BoardGameTables.com Order

So this is the one that’s Foster the Meeple’s fault. Two games only, and that actually takes me to the point where I’ll have the games I want from BoardGameTables.com (which does make board game tables, but also board games, guess which one cam first).

QE

QE is a game where you are bidding however much you want to buy a company. The interesting thing about that is that you can bid however much you want. If I want to bid 120 trillion, I can bid that, if I want to go higher, I can do that. It does have a twist, though, in that the person who bids the most, well, they are automatically out of the running to win. So the prices are likely going to get crazy, but you can’t be too crazy. It seems like it shouldn’t work, but also, everyone who plays it likes it or loves it, so I want to play it.

Ghosts of Christmas

Foster the Meeple are the ones who pushed this over the edge for me, in terms of reminding me about it. But BoardGameCo was the one who brought it onto the radar. This is a trick taking game where you play tricks in the past, present, and future. And you can play to whichever trick you want in whichever order. Only once all are full does the winner get determined. And the trump suit can change on tricks, so it sounds mind bending but really interesting.

Kolossal Games Kind Of Order

So, I ordered these games from Kolossal because it’s about the first spot I’ve seen them available in the US. The games themselves aren’t put out by Kolossal, instead by Chilifox Games out of Norway. It’s a new game company, so limited distribution in the United States, but the two games I know of theirs are really interesting to me, so I wanted to grab them while I had the chance.

Riverside

Riverside is going to be roll and write game. But it has more going on than that. There’s not only the roll and write portion of the game, but also a little board that determines where the boat is on the river. Players are trying to take passengers on tours, drop them off at the right places, and score points. But that extra element of the river and boat position make it feel like a different sort of roll and write game than a lot out there.

Doodle Dash

This is a very different type of game than Riverside. Doodle Dash is going to be a straight up party game. In it, one person is the guesser and everyone else tries to draw a picture as fast as possible, based off of a word, for the guesser to get. But the fastest person gets to show their picture first, and then next fastest. And that second fastest player is rolling a die to limit how much time the rest of the players are going to get to finish their drawing. So there is a benefit to being fast if you can get the word across in a simple drawing. Seems like good chaotic fun for a party game.

All Systems Go

I like to call out the local game stores that I go to, and most of the time it is going to be All Systems Go. I generally trade in my games there, and while I didn’t this time. I did pick up one thing there.

Marvel Champions: Sinister Motives

I basically get all my Marvel Champions stuff from ASG (All Systems Go) and they know to set aside for me every time. Sinister Motives is going to give more Spider-Man characters, both heroes and villains to play as or against. And it’s just more content for Marvel Champions. Why do I keep buy it, because I love Marvel, I love the variety of characters you can play as and villains you can play against. And I really like the game. But it is one that I’m soon going to have to consider how much I want, because I don’t play it enough. The answer, though, is that I probably will want it all.

Miniature Market Orders

I will say, it wasn’t my plan to have two orders that were close to one another from Miniature Market. But it just happened to workout that way. In particular, I can blame another YouTube channel, Quackalope for me getting the second order. Jesse and Devon, from Devon Talks Tabletop, did a solo game list, and there was one I wanted to get immediately upon hearing about it.

Res Arcana: Perlae Imperii Expansion

This is more content for Res Arcana. I haven’t gone through all the content that I have for the game, but I already know that I want more. And the expansions are not always the easiest to find. Res Arcana is an engine building game where you are building an engine off of eight cards. And you don’t add more cards to your engine. Maybe you get a monument, but often those just offer a one time effect. So how do you build the most productive engine you can from those cards. Not sure that Perlae Imperii adds, but hopefully more of what’s already there.

Railroad Ink Challenge: Engineer Expansion

A mini expansion for Railroad Ink Challenge. This is basically some extra dice that you can use that mess up the board as you go. I don’t know specifically what the Engineer Expansion adds, it is just the last one that I didn’t have, so I wanted to grab it.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game 2nd Edition

I’ve played the original version of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and I want to try this new one. Plus, I might have picked up some of the 1st edition, so I can compare. But I’ll talk about that soon. I’m hoping that this makes the game a bit smoother to play, but we’ll see. And I just like the fantasy setting and the interesting cooperative nature and card play in the original game.

