Top 10 Campaign Games I Want to Continue (Or Restart)

Let’s talk about why I stop campaigns sometimes. A lot of the time I do them for the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. And with that, I like to have a mix of a few games that I’m playing throughout the year. But also, I’ve started some off camera, or I played through a first campaign and I’d love to come back again. But let’s look at what the list looks like. And too often, too, as I play solo, I really wish I had someone in the room with me to share the story.

10. Destinies

Let’s start out Destinies, this is one that I’ve just played the introductory game to it. And I really enjoyed the system. It’s a game that I could play solo, but you don’t get all the story that you’d get multiplayer. So for me, it feels like it should be a multiplayer game. BGG says it’s best at two, but I’d love to try it at three as well and see what player count I like it best at.

But the game is a really simple game when it comes to the system that it uses. And the narrative elements driven by the app work really well. It’s that type of app that supports the game well and doesn’t take away from playing at the table. I do think that Destinies is more of a beer and pretzels campaign than a lot of the other games on the list.

9. Isofarian Guard

Next up we have the Isofarian Guard. This one is meant to be played solo mainly or kind of two player. And I really enjoyed my time playing this game. There is an element of the game that didn’t keep me coming back is the grind. I think that it’s one with the upgrade/update pack for it, it’s going to make it better to play.

That said I like the systems and I like that it’s one big campaign but played with different characters doing different things at the same time. So as I play with one pair of characters the story is going to be continuing elsewhere. And the chip drawing mechanism for combat is a lot of fun as well and makes you think on your feet as you play.

8. Chronicles of Drunagor

I played one session of this one before I packed it up. And I regret that I only played one session. Part of the reason I did is because there is so much to put onto the table. And trying to stream it was a lot of work to set things up in the middle of the game and search for new bad guys and things like that. I know that I need to spend more time sorting it, and once I do that, it would be easier. And I want to play until I reach a door and not set stuff up on stream.

But that said, I really liked the mechanisms in the game. Especially how you activate abilities. You need a cube of the right color to activate an ability, and if you activated it, you block it off with that cube. That means that you lose actions as you go. Then you pull the cubes back, but you block off one of the actions, so the available actions become tighter and I think that makes for a great system.

7. Arkham Horror LCG

This one I could say I kind of have going right now. I am playing through the Scarlet Keys sporadically with a friend. And I really am enjoying this one. I did a play of some of the base campaign on the Malts and Meeples channel. As you can see from the videos that I did with a lot of these. But I find that I like the Arkham Horror LCG a whole lot better at two or more. There feels like more strategy to it and I like planning with other people.

That said, now that I am playing with two, I am loving the game. And the more I play it, the more it flies as I play because I know what I’m doing. It helps to spend some time with this game to get into the rhythm of how turns work and to learn what keywords on the cards mean, especially for monsters.

6. Roll Player Adventures

This is one where I’ve played the whole campaign. So do I want to go back and play it again, kind of. But what I really want to do is play the Gulpax’s Secret expansion that came out of it. It’s just more story and adventure for the game and I am really excited to get it to the table. The story in the first game does a great job of balancing adventure and plot elements in a fun way, not in a way that beats you down with a darker story, like some will coming up.

And I really like the systems in the game. Especially the dice manipulation and spending resources to get dice of various colors. It puts pressure on people playing the game in multiple ways. And it’s fun to be able to sit there and talk about how many resources you should spend, since it’s character life points, versus how many dice you can draw blind. And then once you roll those dice, how do you get them to the right face for either completing a challenge or stopping a threat.

5. Tainted Grail: Kings of Ruin

Another one that I’ve kind of completed the campaign for. I know that the new version of Tainted Grail does change up some things, so it’s a similar setting for the game, but not the same game. And I’m cool with that, though for me, playing the three campaigns of Tainted Grail has been so much fun. I love the story in the game and it’s just a great experience, in my opinion. I think the original campaign is one that I’ll revisit as well. But I want to spend more time in the world, so that’s the biggest reason it’s on the list.

4. ISS Vanguard

Back to back Awaken Realms campaign games with ISS Vanguard. ISS Vanguard is a blast when I played it. And I like the combination of planetary exploration and ship management in the game. Each element felt like it mattered, the reason I stopped this one when I did is that I want to share the story and decision making with more people, in person. Sure I do it online, but unless someone is in the chat and ready to chat, I kind of just make decisions myself.

This game also feels so huge that I really want to share that element with other people as well. Granted, I have two more large sci-fi themed games. This one does give me some other elements to that sci-fi that I like a lot though. Mainly that it’s a crew from Earth. So while it is the best and brightest out there who were sent on this mission, they are still people.

3. 7th Citadel

Not one of the sci-fi campaigns, we have The 7th Citadel. And this game I was having a lot of fun playing. I just needed to keep it set-up to keep up with it. So it’s one that I might revisit anyways at a later time. But it’s also one where I was enjoying the story and experience of the game a lot that I wanted to share it with others, in person.

