Top 5 Board Game Add-ons

5. X-Trayz

These are from GameTrayz, I company that for personal reasons I can’t fully support. But that’s besides the point that they make really good trays and their component bins with covers get used pretty often by me. It started out with Tiny Towns where I used it to store all of the houses and tokens. I think I have the different ingredients for Quacks of Quedlinburg in them as well. And Lost Ruins of Arnak has it for their resources.

Why are they so handy, you can use bags for things. You can, but bags you dump out and refill at the start and end of every game. These you keep whatever you aren’t using in there. It’s a nice sturdy option for storying components.

4. Aeon’s End Starting Cards

This is the one that is from the company and it’s a big absurd. Aeon’s End is a deck building game where everyone’s starting hands are almost the same. I say almost because each character has at least one card different. That means before each game you need to go find your characters unique card(s) as well as build out their starting deck.

Well, Indie Board and Cards was smart and they created packs for each of the core boxes. So it’s not cheap to go in on this, it’s five packs. But, when integrated you don’t need to build those decks again. And that is going to help with the set-up and teardown of the game.

3. Marvel United Divider Cards

This is one that I actually need to buy more of. That might seem confusing, they are dividers that go between the characters. Well, yes they are. But I don’t own them yet for Marvel United X-Men, and eventually Marvel United Multiverse. It makes it much easier to find the character cards, and it stores okay. I only put it at as okay, because Marvel United in general only stores okay.

2. Potion Explosion Marble Holder

These top two are the nicest wooden components that I have for a game. I do have one more, but I need to put it together still, actually two more. But this is a replacement for the cardboard holder for the marbles.

Why is this one so great, because the original one, you would take it from the box hoping it wouldn’t fall apart. There were ways that you had to hold it and elements that would become loose every time. With the wooden one, it’s much more solid and just as functional. This one it just looks nicer and works better. But the top one makes the game much easier to play.

1. Gloomhaven Insert

That top one is, of course, an insert for Gloomhaven. Gloomhaven is an amazing game, but one of the biggest issues is that it’s a beast to set-up. Well, the insert doesn’t take care of all of that, but it takes care of a chunk of it. And that makes Gloomhaven so much easier to play. I had put together my own storage solution before getting a real one. But I can’t imagine playing Gloomhaven with baggies like some people probably do because that’s what they have in every other game.

Gloomhaven just has too many tokens. There are cheaper solutions, but the insert for me was the way to go. And if a simpler solution still makes it hard to set-up, I do think that an insert really makes it so much easier that it’s worth the money.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of upgrades or add-ons that you can get for a board game. Some people love to get an insert for everything in hopes it’ll be easier to table. Other people want to bling out their board game with fancy components to make it more thematic.

Right now with Frosthaven just in, I am debating about buying 3D printed terrain for it. Just something to add to the immersion of the game. But is it worth it to add in stuff that will just make it trickier to travel with? I’m not sure I want to travel with it anyway because it is a beast, but adding more makes it trickier.

What are some things you’ve add-on to your board games to make them fancier or more functional?

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Honorable Mention Board Games

There are a lot that could go on here. Downforce has been great fun as well as Night Cage, I’m not sure, but I think I played Super Fantasy Brawl for the first time this year. So that one isn’t getting added to the list. Aeon’s End Legacy which I streamed. I’m not sure which all roll an d write games, but I think Metro X, for sure Deadly Doodles, Patchwork Doodle, and maybe Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade. Tiny Towns would be this year and has been played a number of times.

And I think that’s it, there might be more for the list as well. I have played a lot of new board games this year and I’m sure I’m missing some. Unfathomable is one I just saw on my shelf, as well as Similo or Ohanami. And I just did my Top 100, so I could just pull from that list, which you can see here.

5. A Gentle Rain

A small little solo game, this is one that I’m thinking might slowly drop on my list, which is a weird thing to say for a game that is my Top 5 for 2021. I got to game more with people this year, but not as much as I wanted. I didn’t get to cons and things like that, which gave different gaming experiences. So some small solo games got a lot of enjoyment this year.

A Gentle Rain is a very relaxing game to play. In it you are flipping out tiles trying to place them down in a way that all four sides can match. In fact, all four sides need to, to get fully surrounded – like Carcassonne. But if you get a square of four tiles, that corner you create you put in a disc matching one of the flower sides you matched.

It’s very simple, flip a tile and play it. It’s more of an activity in some ways as you are just trying to see how high a score you can get, or can you get all 8 discs out. But there is some strategy as to how you create your pond to optimize how you can finish those squares. So it’s not just luck.

4. PitchCar

This is a game that I keep adding more to. Whenever Eagle-Gryphon has some of it on sale, I buy more of it. I think I own all but one expansion which allows big PitchCar to connect to mini PitchCar, and I still want more. I wouldn’t mind another base set to just get more of some of the basic shapes.

