Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 11

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

Published By: Bezier Games
Designers: Daniel Byrne, Jose Gerardo Guerrero, Kevin Pelaez, Tirso Virgos

Buy Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

The top trick taking game on my list is Hearts. Well, not completely Hearts, it’s Hearts with shenanigans and that is the element that makes it amazing. If you are familiar with Hearts, you know you don’t want to win the hearts because they are worth points. In this game, you are doing the same thing, but as princesses trying to dodge the proposals of the princes and of course the very dangerous frog princes.

But let’s talk about the shenanigans because that is where the game separates itself from Hearts. In Rebel Princess you each get a princess with a special power. It might be to force someone to lead a suit, or you take over the lead of a trick even if you didn’t win the previous one. They are once per round. The bigger shenanigans comes from the rule for each round. It tells you how to pass cards, but also then something special that round, like the number furthest from the led card wins the trick, to make the trick taking different.

9. Zenith

Published By: PlayPunk
Designers: Gregory Grard and Mathieu Roussel

Out Of Stock Currently

Zenith is the new one on the list, and it blew me away on BGA so much that I knew I needed to pick it up when it came out. Zenith is a two or four player, but really two player game where you are having a tug of war over different planets. When you get influence on a planet all the to your side, you get a token, and you win with three from one planet, four different ones, or five total.

But let’s talk about winning influence. The simplest way is to play a card down on your side of the table, that’ll move it one towards you and give you some other bonus. But to do that you need to pay the cost, so sometimes you need to do other actions to get more money. One of them is to discard a card for a bonus. Depending on the type of card, you get a different bonus for it, and you gain the leader token which means you get an extra card in hand. Finally there is technology which you use to gain bonuses but also move influence on planets.

8. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Published By: Contention Games
Designers: Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, and Casey Yano

Buy Slay the Spire: The Board Game

You know that I love Slay the Spire the video game and the same is true for the board game. In the board game it’s the same thing as the video game, but everything is scaled down. This is a very smart decision because I don’t want to do a lot of math, but I still want to play the same game I love. So you climb the tower, you fight normal and elite monsters, and you rest and add cards, everything that you love about Slay the Spire the video game.

But there is an extra twist for the board game as well. In the board game you also can play it cooperatively. And I love that for the game because there is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to. It levels up how much health the boss has, and each character gets their own row of normal monsters to face. The cool thing about that row is that I can help you attack your row if your monsters are attacking for too much. Or you can help with mine, but whichever row you attack, you get attacked by your row. So there is a strategic puzzle to figure out as a group.

7. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Published By: Portal Games
Designers: Jakob Lapot, Przemyslaw Rymer, and Ignacy Trzewiczek

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

I might be the person in the world like Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game the most. But I think it is worth talking about and I think at least the core box is one that more people should play. The core box is a series of intertwined cases that you need to figure out the leads and what to track down. The best way, and I mean this as compliment, I can describe the game is that it’s like NCIS or CSI but fun because you are the detectives.

The game has so much going for it. You need to figure out what lead you want to track down, you need to take evidence to the lab and get your results, or you need to spend resources pressing people for more information. All of that is going to cost time, so you need to get it done before time runs out.

And all the cases are different. Even in the core box where they link together, they are all unique. And the one off cases are all different as well and set in different time periods or different locations. Even the Batman version of the game is a ton of fun.

6. Dice Throne

Published By: Dice Throne Inc.
Designers: Nate Chatellier, Aaron Hein, and Manny Trembley

Buy Dice Throne

Dice Throne is probably always going to be game in my Top 10. Mainly because they keep on coming out with more Dice Throne and I keep on buying it. But the game is a great plug and play game that can be described as battle Yahtzee. But that is not fair to the game because Dice Throne is more than that. Yes, it uses the Yahtzee style rolling to deal damage to your opponent, but the cards, and dice manipulation and how you work that together is where the game is so fun.

Plus, each character in the game is unique and does something different. Whether that is with Marvel and Gambit who has his aces that he can play, Doctor Strange who has spells that he can cast, or Scarlet Witch who can swap out the dice that her opponent roles. Or it is unique for the non-IP characters as well with the Gunslinger having a showdown type of defense, the Treant having sapplings that do unique things, or the Pyromancer building up their flames.

5. Aeon’s End

Published By: Indie Boards & Cards
Designers: Jenny Iglesias, Nick Little, and Kevin Riley

Buy Aeon’s End

I love deck-building and Aeon’s End is my favorite mainly deck-building game. I put it that way because I have another game that uses deck-building, but it is less of a deck-building game. This one is great because it gives you a boss battler as well as you play the game. You need to cast spells to deal with the bosses actions, minions, and hopefully knockdown the boss, the nemesis, if you can.

The game does a couple of fun things. Firstly, I like the turn order in the game, though I will say, I think that it makes it a two player game. The turn order is randomly drawn from a deck, so you might go twice in a row, if you have two of your number in there, or you might have the nemesis get multiple turns in a row. It keeps the game feeling tense and stressful. But I think it works best as a two player game because otherwise you might have a long time between turns.

Then the deck of cards. As you add cards and you need to draw again, you don’t shuffle the deck. Instead you just flip it and you draw from that. If you are smart, you can set it up so that you are drawing a strong hand. It is tricky, but it’s also a ton of fun when you get it right.

4. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designers: Elwin, Min

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

This is the other game that has deck-building, but it’s less of the game. Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deck-building, worker placement and resource management game that I just love. The theme really helps sell me on the game where you are exploring the jungle and trying to become the most famous explorer. Yes, that theme is hiding behind the mechanisms in some ways, but it’s there.

The game is really a great puzzle as you need to figure out how to explore new locations, defeat those monsters, and go up a research track. But they do it thematically in some areas, and I love that. You can buy new gear with money, but when you do that, it goes to the bottom of your deck of cards. Why, because it needs time to ship over. But if you buy a relic, that’s there, and you can use it immediately. Or on the research track as you advance, you need to discover, magnifying glass, before you can write about it, journal.

And the Expedition Leaders makes the game even better. It means that each player is starting at a unique spot. And it helps shape how you want to solve the puzzle. I thin the game is a 9 for me without this, but with it, and it’s an easy addition, it’s an easy 10 and in my Top 10 of all time.

3. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Published By: Awaken Realms
Designers: Krysztof Piskorski, Marcin, Swierkot

Buy Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Now a game that has been in my Top 10 for a long time with Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. I still think this game has the best story and writing of any game that I’ve played. It does an amazing job of weaving together a narrative over three different campaigns. And you want to explore and read all the story. It’s so good and the storymode fixes the issue, that even though the regular game is a grind when it comes to resources, this is still a game that I love.