I really like the challenge system in the game. Whether it’s combat or it’s searching or anything else that you need to do a check for, you are flipping cards. And you need to create stars from those cards. But flipping a lot of cards also means that your deck is running out faster and the only way that you can get cards back is to spend health. It is really just a great balancing act of spending health, but not too much health and spending cards, but not too many cards.

2. Rogue Angels

Now a game that I’ve talked about a long time and that I’ve played with others as well. I have loved this campaign game even though it’s not out. I’ve gotten to play the TTS (TableTop Simulator) module a few times and I have a chapter one prototype that I showed off on the channel. This game just works for me from a fun story that feels epic to great characters and legacy elements to it.

But if it was just that without great mechanisms it’d not be that great. I really like how you play out cards and they go onto a cool down track for actions. Sure, you can always do a basic action, but those aren’t as good. And then, if you get wounded, you start to fill up that track with wound cards, and now you need to rest, or you’re giving cards a bigger cooldown than they should have. It’s just a great puzzle of a system that is easy to play.

1. Stars of Akarios

Finally for my campaign games is a game that I want to share this story and experience with someone in person so badly. It’s just a blast of a game and does so many things in amazing ways that I love. One of the coolest elements is that you get three different experiences throughout the game. There is space exploration, and that is fine. But then you get tactical space combat that is amazing. And you get planetary exploration which is a ton of fun as well. They pack a lot into the game and it works for me.

I could go on about this one a lot. The tactical space combat definitely seems to be the largest part of the game and it’s my favorite. I love how you spend dice to activate abilities. And you need to balance that with repairing your shields, possibly, or dealing with hull damage. Plus you need to line up your big abilities and you need to figure out if you can get into a flanking position to help do more damage. Plus the missions feel different, from fighting two factions to an escort mission and more.

Final Thoughts

Needless to say, between this list and the 15 campaign games that I still need to play, it’s going to keep me busy. I’m also going to go through and probably start of next week do a Top 10 List of Campaign Games that I have Backed that I need to get still. I think I can do a list like that, and yes, that’s too many campaigns to reasonably play. But my hope is to get to most of the campaign games eventually. Does this mean I should stop backing and buying more campaign games, yes. Does it probably mean that I should make more time for them as well, definitely.

Which of these campaign games between the two lists should I play next on stream? I know that I’m doing Gloomhaven right now as a digital campaign. But once I’m done with my Button Shy Solo Games (still a few more weeks of that). I want to get a game set-up on the recessed part of the gaming table and start playing through it. So which one do you think that I should play? I might do a video and ask for people’s opinions on which one I should do.

And do you have a problem with campaign games, mainly buying them, like I do?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Catch up on previous videos here

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 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.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Campaign games are board games where it remembers or something persists throughout it. Probably an easier example of this would be Dungeons and Dragons. You play as character and that character levels up and gets better. Or in video games, Baldur’s Gate 3, Dragon Age: Origins, or even games like Halo campaign demonstrates what that is. It’s a story where it remembers where you are in a story and you continue playing through that story.

Campaign Games

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

Let’s start off with the small version of one of the biggest and well known campaign games. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion has you leveling up your characters and fighting through a twenty mission campaign of Gloomhaven. It uses the same mechanisms, but it gives you a nice five scenario tutorial and then lets you explore the rest of the story and game with unique characters.

The game is a dungeon crawler as well as a campaign game. That means that you’re moving around a dungeon and fighting monsters, or moving around a location and fighting monsters tactically on a board. And it uses Gloomhaven’s great card mechanism of using two cards to activate your character. Top of one card and bottom of the other for movement and attack and how you play around with that is great.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Next up we’re going to go with a card game. Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a great cooperative game, as are all of these campaigns, but it’s just cards. So no minis, standees really anything like that. In this game you’re trying to solve cases and figure out what is going on through several scenarios.

This game is great because there is a ton of content for it. And because there is interesting deck construction and hand and resource management going on. But let’s talk about the content. You can buy the main box and have a short campaign to play. If you like the game there are more campaigns, more investigators, and more cards to play with. So you find that you can dive deep into what Arkham Horror: The Card Game has to offer.

Aeon’s End Legacy

Another card game for the campaign games. I wanted to try and do a few different types. Plus I wanted them to be available. The next one is maybe the hardest to get. But Aeon’s Legacy builds on the Aeon’s End system, and really is a great spot to jump in and learn the system.

You are breach mages who are protecting the town of Gravehold against a nemesis. In the Legacy version you don’t start with a character, you build that character throughout the game. You get new cards and you make choices to unlock some cards and not others and add some abilities and not others to characters.

Plus you get a new nemesis to face off against each time. And that is a great element of the game. Because not only are your mages unique, the nemesis is going to give you a different experience each time. And they give you a lot of fun options to deck build as you play.

