I love the more compact Descent. Table Space and time are the primary reasons my group didn’t play the game more. It looks like they took some hints from the D&D boxed games.
I saw this but I am not sold on it yet. I’m don’t really want to relive the books in card game form.
I really liked the Mirkwood cycle since it was something that was alluded to in the books, but now you played it out. Dwarrowdelf is less interesting to me so far since it too closely mirrors the events of the books. There is a lot of untold lore in LotR and I wish the game would focus in that direction rather than just reliving moments from the books.
Three words: Movie - tie - in
For those interested in playing in my next PBF game of Lords of Waterdeep, drop by my lottery thread on BGG and sign up for a chance to win a seat at the virtual table!
Mysterio is the greatest GM ever, btw!
Speaking of Lords of Waterdeep. Got my first game in of that this weekend. I was pleasantly surprised! Enough there to chew on and lookout for, while still being light enough to call your friend who’d had a couple of beers a retard, and then watch him trip over his words when trying to call me one instead. lol. That was good times.
I totally had the game in the bag, a nice solid lead the whole time. Prankster swooped in and took away the lead on the last turn. I got crazy lucky, though. In the last turn, I had zero quests. I reshuffled the active quests, and found one I might be able to do. Used my second dude to get 3 cubes, used my third and final guy to cash in two of those cubes for 3 others, giving me a 13 victory point boost at the last second to jump ahead of prankster for the win!
…then his damn Lord SMASHED me into a gooey pulp scoring an extra THIRTY FREAKING POINTS from buildings (Compared to my Lord’s measly 16).
Like I said, I was pleasantly surprised. Would love to play it again soon. It really is too bad that the box art is so shameful, though. Show up to a friend’s house with Catan, people look at the box and are cool with it. Show up with Waterdeep? …yikes.
Wanted to throw this out there… does anyone know of good 5-8 player boardgames? Curious to see what people thought. All ranges is fine, though we tend to play the thicker stuff… Ameritrash baby!
I know Cosmic Encounter needs to get purchased for sure, but I was wondering what other stuff is out there?
Reldan
5128
This comes up a lot for me as we do games at lunch at work and sometimes have a lot of folks. Here’s what I suggest:
Cosmic Encounter - as you noted, however be aware you need to buy all three expansions to support up to 8 - the base game is 5 only and each expansion adds pieces for an extra player.
Bang - Can be fun for a group, but occasionally takes longer than you’d expect and has the ability to be eliminated and get stuck with nothing to do while the game drags on. Imo, not as good as…
Shadow Hunter - Fun game with hidden teams. Pretty light stuff - demon hunters vs. monsters, dice for movement and for attacking. Plays pretty fast and once people start getting eliminated the game wraps up pretty quickly. It’s Bang++
Saboteur 2 - Scales pretty well. Enjoy this one a lot.
Resistance - Depends on the group - can be fun or can be a brain burner with hurt feelings all around if you’ve got touchy people involved.
Dixit - Great game. Scales brilliantly - more fun with more people generally. You need to get the Odyssey expansion to play more than six players, although it’s technically a standalone so you don’t need the base game at all (it’s just more cards really).
I will second the nod to Shadow Hunters. It may be the best boardgaming dollar I ever spent in terms of cost per hour of table-time. However, it is light and luck-based–you can strategize, but it won’t always help you. If you like heavier games, it may not be for you.
Citadels, while a “Euro” design, is pretty cutthroat for a Eurogame. I would probably put that on the top of my list for what you’re looking for.
Elder Sign plays up to 8 if you are cool with co-op. Arkham Horror is more Ameritrashy, but will be upwards of two to three hours typically for more than 5.
7 Wonders is the best game design of the last couple years, in my opinion, though it’s very “Euro” as well. Still, almost any other game is going to get drawn out with more than 5 players; 7 Wonders seems intentionally designed so that it doesn’t have that problem, which I think is a huge benefit. Well worth it.
