Top 15 Board Games I’m Waiting On

15: Critter Kitchen

Based off of Flamecraft I am excited for Critter Kitchen. It is a very different game, but still it looks amazing. And I like the food theme, the idea that you’re basically chefs trying to impress critics is a fun theme. I feel like there is a bit more going on in this game than Flamecraft, so what is keeping it lower on the list is I want to know the weight and accessibility of it, because the artwork is amazing and very welcoming.

14. The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

This one is very new to the list as in that I preordered it this week. But it’s Lord of the Rings, a theme that I love. But there is way more that I love about this game than just that, or at least the theory of it. It sounds like you play cooperatively through The Fellowship of the Ring in various missions. So cooperative, trick-taking, and scenarios with a theme I love, I’m all in.

13. Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders

Now one that I’ve been waiting on for quite a while. Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders is why I got Tidal Blades, a game that I still need to play. The first one interests me a fair amount, I like the idea of leveling up and improving your dice. But the second one, well, it’s a dungeon crawler and we know I love dungeon crawlers. Plus scenario/campaign based and some interesting sounding mechanisms. Especially around turns where you slowly build up what you can do, then after a real powerful turn it resets and you repeat the process.

12. Marvel United: Multiverse

Next up is just more Marvel United. I love all the stuff for the Marvel United board games. Multiverse is going to give me more stuff. So why wouldn’t I want to play with more stuff for the game. Especially since it’s so easy to get to the table.

11. Wandering Galaxy: A Crossroads Game

I need to play the other board games in this line. They are all really different themes, but they all sound like a ton of fun. this one is going to be about space explorers, mercenaries, whatever it might be. And you play them along missions and scenarios in a big adventure. I just like the fact that it’s this crossroads system, the best part of Dead of Winter. I like making choices and maybe not them impacting the whole game, but being meaningful in terms of flavor.

10. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – RETALIATION

This one is on the list because I’m enjoying Vampire the Masquerade: Chapters a lot. Yes, they are different games, but both promise narrative and living in the Edge of Darkness world. So I want to experience more of that. And while there is a ton of stuff about vampires, I feel like werewolves need more, so the theme is even better for me.

9. Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men

Much like Marvel United, Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men is just more stuff. It’s been a bit since I played Dice Throne, but I’m ready to battle it out again in this dice chucking battle yahtzee with unique powers.

8. Stonesaga

Stonesaga is high on the list as a persistent game that sounds really fun to me. And I know that I like the start of it. Though, I’ve done the tutorial enough times that I’m ready to see more. But I like everything going on in the game and the fun minigames within the bigger game. And it’s set well before technology really of any sort, so I love the discovery aspect and process to the game.

7. Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game

Another one that I’ve played, this one I’m still waiting patiently for after playing it about a year ago at CMON Expo. I love this game, I love that it’s a combat game, but not always a combat game. Sometimes you just want to sneak around because when the guards know where you are at they’ll all rush you. And I got to play it in the standalone mode, but I want to try the short campaign in it as well.

6. Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread

A big campaign game, and there are a few on the list at this point and a few more to come. I love my big campaign board games. Arydia though sounds so interesting to me. Mainly because it plays over three different levels. There is this largest level that is the world, well not full world but let’s say lands that you traverse over. Then you go down to a more focused area, maybe a big camp or a town. Then you can get down to tactical dungeon crawl as you go. The whole idea just sounds amazing and I want to see how it executes.

5. Castle Combo

Another one that hit the list a couple of days ago. Castle Combo is one that I’m playing on BGA (Board Game Arena) right now and I really love it. It’s a simple game where you build out a three by three grid of cards. You spend coins to buy the cards which give you an immediate bonus, probably more coins and then a scoring. And you just want to get the best scoring from the cards you can buy. Simple but a ton of fun.

4. The Witcher: Path of Destiny

I need to play my other Witcher game, but The Witcher: Path of Destiny is still really exciting for me. I like The Witcher a lot as a setting. This is one that I kind of wish was cooperative, but also I get it, all the characters really have their own thing that they are doing. But it’s about building your most iconic and exciting story in the Witcher world, and that sounds like fun. But it’s not really a storytelling game, it’s more about completing challenges to gain those stories.

