What Board Games Are Leaving?

There are four games that are kind of leaving, or potentially doing so, let’s go through those first. Mainly, I remember those off the top of my head. One for sure is leaving, but also staying. One might come to live at work. And two I need to check on to see if they will leave.

Boomerang USA

Boomerang USA is kind of leaving. I got it on a good sale and then realized I had Boomerang already for a roll and write game. I don’t need two copies of what are basically the same game. Just Boomerang USA is a US map and regular Boomerang is Australia, which makes more sense.

Quarto

This is the one that is going to work to see about. It is a solid abstract game. I like the concept of it when I played it. You pick the piece your opponent places down. What keeps me from loving it is that after two plays, the game didn’t feel like it’d be that different. I want to try it at work because it is a fast game. So might work better in that setting. I just know I won’t play it at home more.

Quoridor

This is a game that I have enjoyed. And I think Quoridor is one that is great for a lot of people. It’s a simple abstract game that gives you some real clever plays. The issue is my group has “solved” it. By that I mean we always make the last possible person block. And honestly, it is not that much fun when you stick the block with the last person. I could see it being better now at two than four, but not one that is going to stick around, I don’t think.

Second Chance

This is a game that has had a dramatic fall for me from my original top 100’s to being outside of it this past year. Second Chance isn’t a bad game. I suspect that it is one my wife is likely to save. My issue with it is that I’ve played it a lot. I’ve gotten my phone with it and I am ready to move on from it. Patchwork Doodle does something similar and offers more choices.

Deadly Doodles (1 & 2)

Deadly Doodles is a solid little roll and write game. It takes a dungeon crawl idea and makes it extremely simple. And that’s why it is leaving. I think the expansion adds in more, but it has a lot of expansion boards. And with those boards, you need to learn more and it is harder to get to the table. I would say, there are probably too many extra boards. Plus, Paper Dungeons has knocked this one down for me. Similar concept, but Paper Dungeons is a more interesting game.

Photosynthesis

This one was tough to say that it was leaving. I like it as a good abstract game, but I knew I was starting with that cube, and I knew it just wouldn’t make the cut. The game is gorgeous. 3D cardboard trees look amazing. And I like how mean the game can be. I am trying to get my trees to grow better and faster than yours and block your trees from getting light points to spend as action points. The game looks less mean than it actually is, and I am keeping another game like that.

Ascension: Immortal Heroes

I have three versions of Ascension. I thought that I’d maybe play them all more often than I do. And I guess, that is three versions of Ascension that I am keeping. But I can get them all into one box, so they are sticking around. Immortal Heroes, it seems fun, but higher player count doesn’t add much to me. And I don’t know that I need any more Ascension than what I already have.

Welcome To New Las Vegas

I own Welcome To, which I love. I own Welcome To The Moon that I want to try. But Welcome To New Las Vegas, I was really excited for. I am not so excited anymore. The game looks good, but it looks like too much to me. It’s a two sheet roll and write game, which I don’t mind. But it feels like a lot of busywork without the fun theme of Welcome To. So I don’t think I need all three of the games in the line. And Welcome To The Moon with it’s campaign, that is more interesting.

The Drink

Just an Old Fashioned again. This time, though, I made it with rhubarb bitters. Now, I am out of rhubarb bitters. I really like the flavor of rhubarb, it grapefruit, and lemon are probably the bitters that I always want to have on hand.

Upcoming Stream

So, next Monday, I plan on streaming. I will not be streaming next Wednesday. I have family in town so I won’t be around on Wednesday. Monday, I am planning on doing more of the Should It Stay Or Should It Go series.

And I have to say, I am pleased with the amount I found again for the chopping block. Granted, a few might be going back. I think there is a decent chance that Second Chance is saved because it is so accessible. And it is a fun game. For me, I won’t complain if it is, because I don’t mind it. It is just one that I like to play now versus one that I want to pull off the shelf myself and play.

Which one would you save? Which one would you get rid of?

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February Board Gaming

Sleeping Gods: 3 Plays

Lots of Sleeping Gods plays, and one of five with three plays. If you want to know what the game is about, I play it weekly on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. Still enjoying the story, and I wonder how it’s going to end for me, I’m guessing I’ll wrap it up this month.

Tainted Grail: 3 Plays

Tainted Grail is another consistent one on the list. The game is a ton of fun, and the Last Knight campaign feels different than the Fall of Avalon. It’ll be on the list for a while, we still have another one after that to play through.

Squire’s End: 3 Plays

So, I just wrote about Spire’s End. You can read that here. But this is a good solo game, one that I’m going to stream once I’m done with Sleeping Gods. The game play is simple, and the story is good, but combined together, it makes an experience that feels very unique. And I like the mechanics with resting, and how you use health to determine what attack you do.

Project L: 3 Plays

Another one that I wrote about, Project L is a Tetris like game. But it’s also an engine building game. You pick cards and then use little pieces to fill in shapes on them. When you fill in a shape then you get those pieces used back and a new shape that gives you. You eventually want to start getting points, but how can you optimize your turns and actions.

Super Mega Lucky Box: 3 Plays

Another one that I’ve played before, 12 plays in January. I can see Super Mega Lucky Box being like Ganz Schon Clever last year where I’ll play it most months. Super straight forward roll and write game but in a good way.

The Quacks of Quedlinburg: 2 Plays

I held off on playing The Quacks of Quedlinburg for a long time and even getting it. But I wish I had done so sooner because The Quacks of Quedlinburg is a fun game. It’s a good push your luck game and bag building game. Which I can see playing this one with a lot of different people.

I think with the set-up of everything and the variability in that, the game, just the base game, is going to have a lot of replayability. And the ease of play, it definitely makes it more accessible to a lot of different gaming groups.

Fleet: The Dice Game: 2 Plays

Another one that I talked about recently, honestly, shouldn’t be a surprise, there were a number of games games. Fleet: The Dice Game is a big roll and write game. I think that it is solid, I’m not sure if it’s amazing. Not because I wouldn’t play it again or it won’t make the Top 100 for me when I do that later this year. But Fleet: The Dice Game is a lot to learn, so I can mainly see it being a solo game for me.

The Fox in the Forest Duet: 2 Plays

The Fox in the Forest Duet is a two player cooperative trick taking game. And I figured I’d like it, but I wasn’t sure how much I’d like it. Trick taking is generally something that works well for me. The cooperative nature is something else that is interesting. I think the push and pull of trying to get the fox to land where you need it to is a lot of fun.

Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write: 2 Plays

Most disappointing game of the month, Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write is an okay roll and write. Mainly, it doesn’t feel like it gives you interesting choices. Even something like Yahtzee offers more choices because you can push your luck. Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write doesn’t give you that, so most, if not all the options are obvious.

