Just recently a colleague took a picture of their board game collection and mused, “What games should I bring?” It was a question for a board game night, but it made me think of the very reasonable question: what board games have you been playing lately?
The most recent ones that I’ve dove into have been Mothership, a 4X space combat game made in Australia, and Power Grid. Like Luke, I was fairly late to the Power Grid party. But damn is that a good game, although it does require at least one full playthrough to get the proper appreciation of how to set yourself up for the final phase.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/01/power-grid-a-game-about-big-coal-and-big-garbage/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/ewp4pgabpty8qvlmyfiu.jpg” title=”Power Grid, A Game About Big Coal (And Big Garbage)” excerpt=”I got around to playing the classic German board game Power Grid (AKA Funkenschlag) on the weekend, and absolutely loved it.”]
Another game that I’ve been eyeing off, but not had the time to delve into, is Talisman. I’ve not played it, despite Tegan owning the physical and digital versions, and I’ve heard enough good things about it that it seems like it would be my jam.
What board games have you been playing lately?
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37 responses to “What Board Games Have You Been Playing?”
In the last couple of weeks: XWing, Machi Koro, Memoir ’44 and this weekend coming a long game of Archipelago. Beyond that, I’ve also played Pandemic: Iberia, Formula De, Carcasonne: Amazonas and Power Grid in the last month…
DnD 5e. Some people play it like a board game.
Been super busy, but I did get to play a couple this weekend just past. Suburbia continues to be the best, and taught my Aunt and Uncle Ticket to Ride on Monday which was a bit of an ordeal. The teaching, not the game, game’s still sweet.
Got my copy of Skyward yesterday, so looking to get that out soon.
Also, last night I GMed Apocalypse World. Man, is this game the best as a GM.
Suburbia was good fun. So was Carcassonne.
Burger Up and Burgle Bros, not board games strictly speaking, have been high in the rotation as well. Ticket to Ride Europe is on the shelf for future play. Dalek Dice needs to get another roll.
Spyfall is always good fun. What’s the one with the two cards face down, collect coins and then try and finger the other players on the basis of the role they are representing?
Dominion and 7 Wonders are good too.
Love Letter Batman lives in the bag that goes with me everywhere. Have decided though we don’t need a collection, we just borrow from the library of @redartifice.
Coup.
Coup. Been a while since I played that.
I don’t back Kickstarters as a general rule. Regretting that with Skyward after playing it at PAX two years back. Totally my sort of game and I’m sure I’ll pick it up once I see it on shelf.
I trust Rule and Make enough at this point that I just back it. Kinda bummed I didn’t have the cash for Hand of Fate when it was on KS
Suburbia is great.
I can never figure out whether I like Suburbia or Castles of Mad King Ludwig best.
I have views on Talisman, @alexwalker. They are unkind. It’s a relic (pun intended) of older game design and there is very little player agency.
Recently I’ve played a few games of Tzolk’in, Vinhos and Archon. Apparently I have a niche and it is worker placement. Tzolk’in is a great exercise in learning just how terrible you are at planning ahead. It rewards having a coherent plan and then trying not to get waylaid from that plan while navigating around other players (or deliberately getting in their way to be a jerk).
Vinhos is a brain-burning worker placement about wine-making in Portugal. Like Tzolk’in, it’s all about having a plan but this time it’s about jumping on the available opportunities to get the most out of what’s in front of you while moving towards a more general strategy. Flexibility and being able to read what is going on on the board are hugely rewarded, as is squeezing the absolute most out of every grape in your vineyards.
Archon is something I’ve only played once and it felt a lot like a halfway point between Village and Rococo. I like Village and Rococo, I felt like Archon didn’t manage to achieve what either of those games do as well.
I made a similar rant to Alex and one of the other office gamers about Talisman. One of our regulars is insisting we play it, but it will probably end up in a “Games I’ll never play again” rant.
Ticket to Ride. Settlers of Catan. The usual. Nothing new really although we are getting into Machi Koro (although it’s a card game not a board game)
Elder Sign, a Lovecraft inspired game. I like it because I can play it by myself as well. Pretty awesome!
@tricache
I’m a HUGE fan of Elder Sign. The digital version is also great.
Camp Grizzly, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Ticket to Ride:Rails and Sails and Spartacus are our groups favourites. We recently had a lot of fun with Marvel Legendary too, just make sure you play with plenty of players so they can help sort all the cards.
I’m interested in camp grizzly, is there any Australian stores or outlets that stock it or did you get it direct from them?
We bought it from https://ameritrash-games.squarespace.com/camp-grizzly-1
Settlers of Catan, Bears vs Babies, Jackbox and Kingdom Death.
If you’re going to play Talisman, try digital. Much cheaper, and much quicker and easier to get into.
Battlestar Galactica is always a favourite with my group, as is the Game of Thrones boardgame (though it doesn’t get much playtime being both long and so much more balanced with 6 players).
