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Top 10 Lifestyle Boardgames Worth The Effort and Top 5 That Didn’t Make It

There are board games, and then there are BOARD GAMES!—epic, brain-bending experiences that redefine what it means to gather around a table for game night. Once you delve a bit deeper into this hobby with an appetite for depth and challenge, you’ll find yourself discovering games where gameplay often demands much more than the average player might be ready to give.

These aren’t your casual diversions. We’re talking about games that push the boundaries with intricate strategies, meticulously designed simulations, and often marathon-length play sessions. They’re the kind of games that give back as much as they demand.

But let’s face it: not every complex game is worth the time and effort. Many fall short, bogged down by poor design, unnecessary complexity, or a lack of payoff. In this article, we’re diving into the fascinating realm of “lifestyle” games—those games that go beyond entertainment to become a full-blown hobby. These are games so rich, so challenging, and so immersive that simply learning to play them well feels like an achievement in itself.

Let’s explore the best (and maybe a few of the worst) of this exclusive club. Buckle up; it’s going to be a long one!

War Of The Ring

This classic Lord of the Rings boardgame that is part adventure game, part strategic war game is without question one of the most endearing games on this list. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan looking for a two-player experience, this is the one that immediately pops into my head, but even as it does so, I can’t help but immediately point out the cautionary elements of this game.

It’s a long game and it’s a relatively complex game but this is not why I define it as a lifestyle game. The reality is that in order to get the most out of this game you need to have repeated plays of it, many…. so many repeated plays.

It takes many sessions to understand and come to terms with the subtle strategies of this game, the eben-flow of the asymmetric decks, the unique architecture of the map and the subtle way the gameplay is defined by the unique dice mechanic that may at first feel like a strange randomization in another why’s very thinky game, giving this one a kind of reactionary playstyle.

In short, this is not a game you play to try to win, rather you play the game to see what happens. In almost an RPG-like way, this board game is as much about telling the emergent tale of the entire trilogy of the Middle Earth story as it is a strategic war game. A concept that, for a Lord of the Rings fans, should hopefully spark excitement and anticipation. It’s a game where you get to explore what-if scenarios.

The game has a steep learning curve and the rules are not always intuitive, focused more on trying to bring out the story of the game and the realities of the Middle-earth world than being streamlined. Just explaining the game to a new player and having them come to terms with the nuances is going to take several plays and when you finally have that aha moment, you will find yourself in a permanent loop of “theory-crafting” different approaches, each demanding another session to try out your latest theory.

By the time you have played this game a dozen or so times, you will find yourself no closer to a definitive answer on how to play this game well or how to win at it and so you are drawn to it like a moth to a flame in the never-ending pursuit to figure it out. That is if it sticks the landing for you and I find that with many gamers, it doesn’t and this is why, finding like-minded opponents with a desire to explore the depths of this game becomes an important part of bringing the true nature and experience of this game to the forefront.

If you can find a good partner who loves Lord of the Rings as much as you do, what you have is an almost chess-like experience, a dual with eternal replayability that will have you creating and re-telling stories of “that one time” or describing past theories and gambits and its in this combination of attributes of the game, War of the Rings forms into a forever lifestyle game.

Western Empires

I have a love-hate relationship with this game mainly because it has this intangible quality, born part out of nostalgia for the classic game on which it is based (Advanced Civilization) but also because of its unusual mechanics that you will never see in any other game, creating this sort of abstracted, yet very story driven and personal experience. Simultaneously it’s frustratingly difficult to get to the table simply because of its scope and length of play.

It’s a massive game, playable by 5 to 9 players, but, quite clearly designed for 9 players specifically. A game that takes 12-24 hours to play, this is a massive epic-event game that can be made even bigger, up to 18 players by combining its sister game, Eastern Empires. To say this game is HUGE is an understatement. I say this without hesitation or exaggeration, this IS the single biggest boardgame ever made and I doubt we will ever see anything top it.

I don’t think it’s difficult to understand why I would proclaim this a lifestyle game, it takes enormous effort to get to the table, demanding a lot from its players, but why is it on the list? Especially given that this game also appears on my TOP 5 BOARDGAMES THAT WERE ALMOST GREAT, BUT HAD A FLAW THAT RUINED THEM list?

The answer is quite simple which is that the hard part of this game, unlike so many games on this list is simply getting X amount of players to sit down and play a game for Y amount of hours, in this case, the preferred X is 9 and the likely Y is 12-24 hours. It’s a bit much even for the most dedicated of gaming groups.

Despite its massive size, scope, and length, the mechanics of this game are surprisingly simple, at least in terms of understanding the “how” of playing the game. The beauty of this game is that it’s mostly a game about social interactions and player psychology. At the core of gameplay is trading resources and making high-level decisions, then living with some of the often impossible-to-predict outcomes. Much like real history, the story of the game is viewed in this sort of history concept where the culture you’re playing isn’t “you” or “your culture”, but this abstract engine you’re running in a grand historical concept of the world. You feel that personal ownership of the culture you’re running, as you would with any other civilization-building game, but there is this distance there because there really is only so much you can control strategically. This is a game you can win or lose simply because of bad luck, and that is a hard pill to swallow when you consider its length of play.

This is not a game you will win because you made the best strategic decisions, the best movement or tactical plan to overcome your opponent, or some clever leverage of mechanics. If there is any contributing factor to a victory it will be being the slickest salesman, the best negotiator, the most clever politician. It’s a game of subtle psychology, nuanced gambits, and social illusions, and these efforts make a huge difference but in the end, you might still get stuck with devastating calamities that will decimate all of your effort. As such the game is as much an activity as it is a game.

Yet despite that, a grandiose board it is. Massive and illustrious on the table, this game looks and feels like an event game, which makes this entry a unique lifestyle game to the list because it doesn’t have to be one. This is a game you can plan a big event around once a year and leave it at that, it works great for this purpose.

If however you can muster up the strength and the player count to get together more often, to dig deep into this games strategic layout, you will discover that in fact, while the game is played in the minds of the players, there is a lot to know about the motion and subtle tactics to this game. There is so much to learn and try out and while the game may not appear asymmetric as the only thing that differentiates one player from the other is the starting position on the map, this very small difference has a massive impact and each nation in this game has its own approach to be discovered.

Of all the games on this list, if I had my desires fulfilled this is the one lifestyle game I would choose for myself. A monthly game with a dedicated group to play this massive epic would be my definition of pure joy! As demanding as it is to get to the table, there is no doubt in my mind it’s one of the most timeless and unique gaming experience you can ever hope for.

Twilight Imperium

Over the years I have talked a lot about Twilight Imperium on this blog and it’s not a secret that I’m a fan, but when I talk to members of my group they often speak about this game in a negative light and I think that is because, contrary to what I used to believe about this game, it doesn’t make for a good event game. It is a lifestyle game, arguably almost exclusively so and that perhaps explains why my group maybe doesn’t love it the way I do, as I have, in the past, played this game as a lifestyle game and I know how that experience differs to simply running this as a once in a while event game which is the experience all the members of my group have with this game.

What is the subtle difference? The answer is that the game has an endlessly complex well of depth, not just in the way the rules execute, but in the subtle way the game is balanced between the sociology of the game and the impact of mechanics.

This is not a game you can win by outplaying everyone using mechanics alone, it’s a game where, like chess, you have to get your opponents to make a mistake and when that mistake is made and you leverage it, you make your move. Other (less experienced) players might look on this as a game they lost because someone did something stupid. In an event game, this can feel like king-making as players are unfamiliar with the subtle art of forcing a mistake in this game.

See the game is deep, very deep strategically with tons of unique interactions and hard-to-extrapolate balances hidden within the game’s uniquely asymmetrical elements with so much nuance, I could write a 12-book volume set on the strategies related to the different races in the game alone. This high-level understanding of the game however is not transferable, it’s not something you can teach, it’s the result of having played it countless times over two decades. This is not something I can explain to players even on a high level when teaching them to play so in an event scenario where the game is played as a one-off, players know the rules, but they are dozens of plays away from even realizing that such subtlety exists, let alone knowing what to do with that knowledge.

I don’t think I’m overselling it, I think a Twilight Imperium player will understand how this nuanced realization completely changes your outlook on this game, it’s why there is a such a difference of opinion on this game. You can really see the difference between a Twilight Imperium player that explored the depths of the game reviews this game, versus someone who casually dips their toes in. There is a massive difference in the two experiences.

Twilight Imperium definitely falls into the lifestyle or nothing category and I can always tell when I’m talking to someone who has “tried it once or twice” and someone who has “played it for years like me”. It’s almost like a secret language, a kind of understanding that can’t be learned from reading about the game or studying the rules of the game, watching or theorizing about it, this secret understanding comes only from countless repeated plays.

For science-fiction fans who love civilization-building games (4x games), Twilight Imperium is a revelation, and don’t let any other game marketing convince you otherwise. There are no games that do the same thing or even anything approaching Twilight Imperium. There are no games that come within a million light years of this one, in fact, many games make the claim that they are “lighter” versions of Twilight Imperium or are “shorter” versions of Twilight Imperium. This simply is a false advertisement and what’s egregious about these advertisements is that it’s clear the people making that claim don’t have the faintest clue what Twilight Imperium is or how stupid they sound when they make such claims. There are no alternatives to Twilight Imperium, it is a unique, white-elephant, one-of-a-kind lifestyle game that has no competition in this genre. It’s the ultimate Science-Fiction Civilization Builder in a class of its own.

Empire Of The Sun

Empire of the Sun, much like War of the Rings is an in-depth strategy game with a primary goal of telling (or perhaps better to say re-telling) a story, in this case, the entirety of the war in the Pacific.

The caveat is unlike War of the Rings, Empire of the Sun is a simulation and complex mechanics weigh heavily on the game, in a word, this is the most complex game I have ever played and by a considerable margin. In fact, it took the better part of a year of constant attempts to play it, pouring over rules, watching videos, studying the game and even direct interaction with its designer, Mark Herman before I was certain I was playing the game “mostly” correctly.

That in itself requires a level of commitment to the game that goes far beyond a typical board game night, placing it squarely in the lifestyle game arena.

It is a fantastic game, but it’s made by and for historical war gamers who care about the most finite of details the most accurate of representation and the most researched of content. Every inch of this game is as historically accurate as a historian could make it and the decisions you make in this game are very much the same decisions the generals of the actual war had to make, with outcomes that simulate this war with precision only the most informed historian could fully appreciate.

It is an amazing game with tremendous detail, it takes two very dedicated players, ready to spend hundreds of hours studying the nuances of this game and its many rules and rules exceptions, but it is also hands down one of the most rewarding games I have ever played. This game tells a story like nothing I have ever played before, and it does it with a hex map, some cards, and tokens.

