If you show up to a new group and you’re willing to let someone teach you their newest or most favorite game, it’s pretty easy to make friends and have fun. Whenever there’s a big Chicago game gathering, it’s hard to get in a game with everyone I want to play with!
Tom’s enthusiasm for A Study in Emerald made me look for people to play with in my area. In the end I set up my own meetup.com group which has been running very successfully since. We now have well over a hundred members in just a few months. We have been meeting several times a month and have now gotten to a point where some member have started to host their own meetups.
I don’t suppose there are any people from the Amsterdam (NL) area on this forum but just wanted to share this success story here. If you are like me and don’t know enough board gamers in you area I highly recommend setting up similar group.
Here is mine:
Our next meetup is this sunday.
FYI, November 15th is the 94th anniversary of the first assembly of the League of Nations. I’m sure I don’t have to explain this to you guys, but the reason that’s important is that it might be a excuse to finally purchase Oh My God! There’s An Axe In My Head, the game of conducting international diplomacy at the first meeting of the League of Nations…while dodging axes.
I’ve never played the game, so it might be kinda bad. But you know how it gets on November 15th every year. Everyone all jazzed up about the League and what not. So maybe it would be fun? Someone buy it and let us know.
I’m actually really interested in trying that game. It was on my radar a few years ago, but between release delays and other issues. I kind of gave up on it.
hepcat
1865
One of my favorite two player games, Omen: A Reign of War has a kickstarter up now for a reprint/new edition. 17 bucks for the non-fancy box version is a steal.
The maker is a husband/wife team running a small company called Small Box Games. They do limited print runs of his game designs. I’ve loved almost everything he’s done so far and would highly recommend grabbing a copy while you can!
FFG is introducing rotations to their LCGs in order to improve the metagame a bit. And AGoT is getting a second edition, collapsing the massive cardpool into something a bit more manageable, one hopes.
This seems like a sensible thing to do.
…
I think I need a fresh pair of underwear.
Good God, is that gorgeous. And evocative. And stimulating to my play-brain.
The game is The Ancient World, and it looks to be a bit Civilization or 7 Wonders and a bit… Shadow of the Colossus?
I don’t know if I missed this in the Kickstarter thread or if it was overlooked, but I have to say this is definitely on my watch list now. We’ll see what the reviews look like when they come in.
(Humminahumminahummina)
Yeah, this one hit my radar last week. If you haven’t already, check out rhado’s run through. It’s from the same designer/artist as City of Iron.
Gedd
1870
Rahdo’s run through of it is excellent. The game’s art looks incredible, and there’s a mechanic or two that seems new (at least to me).
A Couple thoughts on some recent plays.
Flashpoint: Fire Rescue- only played one game with family rules to get a hang of it but has good potential. Looking forward to playing in advanced mode with the roles.
Legendary- at first I thought I really liked it but after playing it solo a bit more I don’t know. I feel like if I am going to play a superhero game it should be Sentinels. Don’t know whether to try to trade/sell it or play a few more games to find out.
Death Angel card game: played another round a weekend ago and still having fun with it. Will pick up the expansion cards eventually!
Games on my radar:
Lord of Rings LCG: why on earth did I never look closely at this game before, after watching Radho’s run through I am practically drooling. While afraid I will want to get everything it has shot to the top of my buy list.
Dawn of Zeds directors cut expansion: I like the game but it seems to hard for me to devote the time to play it regularly. More awesomeness though seems hard to pass up.
MMDuran
1872
Yeah, Ancient World was a Kickstarter and was released at Essen this year (hence the German). My copy should be arriving by year’s end, along with those of the other US backers. It really does look beautiful – I feel like Ryan’s art is best when he’s doing weird creatures or landscapes, a little less great (for my particular taste) when he’s doing humanoid races like in City of Iron (which I also own). Word is that this one is somewhat on the light side, but I don’t much care. I think it’s going to be a favorite of mine.
I agree. Not a huge fan of City of Iron’s art, but Ancient World looks gorgeous! Looking forward to hearing more about it.
I’ve been nerding out over a few years old Euro-games that are arguably exactly what detractors dislike of that style of game.
I got Village a few weeks ago and like it quite a bit. It’s a game where you’re trying to grow a family to awesomeness in a medieval Germany. The theme is familiar (Troyes and Agricola are the first that come to mind for me), but the big tweak is your family members are born in generations and die over time. It’s a small touch, but adds a lot of feel to whole process. You might have a character from the first generation become a master wagon-smith with the intention of selling some at market, but later you get a second generation character in a good position to travel. A pretty clear narrative of a father/mother building wagons for his traveling son/daughter emerges, which becomes all the more poignant when the wagonmaker dies and the child uses the last made wagon for a final travel. There’s not much new in the mechanics, but the game plays quick and is interesting (especially with the Inn expansion which makes the game a lot more interesting). The reason it’s worth checking out is entirely for the neat small scale narratives it generates each time you play.
