Another month goes by - I've had a trip to hospital but am home again now and in my absence there has been not a hint of anything new in the Descent line. There's nothign new in Talisman either - the other FFG franchise that I'm currently committed to. So a quick question for you all and maybe it'll kick of some discussion as well.

I've been saving for a while now in anticipation of new product but have now got to the point where I feel the urge to spend some money and without anything new in the offing for my favourite games I wondered where I should turn next. Rune Age is not grabbing me nor is the Lord of the Rings co-operative LCG. At the moment FFG don't seem to be producing anything that interests me so perhaps it's time to look at other companies offerings instead. To this end can anyone suggest alternatives - especially to Descent since that whole Dungeon Crawl itch needs scratching. I've looked at the 2 D&D board games (Catle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon) and they don't seem to quite be the ticket. I'm after something with a reasonable level of complexity/depth that will see me through my period of post hospital convalecencs. All suggestions greatfully received.

slaphead6 said:

Do you get HBO? (Are you in US?)
Did you watch the Game of Thrones (episode 1) on Sunday night?

There is an LCG for The Game of Thrones (from the books) as well as a boardgame (better balanced with the expansion) and a whole Battlelore series with expansions for each house (well, some are out and some will come).
There is a butt-load of money to be spent there, an incredible world to game in and enjoy and nearly 4000 pages of brilliant writing to discover (over 5000 by July 12), followed by an agony of waiting for the final two books in the series.

It's not dungeon crawl though.

I played the LCG a little several years back (not sure how much it has changed since then) and it was a clever mix with multiple strategies available through themes of brute force, honour, political power and deception. Beautiful cards and artwork etc.
The boardgame also has a mix of politics, diplomacy, brute force and deception, but perhaps suffers a little from being constrained by the geography of the books. Adding in the expansion with an extra player provides a little more balance, but there are still issues with some players being more or less unable to affect players at the other end of the continent.

The battlelore game seems to be a little bit of an improvement on the original battlelore system (says a gamer used to much more complex tactical battle games) but you very much have to be interested in fighting battles with troops on a terrain map.

Edit: oh, I see you are a battle lore fan. You probably hate its guts then since FFG took over battlelore and stopped supporting it in favour of its bastard descendant Battles of Westeros.

Battlelore was one of the first boardgames I got a few years ago when I quit paying out for Magic every few months. It was still a Days of Wonder product then, but I never really got beyond the base set which I still have kept hold of thankfully. I find it to be a good game that improves as you start to introduce more complexity into the game, the whole Battles of Westeros line has left me a little cold to be honest, although it does seem to have its share of fans.

A Game of Thrones is one of those fantasy book series that I have been eying for a while but have never got round to reading - this might be an ideal time to give them a try. I don't have HBO so haven't seen the Game of THrones Series yet, I'll be interested to see how it goes. I like the idea of Sean Bean in the series, felt he was totally underused in Lord of the Rings, although he was a very good Boromir.

I've looked at Arkham Horror, but I've a close friend who is doing that one, so I've left well alone. I think the only game that we've duplicated on is Descent - we're both suckers for Dungeon Crawls and boxes full of monsters, although we haven't really cracked the Advanced Campaigns yet. They just seem too unforgiving for the novice hero party. When I'm up and about again we may give it another try. Perhaps the new FAQ will have been published by then and Sea of Blood may become playable.

I guess I'm looking more for board rather than card games at this time. The other thing that is rumoured to be on the horizon is a reprint of War of the Ring - being a Middle Earth fan who missed out on that first time around I would definitely be up for that later in the year.

My two cents would just be a quick note that yes if War of the Ring gets reprinted buy it as it is an excellent game, and also whatever you do stay away from the D&D board games, they are terrible.

Thanks for the advice o the D&D Games - had a bad feeling about them for a while now. War of the Ring Reprint looks like the next bright spot on the horizon - possibly September or end of the year.

The D&D games aren't that bad. They're just sort of like..."Descent-Lite".

At least they actually support five players, and I don't know of any other tactical skirmish games that lay that claim. DUST, Tannhauser, Earth Reborn, Dungeon Twister, and every otehr game I've checked out are locked into a low number of players. I can't see paying $80 just to wind up excluding the rest of my group.

How about Mansions of Madness? I own Descent, but many times it is too long for us as we have no routine in playing and a vanilla set game can last over five hours. One of our group bought MoM and everybody has been enjoying it a lot. It has kind of dungeoncrawly feel to it, but it is much more story driven than Descent. Has bunch of nice miniatures and a modular map.

The other very good game is Earth Reborn from Z-Man Games. The system is very well thought out and works beautifully. Has miniatures too and a series of scenarios which teach you the rules in progression. Highly recommended. ER has modular maps and scenario generator, so the replayability is very high. Oh, nice miniatures here as well.

One more game, which is my all time favourite and the most amazing piece of board game design work, is Battlestar Galactica boardgame. It is just so much fun, great thematic feel, awesome system and very very very good game. If you are a boardgamer with at least three friends please do yourself a favor and give Galactica a chance. You wont be dissappointed.

If you're looking for a bit simpler and faster gameplay, but deeper and more storydriven scenarios go for MoM.
If you're looking for a game with a wicked and complex very adaptable and well thought out mechanics for 2-4 players go for ER.
If you don't absolutely hate the Galactica theme, get Galactica.

Earth Reborn does look interesting, been keeping my eye on it for a lttle while. In fact it will probably be my next investment I think. MoM I'm not so sure about and someone else in our group has Battlestar Galactica which you're right is a brilliant game.