Board Gaming
 

This is a hobby I got into about a year ago and it’s definitely grown into a serious part of my life. I think so many people are unaware of the kinds of awesome **** that’s out there for board games. Maybe you’ve played/heard of Catan or something but it gets way deeper than that. There are hundreds of awesome titles that come out every year that the general public does not hear about at all, and instead we see 40 new editions of Monopoly on store shelves and that’s the perception of what the board gaming hobby is.

I have a pretty big collection of 40+ titles at this point but I’ll focus on some of my coolest ones here. If anyone else is into the hobby or intrigued by what else I have I’d happily gush about my entire collection

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A game with a pretty typical base scenario: you choose a faction and you’re trying to spread your influence over as much of the hexagonal map as possible, occasionally battling your opponents. What this game adds is an incredible art style, giant mechs (and awesome mianiatures of them to place on the board), and perhaps my favorite gameplay component in the entire hobby which is variable player powers. Each faction you can pick has their own special abilities and strategies to focus on, so each time you play you can have a vastly different experience. I absolutely love this. One faction might want to be more aggressive and attack other players, whereas another might want to turtle up in their starting section of the map and build up a bunch of resources. This makes the game so replayable and no two games will go the same.

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A game about running a wine-making business?! It’s a lot cooler than it sounds! This game is in the subgenre of worker placement games, where there are spots on the board that do a certain action, and you have limited workers to place on those spaces. You’re also competing with your opponents for those spaces, like if your opponents take all of the “plant a vine” spaces during a round, you won’t be able to do that until the next round. There are so many cool little mechanics to this game, like at the start of a round everyone bids for turn order, and if you want to go first you won’t get any extra rewards whereas going last gets you powerful bonuses like an extra worker for the round or a free victory point.

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A very new title to my collection, this is a co-op game, meaning everybody works together against the game. You all either win together or lose together, and its tough to win in this game! This one takes variable player powers to the next level, where you pick one of eight base spirits that all play vastly different as you try to protect your island from colonizing invaders. There’s so much packed into this box, including different scenarios and difficulty levels to tailor your experience however you want. It’s also refreshing to play a game where you’re not competing against your friends and instead you’re all in it together!

I love tabletop games but its hard to find people to play with. I thought about buting tabletop simulator on steam but its just not the same.

Only game i own is Boss Monster.

Risk is still the **** when I've got like ten hours to kill and a roomful of people who don't know what they're getting into.

I like Jenga.

I used to enjoy Risk too but now I’ve just played too many games that do similar things so much better. I respect Risk for its influence but I never plan to play again. Look into games like Scythe or especially Smallworld if you like putting armies on a map and duking it out

Playing a single game of Axis and Allies for days by yourself and it never ends because alliances are constantly shifting ftw.

I've really wanted to dive into board games but there's so much to learn. I have played the Tabletop Simulator on Steam and it's actually a lot of fun with the right people. But I know board games in general have been gaining a lot of popularity.

*drops a dusty Candy Land box on the table and slams down a bottle of whiskey next to it*

It's time

Bruh we live near each other.

Tabletop Simulator just doesn’t do it for me. You gotta be with the people, holding the pieces and having the board there in front of you. And a lot of games are also about just having a wonderful piece of art in front of everybody. Games in my collection like Photosynthesis or Yamatai are simply gorgeous to look at

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I need to fix the backing of this shelf sometime

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Just looking at these shelves brings me distinct memories of playing them with friends. All kinds of context floods back, especially with some of the games that aren’t necessarily the best in terms of gameplay but are so excellent simply as an experience, like King of Tokyo or Betrayal at House on the Hill around Halloween

Edit sorry the photos are huge lol too lazy to edit them