Best Board Games (3 Viewers)

[MTskibum]

@Terminalxylem

@culdeus

Are the birds that let you cycle birds the best? 

When activated tuck a bird card behind this bird and then draw another bird.

It seems to me getting that bird can be a big help and important?

 

[culdeus]

@Terminalxylem

@culdeus

Are the birds that let you cycle birds the best? 

When activated tuck a bird card behind this bird and then draw another bird.

It seems to me getting that bird can be a big help and important?

I mean there are tiers.  

https://wingsplain.com/

https://wingsplain.com/wingspan-bird-card-tier-list/

Anything that gives you something you don't naturally get in that row is strong.  Anything that gives you two of something for one of something is also strong.  This list above to an extent is leaning on two player games, which is fine, as you get to 3 or more players then pink powers start to really pick up steam to the point of being a little too strong in some situations.  

 

[Terminalxylem]

@Terminalxylem

@culdeus

Are the birds that let you cycle birds the best? 

When activated tuck a bird card behind this bird and then draw another bird.

It seems to me getting that bird can be a big help and important?

Agree with culdeus’ commentary. Cross habitat birds are great. Once you move on from the base game (with Europe/Oceania expansions), the grasslands is less useful for generating points (in the base game, it’s often the primary focus in round 4). Regardless, it’s really nice to have a bird in another habitat that lays eggs. To a lesser extent, getting food outside the forest is good (ravens/crows are great in grasslands in the base game). 

While every game is different, the general flow is usually:

Round 1: Play a bird in the forest, to get more food, and one in the wetlands to cycle cards. Ideally, one of those birds also gives you eggs when activated.

Round 2: Build a food or card engine on one of those two habitats, depending on the available cards. Food helps buy high point birds, drawing cards increase the likelihood you’ll get them + gives you fodder for tucking. Try to keep brown powers in the habitats you visit the most often. White, pink, teal and yellow powers are better suited to less visited habitats, which will often be the grasslands.

Round 3: Keep getting food and cards, playing a few as you go, and possibly accomplish end of round goals - I usually only try for one or two in earnest, but it’s helpful to place 2nd or 3rd in the latter rounds of 3/4 player games.

Round 4: Play your remaining high point birds, including some that let you draw bonus cards. Always determine the opportunity cost and net point gain for endgame moves.

If you’re playing with nectar, the woodlands is more powerful. Of note, we don’t allow ravens/crows and other birds which allow you to take a wild food to get nectar via their powers. 

Excluding end of round/game powers, you only have 26 moves. 100 is a good score, 120+ is great. So you need to average 4-5 points per turn, though round 4 moves tend to earn way more points than round 1.

Other pointers:

If you have the cards or draw from the deck, tucking is good-great.

Caching usually isn’t that good. If you’re gonna play a bird that caches, play one that allows you to use the food if needed.

Predators are +/-.

Bonus cards that give you 2 points per food type in bird cost are usually better than those with nest or name requirements.

Try to minimize using birds which give your opponents stuff.

Migrating birds are generally poor plays.

If you’re ending up with much extra food or cards at game’s end, you probably misplayed.

 

[Herb]

Been on a huge board game bender since the start of the pandemic. I'm a big fan of ameritrash type games, so we pulled out an ancient copy of Buck Rogers and I taught it to my 10 year old son. Love this game, but it's been out of print for 30 years so you'll spend a pretty penny to get a decent copy.

Some other great games we've found over the past couple years:

Horrified We like co-op games as my son is a terrible sport when he gets beat by one of his parents, and we were all amazed at how much fun this was. We've also tried the new American Monsters version, which we didn't like quite as much, despite some really cool new monster mechanics. I'd still recommend both, though.

Gloomhaven and Jaws of the Lion are both excellent,  just tough to get to the table due to set-up and take-down times, as well as game length. My gaming group loves these.