Skull: 2 Plays

Skull is another push your luck game, between this and Quacks it’s something I played a fair amount. Skull basically has you bluffing to try and get people to flip over roses and not hit a skull. But then you also read what other people are doing and try and guess what you can flip without getting a skull. That’s very basic for what it is, but a good simple push your luck game.

Floriferous: 2 Plays

Floriferous is what I’d call a relaxing game. The decision space is limited but not too limited. It feels like you do the right amount each turn. And I really like how turn order is determined. If you take something lower in a column, that means you’ll be going later. So there’s a decision that’s good, do you pick something high because you need a certain card in the next column and take a less ideal flower this turn. It falls into a nice and pretty style of game that is becoming more common.

Quoridor: 2 Plays

Good abstract game with nice pieces. I think that Quoridor works well with a lot of people, though, if everyone rushes across the board, it makes the game really odd. But, I think it works better when people meet in the middle and start blocking routes early. The game also falls apart a bit when someone is close to winning and you skip blocking them so the person before they needs to. Everyone can dictate who needs to block.

Aldarra: 1 Play

I got to play this one for the Kickstarter, you can see the play down below. And the play of another game as well. Aldarra launched and will be coming back, but I have to say, it is a fun game. It’ll feel different when it comes back at a smaller size, but that will make it cheaper which is good. It’s a nice area control game with a tight board, so you fight a lot. And you get knocked off the board, kind of, and then rebuild again. I like that Small World like feel to it.

Roll Player Adventures: 1 Play

I got to start Roll Player Adventures this month and I’m so excited. I had a chance to play this as a prototype at GenCon, as I always mention. And the game is a ton of fun, and that was my best gaming experience there. To now have it in my hands and for the expansion stuff as well, I’m so excited to play this. It takes choose your own adventure and then adds in some cool dice combat. The game isn’t that difficult, but the choices are really good.

Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Sun: 1 Play

Another one that was on Kickstarter, and I was supposed to do a live stream while it was on Kickstarter. Rogue Angels launched the same time as Marvel Zombies and Final Girl Season 2 were finishing up. So it got lost in the shuffle. It is coming back. And I still played, and streamed it with the creator. Great game, I love the story and the differences in the scenarios. It does with the scenarios, something I think Frotsthaven is going to fix from Gloomhaven, where it isn’t so much just kill everyone.

Final Girl: 1 Play

When my local game store, All Systems Go, took in a trade of Final Girl, I was so excited. This is a game that I looked at on Kickstarter, but ultimately passed on. The backers started to receive their copies and people loved it. When it made it to my FLGS, I called immediately and had them set it aside for me, and I’m glad I did. I played once thus far, as you can see, but it is amazing. I love the theme so much.

No Thanks!: 1 Play

I enjoy No Thanks! a lot. Mainly because it is another one of those simple games where you don’t have a lot of decisions to make. But the decisions you do make, mainly take a card or pass on it, it matters a lot. I won’t say much more, it is one I’ve played and talked about before, but if you want a simple but difficult game, No Thanks is really interesting.

Year Totals

So, 34 plays in February, taking that with January’s 50 plays, I’m now at 84 (well, 86 counting two thus far in March). So it’s very strong in terms of a start and I hope I can end around 500 plays for the year, or maybe even higher.

And for the secondary goal of getting through a lot of my unplayed games, 9 of my plays were games on that list. Well, kind of, I don’t know that Project L was on the list, because I didn’t have it in yet. And Final Girl got picked up in February, so it wasn’t on the list. Still, the list is getting shorter, I do believe. And I actually knocked out another one last night.

Which is the most exciting game for you, or one that you’d want to play from my February list?

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What’s An Abstract Game

An abstract game is a game with no theme. Now, that’s not completely right because there are a lot of drier euro games that are euro games that really don’t have a theme. Generally an abstract game is going to be more of a puzzle or strategic game. They tend to have little luck, and give you the opportunity to strategize for a longer term plan.

More recently abstract games have been getting themes but the theme tends not to matter. It’s more that recently abstract games have been getting artwork. A lot of the older ones are very simple with plain pieces, now things like Calico has great looking cat and quilt artwork on it. But it’s an abstract because the theme really doesn’t matter.

What Do I Look For In An Abstract Game

1. Looks Good
2. Easy To Learn
3. Easy To Play
4. Interesting Decision

Looks Good

Why is this at the top of my list? Because a lot of old abstract games look ugly. And kind of like eating, you play a game with your eyes first. If the game doesn’t look appealing on the table, I’m less apt to play it. Now, it can simply be nice looking colors or high quality wood pieces, like Quoridor. It doesn’t need to be like Calico with great artwork and cute cats. But make it look good, if it looks cheap I am going to pass on it most likely.

Easy to Learn

Next, I want the game to be easy to learn. If I have a lot of things that happen on a turn, I want theme, I want reason behind why they happen. That’s why I don’t mind if a big game like Gloomhaven has a lot of things to keep track of, I can remember them better when there is a theme behind it. For an abstract game, since they are thinkier sometimes, I want it to be easy to learn and easy thing to take care of.

Easy to Play

This falls in with the previous one. I want the game to be easy to play. That means again, I don’t want much to do on my turn. Give me a few specific things to think about. Again, if an abstract game limits the randomness, I don’t want to think about 12 different moving parts to make sure they are moving together toward the right goal.

Interesting Decisions

But with that ease of plan and being easy to learn, I still do want to have interesting decisions to make. I want to feel like I can do something clever. And I want to be able to plan my turns a little in advance, or at least think of options. If I have to react too much in an abstract game that leads to analysis paralysis. And since the games are dry, I want it to move at a snappy pace.

Are All Criteria Equally Important?

I think for a lot of people, especially people who like those extremely limited luck games, they might not see all of these as important. But I think for myself, these are all equally as important. I don’t want to spend too much time on an abstract game. I don’t want that abstract game, like Chess, where I need to think 5 moves ahead. Instead, I prefer that little bit of luck in my abstract games, and the ability to think about and plan my next turn right after I’ve finished my previous one.

Let’s Do An Example

We’re going to go with Calico. You can already see that I like Calico in my TableTopTakes. But why does it work for me?

Looks Good

No question about this one. Beth Sobel’s artwork is amazing and adorable for this one. And the quality of the game is really nice. The tiles are nice and thick, the player boards are dual layer, overall this is a really good looking game.

Easy To Learn

This game is pretty easy to learn. I think the trickiest bit is teaching how the scoring tiles on your quilt work. The cat scoring and button scoring make sense, but people often miss, even when laid out, that the tiles just need to match the pattern surrounding the quilt block and they can be mixed up while doing that. It’s more a rule that people assume is there. But the game turns are really easy to learn.

Easy To Play

This game is very easy to play. While it does give you a lot to think about the cats, buttons and quilt blocks all providing scoring, turns are simple. You play a quilt block and take a quilt block. That’s it. And you can plan what you are going to play down between turns. No player can mess that up, which makes the game work really well for me.

