6161

Well, two adults and soon to be 8 year old boy. We play things like X-Wing, Dust Tactics, SotM, and Super Dungeon Explore on family game night. Mice and Mystics is a 7+ rated game that looks to be more a tactical dungeon crawl than a “RPG”. It has story based scenarios that move in a progression though. Conflict? I thought it was 100% co-op. From what I have seen, I am guessing it is a Descent meets Secret of Nimh?

6162

By “conflict” I mean “fighting things.” It’s co-op, but some Euro players don’t like fighting, whether it’s against other players or not. If your wife is fine with things like Super Dungeon Explore it’s probably not a problem.

The reviews I read strongly emphasized the story aspects. That sounds more RPG than tactical. Of course, I haven’t actually played it or even cracked the rules, so I’m talking second hand here.

6163

or the new zombie panic

6164

From what I’ve read, it’s more aimed at younger players and/or families than adult gamers.

6165

One of my favorite coop games is Flash Point. It has a basic version of the rules which would be great for kids, but an advanced version that will have the adults crowding around the table for hours.

6166

Defenders of the Realm. It’s a Pandemic clone with Big-Bads and dice combat. Give some thought to playing it as a pure co-op and foregoing the “King’s Champion” aspect of the game – there’s nothing worse than someone running off, trying to achieve yet one more quest so they can “win” instead of helping take down one of the Generals.

6167

I would second Forbidden Island or the new Desert version. For Mice & Mystics, check out the article at nohighscores about playing it with kids. For a game like that or even SotM you can always fudge things a little so it is less mathy. Castle Panic is good, my son and his friend really liked it. There also the Apples to Apples type games, like Snake Oil or even Jetpack Unicorn that involve talking and convincing people but they are not co-op.

6168

Wow, great suggestions. Thanks everyone! The board game renaissance we’re going through is pretty awesome.

6169

We’re dealing with 9 year old boys whose dad is a geek. I think they will do just fine.

Sentinels scales very nicely with parental involvement - on the high end, Dad can run the table, and ask the kids whether they want to punch Omnitron or the T. Rex, and handle the hitpoints. If they’re older and/or more familiar with the game, you can dial back your involvement. It has gotten to the point where my (then) 7 yo daughter was figuring out all sorts of neat stuff with Unity’s golem army.

Another good 9 yo game might be the reprint of Dungeon! BUT it isn’t cooperative, so probably not relevant to the OP. All the combat is against the monsters of the dungeon, and not each other, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

6170

What I like about 7 Wonders is that it handles seven players and still plays quickly - I remember when the only choices were Diplomacy, Civilization, and Kingmaker, which were all relentlessly long. The Cities and Leaders expansion do provide it with more variation. No, it’s not Power Grid, but I do enjoy it.

I impulse purchased Kingdom Builder over the weekend, which was potentially stupid since I’d heard mostly negative things about it. But from the five quick plays I got in, I really enjoyed it. It feels like something I can play with my parents and other non-gamers, but still enjoy. I think Tom Vasel said it was a less-interesting Through the Desert, which is probably true. But it has so much variability between games I’m still finding it interesting. And the decision space per-turn is often just the right size. Games go quick because there aren’t enough options for much analysis-paralysis, but those opening moves are super important, and clever moves can still win the game. I could totally see burning out on it after repeat plays (due to a high luck factor), but I think it’ll be my go-to 30 minute filler game for the time being.

I can’t get people to play Durch die Wuste anymore. Mostly because there no real variation to the mechanics, while Kingdom Builder, especially when you add the expansion, has a different mix of special abilities most of the time. However, after playing it on the iPad repeatedly, its clear some of the combinations of points and powers are favored. But hey, it plays quick and you just move on to the next game. That really is the advantage of both this and 7 Wonders - they aren’t a sizable time investment.

