The top 100 games of all time (2019)

Kia ora Koutou and welcome to the three-minute board games top 100 games of all time 2019 a friendly reminder that this top 100 list is my personal opinion it is not the holy tome of Vatican law on board games if I haven't highly rated a board game you like it's really not that big a deal and if a game doesn't appear on this list it's the one of three reasons one it's one of the many thousands of games I have not played to I have played it and I didn't like it enough for it to make the list or three I have played it I did like it but I haven't played it enough to really give it a full rating and a good example of this third category are gaia project Great Western trail the reckoners all games I really enjoyed when I played but I've only played them once a game needs to earn its place on this list for me and the way they do that is through repeated plays now before we move on to the list is one more thing I'd like to talk about and that's the three-minute board games there's no paid content so if you want to support more independent board game review content from us subscribe to the channel like the video hit the notification button and consider supporting us on patreon or you could consider buying us a coffee using the KO fi link in the video description now that I've wasted your precious time talking about me let's spend the rest of the video talking about games so here is my top 100 board games of all time 2019 Edition 100 Robo really a wacky racing game sit in a factory full of death traps and conveyor belts the tricky thing about this one is you have to program your actions beforehand which leads to a crazy amount of chaos 99 kitchen rush a real-time co-op game about running a kitchen you use sand timers to take actions and everything happens at a crazy chaotic fashion this games a lot more intense than it probably is fun but I love it anyway 98 space Corp a competitive engine building game about space exploration one thing I really dig about this game is that it's played in three different eras starting with exploring Mars and the moon through to interstellar exploration their feeling of genuine exploration and improvement in your corporation really makes me feel like I've achieved something by the end of the game win or lose 97 axis and allies anniversary edition the definitive version of the classic access and allies game which is probably the most iconic Americain ever this one tidies up a lot of the problems for the original Axis and Allies it looks a lot nicer and I spent a heck of a long time painting it as well 96 Pavlov's house a solo game about the Battle of Stalingrad the thing I really dig about this game is that you have decisions to make it a strategic level that filter right down to the personal level inside the house it's a very rare game that can do both strategic decision-making and down to the personal level tactical operations without the game becoming an overwhelming mess Pavlov's house is a lot more easy to learn that it initially looks 95 villagers a tableau building card game about founding a village villages is a small box game but that doesn't mean that there's not a lot going on in it there's a lot of variety of the engines you can build up in the game quite a bit of player interaction and watching what they're picking all tied together with wonderful presentation and a very nice portable box you can take anywhere 94 Root, a counterinsurgency war game featuring adorable woodland critters the level of asymmetry and route is incredibly high each of the factions within the game plays very differently and gives you a very different play experience each time if I have one criticism of the game it's that I love the ideas and the concepts behind route a bit more than I actually enjoy playing it that said it's still one of the most innovative games of the last few years and the vastly different playstyles between the factions give you something new to play each time 93 call to adventure the tableau building set collection game that tells the story of one character's epic fantasy journey first of all it's got room casting and that by itself is just a cool system mechanically it's not the most amazing game but it does the job but why I like it is that it's quick to play and tells a story while you're doing it it's become one of my favorite short play time games of this year 92 the grizzled a cooperative card based game based on a group of French soldiers in the first world war most war games focus on strategic and tactical matters the grizzled is a much more personal story it's just about a group of soldiers and when they go out the missions it's not about whether they win about whether they come back and it's that personal element of the grizzled there really speaks to me 91 Aeons end a cooperative deck building game where you are a team of wizards fighting against a giant monster I've only played the core set of hours end so I can't speak to all the extras that come with it but I have really enjoyed the players I've had of this game and the thing that sets it apart is that you don't shuffle your deck so the games all about stacking your deck and getting the right combo together and having players specialize in different things and the game's tuned to the point where you have to specialize and you have to play those combos otherwise you're going to lose definitely one I'm considering more expansions for in the future 19 steampunk rally an engine building and racing game starring many of the great inventors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries aside from the theme which I really dig I love that this game has you creating engines that you subsequently end up breaking in most engine builders want something's in place all you want to do is refine it refine it refine it and make it better and steampunk rally things fall off and explode and you have to retune and reconfigure your engine during the game and it's that continually evolving engine building that really appeals to me about this game 89 maximum apocalypse a cooperative character based card driven game set in the apocalypse what apocalypse you ask well that's one of the cool things about this game is you can choose whether you're going to be in the standard fallout style post apocalypse a zombie apocalypse a myriad of other possible apocalypses and each character in the game comes with their own pre-built deck with inherent strengths and weaknesses within that dick the core gameplay in the game is pretty simple but it's a fact you can change the enemy groups and the characters you're using and those changes really change the game that makes me really like maximum apocalypse as a game 88 star realms a really simple deck building game what I really like about star realms is is really easy to teach works well as a Dueling game but also works as a group game and many years ago friends of mine used to play magic at lunchtime at school and at university most of us these days don't have the time and energy to build our own decks but star realms gives us that same sort of feeling of playing lunchtime casual magic without the hassle of having to build up our own decks beforehand it's portable easy to play easy to teach and a hiccup a lot of fun 87 Oaxaca crafts of a culture a dice manipulating engine building game about running a market stall in Oaxaca even more so than villagers which I mentioned earlier this is a great example of a small box game having a heck of a lot of game in it well hockey gives you the opportunity to build a very complex engine in its 30 minute playtime and it can be so many interconnecting parts of in your engine that it can feel like you've made as many decisions as you would in a two hour game only you've done them in 30 minutes 86 Yokohama a unique game that's power worker placement set collection area control and engine builder I love that this game set during the Meiji Restoration of Japan which is one of the most fascinating periods of any country's history to me but the real strength of the game is that it's so open there's so many options and the style of the game you have a blank slate and a million different things you can do and for me that's like being a kid in a candy store but I have seen several new players look at the game and go oh what'd I do next definitely one that you want to play multiple times with people have played it before so they can get the hang and the pace of the game 85 village a worker placement and cube drafting game set in the medieval village the coolest thing about village is that you're playing an entire family and in the game time progresses so older members of the family end up passing away and new members of the family step up to take their place what this does for me is take what could be quite a dry euro game about medieval family life and make it tell stories eighty-four Nemo's war a very thematic solo game about playing Captain Nemo in command of the Nautilus this games held together by a dice based system that uses push you like elements and resource management it's also very thematic and challenging but I think what makes this game stand out is you can pick a different motivation for Nemo when you play and that dramatically changes how the game plays overall and while this game says you can play multiplayer it really is a solo game 83 legendary encounters an alien deck building game I played legendary marvel and legendary x-files and I don't particularly like either of those games alien legendary on the other hand I really really enjoy and I think that's because it has some points of difference over the other games first of all cards moving through the event seems rarely thematically appropriate the structure and pacing of the game works really well as it goes in three acts and each act has its own feel and own objective building up to the final battle at the end this all combines to make the game a bit more coherent than the other legendary games that and I'm a big fan of the aliens IP combined to make this easily my favorite game in the legendary series 82 chaos in the old world an asymmetric area control game about the chaos guards from the Warhammer universe five years ago this game would have been in my top 10 I absolutely loved it the different playstyles between the different