Interesting Decisions

This game does give you some feel good moments. You can really decide what you’re going to focus on, you might go all in on cats and pay less attention to buttons and quilt blocks. But really, you can’t completely ignore everything. So when you play down that one tile that works for the cats and the quilt block, that feels clever. You do have a lot to think about as you build out your quilt and even more to think about as your options shrink.

So Calico is a strong contender for an abstract game I think for a lot of people. With the exception of teaching the quilt block scoring, I think that the rest is pretty easy. And the artwork is so amazing that the game will hook peoples interest. I think that had this game not come out in 2020, people would be talking about it more than they are. And generally, Calico has been really well received.

Will This Work For You?

Yes, I think this will work for most people. While there are some people who are deep into games like Chess, I think for most gamers, having that simpler abstract game is going to hit a better spot. Mainly because a lot of abstract games a pretty accessible because they are simpler. That means you can get it played with more people. But do note that there are some abstract lifestyle type games out there, like Chess that wouldn’t fair as well with my criteria.

What is your favorite abstract game?

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So, what are the requirements to make this list. The game has to have been published before the year 2000. I considered going earlier, but that seemed like it would work best. One game you’ll see missing from my list is Chess. Chess is great game, and if you get into it, you can really get into it and get good at it. I wanted to balance how good a game was with how easy it was for everyone to play it. So a game like Chess has too much of a divide between player levels to be on the list.

5 – Balderdash

I’m starting with a party game that might not have made it to the list in it’s original form. Balderdash, when it came out, just had you writing down definitions of words, or what you thought they were and then players voting on which one they thought was right. Since then, they came out with Beyond Balderdash, which is now just what Balderdash is which added in acronyms, weird laws, and movie synopsis. The game is still a lot of fun, mainly because it eventually becomes less of a game and more of a silly activity where people use in jokes from previous rounds and keep those jokes going.

4 – Cribbage

Cribbage is the only pure card game on the list. I like it quite well, in particular in a bar setting. It’s small, not many pieces, and easy enough to teach. There are definitely some complexities to the rules, but I can generally get through them in a pretty quick time frame. I’m sure there’d be some debate about a more experienced player beating a less experienced one more often than not, and I’d agree, but it’s not a massive difference. And once you’ve played a hand or two, you have the general idea.

3 – Clue

Probably up there with Monopoly in terms of games people think of when they think of classic board games. It, unlike Monopoly, made my top 5. Clue is a lot of fun and I like that it gives you real choices in the game as you craft your accusations. As a kid it took me a bit to get all the subtlies down of game, but now it’s still fun to play once in a while because of the deduction aspect and how detailed you can keep track of notes and how you reveal or don’t reveal information to other players. It’s just nice and clever in how it works. Not one I’d play all the time or want to play all the time but one that hits the table every few years.

2 – Scrabble

It’s close between my top two, but Scrabble comes in at number two. Scrabble is a word game that can be about the big words that you know, but is more about optimizing your points and blocking other players for being able to get large amounts of points. I say that with Scrabble (or Banagrams though I prefer Scrabble) my ability to recognize patterns quickly helps me a lot. And of course knowing all the two letter words that the Scrabble dictionary accepts (I don’t know them, helps a ton as well.

1 – Yahtzee

Probably not a huge surprise that the game at the top of my list is basically a roll and write game. Yahtzee is a game that I might have played too much at this point, because it’ll basically play itself. There is some strategy to it, when to push your luck on the top, how risky you want to be. Otherwise, once you’ve played it enough, you can figure out the probabilities and you adjust your rolls accordingly to it. But I do like this one as a game that you can play and just chat while playing because there are some push your luck moments or exciting moments of getting Yahtzee, but it doesn’t have the most thinking at all times in the game.

There are other older games that I could put on the list as well. I kept Quoridor off of the list because it’s less known, but a good one, just not one that people grew up with for the most part. I personally really like the game SET, but I left that one off because I like the game SET, it’s a pattern recognition game that I’m good at. What are some of your favorite classic board games?

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The Collection

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s – G and H’s – I, J and K’s – L’s – M’s – N, O, and P’s

Q and R

Quarto

This is a classic abstract game that has wonderful wooden components. And while I haven’t played it yet, I know that I need to, because I think it looks really interesting and smart. In the game your opponent is picking a piece for you to place. And you are trying to get rows or columns of four that match different criteria, or don’t. It reminds me some of the game SET, which I love and am quite good at, if I do say so myself. I like the idea of having to think about where you place so you aren’t forcing yourself to give your opponent the win, but also locking down the number of options that your opponent can give you, so it makes it more likely you win. A highly strategic game.

Status: To Be Played

Quoridor

Another game from the same company was Quarto, this one is a race across the board. Each player starts on their own side of the board and you either move your piece or play a wall piece on your turn. And you can’t do both on the same turn. I love this game for trying to let your opponent get as close as possible, block them, and make them backtrack in their race across the board. Or, in a four player game, I like making an opponent do that dirty work for me, so I can push ahead further. It’s a thinky little game and while Quarto is more strategic, this one can be very tactical.

Status: Played

Raiders of the North Sea

I like games with Vikings in them, but I normally don’t like worker placement games. Or, I should say, I’m normally not drawn to worker placement games. This one the theme pulled me in, and the simplicity of the mechanics. I like that you don’t have your own workers. Instead, you start with a worker and on your turn you start by placing a worker, and then you take one off of another spot. So you get two actions on the turn basically, and that’s how it works for everyone. You are fighting for places less than many other worker placement games.

Status: To Be Played

Railroad Ink: Blazing Red Edition

Most of the time when I say that I like a roll and write, I then add flip and write, but this one is a true roll and write game. You are building out roads and train routes on your map trying to connect as many as you can. I like that it’s a true roll and write, and that everyone can go at once. Games with little downtime are a very good thing in my opinion, this will only ever have you waiting for someone else to finish filling in their route spots. It also comes with laminated sheets which is great as well, means that I don’t have to, and it makes it so you’ll never run out.

Status: To Be Played

The Ravens of Thri Sahashri

I picked this one up because I was able to use a friends Fantasy Flight game center discount and it is a two player game that they sell a lot of. It’s an interesting game of kind of tableau building for one person and the other player removing cards from it based off of a rules. The one person who is removing cards is trying to do so in such a way to keep only the cards that they match the colors of the face down cards they have. It’s an interesting puzzle of an idea and works with the limited communication you see in a lot of cooperative games.

Status: To Be Played

The Reckoners

The Reckoners is one of my favorite book series of all time. So when a cooperative game came out for it, I knew that I’d get it eventually. I love the theme of being normal people trying to stop super powered bad guys. You research, and fight, all working to the big boss, Steelheart, trying to find his weakness and be able to take him out. It also has a nice dice rolling mechanic for the heroes, so that means it is more accessible to non-gamers. I am a bit concerned about how hard it is supposed to be, but the expansion is supposed to fix that.

