I was just coming to this thread to rave about this one. It's easily my favorite board game. MoM2 is the perfect blend of cardboard and tech fun. You still get the physical gather around the table aspect with the minis, cards and room tiles, but the app is extremely immersive and keeps you on pace and engrossed. It also checks the rare box for taking advantage of my odd gaming table that I modded with a 42" screen. Highly recommended for some Lovecraftian fun!

4x8 Gaming Table

screen uncovered

Heroscape was fun. I've got a box of it in the basement somewhere...

The game of choice currently for me is Gloomhaven. A twenty pound box and hundreds of hours of fun. I think it's still sitting at the #1 spot on Boardgamegeek and it's a well deserved rank.

It's a digital version of a board game, so I think it qualifies for this thread, but is anyone playing Lord of Waterdeep from Playdek? It's available for iOS, Android and Steam. It has fantastic asynchronous and synchronous cross platform online gameplay. My username is Zac if you are looking for someone to drown in a sea of 40 point quests.

One of my favorites too. That reminds me that I need to grab the latest expansion. (Or maybe not, as it does not come out until the 19th). I hope the success of this game inspires more attempts at mixing tech and cardboard.

Absolutely. It's a different game and much improved. In fact, a few of the expansions for 2 are just the scenarios from 1, but adapted for using the app.

The app is basically a like having a robot keeper. It does all the onerous setup and score while adding ambiance and allowing all the humans to play. The genius is that you still have the minis and cardboard map that prevents it from feeling like you're just playing a computer game.

Just be prepared for every scenario to last an hour longer than the game claims.

It's becoming one of my favorites. I just wish making peasants flee from a giant mech did not drain popularity...

The expansions are a worth it too. They have one coming out before the end of the year that is episodic. That could really be interesting.

The new Arkham Horror 3rd edition is fun. Kind of a hodgepodge of a bunch of Fantasy Flight games. Of course, we got crushed in our first game.

I concur... So many games and so little time. (It's also impacting installing pinball upgrades)

I bought the Scythe expansion Rise of Fenris weeks ago and have yet to play it and have a half finished game of 7th Continent in save mode that has not been touched for months.

Gloomhaven has hit a bit of a bump as our character class mix and levels are not complimentary and causing us to get exhausted too quickly even when bumping the levels down.

Scythe is closer to the other games you mentioned in that it's mostly a resource placement game, but with mech eye candy and great art. It's my wife's favorite.

Gloomhaven is as much of a commitment as a game. If want to play D&D light without a DM for a couple hundred hours, Gloomhaven is amazing. (truly)

I would recommend Pandemic Legacy Season 1. It's more engaging than your favorite novel, but wrapped up in an easy to learn and constantly changing, cooperative, exciting, challenging board game.

Interesting, looks like a gritty version of 7th continent. Too many games and not enough time.

One of my favorites. The expansion are great too.

Looks like you played a personalized, modded version. Painted meeples, expanded board, 3d resources... Good stuff. (I've never seen painted meeples before. Clever)

I've been wanting something like this for years. I even built a 42" TV into my gaming table out of frustration that this type of commercial product did not really exist yet. I'm in the target demographic and I hope it succeeds, but I'm not optimistic at that size and price.

I've may need to seek treatment...

Just bought The Lord of the Rings Journeys in Middle Earth and I haven't even opened the box for the Root expansion.

Now I'm putting money into the Kingdom Rush Kickstarter!

Cardboard might make me poorer than pinball.

Just found out, I’m heading to Gen Con this year for the first time since it was in Milwaukee.

Anyone have any Gen Con advice or pinball recommendations for Indy if I get tired of board/role playing games?

I can now confirm that pinball is completely absent from Gen Con. First time back since the 90's when it was in Milwaukee and it dwarfs any event that I've ever been to. Simply amazing and highly recommended.

It's a fantastic game that will likely hook you pretty quick. If you've played regular Pandemic before, it's cake. The rules are not too difficult and it's still easy to pickup even after long interludes.

