Top 100 Games of all Time (20-11)

[Music] tom vassell's top 100 games of all time [Music] good morning everybody i'm tom vassell i'm roy kennedy i'm mike d'alessio garcia hello this is it the final day we've been talking together this is definitely folks we've not done this before but it certainly is interesting uh a lot of work goes into these top lists and we do one a week usually at most and here we're doing 10 in the same week so big thanks to everyone behind the scenes chris roy and mike and also we had people helping us even more put documents together so we appreciate that and here we are at the top 20 games uh not a ton of change but some i'm always interested to see will the number ones change dennis says finally the good games instead of all the garbage then he puts joking in case we didn't catch that that's fine come on yeah come on now that's the book of z right there the book of z sounds like a terrible musical flick of z is long and boring all right let's get started here with number 20. all righty i'm still gonna stand here up for mr rosenberg my number 20 which has been on the list since it's come out which i believe is this is the eighth seventh year is caverna 16 last year so pretty close to the same uh time frame i really like this game there's an expansion they just announced i don't i'll play the expansion but i'm happy with the base game i think there's a lot there i like the open-endedness of it if i want to be the sheep king i can if i want to be the the donkey queen i can do that if i want to be the cave okay i'm running out of in fact he should have stopped right before donkey clean duke of cave is pretty legit duke of cave i like that yeah anyhow this is a a really entertaining game for me i i like worker placement and this one even though it doesn't have maybe the vast diversity of agricola feels more fun to me i just feel like i get to accomplish something in every game so my number 20 cabernet my number 20 is a older days of wonder game but this is one of the first games if not the first game with a hidden trader and this is shadows over camelot i love shadows over camelot i have a blast playing it it was one of the first games that really brought me into like just being a tabletop gamer into being like board games can do this sort of thing this is amazing like i want to play more board games and it's really just poker hands doing quests and things like that but the whole like intrigue of like working against the game and then somebody might be a traitor amongst you and trying to figure out how to play that dynamic as well if you're the trader you try to act maybe just not be quite as efficient as before and i really enjoy the way that this game plays out it is a classic game almost at this point just because it's been around for so long but i really enjoy the way that it plays and i know i isn't it like super out of print at this point i keep having all these super old games there should be a reprint with like a new theme coming or something that's crazy to me they toyed with that yeah they they were like yeah we might do it yeah we'll see that was kind of where it's gonna be i thought it was gonna be in new york said in new york or something like that right they said that they were thinking about it i think it was the designers who said something to that effect but they had to get days of wonder on board is there a money python movie based off new york you can quote then while you play or camouflage the the ip days of wonder is very pragmatic and the ip cost for monty python was just too high for them to do maybe they actually made it as a monty python themed game that would be insane but you know that would be fun but highly doubtful but yeah this is actually one of days wonders best sellers tickets rides their best seller of course and i think behind that there's a big drop then and then you have the big three for them was memoir uh small world and shadows over cam one love it hey uh you know what animal is severely over represented in board games that's right cats all right my number 20 and it seems like this is a lot of cat games lately but this is uh this is my favorite of the cat games this is isle of cats this is a really really um it's a nice package to me this feels like a game that will still be what this is high yeah i know really i really yeah i love isle of cats um which sounds redundant i love i love cats it is a polyamino game um which you know kind of the tetris style pieces but they represent cats that you're putting on a player board which represents a boat you're trying to save these cats from an island that is ready to get kind of destroyed and so you're trying to save all the kitties you're getting baskets to put the cats in you're using fish which is the currency of the game to lure the cats into your baskets to then bring them on the boat so that they can lounge spread out all over your boat and it has a really clever kind of the economy with the fish but there's a lot of drafting and i love car drafting there's a huge deck of cards in isle of cats that you use to draft that are going to give you ways to get cats on board but are also going to give you scoring abilities throughout the game it's a really uh it's simple to teach but there's enough going on i feel like it has a just the just right amount of weight to the decisions uh to the playing time everything about this game just feels right to me and i think it's a game that will still be getting played many years down the road that is isle of cats and it should be said like that sounds weird i don't want to accidentally say something that's false i love cats uh this is one i did not get to play yet i need to play it put it on the list now oh i hear it how come no one told me before right now that this had a big deck of cards with scoring opportunities come on this whole time i'm like it's a bunch of goofy looking cats and like stretched into weird shapes because they need to make them fit the tetris pieces but now you're telling me there's a deck of cards come on man big old deck of cards scoring opportunity snark everybody no i'm serious i this would have been something i would have pursued if it was if i'd known that speaking of a bunch of cards my number 20 is a crossover i believe with roy and just like he said this was an entry basically for a whole system but then he picked one i'm not picking one this is a whole system unmatched is my number 20. i thought this would be higher for you actually two actually yeah then 20. 20 is up there maybe one of these days no i'm taking a pause for uh perfect dramatic effect no i think on imagine that 20 is very high good night i mean no i'm just saying i thought it would be in your top ten you talk about it so much these days i do and it might keep going up especially when we get some marvel in there i'm psyched for that but yeah everything that we have right now is uh very enjoyable it's a great uh quick playing game i mean they just the the things the emotions it kind of brings to the surface there's this cat and mouse feel to the whole thing sometimes you feel on top of the world you chase your opponent down get in their face play a card bam wreck them sometimes you're just sort of running away trying to build up your hand again trying to hide i love the ability for the game to surprise me every time i play that that's sort of you know my opponent to surprise me that idea of i think i'm going to do really well here and then you just get the rug pulled out from under you yeah i enjoy just a blast and you can of course any game that is sort of like this you can uh find that deck that character if you would that really speaks to you and that's a great search that's a fun that's a fun quest for that unmatched my number 20. love all right steve zerk says he loves what we do and tells people to support the kickstarter and we also got something from age who says well he wants to know why his couch is wet and um tommy wanted to tell us that this money could have gone to kickstarter um so oh and 0-0 b-a-z roberts said greetings from uzbekistan that's awesome that is very nice thank you all thank you thanks everybody people's choice number 20 was number 16 last year so pretty consistent it's been on the list for five years and that is orleans um this is i love that how you just kill z a little bit every time you do that oh i have a life force it's just because yeah yeah he hasn't noticed that gee what you guys don't realize is tom doesn't actually mispronounce anything correct every time he mispronounces anything he's doing it purposefully he's being a dwarf help you out here tom i'm really trying to help you out buddy anyhow early on i remember when again this i said i preferred it over to alto plano obviously so do most people because that did not make the list i'll tip leno all right so number 20 here uh orlean and also welcome nicholas as a new member thank you hey welcome to nicholas all right my number 19 is my third highest new entry to the list and it's also clearly my newest game since it's a 2021 game um this is adventures tactics uh dominar's tower i love this game in fact there's a very high chance i'm playing it tonight me and my kids have just really taken off with this one it it's a simpler groomhaven for lack of better quick explanation it has deck building between things and you and the biggest thing is that you level up between every mission that's a big deal it really makes the game it keeps you excited about every game the the storytelling is pretty straightforward the monsters are just you know variations on things we've seen before but that the huge array of choices you have is dizzying and you just pick one and it's just fun to mess with that like right now i'm a necromancer who decided to do a little bit of warrior fighting on the side i'm thinking about transitioning to becoming a dark knight but you know i got these skeletons that fight for me it's just very fun and i don't know i love this game a lot and me and my kids have been having such a blast with it if later on this year ruby and violet are doing their top 50 i would be shocked if this is not in their top ten for both of them so this is a legacy style game i haven't really not really legacy it's campaign it's a campaign but what's fun about it is you have that gives you a little deck box and you start with a deck of cards based on your class but every mission whether you win or lose you go up a level and you can you can go up in that same class or pick a different class and every time you go up in any class you get some more cards add to your deck you can take some cards out you know there's if you find a weapon you put that card in your deck