I think that the game works so well too in what you are doing. The combat and diplomacy checks you come across offer interesting puzzles of card play. And then when you go to a new card and you find new choices, it’s really interesting. I also should mention with combat, I like how you sometimes just want to runaway. A combat is going to be too hard for you and instead of taking a ton of damage, if your draw bad cards, you should just run.

As an aside, I can’t wait to play the new game in the series. But it’s being waited on because of other campaign games to play. I’ve heard it is less grindy, so if you are worried about that in the base game, maybe check out that version.

2. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Nate French, MJ Newman

Buy Arkham Horror: The Card Game

At number two is a return to glory in some ways. I think that Arkham Horror: The Card Game was in the Top 3 or so when I first started the list. But it is back here because I’ve gotten to play more over this past year. I’ve done the story in the core box and started on another one. And I built my own character for that which is fun to do as well.

The game is just impressive with how it uses cards in such an interesting way. I love how they become a map for the house, city, or whatever you are in. And how they use simple symbols to help you know what connects to what in the game. And each campaign feels different. I played the Arkham Nights one at a game store, and that was super unique and fun, while the base box felt like a great introduction, and the Scarlet Keys is already shaping up to be different.

I also like that each character you build is going to be good at different things. So you need to balance the party. But you might want a challenge and create a different and unique combination of characters to go with as well.

1. Frosthaven, Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

Published By: Cephalofair Games
Designer: Isaac Childres

Buy Frosthaven

The final spot on the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition is the same as it’s always been. This is Gloomhaven, or Frosthaven, or Jaws of the Lion. They are all the same game, though Frosthaven does add in a city management phase which is very fun for the game as well. This is an amazing dungeon crawler game and very worth checking out if you haven’t played a dungeon crawler before. Especially Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion as a starting point for the game.

In this game you play different scenarios and you need to figure out with your unique character how to defeat the enemies and complete the objectives. In Gloomhaven a lot of the objectives are defeat everyone. But Frosthaven adds in more variety, so you need to figure out the puzzle.

And how do you do that? You do that with playing cards from your hand. Each card has a top action, a bottom action, and an initiative on it. You pick one of the two cards to set your initiative and then generally you have a plan of which top of a card and which bottom you want to use. But, if the board changes, maybe the enemies move on you, you can adjust which top and bottom you want to use from the cards you play. And did I mention that each character is unique and feels different in how they play, because they do. And you get a try a lot of them.

Thank You For Joining The Journey

I hope that you’ve had fun with my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition. I always have fun putting together this list. And I apologize for it being a bit delayed in when the article came out as compared to the video on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. My schedule has been weird as of late.

So with that, be aware I will be streaming as I can. I still want to go through my 101 through 200, aka the games that I still love but couldn’t crack the Top 100. And really, I love a lot more games than just 200. But that video is going to come out when it can. And it might not come out live depending on what my potential filming schedule looks like. The same with other streaming like Legendary Kingdoms and Baldur’s Gate 3. And then I have other games I want to play too, like Regicide Legacy that are going to stream well.

So all of that is to say, thank you for watching. And subscribe and click the notification bell to know when new videos come up on the Malts and Meeples channel.

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Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
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70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 10

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – Top 10

10. Aeon’s End

• Published by Indie Boards & Cards in 2016
• Defend the town of Gravehold against a Nemesis and their minions by slinging spells around

To kick off the Top 10, let’s talk about one that has been in my Top 10 for a while and one that I have basically everything for. I’m guessing I’m missing a few promo cards, but Aeon’s End is one of my favorite deck building games.

This is a deck building game, tower defense, and boss battler all wrapped into one. The name of the game in this one is variety. There are other elements I like too, but variety is huge. Each mage is unique, each nemesis is unique and the market of cards that you create is unique. Everything about the game can be mixed and matched and give endless replayability. I also like that this is a cooperative game.

And, finally, I like this game best as a solo or two player. I know that it can play more, but with the turn system, it works better at lower counts. You draw to see whose turn it is. In the deck there are two nemesis cards, and one per player at four players, or two at two players. So you get these fun moments where it swings from the players getting four turns in a row to the nemesis getting three and now things look dangerous. It makes the game feel more exciting, it just works best at two players though because of that.

Buy Aeon’s End

9. Roll Player Adventures

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2021
• Explore the lands, beat monsters and complete skill challenges in a world that remembers what you did

Now to a really big game we have Roll Player Adventures. They took the Roll Player system, tweaked it and gave us a story and adventure game. And I think that it works really well as a game, clearly, as it’s my #9. Though, like Aeon’s End, I’ll give a caveat that difficulty changes based on player count, which, isn’t a bad thing, but it something worth noting.

In this game you play through chapters of an adventure. To do that you are fighting monsters, doing skill checks, and reading story. Whenever it’s a right or a skill check you are spending cards and resources, your health, in different stats to try and complete a dice puzzle. You need to get dice of certain colors and certain numbers into specific locations. But, the game is smart and it limits you in how much you can do that, and it is what they try and use to scale, but like I said, I think that it’s easier with more.

The story is also a lot of fun. There are games on my list that have a bigger and darker story. And I like dark stories, dark fantasy can be a lot of fun, but it’s also fun to have stories that are maybe a bit sillier at times. And, I will say, they manage to create a story where it feels like it matters and continues along with the choices that you make.

Buy Roll Player Adventures

8. Dice Throne

• Published by Dice Throne Inc. in 2018
• Fight in a Mortal Combat style tournament by chucking dice and leveling up attacks

My #8 is “Battle Yahtzee”. By that, I mean that it is Dice Throne. This is a game that is played either as a head to head battle or as king of the hill. You get a hero, or character, that you play as. And they have specific abilities that you can activate by rolling dice Yahtzee style. By that I mean you get three roles, you keep some dice each time, and you see what you get at the end.

But Dice Throne is more than just a lucky game. Yes, there is an element of luck with rolling the dice. But the game often comes down to how well you can mitigate that luck. If you manage to get off your ultimate attack, well there isn’t much your opponent can do, of course that does mean that you roll all sixes. That’s very unlikely to just happen. But with cards and your combat points you spend to play them, you are able to manipulate dice, turn them to different sides, or get rerolls to try and land those attacks.

Plus the game offers a ton of variety. The first set is more standard fantasy. But then you get into other characters like a Tactician or an Artificer who do different things. And I own the Marvel set and am waiting on the Marvel X-Men set to come as well. You pick your favorites to get, or if you’re like me, you get them all.

