The Board Game Thread

[Theblazeuk]

Scrabble
Cranium
Jenga (off-brand with colour dice rolls, much more fun/tricky)
Batman Story Dice (don't really see the point but nice idea)
ARKHAM HORROR

It weighs more than the dread knowledge of the Elder Signs weighs upon my soul and its rules hint at unknowable intricacies and esoteric turns, suggesting a hideous framework of knowledge beyond man's capabilities. Truly this box does hold a gibbering horde of pieces, each crafted by strange hands and each with a twisted alien purpose.

Today, we shall make our attempt to fathom this tome of rituals. I ask for God to have mercy on us but I fear we may only call the dread attention of something far older and far greater than he....

[sheridan]

Cthulhu dice

Very lightweight game - probably best for choosing who goes first in another game!

Batman Love Letter

Another lightweight game to learn, but one you can play repeatedly as it can take on different strategies depending on who you're playing with.

Munchkin
Only played Munchkin so far but it seemed like fun.

Hope that Judge Dredd expansion (15 or 25 cards, can't remember which) comes out soon - it was supposed to have come out in 2015.

Batman Story Dice (don't really see the point but nice idea)

Maybe to help improve Frank Miller's output?

ARKHAM HORROR

Today, we shall make our attempt to fathom this tome of rituals. I ask for God to have mercy on us but I fear we may only call the dread attention of something far older and far greater than he....

Good luck - let us know how many games it takes you to actually survive!  I've only played once and we were killed by Cthulhu himself (itself?) within about two hours - pretty quick for Arkham.

[radiator]

I got a game called Perudo off my cousin. Haven't played it yet but it looks interesting - its a kind of bluffing/tactical dice game from South America.

Played another half dozen rounds of One Night Ultimate Werewolf the other night with 9 players. So much fun! Its such a great game for livening up otherwise sedate family gatherings - my girlfriend's family are so quiet and shy by nature, but after a couple of rounds they were all shouting and laughing hysterically. The two ten year old family members we were playing with could barely contain their excitement at the game. One of them said he was going to use some of his christmas money to buy his own copy, and also proclaimed our gift to him of Exploding Kittens as the 'second best' christmas present he got this year (the first being a Wii U!).

[Colin YNWA]

I got a game called Perudo off my cousin. Haven't played it yet but it looks interesting - its a kind of bluffing/tactical dice game from South America.

Perudo is a great simple game. My wife introduced me to it when we met years ago and we loved playing it. Thanks for reminding me of it, must dig it out!

[Theblazeuk]

ARKHAM HORROR

Good luck - let us know how many games it takes you to actually survive!  I've only played once and we were killed by Cthulhu himself (itself?) within about two hours - pretty quick for Arkham.

Well it took about 4.5 hours to play, only 2 of us but half that time was easily just wondering and doublechecking all of the rules etc (and my wife not getting the dice rolling for a good 2 hours).

But we won! Yig was driven back into the other realm whereupon he slumbers. We had good fortune though really. The manual recommends Yig for a shorter, simpler game and Cthulu for a more challenging one, so we went with Yig. We lucked out on our first environment card which made it really easy to close gates, and our randomly selected characters complemented one another quite well - my wife had the character best suited to a beginners game (reroll any failed skill check once per turn) and started with the guaranteed sneak success magic item, whilst my character had buckets of fighting ability and started with the best magic weapon in the game. And beyond that, the monsters co-operated by never being too nightmarish to fight without going insane, and the new gates reliably opened up on the places that we'd sealed.

I think we forgot to move the doom token a couple of times so came closer to defeat than initially thought, but still just scraped it. And who knows I might have been able to fight Yig all by myself, I had the best loot you could get...

Great game! Looking forward to another round tonight. Just wondering how we can best keep all those little tokens together in the box.

[TordelBack]

Great game of Munchkin with all our expansions last night - Unnatural Axe, Clerical Errors, Kobolds Ate My Baby and Kittens. Wonderfully eclectic fun with two towering decks to draw from - King Torg and Cat-thulu both turned up, which was nice. My classless Orc won by killing his own hireling to make a surpise leap to Level 9, while deploying a series of crippling Curses that prevented my opponents dicking me out of a simple final battle.

[Timothy]

I've had a couple of fun plays of Patchwork over Christmas, two cases of Consulting Detective and today a late present of Isle of Skye turned up. Not played it yet, but the rules seem straightforward and seem to balance simplicity with tough decisions. I look forward to playing v soon.

