Board games/card games discussion?

Blorgon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 29, 2014
Messages
363
Is it appropriate to talk about board games and card games here, or is this strictly a video game sub?
 
Magic the Gathering is really popular right now. If you haven't played it, grab some friends and some beers, good times await!
 
Do you think I'd get in trouble if I made this an unofficial board/card game thread?
:D

Any T.I. players here? My roommate also just bought Netrunner, and I'm really interested in Eclipse, too.
 
I'm really interested in board games but I don't have friends to play with =(
I wish this board had general discussion though..
 
Wife and I both love board games, but it's hard to find enjoyable ones with replayability for just 2 people. We went to a local game shop and picked up Forbidden Island and great times were had.

I've recently been wanting to get into Pathfinder tabletop RPG, but I have no local friends that want to get together to play it.

I've been off and on with Magic: The Gathering... M15 core set just had pre-release this last weekend.
 
Not really. I created a thread about Android: Netrunner awhile back. Not a whole lot of interest but there's no reason why the thread can't be created.

My roommate just bought Netrunner. We're waiting for it to ship. Seems like fun.

Still reading through a compendium of Twilight Imperium Variants, looking for a good way to do 2-player so I can teach my roommate the game.
 
Yeah there is something about board games that bring people together.

I still remember summer 1995 playing every single night "Monopoly".
We would play for hours sometimes ending games in the morning.

I want my son to have a similar experience but hes only 1 so I have time.
What would be a great beginner Board game that is more like what you guys posted.
I want to fight dragons!
 
Most cities in the US have stores or clubs that get together and play games like this. I've taken part in a few Pathfinder sessions organized in such a way. Good fun.
 
Speaking of Twilight Imperium, I haven't played it but I have played Eclipse, which is apparently similar except with less diplomacy/politics and better combat. Eclipse is a lot of fun.

I can second BoardGameGeek as a great resource for everything board/card game related.

Other fun games I play besides Netrunner and Eclipse:

King of Tokyo (+ expansion)
RoboRally
Forbidden Desert
Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game
Firefly: The Game
Love Letter
The Resistance
Power Grid
Carcassonne
Zombicide
Loupin' Louie (don't laugh, it's a lot of fun)

Also, if you want to check out some games, take a look at Wil Wheaton's TableTop series on YouTube (Geek & Sundry channel). They showcase a lot of fun games and give you an idea of how they are played and if you might like them. That's how I found out about King of Tokyo and Forbidden Island (ended up getting Desert because I like the mechanics better).
 
Last edited:
My coworkers and I ran a weekly boardgame group for about 5 years. Most people (including us originally) didn't know anyone else into boardgames, but it's pretty easy to introduce new people and get them hooked. Just bring lots of food and start with an easy game. :) Hell, my mom does a semi-regular game of Agricola with all her old lady friends now.

If you're into long, skill-dependent strategy games, Through the Ages is my all time favorite. (and nearly boardgamegeek's as well - up to a #2 rating behind Twilight Struggle.) You can also play TTA for free online @ boardgaming-online.com, but learning the game that way will be a little rough.

Besides TTA, I'd recommend:
Dune (the original 1979 game, but it's out of print, so... hard to find. Also hard to budget time for because a game can last anywhere between 30 minutes and 8 hours.)
Eclipse
Mage Knight
Dungeon Lords (think Dungeon Keeper in boardgame form)
Race for the Galaxy (there's a free computer version of this you can try out that is also fantastic)

For recruiting new players, we usually start 'em out on Ticket to Ride or 7 Wonders, graduate them up to Arkham Horror or Agricola, and then move on from there.
 
Anyone here ever played Summoner Wars? Buddy of mine has that game and we had a few entertaining lunch hours with it.
 
Magic the Gathering is really popular right now. If you haven't played it, grab some friends and some beers, good times await!

It is also absurdly expensive.
 
It is also absurdly expensive.

Depends on what you want your level of involvement to be. If you want to keep up on all the new releases, and/or be tournament competitive, then yes. If all you want to do is pick up some booster packs and do a draft with your friends, then it's not too bad.