Status: To Be Played

Reichbusters: Projekt Vril (and expansions)

Do you want to punch Hydra in the face? That’s what you’re basically doing in Reichbusters. This is a campaign game where you are fighting Nazi scientist, soldiers, and everything else crazy they are creating. This is a campaign game, but you don’t have to play it that way. That’s something other games claim to do. Now, Reichbusters won’t be for everyone. But I like dice chucking, big minis, and table hogs of games. It also feels like Captain America: The First Avenger in some ways, which is a big selling point for me. It also took me a few hours to punch and sort everything.

Status: To Be Played

Res Arcana

I was sold on this game by some friends. I like the idea of it as it’s a small engine building game. I hope that it’s very accessible as that will help it get to the table more. The card play seems interesting because you start with your hand of cards and that doesn’t change much during the game. I need to play this one as the standard first and then move onto drafting. The drafting of the cards to start seems really interesting and can make it a bigger game with more replyability. But it looks really enjoyable.

Status: To Be Played

Rhino Hero: Super Battle

I got this one to play with the toddler. Now, I don’t think he’s ready yet. But this is a dexterity game about stacking a massive building and moving your character up on it. Any dexterity game works with adults as well. It’s a silly little game but fairly often you need fun filler like that.

Status: To Be Played

Rising 5: Runes of Asteros

This game is interesting to me because it was sold as a better version of Mastermind, a game that I liked, but that was too easy. Mastermind should be won in the game number of rounds every time. Rising 5 does a similar thing where you need to match symbols, but it has an app. So you don’t have one person running the puzzle. Now, that’s a turn off for some people, but it’s nice to take the game so it’s completely cooperative. I like games that make me have to figure out a puzzle.

Status: To Be Played

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island

I love cooperative games, and I love hard cooperative games. This one is one of the hardest cooperative games. It is the precursor to First Martians. The one issue that’s kept this game off the table is that the rule book is not good. Unfortunately Portal Games does not make the best rule books. I need to watch a video on how to play the game to get it to the table. But I am excited because I like the theme, I like that you can play Robinson Crusoe, or maybe it’s a film crew filming Kong, or Swiss Family Robinson, and that’s in the box. So it has scenarios, but they aren’t a campaign.

Status: To Be Played

Roll Player (and expansions)

Dungeons and Dragons is my RPG of choice, and even though I’m always the DM, I do roll up character sheets. Roll Player takes character creation and turns it into a board game. You draft dice, put them in the stats, and do that until you get a character. The Monster and Minions expansion make it so you fight with your hero as well. And the Fiends and Familiars adds even more to the game. There is a lot for this game and eventually I’ll be able to use the character I create in Roll Player Adventures, which I’m looking forward to. This game grew on me, but now I really like it.

Status: Played
Expansion Status: To Be Played

That’s the letters Q and R. A number of games in R had some expansions. I really want to get Reichbusters to the table. Which is your favorite game in Q or R? What should I add to my collection starting with Q or R?

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• 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

90. Small World Underground

Now, I like Small World of all varieties so the other might be higher on the list, but Small World Underground does a lot of fun things. Mainly, I like that it adds in some new combinations and it adds in landmarks or buildings that if you control the area, you get a certain added power. It encourages even more fighting but also keeps it from picking on a player. If you aren’t familiar with Small World, it’s a nice introductory style area control game, I like to call it Risk but fun, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, you have fun and goofy combinations and you still get all of that in this version as well, it just adds in a little bit more, which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 65

89. Scattergories

First party game on the list, and as a spoiler, there aren’t a ton of party games. But this one is a classic party game that I think works well still. What I like is that with the randomness of picking different lists and rolling to see what letter you get, and just playing with a different group, you can really see a wide variety of answers. I also like this one because it’s extremely easy to play on Zoom or over video chat. You just need one person with the game and everyone else with paper and pencil. You just show off the list and the letter each time and let people work off of that, it makes it a lot of fun and works extremely smoothly.

Last Year: 69

88. The Hobbit

This game is a pretty simple game, but one that I think is pretty fun, what I like about it is that it’s a semi-cooperative game and I think one that works. You are trying to collect the most gems possible, all while getting to the end before Smaug comes out of the Lonely Mountain and makes it to Lake Town, but the member of the party who has the most gems and money is the winner of the game. So you’re leveling up and then facing off against challenges, but if everyone can’t handle the challenges, that means that Smaug is going to advance and you don’t want that happening. So it’s trying to help people level up their skills enough, but also making sure that you’re in position to get the most and the best gems. I think the combination works and the game plays pretty fast for looking like it has a pretty big board.

Last Year: Not Ranked

87. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Plant

Some games are extremely challenging and have a lot of moving parts, this is one of those games, in fact it can feel like there is more going on with upkeep throughout the game than playing the game, for some people, but I like it, not the upkeep, but the game in general, as it’s my number 87. In this game you can play through a series of tied together campaign story as you try and survive in a habitation station on Mars, which The Martian, or you can play one off scenarios that are focused on different things, getting the habitation station up and running or you can go out and explore the planet. The variety of the game works nicely and it feels like there is always more to do than you can. reasonably get done. It’s a good challenging game that might not be for everyone, but is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 72

86. Quoridor

So just higher than a big heavy game, we have a small little abstract game. This one is a lot of fun because of how simple it is. You want to get to the opposite side of the board. To do that, you move your pawn one space in any direction on your turn, or you place a wall that creates a blocker for your opponent. And that’s the game, but there’s more to the game than that, as you try and set-up traps and let the other person get close and then make them back track a long ways, it’s a very interesting game and one that plays quite quickly. I think it works good at two, but I like it at four because there’s a bit more randomness to the game as you have to plan and keep track of more, but there’s also more teamwork that needs to happen as you need to work to stop people at times.

