10/17 Featured Games and 10/3 Recap

Greeting Friends of FND!

This past Friday we had a great session!  A dozen people showed up to play dice games and dice games we did play!

To start, Beth, Drew, John, Laura, and Amy played a game of Dead of Winter.  Dead of Winter is a new release by Plaid Hat Games that has been all the rage in the gaming community.  These five players greatly enjoyed it and all of them ended up winning except for John.  DoW is a semi-cooperative game where everyone is trying to achieve a common goal in addition to their individual - the common goal was achieved, however poor John didn't achieve his individual goal.

While this was happening Tish taught Formula-De to a whole slow of people - David, Dana, David (2), and Dan (wow I didn't realize how many D's were at that table - it must have been extremely confusing).  From what I saw they were having a good time racing and Tish ended up winning.

After these were finished a group played Caverna while waiting and another played Splendor.  Once all of the games concluded we got in a couple of games of Werewolf!  It was a great night and we're excited for the upcoming one!

Feature Games - BGG Top 15

This next Friday (10/17) we will be featuring games straight off Boardgamegeek's top 15.  If you're not familiar with boardgamegeek.com, it is pretty much the only board gaming website.  It has a very intricate metric for ranking games - based off of the average vote and some how combined with the number of votes.  In other words if one person ranks a game as 10/10  and that's the only vote, it's not #1.  Generally speaking one shouldn't just look at the ranking system and assume that the #1 game on their is the best game for all scenarios, however, the games in the top 15 didn't get there by mistake - they're superb.

Not only that, but a lot of them by happenstance have not been played much in our gaming group... In fact, only three of them have.  Now nearly all of the games in BGG's top 15 are 'gamers' games.'  In other words, they're not exactly ones you'd teach people who really love Scrabble, so of course we'll still have some lighter fare.  We also don't own (or GCOM doesn't own) all of the games in the top 15 so we'll really only be featuring about a dozen of them.

This is a really good chance for you to learn some of these if you haven't played them before as they're all worth your while - plus you can have them taught to you rather than slaving over a rulebook (especially with some of the more complex ones).

With that said, in ascending order from 15-1, here are the ridiculous amount of games we'll be featuring:

#15 - War of the Ring

Ironically #15 is my personal favorite game.  War of the Ring is a 2 player game (it says 2-4, but it lies - it's two player) that recounts the epic struggles of the Lord of the Rings.  It is absolutely beautiful and it truly grasps the essence of Tolkien's work.  As a huge Tolkien fan this game is the best I've ever played.  I absolutely love it.  It's pretty heavy and again, is really just for two players.  It's pretty good to learn with a fellow noob so if two people wanna try it, this is a great chance.

#14 - Brass

Unfortunately we don't own Brass, nor does GCOM.  It involves trains and stuff....

#13 - Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island

This is the highest rated cooperative game on the geek and with good reason - it absolutely oozes theme.  This is my second favorite co-op and it is also one of my top 10 favorite games.  It's a challenge - you and your fellow players are survivors of a shipwreck and you have to achieve some type of scenario in addition to simply surviving.  This game can be somewhat unforgiving but its still great fun.

#12 - Le Havre

Le Havre is the first of three games by Uwe Rosenburg on the top 15.  They're all somewhat similar.  This one involves you constructing buildings at a shipping wharf and exchanging goods to earn the most points.  It's arguably the least stressful of his games as generally there are a lot of options available.  It's the one I know least of his games but I'll still be able to teach it if anyone is interested!

#11 - Castles of Burgundy

This lovely game by Stefan Feld is actually my wife's #1 favorite game.  In it everyone is a lord over an estate in the 13th century and you are trying to optimize your turns to have the wealthiest manor.  It's a pretty pasted-on theme but the gameplay is very elegant (I hate myself a bit for saying that, but it's true) .  It's a great game and isn't super complex once you learn to differentiated the three nearly identical shades of green that are used for different pieces in the game.  Also in German its called Die Burgen von Burgund which is just super fun to say.

#10 - Power Grid

Ironically I had to learn this classic game this week so I could teach it next Friday despite how well loved it is.  This is truly one of the modern classics of boardgaming and if you haven't played it you really ought to.  It is at its heart an auction game, but there is a lot more going on than that.  Players are manipulating pieces on a map, resources, turn order, and efficient actions all to end up with the most money.  It's a bit heady at first and may bog down a bit with a bunch of noobies, but once you play a round or two it makes perfect sense.

