The Boardgames Thread / Board games

Games Workshop used to be very good, a very long time ago, for games although always harboured a preference for Role Playing Games and fantasy based stuff. Unfortunately it changed it's business model in the '90s and focussed only on it's lucrative wargaming lines (It also abandoned the TSR distribution rights which was a bit of a nail in the coffin for D&D in this country until Waterstones realised that pasty dice rollers were also often fairly frequent page turners). It has made efforts to get away from the tabletop systems but unfortunately it's staff, many of whom are dedicated geeky tabletoppers, don't help much in this.

If you want a really good shop then Playing Games on Museum Street is about as good as it gets.

Regarding the current state of GW:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/28/games-workshop-decla.html

http://www.notsounwashed.com/2009/11/very-dangerous-remove-immediately/

Other than that, if you are into "board" games, I highly recommend Dominion. One game takes only about half an hour or less and it's time well spent. A really, really good game, that.

We like to play the monsters boxes of Fantasy Flight: Arkham Horror (I'm a big fan of Lovecraft's) and Galactica. The problem with those is that the set-up alone takes 30 minutes -- if you've the bits and pieces in nice packages. So not that suitable for pubs.

The golden oldie, Britannia, is a favorite of ours, too. And if we feel like getting our asses kicked by a box of cardboard, The Republic of Rome is the right choice. I don't think we've ever managed to deal with the Punic wars.

We've managed to play some Blood Bowl, too. Haven't tried the console or pc versions, but those should be decent as well.