it's just constant changing it's really really fun so flip the game i really enjoyed it tom it was fun by the way uh age wants us to know it's ginger ale on the couch all right well that's good age um my number 19 i've been known to like superheroes i've also been known to really enjoy marvel and this is marvel legendary i really enjoyed this deck building game that is um i play it fully cooperative there's a whole point scoring system i do like legless and gamely like maybe counting heads at the end but during the game we work fully together there is massive amounts of content for this game but i have played it over and over and over with all sorts of different people my wife really enjoys this game as well it's been a lot of fun to play as different characters all sorts of different sets and mix and match them together to figure out how to take out the villain i just love how this game works together and i just love deck building and building up those combos and trying to figure out which combo works to take out the opponent and the fact that you can do this cooperatively makes this a blast and that is marvel legendary my number 19. love this game roy where are you at in the completion of this do you feel i have so much of it i actually have some of it that i haven't even played yet i really need to get this to the table um a bit more um and uh have almost all of it i have almost everything i think i don't have the very last set wow then you have more than i have because i didn't i've kept i've kept a lot of things you've gotten rid of i don't have any of the movie still crossover stuff like i don't have the cinematic thing and i don't have the i'm a spider-man far from home just because it doesn't really fit in um with this stuff but i have everything else i have villains i have deadpool i have all of that stuff so i have tons of it all right i swear mike if you say something about an animal no animals here um my number 19 i'm going to throw back really quick to my number 75 which i chose pandemic for number 75 and i said that that's kind of for the any of those pandemic games but i was choosing the original but i think the best version of kind of the pandemic system is my number 19 which is thunderbirds it was my number 19 last year as well that was not where i was expecting this to go well look thunderbirds is essentially the pandemic system that really just had a few tweaks to it primarily through the use of the vehicles the the thunderbirds vehicles and i think that is such a great twist to this core pandemic system i absolutely adore this game i kind of don't understand why it's not more popular other than maybe the ip doesn't connect with a lot of people it's not even something that i have a huge connection to i mean i vaguely remember yeah it is i suppose but man it's it's just such a good good cooperative game rock solid game and i actually uh prefer it to just the bass pandemic because i like what those vehicles do it adds more of a spatial element to it uh than in even bass pandemic i just love the puzzle every turn is a puzzle and i love that this this game just kind of sings it speaks to me i see it on the shelf and every time i lock eyes with that pandemic and they count down for you it's like starts playing four three pandemic with puppets that's right and i launch myself at the calyx shelves and i get myself out thunderbirds and we are a go i absolutely love this game thunderbirds great game it gets very little love you are right about that mic i think it's part of that i think is because the game is just not super widely available no it was a kickstarter from a company that uh doesn't do a whole lot of kickstarters uh i i don't know i just think it's a smaller production it is literally just fewer of them out there have you tried the expansions i've got them all i like them all well i don't love the ones this is many i don't love the one versus many one as much i like it as a pure co-op sure all righty guys my number 19 is a game which i think yeah this upcoming year is getting a fancy schmancy box in which to keep everything for it hiroshima hacks three actually when you said that there's like seven games popped in my head oh yeah you're right uh near zuma hex is a combat game it's a fairly abstracted combat game in which you are taking some post-apocalyptic army and throwing it at some other post-apocalyptic army ideally just one other because this game is best with two players and they just keep on coming out with the contents for this uh much like these other kinds of games unmatched and what have you it's amazing to me the amount of design space that they keep finding in this thing you know they keep just digging they and and you get new ideas new combinations of powers that make an army feel interesting and distinct and new you know i mean like one of the things they did this is not revolutionary by any means but like they just had some zombies recently and you get the units back okay perfectly logical makes sense but the fact that we're getting that right now 18 armies in or something is is amazing so i like that kind of stuff near human heads see i'm assuming hasn't made your list no and in fact later on this afternoon we'll talk about another case where there is uh sort of an original game and a reworking and i just pick one of the two and basically ignore the other one in this case i am just picking hiroshima hacks the other one i'm just ignoring its existence they are both good they are both well designed what is the other one i forget the name of it the other one is um it has a fantasy theme instead of a post-apocalyptic feed i really want to play this one i haven't had a chance to play this and i kind of feel like i would like it like you've never played it i have never played hiroshima hex at all and i kind of like the idea of this deterministic combat don't put that one on the list i will play with you roy we'll just play we'll knock out a game of this while while we're doing catch-a-palooza and people are playing other stuff let's do it i will wreck you that's a lot of catching here from people durbin says hello from uk the top 100 made 2020 worth living through i don't know about that um dominique says they're a new member and they love our top 100s oh nice and i just gave us just a quick shout out tim says we're fantastic adding fun to a bleak january but i walked outside today didn't feel bleak it felt fantastic actually beautiful here oh yeah um calm down yeah i know i decided i'd like to bring it up and amy gave us a shout out of with a dog waving high or a fox i'm not sure let's get to the next one that's you we're gonna people's choices people's choice oh the people's choice you're right sorry people's choice number 19 is has been on the list for six years straight despite a terrible box cover very popular game concordia oh concordia is um that idea of just building a having a hand of cards and slowly adding to it and then this game has done very well there's like a new map comes out almost every year in fact i believe 2020 was the first year a new map hasn't come out for it since it came out i think um so yeah i like this one a lot didn't make my top 100 but i find it to be a very enjoyable game yeah solo variant coming up for those solo peeps out there a little snap all right 18 before i do that master sardu says thank you to the tom the godfather and the dice tower under bosses okay oh i don't quite have that look a little bit today tom yeah you got you got that going on here all right man all right yeah my number 18 has been on the list for four years i love this game and i did not play it all year and that's because it requires in my opinion eight people and that is captain sonar amazing so much fun and uh who did we we were like challenging someone who did we challenge it was my team of me and emerson versus unz but we have to figure out how to fill out the rest of the team no no i'm calling eric summer and uh if i can only think of someone else i don't know if you guys can think of someone let me know [Laughter] i'm gonna i'm gonna pull in uh ryan courtney too who makes all the uh the uh pipeline games he's extremely smart oh oh no we better go better get isaac childress on the phone right away i don't want to put isaac childress in the engineer spot that feels like a waste of his talents all right mike you know what come to think of it anyhow i like this game it's a speedy real-time fast-playing battleship which sounds like it shouldn't work but is tremendously fun well it's it's probably my number one convention game well maybe pitch car but it's definitely up there i love captain sonar so my number 18 i'm gonna say is the definitive star wars game it's basically star wars in a box and it's huge and epic in scope star wars rebellion i love this game and the way it plays out as you get to play through all the stuff it feels like it's very much tightly based around the first um three series but then once you get the expansion it adds in the stuff from i don't even remember the name of the movie but it's like my favorite movie oh my goodness anyway star wars no no before the the one that was a prequel that came out way afterwards willow one willow yes yeah rogue one added a bunch of stuff from rogue one as well i love star wars rebellion it's a ton of fun i haven't played with the expansion as much but i've played with the base game a whole lot it just feels like you get to do a bunch of like star wars feeling things like the emperor empire is trying to go out and find the rebel base the rebels are trying to be sneaky and do all these like covert missions to try to like take out death stars or take out different things or bring people over to their side it just feels like star wars and it's super epic it's a very long game but it's extremely enjoyable star wars rebellion and chad is spamming rogue one now thank you chat you got my back i'm not surprised at all is on your list yeah my number 18. we have a super chat from natalie tom if you want to call it out oh yeah sure i'm trying not to interrupt too much here hey yeah do it z and the h in la avre is silent i'm gonna assume it's le lev it means the arbor in english like the tree the tree yes yeah laura just got number eight my number 18 is a card game essentially but it comes in a larger box than that and and so you might be a little bit deceived when you see this ominous cover my number 18 is abyss boy do i love this game it is such a good essentially card game with mechanisms that are going to probably be familiar to you some set collection a bit of push your luck some special powers but it all comes together in just a beautiful first of all gorgeous package but it