Iceman's Board Game Topic (Rankings, Reviews, Sessions, Discussion)

30. 7 Wonders
Expansions Played: None

I feel like I've gotta be missing something here, because this is obviously a popular game that's had an impressive amount of staying power since its initial release in 2010 in a medium where that's not particularly common. To me, though, 7 Wonders just seems to work against itself. It's themed around civilization building, but it's incredibly short, pretty light on player interaction, and it's all just cards? I don't know - I'm not exactly a Sid Meier connoisseur so maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, but there's a real lack of an epic feeling here that I'd like to have in a game where I'm playing as a leader of a Great City. A long playing time would be a feature, not a bug, for someone like me in that kind of game.

Most of the decision making isn't even all that meaningful - the best card choice from the hand you're given feels pretty obvious far too often for my tastes, and trying to deny stuff to your neighbors slows the game down too much to be a viable option. But despite that and the low-interaction nature of the game, success always seems bizarrely dependent on who you're sitting next to, not because they're necessarily playing a clever game but because they might just happen to have a similar strategy to yours, which hamstrings the both of you.

Even the end feels underwhelming. This theme feels like it should end with accomplishments, but instead it's just round based and then everyone totals up points in a weirdly finicky scoring system. AND THEN there's just enough setup and teardown that you can't even really take advantage of the short playtime to easily do multiple plays.

I never tend to think of myself as a hardcore theme integration, Ludonarrative harmony guy when it comes to board games, but... Maybe I am? Because I certainly don't hate 7 Wonders. It's not like I find any aspect of its gameplay all that objectionable (hell, I even tend to quite enjoy drafting and simultaneous selection as mechanics) and I don't groan internally when it gets brought out from the shelf. I also give it a ton of credit for taking a relatively complex (as in, it's not Anomia or Hues & Cues) game for up to seven people and condensing it into the timeframe that it does, my personal complaints about game feel aside. But it just doesn't set itself apart from other lighter card games enough for me. That niche it fills as a non-party game for big groups is nice, but I never feel like I get much more out of it than I would Sushi Go Party, which has less overhead and is much more pleasant to look at.

Maybe I'm just forcing unrealistic expectations on this game for not being exactly what I want it to be. For plenty of people, this kind of quick, low interaction civ builder is precisely what they want - all this stuff I'm complaining about makes up the selling points for them. And I get it! I just personally don't want an abbreviated civilization game any more than I'd want a two-hour word game.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by a friend, but I don't know if its future prospects are great. I'm the low man in the group on this game, but none of us love it. I can obviously see it getting pulled out when player count exceeds the 4 or 5 that most of our collection caps at, but those occasions are pretty rare. It's not impossible 7 Wonders could finally click with me after just a few more plays and at least jump a tier, but I'm not sure it'll ever get that chance.

29. A Feast for Odin
Expansions Played: None

Yep! Down here among the light game graveyard, we have one of the three heaviest games on the whole ranking in Uwe Rosenberg's classic monstrosity. Honestly, it probably should've even been a little lower.

I don't even know where to start here, because there's just so damn much. More often than not, I like games that throw a metric ton of options and mechanics and ways to score at players and leaves them to puzzle out the best ones, but in this case they just don't coalesce in the way I'd hope, and it might just be because it's all a little TOO obtuse. Feast for Odin doesn't give you a whole lot of direction to sift through its many choices and seeing how they connect to one another, and it's not like the game arc is designed in a way that makes for a manageable start and steady ramp-up. It's sandboxy, but not in a way that makes you feel completely free to really experiment.

AFfO represents a kind of worker placement that I tend to struggle with, where player interaction is very low but incredibly frustrating when it does happen. If by sheer bad luck you end up going for the same overall strategy as another player, you're either going to sink each other or one is going to be completely annihilated. There's so few ways to adjust when a spot you need is taken. It's a somewhat forgiving game relative to its complexity, where anything you do is more a question of whether you'll succeed now or later versus succeeding or failing, but a couple of instances of succeeding later is still going to make it tough to compete.

