What TOADS are you SHELVING?

My Forever Toads.



The only games left in my library that don't have solo options. I don't host game nights anymore and don't bring games unless requested so will be pleasantly surprised if any of these ever gets played again.

As a completionist and a person who succumbs to retail therapy, there are plent of toads on the shelf.

Technobowl
KaosBall - although that, along with all the teams will likely get sold off soon
Heroes of Normandie - a toad until I can get someone local to play
C&C in all its iterations - no locals to play, so it sits
Spartacus
Blood Royale
Assorted old AH games - these are arguably more acquired for nostalgia than anything
I could go on....but it is depressing. LOL

mezike wrote: I'm getting the impression that Root may have toaded for us as well.

I just want to give two thumbs up to the phrase "may have toaded." You ought to trademark that, it made me LOL.

Space Hulk got some play early on, but I shelved it after a friend accidentally broke the helmet wings off of Sgt Lorenzo. All my figures are primed but only partially painted, and I feel like they will become more durable once fully painted. But I am a slow painter with fast, twitchy hands, plus I want to use that chemical stuff to soften the fractured edges and repair Lorenzo.

the_jake_1973 wrote: As a completionist and a person who succumbs to retail therapy, there are plent of toads on the shelf.

Technobowl
KaosBall - although that, along with all the teams will likely get sold off soon
Heroes of Normandie - a toad until I can get someone local to play
C&C in all its iterations - no locals to play, so it sits
Spartacus
Blood Royale
Assorted old AH games - these are arguably more acquired for nostalgia than anything
I could go on....but it is depressing. LOL

I finally got off my butt and installed VASSAL, and now play C&C online ( live, not async ) with a friend once a week. Its especially good for EPIC, since set up of course is non existent and single player per side in EPIC is truly epic.

Msample wrote: Someone should organize TOAD CON, where the only games allowed are ones that have been owned for more than a year but not played.

I started a TrashFest in Vancouver Canada for exactly that reason. For a few years running, I started the day by playing Nate Hayden games like The Mushroom Eaters or WARCVLTS as I knew they would be toaded for the rest of the year.

My list is extensive as well.

HORUS HERESY: Wow, I reaaalllly dug this game and it piqued my interest in the 30K universe. I wish it had a bit more development done on it (lose the 3d map element to start) but otherwise, I freakin' loved it. Hasn't been played since my review in 2010 (!!!)

EARTH REBORN: A darling of F:ATties (pre TWBGers), I played it a handful of times for over a year and then nothing. Major pain to set up and put away but what a tension-filled game.

WAR OF THE RING (with Battles of the Third Age expansion): played it with my oldest for a couple of years until they decided they hated game. Hanging on for nostalgia?

TITAN: One of my all-time favourites so much so I own both the Avalon Hill and Valley Games editions. Occasionally play via ACTS, haven't played in person in years.

ANDROID INFILTRATION: It never caught on with my group but I dig the push your luck element.

ANGOLA: I love this rare team-based wargame but my copy has never been played since I first got it. One day???

VEGAS SHOWDOWN: One of the first (after Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Lost Cities) hobby games I bought and one I would really enjoy playing again. It's getting tougher reintroducing old games to my group (when we could meet up).

Erik Twice wrote:

Jexik wrote: I was not as into being the mastermind; I found it stressful.

It is stressful, but I've found it makes you give your anime villain.

I enjoy the deduction puzzle more I think.

I liked it best at two because when I did play with 3 or 4, the protagonists would get bogged down in mapping out exactly what to do, and it suffered a little bit of an alpha player problem. Sure, the game recommends a 'no-talking except between loops' rule, which I think would be great, but I could never get a group to agree to it, even by offering them an extra loop (or just going by the higher end of suggested loop #). Watching 3 people sit there and dismantle your every move in agonizing detail was more stressful for me than being at the final table of a 60-person Heroscape tournament.

Still a great and unique game though. It's more of a bear to learn than to teach I think, if that makes any sense. When people who have played a lot of games just sort of assume they'll figure out how to play while half-listening to the rules, I've come across less than ideal sessions.

Dr. Mabuse wrote:
WAR OF THE RING (with Battles of the Third Age expansion): played it with my oldest for a couple of years until they decided they hated game. Hanging on for nostalgia?

I'll see your WotR+expansion and raise you an Anniversary edition.

(I have Earth Reborn also but have never played. Shame.)

Is it a shelf toad if I play it semi-regularly, I just don't play my personal copy of the game? Or is that the ultimate shelf toad?

Disgustipater wrote: Is it a shelf toad if I play it semi-regularly, I just don't play my personal copy of the game? Or is that the ultimate shelf toad?

A proper shelf toad will fail the white glove test.

I have fully embraced that I love big weird games that won't always get a lot of play. I can no longer be shamed about having large, bulbous, warty toads staring down at me from my shelf.

But tabletop simulator has gotten some of them off my unplayed list! So it's been a good year for toads if I'm being honest.

The greatest betrayal and rage quit I have ever seen in gaming was during a game of Blood Feud in New York.

In the opening of the game two neighbours divided by a bridge made a truce. One with grand plans to take over the city moved all his guys - and I mean all of them - to his other front to begin a territory land grab. As soon as his turn finished his new ally immediately crossed the bridge and just rampaged through the undefended territory.

It was an audacious and ruthless - and quite glorious - backstab. And hugely funny. Only the dude who was betrayed was not laughing. Oh no. He just absolutely lost it - especially because the truce-breaker had the biggest, cheesiest grin on his face as he moved his gangsters over the bridge to invade.

Even now I still laugh about it. The ally had a well-earned reputation for being of a man of dubious honour in the group. But this guy was cussing him out, stomping around, storming out of the room, storming back in to cuss him out some more, just pure rage.

It got awkward pretty quick and I thought he might actually knock him out at one point.

Making things worse was that we'd only just started the game and we were playing at his house. The dude eventually stormed out and simmered down and spent the afternoon angrily shooting up things in Grand Theft Auto while the rest of us kept playing in the other room.

And it's for that reason Blood Feud in New York is a toad on my shelf.

The new mutant chronicles Siege of the Citadel kickstarter arrived recently in a giant box, with many boxes within the giant box. I forgot i had even ordered it. Without looking at any of it, I shoved the entire box right into a dark corner of my game closet, I just have too much to paint and hardly any group to play with anymore, it my be the fastest toading of all time for me.

My toads exist largely for imagined futures that will not come to pass. I mean, don't they all. But, quite specifically.

I have the old shelf toad shelf; Junta and Up Front sit here. I feel like there are one or two others but I can't think of what they are right now.

One day, I might have 7 people together who want to do this kind of thing. Ha.
One day, my kid might not be 3 4 5 6 7 8 and want to play Up Front with me.

Pax games are kinds of shelf toads but I do get my fix online for those.

Pamir 1e and Neanderthal are never going to see play if I'm honest. Which is a shame because I REALLY do like that hunting system in Neanderthal. Pamir 1e is great too but really needs a few players at least and has been surpassed by 2e so.

I have a box of 7th Continent replacement cards I got in a chain that I haven't looked at yet. Only recent, but very likely to be still sitting there for a quite a while.

Despite myself I have a thing for the old shorter civilisation game white whale so I have Civilization: New Dawn and the expansion sitting there as well.