#9 - Mage Knight

Mage Knight has been in our collection for a while and doesn't hit the table often - mostly because it can run very long if people are prone to  analysis paralysis.  I can safely say, however, that no gam
e in my collection is quite like Mage Knight.  It is a very thinky game based around deck-building and adventuring.  Everyone starts with nearly identical decks of spells and uses them to move about a board, attacking, recruiting, pillaging, and learning.  The goal is to end the game with the most 'fame' (basically experience points).  The artwork is beautiful as well.

#8 - Eclipse

Eclipse was the most popular game ever for about 6 months in 2012 or 2011 (I forget) and then it kind of lost its buzz.  It was very highly rated as a game seamlessly combining more European mechanics like resource management and more American mechanics like combat and dice rolling.  We played the mess out of this thing when it first game out and we don't play it as much now, but it's still a great 4X space game that really should be tried if you haven't.   We do have the Rise of the Ancients expansion with this.

#7 - Caverna

This is my favorite of the three Uwe games on the list and also the most recent to come out.  Caverna is essentially Agricola 2.0 (which we'll get to shortly).  In it you are a Dwarf Cavefarmer trying to make your way in the world.  Through a series of farming, livestock-herding, mining, building, and adventuring you want to be the person with the most points.  There are an absolutely absurd amount of actions available to you and many many avenues to victory.  There are are also more wooden pieces in this box than any other game I own - I could basically go bowling with this thing it weighs so much.  This is one of my absolute favorite games and is well worth your time.

#6 - Android: Netrunner

Unfortunately we don't own Android.  It's an LCG (Living Card Game) that involves some cyber-punk cardplay.   That's all I know.

#5 -  Puerto Rico

My best guess is that if Puerto Rico came out today, it might not make the top 15 - it'd still easily be in the top 50 because it's a great game, but it's position in the top 5 of BGG (and for some time it was #1) is almost more of a homage to it's status as a game.  This game came out quite some time ago and was a smash hit.  It is really one of the quintessential Euro games. It is all about shopping, resource management, creating infrastructure, etc.  It's a very good game despite having somewhat simple components.

#4 - Agricola

The final and most important Uwe game is Agricola.  Agricola has also enjoyed some time as the #1 game on BGG and for good reason - it's really freaking good.  It is a pretty cut-throat worker placement game where players take the roles of farmers in the 14th century.  Life wasn't easy back then.  Your goal is to have the most productive farm by the end of the game.  Each game is different as players are dealt a hand of occupation cards and improvement cards that can be played throughout the game.  Despite being somewhat stressful, it is a superb game and one of the best the hobby as to offer.

#3 - Terra Mystica

I actually haven't played Terra Mystica yet nor do I own it.  It was hugely popular in 2012 but we haven't got around to it.  This is the last game we don't' own or have on loan from GCOM - 12/15 isn't bad!

#2 - Through the Ages: The Story of Civilization

This game by Vlaada Chvatil (also the designer of Mage Knight) is essentially Sid Meyer's Civ III in a box.  We've featured it before at FND and it is truly a great game.  Personally I prefer playing online (at boardgaming-online.com) as the game can be a bit fidly in person, but nonetheless it is very fun.  Like in Civ III, each player takes control of a civilization and works their way from antiquity to modern times, trying to earn the most culture by the end of the game.  You focus on infrastructure, population, happiness, military might, technology, and all of the other great things that make civilization games fun.

#1 - Twilight Struggle

The #1 game on BGG since I've really been into the hobby has been Twilight Struggle.  It is produced by GMT and is one of my personal favorite games.  This two-player war game (well... Kind of a war game) has players recreating the Cold War conflict between the USA and the USSR.  It has intrigue, deception, and tension out the wazoo.  It really feels like the Cold War as your playing it.  The historical theme is vivid and very educational.  I'm very anxious to teach this to two new players at FND as it really is best to learn with somebody else whose learning.  The game is driven by a deck of cards and knowing what's coming gives you a huge advantage - thus learning with somebody as clueless as yourself is really the way to go.  Seriously, if you haven't played this and you play games let me teach you it this next Friday.

Conclusion

Well that's the absurd number of games we're featuring this week!  Obviously we aren't going to play them all, but hopefully those are the ones we'll be choosing from!!  I very much enjoy teaching games and these are some of the best ones the hobby has to offer so hopefully folks who haven't played them will be anxious to learn.  Especially since we have so many potential games, it'd be lovely if people put comments below or emailed me requests - that way we avoid the Canadian stand-off where nobody wants to decide what to play on behalf of everybody else.

Invite friends and family!  We look forward to seeing you next Friday!!