But PitchCar is a simple racing game. You flick car discs around the board trying to be the first one to complete a circuit. The game play is simple but a lot of fun, and half the fun is building crazy tracks. I even have a loop for it that you can go around, and yes, flicking a disc around a loop is possible.

3. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

I love this vesion of Terraforming Mars. I still need to play actual Terraforming Mars, but this one works well for me. It’s still about Terraforming Mars, but it does so in a smaller package. You just keep track of resources and then playing out cards to raise the oxygen levels, flip ocean tiles and raise the temperature. So stuff you do in the bigger game.

But it does it with very slick card play and action selection. Each round everyone selects an action from five different actions. It can be building, doing research, getting resources, but it’s always done in a specific order. If I pick an action, I get to do it and you do as well, but I get a bonus. It’s a fun system that keeps everyone involved the whole time.

2. Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

Another solitaire game. I think I’m up to 110 plays of Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game, just because it’s so fast to play. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t offer good decisions and isn’t fun. It’s a lot of fun and a really good puzzle as you try and beat your previous high score.

You are layering cards, matching the different fruit tree symbols of apples, pears, and plums. The higher you stack and overlap the more you get. So, for example, if I get a pear on a pear, that gives me one fruit, or one point. Another layer, I’m up to three fruit. And you can go as high as ten. But getting the cards, with nine cards, to overlap that much is hard. It’s a great little puzzle of a game.

1. Railroad Ink Challenge

Finally, I put down Railroad Ink Challenge. I really like this game, because it’s fun in person and great on the app.This is one where the app gives such a fast experience it’s almost as good as playing in person. I already liked Railroad Ink a lot. It’s a good roll and write game about connecting routes along the edge of the board. You get points for filling middle spots and lose points for having roads or train tracks not connect.

But Railroad Ink Challenge takes it up a notch. It adds in, well, challenges. These are basically things like, on turn three have a complete row or column filled in. On turn five have five spots in the middle filled in. I like that better than the base game as it gives something more to focus on. When a route doesn’t easily connect to an exit, now you know what to do with it.

It’s a great roll and write and really high quality. I own a ton of tiny little expansions that I really need to play with. Even the base game without mixing in any expansion is a ton of fun, though. Highly recommend this game and the app. It’s a roll and write that I think is accessible, but also very thinky, a really good combination.

Final Thoughts on 2021 Board Games

It was so nice to play a lot of board games again this year. For my birthday I did a full day of board gaming. That is probably what I missed most in 2020, sitting around a game table and playing with friends. And I didn’t even start doing much in person gaming until almost half way through 2021.

If you’re reading this, you are probably a board gamer. But maybe you are here to see what new games might work well as a gift for a board gamer in your life. I really recommend all of them, though if they don’t play solo, I wouldn’t recommend Orchard or A Gentle Rain. But for a lot of us board gamers in the past two years, what we want is more time to play board games. And more time to play with people, so that’s a great gift to give.

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Let’s get to the games:

Marvel United – 5 Plays

Marvel United only got played one evening. But we played it a lot because the game is so fast to play. It’s great to pull out whatever hero you want, whatever villain you want and just get going on the game. And it was fun to play around with other villains and heroes. The different villains in particular really change up the game.

But one really nice thing that I’ve found about this game is that I can get it to the table in a minute. Finding a villain figure and their cards, and then heroes and their cards is so fast, and there’s so little set-up for the game. It is extremely accessible and I’m excited to get it back to the table, though, thus far in November, I haven’t.

Werewords – 4 Plays

Werewords is a word based social deduction game. It’s basically playing twenty questions, but you can ask more, with someone being a traitor, or werewolf. I wrote up my thoughts on the game here. For me it was an okay game. I actually want to sell it, either to a friend or my FLGS (friendly local game store) because I don’t see pulling it off the shelf more.

Yes, it has more interesting going on than a game like Secret Hitler, The Resistance, and One Night Ultimate Werewolf. But it is still kind of a guessing game based off of no real information, in the end. And for me, that doesn’t work all that well. I want something with more meat to it, like Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, if I’m going to play a social deduction game.

Hanamikoji – 3 Plays

There is a new version of Hanamikoji on Kickstarter right now that I’m backing. It seems to add in some level of area control, more so than the base game has. And there are mini expansion for base Hanamikoji, which I’m tempted to get as well.

This is an abstract game about winning the favor of Geisha. The game plays so fast and only at two players that it’s one I need to break out more often. It’s a good filler to either end an evening or start and evening. And I have even brought it into work because it’s a nice lunch break game.

Tainted Grail – 2 Plays

Less plays of Tainted Grail than normal. We finished up Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon campaign, so we took a week off to just play other gamers. That is where five plays of Marvel United came from and some plays of other games as well. But we’re back to playing Tainted Grail, this time playing the Last Knight campaign.

