenberg's other games?

[Marshmallow]

Mice and Mystics seems pretty streamlined compared to other co-op dungeon crawler games. I would say it compares best to something like Descent instead of Arkham Horror though--the board is composed of large tiles, each with many spaces on them, and your party is usually confined to one tile at a time. They're really spectacular-looking though, and while the spaces are generally grid-shaped, they vary in size and shape based on the 'terrain' of the tile, so it looks really natural.

Gameplay-wise, each character has four stats: Offense, Defense, Lore and Move. Offense and Defense affect the dice rolled in combat and equipped weapons or armor are added to the score. For each point you get to roll one die in combat. All the dice are the same and have 1 sword icon, 2 sword/shield icons, 2 bow icons and 1 cheese icon. Swords hit in melee combat, bows do the same with ranged combat, shields block one enemy hit if you are defending, and if you roll a cheese icon when attacking or defending, you get a piece of cheese. Cheese acts as both Mana and Experience, in that you spend it to fuel your abilities, or you can spend 6 pieces all at once to "level up" and learn a new skill. Mice can level up as many times as you have the cheese to spend, but they are restricted to skills based on their "class". Of the seven mice so far, three have two classes and the rest have only one. Since there's only one copy of each skill card, you have to best determine which mouse should take overlapping skills. One good example of this is a skill called First Aid, which can be learned by any mouse, costs 2 cheese to use, and removes one point of damage from an adjacent mouse. However, if a "healer" class character learns this, it only costs one cheese to use. Therefore you have to determine whether you want a cheap heal skill and only one healer, or if you want to give it to someone else in order to have two mice capable of healing.

One thing I like about Descent as compared to M&M is that you roll different dice depending upon what you are doing or what you have equipped. Better armor gives you different dice. Because of this, getting new equipment feels fresh and fun. In M&M you just roll more of the same dice when you have better equipment. It's still fun, but it's different. You also are only allowed to keep one piece of equipment to carry over from chapter to chapter in addition to your starting equipment. Therefore you'll be searching for new stuff every chapter. If your mouse loses all its HP, it gets "captured" and when it is rescued (you defeat all the enemies on a tile) it comes back with only its default equipment. I prefer the equipment system in Descent to that of M&M, but M&M has such a cool theme, which is evident in every piece of equipment. Since you control mice, you might equip a helmet made of an acorn, or a sword made out of an old needle. Also, M&M is 100% co-op (like Arkham Horror) while Descent has one player controlling all the monsters. Unlike equipment, skills carry over from chapter to chapter, as do "Party Items" that you might acquire, so there is a sense of progression and growth for your characters.

[kofvscapcom]

oh man Arkham Horror, me and my friends played a game when one guy brought it, it was fun but it took forever. I like the lore of the different end bosses every game and the divide between physical and mental fortitude too. If I ever feel like I have enough expendable income might get that and the expansions. Betrayal at the House on the Hill is cool too just cause of the different crazy scenarios you encounter.

[dyeager]

Eclipse is tremendous. The iPad version is just superb also. In fact as a board gaming device in general, the iPad is pretty great.

[xpsychedelico]

M&M definitely sounds worth trying out, though it seems that having a dedicated group is fair better than mixing and matching chapters with players. Thanks for the insight!

I've heard so many good things about Eclipse but have yet to give it a go. I own a copy--what are the odds we'll be able to stumble through a game with a group of 3-4 newbies within 4-6 hours without messing up too many rules?

Arkham Horror definitely needs the expansions after multiple playthroughs (you start "solving" the game), and they're all great! As long as you have someone who knows all the rules, the game time becomes significantly shorter. Our games for 3 people usually run about 2 hours.

[dyeager]

Arkham Horror is definitely a favorite. In that vein but with a shorter playing time and less complexity is Elder Signs also.

Eclipse, not gonna lie, is extremely complicated. My friends and I actually prefer playing that one electronically because of the crazy number of pieces the physical game has and the fact that rules are automatically enforced properly.

I assume you guys have also heard of Vassal? Great open source engine for trying out board games before you buy.

[xpsychedelico]

... I am speechless. Vassal looks like a potential board gamer's paradise, though the system is a little unintuitive and likely more for trying out something with friends than with strangers. Boardgame Arena and Brettspielwelt are some of the online places I use to play board games, though rules are rather lacking in these cases. Luckily, there are a few strong board game groups in my area and that's how I try out new games--by using someone else's library.

I'll still have to mess around with Vassal a bit though, the number of modules is impressive.