Unplug and Unwind - Any Other Board Gamers?

I have mentioned in the past that I'm always connected and always all about computers. That statement was true until I installed a Xendesktop environment and could work at home almost as effectively as I could in the office. Around the time I was putting in 12+ hour days I reconnected with one of my oldest friends who invited me to a friendly local game store. I had always had a lot of board games and went. I was hooked.

I play every weekend, most of the time at home with the wife but once or twice a month I head out to the store and play. I don't play video games much at all anymore so I don't think that spending a few hours out is a bad thing. I really like being away from screens, having cardboard, wooden tokens, and imagination to distract me. If you're looking for something different to do that gets you away from a computer then you should give it a shot.

I think Carcassonne is a pretty good place to start, it's my favorite game and pretty popular with everyone I've played it with. It's essentially an interactive puzzle with points. I think the base game plays 4 but it's still really fun with 2. There are expansions that add tiles, more players, and fix some annoyances with the base game.

Does anyone else play? If you're in or around Lexington I can point you to my favorite store if you want to play with no cost or obligation to buy.

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Comments

whatthehell

Munchkins (Stephen Jackson), Settlers of Cattan, and Cashflow, with the occasional Risk and Monopoly are good for me!

How long does a game of Carcassonne take?

jwedlund

i'd like to start playing games again. I used to play risk all the time when i was younger. I live in Richmond KY right now for school and i see that you're in Lexington where do you go to get games around lexington?

undomiel

I came from a family that collected board/card/role-playing games and it has still stuck with me. I don't collect like they did but I do pick up a game every now and then that looks interesting. Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride is what we usually play with the Catan card game, Quiddler and Five Crowns for the card game side when we don't want to deal with setup and tear down. We absolutely love it!

hiddenknight821

The only board game I play is chess. Does this counts?

SteveO86

I was an old warhammer 40k player for years, tabletop game if that counts..

I'd to bury myself back into that stuff but time...just escapes me.

tbgree00

whatthehell wrote: »

Munchkins (Stephen Jackson), Settlers of Cattan, and Cashflow, with the occasional Risk and Monopoly are good for me!

How long does a game of Carcassonne take?

Once you learn the rules it's around 45 minutes for the base game and 15 minutes per expansion. It's not too bad and typically leads to a rematch. If you have an iPad iPhone or xbox you can download the base game for 10 bucks. That's how I learned.

Also I always like the thought of monopoly but it goes on way longer than I'm interested in it.

undomiel wrote: »

I came from a family that collected board/card/role-playing games and it has still stuck with me. I don't collect like they did but I do pick up a game every now and then that looks interesting. Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride is what we usually play with the Catan card game, Quiddler and Five Crowns for the card game side when we don't want to deal with setup and tear down. We absolutely love it!

My wife just bought Ticket to Ride with a gift card she got for her birthday. I've always loved the idea and played the demo on xbox live to death. I tried to buy if for her off of ebay but bought the card game instead. That is good in theory but by the end of the game with two players you literally have half of the deck in your hand to sort through.

hiddenknight821 wrote: »

The only board game I play is chess. Does this counts?

Of course it does. I am really bad at chess. I played a game called Hive that is sorta like chess and did okay with that but full blown chess requires logic and reasoning skills that I don't have.

SteveO86 wrote: »

I was an old warhammer 40k player for years, tabletop game if that counts..
I'd to bury myself back into that stuff but time...just escapes me.

The Warhammer games are very interesting to me but I like the idea of buying a box and having all I need for 2-4 people. The idea that paying more money makes you more better isn't in the spirit of the games I like to play. That said I've been thinking about going out on Miniature night and seeing if someone would lend me an army to show me the rules.

jwedlund wrote: »

i'd like to start playing games again. I used to play risk all the time when i was younger. I live in Richmond KY right now for school and i see that you're in Lexington where do you go to get games around lexington?

I go to Amazing Wonders near the Fayette mall. They have a great selection and a lot of events. Saturdays are open gaming and they have dnd night, magic, miniatures and other theme nights. If you want directions pm me. I'm not sure when I'll be there again but the guys and gals there rock.

Also if you like risk you may want to look into small world. It's a similar concept that doesn't take 4 hours to play.

Turgon

No time for games these days. Work and family stuff after 5pm just takes over. I used to play a few board games back in the day.

Plantwiz

Setllers of Catan is OUTSTANDING and if you add the Seaferes pack it takes it to another level!

We found some "10 Days across 'x' " games which has been real helpful for the kids to learn geography. The game plays like Rack-o

tbgree00

Plantwiz wrote: »

Setllers of Catan is OUTSTANDING and if you add the Seaferes pack it takes it to another level!

We found some "10 Days across 'x' " games which has been real helpful for the kids to learn geography. The game plays like Rack-o

I don't know why I don't own Catan, I may ask for it for Christmas. All of my gaming buddies have it so it seems less pressing for me to have my own copy I guess. It doesn't play as well with 2 as it does with 3+ so I may just keep playing the store copy when I need a fix. I've never heard of the 10 Days series but it looks kinda neat.

