Show us your collection

[Professor Rob]

Joyrex suggested that someone ought to start a pic thread, so here it is.

I took this last May, but I've only bought Pandemic, Power Grid and Ice Flow since then:

[jonnyalpha]

This thread is going to be problematic. I can see lots of games there I would like already.

Stone Age, Thebes, Kingsburg expansion, Memoir 44 and Shadows!.......Lovely! Nice game selection there Rob.

[Wiper]

Heh, I was thinking the same thing, though focussing on Memoir 44 and Shadows over Camelot!

I'll get some photographs taken on Monday (I'm away for the weekend, as ever, and don't want to go and pull all my stuff out of the loft now having just finished getting ready to leave - getting a nice layer of dust over myself isn't something I'm too keen on:D

You can expect far fewer games in my selection, too

Though I may cram my miniatures in too, that'll bulk things out!

[Joyrex-J9]

All my stuff is jammed in my small games room / man cave - alongside my videogaming stuff. The main consoles are downstairs I just keep the games and retro machines upstairs, sorry for the multiple pics but the room is too small for me to get it all in one shot!

The boardgames and card games

The Games Workshop stuff, dice, and hobby things like tools & paints (Necron Army tucked away in the loft)

My Magic: The Gathering colllection, yes all those folders and boxes are full!

RPG books, White Dwarfs etc.

[jonnyalpha]

Ok, I've taken two pictures so far of a portion of my games. There are quite a few more which I'll try and take images of and post in the next few days.

Edit: added a couple more but still got more to go.

This is the main cupboard full of the standard and not so standard boxes. This used to contain my old N64, Dreamcast etc but they had to get relegated to the attic. Due to my struggles with space I tend to combine expansions into the main boxes and throw the expansion boxes away. Lord of the Rings also contains the Sauron expansion and the Friends and Foes expansion. Ticket to Ride also has the Swiss map and the 1910 expansion in it. Bonus points to anyone who can identify the games behind the central strut and the game half showing on the bottom right.

This drawer fits under the spare bed in the same room. It's a bit full under the bed as there are another two storage boxes under there as well. Again expansions are put in with the main games so Cutthroat Caverns also holds Deeper & Darker and Relics & Ruins. Infernal Contraption has the expansion deck in with it and Mr Jack contains the extra characters. There are another load in my man cave/study and I'll try and take pics of those as well although they'll need a bit more unpacking as they are fitted in as snugly as tetris pieces.

Here's the next batch that fit under the bed. There isn't much room for anything else under there. These tend to be the larger boxes that don't fit anywhere else and a couple of smaller ones to fill in the spaces that are left.

This is from one of the spaces in the study/cave. There is about twice as much again squeezed in. Agricola also contains the Farmers of the Moor expansion to save on space. Sorry about the quality of this picture.

I love all these games but I wish they were easier to store.

[michael]

The one behind the strut is... Beowulf, I think?

[jonnyalpha]

Of course you're right. I thought that bottom centre one would be the toughest. I should have known.

[michael]

Oh come on, I shouldn't be proud of that! Not much of a clue on the other one though, despite it having a SdJ badge on it, I can't work it out... #tragic

[jonnyalpha]

Oh come on, I shouldn't be proud of that! Not much of a clue on the other one though, despite it having a SdJ badge on it, I can't work it out... #tragic

The bottom right one is a german version although the game is available in english as well. I can't make it too easy for you.

[jonnyalpha]

Here's a few more pictures. The first lot contain some of my favourite games including Monkey Dash which is a brilliant two player game and Twilight Struggle which is somewhat more serious. Again expansions are squeezed in where possible. Thurn and Taxis also contains the two expansions Power & Glory and All Roads Lead to Rome. In the two Dungeon Twister boxes there are also Paladins & Dragons and Mercenaries.

These are the four Dice express games and the Best Card Game Ever Glory To Rome. You should all get that one immediately.

[Wiper]

*sniff*

I'll stick up my photos tomorrow (I'm down one board game that I've noticed so far - the cheap and cheerful Hellas - must be in one of the many unlabelled boxes in the loft. Oh, and I'm not sure where my three boxes of Heroscape have gone, but they aren't strictly mine since I gave them to my brother), but it's clear that my collection is going to look utterly pitiful, even with the aid of my miniatures. Ah well!

[jonnyalpha]

It doesn't matter how many games you have as they're potentially all interesting. I've never heard of Hellas but now I see it's a Kosmos 2 player area control game and I'm interested. Stick up those pics.

All my collection shows is that I have not enough sense and spend too much time reading BGG and scouring eBay.

And Joyrex's post is making me crave Ravenloft and some of the D & D type games. Ungh, must resist.

