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Can anyone recommend some Weird West board games? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 4 days ago by to c/boardgames@sopuli.xyz
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/74661938

I recently got back into board games (thanks Tabletop Simulator!) and I found a couple Weird West board games while browsing boardgamegeek. Has anyone played these games? Have you found others you would recommend? I'm mostly interested in co-op games but that isn't a hard rule.

I haven't played any of these but so far I've found:

  • Shadows of Brimstone - This seems to be the most popular board game when it comes to a Weird West setting since it has about a hundred expansion packs. It's co-op (so I'm interested) but the rules might be a bit too complex for my simple mind. I'm curious about this one.
  • Grimslingers - First of all, I'd just like to say that "Grimslingers" is a fantastic name. I think this one is primarily a card game but it has both a co-op and versus mode and the rules seem less complex than Shadows of Brimstone, so again, I'm intrigued.
  • Dracula's America: Shadows of the West - "It is 1875, and Count Dracula is President of the United States of America." Now that's an attention-grabbing intro! I think this might actually be a game that uses miniatures from Shadows of Brimstone to set up its own wargaming scnearios. So I think it's just a rulebook and you're expected to provide your own miniatures to setup a game.
  • Grim West - This game came out in 2026. I guess it's a wargame that uses a standard deck of cards? I can't tell if buying this game just gives you the rulebook or if it requires anything more than a single deck of cards. I think the "game" might just be a single pdf rulebook?

This is what happens when I just blindly browse boardgamegeek. I come across games that sound like they have a cool aesthetic or setting but then I can't tell if it's a board game, a card game, or just a rulebook. That's why I wanted to reach out to this community and see if anyone can give me actual recommendations.

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[–] 4 points 4 days ago

I've been keeping a roughly monthly Shadows of Brimstone game going for years (on TTS during the pandemic, in person before and since) and have had a long time to get setup and space optimized. Minis have clear cases, map tiles also get a flat case per set. All the flat stuff goes into an accordion file case. Cards go into their own case and the specific sets used at any given moment go into a vertical holder. We use character sheets and dials instead of the large character cards, tokens, and smaller cords to keep track of inventory and stats, though there's some things like character abilities that we still use small cards for. As many of the charts as possible are kept electronically. Because I've got about 5 base sets (ice, swamp, fortress, other fortress with conquistadores, other ice with vikings) and a bunch of expansions, it does add up. Over the years, I've are added some nicities including 3d printed token organizers, a deck of cash, poker chips for experience. With all that, it does take two large folding tables for a game with 6 people plus a smaller side table for the stuff that's going to be used but isn't it play yet. Everybody gets a job to do as well, so somebody runs the monsters, somebody hands out cash, somebody takes care of the deck and maps. Storage for all the stuff would take up about 8 cubes in an IKEA shelf thingy. So it's definitely not a small game after all the additions, but my group has gotten it down when it comes to set up, play, and teardown. Usually takes a few hours at a casual pace with lots of food and socializing going on as well. But it did take a bit to get there, both for organization of stuff and the play.

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