Buy Dice Throne

7. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

• Published by SunTzuGames in 2025
• Change the galaxy with a unlikely group of heroes in an epic sci-fi adventure

Now for a game that isn’t even out yet. Why do I have it on the list, because I have in my collection a prototype of the game. And I’ve even played it on Malts and Meeples. The game is basically set, through there are elements of the game that will change, but that’s mainly around components not around actual game play.

I love Rogue Angels. You know that by now because it’s on every list of Crowdfunding game that I’m waiting for. And yes, it will be again at the end of this year, most likely. This is another story, adventure, and combat game. And I really enjoy the story in it. I like having some campaign games that aren’t just another fantasy setting, and Rogue Angels gives you a good sci-fi setting. And I love how the combat, or mission element of the game works.

I want to say that this isn’t a game where every scenario is a go and beat someone up. No, this is a game where you might want to dive into combat. Or you might want to sneak through, and it all depends on the scenario. I love that for a game because I don’t always want to beat up the bad guys. And with how the game activates the bad guys, well, getting rid of the wrong bad guys at the wrong time just means you’ll be dealing with the other ones all the time.

Late Pledge Rogue Angels

6. Floriferous

• Published by Pencil First Games in 2021
• Create the best scoring group of flowers in this drafting game

Now we have the smallest game in my Top 10 list. But Floriferous was there last year and it is staying there again this year because I love what the game does. I enjoy a good drafting game, and I think that drafting makes sense in a lot of different games. But how Floriferous does it works for me because it combines drafting with building out your own scoring.

And the drafting itself is clever. You either draft a flower or you draft a scoring card from a column. The scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column, though, which matters for drafting the next column. Because the turn order for that next column is determined by the previous column you drafted from, aka, the higher you are up in the column the sooner you draft again. So yes, you need scoring cards, but that means you draft later next time.

I also want to call out drafting the scoring. I like it when a game does that because it offers a great decision point. When I draft, I might want that scoring card, but if you don’t have enough flowers, it won’t do much for me. And on the flip side, if I draft too many flowers I’m not going to be scoring anything.

Buy Floriferous

5. Slay the Spire

• Published by Contention Games in 2024
• Climb the spire, fight monsters and can you defeat them all in this cooperative deck building game

Next up is a new one to the list and it’s debuting all the way up at #5. Now it’s not the last new one to the list, there is one higher, though just barely higher. Slay the Spire is a video game that I love to play. In fact I’ve been on a kick of playing it recently. It’s a rogue like deck building game where you climb a tower.

The board game is the exact same thing. But it takes a solo video game experience and makes it multiplayer. In fact, while the solo is fun, I think that it’s even better two player or two handed. And I want to play it with more. Because you figure out a strategy of who wants to attack which enemies. Because each player has their own enemies that will attack them, but you can attack the other person’s enemies. So you might have more defense and handle it as well.

With all of that said, the game does change one thing. How some things activate is changed, so you’re not needing to keep track of “every seven turns” or “every three times you shuffle” but it makes it easy to keep track of. And they scale down everything. I like that because I don’t want to be keeping track of six enemies with 50 health each. So while the math is very much the same, the numbers are just lower.

Buy Slay the Spire

4. The 7th Citadel

• Published by Serious Poulp Games in 2024
• The Citadels are in ruins. How can you rebuild society and deal with the threats?

The other new to the list game and debuting at #4 is The 7th Citadel. I should have put it at #7 just to make it a bit more fitting. But I love this game and you can see me playing it for some sessions on Malts and Meeples YouTube.

This is an adventure game. These Citadels have fallen and now in a dangerous and post apocalyptic feeling world, though uniquely so, you need to survive. You play as leaders of a settlement has has formed out of the 7th Citadel. And now you need to deal with some threat that is coming.

The main mechanism is the same as The 7th Continent. You spend cards to try and complete checks, fight monsters, and deal with challenges. And the cards are going to be your life. Plus you are flipping over cards and exploring areas of the map and dealing with encounters that happen. But the game gives you more direction than the 7th Continent does as the threat gives you missions to go on as you build up your settlement for whatever that coming threat might be.

Late Pledge The 7th Citadel

3. Stars of Akarios

• Published by OOMM/Open Owl Studios in 2022
• Explore space, fight battles, and unravel the story of why you were attacked

This is the one that launched into the Top 10 last year and it’s sticking around. I love this game, clearly, but it’s another one of those big campaign games, and it’s one that’s set in space. But this game feels different than so many others. I don’t know why, but it gives me the feeling of stories like Ender’s Game and Space Dandy all wrapped into one with obvious nods to other sci-fi stories as well.

I really enjoy how they created a game that is split into three different element. The one, space exploration, is a bit weaker. There is some randomness to it, and I feel like I never found anything major on it. But I love the other two element. You get to have a 7th Citadel/7th Continent style exploration on planets. But instead of playing cards for checks you roll dice. And it’s a really fun time, but the biggest part of the game is space combat.

And I wasn’t sure how much I’d love the space combat. But I really enjoy it, it’s this great tactical puzzle as you use special abilities that you can only use so much. And then you spend dice to maneuver and you need to figure out how to even get into range to shoot the enemy and ideally in a flanking position. I love sitting there looking at the dice and trying to figure out how to make it work.

Late Pledge Stars of Akarios

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

• Published by Awaken Realms in 2019
• The lands are returning to Wyrdness, you’ve been sent out to help Avalon survive, if you can

Now or one of a few campaign games that I’ve completed, at #2 we have Tainted Grail. And this is the base game and the two expansion campaigns. I love them all. I need to play Kings of Ruin as well, but I’m not sure when I’ll get to that because of, well, my #1 on the list.

But this game, let’s start off with the highest praise, has the best writing of any board game I’ve ever played. The story that it tells is amazing and for that reason we did play in story mode to be able to experience as much of that story as possible. I’ll talk about why in a little bit. This is a grim dark game, but it manages not to dwell on the darkness to the point where it’s overbearing but creates this amazing fantastical and dangerous world to deal with.

And let’s talk about that story mode and why we played that way. One of the criticisms of the game is that it’s too hard. There is too much grind and too much survival. That is what the game was advertised as, so why people thought it was bad, and not just not for me, when they got what they knew they were going to get, I don’t know. But story mode makes it easier, but not too easy. So you do need to engage with that survival aspect of the game, but you can delve into the story more so. If you find the game, get it, and I do recommend playing on story mode.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven/Frosthaven

• Published by Cephalofair Games in 2022
• Battle monsters, explore lands, and build up the town in this epic campaign

Finally the number one stays the same. The #1 on the list is really Frosthaven, Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. I don’t think it’s fair for them to be separate on the list. While Frosthaven does build on Gloomhaven and add in some elements like the town management, the core loop of the game is the same. I do think the added element of the town management would push it even a little bit higher than Gloomhaven for me though.

