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× Talk about the latest and greatest AT, and the Classics.

What are the best SPORTS board games?

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27 Aug 2008 08:45 #10607 by dan daly
So in between games of Battleline last night, I ask my wife "which sounds more interesting to you- a game kind of like Memoir '44 or Battle Cry but about the American Revolution or a game about wild west gunfights". (I'm thinking of getting Hold the Line or Cowboys:way of the gun or AH's Gunfighter), anyways she replies "hmmm, I'd have to hear more about the wild west game, but you should get a baseball game! Or some type of sports game, I mean you've already got lots of game about killing people"

Interesting comment. I've never had a sports game (well except for VCR College Bowl). I think football or baseball would be at the top of my list but I'd be open to any sport that is the topic of a fun game. So fortress ameritrashers- which sports games do you like the best?

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27 Aug 2008 08:46 #10609 by dan daly
And by football I mean football. Not soccer. :P

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27 Aug 2008 08:55 #10611 by Ken B.
Well Dan, I can recommend the following games:


Baseball:

Harry's Grandslam Baseball: Super-light game, less strategy than I'd like, but it's cheap and is a good filler.

MLB Sportsclix: The 2005 edition is much easier to play. You should be able to find some deals on the figs as the game was not a tremendous success. This is my favorite.

MLB Showdown: Not nearly as strategic. Lots of overhead in adding up 5,000 point teams and weird rules. But even so, it still can be fun. Has some weird rules quirks. If you can find the All-Star boxed set they released several years ago, it's an incredible deal that's full of big name, powerful players and if you play them against each other expect to light up the scoreboard (I think the last time we played with this set the score was 11-8 or something like that.)



Football:

Card Football: This is a weird game that sometimes I enjoy, sometimes I get frustrated with. But it's football mixed with poker. Very affordable, has a decent football feel. Nice bits for the price, and you can play a full game in a little over an hour.

NFL Showdown: The 2003 edition is the way to go here, because it has the electric scanner that works better. This game has you building a team much like MLB showdown, then scanning your plays into an electronic reader. The game will then ask you to scan the key players for the play, and determine the outcome. It's not a bad game but it might require some more intense football knowledge to play well (what plays to call and when, how to build your team, etc). The game is no longer made so it can be gotten cheaply.


Battleball: Futuristic football game. Was on clearance everywhere, and lots of people have it for trade because they assumed it would be the next Epic Duels (it wasn't.) Super-nice pre-painted minis, a very large board, and a great little dicefest football/rugby style game. Has passing, heavy vs light players, injuries. Great system in that faster guys roll bigger dice and can move much faster(wide receivers roll d20s versus Tackles with d6s) but when the time comes for a tackle, it's the LOW number that wins (so a tackle most of the time should pancake a wide receiver if he can get his hands on him.)



Those are the ones I like, just off the top of my head.

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27 Aug 2008 08:59 #10613 by Citadel
I'd say Blood Bowl but then the best result in Blood Bowl you could ever have would be to kill the entire opposing team so maybe it doesn't count.

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27 Aug 2008 09:09 - 27 Aug 2008 09:18 #10616 by Schweig!
The mass of Football and Baseball games is hard to comb through. I also tried to find the perfect sports game for me one time; well, I failed. It doesn't help that Football and Baseball games are rare in Germany.

These are the four systems which interested me, each was applied to the two sports:

Baseball Strategy - Football Strategy
Stasis Pro Baseball - Stasis Pro Football
Sports Illustrated Baseball - Sports Illustrated Football (Paydirt)
Strat-o-Matic Baseball - Strat-o-Matic Football

(I put those eight in a private geeklist once, maybe you can view it too: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/25180 .)

Some of these are still in print and others not.

Unfortunately each of these system has its raving fans who cheer for the system they like and trash the others. Apparently and unfortunately there is no such thing as a best Baseball/Football game. I'd like to try all of these eventually though.

A friend of mine has Baseball Strategy, but we haven't played yet, mainly because there's an inconsistency between the rule book and the cards. Otherwise the game looks fun and although being simple, it features a distinct amount of strategy.

I certainly can't recommend Pizza Box Football.
Last edit: 27 Aug 2008 09:18 by Schweig!.

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27 Aug 2008 09:32 #10620 by Michael Barnes
Apart from the really great horse racing games (REALLY NASTY and WPS), the greatest sports game of all time is THE WORLD CUP GAME. It's fairly new, by a first-time designer, and it's _great_. It's the best board game of any kind that I've played all year. It's getting a Gameshark review in the next couple of weeks, but as a prelude...

The game can handle 2-16 players and you play a full historical World Cup tournament. Depending on the year you're playing, the format differs and the skill level of the teams is different. It's basically a "play a card, draw a card" game and what you do is play cards to put tiles down in these boxes for each team- Attack, goal or goals, defense, fouls, etc. All the matches in the knockout rounds, semifinals, etc. are played simultaneously and any player can play to any match- so the idea is that the really strong teams get ganged up on to hopefully get them out. There's actually a lot of table talk and kind of weird diplomacy. Players generally get a couple of teams to manage so even if you get stuck with the crappy ones you've got a couple of shots at the cup. It all comes down to a one-on-one match between the top two teams. It's extremely dramatic, very simple and straightforward, and an absolute blast to play.

Downside? $60. Expansions $20 each (and there's three). But worth every penny.

