Board Games - My Top 3
Recent fun experiences with favourite board games has encouraged me to post about them.

3rd Place - Betrayal at the House on the Hill



Betrayal is a fun game with a mechanic that replicates the genre it is based on more so than any other board game I know. The game oozes atomsphere through every pore and if you like to roleplay your board games, this one is the top contender. Its simple rules help to reinforce the focus on theme.

For those who haven't played it, Betrayal is about a group of people exploring the infamous House on the Hill. At some stage, one of those people turns into a traitor and one of 50 different scenarios (Haunts) occurs.

Sure, the Haunts provide so much variety that some games can fall flat whilst others turn into a mammoth slog. However, the variety is the core of what makes the game so great. Some of the Haunts are downright bizarre and many play very differently from each other.

My favourite two experiences with this board game are:

1. At Wargs, we played a scenario where the traitor was trying to secure the inheritance by being the only survivor at dawn. The game went to the wire over 2 hours and ended up with a mammoth servant pile on Nick Pitt's hero in the Mystic Elevator, which he survived.

2. I played a scenario where my character became the traitor after finding an invisible ring and went on a killing spree. The new rules for the invisible traitor were excellent at showing how different the game can feel.

2nd Place - Memoir 44



Memoir 44 is a great wargame for those that want simple rules and short play time without loosing good tactical gameplay. The pieces are both awesome and nostalgic, being made from the same moulds as the toy soldiers I played with a child. Also the support has been great without being overwhleming with the Americans and Germans being joined by the British, Russians and Japanese.

For those who haven't played it, Memoir 44 is pretty much a WW2 board game based around scenarios. Troublesome mechanics like supplies, terrain and unit differences are dealt with through sublime mechanics making it a breeze to play.

When I was young I tried to play a lot of wargames using hex boards. Most were impossibly complex and not fun. Memoir 44 is the wargame that I really wanted then and now. It provides historical accuracy and real tactical descisions, but it is playable in 30 minutes.

My favourite two experiences with this board game are:

1. On Saturday, I played my first Overlord Scenario which pit 4 players on each side against each other in the Bastogne scenario. I was the CIC for the Germans. We won the day after a hard won victory with some surprisingly risky tactics.

2. The second scenario has rules for paratroopers. They are:

"Hold the 4 soldiers in your hand, the box ehight over the board. Drop them. Place a unit of paratroopers where the figure lands. If the figure lands off the board or on an enemy unit, the unit is detroyed."

This just highlight how you can maintain all the main tactical decisions about a paratrooper drop with a super easy rule.

1st Place - Descent Journey in the Dark



The ultimate dungeon crawling boardgame with masses of bling. The recent expansion "Road to Legend" has created IMO the best campaign dungeon crawl board game ever allowing for a varied fantasy epic spanning over 120 hours (with none of the prep of an RPG).

For those that haven't played it, Descent sees 4 heroes travel into a dungeon to defeat forces of evil TM. Most dungeons will see the heroes go from farm boys to legends within the space of a single game. One player plays the overlord who can eschew any responsibility of being a DM for the players and simply focus on playing hard as possible to kill the heroes.

Dungeon crawling board games have always been my thing. This vote is really for the whole line of games starting from MB's HeroQuest and ending with Descent. Though each has its good and bad elements, Descent pretty much gets the balance of being a board game first, yet maintaining the quasi-RPG elements IMO. However, it wasn't until the Road to Legend expansion that it really began to come into its own taking the top spot.

The other advantage that Descent has over its predecessors has been a good level of support. Dungeon crawling board games are about bling. More monsters, more heroes, more treasure, more environments, more options. Descent's 4 expansions really have turned this game into something I could play every week for years and never get bored, assuming I could ever find people who will play it :)

My favourite two experiences with this board game are:

1. The first summer after I bought this game. Me and Sam played it a lot (more than any other board game I have ever played since high school) and it really brought back to me the nostalgia of long afternoons D&Ding or boardgaming of my youth.

2. The first Road to Legend campaign me and Sam played. We didn't finish it and we were still finding our feet, but Road to Legend was just an awesome experience all round. My number one "gaming" thing to do before I die is to play a 5 player Road to Legend campaign from beginning to end.

Hmm, maybe I will do a Top 3 RPGs next.