From where I’m standing this is one of the best game designs in all of board gaming, it’s a masterpiece. If you are going to choose something as a lifestyle game, this one will not disappoint, with the caveat of course being that you have to get through a very tough learning curve first and you have an insatiable hunger for historical war gaming.

Paths Of Glory

While we are on the subject of historical war games, like Empire of the Sun, Paths of Glory essentially fits the same niche and in the same way. While arguably the learning curve is a bit simpler on the rules side, it’s no less robust, deep, and dynamic than Empire of the Sun.

There are a couple of things that segregate Empire of the Sun and Paths of Glory. The first is the historical period. World War I and World War II have a completely different set of political and geo-centric problems to solve, most notably World War I isn’t as cut and dry as good guys and bad guys and the war tends to escalate over time with more countries entering the war at different points in Paths of Glory which creates an entirely unique set of circumstances in each game. There are two distinct sides in this two-player game, but the game states can vary wildly from game to game, so it feels like a chess game where you are not even certain what pieces you will have in the course of the game to work with. In a way, it’s less tactical and more strategic with a lot of attrition.

The card play is quite similar between Empire of the Sun and Paths of Glory, there is no question that these games influenced each other, but I think Paths of Glory has a more dynamic system. In part because in Paths of Glory the recruitment of soldiers is part of the resource management, whereas in Emprie of the Sun you have a fixed schedule. This doesn’t make one better than the other, but you do tend to end up with a more dynamic outcome in Paths of Glory, as the flow of the game can be wildly unpredictable at times. Aside from the opening moves, there is very little pre-ordained strategy in the game. Empire of the Sun tends to, regardless of player decision, have certain historical points you will hit, but with Paths of Glory, things can become wildly different depending on player decisions and you will rarely have a historical outcome when the game finishes. You do a lot more historical re-writing in Paths of Glory and some players prefer that.

This debate is neither here nor there, in my eyes, these are both amazing games, and frankly, if you play one, it makes learning the other easier, so for me personally, if you choose a game like Empire of the Sun as a lifestyle game, it’s not a big stretch to include something like Paths of Glory as part of your repriotore just to shake things up now and again.

Terraforming Mars

This might be a rather odd entry into this genre because Terraforming Mars is actually a relatively simple game to understand, it really doesn’t take that long to play, at least compared to other games on this list and it does just fine as a pickup and play game for a board game night.

So, how does this one make it onto the list of a lifestyle game? There are three unique reasons that allow this game to rise from your typical euro game pick-up game and into the realm of lifestyle games.

The first is the unique game states that this game creates, driving a truly dynamic and highly competitive atmosphere at the table with a tremendous amount of nuance and interaction between players that require both short term and long-term planning and execution. Much like a collectible-competitive card game draft, players create their tableau from a combination of card draw (random cards) and spending resources on cards that become available, meaning the game is both pro-active and re-active. This creates a unique set of circumstances each game that never repeats, resulting in a fascinating puzzle for you to solve and requiring new strategic direction each game.

The second thing is that the game, on a competitive level, is incredibly tight. The more you play this game, and the closer you get to that most optimum play level, the more critical of a role each action you take has on the outcome of the game. It’s a very interesting effect in the game that you can really see, but when you first start playing the games victory point difference can be as much as 50+ points, but after a while people start winning this game by 2-3 points. You come to a sort of strategic mastery level of playing this game, but to get to that, you have to go really deep into this games amazing and diverse gameplay. You really have to outthink your opponents on an incredibly high level and build engines based on the unique combination of resources (namely cards) that become available to you. The replayability here is infinite and you are never truly done assessing the games finer details.

Finally and perhaps most importantly the game has a plethora of expansions that completely re-define established elements and this drives the game to ever-increasing complexity and sophistication. The game becomes almost overwhelming robust and this is a good thing for a lifestyle game because one of the key requirements of a good lifestyle game is that there is no end or repetition in what you are doing, each game is a new challenge and just when you think you have it figured out, you add one of the expansions that completely unravels all the theories and forces you to re-think and re-imagine your victory.

To me, Terraforming Mars is a highly competitive and very intelligent game that really deserves to be on this list, its nuanced and it takes time to really fully grasp its high-level strategies and even when you get there, each card draw, each card draft, and each play on the board forces you to redefine your route to victory.

War Room

This Larry Harris-designed masterpiece is my favorite game of all time and while I believe it to be far better suited as an Event Game, I do believe it has the mustard and stamina to also be a lifestyle game.

This World War II monster, designed by the same guy that brought you Axis and Allies, is a simulation of the entire war, designed for up to 6 players. It takes about 10-12 hours to complete a game of War Room so this is definitely not a casual game by definition, but the reality is that the rules are quite simple and it is a team game so personally, I think it works great with both experienced and amateur players.

As a lifestyle game however there is one caveat because while the rules are simple there is considerable depth, especially in the math of the game and the way the asymmetrical and hidden movement works. It’s a game that is part psychology and prediction and part mechanical execution, making it a much more human experience. This is not a game experience an AI will ever replicate because a huge chunk of the experience is trying to outguess and out-think your opponent in a more general rather than mechanical way. What I mean by that is if you could see the movement of your opponent, you would win 100% of the time regardless of which side you’re on. This is not a game that comes down to dice or position, it comes down to predicting what your opponents will do and responding to those actions. Do it right and you WILL win.

As such it’s then also a game about trying to get your opponent to guess wrong and cleverly trapping them into believing you’re going to do one thing, while you do something completely different. Like real war, its all about intelligence and counter-intelligence, the more you know the more successful you will be.

I love this game above all others, it’s not only a fantastic game, but its actually an amazing interactive experience. It’s one of those games where you will spend as much time looking at the board as you will looking into the eyes of your opponent to try to guess what they are thinking.

Love, definitely deserves to be on this list!

Warhammer 40k

I have to admit, it pains me to put this one on this list because frankly, I don’t think it’s that good of a game mechanically. I say that while in the same breath, having to admit that I love playing it, I love building models and painting them and it’s one of the few games in my collection that sit in a display case with pride.

Warhammer 40k is not just a lifestyle game, it is a self-contained lifestyle hobby and while it’s stupidly expensive and there are far better miniature games out there, not to mention far better ways to spend your money, my life would simply feel incomplete without Warhammer 40k on the agenda at certain intervals.

I don’t play it nearly enough, it sort of comes in spurts of enthusiasm, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, planning for games, painting, and fiddling with it. It’s just something that you are drawn to as a gamer and it’s perfect for people who enjoy a solo hobby that is also occasionally a game you can play with someone. A game that is mostly a creative endeavor that doubles as a social activity and to some extent is also an actual game.

This list would be incomplete without Warhammer 40k on it and while there are many other miniature games out there, I find I don’t obsess over them in quite the same way. It is worth saying as well that 10th edition of Warhammer 40k is a much better game than previous editions were and there is a clear move towards a more streamlined and accessible experience with each new edition.

What else can one say, 40k is an addiction for many gamers, myself included and there has to be a reason for it. Tyranids for life!

Star Wars Unlimited

It’s not the only collectible card game that I’m going to put on this list but it certainly is the latest and greatest and to some extent at least, this game is shaping up to be the first real contender to face off against Magic The Gathering. Now, I will say that it’s a long way off before it reaches that goal, after all, Magic: The Gathering is a game that has been in constant development for decades, so the library of cards and, as a result, deck building possibilities is nearly limitless. That said, I think Magic: The Gathering has a lot of core mechanical legacy issues that will never be fixed that Star Wars Unlimited addressed on day one, so in a sense, it’s a CCG that has been greatly influenced and learned from the grandaddy (MTG) of CCG’s, yet maintains that robust, high level addictive replayability that MTG is famous for.

To understand why this game is shaping up to be a lifestyle game and not just another soon-to-be-extinct CCG you have to understand the three core design elements that make this a true competitor to MTG.

The first is mana management (aka card playing resource). Star Wars Unlimited uses a fixed rather than random “mana” for the lack of a better word system, unlike MTG’s “land” system. This means that there is a real competitive consistency to the game, you are going to get mana always and at certain intervals and while there is ramping up cards, there is a kind of control here. You are not going to lose X amount of games simply because you got unlucky and drew too much land or not enough, a problem that has always existed in MTG and essentially makes both deck building and competitive play an often frustrating experience.

The second is set mechanic control. One of the big issues with MTG is that there are countless broken combos that are born from set mechanics that all interact with each other, creating this crazy situation where you can do unlimited damage on round one, or spawn unlimited creatures and all other manner of game-breaking combos.

In Star Wars Unlimited each set introduces two new, self-contained mechanics that don’t really interact with mechanics from other sets so there is this fixed stability in the game and this effectively eliminates game-breaking combos. Not to be confused with cards and effects on a single card that can be too much, this still happens, but at least there aren’t these accidental introductions of broken game mechanics that can and often do ruin CCG fun time.

Finally it is the Star Wars universe, and say what you will about Disney’s trouble with managing the franchise, people still do and probably always will love the Star Wars universe. It’s a franchise that is older and far more known than the MTG universe, and there is a certain attachment and fundamental connection players have to the game. This is a game where each card you draw is clearly tied to some person, thing or moment in the Star Wars universe and there is this “feel good” story element in cards rolling out on the table. It’s also notable that FFG has gone to great lengths to make sure card combos are related narratively, with classics like Han shooting first and power levels like the Emperor and Darth Vader fitting to the thematic cores of the story upon which the game is based.

This is a fabulous game with tremendous replayability, it very quickly became a “standard thing” in my gaming life, and I foresee it having tremendous longevity where my collection will just grow infinitely. Thanks to the game’s great stability and FFG’s attention to detail, at least right now, the game is on a fantastic path with a bright future ahead of it.

Lord of the Rings The Card Game

I’m almost tired of hearing myself talk about this game so I’m going to make it short and sweet. This solo/cooperative living card game by FFG is the single, best card game I have ever played.

It’s very challenging, easy to learn, impossible to master, diverse and dynamic and has been supported by FFG for over a decade, now in its second edition which is exactly the same as 1st edition just repacked. It was so good the first time around, they saw no reason to change it, that, is the sign of a brilliant design, when no one can think of a way to improve it.

This is my favorite lifestyle game. I have been playing it since it was released, and I simply never tire of it.

Games That Don’t Make it but tried

There are a few games that really desperately want to make it into the lifestyle category but there is some flaw/reason that prevents it from succeeding. I mention them here only because they are great games, but this tragic flaw of simultaneously trying to be a lifestyle game, but failing to be one puts them in this odd limbo that results in them missing the table more often than hitting it.