But the main part of the game is going into scenarios and trying to complete their objectives. This almost always includes killing some bad guys, and often times the win condition is kill all the enemies. Though in Frosthaven that is less often, though still the most common scenario goal.

The element that is the best about the game is the characters though. I love how every character is unique. And from the cards that you get to play, it feels that way. Sometimes you want to be that tanking character, or a fast damage dealer, or a support or healer character. And the games offer all of those.

And then the card play where you might want to go fast, so you can get in and out dealing damage quickly, or maybe you want to go slow to draw the enemies towards you, there is a lot of great strategy. I love picking cards, too, where I might plan to use the bottom and top halves in one way but then give myself the flexibility to change it. Needless to say, I love my #1 game.

Buy Frosthaven

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule. It’s not just all my Top 100 Games (of all time).

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to be my 200 through 101 next week. After that I’m going to do some videos looking back on 2024. So expect to see my Top 10 Games of 2024 and probably Top 10 crowdfunding games I backed in 2024 as well.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

The best way to know when we go live, though is to subscribe and click that notification bell. I can’t promise, and in fact it’s pretty unlikely, that I’ll have events to click on ahead of time. Though I do want to get better at it. I hope that you can join a stream and hop into the chat. And let me know what games in this list are your favorite or that you want to try.

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Top 5 Board Game Companies I Always Checkout

5. Awaken Realms

No surprise that Awaken Realms makes the list. They’ve made two games that I really like in Tainted Grail and ISS Vanguard. And while I did sell my copy of Etherfields, I am still regularly tempted to track it down and get a copy of it again. And I need to play my copy of Nemesis. Not all Awaken Realms games are for me. When they did STALKER, that one didn’t interest me. Or they do fancy versions of euro games, also not that interesting. But whenever they announce something new I’m curious.

Right now I’m waiting on Dragon Eclipse because it seems like a fascinating game that I really like the aesthetic of. And then they have a huge open world RPG type of game coming to crowdfunding later this year, also excited for that one. And they also have a one shot boss battler type of game with the Grimcoven as well, so many games that I’m intrigued by. Not always the cleanest games, but always something epic.

4. Chip Theory Games

Chip Theory is another one that makes a lot of epic games. But not with a lot of minis, instead with chips as the name suggests. I’m always intrigued by what they are putting out, though I rarely jump on their games right away. The only one I did right away was Elder Scrolls game that they have coming. And that was because it was a system that I knew already as it borrows from Too Many Bones.

But their games all offer something different and unique. And I also appreciate that almost all of their games can be played solo. One that I want to get to the table more after having an amazing time at GenCon playing it is Burncycle. I love the system of that game and the challenges of managing the burncylcle so that you can get the actions you want taken care of. It’s a tough balancing act of a game with a bunch of rules to learn to start, but not that bad when you get into playing it.

3. Open Owl Studios

Next up is Open Owl Studios and their games just really hit with me. Stars of Akarios has been one of my most fun gaming experiences with a big epic tactical space combat to getting down on planets and exploring the story. There are elements to that game that work so well for me. And then there is Mythwind a cozy game that feels like something different. It isn’t a game that I’ll binge all the time, but once that I will come back to a lot because it’s just easy to sit down and play. They call it a cozy game and it really is that.

Then there is Stonesaga their next one coming out. It helps, probably, that I know one of the designers. But he reached out to me because he knew it would be my type of game. And it really is. And I’m not sure what they have coming after that, there was just a reprint and expansion for Mythwind. But whatever it is, I trust that there will be a unique experience playing the game, because that’s what their games feel like to me.

2. CMON

Honestly, an odd one on the list, but I’m always paying attention to CMON. I could combine CMON and Steamforged here because I follow both of them for similar reasons. They both make beer and pretzel style games. Often that means grab a handful of dice and chuck them. But they also get a lot of interesting IP’s. CMON keeps on putting out Marvel games. And I know a lot of people will say it’s a cash grab. There is an element of that, but the games are also a ton of fun. Do I need all the characters and alternate sculpts, definitely not. But I want them, and like I said the games are a lot of fun.

CMON is also easier for  me to pass on. They revisit a lot of things. So when I hear something new is coming out, then I look to see if it matches something that I already have. And rarely do I replace it. Zombicide Undead or Alive go replaced by Marvel Zombies, but that’s because of the theme. I’d not replace Marvel Zombies with the newest Zombicide style game. I just pick the one that is best for me.

1. Pencil First Games

Finally we have the oddest one on the list. All the rest, easy to see what is similar. Big games, sometimes story and epic in nature. But Pencil First Games put out the first game that I crowdfunded and it’s a cute game. I got rid of my copy, but now they are putting out games that I really enjoy. Floriferous is the biggest, but then games like Skulk Hollow as well are great.

Why I’m always checking out Pencil First Games is that they tend to put a lot of interesting decisions into a package that isn’t too big or too complex. They are a company that is 100% on my radar for those games that are easy to travel with, easy to teach, but still really engaging. And while there are other companies who do that which I find their games interesting as well, Pencil First Games has a special place in my heart.

Honorable Mentions

Two honorable mentions, only. I thought about more, and maybe I should have done a Top 10. But the two are Cephalofair Games and Serious Pulp. I didn’t put them on the list because for both of them it’s a specific game line that I’m interested in. Obviously Gloomhaven, one of my favorite games. And you can see me playing The 7^th Citadel over on Malts and Meeples YouTube and I’m loving the game. But they have their lanes for their games and generally stick with them.

Who Do You Keep an Eye On?

Alright, a few more bonus board game companies. 25^th Century Games, Reggie Games, Indie Boards and Cards with Astro Knights and Aeon’s End, Roxley Games, though that’s mainly for Dice Throne, and Dire Wolf with their Clank games. And Thunderworks, probably should be a true honorable mention. Like I said, I could have done a top 10board game companies.

But let me know who you keep an eye on. I still even kind of keep an eye on Fantasy Flight Games. But for them it’s a bit more specific. I care about games in their Arkham Files line and if they do anything new with their IP’s like Marvel, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings. They are a company that I wish I could keep an eye on more, but it’s been so hit or miss lately.

Let me know who it is for you down in the comments below. Is there a board game company that stands out?

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How To Play Frosthaven?

Scenarios

Frosthaven is very much like Gloomhaven with a few things added to it. Mainly around one phase of the game. In Frosthaven you are going out and exploring scenarios, dungeon crawls, where you are fighting enemies, looting treasures, and sometimes completing goals as well.

