The Broken Meeple Top 100 2018 - (10-1)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey everyone it's the top ten of the top 100 finally sorry about this whole face thing but apparently I was so happy and giddy to do this list then unfortunately my face scared some small children and it got flagged by YouTube's censorship so sadly you'll just have to put up with this face for at least the intro to this video while I calm down a little bit and get over the excitement you know honestly YouTube bots will just go after anything these days so yes this is at the top 10 of my top 100 100 games I've gone through we're now up to the final 10 there have been some movers shakers some have left a few of entered in fact we've actually got to debut still to go on this list will my number one still me my number one has it shifted finally you'll find out now let's get on with it the top ten broken meeple games good you can see me again try not to creep out the children okay so this is my number 10 and we're gonna start off with a big shocker first this is the game I mentioned before that has climbed this is like the second highest climber in the list that wasn't one has returned to list 25 places from 35 this one has climbed I think it's been in the list every year since its come out but what game would I have liked so much and then suddenly still jump it 25 places what happened well this euro game was one that I feel needs to sequel to it has some of the best artwork I have ever seen in a game and for a while I've played it and I've really enjoyed it even when the first expansion for it came out but then when the second expansion for it came out it fixed the one issue I had with the base game and now the game is pretty much perfection in a box providing you take one or two little modular aspects out I can't think of a game often John my head that is more beautiful than this right now especially one too thin especially when you want to think of yourself as under the sea yes abyss 35 now 10 and it's down to that Leviathan expansion I love this game and it has gotten better for me ever since I started playing it you know it would have climbed up to the 20 so suspect normally but the violin just owned it basically what Leviathan did is that there in the base set there was this fret track you had eight over a monster fish or whatever that came out of the depths every now and again and pretty much all you did was say okay I'm gonna kill it you level up this track or you take the reward that was it but the thing is there was no incentive to let it level up because the chances of you getting able to get that big reward was pretty slim and it was so swinging if someone else got it it was such it was a very pointless addition to the game unfortunately you couldn't really get rid of it but it was small enough that it didn't hamper my overall enjoyment of the game now Leviathan takes that track out of the game and replaces it with a new board that has Leviathan monsters popping up at me now and again but you can go and fight these monsters properly when you explore the debts you use your allies like you do with recruiting lords semi better than others you need certain ones for certain of Athens and when you wound them or kill them you get to take these tokens which can either be victory points or bonuses such as pearls and keys etc and then on top of that if you have killed leviathans if you have the most you have this really cool statue of you know like a it looks like this his name Orion or whatever from Little Mermaid you know the Lord with the Trident kind of looks like him but he's you know he's there standing on top of a corpse now and on a rock and you get you with bonus five points at the end that just completely fixes the worst part about the original game that fret track it's now gone you don't use it you use the Lavar from board instead and the rules for it are so simple that you just teach it with the base game I teach everything in this now the crack and expansion the Leviathan expansion everything gets taught out of the box because frankly the rules are not that complicated and the game is so much more enjoyable I only leave out two things one fifth player don't care stupid don't want to play this vide players too long but no broken record and the other thing is the loot deck it claiming the Kraken expansion it was a pusher luck mechanic where you could go into this cave and push your luck to try and get rewards it was to Sweeney to lucky and very pointless Edition barely even came up with it sometimes it will never come off in a game that's how kind of pointless it was so I just leave out it's an easy is only a module it's not essential so it's gone everything else about this I love the artwork I love the mechanics I love the variety now with the expansion included I've now got the corrupted currency like with the Lords of Waterdeep thing you know you've now got black pearls every time I teach this it goes over well I just and did I better that beautiful is I know he doesn't look beautiful but you know the artwork in this game I know you can't see it but it's so beautiful and I really want a sequel to this I so want a sequel to this it's just it's just dying for something else you know be come on we had group even come on could we not have like founders of a bits or something I don't know yeah this is the this is a game it you want a sequel in you know and I don't want no free our heavy euro about putting chips on the board no no I want something that has its acting as this one love it multiple pass the victory mobile ways to get points just simple to learn simple to teach but just feels really engaging there is something about this game that just seems to me and you know what seems to me yeah literally under the sea but oh love it it is just creeped into my top tens they're gonna stay there we don't know but it's definitely like a top 25 game from now on at this point because the Oh even without any more expansions I'll take more expansions you know give me more cards I'm happy but even if it was just how it is now love it it's shot up from a nine to attend for me love this game underrated abyss number nine is the first debut to the list yesterday beyou at number nine is super impressive but not as impressive as the one that's yet to come but this one I bought solely on recommendation from Sam Healey not a personal one from him to me just the fact that he put it on several of his list you know he's a fan of Emperor s4 games and I just thought I've barely even heard of this card game but you keep talking about it it sounds cool it's cheap I managed to find it at a I think I bought it when it came back into print but it comes back into print and and just goes it's that fast it's small compact but my god even though you only do four actions every round but we does it hurt your brain you're trying to think of which action you want to do it's all the choices you do a tense engaging and painful because you don't want to do any of the actions at any particular time but you have to and you have to think of the best way to go about it such a simple beautiful little card game Hannam ecology yes I think that's a pronunciation this little card game soups up to my number 9 I I don't even have to play this game to enjoy I just watch people go through that painful decision making but yeah if I get a chance to play this I am jumping straight in and for a two-player game to get this high and it won't be the last 2 player game you'll see on this list but you know just it's so good I love this one I mean if you can get a copy wait for it to come back in the print go 2s and go to a convention try and find a copy of this night urge you to get it even if you're not a fan of it you will be able to sell it on trade it on it's cheap