I’m having fun with lists so I thought I would continue it with this next little gem, the top 5 games that where almost great. These are games that where innovative, creative or otherwise on the brink of something amazing but botched it in some way like poor application of mechanics, balance, theme or something to the effect. These are games I want to love, I wish were great, but just came up short and we just have to accept that they missed the mark.

1. Starcraft The Board Game
When fantasy flight announced a new coffin sized epic scale board game based on the Starcraft franchise to say that the hype was overwhelming is an understatement. In fact there are still many that insist that this game is great (the I spent too much money not to like it effect) but, by all reputable accounts Starcraft the board game was a failure. It went out of print and has since been removed from the Fantasy Flight Games website which means there are no future re-prints planned.

Starcraft had everything going for it. Two of the best designers in the business in my opinion, particularly well known for making amazing big board games (Corey Konieczka & Christian T. Petersen). It had a beloved and well known franchise which was begging for a great board game interpretation and it had a company with a reputation for creating amazing big board games with some of the best components money can buy. It was really a perfect marriage, the stars where aligned, it really wasn’t a question of whether or not I would be dropping the dough on this game, it was just a question of how quickly we could get our hands on it. With promotion and hype in full gear the game lands and with held breath we dove deep into the world of Starcraft the board game.

The result. While having some very clever mechanics, amazing components and superb art, Starcraft the board game was a complete dud. Unbalanced with an all but broken card combat and a stiflingly small game map, whatever potential greatness was put into the game it was killed by a clear shortage of play testing. Perhaps Fantasy Flight just got over confident, perhaps there was pressure from the licensee, who knows, but the game just sucked. Some claim that the expansion solved a lot of the problems of the game and I believe that is partially true, with the expansion the game is “playable”. Still of all the games that used the combat card mechanic FFG was putting into their games during this period which was a burden to other games FFG as well, Starcraft was the unquestionable king of disappointments and rightfully earns its number one spot as one of the biggest “should have been great” duds among games on this list.

2. Rune Wars
The fantasy world on which Fantasy Flight Games has based a number of games was exciting and different. We had become familiar with many of it’s personalities, monstrosities and legends in games like Runebound, Battle Lore and Descent, but Rune Wars represented the first time we were able to play in this world on a more global scale. Rune Wars was another coffin sized board game that used a very clever role-selection like mechanic, had amazing miniatures and art and again Corey Konieczka. He’s a great designer and it clearly shows, because despite its short comings, Runewars had a lot of potential. Like Starcraft it had that damned combat card mechanic and it just burdened this game unfortunatly. More than that however one of the factions in the game (The Elves) was completely and utterly broken, something that should have been fixed in testing. With house rules and if you could look beyond the card combat mechanic, Runewars had a lot going for it, but the combination of the two short comings overwhelmed the game. It was so close, that it actually pained me to cull it from my collection but the reality was no one ever wanted to play it out of fear of being stuck with the Elves. We tried a few house rules that made them more manageable but in the end even with fixed Elves the combat mechanic was just bad.

Unlike Starcraft however Runewars was not abandoned and got a revised edition with some rules updates that did improve the game somewhat. The Elves remain the least favorite faction however still considered by many to be completely underpowered (myself included) and card combat mechanic is still there of course which is the worst part of the game in my humble opinion.

I want to love Runewars I really do but it’s just one of those games that sits on the shelf and never gets played because when it’s time to pull out a big fantasy war game there are just much better options available (some of them from fantasy flight games) and it’s just hard to justify it. So close, but yet so far away.

3. Letter’s From White Chapel
I feel like I’m picking on Fantasy Flight Games with this list as all but one of the games on this list are published by FFG. Perhaps its expectations, they are after all, the unquestionable king of amazing game publication hence held to a higher standard. Letter’s From White Chapel however does not deserve an excuse, it is, simply put, a terrible game and it’s shocking considering that it’s mechanics are pulled directly from one of the best games ever made (Fury of Dracula). I don’t understand why they would create a sub-par version of an amazing game they could have just reprinted, which notably a shockingly large amount of gamers are begging for. Perhaps it was a licensing issue or something, but the magic of Fury of Dracula simply does not exist in Letters From White Chapel. Which is odd, given that chasing Jack the Ripper is as awesome thematically as chasing after Dracula.

Letter’s to White Chapel is a watered down yet oddly more rules heavy version of Fury of Dracula, missing some of the most interesting elements and streamlined mechanics that made Fury great, while including convoluted rules and utterly stupid ideas (like adding a pencil and notepad) to the game. Fury of Dracula was a seamless, streamlined gem that was both dynamic and exciting at every stage. Letter’s From White Chapel feels more like doing homework on a Saturday night.

I don’t know why they messed with a good thing, but what should have been a new exciting version of Fury of Dracula with an amazingly appropriate theme like Jack The Ripper has been turned into what I considered one of the worst games in FFG’s library of games. The fact that it is visually butt ugly just adds insult to injury, as this is one area, good game or bad, FFG always get’s right and they dropped the ball on this on top of everything else. If anyone tells you “it’s like Fury Of Dracula”, immediately dragon punch them, this is NOT at all like Fury of Dracula and to utter those words is heresy.

4. Eclipse
Eclipse already made it to my list of top 5 list of games you can skip, but it makes this list as well because while it’s certainly a game not worth your time, it really should have been. Eclipse is a game which fringes on greatness as it side swipes its thematic potential and sells out to Euro-bore roots. Let this be a lesson to all Euro game designers, if you’re going to make a game in a genre of games that already has amazingly thematically rich games, you WILL be compared and judged on that comparison. Eclipse looks amazing, it sounds amazing and when you sit down to play it, you get that sense of “oh my god, this will be amazing”. Than the game step by step misses the opportunities to turn great mechanics into thematic gameplay. It’s a shorter game than Twilight Imperium and yes, thank you, that is a really great, but 3 hours of gaming is 3 hours of gaming, you have to make it worth my time.

Eclipse is a dull game and really while the theme is clearly present, it’s so thinly done, the game never really feels like an epic space opera, but instead feels more like Agricola in space. I always look forward to adding new science-fiction games to my collection and I really thought Eclipse was going to make it, but while it has all the appetizers of a great game, the meal is empty and superficial. It is far better to play a six hour game of Twilight Imperium, than to suffer through three hours of Eclipse. There is just no reason to play it and really it was so close, just a bit more American thematic design influence in this game and it would have been amazing.

5. Sid Meier’s Civilization
Another FFG game and another game from the top 5 games you can skip, it was one I was hesitant to put on this list since I have already said my peace, but the truth is that, this one was a real disappointment to me because of its great potential which should have been very easy to tap into. So much so that I sometimes play it despite its flaws because I so badly want it to be good. Like most of the games on this list, it had so much going for it that it really should have resulted in an amazing game, but like Runewars and Starcraft it was utterly ruined by the combat card mechanic. It should have been less so than any other game on this list because in Civilization combat is not the main goal. Unfortunatly every game of Civilization I have ever played has resulted in a very un-climatic military victory and I have yet to play it where everyone at the table didn’t utter these words.

“Really great game except for that combat mechanic, that’s just stupid”. – Everyone (all the time).

This was is such a disappointment, so close.