[Wiper]

Hellas is literally the most interesting game in my collection

Sadly, my boardgaming purchases have been hampered by the fact that:

• When I had people to play with, I was a student with no money [not even a student loan].
  
• When I had a job, I was living in France on my own.
  
• Now I'm unemployed and all my boardgame-playing friends live nowhere near.
  

Also, I've just noticed another three missing games (Avalon Hill's Bull Run, Hera and Zeus (or rather Blitz und Donner), Knizia's Lord of the Rings). Also, nearly all of my boardgames from childhood are in my mum's old house,* but there's nothing doing about that. I'll have another look for the missing games tomorrow, anyhow (can't go tramping in the loft now as it'll wake my brother), as that's a large portion of them gone!

*the one which may or may not also contain Hero Quest plus expansions

[jonnyalpha]

On the plus side in the future they may turn up and by then they'll be *RARE*

[Professor Rob]

Crikey, Jon - that's a pretty awesome collection.

[jonnyalpha]

Um, there's still more to go.

[moosegrinder]

I can see why your missus is pissed off.

[jonnyalpha]

I can see why your missus is pissed off.

They're all tidied away out of sight, kind of, and she has shedloads of bags etc. I think it's even. Anyway women like having something to be pissed off about or they have to think of a reason to shout at us.

[lordcookie]

Jonnyalpha, do you play all/most of those on a semi-regular basis? The majority of your collection looks like they would be very rules-heavy board games so when you do play them do you have to spend an hour or so familiarising yourself with the intricacies of the game again?

This whole folder is very foreign to me, the only board games I still have are Scrabble, Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit and I've never even contemplated playing a D&D type game before, but it is always interesting reading about other peoples passions.

[Ersatz Nihilist]

For me, board games walk a very fine line in terms of their complexity; I like games where I can have a bit of a think and for it to mean more than the dice I'm rolling (extreme outliers excluded, naturally), but too much complexity and it feels like it might well have worked better as a video games. I suspect that my limit lies in games Arkham Horror, which are complex enough to have you making decisions about what your character does, but it doesn't get totally overwhelming like the the original Civilization board game, which was seemingly an attempt to translate the videogame onto cardboard.

Nightmare.

Not that I don't play simpler games, obviously. But those are almost universal in their appeal.

D&D etc. lies somewhere outside of this continuum, as having the rules exactly right is rarely important as having a general idea and making judgement calls. For roleplaying, I vastly prefer rules-light systems like Little Fears or Dogs in the Vineyard. Games like D&D, or even the 40k RPGs tend to grind to a halt while people consult tables. Not fun.

[jonnyalpha]

Jonnyalpha, do you play all/most of those on a semi-regular basis? The majority of your collection looks like they would be very rules-heavy board games so when you do play them do you have to spend an hour or so familiarising yourself with the intricacies of the game again?

This whole folder is very foreign to me, the only board games I still have are Scrabble, Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit and I've never even contemplated playing a D&D type game before, but it is always interesting reading about other peoples passions.

Actually most of those games are pretty easy to learn and teach which is something that really draws me to them. I reckon with most of those games we could sit down at a table and I could teach you how to play and get us started off in ten minutes.

I really only got back into board/card games a few years ago although I did a bit of RPGing in my early teens. Once I got an amiga I never really bothered much with boardgames again. Then I got Carcassonne and I enjoyed it and then Michael posted about a special offer Play had on with Settlers of Catan and that was it. Settlers is dead easy to learn and play. It takes about an hour and has loads of interaction so there's no sitting around waiting for everyone else to take their go. I was hooked and you can see what happened after that.

A large number of my collection would be often described as Euro Games. These tend to have fairly simple rulesets, no player elimination and a fairly short playing time of 30 - 90 mins. This doesn't mean they aren't complex games but the complexity arises out of a fairly simple ruleset. Examples would be Carcassonne, Settlers, Diamonds Club, Dragons of Kir, Zooloretto etc.

There are more complex games which will take a lot longer to play such as 1960, War of the Ring and Scepter of Zavandor which can takes 2-4 hours to play. War of the Ring would be tough to jump straight into but 1960 is surprisingly elegant and I've played that with a friend after a 15 minute introduction (and he beat me:()

Somewhere in between would be games like Agricola, Pandemic, Dungeon Twister....

Games are often described in terms of Light, Medium and Heavy to represent length of game time and difficulty of rules. Most Euros would be in the light or medium categories whereas most wargames would probably fall into the Heavy category. You do get the odd hybrid like Twilight Struggle which is a fairly complex game about the cold war it's a fascinating game which has the feel of both a euro and a war game. It would take a bit longer than ten minutes for us to get that one started and I probably would have to refresh myself on the rules as well.

Many of my games would fall into the family category as I buy a lot of games to play with my daughter. These tend to be very easy to learn and fairly short. A La Carte, Metro, Poison, Mamma Mia, Chateau Roquefort, Heck Meck, Monkey Dash.... there are loads of them.