Sleeping Gods

Sleeping Gods might be the hardest of the campaign games to find. But there are a few different versions out there, so hopefully it won’t be too bad. This is a game of exploring a new world that was created, written, and illustrated by Ryan Laukat, mainly, and his wife.

So you find as a crew that you’re dropped into a new world. It is a world where the gods are sleeping, and you are tasked with waking them, or at least finding totems, so you can get back home. But it’s not an easy task and you are only given some vague leads to go on.

This one is less of a campaign than some of the others because as players you have more freedom in what you are doing. You explore the world and decide which direction you want to go. But there are stories and quests that will persist between times playing the game. Because the game is too big to play over just one sitting.

Finally, I know you play as nine different members as the crew. And that is intimidating to play with all of that in front of you, or in front of multiple people. But I think of it as you have a whole team of people. They work and act as one. You need to know what they do, but it’s not like one crew members takes a turn and then another. The ship, and the crew as a whole are what take the turn.

Paper Dungeons

And now for a finale one that is really different. This one is just in the campaign games category because of the story that it has. But I really think that Paper Dungeons is a fun game. So I want to get it into this group for your consideration.

This is a roll and write game. That means that you roll dice and use those dice to fill in spots, the write part, on your sheet. Paper Dungeons is about leveling up your heroes, delving through a dungeon, crafting loot, and beating the boss monsters. All of this is done through die rolls which is a simple mechanism.

I like how this game makes you think on your feet. And how you can get combos and really explode with some great exciting turns to level up quickly, fight a lot of little monsters, or whatever it might be. The campaign part is lacking, though. It’s just a loose story that holds it into a campaign. But the game itself is fun, and it’d be a nice one to play a game every once in a while without needing to remember as much from other campaign games.

Final Thoughts

I kept the campaign games on this list smaller rather than larger. I love campaign games, and a lot of them are very large. That isn’t something that is reasonable for everyone to ask for or give. So what I put on the list is much more reasonable and sometimes even budget friendly.

If you want bigger games, tracking down things like Tainted Grail, Gloomhaven, or ISS Vanguard are going to provide those big box options. And there are a ton more I could mention as well. Those games are going to provide a much longer and more in depth campaign. So if you want to jump in at that point, or you know you already love campaign games, than those will be great options for you.

Do you have a favorite game in the campaign games genre? And are you putting any on your holiday list this year?

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Top 5 Adventure Games

5. The 7th Citadel

A new one to the list, and yes, I do plan to get back to streaming this. I am loving the adventure nature of The 7th Citadel. The game play is a ton of fun and it’s simple. Plus, one of the things I look for in a campaign game is an enjoyable story. And I think that the different threats do offer solid stories to go with the simple actions and game play. You can watch the videos and see why I like The 7th Citadel so much as an adventure game.

But let’s talk about the simplicity of the actions as well. Everything is based around getting stars. And you just need to figure out how much you want to push to get a star. If you spend a lot of cards, that is shortening what you can do later in the game. And as you get through cards, you spend health to get them back, which means that monster battles are trickier as well. But it is all done through drawing cards and seeing what stars you get on them.

4. Roll Player Adventures

Next up we have Roll Player Adventures. This is one that I had an amazing time playing through it’s whole campaign. Another one where the mechanisms aren’t that complex and the story is great to go with it. I think it is the story that really makes it shine. Though, I will say that the game is probably best as a three player game where there is enough difficulty to start, but it won’t become too easy towards the end. Also, it sounds like the updated rules with Gulpax’s Secret expansion help with that.

The main mechanisms are around dice placement. The original Roll Player game is about creating a D&D character, or an RPG character. This takes some of those mechanisms about matching up dice and optimizing placement to defeat monsters and make skill checks. Combine that with hand management as you try and complete all of those things, it works really well as a not too complex game.

3. Sleeping Gods

Then we have Sleeping Gods. This is another one that I played on Malts and Meeples. So I’ll drop that video below. But this one I think is a bit more intimidating of a game. Though, the complexity is still not all that high in the game. You are lost in another world and you need to try and find your way back to Earth by finding these totems. The trickier bit, I think, is that you play all the characters, or less that you play all the characters more that there is a single action pool. So it’s intimidating to try and keep track of what everyone has for abilities.

This one, though has one of the most unique stories to it. It is not a game where the story comes along linearly. It is an open world sandbox style game. If you want to go west, you go west or if you want to east, you go east. But that is up for the players to decide because the game doesn’t care. You find totems and prompts and that points you in direction. You see keywords and when you stumble across that keyword later, you know where to head back to. It is an amazingly ambitious project that works really well.

2. Stars of Akarios

Next up yet another one that I streamed on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. This one is Stars of Akarios, so we’re going from fantasy to sci-fi. This is a massive and epic game, and one that gives you a ton of adventure while being more tactical than some of the others. But the story is great, and while I get the feeling of a lot of different sci-fi tropes, I think that it handles them all well to make a massive experience.

