What other board games do you guys enjoy. My wife won't play Minis with me, as she gets overwhelmed by the number of different pieces/squads around, but she does enjoy other games. These are some of our favourites (although we don't have that many games, and some of you are probably way more hardcore than me and will find my choices facile :).

Forbidden Desert - my wife loves this, it's simple enough that our 3 year old daughter can pretty much play it, but deep enough that it's legitimately satisfying to win on 4 player Legendary mode (you have to be lucky and play well to complete Legendary in my experience).

Dominion - I only have the base and three of the expansions (Seaside, Prosperity, Hinterlands), but it's probably my favourite game. I like the masses of different permutations for card combinations, and it's really well balanced. Only downside is the setup time and shuffling.

7 Wonders - I just got this as a gift recently, and it's pretty fun. I've only got to play it 2 players,

Ticket to Ride - we've had the Europe base game for years, but recently got the India/Swiss expansion. I really like making loops in the India game.

Citadels - doesn't really work as a 2 player game, but it's really fun with bigger groups.

Settlers of Catan - Cities and Knights is really fun, but at the same time, very unbalanced. If you get a significant card early - especially Inventor - it can throw the whole balance of the game, and often the game's decided well before the end. I like it enough to play it, but it frustrates me like none of the above games ever do.

Have you tried Munchkin? Its a simple yet fun game, with alot of expansions. You only need 1 to play. It worked for me to introduce my wife to gaming.

I forgot the Munchkin game is just cards, however there is a board game version called Munchkin Quest. Although I have not played, though it looks straight forward!

I'm a pretty avid board gamer outside of miniatures games. You actually named some of my favorites already; Ticket to Ride is fun, and one my wife really enjoys also. 7 Wonders is quite good, although I only got a chance to play it within the past year or so. Citadels is absolutely fantastic! Easily one of my favorite multiplayer games. One variant I've tried once is "speed Citadels", where each player has 5 seconds to make any decision (their turn or what role to pick). It was incredibly stressful, but tons of fun if that's your kind of thing. Bruno Faidutti is one of the best game designers around and writes at length about it, if you're interested in board game design you should check out his website.

I love that you mentioned Dominion, it's probably my favorite game of all time. I've played a lot in person, and over 2,000 games of it online. I think it's the most well designed game out there, and such a great example of game design. It has so many permutations and can show off so many different kinds of gameplay it's amazing. A lot of people get into it just enough to figure out the "Big Money" strategy (buy nothing if you have $0-$2, buy a Silver if you have $3-$5, but a Gold if you have $6-$7, buy a Province if you have $8+) and think that that beats everything, but it really only beats players who way overbuy terminal actions (Action cards without giving +Actions). Once you get past that and learn how to consistently beat Big Money, the game broadens incredibly, and is amazingly deep. I could go on and on about it. Every gamer needs to play at least some Dominion. Donald X Vaccarino is my favorite game designer, and he has been a massive influence on how I design games (both SWM and the half dozen or so games I've designed to various stages of concept/prototype. I swear in going to get one published eventually!).

Anyway, other favorite games of mine:

Eclipse and Twilight Imperium: two games of similar theme/type, but really pretty different in execution. Both are really fantastic in their own ways. Eclipse is a relatively short 4X with a super cool research mechanic and a feeling of exploration; Twilight Imperium is an epic (and epicly long!) war game filled with politics and economics. If you're into 4X games, play these!

Kingdom Builder: a kind of abstract game, and another one by Donald Vaccarino. It's a really elegant unit-placement game that has a lot of different permutations, like Dominion.

King of Tokyo: Very simple but very fun. This is one that almost every time I teach it to someone, they immediately say "let's play it again!". I just played King of New York for the first time a few days ago, and it adds a lot of complexity, but also depth. It's a better game for experienced gamers I think, but King of Tokyo can be played by anybody.

Battlestar Galactica: THE bluffing/double agent game! I loved the BSG remake show, so the theme for this is great, but the gameplay alone would still make this game stand apart. Now, it can breed some yelling and anger, because some people at the table WILL be lying to your face, but just know that going in and don't play with anyone who takes it too seriously. Some of my very favorite gaming moments have been playing this game. Play it!

Yeah, that's definitely the biggest problem with TI. You can play with fewer people and get the time down a little; my first time ever playing it was a 3 player game and it took about 4 hours, and most recently I played a 4 player game where I was the only person to have ever played it before and it took about 6 hours. If everybody reads the rulebook beforehand that cuts the time down pretty dramatically. Some people also play with "simulated" moves for the first round or two, which basically involves starting the game with all the players advanced a little; they've taken nearby planets, gotten some tech, etc. I've never done it, and hojesy it sounds a little less fun because those first few rounds can actually be significant, but it does cut the time down a lot and gets you right into the meat of the game.

I have Puerto Rico and like it a lot, just haven't played it for a while.

I have not; I've heard a lot about A Game of Thrones, but I don't know anyone who owns it, and I have trouble getting big game nights set up recently so most of my gaming purchases have been things that can play in an hour or less.

Both games are on the top 100 games on BGG, though, and my goal is to play all 100 of them, so I'm sure I'll get to both eventually. I'll take a closer look with your suggestion, though.

How could I forget about Carcasonne?? That is a really fun 2P game but you have to really pay attention to what is legal and what isn't. I like it best on Xbox so I can't mess up the worker placements or when the table gets bumped and a meeple just slightly slides off a road and onto a farm.

anyone else into D&D Attack Wing?

best offer not taken: "I'll give you a black bean, if you shut the hell up, right now!"