Top 10 Worker Placement Games - with Tom, Zee, and Sarah Shah

[Music] good afternoon everybody my name is tom vassell i'm z garcia hello and i'm sarah shaw from board game cinematics all righty well welcome to our top 10 lisera board games in a minute no one has ever accused me and z of doing that okay even a little bit you could try maybe i should have you on my channel and you can try it just get get cut off in the middle of the component down right oh my god sam doesn't mention the title yeah uh but yeah we're glad to have you on board uh all the way up there in new york while we are suffering down here in our florida weather i would hardly call it suffering i think i would like to trade with you but okay it was quite hot this morning 71 when i woke up that's not hot i'll trade with you and that's when okay the echo and robots are fixed everybody so we'll just in case you missed it we're here to talk about worker placement games um so work replacement games that's started way back when i'm not sure the first worker placement game i want to say it's way out west from martin wallace kayla's was the first one that got people interested in a genre but usually it means you put something usually a worker onto a spot then take the action and in most games nobody else can take that action until you remove it somehow is that legit that's i would say that's basically it i mean worker placement really is just action selection with uh something else built into it whether it be adjacency limitations or exclusivity right i mean that's what worker placement is and yeah i think you're right so what i did here i want to talk about how i made my list so i don't get people mad at me i could have work replacement's extremely popular it's it's something i really like and it's in a ton of games and so i looked at my top 100 and i could have pulled my top 10 worker placement games probably from the top 30. don't judge z hang on i'm waiting i'm on the i'm on the very very edge waiting to pounce on you for making bad choices here what what did you do are there any work replacements on your list no i decided to do area control i couldn't i just couldn't no i did work replacement games and these are all fantastic but i picked games where i really like the worker placement part so for example my favorite game has one worker you stick out and then you pull it off occasionally it almost doesn't feel like a worker placement game okay that's not on my list i'm talking about how much i like the worker placement part the other thing i did do and this might be slightly more controversial is i didn't do any dice placement games i didn't say y'all to do that that was just that was all me i'll do it i did do that so why not tom what's what's the difference you don't know okay so actually i know i know the difference is in the games but why what prompted that exclusion because i figured i could do a top 10 just based on that oh we're not good enough for you to include dice in this one you got to save it for yourself i see how it is you know what this is off the list now am i awesome did you pick vicious dishes on the list is that working well known work replacement game yeah i haven't designed a worker placement game by the way welcome dusty new member sarah what did was this a hard list for you to make oh my gosh it was really hard but i'm just talking about the dice thing i can kind of see justification for leaving dice placement games off the list because i included them but because there's kind of like an element of randomness right because you're rolling the dice first and then seeing which numbers come up before you can then maybe draft them or place them so i can see the justification for leaving them off but i did include a couple but it was incredibly hard to come up with 10 and then rank them and i still am like second guessing some of the rankings and wondering if i should like move some up moves them down it's very difficult yeah it doesn't help when someone's like how could that be your number seven right oh my god i'm just waiting for all the criticisms i'm going to get from my list what about you i did something a little similar to what you're talking about tom i mean i i did not exclude dice placement i think it's the same thing especially it depends what the randomness of the dice is if it's something you roll and then you can see a pool and draft it's not really that random then right you're just sort of drafting the workers um but even if it is random it still feels like work replacement still feels like hey i'm gonna do this before you do it and exclude you from this spot even though my dice yes they are random i'm getting real specific because uh my game is real specific um anyway what i did was yes picked games i really enjoy but i also tried to and i wrote down a little blurb about why each of these games i think the work replacement part of it is fun and engaging to me just curious i wonder if we'll have crossovers here i'm going to say we're all going to have one three-way crossover and then maybe a couple of two-way crossovers that's my prediction i have at least two of my lists that no one else will because oh gosh i bet i have a couple that you guys will definitely not have on your list so we'll see i already promised i wouldn't cr i i've already i made a vow to z i would never criticize him again um how what was this i haven't been around for this all right well that's that's how we start off the list with a nice polite lie here we go number ten my number 10 is a two player only worker placement game called holmes sherlock and mycroft and this one is a very forgiving sort of very free-flowing worker placement game you've got three workers on your turn from turn to turn the only restriction is you need to move a worker you got to pick them up from where they are go to a new location and take that action you'll get you know extra clue tokens extra cards it's a very straightforward small set collection card game the thing that's interesting is what you the two players are doing is appealing to these characters for them to give you some sort of benefit but if you both go to the same character which you are allowed to do if you both visit the same person that person is exhausted next round and they are flipped face down you neither one of you can go there next time so it's interesting someone who gets used a lot or has a you know you find the power is particularly good will be turned off every other turn if that ends up happening a lot uh and i also like the idea of having to evacuate a place first with one of your meeples to then jump a different one into that spot if you want to take an action you took last turn so i really enjoyed the simplest game on my list i would say but a a lovely little game holmes sherlock and mycroft uh chris you're gonna have to put that on the ketchup palooza i do need to play this one no oh sorry okay never mind fine tom i will i will show it to you it's back on the list we have a promo for that actually or we just had a promo for that right yeah maybe last year maybe last year you're like in the game somehow you got transported back in time i'm one of the uh one of the brothers that are so cool alright sir what do you got all right i have brucell's 1897 i hope i pronounced that right so this is a card version of the original brussels game but you have cards that have numbers on them and they are your workers and so you kind of have to be careful about which number card you're using to place on a card that i don't remember how many rows and columns there are but you are trying to gather art pieces to display them in a museum you're