This is done through a card play system where you play out two cards. The cards are split into two halves, the top and bottom action. You can do the top or bottom action on either card you play, but you must do one of each. These actions are going to be how you move about the board or attack an enemy, primarily. There are other actions but they are less common and dependent upon what character you are playing. The most common one is that some characters will also have healing abilities.

Town

After a scenario you head back into town where a number of things happen. You activate buildings that you’ve gotten up and running in town. They might have an ability that triggers before anything else. The goal, is, as I talk about this, to not spoil anything.

Then you shop, level up, retire characters, craft potions, and more in town. This might not all be available immediately, but it will come available as time goes on in the game. Each of these actions can be done in any order by the players, so you complete a lot as you go.

Finally, as a group, you spend resources if you want and if you can to build a new building. Building up buildings or leveling them up is how Frosthaven is going to grow as a town. But once you do that, you complete the town phase and are ready to head out on your next scenario.

Frosthaven or Gloomhaven?

This is an interesting question. Mainly, do you need both Frosthaven or Gloomhaven. Or is either game that much better than the other one? I think that thus far there is one that I prefer, slightly. I think that Frosthaven is slightly better. But if you own Gloomhaven, it isn’t enough of a difference to go out and buy Frosthaven and not play Gloomhaven.

Frosthaven gets the slightly nod for me in a few areas. Firstly, the town phase adds to the game. I like what you do in town and I like that you get to decide how you grow your town. That means that how I play Frosthaven and how you go through it are going to be different.

The other areas are around the writing and scenarios. The scenarios are better written. But it is more than just that. There are more scenarios with other objectives. In Gloomhaven I kill everything and the scenario is done. In Frosthaven, that is still often the case. But there is more going on, often times, it is kill everything and complete this objective. Or I guard a location or attack a location in order to win. The main mechanisms are similar all the time, but there are more that provide more than just kill everything.

Is It That Much Better?

But what if you find Gloomhaven to just be okay. Is Frosthaven that much better that you need to get that?

No, Frosthaven, at the core, uses the same mechanisms. The card play and action system is the same for your characters. You find that is most of what you do in a game. The scenarios are still the major part. But now the world offers more choices in what you do. So as you play through, you develop more of a specific path for your group versus the game leading the way.

I think that is a major enough difference for me so that I can say that I like it better. But if you don’t like Gloomhaven and the mechanisms, it isn’t enough for the game. It is an extra 10% on top of the game. That isn’t going to cause the game to switch up on how it feels. 100% of the game of the Gloomhaven system is still in the Frosthaven system.

The New Stuff

I already wrote an article on the new stuff. And I even did a review just focused on that. If you want to see all about the new stuff, check that article out here.

Improving Old Stuff

I find that Isaac Childres and team also have improved on some of the old stuff. Mainly around the characters in the game. The balance feels better. And the mechanisms even on the starting characters is more. I remember Gloomhaven out of the box, characters feeling less interesting than the ones that we are playing now.

I think that some of that is there is an expectation that people know the system. Frosthaven doesn’t feel like it needs to teach everything in the game. It just needs to add in a little bit more and provide a different experience. It goes back to the question, do you need both. I think that Frosthaven, even with the characters, wants you to have both.

I appreciate, though, that the game is mix and match. So if I want to bring in a character from Jaws of the Lions, that is possible. If I want to play a character from Gloomhaven, I can do that. Will I do that, unlikely, but it is possible. Mainly from Jaws of the Lions, if we find that we’ve retired most to all of the characters, I think it could happen. But that is not that likely, nor are we close to doing that.

Final Thoughts on Frosthaven

I love Frosthaven. Clearly from what I’ve written about it, I think that it is just as strong as Gloomhaven. However, you won’t ever see it separate from Gloomhaven on my Top 100 Games (of all time) lists. Why, because the core of the game is the same. So there isn’t enough for me to say that what I do changes or that one game is massively better than the other one. Frosthaven feels like a continuation and iteration on Gloomhaven. And I think that is just fine.

For some, that might not be enough to come back to Frosthaven. If you like Gloomhaven but just beat it, or want to try a majorly different campaign, or maybe are burnt out on campaigns, Frosthaven is unlikely to be what you want next. It is, as I said, mainly still Gloomhaven. But if you love Gloomhaven, beat that campaign and you want a game that does more, but not so much that it feels harder or fundamentally a different experience, Frosthaven is for you.

My Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: A+
Casual Grade: C

Note, this is not a game that if you are a casual gamer you should jump into. I think once you understand the core loop and system of Gloomhaven and Frosthaven it isn’t bad to get going or continue in. There is a learning curve to that, though. If you play with someone who knows and likes the system, they’ll be able to ease that transition along. Or, grab Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion which has a tutorial built into the game to teach you how to play.

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Join me as I play Rogue Angels. I plan on playing it around 8 PM Central time every week, at least 10 weeks, over on Malts and Meeples YouTube. What story will I find, how will the characters I play progress in this prototype of Rogue Angels. Thanks to Emil Larson for sending it my way and I’m excited to show it off.

Rogue Angels

Well, I have ten weeks to talk about this, which means that I’m going to be hitting on different aspects each week. And I love Rogue Angels. I’ve played it on Table Top Simulator a few times. And now I get to play it in real life. Even though this is only a prototype, it is a game that will be in my Top 100 next year. My rule is that I need to play a game in person, or with a physical copy, and I have now.

So let’s preview some of what is going to be coming up that I’ll talk about over the next handful of weeks.

• Character Stories
• Campaign Story
• Card Play System
• Enemy AI System
• Maps and Set-up System
• And More

Today I want to start by talking about the campaign story. I know, it likely would make more sense to do characters first, because that is the one I had at the top. But I want to explore that more with you as I play, the campaign story, I’ve seen more of.

Campaign Story

I think how Emil handles the story is an interesting way. I know the first time that I played with him and talked with him, one of the big things was how the story was meant to be interspersed like cut scenes. So it isn’t a big block of text and then some third person dialog at you. It’s just dialog with a little bit of description thrown in so you know the setting. But the setting and all of that, that is mainly on the board.

Compared this to other games, let’s go with Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, when you go on a mission, get into a scenario there, it’s a lot of text up front. Frosthaven does a better job of mixing in more story throughout, but most of the heavy lifting is information up front. Rogue Angels it’s just dialog. You see what you need to see because of the scenario.

What does this do for the game? Well, I think that it helps keep you immersed in the game and setting. Both do in their own way, but Rogue Angels is more about that action, that interaction. And you see that with a lot of faction specific stuff. When you interact with talking to people and making decisions off of groups that it going to determine things like your favor more so.

