What are your favorite board/card games?

Trinket to Ride

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Jul 13, 2014
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(I really don't know if this belongs in "gaming" or "off-topic." I'm going with "gaming" for now I guess.)

My friends and I have been on a bit of a board game kick lately. I'm always looking for new games to try out, so I figured I'd ask for some suggestions from you guys.

Of what I've played, my favorites include:

-Catan: I've only played it a bit, but I had a lot of fun. I can tell why most people's reactions when they see it on a shelf is "DUDE, I love that game!"

-Munchkin: Humorous, easy(ish) to learn, and confrontational, three things I love in a game. Base game is fun and the expansions make it better. My only complaint is that the $20 base game doesn't have a level board. Digging out graph paper or poker chips is kind of annoying.

-Survive: Escape from Atlantis: I bought this on a whim when I saw it on sale and love it. Second only to Munchkin in the "fun from screwing your friends at every turn" category. The rules seem super complicated at first, but you pick it up in about three turns. Highly recommended.

-Ticket to Ride: I was willing to spend $50 on a copy, and I don't regret it at all. That's very high praise coming from me.

-Scribblish (If that counts) Not much of a board game, but still hilarious.

-Good ol' Monopoly: Most of my friends refuse to play it. They say I get too cutthroat, I say they're just sore losers.

-Yu-Gi-Oh: I got into it because it was the anime fad of the day when I was in middle school, but I legitimately love the card game. I don't play it in real life, since I feel like I'm too old and the game has changed a bit to much from my era, but I still put a lot of miles on the GBA games.

What about you?
 

MysticSlayer

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Apr 14, 2013
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-Catan: I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy getting together with friends on Saturday nights and playing it.

-Magic: The Gathering: Again, not very good, but I do enjoy playing with my brothers, friends (generally before Catan), or at card shops. Too bad I don't have the money to support this as a serious hobby.

-Nertz: I got introduced to this game last year and have had a blast every time I played it. The weird looks my friends and I get are also always fun to see.

-Clue: Well, I'm not sure if it still holds up as a favorite. I eventually got good enough at reading people that I could guess what they knew and, as a result, could often win long before anyone just ticking off boxes could. This led to many allegations of cheating, some rules were brought up to make sure I wasn't cheating, and it just became a lot less fun. Always winning didn't help matters, because for some reason, no one I played with figured out that just trying to tick off boxes wouldn't help them win, and the outcome just became too predictable. I might enjoy it again if I didn't play with people that tried to make up rules to stop me from "cheating", but I may not even be that good at it anymore.

-Clue: The Great Museum Caper: Even though I rarely see the thief win, the game still manages to be very nerve racking at times.

-Stratego: This is probably my favorite pure strategy (i.e. no dice rolls) board game.
 

antidonkey

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Dec 10, 2009
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Three come to mind right away though only one gets played somewhat regularly.

1) Munchkin - so much fun screwing each other over. Lots and lots of fun.

2) Risk - Can be time consuming but I've always enjoyed trying to conquer the known world.

3) Stratego - Haven't played in ages but have loved the game since I was but a wee lad.
 

DOOM GUY

Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
Jul 3, 2010
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I'm not sure if it really counts, 'cause it's a digital game, but it uses boards, dice rolls, and cards... so I'll go with it anyway.

100% Orange Juice, picked it up a few months ago on Steam, and it's really fun to play with a group of friends, plus it has really cute characters, and that's always a plus.

Other than that, I've never really been in to board games, like, I've always played them, but... they're just not really my sort of thing.
 

Rock Beefchest

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Dec 20, 2008
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Last Night on Earth, Xwing Miniatures are both really good. Munchkin is great with a bunch of the expansions. I am very interested in trying battelore after seeing the SU&SD episode about it.

Speaking of SU&SD, Archipelago is fun as well.
 

thatonedude11

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Mar 6, 2011
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Here are some board games I really like:

Power Grid: This is a game where you buy power plants, purchase resources, and try to power more cities then everyone else. It sounds really boring, but the mechanics are actually incredibly well designed, which leads to a very engaging game.

Settlers of Catan: It's Catan. You have probably played it. If you haven't, play it it's good.

WH40k: Horus Heresy: This game is an extremely complicated 2-player wargame, and it's a blast. A large amount of strategic options combined with just enough randomness to keep things interesting, and you have a very engaging and deep board game. If you and a friend want a nice complicated game to sink your teeth into, I would recommend picking this up.

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game: Based off of the show of the same name, the players play as various characters from the show, and try to travel the stars to make it to Earth, all while fighting off Cylon fleets and random catastrophes. The problem is, some of the players are Cylons who want to prevent you from reaching Earth, and you don't know who these people are. Very tense game with many accusations being thrown around, and a lot of deception and deceit.