Last Year: 73

85. Root

Now we’re back into bigger games with Root, an asymmetrical war game, basically, with different factions of woodland creatures vying to complete their goals in order to win the game. I like how the different factions play, the cats are all about building up and out, the woodland creatures need to take over areas and don’t start really with a board presence, the birds follow a very specific pecking order (all puns intended) of actions that build up over time. And the Vagabond just builds up their own things and can ally with people or become enemies of them. The game has an extremely long teach as you need to explain how each faction works, and that’s definitely a negative for it, but the actual actions and how to play each faction is pretty straight forward. It’s a big game but one that’s very cute on the table and doesn’t bog itself down when it comes to game play, which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 70

84. Age of War

Age of War is a small little dice game where you are trying to get the correct combinations on your dice in order to get control of castles, creating sets of them, and scoring points. It’s basically a luck based dice rolling game, but there’s something about it that just works for me. First, the game doesn’t generally take too long. If everyone is unlucky, getting the last castle could take a bit, but I haven’t really seen that happen and turns are very fast. What I like about this as compared to just a random die rolling game like a Farkle or something along those lines is that when you get a castle, it isn’t yours, it could be stolen from you, but it’ll cost just a bit more in terms of dice that you need than it did to take it from the middle. But if you get a full set of the yellow, or grey, or whatever color castles, they flip over and give you a few more points and are locked in for you and can’t be stolen. So if you see someone getting close to a set, it could be worth it to steal from them. That just gives the game a little bit more strategy which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: Not Ranks

83. Star Wars: Imperial Assault

If you want to play a Star Wars dungeon crawl, this is the game. You play through as heroes adjacent to the main story of the original movies, at least out of the core box, as you can be a Jedi in training, a wookie, or one of several other characters and you face off against the Empire. This game can be played with someone running the Empire side or, which I’ve done, there is an app that works well with a good tutorial that walks you through everything so you can play solo. I like that flexibility for the game play, and I like that it feels like Star Wars without it being so closely tied to the main characters or feel like you’re changing the movies, but it still gives you an engaging story. Overall, this is one that I want to play more of.

Last Year: 30

82. Ticket to Ride

Dropping down a bit this year, I still like Ticket to Ride a lot, it is just a bit lower on the gateway game list. This is one of my preferred gateway games, though, and it gives a lot of options for play. I think that it works well for introducing people and while there is some to keep track of in the game as you are planning and building your routes, what you are doing on a given turn is extremely simple and that makes it very accessible. In terms of truly simple gateway games, this one takes the crown for me as the best of them that people have heard of and I can pull out with basically any group. It’s hard to say more about this one, most people know it, and it’s a fun time. Plus there are lots of different maps if you get board with the base game.

Last Year: 38

81. The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

So, this one is higher than Star Wars: Imperial Assault, but it feels a bit like a sequel to it or one that is built upon it, and it has smoother game play, but it does one thing I don’t love. Just to quickly talk about it, you can play major characters from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, it doesn’t make a ton of sense thematically, in my opinion, I wish they had gone with the archetypes like Imperial Assault did. That said, I like the game play, I like the card play and the deck construction and upgrading it gets that feels like it’s borrowed from Arkham Horror LCG, I think that the combat works well, and overall, it’s just a fun time. The story is cool, and while I haven’t beat it yet, I need to go back and start again and enjoy. I also like that there is part of the game that is on a bigger exploration map and you get to explore new areas, find clues, and things like that as well as fighting, but then there are tactical battles as well in between the explorations. The game feels like there is a ton it can do, so I want to play more. And it has an app that works very nicely.

Last Year: 94

As always, what is your favorite out of this group? I have quite a variety, we have some big games, some small games, party games, and gateway games. So possibly, a little bit of something for everyone.

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AP (Analysis Paralysis) Player
So I’ve talked about AP players in the past and I’ll get them out of the way fairly quickly here, but these are the players, when it’s really bad, who will take 5-10 times longer on their turn than any other player. They overthink everything, sometimes trying to optimize points, sometimes just because they happen to see another possibility, so they need to think about that one a little bit, and they weren’t planning ahead of their turn. It’s fine to take of extra time on some key turns, but when you, yourself, call out that your turns are taking long, that needs to be a mental trigger to just do something, even if you don’t know if it’s ideal.

Game Recommendation – Sagrada
There are a few reasons why I think that this one would work well. First, there are no major decisions in it, yes, you have to decide what die to take and where to place it, but you have specific restrictions on it and the die pool is small enough. Everything leads you in a direction versus being able to pick what direction you want to go, and with that, you cut down on the AP.

Alpha Gamer
So, Alpha Gaming is mainly brought up in the context of cooperative games, but it can happen in any game. It’s when some player at the table thinks that they know better than everyone else, so they tell people what to do on their turn. This can come from two things, feeling like they know better in the game, or in cooperative games, desperately needing to win. The downside is that the Alpha Gamer is basically playing a solo game with other people moving pieces, and sometimes not even that, the Alpha Gamer will move another person’s pieces as well. If you notice yourself doing that, it hurts, but shut your mouth. Or, if that ends up being too hard, do what I do when running a game of D&D, if someone seems to be struggling with what they can or should do, give them two or three options, including the ideal option, just don’t tell them what’s the best option, but give them some help in in things to pick from.

Game Recommendation – The Lost Expedition
This game really tries to solve a personal issue, alpha gaming, in the game itself. The Mind is also another example of this. Anything that limits communication, I just think that The Lost Expedition is the best I’ve run across. You can’t discuss what cards you’re playing down when you’re hiking in both the morning and evening, so it’s the person who is laying down their cards decision. After that, the Alpha Gamer can have some fun as you discuss what’s the most ideal course of action, but the game is already giving you half of it that the Alpha Gamer can’t run.

Must Get It Right Gamer
So this one was harder to come up with a name for them, but they’re the gamer who needs to know the rules perfectly at the start of the game. If there’s something that comes up and is ambiguous in the middle of the game, they have to stop it and look up the rules. Now, sometimes it’s very important to get that rule right if it’s a major scoring rule or something like that, and I’m fine pausing a game to look that up, but when that person is flipping through the rule book between every turn and sometimes a couple of times on their turn, it’s dragging the game out considerably. If you find yourself doing that, keep track of what you’re wondering about and look it up either not on your turn or after the game. Don’t slow down the game by looking stuff up on your own turn, and if it gets to your turn and you don’t know the answer and that would affect what you do, do something else, and then continue looking it up.

Game Recommendation – Quoridor
Now, this is a placeholder for a number of games, and a lot of abstract games are going to work very well, because they can have simpler rulesets. But in Quoridor you either are moving a space left, right, up or down, or you’re placing a wall. That’s it, so it’s a fast game to teach and there aren’t rules to look up. Finding a game with good and simple rules that still offers a choice is going to be the best bet.

Between Turn Scroller
This is the person who gets distracted by something, anything, between turns. They have trouble sitting there and waiting for their turn, so they pull out a phone and start scrolling through Facebook, and then all of a sudden, it’s their turn, they don’t know what they want to do, because they were scrolling through Facebook or something like that. It can also be the person who gets up and walks away from the table to do something between turns, or starts a conversation with someone the second their turn is done. This one is harder to suggest things for because attention spans are short and sometimes between turns is quite long. My recommendation for someone who notices that they’re doing this is take up knitting or something else that keeps your fingers moving and brain somewhat engaged but isn’t as fully distracting. Once it’s more muscle memory as you know what you’re doing and you’ve done it a lot, you’ll be able to pay more attention between turns but still be doing something so it doesn’t feel like dead time.

Game Recommendation – Welcome To…
Now, there are a number of games that can fit here, and really any real time game could or simultaneous turns. In Welcome To, there’s just no downtime, same with Second Chance or Criss Cross, so if you know you have someone who can start scrolling at the table, just don’t give them enough time to do that by keeping them always invovled.