gods is a bit of a precursor to games like route and I think it's a really well-designed and excellent game the main reason it's falling down this list quite a bit is Cthulhu Wars exists and Cthulhu wars takes the same idea of variable powers evil monsters battling over a world and does it in a way that's not only smoother it also has more options so while I still really like chaos in the old world and think it's a great game this is a great example of a newer game damaging the reputation of an older game for me anyone last Friday a hidden movement game where one player is an 80s movie slasher and the others are camp counselors yeah this is Friday the 13th the game they just couldn't get the IP But what's great about last Friday is it not only captures its really obvious and strong theme about a slasher hunting down camp counselors it also slightly subverts those expectations by playing through the whole arc of a horror franchise within one game so while the killer starts on the offensive and the counselors are running in panic the game then shifts to where the counselors are the hunters and the slasher has to defend and this shifts back and forth a couple of times through the game so over the chosen counsellor lands a final killing blow on the killer or the killer gets away to repeat the cycle again nobody GKR heavy hitters a competitive mech battling game with some of the nicest pre-painted models on the market that'll take one of the first things I got into when I was younger and I've always had a soft spot for giant mechs fighting each other so g'kar heavy hitters had an obvious connection with me straightaway it's really beautiful fun to play easy to teach but probably goes on a little too long at four players price and availability are also barriers for this game but if you can't get your hands on it it is a legitimately fun beer and pretzels type ball game and those mix are really really gorgeous lots of fun 79 circadian 's first light a dice placement engine building game sit on a human outpost on an alien world circadian is one of those dice placement games where you never really feel like you've got a bad roll there's always something to do with low and high value dice and there's plenty of ways that you can build your engine to be able to re-roll them or use them differently there's a lot going on on this game but there's also lots of options for you to build engines within it and the strength of this game and the core of its replayability come from the variety of engines you can build depending on what character you have what equipment you draw and how you develop your base this sort combines to create an engine builder where there isn't the same set path each time 78 pay dirt an auction and engine building game about mining in the Klondike one of my guilty pleasures is the gold rush TV show I know the dramas really overreached but I love watching them solve their various engineering problems and for the longest time I've been looking for a good gold mining game and pay dirt is that game I'm not sure if it's still available or even in print but the core gameplay loop of buying better equipment running it and doing its maintenance in order to pay out gold at the end there's both really easy to grasp and really rewarding to play this is one game I like but I very rarely see in other people's collections take that for what you will 77 Star Wars Imperial assault a one versus all dungeon crawler sit in the Star Wars universe there are a lot of dungeon crawlers out of the market and I mean a lot it's somehow Star Wars and feral assaults stayed one of my favorites for years and I put that down to two big factors one the core gameplay is genuinely fun and genuinely interesting and second its Star Wars like for me that is a big tick there's just something wonderfully cinematic in this game because you can have moments where Boba Fett or bossk or Darth Vader will turn up in an encounter I recommend this for anyone who wants to run a Star Wars role-playing game but can't be bothered riding a role-playing game a really enjoyable game the sheer amount of expansions is both a pro and a calm depending now you look at it but one of those games I really enjoyed painting as well 76 horrified a cooperative set collection game where you're battling the universal monsters I think horrified is a genuine pandemic killer it has a lot of the same strengths of that game of being easy to teach cooperative and yet challenging at the same time but it also doesn't have some of the flaws of pandemic which of those games with the deck is stacked in such a way that it's almost impossible to win I think this might be one of the best family-friendly coops to come out in a very very long time and while the gameplay might be a little simplistic for some hardcore gamers out there most people playing games and hardcore gamers 75 Le havre an engine building game about running a business at the port of lahar guess you haven't picked this up yet I quite like engine building games and Le havre is one of the better ones on the market le havre can be full of a lot of busy work at times but that busy work makes you feel productive and a bit like Yokohama it's about figuring out what to do with the myriad of options ahead of you one of those injured building games that allows you time to play with your engine throughout the game definitely for people who like heavier games 74 space cadets a cooperative game about being the bridge crew on a spaceship space cadets as a hilarious game because each station has its own mini game and they played in real time so while you can start each round with a clear plan the outcome of that plan is entirely dependent on how well everyone does at this station you can end up with shields pointing the wrong way hurtling through space with all the skill and grace of a pack of howler monkeys banging their consoles and while that's hilarious to play you can also get a high functioning team in this game but does everything well and then the game changes tone completely a really competent crew makes this game feel like a Star Trek bridge simulator and the realization that you can get the shields part of the right way the ship going the right way and complete your objectives effectively give some real sense of triumph after several games of failing miserably 73 Lords of Waterdeep a worker placement sick collection game sit in the D&D city of Waterdeep Lords of Waterdeep is a pretty straightforward worker placement game that revolves around collecting characters to spend them on missions to earn points and it's all held together quite nicely by its D&D theme I definitely recommend this as an entry point for anyone who wants to get into worker placement games as it's a really good game but doesn't overload you with too many systems seventy-two Galilean moons still the best area control game you haven't played I mentioned this in my last top 100 and got very excited and made a video about it and then never published it because the designer hadn't yet taken at the Kickstarter so he spent the last year returning and refining the game and making some small but significant improvements and despite my impatience and badgering him for the last year I think those changes have made for a better game so it's still the game that's axed mission red planet Tammany Hall and el Grande for me and I know that's a bold claim to many out there and I think this is one of the most elegant area control games I've ever played anyway if you like area control keep your eyes open for this game I hope you won't be disappointed and I hope you don't blame me if you are 71 captain Sonar a team based realtime submarine warfare game I really like Captain sonar and I think it does something unique in board gaming the team play real-time aspects of the game and hunting each other in the submarine is just it's a fantastic experience problem is it really only works with six or eight players and for me that's a pain to get together I know there's a lighter version of this you can play with only four players and I should probably try tracking that down but I don't know that would be quite right so this games is an awkward space I want to play it more often and I really enjoy playing it it's just very rarely we get the opportunity it'd have probably read higher if it hit the table board number 70 Android one of those beautiful and broken pieces of board gaming history Android tries to do so much and does a lot of it well but there's almost too much going on in the game and its core it's an investigation game about solving a murder sit in a dystopic cyberpunk future the same setting that would be used for Android netrunner but solving the crime is actually a small part of this game it's really about the personal stories of the characters and solving the conspiracy behind the murder there's so much to love and it's such a clear passion project for the designer Kevin Wilson and it almost works and while I really enjoy playing this game I can see its flaws from a mile off but that doesn't change my admiration for what was attempted here androids like the board game equivalent of one of those weird concept albums rumor as they are working on a second edition and I hope that delivers I just hope they don't streamline the character the game number 69 Raiders of the North Sea a worker placement game about leading a raiding party on Vikings to conquer parts of England Raiders is another fantastic entry level worker placement game that revolves around a place one worker take one worker mechanic that gives you two actions each turn it also has this unique pacing where you spend several turns building up for a raid and then take a traumatic raid action it features the wonderful art that's defined Garphill games and while it is an easy to learn game learning how to pace yourself within the game so that you can keep the down times between raids love means that an experienced player is going to stop all over a new player 68 epidote a worker placement and tableau building game about woodland critters building a city if it Everdell one of those stunning games on the market it visually it's absolutely gorgeous four wonderful components and wonderful art but beneath all that flash there's a really good game here loads of paths to victory lots of different