Oh, and there has been untold Resistance and One Night Revolution fun over the holidays too.

[Link Prime]

Played another half dozen rounds of One Night Ultimate Werewolf the other night with 9 players. So much fun!

Never heard of this, but your enthusiasm has led to me taking a punt and buying a copy on Amazon.
Too late for this festive season, but it'll be handy to have for the next family get-together.

[sheridan]

Great game! Looking forward to another round tonight. Just wondering how we can best keep all those little tokens together in the box.

First rule of boardgaming - invest in ziplock bags (of varying sizes).

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Been playing a lot of Dobble over the Christmas holidays.

It's a recipe for tears and arguments in the under-8s or over-imbibed.

[JamesC]

Played with my X-Wing Force Awakens core set.

X-Wing has always done a brilliant job of capturing the feel of the spaceships and battles of Star Wars and this set really does feel like the Ties and X-Wings have been upgraded. It's really well balanced and the new ships, pilots and abilities are worth the purchase price even if you have the standard set.
I've only played one of the new missions but it was great fun (the resistance X-Wing lures two TIEs into an asteroid field laced with mines. At the end of each turn the resistance player can detonate any number of mines he chooses, dealing damage to any ship within range 1).

[radiator]

Played another half dozen rounds of One Night Ultimate Werewolf the other night with 9 players. So much fun!

Never heard of this, but your enthusiasm has led to me taking a punt and buying a copy on Amazon.
Too late for this festive season, but it'll be handy to have for the next family get-together.

Cool, let me know how you get on!

A few things to bear in mind:

While the box says '3-10 players', it really only comes alive with 6+ players (and 9 or 10 players is arguably too many to be practical). 6-8 players is ideal.

The companion iOS/Android moderator/narrator app is pretty much vital (and frequently hilarious), and so is keeping the timer low. 5 minutes should be more than enough, and we now play with 3 minutes, usually less.

It gets exponentially more fun the more rounds you play, so don't be disheartened if the first game you play falls flat. The instruction booklet has some tips on how to get the discussion going, and you may have to play devil's advocate to start with, throwing erroneous accusations around to stoke the flames of suspicion and distrust.

Ideally you should place all the cards on some kind of soft map or tea towel in the middle of the table to reduce noise, and also encourage everyone to tap the table and shift around during the 'night phase' to help cover the sounds of activity. This is all part of the fun and will make for a better game for everyone. Accusations backed up by claims of 'I heard him/her move during the night' aren't really in the spirit of the game.

Start out with the basic recommended setup of roles in play before introducing the more complex roles. People will moan about being stuck as a villager, but having them in play is very important, especially early on.

While there is definitely a competitive element (and it's immensely satisfying to successfully root out a werewolf, or conversely to evade detection as a werewolf and lead a mob to lynch an innocent villager), One Night Ultimate Werewolf is not a 'gamer's game', and certainly not a game to take overly seriously. There's a large element of chaos, and the game is much more about the experience of playing and the post-game discussion than worrying about who won or lost, or keeping scores.

Make sure you buy the right version - One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a stripped-down, condensed variant of the classic party game Werewolf (sometimes called Mafia) which is available in a number of different editions. I own Ultimate Werewolf Ultimate Edition too, but it looks a lot more drawn-out and involved, needs 10+ players to be worthwhile, requires a human moderator and has player elimination.

[Timothy]

The Coup/Resistance themed One Night Revolution is basically a reskin of the same game and is, for that reason, also great fun.

[radiator]

The Coup/Resistance themed One Night Revolution is basically a reskin of the same game and is, for that reason, also great fun.

Yep. How is ONR? And how does it differ from ONUW?

Speaking of The Resistance, I'm thinking about buying it, but have heard that Avalon is better. Anyone have any thoughts?

[Link Prime]

Make sure you buy the right version - One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a stripped-down, condensed variant of the classic party game Werewolf (sometimes called Mafia) which is available in a number of different editions. I own Ultimate Werewolf Ultimate Edition too, but it looks a lot more drawn-out and involved, needs 10+ players to be worthwhile, requires a human moderator and has player elimination.

Now you tell me! 

This is the version I bought, seemed to fit the bill;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pegasus-Spiele-GmbH-ONUWBEZ-Ultimate/dp/B00HS7GG5G/ref=sr_1_1?s=kids&ie=UTF8&qid=1452075876&sr=1-1&keywords=one+night+ultimate+werewolf