3. Witchbound

Witchbound is one that I stumbled across two years ago and I’m excited for when it will be coming. The hope is that it would be really fast turn around, it wasn’t. But that is because it needed to be translated into other languages. But it’s basically a point and click adventure as a board game. I find that fun and the artwork is great and the story is great. Solo only game and one that I’m excited to show off when it comes in.

2. Mistborn Deckbuilding Game

Another one that I’ve played, Mistborn Deckbuilding Game is one that I got to play at Gen Con and it’s great. I love the ramping nature of the game, I love the thematic nature of the game. And the game play is so fast. It’s not that the game is too short, it’s more that the game moves along quickly and you feel like you do something each turn. And burning the metals is a great thematic element that works well to separate it from other deckbuilding games.

1. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

My number one for anticipated board games, as it has been for a while, is Rogue Angels. I’m still so excited for this game, and I’m tempted to reset my prototype copy and play it again. The story is a blast, the game play is easy to follow. And I really like the cooldown system for actions and the flow that everything moves with. The late pledges are still open on this one so if you’re looking for a cooperative campaign game, I highly recommend this one.

Which Is Most Interesting To You?

Let me know which of these board games you are excited in, if you’ve backed or preordered any of them. There are so many good games coming out, it’s hard to keep up on playing everything. So like I said, I’m taking a hiatus from buying just so that I can play more of the games that I already have. Because there are a lot of games that I want to play more or ones that I want to get to the table for the first time.

And when these games come in, I’m going to want to get them to the table as quickly as I can. Though, some of them being bigger games or campaign games, those might take longer to hit the table. But when Witchbound comes in, as long as I’m not streaming another cooperative/solo campaign, it’d going to get started because of how simple it is to get to the table. But now just to wait on those board games and play the ones that I have.

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10 – Potion Explosion
Now, Potion Explosion is not that unique in terms of video games, but for a mechanic in a board game it has something very cool. You are taking/collecting marbles to mix together in your potion. That piece is pretty standard set collection fare that you see in a lot of games, but it has a mechanic where, because you are pulling marbles from a tray and then more marbles drop in, that if you pull a marble and then like colored marbles hit, you take those marbles, and if more like colored marbles hit, you can take those, so you can set-up a big chain reaction of marbles to use on your potions. It’s a simple mechanic to add into the game, but they execute it well with the tray that holds the marbles and allows them to roll. There’s also more strategy than it feels like there would be, but is still a simple game to teach.

9 – Captain Sonar
This one is interesting to have on the list, because I don’t know that it has a single completely unique mechanic, but the combination of trying to figure out hidden movement, breaking down and repairing systems, and navigating all at the same time, and getting systems loaded, there’s just a lot going on in this hectic game. But they work together extremely well. You get that pressure of trying to hunt down the enemy sub and figure out where they are and what they are up to. And if things go poorly and you need to resurface, all of a sudden they have a chance to find you. This game is also interesting because it’s a big group game but doesn’t have a party game feel.

8 – Dice Forge
I believe that there are a couple other games that have done this, but none, in my opinion, as successfully as Dice Forge, and that is dice customization. In this game, which is basically just a seeing who can get the most victory points over a few rounds, you are swapping out the faces on your dice so that you can get more of several different resources, whether it’s to purchase more and better cards that give you points, or if it’s money that you can spend to get more points, or maybe even just more points. The game gives you a number of strategies for it. But the most fun part is popping off the side of a die and replacing it with something better which really then allows you to customize your strategy going forward.

7 – Hats
Hats is an interesting one to put on the list because it’s just a very small card game and all you’re doing in it is collecting hats in front of you and trying to keep what you want for scoring on the table at the Madd Hatter’s tea party. But how it works is interesting because the cards you get for scoring are from the table. So if you aren’t careful, you could set it up that a color of hat you’ve been collecting might not be able to be scored anymore. So it’s a give and take of collecting a variety of hats but also keeping a lot of scoring options open. It can be pretty thinky at two players. Just the play of the table and how you get cards in front of you feels different and unique to me. So many games you use your own hand for scoring, but in Hats, what you have in your hand, you might not use for scoring at all.