Radlands

This is one that I don’t regret but also slightly regret getting. I regret getting it because it’s a small two player game, will I play it over Hanamikoji. On the flip side, it’s from Roxley, I like their stuff. And the artwork on the game is amazing. But I don’t know if Radlands is going to be one that’s easy enough to table often. I am excited to try it though.

Clank! Expeditions: Temple of the Ape Lords

An expansion for Clank!. I don’t know what this one adds in exactly. I’m assuming that it’s just going to tweak how the base game plays and add in some apes. I need to play Clank! some more before I add any more expansions to my collection.

Black Sonata

This is the one that Devon was talking about in the video I mentioned. I love the concept of this game. It’s a solo only hidden movement, deduction game. That sounds so crazy to be able to do as a solo game, but it works well. I’ve already gotten my copy and played it twice. Plus I picked up the Fair Youth expansion as well, so that adds in more or a new way to play the game as well. But the base game is going to keep my busy for a little while.

Amazon Order

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackle

I said I was getting some of the first edition of Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and Skull & Shackles was the base set I landed on. This one is going to be a pirate based theme, which I like, and use the standard Pathfinder Adventure Card Game system. I picked this one up for comparison purposes, and I hope that I really like it because there are expansions I could get as well.

Coconuts

For something completely different, Coconuts is a dexterity based game. You use monkeys to launch coconuts into cups to try and get a certain number of cups stacked up. The whole point of this is to be a silly fun game. I had a chance to mess around with it a tiny bit at GenCon in 2019, and it’s a fun one. It’ll not get played for a little bit, unless I do it on the table, because kittens will most certainly chase and play with flying coconuts.

Crowdfunding

So there are a lot to talk about, seven in fact. Most of them are going to be pretty small ones because, well, I’ve been trying to do some backing of little roll and write games that are print and play. When a game is $5, for a print and play, and I get it immediately, I want to support the creators because it’s a cool way to get games out there.

Kaikoro

Kaikoro is one of those print and play roll and write games. The game doesn’t seem too complex, you try and keep Kaiju from destroying a city. That theme and the artwork are the selling point, but it’s also a $5 game that I can print, laminate, and play as much as I want.

The Dark Quarter

The Dark Quarter is most definitely not a roll and write game or a print and play. You can see a lot of that here. I think the system is fascinating that it is using. And I really like the dark/mature supernatural, monsters theme that Van Ryder is bringing to the system. For me this was an easy back.

Fortress of Terror

Back to more print and play roll and writes. This one is another $5 that has a fair amount of content with it now. But it looks interesting, almost a bit of a dungeon crawl nature to it, or exploration, something like that. So I’m curious about it, and the system that is being used for the game, it seems like an interesting one that could be fun to play.

Paper Railroad

Another print and play, this one is going to be a route building train game, I believe, with some pick-up and deliver elements thrown in as well. The route building might be secondary to the farming and getting farm rewards and shipping out those things. So I’m curious to see how it is for a roll and write. But it was $6, so one to back that I want to mess around with.

Pestilence – Escape the Plague

The final print and play roll and write game on the list. This one has the most interesting theme for me, or up there with Kaiju. The black plague is rolling through, and you are trapped in the city. You need to make connections, build up reputation and avoid the kings guard to get out of the city. That just seems so different, there are other games about the black plague, but to do a roll and write on it, it’s a different than normal theme.

For Northwood!

Speaking of something that is a bit different. For Northwood! is definitely a unique game. For Northwood is a solo trick taking game. That immediately caught my attention. Add in that it’s pretty cheap, it’s just over a deck of cards, I’m curious about it. They company is also the one that has done or distributed other solo games that I like, like Orchard and Black Sonata.

Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies

Finally, Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies from Red Raven Games just launched this week. If you want to read more about it, you can do so here. But I loved my play through of Sleeping Gods, and Distant Skies seems to build upon that system. And while I didn’t have an issue with Sleeping Gods for solo play, this seems like even simpler solo play. Plus some changes to combat as well, which I was fine with combat. But I’m super stoked for this one.

Final Thoughts

So what am I most excited for, well, Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies and The Dark Quarter. But those two are coming in a while. Same with For Northwood!. So of the stuff that I’ve gotten, or is coming much sooner, what do I want to play? I really want to try and compared both of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Games. They can be played solo, so I think I’ll be tackling them soon. Maybe I’ll even stream some over on Malts and Meeples coming up here.

Which would you want to play first?

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If you want to see the Top 10 games on the list live, click the notification bell on the scheduled stream. I hope that you can join me then and that you’ve enjoyed the previous parts of my Top 100 Board Games (of all time) 2021 Edition. Or, if you just found it, you can catch-up with the links below.

100 Through 91

90 Through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

60 through 51

50 through 41

40 through 31

30 through 21

Top 100 Board Games 20 through 11

20. Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl is a two player (can be more but really two player) battling game where you are fighting to knock out your opponents characters and complete objectives to get trophies. The first player to get to five trophies wins the game.

This is not my normal type of game, two player only games tend not to hit my table as often. And head to head battling games are not ones I gravitate towards, but Super Fantasy Brawl is really good. All the characters play so differently, and you can create a team that does all sorts of different things. I think I have 9 or 12 different characters so you can have a ton of different teams of three.

I also like in this game that you can get trophies for knocking out other peoples characters, but they don’t go away. So it’s not too much of a blow. And you probably won’t win just be knocking out enemy characters. You need to deal with the objectives as well, if not to get them, to keep your opponent from getting trophies that way. And the game is easy to learn and play, which is great.

Buy On Miniature Market

19. Clank! In! Space!

A deck building game, Clank! In! Space! does a good job of not being too simple. In it, you are racing around a ship, hacking into consoles to get access to the treasure room, grabbing a treasure, running out, and hoping you don’t cause too much noise. Because Lord Eradikus is on the ship and if you clank about too much, he’ll find you and stop you.

This game works so well for me because there’s more going on in the game than just the deck building. How much do you push your luck and run into the treasure room. And some of the better cards you can buy in the game, that might combo with what you are doing can create more clank. When you clank you add a cube to a pool that Lord Eradikus will draw from when he actives. He might draw a neutral cube and nothing happens, but too many of yours drawn and Eradikus stops you.

Buy On CoolStuffInc

18. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

I feel like I always put this disclaimer out there, I don’t love social deduction games, but I do love Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. Why, because it gives you something to talk about right away in the game. Most social deduction games build to the point where you are maybe hazard a guess as to who the “bad guy” is. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong does that from the start.

How? Well, the murder picks a weapon and clue in front of them. The forensic scientist knows what they are, but they can only send up reports to tell the detectives. So the report might be the murder location and the forensic scientist picks from a list on a tile which one makes the most sense. The game really starts and accusations start when that first piece of information is put out.

This is also a social deduction game where being in any role, forensic scientist, murder, accomplice, witness, or a just a regular detective is a lot of fun. Everyone is trying to figure out what the combo of clue and weapon is. And even the murderer, accomplice, and forensic scientist are trying to figure out the story either to direct people to the clue or weapon or away from it.

Buy on Amazon

17. Hanamikoji

We go from a big group game to a two player only game in Hanamikoji. I talk about this one a lot because I really love the game. It’s such a fast but thinky two player game. In it you are trying to win the favor of Geisha by giving them gifts. The game, however, is extremely clever in how you give them gifts.

There are only four actions you can do in the game and each player does all four once per round, alternating turns. You can save a card to give to a Geisha face down, you can discard two gifts face down, you give your opponent the choice of three gifts and they pick one, or you give your opponent the choice of two pairs of gifts, and they pick one. You are trying to win favor with four Geisha or 11 points worth of Geisha to win.

