My Top 100 Board Games 2021 Edition – 80 through 71
Last night there was another stream with the next Top 10 in my Top 100 Board Games Of All Time the 2021 Edition. We’re cruising on through with 80 through 71, and some games that have dropped a lot were on this part of the list. Plus two new games to the list from last year. And new in that I didn’t even own them when I made my list last time.
If you need to catch up all the videos are over on the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. And The next part of the list will be live on next Wednesday, October 6th at 8 PM Central Time.
Top 100 Board Games – 80 through 71
80. Just One
This is an interesting party game in that it’s fully cooperative. A lot of party games have teams against each other, or everyone is vying for solo victory, but not that many are cooperative. In this game, one person is the guesser, the other people are giving clues for one word. The other people write down a single word clue. If they duplicate both those clues go away, and the guesser has less clues to guess from. So you want to give a unique, but meaningful clue, or maybe the most obvious one and hope no one else does. We do house rule it so you don’t get penalized for a wrong guess and the game is still great.
79. Merchants Cove
It’s one of two highly asymmetrical games on the list, Merchants Cove has you taking on one of several different roles, building up your own engine of things that you do, to try and get goods to sell to merchants. The Captain uses a spinner in some of what they do, the Oracle does it as a roll and write, the Inn keeper is guessing how merchants are going to show up, the alchemist is playing a version of Potion Explosion. The game works well at 2-3 and the different characters are great. Not a complex game but a lot of fun.
78. The Grimm Masquerade
I called this social deduction, but it’s more hidden role and deduction. In this game you are trying to collect your masquerade character’s gift. But there is a gift you don’t want to get because it’ll reveal who you are. The game is simple to play, you just flip a card and decide to keep it or give it away. You’re trying to get them to bust while getting your correct gifts. Once you’ve decide with your first card you flip and do the opposite with the next. So it might make you closer to busting, or help you, you don’t know. Plus you can guess who other characters are for even more points. Pretty simple game and great artwork.
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77. Dice Forge
Some games have a lot of toy factor and are just okay games. Other games have great toy factor and are really good games. Dice Forge is a really good game. It has really good toy factor too in that you change up the side of the dice. You build up an engine which allows you to get cards for points but also pull off a side of a die and get a new side. It’s fairly themeless but the artwork is really nice and game play is a lot of fun. What resources do you add to your dice, and how do you optimize to score the most points?
76. Claim
I like trick taking games, I own a number of them, but I haven’t played a ton of them. Claim, though, is a really fun trick taking game. The game plays over two rounds, the first you’re playing to build your hand, and the second hand is your actual scoring hand. It is interesting because to build your hand you are trying to win or lose tricks based off of a card that is flipped up. So if it’s a low card of a suit you try and lose and get a blind card instead. Plus the suits have powers which are interesting as well. It also plays really quickly, which is what I want in trick taking.
75. Small World
Small World is a game that I call Risk but fun. Plus Small World has you with special powers and fantasy races which let you be different than everyone else. And you are always fighting people, you can gang up on someone in a great position, but then they put their fantasy race into decline and come in with another and attack. There’s no getting stuck in a corner and just left alive in this game. It is faster than Risk, more entertaining and just a really good area control game.
74. Star Wars: Rebellion
Star Wars in a box. This game is kind of the original trilogy where one player is the Empire and the other player is the Rebels. The Rebels are trying to complete missions to subvert the Empire to win the game. The Empire is just trying to find the Rebel base and wipe that off the map. The game has you moving troops, fighting battles, capturing enemy leaders, and more. It works well, it’s a big game, and even with dice combat it’s a whole lot of fun.
73. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
This is the game that has dropped massively. It was my #10 game overall last year, and honestly could probably be higher. This is how I want to play Pandemic, whatever Legacy season. The reason it’s dropped is that I’ve played through it twice already. So do I need to play it again, I could and I’d like it. But it’s also a legacy game, so I know a bunch of the story and the beats. The game I still highly recommend and if you’re looking for a fresh way to play Pandemic, it’s an amazing cooperative gaming experience.
72. Root
Root is the more complex of the two asymmetrical games on the list. Each faction plays differently, but you need to know how the other factions work because that matters for how you play the game. You take on different groups of creatures in the woods from the Eyrie to the Marquise de Cat to a Woodland Alliance and more. The game has you fighting and trying to get area control in a lot of ways. Really smartly done game but harder to learn. I want to start playing it again more often because it’s really good.
71. Medium
Another party game to wrap up this section of the list. Medium is amazingly fun. The game has you and a partner on a turn you try and guess the word between two words that you’ve played down. If you match up you get the higher point tokens, if not you try and come up with the linking word between the two that you just said. And now you see if you match again. It’s a good funny party game that has you thinking but it’s somewhat cooperative because matching helps you. And even if it’s not your go, you’ll be thinking of a word that connects just to see if you’d match.
The Next Ten
The list is now 30 games in, and we’re getting close to that mid point. The disclaimer as always, while I like the games higher on the list more, the games on this list are all really good in my opinion. So if you want to see what the next ten are live you can join me next Wednesday. And in general to know when I go live, you can subscribe and click the notification bell. That’ll alert you when I am going to go live or when I put up a new video.
Thanks for checking out the list. Let me know which of these games you’d like to get to the table most? Any that you haven’t tried or that you know you already love?
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