Favorite Board Games
 

I was recently introduced to Quarto and absolutely love this game.

I like Chess but I'm not a bit good at it.

I'd like to learn how to play that and Go well enough to amaze people.

I like wargames, and there are a couple that are my favorites.

First, there's an old SPI game called Conquistador. Great play system and concept. You had to first explore new lands and then settle them, and as the game progressed you evolved from looting and trying to survive to building lasting settlements and eventually trying to destroy other players' settlements. I love it even though I've never been able to play a full game since it takes 20+ hours to play a game.

Another game I really like is an old Avalon Hill game called Tobruk. It's a game of British/German WWII battles in North Africa, and has a great game system. It was played on a level of individual tanks and soldiers. My friends and I would abandon the plain North Africa map and play it on Squad Leader game boards to get more fun out of it.

I also like Outreach, a game of exploration throughout the universe, and Civilization (not the video game, but rather the board game where you tried to build cities and take over other players' land, and you had a period of trade each turn where you tried to build up your commodities.

I still love Risk.

Avalon Hill also made Rail Baron. It's one of the best board games out there if you can find it.

I have a bizarre attraction to Clue. Maybe it's the metal weapons on the board or the sexy portrait of Miss Scarlet... I'm not quite sure.

Rail Baron is one of my favorite beer & pretzel type games (i.e. the type that doesn't take much concentration). It's designed in a way that there are almost always 2 or 3 players who have a shot at winning until the last couple of rolls of the dice.

Sequence

monop, statego

I've never played Rail Baron. I'll have to give it a try at some point...though that's a futile cause right now. I bet it's been ten years since I've been able to sit down with a board game. I miss doing that.

Axis & Allies

Heh, I played that as a kid in the 70s.

I used to play a ton of tabletop baseball -- APBA, Strat-o-matic, Pursue the Pennant, Statis-pro, Sherco ...

I used to play all kinds of game with my mom and dad back in the day. We played Sorry, Life, Monopoly, Connect Four, Hungry Hungry Hippos (the younger days), and others I can't recollect at this moment. I think they're some still in an old closet at my mom's house.

Nuclear War.
http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/nucwar.htm

Monopoly is truly a game of have and have-nots. I get pretty fucking pissed when some asshole lands 2 or 3 nice properties and a railroad in one pass around the board, and my ass can't land on the stacked community chest ever, all the while charging pennies for my shit houses on Baltic, and being forced to mortgage my water company because I get hit with a $800 rent fee over on Boardwalk.

fuck that game.

Risk is a very enjoyable game. And I like yahtzee.

anyone ever play cranium? this is a d*mn good game.

Asimovian Hyperchess

It was Colonel Peterson at One Arrowhead Drive with the Price Hike.

I only played Advanced Civ, which I think was the version 2.0 of Civ, but a great game. Bit long however, but a great game.

For myself, Titan remains an all-time favorite. I am also fond of the various Settlers of Catan games, Puerto Rice is fun, the various 18XX Railroad games, and various others.

Star Fleet Battles is awesome, though LONG as hell.

I never got into Advanced Squad Leader, however. That one was more than I could bear.

Sadly, I hardly have time for board games these days. I'm slowly getting my two boys into them however. Right now we're on Battleship and Sorry. :D

Risk. Best ever.

Tobruk and Civilization were great. Never played Conquistador, but it sounds like fun.

My top 5 boardgames:

1) Diplomacy- No dice. Just skill and the ability to manipulate your opponents.

2) Supremacy- A more realistic "Risk" meets "Diplomacy" and "Monopoly" with nukes, boomer subs, armored divisions, chemical and unconventional weapons, etc. Oh, and boring but important things like economics and trade.

3) Avalon Hill's The Russian Campaign- Great strategic level game of the 41-45 war.

4) Avalon Hill's Dune- With the right 6 players, one of the best cutthroat gaming experiences ever.

5) Milton Bradley's Axis and Allies- Best "beer and pretzels" wargame I've ever played. Fortress America is almost tied with it, as one of the best balanced games I've ever played.

Yes, yes it was. It was a wonderful day for me when the system was used as the basis for the Starfleet Command computer games (Especially Version 2 and Orion Pirates). Ever play the strategic version Federation and Empire?

Mousetrap, even though there were times the entire trap thing wouldn't work. It'd get stuck in the process.

