Be Excellent To Each Other

The graun had it in in early Jan I think. it is getting quite good for board games.

I played ‘Lost Cities’ the board game the other day and it was fun.

It was very prominently on display in Draughts when we were there. I may have pointed it out; I chatted to one of the staff about it briefly.

Looking forward to a championship game at the next Cottage.

My money's on the Grim/Cras bromance triumphing over all.

Ghosts

Ghosts

Youngest boy, 15, is going through some fairly heavy shit at the moment but in the last couple of weeks the drugs have taken better effect, and he's a bit more open to doing stuff.

His support worker, who comes twice a week, brought him Carcassonne to try and he absolutely loved it. Since then, I've bought Pandemic and King of Tokyo. We played King of Tokyo about 7 times in row today, and he loves Pandemic - he's almost playing it with himself by the time he's finished "advising" me what to do with my actions!

So what other strategy games would you recommend? They should be able to work well with two players, as the other people in the house are less into that type of game. I think King of Tokyo is probably on the edge of not working as well with two.

I was thinking of getting him into Warhammer but I'm not sure I can afford to fund that hobby full-time!

Forbidden Island/Desert spring to mind.

Island being the more straightforward of the two.

If he's into Star Wars then the X-Wing game is worth a shot.

Colt Express works with two people and your son might enjoy 'programming' the characters and seeing how their interactions with other characters' moves affects his plans. The 3D board is pretty fun to build and look at too.

Agricola plays better with more players but scales pretty well for 2. Me and my wife love it.

Twilight Struggle for me is the best 2 player game. It's got a great theme, it's quite deep, and although it looks very complex, its rules are elegant and easy to learn. Only problem is that games last too long (box says 3h, but that's nonsense).

3+ hours?! Sounds like a Twilight Struggle in every sense of the word.

Thanks for the suggestions! I've ordered Forbidden Desert, and I've just looked into Colt Express - that looks like it'd be right up his street. I'll also check out Twilight Struggle too because the longer he can focus on a task, the better.

He's not going back to school now until September so I want to keep his brain engaged and active, especially for longer periods. It'll all help his mood, too. He's been coming to me with one box or another every day wanting play something, which is a miracle compared to how he was even just a month ago.

It sounds as if you’re making great strides together, Flis. I have no advice as far as the bosrdgamjbg is concerned, but I just wanted to give a nod and a little hug to an amazing mum xx

Thanks, Meems There's not much that makes you feel like a worse mum than seeing your kids go through stuff and not being able to stop it, really feels like you've failed them. And then on their bad days, when you're the one trying to get him to go somewhere or speak to someone or take medication, you get the brunt of their upset. But it's rewarding seeing them get a little better all the time, I'll be so relieved when he's taking part in life properly again but boardgaming will do us for now!

After one heck of a dry spell I returned to form at the Ticket to Ride table tonight, thrashing my friends in a perfectly sportsmanlike way on the deviously bitchy India map despite their many efforts to block me as I headed south-east from Peshawar to Calcutta.

Giphy "railway king":
https://media3.giphy.com/media/N9ej6tSmu5rUc/giphy-loop.mp4

I bought this for Russell’s birthday (the board game, not the aftershave), and its really heavy (physically, not, er, emotionally... well, it might be! I wouldn’t know as he’s spent the day being sick once every hour).

Really looking forward to playing it once this house is no longer plague house

Mimi is the best at surprises.

Haha! I gave him his gifts before posting here!!

But yrahX, I am totes rubbish at buying gifts. I’m kind of banking on you being less ribbishbat buying gifts Grom... so that I can piggy back of F.C. your success.

Also, I’m posting at 3:10am, go me! (I’m so, so ill).

Your fingers are illest.

They’re shaky as anything, so that’s true enough.

Go to sleep.

My nephew is having her 8th birthday soon. Since she likes Cluedo and Monopoly, I'm thinking about gifting her a boardgame that's actually fun and doesn't make our life miserable every time we play monopoly to make her happy.