engines you can build but one of my favorite things in this game is that there are eight cards face-up in the middle that anyone can play during their turn and one thing that stifles a lot of engine builders for me there's a lack of choice over what you put in your engine and everdell you can be holding out cards and have eight cards in the middle giving you 16 cards to choose from to play and making the right choice in any time is how you do well in this game 67 century golem Edition I have not actually played the original version of century space Road I've seen it my understand the gameplay is virtually identical to golem Edition the reason I put golem edition is I think it just looks so much better and the difference between spice trading and making golems is enough for me to actually find the theme slightly engaging what it is though it's a simple engine building game if you've played splendor which many people have century scratch is a very similar edge to that game to me and it's an easy to learn short playtime game that rewards players skill quite a bit it's combination of eye catching appearance and simple gameplay makes it a really good game to play with people new to the Hobby and personally there's an old beauty grognard war gamer I still find it quite captivating and engaging to play as well sixty-six sentinels of the multiverse a cooperative superhero game where each superhero has a unique pre-built deck and you fight against the villain with their own unique deck there is so much happening in Sentinels sometime that it can be very overloading game and it's probably one of the most bookkeeping intensive games on the market but despite that there's a heck of a good game here each superhero feels distinct and different and comes of their own play style and each villain you fight has their own strengths and weaknesses it's like the board game equivalent of an MMO raid we try to assemble the perfect team to take on an epic boss in an extended fight there are so many expansions and bits and pieces to this game as well and it's definitely when I played a lot more on the app that I had physically and the strength of that is the app does a lot of the bookkeeping for you aside from the bookkeeping this is also a game you have to play many times to really get the hang of just because there's so many mechanics and so many possibilities within each character and figuring out how they interact with each other and how they interact with the specific enemy you're fighting and the environment you're in just takes a lot of experience but if you are looking for a co-op game that you can play over and over and over again sentinels of the multiverse is a good choice 65 Twilight Imperium fourth edition the genre defining 4x Space empires game Twilight Imperium is what it is an epic highly interactive space Empire and political game it's wonderfully produced and is one of the most impressive games to cease it up of any and board gaming but also has a knack for creating big and memorable stories throughout the game all the scale and grandeur comes with a cost and that cost in this case is play time you very rarely get through a game in less than six hours and I have played a thirteen and a half hour game of this in the last two years so well I think it's a very good game I'm not sure if it's 12 hours long good 64 freedom the Underground Railroad the cooperative game about the abolitionist movement fighting against slavery in pre-civil war America freedom has a really captivating theme and it's an important topic in a period of history I find quite interesting and significant that aside this is a really tightly designed cooperative game you have very limited actions throughout the game and an awful lot to do with them and it leads you to make very tough decisions and while it's hard to talk about this game without talking about its theme the core gameplay is exceptional in its own right rightfully I think that gets overlooked at times when people talk about this game but think it's something I need to state here I don't just like this game because of what it's about I like this game because it's a genuine head-scratching puzzle the theme in the history just combined with the gameplay to make for an excellent total package of a co-op game 63 Martians a story of civilization a worker placement game about colonizing Mars I say this every time I talk about this game it has a shockingly bad rule book thankfully people on bgg had fix that and now it's a lot more easy to understand Martians is actually pretty clear to work a placement game with a bunch of unique stuff happening in it there are rules for co-op semi co-op competitive and solar play within the game and they only require a few changes to implement each one which I thought was one of the sharpest design decisions I've seen it again but for me this is a genuinely solid worker placement game that was regrettably saddled with a terrible translation of its rulebook I've really admit Martians probably isn't a game for everyone but it's one of those games that just worked really well for me I like that had numerous scenarios which is uncommon in a worker placement game while also having resource type gameplay it constantly made you worry if you had enough stuff to do what you wanted to do sure it's a bit busy but overall I found this a really enjoyable game 62 dead of winter a crossroads game a mostly cooperative game about surviving the zombie apocalypse dead of winter each of you plays a small group of survivors with their own little agendas within one surviving community and it's ass internal conflict of your own personal goals that drives the game alone I think this game is best without a full-blown traitor as there's enough tension between players with their personal goals without leading a full-blown traitor and to the mix the crossroad cards are a lot of fun and I especially like the app they develop that reads the cards out for you and I think the reason I don't like the trader in this game and think it works better only with personal goals because that explores an interesting social dynamic the idea that even good people aren't a hundred percent selfless Bob and the shelter might give you the shirt off his back but he won't let you borrow away his daughter's insulin medicine and I think dead of winter is at its best when it's exploring those kind of stories 61 hostage negotiator cram wave a hand building dice driven solo game in this game you play the role of a hostage negotiator talking down an abductor who's taken a lot of prisoners the core gameplay is really simple of your spending cards to roll dice or to earn points to buy better cards later on but why this game has been enduring for me is that each of the abductors has their own character and each requires a slightly different approach and those variations make me feel like I'm playing a slightly different game each time and while many people say this games to luck dependent I think there's actually quite a few ways to mitigate that and even when everything does go wrong that in its own way just creates another memorable story in one particularly terrible game of this the abductor started with 12 hostages and ended the game with 15 now that might upset some people playing the game but to me I just found that hilarious number 60 the network's a drafting engine building game about running a television neighborhood building a television network is a great idea for game picking shows picking stars picking ads and putting them all together onto a lineup designed to get as many viewers as possible that's all great stuff and the network's does that all really well it's a very solid core game but its presentation with its wacky characters and bizarre shows just adds a nice cheery to the top of the scale number 59 Museum the card drafting set collection game about running a museum this one came out of nowhere to me this year I didn't even know was on Kickstarter and I knew precisely nothing about this game until I saw it on a secondhand trade disc at a convention and I'm really pleased I picked it up the art in this game is absolutely stunning and the core gameplay is really fun as well revolving around building up these massive collections within your museum there's a little bit of take that in the game and you can take items from other people's discards so it has a bit more player interaction than I initially expected I played this for three different groups and had an enjoyable experience each time 58 scythe so there's a game that follows in the aftermath of the Great War you play a nation trying to rebuild its economy and military and a recaptured territory that was lost there's a lot to like in this game because it combines euro-style optimisation with area control and combat and the art and world building is truly unique however as much as I like this game first few turns can feel quite scripted experienced players will quickly learn how to maximise the combination of faction and industry board still I've enjoyed the game enough to paint it and to pick up the first two expansions as well as the oversized map 57 black Orchestra a cooperative game where the goal is to kill Hitler the core gameplay in a lot of coops is what I would call fire fighter where each turn a number of incidents take place and you have to run around and try and solve them and prevent them from getting too out of hand black orchestra settles on a different gameplay style for cards and that's about getting in the right place at the right time and one decisive point and I've seen some people be critical of the game by saying that it all comes down to one dice roll but for me that's almost the point of the game it does come down to one dice roll and all your preparation is to make sure that that roll happens at the right time with the right amount of support and sure you can fail on a terrible roll when you finally line up Hitler right near gun sights but for me that's part of the charm of the game I also like that a big chunk of the game is about maintaining the conspiracy and that conspirators need to remain motivated in order to carry out an attack but also can't draw too much attention to themselves what makes black orchestra truly special to me is that rising tension throughout the game of whether you'll