Boardgames

[Harrison]

Who here plays boardgames?

As Tom has got older we have really got back into them. Now he is 10 we are starting to explore more complex ones, and I am going to introduce him to some less compex table top war games and card battle games soon.

As a family our favouite boardgames that we play a lot are:

Ticket to Ride (Europe edition)
Rummicub
Sorry
Uno
Triolet (a French game like Scabble but with numbers)
Backgammon

And occasionally:

Monopoly
Cluedo

There was a new boardgame released last year based on Minecraft that we quite enjoy.

I have a copy of Catan but I've found it hard to convince them to play it as they instantly thought it looked too complicated, which it isn't once you play.

There is a new independent boardgame shop just opened around the corner from my house. I went in there last week and the owner is a really nice guy. All his games are second-hand, so far cheaper than new ones. But he checks them all and guarantees they are complete. I bought a copy of Risk from him He had copies of all the versions and I ended up buying the original, rather then the newer ones with plastic figures. Mainly because he said he had stock of spare parts. I have a feeling I will be buying more from him soon. If interested his store is https://m.facebook.com/alfiesbgc I'm sure he had a website but couldn't see it. But Googling Alfies boardgames Bognor Regis brings up a lot of info.

There are loads of more advanced boardgames, card battle games and tabletop war games I want to try and get into with Tom soon. We do occasionally also play Pokemon.

Shortlist of games to get include:

Pandemic
Tiny Epic Galaxies and Dungeons
Carcassonne
Munchkin
Kingdomino
Dixit
Wingspan
Azul
Heroquest (at £99 this ones quite an investment)

Have you played any of those?

Do you play any boardgames or tabletop games? Any you would recommend? I want to build up a good collection and have a gaming night one day a week.

[Demon Cleaner]

Well, well, well. Years ago I started to collect some, and I ended up having almost 100 of them, but most are still wrapped. The idea behind it was great, we both like playing board games, the reality is that we don't have time. During the week we both work full time, when weekend comes we sometimes want to go somewhere else, have to do shopping and when home, also want to perhaps relax and watch a movie. But you know me, once I get into something, I can't stop, but now I had to, didn't buy any since 1-2 years (only the Big Box of The Pursuit of Happiness still coming from a Kickstarter campaign).

We started playing in Finland a bit now, mainly Dixit, which is really fun with at least 4 players. This year we played also:

Similo (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/268620/similo), might be interesting for a 10 year old.
Codenames (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/178900/codenames), great game, several versions out.
Lost Cities (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/50/lost-cities), very fun 2 player card game.

I guess Carcassonne, Azul or Kingdomino are also quite nice games to pick up.

We absolutely love:

Jamaica (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28023/jamaica) and fantastic and easy and kid friendly is
Karuba (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/183251/karuba).

Some other suggestions would be:

Tags (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/248002/tags),
Bärenpark (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/219513/barenpark),
Santorini (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/194655/santorini),
Camel Up (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/153938/camel),
Animals on Board (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191572/animals-board),
Lanterns (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160851/lanterns-harvest-festival),
Best Treehouse Ever (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/171890/best-treehouse-ever)
Cartagena (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/826/cartagena).

I have so many more but I can't write them all down here :)

I would steer away from Pandemic, as it's perhaps to complex to start with.

[Harrison]

Nice. Thanks for so many suggestions. Will be looking at those.

[J T]

Uno always, ALWAYS ends in a fight here (I have three young kids and they are all fiesty).

Some of the Oatmeal games are fun and not too competitive, and work well with kids or adults. They can be used as a quick blast rather than an epic session. This also makes them good for travel/holiday/waiting play.

We have, and enjoy

A little Wordy
Tacocat spelled backwards

A Game of Cat and Mouth is more of an action game, but fun.

If you've ever had fun with Cards Against Humanity, you might be surprised to know there is a family version and the kids love it. You can still slip in a really inappropriate thing that kids might miss but adults will understand, but at least the language is clean.

[Harrison]

Had my first game of Risk with Tom today. And I was surprised because he got quite into it and was playing enthusiastically and taking the dice rolls seriously. He conceded defeat in the end, but has some good tactics during that game. It's been ages since I played Risk.

[J T]

I don't think I've ever actually played Risk.

I like boardgames, but Lady T isn't really keen (and if she is, she is SUPER competitive and doesn't like losing). I was looking forward to when the kids are mature enough to play boardgames with me, but I realise that may actually be never, especially with 3 of them.