Any recommendations?

Ticket to Ride (US or Europe)
Catan

King of Tokyo is perfect for younguns. It's like Yahtzee, but with giant monsters. It's really colourful and the rules are dead simple (even more so if you ditch the card system and spend the power cubes on other things, like an extra reroll or another die).

If she really likes Cluedo, then try Super Cluedo:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Super-Cluedo-C ... B001AI9BQA
You chase around the board looking for clues under garden ornaments and things, and they let you eliminate statements on a wipe-clean pad. Eventually you get to reveal little corners that are colour and number coded on the murderer, weapon and location cards and try to deduce which cards are hidden in the envelopes as a result.

Thanks for the recommendations.

How is the language dependency on King of Tokyo? Although i've seen the game many times on stores i'm not so sure it has been translated. The theme might also not be the most enticing for her, but i hope that at 8 years old she's over princesses and unicorns. Or maybe not.

If you don't use the cards, the language hardly matters at all.

What matters is saying the monster names like a boxing announcer would.

"Mmmmmmmmmm-ECHA DRAGON!"

They could rebrand it as a wrestling game. Just mix that with alcohol and everyone wearing appropriate clothing and it could be the best boardgame around.

Luchdor! has you covered.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143 ... tling-dice

That's just......

I really like Takeneko. It’s easy to understand, is not language dependant, has a cute panda and all other good stuff

Googles.....

My nephew can wait. I want this for me

It’s a great game. Perfectly works for both adults and kids. A bit of strategy, but not so much that kids will struggle, and the board and pieces are really cute. Easy enough to learn that it’s easy enough to have a quick run over of the rules and get a game going with visitors.

By the way, this isn’t important at all, but in English ‘nephew’ specifically refers to the male children of your sibling, whereas I *think* you’re talking about a girl, which would instead be your niece. Not at all important but a strange quirk of language

Mimi, we should play Takenoko tonight

Yes, thanks! I knew something was off about that sentence.

BambooCat?

Rhino Hero is ace. You build a Tower of Cards
Knock it over and you lose. Use all your cards up, you win. Some cards mean next player has to place RHINO HERO on them. Which might make it wobble.

I have no idea if my niece liked Dixit because she was to busy dancing and drawing unicorns with her friends, but we'll all play together soon.

Meanwhile i have to buy a present to my brother in law. He used to enjoy playing MTG, and sometimes he says that he misses it, so i was thinking about a card game. It should be playable by two (so he can play with his gf), but scalable (so not Netrunner), since usually we play 3 (he, me and my wife). From my research, i was thinking about Dominion, Race for the Galaxy and Ascension. Any tips?

No Race for the Galaxy or Ascencion in the store? Does anyone played Splendor? How does Splendor measures up to Dominion?

I played Acension and didn't like it at all. Dominic ion good if you like shuffling cards. No I kid it is very good. Splendour is meant to be good

I've only played Dominion. I love it, but the rulebook is crap.

All you need to remember on your turn is A,B,C: action; buy; clear.

Play an action card and do the stuff; buy something if you've the money; discard your hand and deal a new one (reshuffle your discards if your deck's run out).

Jump Drive is the less complicated version of Race for the Galaxy.

No problem. I'm a good shuffler. I even impress people with my ability. Too many years of MTG tournament play i guess.

Star Realms looks pretty cool, but a bit cheap to offer as a gift. It doesn't have the lovely box of Dominion.

Star Realms is pretty cool.

I like star realms. I might put it on my phone again.

How do you compare Star Realms to Dominion?

I also saw the Game of Thrones core set at the store, and it looks gorgeous. But i heard LCG's aren't good casual games and the core box isn't enough.

What's the one where you get two cards, and there's an Assassin, a Captain, and stuff. That's excellent though no idea if it would work that well with two. I thought that was Dominion.