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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   938 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 2, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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One of my New Year's Resolutions was to pick up playing board games. The primary goal here was to stare at screens less and engage more face-to-face with friends. This is working great, and I recommend it to anyone else with the same general goal! I picked up Wingspan and one of its expansions and my wife and I have been having a great time playing it even when we don't have anyone else to play with. Throw on a Spotify playlist with some bird-centric theming, pour a birb-on, draw some cards, and you have a pleasant evening.

What are you playing these days? What should be my next purchase to add to a very thin game library? My current inclination is towards Ark Nova, which BoardGameGeek users score highly and recommend specifically for two players.

I’ve been playing Wingspan with my family. It’s a lot of fun, and just the right weight to get non-board-gamers in. Other successful plays from the last year, in rough order of weight:

  • Dixit is a fun party word game. Only played it once; my sister swears by it, so it will definitely see some more play this year.
  • Azul is an elegant set collection game with great, delicious-looking pieces. Very easy to learn. I don’t know how well it plays with only 2 players.
  • Pandemic is a cooperative game where you try to eradicate diseases. I love how the spreading epidemics arise from simple mechanics. Good intro to its genre.
  • 7 Wonders Duel is a great 2-player engine builder.
  • Dominion basically launched the deck building genre. Might be my favorite board game. Definitely has the most plays.
  • Kemet is a really cool area-control battle game. My brother and I like it, but it’s rare to get other family members invested enough.
  • Hansa Teutonica went over pretty well. It’s a mercantile game where you improve your position by influencing the map. I plan to try and get it some more action.
  • I coaxed two family members into Axis and Allies after I found an original, used copy at work. It was kind of insane, kind of fiddly, but a really cool experience. We were willing to give it shot because of…
  • Twilight Imperium 4e. This is a space opera. It takes ages to play, so we tend to split it out into several shorter sessions. But it’s a sprawling, thematic, unique game where you send fleets to conquer your friends and mine their worlds for artifacts, only to be foiled in the galactic senate. Amazing. We come back to it every so often when the table in the spare room is free.

Make of this what you will.

Fun list, I wish I knew someone with Kemet, its been on my "to play list" forever

I also wish I could just regularly get people to play Twilight Imperium 4e. I manage to wrangle a group of 6 together for a session this weekend. Hopefully I can turn it into a monthly or bi-monthly occurrence.

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