trying to gather resources to build buildings you know there's a lot going on in this card game but your numbers you have to be careful about them because you know it may earn you some bonuses and you know you may get some penalties later if you decide to use a worker in the city area you may have a worker that goes to jail and you need to take it out i just love this game because i have not played another card game in which cards are used as workers and that is so strategic so i absolutely love this scheme and that's why i had to include it have you guys played it have you played the board game i have not i know that's terrible i really should but no but i played the board game i haven't played this i didn't realize there's a difference of four years the board game is 1893. oh yeah yeah so four years later they got rid of the board four years later they discovered cards um i have not played this but that sounds pretty cool i i've seen it i'm i'm aware of what it is but i did not realize that this was a work replacement game in which the cards were workers i do like the way that sounds i i can't think of one i mean there's so much going on you're trying to advance on different tracks you know you're trying to get prestige and other things but yeah there's a lot going on in this card game it was really strategic i like it i don't know that this one even came through uh the dice tower office we'll have to huh we'll have to hunt it down you're gonna have to talk to some people all right before i do my number 10 just want to say thank you to michael gayeck who's now a member he said have fun pronouncing my name so i probably pronounced that wrong thank you all right number 10 for me is a game that i i i wanted to make this higher on my list but the game is good but the concept is even greater and that's chimera station this one here i just find a fascinating game because you have workers that are aliens and you add body parts to these aliens each worker has like a special ability but you add body parts to them so some workers for example in this game you need to feed your workers every turn because they adhere to the starving philosophy that rosenberg has pushed on all of us but like if you have food producing part i guess you can apply i don't want to think about why you you don't need food but you don't need food each turn for that worker some some workers if it's an alien right it's like a self-sustain yeah they're all weird aliens okay yeah okay some of them you know when you put them on certain spots they get extra points so you have to kind of figure out the combinations and i really like it it's the the the game around it is good but the worker placement part of it i find to be phenomenal it's a really cool a cool game that did not get a lot of buzz i thought it got buzzed before it came out right but not much more so that's i i think you can get this game pretty easily though on you know like it's on the second hand market probably i i don't think it's like a rare game so uh oh you photosynthesize thanks chris anyway chimera station my number 10. my number nine is one of the more beloved work replacement games out there it's had quite a few versions by now and it is viticulture viticulture is a game that again has had a lot of content and the the main thing that makes it stand out for me that i think is a neat little thing that makes a big difference wasn't even in the original edition of the game and that is the grande worker that they added on to second edition and then you know you can get it in the essential edition of course as well i like this idea that you have one special unit one special worker that can break the the rule of worker placement in this game and that is when someone takes a spot then you can take it well with your grand day worker you can so you can you can hold that one back and be given a little leeway and the reason i like that idea and enjoy it in this game is the same sort of philosophy of why i like tickets to ride europe a little bit more than ticket to ride it's a little more forgiving there's the train stations allow you to a little sort of okay you you got really locked down i'm going to give you a a free pass one time and that's how the grande worker feels to me besides all of that of course the game around it is very engaging a lot of collecting and making wine and aging it and selling it uh and i really think it's a it's a wonderful design but that grinder worker is a neat idea i'm surprised more games don't utilize that or even maybe included in as a variant give you an extra i mean it's one piece per player as a little variant here you go if you want to play with it you can do that so viticulture my number nine yeah so my number nine i know that most people will probably never have this on their work replacement list is endangered so have you guys played endangered it's a cooperative game in which you are trying to rescue endangered species and your workers are dice that you're rolling but the the reason i included this is not only because do i love the theme of this game but the dice placement can be a bit tricky because you can only place your dies dice if your number is higher than the ones that are already in the location that you want but you cannot remove your dice until it's your turn again so you know you really need to work with the other players that you're playing with to you know think about whether you really should go in a certain location with a certain die you have with the number on it and you know this is a game where i'm like literally on the edge of my seat like because it just it's so such a tight game where you're just trying to rescue these animals before time runs out and influence ambassadors it is really good but that's why i included it just because it's a bit tricky with the dice placement and how you can't remove them until it's your turn again well this is also a passion of yours right it is yes it is i'm very much into helping animals you know you know endangered animals and raising awareness about it and animal conservation that is a huge passion of mine yes how many different animals are there now i think there was like what two in the base game there was third if you got the kickstarter yeah right right and they just recently had another um kickstarter for some new species that are being added including elephants which are like my passion you know project elephants so yeah that's all really that's a really good pick sarah i um i might have even put that on my list if i had thought of it because that's a really really good one so i'll say it's my 11. awesome yeah yeah that's really good and i do like the way that game works with the uh the players creating the locations that you go to yeah and then having to be careful about locking people out yeah that's cool yeah oh it's me it's me next okay first of all before we do that successful geek said they joined as a member just because of sarah and then uh carrie and um tommy both said that they did super chats again saying wonderful's addition a great addition to content creators and because we had sarah on so um thank you everybody carrie underwood no i didn't say carrie underwood um gary s all right my number is underwood sorry my number nine which i suspect might be a crossover is if there's one man who's who's making a living currently off of worker placement games that man would be shem phillips because that is pretty much the vast majority of his games at this point in time somehow there's worker placement uh maybe not the newest one but but a lot of his games have that in him and so i was looking at all of them and while i