One of the things that I love about the game is three parts of the game. Now, one of them is a weaker link. Flying through space to get from story to story or planet to planet, less exciting. But I love the planetary exploration. I get the feel of The 7th Citadel with it. But then you get this whole tactical space combat.

And it is amazing, it’s all about managing your resources and positioning yourself for big hits on the enemy. Or it might not even be about taking out an enemy but instead protecting one of your ships. So there is great variety to the game, and it even has a mission where you can side with no one, go hide in a corner and let them duke it out.

1. Tainted Grail

Finally we come down to Tainted Grail. This is my #2 game of all time, at least in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. We will have to see where it lands this upcoming year. But this game, I think, is going to be the one that is hardest for some people to love. But for me, it is an amazing time. And so much of that is because it is the best story that I’ve ever read in a game. The narrative is so deep and it just works.

The downside is that it is more complex than some other games. This is not just an adventure game, but Awaken Realms always sold it as a survival game as well. Now you can play on story mode and that takes that survival down a fair amount. But that doesn’t mean that the game is easy. It just means that some of the resource collection elements are simpler. There is still going to be a lot of combat, especially early campaign where you just look at them and decide to run away.

But with all that said, this game is amazing. The story easily pushes it over the hump for me to my #1 adventure game. And I like the combat and diplomacy mechanisms. They do break up what you do in the game, but I really enjoy that puzzle, working together, and optimizing that you can do.

Final Thoughts

What are some of your favorite adventure games? Let me know which ones they are down int he comment section below. I own a number, Solomon Kane, Isofarian Guard, SHEOL, Agemonia, Divinus, Nova Aetas Renaissance and more that I need to play. Adventure Games are like my dungeon crawlers and boss battlers, it’s hard to get to them all because they take up space and time.

Are there any of the adventure games on the list that you want to try?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

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?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Now, I think it can be fun to have everything for board games that you love. But the mindset that it needs to be for everything isn’t sustainable. At least, it isn’t for me. I like to try and play a lot of board games. But maybe you have fewer than I do, so getting everything for all the games you own, is more reasonable.

But this article isn’t about whether you should or not. It’s about five games that I go all in on. Which ones make that list and why. And some of them might be the ones that I have in the past which aren’t coming out with more stuff. But still, I went all in on them.

5 Board Games I Go All In On

5. Tainted Grail

Tainted Grail is one of the first ones that comes to my mind because after I beat the campaign, not fully, but almost, I picked up the Monsters of Avalon. I got the minis after the fact, which I just find odd looking back at it. But Tainted Grail is a game that I love, I put it as my #2 game of all time last year. So of course I want it all.

But even then, I think it’s worth to caveat, I get some aesthetic stuff for games. I don’t do it all the time. So even with a game like Tainted Grail, I don’t have all of the aesthetic add-ons for it. They really didn’t interested me.

So why did I go all in on Tainted Grail? I love the game, it’s as simple as that. As the Monsters of Avalon became more readily available, I wanted to get them. Why, because even though I’ve played it once, I believe that I’ll want to come back and play it again. And that is going to make it more immersive again in the future.

4. Aeon’s End

Next up is Aeon’s End and this is another game that is high in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. So I don’t think it’s a shock, in fact, I’ll probably skip over mentioning that on the next ones. But this one I do get most everything for it. I don’t own all the playmats, but then again, I don’t own a lot of playmats in general for games.

But Aeon’s End, whenever a new expansion comes out, I want to get it. Why, because Aeon’s End is pretty easy to play with more content. You take your breach mages, your nemesis, and cards to buy. That is it. Everything is randomized, but it’s randomized so simply.

The area that I went extra on this one is that I have all of the extra cards. Not all the promo cards, so I am not truly a completionist with it. But for the breach mages as its a deck building game, I need to out of the box, create the decks each time. It’s not hard, but they offered packs to let you do that and leave the decks setup for all the mages. I bought that because it makes it just that much easier to grab and play.

3. Dice Throne

Another one is Dice Throne. You knew this one was going to be on the list. And I keep on thinking of game elements that I don’t own anymore. I don’t own Dice Throne Adventure. Technically it’s an expansion, but it more feels like it’s own game at least to me. And I love base Dice Throne so much that I didn’t want that.

Why do I get it all, because it’s all plug and play. I can grab any characters to face off against each other and play. Santa vs Krampus, sure. Santa vs Thor, absolutely. Krampus vs Spider-Man vs a gunslinger, there isn’t a reason not to do it. And because of that mix and match and ease to play, it is high on the list. And whenever they announce a new set, it’s an easy back.

2. Marvel Champions

Then we have Marvel Champions. This one I maybe shouldn’t be getting everything for. I need to play it more, the same is true with my #1 as well. But I don’t for two main reasons. And I fully intend to keep on buying more of it, though very soon I’ll need a third box to store it. And I do want to play through one of the campaigns for it this year.