I bought a Core 2013 booster box a year and a half ago or so, but I just couldn't really get into it. I also hate the CCG model in general, which is why I picked up Android: Netrunner which has the far superior LCG model. Plus, I like the theme of Netrunner a lot more than M:tG.

I also bought a Core 2013 Deck Builder's Toolkit, which gives you just under 300 cards as well as some rules documents and whatnot. A good place to start out if you don't want to invest a ton. You get 125 semi-randomized cards, 100 lands, and 4 15-card boosters. I think these go for around $25 or so on Amazon and I believe there is a 2014 version (though Core 2015 is about to come out pretty soon).
 
*MTG snip*

Around 3rd and 4th edition I spent way too much money on MTG. But I've been recently getting into board games so to scratch my itch I've bought several Duel Decks like this one. I also have a few promo 30 card decks that are good for mixing and matching. It's been perfect for a few casual games here in there and not very expensive.

I play Ascension: Rise of Vigil semi-often. It's a great casual game, but the hardcore folks kinda scoff at it. Also just picked up Pandemic this week for the co-op. Usually I just play this stuff with my GF as our nearest gaming buddies live 90 minutes away.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
If you like Pandemic, check out Forbidden Island and/or Forbidden Desert, as they are somewhat similar mechanically (co-op, quite difficult to win) and I think is designed by the same guy who made Pandemic.
 
Depends on what you want your level of involvement to be. If you want to keep up on all the new releases, and/or be tournament competitive, then yes. If all you want to do is pick up some booster packs and do a draft with your friends, then it's not too bad.

I bought a Core 2013 booster box a year and a half ago or so, but I just couldn't really get into it. I also hate the CCG model in general, which is why I picked up Android: Netrunner which has the far superior LCG model. Plus, I like the theme of Netrunner a lot more than M:tG.

I also bought a Core 2013 Deck Builder's Toolkit, which gives you just under 300 cards as well as some rules documents and whatnot. A good place to start out if you don't want to invest a ton. You get 125 semi-randomized cards, 100 lands, and 4 15-card boosters. I think these go for around $25 or so on Amazon and I believe there is a 2014 version (though Core 2015 is about to come out pretty soon).

Agreed with everything you said. I know people say MTG is popular but is it really? Maybe they make more off casuals then I realize.

That and Wizards focuses too much on the "collectable" than the "game" part. I really think blizzard has hit something with Hearthstone where you can play casual for no money but competitive for a few hundy.
 
Dune (the original 1979 game, but it's out of print, so... hard to find. Also hard to budget time for because a game can last anywhere between 30 minutes and 8 hours.)

Sweet! Definitely gonna try to pickup a copy on ebay. I've been working on a Dune themed variant for Twilight Imperium, and I'd love to see how the actual boardgame plays out.

Turned out I actually had an account at boardgamegeek that I signed up for last year when my brothers and I first picked up TI. I'm not a huge fan of the forum, though—mostly because I hate the layout. It's a pain to navigate the forums.
 
Magic the Gathering is really popular right now. If you haven't played it, grab some friends and some beers, good times await!

Honestly, I've never been too crazy about card games. I collected Pokemon cards when I was a kid when they first came out, but I never actually played with them. Cards Against Humanity is awesome though, and of course, I play "normal" cardgames quite a bit.

We'll see how I get along with Netrunner whenever it comes in the mail.

It's so weird, sometimes I go through these intense video game phases, other times, I'm obsessed with boardgames. Still waiting for a proper TI computer game :eek::D
 
We'll see how I get along with Netrunner whenever it comes in the mail.

It's a lot of fun, IMO. You may also check out the OCTGN plugin for it for playing online.

It's still a deck building game (though you can have plenty of fun with just the Core set and the pre-built decks, although once you start playing a lot you'll realize they kind of suck, but you can deckbuild within the Core set and make some decent decks) but it doesn't have the massive dollar commitment to be competitive that CCGs have. Though, that's not to say it's necessarily cheap. If you want to own all of the cards up until now in Netrunner you are looking at a fair investment, but you're certainly not required to get them all. But, once you buy an expansion you have enough cards to build any deck that uses those cards, so there's no blind buys or rarity nonsense like in CCGs.