On Saturday I picked up a really fun game called Catacombs. It's a flick game crossed with a dungeon crawl. The basic premise of the game is that a group of adventurers (1-4 players controlling 4 discs) go through a random series of dungeons to get to the boss and kill it. You do attacks by flicking your disc into other discs. If you have arrows, spells, etc you flick that at the monsters instead of your character. Flick games always get a lot of attention and people begging to play. Another great one is Ascending Empires. It's essentially the same idea but in space. Imagine Galactic Civilizations, Masters of Orien, etc with flicks instead of set movement and you're there.

Plantwiz

I had purchased so many dud games that one day last year I simply asked when I was at the toy story...

The woman there pointed out some (what turned out to be) excellent games and we've been rather happy with them.

The 10 Days series has 5 boards in total, so you could play 50 days around the world if you wanted to combined all the boards.
10 Days in the USA | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

The USA game is good, and particularly if you are playing with your kids to teach them geography, but because of the grid pattern of the US, it seems that people end up on one side or the other and get stuck...so you abort that plan and try collecting different cards. Considering when one plays 10 Days across Africa, or Europe, or Asia or even The Americas versions, these games seem to present more strategy options. Perhaps they do not, but it simply seems more exciting to play the other areas.

And while the reviewer in this next link can seem a little corny, I do find that his reviews match my game taste and therefore find what he says about games to be fairly accurate:
thedicetower's Channel - YouTube

tbgree00

Plantwiz wrote: »

I had purchased so many dud games that one day last year I simply asked when I was at the toy story...

The woman there pointed out some (what turned out to be) excellent games and we've been rather happy with them.

The 10 Days series has 5 boards in total, so you could play 50 days around the world if you wanted to combined all the boards.
10 Days in the USA | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

The USA game is good, and particularly if you are playing with your kids to teach them geography, but because of the grid pattern of the US, it seems that people end up on one side or the other and get stuck...so you abort that plan and try collecting different cards. Considering when one plays 10 Days across Africa, or Europe, or Asia or even The Americas versions, these games seem to present more strategy options. Perhaps they do not, but it simply seems more exciting to play the other areas.

And while the reviewer in this next link can seem a little corny, I do find that his reviews match my game taste and therefore find what he says about games to be fairly accurate:
thedicetower's Channel - YouTube

I like The Dice Tower much more than the other boardgame podcasts/review I see, hear, or read. Tom and I have very similar tastes (unfortunately not similar budgets...) so it's nice to hear his reviews. I just listened to his top 10 least favorite games and don't disagree much at all, though I don't think it's fair to include the cheap kids games (candy land, chutes and ladders) in a list like that since most adults would agree.

My wife gets Ticket to Ride in today so we're planning to play it for date night. I'm more excited that I probably should be. She's pretty interested in those 10 Days games too.

I'm not sure if it's common knowledge but Tanga.com has typically has 2-3 boardgames per week for sale woot style. Today's game is very good and a good deal if anyone wants to play a tile placement game. I'm tempted to buy it but already blew my board game budget this month!

tbgree00

Update on Ticket to Ride: This is a contender for my favorite game. Trains are pretty awesome and this game can get brutal if two people need to get to the same city. I played at least 5 rounds this weekend.

I also played Puerto Rico. It's not a very good game as a new player at a Demo playing with one other new guy and two vets pretending to be new, plus an instructor. I didn't know what a good move way so I was basically a monkey smacking at a typewriter. I managed to take third but don't know how.

Lastly i've been working on a World of Darkness RPG game. My first session was ridiculously successful and my second is going to be good too.

Study time is coming soon so I'm enjoying this while it lasts!

undomiel

Ticket to ride is a good two player game but absolutely fantastic with 3 or more. I've been waiting to play Puerto Rico and Agricola as well but we haven't gotten around to picking those up yet. Dominion also looks like a fun game.

jibbajabba

We have a RISK / MONOPOLY game night once a month

tbgree00

undomiel wrote: »

Ticket to ride is a good two player game but absolutely fantastic with 3 or more. I've been waiting to play Puerto Rico and Agricola as well but we haven't gotten around to picking those up yet. Dominion also looks like a fun game.

Dominion is a blast with 4. I like it solitaire too but not as much as with a full game. If you have an iOS device you can get Ascension for 5 dollars. It's a game that was inspired by Dominion created by Magic players. It's a faithful remake of the card game and a way to start with deck building games. I already expressed my feelings on Puerto Rico. It's all about slavery (which bothers me for the theme) and I didn't really have a lot of fun with it.

Mishra

Recently found an old group of people that we used to role play with. We are board gaming on some weekends.

We have been playing:

Tomb
Akrhams Horror
Talisman

They play some other ones that I'm a little less interested in. They are looking in getting back into roleplaying too.