This one we’re doing in story mode again, and honestly, I think this one needs to be played in story mode. I’ll write about it as a whole later after we get a few more plays of the game with what the new stuff is. And, the new stuff in the game is interesting. It is extremely challenging but again the writing is good and the story is good.

The Night Cage – 2 Plays

Of course had to play The Night Cage around Halloween. This is a cooperative game where you are going through a labyrinth but you can’t see much. Only the spots around you and as you lose site of spots they drop off the map and it twists and changes.

This game is fairly abstract, but it does create a good sense of tension. You carry candles which illuminate the board around you. That can go out and then you are moving around blind. But also all the tiles sit in a candle holder so as you remove tiles it looks as though the candle is burning down. The tension of it burning down works really well.

Dice Throne – 2 Plays

Dice Throne got a couple plays in. One king of the hill and one two player. The more I play King of the Hill style the more I enjoy it that way. I know I talk about Dice Throne quite often but mainly in the two player context. In King of the Hill, you get a benefit, an extra card, for attacking the player with the most health. It’s a nice twist and a good way to keep players from ganging up on a single player and knocking them out.

Hats – 2 Plays

Another game that hadn’t hit the table in a long time. Hats is an abstract game that I prefer at two players. It can play more, but with more players it becomes way more chaotic. With two players you can plan and push for things to go your way. The game play is a lot of fun for it, and it’s one that is tricky to wrap your head around. Especially the idea of the cards you play down influence what scores but aren’t the cards that you score.

Cross Clues – 2 Plays

This party game only had been played on Zoom before. Playing Cross Clues in person is a lot of fun. You are trying to come up with a one word clue to get people to guess the intersection of two words. It could be something like cat and taco, what word would link those two.

When playing with a big group, you only get one coordinate card. That means that sometimes you are stuck without giving a clue for a while. But the game moves quickly enough that you never feel like you are holding up the game. And sometimes you need something else, another clue to be given, before you can give one as well. It’s a newer party game, but one I highly recommend.

Clank! In! Space! – 1 Play

I busted out Clank! In! Space! again, this time with an expansion. And I have to say, the expansion we played with is fun. The black cubes that you pull now matter in the expansion. Basically it is a mission that can happen which makes your life harder as the game goes on. So, a game where you can already die and have zero points at the end of it becomes even tougher. But it is still a good game with that expansion and it’s a nice twist.

Tiny Towns – 1 Play

First game, not of Tiny Towns, but of Tiny Towns with more than two players. Two player Tiny Towns sometimes ends up with one player controlling everything. With three players, it makes the game more random but in a good way. Players diversify what they do more in a three player game which is good. It means that there are more things you can get stuck on, but also more interesting decisions to make. I still need to play with expansions.

Letter Jam – 1 Play

Another game that sat on the shelf for a long time. I love Letter Jam. It’s a cooperative word game that uses some of the mechanics of Hanabi. You can’t see your cards. But everyone else can. And you give clues that are words putting a marker in front of each letter that makes up the word. So if you did FROM, and my letter was the M, I’d see the word FRO* and need to figure out my letter.

The number of clues is limited. So you need to be smart about how you give them. And everyone needs to figure out their letters and words, so one person can’t give all the clues. The game works really well and doesn’t require a massive vocabulary or knowledge of how to game the game like a lot of word games do.

Calico – 1 Play

I played Calico with my wife and parents, and we played it in the simple version. That means that instead of having quilt blocks that determine any scoring, you only score buttons and cats. To me, it made the game too simple. But it is a solid way to learn the game. The basic concept of matching colors and patterns isn’t that hard to get. But adding in the scoring from quilt tiles adds a lot to think about.

Zombie Dice – 1 Play

Zombie Dice makes a great filler for a Halloween game night. Well, it was the October game night, but I did horror themed. That is why it came off the shelf. Zombie Dice is a basic push your luck dice game. And if things go poorly. people push too far, it can take way too long. But it is fun to pull of the shelf. And it is an easy game to teach and play. It is even easy to have people join part way through the game. I don’t own expansions for it, and I’m not sure I’d want to.

Yearly Gaming Stats

So, in October I added in 27 more plays. Slightly less than a play a day, but I was over that threshold already, so I am still on target. Currently, I am 98% of the way to completing the challenge, so a chance that even this month I finish it and then everything else is a bonus.

Now, because we are mid month, I do have plays on the list from November. But Orchard is still my most played game, up to 90 plays. And for all 356 plays that I have, there are 71 different games that I’ve played. Hitting 100 different games played would be great, but I doubt it will happen.

I have enjoyed this challenge a lot. I think that next year I will try it again, but also might put a focus on playing games in my collection that I haven’t played before. There are lots of games that need to get played on my shelf. Some are getting played, but I have 31 Kickstarters coming in and I’m sure more games than that, so a lot to get to the table.

