Ranking My Fantasy Games

46: The Red Dragon Inn

This should be a game that I like more than I do, it’s basically a hand management game around drinking in a bar after you’ve been out adventuring and gambling to win money and getting in fights. And I suspect I do I like this game more than I think. I just don’t like it at high player counts. Most of the time when I play The Red Dragon Inn it is over the recommended player count, to me this is a 4 player game only. I don’t want fewer, I don’t want more. At four, it’d feel like good silly fun and not a slog.

45: God of War: The Card Game

God of War is another theme in a game that I should love, but the game around it wasn’t that great. The deck building was interesting in the game. But the card play and the monsters that you fight, those aren’t all that interesting. It feels like the game was meant for mass market without hitting mass market. Or it’s a weird area in between mass market and hobby.

44: Kodama: The Tree Spirits

This is one that barely falls into the fantasy area. Yes, it does have the tree spirits, but that’s barely part of the game. It’s more about building out trees trying to create runs of the different things that you want. In concept it’s not that bad, and in game play it is okay. Kodoma is one of those games where I think a lot of people will enjoy it, and it’s not a bad game, but it won’t be many people’s favorite game.

43: Stuffed Fables

This is a game, in Stuffed Fables, I should maybe have given more tries. The theme of a being stuffed animals and toys of a kid trying to get their blanket back that was stolen, super cute. And the game was cute when I played it, but also more complex than it should be. I get what Plaid Hat Games is doing with their adventure book games, but with changing rules it just made it more complex than I wanted.

42: SeaFall

SeaFall, people would probably put that to the bottom of their lists because it is not a good legacy game. Though, legacy games, to me, have higher standards than most other games. If I am only going to get a limited use out of it, it needs to be epic. I liked the mechanics pretty well though they needed to be less punishing. But the story was a bit too scattered, though, with some tweaking, could be made better.

41: Near and Far

Well, I just wrapped up Sleeping Gods, that isn’t on the list yet, so I like it better. For me, Near and Far is a cool concept, a cool world, and just falls flat. The game has story, and even vignettes of story like Sleeping Gods, but it’s more mechanics than anything. And I think since it’s competitive the game couldn’t get away from the mechanics as much as how you score points.

40: Legacy of Dragonholt

Legacy of Dragonholt is another one of those games that isn’t bad, but could have been better. The system for an RPG/Choose Your Own Adventure game is fun. The story is okay, and that’s what kept me from diving back into it. It wasn’t that the concept of the story wasn’t good, but the execution of it felt too YA (young adult) and not a well written YA story, but one that got published because other YA books similar were well done and popular. I’d love to see Fantasy Flight come back to this system, keep some of the ideas and just improve the writing.

39: Fae

Fae is a fantasy game in cover art only. It is really an abstract game where you are a fae creature who is then hidden from everyone else and you try and score the most points. The game is good, and I like the challenge of trying to score points but not make it too obvious so that people tank your fae’s scoring. A clever idea and very abstract.

38: Legends of Andor

Another game that was in my collection and then left. And another one that is fun, it is an efficiency puzzle of how you get through the story as effectively as possible so you don’t trigger end game too early. My issue with it is only a me issue, I have too many campaign games. I let it go when I realized I would only ever play the starting scenario at least for right now. When I have capacity for that campaign, then I might get it back.

37: Sword & Sorcery

Sword & Sorcery left my collection, but that’s because I did play through the campaign. It is a fun campaign but one that I knew I wouldn’t revisit. The depth of game play is fun for a lighter dice chucking game. And the story is also light, well, in terms of the decisions that you make. I wish the story branched more, and that your powers would change up more, because once you found a few good things, you just did those.

36: Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients

Shadows of Brimstone is one that hasn’t left my collection as a campaign game, but maybe should. The only issue is that I need to glue the figures back together. My first gluing didn’t stick as well as it should have, because I didn’t use the right glue. But also, it’s a theme that I don’t have games for, the weird west. So monsters and other worlds all messing with the old west. I love that theme and there aren’t many games or good books that I’ve found with it.

35: Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

Another campaign game, and another one that left my collection just because I wasn’t going to get to it anytime soon. But it’s Lord of the Rings, and app assisted from Fantasy Flight Games. The story was fun that I did play through. The writing was well done, which I appreciated, and you can see is something that’s important to me. Definitely a good one for Lord of the Ring fans, which I am.

34: Krosmaster: Arena

This is a skirmish game with fantasy characters casting spells, summoning monsters, and hacking and slashing away. I like that you pick and build the teams that you play with. I like the dice rolling and how you can play with secondary objectives so it’s not just knock out your opponent. But you can play just with knocking people out as well. Krosmaster is one I would keep but I didn’t have people to play it with, and now I have another skirmish game or two that I put over it.

33: Too Many Bones

This one will probably move up the list when my Gamefound comes in for the latest expansions. Not that I own any other Too Many Bones, but that might start me getting more. This is kind of a short campaign game where you fight some battles and then fight against a boss. But where the game really shines is how you build up your characters. Each of them do different things, and how you level them up gives you room to explore a character multiple times. Plus it’s a different fantasy world than anything else out there.

32: Lord of the Rings: Journey To Mordor

This is a roll and write game, but it is a fun little one. Not one that I own or one that I’d go and seek out to add to my roll and write collection. But Journey to Mordor basically has you advancing your Hobbit on their journey to Mordor while trying not to let the Nazgul get you. Very simple roll and write but it has a little more player interaction, so it feels different than some.

31: The Hobbit

Speaking of Hobbits, we have The Hobbit. This is a competitive game about dwarves trying to get treasure, which is kind of what the book is as well. I like the mechanics where you are leveling up skills based off of cards you play. But you want to balance it so everyone levels up because you can’t defeat the monsters all by yourself. So it’s semi-cooperative, but not in a way that someone is working against the group, it’s just that sometimes you let another person get the better thing.

30: Deadly Doodles

Another roll and write game, and this one I think has dropped a little on my list. It’s a good simple roll and write where you are trying to get treasures, find weapons and defeat monsters. And what you do gives you points. There are some different dungeons which add in more things to do as well, which I need to play around with.

29: The Lord of the Rings

And even more Lord of the Rings, this is the classic Fantasy Flight Game. I like how it plays through the books. And you play as the Hobbits taking the ring to Mordor. It is fairly abstracted, but the locations you go and the scenes you play through are all very Lord of the Rings, so it feels more thematic than just with what you are doing. Plus it’s a really tough cooperative game and I like those.

28: Titan Race

Normally I don’t love games that have a lot of in your face, try and mess the other person over, but Titan Race is a lot of fun. This is a fast game and a silly game with great fantasy in it. Titan Race is very silly and I like how the tracks work. You can either do a race where you loop over the same board over and over again, or you can do a grand prix and go over three boards and each board does different things. And those things make the game even sillier.

27: Claim

Claim is a two player trick taking game which is odd. Plus the first hand you play doesn’t actually give you a score, it is how you build your hand for trick taking. It’s such a clever idea and I like that it plays really fast. The fantasy theme comes in that the different suits are fantasy races. And each of those fantasy races has it’s own powers, or they might. Some of them there are just more of, whereas others have powers. A knight always beats a goblin, for example. So it puts even more of a twist on trick taking in a way I really enjoy.

26: Paper Dungeons: A Dungeon Scrawler

I don’t know where this one will end up, so middle of the list is good for right now. I don’t know where it’s going to end up because I’ve only played this roll and write game once. And I liked it a lot, it’s a dungeon crawler as a roll and write. But as compared to Deadly Doodles where you go into a dungeon and cross over stuff, you do a lot more in this game. You level up your heroes, you have powers and abilities, you craft items and brew potions. And the better you do in other things, better you can explore. A lot going on, but not too hard.

25: Skulk Hollow

Skulk Hollow is a game of woodland creatures, the Foxen, fighting against a Guardian. It’s a two player only game and one that is very asymmetrical. As the guardian my goal might change from game to game, depending on which guardian I am. And the Foxen, well they always want to beat down the Guardian. And the Foxen can change up depending on who their leader is. Really cute game and fast to learn and play.

24: Silver

I think I say this every time I talk about Silver, but it reminds me of a game I played growing up with a deck of cards. In Silver you have a village in front of you and you want the lowest score possible. You know what two of the cards are in your village. You don’t know the other three. So now you swap cards out or play them for powers to get rid of cards in your village and lower your score. It’s simple, it’s fun, there’s a lot of take that, yet it feels nostalgic in a good way.

23: Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure

Clank is a fun push your luck, deck building, dungeon delving game. You want to get the best treasure that you can, but as you get cards, make noise, and well, annoy the dragon because it’s their horde, now the dragon starts damaging you. So you could jump in, grab the first thing you see and run, but if someone else can make it out, now they have more points and better treasure than you. Really fun game and easy enough to play for most people.