I'm a reasonably smart fellow and tend to pick things up fairly quickly, including other board games of similar weight. Here, I had to keep asking people to re-explain different actions to me, because some of them are just weird. I'm still not entirely sure why, from a design perspective, we need a d8 and d12 depending on what we're hunting, or why we want to roll low when hunting but high when pillaging or raiding. It's never been immediately clear to me why my opponents did better than me in an individual game or vice versa, either.

My other complaints about the game are relatively small. It's incredibly drab looking, first of all. The polyomino aspects feel as tacked on as tacked on can get, and while we're at it, so does the theme. I spend more time feeling like a super stressed and persnickety farmer than I do feeling like a viking. These kinds of things wouldn't matter much if not for my problems with the gameplay, but added up, they make for something that I'll just never actively seek out again.

It sounds like I hate this game, I know, but I don't. With a game this popular, I just feel the need to probably overexplain my lack of love. As a baseline skeleton, heavy worker placement is something I want to and should enjoy. I like the conceit of the sandbox we're playing in here, and with a few alterations I think I'd very much enjoy this game where we all pick our lanes without stepping on toes and see whose strategy was the most sound. I've heard the Norwegians expansion helps with some of this, and if any friends want to shell out the $100+ it would cost to prove it, I'd give it a shot. But for now, it's a game I just respect much more than I like it.

Collection Status and Future Outlook : Unowned by the current group and I don't expect that to change. Think I've played my last game of Feast.

Another tier down! My prior update had this one going to 28, but apparently I miscounted because dumb.

Games I'd Rather Never Play Again Tier
44. Cards Against Humanity
43. Fury of Dracula (Third Edition)
42. Dead of Winter
41. Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza
40. Eldritch Horror
39. Mysterium
38. Exploding Kittens

Fine in Certain Contexts Tier
37. Wavelength
36. Sequence
35. Happy Little Dinosaurs
34. Boss Monster
33. Anomia
32. Hues and Cues
31. Secret Hitler
30. 7 Wonders
29. A Feast for Odin

Usually Fun, But I'd Also Usually Rather Play Something Else Tier
28. ???
27. ???
26. ???
25. ???
24. ???
23. ???
22. ???
21. ???
20. ???
19. ???
18. ???

Somewhat surprisingly, this is the biggest tier, with 10 games total where the two surrounding it both have 9.

7 Wonders at 7 players is definitely nothing too special. Fun enough and fast with simultaneous play, but doesn't feel like you have much choice in what's going on and you're just picking the best card

Where it clicked and played better for me was a 4 player game. Still have your neighbors, obviously, but only having one other player made it easy (and reasonable) to play around their strategy as well, and then it became a real game of choices.

7 Wonders Duel is still better though

I'm an avid Magic fan who loves drafting, so 7 Wonders is a huge hit for me. Like other drafting games, trying to "read the signals" from what your neighbors pass you is where the strategy lies. "Picking the best card" depends on you being able to expect what future "best cards" might be, both from what your neighbors pick and from what they don't. Green cards are flowing? Go into science, figure out whether to go wide or deep in it. Find a strong blue chain? Muscle your way into it so you don't have to invest picks on a bunch of resources.

Military creates a fun sub-game of Chicken. You only ever need one more shield than your neighbors to win, and thus, having one less shield than your neighbors makes your military cards mostly useless. Knowing how much military you're passing as well as what your neighbors have already picked can inform you whether it's worth grabbing a red card to fight for military victory or whether to concede it and pursue a more focused strategy -- hopefully goading your neighbor into burning picks on unnecessary red cards.

Ironically, this is why 7 wonders at max players kinda sucks. There's no opportunity to "wheel" any cards (have cards you once passed come back to you), which is the best way to read signals. The actual Wonders themselves are also a bit of a detriment; some of them push you into a specific strategy, while others are pure value - and the B-side boards are horribly imbalanced.

i think 7w is harmless and i like it for that. this feels about right for it

AFFO doesn't even really feel like a multuplayer game, so i totally get what you're saying about getting blocked, though i've never felt that pain. i remember norwegians being really good and many swear by never playing without it

We have done 7W at lower player counts, but not as much as at the higher ones. That definitely could be part of my issue.