Is one better than the other, I’m not sure. I like how both do it, but I think that it’s worth talking about how Rogue Angels is different. And it plays into the type of game that it is or I expect it to be. I already have come across character choices and more personal choices on who you like, than in Gloomhaven. So it’s probably more like Role Player Adventures that way.

Upcoming Streams

It’ll be tomorrow where I breakdown what is going to be happening on Mondays. To checkout the article that comes out there. But I do plan to keep streaming at 9 PM Central time. And most of it is going to be playing solo games that are one offs, or opening cards like it has been.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. We’ll see if I am able to get four different campaigns played at least 10 games this year. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games. The next part of Rogue Angels can be found coming up here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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2023 Board Gaming

Let’s break down the numbers. Firstly, let’s talk about the big general numbers. I got in 1,062 game plays in 2023. That is a ton, and I suspect that it’ll be my high, though that depends on what new solo board games come in. We’ll get down to individual game numbers here, eventually, but a lot of that is my solo game plays early on in 2023. I was on pace for 2,500 game plays at one point. But 1,062 plays is still a crazy number.

In those plays, I played 134 different games. So that means that some games were played a ton. Others not so much, but a few games see a lot of play and they’ll make up a lot of my board gaming. Some of this comes from solo games that I play between meetings at work and a smaller percentage of the games that I stream on Wednesday nights over on Malts and Meeples YouTube.

Top Played Games

So let’s look at the top played games, we’re just going to do the Top 5. All of the five are solo games that I play between meetings at work or other times like that. The one with the most plays is Grove followed by Orchard. Two games in the same family that I played 385 and 140 times respectively. I love them because they are very fast games to play.

Next up we have Relics of Rajavihara with 73 plays. This one is a campaign puzzle style game. So that one I won’t be adding more plays to in future years. The next two are Criss Cross, a roll and write game that you can play solo with 58 plays. And then For Northwood! A solo trick taking game.  This is the one that I want to play a bunch more of this next year.

Top Campaign Games

I think it’s also fair to talk about some campaign games, bigger games that I’ve gotten a number of plays of. Then I want to wrap up with my one off board gaming that aren’t solo plays. But what are the top campaign based board gaming experiences for me. Or at least the ones that I play solo fairly often. Though, not all of these are solo.

Tainted Grail and My City Roll and Build top the list. Tainted Grail I wrapped up the final campaign this year with 17 plays. My City Roll and Build I’ve almost played twice through, so that is 21 plays thus far. I need to wrap it up soon. Then a few others made the list, Frosthaven is the new one that I’m playing with a group and that is at 11 plays this year. And it’s going to start strong in January with a weekend day devoted to it coming up quickly. Followed by two that I streamed, Lands of Galzyr and ISS Vanguard. Both of those are at 10 games played.

Top Multiplayer Games

So, Tainted Grail and Frosthaven would both be on the list. But I want to touch on some games that I haven’t talked about. What are some one off games that I played mainly multiplayer that I got to the table a bunch? I say that because I did play Criss Cross a few times multiplayer, but it is mainly solo plays.

Birds of a Feather tops the list. This one I did play solo a few times, I think twice, but then six plays where it was with other people. I like it as a fun, light, and filler with push yoiur luck.  Then we have Gasha and Strike both 7 times. Again filler games, but Strike is just so much fun. I really enjoy being able to sit down and play this one with a group of four or five and just play it a few times in a row. The last two rounding it out are Crokinole and Via Magica. Two fun games, and Crokinole isn’t a filler but is more of an evening of light gaming.

Final Thoughts

2023 obviously was a great year for me board gaming. I got to try a ton of new games, and I got a ton of plays in. I didn’t go into all the numbers, but I had 28 games that were played over 5 times and 73 total that were played over two. So it’s a lot of gaming and a lot of repeating of games throughout the year. I  hope to do a lot of that again this year. I know that I will be going through Frosthaven a lot here in 2024. And I expect that I’ll be at 30 plays of that, might make into my Top 5.

And I mentioned this in a previous article. You can check that out here for more details. But I want to play through more games on my shelf of opportunity. I love having a ton of games and games to learn and play. But my game room is at critical mass, so I need to sort and get more games ready to be played and learned in 2024. That is going to make for a lot of reviews and a lot of fun board gaming. What is a game that you want to play in 2024?

Why The One Was Bad

I’m going to give an example of this from the real world, something that you might have seen in other places. I see it not too often, but it depends on the person. Someone comes in with a request. They need a website, let’s say, to process a transaction on part of a page. The developer creates a page that processes a transaction, but the usability is very low.

They made sure to meet the requirements of the request. But the requirements don’t get to the need of the usability of the process. For the developer, it is a case where they created only what was asked for. They didn’t spend the time or might not have thought they had the time to ask questions like “Why?” or “What’s the use case?”.

The insert I got with Frosthaven, I got the Folded Spaces one, felt the same way. Does everything fit in the box, yes, then our goal is complete. Does that mean it’s useable? No, it is not.

Structural Integrity

Now, I will say, some of this was on us when we glued it together. We should have used more glue. But even that wouldn’t have made a massive difference. Part of the issue with the structural integrity and the glue is that you are trying to glue to a shiny surface. I get how the glue adheres to the foam side, but the shiny finished side, even the ones I glued more heavily, the glue hasn’t held.

And it isn’t just the glue. You can get around some of that with hobby nails. But there are large trays to hold cards. The Frosthaven box is large, and the large trays are about a foot long. There are seams, where two pieces meet, in towards the middle of those. So a major point of failure is in a really risky spot, and it will fail. And that is not something that is easily fixed with hobby nails.

Monster Sorting

Then there are the monsters. And this is the area where I have the biggest issue. I think the structural integrity can be worked around, but needs to be worked around by choices you make to go above and beyond.

But the biggest issue is how the monsters were sorted. In the insert I got for Gloomhaven, which I really liked, all the monsters laid out so you could see them. This is where I really see the issue, and the seam on the long box, of the requirements being met, but functionality not being considered.

All the monsters are put vertically into three different bosses. For the bosses, that isn’t too bad. You don’t need them too often, and there aren’t that many. But for the medium and smaller monsters, there are a ton. And when cardboard standees are packed vertically, shockingly, you can’t see them. So you need to paw through them all and hope you don’t accidentally miss them. It’s a horrible and completely non-functional design choice.

So I Bought A Better Frosthaven Insert

Now, when the insert wasn’t holding together, I got annoyed. Quite annoyed in fact, at both Folded Spaces, for the reasons above and at Cephalofair Games. I don’t know if they rushed through the process, or thought that it was fine, either way, I got an insert, but not one at the quality I’d have wanted to pay for. And, because of it, I needed to get another Frosthaven insert.