I don't really have time to Roleplay anymore but I do like a narrative in my games and that's where the big box adventures come in. Return of the Heroes, Exalted, War of the Ring all have very strong stories behind them and then you have the ultimate story game Tales of the Arabian Nights which is really a multi-player version of the fighting fantasy books. It's a very heavy box as it comes with an enormous book of tales which consists of 1000's of paragraphs. It's hardly a game as the fun isn't in trying to win but in trying to create a great story.

There are racing games like Pitchcar, Ave Caesar, Formula D and Savannah Tails although all play very differently with different mechanics.

There are dexterity games like Villa Paletti, Kapitan Wackelpudding, Bausac.

There are abstract games like Hive, Army of Frogs and Blokus.

There are the games that try and simulate the D&D experience like Castle Ravenloft and Dungeonquest.

There are the minis games like Space Hulk, Tannhauser and Hour of Glory.

And now card games are making a huge resurgence with Dominion, Thunderstone, Gosu, Glory to Rome, Race for the Galaxy, 51st State and others.

There are so many great games and the feel of sitting down across the table from your friends and playing is completely different from sitting down in front of the telly with a videogame. I have to say I enjoy both but a perfect games evening for me would start with a quick boardgame, adjourn to the telly for a bit of multi-player SFIV or similar and then back to the table for another game or two. I do get all these games played but not as often as I would like as I do have too many but that's part of my OCD and labrador-like enthusiasm.

You should give them a go Cookie but prepare to get hooked.

Oh and Ersatz is right. Some designers seem to be trying to convert videogames into boardgames with varying degrees of success. The Phantom League is a new game based on Elite which seems to be well liked but on the other hand Dungeon Lords appears to be a rip off of Dungeon Keeper which should have been left on the computer.

[lordcookie]

Thanks for explaining it to me in so much detail.

You should give them a go Cookie but prepare to get hooked.

Even though you have done a good job at selling the many types of board games I honestly don't think it is for me (unless you can recommend some good general knowledge or wordplay based titles). I remember as a kid a few of my friends being into stuff like Hero Quest etc. and I just could never get my head around the appeal. I mean, I understand the appeal for other people, but they are in an overarching 'genre' that has always left me cold. I don't enjoy fantasy fiction in films or books and I hate RPG computer games and many strategy based titles (Civilisation etc.). But I guess I have always seen many board games as mere novelty titles. The reason I still keep hold of games like Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble is that they can be played time and again and it will always be different (assuming you keep buying new questions for TP) and it challenges you mentally, whereas I get the impression from my limited exposure to these types of games that it is often more about the journey. Granted this is an over-simplification and I apologise if I am being clumsy in explaining my feelings as I don't want to offend anybody in this folder by making out that their hobby is stupid or inferior to 'traditional' board games.

[Wiper]

Jonnyalpha, do you play all/most of those on a semi-regular basis? The majority of your collection looks like they would be very rules-heavy board games so when you do play them do you have to spend an hour or so familiarising yourself with the intricacies of the game again?

This whole folder is very foreign to me, the only board games I still have are Scrabble, Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit and I've never even contemplated playing a D&D type game before, but it is always interesting reading about other peoples passions.

I'd encourage you to get into boardgames, but we need you to maintain your encyclopaedic knowledge of films for the benefit of the forum

Totally excellent post

Brilliant summing up there, with a lot of fantastic games mentioned. Only one thing I'd add, would be to mention that, alongside Wargames and Eurogames, you've got one other major category of games; Ameritrash.

Basically, all modern, board games can usually be categorised into one of the three broad 'flavours'.

Wargames are pretty much self-explanatory.

Eurogames are pretty much what jonnyalpha said - games which emphasise elegant, simple mechanics, and tend away from dice-fests. Where there is randomisation in Eurogames, it tends to be greyer than the "roll a 6 to win, roll a 1 to fall on your sword" that typefies Wargames and Ameritrash. The main criticism that tends to be levelled at Eurogames is that they often do little to reflect the actual events that are occurring on the board - they tend more towards the abstract than the other genres.

Ameritrash are basically the antithesis of Eurogames. It's worth noting that the term, though derogatory, has been merrily picked up by fans of the genre. Also worth noting that despite the name, it's not just the Americans who make this sort of game (the same goes for Eurogames and Europe, of course). Indeed, some of the most well known of Ameritrash games were made by that most British of companies, Games Workshop. Anyway, where Eurogames favour elegant systems with relatively simple rules, Ameritrash loves complex mechanics. It's rare in a Eurogame to feel 'cheated' by the game into losing; Ameritrash, on the other hand, merrily throws random elements at you, resulting in games like Space Hulk, where low rolling and/or doubles will defeat the best-laid plans, or the complete mayhem that is (the glorious) RoboRally. And finally, a major draw of Ameritrash is that it does its best to immerse you in its theme - through presentation and mechanics.