I've seen people blow through it in a little over a month and I'm on the cusp of finishing after over a year. (I could have binged in a week if scheduling would have worked!)

We live in a golden age of board games with so many amazing titles, designers, and publishers and yet this exists...

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Mansions of Madness and Dead of Winter are two of my favorites. Can't go wrong have either in your collection. These guys have some recommendations too: coopboardgames.com/rankings/top-40-cooperative-board-games

The BGG one looks massive. I thought about it, waffled as I just lurk there, and missed the deadline. Maybe next year.

Saw it at Gencon, but did not fit my interests. The Shut Up and Sit Down guys sure liked it though.

Mage Knight is on the list of games I'm hoping to get around to playing some day...

I've been really digging Everdell lately.

New stuff

Christmas was game heavy and even with the monthly Cardboard League gaming day that I host, the list of games I want to hit the table grows longer than what I have time to play!

Gen Con registration opens on Sunday!

I've got a few general comments based on the last few posts.

Scythe is great. One of my favorites. The Rise of Fenris expansion is phenomenal if you like Scythe.

Cthuthu: Death May Die is a blast too. Much easier and way more two-fisted pulpy than the Arkham Horror Fantasy Flight games in the genre. That one is hitting the table tonight!

Azul just feels like a classic board game. Simple, fun rules and mechanics with no story or setup. Not too much interaction with other players. Besides for some tile picking shenanigans, you mostly are just doing your own thing on your own board.

I want to like Root more than I do, it's just difficult to take out unless it's always with the same people because every faction is playing with entirely different rules and objectives. Makes it a pain to teach.

Can't wait to start Clank Legacy, just need to find more players with a set schedule. My monthly gaming group (The Cardboard League) that I host is more of an open house around 7-15 people on the third Saturday with little continuity in attendance each month and so it's not really conducive to legacy games.

Played Dune a few weeks ago and it was fun, but like Twilight Imperium, it's going to take a couple of plays to get the rules and strategy down.

The alliance building is a treat and each faction's powers are interesting, different, and game changing. Movement is frustrating and leader assassination in combat really means that you never really know who is going to win a battle and that really fits the theme.

It's definitely not Candy Land. Takes a bit to set everything up and can take awhile to play. It is a complex game, but the rules are well written and the game boards are intuitive and descriptive enough to help you along. I would recommend watching a few videos to get the gist before skimming though the rules.

Just don't go into it looking for a mech fighting game, as combat is a part of it, but far from the dominant factor.

It's not too tedious. Each player gets a couple player mats and a set of meeples, blocks, and mechs to arrange. A few decks of cards and some coins are set out.

Brass is on my interested games list. Curious on your impressions after you play that one.

The Scythe: Digital Edition is on sale for $10 on Steam. I tried the tabletopia edition once and I still have nightmares. However, The digital edition is designed for computer play, supports remote play (one person owns the game and several can play) and is lots of fun if you know how to play the game already. Not sure I would recommend it for those unfamiliar with Scythe.

A couple of good ideas from here https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/board-games-video-chat-codenames.html

I played Arkham Horror (second ed) over Zoom last Friday. If all the participants own the game and you keep the boards synchronized, it feels more like a board game. We failed and we were devoured by Yog-Sothoth... Good times.

Carcassone is part of the same Steam sale and it's like $4. (no, I don't work in sales at Valve)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/598810/Carcassonne__Tiles__Tactics/

We've had to make some house rules for playing with only two players to make Gloomhaven more fun (bad character and level mix had us getting crushed), but it's a fantastic game if you like both D&D and board games.

I use two of these to store the components to make it easier to setup, but it does have a ton of parts and still takes a bit of time to get off the shelf.
https://www.harborfreight.com/20-bin-medium-portable-parts-storage-case-93928.html

Mother-in-law sent us Pandemic Season 2 instead of easter candy this year.... we live in interesting times.

Pandemic Legacy is an amazing game, fantastic story, and great entrance into the legacy gaming experience. Unfortunately, when you start with one of the best, other games can fail to live up to the legacy expectations... I looking you Seafall just sitting there half finished taking up space on my shelf.