I found a much better insert. So much better it’s basically a night and day difference. Why, because this one doesn’t have seam problems. And it is set-up to handle the monsters in a way that works really well. I found a 3D printed Frosthaven insert that I bought and had shipped from Australia.

The Insert.

3D Printed

Let’s start by talking about the 3D print quality. I think that is the concern, besides time about 3D printing an insert. I would likely print one myself, but getting this one, I have no quality concerns. And I think that the creation of this insert went above and beyond what is needed.

Mainly, the person 3D printed moveable dividers for everything. And when I say everything I mean everything. They make it so that you can split up each item type and crafted footwear versus purchasable footwear, it’s a lot of effort. And they built them as standing inserts so not just between the cards but actual divides that slot in and support themselves in the box.

And the quality of the 3D print is very good. It is not a thin printing. That is my biggest concern when I get something 3D printed, it is going to be done as thin and in as flimsy a way as possible so they can print more faster. That is not the case here.

Monster Storage

And I complained a lot about monster storage for the old one. Though the card boxes were actually the worst part. The monster storage made it so much slower to get a scenario together. Well, this insert fixes it.

It actually is about as ideal as you can get. Especially for us using the Frosthaven app, but overall it is lightyears ahead of what the Folded Spaces one was. It uses the initiative tracking tokens on the top of the monster boxes to show what monsters are in the box. And then each box holds the monster activation cards (though some like scout are shared) and the monster stat block cards.

In fact, the stat block cards are used as the cover. It is a super clever way to save on plastic and create a really functional and visible system. So it makes setup of a new scenario that much faster. And for Frosthaven and Gloomhaven setup speed matters, especially when trying to get two scenarios into an evening.

Use Of The Frosthaven Box Space

Now this takes up more room in the box than other it does in the other system. But because of other smart design decision and usability decisions, it still has more room in the box while being useable. Let’s move on to that, though.

That is something that just boggles my mind. How is there more space now in the box with a custom 3rd party insert that I could fit in the tiles. Now, I won’t because that is one thing that Folded Space got right, a nice little envelope system (that doesn’t fit in the box), but that sorts the map tiles as well as you could.

I get some of how it can do that. It doesn’t have special boxes for the player boards that you have active. We kept the ones from Folded Spaces. But missing out on player storage is a minor complaint, and not really even a complaint. We never had player character storage besides the character boxes that came with Gloomhaven for Gloomhaven. So going back to that would have been easy. This is just a bit nicer.

And speaking of character storage. This fits all of the characters. Folded Spaces didn’t fit up to two of them, I believe. Possibly three to make it actually comfortable. So this had more room in the box and can fit all the character boxes.

Final Thoughts

I have a bit of an issue with what Cephalofair has done and said about this insert. I know that a number of people have massive issues with this insert and how functional it is. And Cephalofair has been, generally, radio silent on it. Which is odd for them, they tend to apologize often for things beyond their control.

This is something that they controlled. Maybe not fully, maybe Folded Spaces provided this option and they just thought about speed. But radio silence or basically as much is not a great look. And what can they do after the fact? Nothing but apologize. I already got a product that is not great, they can’t fix that. I agreed to get that product. But say that they are revisiting it repeatedly, say you want to make it better, that would be nice. And maybe they have, but it’s been hidden away, in a lot of ways, for a company that apologizes and takes a front facing stance on most other things.

But I don’t need to worry about that anymore. I own a better insert and the Folded Spaces one is going in the trash. So it isn’t really an issue for me anymore. But I want you to know, there is much better insert out there. If you buy Frosthaven now, buy that one from Etsy. It will be so much better and more useful. Only after a play or two I see the difference already. And it is too good not to share because of how much of a difference it is.

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There is more thought into this list than what’s my Top 10. My Top 10 games of all time, some of them might make the list, but others not because it might seem overwhelming to me as a teenager. Or it might be a theme that I like more now as compared to what I did back then. So there’s taking all of that, or even complexity of rules, into consideration.

Top 5 Board Games I Wish I Had As A Teenager

5. Betrayal at House on the Hill

This just missed me being a teenager and I definitely played it later. But I think that younger me, like older me, would have enjoyed this game a lot. The whole idea of exploring a board that is always changing would have been cool. I was used to playing weird giant games of Catan, so the modular element as you build as you go I think I’d have liked.

Plus I’d have liked the competitive switch of the game. You are working together but really you want to get what is best for you. So how can you do that quickly for when the haunt comes. And while the haunts themselves likely would cause debate, I’d have been cool with the not well written haunt directions.

4. Pandemic Legacy

Pandemic Legacy probably would have blown my mind. A cooperative game would have done that but also then with it being a legacy game. Being able to adjust the board as we go and that changing the game, that’d have blown my mind. It kind of still did when Pandemic Legacy came out as that was my first legacy game.

And I’d have liked the story that went along with the game. I didn’t have games that really had story with them. But I was a teenager who read a lot. Authors like Robert Ludlum were part of what I was reading with all of these crazy political plots and others as well and Pandemic Legacy would have been a lighter version of that with a game and I always loved games.

3. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion/Gloomhaven/Frosthaven

This isn’t my final three games. But I do have all of them on the list. I think as a 15 year old getting Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, I’d have loved it. And then Gloomhaven and Frosthaven are games I’d have saved up money for. But I don’t think I could have jumped into either of the bigger boxes. Instead Jaws of the Lions with it’s tutorial would be an amazing starting place. And I would then want more, which I think would have kept me busy for a long time.

And I’d have played Gloomhaven solo but also, likely at the same time, gone through it with friends. I wouldn’t have had the consistent schedule on the calendar as an adult who can drive. But one Saturday a month have a friend over and my brother as well we’d play probably 4 scenarios in a day and go late into the night. And then more often as I got a drivers license.

2. Ice Cool

Completely different end of the spectrum here, Ice Cool would have been amazing. I’d have messed around with it more to come up with my own builds. I definitely would have wanted to get Ice Cool 2 as well. But this is just a simple flicking game, but that toy factor and fun factor would have made it great for holidays, still does, and playing with my cousins. It’s really the toy factor on this one that would make it great.

1. Dice Throne

Finally we have Dice Throne, so only my Top 2 games out of my Top 10 made it onto the list. And one even with the caveat that it’s only going through the tutorial. Dice Throne would have been amazing, though, it’s battle Yahtzee. I could have put King of Tokyo onto that list as well. But I think I’d have really loved, and clearly still do, that idea that I pick my own unique hero that I get to play with. That’s not something that shows up in a ton of other games, otherwise.

