Day 1: Board Games!

Happy new year! Almost missed today's first post... you know, the beginning of "The Month of The Nerd" I mentioned last time!

To start, I just wanted to write a bit about what has been catching my interest more and more lately: board games! I've always enjoyed them in various forms, but titles such as Monopoly and Sorry! aren't exactly what I'm talking about. Classic, mainstream board games are fun and almost anyone can play them and have a good time.

Well, I suppose you CAN spice it up...

Unfortunately, my preferences have always been a bit more difficult to get into and therefore make it difficult for me to find anyone to play with. Starting with Chess, a very common strategy game, there are many people who don't have any clue how to play and much less drive to learn. Bump it up to something like Stratego, and the real strategy is to just find someone willing to try it out!

My favorite games are competitive strategy games that have many techniques available and long enough to actually see progression. Risk would be the entry level board game here and I was fortunate enough to find a group of friends in college to play with. In fact, we played almost every single night. I've got multiple versions: "Updated" Risk, Godstorm, Star Wars (the prequel one, unfortunately), Halo, and, my favorite, Legacy. I'll eventually collect more, but my main quest with Risk at the moment is to find a steady group to finally play through multiple Legacy games -- the board actually has permanent changes and additions that add up to a unique version after 10-15 times played. I still don't know what all the changes will be because I'm trying to find a group that can enjoy all the transformations and not just random players who may never touch it again.

So much potential!

Thanks to Wil Wheaton's TableTop show on the Geek and Sundry YouTube Channel, I've been seeing a whole range of games that I'd never consider -- mostly due to having no one to play with, but also because they're generally expensive and I'm always loathe to try something new with no guarantee of enjoyment.

Very excited to add Cthulhu to my board gaming!

Since watching every single episode of TableTop (which comes out something like every other week), I've picked up Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures, Forbidden Island, and Eldritch Horror (not featured on the show, but a similar title was). The last two are even cooperative titles, which usually doesn't interest me. The Wife and I enjoyed Forbidden Island and I'm still trying to get her to play a full game of Eldritch Horror -- the first attempt was a bit of a bust because I didn't know how lengthy the setup could be.

X-Wing Miniatures is enjoyable and scratches my collectible itch, which isn't always easy to do.

For those who struggle to find players in their own board game quest, I suggest you reach out to your local hobby shop. I have two relatively close to me that host regular game nights -- usually card games such as Magic: The Gathering, but if the shop sees an interest elsewhere, they're generally willing to branch out. I hope to stop in on one such night at TJ Collectibles in Milford, MA soon and see what board games they actually play and how open they are to suggestions. I'll do a further post on that when it comes to pass.

Anyone else have any board games they love but maybe aren't that well known? There are a lot of grand strategy titles I'd love to look into, but that will be a ways off until I can produce enough offspring to field a game of something like Twilight Imperium...

I have no idea what any of this does (Twilight Imperium)...

Enough rambling for now! No clue what's coming tomorrow, but it will definitely be something. Yeah, something.