Top 10 Tactical Solo Board Games - Straight Up Solo with John LaRuffa

hello my friends John L ruy here with another straight up solo and in this episode we are going to look at my top 10 solo games from a tactical standpoint so what I mean by tactical is these are games that when you sit down to play them you won't necessarily have one strategy over another strategy over another strategy you will choose at the beginning of the game you're going to make specific choices based on how the game goes how the board um kind of evolves and it's it's more or less lots of shorter term decisions versus longer term strategy where you can sit down and say I'm going to try the X strategy or the Y strategy or the Z strategy so these games are as far as I'm concerned some of the best games in the market solo wise and let's start off with my number 10 my number 10 is going to be welcome to the moon this little box this little tactical Joy of a box has eight different scenarios in there where you are basically playing The Welcome 2 Series which is you draw three cards and they have fronts and backs and what you what you do is based and what choices you make is highly based on the cards that come up now you do have a plan in this game but you can't necessarily uh rely heavily on that plan to pan out because the cards are very tactical and so you always have to make the best choice you can uh based on what the card Show Now what's really awesome about this game versus the other welcome to series is this game has a full campaign inside that can be replayed that has a narrative and all sorts of good stuff so from a standpoint of the welcome to series it's fantastic I think and it literally has like I said there's eight different games in here okay they all follow the same basic rule structure so to speak but they're eight different boards and things that have different ways to score and different things you're supposed to do it's just a great value very good if you like the kind of flip and right Series games out there this one is awesome okay number nine number nine is one of my favorite Stefan Feld games probably my favorite stanell game honestly and that is bonfire I've talked about bonfire before this game is very difficult to win solo I don't think I've ever done it but it is a tactical Masterpiece and what you're trying to do in this game game is a little bit of everything but of course um when you can do it in the best way possible you can score the best way possible and it is a weird theme it it is you're basically moving your guys on this board in lots of different ways to um try to build this series of bonfires with portals and with matching symbols and all sorts of stuff it's a very difficult game in all honesty to Des subcribe to someone who's never played it but it is a real tactical joy and the reason being is because there's just so much that you can try to do in the game that makes it fun um it's it's and you know what you want to do but to get it done is hard the choices and how to do it and and which actions to play and how to make it work and all that stuff is just wraps into one massive puzzle and I I really enjoy this game I've had it for years the expansion um at adds to it a little bit doesn't make it like that much better to be honest but I do like the game whether it's expansion or not a lot and so that would be my number nine Choice all right number eight number eight is one of my favorite uve Rosenberg tactical experiences and that is Iranian Burger Canal now normally uve Roden burger games to me are very strategic at least I'm talking about like the big box games not the uh po oal games but in this game what you're going to do and how you're going to do it is highly based on the cards that come up and in play there's not a ton of actions you take what is huge about this game is how you put these different cards together in the orientations how you surround them with different things how you can activate them once then activate them again it is a tactical Masterpiece and there are many decks that you can buy to improve on the experience and add to it and I think each of them is very interesting and adds another flavor and element to the game it's just a great game and if you can find a copy of it that's that's outstanding uh I think it's one of the best tactical solo games out there and you can play it over and over and really unlock some amazing um it's there's a lot of combination of cards but it's a weird it's not really like I wouldn't say it's a comboy kind of game like that really it's just about how you're putting together your board to get the most out of each card and then really set yourself up for some um really strong scores so really like that one very fun uh lots of replayability if you have a couple of different decks in there um and a lot to just just try to optimize and and make the best all right so that was eight now seven seven I would say it's it could be either this game or the other and it's just about your preference but I'm going to give seven to the Third Edition of Arkham Horror okay and I could have also s said Elder um Elder signs I'm sorry Elder chord pardon me but I like Arkham hor a little bit better because it takes uh all the best of the mechanics from a lot of these games and is really kind of combine them into I think the most fun package this game in particular is all about trying to figure out how to make the Tactical puzzle work and the way it goes is you're going to choose um you know kind of like a scenario to play that scenario puts in different things and then you know you are trying to survive and accomplish the scenario but it's not really a strategic situation at all like you're going to do lots of tactical things go here to try to get these things go there to try to get that um Stop This Disaster before it gets too much