also has a great pacing to it i really feel like this game just keeps chugging along and every time that i play it i feel like i've had a satisfying experience in a reasonable amount of time and it is just so lovely on the table i love this theme i like underwater themes you'll probably hear a little bit more about underwater themes uh but this game you're really bad at your setting up the future it's like really obvious look foreshadowing look it's a it's a thing um but but abyss i just think is a just a classic design i feel like it holds up it's held up over the years i feel like it continues to hold up um the expansions that have come up have have kind of added to this and and kept it fresh but i'm i'm happy playing abyss anytime this is one of those games that someone suggests it i'll always be down to play it so that is my number 18 abyss hmm excuse me i know he's thinking very hard and long about this because i'm thinking i'm just gonna change it to this abyss game he keeps talking about it sounds fantastic i need to try it and if i can think of any other underwater games i'll try them too there's only like three here we go my number 18 is a crossover with tom and it was i was very surprised he had it on his list and then he was actually when he first played i remember quite quite blown away by it so my number 18 is imperial settlers empires of the north i know you were not a huge fan of the uh imperial settlers tom no i like fine i just you hated it i remember that very clearly and then you played imperial settlers empires of the north and i remember we went on a convention where you came back and said i just tried this and i really liked it it's got this i got that it's so quick it's so fun it's like wow okay that's great maybe we'll play together cut to now that never happened we did play together i don't recall us ever playing together you don't remember a lot of games they will pull everything down so there is no evidence [Laughter] empires of the north is great they keep supporting the game i love that uh it's uh it's it's a lot of fun i love the the cadence of this one compared to the original empires uh i'm sorry i paired settlers i think is a is a great update on that it just feels a little more fluid than the sort of staccato feel of imperial settlers the original so there you go my number 18. love it all right whitaker says he loves our top 10 list it gives them new games to play also um sorry some of these are flying by 2020 was a rough year but at least dice tower is a joy to watch from austin texas and i think i missed one nicholas says he's just helping every way he can we're the best in fact he never misses any episode at all oh that would be bad oh you put out a lot of content you're the best thank you everybody all right people's choice here 18. this is one of the last three games in the people's list that was it has been on the list every single year and it is the closest we might get to a five-way crossover and that is ticket to ride as high as number three now i i don't combine the people's choice just because i can't uh so tickets ride europe was already on the list i believe somewhere right i think yes so this is just a normal ticket to ride but on board game geek tickets ride europe is actually ranked higher but right i think a lot of people probably just think of it as ticket to ride i'm just i'm extrapolating here but i think that's what that means either way very popular game um that's pretty much all i can say about that ticket to ride 18. all right my number 17 has been on the list for four years it didn't even make the list until the expansion came out though roy just talked about this recently i think it was in the last 10 this was 15 last year 17 this year and that's champions of midgard i like this game i liked it a lot but once that expansion came out valhalla it's one of the few expansions which changed the game for me liking it to me loving it because the one thing that some people don't like about champion midgard is you roll dice and if you fail that could pretty much impact the game pretty dramatically for you in a negative way but now i'm like sometimes i fail on purpose so i can send my troops to baja and then can you do that and you can you roll the die to roll whatever you want it to you cannot roll dice or you can like not use a re-roll and things like that you can be like oh we failed oh no how sad you could not recruit as many dice with shields and stuff like that so that way you're less likely to be able to block the damage that's why he's a game designer folks really knows a bit but not too much but champion midgard still very popular a lot of fun for me number 17. yeah wow well you just had a great fox game on the list i guess you'll have one we can't hear you you can't hear me at all no everybody else can hear me no but uh let me check i always give you settings everybody else could hear me but there you go baby is it sound hey i was as i was saying tom just had a great fox game i guess i'm gonna have one on here too this is my favorite of all time social deduction games it's already been on z and mike's list and the people's choice list that is deception murder in hong kong all the same reasons everybody else said um this game is a ton of fun it gets you right into the action um i love the placement of i love being the person who's a forensic scientist and like trying to lead people into figuring out who the murderer is i love being the murderer and hiding along other people normally you don't sound clip that me saying i love being a murderer but it's fun to like try to dissuade other people um on to uh oh no you have it because this and this and when you're an investigator it's still extremely fun because you have that one vote and you are important in this game everybody has their one vote and and that could be the key that like we tried this and this but now we need to try this and this and i've had games of this where we knew who the murder was we knew it was them we just didn't know the items they did it with and this game is very unique from other social reduction games i know a lot of other people are like trying to compare it to this and that it has a lot of different things going on for it and it's extremely enjoyable and that's why i like deception murder in hong kong if you haven't tried it you should play it i feel like i need to justify myself here briefly you better you better it just didn't make the top 100 but my top 100 is a smaller range than all these guys so therefore you have zero social deduction games on your top 100 i'm saying it's probably he's played more than us is what he's basically saying no i'm more experienced a better person taller probably i don't need to hear any of these lies i'm saying that but it's probably my top 120 but my top 120 would be similar to your top 100 8 000 yes similar to my top three because he's played so many more games i'm just trying to defend myself here man well but you gotta do it without putting me down that's too hard if you played this game again you would remember how amazing it is that's right man i tell you this is this is shameful shameful yeah so for my number 17 uh ancient greece that's a really cool theme right in the the greek pantheon of gods and you know zeus is powerful and all but you know what makes zeus even more powerful put him inside of a mechanized power suit that's right my number 17 is lords of helles what a ridiculous wow what a ridiculous theme and i love it that's right the greek pantheon inside of a steampunk why not go go with it mike if you just split your eyes the theme isn't even there like the theme doesn't change at all if i replaced all the miniatures with ancient stuff there would be no mechanic mechanism though tom if you have a choice of hey here's a mini of zeus here's a mini of zeus in a mechanized power suit why wouldn't you go with the power suit i agree always go with the power suit tom so lords of ellis is a silly theme and you're right it doesn't really much matter but it's fun it's really fun and the game is also kind of in that spirit of you know it's it's troops on a map but it there's tweaks to that formula it has different wind conditions you can win different ways you can fight monsters you can go on quests you can do kind of the standard area control type of a thing and it just is a unique experience in that genre and it's not i'll say there are some rough edges in the game but i feel like those rough edges also give it some charm give it some character and help it stand out in a pretty crowded genre so i absolutely love lords of helles and i like i don't think that it's taken itself too seriously i think that this theme is very much tongue-in-cheek and i at least play it in that spirit so i really enjoy lords of telus my number 17. i don't know if i would like this i do wonder i love the theme but tom's saying it doesn't really matter no how complicated is this no the theme is there it's just i'm thinking steampunk doesn't matter and z you would hate there's there's a fair amount of rules this is like the kind of game that i like but for me it just didn't feel as tight as other games in the genre um but i didn't like it oh no i did really enjoy it overall and i think it's worth a play the one thing that i think is really unique is that it has different win conditions what's your favorite way to win the game mike monster killing yeah i really do think monster killing is probably the the most straightforward way to win um even more so than the straight area control i think the toughest one to pull off is probably the um enemy evaporation yeah one of those temples yeah nobody's gonna let you do that yeah that's tough that's tough you have to really have yourself no no jason did it i've done it too well of course jason did it he probably did it in the first round i probably did it during the setup all right my number 17 is a game that mike mentioned a while ago he said it was his i forgot he said like you're sort of intro or go-to light card drafting game oh this is paper tails my number 17. you know you made it sound earlier like it had fallen off your list yeah okay i don't remember that i must have been i must have been lying at the time um head fake yeah i i gave you a psychic he basically was acting like it wasn't simple no i think that's maybe it tom yeah he was mike was making it seem or he wasn't mentioning that for him it's sort of like an intro one and i thought to myself i was thinking to myself there's more to this game than mike realizes i think i don't think he understands how the game works for me that game my kind of sushi go is a game i already had on my list which is uh sheep and thief