Top 10 Co-op Fantasy/Adventure Cardgames 

awesome, thanks again!

And do you like Of the game?

What happened to the game?

very excited. i'm a bit nervous about the added randomness added with action resolution blind card draws, but on the whole i'm sure it'll be great

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts now with respect to your top two... Would Aeon's End: Legacy take the #1 spot? Do you like Shadowrun or Dragonfire more?

of these games, the ones still easy to get are arkham horror card game, lord of the rings card game and aeon's end and i think they're all comparably priced :)

heh, just SC2. Kevin Riley (qxc) once 4-0'd a Korean team (IM), including MVP

He played Starcraft, not Magic to my understanding. I watch pros very closely and he has never been on any radar I have seen or heard of play wise.

d'oh! my bad!

It was my favorite card game until the FFG Games Workshop breakup. If FFG would simply retheme the game it would be an instant buy for me.

there are some fan made quests on board game geek but yeah its not official and my not be balanced etc. there is the slim chance that GW will continue it but dunno if they can even as I dunno anything about the original rights to the original game.

Greg Kleinfall the rights to the system fell back to the designers, who had a re-skin on KS recently, it was cancelled though and should be back soon. Epic AF

whaaaaaaat ? incredible.....

I hate hate hate the fact that FFG let this one die. Simply re-theming it the Terrinoth universe would've been fine, instead they released RuneWars cause we need another miniatures game, right?

i might be filming a runthrough for it this month. voting is close at the moment...

i am definitely interested in apocrypha :)

rahdo got my copy today. So good...

i just do yearly fundraising drives to keep ads off :)

i didn't feel that the game was unfair, and here's a thread where folks are saying that with practice, you can master it: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2218420/worth-buy-its-depend-too-much-lucky-win

I picked the Attack on Titan (AOT) game after seeing this list (thanks Rahdo). I have 8/10 games (don't have the LCGs) of this list and I have played them all several times. My preferences have changed, and how much I play each game, but Attack on Titan is my 2nd favourite (1st being Shadowrun). I think AOT is an excellent game. The double currency makes the game very interesting for me. I love the presence of the wall and the heroes, it actually feels like you are there. Addressing the difficulty question. (Disclosure, I enjoy difficult games) I think AOT is a challenging game that you can master and consistently beat. We usually play with 3 players and sometimes 2. We haven't lost on normal difficulty for ages and we now play on the harder difficulty where we draw more cards per round and we win most games (I think we have a 8 games unbeaten streak). The game is not unreasonable, even if you get the worst possible draw on normal you can still win. If you enjoy the level of difficulty in Shadowrun, Aeons End, or Shadowrift, I would wholeheartedly recommend. If you enjoy diving into a game to find the best way to beat it, this is an excellent game with hours of gameplay. I will talk about certain observations and choices we make based on experience. You can read them to save time or completely ignore them. I hope the info has been useful. Let me know if you have any questions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TACTIC SPOILER ALERT. a) Roles. If you play with 2 players you need a someone to start building their deck and someone that picks up the Titans. The developer will push to higher numbers to address the Archenemies, the killer will kill titans and allow the developer time to develop. Once developer can pull large numbers, then you shift duties and they start killing. Our 3 ppl strategy is 1 developing, 1 attacking titans, and 1 support/killing titans/building enough dmg to cut life from Archenemies. b) Heroes. I would suggest playing with Eren initially. He has this ability with the wounds which can be useful, but his other ability offers excellent speed. Anytime he kills a player picks an extra card. Essentially you can play Eren as a killer and the other person as developer and get the extra card with the developer at all times. Eren speeds up the team a lot, winning without Eren was the biggenst challenge in the higher difficulty, took us 4 tries. Mikasa is amazing, there are several defensive cards that have impactful repercussions. Removing a titan, drawing cards, destroying cards etc. She requires excellent calculation of where Titans will land. Hange is also very good, investing in movement, landing on Titans to get the bonus. Levi is usually our killer (we love it thematically) it seems that Cory would be better but he hasn't worked for us. Levi's +2 seems more consistent Armin and Erwin are better suited for more players, they can tip the scale in a critical moment and give the extra card needed. Sasha is the weakest. c) Let things die and walls crumble. You only need one wall in the end. Maximise the use of power. If we pull 5-7 points and we can potentially buy something really good we won't waste the turn to kill titans let the walls handle it. d) Who plays first is very important in the game. e.g Hange plays first and lands on a titan to use her ability, then Eren kills it and gets an extra card for her. If Eren plays first and kill it then Hange doesn't use her bonus. e) Where are the cards coming, you need to calculate all purchases before you play and decide on first person. This allows you to position yourself in safe areas and Mikasa where she can be more useful f)Some tips on buying cards At the beginning you need power, power, and power. You need to buy. Most common mistake was to try and find manoevres for Levi or defence for Mikasa, regardless of what they did, rather than getting power. The 3d gear is amazing at the beginning and in the end game (because you get rid of it). Use the extra ability to destroy it. When you have an awesome deck with 2 swords and 2 killing blows, and a cannon etc STOP BUYING. Best cards>>>>more cards. Throw power in the trash it doesn't matter. Speeding up the deck. There are 2 ways. Destroying and drawing. We use both depending on how early we receive certain cards. In the hard games we use more drawing. Any card that tells you to draw 1 extra card is awesome. It means that what you just did was free.... Our hard hitting deck has ideally Swords, Killing blow, Pay tribute, the manoeuvre that gives +4 if you play equipment, canisters, and cards that tell you to draw. We have done crazy scores with draw+ draw+ draw etc. I think our record has been around 45. Locations are great. Destroying cards, drawing cards, and removing wounds for 3 move.... amazing. If Mikasa can get defense, let her get the card (after she gets power) Adapt to the draw, there are different ways to get to victory. If you end up with allies for example, pick the card with the bonus for allies or even heroic sacrifice to kill a few. Honourable mentions: Canisters are amazing, one of the few cards that allow you to get something and play it immediately. Long distance formations for normal game with up to 3 players is imba, as it gives control of the deck.