like raiders a lot where you put a worker down pull one off there's something about architects of the west kingdom that really draws me in i think it's because you can round up a bunch of people's workers and take them off the prison and i don't know why i find that amusing uh but at the same time the game tempts you to put a large group together because every time you put another worker there you basically just exponentially increase the amount you get stone from that spot but then i see him i'm like well z put all those people there a bunch of thugs and i'm rounding them all up taking them off the prison i i don't know what it is that whole concept it's really easy and how many games start you off with what 24 workers yeah it's a lot it's a ridiculous amount i love this game yeah yeah it's that same mechanism as uh notre dame which is you know we put a single cube the first time it's one point but from the second cube is two third cube it's a single new addition but it's three points now i like that a lot so that's my number ten or nine architects of the west kingdom all right yeah counting is difficult folks but i am at my number eight uh my number eight is my let me let me make sure here i want to sure this is my only dice wine yeah yeah i would say so um my number eight is kingsburg kingsburg yes has that thing where you roll dice and then figure out what you're going to do with those dice but there are a couple of things that make that worker placement interesting they it's true they don't quite feel like workers uh there's i don't know you can't you can't assign sort of personality or intent to those dice the same way you can to characters i'm going to send this character this person to gather lumber you know you can't really do that in kingsburg but you are still going to take a look around the table and notice that that person over there has a four and if you don't take four now they'll probably take it before you then you're stuck with a dead die one you you can't use and if you roll low you go earlier which is another clever mechanism very simple to implement but i like that a lot so kingsburg is a fairly straightforward work replacement game from the point of view of what you are trying to achieve gather stuff and then spend it on buildings get get better at what it is you're doing but i like the worker placement in it and uh it's a game that is very enjoyable to me so my number eight kingsberg kingsborough second edition whichever one well my number eight is lost ruins of arnock um i won't say that the worker placement is anything extraordinary in this game but the reason i included this game is because it also has deck building in it so honestly that's like the reason why i chose this game because it combines another one of my favorite mechanics and i love the theme of it and just everything about it but i really don't have much to comment on the worker placement aspect itself in this game well you do require the cards yes you do you need to put a certain card to put a worker out yeah so i guess that would i guess would be something different but yeah yeah so overall it's a game that i just really love and had to include but i don't really have too much more to say about it yeah yeah well this one is very loved and i heard that it's really hard to get right now oh dear yes i think so well it's if it's cg cg we'll bring it back in print so that's not a problem right yeah yeah this is a good one i like it yeah this seems to be becoming a hit for them yeah i think so i mean there's more and more games now that are combining those two mechanics worker placement and deck building you also have dune imperium and then endless winter which was on kickstarter recently so i think we'll be seeing a lot more of those yeah i think uh dune imperium and uh lost ruins of varnak were definitely this year's uh deep impact in armageddon yeah yeah that's true you know what i mean where they were like okay wait these are both deck building games where you use the car to place workers so yeah well you can also watch deep impact and then right into armageddon in fact i do which one's better uh one of them has an aerosmith song so that one no it's deep impact all right anyhow uh board game co says elephant deck building games just saying um madison is a new member and board meeting gave us 10 bucks for including a dice worker placement game the best mechanic so thank you z you're welcome all right see have you ever wanted to play all the different kind of worker placement games in one game ah the answer is no because you don't like this game i like it probably not is it 504 i'm so confused what is this no it's almanac uh oh okay yeah so almanac is a game that just was released around the the turn of the turn of century the turn of the decade actually can we say that yeah technically it doesn't matter i really like the concept of this game where each new round you turn the page and you're playing a different kind of work replacement game there's some general rules that they all follow by the way the whole full name is almanac the dragon road but one you can't put the workers in the same columns one you know you're where your workers cross they do something i don't know i really like it the game behind it is fairly basic and there's a little bit of luck in between rounds but i love how every page is a different layout it's just a really neat thing but you said you weren't as big of a fan i don't i i'm not a huge fan of the sort of staccato feel of having to ramp up and play a few rounds or place out a few workers and then score flip a page learn the new layout that that breaks the flow for me i think that's my main uh drawback wow sarah have you played this one no but it sounds really great and now i need to i'm going to add it to my list it's done by scott alms who's i guess best known for his tiny epic games actually he's done quite a few games at this point yeah uh i i don't know this one i also like the art and it gets as close to adding theme to a themeless game as you can get did that make sense yes yeah all right i'm going back to dragon road my number eight [Music] well we've got a crossover already i'm crossing one over here with uh mr tom vasso and that is architects of the west kingdom architects of the west kingdom gives you 20 workers i think it is at the beginning you do not earn more workers in this game that is a staple of so many work replacement games right that idea of you begin with three or whatever and there's a spot where you get more and most games where that's a feature that spot is crucial early game this one does away with all that and just says you have 20 of these at some point you'll you know round them up if it's someone else's then you keep them and or throw them in jail they're your own you've got some workers back that's true you can round up your own yeah that's how you get them back right so you can round them up and then you've got more workers it's a great dynamic it's it's engaging i mean i was just talking you were just talking about almanac uh the dragon road and how i thought that was sort of a little staccato this is the exact opposite of that there are this is smooth there are no breaks in the worker placement you know like even recalling your workers is placing a worker so i really like that flow and uh enjoy quite a bit so there you go that is architects of the west kingdom well my number seven is also my first overlap with you guys architects of the west kingdom on the same number tom that's better but uh as my note underneath uh number seven i have jail that's all i have written down in his jail like i love the aspect