out of control figure out how to deal with these enemies before they crawl all over you and destroy you just a ton of good stuff and there's a lot of expansions for that game so if you like it you can really flush it out with an awful lot of additional content I find that uh that even you know just the base game will give you an awful lot of of enjoyment because it is so hard uh but if you add one or two more um expansions in there it really flushes out all those decks so you really don't know what's coming next and so I I do think it's one of those games where you probably need to toss in at least one expansion after a little while just to give yourself more cards to go through but a really good fun tactical game that's very challenging and is easy to it it's very easy to play solo no problem with a solo standpoint okay that was number seven now number six is one of my newest games and I think it deserves this to be mentioned because it is a masterpiece and that is the seventh Citadel with kind of I don't know this isn't the greatest of box art I'll give you that but here we go um the seventh Citadel and the seventh Citadel and the seventh continent are both very tactical games however the seventh continent I would think is um it's more of a survival game than the seventh Citadel the seventh Citadel is very focused and what you're trying to do is you're trying to accomplish whatever your goal is for a specific scenario and a specific threat but how you do that is completely based on the cards that you encounter and the different choices you make and so you can't necessarily say I'm going to try this or that strategy at all it's literally like okay I'm going to venture into this place hope I can find what I need to find make the best risk management decisions I can and hope to survive in order to come back alive and win the scenario it's extremely tactical but it's very very fun and it's also very persistent like there's a persistent campaign you play through so it's a big investment that one really stands out more than any of the other ones on this table because it's a huge investment in time uh in an investment in learning and investment in money um and near the end if you start to if you have a problem at the in near the last couple scenarios or whatever you can fail the whole campaign so to speak and it can knock you all the way back you have to go to the beginning so that is that's tough okay that could be very tough for some people but I think that that game really puts you on the edge of your seat uh and that is a unique experience in board gaming sometimes where it's like it's sort of like playing a legacy game without having to destroy your your stuff okay um if your content I should say your your components you don't destroy them but just like a legacy game if you have some really bad games like you're just goofing up bad choices things didn't go your way I mean things can really get bad so and it can snowball on you and make things more difficult in the future so the reason I like that game so much is because the exploration of it is really fun and it's tense it's intense really it's very intense you don't know exactly where you're supposed to go it's like I'm kind of going in this direction I got to figure out is that the right place am I I could be going the completely wrong direction I could be wasting tons of time and I might come back empty-handed and if I come back empty-handed I'm going to have to pay the price for that so I just think this really cool it's really cool what they did here and I I like it a lot it's it is again very tactical um but very enjoyable to play so that is my number six all right number five number five is a very unique game I think because it Blends uh no pun intended it's themed with its mechanics extremely well and that is distilled now distilled from a solo standpoint is um it makes you basically take this I guess I would say it's a deck builder Market Style game so to speak and puts you into a unique tactical puzzle every single time because you put together this little pyramid of cards it's like an Inver inverted wedge I suppose of cards or a diamond and you have to be able to work these things out from bottom to top in order to win and they're very specific and you have to look at the whole thing as a big puzzle but you can't see all the cards right away so you start to flip some up and so it changes things you have to be very reactive and not kind of like hem yourself in and the the solo mode is so much better than just to beat your own score a beat your own score would just really lack tension I think in this type of game because it it wouldn't give you any you could just do whatever you want and it would just kind of be willy-nilly however with the solo mode and those and those specific goals you have to accomplish to move on it really focuses you to think how am I going to accomplish X then y then Z and then not do something that's going to drive me making it impossible to do some other spots and they even have like I think I can't remember exactly how it works but you can swap the location of of two cars I think one time so there is this like onetime use thing where you could say I can move these around and that might really make the difference between a win or a loss very fun game great theme the way you play you're literally putting ingredients together shuffling them up and then distilling off the top and the bottom and what you were left with is what you're making from a liquor standpoint and it's just really cool it's a lot of fun and it's also not hard to play solo at all okay so that was number what was that uh five okay now number four three two and one really tough at this point to sort out because I think there is a big gap from what I've just talked to you about to these last four games these last four