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27 Aug 2008 09:59 #10622 by southernman
As a sports fanatic above anything else (games of any type don't get a look in if there's a good rugby game on ... or cricket ... or Olympics ...) it is pretty suprising that the closest I have is a few motor racing games and a couple of horse racing ones (and I've never played the horsie ones). Being an absolute rugby fanatic I would have thought I bought Crash Tackle by now (from Sth Africa - arch-rivals of New Zealand) but I always have the thought of who I would play against and are sports sims actually any good.
I do have one sports game come to think of it - it's a family type cricket game on a green felt pitch with figures for players and two moveable figures; one to actually bowl a ball at the other, and the other to hit the ball back to score runs. Played it a couple of times with my lad but gave up after all the pastings I got.

Battleball is quite fun, but unfortunately the minis guys at our club had given me a few lessons in Bloodbowl prior so it did come across a lot lighter than it should have.

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27 Aug 2008 10:01 #10623 by Ken B.
I didn't recommend the stats heavy games like SP because I figured his wife *might* not want to get in quite so deeply (all the games I recommended are not that deep, or at least not deep enough where a casual fan simply can't enjoy them.) But those stats games always get the highest marks from pure sports fans.

Michael, that sound like a neat game. I'll check that out.


One weird game that I just don't know enough about is that GRIDIRON FOOTBALL. It's like a combination of football and chess where you actually play out every play. Looks neat but sounds like it could take an entire day to play. Nice looking production, though, and very few football games give you the "right down to the actual play" feel.

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27 Aug 2008 10:46 #10626 by Michael Barnes
One thing I left out of my description of THE WORLD CUP GAME...the die roll. At the end of a tournament round, you roll four dice with colored dots. The black teams (the best ones) have the most dots, the white teams (the Bad News Bears of Soccer) have fewer and most teams fall in between. You roll it up and each dot is a half goal- attack markers placed in the round count for half goals too, so sometimes you have these last minute upsets where a team scores a goal or two and takes it after card play.

Seriously folks, this game is awesome. It's the best game I've played all year, and I've taken it to every game night since I bought it. It looks cool too, the board is like a wallboard tracking the games.

It'd be an _awesome_ drinking game...I'm convinced that it's designed to be playable while drunk too. There's no stats and very few mechanics so it's also one of the most accessible games I've played in a while.

I have a moral quandary, because I really want it to take Gameshark GOTY but it's a 2006 release...

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27 Aug 2008 11:02 #10627 by Ken B.
Man! That game looks incredible. I've been trying to think of some game for my wife to pick up for me for my birthday in a genre I don't already have massively covered. And I sure as hell don't have a soccer game!


Give me the skinny, Mike--how does it play with 3? How long does it run based on number of players?

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27 Aug 2008 11:55 #10630 by Michael Barnes
It is incredible, I can't recommend it enough. It's become one of my favorite games. Robert says it reminds him of NUCLEAR WAR, which I don't really see, but it's a similar weight/fun/trash talk class.

It plays great with 3- but you'll probably want to do one of the smaller tourneys like Uruguay 1930. It can be kind of tough when you've got five or six teams. See, every team in the tournament is played...so if it's a 16-team tournament and you've got 4 players, everybody gets 4 teams. If you've got 8 players, everybody gets 2. And so on. The tournaments have different ranges that sort of accomodate different numbers better so the game is hugely scaleable- 2 players is even great with the small Cups. The base game has the 2002 and 1930 tournaments, so you have pretty much the whole range of players covered by both.

The game is about an hour and some change long. No matter how many you play with, it seems like. Since all the matches are simultaneous and a turn is PACDAC (OMG!!! NEW GAMING TERM!!!), there's not much downtime and turns cycle really fast.

If I were using a rating system with absolutely no meaning whatsoever and no foundation on anything other than armchair internet punditry and politics, I'd give it a 10 no doubt.

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27 Aug 2008 11:56 #10631 by jeb
I want to follow Mike's recommendation of the horse racing games, WIN PLACE & SHOW being my favorite. 3M put out a bunch of nice games that can be had for cheap if you look around:

BLUE LINE HOCKEY is cool, if a bit dry.
REGATTA was too boring for me, but folks that actually sail think it's the shit.
SPEED CIRCUIT is -really cool-, F1 back in ye olden tymes.

There are others too, mentioned in a Classic AT thread somewhere. I prefer the 3M versions to the Avalon Hill ones because the 3M ones really show off the plastic my having the box unfold to be the board.

I play STREETSOCCER almost constantly on yourturnmyturn.com. Quick game, with swingy moments. Rolling 6's is so fucking dynamite in that game.

I put that WORLD CUP GAME in my Math Trade lists a couple of times and never lucked out. Now I'll never get it, because Barnes is jerking up the price. ;)

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27 Aug 2008 13:26 #10635 by bfkiller
I recently bought a copy of AH's PAYDIRT at a thrift store. I haven't tried it yet but I've read the rules and seems like a really fun and clever system. I'm definitely going to try it out sometime with a buddy of mine who's big into NFL.

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28 Aug 2008 07:46 #10673 by dan daly
Thanks for the suggestions. A few of these look like good candidates.

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28 Aug 2008 10:26 #10687 by southernman
Check the 'Anybody interest in a copy of Merchant of Venus or any other these games?' thread here - the guy has got half a dozen or so sports games he apparently wants rid of.

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