of putting the other players workers in jail and like you know everything you guys have mentioned about it i love it and it is such a good game i don't think i have anything else to add to it really yeah well the one thing i do like about the jail here it doesn't feel that mean do you know what i mean yeah guys i'm like well they kind of deserved it you know too many people there and then you can go rest them pretty easily yeah yeah and yeah you kind of feel like i made that spot too juicy someone was gonna grab them up and throw them in jail yeah it doesn't feel mean alrighty my number nice well speaking of mean my number seven is a little mean and that is the game carson city and why do i like this worker placement game is because it does something it does two things different than many games one you're placing workers on action spaces you know to do different actions but also you're building a city and the workers can be placed into the city to build something or to rob the bank or whatever so that's one thing i think it does cool the other thing is you can go to the same spot someone else did you just then have to fight for it you know then you have a gun fight and there's ways to tilt them in your favor a little bit you also have to determine whether the percentage that you might not get the action at all is worth even bothering uh that combined with you know what they just came out that enhanced version and it has a really cool setup feature where you can pick what you start with ah just a great product i really like this one and the designer of this one has a new game coming out soon and so i'm just i'm excited about that he also designed um a trois right yeah and he's one of the co-designers of one of the co-designers of uh black angel right yeah so he has a new game coming out always with the ginkopoulos so i i'm i'm really keeping an eye on stuff that he's doing you know it's exciting for that so that's the city exactly xavier george georges something like that i apologize i'm not sure how to pronounce it but yes uh very good cool now this next one i'm going to guess that neither one of you have played it i'm not sure but i think you haven't played it and that is a little it comes in a fairly small package uh work replacement game mostly made up of cards called demon worker have you guys played this no i i play angel worker myself ah maybe demon workers were at that this the main the main thing here is that in a lot of games you and in fact we we've mentioned some you are drafting new action spots or you know somehow getting them and placing them so that you can visit that location oh now i can go to this spot and i can do a thing that nobody else perhaps can do this one kind of flips that on its head and instead you hire a unique worker there is a deck of cards and each card is a worker you begin with two humans they have no special abilities uh-huh and uh that game has a kooky theme it's just it's a small asian game i think it's japanese but i'm not sure um yeah look at which you are you are you know doing these uh i don't know it's it's somewhere it's like a an office in hell and you're being put to work so that's a weird thing but um you begin with the two humans but then as you go you can draft new characters and they will come with special abilities but again the ability is tied to the worker so there is a cost to recruit the worker there's a cost to deploy the worker to send them to go work somewhere and then they will give you something special if you send this guy to this location perhaps they give you extra of that thing this one here can go out for free this one here wherever they go they mined that place for twice what it would give you things like that so it's really great balance between wow this worker is insanely good also it costs all these tokens to send them out every time i send them out or maybe there's one that says wow to recruit this worker the first time i actually bring them into my work pool is insanely expensive but i get to deploy them for free every round that's good i get to start saving for other things so i really enjoy it the worker spots are very simple it's all about the workers themselves so demon worker i'm gonna stop saying the word worker number six my number six is coimbra so this is another dice placement game where you are rolling dice and then the different dice may give you different bonuses depending on the color that they are so i also think this is another game where you need to think strategically about which dice you are drafting and which tracks you're trying to get you know advance on um yeah and there's just so many different paths to victory in this game which is one of the main reasons i absolutely love this game so so yeah so coimbra have you guys played coimbra yeah yeah that's a good one um better with more players oh yeah so you don't have to deal with the so you have to deal with the artificial dice thing but it's like yeah what's that kingsberg has artificial dice if you play with two true but that one's really easy actually i just played you just roll three dice and put them out yeah something like that right and it's very it's very simple last time i played i played like that and it was smooth yeah this one's a little more annoying with say two players or even even three even three you have to have one artificial dye but it the interconnecting yeah gears and and sort of how everything affects every little thing elsewhere is cool this is uh it's just one of those games that for someone who likes euro games where you can see the levers being pulled and the gears turning you'll really enjoy this game that's a good choice i like coinbra alrighty my number six since we've been talking about we all like architects because of putting people in jail let's all stay in jail lockup this is from the role player universe and i like this worker placement game because you get to place a couple of your workers face down so all your workers have powers it's almost he might argue it's almost area control uh maybe it is area control is it worker placement i don't know i don't know you know what i said it said it's your list stick to your guns why are you i'm i haven't even jumped on your case and you're getting wishy-washy against myself here um well i just i like the hidden information that's always been something i like except i don't want it all to be hidden so this game does i think a really good balance of having some of it to be hidden information so anyway that's my number six lock up which i'm shocked itself out of i'm not sure okay pick something else that was garbage all right my number five is the only one i went back and forth on because the worker placement as per board game geek has this listed as work replacement and i kept um i'm gonna use it vacillating because i get to use that word between whether i would put it on the list or not this is istanbul no tom says no you know what lock up calm down uh istanbul has i think a lot of things that make it a work replacement it has you have to move there is restriction and movement so you can only take a work replacement action two spaces from your last worker placement action okay you have the ability to instead of deploying a worker if you go somewhere you have visited you will pick up a worker and still trigger an action so a way to conserve your energy instead of having to do a re regroup turn you also have the typical thing where if you go somewhere where there is a worker in many games you can't go there at all in this one you take a penalty you have to pay somebody if they are already there so i think it counts it's a really weird