paper tails is a short game that's true sometimes too short especially for new players they'll play four rounds and go that's it like oh it feels underwhelming because you're not minding out the the marrow of every one of those four turns but i think there's a decent amount going on there and then lots of things to focus on you throw the expansion on that you've now got even more interactions abilities things to consider i like this one quite a bit i think it's got an excellent cohesive charming look and i think the the use of iconography of turn structure of interaction between the players i think all of that is fantastic i don't know why this game is not as popular as seven wonders i really don't and it shouldn't well civilization is very popular z that's that's why the theme what about paper tom right i think the issue i think the issue with me on this z is that i would always just kind of gnaw on the bone of paper tails i never mind the marrow that's the issue i never even realized you could mine the marrow of this game i just stopped at the at the bone we got to talk a little bit later off video about taking analogies too far guys my number 17. the people's choice number 17 which was 17 last year and one of the most critically acclaimed and definitely heaviest of the days of wonders games five tribes five tribes just when i first heard about it and i saw the board i was like that doesn't look as fascinating as previous days of wonders games did you know they usually are like no i mean it's a nice looking game but when i saw like you know it didn't look like the next ticket to ride i was like oh they're going a different direction and i and i don't have to crush on katala that some of us do so you know but uh this game is very popular lots of people still really enjoy it like i said for staying in at the same number this high back to back years for people's choice it's pretty impressive yeah it is so five drives all right 16 has been on my list for 12 years straight ever since this game come came out it's one of my most played games they this game introduced a whole new genre to board gaming that has been copied and done better in many people's opinions but the base game still works for me and that's dominion i even don't mind the fact that they straight up lied and said they were done with expansions and then made three or four more and there's at least another one on the way i'm sure um the newest expansions aren't as exciting for me but they do keep breathing more life in the game they do keep me playing it i wish there was a great app for it just to be clear i'm not saying there's no app i just said i wish there was a great app for it um but i don't know you know yes it is themeless yes the art is not that great but it just plays like a well-oiled machine and i sit there and i like playing this with people this is one of those games i like playing with people who played dominion before you just sit there and just look at the combination of cards and if i'm playing with people who are really good i bring in black market to throw them off you know but i just enjoy this game so very much dominion i don't know the funny thing is i like dominion just fine and i would much rather play with the opposite group of people i would much rather play with the folks that are familiar with the game fine but they're not what you are describing are people who can look at the display of 10 cards and go um checkmate and 22. no i'm not talking about that i'm talking about people who are on my level i don't want to play with those people in any game z ever for sure that's rude tom okay there's some games i assume you would want to play those people at jenga captain sona okay that's good that would work yeah all right my number 16 is another card game a living card game but this one's very different because it is slap full of theme and story and that is arkham horror the living card game this game just feels like you are going through these different scenarios you're slowly building up your deck you're moving from location location making sure to utilize your action points properly to be able to gain clues and gain resources and play cards out and build up your tableau to make your investigator even stronger all the while trying to un uncover mysteries the things they've done in this game is ridiculous like they're always surprising you with new things that happen and you're drawing these tokens from a bag trying to mitigate that as much as you can but sometimes you just draw that terrible terrible auto fail tile and you throw it back in the bag get a fit of rage the tentacles are always coming for you i love this game but i've totally ha i played a lot solo but i've totally had games where i sit down to the game i'm like okay i try to do something very mundane and i pull the tentacles out i'm like huh i failed i put it back in the bag shake it up and i go to do something else and i pull those tentacles out again i'm like huh i fail and i'm like well maybe today's not my day and i just shuffle everything back up and start over but i pull it twice in a row it stays out baby that's it what no i totally have the fail in there but um but i love this game and this game for me i know people play it on super hard difficulties and things like that i really just play this game to enjoy the story and i really enjoy the way that it all comes together and i i enjoy deck building and i enjoy slowly building your deck with a little bit of experience points and like mulling over do i want this card that's going to give me a little bit more of that stat or do i want this card that's going to let me draw another card which one should i put in the deck but it's super simple because you can't deck boot a ton you can only deck but a little bit this game is super enjoyable arkham horror the living card game my only issue here with you roy is that this is so low i mean you clearly barely like it 16. at least it's on my list z and i do love this game um i have more expansions on the way coming in kenny's got that game nerds hookup i'm going to play some more of this game so at 16 do you still actually own the game roy or have you actually given it away [Laughter] you have have you even played this mic get out of here ultimate troll i've i have played it i have played it uh it's a fine game all right my number 16 it is actually it's a fine game my number 16 is i already mentioned a moment ago that i like underwater themes so let's go back underwater to the world of aquatica ah aquatica yes a crossover with uh roy i believe and maybe the people no tommy hasn't been on the peoples oh tom okay people need to recognize this game this game is amazing it should be on the people's it should be because it's fantastic so don't get listed all right go ahead keep talking since roy and tom have both talked about it a little bit i'm gonna focus on the one thing that i can't believe they didn't talk about they talked about the really clever card play and and the manta rays which are awesome but one of the coolest things about the game is this player board that you have which is kind of dual layered and the cards that you get the locations that you get you slide them into this board and they have powers and you can kind of manipulate your cards so that you are getting comboed you're getting combo powers and the other really unique thing about this game is that the scoring is on the bottom of some of these cards and you have to actually weigh how long do i want to keep these cards in here for the powers and then how do i want to bank these points so it's a very very fast game it's it's it's snappy in in every sense of the word uh because there are actually monsters that will snap at you too but it's a very very beautiful package tight clever card play and that really neat depths moving these powers along the depths of the ocean so i really like aquatica and i feel like as more people get a chance to play it because it wasn't available for a long time and it's now a dice tower essential yes i know i'm pushing our own stuff a bit but it's it's there for a reason more people will play it i think more people will like it and it might show up on this list i'm pretty sure that the whole course is not on the people's choice i think just because it hasn't been out enough the reason yeah me and roy didn't mention the thing that you just said is because we're we try to be succinct in our descriptions i i i mentioned it because i said two words that covered the whole thing it was just min max that's all i need to say that's true the min maxing and i didn't mention the digging out of the marrow so i'll leave that to you guys oh you can remember you're digging up the marrow but you're going to make the snap joke let's see how it is guys uh we are about to have an unprecedented moment in this top 100 and that is i have a crossover on this number with roy canaday for the same game at the same number wait what arkham horror the card game is also my 16. listen that's way too low z that's way too low wait a minute oh now it's too low it's okay 16 on your list i expected this way higher from you it was five for you last year before that great hot garbage what has cthulhu ever done to you this is corona i still think corona is cthulhu's fault plenty yeah cthulhu has done plenty um yes it slipped a bit from five to sixteen i you know what it is it's as simple as i haven't been playing it a lot you know how you know how that goes i just haven't been bringing it out a lot i've been playing all this other stuff i still clearly adore the game it is my living card game as opposed to you know roy especially who dilutes his fun among several of these collectible style card games including old ones what this is my living card game collectible card game i think it is fantastic but yes it did slip a bit and some of the other games got ahead of it that's basically it it's uh the perfect spot for me just a little too low for roy in my opinion all right roy talked about it forever so i'm good speaking of dr says thank you from western pennsylvania and he aligns with roy's list the most good go vote because nobody else is that's going to make he says he's looking forward to a better solo version for aquatica i love these uh comments wow z used to love this game i mean just the stuff people are saying that's hilarious all right well you started it number 16 for the people was 22 last year first it's the second year on the list and it is the highest of the garfield games and that's architects of the west kingdom i'm sorry i mispronounce it archae texts of the west kingdom is what i meant to say anyhow look words are hard anyhow uh this is i don't know i like