Board Game thread

[Herr Matzat]

This is essentially whats cool about Werwolfs or Mafia condensed to a game that is fun with 4-6 players. It´s one of my most favourite boardgames ever.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Yeah I played it years ago. We got totally destroyed by the forces of evil (and our dastardly traitor).

[Herr Matzat]

We killed ourselfs so many times about a traitor that dident even exist. >_>

There also is an adone that alows you to play with a higher number of players.

[Ruki]

I own it, it was enjoyable the one time we played.

We didn't think there was a traitor until turned on in the very last turn.

[stokeriño]

I have a friend who is under the belief that I will betray her in every single board game we play (to be fair, I only did so once, and that was Diplomacy for goodness' sake ). I think if I got that game for us to play she may well explode.

Currently undecided on whether I want to see this happen or not.

[Nick Adams]

I tried to find this online, and standard unused price seems to be about $150 on eBay, though some are higher, and used ones do go lower. Looking at what I would need to get to replicate it, I think I've already got the chess pieces I need lying about. I found a plastics supplier online that's in town, and I can get all seven of the boards (it's a regular 8 x 8 chess board divided in to four 2 x 2 boards and 3 4 x 4 boards) for about $15-$20, depending on the thickness I choose and whether I go for acrylic or polycarbonate. The most expensive part will probably be constructing the base, because I can't for the life of me find any spare plywood lying about. I was sure we had some, but I may just have to bite the bullet and buy some. I found some inexpensive stuff, so if I want to make a stable base, it'll probably only cost me about $18.

Of course, there's also the paint for the board and the base, as well as the dowels for the 2 x 2 boards, so the total price will probably be somewhere in the realm of $50-$60. Still cheaper than buying the real thing, and much more fun to assemble. Plus, I know the rules anyway, and have played a few games with a friend. Those games take WAY longer than regular chess, mostly due to the nature of how the pieces move.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Do the pieces move....logically?

[TEOL]

Long answer: live long and prosper.

Short answer: no.

[stokeriño]

I once saw a 3D chess set that, when viewed from directly above, appeared to have the usual 8x8 square layout. This strikes me as the cop-out route.

[Nick Adams]

Do the pieces move....logically?

Well, depends on the logic you use. The pieces move like regular chess pieces. Your piece always has to move laterally but does not always have to move vertically if it can. Pieces can go from the edge of a board to the next space laterally over on a board above or below it. There's this extra thing with the 2x2 boards called an "attack board" rule, which is the only way that anybody could figure out how the 2x2 boards were positioned differently in different episodes. Basically, if there's only either a pawn or no pieces on the attack board, the board can move to another corner of a board.

It's logical enough, but I'd recommend playing the first game without moving the attack boards.

Oh, and the setup is a little weird, too. The 2x2 boards start with two pawns, a rook, and either the king or queen. The back rows of the starting board have the bishops, knights, and four other pawns. It gets... complicated after a while. I think my first game with somebody else took about 40 moves each between the two of us.

[Plubby]

If i'm looking to add a Risk variant to my board game cupboard, where should I look? Would people recommend regular risk? The one SDM posted on the previous page?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Yeah Risk Legacy appears to be the most highly rated.

[TEOL]

Risk Legacy is purely sexual. Man, if I could figure out a way to run that in the Cube...

[Ruki]

Risk Legacy is purely sexual. Man, if I could figure out a way to run that in the Cube...

It would be amazing? Yeah.

I plan on getting Risk Legacy for my friend for Christmas. Mostly just so I can play it

[SeanDMan]

Was playing a game of Axis and Allies the other day, and had to leave just before the start of turn 4 (AKA the turn when I can do things).

So the game starts in 1940. In 1940 Germany is at war with France and The UK, Italy is at war with France and the UK, Japan is at war with the Anzacs and the Chinese, and Russis isn't at war with fucking anyone. Since I have a peace treaty with Hitler I can't attack him until 1944 (4 turns in) or if he attacks me first. Ditto Japan. So I start to build up.

This was the game at the point when we left. A few things were looking good for me.

