Boardgames, anyone?

Many love it, but I didn’t think it was great. Massive table hog, crazy amount of upkeep (you control 9 characters regardless of player count), narratively a bit boring and the gameplay is really repetitive (everything is a shallow skill check). It’s a fantastic idea (no other game has really done that open ended sandbox gaming thing before) but in some ways feels like a prototype, gameplay wise. Gorgeous design though.

For shorter lighter ones that are more recent, Roll Player Adventures and Dice Throne Adventures are both excellent, imo. Though to get the best out of them you need parts of their related games (optional for RPA - you can use Roll Player to generate the characters and get a more personal feel from the experience, but it’s mandatory that you own at least one Dice Throne box for DTA).

For slightly heavier ones, Stars of Akarios is great for being a little different - it’s effectively co-op campaign X-Wing. I’m also a big fan of Folklore The Affliction, but it has significant upkeep and shines best with expansions.

My all time top co-op campaign dungeon crawler type thing is a tie between Middara and Blackstone Fortress. Though Middara is expensive and often inbetween print runs, and BSF is out of print and basically never coming back, though copies show up occasionally.

What I personally look for in a campaign game, especially a dungeon crawler, is a solid branching narrative and character customization/progression/development. Those are the primary reasons I didn’t really enjoy Sleeping Gods, the narrative is basically “go do whatever” and you don’t really progress the characters much beyond their generic pre-set roles. But if those aren’t of importance then I think you’ll have a good time with it, there’s a good game there, just not one for me.

Another shout for Roll Player Adventures. Hard to find unfortunately, but probably my favourite board game campaign so far, and doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Bit longer and heavier, but Tainted Grail is a bit easier to pickup relatively cheap 2nd hand now and is excellent.

Middara, as grem also mentioned, is also great but a beast.

Middle Earth Quest too - very Mage-Knight-y.

Just caught up with my parents after a recent move from the old family home and reclaimed two of the greatest board games of all time.



Winner.

I managed to salvage Space Crusade from my mum's attic too a little while ago.

Was in a pretty sorry state, had to throw the outer box away due to mould.

My bro and I used to chop miniatures up too, making custom game workshop stuff.

Managed to cobble together a complete game when rescuing a 40k boxset at the same time

Thankfully still had the Dreadnaught though, as well as the genestealers and androids.

Also had some success getting the crap paint jobs off by soaking everything in Dettol.

Still, kinda jealous to see how good that copy looks.

You do know how much a good copy goes for these days, right?

Went on a spluuuuuuurge recently.

ISS Vanguard and Final Girl Season 1, and incoming I’ve got Weather Machine, Frostpunk, Skyrim, the rebooted Dark Souls, Museum second edition and probably some other KS I completely forgot about. Good times for the holidays.

Spent the weekend away with friends playing boardgames.

Dune Imperium was a highlight. Elements of worker placement and engine building, but just very nice to play.

I really liked how easy to read the iconography and board is - some games make it very hard to understand what every action does intuitively but this was very clear. And when cards have text or was clear and concise about what the action does, not buried amongst tedious lore.

What was the name of that sci-fi Blood Bowl clone? I can't for the life of me remember it or find it in the search.

Dreadball.

Playing Sleeping Gods for the first time this weekend and then the big yearly game of Twilight Imperium next week, can't wait.

The last game of TI we played led to my friend offering his brother outside for a fight if he attacked his ships - can't put a price on that kind of magic!

Edit - Also ordered Lost Ruins of Arnak as a Christmas present for a friend. No idea if it's any good, it's simply the highest rated game on BGG that none of us own (or have played).

Just a quick warning on Chronicles of Crime - it wasn’t great when we played it and the group bounced off it pretty hard. Some of the writing is a bit shonky and the game itself is much less fun than say Consulting Detective.

I am eying up the Elden Ring KS, but after being slightly burned by DS and it being difficult to imagine ER as a boardgame, I'm hesitant.

I do like how they've compartmentalized the expansions though so you can play them stand-alone, that is pretty smart.

You could get a smaller, 'cheaper' one and then expand on it if you liked it/wanted more

I bought into the Dark Souls Kickstarter far too much. Played the base game probably once or twice and haven't touched any of the expansions.

I was very tempted when they did Bloodborne as well, but the Dark Souls cut was still stinging. Elden Ring is very tempting though, as it does actually look good...

I should really sell my Dark Souls. Should at least get rid of the expansions, as I can't see myself ever really playing them. Too many other games I would rather play that I haven't played enough of.