Season 3 is supposed to drop this year, but it seems like that may have become a LARP instead.

Star Realms is a fun deck builder for two players that would work for all ages that can count. (4 with expansions) The iPad app is fantastic too.

I've also been getting into Arkham Horror the Card Game, but it's a long game that's not really young kid friendly. Unless warping their minds with tales of flesh eating ghoul cultists is your parenting strategy. Then go for it.

If you're a fan of board game and RPG conventions, it's not just the events themselves that are hurting. Apparently, one of the main tools used to schedule all those games at the cons, Table Top Events, is at risk. Instead of shutting down, they've decided to put on a virtual convention and I thought people here might be interested in what's being called the Con of Champions.

https://tabletop.events/conventions/con-of-champion

It appears to be that the more you pay for your badge, the sooner you get to register for game slots.

Because small, local retail barely makes money in the best of times and being socially distant in a basement only does the best things for thinking coherently, I've been day dreaming of opening a pinball arcade combination friendly local game store... That way it could go bankrupt twice as fast.

All I need now is several hundred thousand dollars in disposable funds and a great name for the store. Since I'm not foolish enough to ask Pinside for money (and the odds of this happening are .000003%)... maybe the denizens of Pinside can play along and feed the delusion by offering some name suggestions for such a bizarre creation as my imagination is clearly broken?

Possibilities, but they don’t really grab me.

The only two I have come up with that are worth sharing are:

Meeple Flippers
Pinball and Wizards

I like neither.

Anyone else want to play?

I think I like this the most so far, but might adjust it to Table Flippers.

Still not quite there though...

It’s so 2020 that I’m chasing an epiphany on Pipe dream.

To keep this somewhat on topic, I picked up Forgotten Waters today. It’s a sad when a selling point for a new board game is the great remote play features they added.

https://www.plaidhatgames.com/news/1074

Got a chance to play Forgotten Waters. If you like humorous, semi-coop, story games with pirates, you are in for a special treat.

I literally just finished boxing up my copy of 7th Continent for a Mechs vs. Minions trade on BGG. It was my first kickstarter game and I can see why people love it, but it just never grabbed my group.

I've got nemesis on order and can't wait for it to arrive and this all to be over so I can have my game group back in person.

Played Dead of Winter on Tabletop Simulator last weekend and game made by Ratva is one of the best playfields I've seen on that platform.

PSA: Steam has a digital tabletop festival that started today. Tons of cool seminars.

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/tabletopfest

If you're looking for gifts, my game of the year for 2020 was Forgotten Waters. Hilarious pirate themed stories with full voice acting and a fun game that can be played in person or remote with any web enabled device. Everyone that I've played this with has loved it immensely and I've rolled it out for my hardcore gamer friends and my in-laws. https://www.plaidhatgames.com/board-games/forgotten-waters/

I've not played enough of it yet, but Pandemic Legacy Season 0 is shaping up to be a close second. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 is one of the best gaming experience I've ever had and this prequel is all in with the 1960's spy thriller theme and great co-op play!

I got to play my newly arrived kickstarter version of Kingdom Rush this weekend. They effectively transformed a fun tower defense video game into a fun tower defense board game. However, the rulebooks are not great. It's split between a rulebook and a scenario book and neither book really explains what to do very well. Not an overly complex game, but having two wall of words tomes that each only tell part of the rules despite having overlapping sections about the same steps was less than ideal.

Fun game and worth playing if you are a fan of the genre, but a poorly designed rulebook with an overly complicated intro scenario dulled its shine a bit.

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Now I just need to decide which one to play first....

Anyone else get any new board games for Christmas?

Played Calico the other night and was very impressed. Easy to learn tile matching games with a cutesy theme are not my primary board gaming interest, but this game is just fun and challenging in all the right ways. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/283155/calico

You get your own board to try to assembly the proper quilt in color and pattern with enough puzzles to keep it interesting, but it's so well balanced with such a small pool of tiles to pick from that you just groan in delighted frustration when your opponent grabs the one tile you needed to fulfil all your plans and have to hope plan b with the striped dark blue quilt piece works out.

