10 Boardgames You Need to Play Right Now, You Stupid Monopoly Monkey, Part 3

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

Hidden the bodies? Found new friends to play with? Good, let's get back to it:

6) Agricola


Welcome to Puerto Rico on steroids.

Thought it couldn't get any better, didn't you? So did I, once upon a time. Ah, yes, I was young and foolish once, too. But like you, I had a hunger for something more than Sorry, more than Mousetrap, more than Trivial Pursuit. I had the Eye of the Tiger (Boardgame Edition). I can see that you do, too.

This time around, instead of trying to become governor of Puerto Rico, you're trying to feed your family as a subsistence-level medieval farmer. Which, as you know by now, doesn't matter a lick, right? Fluff is for sissies. What matters is that you're playing Puerto Rico, only there are about seven times as many jobs to pick from, and they include things like having babies so you can have more workers in your family so you can have more chances to pick more jobs. If your head didn't just explode from the awesomeness of that thought, I have failed completely as a teacher.

Buy it here.

That's right, a $70 boardgame (well, $47 on Amazon, which is awesome, but let's not quibble). And you're no longer looking at it thinking, "How could people spend $70 on a boardgame?"... you're thinking "Where do I get my hands on $70, and how much are the custom-made extra deluxe wooden sheep and cows?" You've come a long way. I'm so proud. *sniff*

7) Race for the Galaxy

Welcome to Puerto Rico as a card game, with a twist.

The twist being that you reveal your job picks simultaneously, and that you're taking over PLANETS, and going PEWPEWPEW! a lot.

Even the cat wants to take over PLANETS, man.

Wait, didn't I said that fluff doesn't matter?

Ah, Grasshopper, like all great teachers, I have lied to you, so that you might see deeper truths. Fluff matters a great deal as long as it's got some great gameplay underneath. Especially if that gameplay reinforces the fluff.

Buy it here. The expansions are also worth picking up.

But wait: did somebody say "gameplay reinforcing fluff?"

I believe they did. Which makes it time to taste the flavor of:

8) Arkham Horror

You may not know who H. P. Lovecraft is. That's okay; we'll take care of that part of your education at a later date. For the moment, suffice to say that he's the Father of Modern Horror Fiction. Thought that was Poe, didn't you? Nope. Poe is more like the Great Uncle of Modern Horror Fiction, Who Was Rich and Left It a Lot of Money. But that's neither here nor there. Prepare yourself for two to three hours of getting your face chewed off by mind-bending Horrors From Beyond Space and Time.

Along with your family and friends.

That's right, this is a co-op game. You and your friends are investigators from various walks of life in 1920s New England, in a race against time, trying to close and seal enough Gates to Beyond before the Great Old One shows up and... well, eats everything. The game absolutely drips with flavor, from the spooky board to the terrifying Events written down on the Way Too Many Cards, to the way someone winds up going insane every five minutes. There are very few games out there where you can have this much fun losing.

Also, it's about as close to a Role-Playing Game as you can get without actually playing one, and will tenderize you nicely should you decide to make the leap to the even deeper waters of Dungeons and Dragons.

What's that? Ah, yes, you noticed. You have dice now. It's as I told you: once you needed them, you would no longer want them. You have been liberated from the Chains of Randomization, so you may use the dice, instead of the other way around. Also, there is no spoon.

Buy it here. Be forewarned, though: you will need a large table to play on, especially if you buy one of the innumerable (yet still awesome) expansions. Also, buying a small fishing tackle box at Target or someplace similar is a really good idea; god bless Fantasy Flight, but they cannot resist making a little cardboard piece for every conceivable purpose, and then making twelve dozen more. You won't be able to fit it all back into the box without bending time and space, and we've seen from playing the game itself what the consequences of that are.

9) War of the Ring
Now we're getting into perfect-marriage-of-form-and function territory.

You'd think it would be impossible to make one game that simulates both the War of the Ring (with the huge armies of Orcs and Elves and whatnot crashing against each other) and the Other War of the Ring (with the scruffy band of Hobbits sneaking around and crying every time Gandalf gets killed). But no, they did it, and they did it brilliantly. As the Good Guys, you cannot hope to win a military victory; you have to keep the Armies of Darkness at bay just long enough for the Hobbits to do their job. As the All-Seeing Eye, you have to keep the Hobbits delayed long enough to crush all military resistance and render their mission moot. And it comes down to the wire pretty much every time. Taut, razorwire pacing and all kinds of cool plastic bits round out the package. I don't get to play this one nearly enough.

Buy it here. Bit of advice: the Nazgul on Flappy Things pieces are incredibly annoying, as not only do they keep falling over, but they knock all your Haradrim and Warg Riders nine ways to Sunday when they do it. Superglue a nickel to the bottom of each one. Works like a charm.

10) Battlestar Galactica


Welcome to Nirvana, Grasshopper. Well-designed, well-balanced mechanics. A co-op game where a third of the players are actually killer robots trying to blow everyone else up. Where half of them are sleeper agent robots that don't actually know they're on the other side until halfway through the game.

And it's FRAKKIN' BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Some of the best storytelling moments I've ever had have come from playing this game. Where else can you be President Roslin, beg an extra action off of Apollo to take care of the three Cylon Boarding Parties on board, use it to throw him in the brig instead, blow up the Armory with three people in it, then escape to the Cylon fleet, laughing maniacally all the way?

With this game, I have given you the power to blow mens' minds. Use it wisely, use it often, use it well.

Buy it here.

-- The Prolix Wag
What do you mean "Because you're ALWAYS a Cylon"?