paladins better myself but i can see why people like this one and it felt different it really did the idea of rounding up a group of someone else's workers and carting them off the prison was just such a fascinating idea it's fun having like 20 workers also yes yes you know what i mean if they're going to work replacing the game you begin with three and then you you can earn two more in this one you begin with like 16 or something it's like okay it's six guys also this has been out the longest time keep that in mind and it's probably the most approachable of them so i think that that would explain maybe why it's higher than paladins at this point sure but i i'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's gonna stay higher i think it just has wider appeal i think you're right i think yeah it's more approachable yeah so that's 16 architects of the west kingdom all right my number 15 is my second last um new entry to the top 100 i have one more that's higher but this one is this the second newest and this one has been on roy's list already and i don't know if it was on mike's or not it definitely has not been on my list already it has not been on your list and whose list was it on mike's i guess i don't know maybe it doesn't matter dude imperium dude impairment you're the first one to talk about this you're the first one to talk about this tom i've never even heard of this game everyone no one's going to put it on their list imperium uh i mentioned dominion with deck building dude imperium has deck building in it it has worker placement in it but neither feels like the main focus of the game um they both feel like equal parts in my opinion and they come together in a nice combat way deck building in combat does not normally work although the second deck building game ever created arctic scavengers did this actually um where you would have a little bit of combat phase at the end of each round and that's an underrated deck building game by the way and this one has a very similar thing except this time that combat is a huge deal you want to be involved with that and i think the theme is really strong i like everything about it except i wish the components were better but they're also i know what they look like they're on their way hopefully maybe so i saw someone use miniatures from one of the uh plaid hat games in there and i was like ah i debated going and raiding it what's that is that flat hat deck builder were your people fighting off an alien invasion i forget what it's called gen 7 no no this is an older one this was one of their first games they made anyhow the point is great game love it a lot dude imperium my number 15. wow so my number 15 i'm gonna have a little caveat here people accuse me with slander like saying roy just likes to have a whole lot of fun like he just puts games on his list that are fun that is such such mean things to say such mean things to say about me this game i enjoy just because it's so silly and fun and that is whiz war wiz that's fun fools don't say fun and quiz war is a blast to play you're all different wizards trying to collect treasure and drag them back to your home base and you're trying to play all these different spells and different combos this is kind of like the precursor to magic the gathering because the original version of this came out forever ago but it has things like counter spells and and giant hammers you're throwing at people and you're gluing treasure chests down to the floor so somebody can't pick it up when they try to i've had a blast playing this game and i really wish i had some pictures in here of my 3d printed set that i have because i built 3d printed walls for all the walls for this and 3d printed treasure chests and i just have so much fun playing this game with at conventions this is one of the games that i'll sneak into my luggage and fly with me as we go to like dice tower west or something like that so i can pull it out and teach it to other people just because it's so much fun to play and tom said he would never have this in the dice tower library so uh that's the only way it's like contraband for the uh convention i said it would never be a library don't put false words in my mouth it's actually in the library isn't it look it up it's not but yeah i love quiz work it's kind of fun put it in the library and you have to find it first are they coming with a new version anyway so i'll just wait for that one i don't know i mean it's not gonna be by ffg i don't know if it's gonna be the same thing but i really enjoy it um whiz war if you're at a convention you want to play wiz war hit me up let's do it yeah i think the new wiz war is a rolling right tom that might actually fit in the library better my number 15 is i'm going to use z's terminology here here we go no i really am it's a welcoming game i think this is absolutely a great welcoming game this is rise of tribes this is a game that is very simple to teach and it has i think a really clever dice driven system of taking actions the actions are very very simple you're basically building up your tribes or you're moving your tribes around engaging in pretty simple combat there are events that happen that you have to deal with it's a kind of a race game in a way you're racing to a number of points you're doing that primarily through either building villages and you have to make sure you're holding on to those villages at the beginning of your turn which i think is a neat mechanism you don't get the point right away you have to hold on to it until the beginning of your next turn you're also building little technologies that give you points it's a very very clean system but it's a game that again you can introduce to a lot of different people that maybe are scared off by maybe bigger versions of these types of games i think that this is just a lovely package lovely artwork really nice components there's a upcoming expansion that is really fantastic that i think is going to make this game even better for a lot of people that is my number 15 rise of tribes tom loves the game no it's fine i don't hate it i just thought it was fine uh roy i just checked you're right whiz war isn't in the library actually contraband i would put that in the library what do you mean contraband there's no game ban okay there's very few games there's not a lot of games a couple games doesn't matter i've totally talked to you about whiz war in the library before and you're like i really wish i should have given wiz more more of a chance it just wasn't at the right time you forget these guys that's a personal me i'll still stick it in the library there's nothing to do all right anyway uh it's me it's me calm down yeah go ahead no age says you're gonna put genoa next which means they must know your opinion of it because those are fighting words and quick lewis wants to know when we're gonna do a sip tara incognita expansion i don't know i didn't like the base game that much so we haven't even got it so i guess we would have to get it first too all right i gotta play rise of tribes mike i haven't tried that one yet um you love it so much we usually tend to i tend to find something to love in most games that you really enjoy so i should try this one out yeah yeah it's a it's a really good welcoming game i like that term it fits for this oh before before this gets too far about games banned from the library there's no games banned other than maybe adult style games okay that's a joke guys it was a joke all right go ahead z all right my number 15 here is one higher than arkham horror of the card game and i guess i will say that from now on for every one of these my number 15 is a two player card game drafting game i love me some drafting this one's called caper came out from keystone games i heard rumblings of a new edition of this and even though i owned the old one the the their original printing i got giddy just hearing the rumor of that if that if that tells you anything uh about how much i love this game it has a cute theme about you having a team of shady characters of going to a city you pick which city you're going to at the beginning there's i think three paris rome and somewhere else and you are drafting cards characters placing them on your side of various locations and then giving those people items sort of silly craft and that's basically what you're doing controlling locations gathering symbols you know it's just one of those that has a bunch of different symbols i really enjoy this game it is i don't know but i feel like not enough people are playing this thing if you like all of these other drafty games that are out there seven wonders everyone is duel if you like you know all of these that we've talked about and you haven't tried this one especially if you play a lot of games with two people you are i'm telling you missing out on a fantastic little game this is a game that was originally published in spain if i'm not mistaken and key master picked it up reprinted it it's it's it's a gorgeous little game try it out please put it on the list yeah i want to allow you to soil my version of this with your all right juan has a question he says if defenders are last stand at better production would it make your top 100 it's not the production that keeps it off it's a it's a fine game i think it's just a little too much it's a little too long for me thank you z i've played it yeah yeah right mike that wasn't for a question for you it was a question oh didn't hear that part sorry rude person all right the people's choice number 15 is the first of the top 10 from last year to fall out it was eight last year dropped down a bit but that's because people are probably spreading the love of alexander fister around this is great western trail so i think no i think i mean it's still fifteen it's still pretty high but i think kaibo you know some people are playing that some people are playing some of the other games you know now they got cloud age coming out so i don't know that's my only explanation it was actually 15 in 2018 it went up to eight now it's back down again so okay all right cool great western trail so i'm gonna make a prediction here roy and i bet you agree with me number 14 was my number six last year it fell out of my top ten but i almost feel like i guarantee it will be in my top ten next year hey tom i've got a spoiler we have the same number 14. why don't you why wouldn't you save it baby i just want to do it right now we have the exact same way it is number five thunder bro all right so mine and roy's summoner wars boom only reason it dropped out of the top 10 for me because i love this game a lot is just because i'm waiting now that i know that second edition