Game Of Thrones: The Board Game

My gaming group and I play this game typically once a year at our big board gaming weekend getaway in the summer ,and frankly, I love this game. It captures the Game of Thrones theme with perfection, its deeply strategic and always tense. It’s got everything you want out of a game fit for a lifestyle spot, but unfortunately, it has one tragic flaw.

When you replay this game a couple of times in a row, clear patterns start to emerge, key plays, strategies and round executions start to repeat. This is a solvable puzzle and while I would argue it has sufficient dynamics to keep a yearly game exciting as everyone essentially forgets everything over that time period, on repeated plays this game really falls apart and you really start to see the design warts. Lord knows there are plenty of them.

I discovered this kind of by accident by playing the digital version on Steam for a couple of weeks back to back. After a few games, it all started to look like the same game over and over again.

Game of Thrones The Board game just lacks the stamina and the diversity and dynamics needed to qualify it as a lifestyle game, there just isn’t so much to discover and unravel here. Once you get the core nuances there are just so many “moves” you must make and reactions just become kind of predictable.

It’s a very long game, however, so it’s not really a good fit for a typical board game night, relegating this one to a once-in-a-long-while event game. I love it,4 but it just doesn’t stick to the landing as a lifestyle game.

Star Wars Armada

I’m a huge fan of Star Wars Armada, I think the concept of capital ship combat in the Star Wars universe is brilliant, and I love the unique movement mechanics and the amazing diversity of ships and upgrades, perfect for those of us who love list building.

Unfortunately, it falters in two main categories that knock it out of contention as a lifestyle game.

First and this one is kind of obvious, a miniature war game that has no hobby element, means that the only thing to do with your minis is keep them on a shelf until you are ready to play. There is no hobby here outside of the game which in general is kind of the main thing about miniature gaming, that personal touch and obsession of building and painting “your” army. Sure you can do some repaints, but there are only so many interesting takes on “grey spaceships”. I will say that there are benefits to this drawback for those of you out there who want to play a miniature game but don’t want to deal with the hobby.

The second issue and far more important is what I call the “default winner” effect. Basically most games of Star Wars Armada assuming a reasonably equal level of understanding and skill level in the game can be called with near-perfect precision based on list building and initial deployment.

This is a very decisive game and the battle outcomes really don’t surprise you, in fact, most of my friends got so good at this that we can look at two lists and tell you who is going to win with 99% accuracy. There just isn’t enough in the mechanics of the game to wildly alter the outcomes and while two players with wildly different skill sets can certainly create surprise outcomes, in our group, everyone was pretty expert at the game so it just became far too predictable.

This one hung out for quite a while until we all made this discovery and we all enjoyed it but these days it doesn’t take more than a match to remind all of us while we no longer play this game with any regularity.

It just lacks sufficient dynamics to be a lifestyle game.

Eclipse: The Second Dawn For the Galaxy

I was really excited for the second edition of this game, it really promised a lot and at first it seemed like it would deliver, but even as it sits near the top of my list, I can tell you hear and now that it’s rise on the list will be as rapid as its climb. In fact, right now, I would say it doesn’t even make the top 20 anymore.

The reason for this sudden shift is the stark realization that the mechanics are just too static and there is virtually no dynamics in the game at all. Initially, you might think with a mixed galaxy, asymmetrical races and dice for resolving combat that there would be plenty of ways games diverge into unique experiences, but the reality is that the mechanics are so tightly wound that in effect, every game of Eclipse is essentially a parallel version of every other game of it played.

Worse yet is most of the activity of the players is mostly irrelevant, the only thing that matters is scoring points and the board state really has minimal impact on that. It’s just like any other standard Euro fair, figure out how to build a good engine and then just let it spin.

This is a fine way to play a game and I love engine-building games, but Eclipse was not supposed to be that. It was supposed to be a faster, more streamlined 4x game that could compete with Twilight Imperium and it was definitely my hope that it could be the next big lifestyle game.

The aesthetic is there, all the pieces are there but the game just doesn’t come together to create a repeatable experience. It’s a bit like playing checkers, after a while you can’t remember one game from the other, sure outcomes differ, its not like the game is unbalanced or anything but its just a very bland game full of routine and default (many choices but one obviously good one) kind of a game.

After 3-4 plays of this gam,e I’m fairly sure it’s going to collect dust on my shelf for a very long time, in fact, I may even cull it from my collection, it was that much of a disappointment in the end.

Mage Knight The Board Game

There are many adventure games out there and over the years, I have found plenty of them I don’t like, but Mage Knight is a unique exception for me and there is very good reason for it. It, unlike most adventure games, doesn’t try to replicate the role-playing experience and actually focuses on bringing quality game mechanics with excellent card management and card play, clever and difficult scenarios designed to actually defeat you and outstanding expansions that lean on the games existing strength, rather then just giving you more of the same. In a word, its a “real” game, rather than what you get with most adventure games, which is a sort of quasi role-playing activity.

This is a massive game, Mage Knight doesn’t really hold your hand and as such is had a considerable learning curve, a long play time and is in a word infinitely replayable; all qualities that fit well with a lifestyle game, there is plenty to explore.

With everything going for it, it still manages to fall short of a lifestyle game. Mainly I think because it’s one of those games that once you learn the nuances of each of the characters, that mastery leads you down a road of automatic moves that are sort of preordained. It’s a bit like figuring out the patterns in Pac Man, once you know them you end up playing the game the exact same way each time you pick it up.

The different scenarios while interesting and fun in their own right, really do not alter the approach you will take. There are just some clear builds you discover and after that the game becomes quite repetitive despite its generally very dynamic game state.

This means there is a kind of cap on the game as a lifestyle game, play it enough times and it runs out of fuel.

Its a fantastic game and I would never suggest that its not, but life style games need this sort of infinitate discovery element where no matter how many times you play it, there is always more to discover, new strategies, approaches and puzzles to solve. This game is just limited in that department, once you discover its patterns and secrets, it goes stale quite quickly.

Through The Ages

This is a bit of a heart breaker for me personally as Through The Ages is without question one of my favorite games of all time, sitting pretty in the number 9 spot on my top 20 list and having been on my best of list since the first time I played it almost years ago.

This is one of the best civilization building games I know, its highly competative, deeply strategic and overwhelming diverse. In many ways it is a great lifestyle game but it has one key caveat that really sort of disqualifies it.

The main issue is that if you play it enough, patterns emerge and those patterns lead you down very specific highly effective playstyles that essentially disqualify all others, really answering the question “What is the best strategy” with a definitive answer.

A good lifestyle game is an unsolvable puzzle, or at least one that you must solve in a unique way each time you play and unfortunately, Through The Ages for all its depth and meaningful gameplay, has tricks and “must do’s” that really kill its lifestyle game potential.

It’s a fantastic game, I play it every chance I get, but the only way your going to beat me is if I explain the core “answers” to you, at which point the game becomes a tight and interesting “lets see what happens” sort of thing, but there is absolutely no way you can beat me at the game otherwise. I’m not going to bore anyone with the answer here, in fact, its kind of a spoiler as it will take you many plays to figure it out, but eventually, if you play it long enough you will unravel the mystery of Through The Ages. At which point it’s a bit like watching Harry Potter, knowing full well how it will end. Still fun, but there aren’t going to be any twist endings.

Best of List, Board Game Reviews

Top 10 Gaming Experiences Of 2023

2024 was a great year for gaming for me, but as I started this list originally set to be the best games fo 2023 I realized that a lot of the games that I played weren’t technically games released in 2023. Hence, this year, the list is more about my top 10 gaming experiences rather than the top 10 games of 2023.

I did however create a small section at the end of the article talking about some 2023 releases that I thought where worthy of note.

Ok enough foreplay, let’s get into it!

10. Eclipse: Second Dawn For The Galaxy

I picked up the 2nd edition of Eclipse on a whim, not so much because I felt the 1st edition was so great, quite to the contrary, but because there was so much positive word on this follow-up that I had to try it.

I’m glad I did, 2nd edition Eclipse is a great game, a vast improvement over 1st edition and it hits a sweet spot in the area of science-fiction-based galactic civilization games with an epic feel.

I think to understand what I mean about sweet spot you have to understand that I love my Twilight Imperium when it comes to this genre, it’s my go-to game for science-fiction civilization-building games. This comes with a BIG but, as it is a six to eight-hour game that is pretty difficult to get to the table with a structure that doesn’t exactly speak to my and many other gaming crews universally. In fact in my group we so very rarely play Twilight Imperium at this point, it’s collecting a lot of dust, to such a degree that were it not among my favorite board games of all time I might consider cutting it from my collection.

Twilight Imperium 4th edition without any question in my mind is a much better game than Eclipse, but it’s such a massive all-day event that it is difficult to get to the table. Case in point, it was not played in 2023 at all!

Eclipse 2nd edition on the other hand hits a lot of the same highlights as a game for me but it does it in under 4 hours, or less even if you have a group that knows the rules well.

More than that it’s a game that gets right to the meat of the action from turn 1, there isn’t a whole lot of posturing and political pre-gaming in the game like there is in Twilight Imperium, which means it’s a lot more of a game than an experience. TI4 is very much an event-focused gaming experience but Eclipse manages to be a board game you really can just pull out and play like any other. This puts it in a unique position in my collection.

I still don’t think it’s anywhere close to as good a game as Twilight Imperium is, to me TI4 remains the king of science-fiction-based galactic conquests and civilization-building games, but Eclipse is much easier to get to the table and it is a very fun gaming experience.

For fans of the genre, I think this discussion is well-known and common. Suffice it to say if you’re a fan of Civ-Builders, this is one of the best ones around as it finds that all-important middle ground that allows it to hit the table without a lot of fuss.

9. Viticulture

Strangely enough, this game was on my shelf in shrink wrap for the better part of 3 years before I got it to the table. This year I finally managed to pull it out, learn how to play and get it to the table.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this one. This is a very solid worker placement game with a lot of variation both in strategy (ways to win) and calculation of moves (planning ahead). The game rules were really clear so even when learning to play on the first pass, you are immediately deep-diving into the possibilities, there was no major learning curve. Almost as if all previous experiences with other worker placement games apply and you’re just playing kind of a different take on the same core principles common in all of these types of games.

That said, it wasn’t boring. There are a lot of really clever combinations, it was a very tight game rather than your typical super point structure where one guy has 200 VP’s at the end of the game and another 350. Everyone in our games was in the running with the winner edging out by 2-3 points typically. The game is available on boardgamearena.com which is a great bonus.

