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Best of List, Role-Player Game Reviews

D&D Theory: List of 10 Games that can replace 5th edition D&D

I thought the timing for writing an article about potential RPG’s you could get into to replace 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons is quite perfect. Lots of people are upset with Wizards of the Coast after their completely disastrous handling of the franchise in the recent year and recent weeks in particular. I think a lot of people are looking around to see what else is out there and while I already have plenty of lists and information about other RPG’s on this site, I wanted to make one specifically for 5e players looking for alternatives.

Now one consideration for this list includes “logic” for the replacement of 5th edition. What I mean is that I don’t think “I’m mad at Wizards of the Coast” is really a reason someone might stop playing 5th edition, but I do think there is a wide array of logical reasons why a group, DM or individual player might. As such this list isn’t just about games that replicate 5th edition as a replacement but includes other RPG’s that do certain elements of the tabletop experience in a more focused and better way than 5th edition. As such I have included a “If you don’t like….” logic section for each game that describes an element of 5th edition you might not like and how the listed game does that particular element better. Hopefully, this helps to make the list more focused.

Enjoy the list and good luck in your hunt for a replacement for 5th edition D&D. Note that while this is a top 10 list, I have not put them in order of quality or anything like that. These are all great games for different reasons so it’s just a list of 10 games rather than a top 10 list of games to replace 5th edition D&D.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition

If you don’t like….

If you don’t like a game that has poor rules coverage and constantly asks you to make rulings where you wish there was rules coverage, I think Pathfinder 2nd edition is a great choice.

I think if you’re talking about replacing 5th edition Dungeon and Dragons, the most common, rightfully so, piece of advice you will get is to switch to Pathfinder 2nd edition. I think this is more of a competitor driven advice than necessarily good advice, which is not to say its bad advice. It really depends on what aspects of 5th edition you enjoy as to whether or not this will be the right choice for you.

Be warned that while Pathfinder 2nd edition does a lot of elements a lot better than 5th edition, it is a very focused game with a very specific style of play built into it that is not terribly flexible if you want to focus on other elements and styles of play outside of its focus.

Pathfinder first and foremost is an incredibly robust and option-rich game with an extremely focused effort on balance and mechanization of gameplay. What that really means is that this game has massive rules coverage, has very heavy character optimization which results in a focus on the execution of rules rather than rulings premise. 5th edition D&D is quite a bit different in this regard, many of 5th edition rules assumed a lot of D&D intervention and hand waving of rules in favor of narrative storytelling.

This is an adventure game in which any action you take has a rule associated with it and character options that can improve that effort. Now this does not mean you always execute every rule in the game when you do something, it just means you have the coverage, the option as a DM, to include some sort of execution when players do anything. Hand waving is certainly a part of the game, but unlike 5th edition, hand waving is rarely done out of necessity because of an absence of rules, it’s done as a preference. The rules always have your back in Pathfinder 2nd edition and this is one of the really distinct differences between the two games.

There is a firm consistency in how actions and execution work in PF2nd, rules are very explicit and clear and there is little left to interpretation. The consistency of the rules is such that once you get used to the system, you can pretty much always guess how an element works and be correct, so despite a 600+ core rulebook, most of the rules work exactly as you expect based on the precedence of the standardization of rules and the purpose of outlining each one is for unique circumstances and cases of specific action to ensure you are rarely put in a situation where you must rule something yourself.

This however is only a small part of Pathfinder 2nd edition despite it being a core feature and while the ruleset is incredibly consistent, balanced and easy to use, the best part of Pathfinder is that it comes with an incredibly detailed fantasy setting with a rich history and total support for it via its mechanics. Every class, race as well as unique fantasy trope, like spell sources, magic items etc.. are built into the world and have an explanation in terms of where in this world that thing comes from.

Its a wonderfully satisfying thing for a DM when a player picks Goblin as an ancestry for example and you can look up where goblins come from, what is there culture like, what are some of the unique aspects that feed into and bring to the table, the narrative of that race. It’s so well fleshed out, and well written and there are so many fantasy/story rabbit holes to crawl into it’s amazing. It all brings Pathfinders Golarion setting to life and makes it feel real. You have this really firm basis on which the game is set and while of course, you have the option of using homebrew or other settings with Pathfinder, Golarion is so well done, so perfectly matched up with the content of this system you are likely to discover that you won’t want to do this extra work. It’s a fantastic setup.

Finally and probably most importantly there is absolutely no question in my mind that Pathfinder Adventure Paths (adventures written for Pathfinder) are absolutely top-notch quality. Paizo is an absolute legend when it comes to creating adventures and campaigns for their game and for this reason alone it’s worth making the switch in my opinion.

One great example is Kingmaker, one of Pathfinder’s premiere adventure paths that have players not only going on a grand adventure of exploration but establishing their own kingdom. This one was so popular it got its own video game, arguably one of the best CRPG’s to come out since the Baulders Gate series.

One additional sort of bonus with Paizo and Pathfinder 2nd edition is that they achieved a long time ago the communities desired inclusivity of the game and developed the game with a modern morale compass that has escaped Wizards of the Coast for so long. Paizo is in a word, a prime example of what a modern company’s political stance should be, which is simply to do the right thing without being asked to and without making it a political stance constantly brought up as a marketing ploy. They simply just act right without all the morale signaling and politics unlike Wizards of the Coasts that is not only constantly shoving politics in your face, but also constantly screwing it up and releasing racist and sexist crap in their books despite any messaging.

Pathfinder 2nd edition is a great game and Paizo is a fantastic company that stands with the player community. They understand their audience, they understand their community and they know how to support their game. Pathfinder 2nd edition is without question the most well-supported game in the market today.

Castles & Crusades

If you don’t like….

The idea of switching systems and having it impact your style of play as a 5e player or DM, Castles & Crusades is the perfect system for you. It is very much in the same style & vein of play as 5th edition with an incredibly robust and flexible game system that allows for a very easy transition from 5e.

While the 5th edition community may not necessarily be up to speed on the evolutions of the game since the original 1st edition AD&D, it is a fact that D&D branched off into different directions since those early days. I think most might not be aware that the true descendant of the original AD&D game is Castles & Crusades. In fact, Gary Gygax himself played Castles & Crusades and it is actually the true successor to Dungeons and Dragons, not 2nd or 3rd edition D&D which evolved the game into the modern 5th edition game you are familiar with. Still, while the mechanics certainly differ, the core premise is the same.

In fact, in an alternative timeline where the franchise was not bought out by Wizards of the Coast, today everyone would know Castles & Crusades simply as D&D.

Upon opening the player’s handbook the first thing that will strike you about the game is how familiar and very D&Dish it is. This is a game that stuck to the classic tropes of the game but don’t mistake it as an OSR game because it most certainly is not part of the OSR even though many will claim it to be. This is a modernly designed game, that takes into account all of the evolutions of D&D and the RPG hobby as a whole in its design. In its 8th printing, this game has continued to be supported since 2004 and though it too has evolved over time, it has also remained consistent and compatible with all material that has ever been printed for it as Troll Lord Games is dedicated to creating a stable and consistent gaming environment for its fans long term.

Castles & Crusades plays as you probably already imagine D&D to be, its going to be oddly familiar if you have played 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th edition D&D and this is because much of the evolution of the hobby has been hit and miss with the Wizards of the Coast versions of the game, while Castles & Crusades has hand-picked the things that have been established to work well and fine-tuned those elements over decades of focused testing.

Like Paizo’s Pathfinder, Castles & Crusades has a default built-in setting called Aihrde, but unlike Pathfinder this setting is sort of intentionally designed to be a bit of a generic D&D world to allow players a tremendous amount of customization. Castles & Crusades is incredibly flexible, in fact, you can take any classic D&D setting and use C&C as a rule system with little if any additions or changes to be made to make it fit. It is very organically designed to be D&D and as such, all of the core races and classes you are accustomed to are there as you would expect.

More than that though Castles & Crusades via expanded books has continually made sure that those elements in official D&D settings that are created for those settings are also released in expansion books for C&C. Meaning there are books like the Crusader Companion which are available for free that give you races like Dragonborn, classes like Berserker and concepts like Multi-Classing. Castles & Crusades has kept up with all of the modern fantasy tropes and though they do not include these in the base game, ensuring D&D has a clear and very classic starting point, these expansions allow the game to be expanded easily to include any sort of fantasy you want to run. Everything I wished Wizards of the Coast would do with D&D.

Castles & Crusades is also a very open-source game, meaning the licensing of the game is designed to support the community and 3rd party efforts and this aspect of the game is fully leveraged making this an extremely well-supported game both officially and unofficially. Whatever you are looking for, whether it be rules on mass combat, kingdom management, expanded spell systems, alternative combat systems, conversions of classic adventures, system conversions… whatever it is, you name it and Castles & Crusades has your back. What makes the C&C community so great is that most of this material is available for free, which includes the Players Handbook itself. For example, there is a 5th edition conversion guide if you wish to take your 5e game and convert it to Castles and Crusades available for free.

I think the thing that makes Castles & Crusades really special in the market is the high level of quality of the books and the content itself. This is not a company that just splashes source books willy nilly and while the library is large at this point, this is because the game has been in operation under the same, stable and consistent system for over 2 decades. The result is consistently high-quality content that you can rely on.

Castles & Crusades is without question one of the premier systems and comes with the highest of recommendations to 5e players looking for an alternative mainly because switching from 5e to Castles and Crusades is not going to ask you to change your style of play.

Forbidden Lands

If you don’t like….

If you are finding D&D adventure modules and running pre-made stories that tend to rely on rails for the players to stay on a bit dull and you like your game to be gritty and tough, Forbidden Lands is a great choice.