Plus, the theme is amazing.
 
Sweet! Definitely gonna try to pickup a copy on ebay. I've been working on a Dune themed variant for Twilight Imperium, and I'd love to see how the actual boardgame plays out.

Turned out I actually had an account at boardgamegeek that I signed up for last year when my brothers and I first picked up TI. I'm not a huge fan of the forum, though—mostly because I hate the layout. It's a pain to navigate the forums.

The Dune boardgame is amazing because of how the different factions' different abilities play in so well thematically with the book. It's just such a tough game to get started because:
1) The game can last between 30 minutes to 8 hours, like I said, so it's tough to budget for
2) It really needs exactly 6 players to shine. You can do it with 4, though, but 6 is ideal. And don't even try with a 3 or 5, because then you end up with imbalanced alliances.
3) It encourages treachery between players, and there is very little randomness to blame if things go wrong. It's just a brutal game to play emotionally. But that also is why it fits the theme so well.
 
I really think blizzard has hit something with Hearthstone where you can play casual for no money but competitive for a few hundy.

Wow. I have my Legend cardback and I've never spent any money on the game. I can't imagine dropping "several hundred" on it.
 
Wow. I have my Legend cardback and I've never spent any money on the game. I can't imagine dropping "several hundred" on it.

Congratulations? Even though I don't believe you.

I meant that from day one if you want some of the top decks for constructed. Of course you can grind arena but that sucks donkey balls.

You can just buy a pack of $50 and disenchant the ones you don't need for a particular build and have a top level deck.

I will never understand how this forum will spend thousands on hardware and then turn around and grind endless to keep from giving a developer money.
 
Of course you can grind arena but that sucks donkey balls.

I love playing Arena, and I play it more than Constructed. Once you get the cardback there's not much reason to play Ranked anyway, unless you want to be featured in a Blizzard blog post. I can understand why some people don't like Arena but I get a kick out of the drafting metagame. If you play arena enough you'll be so loaded with gold you don't need to pay money for anything anyway. I have enough gold saved up to buy all the new Naxxramas content with loads to spare.

I will never understand how this forum will spend thousands on hardware and then turn around and grind endless to keep from giving a developer money.

It's not like I'm actively avoiding giving them any money, I just have yet to come up against any situation in the game where I wanted to pay money for more cards. And now I've been playing it for so long and have so much accumulated gold that I can't even imagine spending it all. I generally stop playing a F2P game when I come up against situations that make me want to spend money. I think Blizzard's done a great job with making Hearthstone accessible to people who want to spend money on it as well as those who have no interest.

OP, I've never played Twilight Imperium before but I'm about to play it for the first time tomorrow. I'm pretty excited.
 
OP, I've never played Twilight Imperium before but I'm about to play it for the first time tomorrow. I'm pretty excited.

Dang. I'm jealous. Good luck. Be patient. Do you know if you'll be playing the base game, or with the expansions?
 
Dang. I'm jealous. Good luck. Be patient. Do you know if you'll be playing the base game, or with the expansions?

We have a seven-player game lined up with some elements from both expansions.
 
We have a seven-player game lined up with some elements from both expansions.

Oh, so you're in for the long-haul! I've only ever gotten to play 4-player games so far. Nobody I know ever wants to spend their entire Saturday playing. :mad:
 
My coworkers and I get together once in a while for board game nights. Here's a quick list of stuff we've really enjoyed.

Pandemic
7 Wonders
Small World
Munchkin
Settlers of Catan
Zombiecide
Carcassonne
Forbidden Island
The Resistance
Cards Against Humanity

Hmm there's probably more that I just can't think of right now. Of those, I'd highly suggest 7 Wonders to anyone that hasn't played it. Once your group gets the rules down, games only take about 30 minutes, and every game basically forces you to use a different strategy since you're never going to get the same cards.
 
I'll have to check out 7 Wonders.

Another good one I forgot is Dominion. Can be very fast as well once you get the hang of it, which is not very hard. Plus there is a ton of variation which becomes apparent once you learn a bit about how the game works.
 
Back
Top