The game plays extremely fast, but the decisions are really tough. Giving something to your opponent is always a rough decision as to what you want to even let them pick from. I feel like what you do, though, is simple enough that I can pull it out with most people as a two player game.

Not Available

16. Welcome To…

The first of four roll and write games on this section of the list. Welcome To… has long been one of my favorites in the genre. In it you are creating your perfect neighborhood. You are getting all the house numbers ready, putting in pools and parks, and building white picket fences.

Every turn everyone is playing as well, which is really nice, so there is little to no downtime in the game. It’s also fun because you are trying to optimize how you are scoring points. And the three objectives that can give you points also gives you a good direction to go in the game. This one has a fair number of rules but that makes it interesting because it’s a bigger roll and write game.

Buy on Amazon

15. ICECOOL

This game is just silly fun. It’s one that I love to pull out for a game night because flicking penguin high school students around a board to try and get fish and avoid hall monitors is a lot of fun. The game is simple, get through doorways and get fish which are points. Or all the hall monitor, hit the penguins students to get their student ID and get points.

ICECOOL works with all ages and really with all groups that I’ve played with. It’s just a silly good time for people who have been drinking or for families to get to the table. And the board, which is the box, that builds out into this big 3D board is just great. Add in ICECOOL 2, which is the same game, you can now play on a massive board with eight people.

Buy on Amazon

14. Sonora

Another dexterity game, but also another roll and write game. In Sonora you are flicking discs onto a big board. The board is split into four areas, one for each part of the roll and write portion that you fill in. The discs have numbers which determines what number of things you fill in on that roll and write portion.

What I l love about this game is that it’s full of combos. If a fill in a spot in the upper right, that might then let me fill in something in the lower left, and that might let me fill in something in the lower right. So the whole filling in things is a really interesting and fun puzzle to optimize what you are doing. And it’s always fun to complete a combo and feel smart.

Buy on Amazon

13. Railroad Ink Challenge

Another roll and write game as well. Railroad Ink was already on the list, but I prefer Railroad Ink Challenge. Why, because of the challenge aspect. Much of the game is the same, you are trying to connect routes, get long stretches of road and rail and fill in the middle. But the challenges add in a nice twist and something to focus on.

The challenges are basically objectives. It might be something like, have a full row or column filled in by round 4, and that’ll give you 4 points if you’d done it by then, fewer the longer it takes you. Or fill in nine spots to create a square. It just gives you something else to go for and think about in the game. And it’s already fairly challenging even without the challenges. I just like the extra challenge, direction that the game gives you in this version.

Buy on Amazon

12. Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade

The final roll and write game in this section, Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade is the most thematic roll and write that I have played. It somehow manages to pull off the feeling of playing a pinball machine. You get points for bouncing off the bumpers and knocking down targets. If you knock down a full group of targets you get a bonus and you’re just seeing how high a score you can get.

I like that the game comes with four different boards, as well. There is a circus one that is just a simple pinball machine. The Cyber Hack board gives you a secret location where you are doing a run and hacking into the machine for more points, but also a press your luck for how long you stay up there. Each board feels different and really fun, and having little pinballs you move around the board to keep track of where you are at is great too.

Buy on Miniature Market

11. Xenoshyft: Onslaught

Finally, we have Xenoshyft: Onslaught. This is another deck building game and a tower defense game. I call it Starship Troopers the board game because you are defending your base from wave after wave of bugs. And you are doing that cooperatively, which is fun. And it does a cooperative thing that I don’t see in other deck builders or cooperative games.

You are all setting up your defenses at the same time. So, I might have five troops but only room to put out four of them, and you might have only a single troop in your hand. I can give you one to put in your lane of defense to stop the wave of bugs coming in that side. And you can use grenades from your hand to help deal with bugs on someone else’s lane as well.

Plus, you get money every single turn. So even if you shuffle horribly and end up with no money in your hand, at the start of each turn you get money to add to your hand and deck. So you are always able to improve and add to what you have. And what you buy that turn doesn’t go to a discard pile, you can play it immediately.