I have talked about the award-winning Forbidden Lands many times on this blog and there is a very solid reason for it. It is a hidden gem in the rough waters that often accompany the OSR.

Let’s be honest here for a minute. The issue with the OSR is that, in part at least, it’s about playing old-school editions of the game and while that may strike a note with many, for 5e players, going back to playing B/X or AD&D isn’t exactly what they are looking for. 5e players like modernization and that is not only ok, but arguably it’s to be encouraged. Not everyone shares in the nostalgia of playing the classics as they were, much of the D&D community is forward-looking and Forbidden Lands is one of the few OSR games that says “hey we like old school gaming, we just don’t like old school rules”.

Forbidden Lands however is more than just a throwback to the classic play style with modern rules, it is a uniquely focused game that targets a very specific sub-genre of D&D play. Namely, the concept of the hex-crawl and survival D&D built are the premise of emergent gameplay.

In Forbidden Lands, you and your players are living in a kind of post-apocalyptic area and era of this world. The dust of the tumultuous past has settled and you are asked to venture out into the unknown and forgotten lands to make your own way.

In this game you explore the world that is dynamically generated by the DM using a very clever set of rules which generate what I would call emergent gameplay. Meaning that even the DM doesn’t fully know what is going to happen and since this is very much an open-world game by design, everything that happens is entirely driven by the players own motivations. What do they want to do in this wild open space? Whatever that is, the execution of that becomes the story of the game and everything about the game is designed to support that endeavor.

Now Forbidden Lands itself does have a back story so in a sense, eventually, you uncover enough information about the world around you to pursue what is effectively a “main campaign” of the game itself. So while the whole place is a dynamically generated playground for the players to pursue any endeavors they like, the games story does have a resolution and all of the dynamic content of the game that is generated in the course of play is tied into this piece of the game.

While the game is not a d20 system that 5e players might be familiar with, it does boast Free League Games premiere custom mechanic on which many other great games are based like my personal favorite, Aliens RPG. It’s a simple, very abstract system that will be a snap to learn and yet is incredibly entertaining as it relies on more than simply pass-fail states.

All and all I think Forbidden Lands is one of those games you must experience to appreciate fully but for the DM’s out there looking for something interesting to run, this game is as much fun to run as it is to play. The story writing here is absolutely amazing and the setting itself, dark, ominous and full of mystery, is everything you want in a great RPG experience.

One of my favorite games to come out this side of the century.

The One Ring

If you don’t like….

If you have grown tired of the generic, anything-goes fantasy that 5e has grown into and want something with a classic fantasy feel that is focused on role-playing, The One Ring, based on Tolkien’s middle-earth is going to get you there!

The One Ring is simply, Lord of the Rings the RPG, but it’s so much more than that simply because it’s a game that understands on what it is based and mechanically aligns itself to ensure your adventures play out like the Lord of the Rings books and movies.

This game has an incredible focus on making sure that middle-earth in all its epic glory comes to life at the table, not only by having a very strong game mechanic that really pushes for this to be true but because The One Ring has some of the best writers in the business working on it.

Ruins of The Lost Realms is a taste of what I mean here, we are talking about work that fits the term literature in my opinion, setting you up to have adventures that players don’t even realize are possible in an RPG. You are going to feel things as The One Ring focuses very heavily on the premise of RP with the G taking a bit of a back seat.

The hallmark of a great RPG is that it’s supported by well-written adventure modules and Ruins Of The Lost Realm is sooooo much more than just a great adventure module, it is so well-written, it deserves a place right next to The Silmarillion.

In short, The One Ring, as you would hope it would be, is focused squarely on storytelling and on personal relationships all with a backdrop of epic, world-shaking, questing that makes the players feel like they are a character in the Fellowship of The Ring. It does this organically, in a way where even players that are ordinarily not the story-focused kind will find themselves sucked into this one, not unlike what happens when you binge-watch the latest hit from Netflix.

To me the One Ring is the definition of what an RPG should be, it puts you right in the middle of one of the greatest fantasy stories ever told and hands you the reigns. Easily the single best RPG to come out 2022, I dare say no RPG fan should miss this one, especially a Lord of the Rings fan. Grab that starter box and check it out!

A Song of Ice and Fire

If you don’t like….

If you are finding D&D to be a bit unrealistic, with too much focus on adventures and not enough focus on the premise of believable characterization and wish to play something more gritty, A Song of Ice and Fire is for you.

Let’s be a little frank about D&D. The premise of the game is that you are a supposed “adventurer”, a bit of a do-gooder, that goes around exploring dungeons, fighting monsters and generally doing things no actual person, even in a fantasy setting is likely to volunteer to do. It sort of requires a level of suspension of disbelief in the context of a fantasy that I think is very often a bit of a stretch, almost cartoony.

Modern fantasy writing like the Game of Thrones saga is a good example of what happens when you look at a fantasy world from a more realistic perspective and use human nature as a guide to creating a world in which people act more like you might expect them to.

Based on George R.R. Martin’s modern classic world, A Song of Ice and Fire is dark, gritty, violent and sometimes a bit too real, but for fans, despite the need to sometimes look away, we love it and Song of Ice and Fire the RPG brings all of that to the table.

In what I can only describe as one of the most unique setups in RPG’s today, in Song of Ice and Fire you and your friends not only create characters all belonging to one of the houses in the story, but part of the game is creating and managing that house yourself.

This is a game that puts you in the driver’s seat in the political struggles in the Game of Thrones story where you try to raise your house to prominence by participating in the cutthroat Game of Thrones where you win or you die.

Beautifully designed to suit the gritty nature of the game world, this is a game where fighting is absolutely lethal and a last resort, while simultaneously the political stories are not much refuge as they are equally brutal. It’s a game in which you are either a wolf or a sheep, but of course the game encourages you to be a wolf and so you struggle against an endless barrage of political maneuvering, some of your own creation, others thrust upon you.

There is never a dull moment in this game as it provides the DM with so much ammunition to keep the stories going, not only that, you can do all of it in the backdrop of the story of the unfolding setting itself, changing events and creating your own version of the Game of Thrones story.

My friends and I played this one a few years back and to this day we talk about the politics, people and events of that game. This game just has a way of imprinting on you as it plays out in such a vivid and believable fashion.

Absolutely adore this one, I would only caution players and DM’s that this is definitely a far cry from an “adventuring” game. It’s a political thriller, the kick-down-doors and kill-everything approach simply does not work here. It’s a game where finesse, political strategy and calculated moves must be executed with surgical precision, its a game for planners. It’s wonderful and painful at the same time, but this game creates stories you will not soon forget.

Alternity RPG

If you don’t like…

Many D&D players that are currently looking around for an alternative, may be doing so simply because they have grown tired of the fantasy genre as a whole and a natural switch is to check out science fiction. If that describes you, let me tell you about the greatest science-fiction game ever made, Alternity!

Before I do that, however, let’s get on the same page. Fantasy and Science-Fiction are very related genres, in fact, to a point, they are the same. Both genres were born from the same place, arguably, the first science-fiction-fantasy book ever written was Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and for a long time after that, the difference between what is fantasy and what is science fiction was a murky construct that would only be split decades later.

Now with that said I bring you Alternity, a game that not only is the precursor to the entire d20 system but may in fact, despite decades of D20-based games, be the best example of the system done right. This well-oiled machine was designed by TSR and Wizards of the Coast alumni Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker and is without question in my mind one of the best science-fiction RPG’s ever published and remains so to this day.

It is designed to allow a GM to create every kind of science-fiction setting from the ground up from post-apocalyptic wastelands to space operas, from Blade Runner-style future earth to X-File style horror-mystery science-fiction. It is all-inclusive and does it with such elegance and style it pains me that this final TSR release which in my opinion is one of the best RPG’s to come out of TSR ever, which includes all versions of D&D, went under most people’s radars.

This game is mechanically a fusion of a skill-based and class-based system allowing for maximum customization and it boasts clear rules for all of the major science-fiction tropes from Cybergear, Mutations, Hacking, Space Combat, Space Exploration, Virtual Reality and even Magic.

There is literally nothing you can think of in the vein of science-fiction or fantasy that cannot be done with this system and it can go from high end super powered science-fiction to gritty reality with only the most minor adaptation, all work done for you and laid out in the Gamemasters Guide.

Not only is Alternity the unquestionable king of science-fiction in RPG’s, it also has two of the best non-franchise science-fiction settings ever written made just for it. Darkmatter, an X-Files-style alien conspiracy setting and Stardrive, a massive, Star Wars-level space opera that is based on very gritty and believable predictions about the future.

Stardrive, in my humble opinion, remains one of the best settings ever written for any RPG. How this is not a movie at this point I don’t know, it’s a masterpiece.

I love this game and have been using it for the better part of 2 decades and while there are many fantastic science-fiction offerings out there today like the amazing Aliens RPG (more on that later) and the highly thematic Star Wars Edge of the Empire, to me Alternity is the best of the best, the king of kings, the ultimate and only RPG true science-fiction fans should even be considering if you are going to consider sci-fi as an alternative to 5th edition D&D.

Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea

If you don’t like…

If you have grown tired of your games feeling like easy walk-throughs for your players and you want to present them with a tough and gritty challenge there are actually quite a few RPG’s to pick from that do this, in fact, it could be a list of its own. The reason I think Hyperborea stands out when assuming 5th edition players is that this game is what a fantasy RPG might look like if a modern gamer tried to create a classic D&D clone with one exception (I will get to that in a minute).

Technically Hyperborea falls into the OSR space as, at its core, this is a B/X based game, but unlike B/X there are some adjustments made to the setting to make some of the B/X concepts that might offend modern gamers a bit more palatable and better suited. More importantly, it’s a bit crunchier and feels much more complete than B/X ever did.