This Games The Best/Worst
This is the person who after having played the game for 10 minutes will declare the game the greatest game of all time or the worst game of all time. Now, sometimes this isn’t horrible because if the game is the best of all time the person is probably going to be happy and in a good mood, though that might also just mean that person is winning handily, which is why it’s the best, so it can come off as bragging. The this game is the worst side of things is tougher because if they make that proclamation 10 minutes into a two hour game, they’re going to spend a lot of the rest of the time complaining and that’ll kill other people’s fun. And it might turn out that what was thought in the first 10 minutes isn’t accurate to how good or bad the game really is. So if you’re one of these gamers, how do you combat it? First, try and free yourself from all preconceived notions. That’s way easier said than done, but often times when a game is the best ever it lived up to hype or if it’s worst ever, it didn’t live up to hype. So I guess another thing to say would be to avoid the hype market, now that means you probably can’t checkout Board Game Geek or something as much as you’d like, but it’ll keep the bias for or against a game lower. And the biggest thing is just bite your tongue at times. Now, if you don’t like a game after 10 minutes, you can make a comment, same if you like a game, but try not to use best/worst language and keep it to a comment. That way you have a release for some of your opinion in the moment but that doesn’t become the focus of the game.

Game Recommendation – Draftosaurus
Why, the game is 15 minutes long, so that’s really a placeholder again for this type of player. They might hate Draftosaurus, but it’s only 15 minutes long, so they aren’t going to be able to complain through a long game. And the game has enough going on in it that it should keep them somewhat entertained at a least and it looks good on the table. But basically, with this type of player, try and avoid the 90 minute long games.

The Sore Loser/Bad Winner
This can tie into the this is the best/worst game ever person, but this is going to be the person who can’t believe that they lost, that their strategy was clearly worse than everyone else, that the dice hate them, etc. When you’re done playing a game with them, you kind of wish you’d let them win because you’re done with their complaining. This can stem from several things, but probably the most obvious is going to be taking the game too seriously. And on the winning side, there are couple of types of bad winner, there’s the person who gloats, which is just annoying but can be dealt with, and there’s the person who makes it seem like they lucked into the win. For fixing some of this issue, first, remember that it’s only a game, if you win or lose, it’s still only a game, the point of playing games is to have fun first and foremost. Secondly, and this is stealing from little league, hockey, etc, train yourself to tell people good game afterwards. You don’t need to line up and give each other high fives, but try and compliment people on what they’ve done, and this really can go for everyone at the table to do.

Game Recommendation – Pandemic
More placeholding for games, this one is simply anything cooperative. Pandemic is just a good gateway cooperative game to get to the table, but if you can win or lose as a group, that’s going to make the poor winner/sore loser feel better about the game because they are in the same boat as everyone else. It also gives them a chance to see people model a healthier style of winning and losing at the same time they’re going through the emotion of winning or losing.

Now, I’m sure there are more types of gamers out there that can cause issues at the gaming table. And I didn’t touch on things like hygiene or anything like that, more on the mental and emotional side of board gaming. Hopefully this will give you some ideas of how you can improve your gaming habits if you fall into one of these categories, or what you can bring to the table if you play with someone who falls into one of the gamer tropes.

Which gamer tropes have I missed? And what games would you recommend to some of the groups that I’ve mentioned above?

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There are three main spots that I can think of when it comes to table top gaming. Assuming that you don’t just decide to play something like Ascension on an app because you want more of that real time interaction. Obviously, for conversation purposes you’re going to want to have a webcam ready to chat with.

Tabletopia
This software works on all platforms and you can hook your Steam account up to it. Boasting more than 800 games to play, it certainly will give you a lot of options as to what you can grab.

Tabletop Simulator
Another digital platform, also available with Steam, that you can play a lot of games through.

Zoom/Other Meeting Software
This is the one that I’ve done thus far, but also going to be the hardest to pull off, because I have the streaming set-up for Malts and Meeples, I can go ahead and do a two camera set-up. That means that in a meeting, I’m able to have a camera on myself as well as then one of the table for the game. It’s also trickier because while Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator have all the pieces for the game, if multiple people don’t own the game, you need something with open information. However, because I played Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game with a friend and we both have it, that meant that the hidden information, what was in our hands, could be hidden because we each had a hand of cards.

I do want to check out the fully online options, but I have to say that I like the Zoom and using the streaming set-up that I did. Mainly because I still go to play with a physical game. And I think that’s a piece that’s always going to be missing from something like Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator. Now, I don’t think that those are bad systems to use and for a lot of people they are going to be the only thing that they can use because of limitations for their set-ups. Though, a webcam pointed at the game on the table would work, so even if you aren’t able to be “face to face” because of only using a camera, you’d still be able to play with a physical copy of a game.

So besides the library that they have on the digital gaming set-ups, what are some games that would be pretty easy to play even if everyone doesn’t have a copy of a game? Some of these will be easier than others because they have a smaller footprint, but all should work online.

Pandemic
Sounds like a joke, but it isn’t, because all the cards are face up, you need a single person moving pieces and flipping cards, but the decisions are still going to be able to be made by the person whose turn it is, just maybe with asking a few questions. Pandemic can have an Alpha gamer problem that might be a little bit worse if the alpha gamer is the person who has the game, but that’s not so much a problem with the game as an issue that the alpha gamer has to deal with. And if you use Zoom, the leader can mute the person if they are talking over others.

Quoridor
A simple enough abstract game where you’re racing from one side of the board to another while placing obstacles in the way of your opponent(s). You have a limited number of walls that you can place up, so as long as you can see how many you have left, it would work well online. Again, no hidden information so you don’t need to hide what you have or face a challenge of passing information to someone in secret or acting like you don’t know that information.

Just One
Cooperative games tend to work well, and this is a good cooperative party style game. In it one person has to not see the card being held up to the camera and then picks a number, everyone else writes down a one word clue, any repeated clues aren’t displayed and then the person has to guess. This should work exactly how it does in the real world simply by people closing their eyes at the right point in time. It’s also an easy game for people who might not be gamers to join in on because of how simple the concept is.

Second Chance/Welcome To…/Criss Cross/Cat Cafe/Yahtzee
Roll and writes or flip and writes are simple where you don’t need to be passing around the dice. Even the ones where you do, if they use normal six sided dice, like Yahtzee, most people can find the right number of dice. The trickiest thing is that as a roll or flip and write, you need something to write on. So it would require people to have a printer, but on Board Game Geek you can find a lot of these sheets that you can print off. Or if you have a scanner, you can scan them in and e-mail them so that people can then print them off. While Cat Cafe and Yahtzee might require a little more work, the other three would be simple to play and give you a lot of hours of entertainment. And all of them can play good sized groups.