Very competitive and interesting game, didn’t overstay its welcome, in fact, it felt kind of short which adds to the pressure of scoring points as soon as possible as much as possible as you could as you can see way in advance that the game would end in a few turns.

Just a good solid, worker placement game well worth getting with plenty of replayability. Great stuff, highly recommended.

8. Sekigahara: The Unification Of Japan

This one was on my must-try list for a very long time, several years at least. I had heard so many good things about it and it checks all my boxes as I love anything based on Medieval Japan, I love war games, I love two-player games, I love card-driven games and I have for so long wanted to try a block game. I was very excited when the game was finally reprinted and became available and snagged it up.

Sekigahara is a part strategy but mostly a tactical game about positioning and outthinking your opponent with a lot of timing-based master planning built into it. It isn’t just about getting your armies in place, but it’s about making sure you have the right cards, at the right time for the right battle.

It’s one of those games where you need to have a plan for the hand of cards you are dealt and the right strategy for the unit position. It’s not enough to have one or the other, this game is all about timing things perfectly.

The game moves at a neck-breaking pace, which is awesome for a war game as you can sit down and play two or three matches back to back. I would say each game lasts at the most two hours and if you have two players that know the rules, you can finish a match in under an hour.

It has a static start, but the dynamics of the game create a lot of variability as so much of the game is focused on the cards in your hand. There is a kind of veteran learning element to the game, if you know the deck and you know the map you are going to have a big advantage over a novice but by the same token, the learning curve is quite short so it doesn’t take long for you to get to a point where you are dissecting the games core properties.

I would not recommend this game to all gamers universally, I think it’s important that you enjoy competitive war games and have a healthy love for card games, as this game does not apologize for being kind of a straight-to-it card-based war game. It’s that, if that is not your thing, this game does not offer or cater to other aspects of board gaming, if it is, this game is right up your alley.

Definitely one of my favorite new additions to my collection in 2023.

7. Vampire: Prince Of The City

This is a bit of a strange one, as it is a game released back in 2006 and it was a completely random unprompted purchase by a member of my gaming crew which made its debut at our yearly big board gaming weekend.

My gaming crew loves all things Vampire The Masquerade, originally a role-playing game made by a company back in the 90’s called White Wolf. The world of darkness is the setting in which Vampires live and these days there are quite a few new games that have come out for this universe including Vampire: The Masquerade Heritage which came out in 2020, Vampire: The Masquerade Chapters (2023) and Vampire: The Masquerade – Vendetta (2020) just to name a few. All great, modern games, but Vampire: Prince of the City is an older model.

Vampire Vendetta, another game in the world of darkness is a much faster and more mechanically driven take on a similar concept. To date, this remains one of my favorite Vampire The Masquerade-based games.

Vampire: Prince Of The City is a game about controlling a modern-day city from behind the scenes through the manipulation of politics and economics. Vampires don’t play by the rules of course, they indoctrinate their pawns using supernatural methods.

In the game you represent an elder vampire that uses influence to take control of areas on a map and the only other competitors are other elder vampires (other players). Players collect “assets” that help them to do this more efficiently of course, which can range from collecting people, equipment or unique strategy cards.

The game is quite long and has quite a bit of diplomacy between players in which they plot against each other, sometimes working together and sometimes betraying each other. The goal of the game is to come out on top, but the game is structured in a way where if two players decide to gang up on you, things are going to become difficult if not impossible. The driving force is of course that when two players work together, often one of them comes out of it better than the other, leading to the inevitable betrayal and restructuring of alliances.

These politics which remind me a lot of the classic game of Diplomacy, are really what pushes the game forward far more than actual mechanical actions players take which is a style of play that is really right in my gaming crews wheelhouse.

The point is that this is not a game you win on mechanics, it’s a game you win through political and diplomatic manipulation between the players, in a lot of ways, its a game of psychology.

This is a very long game and this is probably the only black mark against it and notably one of the key complaints from most reviewers. Its an event-style game but I would say if you are into games that cause heated debates and player-to-player diplomacy, this one brings that sort of playstyle to the table in spades.

Fantastic game in my humble opinion, with a great theme, but not for the faint of heart. This is a bit of a pig that is going to take some time to get done, but so well worth it in my opinion. Exactly the sort of vampire-focused experience that represents the world of darkness setting on which it’s based.

6. Spirit Island

I say this all the time, I’m not a huge fan of cooperative games typically, except when I am and then I love them. A great example is Lord of the Rings LCG, it’s one of my most played and beloved games that I have collected like a total fanatic.

Spirit Island is warming up to be another exception for me. I have only played a couple of times, but this game is just so well designed, so tight, so difficult, and handles the cooperative element so well.

My biggest problem with cooperative games is that when I play, I often feel like I don’t need the other players to win and/or I need the players to do very specific things under my instruction in order to win, so when they take unoptimized actions that cause us to lose (even when I know better) it annoys me. This covers most cooperative games and it’s why generally, I do not enjoy them.

Spirit Island is different because it is far too complex and has far too many moving parts, not to mention unknowns like other player’s cards to a point where micro-managing each other as players is impossible. You just have to rely on each player to handle their own business and leverage their own strategy and ask for help when they need it.

This means that each player has to create and execute their own approach to the game which is supported by the fact that each spirit in the game is asymmetrical. Everyone must be generally aware of high-level events and be ready to assist others who run into trouble why dealing with the problems on their side of the board.

This setup is quite fantastic in particular in the scope of the game’s very high level of difficulty and increably diverse dynamics. There is so much going on in this game, so many different strategies thanks in large part to the huge diversity of “spirits” players can select. Each spirit has its play style, its special powers and power cards.

It’s a really deep and very long game, a gamer’s game essentially, definitely not for the dabbler. There is a big learning curve both to learn how to play and how to play well. There is also a lot of levels of difficulty so you’re never going to find a way to “beat” the game, its replayability is effectively unlimited.

Fantastic game in my book, definitely deserving of all the awards and praise it has received over the last couple of years since its release. Highly recommended, but only for the truly fanatically hardcore and highly dedicated gamers, this is not something you pull out on family board game night.

5. Lord Of The Rings LCG

My all-time favorite solo and cooperative game.

Like almost every year since I started collecting, Lord of the Rings the LCG has been a central part of my weekly gaming routine. It’s a rare week that I don’t pick up a game or two of LotR LCG, it has been and continues to be one of my favorite games to pull out.

Now I normally play this cooperative game solo, but this year I managed to get a few multiplayer games going and like me, my gaming crew enjoys this one as well. Of course, the big fun of this game is getting super into it, building your own decks, creating your own solutions to the countless quests that have been released for this game as well as doing the big campaign. Not everyone gets into the game on that level and frankly, as a dabble it’s okay, but this is a game for fanatics who are ready to do serious deck building and that means collecting. Still, it’s a lot of fun to play on any level and pretty easy to do as this game has a pretty low learning curve.

I have talked about this game so many times on this site, I don’t see any reason to say more, just have a browse, there are plenty of articles about this one. I love it and true love lasts forever!

4. Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul

The card-driven influence control genre which at this point has become quite broad is one of my favorite in board gaming. This includes games like Washingtons War, Twilight Struggle and Imperial Struggle just to name a few.

I have introduced this particular one to several people this year, members of my gaming crew as well as my brother-in-law who is a bit of a board gaming dabbler.

Each time this one comes out, it gets solid reviews across the board from everyone which is more than I can say for all other influence control games that tend to be a bit more niche. Not to say that this is the best of the bunch, in my opinion, it’s not, that honor falls to Imperial Struggle. What I find to be the core reason this one tends to do better is that in Rome vs. Gaul thanks to its dichotomous sides, one being (Rome) far more difficult to play and succeed at and one (Gaul) being much simpler, it works great for introductions.

The end result is that the first-time experience is fun for both players (experienced and novice) and creates a great competitive game. This tends not to be true about most influence control games that have many specialized strategies. Typically when teaching someone something like Twilight Struggle, as an experienced player you are going to crush your opponent the first 5-10 games before they catch on.

That however I don’t think is the only thing that separates Rome Vs. Gaul. I think it has a cool historical theme, looks amazing on the table and has very clear winning conditions that are easy to grasp without a heavy chrome layer of exceptions. It’s just a very intuitive design, a great competitive take on the card-driven influence control genre.

Its main flaw is that once both players become experienced with the game you will find that winning as the Rome player becomes exceedingly difficult, there are just too many almost impossible-to-overcome Gaul strategies so the game tends to be a bit unbalanced when two players of equal skill are playing the game. I find the game needs some house rules to correct this.

That doesn’t change my opinion about it as I find most of the time when I pull it out I’m dealing with a new or less experienced player and this game is great for that purpose.

Highly recommend this one if you are a fan of CDG influence control games like Twilight Struggle and Washington’s War in particular.

3. Great Western Trail

I play a lot of Great Western Trail, mainly because it’s available on Boardgamearena.com. As of this writing, I have played 110 games with 35 victories. That is a lot of Great Western Trail and most of that I did last year which means I was averaging several games a week.

I think a big part of the reason I like Great Western Trail is that each time you play you must be adaptive. There is no winning formula, the circumstances of each game are different and what your opponents are doing matters a lot in this game which is not always, in fact, rarely the case in Euro games like this. This is a game where after 110 games, I can still get completely crushed because of circumstances and risky moves that did not pay off. It’s really what I love about the game, it remains a challenge to win no matter how much I play it.

The interaction between players in Great Western Trail is subtle but profound and I think it does a great job of being simultaneously easy to learn but deep strategically. I think its one of the most unique and intriguing Euro games that has come out this side of the decade.

It’s without a doubt my current favorite, chill back and play game and I find every time I go to boardgameareana.com for a fix, this is the one I reach for. I own the hardcopy as well and every time I pull it out with my friends or family it lands well.

Just a really good all-around board game for all occasions. It’s my go-to Euro game.

2. War Room

The truth is that my gaming group and I play War Room once per year on my birthday since I got it a few years back. It’s become something of a tradition at this point but this one never disappoints. I can remember the details of every game of War Room I have played and it’s always a great time.

This is not a particularly deep game, it is, for the most part, a bit more complex version of RISK or Axis and Allies and while I know some people take it quite seriously as a war game, for me, this is just a good time in a box. For my gaming group it’s more of a fun party game where we play war for the day, roll some dice and come up with new inside jokes that will play out for the rest of the year.

I do love War Room as a game though, I do think it’s a fun strategic puzzle and there are plenty of great/difficult decisions to make and you can in fact get pretty serious with it. Given how long and huge it is, this is not a game you just spring on a group, so I can understand why many group give it this serious treatment. This is an event where you have to arrange food, snacks, and drinks and make a whole thing out of it, because 12 hours is about the average play time. It’s essentially a kind of party war game to me.

