Not exactly "high tech" but I figure it could fall under the "gaming" category.

Never played a ton of board games growing up outside of the odd random Monopoly/Scrabble/Sorry! game.

One of my buddies has a gaming group that I'd join in every once in a long while these past several years. Typically we'll play Risk variants though: 2210, Legacy, Game of Thrones, Mass Effect (THE TRUTH!). I'm a sucker for tactics and strategy so I'd always look forward to these nights when I could come out.

So a coworker invited my wife and I to a gaming night in a few weeks, prompting me to look into some board games to bring. I've only ever owned Monopoly and Scrabble so when I started reading about different board games...ho man it was like a brave new world out there. So many interesting board game mechanics out there. (Even though I don't play many *different* video games these days I still enjoy reading about video game development and how they're innovating, so it's cool to see that trend in the board game space as well).

For my first post-Monopoly purchase I went with Dead of Winter: The Long Night (other contenders were Pandemic: Legacy, XCOM, Mysterium). The semi-coop nature of Dead of Winter: The Long Night sounded really interesting so my wife and I have been playing that the past few nights. Mechanically precise, but really fun if you immerse yourself into the game's atmosphere. The psychology involved in trying to figure out if a Betrayer is in your midst is really intriguing (shouts to the official Prisoner's Dilemma 2-player variant).

So I think I found a new hobby. Curious if anyone else plays board games here and if there are any recommendations (both for 2 players and for groups). Apparently it's the golden age of board gaming these days as more and more people are "gamers" and the live aspect of board games can't be replicated with video games.

b-side:

Played three games of DoW so far, all Short main objectives with no modules, just to acclimate ourselves to the rules. First game we were kinda meh with (Tribute), took a bit to get used to the rules. Second game we did Clear the Colony and that was pretty sweet since we *just* barely beat it on the last turn. I only had one survivor left but he started mowing zombies down at the colony while my wife kept feeding us supplies and mass migrated on the last turn to beat the zombie count.

Our third game was especially sweet though, on Fix the Ship. Used the Prisoner's Dilemma 2-player variant for the first time, with three end-game scenarios:

a) Colony objective complete: if either (or both) players also complete their loyalty objective they win
b) Morale is at zero: if one player completes their betrayer objective (and the other player does not), then he/she wins
c) Morale is at zero: if both players complete their betrayer objective, then both players lose

The game started off normally, scrounging for supplies for crisis management. We handle the first two crises fine, which had crippling fail states. She's hanging out in the Police Station to search for Tools to "fix the ship" while I'm at different locations to try and fulfill my loyalty objective (Chemical Weapon - meds, weapon, tools) since my Betrayer one was really dangerous (one item from each location). I find a great combo that gave me another die: survivor that reduces zombies at the colony equipped with an item that reduces the food needed to feed them. I'm doing well with two more dice than her but a Crossroads event wipes out two of my survivors (Riot Gear - I chose to close the gates instead of grabbing the gear since I had injuries but the dice rolls go extremely poorly). On that same turn, she contributes two supplies to the main objective... BIG RED FLAG.

We were only on the 3rd turn out of 6, so something was up. She was harping on me all game long about my inability to contribute to the colony objective. I had the impression she was trying to strain my supplies since I had a 2-survivor advantage on dice and that I was making a play on my betrayer objective. She had a bunch of cards and I was thinking she was eventually going to dump Outsider cards, let them starve and force the morale hits (especially after I lost two myself). Nope! I read her hand right but got her objective wrong. She found the the last tool card she needed to complete the main objective on her double-turn and I was two items shy on my loyalty objective. She ended up winning on the fourth after she read me early that I figured she'd go betrayer. Her loyalty objective was Soldiers - at least two survivors, each equipped with a weapon. THIS was why she didn't play the Outsider cards. It helped that she had Anita Wallace, who was able to kill zombies without using a die AND equipped with a shotgun. This let her save dice for searches and pull off the early win (while also denying me the ability to win with her). While I hate losing, I was impressed at her play since these types of tactical games aren't her forte.

Love the game so far. After you learn the mechanics the turn-to-turn decision making is fairly simple but the complexity manifests itself in trying to figure out what the other player(s) are doing. Would definitely recommend if you play with people that like to immerse themselves and are not strictly robotic mechanics-focused players.