get caught or whether you'll have the guts to go through with the assignment when the time is right number 56 XCOM the board game a real-time cooperative game where you are working together to save Earth from an alien invasion I know there's a lot of people out there who don't like apps and board games but this is an example of the board game that couldn't exist without the app each player will have their assigned role and a limited amount of time to make decisions and while you have to be focused on what you're doing and your job you still have to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing so you're not doing the wrong thing I love this game because it's fast furious and frantic and doubly so when you play it solo number 55 crisis a worker placement game about being an entrepreneur trying to run a business during a massive financial crisis crisis is one of the meanest nastiest worker placement games on the market the game is really tightly designed and the consequences of making errors are huge and it also has this semi cooperative element built into it where if you import goods in order to use them you weaken the country's economy and if too many people do that the economy will collapse and if you sell goods on the regular export market you'll strengthen the economy but if you sell them on the black market you'll get twice as much money this leads to a lot of interesting decisions about how far you'll push the economy down in order to make profit for yourself and it's that tension that even if you feel you're doing well in this game some errors and some selfish actions from other players can't blow holes in your plans definitely one for people who like heavier worker placement games but once we have to keep an eye on your opponent's 54 castles of mad King Ludwig an auction and tile laying game about building weird palaces for the Mad King the cool thing about this game really is the castles that you end up building there's a whole bunch of different rooms that you have to put together in different ways and maximizing the points you get from those is a lot of fun and at the end of the game you've got this wacky castle you've built lots of different ways to score points in this game and lots of avenues to victory as well if I have one issue with the game it's the auction system figuring out how to price each building and doing it well requires you to spend a bit of time analyzing everyone's layout and that either grinds the game to a halt at times or overloads and experienced players still a really enjoyable game that I like playing each time 53 defenders of a last stand a co-op game that combines elements of pandemic or the state of siege games with the adventuring and storytelling of a game like Arkham Horror sadly this one's out of print because 8th summit games win under still owing some people their Kickstarter versions of this game what I like about this game is its post-apocalyptic setting and its weird combination of gameplay roam around the board defeating gangers having encounters picking up items and then trying to assemble the right tools you need to take down one of the gang bosses I'm not sure it's the most balanced game in the world but I enjoyed because of the experience it gives you it's like a big open sandbox game only the sandbox is on fire 52 potion explosion a marble drafting game about a potions class at a wizard Academy this one's all about taking marbles from the marble dispenser and trying to get the right chain reaction in order to pull as many marbles per action as you can then you place those marbles onto different potions and score them and once scored each potion can be used once to manipulate the marbles in order to create bigger and more dramatic chain reactions and it's cool this is a really simple game but I find the gameplay loop of pulling marbles having them cranked down trying to get as many out of the machine as you can and placing them on potions in order to use them to do better just so rewarding and the tactile aspect of the marbles is a big plus number 51 agents of SMERSH another game from eighth summit games and another one that's out of print and probably not coming back which is a real tragedy as agents of SMERSH it's a very fun game the premise is that you are secret agents fighting against an evil mastermind it's James Bond and Austin Powers as a storytelling game and the actual gameplay in this is pretty average it's certainly nothing to write home about what makes it is the book of stories and there's about 2000 entries in the story book and these stories are dripping with spy movie trailers not one to track down if you're just interested in games for their mechanics but if you love storytelling games and if you've played Arabian Nights and thought that was good fun agents of SMERSH is like a better Arabian Nights just about spies number 50 robinson crusoe adventures on the cursed island a cooperative worker placement survival game robinson crusoe was a merciless game in each scenario you are stranded on the cursed island with limited resources very little food and very little shelter just fighting to survive as a challenge in this game and while you're struggling to survive you also have to complete whatever the goal is for that particular scenario the average game of Robinson Crusoe ends with you dying from hunger wounds or freezing to death at night and that makes those games where you come out on top even more rewarding 49 Android netrunner an asymmetric to play a card game in my opinion net Runner is the best competitive trading card collectible card or living card game that's been made the two sides the corporation and the runner are completely asymmetric and yet the game through its lifecycle was stunningly balanced between the two the factions within the game were all quite interesting and had their own unique styles and they're a heck of a lot of different ways you could build a deck but player skill was always the most important part of this game and it was the bluffing cat-and-mouse aspect of netrunner that really appealed to me this game is sadly falling down the list because it's out of print and probably not coming back in the near future and if it does it won't be with the Android theme 48 caverna the cave farmers a worker placement game about dwarves running a farm and a mine i also quite like Agricola but I thought owning one of them needed to be on this list and I prefer ccverna because of the more options you have for how you build and grill is all about your farm whereas caverna is about building cave a farm and having a family go off on adventures a very heavy and very solid worker placement game that's iconic within the genre number 47 above and below a hybrid storytelling worker placement game now what I love most about this game asides from the really neat art is the storytelling aspect of this game the cool adventures you go and below your village and I thought that combination of worker placement and storytelling was something quite unique but the more I played this game the more I noticed that the incentives for exploring aren't quite strong enough and they're quite frequently the best strategy to win the game is to ignore explore it almost completely so while I still enjoy the game for its storytelling elements there's a niggle on the back of my head that says you probably better off just building something on the surface forty-six spheres of influence struggle for global supremacy this games really easy to describe it's just a better version of risk it takes all the core concepts of risk modernizes them and turns them into an infinitely better game so if you have fond memories of playing risk but wish someone had given it a modern facelift this is very much the game for you not sure how available it is these days but if you can track down a copy and risk is your jam you will really get a kick out of spheres of influence 45 pandemic the cure the more astute of you will notice that pandemic is not on this list yet and in fact there's not on this list at all and the reason for that is three games have conspired to kick pandemic off my top 100 the first of those was horrified and the second of those is pandemic the cure pandemic the cure is the dice version of pandemic and what I like about it is that each character comes with their own unique set of dice and these dice dramatically change how that character plays is a strong push your luck element in the game as well but really what I find appealing about pandemic The Cure is how your team makeup dramatically changes the game and contrary to conventional wisdom I find that the dice version of pandemic has a lower luck factor than the original and that's because the order of the cards and the original pandemic has a far more dramatic impact on the difficulty of the game than some bad dice rolls and pandemic the cure 44 Churchill a three player game about the big conferences held during World War two here you'll be playing Churchill Stalin and Roosevelt sitting across the table from each other deciding the fate of World War two Churchill's a very different game to anything else I've played but in a weird way it's one of the few genuine strategy games out there most war games focus on operational matters but this game abstracts the war to a very high level the discussions around the table though those are what shapes how the war revolves and it's less about winning the war but shaping the piece afterwards this is a game I'd like to play an awful lot more than I have to date 43 Architects of the West Kingdom a worker placement game with the main point of differences there's no end turn phase where you pick up your workers you keep placing and removing workers in a cyclical fashion and this allows the game to settle into a comfortable rhythm that you don't normally get in a worker placement game lots of different stratagies in this one and of course it has the great art that garphill games are known for overall a really solid reimagining of the classic worker placement genre number 42 power grid one of the all-time classic euro games and what I think is most deserving of the title classic game this game has you buying power plants fueling them and trying to provide power to an ever-expanding network of cities there's auctions area control and