Weird Board Games

Most people who like RPGs also enjoy board games.  I am big fan of Arkham Horror, Talisman, Battles of Westeros, and many others.  That having been said, those are normal board games.  I'm not sure that I would enjoy bizarre board games like Ghettopoly.  That is one of only five controversial games that yahoo recently listed on their plugged in feature.  Reading about some of these really made me wonder how they made it past the conception phase!

Is Gen Con Becoming a Board Game Convention?

 One really has to wonder if the focus of Gen Con is moving from Roleplaying games to Board Games.  Take a look at the Dealer's Hall map.  Wizards has one a single sizable booth, Paizo also has a single (but smaller) booth.  Yet Mayfair games has an entire section of the dealer room floor and Fantasy Flight has an entire neighborhood. 

Then there is the disparity in events.  This year there are almost nine hundred more board game events than RPG events.  Maybe this has been coming for a while.  Take a look at the number for the last few years..


(Year: RPG - Board Game)

2006: 1453 - 1043
2007: 1738 - 1275
2008: 1781 - 1234
2009: 1614 - 1326
2010: 1809 - 1931
2011: 1940 - 2833

Now I'm not saying that board games are bad.  Hell, I like them as much as the next guy, but I've always seen Gen Con as an RPG first convention and it seems like that might be changing. 

Arkham Horror Review

Since my group has recently delved deep into the Cthulhu Mythos in our Call of Cthulhu game it wasn't much of a transition this past week when we broke out Arkham Horror to give it a go.

Expectations could not have been higher, each of us had heard nothing but glowing reviews of the game.  Considering a few of the members of the group are avid Board Game fans, the bar was set pretty damn high.  One reason that I was ecstatic when my wife got me the game was that I love co-op board games.  The entire concept is still relatively new to me, but Defenders of the Realm really got me hooked on the concept.  So the question really became not just is the game good, but can the game possibly live up to the unrealistic expectations. 

The first thing you should know about Arkham Horror if that the game is big.  There are a lot of parts to the game and it takes up a lot of room.  Make sure you clear of your whole table if you decide to break out the game because you will need every inch of the space.  If you choose the path of madness and play the game with all the expansions you better clear off two tables and push them together!  Since we were just playing the base game we didn't have any problems fitting everything on the table but that was all we fit on the table.  The pizza had to be put elsewhere. 

Arkham Horror - Just the base game

Prices from AH and the Expansions not including boards

The first thing we did was chose investigators.  We opted to do this at Random, but I don't see any problem cherry picking the ones you want.  I've heard people say that the Investigators are for the most part balanced, and that is probably true but there are certainly some that are better than others.  Mandy Thompson (The Researcher) for example is great.  I didn't get her though, I got Dexter Drake the Magician.  To round out the part Bear got Darrell Simmons the Photographer, Revil got Ashcan Pete the Drifer, and the Professor got Joe Diamond The Private Eye (Private Dick jokes were rampant).  Everyone except me was seemed pretty content with their character.  I'm not crazy about the Magician.  His special ability allows him to draw two spells and choose the better one, but the sanity loss from casting spells adds up fast so I didn't use them a lot throughout the game. 

Next we chose our opponent, the Ancient one we would be trying to stop.  Like Investigators, not all Ancient Ones are created equal.  They all have different abilities, attacks, and Doom Tracks (The amount of time before they appear and you have to fight them).  The rules say draw randomly, and this isn't an instance where cherry picking would work;  random is the only way to go.  The Ancient Ones abilities really make the game different depending on who you get, another aspect of the game that adds to the replay value.  We ended up with Nyarlathotep or as he was known at the table, the Asshole.   As Ancient Ones go he actually seems to be fairly beatable.  His worshiper ability might actually make things easier because it puts the weakest monster (Cultist) back in play over and over.  Not that we were complaining! One thing that did come to bite us in the ass was his attack, but I'm getting ahead of myself.   

Once everything was set up we divided up the responsibilities for running the game.  In my opinion this is the only way to do it as there are many.  We had one person in charge of Mythos Cards and the Ancient One (Me), another person was in charge of monsters and gates (Bear), Revil was in charge of Money, Items and Clue Tokes, and finally the Professor handled all the encounter cards (and read them in a very dramatic voice which made the game even better).  Spread out like that the responsibility weren't bad at all, ensuring that no one person became overburdened. Each person has to look to their own character afterall, and there are often a number of things to do during the upkeep phase of the game that you can't forget about.  