Firstly, Germany had been shitkicking London all game long. It had moved most of it's forces into France and was bombing the UK pretty much every turn. Although every time I strengthened my border with Germany, it responded, much of it's original army had swept left, thinning out the German line. This was especially true in Romania. Despite being on the front line, Germany simply had to keep me from Berlin; this, it's real front line Slovkia and western Poland. This was a critical tactical error; although I didn't get to attack, I had been subtly loading tanks into Bessarbia in preparation for the start of war. I'd read the rulebook including the nuetral nations section which it seemed no one else had read; namely, that if I move into a Pro-Allies nation, that nation immediately joins me and gives me a shitload of men. I can only assume the axis didn't know you could do this since they had men on both sides of Bulgaria but never bothered to activate that countries forces. So, on my first turn, I intended to charge into Romania, then Yugoslavia, then Albania and Greece over the next two turns. I'd then have an additional 9 men behind German lines with only Slovakia behind me and Berlin. While the Germans could counter, my defensive line to the north was formidable; I think by catching the Axis offguard, I really had a chance to put them on the defensive, hopefully opening the doors for the Brits.

Speaking of the Brits, Beeker was playing the UK and HOLY SHIT was he good. He'd quietly built up an excellent economy and millitary force in the Indies and the south Pacific and his defense of Britain, while mostly a "hold on and try not to die" defensive effort, definitely kept the Germans occupied and would have made for a great game later on.

However, things looked... REALLY bad on the eastern front, since I did Japan a huge favor by mostly ignoring them. The Russians in this scenario begin with 18 infantry in the east: 6 each in Amur, Sakha, and Buryatkia. The SMART thing to do would be to bring them all back to Buryatkia, since Japan can't run through Mongolia without fighting the Mongols and they can't attack me from below without running through China and at that point the UK. However, Japan just decided to take Amur while I wasn't paying attention, and my response was "Pull forces back: make a stand in Yakut S.S.R.: Build a factory there and begin reinforcing it ASAP". This was flawed for two reasons: One, only half my remaining dudes could make it to Yakut in one turn, and the other half could only make it to Buryatkia. I could have, instead, had my dudes move from Sakha to Buryatkia and made my stand there, but I forgot that since Japan had APCs and tanks, he could move twice as fast as my dudes, so once I'd placed the factory in Yakut, he mowed down my men in Buryatkia and stood a turn away from mowing down my men in Yakut and taking that factory too. Then, not only would Japan have forces in the USSR (usually a bad thing) but they'd have a fucking factory that I built for them to reinforce those forces. So I was basically going to push forward while getting fucked from behind. If that sounds like some sort of sexy threesome it's not; it's just war.

Unfortunately people have bedtimes and work and such, so we had to call the game after the third turn. Still, if you have 12 hours free on a lazy sunday, Axis and Allies.

[Ruki]

Axis and Allies can be a very fun game. Although you have to be mentally prepared for it....twice at my board gaming night (which I haven't gone to in a long while) someone was like "Hey! Let's play Axis and Allies!"

No, you don't just randomly decide to play A&A, you plan to play A&A. You make A&A your entire day!

[RPS]

Hamster, you make your own board games, right?

A few of my friends wanna start a board game night and they wanted something they'd never played before. My mind wondered towards you because I swear you had a thread where you were posting games you had made...

[Nick Adams]

Axis and Allies can be a very fun game. Although you have to be mentally prepared for it....twice at my board gaming night (which I haven't gone to in a long while) someone was like "Hey! Let's play Axis and Allies!"

No, you don't just randomly decide to play A&A, you plan to play A&A. You make A&A your entire day!

We played it impromptu in one of my history classes, over two class periods. We got through seven turns. I played Japan and took over Alaska and the US's Asian holdings in daring and insane raids. Somebody else actually made up the lyrics, "And I'm proud to be an Alaskan, where we now speak Japanese, and those invaders from Tokyo are enjoying the freeze. And I'd proudly stand up next to you, because there's nowhere left to run. 'Cause there ain't no doubt that we are part of the Empire of the Rising Sun," on the spot. But it is true, you can't actually finish a game of A&A if you start on a whim.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I do indeed design games and I do indeed sell said games.

I also have a number of games that can be printed off for free.

Let me provide a list:

FREEBIES

Rock 'n Roll

1-4 players, similar to Yahtzee but with a rock band theme.

Behind The 9

9 ball pool game. Push your luck.

Little England

A simple bluffing game where Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales invade England.

Footy Manager

Football management game for 1-8 players. A simpler Football Manager.

Tour: Cycle Free

Cycling management race game.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

NOT-FREEBIES

Yakitori

2-4 players compete to serve the most meat on sticks to the most customers and get the most points.

KABOOM!

Simple party game of dice rolling, targeting and killing opponents with FPS-style gameplay modes such as capture the flag, deathmatch and team deathmatch.

Hanabi

A rummy-style card game where players collect sets of fireworks and play them to draw crowds.

Survival of the Fittest

Battle Royale.

Landlubbers

Simple child-friendly bluffing treasure collection game.