Sometimes attracting cats to a quilt pattern can be just as fun as banishing Cthulhu or arm wrestling zombie space ninja mummies(that's probably a game).

I don’t recommend Munchkin Dungeon.

It has one of the worst rule books in a main stream, big budget game I’ve encountered. Just so many common situations not addressed. They even forgot to put how many cards you get in your hand to start the game. Once you figure out how it’s likely supposed to be played, it has some fun elements, but you quickly realize that they only give you 6 of the custom dice and you often need more and have to spend time writing down your role before passing the dice to the other players. This slows every battle down and sucks out the simultaneous surprise of competitive dice combat because they couldn’t be bothered to include the necessary amount of dice.

At some point someone knew this must have been a problem because they sold extra sets with the kickstarter.

I have the ultimate first world problem... I was close to pulling the trigger on a nib pin, but was hesitating because I have to move some furniture around to fit it and because of the pandemic, it would be the first game that I would buy before playing first. Then my wife throws out the "we need a new dining room table and didn't you want to get a fancy gaming table in there?"

Not really looking to do both at this moment and suffering from analysis paralysis.

Which one would you choose, a new gaming table or a new pin?

I know the audience, just sometimes a random comment can provide a different perspective. The pin on my list is Heist.

My favorite option currently is the Valhalla table from GameOn. I have no carpentry skills of note.
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All the other gaming table companies
https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/229564/game-table-manufacturers

I've been living on Steam versions of board games for the past year. (on occasion we will play with Tabletop Simulator or its ilk, but I find those too kludgy)

Fire up a Zoom session and we play any of the following:

Scythe
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Terraforming Mars
Wingspan
Root
Lords of Waterdeep
Star Realms

These are all great games with their interface modified for online play.

Let your family have their hobbies and get your friends to jump online for some of these or other options. (or get some new friends - start the Pinside Board Gaming League?!?)

Terraforming Mars is one of the few games I actually prefer to play the digital version and that's almost solely because the bad art and mediocre physical components. The gameplay is fantastic and I love the theme, but the card art is so distractingly awful and inconsistent in the physical game that the whole game is somewhat diminished. The digital version uses much of the same art, but the cool looking planet, blurring filters, and card hiding interface lessens the impact. (Maybe its appeal has also increased because I can play it on a random Tuesday night with friends during this pandemic with no setup or weird camera rigs)

I'm not a game art snob in most instances but TM just pushes all the wrong art buttons for me.

BTW: probably going to go with the gaming table. (maybe I can swing plan B and do both?!?)

Anyone playing any good games this year so far?

My wife got Renature and it did not grab me at all after one play.

Played Dwellings of Eldervale over the weekend. A new fantasy themed worker placement game. Fun game, but I don't know about availability in retail. One of those kickstarters with limited stock sold by the publisher directly. If they do do a reprint, I'd recommend it, but probably not worth the current resale prices.

Was it worth watching?

If you like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth(or any app based games), 7th Continent(exploration, story games), and Chronicles of Crime (same then publisher that loves QR codes) you might want to check out Destinies.

Kickstarter finally arrived, played through the first scenario and much fun was had. It's only a 1-3 player game and that's a bit odd, but the story was engaging and it was nice balance of digital and cardboard. Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth is similar, but I think Destinies is a better game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/285192/destinies

This is the aforementioned game.

Dice Tower just did a review and I agree with them. I would play the solo to flesh it out after I had done the scenario with a group. (It's only 1-3 players)

The race to complete your destiny adds a dynamic element to the game. While it's a competitive game, it's not openly combative.

Finally had my gaming group back together last weekend (stupid COVID) and broke out Dune Imperium for the first time. It was also the first game played on my new gaming table. Happier with the table than the game. Dune needs at least one more play to see if it grabs me.

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I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It was between the table and Heist and during the 5-month build time on table, I second guessed my decision on occasion. Once it arrived, I have been more than pleased. ziz and other advice in this topic really did help influence the decision. That and GameOn Tables allowing me to mix their mission style Valhalla base with the Omni style top (first time they did that combo) was the clincher.