I love it, it’s been my favorite board game of all time since I discovered it and I think that will remain to be true for a long time.

1. Empire Of The Sun

Empire of the Sun is a very complex game and is not recommended for the uninitiated.

There is no question that all my really serious and competitive gaming in 2023 was done with Empire Of The Sun. I have completely abandoned any hope of ever getting this one to the table with my local gaming group, it’s just too big of a commitment for them and it’s too niche so this year I went online to search for opponents.

I found plenty and ever since I have had several active games going online over vassal of Empire of the Sun and it has become an absolute obsession for me. This highly complex game with a massive learning curve only works when you have two players completely dedicated to not only learning how to play but enforcing those rules with impunity.

I found exactly such opponents and I have been overthinking this one for the entire year and it’s been an amazing experience.

While War Room is my favorite game of all time, Empire of the Sun is the best game design I have ever run across. Mark Herman is a genius in my book and I have said it before, but this is the Mona Lisa of his career.

In Empire of the Sun you execute World War II in the Pacific Theatre as either Japan or the Allies in extreme detail on an operational level. It boasts an intimidating 50 page rulebook with a ridiculous amount of chrome for what I can only describe to be one of the best simulations you will ever experience.

I do not recommend this to anyone except the most dedicated fan of war games. This is not something you dabble or “learn to play”, this is the equivalent of studying chess as a hobby. You will spend hundreds of hours studying every unit, every detail of the map, and every rule that governs the game and creates endless strategies for you to test. It’s exhilarating if you are into that sort of thing, it’s a complete nightmare of a board game if you are not.

I love it with a deep passion.

2023 releases worth a mention

I’m not the sort of gamer that chases the cult of the new anymore and I find that my gaming selections are more based on what I already love than chasing the dragon. That said there were a few interesting games that came out this year and I think they deserve some mentioning for better or worse.

Hegemony: Lead Your Class To Victory

This one is gaining a lot of momentum in the gaming community, slowly climbing the boardgamegeek ladder and for good reason. Without question one of the most interesting designs on an unusual subject. It’s an asymmetrical game where players work together to develop a functioning society represented by each player acting as a part of the government or social order. Based on politics and economics, this is a game about governing, a combination of cooperation and competition. It made my must-buy list in 2023.

Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game

I know, we need another deckbuilding game like we need a hole in our head, but ever since Star Wars Destiny tragically ended, finding a replacement for it has been something of a desire I suppose. There are a few games actually in the works, but this one made its debut in 2023 and it certainly looks to be the frontrunner.

Great art, simple mechanics with a straight to it approach in the competitive dueling space.

Deck building games of course require the game to have longevity, which is the most difficult element to asses at the start of a games run. Star Wars Destiny for example started out on fire in terms of popularity, but petered out quite quickly and didn’t survive its adolescence. A common problem in the collectable card game space, a fate that may very well be in this games future.

That said, I’m always hopeful and this one certainly has my attention.

Best of List, Board Game Reviews, Gaming Articles, On The Table

Board Gaming Super Weekend 2023!

For the 7th year running all my buddies and I got together for 4 days of nothing but cold beers, BBQ and most importantly endless hours of board gaming in a remote cabin absent of the hustle and bustle of life. This annual event is always special, but this year it dawned on me that this group has been tight for so long at this point we are like some sort of nerdified fraternity. I can barely think of any other people on earth I could tolerate let alone desire to spend 4 days locked in a cabin with except this motley crew. It was, in a word, a perfect weekend.

Did we play any games? Yes….yes we did. Here is this year’s list and how it went down in the order it went down!

Vampire: Prince Of The City (2006)

If you read this blog with any regularity you might already know that my gaming crew and I love our Vampire: The Masquerade. We have done it all, the RPG, the board games, card games, you name it, we have it. Imagine our surprise during a routine stop at a local game shop on the way to our big board gaming weekend we discover someone made a Vampire game none of us knew even existed!?

This little gem came out in 2006 during the Vampire: Requiem era when White Wolf tried to re-launch their vampire franchise. It was picked up without hesitation and was instantly selected as the kick-off game for our big gaming weekend to the surprise of no one.

There was a lot of discussion about this game on the car ride home, but it was almost universally agreed that, despite being the first game to hit the table, it was the best game of the weekend.

Now I say “game of the weekend” with some hesitation because this is definitely a product of its time and in a class of its own, which is to say that back in 2006 modern board game design in many ways was still in its infancy and were often pet project directed at extremely niche communities. I think if this game was designed today, it would likely have been streamlined, much shorter and perhaps a bit less harsh focusing on a wider potential audience. It didn’t take more than a single play of this game to clearly see some flaws that called for a couple of house rules to make some needed balance adaptations to bring this game into a more modern state.

Despite a couple of warts however, Vampire: Prince of the City captures the essence of the political struggle boiled into the core premise of the RPG on which this game is based with thematic precision. Perhaps the only thing that really mattered to us as Vampire fans and likely the only real design goal the game had. In a word, this is not a game made for the masses, it’s a game made for Vampire The Masquerade fans exclusively.

The game is about a slow but methodically planned hostile takeover of a city run by vampires in which players implement strategies, “acquire” allies, equip themselves with weapons and deal with the nightly troubles of vampire life as they spread their influence and take control.

Mechanically this is a pretty simple game of managing resources and edging very small but critical advantages over each other. Each player represents a would-be prince, a member of one of the five kindred clans, all with nearly impossible-to-overcome strengths and equally impossible to compensate for weaknesses. If you know White Wolfs World of Darkness at all, you know exactly how important this blatant imbalance is to the theme of a Vampire-based game.

Vampire: Prince of the City really nails this thematic horror show of trying to leverage your strengths and avoid exposing your weakness, but more than that, I think even under the examination of a critical game designer, there are some really great mechanics here that are nice and tight and just feel great.

Every action, every play of a card or interaction between players grows an ever-increasing sense of tension and hostility that climaxes with outright attacks that may very well, as it did in our game, leave a player or two feeling the cold and harsh reality of final death (player elimination). This is definitely not a game for the faint of heart, you will win only by completely fucking over your competition in what really amounts to a ruthless embargo on emotions, doing brutally whatever it takes to win.

In short, this is a game for adults and definitely not a replacement for Monopoly, this is the World of Darkness, you’re a monster and you win by acting like one.

I loved it, as did the rest of the crew, but we are sadistic bastards who get our rocks off on take-that mechanics and this game is chock-full of them. If that is not your thing, avoid this game like the plague, but if you’re a Vampire fan, this is going to be right up your alley and may very well be the Vampire game fans are looking for.

One notable drawback of the game and note that I say this after only a single play is that it was quite long. We played the “medium” length game and it stretched into the 6-hour mark. I’m sure some of it was due to the game being new, but we are experienced gamers and this was not a complex game so I think it was long because it’s a long game. This definitely falls more into the “event” level of games, casual gamers need not apply. For us, it sucked up pretty much the entirety of the first day of our 4-day event.

Empires: Age of Discovery

Bright, big and elaborate, Empires: Age of Discovery is a visual treat.

Empires: Age of Discovery has found its way to the big board gaming weekend table a few times over the years, mostly my doing, but I have never heard any complaints. It’s a personal favorite, not only for the theme which while controversial I find fascinating (Colonization) and the fact that I’m a big worker placement fan and this is without a doubt in my humble opinion the Mona Lisa of that mechanic.

To me, this game represents a rather over-indulgence in production value, but I would argue that it’s one of the finest examples of worker placement you will find with a rich theme that is simply enhanced by its visual presence on the table. It’s just a very streamlined and elegant game, that is easy to teach and learn and offers ample strategies all with great depth while being thematic and rich with flavor.

In Empires you effectively colonize the new world by sending a variety of specialized colonists each with special powers to spread all over the frontier. In the process you manage wealth, construction of special advancements and buildings, construction of a military and various other related activities all in a very abstracted way using worker placement mechanics. When you get right down to it, its a game of getting the most out of the limited resources you have, its about timing and position and it’s about anticipating the actions of the other players.

I find it just feels great to have an unnecessarily big map and elaborate components when you have gone out of your way to get together for a big gaming event like this, the fact that this is also a great game is just a cherry on top. It’s a perfect game for such an occasion and even though hauling that fat ass box was a pain in the ass, as it always does, this game fired on all cylinders.

To me, this is a classic in the board gaming world that takes the simplicity of one of the all-time great, game mechanics, worker placement and improves upon it while never making it any more complex. It’s really just great game design and though some might argue that a game about colonization is edgy, to those I say, shut the fuck up, it’s just a game.

Robo Rally

This game falls into what I like to call, “the silly category” of gaming, which I think should probably be its own genre. Like Galaxy Truck, Munchkin, Kitchen Rush or Sheriff of Nottingham, it’s not a game that either takes itself seriously or expects you to have a strategy while playing it. All you should expect from Robo Rally is that it’s stupid-silly fun and if that is what you get out of it, the game has met its design goal.

In Robo Rally you and your opponents each move a little robot through an obstacle course full of traps, walls and elevator belts, but the catch to the game is that you have to pre-program your robot with a limited set of options 5 turns in advance.

All manner of chaos ensues because the other players as well as the obstacle course are going do the unexpected and what seems like a simple exercise in planning quickly turns into a hysterical shit show.

Now I will argue that the game has a very unnecessary and not particularly well thought out “upgrade phase” where players pick and buy their upgrades which slows what would otherwise be a snappy game. My group by our second play eliminated this from the game by creating a quick drafting mechanic instead for the upgrades which just fixed the problem in one fell swoop.

Still, even with this upgrade phase, the game is a lot of fun, I would definitely consider it for the family as the rules are really simple and the game has a very kid-friendly “cute” aesthetic.

Smart Phone

Every time I play Smart Phone, I find my comments about the game are always the same. This is one of the finest examples of great game design I have ever seen, it is, a perfect game.

I adore this one and it has never let me down. It’s made the big gaming weekend several years in a row, I’m fairly certain since it found its way into our collective collections and I suspect it’s going to continue to make the cut for many years to come.

This is an economic simulation about players running mobile phone companies trying to produce and sell, phones all over the world. That, I will admit, does not sound like a particularly exciting theme and the hipster on the cover of the game box really does little to inspire interest but let me tell you that this is, without a doubt, one of the best Euro games you will ever play and I say that without reservation.

Its mechanics are perfectly tuned, it’s puzzly and thinky, honestly, it will melt your brain at times, yet it’s not at all complex or heavy, in fact, I would say this falls into the light category of games. It’s really just a merger of great mechanics, exceptional attention to detail and efficiency while being extremely competitive with fantastic replayability.

