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The Board Game Thread

Started by radiator, 21 February, 2014, 03:13:04 PM

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TordelBack

Oh aye, I've no time for all that anti-fan B*****ks, but when you have a vast brick-and-mortar empire that depends entirely on kids buying your crap and only your crap, and not using their imagination in the way that gamng normally encourages, I can see the value of being ultra-proscriptive. If your consumers can make up their own stuff, what do they need your over-priced skull-mountains for?

locustsofdeath!

Quote from: TotalHack on 04 August, 2015, 06:29:55 PM
Oh aye, I've no time for all that anti-fan B*****ks, but when you have a vast brick-and-mortar empire that depends entirely on kids buying your crap and only your crap, and not using their imagination in the way that gamng normally encourages, I can see the value of being ultra-proscriptive. If your consumers can make up their own stuff, what do they need your over-priced skull-mountains for?

Well...I agree and disagree...

Let me get this out of the way: I'm a huge GW fanboy. I own nearly every one of their board games, too many Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40K armies...I've boxes full of Oldhammer metal minis and cases full of modern plastics. I'm STILL the kid they market their stuff to, haha.

I can understand being ultra-protective of their IP. They should be, in most cases. I myself wouldn't support bootlegs or produced material infringing on their IP (see my reason for not supporting HQ 25th).

BUT...

Most of those fansites were just publishing (for free) adventures they have made up for HeroQuest, or scenarios they came up with for WHFB, showing off their painted models, or blogging about house rules they used to work out vague official rules. I would argue that these sites formed a Warhammer community that GW refused to form themselves (until recently with the launch of Age of Sigmar); I'd argue that these sites, showing off all those glorious minis, did way more to get people interested in and - with new scenarios and adventures - keep people interested in GW products.

Rebellion is an example of doing it the right way. Look no further than the lovely fanzines they allow our lovely forumites to publish. When Bolt and Rich (among others) are at a convention flogging these comics, they're bringing awareness to 2000AD and its characters. GW, on the other hand, shut down folks doing the same thing and alienated everyone aware of what was going on. And GW isn't alone at the top anymore; they can't afford to alienate anyone, as their flagging WHFB sales, which led to the demise of that seminal game, can attest.

Anyway, sorry to ramble. GW is one of my favorite topics to talk about!

CrazyFoxMachine

Yeah this isn't the first I've heard of GW being that way - a friend of mine did charity model-auctions and had their own little forum to discuss it and they were sent a cease and desist. Makes 'em look pretty cold.

Richmond Clements

My memory is hazy, but I'm pretty sure GW refused to help out with the games room at Hi-Ex because there were other games companies involved. They wanted all or nothing. So got nothing.

TordelBack

It's a funny one. My eldest has been desperate to get into Warhammer, but the cost of the current stuff is prohibitive (for us) - the wife and I have boxes and boxes of heterogenous 80s minis between us and several editions of both WFB and W40K, so he can easily get started, but not in the Warhammer shop: which is the very thing he finds most attractive. It's a very particular business model based around narrow inclusion and broad exclusion, and while obviously GW's dominance is slipping, it's been an amazing success up to now.

radiator

My copy of Exploding Kittens arrived the other week, and we've been playing it loads. It's a really great little game - essentially a card-based Russian Roulette where tension mounts as the draw pile rounds down and players - who can use other action cards to defer drawing, take a peek at or reshuffle the draw pile and attack other players  - are eliminated one by one.

The illustrations and captions, by cartoonist The Oatmeal - are really funny, and this helps get non-gamers involved. But unlike Cards Against Humanity, the entire game isn't based on humour and would work fine without them - it's more just a nice bonus.

As they raised so much money on the Kickstarter, they put a little secret surprise in the box, and it made me laugh out loud on first opening, and still makes me smile every time now.


The Enigmatic Dr X

Recently had great fun playing Dobble and Pass the Pig with my brother and sister-in-law.

Really recommend Dobble; it's a card game available for about £12 from Amazon.

As the drink gets drunk, these become even more fun.
Lock up your spoons!

sheridan

Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 16 August, 2015, 10:30:46 AM
Recently had great fun playing Dobble and Pass the Pig with my brother and sister-in-law.

Really recommend Dobble; it's a card game available for about £12 from Amazon.

As the drink gets drunk, these become even more fun.
Yep, Dobble is another good one - one set of cards with about four or five rules variants.

Keef Monkey

Have just picked up Carcassonne for Bea's birthday tomorrow, we used to really enjoy playing the Xbox 360 version so thought she'd appreciate the physical game! Should be fun.

radiator

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 17 August, 2015, 09:14:32 AM
Have just picked up Carcassonne for Bea's birthday tomorrow, we used to really enjoy playing the Xbox 360 version so thought she'd appreciate the physical game! Should be fun.

Awesome, have fun with it!

radiator

Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 16 August, 2015, 10:30:46 AM
Recently had great fun playing Dobble and Pass the Pig with my brother and sister-in-law.

Really recommend Dobble; it's a card game available for about £12 from Amazon.

As the drink gets drunk, these become even more fun.

I'll check out Dobble (I think it's called something else over here). I think for now I'm resigned to sticking to relatively simple games - I'm dying to get Catan, but I don't think I could convince any of my friends here to give anything that complex a chance!

JamesC

I'm going to stay with a mate next week and we'll be playing some X-Wing and Descent - both of which I've played a little before but it's hard to find people that want to play.
We'll also be playing something called Dead of Winter that's supposed to be really good.

sheridan

Quote from: radiator on 18 August, 2015, 10:41:09 PM
I'll check out Dobble (I think it's called something else over here).

Dobble also known as Spot It! in some markets.

Timothy

Quote from: JamesC on 19 August, 2015, 07:40:06 AM
I'm going to stay with a mate next week and we'll be playing some X-Wing and Descent - both of which I've played a little before but it's hard to find people that want to play.
We'll also be playing something called Dead of Winter that's supposed to be really good.

Dead of Winter is superb. You will come to hate the exposure dice.

I, Cosh

Quote from: Timothyjacobs on 19 August, 2015, 08:41:29 AM
Dead of Winter is superb. You will come to hate the exposure dice.
This sounds like an entirely different sort of game.
We never really die.