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Panerai 1
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Anyone have any experience with tabletop games - something good for pre-teen boys?

Something like
- Dominion
- Trains
- Ticket to Ride
- Settlers of Catan

My son's birthday is this month and in addition to some lego's and basketball stuff, wanted to get a game we could both enjoy.

thanks!


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Millya
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MY WHEELHOUSE. Ticket to Ride is a good all family game, really depends on whether your son is into trains I guess? (Personally I am not and so Ticket to Ride never did it for me as much).

Settlers is one of those gateway games to transition to European board games and a lot of people like it. Small World is kind of a similar game that's a lot of fun. Will it be just you and your son playing? Do you think he might prefer a cooperative game or does he prefer to play to win?

Although it doesn't have a fancy board or anything, I absolutely love Munchkin and it's a nice "D&D lite" game with simple mechanics for looting as much treasure as possible and cooperating or backstabbing with your friends. It requires 3+ though, I believe.

Pandemic was a fun co-op game that I enjoyed but it might be a bit on point right now...we played it during the swine flu stuff so... :| Another good co-op game is Power Grid.

Another possibility is Carcassonne, this game is all-ages friendly and very easy to pick up. It's a tile/castle building game. I played it with my parents and they liked it enough to ask me to bring it back.

Good stuff to check out: http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Board_Game_Gift_Guide_2013

If you are going to be playing with just the two of you, this blog has good game reviews for games that work well with 2p: http://www.gameswithtwo.com/p/reviews.html

Happy to answer more questions if you give me an idea what you think your son might like or have specific questions about any games or genres! My only regret is I like board games about twice as much as Voss does. :p
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Munchkin looks kindof fun - and it says 2-6 players.

but i'm going to check out some of the others you mentioned

thanks!


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Millya
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You bet! Hit me up if you want someone to talk way too much about board games to you. ;p
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I was going to suggest Carcassone. It's pretty good for just two players.

I like Catan too but it doesn't work nearly as well when you only have two.
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One good way to get an in-depth look at some potential games you might consider (and a fun series anyway) is to watch some of the episodes of Wil Wheaton's Table Top. Most of the games mentioned here were featured at one time on the show.

http://geekandsundry.com/shows/tabletop/


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I play a lot of boardgames...like compulsively so and Myllia has already covered a lot of good games.

In the same vein as the games you listed there's also 7 Wonders who's a great little card game where you build and ancient city and Race for the Galaxy which has you build a space empire, still with cards.

I can't recommend Power Grid enough if you like Settlers of Catan / Ticket to Ride.

If you want to head more into geek/theme type games I say give a look to games by Fantasy Flight games. These are usualy more complex but FFG does a great job of bringing theme across. My group loves Arkham Horror and Game of Thrones.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a great game from FFG which is more accessible while still keeping a nice haunted house theme. A good pick for Halloween
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I absolutely love King of Tokyo. I played it at a board game pub (I know) and I had to find it.

Made by Robert Garfield, whom you may know from such games as Magic: The Gathering.
Good for 2-6 players. Has elements of Yahtzee and a little deck building.

In a nutshell, you bide for Tokyo against other giant-sized Godzilla type monsters. You can roll and decide what to do with your turn. Either deal damage, collect currency to buy ability cards, heal, or simply gain points. The object is to hit 20 points or kill off the other monsters. I've had many games that have ended each way, rather just everyone dies.

If you want to watch it being played, watch this video from Tabletop with HWill HWheaton.

It also has a couple of cool looking expansion packs. Halloween Expansion and Power Up Expansion.
They both look pretty cool and add a bit of depth to the game as well as some more giant monsters. Because... who doesn't love more giant-sized monsters. Happy

Also, I have Power Grid. Love the game but I feel that you almost needed a minimum of 4 people, even though the game says 2, to keep it interesting with blocking people off and whatnot.
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Ah, board games. Good times. One that you might want to consider, especially if it's just the two of you, is Ascension. It's a deck-drafting game, similar to Dominion, but unlike many board games out there it still plays quite well with only two players.
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If he's into Marvel comics and super heroes, Legendary is a pretty good deck-building card game. It plays very similarly to Dominion. There are "recruitment" points (the currency) used to "recruit" (purchase) hero cards. Each card does something different, and each hero in the game has about 4-6 different cards, each with about 2-4 copies of each individual card. Legendary makes use of the teams such as Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. Also, this is a big perk to me, the game can be played with only one player. The game is set up with a scheme (which set the parameters/objective), with a Mastermind (usually a big Marvel villain, such as Red Skull, Doctor Doom, or Loki) behind the scheme. It is a co-op competitive game, so either everyone wins, or everyone loses. If the team wins, the player with the most points wins. Points are gained by defeating the Mastermind and his Henchmen and other Villain groups.

Another one, which I'll let you search for because it would take me much too long to describe it all, is Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar. Basically, it's a worker placement game that necessitates future planning in order to gain points.

Finally, Lords of Waterdeep. It's a DnD-lite worker placement game. Quests are given, the player recruits a variety of adventurers to complete those quests, and gains points. There is much more to the game than that, but it's a basic introduction.
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Oh man, +1 on the Lords of Waterdeep suggestion. I love that game.
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Any suggestions in the Risk/Axis & Allies vein?

I don't really know board games beyond those two (and chess/checkers, obv), but am thinking this would make a great gift idea for my brother. He and I play frequently, and both just adore Axis & Allies... but holy time commitment.

Would love something sort of similar-ish, but maybe not quite so deep.

Looking through some of the ones listed here in the thread already... might have to watch some Tabletop to get a sense.
Morehnai
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you might want to try the flavors of Axis and allies. Europe and Pacific are a great focus on these zones. Battle of the bulge is great but it's strictly tactical so no resource management.

In the same style there's Tides of Iron who has similar complexity. Memoir 44 is also often recommended but it's a tactic game but it does fit the simpler criteria you're looking for.
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