enough and there's a lot of fans out there for this but with this one you are trying to get geisha and yeah I know the themes a little bit Jose but you're trying to win favor over different geisha but you have cards each geisha has a certain number of cards attributed to them and the idea is is that you have four actions each person has the same four actions and you would do all four and around but we or do you do it is up to you and they're things like you know save a card for scoring later scrap to out the round put free on the table you pick one I get the other two two pairs on the table you pick a pair I get a pair is there's a lot of that I pick you choose mechanic which is such a good yet painful way to make decisions in any game because you've got to give your opponent at least three cards during the round you don't want to give them anything so you got a trying given stuff that they don't need or don't you know won't be much used to them but when do you do it early late yeah when do you save a card for scoring do you do it now when you've got seven cards in your hand and you've got a good amount of options or would you wait till the last minute when you're literally top decking the one you're gonna save and hope for the best you never feel like you've done it in the right order but there's no right or wrong way to do it it's based on what favor you've got the day she ran out and see what the opponent is doing and on top of this this game never usually lasts more than what three rounds so one two or three round tops I've never had to go beyond three and with this when you finish around the favours stay on the respective sides so originally it's like alright whoever wins whoever has the most cards on their side gets the Geisha once you get into the second and third round though it's not so straightforward because now a tie doesn't move the favor token so suddenly with your opponent if he's got if my opponent has favor over this particular geisha it's now harder for me to win it back so I've got to put in more effort same goes for the ones that I have favor with are the ones that are still undecided you know worth going for there's two ways to win it's tense I every time I teach this I have a blast the artwork is drop-dead gorgeous there is just something about how pretty a game looks that does appeal to me and let's face it yeah I want the game to be visually appealing if it's one I'm going to bring out all the time but even without the artwork the mechanics of this how simple it is how hard it is to really master this and even then you know there's a little element that push you're like a little gambling so it's not like you know the better player will win all the time you know there is a way for others to catch up but so simple but cheap portable to players not many components but it just works so well this is the best Rest recommendation I've ever had from watching the dice tower on any video I think I think all the other ones coming up I already knew I liked so that wasn't a problem this one though Sam Healy yeah he's right this is a fantastic game Hana Mukherjee number nine number eight is another fairly big riser is Brice seven places so it was fifteen now it's rised or sorry it's risen I think my grandma right all the way up until number eight and with this one I'm not entirely certain why it raised you know a lot compared to last year but every time I play this game I do get a big kick out of it it's I like the multiple ways you can win I like the elegance of it and the one expansion it has had certainly did improve the options for me it it took out the timing aspect where it was I I do something you do something I do something you do something with the expansion you can now throw that timing off kilt and that makes a huge decision when picking your cards we've always said the seven wonders sucks as a two-player game not if you get this version seven Wonders dual you get this version and you have the two-player experience that seven wonders should be with this one you've got that familiar iconography some rules have changed but for the most part you are drafting cards from this site weird onset pyramid and you're trying to get the most victory points via you know get in the blue cards the purple cards the green cards etc but there's some subtle differences the way money works is a lot more tighter in this game because you can make things really expensive for your opponents and Nick money off them at times but the other thing I like is the science and military auto victories yeah you can carry on to the end and screw up points and 75% of time that's probably how it work but you cannot ignore the threat of the military and science victories if you get I think six different symbols for science these tokens you collect you get duplicates you get bonuses but if you get six different ones you auto win on science and if your military goes up this track further all the way to the earth opponents side you win by military victory I have occasionally won by both of those you know I win mostly by points but I have done it with the auto victories and the main thing is is because players should be aware of them chances are you'll go to points but you can't ignore them the second you go you know what I don't really care about the red so just ignore them for the whole game your opponent's pick them all up and before you know it he's already halfway across your military board and you're gonna struggle to the win yeah the game because it would just also a military victory you so you have to fight back and it's that there's a lot of tense back and forth with those two victories and even just the cards themselves because you'll pick a card and you don't want to reveal the facedown ones to your opponent so you want to pick you want to pick a card it's useful there you can afford but you also don't want to flip over a bunch of cards and give your opponent great options and then the expansion ders came out Pantheon and I know it's a divisive one not everyone's a fan of it but I personally really liked it it gave you these God cards that at various stages during the first and second rounds you ended up with these god cards and they got set up in this Pantheon board and your idea is that you can pay money on your turn instead of doing a normal pick up a card action and trigger the power and the power is range depending on the type of god it is you get a different variety of gods every game so that's always cool yeah the tokens you pick up can give you a discount on certain gods and the decision to where to put the gun on the pantheon is important because you can make it really cheap for yourself but really expensive for the opponent make it a balance or perhaps I pick up a guardian it's like you know what I'm not gonna use this I'll make it really cheap for you because I don't care about it so you know if you don't want it tough but I certainly don't so I'll make it expensive so there hopefully a good god will become cheaper but well I said about changing the timing normally I pick a card you pick a card I pick a card you pick a card you can almost gain the system a little bit with that but with the gods you throw a spanner and it works because if you use a god power you don't take a card it's like I really don't want to take that card it's okay but I'm gonna flip over two more cards for the opponent I really don't want it hang on I got a bit of spare money I'll trigger that god para get some cool bonus and then because my opponent can't afford to do that they have to take the card and now I get the options just that extra little element of trigger you know messing around with timing really elevated this game enough to bring up on to my top 10 but it was already 15 I already love it for this game it's yeah it's