What Are Grail Games?

I kind of talk about that already in the first paragraph, but let’s dive into the concept more so. A grail game is a game that is out of print, or hard to find for some reason. It is also a game that you really want to get your hands on. Why you want it so badly could be a number of reasons. For some people, the game just sounds fun, so they really want it, or it might be one that they played growing up, so they want to own it because of that. But for whatever reason, it’s a game that the person really wants and is very hard to find.

So How Do You Find Them?

Now, this completely depends on how quickly the person wants to get a grail game. For me, I have a few games that I’d consider grail games. I’ll talk about them shortly. But I won’t go out of my way to get them. For a lot of people, they want to get them faster, so they will go on ebay or other sites, Board Game Geek has a market place that often has most games for sale, and they will buy them or bid on them at those locations. That’s going to be a great way to focus on buying what they want.

I, on the other hand, am waiting for them to come to me for lack of a better term. One that was previously a grail game for me was Tannhauser which I talked about in the Point of Order article yesterday. I found that one at a used book store. I have some other games that I’m keeping an eye out for at my FLGS, All Systems Go!, to see if they ever show up used, or I’m keeping an eye for a local seller who is selling it on Facebook Marketplace via the board game selling group there. If it pops up, I will get some of my grail games.

What Are Some Of My Grail Games?

Battlestar Galactica

Let’s start with a big game. It oddly enough is in a genre of games, or around one, that I don’t love too much. It often gets lumped in with social deduction games, though this is closer to a Dead of Winter than something like The Resistance. Battlestar Galactica was a big game put out by Fantasy Flight Games, you are trying to get to Earth, but there are Cylons aboard your ship and chasing you who are going to try and stop you. The game always has that one goal, but you are dealing with issues that come up and adding things to help secretly. This game definitely blends both being a board game and a social deduction game, but gives you a little more to go on, and gives you a lot of game to play. However, it’s been out of print for quite a while without any indication that it’ll come back into print. Battlestar Galactica is a grail game for a lot of people as well, which makes it hard to find without paying a lot for it.

Solomon Kane

Now, this game is a newer game. But I failed to mention one way a board game can end up being a grail game. And that is if it’s a Kickstarter game. There are often games that are Kickstarter exclusives because they would be too big to go to retail, or the retail version will have less. Solomon Kane by Mythic Games is one that I am bummed I missed on Kickstarter. It seems to have a really unique concept to it. In the game you are controlling, kind of, Solomon Kane as he goes on adventures and deals with mysteries and monsters. It’s a campaign based, or at least story based game. I love that type of game, but you are only kind of controlling him, you play different virtues. You are prudence, courage, temperance, and justice, and using those things, you control where he goes and what he does. I like that it gives all the players at the table a communal character that they control. That is a unique concept that I haven’t seen before. However, this one is just fulfilling now or will be shortly, and it costs $200 for just the base game, and bundles are being sold for $500 or more on Ebay, so it’s a grail game that I’ll be waiting on and hoping for a second Kickstarter for.

Mechs vs Minions

Mechs vs Minions might be the easiest of these games to find. Originally put out by the same company that has been extremely successful with the video game League of Legends, this game comes with a ton of stuff. They sold it at a reasonable price point and it came with more minis than a lot of spendier games do on Kickstarter. The programming aspect of this game, creating basically a plan of what your characters are going to do was an interesting idea as well. Now we have more programming games, and there were even a few back then, Robo Rally, but Mechs vs Minions put it into a really big box. It’s one of those games that to play it, I know that I’ll have to buy it, because right now I don’t know anyone who has the game. But I want to give it a whirl and program my way through scenarios and play the campaign that they created for the game.

That’s what a grail game is and what my grail games are. What board games would you consider a grail game that you really want to get into your collection? Is there any overlap with mine?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

Tannhauser

My used book store game. Half-Priced Books is a chain of used bookstores in the upper midwest. We go there somewhat often, it’s a good way to find some interesting books cheap. For example, I’ve gotten all of my Dresden Files there, or almost all of it. But they also do sell used board games that they get in, in trade. This is one that I’ve been keeping my eye out for for a while because Sam Healey, formerly of the Dice Tower now working for Mythic Games, was a huge fan of. What made it interesting to me was the kind of Eldritch World War 2 theme, now, I have another game that has that same theme with Reichbusters from Mythic Games, but I think I have room on my shelf for both of them. However, Tannhauser has been out of print for a while, so it was one of those “grail” games for me where if I saw it I knew I was going to grab it, up there with the Battlestar Galactica Board Game.

Vault Wars

For a while, right after college, I’d watch Storage Wars. It was an odd little show about people who buy storage lockers at auction in hopes of getting something great in it. Then I realized that they planted some of those things to make the show way more interesting. Meet the fantasy version of that. In this game you bid on vaults in hope to get the vaults with the most money, special conditions and more. Thematically it seems like a fun little idea. This one is on Kickstarter right now as almost a 2.0 version of the game, it seems, maybe fixing some issues that people had with it before. But it looks like it should be a lot of fun, and thematically I think it’ll work for a lot of people.

Heroes of Land, Air, & Sea: Chaos and Order & Pestilence

What, two expansions for a game I just got. Yes, I am getting two expansions. Firstly, the game really seems like one that I’ll enjoy, a big epic fantasy game with a lot of ways to get points and win. But also the base game comes with four races, you have Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs. Those are about as generic as you can get in terms of fantasy. So bring on the Undead, Lionkin, Lizard Folk, Goblins, Birdfolk and Merfolk. Also, these two bring the expansion to even more epic heights as you are able to instead of only going up to four go up to seven now. Granted, that’d be a full day of gaming, but that’s kind of why I want it. I want to be able to decide to have a big group over for an epic game, have some food, take breaks, and just play throughout a day. This game also seems like it’d be great to take along to conventions, I could see bringing it to AcadeCon if/when I go back and just run a big game of it for people, or get in on a massive game of it at something like a Dice Tower Con or BGG Con.

Those are the newest additions, some of them still on the way, and Vault Wars will be on the way for a while. I’m excited for all of them, I have a big rule book for Tannhauser to dive into soon and see about getting it to the table. And I’m hoping that the two expansions for Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea will be here for Wednesday, so I can unbox them over on Malts and Meeples, you can see the previous unboxing of the base game there.

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.