Everdell is a lot of fun, and absolutely gorgeous. But old guys be ready to bust out the readers, cuz the print on the cards is really small.

Pandemic and its assorted legacy versions are all excellent.  Highly recommend, although I haven't played them all yet.

5-Minute Dungeon is a simple co-op for the kiddos, and the games are... 5 minutes long. Super easy to learn and you can just rip through the games. Could be a fun party/drinking game for adults too, but I haven't tried it in that setting.

Menara is a unique cooperative building game that is super kid-friendly and honestly kind of relaxing.

My current obsession is Zombicide: 2nd edition.  I'd never played it until recently,  and found it really fun. Cooperative zombie killing with a taste of the tactical combat that makes Gloomhaven so good, but without the fiddling and steep learning curves of the Gloomhavens.

 

[Terminalxylem]

Been on a huge board game bender since the start of the pandemic. I'm a big fan of ameritrash type games, so we pulled out an ancient copy of Buck Rogers and I taught it to my 10 year old son. Love this game, but it's been out of print for 30 years so you'll spend a pretty penny to get a decent copy.

Some other great games we've found over the past couple years:

Horrified We like co-op games as my son is a terrible sport when he gets beat by one of his parents, and we were all amazed at how much fun this was. We've also tried the new American Monsters version, which we didn't like quite as much, despite some really cool new monster mechanics. I'd still recommend both, though.

Gloomhaven and Jaws of the Lion are both excellent,  just tough to get to the table due to set-up and take-down times, as well as game length. My gaming group loves these.

Everdell is a lot of fun, and absolutely gorgeous. But old guys be ready to bust out the readers, cuz the print on the cards is really small.

Pandemic and its assorted legacy versions are all excellent.  Highly recommend, although I haven't played them all yet.

5-Minute Dungeon is a simple co-op for the kiddos, and the games are... 5 minutes long. Super easy to learn and you can just rip through the games. Could be a fun party/drinking game for adults too, but I haven't tried it in that setting.

Menara is a unique cooperative building game that is super kid-friendly and honestly kind of relaxing.

My current obsession is Zombicide: 2nd edition.  I'd never played it until recently,  and found it really fun. Cooperative zombie killing with a taste of the tactical combat that makes Gloomhaven so good, but without the fiddling and steep learning curves of the Gloomhavens.

Just started playing Everdell. It’s a good medium weight game, slightly more complex than Wingspan, to which it is often compared. Agree the print is too small.

 

[culdeus]

Agree with culdeus’ commentary. Cross habitat birds are great. Once you move on from the base game (with Europe/Oceania expansions), the grasslands is less useful for generating points (in the base game, it’s often the primary focus in round 4). Regardless, it’s really nice to have a bird in another habitat that lays eggs. To a lesser extent, getting food outside the forest is good (ravens/crows are great in grasslands in the base game). 

While every game is different, the general flow is usually:

Round 1: Play a bird in the forest, to get more food, and one in the wetlands to cycle cards. Ideally, one of those birds also gives you eggs when activated.

Round 2: Build a food or card engine on one of those two habitats, depending on the available cards. Food helps buy high point birds, drawing cards increase the likelihood you’ll get them + gives you fodder for tucking. Try to keep brown powers in the habitats you visit the most often. White, pink, teal and yellow powers are better suited to less visited habitats, which will often be the grasslands.

Round 3: Keep getting food and cards, playing a few as you go, and possibly accomplish end of round goals - I usually only try for one or two in earnest, but it’s helpful to place 2nd or 3rd in the latter rounds of 3/4 player games.

Round 4: Play your remaining high point birds, including some that let you draw bonus cards. Always determine the opportunity cost and net point gain for endgame moves.

If you’re playing with nectar, the woodlands is more powerful. Of note, we don’t allow ravens/crows and other birds which allow you to take a wild food to get nectar via their powers. 

Excluding end of round/game powers, you only have 26 moves. 100 is a good score, 120+ is great. So you need to average 4-5 points per turn, though round 4 moves tend to earn way more points than round 1.