But it’s again that plug and play nature. I leave the starting decks or characters together. So I just need to put the villain together and I can hop into it. But I get to pick if I want to have Spider-Man face off against Rhino. Or I can also have Spider-Man fight Kang, or Gambit fight Rhino, it’s so easily mix and match it’s great. The other part is that it’s Marvel. I love Marvel, so it’s easy for me to keep on wanting to get it all.

1. Marvel United

Finally is Marvel United. And I think you can guess one reason easily as to why it is on the list. I love Marvel, so I want it all. But it’s a fun game that I need to play more, and it really is easy to get to the table.

So the main reason, and like so many, is that the game is plug and play. The new characters and villains I get, it’s easy to just drop them into the deck and go. I can take Squirrel Girl, Magik, and Thor up against Nimrod. Or I can end up being way more obscure than that, and that’s pretty obscure already. It has everything for it that’s so much fun to get those combinations.

And I think as you get more combinations it makes the game better. The core box is quite simple, but the game itself is always the same core, but becomes more interesting and more challenging as you mix in things and go up against other villains.

Final Thoughts

I try and limit what I go all in on. And sometimes I do a good job of holding firm. Not on the list is Marvel Zombies from CMON. I want it to be there, but as of right now, I’m not buying that giant Galactus. I own everything else, but just that pile of stuff is a lot, but also probably less than one Galactus. So it is a balancing act.

And like I said, for me, I like to do board games in and out of my collection. If I go all in, it’s way harder to have a game leave. Or it’s way harder to bring in five games at once because they all take up room. Even in this case, I have made my Marvel Champions, Marvel United, and Aeon’s End all take up less space than they would if you kept all the boxes.

Are there any board games that you go all in on? And do you feel like your game is lacking something if you don’t go all in?

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

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?

Catch up on my Top 100 Games (of all Time) 2023 Edition:

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) 2023 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Let’s start off with Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game at #10 this year. Detective is deduction game where you and your teammates are trying to solve cases. The base box comes with five cases that take about 2-3 hours each. And you’re up against the clock, in the game, to solve everything and figure out what answers you need as you get quizzed on what happened and the who, what, and why of the case at the end. Plus little details that you might have missed or you can piece together.

This is like a crime television drama. I don’t love watching those, but playing in one is amazing. You actually get to put together deduction skills and piece together what happened. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times it is hard, but it’s always worth it.

And this game does a good job using technology as you play. Part of how you get information is interacting with a computer and a database to pull up details that might already exist on the case. Or it might be details that already exist on people in the case. It really helps make Detective into a great immersive experience.

Buy Detective

9. The Great Split

Next up we have The Great Split, a new game to the list and one that does a single thing well. In The Great Split, it is primarily an “I split, you choose” game. What does that mean? It means that I have a group of cards and I put them into two groups. You pick one of those groups and I get the other one back. Then we both use them for scoring, which is what everyone is doing at the same time. So, I love the simplicity and simultaneous nature of the game play.

Plus the scoring is nice in the game as well as it isn’t too difficult or too easy. What it mainly is, is pushing up on on tracks for artwork, literature, gems, and money. And each of them is going to score in a different way. Some of them score with how well you are doing against a market or against a scoring track. Others score, the gems, with your lowest of the two gem tracks. So it’s figuring out what you want to go for, because that’s not all the scoring.

There is also contracts in the game. Those are on the tracks as well, but you have other tracks that you want to push up on. Because they make the contracts you have, loaning your art pieces out to museums and stuff like that, worth more. But if you’re pushing up on those tracks, you aren’t on the main scoring tracks, so it’s a really good balance. And all of that with very simple rules teach and very simple game play.

Buy The Great Split

8. Floriferous

Now we have Floriferous, a game that has made it’s way higher up on the list from last year. And some of that is what I redid how I thought about the list, some. I now put more stock into the games that I want to play all the time and do play often, as well as the ones that give me a great experience when I play them. Which is why there are fewer campaign games in the Top 10, though, don’t worry, their are still several.

But Floriferous is a drafting game of building up your best bouquet of flowers. But how you draft and how you know what you are scoring is what I love about the game. You lay out the cards to be drafted from at the start of the round. And then players take turns drafting from the first column of cards. Where you draft in that column then determines your drafting order for the next column. It makes for great decisions as decide to take a less ideal card to make sure you get the perfect card next column.

And then there is the scoring. A little of the scoring just exists at the start of the game. Most of what you score you need to draft. So I need to draft a card that says “2 points for all purple flowers”, for example. And I can do that, but the scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column. That means when I take a scoring card I’m going to be going last next round which is a choice, as I said above, that I really love.

Buy Floriferous

7. Planet Unknown

Next up we have Planet Unknown a terraforming, polyomino laying game. And it’s one that is not that hard to teach, if you have the game in front of you. But it does some very cool things, which I’ll get to in a second here. But the game is about filling up your planet with tiles, clearing out meteors that have hit your planet, and building up on various tracks of nature, water, technology, rover mobility, and civilization.

