After reading @abhoth’s post, I figured it might be time to start such a thread.
My wife and I are really fond of board games, but I have trouble finding interesting ones now that I have played Pandemic Legacy…
Seasons 1 & 2 were really next level compared to any game I had played before. We’re in September of Season 0.
In parallel, we are playing another “legacy” kind of game: Gloomhaven. It can be quite a challenging game especially with a hard difficulty (we are playing 1 or 2 levels above normal one). And we were more than once in awe at the smartness of the game design reinventing itself.
As we are fighting the very last mission tonight, I can’t wait for Frosthaven to arrive in the mail box ^^ [wow: I have just figured Frosthaven made $12.5M above the $0.5M goal on Kickstarter… Seems I’m not the only one to love this game]
My anxiety is too high for those “Legacy” games, but I’ve played vanilla Pandemic and it’s great, and Catan and Ticket To Ride are household favorites.
I also actually really enjoy Betrayal At House On The Hill. It’s not perfect, but if you set the mood (moody lighting and some spooky music), and you don’t take it too seriously, it’s a lot of fun.
Whoever made the Oregon Trail card game is a sadist.
I really want to play Mice & Mystics and Tiny Galaxies.
I understand this ^^
I had never felt so anxious in a game. And we lost quite a few time one card before the end, such a disaster feeling to deal with.
But I had never felt such deep feelings while playing board games, I really love that there is real stakes, like your errors stay all over the board.
My wife and I are into board games as well and here’s some recommendations I have.
If it’s just the two of you:
Wingspan - Pretty light and easy to play. Point salad type game. We like it a lot. You don’t need to be a bird watcher to enjoy this one. Nice artwork to boot.
Arkham Horror The Card Game - This is our go to two player game. Neither of us are huge Deck Building fans, but this one is amazing. (We also both love the Cthulhu mythos and this game captures the essence perfectly). I have countless expansions for this one.
Mansions of Madness - Another Cthulhu Mythos game - awesome to play, atmospheric and all that jazz. Multiple scenarios to play through and you can always get more. The latest version that requires the iPad or device to play makes it so easy to get into.
Lord of the Rings Journeys In Middle Earth - Campaign based LOTR game. This is NOT Gloomhaven or even Gloomhaven Lite, but I can see similarities. Much easier to get into, not too many rules and is a fun overall game. We love this one so far. Also, Gloomhaven is one of our favorites as well and we are eagerly anticipating Frosthaven to come out.
7 Wonders Duel - 2 player 7 wonders that works FANTASTIC. Short games, great fun.
Patchwork - 2 player only “tetris” style shape placement game. Lots of fun and light playing.
For more than 2 players here are some recommendations we like:
Champions of Midgard - (you NEED to play this with the Valhalla Expansion as it makes it so much better) - This is a worker placement game. Lots of fun.
Lords of Waterdeep - Original Worker placement that we got into, but don’t play as much since playing Champions of Midgard.
Cyclades (with expansion) - A war/strategy game with a cool premise. Ancient Greece theme
Arkham Horror 3rd Edition (you get the idea, we love Cthulhu theme) - have played all of them and really put a lot of time into the second edition, but this 3rd one streamlines a lot of it. Very difficult but great.
Just a few I can think of off the top of my head. PM me if you have any questions or want more lol.
I can recommend Wingspan, a board game where you have to built your habitat to attract birds. Very slow pace, but very relaxing and you’ll learn about lots of bird species while you’re at it.
Talisman is a good one for more fantasy/nerdy people. It can get very expensive if you start getting add-ons though. Plus you have to paint the figures yourself (standard Games Workshop style figures).
Good fun though, and seems to always follow the rule that the newest player wins for some reason (whenever I’ve played it anyway).
I was able to set up a remote game of Catan with other friends who had the game. I rigged a phone on a selfie stick to a mic boom stand and mounted it straight above the board. We then all called into a zoom call, so that both parties and the board were totally visible. The other party just set their board up the same as ours.
The only caveat was we were pulling from two decks, so card-pulling probability was way off, but for just a casual fun game so you can see other humans and not lose your mind, it was fine.
Otherwise we end up playing a lot of two-person games like Skip Bo, Rummikub, Gin Rummy, along with Pandemic and Carcassonne.
No, for both Gloomhaven and Pandemic Legacy series we usually play with two other players, which is my favorite configuration, or three if we can’t find a fourth player.
Fortunately my brother-in-law is a neighbor, and a hardcore gamer ^^
Joking Hazard is a lot of fun, especially if you like CAH but sort of know al the cards already.
Not a board game in any way, but the “You Don’t Know Jack” games online and on consoles are also great party games, and can be played remotely across different devices if you really want to play with others but are staying in your bubble, for what that’s worth.
I am a board game fanatic too - Jaws of the Lion was really great - speedy setup for such a complex game.
One of my favourites: Forbidden Stars (Warhammer Spacemarine Combat, with Starcraft rules - extra cards + cool minis to play with.) F* ng great game !
7th continent also a great game, if you are into story driven games.
Wow, Talisman. I used to play the first edition many many years ago.
Scythe is good, if you don’t mind a long game that requires learning lots of rules. Or maybe if you think Risk is over too quickly and needs more strategy
I’ve only played Betrayal at House on the Hill once but I really enjoyed that.
