"boardgame with best fantasy feel?" Topic

I've been reading Dunsany, and imagining strange lands with exotic people and fantastic cities. I particularly like the ones that explicitly look at these lands being in fantasy/dream/wonder, and then blur the lines.

Are there any games that really invoke the feel of familiar yet unknown empires? I don't mind traditional northern European fantasy, either, if it stays close to Faerie, not making the wondrous commonplace. I don't think a dungeon crawl would do it. i don't think I'd invest the time in roleplaying. World building, maps, and travel appeal quite a bit. A while ago I bought a bunch of ceramic hex floor tiles and painted them up for maps, and have done nothing with them.

I don't want to invest in another miniatures project, though I plan to continue painting what LotR stuff I have. (I prefer thinking of first age elves exploring the twilight of Middle Earth before the Sun rose.) Maybe I need a campaign set in fantasy Imaginations. We were going to do that with Hordes of the Things, which appeals to me terrifically except for wondering about angles and distances. I love the different bases, the abstracted army building, and the combat factors.

Silly games are out. Wiz War may be among my favorite board games, but it is not what I'm thinking about here.

Have any games spoken the wonder of fantasy to you?

andy

maybe too simplified, but my group loves playing Small World.

Divine Right immediately comes to mind. Fabulous game. Easy to play. Now OOP…long OOP…but you can sometimes find it or the Anniversary edition on ebay.

Have you tried Mighty Empires?

+1 for Divine Right

Barbarian Kings. More of a straight up wargame with a fantasy feel.

I'm a big fan of Defenders of the Realm.

Red Bear White Moon….Dragon Pass? Those boardgames dealt with groups of very interesting, pretty freaky, exotic…very imaginative inhabitants. Victory conditions were very "not mainstream" either. I built a Vassal mod for it years and years ago. The game can still be found available for sale from time to time. Doubt any game company would take that kind of risk again.

There were miniature lines produced for this world as well, so it could easily be ported with proxies.

Since I was mostly interested in the "fantasy feel" of the game, the Glorantha stuff does have that epic feel. I actually thought I remembered seeing someone looking into it again. And when I looked up Divine Right, I saw that someone is working on that for 2016.

Mighty Empires is one of the games that I wish I could go back in time and pick up. They always felt expensive, but they'd be neat to have now. I painted the hex tiles I have based on the Mighty Empires hexes.

Thanks for input so far.

Just as fantasy empire games go, Empires and Wizard Kings were there. But I don't know how much of the imagination they address. I suspect that will only be satisfied by what I put into a game, not by its mechanics or presentation.

andy

I don't really like or play boardgames, but I recommend Divine Right and also Red Bear White Moon, if you can find it, for it's more unusual setting.

Another give for Divine Right. There are a number of levels of play and each one gets more complex as it adds more rules and units.