6171

Our current games in rotation, all of which are pretty awesome are:

Mice and Mystics
Legendary
Krosmaster Arena
X-Wing Miniatures

6172

Oh yeah baby. Next week the force will be with Kiddo as wave three (Tie Bomber, B-wing, Shuttle, and video game famed Moldy Crow) battles across our dining room table.

6173

First gaming night tonight since I culled about half my collection. I’ve invited my friends who bought games from me to bring them and make me regret selling them, so that means we could play Maharaja, Defenders of the Realm, Amyitis, Fearsome Floors, or any of a number of others. Or we’ll play the games I got on trade-in at the local gaming store: 1969, Veritas, Castles of Burgundy, Core Worlds, Tokaido, or Forbidden Desert.

6174

We played our first round of Pathfinder Adventure Card Game tonight. The druid, the sorceress, and the barbarian took on Brigandoom. It took a fair bit to start to figure out the nuances of the rules and for a while we were each forgetting our character powers (I Slept a combat encounter I could probably have taken because I thought I had to attack with my mighty d4 strength but I forgot the sorceress has a power where she can discard a card to roll her Arcane check + a d6 as a Combat check, i.e. a d12 +2 +1d6 i.e. awesome), but it was on the whole quite enjoyable and has a lot of interesting nuances. Unfortunately, we didn’t really advance our character tremendously much - we scored a couple of decent bits of magical gear but without any card feats we ended up with largely similar decks. Oh well.

6175

Marvel Legendary (+1 to Harkonis’s suggestion)
Shadows of Camelot
Defender’s of the Realm (if you are playing with them)

Or a game where they can play against you together

Memoir 44 might work because they could each control a section of the map or something.

6176

So you guys have got me wanting to play this Pathfinder card game. I went to look it up on CoolStuff and I see there are already a million add on card decks. Anything that is basically necessary for the full enjoyment of this game?

6177

Most of the add-ons are still in preorder. The only one (I think) that you can actually buy now is the character pack, which is optional, but has some fun characters and item cards.

The rest of them are extensions to the built-in campaign. The game comes with one mini-campaign to learn the came and the first chapter of a six-chapter campaign. The rest of the chapters haven’t shipped yet, but you can still get a lot of hours of play with what’s in the box.

6178

They are not really “add on decks”, and they are not available anyway. Pathfinder the Adventure Card Game is a campaign structured game where characters, loot, and the things or traps that go bump in the night grow over time. The game is essentially a 1200 card game that is sold over a year’s time. It is even designed to all go in the first box (unless you sleeve, and you might want to consider that option).

Right now there is the base box set and the character pack only. The first set gives you the basic cards along with two adventures (a game is a scenario, linked scenarios are an adventure, and linked adventures are an adventure path). The first of the two adventures in the starter is a basic starter scenario and pretty easy. The second is the first adventure of the 6 adventures of the adventure path that will be the full game a year from now. Later packs will just be part 2,3, etc of the adventure path for “Rise of the Runelords”. The game is highly random/ modular and replaying scenarios offer a good amount of replay.

The only “optional” item that is available now is the character pack. It has different character classes along with enough basic cards to allow 5 or 6 player games. It also has some unique monsters and such in it, so don’t dismiss it lightly. In general, it has more of what the base set has and adds further variety, which is the core value to replay-ability, so I am not sure why anyone would skip it.

The second adventure pack that continues the campaign will be about $20 and is supposed to be out in roughly two months.

Nobody I have played this game with has not loved it. Gaming buddies, board gamers, video gamers, wives, girlfriends (note those last two categories don’t both apply to me), and random FLGS guys all think it is a hoot. So far mileage has not varried, but as always, hit up some youtube.

Cheers

6179

Your killing me Chap. I already have limited space in the car for the move west…and you are not helping me resist the siren call of the Pathfinder card game.

6180

OHHH didn’t realize until now that Pathfinder sold cards to go along with their tabletop campaign games. My bad, thought all of these adventure card deck thingies were all for this card game. Thanks for all of the info!