7 Wonders Duel is so much better, it's not even close. That's one of the things bgg actually has right, with 7WD in the top 20, and 7W only barely in the top 100.

Probably worth noting that this is the tier that's closest to a complete blob within itself. I like #18 better than I like #28, but it's not by a significant margin. Most of these next ten games are pretty neck-and-neck when it comes to my enjoyment level.

28. Machi Koro 2
Expansions Played: N/A

Not really much to say about this one, because there's not much to it. You've got rows of cards with values from 1-12 on them that all do different things if their numbers come up on a dice roll. Mostly they give you money to buy more cards, and if you buy three special, expensive cards, you win.

I'm sure there's a good bit of mathematical optimization to do here, considering you can roll either one d6 or two and the game even includes a handy little card that tells you what the odds are for rolling any number. I've never really bothered to try figuring any of that out, though, because I feel like it'd be kind of antithetical to a 20-30 minute dice rolling filler game. I'm happy to just grab the dice and roll and see what happens and buy whatever I'm drawn to at the moment.

MK2 oddly shines when someone is just getting hilariously screwed over by the will of the fates, and there's usually one of those players every game. I had one round recently where I scored a great roll on my first turn and then didn't profit again for almost the entire rest of the game. Everything I rolled gave other players more money than I got. There's actually a couple of solid catchup mechanics in the game and I was able to come back late to the point that I didn't get completely annihilated, which is another nice point in its favor.

It's just a fun little warmup for any game day, perfect for having something on the table while you're still just chitchatting with your friends and waiting for lunch to finish cooking or something. I actually like it less as a midday filler or end-of-day cooldown because everyone's more tired and the luck swings are less entertaining, and it just feels a little underwhelming all around after you've already played something more involved, but it's not like it's outright bad in either of those roles either. It does what it's supposed to do, no more and no less.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by my best friends, certain to be played pretty frequently moving forward. Don't really see it rising or falling much.

i liked machi koro 1 a decent amount when it first came out and i felt averse to grindy euros. it's still ok.

does machi koro 2 have a static marketplace or dynamic? the dynamic marketplace from the mk1 harbor expansion was insufferable and made the game drastically worse for md

Machi Koro 2 is all dynamic marketplace. I didn't even realize that was a change!

I can see how a static one would be preferable to some, but that just feels like a lot of choices all on the board at once for something that's supposed to be pretty snappy and light on real thought. I especially wouldn't like having some of the catchup mechanic cards always available.

don't know about Machi Koro 2, but give me Space Base all day over Machi Koro 1

I haven't played Macho Koro 2, but Macho Koro 1 with the expansions is a lot better IMO.

I played a bunch of Machi Koro without expansions and with a static marketplace boils down to everyone basically does one of a couple strategies (buying up multiple copies of cheaper cards and then buying whatever more expensive card plays off those cheaper ones). Whoever gets to one card type first goes that one, and then the other player goes for a different card type and whoever hits their rolls best wins. The dynamic marketplace makes it feel like a different game each time, where you need to think through what's available and can't depend on certain cards being there.

27. Photosynthesis
Expansions Played: None

The forest is a mean, ruthless, dangerous place, and this game gives you the chance to take part in that cruel ecosystem and spread your influence as wide as you can while probably angering every other player at the table.

No, you read that headline right - this isn't the Root ranking. Photosynthesis is a hell of a deceptive package, a pretty little plant game you can find at your local Target and explain in less than 5 minutes that's hiding some of the most cutthroat passive-aggression of anything I've come across in the hobby.

Each player starts off with a board full of lovely (albeit flimsy) cardboard trees and a few seeds. The main board gets set up with a couple other trees and the sun, and you're off and running on what's essentially an area control game, plopping down your own trees to try and soak up as much light as possible while denying it to everyone else as the sun moves around the board. Bigger trees block more sun, but the only way to score points is to completely remove them.