6 – Photosynthesis
First the theme is quite unique, growing trees is not that common a theme, but it has one really interesting and cool mechanic and that’s the sun. In this game the sun rotates around the board and there are games that do that with the moon as well, but the sun rotating can determine if you’re tree is going to get any sunlight and give you points to grow your trees more so and eventually remove your biggest tree which will get you points. But the game is played a certain number of rotations of the sun, and there are a number of spots it can be, but the taller the tree is, the more shade it casts, so it’s a balancing act of blocking your opponents trees at times while getting your own to get the sun in a lot of situations or consistently getting energy to use from the sunlight.

5 – Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game
Not the most unique mechanic anymore, because they’ve come out with two more Crossroads games, though only one of them has been well received. But Dead of Winter is a zombie survival game where you have a main objective, personal objectives, and possibly a traitor, but what makes it unique is that there are Crossroads cards. These cards will only get triggered in certain situations, maybe if you take a certain action or go to a certain place or have a certain character. But that’ll immediately interrupt your turn and you’ll be given a little bit of story and then have to make a decision, it can be something that might help the colony, but most of the time it isn’t and you’ll have to choose between a couple of bad options. It’s a fun mechanic that adds more theme into the game and makes a pretty tough game considerably harder.

4 – Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension
You’ve been sucked through a wormhole and are being pulled into a black hole, so you really need to get out of the 9th Dimension. Fortunately you have a bunch of random elements on the ship that you can use for fuel, unfortunately you’re not sure how well they’ll work. What makes this unique is that the elements do different things, they’re all going to move someone, but some might move you towards the nearest ship, some might push you away, or some might pull ships towards you. And when your ship fires off is completely dependent upon the element that you’re using. The elements fire in alphabetical order, so you might have a card that’ll move you a long ways but it’s later in the alphabet, so you need to use that when you’re confident that it’ll pull you towards a ship that’s ahead of you, and not the wrong way. It’s a simple mechanic but one that works well and causes a lot of tough decisions to be made.

3 – Cartographers
This flip and write does a fair number of things that other flip or roll and write games have done before, or even other board games with the scoring set-up. And combined those by themselves are pretty unique, but there’s one very unique thing that this game does. It causes you to pass your sheet and someone else will write on it. As you are creating your map, monsters might show up, and when they do, you pass your sheet either left or right and that other player puts the monster in the least useful spot possible. And you get negative points if you can’t completely the map around the monsters. Just that screwing over of your fellow players is very interesting and normally roll and writes can be a bit solitaire so this adds in some more interactions.

2 – Xenoshyft: Onslaught
So, in the introduction I gave an example of how a lot of deck building games aren’t that unique. I think that Xenoshyft: Onslaught does something unique in how you can use the cards. In most deck building games, even cooperative ones like Aeon’s End, there are certain steps that you have to do to help the other players at the table. In Xenoshyft, however, you can simply pass them a card while you are setting up your defenses. This means that the person in charge of the armory who can get weapons cheaper can pass the medic a weapon, or maybe someone has six troops in their hand, they can pass an extra to another player to add to their line of troops. Compared to other cooperative deck building games, and actually many cooperative games in general, this one allows you to cooperate and collaborate more on what you are doing.

1 – Betrayal at House on the Hill
Now, this one I’m putting here because of the two halves on the game. There are other games that have multiple distinct parts, Galaxy Trucker for example, but with Betrayal at House on the Hill, you go from a tense cooperative game of exploring a house, mainly tense because you don’t want someone to get too much stuff or too powerful, to a game where it is one versus all as someone becomes the traitor. It does a good job, in my opinion of balancing the tension. There’s less to say on this one, because the mechanic is pretty simple, find enough omens, have a bad enough roll and bad things will happen.

Now, I’m sure I’m missing some that I’ve played and many that I haven’t played that could be unique or do a twist on some more common mechanic. What are some of your favorite games with unique mechanics?

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