I have played (almost) no games beginning with the letter N

[andrewducker]

We were challenged, on Facebook, to share boardgames we loved, with the extra twist being a randomly assigned letter.

I was assigned "N", and immediately went from "This will be fun" to "Good Lord, I have no idea!"

So I dropped over to BoardGameGeek and went through all 1600 entries beginning with "N" (pages 429 to 445 if you're interested

Comments

[jack_ryder]

I love Netrunner, so I'm biased. It's an asymmetric card game that started as a collectible card game and has just been reprinted as a living card game (which basically means no random cards in the booster sets - you know exactly what you're getting.)

One player plays the Corp (basically the defensive role) protects agenda cards with ice cards. The Runner (the attacking role) tries to access the agenda cards by breaking through the ice. The Corp plays cards face down - some of them can be traps, some of the ice can damage the Runner directly, or give the Runner "tags" which allow follow up attacks. However, the Runner can access all the cards the Corp player has, their draw deck (known as R&D), their hand (known as HQ) and their discard pile (Archives) all of which can be protected with ice.

There's an economic dimension as well, as cards cost money, so both the Corp and Runner players have to set up economic engines (or play with cheap, or really efficient cards.)

It's fairly hardcore (more so than Magic) but unlike Magic and other ccgs the player with the "best" deck won't necessarily win, there's a lot of bluffing and second-guessing going on (one game I played came down to two cards - one would win me the game, the other would lose me the game - I chose unwisely.)

The cyberpunk theme may seem slightly twee now, but I'm really glad the game is back in circulation and being supported. And you don't have to pick up any of the expansions for a wonderful game experience.

It's not for everyone - the cards can have a fair amount of text on them to process and there's a whole new in-game terminology to learn, so it's not a simple pick up and play game. But I do think it's a modern classic and if you're familiar with a game like Magic and you like the cyberpunk theme, you should definitely give it a go.