Suggest me a board game!

All right, so at our church, we have these things called "Life Groups" where we congregate and do things we enjoy and tie in Biblical stuff. Well, my friends and I decided to start one for playing board games(for lack of a better term.) We recently started out playing Betrayal at House on the Hill. It was a lot of fun, but I want to change the games up every once in a while. On person suggested "Last Night on Earth" which I will look into, but any other suggestions are welcome.

Thanks.

Im always throwing Diplomacy around as a game everyone should play. Basic concept is that you have to alternately work together and betray people as you try to conquer World War I- era Europe (you need a numerical advantage to take over areas).It can be played with anywhere from 2-7 sides (teams work well if you have more people) The instructions explain the game pretty well and there are always plenty of web resources.
Or you could break out Monopoly.

What an excellent topic. I suggest you check the Front Page tomorrow.

Plant!

I cannot recommend Cash N Guns enough.

Dread Pirate. not expensive or elaborate, but still deep enough to have fun with. There's also a more advanced mode, so there's variety.

Ooh, Ingenious!

Pretty much anything Rabbit made me play at GenCon is what I recommend.

Go for the Euro style board games, they make the traditional board games (e.g. Monopoly, Risk) look boring and stupid. Settlers of Catan is a good lightweight starting point, but the real meat lies in the ones like Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Goa and Ra. If the cooperative aspect of BaHotH is important to you then you could try Rainer Knizia's Lord of the Rings game which is excellent.

I'm addicted to Settlers of Catan, and Cranium is great for stupid fun. And I've always wanted to play Scrabbleship.

Here are a couple recommendations. A couple very good 'gateway' games are Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne.

Since you are playing these games in a church group perhaps a biblically themed game would go over well? Unfortunately most biblically based games I have played pretty much stink with the exception of The Journeys of Paul, which is a decent, if not exactly groundbreaking, effort.

For co-op, the Lord of the Rings game is pretty sweet. In the same vein I would recommend Arkham Horror, but only if you're into H. P. Lovecraft and the whole Cthulhu thing. Ticket to Ride isn't too antagonistic, either.

One of the tenets of German Board Game Design is that players should only be able to indirectly influence each other. There is generally no "attacking" concept. The sort of stab-your-wife-in-the-back-to-win-and-go-home-in-separate-cars gameplay you see in Diplomacy is not that common, I think. Defeating your opponents is usually due to better management, or maybe by denying resources. They tend to be more friendly, and you win by developing a better position/portfolio overall at some point in time than your opponents. This has the effect that people generally don't lose power or get eliminated, so everyone feels that they were in the running all the way to the end.

I'm going to second the recommendation for Ticket to Ride. It has enough tactical depth and lack of "chance" that can keep the hardcore nerds satiated, while at the same time it's a very pick-up-and-play game simple enough for anyone to get into.

Last Night on Earth is fun, full of horror movie flavor, and plays fast, you'd likely complete a game in an hour.

MacBrave wrote:

Here are a couple recommendations. A couple very good 'gateway' games are Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne.

The above is seconded if your group is new to gaming.

Formula De is also fun group game but can be a bit too luck reliant.

If you like a fast-playing, smack talk game I've always enjoyed the cowboy card game, Bang!

If you like big box games with lots of crunchy bits, check out Fantasy Flight Games, lots of gorgeous components but the rules get a bit more complex and fiddly for casual game nights.

For the grognards, this is currently going to hit my table World at War: Death of the 1st Panzer

And when you are ready to buy check out ThoughtHammer. I use them almost exclusively for my gaming addiction.

And an old GWJ thread on the subject.

Since it's a church group, there is also the more biblical themed Settlers of Canaan. Same as Catan, different theme.

And obligatory BoardGameGeek link for game reviews aplenty.

Alas, the very fun War on Terror wouldn't be suitable for you. It's great fun with the right crowd. I'm guessing a church group wouldn't see the fun in wearing balaclava with the word "EVIL" in big red letters? Or maybe I'm doing you a disservice.

I'm a fan of Zombies!!!, though the game has its flaws that can draw it out.

I've never missed introducing people to Family Business. I've been playing this game for a long time.

I got HeroScape over Christmas and have been playing that more than I've played any game before. My friends all love it and keep calling to play.

You could always play "Don't wizz on the electric Fence." Where's my old school Ren and Stimpy people at?!

When nature's callin'
Don't be stallin'
Use your common sense

When you gotta go
Then let it flow

Just don't wizz on
The electric fence

For a 2-player game, I really enjoy Khet (or Deflexion). It's got frikkin' lasers!

Inspirational Games has some Christian-themed variations on board games. For example I just got Settlers of Zarahemla, which is Mormon-themed. Also they have Ark of the Covenant which is supposedly a better-than-the-original version of Carcassone.

I got SoZ from tanga.com.

To me, Robo Rally is still the best board game i have ever played. it's written by the guy, can't think of his name, that invented MTG. while games with experienced players can be challenging and fun, the most fun is with a bunch of inexperienced players as they do the "robo dance" trying to figure out there next moves. don't worry, no real dancing is involved.

Last Night on Earth is fun, full of horror movie flavor, and plays fast, you'd likely complete a game in an hour.

Supposedly this is pretty much rule for rule based on a Buffy game from the late nineties. I'd love to try the Buffy version as Last Night on Earth was huge fun and I have several Buffy fans I know would love to play the board game with me, unfortunately I can't find it anywhere

jlaakso wrote:

In the same vein I would recommend Arkham Horror, but only if you're into H. P. Lovecraft and the whole Cthulhu thing.

And the 3 hour setup time. Man...How many pieces does this damn game come with?? In all seriousness, I LOVE Arkham Horror. Great Co-op. Maybe not as harrowing as Lord of the Rings, but close.

Pyro: You nailed it. The buffy game (link) is absolutely brilliant, and I'd say that LNOE is something of an Homage to that fine piece of work. Someone at the geek is selling a copy, but for mucho dinero.

rabbit wrote:

Pyro: You nailed it. The buffy game (link) is absolutely brilliant, and I'd say that LNOE is something of an Homage to that fine piece of work. Someone at the geek is selling a copy, but for mucho dinero.

I own that game! Never played it, but bought it on clearance for like $5... it's been sitting gathering dust ever since.

Compared to a lot of these newer games, $40 isn't all that much dinero.

DarthB0b0 wrote:

To me, Robo Rally is still the best board game i have ever played. it's written by the guy, can't think of his name, that invented MTG.

Richard Garfield, the man who cost me about 4 years of my life and probably a few thousand bucks......

Sell it to Pyro, split the difference, I'm sure he's good for 20!

Sephirotic wrote:

And the 3 hour setup time. Man...How many pieces does this damn game come with??

Yeah, it could probably do with fewer bits and pieces, but it's not nearly that bad. Our first game's setup, including reading the rules for the first time, took one hour, it looks like it's just around 15 minutes after that. You don't have to sort all of the components, just split the card decks.

It's more of a card game but, the Great Dahlmuti is quite fun in groups. (there was a similiar game called Dilbert corporate shuffle as well)

rabbit wrote:

Pyro: You nailed it. The buffy game (link) is absolutely brilliant, and I'd say that LNOE is something of an Homage to that fine piece of work. Someone at the geek is selling a copy, but for mucho dinero.

$40 is about the going rate for almost all the games in this thread with the exception of the card games. Mucho dinero is when you shell out $150 for SPI's War of Ring. Or better yet this monster!