not many new games have popped up in the sub genre since 2017. a few of note: heroes of tenefyr, goblivion, fantasy defense, masters trials might be new contenders about that's about it :)

@@rahdo do you consider the Gloom of Kilforth series to fall in this category?

@@raortiz73 oh yeah, that's one to consider but sadly i haven't had a chance to try it!

hmm, they're both deckbuilders, where your deck represents your character, and they're both fighting off waves of badguys, but the way they go about the overall flow is very very different, imo.

good question. the best answer you can get by far i think would be to check out faq.rahdo.com #5 :)

you can play AH the card game as a 4 player game, you just need to have two core sets :)

...or three ;)

i've never played legendary: aliens because my wife would be hugely turned off by the subject matter. i have played legendary when it first game out and liked it, though it was a bit on the long side. GvZ is a small indi-produced game that you can order direct from the publisher: www.jackdgames.com/goblins_vs_zombies

ty for the reply. I can understand the turn off factor. My wife avoids any game that incorporates guns or violence, but she's ok with annihilating anyone on Catan. I owned Legendary Marvel Deck Building game and it was fun but I didn't get to feel like I was one or any of the heroes. With the Legendary Enounters - Aliens, and Legendary Encounters - Firefly, you get to play specific characters and take wounds. There's a mechanism that encourages cooperation that's almost essential to win.

i tried the co-op variant that came in the original thunderstone line once and it was okay, but the game was still better as a multiplayer game. the newest 3rd edition of t-stone that comes out this year i think has a stronger co-op option, but i haven't looked into it much

yeah, i was surprised by the coincidence

well, you can watch the runthroughs and decide for yourself! :)

I'm quite intrigued in this one myself and would love for a runthrough. I hope they completely overhaul the Karma/experience system personally, but it wouldn't be a detriment if not. Sadly, I think Dragonfire min. player count is 3. Hope that changes cause that's lame. I guess you could play "three-handed" for solo play?

Ramonosuke they've changed it to 2 and therefore solo-able already. You can read about it on the Dragonfire website in the dev blog. It looks really good!

yup and yup!