Of course, the lines blur between the two in a lot of games, but they're useful ways of categorising games, as most people lean towards one flavour more than the other. Personally, it depends on the mood I'm in and the people I'm with.

Er, anyway, onto the collection. It's small enough to be summed up in one picture... so I took two

This is all of my board games (minus the missing Hera and Zeus, and all my childhood board games which are in another house), and all of the miniatures I have that I've painted to at least a tabletop standard since last August.

Apologies for the mess and décor - I blame my brother for the former and my mother for the latter

(as ever, click on the pictures for full-size pictures)

[jonnyalpha]

No offence taken Cookie but I would love to show you that these

games can be replayable and endlessly variable as well without being fantasy/RPG based.

Some games are about the journey but lots of even the simplest games have great strategic oportunities and I find them to have far more variety than you've seen so far. There are also many games based on real world experiences with trading, politics and economic based games being quite popular.

I'm not big on word games myself but Word on the Street is supposed to be a lot of fun although I think you need 4 people at least. Modern alternatives to Trivial Pursuit would include Wits and Wagers and probably ideal for you is Title Recall which is based on film titles.

[jonnyalpha]

You've got Blood Bowl, Arkham Horror, Android, a GMT game and some cool minis. It's all quality stuff Wiper. and nice Ameritrash explanation as well.

[lordcookie]

Thanks for the suggestions, I think I remember somebody memtioning Wits and Wagers before Christmas and I meant to check it out. Unfortunately any film based trivia games are out of the question as nobody ever wants to play them against me.

I'll keep an eye on this folder and see if any of these games seem a good fit with me (after which I then have to find somebody willing to play against).

[Wiper]

Unfortunately any film based trivia games are out of the question as nobody ever wants to play them against me.

Can't imagine why

Also, your post wasn't there when I started sticking mine up, otherwise I'd have tackled it - I'd say that Ameritrash games (which seem to be your experience - Hero Quest and, well, most openly 'fantasy' games tend to fall in that genre) tend to be more about the journey, for sure. A raucous, daft journey involving dice, generally. That said, you say you don't like strategy games either, so I imagine that most Eurogames will pass you by too. And all wargames, of course. The fact is that most strategic, open, replayable games are, er, strategy games. But then, board game strategy games vary considerably more than computer strategy games, so I don't know what you'd make of a classic open-ended, replayable strategy game like Cosmic Encounter, for example.

And hey, if you're ever looking for people to play a game with (or indeed introduce you to anything), have a look in the Where do you live? thread - I'm sure a forumite will be willing to introduce you to a game, if any live nearby!

[Wiper]

You've got Blood Bowl, Arkham Horror, Android, a GMT game and some cool minis. It's all quality stuff Wiper. and nice Ameritrash explanation as well.

Heh, ta - though I don't have a GMT game, to my knowledge! You might be mistaking Bull Run for one - it's an old, old Avalon Hill wargame - easy to confuse, as their logos are similar, and of course GMT make exactly the same sorts of games that Avalon Hill used to

[lordcookie]

Can't imagine why

I was allowed to play Scene It one Christmas but the game only lasted about 15 minutes and nobody has ever suggested it since.

Also, your post wasn't there when I started sticking mine up, otherwise I'd have tackled it - I'd say that Ameritrash games (which seem to be your experience - Hero Quest and, well, most openly 'fantasy' games tend to fall in that genre) tend to be more about the journey, for sure. A raucous, daft journey involving dice, generally. That said, you say you don't like strategy games either, so I imagine that most Eurogames will pass you by too. And all wargames, of course. The fact is that most strategic, open, replayable games are, er, strategy games. But then, board game strategy games vary considerably more than computer strategy games, so I don't know what you'd make of a classic open-ended, replayable strategy game like Cosmic Encounter, for example.

I think a big reason I don't like strategy computer games is that they are pretty slow but jonnyalpha did mention some boardgames that took an hour or so which might be worth me looking into.

And hey, if you're ever looking for people to play a game with (or indeed introduce you to anything), have a look in the Where do you live? thread - I'm sure a forumite will be willing to introduce you to a game, if any live nearby!

My nearest person is four hours away and as intrigued as I am about trying one of these games that is just too far (one of the pitfalls of living in the Highlands).

[Wiper]

Ah, rubbish. I could try to introduce my sister/her husband* to boardgames and then get her/him to play them with you?

But yeah, the major issue with boardgames is, and has always been, having people nearby to play them with. Hell, I haven't played any board games in one and a half years now, and I live in a very populous area!

*they live in Inverness