For example, this is a game where you simply choose a class, no race selection (same as B/X rules) but it’s because this is a human-centric world and while other “things” exist in the world, as players, you play only humans. Now there are different cultures of humans so you can select your race in the sense of choosing a unique human culture like Amazon, Kelts or Vikings for example, but you aren’t picking Elves, Dwarves or Halflings.

You get a very wide selection of classes and sub-classes to pick from with a good level of crunch, 22 in total, each with a unique set of abilities that will ensure every character is unique and each class is built into the context of the setting which itself is a kind of almost post-apocalyptic medieval fantasy with some science-fiction elements in the backdrop.

What makes this a great transition game for 5e players is that it takes into account the sort of focal preferences that modern gamers enjoy. It’s a simple-to-learn, easy to get into game and It focuses on rulings over rules, while offering the brevity of crunchy mechanics so that you have something to lean on. I would describe it as having the exact same amount of crunch as 5e.

Personally for me, what I love about it and really what I ultimately love about most RPG’s is that it takes a story-first sort of approach and does so by leading by great example with the setting. That is the sort of game that speaks to me. Hyperborea, the default setting for this game, just hits so many unique fantasy tropes, approaches fantasy a bit out of the box and has some really fantastic presentation so all of the material is easy to absorb and make your own.

It’s what I would call for 5e players, a really great rut buster. Like if your finding your 5e games are becoming uninspired if you are seeing patterns emerging and you want to do something different, switching to a setting that really re-writes fantasy as you know it is a really great way to break that cycle and Hyperborea not only does that, but provides you with what I think 5e players will find is a very familiar yet fun new system to learn that produces this very gritty reality. This IS D&D, don’t doubt it, but it’s got a bit of an edge to it.

Now I should mention one of the drawbacks here and that is by default, Hyperborea uses THAC0 (combat matrix) as its primary combat resolution system with descending armor class. I don’t know why the publisher chose this method over the much simpler attack bonus, ascending armor class structure, it’s a mistake and they shouldn’t have done it. Not that this is a deal breaker for me and frankly, it’s not that difficult to flip the math yourself but, if you think THAC0 is stupid and I agree with you, you have to decide for yourself if this is going to be a deal breaker or not. It is what I would call a chink in the armor of what is otherwise a fantastic game.

On the plus side, the system is used to great effect and Hyperborea really captures the gritty battle sequence with perfection. It’s a unique combat system that is based on B/X but expanded upon to try to bring some realism to the fight with some welcome cinematic bits. Melee combat in this game is vicious and it will create that much-needed stress and sense of danger that 5e is so often missing with consistency.

In my book Hyberborea is a real gem in the rough, it’s definitely a bit edgy and will require some know-how by the GM to make good use of the system, so there is a learning curve here, but it’s got a crunch in all the right places and has really good coverage for elements of fantasy adventure you really need including more expansive topics like Naval Battles, Mass Combat and Sieges, so you can play this game in different scales at different times. Just a really well-written, well-thought-out system that really brings gritty fantasy to life.

GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System)

If you don’t like..

If you wish Dungeons and Dragons fantasy had a bit more realism in it, GURPS is undoubtedly the master of bringing the simulation of reality to life in a fantasy RPG and has been for decades.

I know that for many D&D players and DM’s the draw to D&D is the abstraction, the cinematic world in which fantasy exists quite a ways outside of the premise of realistic world and functions more like a cinematic movie with CGI-infused action… but… For some players, they want to create some gritty reality and though I would still recommend Hyperborea for most, for those that really want to get into the nuts and bolts of reality to a point of simulation, for that GURPS is one of the most robust, most flexible and without question one of the most expansive systems in existence.

Not only does GURPS have every conceivable element of fantasy covered, in truth, GURPS really lives up to the name universal because you can effectively run pretty much anything you can think of using this system.

This is a skill and skill point buy system, so character creation here redefines the word expansive. You could take a million players and ask them all to make a Fighter and you are going to have a million unique Fighters. This is a game that does not repeat and two characters are never going to be alike.

The simulation element here is very detailed and as such, execution of most mechanics like combat is going to be slow. This is a game that zooms in on every slash and parry, you track things like location of your hits, damage to your armor, cuts and bruises and everything in-between.

It’s extremely visceral and definitely a big departure from the abstraction of Dungeons and Dragons, but I would be remiss not to include it in this list as GURPS ability to create a truly unique gaming experience is unmatched. I can’t think of any game systems on the market, past or present that produces the sort of focused gaming experience that GURPS is capable of.

For me, GURPS is often my game of choice when I want to do something extremely specific when it comes to a campaign using elements of play normally not covered by other systems. For example, a few years back I wanted to run a western and I wanted to have a really great, very detailed mechanic for gun fights that was realistic to the real west, not the one you see in movies. GURPS performed wonderfully bringing that surprising reality of gunfights of the old west to the table.

When it comes to fantasy, the nice thing about GURPS is that the level of detail you want to include in your campaign is up to you. This is because everything in GURPS is very modular and almost all the rules are optional. At the core of GURPS is an extremely simple system and you simply add layers of rules like legos to get that perfect amount of detail you’re looking for.

If nothing else, for DM’s it’s a great read as simply exposing yourself to this system, will plant ideas into your head you probably would never have considered before. It’s a gold mine of inspiration, both mechanical and narrative which, even if you never play the system is worth reading.

Great system, and definitely a worthy addition to this list.

Old School Essentials

If you don’t like..

If you wonder what D&D was like back in the 80’s and what to try something super classic, Old School Essentials has you covered.

Ok so I know I plug Old School Essentials quite a bit and so do a lot of nostalgic D&D fans who love the old days, but I’m also painfully aware how difficult reading and coming to grips with the old D&D books can be. Basic/Expert D&D and Advanced D&D 1st edition are not the most approachable games, in particular, if you are a 5th edition player and accustomed to a certain level of organization.

I think this is what makes Old School Essentials and it’s expanded book, Advanced Genre Fantasy Rules such a great core system. It gives you the old-school game, but with a measure of modernization that 5e players will understand and expect.

This is an amazing re-edit of the classic 1st edition D&D game (both basic and advanced) and delivers that old-school gaming experience minus a few of unwanted warts like THAC0!

I have been running Old School Essentials for nearly two years now with a gaming crew and we have had an absolute blast with this one. It’s simple and straight to the point and while very structured, delivers a great space for some amazing storytelling.

This game is, in a nutshell, everything that old-school gaming is about so if you’re looking to give that classic D&D experience a try, this is the game you want to do it with.

What makes old-school D&D so much fun. Watch stranger things.. its that.

Alien RPG

If you don’t like..

If you are unsure what to do about the whole Wizards of the Coast-D&D fiasco and you just need a break but don’t want to commit to anything long-term but still want to run something fun for your gaming group while you decide, Alien RPG is the KING of One-Shots.

Ok so it’s science-fiction and not fantasy and I get maybe this is a bit of a stretch for this list, but Alien RPG, voted #4 of Best RPGS in 2023 by GamersRadar to the surprise of no one, is without question in my mind, one of the most fun one shots I have ever run.

With Alien RPG there are two modes of play. Campaign mode, which is your standard way of running RPG’s where you run an episodic… campaign as the name suggests and Cinematic mode which is a mode designed to give you that Alien movie feel, perfect for one-shots or short mini-series campaigns.

What you get with Alien RPG is a gritty, yet easy-to-run system similar to the one used in Forbidden Lands (already mentioned) but you get to horse around in the Alien universe.

Horror, suspense and action wrapped up in what I believe to be one of the best franchises in existence.

Now I will admit, being a super fan, I’m a bit biased here, but the popularity of this game is not a fad, there is real substance here as the writing and design for this game is absolutely top-notch. You have never seen a gaming book this gorgeous in your life if all you know is D&D. They spared no expense anywhere, it’s so well supported, so beautifully designed and illustrated, the writing just melts off the page.

I love this game, it’s without question the game I grab if someone comes to me and says “let’s run a one-shot”. This game delivers on all pistons, it is pitch-perfect in bringing an exciting one-shot experience.

Best of List, Board Game Reviews

On The Table: July 2022

You would think after the big superboard gaming weekend we had earlier in the month I would have run out of games to talk about, but I’m on summer holiday and the gaming continues.

Root (Digital Board Game Adaptation)

During our big gaming weekend earlier this month, I was exposed to a very curious little game called Root which piqued my interest both as a board game fan and as an amateur board game designer.

This highly asymmetrical war game about cute little woodland creatures fighting in a forest has some incredible dynamics which results in tremendous replayability and diversity. It seems like it’s one of those games where you really need to do many repeated plays to really explore it and fully understand it, not something that typically happens with any board game in my gaming group. We really rarely go back to the same game over and over again, generally being a lot more diverse in particular given the sizeable gaming collections some of us have.

Luckily there is a digital adaptation of Root available on steam and other apps which is perfect for some great solo gaming.

I played the digital version of root about 20 times already, doing so obsessively in succession as I tried to really delve into the games unique nuances and Root did not disappoint. As I suspected the more you play, the more unique elements and strategies you discover in this quirky little game.

The game has great tutorials that really walk you through the rules, so if you have no knowledge of the board game at all, the digital adaptation will not only teach you how to play this digital version, but how to play the board game version as well. It’s a great aid for a game that is a bit of a chore to learn to play.

The digital version of the game is a direct translation, has AI bots of various skills, and comes with a few expansions allowing you to explore it even deeper with more factions. The developers have done a great job replicating the cartoon art of the board game and the interface is really easy to use, allowing you to really focus on the nitty-gritty details of gameplay.

Highly recommend this adaptation if you are curious about Root but don’t have the group available that wants to repeatedly play this one with you. There is a small online community as well so there are plenty of opportunities to play with other players too.

