Boardgames Rising

Boardgames and tabletop RPGs are the two non-wife loves of my life. I often swing like a pendulum from loving one more than the next for whatever reason. A brief glance at this blog will show you that the pendulum's been on the "RPG side" of the clock for the past several months. Now we're finally starting to swing back to Boardgame Land.

Last Saturday, I attended a day-long boardgaming jamboree over at the friendly local library. I played these games:

-Seven Wonders
-King of Tokyo
-City of Horror
-Elder Sign

I loved all four of them. I had a blast. I FINALLY got to be the freak rookie who crushes everyone the first time he learns the game (Seven Wonders)! I'm NEVER that guy!

This was my third time playing City of Horror. It's finally clicking into place, and man is it fun! Whenever I go to these boardgaming events, I always want to be at the table that's having the most fun, the one that's hooting and hollering and playing a game that looks utterly fascinating. That was definitely the case with City of Horror. When one of the players played a card that shifted all zombies from the water tower to the church, the collective "OHHHHHH!" from our table drew stares from the entire room! We had two to four people hovering over our table the entire time we played. It was glorious. I had my doubts about City of Horror when I bought it, but now, the game has finally and officially earned it's place on my shelf, next to it's already battle-proven veteran contemporaries Battlestar Galactica, Cosmic Encounter, and Pandemic.

I also finally got a chance to see Elder Sign played in earnest (as opposed to the frustrating spurts of play I have with the app version on my iPhone) and I gotta say, that one's pretty fun, too! I always chafed under the tremendous amount of prep and down-time that goes into a game of Arkham Horror; Elder Sign is a faster alternative that doesn't compromise the immersive (and oppresive) cosmic horror aspects of that classic adventure game.

This Friday, I'll be heading to another boardgame event: the Landing, at Crystal City. I've been to it a few times, but this will be my first time writing about it. I'll be bringing two brand-new games: Mansions of Madness and Thunderstone: Towers of Ruin. Much like City of Horror before it, I am concerned about Mansions of Madness. It's a massive, long, adversial adventure game (think Descent, but with Lovecraftian influence instead of D&D), and I'm just not sure if the game is going to be worth the exobitant price I paid for it. I mean, if I want to play an adventure game spanning well over two hours, why don't I just crack out D&D, right?

I am far more excited to dig into Thunderstone. Thunderstone is a cooperative deck-building game. Cooperative deck-building games are my absolute FAVORITE super sub-niche genre of boardgame! Ever since I played Legendary a few months ago, I've wanted to do it again. I damn-near pulled the trigger on Legendary, too, but Thunderstone looked deeper, and was about ten dollars cheaper and had more expansions, so I went with it, instead. We'll see how it all goes down Friday!

And, this Sunday, I begin my "training campaign" with Numenera for my big con game at DC GameDay. More to follow...