22: Deranged

Deranged might fall more into a horror game. But there is a magical gate and fantastical monsters who are out to get you. And you yourself can become one of those fantastical monsters if you don’t deal with your curses and get out in time, why, because you might become Deranged. The game has a lot going on, but I like the dual use cards and the theme of the game. A little horror I’m most certainly interested.

21: Village Attacks

Village Attacks is another darker themed game because you for sure are the monsters. And after a long day of terrifying villagers, you are ready to settle down. But nope, here some villagers to break down your door because clearly you’re the monsters, not the people trying to trash your place. That sounds light, and I find it silly, but it is themed dark. Still a very nice tower defense type of game.

20: The Grimm Masquerade

Themed with Grimm Fairy Tales, The Grimm Masquerade is a deduction game. You are each a masked party goer, one of the Grimm characters. You are of course looking for something, a glass slipper for Cinderella, but also have something you don’t want. Can you get what you need or make everyone else bust before they figure out who you are?

19: Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

Another deck building game, Ascension is fantasy themed. Really, like most pure deck building games, it’s about building up an engine that gives you points. I just like this fantasy theme and variability of it better than something like Dominion. But that’s not what we’re talking about. This lets you get heroes and casters and sages and constructions to fight monsters, get more income and buy more cards. I like that it offers a ton of different strategy for the game.

18: Res Arcana

Res Arcana is another in theme only fantasy games. You are basically building out an engine to get points and who can do it better to get points faster. I like it though with the theme of brewing potions and dragons and places of power. It makes it feel different, and I also like that you only have 8 cards to make your engine with.

17: The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

The Dresden Files are my favorite fantasy series. I love the world that Jim Butcher has created. The game, it does a good job of giving you the pieces of that world. But you need to know the world to connect them together. So it’s not the best fantasy game or story game for everyone, but if you know the series, it’s a lot of fun to play.

16: Small World

Small World is Risk with fantasy creatures, crazy powers, and well, a whole lot more fun. What really works is that this is a small board. The game is in your face, but it’s in everyone’s face. The option of hiding away in Australia is gone that you’d have in Risk. Plus, you get crazy combos. Flying Halflings, Seafaring Giants, Wealthy Trolls, all of them are possible. Really accessible game too for most new gamers.

15: The Lost Expedition

This one is on the list because of the expansions and promo cards. I don’t think in the base game there is anything too fantastical, but werewolves, fountain of youth, yeah, those are fantasy. This is all about surviving to get to the lost city of Z. The game is a really good cooperative one that if you have someone who is a alpha player, it keeps them from being too much of one.

14: Century: Golem Edition

This is another one where the theme is fantasy, but game play doesn’t really shine through on that. Still, the artwork and gem pieces are great, and I wouldn’t want a different theme. It’s a hand management game where you are building up cards in your hand to use them to turn gems into other gems until you get the right combinations to get golems. And the golems at the end of the game give you points. What is so amazing about this game is that turns are super fast, so while there are good decisions to be made, it doesn’t take long to get back to your turn.

13: Potion Explosion

We’ve all probably seen the app games where you get like colors to touch and that removes them from the board and if more hit, those are removed as well. That is what Potion Explosion is. You are making crazy potions by pulling dice and trying to get the like colors to hit. Light game with a great table presence.

12: Root

Root was one where I was thinking, is this actually fantasy. Well, let’s see, it’s animals fighting and building, so yes, that seems like fantasy. But really, it’s a confrontational game where you fight it out with your group trying to get points to win the game with everyone trying to keep everyone else in check. Great asymmetrical game, just know it’ll take some time to teach. And don’t let the artwork fool you, this is not a nice sweet happy game.

11: Roll Player

Roll Player is a game about making your Dungeons and Dragons (or Generic RPG) character. You draft dice to put them into various stats for your class. It’s a lot of fun as you try and match up colors and get the numbers right to score more points. Plus you buy up gear and abilities which can influence your stats or points as well. And that’s the game, it’s about building up your character.

10: Spire’s End

Spire’s End, coming soon to Malts and Meeples is a story adventure game. In Spire’s End you wake up to find a spire has appeared at the edge of your town and many people are missing. You and others go into the tower, fight monsters, make choices, and generally go on a weird and dark adventure. Really like this one as a solo game.

9: Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl, it’s in the name that it’s fantasy. Super Fantasy Brawl is a two player skirmish game where you are trying to complete objectives in an arena and knock out your opponents. Complete objectives, get trophies. Knock out your opponent, get trophies. The first to five wins. What I really like is the turn speed, you play up to three cards, one of each color and do what it says on the cards. And the cards you play determine who moves. Light game but very tactical in how you play.

8: Cartographers

The second game I have in the Roll Player world, won’t be the last. But Cartographers is a roll and write game where you are making a map of the land. And you get points for making it in certain ways. Forests surrounding mountains might give you a point or two, things like that. What makes it fantastical is that you put monsters on the map as well. And you don’t put your own down, you put them on your opponents board in the worst spot for them to make them score negative points.

7: Sleeping Gods

Sleeping Gods, well, you can watch me play this one I just wrapped it up over on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is a big adventure game where you, as the crew of the Manticore are transported to a new world. You want to get home, but in order to do that you must awaken the sleeping gods and all you know is that totems might help with that, not where to find them. So it’s really a sandbox game of exploring, finding quests, fighting monsters and more.

6: Roll Player Adventures

Roll Player Adventures, the final Roll Player world game, this is an adventure game set in the world of Roll Player, using mechanics or dice mechanics that feel like Roll Player, and it’s really good. I really like that Roll Player Adventures is an easy game to learn and a lighter game to play. A lot of the big adventure games can have a lot to keep track of and a lot of tokens. Roll Player Adventures has enough, but not too much. And the world you play in isn’t too dark.

5: Aeon’s End

Aeon’s End is another deck building game and the highest on the list. This is a cooperative game where you play as breach mages trying to fight off nemesis that come through. The game does two really interesting things for me. Firstly, you never shuffle your deck. So when you discard cards you can kind of put them in an order. And the other is that turn order is random. There is a deck, in a two player game, which has two activations for each character and two for the Nemesis. On a really bad draw you could go twice with each character and then two Nemesis turns, plus then shuffle that up again and two more Nemesis turns.

4: Lords of Hellas

Lords of Hellas is fantasy in the future, or mythology in the future. It’s a cyber world of Greek gods. An odd setting with some amazing miniatures and mechanical creatures. But a really good game with some rough edges and a lot of ways to win. To me that is one of the best parts of the game where you are able to win in a number of different ways. You might fight monsters or build and control a monument or take over areas, how you play is up to you and the powers you have.

3: Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail, if Roll Player is light fantasy or happy fantasy, Tainted Grail is very dark fantasy. The world of Avalon is falling apart, the Menhir that drove back the wyrdness are failing and you aren’t sent out to stop it. You are sent out to find out what happened to the people who are better equipped to do this than you. But the story in Tainted Grail is amazing and one that I highly recommend people track down, which can be hard. Also know that this is a survival game with a ton of story, if you want the story, play in storymode, I am.

2: Dice Throne

Odd one to put on the list but Dice Throne is very much fantasy. It is fantasy head to battling in almost a Mortal Kombat type setting but it is still fantasy. My Pyromancer is going to blast your Barbarian with fire or then there is a Seraph or a Treant or a Gunslinger, all sorts of things, and you can take any of them up against each other. I’m so excited, it isn’t that far out to when Marvel Dice Throne will be delivered, several months but not that far. And Marvel Dice Throne is compatible and can be played with everything else I already have.

1: Gloomhaven

Finally, my #1 game of all time, Gloomhaven, This is a massive fantasy game of dungeon crawling combat. It is amazing and what really makes it is the card play. You pick two cards to play, one will determine how fast you go. Then when you go you use the top of one card and the bottom of the others to move and attack, so you can set yourself up for some epic turns or make it flexible to cover a changing board state. And there are so many different characters that are interesting to play as.

Final Thoughts

I love fantasy as a theme. A lot of my favorite series are fantasy for books in particular. And for board games, there are a lot of games that use the fantasy theme. But when you get down to some of my favorite games of all time, the big fantasy games are hard to beat. I think that my Top 3 games are all fantasy games. And I even skipped some games, like stuff in the Lovecraftian Mythos because while they are fantasy, I feel they are more horror. Maybe I’ll do a horror game ranking soon.

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The next 10 are going to be on Wednesday at 8 PM Central Time. You can join me over on Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. You can flick the notification bell, here, to know when I’m going live. I hope that you can join as we get higher into the Top 100 list.

100 Through 91

90 Through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

60 through 51

Top 100 Board Games 50 through 41

50. Railroad Ink

Railroad Ink is a fun roll and write where you are connecting routes. And I think that concept works so well for a roll and write game. Each face of the die has a different route that connects not only railroads but roads as well. And you’re trying to connect as many exterior ones as you can. But you also get points for having more spots in the middle filled it. And there are negative points for routes that just end nowhere. The game works really well as a larger group game because everyone is playing at once.