War Room

Getting an opportunity to play War Room, my all-time favorite game is a real treat. I did a preview and review of War Room if you want more details on this epic, global-scale event game. This week we got it to the table and as always this game blew me away!

In short, what I can say about every game of War Room is that despite having a grotesque playing time, on average exceeding 12 hours, this is a highly interactive, deeply strategic, mechanically easy to learn but impossible to master game that to me is not only an achievement in game design but one of the ultimate board gaming experiences.

It is everything I love about big epic board gaming in a box as it addresses every issue I usually find with long, event-style games. Most of the activities in the game are done simultaneously and or in groups as the game is not only team-based but features hidden order movement. The combat is engaging and very dramatic so even if the nation you are running is not involved you’re drawn to it as it’s no less exciting to watch it unfold. Every move and round in the game, has far reaching and big impact on the results of the game that creates dynamic outcomes and narratives you are unlikely ever going to see repeated.

This is a game that tells stories that you will remember long after the game is put away with everyone expertly pointing out what “they should have done” or what strategy they will try next time. You’re going to be thinking about this one long after the game is over.

There are countless possible strategies as well, this is a World War II game that gives you the opportunity to re-imagine the history of the war and approach it with your own revision of this pivotal and tragic moment story without burying you in unnecessarily detailed and overly complex historical realities typically found in historical war games. It certainly will have a lot of familiarity for Axis and Allies players, but this game has an elegance that far surpasses its predecessor. It is simply put, just an amazing gaming experience.

I adore this game but I would caution anyone considering picking it up that you really do have to understand what your getting yourself into and the information on the box is a bit inaccurate in this regard. For one it suggests that the game is for 2 to 6 players and this is true, but while there are 2 and 3 player scenarios, what you are certain to want to do with the game is play the global war scenario which cannot be played by 2 or 3 players reasonably. There is just too much going on in this game for one player to run multiple major nations. Then again while the global scenario can be played by up to 6 players, if you do, one player is going to get stuck playing Italy which while an important nation in the war, plays in a fairly isolated part of the map and is really part of the German strategy.

The game also says that it plays 1 hour for each player which is complete nonsense. If you can finish a game of War Room in under 12 hours with any amount of players you are playing a very fast-moving game of War Room.

The ideal conditions for the game is 5 players (Japan, Germany, US, Britain and Soviets with the US player running China and German player running Italy). You also want to make sure you have a full day, or even better is to have two half days to play the game. You are going to need a ton of space and you want to setup timers where each team can have time alone with the gameboard to play, typically 10-15 minutes per planning phase is enough.

The point here is that this is an expensive game that requires real event planning and a good-sized group of 5, players preferably but no less than 4. That is what it takes to play War Room and I would avoid it if you don’t think you will have the gaming group and conditions to meet those requirements. You don’t want a 250-dollar game collecting dust on your shelf, especially one that will torture you as this one will because this game begs to be played.

My friends and I manage about 1 game a year and while I would love to play it more often, I consider it a big win to be able to pull that off. It was an amazing day!

Paths of Glory

Paths of Glory is a classic in the historical war gaming communities and is the foundation game for card-driven mechanics.

I have an online buddy that comes out of the woods periodically and challenges me to a game of Paths of Glory, which I always graciously accept because I absolutely adore this game. In stark contrast to War Room however, this is an intimate and very historically accurate war game that endeavors to not only teach, but gives you an incredible sense of a global conflict.

Paths of Glory is about the whole of World War I and I did a review on it last year. It’s an incredible but very long and very detailed game that is not particularly easy to learn and certainly impossible to master. It requires tremendous patience and dedication to learn to play it well, but it has made a believer out of me.

This is a card-driven game so it’s a nice fit for me personally as I love all things card-driven, in fact, looking at my top 20 board games of all time no less than 7 games use similar mechanics. Paths of Glory is unique however in a number of ways in terms of historical war games. For one, it’s a point-to-point rather than a hex and counter game, which creates a unique dynamic as you have this really strong sense of supply lines and complications of the terrain. It sort of forces you to deal with the real historical issues of the day without forcing it on you via mechanics, so it has this great “re-write World War I” feel, but you still get a lot of historical outcomes anyway.

More than that this is a game with so much diversity and dynamics that no two games ever turn out the same and it’s amazing to see how wildly different the outcomes can be even the same strategies are deployed.

I have always been a huge fan of this one, but I caution my readers that this is firmly in the historical, chit game category and Paths of Glory does not apologize for that. The rules are complex, full of exceptions and there are a lot of moving parts. It’s for seasoned historical gamers only and I would not recommend this as an entry point if this is your first go at the genre. It’s best to have someone teach you this one if possible but veteran historical war gamers will be on comfortable footing here, Paths of Glory is an established classic that’s based on some of the historical war gaming most foundational mechanics.

Best of List, Gaming Articles

4x Science-Fiction Civilization Building Games: Part I

At the start of this summer, I wanted to have a writing project for the blog, something unique to work on when those rainy days come or when I’m up late with a cold beer after the family has gone to bed.  It’s something of a tradition for me and has produced articles such as my Battletech Guide series (Part I, Part II & Part III) and my Star Wars: X-Wing guide (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV & Part V) for example.  

This year’s summer project is to evaluate and write a comparison article on Science-Fiction 4x civilization-building games, a topic that is something of a passion of mine.  I have always been a big fan of monster games in general as far back as I can remember, getting my start with classics like Advanced Civilization, Axis & Allies and Shogun back in the 80’s.  My love for SF 4x games however comes from the world of PC games with classics like Master of Orion and Galactic Civilization series of games.  

For years Twilight Imperium has been the ruling king of the hill of this genre in board game form, it has floated around in my top 10 best games of all time since I started it nearly 10 years ago and remains the mecca of this genre in my opinion.  Equally, for the same amount of years I have searched for alternatives for Twilight Imperium if for no other reason than the simple fact that Twilight Imperium is a real pain to get to the table despite its many positive elements.  Simply put, it’s a very long, very heavy and conceptually complex game to get into.  It demands a bit more than most gamers are willing to give and so I have searched for alternatives that might bring the 4x experience to the table more often with a wider range of players.

My hope was that if I explored this genre in detail, I might find some 4x games that might be a bit more approachable.  Going into this project I have no expectations that any of the games I will try will replace Twilight Imperium for me as my ruling favorite, but I am hoping to find some new 4x games to explore.

My research has shown that there are quite a few potentially great SF 4x games in the board game world and it’s my intention to go deep with this article series and do some detailed assessment of what I believe are the most popular of these games that will hopefully act as both a buying guide for those looking to get into the games and a sort of review for each individual game.

The List & Why

There are quite a few games that could go on this list, in fact, arguably to be a proper assessment of the whole genre I think a list of 10-15 would be needed but I wanted to narrow it down to the most widely popular games and I wanted to have some games that hardened veterans of the genre would also approve of which is to say, games that might be more obscure to general mass markets but the experts within consider staples of the genre.  This I felt was important because the goal here is to expose you, the reader to something new and interesting and battle-tested, not necessarily a comparison of the most known games.  

Twilight Imperium 4th Edition

The ultimate 4x science-fiction epic, it is considered by many to be the king of the 4x genre.

Twilight Imperium was a very obvious choice, it is considered a hallmark of the genre, ask any fan of SF 4x civilization building to make a list for you, and this one will always be on it.   It is widely accepted as one of the best in the genre, arguably the one by which all other games will be judged so it had to be on this list.

Eclipse:  Second Dawn For The Galaxy

Many argue that Eclipse is the Twilight Imperium killer, a more refined, faster playing 4x game.

Eclipse is perhaps the second most widely known and accepted game in the genre and actually has even broader mass market appeal.  More importantly, it’s considered the most natural competitor to Twilight Imperium by the gaming community even if the publisher makes no such claims.  It is also highly disputed by Twilight Imperium fans as a contender, some argue for it’s shorter play time while others insist it comes up short.  I love a good controversy, so it had to go on the list as well.

Star Trek: Ascendancy

A relative newcomer by 4x standards, but this 2016 release has made a splash with 4x and Star Trek fans alike often compared to Eclipse.

A very popular franchise but a less commonly listed game, Star Trek: Ascendancy is a full-fledged 4x game that has had quite a bit of buzz among 4x fans and has seen a number of reprints since its 2016 release which means people are still playing & buying it. One really interesting element of Ascendancy is that many argue its a better, albeit less refined Eclipse and there is a lot of debate about its quality that seems to have created a sort of Ascendancy vs. Eclipse grudge match.  From that, it was an easy decision to include it.

Exodus: Proxima Centauri

While my first experience with this one was less then stellar, it’s a community favorite and many argue that it is a far more competitive and varied game in direct competition with Twilight Imperium and Eclipse.

I was very hesitant to add this one to my list mainly because I own it, I have played it once and neither my gaming crew or I thought much of it.  Despite this among 4x circles, it’s considered a staple and standard for the genre and it’s been compared to Eclipse and Twilight Imperium in countless reviews, many feeling this is the superior game.  While I have my doubts, the evidence is in its success.   It has also not only remained in print but has received a 2nd edition and been nominated for some prestigious awards including the 2013 UK Games expo for Best Boardgame of the year.  It’s clearly a competitor, it had to go on the list.

Stellaris Infinite Legacy

Based on one of the most popular 4x games in modern times, this new kid on the block is making a lot of bold claims about being an evolution in the genre and we are going to give it, its shot to prove it in this competition.

The final game on the list comes from Academy Games which attempts to create a board game version of one of the most popular modern 4x PC game franchises in existence, the fan favorite and beloved Stellaris.  I know very little about this one but I felt strongly that if someone is going to try to re-create a board game version of one of the best 4x PC games on the market today, it needed to be on the list.  

