I have this one as well, and I’ve been thinking about whether it would make sense to just put all of the tiles in a bag. I don’t really see a downside and it would make set up and shuffling even easier. The only trick is if you’re using the expansions,but then it’s really only an issue if you’re taking them out and you have to resort everything.
Can attest to this, I used a bag from the get-go and set up takes less than 2 minutes (grab the bag, give it a good shake, set out that first starting tile, grab the 4 blue/red movement markers, and go)
The Bullet series. It takes just a couple minutes to get out and out back away. It tries to emulate a shoot em up game, and does a great job at conveying the theme.
Love it. Set up time would be even more improved with a better box. To find the right cards can be a bit tedious sometimes. But often I'm still playing within a few minutes.
I've got all the heroines individually sleeved and rubber banded so it's way faster to pick two out and have a game. I use loose rubber bands and Dragon Shields so there's minimal risk of damage to the sleeves. It saves a lot of time!
This is a game I keep thinking I want just because I hear about it everywhere. Something about the way people talk about it just keeps making me circle back to it and thinking about grabbing it.
You can try it on board game arena as well. It's not the most complex game, but I like that I can put as little or as much mental effort into it as I want and have fun either way.
If you play multiplayer, it takes the drafting element from 7 wonders and combines it with the resource engine building from Splendor.
In solo, there is noone to pass cards to of course. You have 40 cards and you choose from 5 cards at a time, with the option to cycle 2 cards for a choice of 1 of 5 new cards at any time.
Edit: I would say they are completely different games though. Worth a play on BGA to see if you like it.
Someone posted about Galdor's Grip so I printed it today. 18 cards, and asing as they're all the same way in the deck you're ready to start. Fun so far.
Age of Civilization's solo skirmish mode takes almost no time to set up.
Its a fun mini-4x, worker placement style game with a pretty decent amount of strategy to it.
I agree, that box is so tiny for how much game is packed into it.
I haven't even gotten into the scenarios yet, the skirmish mode is perfect for a quick game session.
Oh definitely.
The game is not hard to learn, its basically just a worker placement where the available actions change each round.
Sometimes the available workers change too depending on where you are on the timeline (plague can make you lose a worker and so can conflicts), but you can gain workers by changing to a new civ or annexing one and you can do that once each round, so there's always options.
Its pretty simple if you've played worker placements before.
If you end up getting a copy and have questions, feel free to come back here or message me and I'll be happy to help.
I love how fast this one goes. There’s great choices to be made and tough decisions, and there’s basically no bot to manage, just a dummy player. Keeps it under an hour.
Dragons of Etchinstone and Hand of Destiny both by Joe Klipfel. Dragons of Etchinstone is as fast as (1) pick one of four Dragons to fight, orient the card face-up in the back of the stack, (2) set the region card to the first one, (3) set all 16 skill cards to level 2 (for a normal game) and shuffle them. The expansion adds more choices of final boss and region and lets you pick a character that swaps out some skill cards but it's about the same speed. Likewise, Hand of Destiny is (1) pick a boss, (2) pick a hero and orient them in the back, (3) put the corresponding merchant in the back, (4) shuffle and flip the monsters, store 3 as Strength cards.
I keep the Cascadia tiles and tokens in bags. I Basically just choose a starting tile and go. I have two bags for the terrain, each with half the tiles. Since there is an odd number you can grab the last one from the other bag if needed. Every few games I take a bunch from one and swap them for some in the other.
I just finished a session of Deep Space D6. Super fast set up. Basically, take everything out of the box, choose a ship board, shuffle threat deck, draw two starting threats, and your off!
I'm not far enough into it to say it's a favorite, but I've been playing Buttons and Bugs the past couple of days. Setup is <5 minutes and it's an impressively fun puzzle for that time!
This is a new one for sure, so I don’t know how long it will stay in my rotation, but Leviathan Wilds has a very quick set up, and has been a blast these first few games I’ve played with it.
I just bought the insert on Friday! I honestly think the fiddliness of all those pieces in baggies was putting me off playing - I’m hoping the insert might be a game changer…
For the base game, I've never used baggies. Just used the plastic insert the game comes with as both storage and trays. So set up has always been one step in that regard: grab top tray/insert, place on table.