optimization within this game at a bunch of different maps that can change up the game 15 years is a long time and board-gaming yet power grid managers to shine above a lot of newer games and I can see people playing this one for decades to come 41 Lords of hell us an area control game set in a mythological ancient Greece with a lot of variable powers and four different paths to victory I like dudes on a map games and this is one of my favorites but I did get all the stretch goals for it and in some ways that's subtracted from my experience with the game there's now so many options in the game that it's gotten quite cumbersome and loads of howís wasn't the most streamlined game to start with so while I really enjoyed the core game especially the variable power drafting and the different ways you can win it the more that's added to this game the more it frees around its edges definitely one you're not missing much if you didn't go all-in number forty suburbia a tile laying city building game this game shares a lot in common with castles of Mad King Ludwig because they buy the same publisher and same designer but I enjoy suburbia a little bit more I actually sold my copy this year but that's because I backed the collector's edition which looks insanely over-the-top suburbia is my favorite city building game and that's because your strategy has to adapt based on what tiles are coming your way there isn't one set way to win 38 Millennium blinds the game about being a character in a cartoon series about a collectible card game now they haven't picked us up I have a soft spot for games that aren't like any other game and millennium blades is one of them it simulates playing a collectible card game tournament as well as putting together a card collection and the games played in two main parts a real-time trading phase where you're buying dicks of cards and trading and selling them and then once you've built your hand for the tournament and stacked cards in your collection you play through a tournament phase which is a short card game full of combo that really simulates the feel of playing through a longer collectible card game it's kind of amazing just how good millenium blades is at doing that as well and if you are into collectible card games I think you need a real buzz from playing this game even if it is a little 2 meter at times 38 paladin's of the West Kingdom a worker drafting engine building game the secret architects of the West Kingdom I think is a slightly better game I think it's deeper and rewards more planning around your strategy there are so many different levers you can pull up in this game to control how you score points including what tracks you go down what cards you draw what workers you pick and how you play them throughout your turn and while it's a little light on player interaction that's ok because you will be so focused on what's happening on your own board trying to eat everything you can out of the game it's also left me pretty excited for what's going to happen for the third game in the series 37 empires of the void - this games an attempt to make an epic 4x space game like Twilight Imperium that plays at around about two hours and for the most part I think it does that quite well sure you're never going to capture the full experience of a long game of Twilight Imperium in two hours but empires of the void - gets close to capturing that experience and it has some genuine strengths of its own the worlds in this game aren't just resource markers they have stories and it makes the world feel a bit richer but for me if I want to play a game where I build a space Empire conquer planets make diplomatic deals and complete missions and I don't want to spend all day doing it empires of the void - is the one for me it's all so gosh-darn pretty number 36 siderial confluence trading and negotiations in the Elysium quadrant a real-time trading and negotiation game well once the trading is done you run complex engines to produce things so your confidence is a hard game to explain because it's really about trading cubes back and forth and that sounds frightfully dry in reality it's about nine distinct alien races with completely different play styles and economies throw it into one game we have to make trades and deals to shore up your weaknesses and build on your strengths in order to have the strongest economy and the most impressive technology sidereal confluence is a hectic crazy experience a game but if you like trading games and negotiation and high player interaction there are very few games better than Saudi riyal confluence 35 Kolejka a game about queueing for resources in cold war-era Poland now all that might sound really dry this is actually a super fun super crazy game as it's all about lining up of those queues and in playing cards to manipulate them routing someone out to the secret police to take them out of the line or jumping the queue because you're holding a baby you borrowed from someone else this one's easy to teach and family friendly but it can lead to some heated moments at the table because the game is so full of take that moments unfortunately I also believe it's out of print at the moment or at least the English version is hopefully it does come back into print because I think this is an absolute gem of a game 34 takenoko a game about growing bamboo and having a little panda roaming around eating it like I know I go on about engine building worker placement war games and other serious things quite a bit but tak inoko is just such an adorable game the core gameplay is pretty simplistic out of a modest there are past the victory that are a lot easier than others but that's not really what takenoko is about it's about a little panda eating bamboo and it's definitely one of my favorite family-friendly games Santorini an abstract game about building towers and the goal of the game is to be the first player to move one of your markers to the third floor of a tower and while that might sound really easy this game is anything but for me this is the definitive simple to learn hard to master game on the market the rules are easier than chess but it has that chess like quality to it with a board state constantly evolves and you have to be thinking many many turns ahead I'd go so far as to say this is the most elegant board game I've ever played 32 Arkham horror second edition a cooperative game where you battle lovecraftian horrors, viewers on the channel will know my long history of Arkham Horror and then it's a game that I have played hundreds and hundreds of times for many reasons but nearly 15 years on I still like playing the game and despite eldritch horror and third edition coming out I still returned to Arkham or a second edition and I think that's because while there's a big barrier to learn this game and lyrtle the system's in it once you do the playtime drops dramatically Steph and I can play a game of Arkham Horror in about 90 minutes if you want to know more about my thoughts on Arkham Horror I did a retrospective video on the game and its legacy called Arkham Horror the rear view 31 leaving earth leaving Earth is a fascinating game that really captures the feeling of the space race you can test and test and test things until you know they work perfectly or if you fear you are falling behind you can just risk it and sometimes that'll work out for you perfectly and other times disastrously this game is one of the most math heavy games I've played so won't be for everyone but if you really like the idea of a Space Agency simulation then I really recommend this game the outer planets and stations expansions and a lot more options to the game as well this one's not easy to get in stores but you can pick it up straight from the publisher number 30 the captain is dead a co-op game sit on a spaceship where everything's going to hell I really like this game and I mentioned fire fighting coops earlier in the video and this is probably my favorite one of them because every turn there is just crisis after crisis hitting you there's over 20 different characters who will play a little bit differently and your team makeup really changes how you play the game fast frantic chaotic and as hard as you want to make the game definitely recommend it for anyone looking for a short time to play full-on cooperative game number 29 obsession a game about running a household in Victorian England this is another one of those games that came out of nowhere for me and stiff was really the driving force behind us getting this game and I must admit I was a little apprehensive I don't particularly like marrying mr. Darcy I think it's a bit light and arbitrary and I was worried that this was going to be a bit like that but it's not but obsession is an incredibly tight game you get very few actions throughout the game and you have to maximize each and every one of them you have to utilize your hand of guests to their maximum potential and you have to ring every single point you can out of the engine you have built if you don't care about theming games and I know there's plenty of people for whom that is true obsession stands alone on its mechanics the fact the game lends itself well to people making silly voices throughout it it's just icing on the cake for me 28 gloom Haven a cooperative dungeon crawler there are so much to admire about gloom Haven from how tight the overall mechanics in the game are to the variety of play styles within the classes you unlock so the different encounters different enemies and just the sheer volume of content within the box and if anything that's also the game's weakness we played gloom Haven for half a year and I think we're about a third of the way through it and that's staggering when you think about it but with busy work schedules and lots of games to play in order to review I just haven't been able to commit any time to it this year and I feel like we've got another 40 or 50 play sessions of the game left in the box and that's without getting any expansion material what gloom Haven also does really well is make every turn feel important every card play feels significant there's no just I move my guy I roll some dice each action is resources you can't use later in the game and the number of scenarios that come down to the last few cards on