Describe Your Grail Game

I've been wishing all these years for a competitive adventure game with some depth of strategy, a sense of wonder, variety and exploration, a great setting and narrative, and which can be taught and played to completion in less than three hours.

Mage Knight checks most of those boxes, but blows the last one so badly that it only very rarely gets played. I'm still waiting.

^less exhausting Magic Realm.

MattDP wrote: I've been wishing all these years for a competitive adventure game with some depth of strategy, a sense of wonder, variety and exploration, a great setting and narrative, and which can be taught and played to completion in less than three hours.

Mage Knight checks most of those boxes, but blows the last one so badly that it only very rarely gets played. I'm still waiting.

It seems like Duel of Ages II circles around some of these points. I wish DoA had a better theme, like an adaption of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld

My grail game criteria:

1. Plays 1-6
2. Rich theme
3. Simple enough to teach in 15 minutes, but rich narrative depth
4. Something like Earth Reborn that I could teach to strangers in fifteen minutes, and would somehow appeal to my daugthers (10 and 13). So it would be a little less dark in theme, but not silly.
5. Have a political element among players, like Angola
6. Cool minis
7. <$100

I want some kind of a mix of Duel of Ages and Earth Reborn, with a strong theme behind it.

Also, a boardgame based on the book Wolf Hall, which I finally read after ignoring it because it looked boring, for several years. Maybe A Cruel Necessity fills this.

Another grail game: Something as easy to teach as No Thanks, but with more depth and an Adventure Time or Homestuck theme so my kids will play.

This will seem odd, but I'm starting to think my grail games already came out, but the downside is...they're all oop.

Just finishing a BB league and doing a little more role-playing, I find I really miss the character/faction building of the 90's GW boxed games:

ManOWar
Blood Bowl
Mordheim
Necromunda
BattleFleetGothic

Playing these in the 90's through early 00's were easily the best gaming I've done. The boxes allowed us to play in the Warhammer universes without dropping a mint. Oddly enough though, I probably did. I bought so many warhammer figs to convert to BB teams, mordheim warbands, etc. That, and for very faction I played, I'd buy an army book/codex so I could get into the background. Even read a novel or two. So, these games allowed GW to take _a_lot_ of my money. Not sure why they discontinued them all...

Sadly, these games are long gone and the base sets and minis are all expensive. I could buy some on the after market, but it's not the same.

So, where I am right now, a grail game would be for GW to put one of these out again or something like it.

True, there are lots of other skirmish games, but I guess I'm skeptical on their shelf life and quality, and I doubt they even have half of the world building in place.

As it stands, I just came into a 2nd ed Dark Elf BB team. I've never actually played DE in anything, so I'm considering converting up a DE warband as well (got a Mordheim terrain builder in the group) and likely, I'll buy an older edition Dark Elf army book (older edition books - I prefer 3rd thru 5th - go for a song) to read some fluff.

This'll be fun, but I'd like for there to be something that's forward facing as well. I'll continue to play BB and Mordheim, but I don't want to only game the past.

EDIT: Games like BB:TM, CitoW, Warhammer Invasion, etc are fine, but they aren't the same at all. There's no personalizing there. Guess I'm longing for the minis...to paint.... ugh!

I'd like a campaign based game that is balanced in the long run not a rich get richer scenario, have people get butt-hurt when their character dies and doesn't require the same people playing every time.

Mr White - Take a look at what Cool Mini or Not are doing. I grew up on those games you listed and what CMoN is doing really brings me back to that time and the GW design style of that period.

Rivet Wars is cool because you don't build an army at the beginning but each turn you get points to buy and deploy units. Arcadia Quest you build a team of three characters and do some light campaign and character development with them. Kaosball I'm looking to get in on sooner rather than later.

There are some downsides to CMoN though. There's a lot you miss if you miss the KS campaign and they take forever to have expansions hit the secondary market.

They also don't hit on the campaign style games like Necromunda, Mordheim or BB. But those are also the reasons for my first line in this post. But I feel they have a similar design philosophy to GW back in those days.

I'm a stickler for aesthetics, and unfortunately I'm not into the anime/super-deformed style of the CMoN games. :/

Then yeah...Those won't be for you then.

I'm down for something like Combat Commander: Angmar or maybe Advanced Dwarf Leader.

Also, another grail game for me would be something that really replicates Heroes of Might and Magic III for PC. Heroes that roam around a board, exploring, collecting resources, acquiring artifacts and leading armies to conquer cities.

Games like Mage Knight and Robinson Crusoe and Arkham Horror and LOTR:LCG are all essentially grail games for me, so I'm happy to have found those grails and still enjoy playing them. But I'd love to see something that's as fun and involving to play as those, but different and unique as well, and with some kind of Indiana Jones type theme, or Batman theme. And co-op or playable solo, but also fun multiplayer (this is where Mage Knight loses major points), with a high amount of replayability and depth (sorry Fortune & Glory, but rolling a die to see what happens for everything doesn't cut it for me).

Not sure if Jason's Thrilling Tales of Adventure was ever going to be as great as many of us hoped, but in theory, it sure sounded like it could be of the grail game caliber.