work replacement game and it does use that you know the rudiger dorm sort of specialty which is a stack of pawns or stack of discs and you move around the board leaving them behind or picking them up again but it it i think it's a worker placement game um and i think it's a fantastic game i really like istanbul it's this is a this is a game that keeps growing for me the more i play it the the better i feel about it the more i enjoy it i love that it's one of those games which is ultimately a race means means you get to the end somebody wins and you're done you don't count points somebody just won that's it so few games do that and i i really appreciate this one does it istanbul i love it good good choice good choice yeah that's right so my number five is everdell i love everdell um mostly because of the animal meeples and stuff so yeah so i mean it's you know it's it's just like a regular worker placement um but the theme is what really does it for me and so that's why i had to include it i you know i don't really have much else to say about it i think theme is a legit reason um it's got all the cards you like the the arnac deck building with all the cards and the yeah so that's true this one isn't deck building but you are building this sort of that's true you are kind of building your own kind of like tableau you're oh yeah yeah what about um with uh the the expansions do you like any of them or play with any of them i haven't had a chance to play them i have all of them i haven't had a chance to play with the expansions yet but i really need to i i'm not playing with them either so i'm just curious about it yeah i know i have all of them i need to i really should i like the uh the snowy one um the best oh yeah i forget what it is yeah i'm just picking over to see that one i would say is the the easiest one to add in the rules are very hands-off but it gives you a little something extra to do awesome all right psyredi 22 is joined as a member and camran hi cameron don't forget to send us your marvel united stuff said great to see sarah on the show oh um my number five is an area control game for sure but it's also a work placement clearly and that is empire's age of discovery or it was originally called age of empires three which is a much more confusing name since it has pretty much nothing to do with that but in this game you are placing workers out on different spots to get resources and do things but a lot of the workers you place also get shipped off to the new world and to the the different areas there which you then fight over and that's the area control part of it and the different some of them once they hit the new world can turn into something you know like there's soldiers you can send over there that they can fight but the soldier also is useful in the exploration worker placement it's it's a it's a neat marriage and even though this game came out i don't know 15 years ago or so no one's really copied it which is weird to me because it seems like it's ripe for that yeah i agree i agree this is uh this is one of those games where mechanically it doesn't seem to get a lot of attention but it did did a lot of things quite early before it was ahead of the curve you know from a mechanism's point of view i would say uh it's been ages since i've played it but i did i do remember the fact that you know having different workers and having some be better at some things than others was a neat idea back then it was like wow okay i'm used to them all sort of being the same well i still like it a lot so my number five empires i'm sorry glenn drover's empire's age of discovery that's right he gets sued if you don't mention glendale it's crossover time again this time with sarah for okay number four for me you're right i i think it's a great um work replacement game the the the worker placement part that i find is an interesting twist in this one is prescribed extra workers you know a lot of worker placement gains as i said earlier you can earn extra workers you go to a spot where you get extra workers you have more workers it gets prioritized a lot early in the game it's a spot to fight for and then that spot dies off right uh in this one you begin with two workers that first round is lightning quick you're like oh my goodness this game's gonna be over in 15 minutes and then you get an extra worker next round and you get two extra workers and then you get one extra so they they they stole them out on a on a specific um schedule and i find that very interesting it takes that away that idea of like i gotta fight for more of my characters i have to you know be more efficient so i can do more things no you do as many things as the other persons uh and i enjoy that you gotta earn extra actions from from other abilities from cards from things like that plus as you said it's an adorable game and i love the way it looks so everdell my number four oh well i'm glad you explained it much better than i did so that's good somewhere you know what the point is you're you're used to doing everything in a minute okay yeah i'm putting you in a minute from now on okay here we go you guys should be timing me okay my next one is trick hearing which i actually have done a minute video for if anyone wants to check it out so trickerion is such a great game you are like competing magicians trying to gather the necessary items you need for the tricks that you are then going to be performing so there's a bunch of different areas on the board that you need to go to the the interesting part about this is though that you don't know where the other like so you do it all blindly right so when you reveal which locations you're going to you don't know what where someone else might be going so it is extremely competitive and you kind of almost have to guess where someone else might be going and where you should be going then to try to win it's really competitive but i love it and i think the mechanics and the theme blend together so well in this game i love uh going to the theater and then trying to you know get those bonuses from the way you put down those uh trick tiles and things it's a there's so much going on in this game but the worker placement aspect is very competitive yeah you know sunday i'm gonna have to play this again i i'm always being i mean already half the comments are about how wrong i am on this game i i just i like the theme so much like i love the illusionist theme oh yes i love it this is not one i've played um i just i'm not i'm i'm i don't like that theme for a board game i like that theme in real life i mean i would go see a magician good because watch this what it's now in your back pocket oh no i wish i had a plate oh my god if you pulled something out like that oh my god that would have been amazing oh you're so lucky tom i normally have a deck of cards around but you got lucky this time no i i don't know it doesn't captivate me it hasn't anyway i might play it i love it it just hasn't it hasn't grabbed me too you know grab it all righty well indigo said he owes z five bucks from what's happening so he paid it whatever that means um and then okay i have no idea i'm owed money but okay i got one kayak has a super chat because of sarah and her everdell pick not your z just heard no not mine mine was garbage i'm a follower all right my number four is almost guaranteed to be a crossover with z garcia oh um but not yet but i would be surprised otherwise give you no hints on my face because the fact of the matter is you mentioned earlier about uh what was the pick coinbra that it doesn't work as well with two well this game is the two player worker placement game and