I think this is in Cougars field of expertise. I’m after a boardgame for rainy days on holiday.

For 2 to 4 players, aged 5* to ancient.

Something that plays for a couple of days would be interesting, especially if it can be packed away and progress recorded. Ideally not too many tokens and widgets.

I’m thinking there must be a decent independent game out there. Fantasy based would be fine as the boys are very into their dragons and wizards at the moment.

So what can you point me towards?

* he’s smart enough to keep up with something fairly complex with help

Something that plays for a couple of days would be interesting,

You’re probably looking more at a campaign based game* as most grand-scale games (like say Twilight Imperium) would not be practical to put down and set up as they involve huge amounts of stuff. These would also be near impossible with a five year old though – maybe something like imperial assault with assymetrical roles could work. You could look at RPGs but they’re not my thing. Arcadia Quest is very trendy and the figures might appeal to a 5 YO.

For a mixed group like that I find Carcasonne and Ticket to Ride hard to beat and King of Tokyo a great filler. I like String Railway if there will be a decent sized table available and it’s easy to explain. Dead of Winter is the current hotness and gives good variability if play.

Personally I’d get Ticket to Ride and a couple of cheap filler games rather than one grand failure. Maybe Bohnanza, maybe cash n guns – though that’s better with more players, and String Railway.

*Descent 2e, Imperial Assault, maybe a war game Like Memoir 44 Overlord.

Firstly check out Boardgamegeek.com – like this place but for gamers!

Secondly my 6 year old has really enjoyed Carcassone – we started by not playing farms as he didn’t quite understand the rules for them, but has now graduated to playing the whole game, plus several of the extensions. Each game is pretty quick, but we have played several back to back.

No Wi Fi?

Firstly check out Boardgamegeek.com – like this place but for gamers!

I’d say that’s pretty terrible advice for a game for casual gamers to be honest. Or indeed anyone who doesn’t want to come away hating games…

Space Cadets could work if the idea of working as a team of utterly inept astronauts whilst the universe shits all over you sounds like fun. If it doesn’t then get it anyway, it’s great.

Now then.

It sounds to me like you’ve described D&D perfectly (the board game, not the RPG). We’ve got one – I’d have to check which – and it sounds like it’ll tick all the boxes. Fantasy setting, not too many rules and has a campaign staged in various missions and a story holding it all together. Kill the goblins, find the key, steal the amulet, that sort of affair. Comes with four player characters and you’ll need a GM of sorts playing the bad guys; I play 2-player with me as the GM and my OH playing all four PCs as a squad.

Ticket To Ride is brilliant imo, great balance of simple and complex, scales really well. Doesn’t take that long to play though, a few hours. And settlers of catan, old hat now but still really good, another one with super simple mechanics but potential for a lot of thought. Shorter but very repeatable.

Don’t like carcassone but I know it’s well loved.

Sounds like you need original Heroquest tbh! Catacombs, maybe? Haven’t played it…

For a mixed group like that I find Carcasonne and Ticket to Ride hard to beat

Yup. You’ll not go wrong with either of those.

Small World is good too, but it’s a little heavier than those two. TtR and Carcassonne are both brilliant because they can be taught in seconds, Small World has a simple mechanic but will have you looking at the rule book a lot as its complexity comes from the different abilities that the different races have; I mention it because it’s dragons and wizards a-plenty.

Risk? They have a new version set in GoT…

And settlers of catan, old hat now but still really good, another one with super simple mechanics but potential for a lot of thought. Shorter but very repeatable.

Catan used to be the gateway game. It’s far from perfect, but is fairly easy to learn and introduces players to gaming concepts that they might not be used to. In particular, players have to interact with each other, trading goods to be able to build their empires. Note you may need to practice asking “has anyone got wood for sheep” with a straight face.

Suitable for ages down to 5, running for two days is an unlikely combination, let alone being that long and not having loads of fiddly pieces. You’re probably best off picking something of an average duration then building some kind of campaign or tournament with it. Here are a few that might work:

King of Tokyo: pretty good fun and one of the games I’ve seen work best for adults and kids together.
Dixit: very accessible, though the ambiguous language it can require might mean younger players struggle.
Once Upon a Time: Group based storytelling game.
Saboteur: Excellent, sometimes shouty, simple map based card game. Can be hard to find despite having been printed by around a dozen publishers.

Of course, if you want something that runs for a long time, Risk Legacy is worth a look. Again, possibly a bit much for five year olds though.

you lot are why I keep coming here.

Perfect.

Yes, I know I kind of described D&D, but that’s kind of where my boardgame experience ended some 30yrs ago and Ive got nothing to else to work on.

I recognise some of those names like Carcassonne and Catan from a previous boardgame thread. Not heard of ticket to ride, but plenty of recs so will add it to list. I used to love Risk…

We’ve got top trumps for 5yr old for filler games. Chess for 8yr old. Got wifi, but limited speed in la France profonde.

cheers all. Hitting eBay later so should get them in time for le grand depart in a fortnight.

Chess? The better game is the other side of the board…

Out lot love Caracasonne and Dominion – and play them endlessly.

Try this for a good laugh……

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Awful-Green-Things-from-Outer-Space-/191268800749?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_101&hash=item2c888248ed

Second catan and carcassone.

cheers guys. Bit of an eBay splurge

Catan, Carcassone, King of Tokyo and Risk on their way.