is on the horizon i'm like deliberately not playing it because i'm just like so excited about i'm like unbelievably excited about this upcoming version of the game it is super fun i'm ah you know in fact i just put together my top ten anticipated games for this coming year and i didn't put this on the list because it's you know the same game again so but it would be annoying number one by a mile and i love summoner wars and seeing a new version of it and i've i've seen some of the new artwork already which is amazing i'm just super pumped i'm teaching all the artwork they are oh wow okay so my number 14 oh wait my number i really enjoy summoner wars as well um i've played this game a ton and that's probably why it's not higher on my list as well i just played it so much i have played this game to death and it's extremely enjoyable and i really enjoy the way that it's like you you have your deck of cards and i didn't do a whole lot of deck building in the game i really just enjoyed taking the decks that we had putting them together putting out my walls and just trying to figure out how to solve this puzzle of chasing your opponent down and wrecking their summoner i really enjoy the way a lot of the interactions with all of the cards work for this and the way a bunch of the factions do very different things it was extremely enjoyable to me and i definitely can't wait for more summoner wars to come out so summoner wars 2 coming out to a table near you i'm guessing maybe seven or worse two will make it go back in z's top 100. oh was it inside probably it was as high as 29. wow has it not been on this this this year it will if it has not been on this year it will not be on okay it's you should no it hasn't been it wasn't on last year either so that's why i assumed it dropped out a bit yeah i haven't been playing it too much but you know what the second edition i doubt would do that would have that effect i like my first edition i have plenty of it um i think the game got messy for me they were trying to find design space and all the moves they were making to do that i wasn't liking that sounds silly because it shouldn't affect what i think of the core game but it does okay you know mixing mixing summoners and now this is half necromancers half uh regular dancers i'm like it doesn't matter if you're not doing custom deck building anyway so i know i'm oh me and roy what together so that's toy ra vana day that's the new seminar terrifying toy vanity all right my number 14 is a big adventure game this is the city of kings there's a lot of things i like about city of kings i like the fact that it's essentially a puzzle type game where it almost looks like a dungeon crawling type of a game but it's not it's really a puzzle game and i like the fact that you can play it as a campaign if you want to you can have kind of this continuing uh quest that you're going on or you can play it as individual scenarios i like that there's different ways to play it you can play it where it's mostly a resource management and collecting game or it's a pick up and deliver game or it could be a combat game i also like the fact that there's kind of randomly generated monsters where the stats are going to be kind of the same you know how they're going to progress but you also reach into a bag to get some unique skills that make the monster slightly different this is a game that i i really think does something different than other games in its genre so i absolutely adore the city of kings yeah i'm going to agree with roy again about how good summoner wars is mm-hmm yeah i know you don't like it and you might agree with me okay city of kings is uh i think i liked it less than okay roy um tom's a hater folks you both are wrong go look at the ratings we're not alone here michael we called you michael that's when you know you're in trouble that's why i know it was serious michael get in here michael rowe the poke go to your recording studio it's a good game people don't listen to these haters all right my number 14 is a solitaire technically also a two-player game that i have had as high as my number two maybe you can check me on this tom i will near him or on irem or however you want to say it i wish it was just called something easy like cow you're right it was your number two in 2017. listen to that man that was back in the days when i had no friends so i had to play solitaire games but now that i've discovered the ability to to play with other humans drop significantly i'm expecting it to be off my list next year well nyrum uh is a fun again car driven if you can tell i'm a sucker for card games a card driven uh game with some push your luck some nice rising tension as you are going through the game and it usually tends to be a nail biter and there are a bunch of expansions right in the box love it number 14 for me you like the new the kind of the new fancier editions that have the neat box and all the kind of stuff absolutely fine i just like that they have more i mean the boxes are fine i like that there's more stuff in them you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah i used to have the original skinny one that had three expressions in it i think and then the new one they were like oh now it's got seven expansions and i have two promo expansions in there so it's like i mean i got content in there for days thomas oh i keep thinking mike's after you all right people's choice here number 14 has been on the list since the very beginning um and this has already been on a couple people's lists and that is seven wonders in fact was that on all your lists it was on mine although i i really do like it but it's not quite on my list my you know it wasn't my rule no no seven wonders is great it was nine last year this is the second one to drop out of the top ten that's not very far dropped though um fantastically cool game uh one one they always put on the box it's won the most awards of any board game i'm not 100 sure that's that's true but it's good press here's a little comment you should probably read that uh disparages my opinion somewhat read it uh it says thomas the second time says paul that you and roy shared a game at the same number we already did at rising sun but then it also says z on iron should be called lahab what i was saying was one that says uh from aj i really want to get caper based on z's opinion but he also said five cucumbers was good and i will never forgive him for that that's true that's pretty bad on your partner all right let's move on apologize all right my number 13 is another crossover with roy and this is uh don't don't well if he hasn't said it he's going to anyhow this is clank legacy we talked so much in the studio that said it already i definitely said it well then what are you making a phase for i was waiting on you to say the name of the game so i can click the button that's what i do well anyhow mike legacy you can include clanking here i guess but it's hard for me to play clank after playing clinical legacy because i liked it that much not only do i like i played through the whole game with with roy and i'm playing through it again currently with my kids and having just as good of a time the second time through it is that good and the end game is a good game of clank it feels like clank with several expansions and i like that it's it i'm finding as i mentioned earlier with adventure tactics i'm finding i love games where you get to do a lot if you're as a campaign i want each game to feel different and new and exciting from the last one clank legacy does that you know we we were laughing because and this is a tiniest of spores but in pandemic legacy season one there was literally one one month we played or one time you played and they were like keep doing what you're doing that was like the from one game to the next they said right that's correct yeah and that's all well and good but i like the constant changes i like having new and interesting things and click legacy's like do you like that you're going to get a ton of it it's so much content and it happens at the beginning of the game at the end of the game and during the game like if you like put stickers on stuff like legacy would be your favorite game of all time um but super fun so that's my number 13. my number 13 with no shock to anyone is another space game but this is my favorite space negotiation game and that is cosmic encounter i love cosmic encounter i love the massive amount of different aliens you can be during the game i love the negotiations along the way i am one of those people that i am perfectly fine sharing a victory in this game if we all get to five that's awesome i just really enjoy the experience of trying to get from zero all the way up to five but then somebody's probably gonna get backstabbed or betrayed or not negotiate along the way i really enjoy the way all the powers and stuff come together um this has a little bit of that feel of whiz war where you're countering each other's stuff and trying to build up those combos and both of these games were inspirations for magic the gathering which is another game that i really enjoy on my list but the negotiation in cosmic encounter and the crazy zany powers all over the place is a blast to play especially if you have the right group it just feels so amazing when you play this game cosby encounter my number 13. i've heard of it right [Music] that's a fun game tom how come you like this one but not whiz war man come on they are very same game gives you control the other one does not ah neither of them give you control but that's cool well that's just bad players speak i love stirring the pot yes you do my number 13 is a new game yes a debuting game this high this is monumental boy do i like this game this is a game that tom talked about i think you said that i would like it tom and boy were you right i absolutely love this game good um so monumental is a game that i like for a number of reasons one is that it kind of gives me this idea of a micro game and a macro game happening at the same time what i mean by that is that the central mechanic is built around a grid of cards nine cards at three by three and that's your capital city and you're going to choose one row and one column and you're going to trigger those they're going to give you a resources and and things along those lines that are going to allow you then to go to this big map that's also there that is modular it can be created in a number of different ways but what you're doing in your capital city is kind of an inset of what's happening on that big board and i feel like when i'm playing the game i like that kind of duality of i'm doing my little thing over here but that's