What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

God damn, I'm gonna agree with Barnes. Someone bring me a brandy and cold compress.

Expansions get made for games that don't need them, and they generally just bloat up a previously good design. They're good for publishers, not players. I have no clue why gamers buy them.

And thank you for going to Checkers for your example, because this transcends designer games. You want stunning simple games? Look at Chess or Bridge as examples.

And yes I do still play the simpler designs. Tonight was Bolide again and it was a fantastic play right down to the end. Recents have included Alhambra, Wings of War and 1775, a remarkably clean concept.

I'm still playing those. But then again, I'm sort of on ERP with my next purchases being Survive, Ticket to Ride and possibly a third euro/german family game. We don't get to play too much these days with an extremely active 9 months old, but I do want to play them.

Apropos of the discussion, I think I've played each of the listed "classic" games in the last six months, most of them in the last few weeks. I would add Splendor to that list in the future. These seem to me games that, while few people enthuse about them, always get played at the meet-up. Maybe because they have that clarity of design. They're like everyone's third choice and settle the debate on what to play.

screw your discussion, put it somewhere else where it won't get lost.

X-wing - Soontir Swarm vs Dash(Heavy laser cannon + Outrider) and B-wings. i was going to play a Defender/interceptor/Shuttle list, but we had a new player so I gave him three Tie Fighters, while I took Bombers and the Interceptor. He was a freaking natural, swinging ties in Formation through asteroid fields, breaking them off to slide by with milimeters to spare. Bombers went down quick to B-wing FCS fire...Soontir is a monster (and even more so now with Autothrusters) and just lived in the Dash Rendar Donut hole of doom. Scum and Villainy has started being sold in Australia. Soon....

Wiz-War with 5. wild game that had two wizards die (myself...10 points of damage in 1 turn, then a freaking wall of fire to block my way home) and the other two fighting tooth and nail to slow the winner down. Thank goodness this isn't Munchkin where all the cards slow people down. First time the Genie has come up....wow what a freaking crazy monster. I did manage to kill it before my glorious death by Fireball.

Cthulhu Wars - 3 player game using Cthulhu (me), Black Goat, and Crawling Chaos. As usual with 3 player games like this, I ended up winning when the other two guys went at it right away and left me alone to rack up a bunch of points early on and I jumped out to a big lead. They tried to band together to stop me, but it was too late. 3-player requires a very delicate balance between players to keep each other in check, which I imagine would be hard to do all the time. 3 player was a bit weak overall, but most games with 3 are.

The other notable thing that happened was we were talking about the extra 4 factions and 5-6 player games, and the guy who owns the game suggested we chip in for the 4 extra factions if we wanted them. He was not going to drop an extra $190 and then risk us never playing again. So between the 3 of us, it would be $62 each to get the 4 extra factions plus the 6-8 player board. A bit steep for me, but the deal is we each get to borrow/use the game whenever we want. I'm the one most likely to borrow it to play with people other than them, so it's not like it'll be checked out much and conflict with my own gaming sessions. So it's almost as if I am getting the base game and the extra factions for $70. At least, that's what I'm going to tell myself to justify it.

I personally wouldn't get involved with a "game sharing" situation, but I get where you're coming from given the crazy cost.

Back in HS when I was doing miniature games we'd all chip in to get a base set or two for a particular game...Necromunda, Mordheim...etc. The big GW box sets. We only played at one guy's house which meant all the stuff was stored there.

Some years later I asked if I could claim a set of tokens and counters since at this point we've moved to different states and have our own things going. Brought up that I threw down a lot of cash on various sets...etc. etc. You'd have thought I asked him to spin the earth the opposite direction. Wasn't that big a deal since I was able to snag what I needed from eBay relatively cheaply.

This is the same guy that I went in on a few (3 I think) Dreamblade booster cases for dirt cheep. The plan was to use them and do little bind drafts with them when we played. Well as it turned out I dominated him in the game the first few times, so we never really went back to the game (he doesn't like to lose at games). Some time later I asked him what ever became of those boxes thinking about picking up the game again. Turns out he sold them, forgot I chipped in on them and never mentioned to me that he wanted them out of his garage.

Point being...Usually just consider your money pissed away if you're not the person that has pretty permanent possession over the game.

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53a23242e4b0097de330c4ab/t/54bc4e31e4b05e8a3643f95e/1421626930194/simpsons-season-2-21-three-men-and-a-comic-book-comic-book-guy-first-appearance-millhouse-martin-bart-radioactive-man-review-episode-guide-list.jpg?format=750w

EDIT: Do the image link tags not work right now?

I've had really good luck with game sharing. In fact we do that as a group with lots of things... but the key is that these people are good friends you can trust.. None of the people I've done this with were game group or some other type of nerd group friends.. They were friends first and foremost and we just happened to play games together, or share comics or video games. So I knew exactly what I was getting into and it worked out great for all of us. I even share consoles with people. Last gen I had an X-Box 360 but my buddy had a Playstation 3 and we would just trade our entire systems back and forth. Occasionally I bought games for his system and occasionally he bought some for mine. It worked out great, we both played way more games than we would have otherwise and saved money. We also shared expansion costs and all kinds of things.

I know it's risky but it can result in a great experience if you know what you're getting into.

Oh the guy that I did this with was and still is to this day my best friend. That's why in the long run I just didn't care...Despite my copy of Battle Master being pillaged for some Warhammer Fantasy Army. My copy of HeroQuest getting blended into his big box of plastic miniatures.