That’s your list, 5 games.  I’m committed to play each game a minimum of one time, though it’s likely I will have a couple of plays of each game before this article is complete and I have the advantage of having played some of these games already before I even start.  I have no idea how long it will actually take me to complete this article series, but I’m hopeful that it will make for some fun gaming and writing.

How they will be judged

I think it’s important to establish some method or standard for how all the games will be judged to ensure not only that the competition is fair, but that there is at least a general understanding of what the expectations for a 4x game are.  Each game will be rated from 1 to 5 on each of the following categories.

Is it a true 4x game

The first category simply ensures that the game meets its advertised goal which is to be a 4x game.  4x is a reference to the four key elements of a science-fiction civilization-building game.  

Exploration

Does the game have a fun/interesting exploration mechanic, after all this is a game about building a civilization in space and exploration has to be a part of that.

Expand

This is a bit of a tricky one as the word is intended to have multiple meanings.  It’s a reference to the civilization-building component of the game and covers anything that helps to build your civilization from a fledging single planet to a mass empire.  Science research, fleet and base building, economic engine growth and really anything else to do with the construction and forward progress of your civilization.

Exploit

Similar to expanding in a way, exploiting is about making sure that the galaxy itself is the source of the struggle in the game and that it breeds player competition for resources to ensure players are forced out of their comfort zone of their homeworld.  Exploitation is about the economics of the game and the road to confrontation and the final and arguably most exciting element of the 4x genre, war (Exterminate).

Exterminate

In the end, the exploration, expansion and exploitation of the galaxy should put the players into conflict with each other and lead to the expected eventual outcome which is war.  All good 4x games are in the end in some shape or form war games.

The Extras

While the 4x civilization-building genre is very specific, many of these games include concepts like politics, diplomacy, trade, espionage and other elements often associated, but not directly mentioned as part of the 4x mantra.  These extras should count and hence they get their own category in the evaluation.

Competitive & Fun

This second category is a bit more opinion driven, it’s about a general judgment and comparison of how competitive and fun the game is.  Does it hit those joy centers with its mechanics, do players walk away satisfied, is the game balanced and fair and of course naturally how does it fair in general as a gaming experience.

The Event Status & Presentation

Civilization-building games should be an event, a robust, full-fledged game that everyone is excited about and builds a foundation for a great gaming event.  This combines its visual appeal and presentation, its replayability and its status as a game around which an event can be played.  4x games shouldn’t just be board games, they need to generate a much higher level of excitement beyond just a simple game night, they should feel epic in size and scope.  This category is a measurement and discussion of its status as an event game and includes its presentation.

Deliver On The Promise

This one is important mainly because I don’t think a game should be judged solely on the expectations and desires of players, but on what the game actually promises.  Whether it’s by advertisement on the box or website, we use that information to determine how well it delivers what it promised.  Does the game do what it said it would?  That is the question we are answering and rating here.

Strengths vs. Weakness

This is the only category that will not be scored so much as listed.  I will attempt to outline each game’s strengths and weaknesses and help guide players to the game that is right for their group.  

Comparison Ranking

Finally is the comparison ranking.  This category will not be included with each game, but rather be an article in its own right where I compare and contrast all of the games and come to a conclusion about where they ultimately rank in this competition.  It will be a definitive, top 5 of the best from this list of SF 4x civilization-building games.

Conclusion

Ok so that is the setup for this article series, we have our game list and we have our established method of judgment.  I’m uncertain exactly what order these articles will appear or even what approach I will take beyond these simple goals but the plan is first to play all of the games so that I have a strong basis for assessment.  I expect this series will go well beyond the summer to complete, but keep an eye out for it in the near future.

Best of List, Board Game Reviews

On The Table Extra: Vacation Gaming

Every year in early March my extended family and I take a trip up to the Swedish ski slopes for a week of fun in the snow. Naturally, there’s a lot of downtime in the evenings so we play a lot of board games, in fact, I pack up as much as I can carry and despite bringing a considerable selection we manage to play through everything every year, this year was no different.

Texas Hold’em

Texas Hold’Em is the modern and most popular poker variant in the world, yet it is generally not considered part of the board gaming sphere which I find rather odd as it’s an awesome card game.

Some might not count Texas Hold’em as a game belonging to the world of board gaming but I beg to differ. If Texas Hold’em didn’t exist as a game for gamblers today and was packaged up as a family card game I predict it would be a smash hit.

It certainly is with my family, playing poker is a long-standing tradition and while we never play for money, the games are no less competitive and intense.

For those that have never played, Texas Hold’em is a unique member of the poker family mainly because the game is as much about the cards as it is about the betting and psychology of the game. Most hands of Hold’em are won and lost without cards ever shown. We have 4 kids between the ages of 10 to 17 in the family and they take their poker pretty seriously creating what is without a doubt the most competitive game of the week. This year the kids really showed us some serious skill taking the old dogs down with ease, clearly, we need to step up our game.

Hero Realms

Hero Realms takes the very basic premise of dynamic deck building and turns it into a dueling game with a fantasy twist, in my eyes a perfect combination.

Hero Realms is typically played two-player and it’s a fine game for that purpose but in our family, a free for all 4-6 player mega game is the way we do it and while it can go a bit long and there’s player elimination, this cut-throat competition brings with it various negotiations, alliances and betrayal which the kids love!

Hero Realms is a deck-building card game based loosely on the Dominion concept. The twist here is that each player gets a fantasy character (Thief, Wizard, Fighter etc..) represented by cards in a 10 card deck. In the center of the table are an additional 5 cards always available for purchase into your deck. As players take their turn they play cards from their hand, which include gold cards allowing them to purchase more cards for their deck. As play goes on players build up their decks with bigger and bigger plays possible. Anyone can attack anyone on their turn and so the game is as much about surviving as it is about looking threatening and negotiating to keep people from attacking you.

In the end it’s complete chaos, eventually, someone makes a big attack, that triggers rivalries and the game devolves into an all-out war until there is one hero left standing to proclaim victory.

This is a really fun game, it’s actually a variant on a science-fiction version of the game called Star Realms. It’s easy to teach and learn, while there is some reading required, there is really good iconography for the game that the younger kids pick up on really quickly so no major trouble getting the younger crowd into this one. I would not call it a deeply strategic game, but there is a lot to the deck-building concept, so which card you buy is a key decision point and how you build your deck will ultimately determine how well you combo when it’s your turn to play cards. Like Dominion, it’s all about keeping your deck lean and effective.

Twilight Struggle

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Twilight Struggle is THE finest representative in board gaming that creates a bridge between historical wargaming and the rest of the board gaming market. It’s a bonafide cross-over hit.

This classic cold war card game was for a time a major obsession for me, but it’s really difficult for experienced players like me to bring a new player up to speed to a point where they can be a challenging opponent because of how card knowledge in the game is such a huge advantage.

Thankfully over the last couple of years, I have been slowly but surely training my brother in law and whenever we do family trips like this, TS comes with us and we play a few rounds. He is not quite far along enough yet to beat me, but I offer him a fairly sizable handicap, and it’s starting to click for him. I think a few more games and he is going to be ready to play without the training wheels. My hope is that this will be one of those games the two of us can play together into our retirement years.

Unless you have been living under a board gaming rock, you know what Twilight Struggle is at least by name, but what I think most boardgames miss is that while this game is a historical board game, some might even call it a war game, it does not really fall into the standard historical war game formula. It really is just a great two-player strategy game and I would definitely recommend it for people who are not into historical wars. TS definitely transcends beyond its roots as the designers intended and while I will still argue that Imperial Struggle, the designers follow up to Twilight Struggle is a much better game, it does not cross over as easily as TS does.

One of the best games ever made in my opinion, an unquestionable classic and a fantastic gateway game into the larger world of historical card-driven games from which there are many fantastic titles to choose from.

Endeavor: Age of Sail

The more I play it the more I like it. This game is quickly becoming one of my favorite Euro-style games thanks in big part to its big board game feel in a very reasonable time frame.

This game comes in a big box and has a lot of pieces so I was quite hesitant to bring it with me, but my daughter insisted as she loves this game so I hauled this beast with me despite protests from the wife.

In the end, it turned out to be well worth it. The thing about Endeavor is that it has this great “big board game” feel and table presence but is actually a relatively short and simple game. It looks kind of intimidating and complex but once you understand the basic flow of a turn, it’s very easy to connect the rules to the strategy and players are typically off and running after a round or two. We had an age range between 12-50 and everyone picked it up very easily.

There are many deep and meaningful choices in the game, it’s a bit of a race to victory points, with resource management and much of the strategy is about well-timed execution of the five different actions you can take in a turn. What I find really interesting about this game is that it plays really well at all player counts including 2 player games, but the strategies that work in the game change wildly depending on how many players you have at the table. It’s a very dynamic setup for the game as well so you end up having to “re-think” your approach each time you play.

The version of the game I have is the new deluxe version which comes with a bunch of expansions we are yet to try, so far the base game has been more than enough for us.

This is a great family game having as many if not fewer rules than RISK or Monopoly, but a far more robust and interesting execution. I think my favorite aspect of Endeavor is how it works with a wide range of gaming groups, casual to veterans, it always finds its audience.

King of Tokyo

This silly dice chucker never stops impressing me with its uncanny ability to turn anyone into a fan.

Between the cartoon art style, the giant monster theme and the Yahtzee style gameplay, to me this is the perfect family game. The rules fit on a napkin and while there is some strategy this is a game of pushing your luck with dice which works really well with the casual crowd, yet makes for a great filler for more seasoned gamers.