Buy on Amazon

The Next 10

So no stream next Wednesday. It’s the day before Thanksgiving, but to go along with that, two episodes of Hawkeye are coming out that day. That means that I have some TV to watch for the 10 Minute Marvel podcast. Instead, the Top 10 are going to be coming out on December 1st at 8 PM Central Time.

If you want to know when I am going live, you can subscribe to Malts and Meeples and click that notification bell. That’ll let you know whenever I go live. Once I’m done with my Top 100 list, my schedule might be changing, depending on a few things, so clicking the notification bell will let you know for sure when my streams are happening.

Which of these games do you like the best, or would you want to play?

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The Game

So last week we talked about legacy games and I want to talk about the twist in this legacy game. So spoilers ahead if you are just reading and not watching the video.

Aeon’s End Legacy bills itself as a 7 chapter legacy game. I think it could go up to 10 games maybe 12 if you lost and replayed as many times as you could. So how does it feel to have an 8th chapter as a surprise in there. Jamey Stegmaier, when he was playing it didn’t like that twist. And he talked about what a legacy game should be. I don’t agree with everything he said and Charterstone, to me, was a weak legacy game. But I can see his argument about the surprise chapter.

For me, it doesn’t matter that there is an 8th chapter to play through, because I am playing it solo. But if you have a group that is going to change. Maybe someone can’t play the next time you would, maybe someone is moving, maybe there is a new game everyone was excited to get to the table. As a solo player, it just means that I have another week of streaming for a game that I’m enjoying. And Jamey’s issue wasn’t that the game wasn’t fun, it was that it was a surprise extra game you needed to play for the full story.

So, should a legacy game have a big twist? That’s a question for another time.

The Beer

So again, I am going with the very crushable tart ale, Key Lime Supreme from Surly Brewing Company. Sometimes you just want a beer that is easy to drink. The Supreme line from Surly are all very easy drinking beers. And while they might not be the most complex beers that is fine. It is better to crush something like them versus a lager or a pilsner which are generally considered pretty easy drinking. This just offers more in the way of flavor that I really appreciate.

Upcoming Streams

Monday, August 30th at 8:30 PM Central – Top 10 Games That I’m Probably Wrong About But I Still Love
A follow up to this past Monday’s list of games that I don’t like but you very well might like. You can find that whole list here.

Wednesday, September 1st at 8:00 PM Central – Aeon’s End Legacy Chapter 8
We’ll see if I can wrap up this final chapter in a single go or not.

If you want to know when I go live, you can checkout Malts and Meeples YouTube page, click the subscribe and notification button and you’ll know when new live streams are coming up.

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Aeon’s End Legacy

Aeon’s End Legacy, like I said above, is a cooperative deck-building game. Unlike a lot of deck building games, you never actually shuffle your cards in this game, or if you do, it’s as a punishment. Instead as you play down cards and run out of cards to draw you just flip the discard pile and draw from the top. That’s the part of the game that I normally highlight.

But let’s talk about ways that we can win or lose the game. A good cooperative game tends to give you a lot of ways to win lose the game and a few ways to win the game. Aeon’s End actually gives you a few ways to win the game as well. You can lose if the nemesis takes down all the mages or if they take out the city of Gravehold that you’re defending. But as players, you win if you do enough damage to take out the nemesis or you last long enough, keeping yourself and Gravehold alive, so that the nemesis runs out of cards to draw and that are in play.

That is a good design for the game. It is already fairly challenging with the nemesis. Plus having the secondary victory condition of outlasting makes what they can do with the nemesis more interesting. There are some nemesis in the base game and other boxes that have infinite life. You can’t kill them, you can only outlast them.

The Beer

Last nights beer was Mange Cart from Golden Road out in Los Angeles, California. It is a very light beer with mango added to it to give it a nice summery flavor. It’s not one of my favorite beers but for a really hot day it’s very good. And yesterday was a hot one.