Which of these games would you like to get played from my October plays?

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See the previous parts of the list below:

100 Through 91

90 Through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

Top 100 Board Games – 60 through 51

60. Tiny Towns

This game is a puzzle of optimizing what you have going on, on your board, so that you can build as many buildings as possible and score points. But it’s a fun puzzle because you are putting out resources based off of what everyone is picking out to use, not just what you want. And where you place every cube matters in order to optimize how you build. The game plays really fast and you’re always engaged.

Buy on Miniature Market

59. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

This game floats up and down on the list every year. I think I’ve come to realize that while I really like the game and the stories it tells, I like it better as a two player game versus a solo game. There is something about working with someone else and making decisions as a group that just works better in this game for me. This is a deck construction game that takes you through stories and mysteries in Arkham and the surrounding areas in a really fun way.

Buy On Miniature Market

58. Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl

As we all know, Chernobyl was caused by magical artifacts that have changed and twisted the land. At least that’s more of the story in Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl. This is a competitive game where all of you are racing to find clues to get into the core of Chernobyl and find the treasure or artifact that really caused the calamity. I like that this game has a lot of adventure to it and also has you racing against the game itself. It feels similar but it’s own brand of fun.

Buy On Miniature Market

57. Village Attacks

A tower defense game at it’s core, Village Attacks is a game where you’re the bad guys, the monsters from the stuff of legends really. And there are things going bump at your door and it’s the villagers who are trying to get in with their pitchforks and torches. I really like how simple this game kind of is to play, there’s enough going on as you level up your characters, but the base of the game is pretty easy to play. And it’s kind of fun being the bad guys, though, it is very straight forward tower defense.

Not Available

56. Fruit Picking

We go from a game with a dark theme to a game with a very light theme of Fruit Picking. This is basically a mancala style game where you are picking up things from one spot and dropping them off in locations as you go. It’s all about setting up turns that will get you enough seeds and end you in the right spot to buy the fruit you need. It’s really a set collection game as you try and get one of the winning groups of cards. Easy to play and a lot of fun.

Buy on the BGG Store

55. The Isle of Cats

Another game that has a really cute theme, The Isle of Cats is a bit more complicated than you might think. It’s primarily a polyominal game where you are rescuing cats to your boat. But there is a drafting phase that is really well done that determines a lot of your plan. Especially since you don’t get to just keep your cards, you need to pay for them with fish, which is also the currency that you need for getting cats. So it gives a very nice tension in the game. I’ve only played it two players and I think it might be even better with more.

Buy on Miniature Market

54. Apocrypha Adventure Card Game

Apocrypha wasn’t on the list last year, at least from what I can tell, but this is a game that should be. It is what the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is based off of, even though that one came out first. Apocrypha has a very rough rule book, but it’s still so much fun. It’s a world of spiritual warfare with monsters around every corner. I give a good example for the type of game it is in the video. There is a card called basket of razor blades that is is a picture of a basket of apples. That’s the type of game it is.

Buy on Amazon

53. Ascension Deckbuilding Game

Ascension is my go to introductory deck building game. I know that a lot of people will like Dominion, but for me, Ascension is better. The big thing I really like is that it has a variable market. That means that you can’t plan out a strategy from the start of the game and stick to it. The card you need might be bought by someone else, or not show up at all. The game can take a bit with more players but it’s still a fun game that you can relax and play.

Buy On CoolStuffInc

52. Galaxy Trucker

The last two games on the list are a bit less strategic. Galaxy Trucker is a chaotic good time as you are building up your spaceship in real time. Then you send it off flying to deal with asteroids, pirates, and get cargo to make the most money as you truck across the galaxy. Those things, however, are probably going to be blowing up parts of your ship as you go, so can you survive. The game plays over a few rounds and is a lot of fun.

Buy On Miniature Market

51. PitchCar

And PitchCar is another chaotic light game. This one is all about flicking a disc, that is your car, around a big track that you can set-up however you want. I’ve made fast tracks where it is just some curves and nothing special. Other tracks go onto a second level and other tracks have a loop. It’s crazy, it’s chaotic and it’s so much fun. This is a good game for everyone, which is what I really love about it. And I really want to make a PitchCar league, get together once a month and play for the cup.

Buy On Eagle-Gryphon Games

The Next Ten

We’re hitting the top 50 next week. Streams are always at 8 PM on Wednesday evenings, central time. You can find the link to the next video here. You can also subscribe and click that notification bell to know when I am going live. Even when I’m not doing my Top 100, I’m playing solo games every Wednesday and I have been doing every other Monday but those have been on the backburner with this Top 100.