not the easiest thing to teach this if they've never played seven wonders before but it's not impossible yeah you are just talking you know the iconography is the main hurdle apart from that the rules are actually fairly straightforward but if you've got two people who know this game well or played seven wonders before who you get a nice tense battle here and I have had some very close games where my brain hurts and you just really get into it it can be as slower as long as you want doesn't matter it's engaging all the way through this is how seven wonders for two players should have been my number eight and my number seven is the last of the debuts this is the highest debut in the entire top 100 what game could it possibly be it's a euro game it's not quite heavy its medium weight it has a very weird retro colour skin to it which is divisive to many it has a theme that pretty much just sings to anybody who has seen the original films what could it be what could it be dress in part the game yeah it's it is dinosaur Island dinosaur island lovin this I'm not to be fair I don't normally go mad Ferb you know Gilmore games or even Panda Sarris to an extent but something about this game just sang firstly the theme it's building a jurassic theme park what more do you need for a fun theme in a game if you like the movie then great you've got it in the game now the color scheme is divisive for some but I quite like it it makes me feel like it's like retro neon 80s style look you know kind of you saw all that neon stuff in for Ragnarok you know they can go full-on pink and purples everywhere but they used a lot of retro 80s style you know montage effects with the trailer and the movie this is basically like doing the same thing except now you're using the pink and purple neon effects and putting it into a board game it's divisive for some but personally I quite like it it just gives it a nice unique look and it's still very colorful but other than just the theme the mechanics of this are just so streamlined it's perfect you in you have a you have four phases of the game and they just flow smoothly it's labeled as to which ones you do and it's pretty much like here's your sport you've got your scientist worker placement take a die take a dinosaur recipe dumb move on to the second phase take two of these various market tools workers theme park attractions dinosaur up lab upgrades that kind of thing pay the money get the tile easy third phase yo simultaneously do a little worker allocation in your lab to do various things again straightforward everyone just does it at the same time and then fourth draw some workers out of a bag stick them in your park get money get VP's it's so simple rinse repeat do for multiple rounds try and get the objective to try and build up a park for some reason for something that I expect it to be far more complex and even I'm gonna say the rulebook actually probably makes it sound a bit more complex and it actually is with some of us we can just zoom through these rounds and we're just having a blast we're getting into the theme we're making references to Jurassic para we're taking the mick out of each other's parks you know cursing each other for taking our recipes or various park attractions and with the objectives they come out and vary the game as well and I really like those plot twists you put to plot twist in every game and they can have subtle or pretty major changes but they come out in a different combination of two and they just basically mess up a rule you wanted to hire free workers this game now you can only hire one ever you want DNA to be easily available well now it is you know you get even more DNA when you take the dice oh now there's root now there's a massive restriction on security you know there's all sorts of these and they just change up the game nicely it even has a good solo mode that I can take advantage of which is quite tricky but it's a nice way to practice the game and just enjoy building up a park I will say you must play a long game of this and I don't often say that the short game is good if you want to learn the rules that's it other than that the short game sucks medium is okay but even then I'd be touch-and-go as to whether I'd want to play in a medium game you really want to play the long game let it take a couple of hours I mean a couple of hours is not that long for a gyro I'm happy with a two hour length for a decent meaty gyro and the long game ensures that you have time to build up your park see it grow and really get into the game the short and the medium games just don't allow you to do that especially not the short one you're lucky if you built a picket fence for one dinosaur and then suddenly the game ends it's just wait it's not good enough long game though so much better this is just the retail version unfortunately so I've just got normal components however liquid was it liquid extreme Kickstarter all the upgrade components including those coins which literally I could kill you if I hit you with them they're so weighty and the expansion and that two-player doulas or game or saying basically I missed out on the first Kickstarter I then went and grabbed this on retail I thought let's try it I can't remember if I I don't think I think I got ya go there's a room no I don't think I got this as a review copy I have to buy it myself I just bought fine I'll buy a retail copy and try it out loved it go check out my review if you want me to hear me praise this even more but I cannot wait for the Kickstarter stuff that come through the expansion or the opponents the only thing I dread and it's the one I dread at this game at the moment is the box is not big enough that fit everything in they really do need a big giant crate for this but that aside love this game such a good euro game an example of how you can have a relatively meteoroid game but keep it streamlined so that it remains you know relatively short two hours for a long game is pretty good length and fun still and engaging throughout very little downtime you know great look great theme what can I say love dinosaur island the highest debut to the top 100 at number seven just looking over my stats a little second ago and coincidentally seven wonders duel was the highest antoine bowser game and abyss was the highest bruno Kafala game you know so bow for those designers to feature the ladder my list and two of their game yeah one of the games each is in my top ten so you know we applaud you both here now we get on to uh you know Nicky Valens I think is the designer I don't know how often the feature probably not too many times but I think once or twice they featured on this because they do a lot for Fantasy Flight Games this is my my second favorite get it right Cthulhu game this is a reprint of a first they had won a first edition a while back and now they've got a second edition they put an act with it the app is the best app implementation for a board game to date Bar None and I said high praise of XCOM earlier this is the way it should be done you know complete perfect integration for atmosphere for helping with the fiddly rules for you know adding the maps for just adding story and immersion it works so well I was not a fan of the first edition I have to admit because this one oh yes cuz I've got everything for this game who mansions of madness whatever you want to call it yeah I have to have two boxes for this because now everything fits in one box anymore oh love this game this is like I say it's my second-favorite caboodle of games so under which other one is yet to come I think you probably guessed it but I'll put this one down here for a second Banta is a madness yes this is the closest I get to like in a dungeon cruel I don't really call it a dungeon call I call it more of an adventure