Ticket to Ride is fun and simple to learn. Pandemic is good for smaller groups.
I like Eldritch Horror as a cooperative one.
Have the XCOM boardgame, but haven’t played it yet. Hoping it’s good.
Exploding Kittens and Boss Monster are good for shorter ones to fill gaps. Now have Bears vs Babies to try also.
For another locally produced (Brisbane) game, have you tried UNfair?
Chaos in the Old World is still my favourite board game based on a licensed property. I do always try to get people to play Arkham Horror though.
Chaos in the Old World is probably the best asymmetric game on the market, then and now.
@alexwalker one of us needs to get a copy.
Got a couple rounds of Kingdom Death: Monsters in last week. Had a excellent run against the Hand, before I was murder many times over.
Waiting on a expansion for Marvel Deck Builder, so will be looking to get in a few games of that.
Taking a break from Seafall to play Super Dungeon Explorer, which is going into its third night for one game.
New Angeles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are my jam at the present.
Tiny Epic Galaxies, it has proven to be approachable and a favourite of my large-variety-of-gaming-skill-levels gaming circle, and the variation that comes from the random elements that do or don’t show up each game makes it pretty fresh each time. Not sure about expansions, haven’t had a chance to try them yet.
Book of Madness seemed fun initially but doesn’t really survive our first 5-player game, it’s really skewed toward being easier the fewer players you have. In a 2 player game each player gets 15 turns to advance their decks, in a 5 it’s 6 and it also causes a rigid turn order. 2 or 3 players seems to be the right number here.
Looking forward to the Star Wars Rebellion expansion for an excuse to bust it out again.
Tiny Epic Galaxies (recommended). Just ordered Kingdomino.
That’s two for Tiny Epic Galaxies!
If you liked that, and you’re into D&D at all, try Tiny Epic Quest. Those ITEMeeples gets me every time.
Have you got a copy? Or playing P&P? I thought it would be a while until they started hitting Australia …
Our group is obsessing over Love Letter recently, but Inis is getting a lot of time on our table. I think Mage Wars: Dominion will be floated next weekend.
Alex and I have a giant collection of board games (so proud). I am yet to introduce him to my favourite – Puerto Rico. God dammit it’s so good.
I’ve been playing Scythe,Mage Knight,Eldritch Horror myself.The missus and I have played some Bioshock Infinite:Siege of Columbia and a Sherlock game.Hold on a sec…It’s Sherlock Holmes-Consulting Detective (The red box).Trying to get my claws on Dark Souls.
Sekigahara by GMT amazing game on Japan war of unification. 13 Days a shorter version of Twilight Struggle covering the Cuban Missle crisis. Reds another great GMT game by Ted Raicer covering the Russian Civil War. Finally Escape the Aliens from outer space by Osprey games, a hidden movement game. My daughter and her friends loved this game.
Haven’t had much time recently. Should be receiving my English copy of Heart of Crown in the mail this week so once that happens that’ll probably take up some time at the next few board game meetings if I have anything to say about it.
@alexwalker: Talisman might not be that easy to find right now – it was one of the casualties of the messy split between Fantasy Flight and Games Workship last year. Someone else is taking over distribution later this year but some of the expansions and the base game are technically out of print right now and if you do find copies, they may have a markup simply because of this.
Same thing happened with FFG’s other Games Workshop properties – Fury of Dracula, Relic, Chaos in the Old World and a few others. Chaos’ price went up astronomically as a result.
Still slowly playing through Pandemic Legacy. Aside from that, most recently been playing Trains: Rising Sun, Escape Room: The Game, Viticulture EE, Dixit, and Concept.
And having a board game night tomorrow, likely to play Castles of Burgundy, Trains, and CV.
And recently ordered Suburbia and T’zolkin, hopefully they’ll arrive and get played soon.
I have been a big fan of Talisman for a long time. It is a great game. I have been playing the game since the 3rd edition came out in the 1990’s. I have all the expansions for the 3rd and Revised 4th editions. I also have the base game and everything else put out by Nomad Games for Talisman DE (Digital Edition). Buying Talisman DE is the easiest option at this point because just as NegativeZero has pointed out Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) and Games Workshop (GW) have parted ways and getting the physical copies might be getting hard in specialty hobby games shop. If you do want to get the physical game, I would suggest looking on Ebay.
I’ve been backing heaps of Kickstarter games.
Just got Bears Vs babies in the mail (it’s been really fun – recommend it for some silly fun).
Just got Massive Darkness in the mail, but haven’t even opened it yet. Looks like it’ll be great.
Mainly playing Zombicide Black Plague: Wulfsburg. We’re mostly through the campaign and will finish it before starting Massive Darkness.
For the record, I’ve been playing Via Appia. It’s a pain to set up, but apart from that, it’s a beautifully crafted and producted game, the dexterity aspect is fun, and it’s simple enough that I’m playing with my kids.