49. The Lost Expedition

This game actively tries to keep there from being an alpha gamer in it’s cooperative experience. It does that by limiting how much you can talk about the cards in your hand. By limiting that, no one player knows everything and when a persons turn comes up advice is only limited. And that’s just for creating the travel path for the morning and evening. After that, the group as a whole discusses how to best traverse all the bad things that are going to be happening and progress to your goal of finding the lost city of Z.

48. Five Tribes

My favorite of the gateway games, I think. Though, this game does have more going on than your average gateway game. In this game you get points for doing everything, have more vizers than your opponent, you get points, take off workers, get points, empty a location, get points. But that’s what makes the game so much fun, everything gives you points, but at the same time, you can be clever or feel clever when you spot a really good move. It uses a mancala style mechanism to move around the meeples, and works well with two and well with more.

47. Marvel United

A new one to the list, Marvel United really burst onto the scene for me. I knew I’d probably like it because it was Marvel themed and a cooperative game. But this one works so well, now, I will say, one negative about the game is that there was a lot on the Kickstarters. Now that in and of itself isn’t a negative, but it means that you do miss out on some if you didn’t back the Kickstarter. Still for a game that makes you feel like you’re playing as a superhero and working with others, this one is really good.

46. Deranged

I finally got to play my copy a couple of months ago. This is a game that I played at GenCon and was really excited to get. Then I got it, right in the middle of the pandemic. So it was fun to finally play it again. This is a really good game where everyone is trying to break their curses and get out of a town. What is interesting is the card play where your actions are limited by your cards and by some madness. Plus then, when you hit night time, someone might become a deranged and now their goal in the game changes. This game has a nice Halloween scheme.

45. Draftosaurus

This game is almost a roll and write game. It isn’t in that you are placing dinosaur meeples onto the board as you draft them. But the game feels like one. You place the dinosaurs into different pens and they all score in slightly different ways. One wants just one dinosaur, but if it’s your only one of that type, you get points. Others might want pairs, or unique dinosaurs. The game plays super fast and it is a ton of fun and is easy to get into.

44. Say Bye To the Villains

It’s odd to put a game that I’ve never beaten onto the list. But I love the game because it always feels close. I always feel like i should be able to win, but I just don’t have quite enough time. In the game you are a group of samurai taking on some villains. You prepare by increasing your stats, helping the other samurai, and seeing what the villains are doing. But there isn’t enough time to completely do all of that. One of these days we’ll beat the game, and it’ll be great, but until then, I’m going to keep on trying.

43. Century: Golem Edition

Century: Golem Edition is a game I wish I played more often. It’s such a great introductory engine building and hand management game. And it looks amazing on the table. The gems are cute and the table presence is amazing for it. The game is also really fast, turns fly by as you take one of a few actions in the game. I feel like i need to get it to the table again soon, and if you’re looking for a game to introduce people to, this is a really good one.

42. Calico

Another very family friendly game, Calico has much more of a brain burning experience to it than it might look. This game gives you so much to think about as you are balancing three different types of scoring. You get buttons for creating groups of colors, you attract cats for groups of patterns. And then on the quilt itself, it wants certain groups of patterns and colors. And at the end of the game you might be hoping to get that one perfect quilt block that will finish off multiple things for you. There is an easy version as well, which works pretty good, though I do prefer the more brain burny version.

41. Floor Plan

Finally, we have Floor Plan, this is about building out a goofy house to meet some criteria. You might end up with three living rooms iwth no doors, but if that you gets you points, it gets you points. They are coming out with a Winchester mansion version of this which will make a lot of sense thematically for building out a crazy looking house. But it’s a good time to play and while this one, I feel, might slip over time, it’s one that I want to explore more.

The Next 10

If you want to catch any of the remaining Top 10’s live, you can check them out and my normal streams on Wednesday at 8 PM Central time. If you subscribe and click the notification bell you’ll know whenever I go live or upload a new video to Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. When I’m not doing my Top 100, you can find me on Wednesday playing board games solo on the YouTube channel.

Let me know what game you’d want to play out this list? Are there any of your favorites here or any one that you now really want to play?

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Let’s see everything that was played.

Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game – 28 Plays

So that is a ton of plays of this game. But I talked about it in my recent review, this is a very easy game to get to the table. It calls itself a 9 card game, there are actually 18. But you only use 9 each game. That means I can shuffle up once, split the deck and play twice in a row. It’s also a good solo game because it doesn’t take up much space. I got in something like 10 plays during under a quarter of a college football game. This is a really good solo game.

Aeon’s End Legacy – 4 Plays

So, like I said, probably not getting that played tonight. But I’ve really loved my playthroughs of this game. It’ll be on the list for the last time next month though. I only have one more to go. But you can check out all the plays over on Malts and Meeples. Really good legacy game and I can’t stress enough, this is how I’d recommend that people learn to play Aeon’s End, it teaches you so well.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon – 3 Plays

We’re getting towards the end game of Tainted Grail as well. I do think it’ll run through all of September as we only will get in a couple of plays. But I’m still really loving the game. I and I really like how much the world has changed because of a few things we’ve done. I’m not sure it always changes that way, but it’s given us some cool and interesting things to think about. The story is really what makes this game so good

The Night Cage – 3 Plays

I’ve been waiting on this one to show up for a bit, so when it did, I needed to get it to the table. And it was a lot of fun to get it to the table. I like Night Cage as almost a horror themed game, well, it is one but it gives you that feeling of tension. I think that the candle burning down as you play out tiles and showing how that is shortening up works really well.

Downforce – 2 Plays

It happens from time to time but not all that often that I will get an expansion after playing a game. In the case of Downforce, I liked the two plays of it that I had so much that I got two expansions for it. Those expansions are just more maps to race around, but it’s going to be a lot of fun to get those to the table. I think that this upcoming months board game night might be racing games.

Claim – 2 Plays

It’d been a while but every time I play a trick taking game, I realize that I do like trick taking. It is just a lot of fun to see how well I can play. And it is interesting too because with this game, you are first winning tricks to build your hand to then win tricks to actually win the game. First game was close then dominated in the second one, which is the only downside I have for this game, it can be a bit swingy.

Hanamikoji – 2 Plays

In terms of two player games, I think that Hanamikoji is my favorite. I really like how smoothly and simply it plays. I could have used this for my abstract game example because it’s easy to learn abut offers amazing decision making space. One that I know I’ll keep on coming back to.

Deranged – 1 Plays

Got this during 2020 and needless to say, I didn’t get 3+ player games to the table then. But I got to play the introductory scenario of the game again. And I still really enjoy this game even after so long. This was one that I originally played and demoed at GenCon back in 2019. Another horror themed game but one that is lighter in tone than Night Cage but also more thematic as you try and break curses. I want to play the bigger version of the game just to see how it goes.

Detective: Dig Deeper – 1 Plays

So I’ve talked about Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game a fair amount. It is one of my favorite thematic games where what you are doing matches the theme so well. This takes you into the 70’s, so things are a bit different but still offers an amazing thematic experience. And I am curious to see who will be the next designer they announce for this signature series because it is fun to see what other people are doing.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – 1 Plays

Got in a really fast play of this game last night. And it was surprising how fast, basically one hour for two players. Generally they’ve taken longer, but we got our engines up and running very quickly. I still really like this game. The mechanics are smooth and that engine building aspect is so much fun. I need to get the paper off of my overlays for the boards so I can make it even easier to keep track of things. I know some people are mad about Target getting retail copies before they got their nicer Kickstarter copies, but it’s a really good game.

Parade – 1 Plays

This small little card game with kind of an Alice in Wonderland theme is always fun to play. I like it as a puzzle to solve, how you can push for a fair amount of one color if you can avoid the rest of the colors. The clever thing of having the most of a color and that making all those cards worth a point each instead of face value really works for me. And the game plays pretty quickly, you need to think a bit on your turn, but you don’t have too many options to get analysis paralysis.

Calico – 1 Plays

Another play of Calico, and the more I get of it, the more I realize how much I like the game. It just works for me because it is a simple game to play but the puzzle gives you hard choices. Plus it’s cats so that theme is always good. I do think it might be too much of a puzzle for really casual gamers, but overall it’ll be one that works for a lot of people.

Cartographers – 1 Plays

This, I think, is becoming my favorite roll and write game. It just works so well and works well with a large group of players. I like making maps and I can’t wait to get more maps and more expansions and stuff for this game. If you want a thematic roll and write, this isn’t the best, Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade I would say is, but it’s up there. And I think the simplicity of this game with the theme of map making is going to draw people in.

Sonora – 1 Plays

Another roll and write game, but of course this starts with flicking. I really like this game. It is not the easiest roll and write game to play. It is so combotastic that filling out your board can take a while. And for some people that take longer. But I still really like it for that aspect. In fact, it’s very high on my list because it feels different every time. I can pick a new area to try and optimize.

