Buried Gems of the Ameritrash Rehabilitation Movement

I'm all for the classic German family style games. Until you try to lump in The Adventurers, a family-friendly AT gem that none other than Steve "Tanktop" Avery used to champion here, with them. That's going too far. So let's start talking about the forgotten, missed, or otherwise underrated AT games. Games that may have been on clearance several years ago, but are now getting harder or expensive to find. Or just stuff that everyone thought you were crazy for liking and now you feel its time has come.

Let's reverse the polarity here and keep F:AT from imploding.

Come on, folks!

Well, The Adventurers is one that I think people should at least try.

Dice Town is one I dropped in the ERP thread, but I think is more fitting in the ARM. You roll poker dice and it has a fun western theme.

Chaos Marauders is another one that hit the discount bin that is just a good fun cardgame with a lot of flavor. Yeah it is random but good for some laughs.

Monsters Menace America is a great game that only has a problem in the end game dice fest but that's only a concern for people who are more concerned about winning than the experience.

In advance of the ERP/ARM Summit Talks, I'm glad to see this thread. There is a lot of healing we can do together.

Yeah, Chaos Marauders...that's a fun, silly game...It's Stephen Hand (Fury of Dracula), but apparently it was "kind of" plagiarized from an obscure canoe game called Ogallalla or something like that.

I've never seen the FFG edition.

I think Lineage II is THE buried gem here...it's a mad cross between Talisman, Cosmic Encounter, a DoaM...so glad I've got one, you'll never see it again.

The Ares Project is pretty good and not really talked about.

Battleball isn't exactly unheard of, but I think it's very good and an excellent buy.

Duel in the Dark is fantastic. Really unique.

Grind isn't bad and can be had for pretty cheap.

We talked about Hour of Glory in the other thread, it's a pretty solid game.

JAB is underrated. Great realtime card game.

Lunch Money is a stupid card game that's very humorous. You can combine it with Beer Money as well.

Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan is great. One of my favorite hidden movement games.

Room 25 is short, light fun that often devolves into shoving a person into a room full of fiery death.

And I second The Ares Project.

A couple games that I own that I've yet to try but look like they'd fit the bill are Wrasslin' and Block Mania.

What I like most about Chaos Marauders is the references to Malal the largely unknown 5th Chaos God which basically never came to be because of IP legalities.

Funny you mention that the mechanics were lifted...Considering (from Wikipedia):
"Moorcock's conception of Chaos also heavily inspired, and in some cases was lifted verbatim by Games Workshop in the creation of its Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 fictional settings. Notably, however, they only briefly used Moorcock's conceptions of Order or the Balance. The descriptions of Chaos, of the eight-pointed star, of the Chaos Lords, the strange multicolored hues of energies, mutations and warping of matter and flesh, and so forth found in the Warhammer settings are all derived directly from Moorcock's works."


Room 25 - That's a newer'ish game right? Reading the description reminded me of the movie The Cube. That one looked pretty fun.


I've gotta say, hidden/overlooked/underappreciated AT games are harder to come by I think. Especially since I've mentioned a few in the ERP thread that would be more at home here like Cube Quest.

Family Business is a wonderful and brutal card-game. One of my relatives is one of the cards so that alone makes it perma-shelf for me. It really is a cut-throat game of making and breaking alliances quickly and doing whatever you can to keep your mobsters alive. I really need to pull that one out again sooner rather than later.

Junta: Viva El Presidente does not get nearly enough talk as it should.

It is criminal that Plague and Pestilence has never seen a reprint considering it's just cards. I had a deal with one of my buddies who was going to make me some custom artwork to decorate a box to hold the cards...Well in true artist style he got 90% done on the cover, but could never finish the last 10%. So he gave me the original which was a Pied-Piper Skeleton leading out a swarm of rats from a city in the same art style as the original. Really awesome piece. And I of course decided to put it in something to keep it safe, and what that something was/is eludes me.

ScrumBrawl! Fantasy themed sports game, 2-4 players, multiple balls with random effects in play, multiple moving goals, attacking, throwing, killing, events, fumbles, and a whole lot more. Plays in about an hour and the rules are plenty straightforward.

No team building, no minis, just a bunch of cardboard, cards, carnage, and fun.

The original GW Chaos Marauders is among my favorite games. Haven't played the FFG version.

wadenels wrote: The original GW Chaos Marauders is among my favorite games. Haven't played the FFG version.

I'm not 100% sure but I think there weren't any significant changes. I love that old style GW art though and would consider the older version an upgrade over my FFG version.

Best game component name also: The Cube of Devastation!

If the basic mechanics of Risk are your thing, then Risk: Godstorm is seriously fun. It's the one game that I'm happiest I bought despite the reviews. I wonder if it got panned because people wanted Risk Refined. Godstorm ain't that. But it's damn fun.