games games are going to stay in my collection and be regularly played for a very long time and I'm going to put up my number four first and this was a tough one between number four and three but I think this is and this another really new game to me but it really inspired me to think about this concept of the Tactical play and really it does a fantastic job of that and that is inventions evolution of ideas this game it it it basically it it um it pulls no punches it tells you exactly that it is a tactical game and it truly is every game you are going to try to get the most possible actions you can to do the most of what you can to try to beat the bot and you have to do it in a very very specific way staying out out of your own way trying to maximize the opportunities that you have on the board the board is an evolving changing um um mechanism with cards coming out that provide you different goal um I shouldn't say Goals provide you different ways to accomplish your goals there the board State really dictates what you can and can't do but it does not feel extremely constrained there's lots of ways to skin the cat however there's absolutely a best way but that is not easy to necessarily see there are no obvious choices I think in that game it is a really really fun game to play it can be done in just over an hour the bot is easy to manage compared to some of the other lerta games that are out there and in general I think it's probably one of the more easy games lerta games to play with regards to how you actually play it there are many different things you can do in the game and they don't have nearly as many steps as some of his other games do so it seems less procedural and much more tactical I think it makes for an extremely fun game unfortunately it's very pricey but if if you can get a copy and you have the bandwidth to do so and you like tactical games that one is outstanding now my number three top three here my number three is a game that just came out with another addition to itself so to speak and it provides to me one of the best deck building experiences I've had in in forever and that game is Imperium and this one happens to be Imperium Horizons which if you look at Imperium Horizons Classics and legends this is probably the best one to get I think to if you had to pick one not only just because it's the newest but because it all it has the most content from a standpoint of gameplay options in there but this is an awesome awesome awesome solo uh deck building game not not solo I mean you can play it solo you play it multi-hand Etc or multiplayer of course but it is just a really really fun game it's I don't think it's strategic because you are buying cards from a general display and those cards how they come up and whether you can get them or not is very much what's going to dictate the type of of experience you're going to have when you sit down and pick one of the um different factions that you're going to play with there is clear understanding of what you're supposed to do to play that faction well not necessar you have a clear understanding but it'll tell you in the back like this is what you're kind of being going to do with this this is the cards and what you ought to it depends what you want to do if you want a free whe it just deal it out and see what happens but you you almost want to take a look at the the deck look at the cards see what's in there and then make a decision okay I got to focus on these types of things and that is a strategy for sure but the way that all the other cards come into play and everything else I think it's it's highly tactical either way the game is awesome and there's if you combine additional box I've done reviews on this by the way too I've done reviews on almost every one of these games um the um only ones I haven't were be the ones that were maybe too old before my channel but I don't think any of those would be I think I've got all these are are new enough anyway sorry d uh digress really really really good uh tactical experience and there is so much content you can play I think the I think it's eight factions or 16 I can't remember cuz I mixed them all together there's a lot of combinations and every one of them can be played against from a solo standpoint they all feel very unique the way the solo bot handles things they're very unique it's it's fairly well streamlined but I'm not going to say it's easy this game does take some time to understand there's a learning curve and once it once you do understand it then it plays pretty quick but it's still a pretty long game the only thing I don't like about this game and I'm stuck there's no way you can deal with it is the scoring it is kind of a bear to score at the end the the cards a lot of the cards are X points for such and such condition which means you have to count all these things up and then figure out how much they're worth and when you do that you also have to do that for the um the solo bot it takes some time that is the only thing I don't like about this game the rest of the game is super fun it's just really good it gives you lots of fun choices there's lots of cool things you can do a lot the factions can be very different in how they play and what they try to do uh it's it's just a lot of fun so I definitely recommend checking it out if you like tactical games and you like deck building games okay number two and I would have never known that this was going to be my number two tactical game of all time but I have just fallen in love with this game and I got it um because I enjoyed previous titles from this designer but this one to me it I just keep coming back to it it there's something about it that just makes it super fun to play and that is Scholars of the South Tigress this game game I so Shem Phillips has done a bunch of games in this West Kingdom North