At the moment and accepting this could change regularly and frequently, my ideal 3 game collection is:
The Fury of Dracula is still my favourite game ever since first playing it in the late 1980s, although one I havent played for ages due to lack of players near to me. For a solo experience with a similar theme I play A Touch of Evil fairly often, but almost always wish I was with others playing Fury.
Architects of the West Kingdom is my current/recent favourite and getting regular solo table time. Quick to setup and pack away, I love the art and design, relative simplicity and solo bot mechanics.
Statis-Pro Football is another old favourite from my teens and great two-player American Footbal simulation with a workable but not ideal solo mode too. A lot of nostalgia in this for me with the 1985 and 1988 teams but still challenging.
Just missing out were Eldritch Horror and Pandemic (Iberia or maybe original) so those would get into a top 5. Currently: could all change by the weekend, especially if I get to play and learn Nusfjord more.
Hive: Could play it anywhere, anytime, 2 players beauty Blue Lagoon: I think it’s an underrated strategy game with great depth French Tarot: My first trick taking game, pure nostalgia playing this with the family
My answers
I’m using Zatu as they’re generally the cheapest site in the UK.
Great Western Trail.
My favourite game, good at 2-4. Currently at an insane £29.56!!
Codenames
Excellent game whoever you play with. £11.49
Times Up - Title Recall
Yes, you don’t need the box, but it’s brilliant. £15.81
Dominion
First modern game that I owned. Tons of replayability, even with the base set. £33.11
That leaves me with just over a tenner. As a deck of cards is banned, it’ll have to be
Cockroach Poker
Always fun, genuinely a good game. £7.00
And, to follow Mark’s lead so I have something to trade…
6. Are You A Robot?
I’ve never played this, but it’s the only complete game available for under 3 quid. £2.78
Yeah, I saw that. It was a weird experience thinking about games in American pricing terms, because for me a $15 game is actually a $35 game with shipping or an import markup, which means I tend to buy few expensive games instead of lots of cheap ones.
Anyway, using the price list from the BGG thread:
Innovation $13.97 of course
Race for the Galaxy $24.47
Mottainai (I assume this is cheap, call it $10?)
Galaxy Trucker $20.97 crazy price!
Pictomania $13.97 need one party game
That’s $83.38, but I’m not sure what I could get for the last $16.
Battle for Rokugan at £30
Skull at £15
Coup at £20
Leaving me £35 to spend on like… Netrunner. That costs anywhere from nothing to all your disposable income, so??? Netrunner.
So this is just the games I said in my first post but without having to make any hard choices. Cheap games are just better, imo. I’m constantly disappointed when I spend >£50 in a game. War of Whispers has managed to avoid that feeling, but it’s definitely an exception.
Innovation - I got the 3rd edition for £20. Both IELLO and Asmadi ones hover around 15-20 Tigers & Pots - £30 - Again, 2nd hand. Even the latest FFG is out of print nowadays. El Grande: Decennial Edition - £40 Pit - I can get the vintage 1930s (or something like that) for around £5 on eBay
Is it easy enough to pick up at that kind of price? Seems like the novelty of the game alone would be worth it around there.
Edit: answered my own question! Zatu has it on pre-order for £15.29 at the moment which is far cheaper than I imagined the game would be.
Zatu have a shady practice around those ‘restock preorders’.
Stick every game ever on a restock preorder at the cheapest online price and take your money even if there is no reprint announced. Gets cash flow on the business without having to deliver immediately. and catapults them to the top of Google.
I could have saved a bit on Race and the Crew on a different shop. But having it all from the same place will remove postage and so… at the moment none of these games are available in the shop but they will be again because none of these is a rarity, they are all printed at big German publishers…
Why:
Spirit Island is my favorite ever game and even the smallest collection needs one big game to center around (instead of just a bunch of 10-15€ games)
Die Crew is just a game I can play endlessly
Sprawlopolis is the best solo game I own and it’s also fun with other people and such a great puzzle
Race is just an awesome game
Star Realms is the cheapest deck builder there is and we like it a lot.
There are a few things I would probably want to add pretty soon after (besides the expansions for Race and Spirit Island) but also Codenames, Bohnanza, Cockroach Salad, Detective Club and Pandemic.
PS: it’s helpful that we’re at 16% instead of 19% sales tax right now
PPS: I also checked used games but most of these take money in postage from the overall budget and so I went with new games from one shop. There are copies of Tigers and Vases around here for 6€…
PPPS: also I tried to only have games in the collection where the major color on the cover was blue-ish (no, I just noticed a bit later… that there was a slight color theme)
Zatu are definitely the website with the widest range for the UK - because they include LOTS of out of stock games that you just can’t get in the UK. Fine if you’re making a wishlist, but don’t give them money until you have a specific delivery date.
But do give them money the rest of the time, because their prices are great and the games arrive very fast and nicely packaged.
Good summary I think. I definitely have noticed cases like @raged_norm and @TamiJo have mentioned, but if you are looking at something that’s in stock and a good price then I’ve had good experiences with them as well.
Those are very old copies of the very first German versions and they look pretty awful but if you just want to own the game… it’s underappreciated by a lot of people who bought boardgames in the late 90s and are now getting rid of collections they aren’t using anymore.
Boardgames are so pervasive here that there are a LOT of those copies around. I just haven’t bought one yet because I kind of think the newer versions are much nicer looking and I am one of those people are really like when the components are high quality. And those old copies aren’t really going away… whenever I look for one I can find one…
Don’t. It’s probably much nicer than those ones and it’s highly doubtful that those sellers (many of which are private sellers) would send outside of Germany. Most of the time it is the Hans im Glück edition.
The older version of Acquire from the 60s are better than the more modern ones that have thin cardboards that are fiddly to use, and I got mine from eBay for like £15? I also bought some cheap scrabble holders for the tiles. The only one that is better than the old ones was the fancy pants Avalon Hill 1999 edition.
Power Grid is cheap and widely available, but very snowbally for an economic game. Power Grid: the Card Game on the other hand is a small box game that has a more fluid supply of resources, in contrast with its bigger sis that has a rigid resource market.
Panamax I’ve seen it go for £30-ish 2nd hand.
Modern Art goes for £26 brand new
Are The Estates and Isle of Skye economic games now? Not sure. But they are relatively cheap.
EDIT: I forgot King Chocolate. It’s the logistics part of Container without the auction and pricing. But this game is usually on the bargain bin.
