I have been looking for games for our family of 6 people to all play together. I wanted something fun for all our ages, with the goal being to spend more time together instead of vegging out with no interaction in front of the TV. I read about Munchkin years ago and kept putting off buying it, now I wish I had just bought it a long time ago. This is a very fun, very easy game to play and is enjoyable for everyone in our family, from ages 9-65 (youngest up to Grandma!). We all love it and have played it everyday since the day it arrived. Now we are all looking forward to adding some of the themed expansion decks. If you are looking for a good family game [way more fun than monopoly, Risk and all the other usual crap], with a quirky/geeky side of humor thrown in, this is a game worth checking out. **Update** After playing this game for several weeks since buying it, I had to revise this review to help get the word out. This game is a LOT more fun than any other board or card game I've ever played. I have now bought almost every expansion and the fun literally never ends. Munchkin (& it's expansions) is a wonderful family fun game for sitting around the table for either a quick 40min round or an epic 2hour match. It is also a blast as a party game. Get this base game of Munchkin and a few choice expansions & invite some friends over for a very very fun party night. The more cards you have the more people can play, we've had up to 8 so far with no problems. It's a fast paced game, so a game round with 6 people usually takes ~1 hour, if you don't let people take too much time on their turns. _____________________________________________________________________ I HIGHLY recommend buying the base game and the following expansions in this suggested order, for the absolute most enjoyment - and you ARE going to want some (or all) of these expansion packs. The fun, hilarity & wackiness are too much to miss. Hopefully someone will find this information helpful. It's a very long list, but I wanted to be comprehensive for anyone trying to figure this stuff out. I sure could have used this info when I was looking at all the extra packs to figure out what to buy when. You can feel free to combine any Munchkin pack with either the base game or any full expansion and play it all together just fine. This is just a recommendation based on my experience playing all of these: [*A note on Full Expansions vs small Card Packs - Full themed expansions are just like the Munchkin 1 base game & have enough cards that they can be played alone without adding any other packs...or you can of course mix them together with any other packs for some fun combinations (for ex: you could mix Munchkin & Zombies, or make a Super/Zombie pack, or Pirate/Bites, etc). Full themed expansions have a lot of cards (168ish), come in a larger box & cost ~$20. There are a few vitally *AWESOME* booster packs that have 112 cards & cost $5-15 (all listed out below). Most normal small booster card packs for any theme usually have 15 cards & cost $5-15. Almost everything I have came with Free Shipping from Amazon. I've listed the newest/latest version of everything, so when you buy look for any "Revised" Edition like I link to below.] _____________________________________________________________________ * Munchkin Deluxe (the Dlx version is just the base card game & comes with pawns & a level counter board to help you keep count. None of these extras are vital, it's just very helpful to have. If you don't have the board, just use a pen & paper to keep up w everyone's levels - players levels will change often) Each of these booster packs listed below adds something unique, interesting & fun to the base game. There are a LOT more booster packs, I will list them later. These here are the ones I consider *essential* to having the most fun with the base game. These all add something significant & amazing to the base game without changing it in any severe way. So I call them "vanilla" addon packs. Buy them, play them with the Deluxe version, love them. Seriously, now. ;p *Munchkin 2: Unnatural Axe Revised Edition (112 cards) *Munchkin 3: Clerical Errors (112 cards) *Munchkin 4: The Need For Steed (Revised Edition) (112 cards) *Munchkin 5: De-Ranged (112 cards) * (Skip 6 & 7, they are both mentioned below) *Munchkin 8: Half Horse, Will Travel (112 cards) Those are all of the 112 card packs, and they are all excellent! Most of the other packs are 15 card booster packs that don't add anything new, exciting or special. Except this one: *Munchkin Easter Eggs (15 cards) - This is really a *GREAT* booster pack. The art & humor are all top notch, as you will come to expect w most things Munchkin. Fight Bunnythulu. Become even more overpowered (that's a good thing). Adds fun monsters, modifiers & treasures. Who doesn't love treasure? Once you get all of the above packs, mix them all in together with the base game pack and play it as your regular vanilla Munchkin deck. It will be a lot of cards. You will want them all. After all those are added to the basic Munchkin game you have some choices. You can buy & mix several other packs (all listed below) into your main deck which will do fun & strange things to the basic game, or you can do what I did & keep a "pure" munchkin deck w it's own mostly vanilla expansion packs (it's a massive amount of cards without any other themes mixed in -- no vampires, space, zombies, cowboys etc, just regular ole plain vanilla Munchkin-themed cards). _____________________________________________________________________ **FULL THEMED GAME PACKS** I sometimes mix some of the other themed decks & smaller packs into a separate blended Munchkin experience that I keep apart from my regular vanilla deck mix listed above. However, most of the themed expansion packs are so complete & so much fun by themselves that I leave them alone, for ex: we usually don't mix Zombies & Vampires....but you could....and it would be awesome. The themed sets all have their own themed expansions & sequels. The Cthulu set alone has 5 booster packs + the main game set. Thats a lot of cards, and it plays perfectly well on its own. But every now and then you really should get crazy and mix some of these together to play something like Zombie-Vampire Munchkin, WITH some of the really good vanilla packs added in (the ones listed above). Or go all wild and buy them all & mix them all in together. Insane, I know. So you could end up with say, a super mixed pack of Super Vampire Zombie Cthulu Space Munchkin, with steeds & rangers. I have got to try that. *Star Munchkin Revised Edition ,Star Munchkin 2 (Revised) &Space Ships Star Munchkin Expansion -- VERY fun geeky set. This is actually our favorite of all of the themes. Lots of Doctor Who/Star Wars/Star Trek & other geeky scifi references, great humor. Love it. *Munchkin Zombies , Munchkin Zombies 2 Armed and Dangerous, Munchkin Zombies 3 Hideous Hideouts (Dungeons), Munchkin Zombies Meat Lockers <-- This is a set of 2 boxes to hold all your Zombie cards. Also comes with 2 unique cards you can't get anywhere else. Also, there is now a Munchkin Zombies 3 which is not available here yet but is for sale at munchkinworld-dot-com. * Munchkin Bites! (Revised), Munchkin Bites 2 Pants Macabre * Munchkin Cthulhu (168 cards/$18), Munchkin Cthulhu 2 Call of Cowthulhu (56 cards), Munchkin Cthulhu 3 Unspeakable Vault (Rev.), Munchkin Cthulhu 4 Crazed Caverns (Dungeon cards) & Munchkin Cthulhu Crypts Of Concealment Buy these 2 together * Munchkin Booty (Revised), Munchkin Booty 2 Jump The Shark (Revised Edition), Munchkin Booty Fish & Ships Booster Pack (15 cards) --> Buy these 3 all together to make a Booty set. The 3 packs all work very well together (of course you can always mix these up w other sets). * Super Munchkin (Revised), Super Munchkin 2 (Revised) -- Superhero themed. Good stuff. * MunchkinFu (Revised), & MunchkinFu2 Monkey Business - Humorous theme inspired