Also, let me know what you thought of the audio quality for this past stream. Did it sync up well, how was the background noise levels? I was using a new microphone so I want to know how that sounded to other people. I think that I have it dialed in pretty well but I want to keep improving the quality of what I do.

What’s your favorite in this group of 10, and which would you want to try that you haven’t?

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Plus I unbox a new board gamer order with had four expansions in it. And I go off on some tangents, not about beer this time, but about a board game that stayed in my collection.

The Topic

I wanted to touch on getting rid of board games, because it is a popular topic. And well, I hope that I can add some insight to the conversation. When I see these videos, too often, it comes off as bragging that people have nice and trim collections. This is very much a pushback on a previous mindset of having a massive board game collection.

But, to me, neither of these are healthy. I think there are good reasons to get rid of board games. But showing off that you are better, that isn’t a good reason. That is a seemingly responsible thing that actually creates barriers to entry into our hobby. New gamers often buy a lot of games, I know I did, and I still do. So when they see people getting rid of games they feel like they are doing it wrong.

I go with a few different reasons to possibly get rid of a game.

1. Other Games in the Same Category/Genre I like Better
2. Space
3. Don’t Have the Right Group

You can find out more why in the video.

Unboxing

Expansions for three different games were unboxed last night. You can see the Point of Order that I did for these games and posted yesterday. I’m excited for all of these expansions. I think most so I’m excited to get Terraforming Mars to the table. It’s a bigger more complex game than Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, and I’m interested to try that.

The Beer

Another can of Spray Tan from Outstate Brewing up in Fergus Falls, MN. This is really a go to summer beer. It is tart and has a good flavor that works really well on a hot day. During the summer in Minnesota, I tend to drink mainly sours and IPA’s with a few other random beers thrown in. Just because it helps cut the hot and humid. During the winter, on the other hand, it still can be IPA’s and Sours, but very often I will dive into the big porters and stouts that feel like more of a hearty drink during the cold.

Upcoming Videos

So only for sure one video coming up in the next week and a half. Two weeks from now I’ll be back with another Top 10 list, and I think I’m going to do my Top 10 either Family/Gateway games or Roll and Writes, haven’t decided what which yet.

And on Wednesday, 8 PM Central, I’m going to be streaming the second chapter of Aeon’s End Legacy. I’ll probably miss, though, next Wednesday’s stream because of having family in town.

Though, I do plan on putting out another 3 Reasons Buy/Not Buy video. You can find all the videos in that series on this playlist as they come out.

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Shipping Problems

So, like I said, I’m going to start with the big issue that is happening in board games, and generally just shipping period. Getting onto a ship or even into a shipping container costs a ton of money, way more than a lot of companies were planning for. This has especially hit Kickstarter companies. If a game as Kickstarted in 2019 and is shipping now, the amount charged for shipping would be vastly different. Along with that, manufacturing costs can also be higher.

Needless to say, this has hit some of the board gaming companies hard. There is one company that I know of which is asking people to pay additional shipping right now. They’ve already collected but the options are pay additional shipping, only be able to ship part of it, or wait on shipping until prices come down. Another has said that they will cover the shipping but gave a PayPal account. And another asked people buy/order from their webstore. Mainly because they make a standard profit on that, so it can help offset shipping costs.

Roll Player Promos

Thunderworks games as the company that asked for people to buy from their webstore if they could, to help offset shipping. While I already have most of what I want from them, all or Roll Player and Cartographers, plus getting Roll Player Adventures and the Cartographers expansion via Kickstarter. But I didn’t have the two extra character for Roll Player. They don’t really add much to the game, it is just more characters. But like I said, this was a way to help offset some of the shipping costs for Thunderworks.

Cartographers Playmat

Now, the promos were very cheap, I think $6 per promo, so I decided it’d be good to add something bigger. Had Lock-Up, their worker placement game set in the same world as Roll Player been available, I might have gone with that. But that was sold out, so I decided to get a playmat. This isn’t needed for the simple roll and write that Cartographers is, but it does help. Like with Welcome To the playmat just helps lay out the cards that everyone is using nicer. Plus the artwork and look of it is cool, so they not.

Now onto the expansion order:

Terraforming Mars: Turmoil

Turmoil, surprisingly, doesn’t make the game easier. in Terraforming Mars: Turmoil you now get planetary events, like sandstorms that can come in and mess stuff up. Plus there is a governing body that you want to control or at least influence so things that happen are good for you. Terraforming Mars gives you a lot to think about and this one just adds in a little bit more. I feel like with that and Prelude I now have two interesting expansions that I can mix into the base game.

Folklore The Affliction – Fall of the Spire

An expansion for an RPG in a box. Folklore The Affliction really tries to be that game that has you rolling dice, dealing with encounters and world events and finding a story. This just adds in more story and more game content. Folklore is a campaign game that I really need to get to the table sometime soon. Though, honestly it’ll be a bit because I have Aeon’s End Legacy to play through and we’ll see what I get to after that.