Did everyone else just stop playing games?

Recently played Lost Ruins of Arnak and like it more than Dune Imperium so far.

Cracked open Jaws of the Lion last night. Should be interesting to play Gloomhaven on training wheels after already finishing regular Gloomhaven.

We played through the main quests of the based game and enjoyed it. Not much replayability unless you are a completionist. The expansion I got with the kickstarter won't have the finished software until Q3 and so that was a disappointment.

Base game is a play it 5 or 6 times and then you wait for expansions or sell it off.

The tiny figures became an annoyance. At times you've got seven too small to distinguish grey bits on the board and not sure which one was which.

However, that was the worst thing and it was a fun game that I thought was worth it.

Thanks. I'm really happy with it.

Finally got Nemesis to the table and I found that to be an unreservedly amazing game. If you like Dead of Winter or the movie Alien, it's a must play.

Now I just need to get Vagrantsong off of my shelf of shame.

I have mixed, but mostly positive opinions about the Nemesis rulebook. (like you, other people at the table were less impressed) I saw what they were trying to do with the divided sections and at least they put page numbers if you needed to know about how a specific thing applied to a different section. I liked it more than needed two long books like Fantasy Flight.

I got both expansions from the kickstarter, but both are still in shrink.

The worst rulebook I've encountered was the 1.0 version for Kingdom Rush.

For my table there are four boards with felt on the bottom that sit on top and slide into place to make it look like just another fancy dining room table. Yet hidden underneath can be stuff that's better than food.

Some systems are better than others and have interlocking pieces that would not get wet if you spilled a glass of milk. Mine is not like that and any liquid would pour right through and ruin any games underneath. Since we eat most meals at the kitchen table and I don't have tiny tots around, something more was not a need.

Here's a nice list https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/229564/board-game-table-manufacturers

Any cool games under the tree this year?

Since I will end up technically owning all the games when my FLGS opens in 2022, we only had the Search for Planet X and King's Dilemma as cardboard treats for Christmas.

Scythe is one of my favorites. The app for that game helped get me through the pandemic.

Root is a game that I want to like more than I do. The art is great. The asymmetrical mechanics are cool. I like tactical war games. Yet, it somehow doesn't come together. It's a not bad game, but it's a 6 for me when I want it to be an 8. I have yet to put my finger on it. My best theory is that it's the disconnect between the cute woodland creatures and basically being stabbed in the eye by the player across from you.

Regretting not buying Darktower as I'm still waiting on Oathsworn and Freedom Five. Both are at least a year overdue.

Although soon I will own all the games as I recently bought a 7,500 sf building to store them in...

Opening in spring!

Speaking of app enhanced games with toys, anyone have thoughts on the Teburu system?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xplored/the-bad-karmas

Not this year. Stuck inside the new FLGS I just opened and don't have the staffing yet to escape!

Yeah, they altered things just enough with new mechanics to not have them work together. Most of the complaints I hear or have read about the Marvel and Star Wars is that it's not just pure Villainous. Seems like a miss on Ravensburger's part.

Can I get you to move to Wisconsin, I'd love someone to bring those type of game to my store's consignment section.

Pro tip: if you like having time to play pinball, don't open a friendly local game store.

We do have an online store, but it's just click and collect at the moment with no shipping.

Things are going well. As a new business it's an all consuming ton of hours and my list of projects only grows longer. Some of my pinball machines have not even been turned on since summer! If you're ever in Racine and stop by The Sanctum let me know who you are, as much as I'm a board game guy, I'd love to talk pinball for a change!

Both are fantastic games. Nemesis is the movie alien in a box and death may die is a Cthulhu punching good time.

I'd be down. Heat is good. I've also been digging Castles of Burgundy and Sea Salt and Paper on BGA.

If you're Jonesing to play some GWT with real live cardboard, we're hosting it live for our in-store game on November 18th down in Racine. Not too far from Madison.

https://shop.thesanctum.games/cardboard-league-11-18-23-3pm-great-western-trail.html