Do you have a favorite sub-genre of AmeriTrash?

There's no reason the bulk of the site has to be GW content...if you are providing other content. Post an article, Start a post, keep the "What board games are you playing" fires stoked... if you want to change the conversation, then do it! I like talking about all kinds of games.

The issue is, to some extent, the increasingly apparent lack of momentum in games design today mutes the conversation. There really isn't as much to talk about unless you are one of the backers of the week's big Kickstarter, you just got shipped whatever the big Kickstarter was a year ago, or you just played that Kickstarter. And if you aren't on board with whichever of the 2000 games it was...well, I guess then you can post about how much it sucks that you can't have half the game because you didn't back it.

When a good one-off game like DOOM comes along anymore, it gets almost zero traction because there is so much glutting the market. The big BGG style games like Terraformimf Mars make a splash, but what is there really to discuss there aside from session reports? It's a good game, it's well made...but are you passionate enough to write about it? Or is it the equivalent of having a decent meal at a consistent but unremarkable restaraunt?

Speaking for myself, the GW Reformation made me more excited about games than anything in the board games area in a long time, barring the outsider stuff like Hayden and Felli. And like I've said before, it's been refreshing to play just a couple of games with folks who also play just a couple of games they are invested in and committed to instead of board gamers wallowing the churn of excess product.

When I get together with my friends, we'll play whatever I have to review but we keep going back to Cosmic, Wiz-War, Acquire, El Grande and even some things like Railroad Tycoon that have stood the test of time. It's rare that new games survive- Scythe is the only game in the past year that is still asked for. But even with of that, I've been writing about some of those games for 15 years...I'd personally rather talk about Warhammer right now but that's my experience.

So, TLDR- if you want to talk about on-GW stuff, let's. I'd love to and others would to. Be proactive and do it!

I double-agree with Barnes here.
First of all, you need to write whatever you're passionate about - unless writing is your main source of income. And, as a consumer, I like reading whatever is written with passion which is why I am following this site. Like I read Matt Thrower's reviews of X-wing expansion, although I don't play X-Wing (maybe one day will). Or Barney's movie reviews, which connection to boardgaming is pretty nebulous to put it mildly. I read play reports of games I probably will never play and even those I'm not interested in. And I think it is very unfair to tell the people who are creating like 70-80% of the content here, "hey, I am not interested in this, can we talk about something else, please?" Sure, start a topic!

And secondly, seriously, GW is killing it out there. Smoke and mirrors (=miniatures) are a big part of it, sure, but so was/is the case with FFG, Kickstarters and all other major releases. People would be talking about how Forbidden Stars and Mansions of Madness are PACKED with glorious miniatures, and how many sturdy cards with beautiful art are there, and what kind of special gloss was used to cover the tiles or the board. Because, let us be honest, most of us are here because we like toys. And GW's toys are just better quality than others. And they're compatible between each other for different games, so you can play with the same toys and different rules, adding even more toys, etc. And, most importantly, their games are well-designed and fun to play. They're not as clever as some clever games out there, but also not as overwhelming.

And then there's the issue of the industry's bubble. Three years ago, I'd easily buy 5-6 boardgames a year. I haven't bought one this year. The only boardgame I am sort of vaguely looking forward to is Netrunner Legacy. But then I think about all of the boardgames that I own and barely play, and I might pass on this one. I've read about New Angeles and new Doom and they sort of picked my interest. But instead of playing New Angeles, I'd rather break out BSG. And, with Necromunda's upcoming resurrection I just can't make myself excited about Doom.

Pre-painted mini's games, I guess.

I like games with combat, and the types of games that typically have minis, but I don't actually require the bling factor.

I just don't want to assemble and paint stuff, so games like Heroscape and X-Wing are great. They also both do a good job of being more than having lines of dudes stand next to each other and take turns swinging d20s at each other- maneuvering is big in both games.

On the other end of the spectrum, I love pure card games (or something close to that like Summoner Wars, a good example of a minis game without minis). Even if they are exceedingly dull points-fests. Dominion and RftG are among my favorite games of all time. M:tG got me into hobby games when I was young and impressionable.

DoaM and Dudes in Corridors. My favorite background is sci-fi. Strangely, I don't own sci-fi DoaM an DiC.

It might sound silly, but all of my favorite games have named characters.
And those without named characters usually don't stick, even if I like the game.
I started converting my copy of Rex to Dune by replacing the generic characters with those from Dune. Could not stand the fact that a battle would have a General facing an Overseer instead of Duncan Idaho fighting Beast Rabban.