It’s a pretty simple concept, you select one classic Japanese-themed monster like King Kong or Godzilla for example and you try to proclaim control over Tokyo in what is essentially a king of the hill game, as you fight all of the other big monsters in the game. You roll dice to do damage, build up energy to purchase special ability cards and simply try to last on the hill as long as you can to score points.

I always say that for every classic old-school game there is a modern replacement that is much better. In the case of King of Tokyo, it totally replaces Yahtzee for that light-hearted simple dice chucker.

A really fun game that produces a lot of big moments that had everyone cheering.

Sheriff of Nottingham

A party game for gamers that will have you in stitches, it has never let me down.

We played this one multiple times during our vacation, it was without question the big hit of the week.

Sheriff of Nottingham is closer to an “activity” than a game as the premise is quite simple. Each player draws six commodity cards (Chickens, Cheese, Bread etc..) at the start of each round and slips any amount of cards into a hidden baggy. One player is the Sherrif each round and that player must decide to either open (inspect) the baggy or allow it to pass through. The trick is that players can lie about what they are trying to get past the Sherrif and there are various “illegal” goods that are worth more than the legal ones. Things like Crossbows and Alchemic potions.

Players can bribe, make promises and deals, pretty much anything goes, but if the Sherrif catches you on a lie and inspects the bag, you have to pay a penalty. If the Sherrif opens the bag and you were telling the truth, the Sherrif must pay you a fee in addition to you getting to pass through with your goods for additional scoring at the end of the game.

Each player gets a turn at being Sherrif and whoever manages to get the most goods through (legal and illegal) wins the game. Typically games are won by the player that manages to get the most illegal goods past the Sherrif so there is a lot of motivation to lie, but if you get caught too often you aren’t likely to win, nor will you win if you inspect too many legal commodities.

The entire premise of the game is about social interaction and while there might be some strategy here, the game is rarely played with that approach. Most players naturally take to the psychology of the game and try to trick each other into opening or not opening the baggies as the case may be.

This game produces a lot of silly moments and when we play it, most of the game is spent hysterically laughing the entire time. It’s an absolute blast and works really well with pretty much any group, cocktails are recommended while playing this one!

We play this one at our summer gaming weekend retreat as well which is made up of many serious veteran gamers and this is usually a major hit there as well so this is one of those games that just always hits well with any sort of group which is why it comes so highly recommended by me.

Seven Wonders

I actually think it’s a great game and tend to agree with the general consensus about that, but personally, every table I introduce this to seems to shrug its soldiers with an audible “meh”.

Seven Wonders is a game about card selection and has been a highly rated game for years. This one didn’t hit that well with our little family gaming group and I have had trouble with it in the past as well with other groups.

I think it’s a great game and highly rated for good reason but it’s one of those games that doesn’t make a great first impression for some reason. You have to play it a few times before things click and that can be a hard sell if after a first try if you are unimpressed.

Seven Wonders is a bit like a professional golfer playing golf left-handed for the first time. Everything is familiar and logical, but there is just something off about it and some might see that as a challenge worth pursuing, others just feel like it should work differently than it does.

I have personally always really liked it, but to quote my daughter “It’s like a crappy Seven Wonders Duel”, which I think is a fair assessment. Seven Wonders Duel is a kind of two-player version of Seven Wonders that came a few years after the release of this one and I agree with her of the two games Duel is a much more interesting and less “odd” version of the game. It’s for two players only, so there is that drawback and unlike Seven Wonders there are no expansions for Seven Wonders Duel which notably are rumored to improve Seven Wonders a great deal (I have never tried them). For me personally, I have never had much luck getting anyone excited, it has always landed a bit flat, but I actually do think it’s a pretty fun game.

There were a few other microgames we played including Albion: The Resistance, Coupe, For Rent and The Hand of the King, all great games in their own right but I have talked so many times about these staple games in my collection I will just leave it here as a list.

It was a great week for gaming and skiing, now I need a nap!

Best of List

My Top 20 Best Games of All Time 2021 Edition

That’s right, what once was a top 10 list now becomes a top 20 list! It is time once again to update the favorites list, its been about a year since I did my last Top 10 Best Games back in January last year and I followed up that list with the Back 20 best games of all time list in March.

I never thought I would get to a point where I have played so many games that it would be difficult for me to trim down my list to a top 20 but here we are and I can say it was not easy. I had to cut pretty deep, it hurt, a lot of really great games did not make this list that I consider great games!

This year one change I made is how I temper the list. Namely, I have made it a point to affect the scores of games that I have not played in a long time. The way I see it, if you’re going to be on my top 20 favorite games of all time list, you need to be something that I push to get to the table.

Alright, enough setup, here we go!

20. Shogun (Dirk Henn version)

The contrast between the quiet, contemplative planning phase and the outrageously chaotic execution phase make this one of the most memorable quasi Euro historical war games in my collection.

Shogun is one of those games where a lot of people will argue is not a war game, while others may adamantly insist that it is. All I will say is that it’s an area control game, there are battles and winning is all about managing chaos, if that isn’t war then I don’t know what is.

Based very abstractly on the civil war conflict of medieval Japan, this is a pre-programming game where you define your actions with limited knowledge about which order actions will be executed in. During the execution phase, this very chaotic game uses a cube tower to resolve conflicts by taking armies represented by different colored cubes, tossing them into the tower and the winner is whoever has the most cubes that come out. This tower traps a lot of these cubes and if you know anything about statistics and the laws of chaos, you know that this is probably the closes thing you will ever come to true randomness in a game. You can have fights where 10 blue cubes go up against 2 red cubes and the battle results are 2 blue cubes and 7 red cubes. Its chaos personified.

I know it’s not everyone’s bag but I have always said that this game wins on-table atmosphere. It’s really the craps of war games, you gamble but the cube tower is just one of those game elements that gets everyone out of their chair. I love this game, always have and while it’s at the tail end of the list it beats out quite a few worthy contenders for the spot.

19. B-17 Flying Fortress Leader

This game is a guilty pleasure for me, I have my reservations about some of its mechanics and execution, but it wins on the theme in a big way and for a solo game that is critical to its success.

Given that the game is set up on my table several times a year like clockwork, I knew this one was going to appear on this list somewhere. B-17 Flying Fortress Leader by Dean Brown of DVG games to me is a very biased favorite, a game about creating a narrative in my head on a topic I’m very fond of. I don’t actually know if it’s a “good game” in the practical sense though I gave this one a very generous 4 out of 5-star review mostly driven by the success of the theme. This solo game is certainly not without its blemishes and I would not proclaim it to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I have quite a few house rules and corrections I have created and use when playing this game which shouldn’t be necessary for a game I rate so highly. The nice thing about running a blog without a comment section is that I don’t have to listen to people telling me how wrong I am! Though I’m not sure I would vigorously disagree with such statements.

Warts and all I love this game, with a bit of house rule love I find it has a deep meaningful core with intriguing gameplay, challenging scenarios and an uncanny ability to create vivid stories. This is a slightly complex game so I always recommend that if you are completely new to historical war games and solo gaming that maybe you start with something a bit lighter, but it’s a great graduation gift for yourself when you reach that point that you feel ready for something with some meat on its bones. In particular, if you’re like me and find World War II aviation engrossing.

18. War Of The Ring

There is nothing like the feeling of an epic scale game that captures a story, War of the Ring is the best of its kind.

War of the Ring plunges to number 18 after enjoying years in the top 10 of my lists. It takes a dive because honestly, it has been on my top 10 list for more years than I care to admit and I can count on one hand the number of times I have played it in recent years. It’s just hard to justify a game on this list that collects dust on my shelf most of the time.

That said I still think it’s an amazing game, both from a thematic standpoint and a mechanical standpoint, this is a highly engaging and very traumatic 2 player game tailor-made for Lord of the Rings fans of which I count myself among. The challenge is getting it to the table and there is a lot standing in its way.

It’s a fairly complex game, it’s for 2 players only, it’s quite long, has a very extensive setup (It takes a good 30-45 minutes to setup) and none of the rules are natural or intuitive so pretty much every time I have wanted to play this game I found I had to learn it from scratch. It’s just a real pain to get to the table and while I do think the payoff is so worth it, because it really is amazing, I find these days there are lots of amazing 2 player games on my shelf that are just much easier to get going.

I love it and I keep it on this list because I hope that someday some Lord of the Rings fan will come to me and pull it off my shelf and say “let’s play”. I will do so gladly and without reservation. The War of the Ring wants to be played, it needs to be played, it’s my precious!

17. Field Commander Napoleon

Solo games often boil down to solving puzzles and Field Commander Napoleon certainly falls into that camp, but there is enough to solve here that it will keep you busy for a long time.

When I discovered DVG with B-17 Flying Fortress, I simultaneously discovered the wonderful world of solo and historical war games and given how much I liked B-17, I googled “best solo historical war games” and Field Commander Napoleon popped up on a number of top 10 lists. I had just come off a stint with Napoleon Imperium which introduced me to Napoleonic era history and I was ready for more so I took the plunge.

I’m so glad I did because all of the accolades and fandom this game has produced is justified, it really is a fascinating and sometimes very challenging solo game. It not only confirmed that DVG games which focuses primarily on historical solo games knows what they are doing but it permanently swung the door open for me on solo games in general which I have been exploring ever since.

This is simultaneously a tactical and strategic game that really places you in a position to solve puzzles across several scenarios that make up the whole of Napoleon’s career. It does a great job of conveying the unique problems in the different types of campaigns Napoleon embarked on while also ensuring the mechanics remain fun and approachable as it maintains its link to history. The only drawback of this game is that once you solve these puzzles the game loses some of its steam and unlike B-17 I haven’t come up with any interesting house rules to revive the game. The good thing is that I have a really poor memory so I expect given enough time I will come back around to this one and re-experience it again. Great game, well worth the investment as these scenarios are going to take some serious hours of playtime before you discover all the nuances that will lead you to easy victories. Pro-tip, the strategy is probably not what you think it is and it’s why you are losing!

