Australian Games Expo

So I went a little bit silly at the Australian Games Expo in Canberra on the weekend.

I enjoy playing board games. Not the standard fare. Whilst an occasional game of Monopoly or Scrabble can be fun (with the right people), I prefer the deeper kind, mainly those coming out of Europe. Two titles you may be familiar are Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne.

So, the Expo. Well I walked in with the intention of picking up one maybe two titles. Little did I know that my thinking was naïve in the extreme. Two hours later I walked out of the Expo with the following in my hands:

The Alhambra Big Box (base game + 5 expansions in one big box)
Agricola
Sid Meier’s Civilization, The Board Game
How to Host a Murder: The Class of ‘54
Inkognito
Killer Bunnies Remix x2
Carcassonne x2
Bohnanza

Now that’s just silly… Granted that the bottom five of those games were gifts but still, way to blow out.

I guess the upside is that my games collection is starting to look somewhat respectable. It now includes the following great titles:

A Game of Thrones (inc all expansions)
Diplomacy
Dominion (and Intrigue)
Alhambra (inc all expansions)
Risk
LOTRO Risk
Agricola
Civilization
Killer Bunnies
How to Host a Murder (numerous)
and a few of the more standard titles.

My favourite so far would have to be A Game of Thrones. It is a combat orientated game with a fair bit of diplomacy thrown in. It is a combination in fact of Diplomacy and Risk with a few random events that change the game each time thrown in. There are no dice, something I love – the most irritating thing about Risk is the fact you can be totally screwed over by your rolls.

Whilst there is an element of randomness to the game in the form of 3 decks of event cards, they affect each player equally leading to using this well impacting on your overall strategy. Randomness adds replayability , an essential facet of a great game. How this is implemented however is the real ‘game breaker’.

If you play board games, what is your favourite? Is there one that really stands out? One that I should look into?

V