affecting what's happening on this bigger map really really cool system the designer matthew dunstan i think is one that is kind of sneaky how many of his games i tend to like we've talked about a number of his games amongst the four of us on this list you don't hear his name very much he's a really i think a solid designer um the biggest bummer about this game is that it's not going to retail as far as i understand which really stinks it should go to retail game of wide appeal about that myself i yeah that's that's a bummer i gotta play this this is high on my uh ketchup palooza i got to tell you guys right i mean you like you know elysium right that's another one of his games i described i'm like so this is kind of like you know it sounds like elysium in many ways yeah with a map right really good all right my number 13 has been mentioned i forget who uh mentioned it already but uh res arcana is my 13. i know he didn't mention it not me tom i don't think i said it well you know i did it i said it i said it the people hold out i couldn't believe one person this is yet another one yes sure they did why not i mean you're the only one then ruining things felicio we could have a five-way crossover here but no you you just can't deal with the fact that this game is uh distilled to perfection [Laughter] it's a fun game it's one that gives you this goal this very clean simple goal of get to 10 victory points that's it that sounds i just love how that how simple that sounds you look at a few cards you're like okay get to ten points all right sure and then the journey along the way is wow man you got these ups and downs and what cards you play and how you utilize the powers it is if you are a it's like a combo builder's dream this game especially if you draft if you draft forget it you know you you this game you have a deck of eight cards or whatever it is a few cards that's that's all the cards you have for the whole game and so you need to as you are drafting these see how they're gonna connect and what are you willing to you know forget about so that other things will shine which of these places of power do you go for that will enhance the strategy your few cards give you you have to be i think kind of a minimalist at heart to really really love rezarcana you know you can enjoy big epic you also have to be a nice person caring compassionate those are other requirements you have to not basically assume that thunderbirds is a pandemic game that's that's the point i'm going to take your i'm going to take your your virulent negativity and i'm going to give it back to you as positivity you are clearly you have five parts of the same color you are clearly very talented you really are because you're somehow making a very mediocre game sound good so wow you're doing an amazing job everyone else disagrees with you all right let's get to the people's choices all right last year the highest new game came in at 23. this year the highest new game comes in at 13. so mike and z can you guess what it is what would be a game super popular new game super popular new game man it was released it had a huge amount of buzz and z does not like it as much as everyone else you don't dislike it you just don't like it as much as everybody else is ultraviolet that's too new i think this one's been out new year actually because it came out in german first well it is the crew this is a pretty high number to start with no i'm with z on this one i think it's just okay but yeah now i had it on my list a number came in this high was azul came in at 16 two years ago this is pretty high to come in for the first year um and i think it's it's just there's a lot of trick taking fans out there and there's a lot of cooperative fans out there that combo feels like it should have been done before but this is the first time and it it just the buzz was high but it's also real it's a very good game that's what i heard buzz was yeah the buzz was massive and it's a fine game yeah i get i get why it's popular for sure it just it struck a chord you know some some games will strike a chord well no matter what everybody i mean any one individual thing so it's great it's fine there have been other co-op deck building games before no there haven't been no you're wrong no shut up i mean whatever that discussion is this one struck a chord yep and you can see i do i do wonder though when they're because they've already announced they're releasing you know an another set of missions they're going to continue to do it as long as it's popular is that going to kind of dilute the brand a little bit is it going to lose its specialty i don't know here we go just like what happened to pandemic and ticket to ride and i understand that there are that there are counter arguments to that i'm just curious i'm not saying it's going to when people say i'm just curious it's almost like i always like a negative thing they're like i heard that you and your friend aren't talking to each other i'm just curious you know what's going on anyhow it's five canadian dollars to go to uz so later on i'll give you a buck that's me and canada yeah tom has just completely insulted canada sorry i love canada free healthcare i wish i did all right my number 12 was 12 last year it's been on my list six years fantastic euro game but i do insist on playing with the expansion unlike mike and that is viticulture i will play with tuscany i love it i the four season board is where viticulture is at that's the biggest change for me is that four season board i really like it um the mamas and papas and all that stuff's fine and i don't need everything but i want that four season board it's just the whole thing the buildings uh this is a fantastic game it is one of my is it my highest it's my highest stag meyer game i think because i'm pretty sure i've already mentioned side yep so you're wrong now it's going to be a really good indicator of something coming up [Laughter] yeah you and i played this early on tom i remember that and yeah it was just it's an excellent game i got i've got my copy and i agree with you 100 about that board in fact i wanted to i like not having expansion boxes so i tried to get everything to fit in one box i forget if i did but i think i did to the point that i i believe i threw away the original board and just kept the tuscany board with the the four seasons because it's awesome yeah yeah it is good it is good all right well anyway that's my number 12 vinnie culture nice nice my number 12. um so i played tons of board games and role-playing games and card games as i was younger and growing up but when i played this game i was like amazing i was suddenly a man basically this this made me fall head first head first into the board gaming hobby i was like board games can do this and i had to have more board games i had to know about more and this is battle star galactica i love bowser a lot of people are happy because i know what i've mentioned so far i love this game so much i love the whole like teams game where it's like somebody's a trader you don't know who they are we have to like throw them out out the airlock or do different things like that and you're all working together to try to figure out how to make the ship survive except one of the people among you is gonna stab you in the back and you just know it and you're not quite sure when and you're trying to figure out how to keep everything together i mean it's got everything i love in games tons of combat and blowing stuff up and intrigue and deception and i really enjoy battlestar galactica and it's crazy because i played this game and i had never seen the show at all like i was taught by a group of friends who liked balsa galactica i'd never seen it i'm like man this game is great i saw the first like few episodes of the show i'm like that is just like the board game it was so crazy um but i really enjoy bowser galactica and i just think the game is great um and i still enjoy playing it and that is why it's my number one it must be licensing well they got there's a new battlestar galactica series coming right yeah forget that okay now i get that it might just be a hard license to get blah blah blah but people love this system they will they will get your game if you tell them this used to be battlestar galactica we have to go with a new theme right right you'll get it i mean come on it is a weird thing although isn't this a corey kanesca game yes so maybe he'll do it with his new company oh my goodness that's what the initiative is no it's not not even close let the rumors spread like wildfire trying to sell more of the initiative i think we're trying to get um yeah this one used to be in my top 100 but the it just got bloated for me and a lot of social reduction games gave me the same feeling in a shorter time but i agree with roy though the the mix of theme and mechanisms they did a pretty solid job yes yes my number 12 is a crossover with maybe multiple people definitely with roy can a day i believe with tom ah shoot i can't yeah this doesn't miss it's a crossover with somebody my number 12 is blood puddle uh blood rage blood rage the area control i said it okay i did too and tom all right it's a area control game sure and and when you look at the table right you see these grandiose minis and this really cool looking board and it looks like there's all of this action happening and there is but i'm gonna tell you something to me this game is all about the drafting if it was mostly about that board sure that's great but there's 20 30 other games that do that what blood rage to me is about is those three rounds of drafting it's just so great you get this huge deck of cards you want all of them you don't want to give any of them to anybody else and that to me is the heart of what makes drafting good it's there are different strategies you can go for but it has the thing that i like so much in games which is that you've got to pivot sometimes and i like that i like feeling like okay i know what i want to do i know what i'm going to try to do and it's probably not going to happen because somebody's going to mess it up so what am i going to do now that is a negative outlook but all right no hey that's how i well maybe that's why i have won this game enough times that i feel like it's okay i just think that blood rage is a great production i feel like it has you know just the right amount going on you can actually teach it pretty easily for the amount of things that are happening blood rage is a game that i kind of fell in love with the first time i played it and it really has not lost any of its luster my number 12 blood range awesome all right about number 12 i believe tom had it on his