People that don’t play board games often ask me what I recommend for a beginner and while I would be hesitant to say Smart Phone because I do think there are better games for introductions, I actually do think that a non-gamer that plays this one risks becoming a full-blown gaming nerd. This is just one of those games that will suck you into this hobby because it’s such a great representation of why gamers game.

I would universally recommend this game to pretty much everyone.

Condottiere

This is a stone-cold classic trick-taking game that belongs in every gamers collection.. period. I’m not sure what else to say about it.

The simplicity of the trick-taking mechanic is enhanced by cards having special powers while the area control mechanics give each round a strategic edge. In a sense, it’s not necessary for you to try to win every round, often you are just trying to draw people into a competition so that they waste cards as you prepare for the more important fights later on. There is a lot of push-your-luck, a bit of card counting and predicting your opponent’s intentions and though the strategies can have a sort of subtle complexity the rules of the game are easy for even the most casual non-gamer. Its a game for everyone.

I have introduced countless people to this game over the years, I have given away 3 copies (I’m currently trying to track down a 4th copy for myself).

Great for road trips, camping trips, for families, as a pallet cleanser for serious board game nights.

Great stuff, you don’t own it, you should, I don’t care who you are.

Highlander The Board Game

A movie-turned tv series turned cult classic, The Highlander franchise is beloved by fans and a completely bewildering mystery to everyone else. No surprise really that someone would take this franchise and try to turn it into a game, targeting the countless gaming nerds out there and even less surprising is that they would fill the box with miniatures and high-quality components to make it as expensive as possible.

The question is, is it a good game and the answer, it pains me to say, god no. This game was made by someone who clearly understood the material and what would excite fans of the franchise, well researched making extensive use of screens shot from the movies mixed in with some original art but at the end of the day as a game there is very little to love even if you have affection as my gaming group does for the franchise itself.

I think the best description I can offer here is that the game is about as random as it can be, boiling down to a dice roll-off with some very rudimentary odds control.

The cards you could acquire were mostly inconsequential with a few exceptions that would result in huge balance issues, it was unnecessarily slow and long in places, and it had player elimination and at the end of the day winning or losing boiled down to winning a dice roll-off and drawing the right card at the right time (beheading).

There was a sequence for “The Gathering”, but you would have to play the game for many hours before you are ever likely to reach it, in fact, I would say that the odds of “The Gathering” ever actually happening are extremely low.

My gaming group of course had fun with it as the movies and tv shows are infinitely quotable and we are all hardcore nerds, but as a game Highlander was less than stellar, hard to recommend even to fans of the franchise.

Broom Service

Broom Service has been in my collection for several years and though I have played it casually with my daughter and occasionally with the extended family, my bringing it to the big weekend with my gaming buddies was a bit of a risk. I wasn’t really sure how strong it was in terms of what more experienced gamers would get out of it.

It’s a very simple game, part card game, part board game with a push-your-luck element and some rather simple strategic positioning. This wasn’t going to be a highly competitive strategy game and though the theme is silly (witches delivering positions in a magical kingdom), it’s not in the “silly genre”. Its a family game pure and simple and that isn’t always a good fit for my gaming group.

With that said, Broom Service is actually quite clever and very unique, I don’t think I have ever played anything quite like it and though it’s simple, it’s also quite short and snappy so it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

I didn’t get a particularly good bead on what my gaming group thought about it, the comments were quite generic “it was fun”.. etc.. but for me personally, I like family games and I think this one falls into the same category of games like Takenoko, Ticket To Ride or King of Tokyo. It’s simple enough to pull out with kids, family and non-gamers but clever enough to make it palatable to more experienced gamers.

I don’t know if I recommend it for seasoned gamers for a veteran table, but so far as family games go I think this is one of the good ones.

Lords of Xidit

Lords of Xidit made its first appearance at our big board gaming weekend a few years back and though everyone was in agreement that its a great game that was the last time we actually played it. Now in its defense, we are gamers and we all have way more games then our shelves can store, games have a way of falling through the cracks and eventually emerging with everyone making the statement “oh yeah, this is a great game, I remember!”

That was more or less my reaction to this one, I recall liking it a great deal the first time I played it and I felt the same about it this time, I believe the rest of the crew agreed.

In Lords of Xidit you move your character around a board taking one of two types of actions at different city locations. Either you are recruiting one of 5 types of units or you are fighting monsters with the units you collected previously. The objective is to build magic towers, build up your treasury (gold) and gain renown tokens. The player that does all three the best wins the game. Simple right!?

Well, the catch here is that you must pre-program your actions 5 actions in advance and each action is executed in turn order around the table. The results can be very unpredictable as players might get to a place before you, killing a monster you planned to fight or stealing units you meant to get or building a tower where you planned to build and so on.

The game is really about trying to predict what the other players will do and timing your pre-programmed actions in a fashion where you maximize your turn without losing anything.

The scoring in this game is particularly clever because rather than simply scoring points (the highest score wins), the game-end scoring is a process of elimination in the 3 different scoring methods. For example in the first scoring phase, you might score who has the most gold, but it only matters that you are not last as the last player will be eliminated from the game and doesn’t participate in the next phase of scoring. You do this for all the methods of scoring and the last player remaining is the winner. Hence the game is really about doing well enough not to be last in each category. This scoring method creates a very different approach to the usual victory point salad winning condition.

This is a really well-designed game and severely over produced as the components are wonderfully overcooked and colorful. The game just looks great on the table. It’s about a light to medium level of complexity, there is some rules and fiddliness but its fairly limited.

As a whole I really liked this game, it’s just the right length, the turns are very fast and there is a pretty smooth streamlined feel to it with a great feeling of competitiveness. Really fun, I don’t know how the rest of the guys rate this one but its definitely on the recommended list, in particular, if you like pre-programing action games.

Spirit Island

I know I said that Vampire: Prince of the City got the vote for best game of the weekend, but it would be dishonest if I said it was a blowout. Spirit Island was absolutely fantastic and a big highlight of the weekend, a very close second.

This is a deeply complex cooperative game that has enormous amounts of dynamics and intricate details that round after round challenge you to solve the puzzle of optimizing your actions. You have to anticipate the next turn as you work on solving the problems of the current turn….. and man, this game is sooo hard.

I will admit I think for the first half of the game I was completely lost, there is no question that this game has a fairly steep learning curve, not just to grasp the game, but to really get a handle on the strategies and mechanical manipulation involved.

In Spirit Island, you are gods of sorts, hell-bent on protecting an island from invading mortals who seek to build cities and pollute your paradise. Each player gets a unique “Spirit” with a variety of special powers, benefits, and drawbacks. You must work together to bring fear and retribution on the invaders, but they spread like a plague each round and the game is almost a-sort of impossible to solve puzzle of trying to curve the domino effect of their growth into a domino effect of destruction.

Each invading civilization, just like the spirits you represent has its unique powers, benefits, and drawbacks and a big part of the game is trying to figure out how to sort of outdo them in the back and forth of play and counter-play.

It’s you and your friends vs. the game itself and while in my personal experience, there have been very few purely cooperative games I enjoy like Lord of the Rings The LCG, by contrast, most fall flat with me (pretty much everything else). With a couple of exceptions, I just generally don’t like cooperative games.

I was however immediately sold on Spirit Island as it is this really great, robust, and fulfilling gaming experience that challenges the hell out of you, and because the game has so much dynamic setup between the different spirits, the design of the island and different civilizations it’s hard to fathom how many different possible combinations there are. The replayability here is quite endless.

This is solid game design, it’s no surprise this game has been sitting in the top 10 on boardgamegeek since its release. It really is that good, well deserving of all the accolades it has received including prestigious awards like Best Coop Game of the year and BBG’s best board game of the year.

Awesome game, that deserves to be played but be weary, this is a gamer’s game, don’t let the pretty art style fool you.

Game of Thrones: The Board Game

This is a game that is played in the minds of the players, the board and pieces are mostly distractions.

Ok it has to be said that while I absolutely adore this game, the last couple of times I have played it have been a disappointment.

A couple of years back we played the game for the first time with the Targaryan expansion and that turned out to be an unbalanced mess, resulting in a very anti-climatic ending, that made the winner (that was me) feel like I lost the game.

This year we played a 5 player vanilla game in hopes of recapturing some of this game’s past glory, which meant we had to fill the sixth seat with garrison units and the result was a quick and sweeping victory by the Baratheon player, which, much as It was the last time we played, very anti-climatic.

So here is the thing, some games just don’t play well and/or as is the case with Game of Thrones, are simply not balanced for anything short of a full table. In this case six players.

This is the lesson here. Game of Thrones The Board Game is an amazing 6 player game and pretty mediocre at any other player count.

That said, I still think this is a really fantastic game as long as you meet the six-player requirement for it. The game really feels like a strategic struggle where players are trying to make trick moves, build temporary alliances and do just enough to one-up each other into a victory. It’s a game of subtle movement and positioning, of setting up your prey for that perfect, unstoppable execution at the perfect and most dramatic moment, risking it all. You win or you die, this game really brings that spirit to the table.

When Game of Thrones fires on all pistons, when you have a full table of six experienced players that really know what they are doing, know what to look for, and know how to counter moves, it’s just pure magic.

When it doesn’t fire on all pistons, when you are short on players or you have a player or two that is really inexperienced, the game can and often does feel like either a king-making situation or just a series of blunders that allowed a player to win far easier than it should because someone wasn’t paying attention.

Suffice to say it makes Game of Thrones a rather irritating game, because you want that awesome gaming experience but you simply can’t get it every time you play. You are going to have to suffer through the bad games, to find the good ones, which actually makes this one tough to recommend.

I would say that if you have six players who are ready to dedicate themselves to learning this game well and play often, I really believe this could be one of the best games ever made. For the rest of us who play inconsistently and have to settle for lower player counts, I’m fairly certain, my recommendation would be to not play it. It’s just too heartbreaking to play this wonderful game, in particular, if you know what is possible and then being disappointed because the game didn’t deliver on the promise.

I struggle to find the words that sufficiently describe what Game of Thrones the board game means to me and my gaming group, it is in a sense, a part of our cultural gaming upbringing, we all see it in a light that I think the game struggles to live up to these days, but its not because the game is bad, its because it’s demanding. It demands a group of six players and it demands dedication and study of the game to get the most out of it. If you can’t meet these demands, it sort of doesn’t really live up to what it’s capable of. I don’t know if that makes sense, but, that is really the jist of where I’m at with this game.