I suppose there are a huge number of good games that play 5 or 6, but I won’t delve into those, since it really sounds like it’s the big groups you’re aiming to accommodate.
Bohnanza and 7 Wonders come to mind, but they both top out at seven.
I ordered Here I Stand (because Wars of the Reformation is serious business), Discworld - Ankh-Morpork, and Ora et Labora. At least two of which I expect to get to play.
Reldan
5133
I do not find that either Citadels or Arkham Horror play very well with more than 5. Arkham especially drags in the most incredibly unpleasant way if you go past 6 - the game has almost nothing for you to do on other player’s turns, and turns take a while especially if the slog that is the combat system gets involved.
Elder Sign is, well, Yahtzee with overhead.
7 Wonders, yeah. I forgot to mention it myself but will second it. Although, it’s for 7 players as you might surmise from the title.
Generally what you need to look for in a game that support 6 or more players is whether either:
A) Turns are blazing fast, like play a card, draw a card, and done.
B) The design supports some sort of concurrency, such that everybody is doing something at the same time.
Be fantastically leery of games that don’t meet these criteria but attempt to claim they handle more than 5 players. They are lying to you.
Wait a minute; who’s the retard in that scenario?
Dan
Absolutely. We’ve noticed this time and again. Especially with Arkham Horror. Like you said, much beyond 5 and it’s just awful. Heck, more than 3 really makes the game too easy. You begin to have too many clue tokens floating around that make the mid game struggle nearly irrelevant. We’ve played the crap out of Arkham (still love it though!)
I’ll have to check out some of the other ones you mentioned. Really appreciate the help. I’ve played Bang! and while I do like it… I completely agree with your assessment. And on that note, I have to echo your sentiment’s about Elder Sign as well. To be honest, when playing Elder Sign I just wonder why I’m not playing Arkham.
The Resistance is pretty great with more than six people. With 5 or 6 it’s OK. At that point you should probably just break into two groups, though. I had 7 people over on Saturday and we kicked things off with 5 or 6 rounds of the Resistance (it’s a fast game) and then split into two groups. Three people played Arkham and four of us played Brass and Chaos in the Old World. Awesome times were had.
But since you said 5-8, some of my favorites on the lower end of the range:
Six people: Dominant Species, Eclipse, StarCraft. All of these will take 4+ hours with a full group, especially your first time, but we’ve had a lot of fun with them. StarCraft requires a bit of a commitment, the rules aren’t super hard but you really need to play it several times to learn the units and develop a strategy because each faction just has so many options available. If your group really wants to dig into a game there’s nothing else like it. All three of these games can be played in much less time with smaller groups so a few learning games with less people before attempting a 5-6 player game would be advised.
Five people: All of the above, plus Battlestar Galactica, Cyclades, King of Tokyo (does have elimination but by that point it’s usually not a long wait for the next game) and Space Alert. KoT might support six but that might make the game too long. In fact, five might be pushing it but that’s a great game you should try to get if you don’t have since almost anyone can get into it quickly. Space Alert has frantic real time beat the clock playing action so whiners won’t like it but it’s the best thing that has happened to humanity since Chaos in the Old World.
serling
5137
Anyone played a game with the newest Cosmic Conflict expansion? How are the new aliens and card mechanics? I’m okay with expansions that add extra material for a new player. But since FFG has done this twice already, I’m getting the feeling they’re kind of stepping outside what was originally designed. Or does it actually scale that well?
I haven’t played with the new expansion, but I’m pretty sure the new aliens have been thoroughly tested via Cosmic Encounter Online. Cosmic is bound to be chaotic no matter how much playtesting you do, but if the new aliens pass muster with the hardcore players in CE the Online community, they should be at least as good as those in the previous expansion.
serling
5139
I don’t play the game as much as I’d like, but I’m thinking I’ll just go ahead and buy the expansion anyway. It’s a somewhat cheap investment. More the merrier, etc.
The original release of Cosmic Encounter had 9 expansions, IIRC.