plans is really quite amazing this is probably the best fantasy dungeon crawler I've ever played and I have a real hard time singing a game topping it any time soon 27 healthy heart hospital a cooperative bag building game now while this game is a co-op I almost exclusively played solo the trick in this game is manipulating this bag of colored cubes and it's very much a slow-burning puzzle because for each action you might pull eight cubes out and put two back in changing the complexion of the bag and throughout the turn you're making a whole series of small decisions hoping to lead to an incredibly big outcome towards the end of the turn victory point games no longer exist so I've got no idea what the future of this game is but of the people who purchased victory point games are listening to this video this is a game I really think could do of a second edition I'll even do you a video number 26 Cthulhu Wars an area control game with variable powers and Cthulhu monsters consider was this just a really good game all of the factions play very differently and their interactions can be really fascinating it's science but for all of the extra powers and gubbins in this game the core gameplay is relatively simple it's such a sturdy frame to build all of these exceptions on top of however this really isn't a game for everyone as it costs a packet and if you buy all the expansions it will see you back well over a thousand US dollars I personally don't own all of this but I had friends who do I think what would catapult this game further up my list would be a scaled-down version for the masses with smaller pieces at a much lower price point 25 Spartacus a game of blood and treachery a competitive game about running a gladiatorial ludus in ancient rome this game has three distinct parts the first of which as we play entry cards to screw each other over the second as we spend money at the market to buy better gladiators and equipment and finally the battles in the arena mechanically this game is okay and it's not going to win any design Awards on that front but what brings this game alive is the treachery inherent in it the intrigues and nasty cards you can play on each other the shenanigans in the arena where one player takes a dive in order for the others to win money the game shines of a group that loves backstabbing betrayal and schemes number 24 conquest of paradise a 4x game were instead of exploring space you're exploring the Pacific this game set during the great Polynesian migration which is where the Polynesian peoples of the Pacific explored and colonized about 40% of the globe for one of the great achievements in human history there's surprisingly few games about this yet there's a heck of a lot of games about people discovering already occupied Islands conquest of paradise does explore better than any other game sailing around the Pacific and finding islands that you can later colonize and build up it's really fun on this game and there's a serious and sincere commitment to acknowledging the culture of the people of the Pacific and the added bonus of the best tile to find while exploring just happens to be the island I live on I highly recommend this if you want a civilization game that's a little bit different to the norm 23 blood ball team manager a competitive deck building game blood ball team manager is my favorite deck building game and the reason for that is that the deck building is actually a secondary part of the game sure you can improve your deck throughout the game but the core gameplay is about winning highlights and that involves playing cards against your opponents in the center of the table this leads to a high amount of player interaction and gamesmanship within each turn and there's a lot of back-and-forth play in the game sadly another one that's gone out of print due to FFG and Games Workshop breaking up with each other which is a real shame again because I wanted to see more teams develop for this number 22 the Manhattan Project energy Empire a competitive engine building worker placement game like I've said that a lot on this list well I guess I like engine building and worker placement energy Empire's a game but I've played more and more over the last year and it's definitely grown on me and I think a lot of that has to do with the different combinations and different ways I've been able to play the game synergies between upgrades in this game are massive and figuring out the right time to go heavily into something or to divest yourself of something makes a really big impact on your score it's also a worker placement game where it's difficult to be blocked out of taking in action but your opponents can make that action cost more then it's really worth and it's those line calls about whether taking in actions worth it or not that have really elevated the game for me number 21 Arkham Horror the card game a cooperative dick construction narrative driven game the Arkham Horror LCG is easily the most character full of the Arkham Files games and it tells the best stories we ran through a full damage horror campaign and it was one of the finest gaming experiences of my life we each had such distinct characters and such strong roles within the team that I felt like playing a role-playing game just without a GM and I think that's its real strength that it tells these great stories and you can play like a genuine party the reason it slid down the solicitor bit is we got way behind on buying the expansion packs and on probably about two years behind on them by now and those things are not cheap in new zealand number twenty nemesis a semi cooperative survival game sitting on a spaceship full of gribbly monsters what appeals to me most about nemesis is that it's a game full of betrayal and backstabbing but all of that betrayal and backstabbing is opted in at the start of the game you get two objectives want us to play nice want us to play nasty and you get to decide which one of those you're going to do a lot of trader games force the role of the trader on you but here here it's your choice and I think that tiny change in the dynamic has a huge impact on this game aside from that the aesthetics of the game are wonderful the ship and the figures are really neat and in its way it's the best alien game that's ever been made despite not actually being an alien game this one appears to have taken forever to go from Kickstarter to retail and I'd really like to get my own copy of the game because I didn't back it on Kickstarter and if anyone in New Zealand has a copy of this and wants to get rid of it let me know in the comments number 19 as a tile laying game about laying tiles now there's a strong pattern in this list and that's what I like games of strong themes acyl doesn't really have a theme it's a Tile laying game about laying tiles and there's no much more to it than that and it's somehow I really enjoy this game I love the puzzle that it puts in front of you that you have to solve and how you can be forced into taking a terrible selection of tiles I like that a place quickly and doesn't overstay its welcome but I also like that the players control when the game ends now eighteen seven wonders a Card drafting game about building a civilization across three ages seven Wonders has an awful lot going for it it plays well at three players and a place well up to seven players it only takes about thirty minutes to play and adding players doesn't really add to its playtime there's a lot of decisions to make each round but no individual decision is that brain breaking and as a result it's a game that can play well with new players and experienced players the different wonders and different mixes of cards that come with the expansions also shake the game up and give it a fresh coat of paint but overall this is a game I recommend just about every game it gives a go at least once it might not be for you but it's certainly worth trying number seventeen between two cities a tiled rafting game where you work together with the players to your left and right to design two cities and the trick of this game is that you were scored on your worst city so you have to balance each city and not focus too much on one the thing I really like about this game is it's entirely based around positive interactions each discussion you have when you're placing new tiles is about how you can maximize each city with your neighbor and while you're individually trying to win you can only win by cooperating now it's not particularly amazing as a super competitive game but the reason I like it so much is it teaches a lot of core modern game principles it's got sick collection it's got drafting it's got tile placement it's got cooperative play while still being competitive and at the end it's called victory points this means it teaches a lot of the skills you'll use in a lot of other games and if you've got a group of mixed experience you can seek the experienced players apart from each other and they can help coach and guide their neighbors and they're encouraged to do so but because each player has two neighbors this very low opportunity for any kind of alpha gaming to emerge one of my favorite filler games but also my favorite game for introducing people to the hobby number 16 argent the consortium a worker placement game sit in a magical College where you are all trying to win an election argent is a strange game it's got so much going on there's the normal worker placement tropes in the game but there's also spells magic items secret goals and other special abilities the core of the game is that you're trying to influence a set of hidden voters and you only know a couple of them at the start of the game and have to learn who the other ones are as you progress this means you start with a focus on one of these hidden benefactors of how you're going to build your engine what spells are going to learn and what treasures you're going to pick up but as you learn more of the benefactors you have to change your approach and evolve it there's also some hilarious things on timing in this game because I like normal worker placement games you don't get the benefit as soon as you place your worker they're all done at the end of the round and in the course of a round someone might fireball the room your wizard is