And the one versus one is nice with the game, or bigger groups. I don’t think that I’d have used this as a family game, play 5 people, but it’d have been three player battles a lot. Or I think I’d have played it solo, not as Dice Throne Adventures, but just running two characters to learn them and their strategies really well, because, well, I had time to do that more than I do now.

What Would You Have Wanted To Play?

It’s a fun question to ask. There are so many more board games out there now than when I was a teenager. And I think I could come up with a huge list for it. I only had two campaign games, one pretty standard and one much more complex. But I think if I got into Gloomhaven young enough I’d have started learning and looking at other more complex games.

When I was growing up as a teenager though, the games I played were Catan, Ticket to Ride, and then more classic games like Phase 10, Yahtzee, Skip-Bo, Rummikub and more like that. What games do you think you’d have loved as a teenager?

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Crowfunding Isofarian Guard

Let’s first off start by talking about the Kickstarter campaign, which I actually didn’t back. Back around when it came to Kickstarter I had just backed a handful of campaign games, and when I say a handful, I mean a small moving truck full. And Isofarian Guard promised another small moving truck full of game. Though, in reality a lot smaller than a lot of those.

But the game itself was one that I was interested in. Rolling Solo had a game play of it to show off how it worked at least in prototype form. And the mechanics looked interesting to me, but I wasn’t blown away by it. The story, however, I knew that I loved the idea of it. So Isofarian Guard stayed on my radar.

The Prototype

Now, this is where it got interesting. I saw the prototype for Isofarian Guard on a video(s) that Quackalope and BoardGameCo did. And man, is there a lot in the game. In fact, there is so much in the game that I went back and looked at it again. Why, because I thought it might be worth it for the price point. And well, I was right.

Size to Cost Ratio

Let’s just talk about the size of this game, because it is huge. It is bigger than Frosthaven, a very big box and game. And it is cheaper. Now, there are elements in which it has less. But weight wise and size wise it is larger than Frosthaven, so Isofarian Guard is huge. In fact, it’s too large to fit in a Kallax cubby which means I’m heaving it to the top of a Kallax or a need to find another solution.

But that doesn’t cover the cost. The game is cheaper than Frosthaven as well. So larger box but cheaper overall. And it is a lot cheaper than more recent campaign games on crowdfunding. Even when I late pledged it after watching the BoardGameCo video, it was cheaper than the campaign games showing up at that time.

So for me, and where I was with what I had backed recently, I got the late pledge. Even if it is not a game that I love, I think mechanically more than story wise, it is a worthwhile investment.

The Mechanisms of Isofarian Guard

So let’s finish up by talking about the mechanisms in the game and then the story. But the mechanisms need to sell me on themselves for the game. Isofarian Guard is a story adventure game that has two parts. The first part is traveling through the lands. Then you go and have story phases, or more story focused phases in settlements. This might sound like another game, Oathsworn.

But the main mechanism that I want to talk about is bag building and pulling out chips for attack, defense, and other abilities. I think that looks interesting, but it didn’t sell me on it. Mainly, it seems simpler to me than a lot of other games. Let’s compare it again to Oathsworn. That has hand management with a cool down track, and a push your luck element. This is build your bag and assign the chips you pull. But I suspect that there is more than that from the taste I got.

The Story

And the story is something that sells me on the game. Again, this is what I remember, because the game has been in production for a while. The world is one where there really isn’t magic, or not much magic. Magic is something of the legends and when a group of the kings finest guard or at least trusted soldiers, become imbued with magic that might end a war, they think that is weird but great.

The king, when they return, he is not a fan. And if I remember again, he is listening to a character that I can best describe as a Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings. Someone who is poisoning the mind of the ruler and leading them into decisions that are not good for their kingdom.

That is a story that I am sold on. It is interesting, offers depth. And does a few things that are unique. In the box is a number of campaigns. But it isn’t like you pick one and play it and then the next one follows along after. I believe that they all happen at the same time as I you play different groups of the guard who split off to complete different objectives from the start of the story. That is a very interesting idea.

Final Thoughts on The Isofarian Guard

Let’s be fair, I late-pledged this game because I love campaign games. But there is another reason as well. While, Isofarian Guard looks like a table hog. It is a solo campaign game. If I couldn’t have played it solo, I wouldn’t have backed it. It is a game that I plan on playing on Malts and Meeples.

Of course, I need to play play other campaign games first. But most likely, not today, but next week I will unbox the game. Show off all the components because, it is a lot and there are some interesting things to look at in the game. I love a campaign game for that. And I want to play it as soon as a can. In fact, it might be the game that I play after ISS Vanguard, we will have to see. I own others like Oathsworn that are high on my list to play as well.

Did you back The Isofarian Guard?

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Frosthaven

So we can talk about a lot here with the game. Mainly I want to highlight a few things that are different from Gloomhaven. For example, there is the town building aspect. We got to see some stickers for that. I tried not to show off too many. And oddly enough that is the element that makes me interested in getting the removable sticker pack. That gives you a reset of the game.

For Gloomhaven you don’t need that. You can just remember what scenarios, with some simple note taking, are available to you and where you are with prosperity. But for tracking how the town is build, the removeable stickers make way more sense.

I also want to call out two other things that I glossed over pretty quickly. The stickers for the rule book and the hidden information, whatever it is, I’m assuming more stickers, in the punch boards. I guess the “locked” book and the secret envelopes as well. Frosthaven has really upped the legacy game like elements a lot. There is a lot to unlock in the game which is going to make the experience different.

3D Terrain

And then, like I said, I made it harder to go with as I added in 3D terrain. Why, because it’s cool and because Frosthaven is going to be a game that I play for 200 hours. I already know that, which means it’s going to be a bigger experience to enjoy and I’m okay with giving it some bling.

And I am not at all disappointed with the terrain. Big E 3D did a great job with what they’ve created. I only had one minor quibble with color choice, but most everything was amazing. You can checkout the full collection here. Now, it is not cheap, but the amount and quality are worth it. Plus, I did see it on sale when I bought it, so you can wait for that if you want. But checkout the pictures of it I took during the stream below.

Upcoming Streams

So it’s been an odd week and a half with streaming. Last week it was all about what I am going to start this week. And the answer to that is ISS Vanguard. So on Wednesday I plan on starting that. It might be more focused on set-up and some of the first scenario, but we’ll see how far I get and how much time i have to get everything prepped over the next day and a half. That stream will be at 8 PM Central.

And then on Monday, I want to get back to some solo games. Frosthaven with the 3D terrain is worth showing off. But let’s find a solo game to play and get it to the table. What will the experience be like and is it really meant to be played solo. I think I know which game I want to play, I just need to learn the rules. Monday streams are at 8:30 PM Central time.

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