Scattergories
This one can also play a large group and works as a party style game for more casual gamers. It works because you just need someone to display the list and you can play on a blank sheet of paper coming up with answers. Probably the simplest one to do because someone could just literally type the list into a chat window for everyone to see.

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game
This is one that I saw people suggesting or talking about on Facebook, I believe in the Dice Tower group. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game is what it says, a game about figuring out who done it. And it’s an involved and complex game. There’s an online database that you use, you can google things are appropriate times, and you can easily discuss a case and actions over a meeting. You just need one person reading off the case cards and presenting the options, which I think a lot of groups do in terms of dividing up the demands of the game. Plus, you need someone to take notes as to what has been discovered.

Legacy of Dragonholt/Choose Your Own Adventure House of Danger
Story driven choose your own adventure style games work. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game almost falls into that category, but these are really just reading through things, and House of Danger has a few dice rolls with it but it’s a six sided die so that is going to work for most people because even if people don’t have many games, they probably have a die somewhere in their house.

Small World
Last one on the list, but I’m kind of surprised as I thought about it, that it actually works. The game is simple with just putting down pieces of cardboard to take over areas. So you just need to see how many characters you have left and how many are on each spot on the board. Plus, at times, what combos are available. Yes, you would need to have a single person moving everything around on the board, but that is pretty simple, there just might be a need for some clarifying questions as to what spot to place down your characters.

Now, I’m sure there are a lot more games that could work, and certainly classic games like Chess and Checkers where there is no hidden information would work really well. But those are some that I have sitting on my shelf that jumped out to me as good options for being able to play online. And while for me this will never replace playing games with people in person, during these times, there is certainly opportunity for groups to come together and play games online through one of the ways that I mentioned.

What are some games that you think would work well to play with a web cam? Have you tried out any thus far that have been a big success or a miss?

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These rankings are the opinion of yours truly, and if you don’t like them, that’s okay. We all have different tastes in games and that is great. There are some games that I’ve only played as a demo, and I felt like I got enough of a feel to put them on the list, thanks GenCon for all the demos. These are living rankings so next year I’m sure that things will change, so I’ll probably be doing another one next year. Thanks to Board Game Geek for letting me enter/rate my collection and games I’ve played. Thanks to Pub Meeple for creating a tool that pulls in those games that I’ve rated and creating a ranking tool. Again, the numbers and names will be linked to Cool Stuff Inc and Amazon if you’re interested in the games.

80 – 7 Wonders
One of the things that makes 7 Wonders such an enjoyable game is the fact that it scales well. You actually can play it up to 7 people and it works well like that, and the same with lower player counts. In this game you are building up your society and trying to build one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. To do this, you are drafting cards, building up your tableau, and scoring points in a lot of different ways at the end of the game. I have this lower than some other drafting games simply because the theme isn’t that exciting. Also, 7 Wonders encourages hate drafting, because if you don’t, science can be a run away strategy for a win.

79 – Risk Legacy
Regular Risk won’t be showing up on this list. That has player elimination and the game ends when someone controls the whole world. Risk Legacy, fixes some of that and gives you some fun stuff to open. In the game you play one of several factions who are trying to take over this new planet. But instead of wiping everyone off the board, you just need to get enough points. Generally, this is done by taking over a couple of the HQ’s that your opponents control, but there are other missions as well that can give you points. This keeps the game time much lower and when or if you are knocked off the board, you can come back on your following turn, probably won’t win, but you won’t just be sitting there. As compared to other legacy games, this doesn’t have story, but it doesn’t need it and it’s enjoyable to play without it.

78 – Dice Throne: Season 2 Cursed Pirate and Artificer
There will be more of this game higher on the list, and I could have maybe clumped it all together. But this is stand alone that you can play yourself. The reason that I have this one a bit lower is that while they are a ton of fun to play, they are also a bit more complex. So I don’t know that they would be the two that I’d pull out for beginners. Dice Throne, which will continue to show up throughout, is a Yahtzee style dice game, but instead of using those combos of dice to score points, you’re using them to defeat your opponent in 1 on 1 battles, 3 player free for alls, or you can team up. The game plays pretty fast and is generally easy to understand, though, as I said, these two characters are a bit more complex. I consistently have a good time when I get it to the table.

77 – Mysterium
There has been a murder in this deduction based game. In it, most of the people are playing investigators who are trying to determine who committed a murder, but to figure it out, they need clues. These clues as to who, how, and where are being given to you by another player, the ghost, who can only send you visions. This means that the ghost is giving you some cards that you are then comparing to, lets say early game, different possible murders, and you are trying to interpret these cards to determine who your murderer is, and each player is trying to find a different one. It’s a fun almost party game where there’s more going on than your traditional matching a word or image to another word or image. The spooky theme works, and we’ve house ruled a little bit with how the end of the game works, because it tries to keep it competitive to some extent, but those rules just slow down the game and don’t add to the enjoyment.

76 – Gloom
Not Gloomhaven. In Gloom you are telling the story of your family. But this isn’t a nice and happy family, this is a family that you want to die off. In fact, you want them to die off being as unhappy as they can be, because that’s how you win the game. On your turn you play a card either on one of your people, telling the story of how something bad happened to them or on someone else’s characters telling how something got better for them. While there is definitely scoring and a winner at the end of the game, the biggest part of the game is telling stories that twist together as to why your characters are getting more and more miserable, and just the humor that comes out of that. A cool part of the game is that as you are playing down the cards, you play them on top of the character, but you can still see the character since the cards you’re playing down are see through. So you can see how they have been made miserable before. It plays best when people are into the story telling, but most often people have been.

75 – Codenames: Pictures
I do not like Codenames, if you are expecting it to be the list, you won’t find it there. Codenames, with words, tends to be an anti-party game. People just sit around and look at the cards thinking, whereas with pictures, it encourages more discussion, because of the weird artwork. In Codenames Pictures, you are split into two teams, each team having a clue giver and guessers. The clue givers give a one word clue and a number. The number is the number of the pictures the clue relates to. Then the guessers are trying to figure out which ones match and make guesses on that. The first team to get all of their images guessed wins, but there’s more. If you guess the opposing teams, they get that as a correct guess. And if you guess the assassin, your team loses, so you have to think about that as the clue you’re going to give. It gives some clever moments for guessing, and some clever moments for giving a clue when you can tie a large number of the images together. The added discussion makes this game much more enjoyable than the original in my opinion, and you don’t run into a situation where someone might not know what a word means.

74 – Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancient
This is a game that I really need to play more. It was one of the first campaign games that I got and I’ve enjoyed the little play I have gotten of it. This game is a big box game with minis that need to be put together, but once you’ve done all that and learned the rules, which there are a lot, you start a dungeon crawl through the weird west. This wild west combined with monsters and other dimensions really gives this game a pretty unique theme that I’d love to see more of. What keeps this game from being at the table more is that it’s a beast to get to the table and at this point in time it’s been long enough that I’d have to spend the time to relearn the rules as well. But the unique t heme and the fact that I really like campaign style and dungeon crawl games, Shadows of Brimstone is a game that I’ve kept and that I’ll probably keep on my shelf for a long time, even if it isn’t played too often.