Easy question. My affinity for adventure/dungeon crawlers is stronger than any other genre...almost to a fault. I'm always searching for that new high from this style of game and it eventually leads to owning a bunch of very similar games. Still when an adventure game or dungeon crawler is done right it satisfies in a way that no other genre really can.

The only other thing that comes close is 4x or certain DoaM style games.

Assessing my collection, my favorites are
DOAM
DIAC
and
Sporting Games.*

*Considering how much time I spend on 'thinking' about DreadBall and Blood Bowl - the sporting games are probably my favorite.

But. If anyone wants to discuss HeroQuest - I'll talk your ear off.

I really like post-apoc novels, but oddly, other than Earth Reborn, I don't have any games that fall in that setting.

Quest/adventure games. Maybe it is growing up with Talisman,but I love having my character, equipping him with an axe and setting off into the swamp to see what is there, and having that sense of progression as you get more powerful. Thinking on this a bit, what I really love is when you get customized as the game goes on, so something like Eclipse where my race gets their tech and equipment changed, King of Tokyo with the power cards or even Agricola where my farm gets specialized. When you play these games repeatedly I love seeing people work towards their favourite piece of kit, even forcing it in when it doesn't quite fit (so many times have I seen my daughter buy "It has a Child" in King of Tokyo even when it is a bad choice given the game state). While I enjoy Cosmic Encounter or Dune or Small World, that fact that your abilities remain fairly static throughout the game and you can't tune it to your liking means that they don't hit the top tier for me.

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: Quest/adventure games. Maybe it is growing up with Talisman,but I love having my character, equipping him with an axe and setting off into the swamp to see what is there, and having that sense of progression as you get more powerful.

This is a great quote and reflects where I'm at in terms of my gaming choices. It's like full circle, I cut my teeth on Fighting Fantasy books then discovered Talisman 2nd ed. I recently picked up the expansions to FFG's Relic and am soooo looking forward to playing it for the reasons Mumu stated. I 've gone through a gamut of game over the years but I think the games I love the most (like Cave Evil) still consist of those very basic but core elements.

I've 100% settled back into games that require tinkering between sessions. Maybe these are called lifestyle games?

I appreciate the imagination and creativity involved in working on and building up my [fill object here], then playing it against others. I'm no longer interested so much in owning games that sit on my shelf between sessions. For my dollar, the dollar to fun ratio is way off there.

Granted, I understand we can inject ourselves in the way we play board games, but that only seems to be a fraction of the amount we can place into the customization _and_ play of our team/army/deck/whatever.

Someone PM Legomancer - I still want to hear what he's playing

Super Heroes > Fantasy > Robots (the killing kind) > Sci -Fi > Generic War for theme are my favorites. You put Super Heroes fighting monsters from Fantasy or mythical (is that different?) and I might pass out.

EDIT: SHIT forgot about robots, dammit man, never forget the robots.

Jauron wrote: Super Heroes > Fantasy > Robots (the killing kind) > Sci -Fi > Generic War for theme are my favorites. You put Super Heroes fighting monsters from Fantasy or mythical (is that different?) and I might pass out.

EDIT: SHIT forgot about robots, dammit man, never forget the robots.

Try to find some Heroscape on the cheap if you haven't already.

Edit: Just saw your post about having an 8-year-old. There isn't any better game for you.

Jexik wrote:

Jauron wrote: Super Heroes > Fantasy > Robots (the killing kind) > Sci -Fi > Generic War for theme are my favorites. You put Super Heroes fighting monsters from Fantasy or mythical (is that different?) and I might pass out.

EDIT: SHIT forgot about robots, dammit man, never forget the robots.

Try to find some Heroscape on the cheap if you haven't already.

Edit: Just saw your post about having an 8-year-old. There isn't any better game for you.

You're telling me. I'm super cheap so I ended up with custom super hero units from Heroscapers combined with some other stuff like heroclix and heroclix maps or Magic's version of heroscape. I really like the game but so far it's been a miss with some other adults and my kids will only play it once in a while. The strategy is mostly lost on the kids.

As much as I love the super hero variant, I wonder sometimes if we should have started with the normal units to keep things really simple with low hit points and low attack and defense. I'm still hoping he'll grow into it.

If I can find a base set on the cheap I'll snag it, but so far no luck.