game but I can see the argument both ways but this is as close as I will get to coming back to the dungeon crawls on rrah because I've kind of burnt out on those check out my top 10 turkeys there's for more information but when manages our madness oh yes the scenarios I mean you've got sarios and all the expansion's their lengthy they're involved they're great you can have DLC content so they can just add more scenarios in as time goes on you've got some of the most beautiful artwork we've you know like creepy artwork with the surrounding like map tiles there's so many of them in fact I think most of this box is taken up with map tiles that's how many there are speaking a way to have a good way to sort them out otherwise it's quite fiddly and and when you play through you you have that great Cthulhu sense of the mystery the the horror the immersion you get to fight all sorts of cool monsters the app integrates story elements to things like combat and horror checks so it's not just simply you see a go to a horror check no it's you see a ghoul and its face melds into like the the face of your late granddad or something and it starts like growing fangs and comes towards you and it'll that will be your horror check and that's one of many different things that can happen so it just adds something cool than different even the combat is cool in this you know it's like right I'm going to attack unarmed with the girl with the priest okay normally you would just like say I attack the goal priest role die dumb nope here the app even mentions things like you know you sweep and you know you you dart under it's haymaker and you try and do a back kick to its face or sight you know you try it gives you a bit more extra immersion with a little bit of your musical a compliment as well I've got a TV on the wall up there I like to put it on there when I play this and to be fair I do 95% the time play this solo this is now the game I recommend for doing with big groups all the time just because of the sheer length it takes when you play it with too many players but I'll play it with two free now and again but I love this solo just control free investigators two or three investigators which is not that fiddly you know you've got stats and items for each but apart from that it's pretty easy to control and then I can just everything up have the music have the ambience that the scenarios are challenging they're tricky the one minor flaw is that I do wish that they gave you more time to do stuff because there is a ticking clock and you're kind of forced to really rush through the scenarios as a PO - just take your time but that adds a bit of tension it means that you must get a move on you can't possibly check out everything so you can come back and because the Maps reject themselves even though the story is similar or the same the locations change so you can't always think oh yeah well I go into the next room that's gonna come out there and I'll just wait for that no no no because it might be a completely different layout so it adds to the replay value but even then it would take a while just to go for all these scenarios once and every single time I enjoy each expansion is added more investigators more scenarios which have been great fun more components storage is becoming a bit of an issue but like I say and wait it's great a heavy box but yes love this this is this picks the snot out of the first edition of mansions the madness bye-bye first edition Hale second edition man choose a madness number where are we at number 6 in fact where was it last time it was at number 8 its climb to places still as popular as it was my number hi hasn't moved it was my number five last year it's my number five this year still one of my favorite euro games that exists it's not my favorite euro game there is one more yet to come but yeah for this one I got it it's not for everyone I can see why people don't like it and is it's it's highly popular but there are some people who don't like this game I can see why but for me love this two bits I have the full Kickstarter version of this I have metal coins realistic components the beautiful artwork board the little mechs the characters the elegant rules the streamlining are that I love everything about this game I just want to get out right now oh here we go the legendary box for a go scythe I know not everybody is a huge fan of scythe but it's got its fans I'm playing through the Fenris campaign actually as we speak I'm recording this on bank Holly Monday so today I hope to beginning through the last six games of the 8th episode campaign or at least the vast majority of them and so far very good but there will be a review of them but the cypher game even without that just even if it's just the base game I don't even need the two extra factions all the wing gambit rules even though they are an improvement yeah the base game alone I love how smooth this game plays you have your board you're in you're on the sprawling map it's area control and resource gathering so it's more of an engine builder and you get a little bit of combat here in there but not loads it's more of a side thing that you can do for you know to to accelerate the game and I think that's where some people fall flat on they were hoping for like big combat with mechs or something it's like if you want that good play mech warrior or something but you know for me I'm more glad that this is an engine building style you know resource gathering area control euro but it's so smooth you've got a different you've got the factions that play very differently you've got the player map boards which you randomized every game they influence how you play because they've got different variable setups love that in the game and then on top of this everything just seems so smooth you choose one of the four columns you can't choose two in a row and that's said otherwise you know the Red Faction and you do the top action and if you can do the bottom action that's it next player move on you think about by the time it gets background to you which next action you want to do and unless you're playing red you only have three choices to do so it only takes so much time to do but you're thinking ahead as well do I want to do I want to move but then I need to produce but then maybe I should trade for it instead but if I don't get the resources I can't then do the upgrade action later and you're constantly planning ahead for how you're going to do your future turns and depending on your board and your faction that will change every game as well the campaign as I said the Fenris one has so far gone very well I haven't checked out every bit of content for it yet but so far I'm seeing what additions it's adding four modules and maybe this could go higher than five next year I don't know the so far so good but if these mods are as good as I hope they are it could elevate this game even more but like I say how much higher can it go than five it's already in the legendary box and I've got you know the wooden insert for it that Kickstarter stuff that's just the only thing I'm not a fan of with this is I'm not a big fan of the solo mode I don't tend to play this for solo the rules are a bit fiddly but and then particularly care I've got enough games on the place solo this I like to play with anything from free to seven players you know seven players who know what they're doing in this game it can go very quickly and smoothly I have done a seven player in ninety minutes before it is possible and that's another thing the game is not long you know a game should not if a game takes more than two hours you've got people who are new or they're going slow with AP it shouldn't go longer than two hours because most of my games don't but you know I can check out let's say the