list already this is targi a two player work replacements game in which you are going to be uh in a very mechanical way selecting actions on the outside of a grid and then also where your workers intercept on this imaginary well it's not imaginary it's on the board but this uh grid where the workers would intercept there's a card lying there you earn that card as well that's basically the core mechanism in the game and with that comes crazy amounts of tension fantastic uh you know blocking of your opponent and this uh riposte and you know all this uh interest that comes with that and it's a game i every time i play it i there's at least a few moments where i'm sitting there going don't you take that spot don't you take that spot oh yeah i know you're trying not to look at the board yeah so i just really enjoyed i think it is the best i mean i think it's the best for two players only right this is the the the absolute best worker placement game and then really there's probably nothing else for a while so there's target number 12. all right number 12 for the people was the last one to fall out of the top ten number seven last year and that's because i'm sure the new tuscany version is knocked it out that's probably not true that's castles of burgundy i don't think castles of tuscany is affecting it at all from what zee says somewhat different games no no i don't think so i don't think he will yeah castle burger d despite i mean having one of the not most beautiful boards in the world um in fact the good case could be made for the opposite but castle burgundy feld's most popular game going to be on the list for a while i'm sure it's the very definition of point salad but lots of fun things in it okay my last pick here before we get to the top ten later on today the final the final loser pick that couldn't quite make it actually this one was it's the third here's my list and last year it was number three oh i feel really bad for it now it's out you want me to start pulling up your numbers anyhow um the reason it dropped is because there's a lot more games that are similar to it that come out now so they're all like vying for attention but this is seventh continent i still really love the game it's still a lot of fun it's amazing to play but you know there i have more choices when it first came out it was one of the few games that did what it did now there's a quite a few of these story driven games like ether fields and you know obtaining grail and there's a lot of these different games that are out there this is still one of the best actually if these adventuring go through and do stuff games this is my favorite um mostly um whoa yeah i'm gonna argue that this will you shut up mikey are you looking at my list stop using that x-ray italian vision um no i don't know neither one of those things was true he's not italian and he does not have x-ray vision call 23 of me 23 results right now i really like this one it's my number 11. and we've been doing this too long [Laughter] my number 11 um is a game that i originally played back i mean quite literally when i was like 13. my dad taught this game to me and i've loved it it's been reprinted several times and even in different themes this is dune rex i really really enjoy this game i love how the entire game that you have all these units and you're trying to figure out how to take over different strongholds or different spots on the map i actually enjoy both systems in this game i enjoy rex for the twilight imperium theme and being able to explore that universe but i can't say enough about how much i love the dune theme on this game as well i'm collecting spice and going out there playing the different characters from the the books and movies of dune is a blast as well and the fact that all the different factions have extremely asymmetrical special abilities the combat is very deterministic as far as like you know how many units they have you know how many units you have you could have a little bit of modifiers with different cards but certain special abilities could help you know what those modifiers are and then you're bidding basically on who's going to win the combat any of the things you bid are going to straight up die any of the um the entire side that has the most strength is going to wipe out the other side anyway so you have to try to figure out how many people do i need left and there's alliances in this game and betrayal and backstabbing and it's just a ton of fun i really enjoy dune it is a blast of a game and that is my number 11. roy what was this last year it was in my top 10 let me look here i have it on the list um it was in 2017 it was my seven um last year it was my eight and now it is my 11. so your favorite dune game got it check no comment my number 11 is a phenomenon it is i believe a modern classic it is wingspan my number 11 is wingspan this game had maybe the most buzz of any game within the last few years at least but but this is a game i feel like that clearly earns that buzz it is not all flash and no substance it's a rock-solid card game essentially where you are kind of building an engine i know that phrase is used a lot but the idea is that you're building up powers throughout the game that allow you to gain more points it is just such an elegant game i feel like it has been just honed down to perfection i like at the end tom said something similar because i believe this was a crossover with you at least tom at the end of the game you look down at your board and you've got all of these beautiful birds in their in their correct habitats and there's just such a feeling of satisfaction about that yes it's one of those games where even if you don't win you're clearly trying to win but even if you don't win you can still look down at the end and feel like you did something that you accomplished something it's just such a satisfying game uh it's a game that i feel like has massively wide appeal obviously i would imagine that wingspan has probably brought a number of people into modern board gaming by being introduced to it by from other people or maybe being exposed to it from places where board games don't always get exposure and i think it's nothing but good for board gaming i absolutely love wingspan i'm happy for more birds bring on more birds just dump more birds on me that doesn't sound good i like wingspan this so this has been a three-way crossover right you me and z yeah i had it was it on your listing yeah okay yeah all right has it been on the people's choice it has not been on the people's choice it will definitely be on the people's choice talk to roy now i don't know roy this game's not in space so you know sorry oh man this this today's list should just be called disappointment disappointing my number 11 is a game that i like to uh call blue moon blue moon or blue moon legends they're the same game one just has everything in the box already the other one you gotta buy a piece meal same deal blue moon is the best head-to-head game ever designed by reiner kenitzia [Laughter] them caveats man i was getting all hyped up z right that's not true because that would battle line but go ahead no come on battle line uh better the battle no way yes maybe but i guess battleline has no personality you know what i mean this is i meant i meant like a fighting game as in like two things fighting yes you have clans or peoples they're called the battle line what's that battle fine i know but that's like you know random mounted unit number six versus spear guy i'm about to trample number three it's like there's no there's no flavor there he said it's safe with blue moon ah no i disagree i think there's a lot of there's a lot more here you can mine out if you choose to do that i like the different groups of people i like their abilities i like that they are centered around something these this group is synergistic so they help each other out in combat they are they come together they they use the power of the moon blah blah blah blah oh these people are like the bird people they fly they reuse their weapons they can swoop in and attack and then be gone before you have had a chance to strike back those things i i get into those things and on top of that the game is mechanically very robust it's fun it's got some pusher luck you get into these fights and if you think you're gonna lose the fight ultimately you should bail quickly so that you give up less if you stay in a fight and drag it out and then lose your opponent gets a bigger reward that just that little bit that's a stroke of genius right there you need to know when to get out of there what's that is is the moon an egg that's my main question the moon is coming closer to the earth and when it finally crashes it will and out of it comes battle line anyway oh my god it's mine number 11. uh age wants his five canadian dollars back because he says battle line's better than blue moon wow i just got this exchange going back over the fake money back all right oh and the final game from this section here folks number 11 for the people's choice was 14 last year uh it's been on the list five years this is the highest debut that i know of because this came in at 12 back in 2016 and this is seven wonders duel the only newer smaller version of a game that almost equips the original game that i know of it just it really did and that's because it's a completely different game at the end of the day it eclipses yeah it's a completely different game that's still you you feel like it can be called seven wonders you know it makes sense to still call it seven one sure yeah it's a it's a really good design to the fat to the point that the new printing of seven wonders utilizes some of the ideas that civil wonders duel introduced like they doubled back and picked up some good stuff along the way back to our reprint so yeah this was a this was great it's great alrighty folks well thank you very much for sticking with us and watching this we'll be back in two and a half hours at two o'clock eastern standard time with the top 10 games of all time if you enjoy everybody be there give us a thumbs up subscribe to the video ring the bell or whatever that means um it does help us to get more people to watch and also of course our kickstarter is ending in uh a certain amount of hours here um 36 hours oh it's getting close it is getting close all righty well until next time i'm tom vassell i'm roy canaday i'm mike delicio i'm z garcia have fun gaming [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 99,624

Rating: 4.9465084 out of 5

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: v8NbVSCcY9c

Length: 99min 4sec (5944 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021