The Resistance: Avalon: This is a 5-10 person game that has a similar traitor mechanic to Battlestar Galactica, but done in a much simpler way. The main gimmick is that there is one player who knows who all of the traitors are, but if the traitors figure out who he is, they win regardless of which side would have otherwise won. The thing I like about this game is that if everyone figures out who the traitors are quickly, the game ends very quickly (unlike Battlestar), but if it's a really good match where no one is really sure what side everyone else is on, it lasts quite a while.

Other games that I've enjoyed: Space Hulk: Death Angel, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico, Story Wars, and Android: Netrunner.
 

Spushkin

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Nov 2, 2011
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Haven't played that many, I like Catan, and Risk is always "fun" with friends who have this incredible dice luck.

The one I cannot recommend enough is Arkham Horror. Some of my friends who are really into board games don't like it because it's basically co-op, but it is a lot of fun, especially if you're a fan of Lovecraft.
 

Mullac

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Oct 6, 2012
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When I was younger, I always used to play this Goosebumps board game with friends. It was really simple to learn, fairly short and pretty fun. What was even better was that you could play as characters from the show - it had no relevance and didn't change anything apart from the character cards you had in front of you, but the novelty was there.

Looking back on it, the game was pretty basic but the good times I had with it!
 

JimB

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Apr 1, 2012
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Sentinels of the Multiverse, a comic book-themed cooperative card game in which each player controls a deck of cards which represents a hero, and the players use their abilities to defeat an automatically playing supervillain and, often, the automatically playing environment deck.
 

COMaestro

Vae Victis!
May 24, 2010
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A game I have enjoyed for years is Betrayal at the House on the Hill. Starts out pretty cooperative with everyone exploring an old house, but eventually one person randomly determined through the game mechanics becomes a traitor when the Haunt starts and then works against the remaining players in an attempt to win (usually, as a few of the Haunts are more every man for himself rather than having a full out traitor, but there's only a few of them). There are 50+ different scenarios depending on what Omen was drawn and in what room of the house it happened to begin the Haunt. It's a favorite that my friends and I all enjoy playing.

Pandemic is a great co-op game that has you and your friends working to find cures to four viruses that are plaguing the world. The game mechanic is fantastic as there are three ways for you to lose, but only one way to win. It's often quite a nail biter near the end of the game as you wonder if you will be able to cure all the diseases in time before the deck of cards runs out (which is one of the ways the game can end in failure). Sadly it's only for 1-4 players, but it's a fantastic game.

The newest game I have that I've been enjoying a lot is Lords of Waterdeep. It's a worker placement game where you send out agents to hire adventurers or gain gold in order to accomplish quests, gaining victory points by doing so. It's pretty well balanced and really easy to learn.

There are many other games that I am interested in playing but can't afford right now. I find SU&SD with Quinns and TableTop with Wil Wheaton to be good resources for seeing games in action, giving you an idea of whether or not you'd enjoy a game.
 

Llil

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Jul 24, 2008
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High Frontier is my all time favourite board game. It's a heavy rocket engineering / space exploration simulation, where you are trying to prospect the different moons and asteroids in the solar system and then use the resources you find to build ET factories. It's a really unique game, because realistic hard sci-fi isn't something you usually see in games. Half of the rulebook is actually just flavour text explaining all of the technology cards in the game, with references to the scientific papers where they are from.

And the board is a magnificent piece of mad design genius.

Now if that isn't the coolest thing ever, I don't know what is.


Bios: Megafauna from the same designer (Phil Eklund) is also really good. It's another simulation style game, this time about evolution. I don't like it quite as much as High Frontier, because the space theme is more interesting to me, but it's really close.
 

RedDeadFred

Illusions, Michael!
May 13, 2009
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COMaestro said:
A game I have enjoyed for years is Betrayal at the House on the Hill. Starts out pretty cooperative with everyone exploring an old house, but eventually one person randomly determined through the game mechanics becomes a traitor when the Haunt starts and then works against the remaining players in an attempt to win (usually, as a few of the Haunts are more every man for himself rather than having a full out traitor, but there's only a few of them). There are 50+ different scenarios depending on what Omen was drawn and in what room of the house it happened to begin the Haunt. It's a favorite that my friends and I all enjoy playing.
One of my friends finally got a hold of this game (had to order it online since nowhere seems to sell it) because we'd heard a lot of great things about it. We've been playing it quite a bit recently and I must say, it's probably the most fun I've ever had with a board game. I love the random nature of the house. There's a good amount of luck to keep everyone on their toes but there's still a good amount of strategy too.