first two games in the campaign we did this I'm only doing it with free of us because it's hard to get people to commit to eight-episode campaigns but the free of us that are doing it we played two games each game took us seven e minutes 17 minutes and granted that was mainly because we were chatting and because we were checking out the new rules for the campaign as we went I was reading the backstory and also one person had only played it like once or twice or saying so you know I don't deny that a free player game of this can go in an hour it's oh it doesn't overstay its welcome it looks the part it's streamlined and elegant I'm probably repeating myself here but like I say it's hard to describe it's just a solid resource gallery neuro and this is a kind of thing I like area control I like but I like resource gathering resource gathering is a mechanic I like in a lot of euros the halt of our farm and get this you know and use it to produce something else you can decide what route you want to take it's not quite sandbox but you decide in the game you know what I feel like going for upgrades this time so I'm gonna upgrade my whole board so everything's cheap this game I'll go build now I'll go enlist now all my neighbors are giving me cool stuff you know and you have to kind of react to what your neighbors are doing as well you know what are the opponents doing but you know it just works so nicely and in objectives encounter cards you know for the formatic you know choose at free options the good the neutral the evil option which do you want to do so much this is a solid euro I can understand completely if you're not a fan but those of you who are fans can agree with me this is a solid euro I don't often write the hype train for a lot of games but for me this one lived up to well mostly lived up to the hype it's very difficult for any game to live up to the amount of hype it yet but like I say it's my fifth favorite game of all time so did the job in me safe my number four also hasn't moved it's the same as it was last year I'm a fan of the LCG format I think it works better than the CCG format because at least even though I'm spending a lot of money I know what I'm getting I can tailor my purchases if I want to however in recent years I have to admit I'm less favorable about the competitive LCG model Game of Thrones netrunner Warhammer conquest leading the fight rings that kind of thing they're good games I used to love net runner but I gave it up eventually because the problem with competitive lcg's is that if you don't keep up with the cards you you're gonna suck you know unless you're really playing this casually you're just gonna get left behind people who play this regularly you're just gonna wipe the floor of you and it's not good that you're forced to go you know keep up with it come co-op lcg's however being I can go at my own pace if I want to buy all the packs I can if I don't I don't have to because at the end of the day I'm playing a scenario in the in the game I play it by myself I can play this with two or four players about one and I have done dabble with both but I love this as a solo experience this is my favorite coupling game though mansions the madness very close but no I have to give the edge to okay that doesn't really help exactly but that's just the lid of the box I keep the cards in but in terms of the actual cards themselves like the player cards and that's a folder up here we go yes Arkham Horror the living card game I love this Cthulhu themed LCG ever since its inception I have been involved with this game is highly entertaining the artwork again even though some of it is recycled it's still beautiful creepy artwork but the storytelling in this LCG is amazing you get the scenarios and it goes through the axe and you read the flavor text in all the locations and all the quests well not quest side in scenarios and it just it flows it gets you immersed and it's amazing what they're doing with the scenarios not every scenario is ahead some of them have been duds but you might have a scenario where you go into a museum and you've got to somehow decide are you gonna break the door down or you're gonna talk to the guard once in you didn't have this hunting horror that's chasing you around the place you know you've got to fend it off how do I get through the exhibits I've got to search for the one exhibit that has the Necronomicon in there's one scenario then the next one you're on a train on a train that has stopped dead there's a giant vortex behind you that's sucking in all the carriages and you have to go through this thin line of carriages from stuff from the back to the front in time before the character gets ripped off and sucked into the vortex all while dealing with other monsters there's all sorts of different scenarios this can throw in different plot elements different surprises plot twists and I love how when you go through the cycle you have story driven elements to decide upon so you finish one scenario night for example I'm doing forgotten age the newest one and it's got a kind of indiana jones tomb raider's style zine to it but in between each mission you have to decide what supplies you're gonna take and you have so many supply points don't want blankets bed rolls a piece of chalk a map a compass and binoculars you know you're gonna go into the jungle exploring what do I want to take but you can only take so much so you make your decisions and then on various cards throughout the scenarios it says if you have chalk I just suffer no ill effects or get this bonus but then it could be a case of did you bring you know did you bring a lantern with you no well then you're gonna suffer a penalty in there because unfortunately you can't see jack in this cave and you can't take everything but you have to tailor what it is and granted yeah once you've played it through you'll have an idea of what pops up but it's not in the sense that you're gonna say well I better take this law no because you're gonna get hosed by something eventually but it really does add a great deal of immersion and the deck building is very simple in this you only have I think 30 card is it I think it's only a very card deck for your voice no I think it's very and with this one I think it varies by investigator but you can only have up to two copies of any card it's only 30 card deck so it doesn't actually take a lot of deck building skill to make a deck granted you can't make one that works but if you just want to like get a bunch of cards and try and make a deck you can I'm relatively quick time and it can still be reasonably competitive it is challenging though it is quite hard and this is one floor I have with the game which is why it falls below certain other ones is that the chaos bag where you put your hand in and draw a token for a modifier for skill test that's cool well that's the tension and you can tweet that bag and tweak your chances but it does add a bit of a luck element to the game outside of a dive role which occasionally is great the occasion they can just hose you at the right moment it keeps things challenging adds to the story and even though you've may fail a scenario it does not mean that you can't progress it just means you may not have as many bonuses going on ahead so it's not like I failed right rinse repeat go go again no you can just carry on but you know that dice bag block can get a little bit jarring at times but other than that small thing aside love the way this plays love the way it looks it's a solid hit not my favourite LCG though my number brie has dropped one place drop one place it was number two now it's number three doesn't really make much of a difference I still love this game it's still my personal favorite LCG of the bunch I already showed you one so let me