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you can download Tom Wham's "King of The Tabletop" which is a really excellent short game he contributed to Dragon Magazine about 25 years ago. Last I saw, there was a PDF of the rules, counters, play sheets at boardgamegeek.com

essentially you put all the land and fortresses creatures and treasure in pifferent piles, start building a kingdom, populating it with monsters appropriate to the land type they have to live on, and whacking each other to accumulate more land. Its really simple, lotta fun, and FREE!

Tom Wham designed a lot of really classic fun and silly games back in the 80s. Awful Green Things From Outer Space is one example.

Guitardian wrote:you can download Tom Wham's "King of The Tabletop" which is a really excellent short game he contributed to Dragon Magazine about 25 years ago. Last I saw, there was a PDF of the rules, counters, play sheets at boardgamegeek.com

essentially you put all the land and fortresses creatures and treasure in pifferent piles, start building a kingdom, populating it with monsters appropriate to the land type they have to live on, and whacking each other to accumulate more land. Its really simple, lotta fun, and FREE!

Downloaded it


Also first post is updated with a list

I'll second the calls for the following games:

Betrayal at House on the Hill:
This game is GREAT. It always starts the exact same. First couple turns have some things happen that makes the rest of the game change. I would give this game a 9 out of 10, with the only drawback being the limited number of Haunts (50 or 55, I think).

Twilight Imperium:
Really good game, good with any number of players of 4+. Yes, it can take a while to play, I've had a game last 9 hours. But that was an AWESOME 9 hours. There is political intrigue, space combat, resource management, it really does have everything.

If you want a card game that is a lot of fun, try to find CHRONONAUTS. You play a time traveler who has to alter history to meet a winning condition, or find artifacts throughout time. There are 25 or 30 events in time that you can change and "patch" with new histories, and it is a lot of fun. You can also destroy the universe by changing too much without patching anything as well. In fact, I think that is actually the victory condition for one of the characters.

Mattlov wrote:I'll second the calls for the following games:

Betrayal at House on the Hill:
This game is GREAT. It always starts the exact same. First couple turns have some things happen that makes the rest of the game change. I would give this game a 9 out of 10, with the only drawback being the limited number of Haunts (50 or 55, I think).

Twilight Imperium:
Really good game, good with any number of players of 4+. Yes, it can take a while to play, I've had a game last 9 hours. But that was an AWESOME 9 hours. There is political intrigue, space combat, resource management, it really does have everything.

If you want a card game that is a lot of fun, try to find CHRONONAUTS. You play a time traveler who has to alter history to meet a winning condition, or find artifacts throughout time. There are 25 or 30 events in time that you can change and "patch" with new histories, and it is a lot of fun. You can also destroy the universe by changing too much without patching anything as well. In fact, I think that is actually the victory condition for one of the characters.

Awesome those have moved up in priority

How easy is Chrononauts to learn?

What about Dungeonquest?

Up to four adventurers enter a dungeon with the intent of looting it and must make it back out before sundown. The dungeon is randomised as players build it by picking a tile every time they move and it's very easy to die. It sounds harsh but the randomness of it makes it great fun.

2nd edition can be picked up from Ebay cheaply enough and Fantasy Flight have recently released the 3rd edition but I've not played that version yet so don't know how it holds up.

Compulsory game buys:

Claustrophobia Best dungeon crawl currently on the market. It has just a taste of space hulk to it, but a heavy dose of theme. Just enough luck to make games really tense.

Fresco seems like a great gateway into worker placement mechanics. I am enjoying it so far even if it is a bit simple for my tastes nowadays.

Aton is a great area control game. One of my fave two player games so far. Theme is slim but it works quite well.

I'll stop there as that is almost $150 worth of board games at retail prices. Though you could probably pick them all up for $100 or less.

I haven't played Chrononaughts, but I looked at it and it sure looks interesting.


But how has no one mentioned Small World yet? That is IMHO the best game on the market. Its like Risk, but with all the stupid parts taken out and incredible amounts of awesomeness crammed in instead.

The combination of the special powers combined with the different races means each game plays differently, and the inclusion of more races and more powers with the expansions just makes the game sing.

And how many other games actually go the extra mile to have a different sized board for each number of people who play (2-5)? Not many.

Small World is a kingly game and I haven't found anyone yet who doesn't enjoy playing it.

Here are some of my suggestions:

Tikal
World of Warcraft Adventures (not the big box one but the one in the square box)
Agricola
Settlers of Catan
Thurn and Taxis
Zombies! Director's Cut

Junta. so fun.

City of thieves, from Fantasy flight games, easy but complete ruleset,very good material.

Yak is right about Small World. It's fantastic. Easy to learn, challenging to master, has appeal for women and non-gamer friends. Get it.

Not sure if you're still on the lookout for board games, but i would pick up Dominion. It's a really good 2-4 person game that usually ends in about 30 minutes. The inclusion of several expansions within the box, as well as more comprehensive ones in separate boxes, allows you to keep things fairly fresh and interesting even after multiple games.

Basically each person starts out wit 10 cards (3 points and 7 copper) there are other cards on the field that players can buy, and these have special abilities. Every turn a player can buy 1 (or occasionally more) cards, play one (or more) card, and then discards everything that was or wasn't used. This discard pile then becomes the player's new deck, so as the game goes on, the player constructs a deck of their own design.

It's really fun I highly suggest it.

Dominion is great. Kingsburg is very, very entertaining.

My shop has Smallworld, hoping they get a demo copy soon.

Settlers of Catan is also fun.