With everything set up and each person knowing their roll we place our character markers on our home space and got started.  

Quick note: There are two different versions of the board, the older dark one and the newer light one.  I have the newer light one.  Both versions can be seen below.  

The game opened up with a gate opening in the black cave.  This wasn't a problem (yet) and we all went about collecting as many clue token as possible so that we could use them to close gates and, if necessary, battle Nyarlathotep.  The black caves quickly became a problem as a second gate was drawn the following turn resulting in a monster surge.  This monster surge would haunt us for the rest of the game.  

While none of us had drawn the best fighting characters I had gotten some really great equipment including a Tommy Gun!  So I figured I could deal with the monsters and moved to do so.  

Mistake.

I got my ass handed to me and ended up in the hospital.  I spent much of the game trying to fight and failing horribly (damn you dice!).  I found myself in the hospital or the asylum pretty regularly.  During this time Bear was doing great.  He had gotten a bank loan and because he was the Photographer he also had a retainer.  He was rolling in dough so he zipped around the board buying up a truck load of equipment and spells to use.  As it turns out he should have been collecting clue token with some of those turns, but more on that in a bit.  

During the later turns on the game we were really working hard, and struggling, to close gates.  That damn monster surge had made it hard to move around the board early in the game and when I finally got into the gate and closed it I found that I didn't have the Clue tokens to seal it.  So naturally a gate opened  again and I got sucked right back in.  This happened three times.  When I shut the gate for the final time it turned out to be the last action I would take before the end of the game.  We had waited too long and Nyarlathotep had awoken.  

Now there are three ways to win this game.  1. Seal 6 gates 2. Close all Gates 3. Defeat the Ancient One.  Those are really in order from easiest way to win to the hardest so fighting the Ancient One is really a last ditch effort.  It is best avoided by going for one of the first two, but that just didn't happen for us.  Still, I felt that we were in pretty good shape to fight Nyarlathotep until I realized that Bear has Zero clue tokens.  As I mentioned his attack caused us some problems.  That is because if you have no clue Tokens you are Devoured (Dead and Eliminated from the game) so that happened to Bear straight out of the gate.  After two rounds Revil joined him and left just me and the Professor to do the deed.  The fight took a while, you have to get a number of success equal to the number of players in order to remove a doom token (which now act as the Ancient One's hit points).  Fortunately for us the dice turned around.  I was making my Lore check left and right which was a good thing as I went in with only three clue tokens.  The Professor was battling like a champ but was devoured with Nyarlathotep at 1 doom token left.  It came down to me with one clue token left vs him with one doom token left.  In the end I was victorious, but it couldn't have been any closer.   

The Old 1987 version Board

Overall the game was an absolute blast.  The expectations were high, but the game was more than enough to meet them.  Perhaps more than any game I've ever seen Arkham Horror has an insane amount of replay value.  With just the base game you get 16 investigators, 8 different Ancient ones, 67 mythos cards, 64 encounter cards, and three different ways to win.  If I have a knock on great games like Defenders of the Realm it's that the games always feel very much the same, but given the number of random factors involved in Arkham Horror one could play a dozen games and have them all feel quite different.  This all is to say nothing of the various expansions available for Arkham Horror which have board add-ons, new Investigators, Item Cards, Mythos Cards, Ancient Ones, and more.  To give you an idea of how much we are taking about if you were to buy all the expansions the number of Investigators you would be drawing from would jump from 16 to a whopping 48!

Arkham Horror has come a long way since the old 1987 version.  While I'm sure that game was good I can tell you that this game is great.  It very well could be my new favorite board game.  It mixes clever design with a multitude of choices, and the classic Cthulhu Mythos to create a real winner.  If you love board games and haven't already check out Arkham Horror.  I promise, you'll be glad you did. 

A Rousing Success

Most anniversaries are marked with champagne, flowers, and wordy cards.  My first wedding anniversary, which my wife and I celebrated yesterday, was marked with all those things but also with two really awesome gifts. 

Now I must confess that my wife really outdid me as far as anniversary gifts.  While I got her all of the above and more she got me two board games I have been itching to play for some time now, Arkham Horror and Battles of Westeros.

For those of you not familiar with Arkham Horror, it is a Call of Cthulhu board game by Fantasy Flight.  It has garnered stellar reviews from just about everywhere and currently sits as #52 at Board Game Geeks' top board games list. 