The game is able to be played in two ways. The first way is a simple generic way where everyone has the exact same thing. I think it is a solid system if everyone is learning the game, and you have new to gaming people in there. But once people know the system at all, flip over the boards and the groups going to the planets. That is when the fun begins as everyone is working a little bit differently and has their own ways and timings as they go up the tracks while still playing the same game.

And the one thing I haven’t touched on yet is how you pick your tiles. There is a lazy susan in the middle with all of the tiles on it. And on your turn, you turn the lazy susan to the side you want facing you so you get the tile that you want. It’s a tough decision, and then everyone else takes from the side facing them. Or at least kind of facing them, because they’ll have a marker, placed at the start of the game, that determines where they take from. I love that mechanism as I can get what I want, or I might choose to mess with you.

Late Pledge Planet Unknown

6. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Then we have Lost Ruins of Arnak. And this one I do want to specify that it is a top 10 game for me with the first expansion. The second expansion definitely keeps it up this high as well, but the first one is needed, in my opinion. It takes Lost Ruins of Arnak from a fun game to one of my top games of all time.

So how does it play, and why do I like the expansion so much. Well, at it’s heart, The Lost Ruins of Arnak is a resource management game of going out, collecting resources and turning them in to move up a research track. But there are a number of twists with it as well. Because I also am building up a deck of cards that let me do more actions or power up the actions that I do take. And I love that aspect to it.

So let’s talk about what the expansion adds and why I think Expedition Leaders is very important to the game. In Lost Ruins of Arnak, base game, everyone has the same camp, same workers, and same starting deck of cards. And there are two tracks which you can go up on. It’s fun. But Expedition Leaders says your camp, your cards, how many workers you have, all of that can be unique now. Because you have a leader that makes you unique and I really love that.

Buy The Lost Ruins of Arnak

5. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is the next game on the list coming in at #5. And it is one that I haven’t played in probably eight months. I really need to get it back to the the table. But I love this engine building game and another game about terraforming a planet, but this time, I’d say, it’s way more about building up that engine to generate more resources and points.

The game, like I said, is about building up that engine and determining when to activate everything, and when to pick an action to do based off of what you think your opponent is going to do. How does that work? Well, the game has five actions and the actions that are played out by the players that round are the ones that are going to happen.

The actions also fire off in a particular order. So if I pick research it’s action #5, so it’ll go last. Someone else might pick activating actions, and that’s #3, so it goes in that order. Which ever one you pick, you get a special bonus for it, while your opponents get whatever the basic action is (which you do as well). So it’s about trying to not match with your opponents to get more actions done and to figure out what benefits you the most. Of course, if everyone is doing that, well, then no one might pick that one action everyone wants.

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

4. Stars of Akarios

Now we’re onto one of the big campaign games. And you can see game play for this one on Malts and Meeples. Stars of Akarios is a game that I absolutely enjoyed all that I did. Some parts are better than others, but as a whole, I think the game is a ton of fun. It’s a big space adventure that gives me vibes from Enders Game and Space Dandy, two really different things, but it works for this game.

The game is split into three parts, but we’re going to talk about two of them. First part is planetary exploration. This has a 7th Continent type feel to it with flipping over locations and interacting with places. Plus there is a lot of story that you can find as well for the different planets. There are skill checks and things like that, but a lot of it is story and the choices you make in that story unlocks new things that you can do.

The main part of the game is tactical space combat. It’s about using your dice to flank and out maneuver the enemies so that you are in the right spot for a big hit and they can’t hit you back. I adore the puzzle that this game provides in this space combat. It is good enough to just be a game by itself, but the story and the world/universe that is being built in the game is just amazing. I can’t wait to get back to it, and maybe it’ll be a campaign game that I come back to and try and play through solo sometime.

Buy Stars of Akarios

Note the 1.5 version of Stars of Akarios is coming out. There should be a late pledge available soon.

3. Dice Throne

Next up is Dice Throne. I believe that my #2 and #3 flipped spots from last year. Dice Throne is a battling game of taking characters up against each other and rolling dice, Yahtzee style, to deal damage. You get a better roll, like a large straight or all sixes and you get to do more damage.

The game really shines in two areas. The first is how they manage to make all of the characters feel different. I have Marvel Dice Throne pictured here, but in the video I have Dice Throne Season 1 and I figured out coming soon there will be 35 different characters. And all of the characters do feel different. They come with different tokens that change up how they interact with the enemies or how they ramp up to deal more damage themselves.

And then there is the card play in this game. What doesn’t make it just pure dice chucking are these cards. Some of them are upgrades to your attacks that offer better results and more damage when you roll them. Other times, and I’d say most often this, it’s about getting better results on your dice. You don’t want to end up being stuck doing nothing if you try and shoot the moon and go for all sixes. So you keep cards to manipulate the dice. It’s a great system that offers more depth than you’d think from the initial description.