that's target place the two workers get the two actions then get the action where they cross it's awesome we'll probably talk about it more later that's my number four [Music] target i think you overestimate tom how much you can predict what i'm gonna say i have a feeling that you think you know more about my tastes than you know i don't want to sound mean well you do so okay well fine okay my number three is targy oh i didn't know it's that close i got to be like you're number one or something yeah uh number three is target uh i like the i like the idea of yes the workers it's a head-to-head game again so i like the idea of the workers taking the action wherever you place them and where they intersect on this you know imaginary grid on the table and so you can have to you have to think about both things you know and i like that very much i like the idea of what's more important right now do i want this card in the middle and therefore i'm willing to take an action i might not necessarily want on the outside just because i want the lines to intersect in that spot or the opposite so it's it's it's it's tricky but it's one of those games every time you know we talk about it i sort of mentioned this but it's this is such a tense game it's a great back and forth where you are spending more than half the time when you're placing workers going oh don't go there oh i got to take that spot and then you can now place across from someone so if they go to either side of the line you're hoping to go to then you're like oh no okay well then i'll counter with this move over here and there's one of the outside cards that lets you pick an inner cross and move it so you're like oh i'll do that right now before somebody else takes it oh yeah this is a fantastic game it's such so engaging fun um another not a not a very sort of exciting theme perhaps but an exciting gameplay for sure target i like it even better than tom that's right [Laughter] so my number three is honey buzz have you guys played honey buzz yes this is very new uh very new lit new entry there it is but it's so good so i love it because you know it's kind of like i guess it is a tile placement game as well so you have your b workers and you're putting your b's in different areas of the board and you do need to add one more b than the previous player so you know it is one of those ones where you need to use more workers if you want to take the same action but you are adding tiles to create your own beehive and then once you complete a hexagon it activates all the actions around that hexagon that you just completed but all of this is so that you can make honey to sell to the market and get you know all those points that you need to win and it's got such an adorable theme and the theme and the mechanics go together so well so yeah honey buzz absolutely love it yeah yeah i think for me honey buzz is uh one i didn't think of because the uh the worker placement part felt like a smaller part of the pie maybe i can see that yeah but that's also one of the reasons i do like it um just because the activating the tile part like i haven't seen that in many other games work replacement games where you by getting the things you need all of a sudden once you've completed something it activates all those actions you can then take so it is also really competitive because you are also trying to get the nectar you need before someone else might get that nectar because then you can produce certain kinds of honey which are worth more points in the market you know you have the market which where the value is slowly decreasing as you start selling more of that honey so there's a lot going on in this game it's actually really good yeah yeah there is definitely a lot going much more than you would think when you glance at it at first at first glance yeah yeah when so fit says tricarion is a great pick and tom was wrong about it all right thank you i love being forced to read things like that uh are you reading the uh i read the super chat did i miss one well no i think it's the same one you just read but you skip the fact that they're suggesting that it's too complex for me i was trying to be nice it's okay tom i am a dummy i cannot handle tricharia i understand that i i'll accept it you can teach me sir in a minute or yeah i can just watch my one minute video done you're good if you could pull that off that's just an overview but no all right my number three i'm also going very new here and that is whistle mountain i love whistle mountain and the main reason why it's a worker placement you have these three workers these three different an airship a balloon three different dirigible type things and you create the places they go to you build the board up so if i put this ship here i'm gonna get this this this and this i love that concept i now of course i'm setting that up so that you can go there also but being able to build this little grid out there that forms the worker placement spots for your ships and also the one ship the two ship there's a one size ship two size ship three size ship they're you know the three size ships more powerful but that one ship might fit into a spot other ships can't that's cool and so this just really does well and i like it a lot so that's whistle mountain you're saying ships like a choo choo no like dirigible oh an air ship okay yeah dirigible is right uh ziplined original i don't know that a hot air balloon is a dirigible though no a hot air balloon does not have steering so it's not it's original means steerable so it can be directed that's what the word means i know i've learned something new you're welcome um so yeah no i i i was not sure because you said yeah whistle mounted i'm like i'm thinking i must have missed when you said the original voice i was like thinking wait why are we talking i thought it was trains you know why are we talking about ships yeah the trains and it's confusing because the whistles they put in the game they're trying to build that fake line up you know whistle stop whistle mountain whistles they should have picked something else because when i think whistle you think train there is no other correlation between it and derivable yeah okay okay also winsofit wants you to know that you're a genius oh my goodness thank you all you gotta do is complain and we'll tell you you're amazing [Music] all right my number two is my newest pick on the list and this is it is i think yeah fallout shelter is my number two a lovely little worker placement game uh in which you are i just i just love the game honestly i put it on here because i really really like the game but i like a lot of the things it does with the work replacement the idea that you are building up your spots your you know it's supposed to be a shelter fallout shelter um and you're you have a floor you have your own sort of you know level and you can build that level up with spots where you can go if you want to but if other people go and you can incentivize that by making it perhaps a location that gives something to the players that isn't readily available if you can incentivize people to go there you'll get a little something so you want them to come to your level i like that idea and then also monsters and creatures will spawn in these levels and they should be dealt with you get a reward for dealing with them and other players will get that same reward but you are incentivized to get rid of them because they that spot will not score at the end of the game if it is occupied by some beastie really nice back and forth very engaging cute if you like that that um sort of you know 50s aesthetic from from fallout