A.R.M Intervention Required: Trash up my Fine Fifteen

My extremely eurofied fine fifteen stands as

Agricola
Brass
Carrom
Caylus
Innovation
Memoir 44
Tigris & Euphrates
Modern Art
Steam
Puerto Rico
Reef Encounter
El Grande
Le Havre
Acquire
Poker


(Lords of Vegas I lent to the neighbours, Street Soccer is more a playtoy for the kid).



Thinking ahead to when the kids get a bit older (the oldest is soon 4), and with several kids on the street already coming into games age, i.e. between 6-11, what are the essential AT additions that will let me roll some dice with the young uns and live a little bit.


Assume my own list starts with Nexus Ops (though again I wish the graphics were a bit cleaner), give me a handful of games that if I don't get, I'll be risking being reported to child services for failing to entertain with sufficiently exciting games not involved floppy hatted twats in fucking tights trading shite in the mediterranean in 17th century italy or some shit.

Given my minimalist leanings, do try to group together recommendations into batches of similar/identical game types, I'm not buying 3 different games that all boil down to Space Hulk. PS. I think Space Hulk is a bit overrated to be honest. Is DOOM or homebrew mini rules on some snazzy tiles the best way to go for them to run around like an FPS on a board and blazaam each other?

I'm not an expert on gaming with kids, but Betrayal at House on the Hill, Sword and Skull, Talisman and one of the D&D Adventure System games should so you well. A Heroscape-type brawler would be good too but HS is really far from minimalist.

Edit: Battle Beyond Space.

Doom might be a bit more complicated than the simple dungeon crawls: HeroQuest, Dark World, D&D Fantasy adventure boardgame, etc. I'm playing the last one with my nephews (7 and 8) and they're loving it. I'm sure they'd love HeroQuest, so that will be next at some point. My eldest (also 4) loves playing with the figurines, but is still too young to maintain interest or learn rules.

For some reason, and it's probably social pressure, they're nuts over anything that has cards, they're big into collecting cards. The Skylanders video game is a big hit right now.

I got them a box (free promo) with duelling Krosmaster figures, left the box on the counter for them, and they were only mildly interested, asked me who that was for. When I told them the characters had cards for them, they literally went nuts and couldn't open the box fast enough. Then they wanted to play, I started teaching them the rules, but the 7 year old soon lost interest (lots of different powers for each character) to his older brother's dismay. Box does say 10+.

King of Tokyo
Click Clack Lumberjack
HeroQuest
Rampage
Sorry Sliders
The Adventurers: The Temple of Chac
HeroScape
Battleball

Not all of these AT, but they're far from Euros.

A oouple not mentioned: Dungeon[\b] and Smash Up[\b].

(I assume you want available titles; otherwise, add my daughter's favorite game, AH's Dinosaurs of the Lost World)

My 2.75 year old wants so badly to play with my X-Wing models that it scares me to leave the house.

I had a moment the other day that reaffirmed why I like games when he asked me what my board games were about and I told him. "In this one you get to be aliens, in this one you get to be zombies, in this one you get to be wizards, etc."

Talisman or Relic (roll & move adventures)

DungeonQuest (random death generator)

Space Hulk, Descent, Claustrophobia, or Incursion (competitive dungeon crawls)

Galaxy Defenders, Gears of War, Zombie Plague, or one of the Dungeons & Dragons adventure series (Ravenloft, Ashardalon, Drizzt) (cooperative dungeon crawls)

Pandemic, Flash Point: Fire Rescue, Arkham Horror, or Eldritch Horror (trouble spot cooperatives)

Chaos in the Old World, Fortress: America, Nexus Ops, or City of Remnants (dudes on a map)

Wiz-War and/or Cosmic Encounter (chaotic fun)

Applejack wrote: Pandemic, Flash Point: Fire Rescue, Arkham Horror, or Eldritch Horror (trouble spot cooperatives)

We call them "whack-a-mole" games now, did you miss the memo?

Keeping in mind your minimalist leanings, I'll suggest at games to play with kids by storage size.

Fit in your pocket games:
Pocket ogre (maybe for the older kids)
Zombie Dice
A few decks of magic or Pokemon
Love letter (actually a fun game, and I understand it's be being rethemed in a thousand flavours. Find one you enjoy)

Small box games:
Munchkin (kids love it)
Zombies!!!! (Ignore the online haters and see the note for munchkin)
LOTR: Confrontation (original edition. Small box and John Howe art.)
Stratego (from target or some big box store...these boxes are slender)
Narrow ffg Silverline games (chaos marauders, red November, letter of marque, etc.)

Medium box games:
Nexus Ops (you have)
Risk 2210 (if you want something with more meat than Nexus Ops)
Last night on earth
Talisman (I'd suggest the smaller sized GW 2nd ed with flat full color standees, but if you go fourth limit yourself to the base game, reaper, and maybe sacred pool. Too much after that and you'll need more boxes for all the cards and minis.)

IMO King of Tokyo is fools gold. It's only a few slight steps above zombie dice in play but in an unnecessarily large box. You can spend less getting all of the listed pocket games and have more space and game. Try before you buy. I traded it off.

Large box:
Heroscape (if you're going this big just get heroscape and be done. Skip several of the previously listed games if need be. This game has the wow/toy factor kids will love. It can be endlessly customized and replayable. I tossed the box and put it in one of those plastic bins that slide under beds.)

EDIT: A note on those D&D Adventure Games. They are great, but they come in big boxes. Too big for their gameplay. If you feel you need one, I'd suggest buying two, dumping an insert, and putting the contents all in one box. They are fun games, but to me they didn't make the cut over Talisman which takes up a fraction of the space.

King of Tokyo is great for ages 5+. My boys (ages 6 and 9) love it and I was surprised at how much they were into the "shopping" aspect of clearing and flipping the power cards.

Another couple of great ones that are similar to each other (in the I'm-Gonna-Eat-Your-Dudes sub-subgenre) are Survive! and Jurassic Park III: The Island Survival Game. Survive! takes a little longer and is a little more complicated than JP3. JP3 follows the movie fairly closely, has cool thematic player elimination (CHOMP), and it also has a fun all-or-nothing win condition that kids might find more satisfying than Survive's points counting at the end. I have an extra copy of JP3 that you can have for the price of shipping.

Thunder Road is also excellent. It has leader bashing, a dice-driven catch-up mechanic that's awesome and dramatic when it goes off (we use the "roll the car's rank or higher in doubles to repair" variant), and it really conveys a sense of speed without a lot of rules. Highly recommended if you can find it.