show you the other one I was playing it last night actually quite a lot of it so it's kind of all over the place at the moment Lord of the Rings yes norther the Rings the current game I've got a massive box for it I've got two of these folders full of cards and I didn't even start when you know by the time I even started blogging Lord of the Rings had been out for two years and I didn't start Lord of the Rings until probably a year or two after that and I was far behind but I have got cards for this game all over the place all the different spheres ah yes I've caught up now with the releases at least for the most part you can get nightmare decks don't really care about them the game's hard enough as it is and you know some of these special sort of side decks i've got some of them but not all of them not too fast the main thing however is that I've at least got all the decks from the current cycles and I'm still far behind there's still two cycles I haven't played through at all and I'm still finishing off another one but it doesn't matter I've got all the cards to choose from to build my decks but I can just go at my own pace so why haven't finished a cycle I'll get to that story eventually it's not like I'm falling behind in rankings or anything like that there's no tournament so per se but oh yes this one overtakes the Arkham Horror one and it was I was I mean in are in at first but now Lord of the Rings had to take this post because firstly theme loved all of the Rings Lord of the Rings is such a fantastic movie trilogy I loved Lord of the Rings and the the card game encapsulates encapsulates the theme from Lord of the Rings so well choose your heroes do you want to play through quests based on the law of Tolkien or do you want to go through the movies you can actually play the quest as per the movies start off with Frodo and his Hobbit friends trying to escape the Black Riders and then eventually move on to chasing the orcs you know towards Isengard or to defeating Shelob which I haven't done yet she keeps eating me hey hey but it is a much more challenging game it's probably more challenging and Arkham Horror to be honest you know there are some quests that can just hose you down and the deck building is definitely trickier because you can have up to three copies of a car and you must build a 50 card deck so it is more complex definitely I think than Arkham Horror LCG but the quests like I say the story with them is really well done you can have some really good tense moments but it really gets your brain thinking I've got these heroes I've got these allies I've got these cards I know that that encounter deck could throw something in my works I know that enemies gonna charge me next turn you there's no as much luck yes you've got the luck of the encounter there but then you have that in Arkham Horror LCG as well we don't roll the die here you you the most luck influence you have is a shadow card for combat which may or may not add a little bit of a bonus to the opponent that's it you don't roll the die for combat it's not like right Aragorn goes and tries to slay the black rider roll a die for hire you hit no no it's just what's my attack value versus his defense and hit points compare the two there you go it's deterministic so that works a lot in its favor but either say you've got such a good variety with the quest now it's been going on for years and years and it's only improving more as the game goes on mechanics are getting more streamlined you know they're coming up with cool ideas for how to do quests and make them different and varied and when I said Arkham Horror had a lot of variants this has got a lot as well ignoring all the saga stuff you know you might be tracking Golem through Mirkwood nope this time you're racing across a desert as orcs chase you in they catch up with you and suddenly you start having to have a battle before you try and get away from them again the scenario but yesterday that gave me several heart attacks you know friends of mine had been taken away underground underground desert caves by a giant you know giant grood mother spider and herb rulings and I had to go and save them yeah gave me a few of heart attacks playing that one but you know in their next you have to go and infiltrate a city while defeating this big you know this massive Guardian guy and getting his and there's us and that's just the cycle I'm in you've got I've gone though the cycle where I'm fighting dragons there's another one where I was sailing ships and exploring lost islands there's a lot of variety in this game and it's challenging the artwork is beautiful it was hazy back at the star but as time has gone on the artwork just gets better and better the combos the decks you can make this so much variety in this game and it has in my opinion the best online community of any game any of the games you know some of the CCG ones you can get some pretty you know yo some hostile replies on there when you get competitive but because this is cooperative you don't get that the Lord of the Rings LCG online community on Facebook FFT or whatever if some of the friendliest people I have ever seen ask a question like get answered they don't think less of you for it there's no stupid question you know as long as you're not up there going whining and moaning or anything then fine you kind of get me your dessert then but you know you just ask a straight question or just talk about what you're playing you know what you like about the game what you don't like about the game people will just answer curiously they're courteously whatever it they such a good community so yeah Lord of the Rings LCG it's dropped to place but to be honest my two and three were so similar it was so hard to rank them and you know at the end of the day an algorithm had to decide between two and three you could put these on equal footing I love this game so much I've been getting a lot of plays of it lately when I've had spare time Lord of the Rings LCG my favorite of the LCD range my number two has shot up one place yes I said the two in the free swapped places this is my favorite euro game of all time and Jamie's demo has got no stone Mario games has got something to be proud of I don't like all of their games in fact these are the two games I kind of like from them another fan between two cities you know and euphoria kind of was a bit unbalanced and went away quite quickly you know I don't love all their games I am NOT to stone my a fanboy but sighs I really love and this one I love even more this takes it one of my favorite themes you can put into a board game based on real life you know and even though it's not 100% represented you've got to you gotta have a suspension of disbelief in one or two aspects it's just such a nice Pleasant euro game almost my kind of zen-like game like I mentioned before it just makes me feel calm I love the theme the expansion note is what has made this go to number two or even go into my top ten when I first put this on the list it was in my 40s and that was before it had an expansion but as soon as the expansion came out oh my god it's amazing now better board structures more ways to get points replacement cards mini expansions that come out with even more cards for the visitors it looks beautiful it's a fantastic theme I cannot say enough good stuff about viticulture viticulture specifically with that Tuscany expansion this is the collector box set so I haven't gotten on that whole essentials craze but yeah I love difficult-- er I like wine in general the art of winemaking is interesting to me you know I already had vinyasa deluxe on lower in the list so why making as a theme I can gravitate towards but this one again elegant streamlined not too long you make a euro like that there's a good chance I will