Absolutely LOVE that board game. Everyone works together until the villain is revealed. Then the game moves into one of fifty scenarios (100 if you have the expansion).

It's my fav board game to play. Love the coop. Once someone becomes the bad guy they go to another room and read what task they have to complete, the survivors read from another book to see what they have to do to stop it. Then the game continues. Both sides have a few extra details the other side doesn't know about.

There is a YouTube series called TableTop that had a great video for this game and a bunch of others.

Pandemic is also great! Recommend playing the regular version before jumping into legacy.

That sounds like silly, awesome fun, haha! Def gotta check it out for sure.

Also, thanks for the link on Legacy! Pretty cool how you can play the base game on it without instituting the "Legacy" part of it yet. My wife really gravitates towards the co-op part of these games.

Normally if doing a game night I send the link to the youtube video just so everyone knows what they're in for. It's not as hard as people say it is and it always ends up being such a hit that less than a month later someone wants to get together and play more.

This is the best era for board games ever. So many simple yet complex games that is just not your standard Monopoly anymore. They have a little something for everyone.

I've never played the same game of Betrayal twice and I've played a ton of games. If you end up picking it up then update us with your first story. Love hearing stories of someones first game it ends up being a blast with a group of friends.

after learning the rules it was really fun

https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Legacy-Red-Board-Game/dp/B00TQ0DXR2/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1489087095&sr=1-1&keywords=pandemic+legacy

Hop on it if interested its amazing.

but I have been looking at Dead of Winter for awhile now, just have yet to pull the trigger. The premise and game play mechanics seem really fun if you got a few friends to play with.

http://www.dicetowernews.com/wizards-of-the-coast-and-rob-daviau-announce-betrayal-legacy/47926

Had a fun first time with the OG game a few months ago, betrayer ended up being...

(minor spoiler?)

... the head of a bunch of slime monsters that converted everyone else into slime monsters if they couldn't eliminate survive a hit against the slimes. We did NOT survive that one, hah.

Betrayal at Baldur's Gate has been gnawing at the back of my head because I'm a huge fantasy nerd like that.

But I may skip it for Betrayal Legacy, because Legacy games are the shit (RIP that Risk Legacy campaign where my Mutants wreaked havoc from North Africa).

Picked up Gloomhaven recently on their 2nd Kickstarter reprint and played with the wife a few rounds but itching to get it down with a group. This might consume my attention for a good long while.

Also glad you enjoyed it it's really one of my favs. This announcement for legacy got me HYPE. Glad this one follows a story and can't wait to see how they pull it off. I met the makers of Mixtape Massacre at my local game shop and got to demo their game and expansion in store. That'll be the next one I pick up since I had a blast playing it.

Can't play it as I need four people minimum. That'll be rectified soon over Thanksgiving, but I've heard nothing but good things.

Available at mondotees.com

https://imgur.com/a/lk5rg

Absolutely insane. So good that the designer of the game commented on it.


That said... this hobby is a disease. I'm in deep. Haven't picked up a controller to game in a while... sucks because this shit ain't cheap.

I love this game and would pick this up as soon as it become available. Hope dude finds a way to make this available for purchase.

Picked it up a few weeks ago and it's very enjoyable.

One player plays the overlord that controls the various monsters, the other players get to play as the heroes. Each quest has win conditions that have to be met by the players or the overlord. It's a dungeon crawling adventure game that has some fun combat and strategy involved.

What really sold me is they have an app for the game where your computer or tablet can play the part of the overlord so everyone else at the table gets to play together on the same team. It's on ios, android, and steam. The app basically runs the story for you and sets the conditions that you and your group have to win. No one is stuck playing the overlord which is awesome. It saves your progress so if you continue another day all your stuff is tracked which leads to easy set up.

They have a ton of expansions too which I will get soon enough since I'm having a blast with this.

Been waiting for over a year for this. The bad part is I have only played board games with my pizza club that meets once every few months or so. I'm itching to try out this game.

D&D?
Pathfinder?
Starfinder?


It's secretly my shit.

I hear its fire and as soon as I find a group to consistantly play with I'll be all over it.

I'm digging the fact that when you're done you can continue to play it the normal way only now your game is customized in a way that reflects how you played through the legacy part of it.