in sending them to hospital a lot of worker placement games can feel like multiplayer solitaire and argent the consortium is absolutely the opposite end of the spectrum there is so much player interaction it's so much potential to take that that I can see it being quite off-putting to a lot of people but for me this game is approaching perfection number 15 mansions of madness second edition and a persisted cooperative dungeon crawler sit in the Lovecraft universe after Arkham Horror of the card game this is the Lovecraft game that depicts a Lovecraft theme best of all for me the reason I put it ahead of the card game is this a lot easier for me to pick this up and start playing in fact I can play this game solo and the app takes the role of a dungeon master telling me what tiles to place and what various encounters do this gives the game a genuine feeling of exploration because the first time you do a scenario you don't know what the layout of the house is going to be and you don't know where the story is going to go and few games have that genuine discovery that you get in the game of mansions abandon a second edition now when you replay a scenario they do jumble things up a little but the story is normally fundamentally the same so it does lose a little bit on replaying scenarios but it's still fun and I think the reason I really like the game is just that sense of discovery of having the scenario unfold in front of you number 14 XIA legends of a drip system a competitive sandbox game about being a space captain this is almost the ultimate sandbox game you pick your little ship you sit off into space and you choose whether you want to become a space pirate or a courier or a miner or a merchant or an archaeologist or any combination of those things there are lots of different ships with their own special abilities and lots of different upgrades you can add to your ship this is also a game where it's not really about the winning it's about what you do during the game it's about exploring new worlds and finding new things and you can really make your own fun in this game well as long as you're not playing against someone whose definition of fun is hunting you down every time you repair there are a lot of dice rolls in this game and a lot of them are d 20s and some of the results are absolutely horrific you can quite literally just be destroyed by a dice roll which is not as big a deal as it sounds little ships are dinky and adorable and overall it's one of my favorite ways to spend a gaming afternoon number 13 roll for the galaxy a dice rolling engine building game now race for the galaxy is not on this list but that's not necessarily because I dislike the game but I really like roll for the galaxy and I think that's because of the variable inputs you get from the dice which means your strategy has to be more adaptive than it is than race for the galaxy I also just like that you have all of these dice you can play with and they've got different sides and different probabilities all that math really appeals to me as well as the satisfying sound you get when you just chuck a whole bunch of dice in the cup apparently this is a terrible game to play with cheaters but why are you playing games with people who cheat number 12 bloc by bloc the insurrection game a co-op or semi co-op game about leading an urban rebellion I've spoken before about my love for this game and I pretty much love everything about it it's a great fun co-op that's easy to teach and tackles a theme that neither game has done to date that of the civilian uprisings in urban centers over the last 50 years this is an abstraction of things like Ferguson of the Arab Spring and of the Rodney King riots but it's done in an abstracted way so that it's not talking about a specific uprising it's just talking about the concepts and Jim it's a game of a strong political message that isn't afraid to hammer that message right into your face there's a reason the cop cubes are white and there's a reason this game won't get re skinned into something more sanitized that's because the game is a political statement what I also love is that this game is available for free as a print and play from their website gameplay wise this is all about building up your forces liberating districts and forcing the cops to fight on your terms it's about assembling a coalition of forces strong enough to take down the police in your area and you do that by using delaying tactics by working together to consolidate power and in cooperating and coordinating your strikes number 11 paths of glory a card driven war game about the first world war paths of glory is one of the more complex games on this list and it has one of the longer play times this can easily go six to eight hours and it's a two-player back-and-forth game about the first world war and what I like about it is it doesn't tell the story on Rails a lot of simulation schemes make you feel like you're just playing out the war exactly as it happened halves of glory allows you to break that mold somewhat there's some scripting in the early war but as the war revolves you get to make more and more decisions about the shape of it the other thing this game does is make you hate attacking you have to attack to win in this game you have to keep the initiative and both players end up looking at each other wondering who's gonna slow the tempo down first you're constantly looking for the great breakthrough that will end the war by Christmas but those breakthroughs are exceedingly hard to get and you're left feeling nervous when you make one can I actually hold the ground I've taken all the counter-attack just knock me back to where we started this might sound like drudgery and awfulness to you and there is an element of that in the game but it's also really captivating because the war takes place on so many fronts there's so many things you can do to open the game up to wrest the initiative off your opponent it's definitely my favorite traditional war game these days number 10 Thunderbirds a cooperative pick up and deliver game about the classic Gerry Anderson Thunderbirds series this was my game of the year for 2018 and it's moved rapidly up my rankings I've probably played 30 games of this in the last year are many of those Solo and I just keep finding more and more love about it and what bamboozles me is this is by far my favorite Matt Leacock game he's the guy designed pandemic and yet I think it's one of his least successful and I suspect that's because the thunderbirds IP doesn't have broad appeal especially in North America and that's such a pity cuz this is such a good game and I suspect it would be quite enjoyable even if you didn't know the IP but if they are looking for a good cooperative game that has scalable difficulty and that requires you to plan several turns ahead check out Thunderbirds one might say it's F A B number nine this war of mine the board game a cooperative game about surviving a modern siege such as the one in Sarajevo this is my favorite storytelling game and for good reasons it tells stories that punch you right in the stomach there are a few games that evoke such a visceral emotional response as the content is so dark you portrayed through such a human lens and such a real lens that you can't help but feel empathy with the characters you're controlling and their predicament the gameplay is actually pretty good as well and in particular I really like the scavenging system where you have cards that represent how much time you have and you have to make decisions of whether you're going to explore safely or not throughout without the narrative book it would be an OK game but it's those narrative moments and it's strong characters and such strong sitting they elevate this to a top-tier game for me it's not gonna be for everyone but for those that speaks to it's gonna speak to them really personally if you're open to taking the theme seriously and you don't just want a game you could win because the best-laid strategies and this war of mine can all come undone with a sniper's bullet lucky number 8 Chinatown a negotiation game about building businesses in New York's Chinatown where this war of mine was dark and gritty Chinatown's the exact opposite it's a frantic madhouse of negotiation everything could be traded in this game and everything will be traded in this game it's one for people to like wheeling and dealing negotiations and figuring out how to make the best of an ever-changing board Chinatown is not for introverts it's definitely one for the more raucous and loud player groups but if you do have a group that thrives on interaction or even people who say they like monopoly but want to try a different game get them playing Chinatown number seven Anachrony, a worker placement game about a futuristic earth that's doomed to a natural disaster that also features time travel Anachrony is for me the pinnacle of worker placement and there's so much I like about this game from its unique look to the wonderful mech suits from the expansion so the variety of different engines you could build within the game and finally to the time travel mechanic which allows you to borrow stuff from your future self and rewards you for doing that there's so many potential decisions to make each turn and so many different ways that your faction and your base can evolve throughout the game and it all combines to create a wonderfully unique and tight experience it also has one of the best solo modes of any game on the market and apparently the expansion which is coming soon has an even better version of that solo mode so no pressure David but I'm expecting a lot from the new solo the only downside to this game is it's not cheap and it's not that easy to get your hands on number 6 War of the Ring a card driven war game set during the Lord of the Rings books this game has been in my top 10 games for nearly 15 years and the reason for that is it's a brilliant game the differences between the two sides are huge the free peoples player has a limited military and can't replace losses very easily but has a lot of heroes and can destroy the ring to win the game the shadow player has narrow unlimited forces that has to conquer so much of the map but they can also win if the ring bearer gets corrupted and it's