like it particularly you attach a good theme to it a game of this shouldn't take you longer than a couple of hours unless you have slow players and granted don't play this of five or six it's a bit too long but one you know solo I've enjoyed it but two three or four players this is a blast too play the you know deciding weight with that expense you need that expansion board though you really do you need the four seasons you need the wakeup chart you know when do I want to wake up in the morning turn all the Y's which bonuses two or one if they ain't got the visitor cards do you put influence on that little map to get points and bonuses do you make wine orders or do you decide you know what I don't need to make wine orders I'm just gonna do cheap wine quick and easy not as many points but if I do it regularly enough I'll get some money do you get all your workers or would you just sort no you know what I don't need this many it takes time should I concentrate on getting the big wine orders the big fancy wine orders or maybe just go for the lesser ones that aren't worth as much but they're quicker to make you know a quick and easy white wine versus a sparkling nine you know and then the structures I've had a game where I didn't make a single wine bottle I literally managed to get two structures I think there was a restaurant and a cafe or something like that and I made the whole game was just me selling grapes and you know like very cheap balls no no no no grapes and various other things for points I just ran a cafe and restaurant and got influence over the map and that was my game and I managed to win with it I didn't have to make a single wine but then there'll be another game where I focused entirely on wine and do well there's multiple paths to victory looks the business with the extra components that you know you've got you know wooden components all over the place it's colorful I've got drawstring bags for this now to hold the various players stuff metal coins they look amazing it's just love playing this game so much I know there's a big caveat that in order to be this high it must have Tuscany I may not necessarily jump in on the game of this unless you are playing this with Tuscany and I don't mean all the modules one of my favorite ones I mean you must have the board you must have the orange structures you must have the replacement visitor cards but and the advanced ones as well and you can use the varied workers I can take or leave at those you must have mammas and papas definitely nice asymmetrical start don't care about the whole map your thing that's load of rubbish and I don't care about the new boards making cheese and olive oil and that you can do without those but all those other modules you need you put those in and I have one of the best gyro experiences I can ever have such an enjoyable euro game you know just perfect themed streamlined doesn't take too long easy to teach easy to play harder to master but great variety each game everybody just gets into it you can get immersed in the theme you can make jokes help it go and actually play this game with a bottle of wine near you and just get into it even more you know one of my favorite experiences I can imagine I actually no no actually did this um had the game of viticulture with Tuscany and there was wine and there was a cheese board as well so we had wine and cheese to enjoy with a game of viticulture it just soups it perfectly can't say much more about it it's just solid with all those bits added it is my favourite euro game experience number two so number one yeah you saw it coming [Music] a number one game yeah it was actually though there was a risk of this falling yeah it was my number one last year number one year before and year before that it is continuously my favorite game always and I almost uhm Denard this going down the list it almost got replaced you know I was always thinking could viticulture beat this could Lord of the Rings card game Achebe this now but no as I fought about it I had to say that gloom Haven is just that good I just had to put it at number one it deserves all the awards I got I'll do it anymore alright stop it stop it you're going to burn in a very special level of Hell now I hope you called this now previously last year I got it from behind me it's not there anymore that's because yeah this giant crane now holds my collection of sentinels of the multiverse I still absolutely adore this game it's hard to say I know not everybody likes it perfectly fine I know it has a lot of bookkeeping involved fine that's you know it's a floor of the game I admit but I've gotten used to it now so it's not as big of a problem for me but nothing represents Super Heroes one of my favorite themes ever better than sentinels of the multiverse a card game that isn't a dick builder either unlike the marvel one where it's like you're just deck building with these different heroes no this time it's like I want to be legacy I want to be that guy I want his deck look I have his deck I play in his play style and with the variant heroes I can now say who do I want to use the original legacy I don't want to use a daughter legacy don't want to use alternate timeline legacy don't use the 1940s legacy you know you've got all these different variants the replay value in this game as I've got all the expansions as reached astronomical levels I can pick any combination of heroes villains environments that I want and have a completely different experience the recent expansion of Blair beyond that came out granted didn't quite measure up to what I was hoping it would be but occasionally I will play that really epic scenario of going up basically doing an infinity war the card game and I'll have a blast it will just take a while which is why I really only really play it solo or with a lot of players who want to play it is a big event but even that aside all the villains you've got a great you can have the mini villain teams it's just something about no game as a co-op right presents playing a you know a superhero team better than it it just does it and with this box I think I've got so much content this thing that I got from the Kickstarter has you know all the tokens or the currency the oversize do villain cards it's got everything sleeve I've got dividers and in fact let me just pull the thing out here yep that's just environments environments and a few minivans that's all that's in that drawer alone I can just whip out let's see where do I want to fight first quarter blood no vampire place I don't want to fight in the final wasteland maybe the Freedom Tower maybe back in the Jurassic era mag Mario you know lava planet perhaps Nexus of the void by the eyes on the trans planet an industrial complex you know crook city ruins of Atlantis tiny cataclysms you know and that's just for environments I've got heroes I've got villains I've got more villains and heroes so much all this wonderful formatic game and it's just yes there is bookkeeping involved with the things but the hit points a nap but I've gone used to that now I can play this solo free free Heroes I have free Harris sometimes even four and I just pilot them all granted that's not for everybody this is one of those games that I will play solo more often but I'll play it on the app I'll play the I'll play it with three or four human players I might not even sit in the game I'll just watch it because the story just unfolds with every play nothing makes me feel like I feel like I'm in the Marvel and DC like series you know a Netflix series or even the movies and I'm just we plan out the scenes in my head you know you know as you're going through this you've got the four heroes you've got this environment in this villain what's the story you just kind of picture it in your head and you