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Board and card games Nerds ahoy!

#1 User is offline   Macros 

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Posted 10 January 2021 - 07:21 PM

Hello all.

We played a few rounds of Battleships earlier, nice simple fun.

What other old games are there (2 player) that could be printed off to play?

What about board games that are actually good with two players so many games in the 2-6 player range suffer greatly on 2 player.

We're slowly building up a games collection, but at the minute looking for some good 2 player games, can be as elaborate and slow or quick and easy as you like.

Suggestions please my friends
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#2 User is offline   Slow Ben 

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Posted 11 January 2021 - 12:53 AM

I love me some Stratego.
I've always been crazy but its kept me from going insane.
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#3 User is offline   Morgoth 

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Posted 11 January 2021 - 07:26 AM

For two player competitive games, I'd recommend Race for the Galaxy, 7 Wonders Duel and, if the wife enjoys a bit of modern history, Twilight Struggle.

Race for the Galaxy is competitive, but has limited interaction. You both draw cards and play different abilities to build up a galactic empire. It's a surprisingly deep game, with some excellent expansions, and it doesn't take too long to play.

7 Wonders Duel is a quick and easy game where the goal is to build an ancient civilization of sorts. It doesn't have the dept of RftG I think, but it's still fun, and a little more casual. I play it now and then with some of by friends.

Twilight Struggle is an amazing strategy game, where you play as either the US or the USSR, and work to dominate the world through the spread of your influence, war, and intrigue. It's big and complicated and beautiful, and I have loved every game of it I have played. However, it is brutally cut throat, and awards strong play and penalizes poor play to a massive degree. It is therefore not necessarily a good fit if one player has experience playing strategy games and the other does not. Still, one of my all times favourite.

If you're looking for cooperative games that work well with two players, I'd recommend I think three for now; Pandemic Legacy, Mansions of Madness 2nd edition and Gloomhaven.

I'm not a big fan of the original pandemic, but Pandemic Legacy was a rare hit with my girlfriend. The legacy element created a story that developed with our play, and built a unique narrative for the two of us, which was really fun. You play as scientists trying to contain pandemic outbreaks. The result of your game carries over into the next one, including a number of changes to the rules and the game board as you progress. New characters are unlocked, they gain positive and negative traits depending on what happens to them, and cities around the world slowly deteriorate into lawlessness and violence as the pandemics grow in size and virulence.

Mansions of Madness 2nd edition is not a legacy game, but offers a series of independent adventures in a lovecraftian setting. You play as investigators travelling to an abandoned mansion to find a missing heir, to a small fishing hamlet to investigate a lost agent, a theater that never seems to close and so on. You pick a character, and gain spells and items and curses as you claw your way through the mission. It's a really good co op game, and we've had numerous great sessions playing it in my group.

Gloomhaven is also a legacy game, and definitely the most complex and involved game of the three. Here you get to experience what is basically an old style RPG in board game form, with creative character classes and story telling, with a continously evolving narrative, map and rule system. You start with just a few classes unlocked, but as you complete their personal quest, you retire them and unlock a new class. Every time you retire a character, you gain benefits for the new one, and the town of Gloomhaven also grows in size and prosperity. New items are unlocked. New encounters and all. I love this game, and have an absurd amount of sessions with it, and we're still not done, though I suspect we would have been if the whole corona thing hadn't put an end to those kind of gatherings.
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#4 User is offline   Macros 

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Posted 11 January 2021 - 09:17 AM

We did a bit of googling as well last night and ended up with a list of possibilities.
Stratego, pandemic and 7 wonders duel were on the list.

We then both picked three off our list of like 15 that appealed to us, we both had the same list of Stratego, Carcassonne and 7 wonders duel.

So we plumped for 7 wonders as a starter for us. I'm delighted I have a wife that WANTS to play board games, we started a game of diplomacy with a few of her friends to play over WhatsApp and she has been scheming none stop since!

There were a few games on the list I think I could make in the workshop, like Othello and Qwirkle. They aren't expensive, but it could be a fun project for me and lady to do together.

What's people's experiences of buying games second hand?
There's no shops anywhere near here.for that so it would be an eBay job.
Unless any UK/Ire members know of a decent online games shop that deals in seconds as well?
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#5 User is offline   Macros 

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Posted 11 January 2021 - 09:21 AM

We played a few rounds of "A Game of Cat and Mouth" (YouTube their promos, it's quite fun) yesterday but it's a purely mess about game, like reverse hungry hippos. I can see it being a lot of fun as a party game when people have had a drink or two.
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#6 User is offline   Imperial Historian 

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Posted 11 January 2021 - 10:44 AM

View PostMacros, on 11 January 2021 - 09:17 AM, said:

We did a bit of googling as well last night and ended up with a list of possibilities.
Stratego, pandemic and 7 wonders duel were on the list.

We then both picked three off our list of like 15 that appealed to us, we both had the same list of Stratego, Carcassonne and 7 wonders duel.

So we plumped for 7 wonders as a starter for us. I'm delighted I have a wife that WANTS to play board games, we started a game of diplomacy with a few of her friends to play over WhatsApp and she has been scheming none stop since!

There were a few games on the list I think I could make in the workshop, like Othello and Qwirkle. They aren't expensive, but it could be a fun project for me and lady to do together.

What's people's experiences of buying games second hand?
There's no shops anywhere near here.for that so it would be an eBay job.
Unless any UK/Ire members know of a decent online games shop that deals in seconds as well?


The majority of second hand boardgame trading in the UK as far as I'm aware happens at boardgame cons or on a few facebook groups where people trade direct, I've had no problems and have picked up a few good deals. Occasionally a piece is missing but people usually inform you about this upfront.

On top of the games Morgoth recommended, I'd add in Star Realms and King Domino as quick, relatively simple but very enjoyable with 2 players.
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#7 User is online   Gorefest 

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Posted 11 January 2021 - 03:46 PM

I'd second Star Realms. There are several different themed versions for this as well, e.g. Lovecraft mythos, if basic sci-fi isn't your thematic cup of tea.

For 7 Wonders, please note that there specifically is a 2-player version available for this, called '7 Wonders: Duel' (already mentioned previously by Morgoth). The basic concept is the same, but the Duel version varies enough from the core game to make it a good fun option on its own. Plus the 7 Wonders game, although it can be played with two players, really works best with more players due to the hand cycling mechanic. For 'Duel' they have changed this into drawing cards in turn from a central field, with certain cards only becoming available once your opponent opens them up for you. So same basic concept but very different game mechanic.

Other options for two players that me and the missus often fall back on:

- most cooperative games lend themselves well to two-player runs (Pandemic, Legendary, Forbidden Island/Desert, Mansions of Madness)
- most table top escape room style games (Unlock, Exit!, Escape Room, Detective, Sherlock Holmes: consulting detective, Mythos Tales, etc) if you are into that sort of game
- patchwork
- Santorini
- Odin's ravens
- dominion
- azul
- splendor
- jaipur
- sagrada
- smash up
- carcassonne
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