Tiny Towns: Villagers & Fortune

Finally, two expansions for Tiny Towns. Now, I like Tiny Towns, I think it’s a fun simple game, and that’s really why I got more of it. There a ton of different combos but when you’ve played with all the different buildings you’ve played with them. Even if you can mix them together differently. So what I’m hoping is that Villagers and Fortunes will both add in a little bit more content that’ll be fun to play around with. I don’t need them to keep playing TIny Towns, but I think without them the shelf life of Tiny Towns would be shorter.

Dune: House Secrets

This is one that I just pre-ordered today. While the others are either already here or will be shortly, Dune: House Secrets will get here in Q4 of 2021, so a few months from now. Why pre-order it? Good question, Portal Games does a great job of making sure that there are plenty of copies of their games. But with the pre-order that means that I’ll get some extra bonuses. For Vienna Connection, that was wooden tokens, some design diaries, and more. Just stuff to add to the experience, they are doing something similar for Dune: House Secrets, so I just wanted that extra little bit.

Plus, Dune: House Secrets is based off of the Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game system. I really like that system. It creates interesting stories and I love the deduction aspect that it gives you. So, I’m hoping that they’ll be able to leverage that into an interesting story of intrigue set in the Dune world. I like the Dune world/universe that is in the books, so I think that it should work well for me.

Which Do You Want To Play?

I have to be patient for Dune: House Secrets, so I’ll set that one to the side. Right now I think that playing Terraforming Mars is at the top of my list. I know it has a solo mode, but it’s a long game. Maybe I can get it set-up say this week after Aeon’s End and then leave it up and play it over a few evenings. Let me know which one you want to play.

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But that is for May, we are going to be looking back now on April. So we have a lot of games to checkout and to see what has gotten played in the past month. And I got really close to my target, 29 plays in 30 days, so lost ground slightly but did better than other months.

Ohanami – 5 Plays

This game I got played at Easter and then at work. I got to try it with some different people and player counts. Ohanami is a set collection game where you are collecting different types of plants to get points. The trick comes in that you can only put the card on a line of cards if it is higher or lower than any other. The concept is simple but there is strategy to it. Especially in a two player game you can really plan out what you want to take as the cards you draft from, you know you’ll get some of them back. If you are looking for a small box game that is a lot of fun, this one is a good one.

Tainted Grail – 4 Plays

So this was going to be two different games of Tainted Grail but might have dropped down to one now. I still have my main group and this upcoming Tuesday we’ll be playing in person, which is going to be awesome. Everyone is vaccinated in all of the households. We are really excited to be playing in person again and for me, it’ll be so nice not to have to do a ton of set-up for streaming it. It wasn’t bad to stream but we’ll be able to all see everything and worth together more. Tainted Grail is a big story exploration game. Checkout my review for more.

Tiny Towns – 3 Plays

Tiny Towns, I do like this game a lot. I will say, having played it 6 times with two players, I think that it can be a bit lacking. Or I think there can be a leader position where the one person can lead how things get called. Playing it two player again, I think I’d go with the deck flip to determine the colors and that would make it more interesting. I do want to play a higher player count game with the master builder to see how that changes things up. Overall, a really fun game with a ton of diversity in what you can do.

Dice Throne – 3 Plays

I love Dice Throne, what more can I say. I already have played it twice this month. How can I play it so much? The answer is simple, there are so many different characters. Now, favorite characters, I got those. But I gladly play any of the characters in the game. And with dice chucking, it seems like the game could get old. I find that isn’t the case. Each character really does seem different. Now I need to get Dice Throne Adventures to the table.

Metro X – 3 Plays

I’ll let that video do most of the talking. Metro X is a fun route creation roll and write game. The game play is simple, but man, can it be challenging at times. Like all roll and writes, definitely luck to it, but I won’t complain. It works well to stream, also, which is a lot of fun.

Super Fantasy Brawl – 2 Plays

A game from Mythic Games that has shot up my favorite games list. You need to wait until October to find out where it is for sure. But Super Fantasy Brawl is what I like in a skirmish style game. It isn’t just about going in and punching until you’ve killed the other side. There are objectives, characters can come back, and the game play just works. If you want a simple to learn but takes a bit to lock down the strategy sort of game, Super Fantasy Brawl is great. And it’s only two player, so just know that. More thoughts over here.

Ganz Schon Clever – 2 Plays

At this point in time I feel like I could just always put this down. I am at 9 plays on the year, so averaging two per month. It is just such a good roll and write game. I got to play it for a game night and then introduce it to a co-worker later. Definitely a roll and write for someone who is looking to start playing them. Love the combos, I have a strategy, but can I pull it off is always the question.