73 – Quoridor
This is a pretty straight forward abstract game that I really like at 4 players. In the game, you are racing from one side of the board to the other. Your opponents are doing the same thing from other sides of the boards. What makes this game interesting is that you can block off peoples routes with a few boards that you have. When doing that you can’t block them from the side of the board that they need to get to. What I like about this game is that I can see how it’s going to work fairly into the game. Now, I don’t win all that often because my wife tends to make it her mission to keep me from winning, but it’s still fun being able to see how you can up walls in such a way and cause other people to do the same thing so that your path stays clearer. It’s also a very fast game, even with some thinky decisions in there.

72 – First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet
This game I was super excited for because it was going to be like Robinson Crusoe, which I own but haven’t played, in space, with an app. And I feel like it fell a bit flat for me compared to what it could have been. I still really enjoy this game, but it was hyped up a ton, and it didn’t live up to that. In this game you are on Mars trying to keep your base up and running while also completing whatever missions you need to, plus the app causes things to happen and things to break down on your base. It works well, but the app part only works okay. It’s a bit clunky, and the game itself has a lot of bits to keep track of. There is a campaign aspect to the game that I haven’t played yet, but there are a lot of fun one off games you can play as well that seem challenging, though I have had pretty good luck on them. I think that with the house keeping in the game, just keeping track of everything working and how things break down, it might be a bit much for some people, but I enjoy it.

71 – Near and Far
This game is interesting because it balances some tough mechanics with an interesting world building and story element to the game. In it, you play through a campaign on maps where you are finding out the story of the world, but also building up your engine so that you’re able to go out and exploring and find more story. The game looks amazing with great art work. The game, though, because it has the more game mechanics and the story aspect, can seem like there is almost too much to do. I enjoy the complexity of the mechanics and planning ahead, but it won’t be for everyone in a story game and there is a lot to teach for that. I’ve played through a few different scenarios and I’ve always enjoyed it and the fact that a decision in a story at one point can lead you down a different branch at another point is a lot of fun and makes the world seem much more like it is living.

There’s another 10 done, still a lot to go, but thank you for staying around with my list. I hope that you’re enjoying it, are there any standout games on it thus far that you love or that you really want to play?

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Who would you give a strategy game too? With the stocking stuffers and story games, a lot of them could be played by people who aren’t big into board games, but strategy games, you are going to want to give those to a person who is more of a board gamer already. Otherwise, you’re less likely to know what the person will like the game. I am going to put a few lighter strategy games on the list that would work for more people, but generally speaking, these are going to be heavier games.

Gloomhaven

Now, this was on both the story and the strategy game list, so consider that if you are thinking of buying a story board game for someone. Gloomhaven has a ton of interesting decisions and a ton of decisions for combat and work with your team (or by yourself) in order to figure out the most optimal strategy to beat the scenario that you are playing. And the strategy changes pretty often when you have changing characters. The card driven combat works really well for the strategy of this game, and it isn’t a pure strategy/abstract game, so it doesn’t force you to play optimal strategy to win.

Quoridor

This is a lighter strategy game where you face off against another player in a race to the opposite side of the board. You either move or put down a wall on the board on your turn. It’s pretty simple in the rules, you can’t block the other person from being able to make it across the board, but there are some interesting strategies. It can play up to 4 players, and with a larger number of players it’s more random, but with two players, this game can become very strategic as you try and figure out when to block your opponent. The game is simple, looks simple, but offers some good decisions.

Star Wars: Rebellion

Another big box game, this one, the Dice Tower has described as “Star Wars in a box”. You get the feel of the epic space opera that is going on between the Empire and the Rebels as the Empire tries to track down the rebel base and wipe it out and the Rebels seek to complete missions to under mind the Empire’s hold on the galaxy. Now, there is some luck in the game because of dice rolls, but you can try and mitigate that some, and I know the expansion takes the combat which is primarily dice rolling and updates it some. But the biggest part of the strategy comes from deciding what missions to complete, trying to figure out where to move your troops to search, if you’re the Empire or where to bluff troops to try and draw the Empire away from your base, if you’re the rebels.

Fae

Fae is basically an abstract game that they have placed some theme on. In the game, you are trying to complete rituals on the board by separating the different groups of druids so that they aren’t next to any other druids. Once that is done, each color of druid in the ritual scores points. But there is strategy as to what areas you are trying to score points in, how you want to move the druids, and how you want to get the points scored because you have a secret color that you’re going for, as does your opponent, but each druid ritual scores for each color in the ritual. It’s a nice balancing act of strategy, but then trying to hide your information from you opponent by what you do.

Carcassone

This is one of the grand daddies of modern board gaming, but still holds up well. In the base game, you are building, as a group, a landscape where there are towns, monasteries, and other features. You each have a certain number of meeples that you can use as farmers, soldiers, thieves, or priests that will score you points in the game or at the end of the game. The strategy in this game comes into where you are playing the tiles for the landscape and how and where you are using the meeples to complete the various scoring options. It’s not a difficult game to teach or to play, but there is strategy as to how you use your meeples and where you place tiles that will determine how well you do.

Pandemic Legacy

Another crossover with the story list, Pandemic Legacy is definitely a strategy game, but again a fairly accessible one. The mechanics make sense for what you are doing, but like most good cooperative games, it gives you a lot of difficult decisions. You always feel like you want to do two or three more things than you’re able to do, so you have to skip doing something. This game really shines too for the story aspect that might allow you to get more people into heavier games. The game also does a good job of laying out what a person can do in an easy way so that you don’t have to remember as much.

Cry Havoc

This area control game plays very interestingly and quickly as you take on different factions which each has their own unique powers. It also has an interesting combat mechanism. This game also has interesting strategy in that all the factions play very uniquely and you can make that even more unique by allowing each faction to use more of their unique ability cards. So some people might be all about combat, but others might be all about collecting gems to score points. It seems like a game that plays well at a variety of player counts as well.

Root

Finally, this game is heavy strategy and is not a beginner level strategy game. Root is an amazing asymmetrical game where each persons factions in the game might have the same base mechanics but are handled differently for each faction. I really enjoyed playing the birds with their regimented planning of actions, but there are the cats which are all about area control, the woodland creatures who are all about subverting the powers that be, and the vagabond who is trying to complete quests. And with everyone making different decisions, the game is still completely balanced. This is one of those heavier games though that a person new to board games might think looks pretty, but might be a bit much to teach.

What are some of your favorite strategy games? Maybe you just want to get the person a nice chess set.

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