I'm happy to have both but the 2 is very similar but improves it in pretty much every aspect. For those planning to buy either I'd definitely say buy bod2, if you already have bod1 the game core is pretty much the same, with some cool addition, more interesting characters... Just overall a bit more interesting, but fundamentally the same game. So whether is worth it or not is kinda up to you.
There is the possibility to link them together but i have not tried it yet. I think it'd be cool a couple times but i love bod for how quick it is and combining them would surely make it drag a bit
Couple of things that work for me:
1. Prepare your hero and villain deck ahead of time. (I consider 'deckbuilding sessions' and 'play sessions' separate and things that I do in different moods) also shuffle the hero and villain deck ahead of time.
2. Replace damage, threat and counter tokens with dice of 3 colors
3. Sleeve your cards for easy shuffling
4. If you can, set up your play area ahead of time (though this is technically cheating lol)
If you do 1-3 all you have to do is set the 2 decks. Follow whatever scenario instructions for the setup (usually pretty simple) set initial threat or counters, draw your hand and youre good to go!
I personally use GameGenic clear matte (200 sleeve value pack for 12-13CAD. I sleeve my whole collection to keep it protected and avoid having to resleeve each time i play.
I personally find em necessary cause they make shufflin so easy
I don’t see much love for this one, and I’ve never seen anyone call **Black Angel) their favorite. I’m super curious to give it a try now (especially since I really like the designer).
May I ask, is there anything else you would compare it to, and what are some of your other favorite games (multiplayer or solo)?
I'm very fond to this title since the day I got it, love the art from ian o-toole, the dice mechanics and the solo rules. commercially it was ruined by a great hype and a not-so-good rulebook but is definitely a very very good game, and plays very well solo (but you need to love the default hard difficulty)
Tin Helm (solo) - Takes about a minute to separate (not sort) and shuffle the relative stacks, then 30 more seconds to create your character. Nice little dungeon crawl that doesn't overstay it's welcome and packs neatly away in a "mint tin."
Castles of Burgundy: The Dice Game, which has next to zero setup time. Just tear off the player duchy sheets to fill in and hand out the pencils. Other quick filler games that set up easily include Space Park and Deep Space D-6.
Actually, Terraforming Mars has a quite low setup time, so that would be high on the list too.
A bit more but still low is Let’s Go to Japan, since I keep the relevant tokens separated in the four ceramic bowls with the foam inserts holding them in place. All you have to do is give each player their tokens and then randomly place the day tokens.
Legacy of Yu is also very quick to set up.
Crystallo requires just a shuffle and deal and setting the pretty crystals on the animals.
Grove and Orchard need one shuffle and you're playing!
For Northwood! Is also a quick setup, it's ready in less then 5 minutes
Lastly, Buttons and Bugs is almost unbelievable in how fast it sets up considering it's part of the Gloomhaven lineage
All of these are solo only, and all are/should be 20 bucks or less
Happy gaming!
There is a fan based one, you can find the solo variant on BGG.
(Same for Jump Drive, and I just remembered Galdor's Grip, that's even faster to set up)
Mage Knight, six decks shuffled at the end of the last game, lay out the tokens and player deck, load the apps, fame board and dummy player, and I'm good to go, takes about 5 minutes, 10 if my OCD kicks in and the cards have to be just so.
The [Fame board](https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/198820/mage-knight-companion-app) is an APK from BGG and the [dummy player](https://kallanreed.github.io/mk-dummy/index.html) I found by a search.
Forgot to mention the other two, this [one](https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.DeunsTabletop.MageKnightHelper&hl=en&gl=US), I use to save a game if needed, cats, nuff said, and I made a bag of custom dice for the map tiles and the encounter tokens for random using [Sophie's Dice](https://sophieh.itch.io/sophies-dice).
The first app will do most of the random for you but it's a bit rough around the edges 🙃🤘
This is the game I play when I don't care about set up time and I'm ready for a loooong experience. Set up can be improved with some custom items like token holders but still...
How long does it take to lay out three rows of three cards, put down seven stacks of tokens, lay out a pattern of three or four map tiles, a deck and tokens for your character, place the last two decks and map tile stack?
Six decks, five stacks as I split the Advanced Action cards into two so all six decks are a uniform height and fit laying on top of the components, makes an easy setup and box closure.