Claim & Claim 2 – 2 & 2 Plays

Trick taking, not always a genre that I get to the table. When I do, I like it a lot though. And this one gives the game a nice twist. Basically you play two hands, but the first hand you are trying to win – or lose – tricks in order to build up the best possible second hand. And each suit has a power for the most part. The games are super fast and it’s a nice little twist on standard trick taking. And of course, I have a review for it as well.

Marvel United: Enter the Spiderverse – 1 Play

The expansions for Marvel United came in and there is a ton of content that I have unboxing it and two playthroughs over on the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. I will say, Green Goblin is an awesome villain to go up against and he definitely took me down. I like how slick and simple the Marvel United game play is and there is definitely a good amount of challenge to it as well. The Marvel United X-Men Kickstarter just wrapped up, but CMON allows you to lake back it if the game seems intereting.

Twice as Clever! – 1 Play

Like Ganz Schon Clever, this can always be on the list. I feel like I play it about once a month. It is a really fun roll and write, and it’s taken me a long time, but I am getting better at it. This wouldn’t be the first roll and write I’d grab to teach with, but it’s definitely a fun one.

Clever Hoch Drei – 1 Play

So the third Clever game, not real shock that it’s there. Like the other two, I play it pretty often, so expect to see it showing up a lot throughout the year. This one might be my favorite, but that also might be because I figured it out the quickest. This also has the most combos by far, I’d say.

A ton of games played last month, which would you like to play most?

Yearly Stats

So, time to check in on the challenge and see where we are at for the year. This is going to include the plays from the start of this month, but let’s see where we are.

In 2021, I have played games 111 times thus far. The game I have played the most is Tainted Grail but I do have three games I’ve played over 10 times. Oddly enough, Ganz Schon Clever is not one of them, it’s at 9 plays. Instead, Tainted Grail, Deadly Doodles, and Metro X are the three.

From last month, I am now at 28 different games played, up from 24. So I am playing the same games a number of times, but I’m okay with that. 22 of the games have been played multiple times, so that leaves only 8 played once. Now, a lot of them only get played in one gaming session but I’ll get two or three plays in.

But I need to get in 254 plays in the remaining 239 days. So I am 15 behind where I need to be, can I catch up in May?

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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’s – S’s

T’s

T.I.M.E. Stories (and Expansions)

I love this game, it is really well made in what I’ve played through of the expansions with each different scenario pack feeling it it’s something new. I’ve heard that some aren’t as strong as others, but through four of them it’s been really interesting. This reminds me of Assassin’s Creed in some ways, though depending on the scenario, less about fighting. And they have done a lot of weird things, from dragons to ancient Egypt to zombies.

Status: Played

The Table is Lava

We all know the rules of the floor is lava, don’t touch the floor. But with this, you have meeples and you are flicking cards. You flick them onto the table, and if you hit someone else’s meeples you can knock them over or knock them onto the table, which is lava, of course. But you get points if your meeples are standing up and less if they are laying down, so you have a lot of different ways to score, but also some strategy in how or where you toss your cards, because you could go to knockdowns or you could try and keep it separate so you are less likely to have meeples knocked off. It seems like silly fun.

Status: To Be Played

Tainted Grail

I love my Awaken Realms games. Tainted Grail is a massive grim dark Arthurian legend and it’s really hard. I like the fact that it’s hard, I like that the combat has you running away fairly often and that you are fighting for survival, what they advertised the game as. The story in this game is really good, and I’ve played through the first chapter multiple times and I always find something new that I haven’t done before and places that I’d love to get to, except for the time that we have left on the Menhir. I’m excited to get back to this after Christmas.

Status: Played

Takenoko

Sometimes you want a game that is just a fun time, and Takenoko with it’s fat bamboo eating panda definitely is that. This game looks family weight but has a little bit more going on as you are putting out tiles, growing bamboo, eating bamboo and more. It has some random elements with the dice, but overall is a really fun time with a lot of good decisions to make. When do you want to water a spot so it starts to grow, does it help you more than the other players by doing that, when you want to move the panda and do you want to get more panda, gardener, or tile scoring cards?

Status: Played

The Terrifying Girl Disorder

Japanime Games makes weird games that definitely have a bit of an anime feel to them even if they aren’t about an actual anime, and this is one of those games. I picked it up because it was on a sale and it looked weird. From what I remember about it, you are picking cards, almost drafting them, to get sets for the girl that you have, but that can change who you have. It is a weird game and sounds like it either will be an interesting game for some people, or that it might be a bit too much game for how small it is.

Status: To Be Played

That’s Pretty Clever

Roll and write, you know the drill. But this roll and write has the distinction of being the one that really started the roll and write craze we’re in now. Ganz Schon Clever, as it’s known in German, is a good comboing roll and write game that has a lot of interesting scoring to it. The sequels then use that and build upon it, but they are their own separate games. That’s Pretty Clever introduces one of the best ideas that I’ve seen, of foxes, these are points where if you can get them can score you a lot of points, but they only score the lowest point total of another section, so if I don’t do well, let’s say in the yellow section and get zero points, foxes are worth nothing. This forces you to diversify as you go.