16. Star Trek Fleet Captains

I have introduced this game to people who went from “I hate everything Star Trek” to “but this game is awesome”. For a game to be so good that despite its overwhelming focus on theme it can turn your head even if you hate the theme is amazing, never seen that happen in any other game in my 30+ years playing board games.

I would say that this game much like War of the Ring is a bit of a dust collector in my collection, but unlike War of the Ring it actually is quite intuitive and easy to get to the table in theory, but what it requires is that you know some Star Trek fans. My friends, god love them are not such people and while they tolerate my Star Trek fandom and occasionally humor me and play Fleet Captains with me, they do not get the same enjoyment out of this game as a fan like me does.

This game is Star Trek in the box, it is hands down one of the most thematic and narrative board games I have ever played. It captures the feeling of the Star Trek TV shows perfectly, there is no doubt in my mind that only a true Trekie could have made such a game with so much attention to detail and love for the genre infused within it.

I adore this game, I play it every chance I get which is to say, not very often but it never lets me down when I do and it’s actually so good that even my friends who proclaim loudly “Star Trek sucks” admit that the game is actually pretty fun and that to me is evidence of just how well put together this Fleet Captain is.

If you and your friends are Star Trek fans, this is a no-brainer, it is THE best Star Trek game ever made but no I have not played

15. Washingtons War

Washington’s War is a really great entry-level historical war game, not only because it’s easy to teach and learn, but because it retains a depth of gameplay that keeps it interesting even for serious war gamers.

One of three of a growing list of Mark Herman games breaking into my favorite games of all time list, Washingtons War appears to be a kind of bastard child of a light historical war game and a distant cousin to Twilight Struggle but what it really is, is a successor to Mark Hermans long time classic We The People. I’ve never met anyone or heard anyone suggest We The People needs a re-print, so this successor really is a replacement for the game and though I have never played We The People it must be doing it justice.

For me personally, the game’s history or lineage really doesn’t matter, for me Washingtons War is my go-to game for introducing casual board gamers into the wonderful world of historical war games. The rules are simple, the strategy exciting but not overwhelming, the subject matter is a piece of history most people are already somewhat familiar with and the game is really pretty usually surprising non-historical war gamers who often think all historical war games are hex and counter ugly ducklings. This one helps me get them to convert to the dark side from which there is no return.

This is not the only reason however Washington’s War finds its way to my list, its true genius and secret is that it’s actually a deep and meaningful strategy game that you can explore repeatedly and it always finds a way to surprise you. Actually, my favorite thing about this game which I believe I have gotten quite good at is that new players pick up on it really quickly and can present a very good challenge, often beating me on their first playthrough despite my experience with the game. It’s a thing of beauty that a game like this is so approachable, easy to pick up yet represents the historical war game genre so well.

14. Twilight Struggle

I have never had a game on my best of list that dropped in its ranking because I played it too much until now.

I think most would argue that this stone-cold classic belongs much higher on everyone’s list, especially mine and to be honest with you a few hundred plays of this ago I would agree with you. There comes a time when you have played a game so many bloody times that you are just sick of it and I do not fault Twilight Struggle as a game for that. For nearly a year I was playing this game 2-3 times a week, plus an additional 2-3 games a night using the iPad app. Playing TS was a daily routine and passion.

Suffices to say for me it is played out for now and drops on my list out of sheer exhaustion. Like a retired boxing champ, it has nothing to be ashamed of, I played this game more times in a year than the rest of my collection combined times five! It’s an awesome game that gets shelved for all the right reasons!

13. Tide of Iron

It looks and feels like a heavy world war II tactical game, without that uncomfortable eliteness required from most games in the genre. This is an approachable game anyone can learn to play, but it is a historical war game, no doubt about it.

Tide of Iron has a bit of a strange history with me. When I first got it, I had only a mild affection for it, but it was long before historical war games really found their way into my collection in a big way. I got it because it was a Fantasy Flight Games release and I was something of a Christian T. Peterson fanboy for a while. Twilight Imperium and Game of Thrones (both the board game and card game) were among my favorite games of all time for a very long time. Tide of Iron however never really achieved particularly great heights for me and sort of fell off my radar becoming a coffin box dust collector on my shelf.

Then one day, after I got into historical war games I decided I was going to shop around for a really good squad-level world war II tactical game. I searched and searched and ran across Tide of Irons and realized, shit I already have that game. Pulled it out with a buddy of mine and realized that not only is this a great game, but it’s actually a really great game. Played it twice, three times.. got really into it and it sort of became “the” tactical world war II game for me and I never actually bought anything to replace it to this day.

I still love this game because it’s both a challenging and visual treat, it’s fairly easy to teach and learn, plays relatively quickly and has a crap ton of fan-made content thanks to an awesome community that latched on to this game for a time. For that reason, Tide of Iron comes out of retirement and finds its way back to my best of all-time list. I won’t dirty the waters here and say it’s the best squad-level tactical world war II game out there since I have played a total of ZERO others, but I do think it’s a fantastic game in general.

12. Peloponnesian War

My latest love affair, I can’t get enough of this one, another Mark Herman design for me to obsess over.

Every year when I make this list, there is some game that appears on the list that I recently played or I’m currently playing and its position on the list becomes inflated due to my current infatuation with the game. Sometimes these games stick and stay on the list becoming permanent residents, often they drop down or even drop off the list with the same ferocity as their arrival. I’m not going to apologize for that, but I will warn you that Peloponnesian War is definitely my current love affair.

I absolutely adore this solo game, it services all of my personal G spots as far as games go from really unique design, clever mechanics and deeply rich narrative. It’s my current obsession and while such infatuation often comes and goes, it’s worth pointing out that it’s simultaneously the 3rd Mark Herman game I have tried and the 3rd Mark Herman game to make my all-time favorite list. The guy never lets me down. I did a review of this one recently if you want some more detail.

11. 1830: Railways and Robber Barons

This is a deeply flawed game that requires quite a bit of intervention but when you play with the right variants it’s pure gold.

This classic Francis Tresham has been around since the mid 80’s and it has been fueling my passion for board games for years. I guess I’m saying that I loved this one before it was cool even though I’ve only just recently introduced it to my gaming crew here in Sweden. It was in semi-retirement before that for about a decade.

I love train games, but I would be lying if I said I love train board games. My love for train games largely comes from PC game examples, most notably the Railroad Tycoon series by Sid Meier. This game scratches that itch and though I always warn people that the hype about this game’s legendary status is a bit overcooked, it is a really awesome, very cut-throat and often mean-spirited board game that most people have a love it or hate it response to.

When I introduced it to my crew here in Sweden, it was immediatetly proclaimed a must play in Hassela game which might not mean much to my readers, but our yearly Hassela weekend retreat is a very serious, arguably almost religious matter in our group, so 1830 should be honored!

It’s a long game and there are many variants for this game both official and unofficial. I consider its status on this list assuming a very strict adherence to certain variance I believe elevate this game from a “meh” to an “aha”! One of these days I’m going to have to write an article on the proper way to play this game if you want to get the most out of it, but suffices to say its status on this list comes with that caveat.

10. Ikusa (Shogun)

While many gamers consider dice chuckers like RISK to be beneath them, to me Ikusa is KING of such games and I always say, if you don’t like chucking dice, you are in the wrong hobby.

While I won’t claim Ikusa (Originally Shogun) by Milton Bradly was the first board game I ever played, it is the first board game I played from which I emerged a fully Knighted board gamer. It is my grail game, my birthing chamber.

Now I have played all of the Milton Bradly game masters series classics extensively including Axis and Allies, Fortress America, Conquest of the Empire and Broadsides & Boarding Parties, I loved them all but only Shogun (aka Ikusa) makes the list because to me its the only one that still holds up by today’s standards. I could make an argument for Axis and Allies, but for me that game has been completetly replaced by Larry Harris’s latest brain child War Room (more on that later).

Suffices to say my absolute favorite historical period is medieval Japan, I love a good dice chucker and I love a game with hidden actions, so Shogun fits into that wheelhouse-like glove. This one still sees play today and I almost always bring it out when someone comes up with the crazy idea to play RISK… my answer is… ok you want to play RISK, let’s play RISK but let’s do it proper like.

9. Dune Imperium

I have played this one so much I had to sleeve the cards because I was wearing it out. This is a tight package that never disappoints and you don’t need to be a Dune fan to love this game, but if you are, it’s just a cherry on top of the experience.

Dune Imperium was definitely a contender for the best game I played in 2021, though it was released in 2020. While I still argue that Empires: Age of Discovery is the single best worker placement game in existence, Dune Imperium takes the worker placement genre in a whole new direction with added card play and direct confrontation mechanics that elevate it far beyond your standard Euro games.

It just gets so many things just right. The really tight worker placement mechanic forces painful decisions. The execution of the card building mechanic is perfect, making it just important enough, but not so important it overshadows the rest of the game. The tension-building battle mechanic between players at the end of each round really brings contentious gameplay to this Euro. Finally, the fact that the Dune franchise was used as the theme here just fits perfectly contrary to most Euros that feel like the theme is an afterthought.

Brilliant design, worthy of any game table whether you are a Euro fan or not, this game breaks out of the rut the Euro design space has been in for the last couple of years rehashing the same boring mechanics over and over.

8. Twilight Imperium

I easily have over 100 games under my belt with the 3rd edition of this 4x classic, I have been playing for over a decade. It always has and likely always will be the ultimate 4x sci-fi game, I have never seen any other come even close to matching it.