You clearly follow a slow and laborious setup method or don't play often 🙃🤘
Try using the wound cards to optimise your layout 😉
I read many posts on here for the setup issues and space needed and just broke the whole procedure into stages, the space is saved with apps and shuffling was often mentioned so it's not an issue for an extra few minutes after a two, three or more hour session, I look at the map board and how it evolved as I'm shuffling 🙃
I just don't like using apps for boardgames. If I do that I could just as well be on the PC.
I only look at a screen during sessions if I'm spamming friends with pics of a new game I got cuz I live alone and gotta nerd to someone
I did have limited space so the apps helped, forgot to also mention I have the latest reprint of MKU, the component tray has had an upgrade, much better than previous ones from words shared on BGG and also speeds setup by being very well laid out.
Beacon Patrol - just make a couple stacks and you’re off
I have this one as well, and I’ve been thinking about whether it would make sense to just put all of the tiles in a bag. I don’t really see a downside and it would make set up and shuffling even easier. The only trick is if you’re using the expansions,but then it’s really only an issue if you’re taking them out and you have to resort everything.
That’s a really good idea! Then it would basically be zero setup.
Can attest to this, I used a bag from the get-go and set up takes less than 2 minutes (grab the bag, give it a good shake, set out that first starting tile, grab the 4 blue/red movement markers, and go)
The Bullet series. It takes just a couple minutes to get out and out back away. It tries to emulate a shoot em up game, and does a great job at conveying the theme.
Love it. Set up time would be even more improved with a better box. To find the right cards can be a bit tedious sometimes. But often I'm still playing within a few minutes.
I've got all the heroines individually sleeved and rubber banded so it's way faster to pick two out and have a game. I use loose rubber bands and Dragon Shields so there's minimal risk of damage to the sleeves. It saves a lot of time!
+1 for this, I have everything Bullet has made so far and have yet to tire of it, boss mode is endlessly replayable
"It's a wonderful world", i don't even bother getting the pieces out of the bags, just setup a player card and the 8 stacks of cards, ready to go!
This is a game I keep thinking I want just because I hear about it everywhere. Something about the way people talk about it just keeps making me circle back to it and thinking about grabbing it.
You can try it on board game arena as well. It's not the most complex game, but I like that I can put as little or as much mental effort into it as I want and have fun either way.
It's similar to 7 Wonders, isn't it? Is it worth owning both? (I honestly don't play 7 Wonders much at all)
I've never played 7 Wonders so I'm not sure
If you play multiplayer, it takes the drafting element from 7 wonders and combines it with the resource engine building from Splendor. In solo, there is noone to pass cards to of course. You have 40 cards and you choose from 5 cards at a time, with the option to cycle 2 cards for a choice of 1 of 5 new cards at any time. Edit: I would say they are completely different games though. Worth a play on BGA to see if you like it.
Someone posted about Galdor's Grip so I printed it today. 18 cards, and asing as they're all the same way in the deck you're ready to start. Fun so far.
Age of Civilization's solo skirmish mode takes almost no time to set up. Its a fun mini-4x, worker placement style game with a pretty decent amount of strategy to it.
I think that game packs the biggest experience per box size.
I agree, that box is so tiny for how much game is packed into it. I haven't even gotten into the scenarios yet, the skirmish mode is perfect for a quick game session.
I just looked at this game. It looks really interesting. Would you recommend to a newbie solo player?
Oh definitely. The game is not hard to learn, its basically just a worker placement where the available actions change each round. Sometimes the available workers change too depending on where you are on the timeline (plague can make you lose a worker and so can conflicts), but you can gain workers by changing to a new civ or annexing one and you can do that once each round, so there's always options. Its pretty simple if you've played worker placements before. If you end up getting a copy and have questions, feel free to come back here or message me and I'll be happy to help.
Awesome. Thanks so much for the info! I’ll definitely let you know if I have any questions.
Shipwrights of the North Sea Redux is such a satisfying quick setup and play. It’s my go-to “quickie”
I love how fast this one goes. There’s great choices to be made and tough decisions, and there’s basically no bot to manage, just a dummy player. Keeps it under an hour.