these two competing tracks of moving the fellowship and trying to destroy the ring this is the military victory that give this game a really unique sense of balance and like paths of glory it doesn't retell the story on Rails you create your own Lord of the Rings saga and that's what makes the game special to me all the events of the books are there but the order they come out and how they're used is different you can keep the fellowship together all the way to Mount Doom well Isengard can ignore Rohan and attack the north instead the decisive battle of the game might not take place at the Black Gate it might take place at the Lonely Mountain or the Grey Havens and it's this variety and replayability that has kept us a top game for me for so long number 5 Battlestar Galactica the game of backstabbing and betrayal sit in the Battlestar Galactica TV show this is one of my main groups all time favorite games and we've played this a heck of a lot over the years this games over ten years old now and a sadly out of print and I expect some of the expansions like daybreak are going to be very hard to get in the future if they aren't already and while it might be a little chunky and convoluted by today's standards very few games have ever executed their theme so well this game always generates great moments great banter and great interaction between the people at the table board games are about generating moments with your friends I can't think of a game that's generated more moments for me than Battlestar Galactica but whether it's a sudden betrayal a mistaken identity or a well-planned execution this game consistently delivers highly memorable game sessions and great stories will be sharing for years number four Star Wars rebellion a card driven war game set in the original trilogy of Star Wars a lot of what I said about War of the Ring applies to rebellion as well the asymmetry the different paths to victory and how you not railroaded into telling the story of Star Wars you can tell your own version of Star Wars it could be in your story that the hidden rebel base was on Mon Calamari and that was revealed when Mon Mothma turned to the dark side it could be that the Empire gets to Death Star's operational at the same time and it also could be Chewbacca who gets frozen in carbonite and hard has to go rescue him there are a lot of things that make rebellion appealing to me but the thing that sets it a little bit apart from War of the Ring is that all the actions are character driven so it's not just moving an imperial fleet admiral Piett is moving that imperial fleet it's not just a sabotage mission jyn erso is leading a sabotage mission and that character hook really helps build the narrative of the story another game it has the habit of creating memorable sessions that you talk about the ages and the cat and mouse game between the rebels and the Empire about the location of the secret rebel base is an awful lot of thought when you're the rebel you're sitting there wondering of the Empire's figured out where you are and when you're the Empire you go where the hell are they as you said your probes all across the map to figure it out I also took the time to paint my copy and I'm really happy that I did because it makes me happy to see it set up and ready to play number three Twilight Struggle a card driven game where you play the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War my academic background is International Relations and defense studies and I spent a lot of time studying the Cold War so I personally find the theme really engaging even if it does buy into some things like domino theory and Rob's just about every state other than the Soviet Union and the u.s. of their agency it's still a fascinating take on the superpower game of the great struggle that occupied the world from 1945 to 1990 and if you are looking for a very serious competitive game with two players and you've got the time to play it and the time to learn it I highly recommend getting two eyelets struggle ago the app is also exceptional and I've actually been playing that North a lot lately and I'm seriously thinking of doing a playthrough of the app while I discuss the strategy of the game and talk about the historical context of the cards that are played if you're at all interested in seeing that video let me know in the comments number two terraforming Mars an engine building game about terraforming Mars this has been one of my favourite games ever since the day I picked it up and it's what I am constantly playing I've loved 300 odd plays on BoardGameGeek and three hundred and four hours on the Steam app what I love about this game is just the openness of the engines you can do the different corporations give you different play styles and star points and the engine you build evolved based on what cards you come across and you will come across all the cards throughout the game if you're playing with drafting which I highly recommend you do after your first game you'll see on average in a four player game nearly a hundred cards and from those hundred cards you might play ten to thirty of them my criticism of a lot of other engine builders is you don't get enough options that's not a problem in terraforming Mars and sure sometimes there are cards you just can't do anything with but it doesn't matter because you're seeing so many always a choice to make especially as if you don't get the cards you want there's always standard projects that can fill the gap you don't need to draw a city card to play a city and I just love all the different things you can do you can build a microbe heavy engine you can focus straight on terraforming you can build lots of cities and try to get extra points of other people's greenery and with the expansions you can build stations across Venus and invest heavily and colonies out in the belt and it's this endless replayability and the endless variety that keeps me coming back to this game since this game came out of five years ago it has easily been the one I've played the most and because of that it could easily have been my number one game but that honor goes to something very different number one spirit Island the cooperative game we play spirits defending in Ireland in the Pacific from invaders the proverb in tarea before was what I grew up with and it means in every band in the Waikato River there is a taniwha and a Taniwha e is a spirit now I remember being a little kid going up and down the river looking at each Bend and wondering where the taniwha was and spirit island is a game about playing the study far about playing those nature spirits defending in Ireland not too dissimilar from what I live on from invasion the game also teaches the principles of kaitiakitanga which is the idea of stewardship or living at one with the land the spirits get angry in the game because there's blind and blights caused by over harvesting and over exploitation of resources in my day job I work for the Department of Conservation and our job is looking after national parks and protecting endangered species so a lot of the ideas and spirit Island really appealed to me that wouldn't be enough to make it my number one game not by a long shot Spirit isand also a stunningly well designed cooperative game there is so much happening in this game so much you can do and build and all of the spirits feel completely different to play sharp fangs behind the Leaves works by moving animals around the board and using them to attack the invaders oceans hungry grasp drags the invader's out of the oceans and drowns them and heart of the wild fire moves around the map leaving a trail of destruction behind it but also like a wildfire the potential for regrowth a lot of games have variable player powers which change one or two facets of the game but in spirit Island your fundamental game experience changes based on what spirit you're playing and the interactions between spirits are also dramatically impact the game the team of slow-moving spirits can be made that much more effective by lightning swift strike and serpent slumbering beneath the island can be a liability for the first part of the game but when it wakes it makes a huge impact there's also so much going on on your turn that'd be almost impossible to alpha game this most people will be busy and dealing with all the things they have to do to have to worry about what someone else is doing there's also loads of scenarios and invaders that you can use to modify the difficulty of the game and it's because of the theme the asymmetry and the powers the customization of the difficulty and the overall challenge of the game and how it makes you think this is my number one game of all time for 2019 and that's the end of the list here's a list of the games they were on the top 100 last year that didn't feature this year most of those just because I've been enjoying other games more but one of those a distant plain which was my number 19 game last year I've taken off the list for a conflict-of-interest I still really enjoy the coin games so much so that I've been designing one so thank you all for watching and if you enjoyed this content like it hit the notification button subscribe to the channel share it with your friends and consider supporting us on patreon or just buying us a coffee that'd be ace and I'd like to thank all of my patrons from this year we really could have done this without you your supporters allowed us to buy new cameras a new microphone new lighting keep paying for software and generally keeping this project going from Stephanie and I thank you so much let me hear your thoughts about the list in the comments let me know what games you think I absolutely need to play and thank you for staying with me to the end of this video Ka kite anō, farewell

Channel: 3 Minute Board Games

Views: 163,408

Keywords: Board games, Board game, How to play, Board Game review, Short Board games, Three minute Board Games, 3 Minute Board games, summary, hot take, subtitles, top 10, top 100, best board games, best games, top games of all time, best board games of all time, spirit island, scythe, gloomhaven, terraforming mars, twilight struggle, 7 wonders, monopoly

Id: tp2jAxu-IB0

Length: 73min 49sec (4429 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 18 2019