Buy Dice Throne

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Now we have Tainted Grail at #2. This one moved up, I think, because I made it through all three campaigns, wrapping up the third one this year. And all of them offer something unique and fun that is really enjoyable to play. I love how you start in the middle with the first campaign and then the second takes place 500 years later and the first 500 years before it. It offers a lot of interesting storytelling, which the writer really takes advantage of.

The game play is also pretty slick once you get into it. The combat and diplomacy checks are done through card play. And while that is an important part of the game, it’s not too hard to build up something that is powerful enough. Or players with specialize in different areas. One element about the combat that I really like is that you need to pay attention is to the enemies attack. How much damage you deal determines the enemies attack. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to take a lot of damage.

But the game really shines around the exploration and survival aspects of the game. I think it’s best on story mode because the story is so good. But you always need to be keeping track of the menhir that you have lit. Because if they go out, then you start to lose parts of the map as the wyrdness takes over. And that limits where you can explore. And as I said, exploration is the best part of the game. It is a chance to dive into that story. So it’s a balance of story, resource gathering, and then just surviving that makes Tainted Grail work so well.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven

My #1 hasn’t changed, it’s still Gloomhaven. Though, you can say that it is Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, and Frosthaven all rolled into one. Jaws of the Lion might be a game that I show off here on Malts and Meeples. And I’m now playing through a campaign of Frosthaven.

This is a classic dungeon crawling game where you go into a scenario and need to tactically move around and kill all the bad guys. Or at least that’s the objective in a lot of base Gloomhaven’s scenarios. The other ones offer more variety. But it’s also a game of leveling up your characters, unlocking more abilities, and then eventually retiring and getting a whole new character to play with.

And getting those abilities and playing them out is where the game is amazing. You play out two cards from your hand each turn. They have abilities on the top and bottom. And you’ll activate one of the top abilities and one of the bottom ones. Plus you need to figure out where in initiative that you want to go as well.

And the variety in them and how different the characters are is impressive. It’s like a lot of the games in my Top 10, I like the variable player powers and variability in what you are doing. Gloomhaven and all the following games offer a ton of that. And it’s sad to lose a character to retirement that you’ve spent time with, but exciting to unlock something new. This is just an amazing game that deserves the love it gets.

Buy Gloomhaven

Thanks for Joining Me

Thank you for joining me as I went through all of the games on this list. I really have fun doing this every year. And I hope that you have fun watching along. I appreciate everyone who has been in the chats and watched the videos. It means a lot to me to see that people are enjoying it. Let me know what some of your favorite games are.

Upcoming Streaming

And join me for future upcoming streams. I made a comment that my Monday streams might be changing. We’ll have to see on that, it might just be less often, or it might move to a different night, it depends on some variables as I look at the new year. Right now, though, that it’s changing. I plan on streaming Monday nights at 9 PM Central. I won’t have some on the 25th of December, I will be around next week.

Then on Wednesday, I generally stream a campaign game. I won’t be doing that this upcoming week. And I’ll be missing the following week. But as I start 2024, I plan to stream Rogue Angels. A game that I think will be in my Top 100 starting next year. One of my rules was that I needed to have played a physical copy. And thus far I only have played it digitally. Now I’ll be able to play it in person, which I’m really excited for. So join me for that starting in 2024. And Wednesday streams start at 8 PM Central time.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Board Game Plays

119 Different Games

You will look at that number and see that it is about 10 plays of each game, on average. Of course that is only an average. So some games are going to get played a whole lot more. Those are the games that I sit down and I play between meetings at work, or sometimes, if I just need to observe, during a meeting at work to help keep me focused. So we’ll see a very high number for one of those coming up.

But I really like the combination of games that I’ve played. It’s some small games, but I also have a number of campaign style games that make the list. Obviously those are going to take longer to play. Which means that I’ve put a lot of time into playing board games this year. We’ll get to that number later.

385 Plays of Grove

So obviously a lot of plays came from Grove, but Grove is one four games that I’ve played over 50 times this year. Grove, Orchard, Relics of Rajavihara, and Criss Cross are all over 50 plays. They count for more than half of my total game plays for the year. And how fast they play, with the exception of Relics of Rajavihara which can take a bit of time to puzzle out a play, is quite fast.

87 New Games

This is a number I am quite happy with. It means, while I buy games faster than I play, still, I have gotten through a lot of games that I haven’t played before. I will say, I think if I dug into the whole list, there would be two or three that might be ones I’ve already played.

Looking at that number, I might try and get it to 100 new to me games, but I’m running out of time. I do have a friend who I teach a lot of new games to. And some of the games, probably enough, I could play solo if I learn them to get to 100. That is now an unofficial goal for the year.

Approximately 348 Hours

That is what the app, Board Game Stats estimates anyways. I’ll tell you, it says 11 hours for My City Roll and Build, that is probably 4 hours total maybe 5. It estimates what it says on the box. Sometimes, as I’ve written about, that is low. Other times, especially if I play it solo, that is very high.