Dice Throne – 1 Plays

A game I got in last night of Vampire versus Samurai and the Samurai had no problem winning. I was rolling really poorly as the vampire. And I was really pushing for blood power. I want to try that match-up again, or play around more with the Vampire Lord. I feel like I need to come up with a better strategy. Even getting stomped, I want to play it again and still love the game.

Railroad Ink Challenge – 1 Plays

Final game played this month. Railroad Ink Challenge I think is a better version of Railroad Ink. I talked about it before, it just offers more to do. This one was fun because we had eight people playing it. That means that we had a lot of wildly different boards and scores. The challenges just offer more direction early in the game. Regular Railroad Ink is fine, but challenge for me is the better of the two, though harder to teach.

Yearly Gaming Stats

So like I said, I am all caught up. 244 total plays and 121 plays left to go in 121 days. With that there are 62 different games that I’ve played and 7 that I’ve played over 10 times. I think that Orchard is going to help me keep up on my plays, and probably a few more of A Gentle Rain coming as well. I’m also now at 22% of the base, not expansion, board games that I own played in this calendar year.

So which of those games would you want to play from this past month?

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Theming a board game night can be a lot of fun. It gives people a good idea of what games might be played. It helps focus in a collection which games come off of the shelf. I know that I have enough board games where it is tricky sometimes to get them to the table, but if I theme the night, then I play games I might not get to otherwise. What I want to talk about is how to pick a theme, but before that, I think we should talk about how to pick games.

Picking the Games for Board Game Night

Now, you might just want to pick games that go with the theme ,and keeping things on brand for the theme is important. But it is easy to end up with a lot of the same types of games, if you pick something like fantasy, you could end up with four big games ready to go. A game night should provide some more diversity in what is played and that’s less because some people don’t like big games, but more because people will come in late. I am working on coming up with a methodology of what works well.

I think that starting out with a party or lighter/faster game is good to do. People will show up throughout that game, they can either sit down and chat with you while you play or hop into the game if it’s a party game as the points don’t matter. Then have some medium or heavier games to go after people have arrived. This can often have you splitting into a couple of groups, get a heavier game and a medium weight game going. Then as the games wrap up, you go back to lighter games again and pick ones that can end whenever or can be played multiple times pretty quickly as people will slowly drop out for the night. I’ve found that this strategy works well and the games played generally will give everyone something that they like, for those party game players or those heavier gamers.

Picking a Theme

Keep The Theme General

So, with that in mind, it makes a collection clearer for what themes might work. You’ll be able to see what games you have that fit a given theme. And when I say pick a theme, I mean give yourself a broad category. For examples, instead of 18XX go with games with trains. Instead of Lord of the Rings go with fantasy, instead of chickens go with animals. Give yourself enough to work with and a wider breath of games to pick from. It will also make the game night more inviting, because you might have three games about chickens, but if I hate chickens, I might not come, but add in animals of any sort, I would come for games about cats. That’s a silly example but helps make the point. A broader theme is more interesting because someone who doesn’t like fantasy except Lord of the Rings can still come to game night. I always try and say what games I’m looking at as well when inviting people.

Vary The Themes

And vary the theme as well. If you flip back and forth from sci-fi to fantasy and back with maybe a horror thrown in there, it’ll limit what games you can do. It’s fine to stretch a little bit to fit some of your favorite games into categories, but by theming you can also encourage other people to bring games as well.

Stretch The Themes

Now, I am a strong proponent of stretching the theme as well. You do want to play your favorite games, so make themes that they can get into, maybe just barely. It’s a food themed game night, what games have food in them even if they aren’t about food. If you love Agricola, you can make that work. Ice Cool is about flicking penguins who want fish. Or if you’re doing a theme about a school or learning, Ice Cool works for that, or about animals, Ice Cool again works. You can get games into a theme to give yourself more options to play, if you really try.

Theme To The Season

Finally, pick themes that go with the season. At the holidays, make it about party games, if you do it on a weekend evening like I do, that means around Christmas and New Years that people might have other parties as well. Make your game night something easy to drop into. Or in October go with horror games. In July, go with games about food or fireworks or about the United States of America. That’ll help you get variety in your themes as well.

Themed Game Set Examples

Food

• Sushi Go/Sushi Go party – This is a nice starting game, it plays fast and offers time to chat. It’s also enough that groups can continue playing if they want.
• Homebrewer, Foodies, and Heaven and Ale – This is the second wave of games that I’d use in my collection. They are bigger games with more going on, but Homebrewer and Foodies are pretty light weight and easy for someone who might not know the game quite as well to teach. The people who want to play a heavier game, Heaven and Ale covers that crowd.
• Point Salad and Ice Cool – Point Salad is a great wrap up the night game. It plays a decently large group, it plays fast. So a good one for the Homebrewers or Foodies players to play while Heaven and Ale players finish up their game. And Ice Cool plays a big number and is silly fun.

Horror/Halloween

• Zombie Dice – It’s a very simply push your luck dice game about zombies. Sure it’s not actually scary, but it has a horror related theme which is really what you’re going for more than something too scary.
• Dead of Winter, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Marrying Mr Darcy (with Zombie expansion) and Deranged – There are some lighter and some longer games in here, but it gives you a variety of options. And three of them handle a larger group of players.
• Deception: Murder in Hong Kong – Sure it’s not really a horror game but it’s about a murder which has a Halloween feel to it. And it’s a nice bigger group game where the games don’t last too long, people can leave between them and it can wrap down the game night.

Sci-Fi

• King of Tokyo – So this could fall into the next category of games, but the games of King of Tokyo are fast and the Cyber Bunny is definitely sci-fi. Plus since the game is simple, chatting with people who arrive while you’re playing is easy.
• Xenoshyft: Onslaught, Alien Artifacts, Clank! In! Space!, Cry Havoc – All of these are bigger games, though some of them are more complex and drier to play. They give a good variety from area control, a 4x-ish card game, two deck builders, but one cooperative and one not.
• Not Alone or Lazer Ryderz – Now, Not Alone is for if you still have a larger group. But you could do Lazer Ryderz in teams as well which is just becasically the bike game from Tron. A some good goofy fun with that game. Not Alone gives you more of a game but still plays a big play count.

Those are just three examples of what you could do. And that is how I’d build it from my collection. I also like it when people bring games that gives even more variety as to what to play.

Have you themed a game night? What’s your favorite theme?

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Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s

D’s

Dead Men Tell No Tales

This one I was sold on because it is a cooperative game that has a bit more going on than Pandemic and a pirate theme. Zee Garcia sold it well on the Dice Tower, and I have to say that I’ve been pleased with it. The use of the dice in the game to track how badly the ship is burning, and everything you are trying to do works for me. From dealing with ghosts, skeleton deckhands, fires, and trying to get back with the treasure the game is a good challenge. It definitely does end up feeling like it has more going on than Pandemic but in a good way, and I like the ship that you build as you go a an added variety to the game.

Status: Played

Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

Part of me, as a completionist, feels like I should pick up the Warring Colonies expansion and the Rodney Smith Promo card for it, but I also don’t play it a ton right now. This is a big zombie survival game that no matter what length of mission you play it always takes a while. Add in a possible traitor to the mix, you need to spend more time decided what everyone is doing. I do have the Dead of Winter: The Long Night expansion that adds in some new modules that you can play with, and I haven’t even played with all of those. This is a tough game but one that I really do enjoy quite a lot for the theme and game play.

Status: Played

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Let me start off by saying, I don’t like most social deduction games. There are some that I find as just fine, but Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a great game. There is a social deduction aspect to it as you talk about the reports that the forensic scientist is putting out to help you figuring out who the murderer is, but there is also just a deduction aspect as you try and interpret what the forensic scientist is getting at. The game is very well done and while some people don’t love the artwork/design on it, I do because it’s very simple for a simple game. If you pull this game out, I would play it every time, other social deduction games, I might pass on those, but this gives the players something to do from the very start.

Status: Played

Deep Madness

This is one that I bought used at my local game store because I saw it played on the Rolling Solo YouTube channel. In this game you are going down into the depths of the ocean to try and figure out what has happened to the station that is down there. As normal, they dug too deep and something has been released, or maybe it was there all along. You need to fight off monsters, and complete objectives in this mission based game that can also be a campaign game, I believe, but not as progressing a one or indepth a one as some. I also got the Endless Nightmares expansion and the Uncounted Horrors expansion for it as my FLGS, All Systems Go, was selling it all as a bundle.

Status: To Be Played

Deranged

This almost wasn’t on the list. I have been waiting on this game for months at this point. It was announced probably around May that UltraPro was going to be doing the distribution and production here in the United States, so I pre-ordered it when I could in June or July, and it showed up with three other games, yesterday. So looking back at the C’s, there’s a game that could have been in there now. Deranged is a game that I love the aesthetic of, and I really enjoyed the game play of at GenCon in 2019. It is a horror themed game, but a bit less so than some out there, where you are trying to escape a cursed village however, there are monsters, and there’s a chance that you might become Deranged which turns you into a monster, but you can get back if you kill someone else, which doesn’t turn them into a deranged, but gives them another curse. Definitely a very competitive game but a lot of fun.