and i just enjoy the game quite a bit i think it's uh it's a very unassuming game i like that about it it's very charming disarming looking game uh fallout shelter my number two pick my number two pick is abomination the heir of frankenstein wow that's a big one yeah it's amazing so you are scientists in france and trying to collect the body parts you need to make your monsters and then make them come alive there's just so much going on in this game so you know you're going to different areas of the board trying to take various actions and get all those body parts and then once you have the body parts you need to use them before they decompose you know so you need to use them in a certain you know as quickly as you can basically before they're totally gone from your board and then you know you need to make your body parts come alive your monsters come alive is so good i just yeah it's just an amazing game and i think the theme and mechanics in this one are also really well integrated yeah so you were like oh endangered saving the animals and everything all the cute animals and now they're still body parts yeah and now i need bones and blood and everything yes it's gruesome it is really gruesome yeah this game does not hold back with that does it if there's like blood and you're you you do need to sort of go dig up bones yes it takes a gross theme and really goes for it it's so gross because like there's different parts of the board you can go to the hospital to get body parts you can go to like the morgue you can like you know yeah so it's go to the direction you can get a fresh copy yeah this game is this game is uh no holds barred yeah it's quite dark a little ashamed actually i upgraded the components for the library copy so what actual human bones oh just how did you do that i've seen the upgraded components i totally want them yeah all right i'm sticking with new this is the last brand new one on my list but uh i really do like lost words of our knack but it came out the same year as dune imperium and i just really like dude imperium um both games do similar things people kept asking me to compare them and i was like they're not the same but i see why they have that same central mechanism where the card in your deck building determines where you can place the worker now it's more restrictive in dune there's the car there's like six different places that you can go to while in lost ruins there's what it's foot boat car plane and the plane can go anywhere but i just like that restriction you know when i play when i think about dude imperium i saw some people complaining that the deck building wasn't they couldn't cuddle their deck they couldn't but it's not really a deck building game deck building's just in it it's really a worker placement game and but the combination of that and the deck is is really neat so that's why i put it on my list it's a good back and forth between the what the deck building does and what the work replacement does right you got to sacrifice one to do well at the other i'm predicting we're going to see more of these games come out considering how popular the two that just came out where i think we're going to see more deck building worker placement endless winter oh yes i'm so excited for it yeah [Music] you know tom i um i think you overestimate your ability to predict what's going to be on my list i think you you you think you know what's going to be on my list i'm not that bad forget it yeah my number one is something you mentioned already you suspected it would be on my list you're right again you smart man my number one is manhattan project energy empire wait i didn't say that that was this morning a board game breakfast we talked about it what are you talking about you just said it i have not heard him mention manhattan project at all during this night maybe you just said that this might be on my list oh no maybe that was architects of the west kingdom you said that it was architecture i might be looping excuse me so i put more of this grit in my in my body g fuel support come on g field backup g stands for grit um manhattan project entity empire tom has not mentioned okay it's a completely original pick and i like the worker placement in this one quite a bit because uh because of a couple of things the smaller one of those two things the less important one is that there is one worker placement spot from which you can take a card but there are three cards or so face up there which means that spot is perhaps i'm targeting it i'm looking at it because i want one card and another player is targeting it because they want a completely different thing a different card okay cool but we've kind of seen that before the other thing i really like about it and this is the main reason it's on the list is because there is a common worker placement area the board but then you have your own work replacement spaces and on your turn you will do one common pick and as much of your own as you want to yeah and it is so cool to build up this amazing factory where you can go grab some steel or whatever and then activate this activate that draw this do that boom boom and then you know you can refresh that roll dice for energy build up your energy and then do it again i i it makes the player it makes me feel so cool to be able to do my own work replacement in front of me that nobody else has access to i've built this machine and i can run it it just sings i really like manhattan project so um or manhattan project energy empire so my number one energy empire my number one also my number one for similar reasons that you like manhattan project is obsession by dan halligan so this is yeah so this is one where you you know it's like all about courtship in victorian england and you will have certain gentry that are going to be doing certain activities in their estate and that could be like going horseback riding it could be going taking painting lessons it could be doing all these different things in your gentry require different kinds of workers that you have and it's all within your own board it's not like on a board with other players so you are utilizing your own workers and having your gentry do these activities and then they need to take a rest after you use them so it's going to be a while before you get to use them again and the game is only like the law the longest version of it i think it's only 15 rounds i could be wrong but it goes by so quickly so you really need to think carefully about which activities you're going to do which workers you're going to spend because you know it might be a little bit of time before you get those workers back to use again is so good but yeah again all in your own little estate so you're not competing for worker spots with other people but it is still yeah it's such a tight game it is so good yeah that's two victorian games back to back and uh slightly different looks at that that's true that is very true there are no uh bones to collect an obsession that's oh my gosh i should ask dan halligan to include an expansion come on where's the blood and guts yeah like the mysterious obsession expansion with murders and all of that that is such a good idea that is a wonderful idea you think there's that new hot show is on netflix now where they're talking about like this yeah bridgerton right oh my god yeah i binged it in like two days i'm obsessed with it i need to re-watch the whole thing again because i'm i can't stop thinking about it it's so good if you like that you would like obsession i think for that reason that it's it's actually fairly mean like is that your servant i saw it i hired him right out from