Twilight Imperium 3rd edition was my number one pick for many years back to back. This was a game I played extensively with a regular six-man group meeting as often as once per week over the course of several years to play the game. I don’t want to toot my own horn too much, but we were basically masters of this game. We played so often that we knew this game intimately and to such a degree that a typical game for us would only take 2-4 hours, which is saying a lot as the average playtime for most groups exceeded 6 hours.

Twilight Imperium 4th edition came out but by then my group had played this game so much it just didn’t have the same impact on us as many fans of the TI series. That is not to say that we didn’t like the game, we did and we do, in fact, I would argue that 4e is a big improvement and is overall a much better game. We never however got into this new version of the game nearly as much and now only play it once or twice a year for old times sake.

Still, TI ranks pretty high on my personal list, it is the unquestionable king of 4x grand strategy board games and knocks all other contenders out of the ring with minimal effort (I’m looking at you Eclipse!). It is the definitive experience in this genre with levels of depth that exceed expectation by any measure. This is not just an event game but it’s a lifestyle game, the sort of thing that you can build an entire gaming group around. Love it, always have, always will.

7. Empires: Age of Discovery

Bright, big and elaborate, Empires: Age of Discovery is a deluxe visual treat, but that is just a bonus here, this is easily one of the best worker placement games you will ever play.

Age of Discovery has been on my shelf since the gorgeous deluxe reprint was released and though I don’t play it often because I find its best at maximum player count giving this one an event game status, we do play it at least once a year at our annual board gaming retreat in the summer.

Worker placement games are a big thing in my gaming group, though this affection is not usually led by me, but rather certain mega fans of the mechanic in my gaming group. The result is that I have played countless worker placement games over the years and despite all of that available comparison I still think Empires: Age of Discovery is the single best worker placement game I have ever played.

Competitive, not just in a “race” way most worker placement games boil down to but in a more confrontational way. It has a very challenging puzzle to resolve in particular if you play with a full spread of 6 players. Above all else its ultra-simple to teach so really any six players will do, most people get this game right away and can play it reasonably competitively on their first go.

If you like worker placement games and you haven’t played this one yet, you are in for a treat!

6. Through The Ages: A New Story of Civilization

It looks like a Euro game because it is one, but that is just one of Through The Ages many layers. This is a deeply strategic game that has countless paths to victory.

Through the Ages is without question one of my all-time favorite games to get to the table, not only because I love civilization-building games, but from a design perspective I think this is one of the most intriguing and exciting mechanics in board games. I play this game at every opportunity but it drops on my all-time favorite list because it has two inherent and related problems that make it tough to get to the table. The length of the playtime vs. player count.

This is a game that takes 8+ hours to play which puts it square into the “event” game space. Simultaneously this game is best with 2-3 players, which isn’t much of an event. For me personally, with the size of my gaming group this is a real problem area. If I’m having an event at my house where we are going to spend all day playing a game, its unlikely I would end up with such a small player count. 4-6 players is far more typical, more if word gets out.

The result is that this game gets played once in a blue on those rare occasions when I have an event day at my house and we end up short on player count. It happens and I love it when it does, but not often.

That is not a flaw of the game, its just the reality of my compatibility with this game. I love it, its awesome and I have no guilt or reservations about putting it into my favorite games of all time list. There is an ipad/iphone app for this one, its perfect replication of the game, its a great way to try it out.

5. Empire of the Sun

Empire of the Sun is a very complex game and is not recommended for the uninitiated, even among serious historical war games this one asks for a lot. Once you learn to play this monster, however, you will not be able to deny its brilliance.

My instinct is to put this one much higher on the list, from a perspective of appreciation, design and sheer experience, this should be in the top 3 of my top 10 list but I have to be a little pragmatic here and say that Empire of the Sun is very difficult to get to the table. Strictly speaking I play it often, but I do so solo and since its not really a solo game, putting it in competition with games that I actually do play with other people just feels wrong.

I love this game and actually enjoy playing it a great deal solo but the complexity of this game, the sheer challenge to learn to play it correctly is so extreme that its nearly impossible to find an opponent willing to put in that effort. Its a real bummer because this IS one of the best games I have ever played. It hits my hobby table 3-4 times a year like clockwork and even as I write this mini assesement I’m itching to play it. Its deep and meaningful strategy combined with its amazing narrative telling of the Pacific Theatre is unmatched. I love this game but I acknowledge the complexity here is a real problem and takes an effort few are going to be willing to make. It just asks too much from a player, sometimes even a bit too much for me.

4. Paths of Glory

I play Paths of Glory quite a bit, far more than any other heavy and more serious historical war game on my shelf. I never tire of it, its considered a classic in the historical war game community and I can understand why.

While considerably less complex than Empire of the Sun (what isn’t), Paths of Glory too is a very heavy game. I have been fortunate however that I have a regular partner for this one so I actually play it a couple of times a year as well as playing it solo a couple of times a year.

It actually has a lot of similarities to Empire of the Sun, in a way it’s like a World War I version of a similar core concept. It’s also a card-driven game with multiple usage cards driven by operational level play. It uses point-to-point movement rather than hex movement which simplifies it a great deal but it also generally has a lot fewer rules, in particular much fewer exception rules.

Generally, it just flows better and while it also requires a bit of dedication to learn to play, like Empire of the Sun the payoff here in terms of highly addictive and challenging gameplay merged with a fantastic narrative is unmatched. This is the definitive World War I game, though I will be the first to admit I have not actually played any others. I suppose it’s the same situation as Tide of Irons, I found THE World War I game so I sort of stopped searching.

If my recommendation counts, this is an amazing historical war game, or you know, you could listen to the 2 decades of fans praising the game instead.

3. Imperial Struggle

I can’t say I agree with the tagline “spiritual successor to Twilight Struggle”, but I do think this game stands on its own two feet and is without question one of the best games on my shelf.

This new arrival to the list debuts quite high, but while I can blame infatuation for Peloponnesian Wars entry to the list, this recent arrival has already proven its stamina well beyond a one-night stand. This member of the Twilight Struggle family absolutely blew me away the first time I played it, but dozens of plays later I’m an even bigger fan. It just keeps getting better every time I play it and because I found myself a regular partner I get to play this one quite often and at peek competitiveness.

There is no question in my mind that Imperial Struggle is here to stay and though it falls into the Historical War Game genre (arguably) and it does have a very fascinating theme based on a really interesting piece of history, this game is really all about deep and meaningful strategic gameplay. That is its center, that is what makes it an unsolvable puzzle that is refreshed with every replay. Easily the single best game of 2020, I have no reservation about its appearance this high on the list.

2. Lord of the Rings The Living Card Game

I find myself apologizing for liking this game to a lot of my friends who don’t really get my obsession with this one. I don’t know what to say, sometimes a game that just does it for you.

Lord of the Rings The Living Card Game has been at or near the top of my all-time favorites list since its debut and my introduction to it back in 2017. I own almost everything for this collectible card game, most years it’s my often played game and there are times when I go months at a time playing 2-3 games a night. I generally play it solo, but I do enjoy it with two or small groups.

This is a very strange entry on my list and I feel I like I make this general disclaimer every time I talk about this game. It is the opposite of me. Generally speaking, I don’t like collectible games, I usually hate CCG’s in particular and I can count on one hand minus some fingers the number of cooperative games that I have enjoyed.

This one is an exception on all counts which I think illustrates what I consider the better half of my personality and approach to the hobby, an ability to try anything and keep an open mind. When my friends roped me into trying this one I was not excited, but after a few rounds, Lord of the Rings LCG became an immediate obsession.

Deeply challenging, highly dynamic, constantly evolving and wildly immersive this game has it everywhere it counts. I honestly can’t get enough and while there are times when I think to myself… ok I’m done with this now, a few months go by and it’s back on my table. It comes around again and again. Love it!

1. War Room

There is no doubt in my mind and I say this without reservation, this is the single best board game in existence.

Finally, my absolute favorite game of all time (at the moment), War Room by Larry Harris. Man I love this game!

I did a first impression and review of this game, so if you are interested in why this game is such a revelation for me, that is about as detailed an explanation I can offer.

The short version is that this is a mega event game that is tailor-made for me and my group’s style of play. Strategically it’s on a grand scale covering the entirety of the World War II military conflict. It uses hidden orders (pre-programming) which I think just does wonders for strategy games in my opinion. It has a tactically minded resolution system without being overwhelming allowing combat resolution to move at a reasonable pace with a simple enough system that everyone can chuck dice and enjoy it. Most of all however it’s thematically rich with big events taking place every round inspiring narrative imagery and creating stories at the table you’ll be talking about long after the game is over.

I recognize and acknowledge that this is not going to be a game for every type of player or every type of group, but for me and my friends, this just tickles every desire and hope we have for a great event game. It’s big, broad, deep and exciting all wrapped up in an obscenely over-the-top visual presentation that’s simply fun to be around. I’m not going to say always and forever, but I have my doubts about this one being challenged for the top spot anytime soon.

The Fallout

Several games drop off my radar and I always like to leave some commentary as to why.

The Song of Ice and Fire is perhaps the greatest tragedy in gaming. A miniature game that went from the best on the market to a complete and utter clusterfuck inside of a year. Me and my group still enjoy playing it using the old rules and old balance the game had though we have our complaints there as well, but the updated rules and changes that have been made to the game are a complete disaster. The game is outright broken under the new rules and CMON as a publisher leave lot to be desired releasing everything not weeks or months but years behind schedule.

Vampire: The Masquerade Heritage also leaves the list though this should not surprise anyone given that it’s a legacy game. Once you have played through it once, it’s pretty much over permanently and you will have no reason to play it again and even if you wanted to you have to purchase a new copy. It was a nice fling and I did enjoy my time with it, but it never had any hope of being a permanent resident on the list.