Oh man That's awesome! Will definitely add it to the top of my wishlist

I had high hopes for this one. We played it at origins and were not impressed. Component quality low. Very simple game play. This impression could also have been do to early version and person giving demo not being familiar with all rules.

sure :)

1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 are deckbuilders. 3, 7, 8, 9 and 10 aren't (well, 10 kind of is, but not really) :)

hmm, if i were making a list of top10 green salads, yeah, i'd leave pasta salad out i reckon :)

left it out, but i've played the game so much i don't need the rulebook at all :) also, there are great 1 page summaries you can print out on boardgamegeek, or just keep the rules pdf on your smart phone if you need to check them

yes, verra stoked!

haven't tried it... :(

i have not seen it yet, so i can't say...

well, watch the runthroughs and see which one you think looks like the most fun :)

So they are all good to newbie? We never played these kind of boardgame ^^'

well i don't know what would be too heavy/complex for you. that's why i'm saying watch the runthroughs and see if you think they'd be too mcuh for you guys. or, barring that, head over to the boardgamegeek suggestions forum and ask, and you'll get a LOT of advice :) www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/8/boardgamegeek/recommendations

which are 'these two'? dragonfire and ?

@@rahdo pardon, dragonfire and crossfire

@@lucatosoni7681 ah, okay! well i compared those two a fair bit in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-L36aU1DKhPc.html

not quite 'card-ey' enough :)

yup, google rahdo top 10 coop and you'll find it :)

yup

It is more a dice rolling game

haven't tried it

You should try and get your hands on it.. It's a great puzzle game, think you and Jen would like it.

Andrew Noble the only problem with Dresden is that with 2p, it's not a very good game, imo, since Dresden is always in the game, meaning there's only 1 variable character.

Just play 2 each. Problem solved. Even in the solo game you're expected to play 3 characters. Shouldn't let that dissuade anyone playing the game as it's fantastic. I do agree that Rahdo and Jen would probably really like the puzzly aspect of the game.

dreadknot69 certainly is possible. I'm just not a fan of playing games with multiple avatars. Seems like an oversight (or at worst, laziness) by the designer to always have dresden included.

well, runebound really isn't a card game, per se :)

jen and i have played the game something like 50ish times and we've only ever played the main crossfire mission. our characters are around lvl 20 iirc, nowhere near strong enough for the dragon, which is a goal to be able to fight someday, but i'm not bothered that much if i never do, the core game is so fun. to me, all of the non-crossfire missions are just extra bits of fluff... the core game is so rich and replayable the other missions aren't necessary at all. i'm not sure why folks feel there needs to be more alternate gameplay modes for this. i think the fact that they included a few might have been a mistake since it creates a set of expectations amongst players that might not have existed otherwise. no one ever says "hey, where's the alternate missions for poker or chess or ticket to ride" etc. :)

@@rahdo That's a fair point. I find there's a sort of strange relationship between player scaling and static missions (although I guess if the game starts getting too easy, you can add more obstacles and such to tune the difficulty). I'm not sure how many other games have that specific combination of dynamic player abilities with a fixed opponent. I suspect that's where the expectations can get crossed. Appreciate the reply. It's a helpful perspective. Cheers!

i've wanted to try xenoshyft for awhile, but they never sent a review copy (plus my wife wouldn't be keen on the aliens vs gun-toting space marines either)

wasn't crazy about it when i tried it

SR:CF is coming back into print soon, though they have made some changes to the core system. But if I were filming this now, I probably would have left shadowrun off the list to include Dragonfire instead, since it's pure fantasy and the same basic gameplay system.

Thanks. Ill check out Dragonfire. I think I might enjoy the fresh theme of SR:CF compared to fantasy.

i'd say it qualifies, but for my tastes, it lasts almost twice as long as it should

you're remembering it kind of wrong. :) also, there's a difference between a few times a year and once a month. also, PF:ACG is only an 'okay' game, elevated by persistance. AH:ACG is a fantastic game by comparison.

i probably won't be revisiting this until we hit the 5 year mark, but in the meantime you can always check ranked.rahdo.com :)

still hoping to receive a review copy

well i was only talking about tolkein-esque high fantasy in this countdown, so it wouldn't make it...

any co-op game can be played solo, if you take on the roll of 2 players :)

rahdo what about hero realms?

i'm not a big fan of the basic 'realms' gameplay (see my cthulhu realms video for more details). i'm hoping the co-op expansion will turn me around on it though

will talk about it in the podcast

to quote evil goatee spock at the end of the old star trek episode mirror mirror, "captain kirk, i shall consider it!"

hundreds and hundreds: gone.rahdo.com also, faq.rahdo.com #7

not co-op

thanks for the heads up! :)