Kingdom South Kingdom Etc and those a lot of them are very good and I like Wayfair is probably uh the second best out of all them although that's really hard to to win solo but but Scholars is like Leaps and Bounds in my head way above the rest and I really couldn't put on put my um finger on exactly why and I think it is because of the Tactical nature of the game the Tactical uh joy of the game you you are going to spend an awful lot of time trying to based on the cards that are out and based on what you have in your dice and how they come up and everything else pull off some amazing moves I I I just I think it's really really cool it's it's you're going to be able to every game you're basically bringing in the cards that are going to score for you um and then how you bring those in highly influences what you're going to do in the future the cards come out fairly randomly so you don't know what's going to happen you can't say I'm going to focus on this or that yeah there you can into certain strategies versus others uh I shouldn't say a lot of them I mean you I think basically in general you you kind of have to be really open to the best moves possible to score well so it's not like you could ignore a part of the game or not um but it is just a very fun game I've done a solo playthrough of it I've done reviews of it check them out if you like uh Shem Phillips games I think that is the top I just the top and if inventors of the South I think it's inventors of the South Tigress is better than that then I'm going to be just completely blown away just completely blown away but I love that game it's super super super fun okay finally my number one my favorite uh tactical game in my collection right now that I've ever played and I never see myself selling it and I love it so much [Music] is nucleum nucleum [Laughter] folks this game right here I've been a fan of brass I've been a fan of age of um industry for a long long time problem with brass the problem with age of industry is you can't play them solo nucleum you can play solo and that game scratches all sorts of itches that I have that brass and age of Industry um that are related to that plus this game was just better just plain and simple better it is so cool there is so much intricate uh combo action um good decisions to be made in this game and there's and it is 100% tactical because you can I guess lean into one thing or another but the way that the tiles come out are going to drive what you're doing the way that the board is evolving is going to drive what you're doing the way that you're laying things down is going to drive what you're doing uh and the and the also the goals that come out they're it's going to it it's it doesn't it doesn't play the game for you but you'll never be able to sit down and say I know exactly what I'm going to try to do this time you can you can try certain things you can try to focus on one thing or another but really in order to play play well you're going to focus on all the scoring things that come up and those are random every time and then you're going to try to do it as best as possible the most efficient way as possible and outsmart the bot who's very difficult I think but it is just such a fun game if you haven't checked that one out take a look at it there's going to be expansion coming uh in the near future I think I think this year and um I can't wait for more maps I can't wait for more content uh just there's there's also a ton of stuff in here too because each game you play you get there's four different uh a C or D like I would say packs you can play they have different research tiles that are there they have different starting tiles and so depending on what you play will definitely Focus you on one thing or another so it's kind of asymmetric players um in that regard but but just so much fun to play and once you understand how the bot uh plays is well it is a very intuitive experience to to kind of have that body just keep taking the turns and be quick I I should say this I got to back up one section Scholars it is a hard game to learn and it's a hard bot to run until it all finally makes sense but it does take some work I didn't mention that about Scholars but it is a tough game for whatever reason to wrap your mind around and I think it's because the bot plays so differently than the way you play you just have a lot of it takes a lot of practice to get there nucleum not so much uh it's it's it's still it's a very clever bot but it's a little bit more straightforward on what it does it takes a little less practice to figure out but it also is just again a game where you have I feel like the world is your oyster and you can kind of work on however you want to craft your your tactics to win that game so either way um those top three are really really close in content um as far as goodness and I think probably however you rate them or however you rank some of these things will be personal preference of course and that's what these right this is a hopefully an option for me or an opportunity for me to share my favorite 10 tactical games you probably have some that I missed and I would love to hear about them also if you haven't heard of some of these games or haven't played these some of these games and you really like a tactical experience then this gives you an opportunity to see what I think is uh a real uh strong offering from a solo standpoint there so thanks so much for watching I really appreciate it everyone and you know what I always say whatever you do in the future I really hope you have a fantastic fantastic time doing it take it easy everybody

Channel: No Fluff Solo Gaming with John LaRuffa

Views: 7,401

Keywords: Solo, Board game, Best, Ai, Automa, Review

Id: F6e4q8ORjnk

Length: 23min 31sec (1411 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 30 2024