Suburbia is the other few-years-old Euro-y game I’ve been enjoying. Suburbia commits the big Euro sin: it feels like a math puzzle most of the time you’re playing. It gets around this a bit with challenges that are player dependent (for instance: Have more money then your friends to get 5 more points!), but it really doesn’t mask the mathiness of the game. In spite of that, I’m still enjoying playing it because it executes on its theme quite well. It’s a quick SimCity style game where players purchase hexes to add to their city each turn. All the hexes really nail their feeling. When you add a Heavy Factory to your city, your cities income goes up, but your cities reputation goes down for each residential district it’s next to it. Whens someone plays a car dealership, it can raise your cities income a bunch, but each new car dealership someone plays decreases that income (simple competing markets theme-ing). Each game also has two goals which shape how you play. Our last two were Libertarian (have the least government buildings) and Billionaire (have the most money), which were nicely tied thematically. I don’t know if I can recommend it too heartily because I find its mathiness to be a huge turnoff, but the theme stuff is pretty neat if you’re looking for a lightweight SimCity board game.
Has anyone tried Kanban? I’ve been very excited about this game, but I’m really worried that it will just be too much.
So, I am looking for a game that plays 4 or fewer, lasts 90 minutes, is competitive since I already own Pandemic, has an actual “board” (so no deck building games), is relatively easy to set up (on par with Pandemic), and has a theme that isn’t totally geeky.
Any suggestions that meet some or all of these requirements?
Ex-S_Woo
1876
If you’re looking for a family game, I recommend Survive. Might be a bit too light for a heavy gamer group though.
malkav11
1877
I can’t swear to these games precisely meeting your length requirements since a lot depends on the players at the table, but I would recommend looking into Kemet, Euphoria and Tash-Kalar. Kemet plays 2 to 5 and scales pretty well. Not a lot of setup involved other than laying out the power tiles, IIRC. It’s also pretty fast and vicious, with mechanics encouraging direct conflict on a regular basis. Tash-Kalar supports 2 through 4 although it does not appear that 3 would be optimal. You lay out the board, the available Legendary cards and then (in the High Form) set out goals, pick decks and that’s about it for setup. Euphoria plays 2 to 6 and has probably got the most different components but it’s still not bad for setup, really. Just gotta distribute the moral choices and recruits, put out the game’s markets, and make sure all the resources are available to hand.
They’re all competitive and I vouch for all of them being excellent (though I can’t vouch for every player count working). That said, I highly encourage you to expand your horizons beyond Pandemic in terms of cooperative games, because Pandemic is one of the simplest and least interesting on the market. It’s also pretty solvable. I’ll grant that many of my favorites don’t necessarily end up being short games, though.
I have always loved Wiz-War, even going back many years. I think FFG did a good job with the reissue. ‘Totally geeky’ is a matter of opinion, but it’s a fun, competitive game.
newbrof
1879
I got Village a few weeks ago and like it
Just ordered Village yesterday after reading the rules and some reviews on BGG. I like the generation aspect of the game and the book… This sounds very thematic.
Played a lot of Jaipur recently. A fast playing cardgame, where you trade goods and camels (2 player only). The rules are so simple, that you can immediate start playing and focus on strategy and tactics. I can recommend it as a nice filler game, but I do not know when it will run out of steam. The tough decission you have to make during a game is usually, if you take camels from the market and replacing it possibly by high-valued goods from the drawpile … but without camels you cannot compete. Also you need to react to the market price of goods. Leather is becoming cheap very fast, so you need to sell leather as long as the price is good (most coins at the end wins). If your looking for a 2player trading game that works, this is it.
geewhiz
1880
@greatatlantic
These do not fit your criteria exactly.
Imperial Settlers is a card game that you lay out I would count it as board game like. Tried it at a game convention this past weekend was fun with good decisions.
Splendor was a lot of fun but plays very fast, though it is also card type game with a deck building feeling to a degree. The cards are laid out to purchase so to me it has a board game type feel to it. The components are super and add appeal to the game.
Kemet is a great game but with 5 would be over 2 hours especially first game never played it with four. You can learn how to play by by watching Watch it Played on YouTube to get a feel for the game. A ton of fun.
Nexus Op is a great board game for four.
I like Airlines Europe too.
