Saturday, January 16, 2016

Ten Games to Start Your Game Collection (And Twenty More)

Randolph Pub Ludique's games library. That's a lot of games. 
One of the most common topics I see in board gaming communities like DFW Nerd Night, The Boardgame Group, and /r/boardgames is about folks who are new to the hobby and want to expand their board game collection, but aren't sure what to buy. We're in a "golden age" of tabletop gaming, and with 1,500 new games being released each year, there are plenty to choose from and plenty of ways to evaluate them.

I've crowdsourced this list by polling the members of DFW Nerd Night, and used that list, plus some of my own discretion, to put together "Ten Games to Start Your Game Collection". It's important to note that these aren't the ONLY ten games I think our new friend should purchase, just the first ten that should give her plenty to play for the foreseeable future.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Playing the Top 100: Tichu and Orléans

First I want to thank all of my friends that have offered to find me games, started trying to find me games, helped out with strategies, and most importantly played games with me. We're 5% of the way home people. It's all downhill from here. I also wanted to clarify something that may have been misconstrued in my earlier writing. I'm not limiting myself to playing these games once (though once may be enough for some) and I'm also willing to play other games that are not on the list. I just want to get the top 100 in by year's end.

 Also, if you're interested in playing a particular game with me because it is your favorite thing and live in the metro, let me know of Facebook. Let's set something up. Additionally also, I have requested with the guys that we Twitch stream Battlestar Galactica. You should watch, it's the game that sort of brought our group together and our games are a blast.

This has been pretty fun so far. I really like goals and this has given me a reason to play some things towards which I would not normally gravitate. Tonight I talk about one of those and it is not Tichu. Tichu and I love each other. We are old friends. Tichu knows where it sits in my top 10 list, it is one of the games that regardless what time it is, I will play. My Tichu partner and I have been playing
together for what I would estimate is a couple of years now and we love it. Probably a little too much.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Playing the Top 100: Imperial Assault



Greetings all. So this resolution has sparked something that is unprecedented. I am writing twice in one week. New milestones and all that stuff. Alright, so I was able to play Star Wars: Imperial Assault this evening. It is #11 on the list for those playing at home. It was completely by accident, but since I would probably put the game on my top 10 favorites, I was happy to play it. I won't say that I play the game often, but I do own it. I am in the process (with the rest of the world) of attempting to keep up with FFG's frequent and somewhat expensive release schedule. Tonight I had some non-gamer friends over for a party and they said, "That looks fun." So I totally played it off, but I was screaming with excitement on the inside. One of my gamer buddies decided to watch, laughing and telling them that I was going to crush them mercilessly because that is how the Empire rolls. We had more than two, so we played the first Campaign mission, Aftermath.


Saturday, January 9, 2016

My Gamer's Resolution: Play the top 100 on BGG.com by Year's End

Hi all,

For those of you that do not know me, I do not write often. When I do write, it is usually on this blog. To provide a little background about this exercise, I should state that I think New Year's resolutions are silly. That said, I do create a list of goals for the year in order to provide focus for things that I want to accomplish. In this particular case, I call this a resolution because it involves gaming and I think I will actually finish it.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Ten Games After 2015

In late 2014 I was prompted by a good friend's article to determine which ten games I would keep if I were forced to get rid of the rest of my collection. It sparked one of the longest episodes of The Nerd Nighters in our show's 130+ episode history (and one of my favorites), and has provided a new lens through which I consider new game acquisitions.

My original list was as follows (click here to read the 2014 article):

Betrayal at House on the Hill
Race for the Galaxy 
Medici 
Lords of Waterdeep
Coup 
Ticket to Ride
Summoner Wars
7 Wonders
Disc Duelers
BattleLore (2nd Edition)

This list assumes that each game comes with all its expansions (past and future), and that have enough friends in this apocalyptic scenario to play each game at whatever player count I want. It also assumes that my MtG cube makes the cut as game #11, so it's not considered here.

This year will see some big changes to this list, so let's begin!