underneath you and he's working for me now yeah you can steal other people's servants if you are yeah there is something that allows you to do that it's true all right before i do my number one i want to mention uh first of all there's so many of these games i really think i could do a top 100 worker placements i'm pretty sure um and so we're also gonna do the people's choice in just a second so you are confirming here and now that ls3 are doing top 100 work replacement games breaking news breaking news sarah now you have to rank 100 games oh my god okay i would love to yeah let's do it let's do it my number one is viticulture essential tuscany essential and z already had this on his list but there's two main reasons one is the el grande worker but i actually like the seasons to me it's such a fascinating way to do worker placement where you have to play some workers now and you want all this stuff but you need to save some for later and i'm also watching z hoping that he decides now is more important and then he passes and then sarah passes and i'm like well i was going to save some for the future but now all this stuff's open i can do anything i want and that back and forth between the seasons i love it i love it and i think it's fantastic yeah the fact that some things simply aren't available till later where you might have cards you're ready to plant but it's not planting season so you're like when we get there i gotta jump on the spot you know what i mean right um i need to i need to save my grande for that but then it's you know but then you realize you need the grande right now for something else you need right now it's it's great tension that's a good one all right let's see what the people picked in our poll on facebook five six seven eight nine ten all right number ten is the game people are begging me to put on that's a feast for odin i like it the reason it didn't make my list is because i i think more about the placing all the tiles down over the work replacement but it's still very good obviously i hate it now you hate it number nine paladins of the west kingdom that's that's good but i think the architects paladins has all kinds of juicy stuff going on architects the worker placement is the game you take that out there's no game right right uh what are we at number eight anachrony sarah have you played an acronym i've played anachrony and it was like the time i've only played it once but oh my god it was such a close game it was me and two other people and all of our scores were a difference of one point it was like 45 46 47 and we even recalculated our scores to make sure we made no mistake it was such a good game like yeah it was amazing yeah all right then we have stone age now that's this ain't cult of the new here stone age has been around for a while really stone age almost feels like the architects of the west kingdom from a decade ago that's kind of cool yeah i guess i'm i don't think that work replacement and it stands out you know what i mean um well at the time it did see it did but i just i mean i don't know it kind of feels like hey here's another work replacement game it's not bad you know but it's also not doesn't rise to the top all right then number six lords of water deep that's many people's introductory worker placement game to the hobby right number five everdel so people crossed over with both of you then the only four-way crossover architects of the west kingdom coming in at number four number three raiders of the north sea uh shannon phillips is getting a lot of love yeah yeah yeah wow number two champions of midgard now this is a game i love a lot but i like it the worker placement's good but i like the whole combat with dice thing that's that's what really attracts me to the game and number one by quite a bit viticulture now for those watching are there any games we did not pick that we should have some people let me look here underwater cities i've played it yep that's an interesting one because you place a worker and a card at the same time to do the actions that's interesting and no one put k-less but that's like an old game right that's i mean i guess they just redid it kayla's is uh i don't know it always felt this way to me but maybe even more now it feels a little clunky it's very long for what the for kind of what it offers i mean kayla's was like a three hour game last time i played it i remember taking a long time and uh it had an interesting the main interesting part was that idea of sort of some some buildings being turned off you know because the uh character whatever it was would walk backwards and turn some things off but yeah it's yeah there's better worker placement games i think some people are mentioning scythe but i would be very strongly opposed because scythe is not a worker placement yes you take a worker and put it on your board but you're essentially just picking an action each turn and the rule is you can't pick the same action twice that's it yeah yeah i agree with that and let's see mark says rajas of the genji should be there hey remember what i said next week i'll be doing the top 10 dice please wait wait you never said next week you said you would like to do a different list with uh doing just the dice worker play what are you doing no i already had a top 10 list scheduled for next week oh wow so many plans plus our top 100 worker placement so well now that i did not schedule it yet i also saw a lot of people are talking well i saw two things somebody said for me atlantis rising is the worker placement part of that i know the game is very high on my favorite games ever the worker placement part of it isn't necessarily uh doesn't elicit the same emotions as most worker placement games i'm not fighting with anybody for locations you know there's none of that stuff it's cooperative so that's why it's not on here wow there's so many games lorenzo magnifico barrage um i mean darwin's journey that was like a really tough one for me to leave off of my list so hard yeah is darwin's journey out yet no um but i covered it for their you would be so ahead of the curve if you had put a future game on there yeah maybe i should show you the future i wouldn't know this game but this is a game that uh for which i uh i heard about a prototype is that's that's where we're at all righty folks well thank you for coming on board and watching us sarah thanks so much for joining us today so much for having me on this was so much fun thank you it was wonderful if people want to find you where would they go yeah so you can find me on facebook board games in a minute on youtube board games in a minute instagram board games in a minute yeah if you can subscribe to my youtube channel that would be amazing yeah and uh folks if you like this video shoot us a thumbs up real quick and we'll be you know that helps us uh more people to find this video thank you everybody for watching uh this is the last live thing we got today but we got more videos going up and we'll be back tomorrow morning playing reload live at 10 a.m eastern standard time either way until next time you've been watching dice tower i'm tom vassell i'm z garcia i'm sarah shaw have fun placing workers [Music] you

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 121,003

Keywords: board game, board, game, dice, card game, cards, catan, monopoly, tower, dice tower, vasel, review, tom vasel, vassel, settlers, gaming, GeekUsername: TomVasel, board game review, boardgame, uno, ticket to ride, apples to apples, educational games, educational, top 10

Id: tnUi7rDfjJM

Length: 68min 5sec (4085 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021