My favourite haunt so far was when I controlled Dracula. One of my friends was completely decked out to be a vampire hunter but I had several one time use items that could give me a huge boost. I managed to one-shot my friend and then sicked Dracula on the rest. It came down to Dracula and one of my friends who happened to have the Ring (lets you perform sanity attacks instead of might attacks). Dracula was beating the crap out of him while he fled from room to room. My friend finally realized that he was going to have to fight. He attacked Dracula with a sanity attack while I laughed at him since Dracula has a fairly high sanity and my friend's was only just above average. I rolled a 1.... He rolled a 9 or 10 and one-shot Dracula. I lost, but it was pretty hilarious. I like to imagine that Dracula was beating the shit out of this little kid when finally the kid pulled out a picture of Dracula's mother doing terrible sexual things and the shock of it caused Dracula to just collapse and die on the spot.
 

chozo_hybrid

What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets.
Jul 15, 2009
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Twilight Imperium: If you're looking for a 4x strategy experience up to 8 players (with the expansions) then this game is the one for you, you need a day or two to play it, so we make an event of it a couple times a year. It's worth it, with politics, space battles, research and development as well as trade and all sorts of other things. This is my go to game when it comes to 4x board games. It is quite dense though, there is a lot to learn, but it is worth it.



Red Dragon Inn: If we want something short I can recommend, then I would go for this one, it's a fantasy themed game where you gamble and drink the other players under the table, it's good fun and you should check it out.



As for a runner up, I too can recommend Battlestar Galactica, it really is as fun as the the others here have said.
 

drummond13

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Apr 28, 2008
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For Cooperative: Pandemic, Shadows Over Camelot, Police Precinct, and Eldritch Horror (has replaced Arkham Horror in my group).

For light and fun: Coup, Revolution, Dominion, Small World, Red Dragon Inn.

For hardcore: Twilight Imperium, Dungeon Master, Starcraft, Android.

There are really way too many to list for me.
 

Godhead

Dib dib dib, dob dob dob.
May 25, 2009
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Magic: the Gathering: Been playing it since I was 8. I mostly play on cockatrice now because I gave up on Standard when Theros rotated in and I haven't found an LGS in my area that does Legacy.

Malifaux: Fun little skirmish game that is easy to pick up and relatively cheap, and also filled the void after GW broke my heart.
 

COMaestro

Vae Victis!
May 24, 2010
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RedDeadFred said:
COMaestro said:
A game I have enjoyed for years is Betrayal at the House on the Hill. Starts out pretty cooperative with everyone exploring an old house, but eventually one person randomly determined through the game mechanics becomes a traitor when the Haunt starts and then works against the remaining players in an attempt to win (usually, as a few of the Haunts are more every man for himself rather than having a full out traitor, but there's only a few of them). There are 50+ different scenarios depending on what Omen was drawn and in what room of the house it happened to begin the Haunt. It's a favorite that my friends and I all enjoy playing.
One of my friends finally got a hold of this game (had to order it online since nowhere seems to sell it) because we'd heard a lot of great things about it. We've been playing it quite a bit recently and I must say, it's probably the most fun I've ever had with a board game. I love the random nature of the house. There's a good amount of luck to keep everyone on their toes but there's still a good amount of strategy too.

My favourite haunt so far was when I controlled Dracula. One of my friends was completely decked out to be a vampire hunter but I had several one time use items that could give me a huge boost. I managed to one-shot my friend and then sicked Dracula on the rest. It came down to Dracula and one of my friends who happened to have the Ring (lets you perform sanity attacks instead of might attacks). Dracula was beating the crap out of him while he fled from room to room. My friend finally realized that he was going to have to fight. He attacked Dracula with a sanity attack while I laughed at him since Dracula has a fairly high sanity and my friend's was only just above average. I rolled a 1.... He rolled a 9 or 10 and one-shot Dracula. I lost, but it was pretty hilarious. I like to imagine that Dracula was beating the shit out of this little kid when finally the kid pulled out a picture of Dracula's mother doing terrible sexual things and the shock of it caused Dracula to just collapse and die on the spot.
My group had a similar situation where our friend controlled a dragon. She was so pleased thinking she'd get to eat us all up with it. She went and attacked the first player and rolled horribly. The other person, who had a much lower power rolled perfectly. One-shot the dragon on its first turn. We won shortly thereafter. It was hilarious!
 

Mak Stormwielder

Guardian of the Twilight Spring
Mar 19, 2010
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Magic the Gathering/Yu-Gi-Oh are my favorite card games, don't play them as much as I used to due to too many new expensive cards, though I always managed to make some interesting decks relatively cheap.

Same with board games, I don't have a chance to play them often, but when I do I have a lot of fun playing Settlers of Catan and the Ankh-Morpork board games. Trying right now actually to organize some nights to play em more often.

Always looking for more board games I should try though.