Recently Trailblazers is another example of that. I did play it two player now, and half an hour is right. But solo, I got 3 games done in about 35 minutes. So take that number with a grain of salt, it’s probably under 300 hours with how fast I play some games, especially solo.

Gap

Gap was game number 1000. And turns out how I was taught at Gen Con was actually a bit off. That might have been my comprehending it, versus the teach, but an abstract game is sometimes hard to teach. Still really like the game and I think it’s better with much better strategy now that I’m playing it the right way. But Gap from Arcane Wonders was game play #998 through #1000 for me last n ight.

Final Thoughts

It’s really been an effort or focus to play more games this year. I get in campaign games, like Tainted Grail, every other week with one group. I play another campaign, it was Roll Player Adventures, now it’s Vampire The Masquerade: Chapters with another group. And I’ve played at least three campaign games over the course of the year, at least 7 games of them on Malts and Meeples.

Next year will I push for more? I might. Though, I think that 1100, which I’ll be close to this year, is an amazing number. Let me say this, though, if you play fewer games, it isn’t a big deal. I actually think that I’ll play fewer games next year. At the start of this year I was in a new job in a new role learning a lot in meetings. So I would play Grove between meetings or during meetings to help me focus and maintain focus. So don’t assume that you are slacking behind, that is not the case.

When I put out these goals, I never try and push them out too far. That is why I didn’t make it a goal from day one. I want a bit of a stretch, but I also don’t want to make board games into something that is work. Now it is “work” in that I make a little money from this website. But it isn’t because I’m not beholden to any company, I do it because I like to do it. So if you see this goal and feel like you’re slacking, you aren’t if you are having fun playing board games.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Top 5 Horror Board Games

Again, no particular order, but let’s see the ones that made the list.

5. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Almost didn’t put this one on here. I own other games that are maybe more horror and less fantasy. But Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon created a world of both. It’s very grim dark in terms of fantasy with monsters, wyrdness, and more popping up around every corner. It definitely dabbles into the horror elements with the creatures that the wyrdness has twisted.

4. Spire’s End

Spire’s End, or Spire’s End Hildegard make the list as well. Both really are similar in what the world does. Greg Favro creates a world of unknown and horrific monsters. While also giving you a nice, simple game to challenge yourself with. Things don’t come easily for your characters, but the rules generally let you get into the game quickly and start playing and seeing what is happening.

Probably the truest horror in terms of how the story is written. It’s impressive how it develops the horror throughout the game as you don’t know what is going on. And I still have a lot of game and story to explore in both of them. Plus the artwork is amazing.

3. Betrayal at House on the Hill

A classic horror themed game at this point. Yes, it does have it’s problems where either the person who is haunting or the other players will have a massive advantage in the haunt. But when it works well, which it does, it’s an amazingly fun time.

In Betrayal the game is split into two parts. First part everyone is exploring the house, together, but not together. You want to find good items, increase your stats and well, search until you trigger the haunt. But, you don’t know when that is going to happen. And when it does, one of you at the table is going to be the betrayer. So now what’s the new condition for the betrayer to win the haunt or the other poor characters to defeat the betrayer?

2. The Night Cage

This one sounds like an abstract game, and The Night Cage really is. But it’s an abstract game with horror at the heart. Players wake up in a labyrinth that they can’t stand up in. With only a candle they need to explore, find keys, and all get to an exit portal together. But no two players can share a spot, and monsters are lurking.

Plus, the game is counting down. As you explore and your candle no longer shows off where you’ve been, now those locations go away and the labyrinth will be different. So the pile of tiles is dwindling as you search. And you never know when that monster will pop up and steal your wax and light, leaving you fumbling in the dark.

1. Arkham Horror LCG

This one is on that horrors edge as well. Is it a detective fantasy story? Kind of. Are there elements of Lovecraftian horror through everything that you do, absolutely. And that’s where it makes it onto the list. The game offers you adventure as you explore Arkham or other locations. And you need to be setup to defeat monsters and cultists, and progress the story with finding clues. All of this to stop something, a ritual in the base box, from happening.

Mainly this game is just a really well balanced experience. There are some characters you can get to make you better or that have better cards. But that doesn’t ever make the game feel too easy. And Arkham Horror gives you ways to make it harder and really level it not to the story you want, but how hard a challenge you want.

Final Thoughts

I want more good horror games. I own a few more that I’d put into that range and a few that I need to try. Deep Madness would be the big one. Or Solomon Kane and Darkest Dungeon might also fall into that category as well.

But as I said a couple of days ago. Horror is a genre that I want to find more games. And when one comes out I’m interested in. And I will check it out, and a lot of the time I’ll be disappointed. Why, because a lot of them go with the gross and gore side of horror. Because elements like jump scares, or good psychological twists are hard to build into a board game.

What’s your favorite horror themed board game?

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here