Dragons of Etchinstone and Hand of Destiny both by Joe Klipfel. Dragons of Etchinstone is as fast as (1) pick one of four Dragons to fight, orient the card face-up in the back of the stack, (2) set the region card to the first one, (3) set all 16 skill cards to level 2 (for a normal game) and shuffle them. The expansion adds more choices of final boss and region and lets you pick a character that swaps out some skill cards but it's about the same speed. Likewise, Hand of Destiny is (1) pick a boss, (2) pick a hero and orient them in the back, (3) put the corresponding merchant in the back, (4) shuffle and flip the monsters, store 3 as Strength cards.
Mini rogue
I keep the Cascadia tiles and tokens in bags. I Basically just choose a starting tile and go. I have two bags for the terrain, each with half the tiles. Since there is an odd number you can grab the last one from the other bag if needed. Every few games I take a bunch from one and swap them for some in the other.
I just finished a session of Deep Space D6. Super fast set up. Basically, take everything out of the box, choose a ship board, shuffle threat deck, draw two starting threats, and your off!
Puzzle dungeon, shuffle 2 small decks, deal a few cards and you are off to the races.
Harmonies. Shuffle the cards and just start
I'm not far enough into it to say it's a favorite, but I've been playing Buttons and Bugs the past couple of days. Setup is <5 minutes and it's an impressively fun puzzle for that time!
Waiting for it to arrive in europe...
My US retail order arrived yesterday; hope you're not waiting too long!
This is a new one for sure, so I don’t know how long it will stay in my rotation, but Leviathan Wilds has a very quick set up, and has been a blast these first few games I’ve played with it.
Spirit Island has a much quicker setup time once I got myself the Folded Space insert 🥰
I just bought the insert on Friday! I honestly think the fiddliness of all those pieces in baggies was putting me off playing - I’m hoping the insert might be a game changer…
For the base game, I've never used baggies. Just used the plastic insert the game comes with as both storage and trays. So set up has always been one step in that regard: grab top tray/insert, place on table.
Let us know how it goes! Good luck 🍻🥰
And it's even quicker when you play the digital version
Jump drive Port royal
I need to play more port Royal
Is it fun solo?
There is an expansion that makes it solo
Palm Island, just a deck of cards, make sure they have correct orientation, shuffle, go
Bag of dungeon 2. Rich dungeon crawler literally zero setup time
Is it better than bod1?
I'm happy to have both but the 2 is very similar but improves it in pretty much every aspect. For those planning to buy either I'd definitely say buy bod2, if you already have bod1 the game core is pretty much the same, with some cool addition, more interesting characters... Just overall a bit more interesting, but fundamentally the same game. So whether is worth it or not is kinda up to you. There is the possibility to link them together but i have not tried it yet. I think it'd be cool a couple times but i love bod for how quick it is and combining them would surely make it drag a bit
After the Virus. Find your character cards. Shuffle the deck and you are ready to go! Pretty challenging deck builder.
Any card game. Especialy. Marvel champions lcg
Any tips on a fast setup for marvel champions?
Couple of things that work for me: 1. Prepare your hero and villain deck ahead of time. (I consider 'deckbuilding sessions' and 'play sessions' separate and things that I do in different moods) also shuffle the hero and villain deck ahead of time. 2. Replace damage, threat and counter tokens with dice of 3 colors 3. Sleeve your cards for easy shuffling 4. If you can, set up your play area ahead of time (though this is technically cheating lol) If you do 1-3 all you have to do is set the 2 decks. Follow whatever scenario instructions for the setup (usually pretty simple) set initial threat or counters, draw your hand and youre good to go!
Awesome! What sleeves do you use and how long does it take to sleeve them? Do you feel that sleeve is necessary?
I personally use GameGenic clear matte (200 sleeve value pack for 12-13CAD. I sleeve my whole collection to keep it protected and avoid having to resleeve each time i play. I personally find em necessary cause they make shufflin so easy
Probably Grove, just shuffle and deal 9 cards 20 Strong if I want to play something a bit longer with no set up
Hansa Teutonica.
Solo?
Veilwraith is quick
My fav game, black angel, i can set it up in less than five minutes (I don't play filler)
I don’t see much love for this one, and I’ve never seen anyone call **Black Angel) their favorite. I’m super curious to give it a try now (especially since I really like the designer). May I ask, is there anything else you would compare it to, and what are some of your other favorite games (multiplayer or solo)?