Status: Played

This War of Mine

Probably better known as a video game, this war of mine is another Awaken Realms game, one of the earliest ones that they did. It is based off of the IP of the video game, and is about trying to survive in a war torn world. From what I know of the game, it’s extremely dark, depressing and hard to in. Now, not all Awaken Realms are like that, but I always expect that an Awaken Realms game will have some elements to it that are punishing. This one I want to try solo and just play in short bits because of the darkness of the theme.

Status: To Be Played

Ticket to Ride

It’s a classic gateway game for a lot of people. This one is all about collecting cards, putting down trains and completing routes. What makes this work so well as a gateway game is that you do one of a few things on your turn. You either take train cards, play down trains, or you take routes. That’s it, you don’t do more than one of those things on a turn. It makes the game easy to teach an very accessible. The game also is based around connecting those routes which is an idea that is really easy to grasp, because we’re all familiar with a road trip of going from point A to point B, with Ticket to Ride it’s just about how you get there.

Status: Played

Tiny Towns

This game has been a pretty popular one this year from AEG and last year. It is a simple cube placement game with a bit more depth than it’d first seem. What makes this really interesting for me is the picking of the resource and how I can use that to my advantage at times or to hurt someone else. Now, I don’t think that hate picking is a viable strategy, but if I see that my next opponent has a brick and wood for building a house, or straw, whatever it is, and I just have a wood, I might pick brick so that they are likely to pick straw and we both get houses, but now they have an extra brick they have to work with. And there are a ton of combinations or buildings that are really fun to work with.

Status: Played

Titan Race

Another fun filler type game is Titan Race. This one is again really easy with dice drafting and racing either across the same board three times or across three different boards once each. The game is fast and easy to learn, and each racer having their own powers is fun. What I also like about the game is that even when you are knocked down to 0, you just lose a turn and you get going again. But what is the most fun is knocking people around, being able to drop a trap right in front or someone or push them into lava, it’s great. And even though there is the take that feel to the game, since it’s so fast and so silly, people aren’t likely to have their feeling hurt.

Status: Played

Tofu Kingdom

I bet you didn’t know tofu had a kingdom. This is a bluffing game where players can either lie or tell the truth depending on what cards they have in their hand and the person who is Prince Mochi is has to try and guess who has Princess Tofu in their hand. It seems like one of those silly little games, almost social deduction, with a little bit of deduction thrown in. What is nice is that it plays a pretty large number of players. I’m curious to get it to the tale once we have people playing in person again, because it seems best at a higher player count.

Status: To Be Played

Tokyo Highway

Dexterity games are a ton of fun for me. I like them because late in a game night, you might not want to sit down and play something too meaty. Instead, you can grab out a game and try, in your tired state, to balance roads and place cars on them. Tokyo Highways is one of the most aesthetically pleasing games to see played. When you wrap it up, it’s almost a piece of artwork, which is crazy to say for a board game. And the rules are simple enough, if your road crossed over or under another road, you get to put a car on your road, the first person to get all their cars out is the winner. But you only have a limited number of discs to raise or lower your road, and without special discs you can’t raise or lower than more by one. It’s a lot of fun and tense, but so pretty that it’s calming.

Status: Played

Tsuro

This is another of the high player count but not a party game games. It’s actually one of the most played in that category for me. Tsuro, the way of the path, is about using your tiles to keep yourself on the paths as long as you can, and outlast everyone else. I think this game plays best at the higher player counts where you can knock out a game or two fast and then move onto something bigger. I’m a little bit played out of this game which is why I’ve added more games of similar player counts to my collection, but it’s still a good one when you need something fast.

Status: Played

Twice as Clever

The follow up to Ganz Schon Clever (That’s So Clever), this game takes the foundation that you get in That’s So Clever and builds upon it. Twice as Clever is by far, I’d say, the most challenging of the three games to play. You have to think a lot about all the sections because the scoring is quite different. I do like pieces of it though, the pink track is great, the grey/silver area is really interesting to think about. The yellow area is hard to rock, but if you can, you can get a lot of points and some good bonuses. It, like That’s So Clever, is all about getting as many combos as possible and getting to those foxes so you can score the most points off of them, but not forgetting to get points in every area.

Status: Played

That’s it for the T’s, definitely less than there were of the S’s, but that’s fine, I have a lot of games as it is. What is your favorite game that begins wit the Letter T? Is there any that I’m missing from my collection that you’d think I’d like?

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Deranged

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

Codenames: Pictures

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

Welcome To… New Vegas

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

Tiny Towns

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

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

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