[Harrison]

It's always good to get kids into boardgames, especially these days, as it makes time away from screentime and it brings the family together doing something.

Best to start with is Uno a is ready to learn. We got another game the other day called FART! It's exactly like Uno, but the cards have a different type of fart on them and as you play them you have to make the fart sound shown. Quite funny.

Another boardgame Tom loves is Sorry. Very easy game and Tom always seems to win.

As for Risk, I hadn't ever owned it and only played it a couple of times at friends house many years ago. The rules took me a bit to get my head around, but it's actually quite an easy game to play. Reading the rules made it seem far more complicated than it is. They have released loads of themes versions in recent years, such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc.

[Demon Cleaner]

(and if she is, she is SUPER competitive and doesn't like losing)
Is there one who isn't?

[Tiago]

Hello people, long time didnt post something here.

Board Games? Love them.

I have:
Catan - Base game
Catan - Seafares
Catan Cities and Knights

Carcassone Plus
Azul - the last one we bought. Love it (the story is Portuguese so we could not resist)

[Harrison]

I love Catan but can't get my family interested as they think it looks too complicated. That's true with many games before you try them.

Is Azul good?

[Tiago]

Catan is good, but with 2 expansions even better. I play the base with this 2 all together and it's fantastic. Big board, many ways to set your strategy. I love it.

Azul is very very good. One thing that is top, is that is very fast to set up the board. For Catan with expansions i take 10-15 minutes to set everything. Azul is 30 seconds.
The game is simple, to set patterns in Portuguese Tiles "Azulejos". You have different colors with different patterns and you have to combine them, horizontally and vertically. you can do your board but you have to look at your opponent to try to stop him. Very Easy to learn, very relaxing, an excellent game.

[Demon Cleaner]

I f.ex. think that Catan is way overrated. There's just so much better. A lot of people that got earlier into board games just got stuck with it.

I think I gave you many better options ;)

[Harrison]

I already play Catan for a long time. It's just my family I can't convince to play it.

[Harrison]

I bought Carcassonne for Christmas and we are really enjoying it.

It looked far more complex then it really was and games don't take very long to play. Not many rules to learn and the strategies to block others scoring don't seem to cause arguments like some games do. The version I bought came with a couple of expansions, rivers and abbots, which add a bit more interest to the game.

[Harrison]

I discovered a new boardgame store near me this month. I don't really go shopping much in physical stores any more since Covid, and never go into Chichester much since we moved 7 years ago, but I took Tom Christmas shopping and we got sidetracked by this shop.

Called Comics, Games and Coffee Ltd
https://www.cgc-emporium.com/

The website doesn't really do it justice and show what it's got. It used to be an independent toy store, but now it's packed from floor to ceiling. One side is full of comics and graphic novels, and the other side has every boardgame you could ever think of, from family games like Monopoly and Risk, to RPG one's like Heroquest. They had everything I've ever heard of.

They also had a sectiin near the back dedicated to Games Workshop figures and Games. And out the back is a coffee shop and room where they set of gaming sessions. They were running a Warhammer 40k tabletap campaign when we were there.

This is like my ultimate dream when I was a teenager, and Tom was really interested and spent ages looking at everything. We will definitely be visiting again soon.

Sadly I showed Tom some of the Games Workshop figure sets and he wasn't that interested in something he would have to paint. Only in playing the games they were linked to. Oh well, can't have everything.

[Demon Cleaner]

I just can imagine Tom seeing all those big colorful boxes, must be awesome for him to look at, it's still for us :D

I have the Carcassonne big box, never opened it though :lol:

Just check Jamaica out, he would love that, very easy pirate ship racing game with canon fighting, I definitely would have loved that as a boy.

[Harrison]

We are still playing Carcassonne a lot and have since bought a couple more expansions for it. The one where you can add castles is great because you can position them to steal your opponents points, so makes it even more strategic.

We took Carcassonne with us when we went to stay with some family in the summer. They are really into boardganes but hasn't played it. They instantly liked it.

They introduced us to another boardgame we hadn't seen before called Ingenious. A hexagon based coloured tile game that's very easy to learn. You score points by placing colours next to each other and block others from continuing coloured lines. I bought the games as soon as we got back.

[Harrison]

For Christmas this year I added 2 more board games, Azul and Jamaica. My wife and son were uncertain of both but once I worked the rules out Tom enjoyed Jamaica, but didn't like Azul as much. My wife really got into Azul and it's quite good that games don't take too long.