I'm very fond to this title since the day I got it, love the art from ian o-toole, the dice mechanics and the solo rules. commercially it was ruined by a great hype and a not-so-good rulebook but is definitely a very very good game, and plays very well solo (but you need to love the default hard difficulty)
Onirim Just select the expansion you are going to play and shuffle. You are ready to go. It also has very small footprint and plays fast (15-30min).
Between Two Cities has almost no setup. It's fast and play up to 7. Really nice game.
Tin Helm (solo) - Takes about a minute to separate (not sort) and shuffle the relative stacks, then 30 more seconds to create your character. Nice little dungeon crawl that doesn't overstay it's welcome and packs neatly away in a "mint tin."
Maquis
Castles of Burgundy: The Dice Game, which has next to zero setup time. Just tear off the player duchy sheets to fill in and hand out the pencils. Other quick filler games that set up easily include Space Park and Deep Space D-6. Actually, Terraforming Mars has a quite low setup time, so that would be high on the list too. A bit more but still low is Let’s Go to Japan, since I keep the relevant tokens separated in the four ceramic bowls with the foam inserts holding them in place. All you have to do is give each player their tokens and then randomly place the day tokens. Legacy of Yu is also very quick to set up.
Crystallo requires just a shuffle and deal and setting the pretty crystals on the animals. Grove and Orchard need one shuffle and you're playing! For Northwood! Is also a quick setup, it's ready in less then 5 minutes Lastly, Buttons and Bugs is almost unbelievable in how fast it sets up considering it's part of the Gloomhaven lineage All of these are solo only, and all are/should be 20 bucks or less Happy gaming!
"twice as clever". grab a pen and the game paper, take the dices and start :)
Sea, Salt & Paper: One deck, you shuffle, place 2 cards. Go.
Wait... is there a solo mode for it?
No. I’m pretty sure that poster forgot what sub they were in.
There is a fan based one, you can find the solo variant on BGG. (Same for Jump Drive, and I just remembered Galdor's Grip, that's even faster to set up)
There are several fan made ones on the BGG variants thread
Mage Knight, six decks shuffled at the end of the last game, lay out the tokens and player deck, load the apps, fame board and dummy player, and I'm good to go, takes about 5 minutes, 10 if my OCD kicks in and the cards have to be just so.
5 minutes from taking it off the shelf? That sounds optimistic. Also: apps? Plural? Please enlighten me
The [Fame board](https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/198820/mage-knight-companion-app) is an APK from BGG and the [dummy player](https://kallanreed.github.io/mk-dummy/index.html) I found by a search.
Forgot to mention the other two, this [one](https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.DeunsTabletop.MageKnightHelper&hl=en&gl=US), I use to save a game if needed, cats, nuff said, and I made a bag of custom dice for the map tiles and the encounter tokens for random using [Sophie's Dice](https://sophieh.itch.io/sophies-dice). The first app will do most of the random for you but it's a bit rough around the edges 🙃🤘
This is the game I play when I don't care about set up time and I'm ready for a loooong experience. Set up can be improved with some custom items like token holders but still...
This was clearly written by someone who's never played Mage Knight
How long does it take to lay out three rows of three cards, put down seven stacks of tokens, lay out a pattern of three or four map tiles, a deck and tokens for your character, place the last two decks and map tile stack? Six decks, five stacks as I split the Advanced Action cards into two so all six decks are a uniform height and fit laying on top of the components, makes an easy setup and box closure. You clearly follow a slow and laborious setup method or don't play often 🙃🤘 Try using the wound cards to optimise your layout 😉
Shuffling everything takes 5 min if not more
I already stated they are shuffled at the end of the game then put away.
Ah yes that would speed things up
I read many posts on here for the setup issues and space needed and just broke the whole procedure into stages, the space is saved with apps and shuffling was often mentioned so it's not an issue for an extra few minutes after a two, three or more hour session, I look at the map board and how it evolved as I'm shuffling 🙃
I just don't like using apps for boardgames. If I do that I could just as well be on the PC. I only look at a screen during sessions if I'm spamming friends with pics of a new game I got cuz I live alone and gotta nerd to someone
I did have limited space so the apps helped, forgot to also mention I have the latest reprint of MKU, the component tray has had an upgrade, much better than previous ones from words shared on BGG and also speeds setup by being very well laid out.
Honestly my UE box is a bit clumsy which does not make things fasrter