My group is set to make our first jaunt into the Cthulhu Mythos with the Professor's new Call of Cthulhu (6th edition) game, so the game has arrived just in time to serve as kind of a warm-up into the genre.  Also I've been reading a good deal of Lovecraft so as to be ready for the new campaign, so I'm doubly excited to give this game a shot. 

I'll post my initial impressions after trying her out.  Expectations couldn't be higher for me and my whole group.  Normally that is the kiss of death with things, but I think this game has what it takes to measure up.

Those who are even casual readers of this site know that I am a HUGE fan of George R. R. Martin and his 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series.  Battles of Westeros is the newest game in one some call the "Command and Colors Line."  Command and Colors game rise to Memoir '44, which gave rise to Battle Lore, which gave rise to Battles of Westeros.

By all accounts BattleLore is an amazing game, and one I really want to try, but many people feel that Battles of Westeros is an even better game.  It removes the magic element from the game and instead goes for a more realistic medieval style war scenario with focus on Generals and their ability to control the field. 

I'm almost as excited for BoW as I am for AH.  Which game is better?  Only time will tell, but you'll sure hear my opinion on the situation in the coming weeks. 

Nightmare, Dragonstrike... Oh and Dr. Horrible too

Gamers love game, and not just tabletop RPGs. As a kid I wasn't aloud to play D&D once my Mom found out (that is actually a true story) so often my group would look to board games and video games to fill the void.

Probably my all time favorite board game is Dragonstrike. Now many of you doubtless have never heard of it, and those you have are probably laughing hysterically right now. To the former, please educate yourselves on a classic, and for the latter please understand that it was the closest to actual D&D we were allowed to engage in.  The game is more of lesss a simplified version of D&D in board game form, and it came with a video that I watched constantly.  In retrospect this game was actually a great springboard into D&D and my group had countless hours of fun playing the game.  I love the game (and the video) so much that I included the Sunstone adventure in a recent campaign I ran. 

Want some third party evidence of just how amazing this game is?  Well you recall everyone in the Gaming community going bonkers (and rightly so!) over The Ultimate Game Room?  Well I'd like to draw your attention to exhibit A.

That's right!  The Ultimate Game Room was not content with a mere ONE copy of Dragonstrike, it had to have TWO.   You say you're still not convinced, you say you want more.  Well folks here is exhibit B, the video that went with Dragonstrike.




Ok, this video is really terrible. But to a young lad it was once the coolest thing in the world.

Though Dragonstike is my all time favorite board game, my single favorite board game experience actually came while playing a game of Nightmare with my older brother and my parents. Nightmare was released in 1991 and was a horror based board game that relied on a video to play. The video had the timer for the game as well as a character who ran the game for all the players, a sort of video GM. Now I have played many different versions of Nightmare, and each expansion has a different character acting as GM, but none compare to the original, The Gatekeeper.

Just as none can compare to the original video guide, nothing could ever compare to that first time playing the game.  It was nearly impossible to get my Dad to play board games of any sort, I'm still not sure why.  He loved video games, especially sports video games, but I could never get him to play Dragonstike with us once.  Anyway my Mom must have blackmailed him or something because he was there and sat down with the rest of us to play the game.  My mom shut off all the lights, and lit some candles to create a spooky environment (she loves Horror movies) and we all sat down to play the game. 

Though Nightmare isn't a cooprative give, it managed to create a real sense that it was us (The "Maggots") against the Gatekeeper.  We were cheering each other on when things were going well, and lamenting "our" bad luck when something bad happened or the Gatekeeper screwed us over.  The game lasts exactly one hour, that is how much time someone has to win before its over and you all lose.  Well this particular game went down to the wire.  My dad got all his keys and reached the center of the board with about 3-5 seconds left.  We were all screaming at him to get up and shut the tape off (The final step to end the game).  He tripped over the couch and dove to shut the VCR off.

It was epic.

I don't think I'll ever have a board game experience that amazing ever again, but it does show how much fun they can be.  To give those of you a tase of the game, and its immortal character, the Gatekeeper, here is a highlight real.



Finally, at the time I was playing Dragonstike and Nightmare I also loved playing video games.  I was never a huge Sega fan, but I loved Nintendo.  8-bit games still have a special place in my heart.  For that reason I was pretty entertained when Revil sent me the link to a video of a Dr. Horrible Sing Along Blog 8-bit Video game.  If you love Dr. Horrible and/or old school Nintendo games you should check it out.