In Minnesota where you get temps that range from over 100 once or twice during the summer to -20 for a high maybe during the winter, you drink a variety of beers. Summer I range lighter with IPA, wheat beers, and more tart ales and sours. During the winter, well, I still drink IPA’s but stouts and porters show up more often.

What’s Coming Up

Next Wednesday more Aeon’s End Legacy. Will it be chapter 3 or 4, you’ll have to watch the game to find out.

Plus a new 3 Reasons Buy/Not Buy came out yesterday as I looked at Tainted Grail. And there will be one next week as well, game to be determined.

Nothing next Monday. But the following Monday I’ll plan on covering a topic, find one to have a conversation around. I am not sure what topic yet, so let me know if you have one you want covered.

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Then, it just kind of sticks with you as something that looks interesting, and the Kickstarter starts to deliver and you start to hear about the game. Now, it isn’t without it’s issues, it’s from Mythic Games and they are known for bad rule books, in fact, they are sending backers or have digitally sent backers an updated rule book that will be going out with the game going forward. But even with that, people were still enjoying the game. In particular there are two content creators who have done several videos, 3 playthroughs actually, that made me strongly interested in the game, that is GloryHoundd and DrGloryHogg whom I’m talked about before on the channel. I’ll add their videos of them playing the game at the end of the article.

Even with that, it was a Kickstarter game, there were Kickstarter exclusives, and I wasn’t sure if it was coming to retail or not. Then, during Gen Con Online, Mythic Games announced that they were opening up a webstore and selling some of their games, and that Reichbusters was going to be coming, eventually to retail. But through their web store, you could get the Kickstarter version of the game, because they had gotten extras. So doing a little research, I figured out what was Kickstarter exclusive and ordered some of that content, so I have the base game, a terrain expansion that just adds to the look and feel of the game, and one Kickstarter exclusive expansion.

What drew me to the game, though, besides it being a campaign game? Firstly, the theme, I like the idea of being this team that is going into a bunch of secret Nazi bases, taking out the Nazis but also stopping their experiments, and Nazi zombies and mechs. But what interested me with the theme is that it isn’t just a kick down the door, roll some dice, kick down a door, roll more dice, you have to plan more than that, you are trying to make as little noise as possible, because once they know you’re there, all hell will break loose and it’ll be much harder to win, so you want to push that off as long as possible. I also like that while it is a campaign game, you can also just play in a skirmish mode. So you just want to play a single mission in the campaign, they tell you how to do that, I like it when games do that, and even though Sword & Sorcery isn’t a game I’ve played that way, I appreciate that they do it, and Reichbusters does the game thing. Do I want to play through the campaign, absolutely, but I have a lot of those games, so I like that I don’t have to, and I can pull this out on a smaller game night and play it with people.

So for you, do this game seem interesting? If you are interested in it, check out the videos that are right below, because they do a good job of selling the game and the fun of it.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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Back with another Kickstarted, so many different projects that I talked about and a ton of cool ones out there. In fact, there were enough that it took me an hour and 20 minutes to get through it all.

That was almost enough time to finish my New Belgium barrel aged beer. It was aged in Knob Creek Bourbon barrel, and for a barrel aged beer, it was lacking in the depth of flavor that one would come to expect.

I’m not going to list out all the kickstarters this time, because there are a lot of them and some are ending shortly anyways. But a few highlights, two that I’m getting anyways, are Oathsworn, this is a narrative driven fantasy adventure game. The selling point is card combat and a great app that drives the story for you. The other being Village Attacks. Played this one at GenCon, but it’s basically a tower defense game, but you’re playing as the monsters who are just trying to spend a peaceful evening after terrorizing the villagers, and now they are coming after you with pitchforks.

Right now there are so many different games out on Kickstarter that look good. I’m going to have to not get any kickstarters for a little while, but next year and even the end of this year will be fun, because I have a lot of great games coming. Not getting any kickstarters isn’t going to keep me from doing these videos, so look for one next month.

Bottoms up!

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