Status: Played (GenCon Demo only)

Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd Edition)

So Descent has been on my radar as a one versus all dungeon crawl sort of game. I don’t have many/any other dungeon crawls like that, most are fully cooperative that I own, but this one I had looked at but I mainly picked it up for one thing. It has a ton of minis in the game, of okay quality, and I wanted over Covid to pick up mini painting. I got a base layer down on one dragon, that’s it so far. I do want to get back to it still and really start to dive into it, I need to set aside an evening to watch something in my office and paint them. Eventually I do want to play the game as well because I think it looks interesting and Fantasy Flight generally impresses me with their games, but might not get to the table for a bit and was really gotten for the minis.

Status: To Be Played

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game (LA Crimes & Dig Deeper)

This was a game that I was really excited about when it came out, and I ordered the base game immediately. I held off on ordering the expansions until later this year after playing the base game and loving it. In the base game you are using your own Detective skills to follow leads through an impressive and really interesting story that loops in bits of real history to create an immersive gaming experience. In some ways it’s like a procedural cop show, NCIS being a fairly closish example, but you are playing it yourself and are the detectives yourself and decide what leads to follow. Game play is really interesting and it’s so much about the experience, I highly highly highly recommend it for a deeply thematic time, and it plays really well via Zoom.

Status: Played

Detective: City of Angels

Have I said that I like deduction games, because I really do, as much as I don’t love social deduction games, deduction games are amazing. This one blends a little of both as one player, the Chisel, is kind of running the game, and they can give people the best answer or a not so good answer when they are questioning someone. If the investigator things they didn’t get the best answer, they can pressure the Chisel to give them the better answer, but do that too much or at the wrong time, it can not work out for you. This one is also different because while you are trying to solve cases, you aren’t doing it as a group like in Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, instead you’re trying to get all of the glory for yourself.

Status: To Be Played

Dice Throne (Season 1 and Season 2)

Dice Throne is on of my most played games out there. It’s a fun Yahtzee inspired dice chucking battling game done in a duel kind of Mortal Kombat style. In this game you are using the dice and combat points to attack, upgrade attacks, and try and get your opponent to 0 health before they knock you down. The game is simple enough to play, and it seems like it could be boring just because you’re rolling dice, but it is a ton of fun as each character plays differently and thematically. The Artificer has attacks that they can do, but also building up your bots to help you do more damage throughout the game or heal up, that’s super useful, where as the Barbarian has all of it’s offensive rolls just be attack attack attack. It’s just a blast always and plays well at 2, but even plays well with a bigger number.

Status: Played

Dicecapades

This one is on my shelf still because it’s just a silly and fun party game. It has you stacking dice, rolling dice, doing a lot of things with dice. My one major knock on this game is that it has a lot of fun things with it and then it has trivia. You roll a die and that determines what trivial question you get, that’s not fun. And that part can just turn into a slog if you just aren’t great at trivia. If you’re interested in the game, or looking for that goofy family/holiday party style game, it’s better than some.

Status: Played

Draftosaurus

This game is basically a roll and write, but instead of rolling and writing, you are drafting dinosaurs and placing them on your board. It works well, and the dinosaur meeples are super cute. The game also has a really nice mechanic where the person whose turn it is to lead rolls a die and that determines where everyone else has to place their dinosaur that they will draft, but the person who is rolling the die can place anywhere. You are trying to get as many of different types as you can, or sets of dinosaurs, or as many of one type as you can and more and that’ll determine how you score. Overall, just a fun filler game that has some thought that goes into it.

Status: Played

Dragonfire

You’ll see a similar game show up later in another letter, but Dragonfire is a deck building, monster fighting game with a Dungeons and Dragons theme on it. I like that you get your class, you can play through what looks like some pretty big stories or smaller stories to make up a larger campaign and level up your characters. I also like that you can play solo in this game. I’ve played it a couple of times with the copy that Fantasy Flight had and then I picked up my own because it was enjoyable and challenging. I feel like I need to nail down a better strategy still, but overall, a lot of fun.

Status: Played

The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

This is a game based off of my favorite book series, and while it is a pretty mechanical game if you don’t know the books, it is something that we’ve made feel more thematic when I’ve played it, and I’ve played it a lot. In this game you take a team of characters, from 3 to 5 I believe, into the game. You can play solo, but you’re playing 3 characters, or you can play 2 player, but you each mix together two characters, and it works well. I like how each game is you playing through a one of the books as well, and I think that works so incredibly well.

Status: Played

Dutch Blitz

This is a classic game that I grew up playing. It’s a pretty fast and fun card game where you are putting down cards in a stack and seeing how many cards you can get out. I keep it around more because of nostalgia than anything, but it’s also one that I wouldn’t be opposed to pulling out once in a while.

Status: Played

That’s the letter D, I think compared to all the previous ones, this one has the fewest in it that I haven’t played, though, Deep Madness is a pretty big game that I haven’t played. And it has some that I’ve played a lot. I’m guessing that I’ve played over 20 games of The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game and Dice Throne each. What is your favorite game to start with the letter D, and what one do you think i should add?

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100 to 91

90 to 81

80 to 71

70 to 61

60 to 51

50 to 41

40 to 31

Plus a few notes on how I’ve put together the list:

• These are my favorite, you want what people consider best, see the Board Game Geek Top 100
• If a game you love isn’t on the list, it might be be coming, I might not have played it, and if I have, it’s 101
• If a game looks cool, I have links to buy it from CoolStuffInc or Amazon, or you can grab most at your FLGS
• There are a few games, Destiny 2 Player versus regular Destiny where if they are basically the same thing, I only do one of them

30. Homebrewers

This is one that I think is going to climb higher and higher over time because of how simple but fun the game is. And I have to say, I really like the theme of brewing beer. This game is basically an engine builder where you are trying to be the best at brewing beer and to do that you need to brew, and hone your recipes so that you can place well at Summerfest and Oktoberfest. To do this you get cards that are ingredients which you can use for a one time affect, like if you need an influx of money, get one that gives you some money, or you can add the ingredients to a beer, so maybe every time I brew my porter now it has oyster in it which gives me $1 versus a one time cash thing of $5. You can create some fun and crazy combinations, and in all honesty, I’d probably try them. I also like that in this game each character as a special power, so you can decide how you want to play the game and can do something different than everyone else. This is a fast engine building game, and definitely one that can work as an introduction to engine building.

Last Year: 45

29. Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl

This is a game that I need to play more, but it is a big game, so it’s hard to get to the table all that often. In Zona, you are trying to get into the vault at the heart of Chernobyl, but to do that you need to brave the wasted lands surrounding it where few go and where mutated monsters roam. You can play this game solo, or you can play it competitively, which I think is really interesting. So you are exploring, finding what you need to get to get into lesser locations and then fight monsters, survive, and get into these locations, get out with some new very useful cards and get into the heart of Chernobyl before everything falls apart and the game wins. I find that interesting where the game has a timer where it can itself win, in a competitive game, so it is possible that all the players will lose.

Last Year: 34

28. Just One

Just One is the top party game on the list, and I think that it’ll hold that spot for a while. The game is just clever and enjoyable to play. In this game one person is “it” like in so many party games, and they, instead of trying to get people to guess a word are trying to guess a word. Everyone else is putting down clues for them, one word clues, hence Just One. And everyone needs to write down a unique clue. If people cross over with each other, those clues are cancelled out. Again, hence why this is called Just One. The game works really well and it is a lot of fun. I also like that like Cross Clues, Just One is a cooperative party game. Most party games are meant to be silly, but if you are out of the game part of the party game, it just becomes purely silly, and for a game night, I like party games that can keep people in the game itself, and Just One does a great job of that.

Last Year: 22

27. Say Bye to the Villains

This game my record is probably 0-15, maybe 0-20 at this point, and it’s a cooperative game. This is not a game where you win 50% of time like a lot of cooperative games try to be, it is a game that is extremely hard to win, but clearly I still love it. In this game you are Samurai who are taking on villains. You are fighting honorably, so you know when the fight is going to happen, so you prepare. You do this by researching the villains, by increasing your stats and then eventually once you’ve used up all of your time, you select the villain who you are facing off against. The issue is that you need everyone to beat the villain they are facing off against, and you basically never have the time needed to completely research the villains or to get yourself completely prepared to fight. The concept just works really well for me, and the game play is very smooth. My only knock is that this game can play a lot of people, but it probably should max out at four or five, because otherwise it is a bit long.

Last Year: 43

26. Hats

I love this game as a different feeling card puzzle game. Like Parade, this game has been randomly given the theme of Alice in Wonderland. It could have been anything or nothing. In it you are trying to score the most points by having the best collection of hats. These hats have numbers, and you start out with a hand of them as well as some that are going to be determining what is scored on the table. The trick to this game, and I think what I like about it so much, is that you are trying to manipulate the table in such a way by playing down cards and then using the ones for scoring that you place in front of you, that when all is said and done the colors you have are scoring and they are scoring well and that whatever you opponent(s) were collecting doesn’t score well. It just feels like a twist as you have a set hand of cards and while you can change them up a little, it might not be enough to get it set-up as you want. This game plays fast and is a good thinky filler.

