Kaleljorson7

More plastic alien armies and planets are always good. Additionally, heroes and leadership cards add new strategies to a game that already had plenty. Pretty much if you like StarCraft, the expansion just makes everything just a little better.

Cosmic Encounter is a game of alliances, back stabbing and piling on. Everyone is dealt a different alien with it’s own unique power to start the game. Each turn a player draws a card which indicates who’ll they will have an encounter with. Alliances on either said may be formed, cards are played to determine the winner, while alien powers activate and change the course of the game. “Strong” power don’t always win as alliances can be formed to stop them. “Weak” power usually have a wonderfully subtle effect that, if played well, can win. Part party game, part cut throat conflict, with deal making and breaking mixed in.

Every game is different and every game is fun.

Settlers of Catan is a easy to learn resource management game that can be taught to just about anybody. Everyone starts with little settlements and roads on the island, and tries to win the game by expanding the fastest.

A basic turn will be rolling dice to see who gets resources, then either trading or building and then pass the dice to the next guy. If your family can figure out Monopoly, Settles will be fine.

But, even with expansions, there are so many better games out there, this never hits the table with the “serious” group I play with. Though, this is just fine when the wife and kid want to play something.

Kingsport is the second big box expansion for Arkham. It adds investigators, Ancient Ones, a new town, Guardians (which help you) and more Heralds (which hate you).

Kingsport is unusual in the Arkham ‘verse in that there are no unstable locations- a gate won’t open in Kingsport. However, the drawback is, if no one is taking care of that village, a “rift” will open in Arkham, spewing monsters and causing havoc. Rifts can be avoided by having encounters at certain locations in the town. So, one of the players has to kind of stick around there.

The box has a lot of good stuff in it, the board itself though is a little quiet, and some don’t really enjoy it.

If you love Arkham, you’ll end up buying this at some point because it’s cheap. But make it last, because the other expansions are better. I don’t like the corruption mechanics or the ability to join the Cult.

You know those times in Arkham, when nothing really bad happens in the Mythos phase? The times when you breathe a sigh of relief? Well, Innsmouth manages to turn those times into something dangerous.

The Innsmouth locations are dangerous, and that’s not all. The expansion also includes new characters, items and cards for every deck.

Just remember, Arkham may hate you sometimes, but Innsmouth hates you more.

Simple pirate game. But in the few games I played, if things went bad early, you never recovered which got kind of frustrating.

It is, however, a beautifully produced game.

Fairly cheap and adds some nice touches. The ability to make pacts can give you advantages early, but it cost you eventually. Relationships are fun. And new location encounter cards are always welcome.

The box cover above is from the first edition of the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh. Get the second, revised version if you can.

CotDP is a small box expansion for Arkham Horror. The first edition of it was the first expansion for Arkham. The expansion was good, but was barely noticeable. The best thing was just having more location encounter cards.

The new edition makes the expansion count during play. As usual, everything in the box is up to FFGs high standards.

I highly recommend this expansion as it addes variety to the base game at a pretty inexpensive price.

Dunwich adds a second town board to Arkham Horror, which can be travelled to via the train station. It contains extra investigators, Ancient Ones, monsters, items, locations, and pretty much a little more of everything. It also include rules for injury and madness, an alternative to being KOd or insanity.

The biggest monster in the game, the Dunwich Horror itself, may make an appearance if you don’t keep an eye on the town. If you like Arkham and you’re looking for more, this is an excellent choice.

The King in Yellow expansion is named after the sanity destroying theatrical play of the same name. Some fool has decided to put on a show in shadow haunted Arkham, and if things aren’t kept under control, the small town will be overrun with madness.

King In Yellow provides a nice “push your luck” mechanism to the game. It’s simple to add in to the base game and has extra cards for all of the decks. An inexpensive, fun add-on.

One of the best games made in the past few years. As far as fantasy wargames go, this is the greatest.

Lots of deep strategy. How and when you play your orders, troop movement, stealthy heroes questing for treasure, and even the weather can affect gameplay. So many options with a modular board that changes every game.

Seriously, this is one of the greats. I’ve played it a dozen times and want to play more.

Isla Dorada borrows mechanics from several games and creates it’s own unique kind of fun. Players are part of an expedition on a mysterious island, each turn they bid cards on which path to take.

It plays and feels similar to a more fun version of “Ticket to Ride.” The cards show different types of paths to bid on (train cards in TTR), there are different quests to complete (route cards in TTR), and their are 3 cards face up for players to choose from instead of drawing.

The plastic figures are excellent and the art is brilliantly colorful and fun. This is a great, underappreciated game.

This is a quick playing game for 2 where one side plays “Jack” and the other is trying to discover his/her identity and make an arrest.

Simple and pretty, it can be played in about 20 minutes. Plenty of strategy involved.

Go into a haunted house, betray and kill your friends. Always cool.

Really, it’s a fun, fun game. Players go through a house until one of them is revealed as being the traitor, then the game truly begins because there are 50 different stories that can play out from there.

The only difficulty is that if the traitor is not much of a rules reader, that can hurt the game.

As long as no one has hurt feelings when you send a sea monster to crush their boat and sharks to eat their meeples while laughing manically, you should enjoy this one.

Solid resource management game, with a few twists. The components and art are beautiful. Highly recommended.

Another Clue knock-off, but minus anything fun or original. Frustrating and annoying, but at least the pieces are pretty.

After all the glowing reviews on the other site, I got a copy. After a few plays, my wife and I find that it’s kind of boring. I just do not understand it’s popularity.

Every time we play this game there is laughter and fun. A completely unique (sadly) game similar to choose your own adventure stories. If you’re too serious for this, I feel sorry for you.

Bored to tears by this one. At it’s best, it is a long math exercise.

Call of Cthulhu is a great card game, with a unique resource and story system. Can’t recommend it enough.

As with all of FFGs games, it’s beautiful. The card based combat is great and the game moves quickly. It punishes being defensive by giving the attacker advantages. The order system is ingenius.

Simply, my favorite game. Lovecraft, cooperative play, LOTS of expansions, and always great fun. The rules feel very complex, but after a few turns, it’s a lot easier.

A fast, easy to learn game with plenty of strategy and decisions. The figures and modular board set a standard that no one else has matched. Get it while you can.

Not quite perfect, but a great game that just needs a few tweaks on the Keeper side to balance it out. Otherwise, I can’t wait for the expansions.

Like most everyone on a site like this, I own and have played Ticket to Ride. Good with the family, but not for the group.