Ticket to ride too pricey at >£30.

Nine Mens Morris, fantastic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Men’s_Morris

Small world is one of my absolute favourites but it is definitely a step up from TTR/carcasonne.

Good choices Stoner, have fun! Quick KoT tip, buy Wings!

Shit, just realised I forgot the best game ever – Quantum. I can never get bored of Quantum.

Filled her boots !
https://m.youtube.com/results?q=tabletop&sm=3

Dobble. Amazingly simple. Very addictive

Nobody mentioned Khet yet?

It’s got LASERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does not meet your brief but Pass the Pigs is a great game to take on holiday. Simple, fun and a great laugh. Packs away in a tiny box as well.

Hoppit. 🙂

Interested to see how King of Tokyo pans out, I’ve not seen that.

Pass the Pigs, christ, I used to play that at school.

Dungeon is another good one
Ticket to ride is excellent, good game for everyone tbh, great fun for adults as well

Or a card game… My 6y has just picked up 500. Started with Hearts then 500 – introducing the bowers and misere later.

Lots of strategy at can be picked up onroute.

Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs.

Seriously. Get a copy. It has been amusing me (and another 1-3 players of all ages) intermittently for the last 25 years, because it is literally the best board game ever devised by man.

Seriously. No other game has a swamp monster, a pterodactyl…

…AND an active volcano as well as dinosaurs

😀

first game of Carcassonne last night with Jr#1 and we both loved it.

Quick Qu though – is it OK to close an un-meepled city with a tile and at that point meeple it, claim the points and reclaim the meeple? commonly seems to lead to a number of “eye-shaped” mini cities on two tiles.

Yep, it’s probably the most common way cities are completed.

good, thought so. Tonight’s game we introduce abbots and farmers.

And while theyre at school I might crack open Catan and have a go at learning the rules.

Quick Qu though – is it OK to close an un-meepled city with a tile and at that point meeple it, claim the points and reclaim the meeple? commonly seems to lead to a number of “eye-shaped” mini cities on two tiles.

One point to note here is that meeple placement happens before scoring. So if you’ve run out of meeples, what you can’t do is place a tile which, say, completes an empty city and also a claimed road, recover your meeple and score the road, then use that recovered meeple to then claim the city. If you see what I mean. You have to have the meeple available when you built the tile.

Oh, and, there are two different scoring mechanisms for farms, an ‘old’ and a ‘new’. My copy came with the old rules, which are rubbish. This is the ‘correct’ version:

For each farm, count the number of farmers in that farm. The player with the most farmers in the farm scores for that farm. If multiple players tie for the majority of followers then they all receive the full points. The size of the farm is not relevant. Scoring is based solely on the number of completed cities which the farm touches.

The farm scores 3 points for each completed city adjacent to the farm. A city is adjacent to a farm when any part of the city walls is used to define the boundary of the farm.

Ie, you score per-farm, which apart from anything else is easier to keep track of and makes much more sense. The old version scored farms per-city, which is crazy.

The new rules also give you a full 4 points for a 2-tile city; the old only 2. We house-ruled this out and score 2 points for a 2-tile city as we found it to unbalance the game.

Tonight’s game we introduce abbots and farmers.

Point of note here, Carcassonne has a shedload of expansions. Some are great, some are absolutely dire. Be careful impulse-buying for it. (I mention this as the Abbot is an expansion feature, presumably you’ve picked that up too…?)

ours is a new spanky box that came with abbots and river expansion included. I like the idea of the 1pt per tile for a 2 tile city.

monastries seem like a bit of a gift. An easy 6-9pts depending on when in the game played.

Be careful impulse-buying for it.

My catapult makes excellent toaster tongs.

Ah, wait, belay that. Seems the Abbot is included in the latest print run, I didn’t realise that.

I’ve just read the supplementary rules for the new edition.

https://boardgamegeek.com/article/17640237#17640237

They now introduce farmers as an advanced feature. I can see why – they’re can be a bit tricky to get your head round, but they’re absolutely core to the game. You want to be playing with farmers as soon as you can.

The Abbot just looks like complexity for the sake of it, to me. If I were you, I’d hold off playing with the Abbot until such a point as you’re craving change in the base game (ie, where you’d want to run out and buy an add-on for it).

Just read somewhere that this edition has different artwork; that might cause a problem with expansion compatibility. I’ll dig about at lunch time.

ours is a new spanky box that came with abbots and river expansion included. I like the idea of the 1pt per tile for a 2 tile city.

Yeah, I’ve just worked that out. The River has been included for donkey’s years, I’ve never seen it without.

monastries seem like a bit of a gift. An easy 6-9pts depending on when in the game played.

The counterpoint to that is that they can be tricky to complete, and if you don’t complete them you never get your meeple back. Overcommitting to cloisters can lead to you running out of meeple.

The counterpoint to that is that they can be tricky to complete

…and as a consequence they can be make it very easy for someone to play to trap your meeple.

abbot seems a relatively minor addition. will wait on that one. Farmers I think Jr can handle.

…and as a consequence they can be make it very easy for someone to play to trap your meeple.

Which sounds terribly painful now I think about it.