Last Year: 26

25. Point Salad

Another filler on the list up quite high. This must have just gotten played after I made the list last year, but Point Salad has been a game that has consistently gotten to the table and even 4-5 times in the past week. In this game you are building up the best salad possible to score as many points as possible. And that’s the joke, in a point salad style game, everything you do is going to give you some points, so AEG created a game where you are building up salads and everything might give you points. What determines if something gives you points though is based off of the scoring cards you draft. So this is an extremely simple game, you either take vegetables for your salad or you take a scoring card. But you have to pay attention to what is scoring for you and how. Maybe you have a card that gives you 4 points per tomato, but it probably also gives you -2 points per onion and carrot, so you need to build your salad right so that you scoring as many points as possible. The game is so simple and turns are fast, and while there is less depth than Hats, this is still a great filler with a bit of depth.

Last Year: Not Ranked

24. Aeon’s End: War Eternal

I love deck building games, and Aeon’s End: War Eternal is a very good one, in my opinion. And I would hazard to say, had I played more of the Aeon’s End games, I’d say all are great deck building games. Now, there are a ton of deck building games, so what makes this stand out. I like that you are facing off against a big boss, which isn’t unique, but you can start to whittle them down right away if you want, which isn’t always the norm. I like the breach system for casting spells. You can open up more breaches for your character and cast more spells per turn when you do that. And what really makes this different is that you don’t shuffle your deck. This is the only deck building game that I know of that you don’t shuffle. What happens when you run out of cards, well, you just flip your discard pile and you have your deck again. This means, if you are counting cards, you can set-up turns for yourself. You might want a turn with no spells just because with a lot of purchase power you can buy a better spell, or maybe you want a good mix so that you never have a turn where nothing happens. What also is interesting is that turn order isn’t set. The nemesis, monster you’re fighting, will have 2 turns for every six player turns. But you have a turn order deck that is shuffled, and in a two player game where are two player one cards, two player two cards and two nemesis cards. So the nemesis could go twice in a row at the start, then four player turns, you just don’t know. It makes the puzzle feel harder that way, but also can set-up some moments of calm.

Last Year: 16

23. Criss Cross

One of my top roll and write games. Criss Cross is very simple but so much fun. In this game everyone is playing at once, trying to place symbols rolled on dice adjacent to each other in rows and columns on a 5 x 5 grid. That doesn’t sound too bad, but you need to treat the two dice rolled each round as a domino, basically. That means if the symbols rolled are a circle and a triangle you need to place the circle and the triangle adjacent to each other on the grid. You need to also make sure that you don’t leave yourself with a single spot separated from everything else because it means you won’t be able to fill that spot. The game is super fast and very fun. Scores can and will vary wildly based off of how things are rolled, but it is fun crossing your fingers hoping that the write combo is rolled. I like that you are scoring both the rows and columns too, and in the expert version the diagonal, so you can’t just focus on rows or columns and expect it to go extremely well.

Last Year: 23

22. Deranged

This game, why isn’t this game out yet. It was so amazing playing at GenCon last year that it is on my list because I got the full game experience there. It should, fingers crossed be coming out yet this year, I have a preorder in for it, and it might, just might, be coming out this month, October, still. Which would be perfect because this is a horror adjacent game. In this game you are spending time and moving around trying to get rid of your curses and be the first player to get out of the town. The issue is the town is keeping you trapped in as long as you are cursed and there are monsters roaming around. Plus, the other players, they don’t mind if you get attacked so they might be encouraging that. And they might be deranged and attacking you themselves. This game has nice card play for determining what actions you are doing and how good they are. And then if you’re deranged, you flip the card upside down and use a similar but different set of actions. The game is just clever and while not short, turns play pretty fast. So much fun in this game and has a good theme that I like.

Last Year: 17

21. The Lost Expedition

Some games have a fair amount of alpha gaming in them if they are a cooperative game. That is to say that one person tells everyone what to do on their turn. The Lost Expedition is a game that has, built into it’s mechanics, ways to prevent that from happening. Players, without communicating, place down cards for both a daytime and evening hike as they work their way toward the lost city of Z, so no one knows what the other people are going to play. In the day, the cards are then sorted into numerical order and you’ll have to navigate them, and even the evening, they are played in whatever order they come out. And most of these cards don’t do good things. So no one can tell other people what to play, then collectively as a group, you decide how to spend resources and what actions to take, of the optional actions on a card. Sometimes it’ll be good like giving you more food or bullets, but most of the time you are hurting yourself as spending resources from your guides, from your food supply, or bullets, and if you run out of life on your guides you lose the game. The game is very clever and plays very fast. There’s always discussion around the table as you try and map out the best route of using and gaining resources and advancing closer to the Lost City of Z.

Last Year: 32

This is an odd section of the list because two of these games are still really high after mainly just playing them at GenCon last year. Deranged isn’t out yet in the US, I believe mainly because of Covid delays, but I had so much fun with it, I had to make the list when I have played it. I have it preordered, I’m just waiting for it to eventually come, I suspect that Deranged will end up moving higher the more I play it.

What is your favorite from this section of the list?

Silver Coin

Now, this is one that I’ve already talked about because I have it pre-ordered through CoolStuffInc. So I talked about it on a Point of Order. What interests me in this is that it’s a fun little game expansion but a standalone expansion for a game that I already like. It’s going to take Silver Amulet and combed with Silver Bullet give me a ton of replay value for the game. And unlike a lot of expansions that make the game more complex, this might make it slightly more complex, but the rules and details you need to know are basically just written on the cards. Super fun light game.

Marvel Love Letter

Now, we’ve had a lot of versions of love letter come out over the years, and nothing seems more loving than a team of avengers fighting against Thanos. Not really that loving, but it looks like a fun variation on it. There was a playthrough as part of the Dice Tower Summer Spectacular and it seemed to keep some of the core mechanics while adding to the game. Definitely a cheap little one I’m keeping my eye.

Sagrada: The Great Facades – Life

Now, I’m a big Sagrada fan, and I have the first of the Facades expansions that adds in some new scoring and new cards and clear dice. Now, I don’t really know that all the expansions are needed for this game, but I’ve started going down that path, and as a small expansion, I like that it gives you some small tweaks but mainly just more of what you already have. I’m curious to see what this one will add and to add it to my collection.

Hard City

Now, compared to the others which I had heard about other ways, Hard City is one that just sounded pretty fun to me. You are part of a team taking down an evil villain who has unleashed evil mutants upon the world. Variable player powers, action selection, these are all things that I dig. And while the game has some minis, they look small and it looks like the focus isn’t on the minis but on the game play itself, which is great. I also like that it does something that Tiny Epic Tactics does, which uses some of the box to make raised areas, but it looks nicer than that.

Fruit Picking

This is just a silly looking little game, I like fruit or food as a theme in games. And this is a set collection game, which I enjoy as well. But what really made me curious about this, and it’d be one that if they were at GenCon I’d be checking out to see how it works, because it has a mancala mechanism. This is something in the game Mancala but also something like Five Tribes where you are picking up a group from a location, then putting them down one by one in other baskets of things and with the last one you put down, you get all of that color. I like it as a set collection idea and this game seems like it has some fun stuff going on with it.

Black Rose War

Now, this is a game that originally caught my attention on Kickstarter and then was played through by the Dice Tower crew. I think that it looks fun as you duke it out for control of the “lodge” by casting spells and deck building. I’m a sucker for deck building games that have a good theme or that do a little more (though I do like Ascension a lot), and this one seems to meet that criteria. Price is a little bit high for a deck building game, but it does appear to have nice components and definitely more than just deck building.

Sonora

Another type of game that I like is roll and write games (or flip and write games). Sonora is a ??? and write game and the ??? are flick and write, which seems really fun to me. In this game, you are flicking around 5 disks in a number of rounds, I believe six, that then, depending on where they are sitting at the end of a round will allow you to fill in things on your board. This one I’ve known about for a while, but after watching the Dice Tower playthrough of this, it seems like my type of game. The flicking is fun and not that strategic, but the filling in, the scoring looks fun and it looks like you can create a lot of combos, so more depth than you’d think for a game that part of it if flicking.

Detective Signature: Dig Deeper

So many reasons that I’m interested in this game. The first being that I love deduction style games, and this is built upon a system that I’ve really enjoyed, Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game. Add in that this is from a designer that I really like. Normally designers aren’t extremely important to me, but this small box version of Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game and the story in it were done by Rob Daviou who has worked on things like Pandemic a game that I really love, so I’m curious to see what he can do in this system and what story he can tell.

