Mansions of Madness feels a lot different than Arkham Horror. I'm glad I own them both.

MoM is definitely not without flaws, though. The base game could use more variety at that price (more scenarios and more cards), the PoD expansions are way overpriced, it's a long and finnicky setup, the guy who plays as the Keeper pretty much always has to play as the Keeper, the pacing is kind of screwy when players are (frequently) stopped by locks and obstructions... But it's a fun game, it's easy to teach/learn, and casual players who like thematic games should dig it.

If I get the chance I reckon I will be buying "Mice and Mystics" (for my son and I to play) as well as "Zombicide" which completely killed my need/desire to do a zombie game :D

Those are the games right now that have my attention.

Dr. Mabuse wrote:




Yup. You have X dudes, and so many locations. Although your locations are 'private', to activate them you have to 'tap' one of your dudes (you might as well then put him on the location card; hence the worker placement.)

Ditto for bidding, or placing evidence. In those cases though the spaces are not exclusive as you would expect for a worker placement game.

Only real difference is that your workers in this game have special powers that make them more effective at taking certain actions.

I dunno, I totally see it, but others might disagree.

the_jake_1973 wrote:


While they take place in the same setting, both games are drastically different. Arkham Horror is a straight co-op game, with an emphasis on drawing cards for narrative and flavor text. Everyone needs to work together to shut the gates and keep Arkham safe. Each turn you follow the exact same phases and for the most part you know what will happen and when.

Mansions of Madness is almost like a Dungeon Crawl mixed with a very, very, very light RPG. There are different scenarios that you can play each time and one person must play as the Keeper/DM. The focus here is on narrative, exploration and atmosphere. Since there is a person controlling the bad guys, you never really know what might happen. If the person playing the Keeper is experienced enough, you can have some really exciting games. Its not a perfect system and it doesn't always work right. When everything is firing on all cylinders though, I find it to be even better than AH. Having someone play a good Keeper/DM makes all the difference in the world though.

I think they are different enough that they are both worth owning. If you have ever played AH and wanted a more intimate adventure to experience then MoM is probably worth tracking down.

Thanks for the input on MoM. It'll go on The List.

After belatedly starting to watch the BSG series yesterday, I am definitely making BSG my next boardgame purchase.

Field Commander Alexander just arrived in trade. I'm looking forward to this one.

S.

the_jake_1973 wrote:

I went the other way round- from boardgame to TV show, which was an interesting experience. I think BSG is the best in-house new boardgame from FFG in a long time, perhaps ever. Everything about it works well, and some of it- the random and secret Loyalties in particular, are just brilliant. It's also an exemplary TV-boardgame cross-media adaption, conveying the atmosphere of the show really well with lots of recognisable moments and dimensions of the characters captured very neatly. I'm confident you won't be disappointed the_jake_1973.

Sagrilarus wrote:


Have you played the other Field Commander's? I liked this one quite a bit. More than Rommel; not as much as Napolean.

We returned from a fantastic 5 day vacation in Lynnwood, WA. A gaming guy I know here gave me recommedations for a couple of game stores in Seattle. I went to check out one of them called Card Kingdom, but beside having an amazing looking cafe/gameporium, I came away with nothing.

On the second last day of our stay I did a search for games stores in Lynnwood just for fun and lo and behold, Cardhaus popped up.

It was a fifth of the size of Card Kingdom but I walked away with great deals on Gears of War, Infiltration and Summoner Wars: Master set.