I am a boardgame nut.
As a kid I liked the old standbys, Monopoly, Risk, Clue... In highschool after playing a bit of DnD and MagicTG I joined an historical gaming club at the local university and was introduced to various Avalon Hill games, not the least of which was Axis and Allies and Civilization. Also played a lot of Kingmaker, Supremacy, and Diplomacy.

I still play some of these occasionally but the truth is board gaming has made a resurgence and there are modern games that improve on all of those in just about every way.

Favorites today include

A Game of Thrones:
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/im...otbg_board.jpg

BattleLore
http://static.battlelore.com/lang/en.../bl_photo8.jpg

Settlers of Catan
http://www.gameoutfitter.com/images/...tlersCatan.jpg

and
Twilight Struggle
http://z.about.com/d/boardgames/1/0/6/c/wbc2006_10.jpg

Actually I have a pretty big collection and like tons more as well:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewcol...tartletter=ALL

If you used to like Board Games, but have only limited experience to modern games you should definitely browse around on http://www.boardgamegeek.com and see what the hobby is like now. A good place to start is the games sorted by rank: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browser...me&sortby=rank

Thanks for the recommend, jidar. Twilight Struggle looks great.

Strip Scrabble is the best.

FAX

My favorite was Global Thermonuclear War.

It's not a boardgame, but it is a lot of fun:

http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/

The cool thing about Strip Scrabble is that, if can spell a naughty word, your opponent has to try it.

EDIT: It helps to have a lot of Cs and Ss.

FAX

I don't know about that. Have you seen the average Scrabble player?

It's a pretty mindless game so it's good for mixed company when you want to sit around and talk while playing a game (as opposed to a group of gaming geeks who want to spend all their time calculating odds for their next turn's moves). I'd say the strategy level is on par with a game like Risk.

apples to apples
balderdash

That's another one of my old favorites. But like you suggest, it really takes 5 or 6 players to make it work well and it's been a long time since I've been around 4 or 5 other gamers.

Yes, good game.

Only played once or twice. Seemed like a good one, but I didn't have much chance to get decent at it.

Like both games, and played both extensively. Axis and Allies wasn't generally balanced at all without a few house rules at least, and even with them was often troublesome.

Bought it, but never played Fed and Empire, unfortunately. I'm sure it's still kicking around in the basement somewhere...

Wow, I bet you got a lot of ass in college. ROFL Did you whip out your Star Wars talking action figures and show them off to the ladies as well?

Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Scattegories

I dunno why but I've had this urge to play Scattegories lately.

Great game. Especially when its with a lot of people, like a family or something.

Same here. The game system seemed really unwieldy to me, though admittedly I only played it a couple of times. We would buy the game boards for use with our own wargames or with Tobruk, though, because ASL maps were great for tactical-level wargames.

Settlers of Catan is the business.

That was a great game! I liked the computer version, but Axis & Allies II was crap.

Ever played Clue: Master Detective?

http://www.amazon.com/Clue-Master-De.../dp/B000PESP6M

It was only out for a little bit a long time ago, but it's the original game, plus added characters (10), weapons (8) and rooms (13). It's awesome.

Arkham Horror.

I played...

Risk
Axis and Allies
Settlers of Catan (Knights expansion)

way too much in my lifetime.

The Harry Potter Clue game (yes, I have kids) is actually pretty good. There are some new wrinkles to the game (secret passages between rooms change throughout gameplay, helper cards that protect you from bad stuff that happens periodically, etc).

More fun than the orginal (to me at least).

Clue

risk
sorry
battleshit ( 5 shot salvo only)
checkers

I was kinda scared to post in here as I figured nobody played some of the nerdy games I played. I love board games and my family has played a ton of them. You guys mentioned some of my favorites all ready but here are some more.

Candidate, Stop thief!, Stock market game, New World, Puerto rico, Settlers of Catan, Rail Baron, D & D castle of Ravenloft, Pandemic, Betrayal at house on the hill, Last Night on earth......i've played most of these within the last couple months....great games

checkers ftw

Scrabble. The thinking man's game.

Risk and Monopoly. And I'm a complete bastard playing both, especially Monopoly. I almost always win, and most people won't play with me a second time.

sounds awesome.

If I could be a scumbag like that in real life, I'd probably be filthy rich.

I like Axis & Allies but I don't have the fortitude to sit down for a 20 hour marathon at this stage of my life.