Succulent

This one is on the list because it just looks pretty. I knew that this was coming out around GenCon because it was going to be at some of the GenCon popup events or maybe it was at an event that replaced International Table Top Day, I forget which. It’s already out, but in it you are collecting tiles that are succulent cuttings and putting them in such a way that you get points and other benefits. Overall, seems like a fairly abstract game, but I think it could be a lot of fun, and I really like the way that it looks.

Ascension: Curse of the Gold Isles

Really fast on this one, I like deck building, and I like Ascension, and I like what Ascension does for being a fast game but also adding in a bunch of fun things that you can do and building upon itself with it’s expansions. Do I need more Ascension, probably not, will I end up getting more than the base game and two expansions I already have, probably sometime.

Deranged

Still waiting on this one to come out, but I’m extremely excited for this game. I love the feeling of the game, I love the horror element, but also a bit of a goofy element to the game. It does a good job of giving you some tension throughout the game, and while you can kind of work together, it is every man for themselves. Got to demo this at last GenCon and I am still really really excited for this game.

So that’s 11 game that I probably would have been checking out again or for the first time at GenCon. Theya re definitely still on my list to try and demo and I hope that I’ll get a chance to play some of them, and that some of them, such as Deranged and Silver Coin come in soon. Looking at the list, are there any that look interesting to you and that you’d like to try?

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Deranged

So Deranged is the biggest one, this is a great free for all sort of game where you’re in a village and you are cursed. You have three days to escape the village or everyone loses, however, there can only be one winner. So you need to get rid of your curses. However, that can be easier said than done because there are monsters roaming the town, and they can get you, and if they do, they don’t knock you out of the game, but you will be cursed again. And then every night you have a chance of becoming deranged, a monster in your own right, and the only way to break that bigger curse is to try kill another human. The game is kind of a take that type of game because you are attacking the other players to get them more curses if they manage to get rid of theirs also while you’re trying to lift the curses on you and then race for the exit. The game was a ton of fun at GenCon, and I have just kind of described the theme, the game actually uses what I’d call a brilliant card mechanic where you can use the card to take actions, but if you spend a good card for that, you won’t then have that good card to play to defend if a monster or another player is going to attack you, so it offers a lot of interesting challenges, and then when you’re deranged you still use the cards, just in a slightly different way. This has a feel of something like a Betrayal at House on the Hill theme, but very different in terms of mechanics, almost has some of the vibe of the haunt, just everyone is the traitor.

Codenames: Pictures

Now, if you’ve read my Codenames review, you’ll know that I don’t like that game. I think that the one with words is pretty dull and while you can get creative and massive clues to work once in a while most of the time you’re giving a clue that ties maybe two words together or at most three. In Codenames: Pictures, you can use much more creativity when coming up with your clue. I’ve said “Flight, 6” and it worked, and in fact I could have said “Flight, 7” and that would have worked as well. So having those bigger clues to give is just great. Codenames: Pictures also is less language or knowledge dependent because it’s just a picture that’s a mash-up of two things. Whereas for regular Codenames, people need to know what the word means, and while the words aren’t the most out there, it is from CGE (Czech Games Edition), so not all of the words are the most common. But this will work well as another one of those bigger group games for a board game night where you don’t feel like splitting up, and one that I can play with family easily as well.

Welcome To… New Vegas

Welcome To… is my favorite roll/flip and write game, so when they came out with a new version of it, where you’re building up the Vegas strip, I was interested. When I found out that it was more complex, I wasn’t sure how interested I was going to be, because Welcome To… is a medium weight flip and write game. However, when I saw it played on Game Night by Board Game Geek (BGG), it looked like a lot of fun. It looks like it gives you a ton of choices, and I can see how it would build upon what people know from Welcome To… in a really good way. Plus, I’ve really been digging roll and write and flip and write style games because you can play some of them via streaming without much issue. This one might be too complex for streaming, but will work well in person. Again it’s a game that can handle a big group, which is a lot of fun to have games like that in the collection for when you don’t want to split up at a game night.

Tiny Towns

This game was so hot last year. And I can see why, it’s been one that’s been on my radar for a while. Cool Stuff Inc. has it for less than the standard MSRP, so I decided it was time to grab it. In this game you are building up a little town, to do that, you’re putting resources in a grid, going for certain patterns that then allow you to build a farm, tavern or other buildings and you score points depending where the buildings are built. There are a few interesting things about the game. First, when you build, you have to build in one of the spots that you removed one of the cubes from. So you have to plan your buildings well, because you don’t want to create pockets that are too small to build in. The other thing is that you pick the color you want to build on your turn. So you might want a red cube, that means everyone else has to put down a red cube somewhere on their grid as well. But it might not be useful for them, so you can balance really helping yourself or hurting another player, just don’t hurt yourself at the same time. That means, that only when you are it are you guaranteed of getting what you want. I like that, because it doesn’t mean you can plan it out perfectly, which means you need to adjust and adapt on the fly. The game seems simple but thinky.

Those are the ones that I’m picking up in this order. Which one sounds the most interesting to you?

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Before I get to the list, let’s talk about some of the criteria, if it’s mythological, is it fantasy? Generally, unless there is that more fantastical element that the game leans into, then I’d lean towards it being a fantasy game, but if there’s less of that, then not. Also, if I liked Dominion, it has a witch, it has curses, technically those are fantastical type elements, but Dominion is medieval and themeless, so it wouldn’t be on the list even though it has some of those fantasy adjacent elements. Or something like Lost Expedition won’t be on the list even though you have the Fountain of Youth and a werebeast in the expansion. Finally, if it’s clearly more of another genre and some elements are just fantastical at times, Betrayal at House on the Hill, for example, it won’t be on the list. Yes there are magical and fantastical things that can happen, but that is a horror themed game.

But with all of that out of the way, let’s get to the list.

10 – Ascension
Now, theme is going to be a bit of stretch for this game, not that it doesn’t have a fantasy theme, but that the theme really matters all that much. In this game you’re doing deck building and creating combos to buy better cards and then defeat monsters. So it’s kind of themed around your slinging spells, fighting horrific monsters, and playing out magical constructs, but it’s really much more just cards. That said, this is a really fun game, I love the changing market as people buy cards and defeat monsters new cards and monsters come out. There are different strategies you can take in the game, and while some are extremely powerful, depending on when you see cards it can really change up how things go. Definitely a fun one with a lighter fantasy theme.

9 – Village Attacks
In most fantasy games you’re playing the epic heroes who are going to be able to take on anything and everything. In this one, you’re playing the monsters who after a hard day dealing with uncooperative villagers just want to relax and enjoy their evening. Then the villagers show up with pitchforks and torches and they are just going to make this a long night, you know. And you must protect the magical heart of your castle where you are able to regenerate, because if you don’t and you die, you will never be able to come back. It’s a fun twist that uses a fairly horrific looking art style, but plays much lighter than it looks in terms of theme.

8 – Deranged
I’m really waiting for this horror fantasy game to come out. I think that this one walks the line more so than Betrayal at House on the Hill does. In Deranged you are fighting off monsters as you are trapped in this remote village, but not just because of it’s remote location but because a magical force is keeping you trapped in the town, but there is a way out. Unfortunately to leave, you cannot be cursed, and you are cursed. But if you die, you become a deranged monster which can help you stop someone else from escaping but is going to end up giving you more curses. This game has really interesting card play and was supposed to be coming out in the US quarter one, but I’m hoping will be coming out here in quarter two.

7 – The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game
I have already talked about that this is one of my favorite series, so I was excited for a game that let me play through the books in the series, and this one gives you that feel of the series. It’s tricky, you’re probably not going to win on the first try, and there’s luck to the game, and that’s a lot of how the books feel as well. This is straight up urban fantasy that leans into the fae and fae courts for some of it’s magical history as well as an interesting take on the 30 pieces of silver that were given to Judas to betray Jesus, and other fantasy elements, including unique vampires. The book series is amazing, and the game is good, but probably best if you’re a fan of the series.

6 – Dice Throne
You’ve been summoned to a tournament, the winner will get to face off against the emperor who has been undefeated for over 5000 years, I believe. Are you going to have what it takes to rise through the ranks? That’s the backstory for this game that is really more of a one on one dice chucking battle game where you could play a raging barbarian or a pyromancer slinging fire spells to a vampire or a cursed pirate. This one tells less of a story than a lot of fantasy games, more just pitting fantasy characters against each other to see who might come out on top. The quality of this game is off the charts, and the characters feel like they are unique even though a lot of what you are rolling for is similar, straights, matching numbers, etc.

5 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Hard to put on the list, but there’s another Lovecraftian game coming up. This one feels more investigative than it doesn’t fantastical, but you’re still fighting eldritch monsters and crazy cultists bent on summoning in elder gods to destroy the world. And you can sling spells if you want to or focus on more conventional means of investigating. And the system lends itself to going more fantastical or less fantastical, it’s up to the scenario that you are playing through. Definitely one that just made the list, but has strong enough elements of fantasy and in particular urban fantasy.