Other pointers:

If you have the cards or draw from the deck, tucking is good-great.

Caching usually isn’t that good. If you’re gonna play a bird that caches, play one that allows you to use the food if needed.

Predators are +/-.

Bonus cards that give you 2 points per food type in bird cost are usually better than those with nest or name requirements.

Try to minimize using birds which give your opponents stuff.

Migrating birds are generally poor plays.

If you’re ending up with much extra food or cards at game’s end, you probably misplayed.

I've seen some recent games where people stack the moving birds and just lay waste.  I like to hold one in an event I can get two down now and just turn it into an egg by R3 if can't.

 

[Terminalxylem]

I've seen some recent games where people stack the moving birds and just lay waste.  I like to hold one in an event I can get two down now and just turn it into an egg by R3 if can't.

Yeah, they’re not totally worthless, especially if they can be used for multiple end of round goals.

 

[fasteddie_21]

Hegemony was a big hit with us playing the prototype. 

 

[Eephus]

2024 Bump for @Courtjester

 

[Terminalxylem]

Just started playing Ark Nova. Pretty complicated, but really good if you know a couple people experienced in medium-heavy Euro games.

Also tried Brass:Birmingham, but didn’t like it as much. I think we didn’t play right though - it’s the highest rated game on Boardgame Geek, so surely it’s good?

Courtjester’s wife won’t be up for either of those, but I’m sure Wingspan + a couple expansions (I like Oceania and Asia better than Europe) will keep her occupied.

 

[Psychopav]

Just started playing Ark Nova. Pretty complicated, but really good if you know a couple people experienced in medium-heavy Euro games.

Also tried Brass:Birmingham, but didn’t like it as much. I think we didn’t play right though - it’s the highest rated game on Boardgame Geek, so surely it’s good?

Courtjester’s wife won’t be up for either of those, but I’m sure Wingspan + a couple expansions (I like Oceania and Asia better than Europe) will keep her occupied.

Ark Nova is great turn based on BGA where you don't have to wait around while other people take their turns.

Wingspan is much better in that format as well, imo, but unfortunately they don't have any expansions.

 

[Courtjester]

Thank you for this!!!!

 

[Terminalxylem]

Just started playing Ark Nova. Pretty complicated, but really good if you know a couple people experienced in medium-heavy Euro games.

Also tried Brass:Birmingham, but didn’t like it as much. I think we didn’t play right though - it’s the highest rated game on Boardgame Geek, so surely it’s good?

Courtjester’s wife won’t be up for either of those, but I’m sure Wingspan + a couple expansions (I like Oceania and Asia better than Europe) will keep her occupied.

Ark Nova is great turn based on BGA where you don't have to wait around while other people take their turns.

Wingspan is much better in that format as well, imo, but unfortunately they don't have any expansions.

Never played on BGA, though I can see why Ark Nova would be better broken up over several days, rather than a single sitting. Agricola works well that way, too.

The dedicated Wingspan app is pretty good as well, and it has Europa and Oceania expansions. The base game becomes pretty boring without them, imo.

All that said, I prefer playing in-person, for the social interaction, if nothing else.

 

[fasteddie_21]

The expansion for Ark Nova is solid as well.

And there are how to plays and play-through videos that teach you how to play on YouTube for just about any game you’d wanna play.

 

[Psychopav]

The expansion for Ark Nova is solid as well.

And there are how to plays and play-through videos that teach you how to play on YouTube for just about any game you’d wanna play.

I agree. It speeds up the game a bit, too.

 

[SWC]

i was born a hungry hippos man and i will die a hungry hippos man take that to the bank bromigos

 

[SWC]

close second is mousetrap because nothing beats spending 30 minutes to set up some plastic only to break three parts and even if you didnt the whole thing didnt ever work right anyhow sweet game take that to the bank brochachos