Some other favorites are Monopoly, Risk, and Clue.

ummm they have 100000 rules to speed the game up. i like nukes.

I've had quite a bit of fun playing Axis and Allies over the years, but I came to the conclusion that the Allies should always win between experienced players absent some really lucky die roles for the Axis in the early game.

I don't know if optional rules fix this game balance issue or if they just made the game unpredictable again because I had less experience with them. Rain Man had some pretty fun optional rules the last time I played with him (in person rather than online).

It only takes 4-5 hours generally when I play. Still a marathon but manageable on a Friday or Saturday night.

Fun game.

An absolutely terrific new game that is Dominion. It's a card game, but not like any card game you've ever played. It's alot of fun. If you like strategic gaming, you will almost definitely like this game.

option rules for experinced players is the only way to make the game worth a shit cause like you said allies will always dominate in the end.

I discovered this game about a year ago and I went nuts about it. I bought my own set and was constantly trying to find players for it.

The funny part is everybody I asked was like, "Uhh... yeah. I know about that game. I have it." It was like this game was the big thing everybody was talking about but somehow I was left out of the loop.

And because everybody I played with had more experience than me I got my ass kicked all the time. :doh!:

Axis is nigh unbeatable when played correctly. The problem is most players go for the military instead of the economic victory.

I've heard great things about it, but it's hard finding enough people willing to try something new.

Love the game.

Best played with nerds, beer, and a an off day dedicated to play.

There are multiple variations on the original concept. Super Hero, nuclear war, etc...

Risk, monopoly, pictionary, and of course, the best board game of all? Craps

For the geeks among us, this looks like it could be good:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6...lon-board-game

I've played Castle Ravenloft a few times, and it's pretty fun. Settlers of Catan is, of course, a classic.

Also, Wizards has out a risk-style game now called Conquest of Nerath:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9...ath-board-game

LMAO Love you guys.

:thumb:

We play Castle Ravenloft (amongst others) whenever we can't put together enough people for a real session of D&D.

Geek is the new chic. :p

I'm with it. Over the years I've been on this board I've gone from thinking the whole geek thing was an exaggerated myth to witnessing first hand that it is the real deal.
Some of you use your powers for good, some for evil.

Sorry!

Obviously, I don't agree.

Edit: After cursory googling, I find that there are several variations of Axis and Allies (Original, Revised, and 1942 at a minimum). It could be that you and I are talking about different versions. As far as I'm concerned, the Original version is unbalanced toward the Allies. I don't know about the other two versions.

I've always played the original. Out of about 30 games (both Axis and Allies) I've lost once. Definitely my highest winning percentage out of any board game.

I've never really noticed many balance issues but you can certainly be screwed by bad luck.

And some work both sides of the coin.

If you've only lost once, the most likely reason is that you've played against inferior opponents (or else you've always played Allies).

This is kind of weird. Before today, I'd never heard of Settlers of Catan or Dominion. Both sounded interesting enough that I googled them and read about them which is something I haven't done for any other game mentioned in this thread (besides Axis and Allies which I googled to check on balance issues).

Later this afternoon, I was watching a youtube video made by a professional Starcraft player (Sean Plott from Leawood, Kansas) and he was talking about how he got into that game. During his talk, he made an offhand reference to a couple of games he used to play with his "game playing" family. Settlers of Catan and Dominion were the two he mentioned.

I always loved The Game of Life. My next favorite is Clue Great Museum Heist

Probably the inferior opponents. I always play against the same people. We randomly assign what country we're in charge of.

As a kid I played any game I could get my hands on, in the Navy it was RPG's and Risk, with my own kids Clue was a big favorite. But my wife would grab any board game that went on sale. We ended up with a ton of them. I think the last one I played was Operation.

My favorites growing up:

Risk
Monopoly
Clue
Careers
Life

My brother and sister wouldn't play Risk with me after the first few times we played it.
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No love for Stratego? That was one of my favorites as a kid.

We had a guy on my ship that we called "Adolph". The guy would win every game he played. It didn't matter where he started from, and we would all try to keep our eye on him, but it never worked. At one point we all sat down and just decided to knock him out. It wasn't planned. All of us just threw everything we had at him, even leaving our common borders low on troops to concentrate forces against him. We did take him out but he was so pissed off that he never played with us again.