4 – Aeon’s End: War Eternal
You’re mages of the breech who are tasked with the job of defending the town of Gravehold against the mighty titans and their monstrous minions. Can you hold them off, this is a spell slinging cooperative game where each player plays as a breech mage. These mages are fairly standard looking, but have interesting powers and there are a lot of them in the base game. Plus, you get several Titans all who have their own different minions and schemes that you have to go up against. This game really is interesting and works well, the world that they’ve created for the series is fairly tightly focused but they’ve done a good job of creating lore around it, and I’m excited to try Aeon’s End: Legacy coming up here sometime.

3 – Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is not a magically heavy, but it definitely has heavy elements of fantasy with crazy monsters that have been warped by the Wyrdness, magical Menhir that are driving back the Wyrdness giving the humans a chance to survive in a little pockets. It’s a grim fantasy setting but I really have enjoyed how it can be dark, but not too dark, and that it is very hard. The story is well written as well, I say that some of these games have more generic style fantasy stories, but this one, even though it’s based on Arthurian legend feels fresh and unique and horrifying, but it always leaves you wanting to explore more and find out more in the world that Awaken Realms has created.

2 – Mansions of Madness: Second Edition
This one might surprise some people to be on the list, it’s not the epic swords and sorcery fantasy, but as the investigators, you can sling spells around, you are dealing with fantastical monsters, some from other parts of the universe or dimensions. There’s certainly an urban fantasy element to the game that shapes a lot of the stories that you get in it. And the whole idea of these Eldritch horrors is very fantastical in nature. I do think that you get more of a sense of adventure and investigation than you do fantasy from the game, but it doesn’t lean heavily into any theme more than the fantasy element to it, it’s just a different type of fantasy than what we normally think of.

1 – Gloomhaven
A big epic fantasy game in a box, Gloomhaven has a distinction of having it’s own original fantasy theme. Now, that’s not to say that some of the others haven’t done their own interesting things, but Gloomhaven is almost completely unique. The Cragheart, Quatryl, Vermling, and more are all unique to the world that Isaac Childres has created in the game, and that’s impressive to take such a big thing as world building and turn it into something that is specific and unique for a game the size of Gloomhaven. Each class and race feel unique and you get an interesting fantasy tale, I won’t say it’s the best written, but it’s good and the game play is great.

There are a lot of other games that I considered. Grimm Masquerade with it’s fairy tale theme just missed and Lord s of Hellas walks that line of fantasy and mythology and missed the list as did Blood Rage. One that I really strongly considered was TIME Stories. Why I kept TIME Stories off the list is that not all of the scenarios are really that magical. There’s definitely some of that, but Prophecy of Dragons is the main one that really leans into the magic.

Fantasy is certainly a popular theme in board games, and a popular theme in games that want to have that heavier story to it and even border on role playing, though if you want to go that way, you can just play Dungeons and Dragons, another highly recommended game. What are some of your favorite games with a fantasy theme? What are some that I should checkout?

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Let’s start by talking about some Kickstarters that I will have coming in. I’m counting reprints/second editions with this, so the first one is:

Middara – This game rivals Gloomhaven in terms of size and is bigger in terms of story. There has been so much put into it, and the first kickstarter took forever to fulfill. However, I’m just backing what came out in that Kickstarter so I expect to get mine next year, and projected date places it the middle of next year. In Middara, you are in an anime-esque world and fighting through a massive story with lots of different dungeons and interactions. You make decisions that might change up things in the future, and you upgrade your characters with interesting skills and weapons. This game looks amazing, when I’ll play it, who knows, but I’m excited for it.

Village Attacks – Another reprint, I played it at GenCon last year, got a scenario and a few bits for it, found out that it was impossible to find, but then they kickstarted an expansion for it, which I backed so I could use my GenCon scenario. In this game, it’s tower defense, but you’re the bad guys who are keeping those pesky villagers with their torches and pitchforks from running you at of your house. It’s fully cooperative which I like, and the theme is just a lot of fun. I’m excited for this one to get it back to the table and properly deal with those villagers again. The scenarios are a lot of fun, and depending on what villagers come out when, the game will feel different playing the same scenario.

Dice Throne Adventures – I’ve talked about how much I like Dice Throne. This Yahtzee/King of Tokyo style game where you are fighting a character against another character. You’re part of a massive tournament that the evil emperor has set-up that isn’t at all like Mortal Kombat or anything like that. But in Dice Throne Adventures, you are fighting your way through the evil emperors lands, leveling up your characters, and playing cooperative against the game with whatever characters you want from Season One or Two of Dice Throne. It sounds like a campaign dungeon crawl, and while it does have some of that feel, it’s shorter in terms of campaign so you can get through it and play again without the time commitment like you need for bigger dungeon crawls.

Shadows of Kilforth – I blame Rolling Solo Youtube Channel for getting me into this game, the original, Gloom of Killforth is a one shot adventure game where you are in a world where things are going poorly and you as an adventurer are leveling up, exploring locations, fighting monsters, hoping to get strong enough to be able to take down whatever monster is blighting the land. The original game had a fantasy feel, and while this maintains the fantasy, it also has an eastern feel to it as well, which is cool. This game is also a smaller footprint game as you’re not setting up massive dungeons and needing a million tiles to play it.

Those are ones that I’ve kickstarted already that I’m really excited for. There are two that I know I want to kickstart in 2020, so let’s talk about those.

Frosthaven – Sequel to my #1 game of all time, no brainer I want this. I expect to get it sometime in 2021, but it kickstarts in March of 2020, so I’ll have paid for it then. It builds off of Gloomhaven and the Forgotten Circle expansion to tell you a whole new story set in the same world. But unlike in Gloomhaven where you start out of a set city, in Frosthaven, it adds in some city building and you have to worry about defending the town as well as going out on adventures. The out of the box characters seem a bit more challenging but also seem amazing to play. I’m curious to see how this game differs from Gloomhaven, but I hope it keeps a ton of the same feel.

ISS-Vanguard – A story game from Awaken Realms, sign me up. I have Tainted Grail that I’m dying to play (I’m going to try and play it over my time off around Christmas), but ISS-Vanguard is supposed to be more of an open world sort of game (or open worlds since you’re in space). You can go to different planets in different orders and experience the story that way. The art work that came in the Tainted Grail surprise box is amazing and I really love the style. I’m going to be curious to see how an open world game with a story comes together, but I like the idea of a non-fantasy big story exploration game.

Roll Player Adventure – Now, I don’t like the base game, but I got to play an early prototype of this at GenCon, and this is very different than a game where you’re rolling up your character like Roll Player is. In this, it’s a campaign game, but as compared to some games with campaigns, like from Awaken Realms or Gloomhaven, it isn’t nearly as heavy. The story is a little bit sillier, but the mechanics are fun. Can you manipulate the dice to be able to get through all the story and encounters that you run across. The mechanics were cool, and the game at GenCon, even in an early form, was a ton of fun. Helped that I might have been a power hungry sorcerer.

And, finally, and these aren’t last or least, but there are a few games that are coming out in other ways that I’m definitely interested in. Might just be normal publisher, but also might be kickstarter, I haven’t researched enough.

Deranged – Wait, you’re saying, it doesn’t say 2020, but for it coming to the US, it’s coming in 2020. I played this at GenCon and it was amazing. The game play was smart and simple, the world building of the game was really cool. While it’s not story driven, there is a lot going on, and the card play is really really fun in the game. I like the light horror theming as you’re trying to avoid monsters, get rid of your curses and not become deranged. But it’s very possible that you will or that you’ll die, and then you’ll need to get rid of more curses. It seems like a cooperative game where you’re trying to escape this town with no curses, but it’s competitive, and only one person can escape, so if someone gets too close, time to get kill them and give them another curse. Can someone win in all that fighting, who knows.

Time of Legends: Destinies – I almost kickstarted this game, then I decided I wanted Oathsworn instead. But this one seems really interesting. Each character has secrets that they are trying to solve as well as solve the story that is happening in this game that is set in the same world as Time of Legends: Joan of Arc. But in this one they combined with Lucky Duck games that did Chronicles of Crime, so there’s app integration. And there is a scenario builder that people can use to create more, since out of the box it seemed to come only with a few. For me, I really want to try this one next year, and hopefully if I can make it to GenCon it’ll be there for demoing.

Pandemic Legacy Season 3 – Some of my best gaming experiences have been playing through the first two season. I’m so excited for the 3rd season and last season. I don’t know anything about the game, I just know that I want it and I’m going to be ready to play it the second that I get it. No official release date yet for it, but it sounds like it should be a 2020 release and I’m guessing first half of 2020. That’s about it that I know about it, but it’s an instant buy for me.

There’s so many games coming out and with my proclivity for campaign games, I need to get cracking on the ones that I already have. I need to figure out a more consistent time to play them on Malts and Meeples, but we’ll talk about that in a future article about New Years Nerdsolutions.

What games are you looking forward to, is there a game coming out or to kickstarter that you just need to play?

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