I want to play it, but it’s only good under perfect conditions, outside of that, frankly, it’s pretty bad. You have no idea how much it pains me to say that.

Vampire Vendetta

If it wasn’t for Vampire: Prince Of The City, without reservation, I would tell you that for Vampire The Masquerade fans, this is THE game to play. It has some competition now, but for some fast-paced gothic horror, Vendetta is king.

This is a very straight-to-the-point kind of game. You are a vampire from one of six clans. Your powers are represented by action cards which you use to take control of one of 4 city locations. You spend blood to power yourself up and play games of chicken against your opponents. For winning you score influence (victory points) and gain allies for your cause. For losing you get nothing.

It’s a brutal struggle of trying to exaggerate your strengths and avoid exposing your weaknesses. Every Vampire is unique and not only defines how you play, but how you feint, how you manipulate and how you threaten.

I can’t say enough about Vendetta, for me it was love at first play and this one is very quickly becoming a household favorite thanks mostly to the fact that you get this really robust, fully fleshed-out gaming experience in about an hour. Even if you are not a Vampire fan, mechanically, from a perspective of design, this is an extremely efficient and streamlined game, it’s just good design period.

I love this one, it’s without question one of the most underrated games I have come across in years. On BBG it’s sitting in the 2,750 spots with only 857 ratings.. it’s outrageous! Are you seriously trying to tell me that Go Nuts For Donuts is better a better game than Vampire Vendetta.!!?.. Get Fucked!

To me, this is at least a nominee for Game of the Year in 2020 if not a winner. It’s a must-own!

Hansa Teutonica

Who would have thought that a Euro game made in 2009 could feel fun, refreshing, unique and engaging in 2023!? Honestly most Euro games I play from this era feel like an old used shoe, familiar but still kinda nasty.

Hansa Tuetonica debuted in our big board gaming weekend last year and I personally demanded it be played this year, I thought it was that good.

Mechanically the game is quite simple, as is the case with most Euro’s, its about putting cubes in the right places, at the right time and scoring victory points. Ok, so perhaps its a bit more than that, but this is a game about the strategy of positioning, but its simple, tight as hell, streamlined to perfection and despite the usual “its a game about trading” of Euro-game themes, this one actually kind of nails it.

I don’t know if Hansa Teutonica counts as a classic, but of all the games I have played from this era, and there have been many, this is one of a very tiny handful that I think is worth the cardboard it’s printed on. Its definitely old school, but its quite clever and very competitive.

Great game, if you love Euro games and especially if you love old school Euro games and you haven’t played this one yet, I feel quite confident when I say you have missed one of the best ones. It holds up and is a strong candidate for being one of my personal favorite Euro Games.

Good Stuff!

Conclusion

This was an awesome 4 day weekend and to the surprise of no one, these big board gaming weekends are always the highlight of the year so far as gaming goes.

There were quite a few games that were on my “wish list” that we simply didn’t get to. Eclipse: The Second Dawn For he Galaxy was clearly absent from the list here, I did bring it but we just didn’t have the table space for it this year as we gathered at a different remote cabin than we do most years. It was a bit smaller so it got skipped, which was a real bummer.

I was also hoping to get Great Western Trail to the table at this year’s event but unlike most years when we would have different player counts for different days as not everyone typically goes for the entire 4 day weekend, this year we had 5 players for all 4 days. So it didn’t make it, it was a real shame, been itching to get this one played.

We also didn’t play any small games that we normally do and I felt their absence. No Coup or Love Letter this year, no BANG the dice game, no Resistance or One Night Ultimate Werewolf. It’s great that we played so many big robust games, but I love me some mini-games.

I also didn’t get an opportunity to play any 2 player games. Last year on the first night of the weekend it was me and my buddy alone for most of the first day and we managed to squeeze in Imperial Struggle and Star Trek Fleet Captains. Imperial Struggle is my absolute favorite two-player game and it’s been far too long since it’s hit the table.

That’s it for this year folks, another Big Board Gaming Weekend behind us, see you next year!

Gaming Articles, On The Table, Uncategorized

On The Table: January – February 2023

It’s been a while since I have done an On The Table article, but it’s not because I’m not playing games, it’s BECAUSE I’m busy playing games.

I cover two months this time, and there is plenty to discuss.

Great Western Trail

While dubbed a heavy Euro game, while there is a lot going on and the strategy goes deep, it’s surprisingly easy to get into.

My experience with Great Western Trail has been a rather turbulent one. When I first reviewed the game back in 2017 I’m not sure I painted an entirely flattering picture of the game scoring it at 3.1 in my review, giving it weak scores in the area of Theme and average scores in Gameplay. Looking back at that review, I can say here and now that I think this game deserved a little bit better.

For starters, I think it captures the theme of being a rancher driving cattle quite well though the theme here is really not a critical component of enjoyment of the game. I also criticized the game for lacking interaction and while the game doesn’t have “take that” mechanics, the obstructions of buildings, the race along the rail lines, and the forced actions to player actions is a constant in the game. In the end it is a lot more interactive once you play the game at a higher skill level where those sorts of elements (obstruction in particular) become quite critical to winning the game.

I initially got back into this game because of my daughter, but ultimately I spent a great deal of time playing Great Western Trail on BoardGameArena.com, a site where you can play both the 1st and 2nd editions of the game including the expansions.

Now personally I own the 1st edition and have played enough of 2nd edition to say plainly I think they got it right the first time. The 1st edition of the game is a bit harsher and it was clear that in 2nd edition they softened things up a bit. There are only slight changes but most of the changes make the game in a sense, a bit easier on the players.

The cities where you place your round tokens which represent locations you have delivered to are less penalizing, while the bandit track (formally known as the Indian track in 1st edition) doesn’t have any penalties either when claiming the tokens. The new and adjusted buildings in 2nd edition are also a lot more generous.

Regardless, 1st or 2nd edition, Great Western Trail is a really amazing strategic game that takes planning, resource management and clever maneuvering to come out on top. It’s a challenging game that really delivers a great victory point salad without overburdening you with tons of options with one always being an obvious and really only good one. Every choice you make in Great Western Trail means you have to give something else up, so it’s always a decision between many great choices and your decision ultimately rests on your long-term strategy, while very often being driven by your desire to outpace or obstruct your opponent’s efforts.

I play Great Western Trail games several times a week and have become quite competitive at it and despite repeated plays I’m still discovering new strategies and finding clever ways to improve old ones.

Fantastic game, and comes highly recommended by me.

Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul

Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul has proven to not only be a great strategy game in the CDG influence control genre but has deepened my love for historical war games in general.

I had two separate opportunities to play Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul and my opinion of the game has only improved with additional plays since I originally reviewed the game back last February. The game even made my Top 20 list for 2022, sitting very comfortably in the number 5 spot.

What does that mean? Well simply put, I love this game and for so many reasons.

For starters, it’s infinitely replayable which I honestly didn’t think would be the case given the very static starting setup and the very firm goals of Caesar in particular who has a very clear set of tasks to accomplish each game. This is a card game however and from this are born all of the dynamics and nuances of play that really re-write the circumstances with each game and though the first round might be a bit “standard” as players are likely to have their favorite opening moves, like chess, that does not result in a repetitive game at all.

Caesar is really a game of chicken and pushes your luck in a lot of the strategy that ultimately plays out. Caesar and his powerful army can easily crush any Gaul opposition well into the late game and while mobile, the map is just big enough that obvious gaps in defenses are exposed when he leaves the safety of Provincia.

As such a big part of the strategy for the Roman player is to know exactly when and for how long Caesar’s army can leave his supply lines exposed.

For the Gaul player its an entirely different game. There is less precision and a lot more gambling, as well as the constant need to put influence pressure on the Rome player to keep him concerned about what is happening on the board. Left unchecked, the Gauls explode in the late game and can even become strong enough to oppose Caesar himself in the final rounds.

The game has great tension, and relatively simple rules, it looks amazing on the table despite the use of chits (notably this is a game that deserves some pimping) and above all else it has that “let’s setup again” feeling to it.

Absolutely adore this game though it is not my favorite CDG Influence Control game, that honor falls to Imperial Struggle, but this game doesn’t play second fiddle, it really is its own thing and happily shares a shelf with Imperial Struggle in my humble opinion.

A must-have for CDG Influence Control fans and especially those that have a love for Roman History!

Game of Thrones: Hand of the King

A quick and thinky filler with a fun theme.

This silly little abstract game has virtually nothing to do with Game of Thrones beyond familiar art and names and has been a hit with my family, in particular, my daughter over the course of the last year. It hits our table regularly and is always a must-bring on any outing that might offer an opportunity to steal a few minutes to play a game.

It’s a simple game of collecting cards of the major Game of Thrones houses represented by characters from the Song of Ice and Fire story. Nothing too fancy, it only takes 10-15 minutes to play but it is a bit think, definitely a little puzzle to solve here but there are some take that cards in the game which create some rivalries at the table and it even has some occasional teamwork triggered when one player is getting ahead. Very tight game, rarely does anyone win until the final moments which gives the game a sense of urgency.

All and all for such a simple and fast game it is a lot of fun. Usually, we end up playing 2-3 rounds every time it comes out. If you’re looking for a great group filler that works one on one, this is a great one.

My City

The only legacy game I ever finished and would happily have a second go at.

I’m not big on legacy games, in fact, to date with this one exception they have all been disappointments and not because I didn’t like the game, but because I never get the chance to play out the entire legacy. Legacy games seem to wear out their welcome before they are done and are regulated to the classic “One of these days we need to finish X game” conversations; eternal. I’m looking at you Vampire: The Masquerade – Heritage!

My City is different because not only is a great game, but it’s pretty fast, the legacy adaptation is pretty simple to understand so you don’t have to re-learn the game after each play and you can usually sit down and play 3-4 games in under an hour so you kind of zip through it. In fact, you kind of wish it was a bit shorter, although when the legacy game is done you are left with the core game which in on itself is actually quite fun. Since my daughter and I play it just the two of us and it’s a four-player legacy game, we actually run through it twice with the same set though the game is so cheap that it’s no problem to buy a second copy if you want to do a second run through.

Really enjoyed this one, so far as legacy games go this is the only one that I have actually finished and without feeling like I have to “suffer” to get to the end.

Age of Civilization

A Civilization building filler? Yes please!

Age of Civilization is what I like to call a micro version of Through The Ages even though the two have little more in common than a theme.

This is a simple and fast-moving card game where players are moving through time and taking one of three actions per round available for any given period. There is war, there are civilizations with special powers, and it’s a point grab to a rapidly approaching ending. A Civilization building game in under 15 minutes! I don’t know if anyone asked for that, but they made it and frankly, it’s just short enough not to wear out it’s welcome and it does tickle that Sid Meier Civilization G-spot.