have to work as a team there is no lone ranger in this one hero cannot do the entire thing by themselves they need support from each other so that cooperative aspect is super strong you can't lone ranger' it and because you've got your cards in your hand there's only so much you can out for a game as well because that person who can't see the cards that you're in the hand but again alpha gamer is a player issue not necessarily a game issue I was I'm in Inari now I honestly was people will cool all this was my number one last year it's gonna be the number one this year I almost contemplated not putting this at number one it's it's had a fair amount of plays lately but yeah I have to admit you know the Oblivion scenario was not the biggest thing that ever had for it and oh sorry the sun's it broke over there but it just it just works I love the way this plays I love the artwork you know people don't rag on the artwork you know oh I don't like this artwork it's a you know it's horrible it's you know it's all weird and cartoony that's part of the appeal it's comic book style it fits the style and theme perfectly and I like it it's vibrant and it's colorful yes it's not digitally enhanced or like the best artwork ever but it fits the theme and still looks nice so I'm all cool for it but just that wonderful amount of variety the sense of teamwork the coop nature the fact it's superheroes all the superheroes place so differently you know I am legacy I am Captain America or Superman and I'm in bolstering my allies and giving them damage in hit point bonuses that kind of thing now I'm the naturalist I'm a shapeshifter I can change into a rhino a deer or crocodile depending on the needs of the game I am now luminary I am a previous villain turned good prey Lee for the idea of taking down the bigger threat but I have all these devices I create mechanical devices and super death lasers from outer space and I use that to damage my opponent now I'm expatriate I have no superpowers but I have a lot of guns I'm the publisher made into a card game give me a gun and m16 I'll take out the super villain with that is so much been so I love this game I know it's not for everyone fine you hate it fine I know summer the guy who runs air con mark cook you know he loves ragging me on me for this you know he loves to torture me with the whole this game is shocking it's horrible always bad whatever you don't like it that's great you've got your own opinion you've got your own favorite game bo that's the great thing with the hobby but it makes me laugh video hearing it and like I say just I love it I can't say enough good about it you know this viticulture and Lord of the Rings card game it is so hard to choose between those pre every in the last couple of years because those very games I just adore so much it's hard to I mean pretty much all these hundred games and you know let's close this up get to the epilogue shall we say you know all of these games I love I love every single game that I have mentioned on my top 100 they're all fantastic games every single one I adore my top 100 and not just the hundred also the games that mr. lists as well I really enjoy not as much as the ones at the top but still really enjoy and the next episode we'll get onto those with the aftermath where I talk about games that miss the list and fell off the list and I'll go through them very quickly and just summarize my viewpoints on those but with all these games all 100 of these games love them all you guys have been fantastic going through this I have been absolutely blown away by how many views these videos have been getting compared to the last couple of years how much dialogue has been exchanged on the comments people are telling me what games they like don't like what you know what games they personally have in that kind of section you know I've had so much banter with these people and I love it I love this engagement but whether you love or hate these games as I keep saying in every episode I do of this blog it's it's only a game if you don't like him fine you love your own games that's fantastic if you love these games fantastic we agree on something but we don't have to you know there are some people I get on really well with in the board game industry where we have completely different board game tastes doesn't matter because both of us are still passionate about games we respect each other's opinion and that's fine with us we can all carry on his normal human beings so that's it for another top 100 the top 100 games of 2018 and I feel like I'm getting a halo heavenly light from outside when I was talking about that top one game I was kind of fitting but I love doing this list every year there will be one for 2019 will it be this format we'll have to see takes a lot of effort to do these you know ten games a ten to record and edit them remember I do this solo I don't get paid for this and it's not easy to do this sort of thing so it's a lot of effort but there's just one more video to go the aftermath it'll be a relatively quick video it's not going to be too long I will just quickly go through the ones that missed the list and just explain briefly what I think of them that's pretty much all do for the aftermath because it's not usually the most popular episode at this whole top 100 anyway after this normal service will resume there hasn't been many reviews in August because not many good games have been released you know literally you're lucky to get one game every two weeks that's worth looking at so which is good it's nice to get quiet period while I'm doing this because it gives me more time to do this top 100 but you know the podcast is still there you know reviews are gonna come back as more and more good games get relief leading up to Essen and of course top tens are gonna resume so we got top 10 solo games in the works we've got top 10 games I love but spent too much money on that should be a fun list I'm debating other ideas like top 10 games I love with bad rule books you know that kind of thing you and there's other ideas so keep submitting your top 10 ideas to me you know I'd love to get more ideas and see what you guys want there will be an FAQ video coming out soon where I will go over frequently asked questions and talk about my future ideas with a blog where I need your guy's feedback so please tune into that video when I release because I need the feedback I need to know your thoughts because this is essentially I do this as a hobby I do it because I enjoy it but I also do it on behalf of the people so you know it's nice to hear what you want as well so that's it Forex gain soar I'm off now in the gym and then I've got a whole bank holiday of plain sight yeah exactly I get to play my fifth favorite game for the whole day hopefully and wait so hope you've enjoyed this top 100 list thanks for watching thanks for viewing thanks for your support thanks for the compliments thanks for everything it makes it so much easier to go through the hard work and effort that it takes to run a blog especially a video blog when I can get the appreciation from you guys that it's not all falling on deaf ears that somebody is getting enjoyment out of watching it regardless of what their reason for enjoying it is so that's it for me take care enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you on the next broken evil episode and remember all 100 of these amazing games are still only games take care see you soon and good day [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Broken Meeple

Views: 15,060

Rating: 4.7770896 out of 5

Keywords: Board Games, Luke Hector, Tom Vasel, Dice Tower, Broken Meeple, Card Games, Review, Top 100

Id: kn9wQODwVbo

Length: 62min 52sec (3772 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 04 2018