It actually reminded me a little bit of Nations: The Dice Game which I actually think is one of the best Civilization building game fillers on the market today, but this one is actually even faster!

This little gem is a blast from the past, I actually used to play this one daily online for months and its big brother Nations is an awesome game in its own right.

I like it enough to play it for free on BoardGameArena.com and if it was available I would buy it but this Kick-Starter went fast and seems to have disappeared from the marketplace.

A Feast for Odin

The jury is still out on this one, my initial experience I would describe as “confusing”.

I played a “learning” game of A Feast For Odin and oh boy is this a mind-fuck of a beast. I mean I don’t want to say anything negative about it, learning experiences are not a good basis for reviews and frankly 90% of the time playing this game for the first time I had no idea what was going on.

Part puzzler, part worker placement game, part resource management…. and a whole bunch of other stuff. There is a lot going on in this game, just the amount of worker placement options is mind-boggling and man is it unforgiving. You place one thing in the wrong place and you can potentially screw yourself for the entire game.

All I’m going to say at this point is that it certainly piqued my curiosity, I will definitely be getting this one to the table again but I have to say it might be a bit much for a Euro game. I mean I get it, it’s for Mega-Euro fans that want some meat on the bones, the Terra Mystica crowd as I like to call them, but for me, the fun bit of a Euro game is that they are short and thinky. The longer heavier stuff tends not to be my thing in the Euro-Game scene even though big epic board games are definitely my thing. I need theme and player interaction however for long games to stick the landing. This one felt a bit like we were all playing a solo game, the bulk of the interaction was in stealing each other’s worker placement spots.

We’ll see how it goes, but at least unlike Terra Mystica which left a pretty poor impression on me, I recall my conclusion to Terra Mystica review was …and I quote “The entire game just felt like I was waiting for a dentist appointment, I was neither enjoying my wait nor looking forward to my turn, I just wanted the whole mess to be behind me.”

Over-hyped and overrated snooze-fest not worthy of your shelf space or table time. There are far better-cube-pushing Euros out there. Perhaps Feast For Odin will be one of them.

This one fared quite a bit better, but it’s on my “try again and see” list.

Ark Nova

I did not care for this game one bit, long, ugly with stock photography as its primary art asset and a complete absence of any meaningful interaction between players.

I’m going to take a lot of shit for this one given its high status on BoardGameGeek, sitting pretty in the number 4 spot but…. god I hated it.

This was just a pointless game of collecting and trying to house animals which as a theme in on itself was not terrible but you had to look at this really crap stock photography the entire time and the game was just way too long. It says 90 to 150 minutes, you can safely double that. This is a 3-4 hour game that really just doesn’t have the nuts to warrant table time with virtually zero interaction between players.

I don’t usually rush to judgment after one play, but having played this game once I not only never want to play it again, I actively avoid being put in a situation that might result in me having to out of social graces. It’s games like these that cause me to ask “what games are we playing” before accepting an invitation to board game night.

Conclusion

Of course, these weren’t the only games I played in the last couple of months, but they were the ones that stuck out.

Good luck out there folks!

Best of List, Board Game Reviews, Gaming Articles

Top 5 boardGames for Christmas Presents in 2021

While the year is certainly not over, given that everyone is frantically shopping for Christmas presents I thought it prudent to create a list to help potential shoppers out. Here you will find the best games I have played in 2021 and though, I make the disclaimer that some of these games have been released a bit prior to 2021 so it’s not exactly the best of 2021 but more like the best I played in 2021 with Christmas gifts in mind.

In either case, if you are shopping for a boardgame fan, these 5 games come highly recommended!

5. Great Western Trail (2nd edition)

New art, same game, Great Western Trail remains on my “play often” list and for good reason, it’s one of the best Euro games in the market today.

While the 1st edition of this game was released back in 2016 and strictly speaking very little has changed between the 1st and 2nd edition, I still felt it prudent to put this one on this list not only because it remains one of my favorite games to play with my daughter (14) but because it’s such an amazingly unique and fun game.

This new version is largely a cosmetic upgrade, is even prettier than the original if you can imagine that and comes with a few organizational bits that make setup and takedown a little quicker.

Overall Great Western Trail is kind of a uniquely designed game which makes it hard to compare with other games, but it has a very simple to grasp turn progression (you move a little meep each round on a track) so its a very easy game to grasp conceptually while the action spaces, the bread, and butter of the game create a highly cerebral strategic board game that can be played repeatedly with new experiences emerging every time.

Fantastic game that plays up to 4 players, but works great with 2 or 3. It’s just long enough to make an exciting board game evening with the family while short enough to not overstay its welcome. I have had a lot of fun with this one, makes a great Christmas present in the next level family game category, though it should be noted that there are a lot of rules in the game so I would not categorize it as a beginner game, this is more for that board gaming family who is already accustomed to playing modern euro games. Not for the Monopoly-RISK crowd, it’s a notch or two above that.

4. Vampire The Masquerade: Vendetta

In my humble opinion, the single best board game based on the world of darkness franchise and that is saying a lot as their are quite a few contenders.

My gaming group and I discovered this little gem during our yearly board gaming retreat and it stuck the landing like a pro with us. This rather simple card game falls into the “look them in the eyes” category of gaming as it’s really more of a game of bluffing, counter-bluffing and bluffing the bluff… point is there is a lot of bluffing.

Simple rules and premise, this is a game about using little to gain a lot by using human psychology of people against them. Each round players compete in a fictional world in which vampires rule cities as secret societies based on the classic tabletop RPG Vampire The Masquerade.

Naturally being a fan of the tabletop RPG is a huge boon here but even if you have never heard of the World of Darkness this is actually just a fantastic game in its own right and stands on its own. I would argue it actually makes for a great family game because it really is simple to teach and learn, while being very replayable and competitive, while remaining pretty short game, averaging around 30-45 minutes tops.

Great Christmas present if you want to surprise a boardgamer with something really unique this year.

3. Talisman

This stone-cold classic belongs on the shelf of every family board game collection along side Monopoly, RISK and Checkers!

The classic adventure game was released all the way back 1983, yet remains in print today and is every bit as fun as it always has been. I always say that if you have kids between the ages of 8-15 and don’t already own a copy of Talisman, this is a very easy decision. Far more interesting than the Monopolies of the world for a family game night, yet, so simple that rules explanation fits on a napkin.

These ultra-simple rules make this an adventure game that never seems to wear out its welcome with the board gaming world. In its 4th iteration, this latest edition still available today uses most of the original art retaining its retro feel for long-time fans, while still gorgeous laid out on the table for today’s standards.

Inspiring fantasy stories, the recognizable cast of characters with any generation and a sense of ownership and self-built into the game that draws players in as they struggle against the game itself while in competition with each other.

The great thing is that if you find it lands well and becomes a family favorite, it’s infinitely expandable which means every year for Christmas you can by any one of a dozen expansions that can create new experiences.

If you are looking for a great family boardgame this Christmas, Talisman has you covered.

2. Imperial Struggle

Without question my single favorite 2 player historical game knocking out its predecessor Twilight Struggle from the spot.

Ok this one is not for the family, this is a gift you buy for a purist board gamer with a love for history, in particular, if you enjoy games like Twilight Struggle or other 2 player competitive strategy games with a lot of depth.

Imperial Struggle for me personally is the unquestionable king of 2021, it absolutely blew me away and skyrocketed into my top 10 best games of all time like gangbusters!

There is so much to love in this complex strategy game for 2 players based on the historical conflict between Britain and France in the 18th-century colonial period. Yes, it’s heavy, complex, deep and can be quite lengthy (in the 3-4 hour range) but boy do I adore this game.

Of all the games I play this is the one I look forward to the most, it’s a true well of strategy, creating endless opportunities to fine-tune your game while at the same time the game is incredibly dynamic so there are no routines here like their often were in Twilight Struggle its predecessor.

If you have a gamer buddy who loves historical games, this is an auto-buy. It is a modern interpretation of chess if you ask me, the perfect 2 player strategy game.

1. Dune Imperium

No if, and or buts about it, this is the single best board game that came out in 2021!

Before I wrote a single word for this article I knew that Dune Imperium would be my no. 1 on this list and unless you have been living under a board gaming rock you already know that Dune Imperium IS the game of the year in 2021.

Dune is effectively a fine-tuning of 2 core game mechanics that have swept the board gaming space for the last decade, worker placement and dynamic deck building. It marries the two mechanics in a perfect union, layering it with an amazing science-fiction theme just in time to support the newly released feature film.

This infinitely replayable game is tightly woven which means that every game is going to come down to the wire, it requires deep planning, dynamic thinking and calculated risk-taking. Like all good Euro games there is very little luck involved and each time you play this game you will discover new strategies and opportunities that you will want to explore the next time you play.

The game is gorgeous on the table, very easy to teach and learn while offering wildly different experiences depending on how many players are sitting at the table. Weirdly while the experiences are different depending on player count, I can’t say that one is better than the other. Each brings something different to the table, requiring adjustment to strategies and approaches.

Super fun to play, love this one!

Honorable Metions

There were a few games I played this year that easily could have made this list if I expanded it to a top 10 or 15, so as an added bonus here I will throw out a few more gift ideas.

Vampire The Masquerade: Heritage: This was a really great legacy game based on the Vampire The Masquerade tabletop RPG. It requires a dedicated group to play it over time, but mechanically it’s full of surprises and true to its source material tells a great story of the world of darkness. Fantastic game, but definitely requires a regular group to really get the most out of it.

I’m not huge on legacy games but if any game will sell you on the concept it will be this one.

The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine: This cooperative trick-taking game falls into the puzzle category in a weird way. Essentially players are given missions that ask them to clear the board in a certain order and with specific instructions and the trick to the game is that players must communicate non-verbally through their actions while attempting to coordinate. Tricky but super fun game, great for the family.

It comes with 50 missions, each harder than the next and while the game starts out relatively simple, it becomes a real challenge in later stages making it a great game to learn together as a team.

Tapestry: While the rules of this civilization builder are simple, the strategy goes so deep it makes your brain explode all over the table. The paralysis analysis in this game is almost painful, but the game is just so good. I mean I find it difficult to recommend as a family game as it’s just a tad too much and it is a pretty long game, so it definitely falls to the hardened veteran crowd, but I haven’t played a game this good in years and it seems to have largely fallen under the radar. This game belongs in the top 10 board games on the geek, at 242 as of this writing it is criminally underrated.

It’s a civilization-building game but not in the Sid Meiers tradition, but more like a Euro version of the concept.