The mark of elegance in a board game is wringing a large number of interesting turns and decisions out of a limited number of options, and Photosynthesis is a great example of that. Balancing the need to expand your territory with the option to mess with your opponents, all while having to plan ahead for the rotating sun, makes for an experience that turns out to be a surprising brain burner, especially when you can get through it in just a half hour or so.

This game's problem is its staying power, or lack thereof. After the first few plays, especially if they're with the same group, Photosynthesis kind of runs out of things to show you. There's no luck and no chance whatsoever, no difference between games, and the group meta will become apparent very quickly. The decisions you make aren't changing, but they feel less interesting with each repeat play unless people are making a concerted effort to do different things.

And look, for the price tag that this game comes with, that's perfectly fine. You get your money's worth and I think it's very good. But it's hard to place this any higher when I just feel like I've seen all it has to offer.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Currently unowned in the group, but there's a very good chance I pick this back up in the future and also grab the expansion that came out a few years ago. It seems like it addresses some of my problems with the game and adds some incredibly adorable animal meeples to improve the already nice table presence. This is the first game on the ranking that could conceivably make a big leap eventually.

26. Codenames
Expansions Played: None, but multiple versions

I don't think I even really need to bother giving an overview here, right? Don't think there's many people out there with even a cursory interest in the hobby that hasn't played Codenames. You can damn near learn the rules just by reading the box anyway.

From what I've seen, this is one of the most universally liked games out there, and there's good reasons for that. It's easy to teach and play for all ages and experience levels. It can support basically any player count of 4 or more. It's got a cute theme for unnecessary but fun flavor. It's endlessly replayable. It's quick. You can be as risky as you want from turn to turn, setting the stage for entertaining desperation plays where the spymaster gives a comically unhelpful prompt of "Cool, 6." You get the dizzying highs of successfully completing a five-card clue that make you feel like you and your friends have connected on a truly psychic level. You get the despondent lows as the spymaster painfully endeavors to maintain their poker face as their teammates discuss choosing the assassin card (which is itself hilarious if you're an observer on the other team and can see them slowly dying inside as they plot the "How could you think that was the right guess?!" rant they're about to explode with).

It's just a reliably good time. My favorite moments come when I'm teamed up with my best friend and we connect on a hint word that draws from inside jokes from 15+ years ago to the absolute befuddlement of everyone else around us. "Guys, if Brian says 'Contest, 2', he wants us to guess 'Choke' and 'Finger' and you're just gonna have to trust me on that." I struggle to think of an occasion where this game wouldn't work - even heavy gamers can get enjoyment out of the cleverness and puzzle inherent in Codenames in small doses.

With all that said, though, I'm never EXCITED to play it. I've never suggested it unprompted as something to pull off the shelf, and the only reason I ever would is in a family environment - even for something like a 6- or 8-person party among friends, I'll get more laughs and/or satisfaction out of the party versions of something like Sushi Go! or Anomia. Codenames will never blow me away. But there's something to be said for its impressive consistency, which is why it's still this high.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by multiple friends, and I'll probably grab a copy one day for the aforementioned family dimension. Actually hasn't come out in a while, but I'm sure it will again before too long. My opinion of it is never going to shift at this point, though.

maybe it was specifically the whaling that felt agonizingly long for machi koro 1. game's supposed to be fast, so why is someone's turn taking 3 minutes?

space base is a better game but i think i probably need to play it in person to appreciate it - on BGA the icons are overwhelming and i've never bothered to read them enough to get good at intuiting them

i've only played photosynthesis once and i quite enjoyed it. very clever design. but i also can definitely see how it would run out of stuff to show you pretty soon. i have no interest in owning it, though i would probably be willing to play it a few more times

codenames is one of the GOAT party games. would have it easily higher than a lot of the heavy games left, though i'm not sure there are many party games left on this list, so that's probably fitting. lately it has barely gotten to the table at all, but that's largely a function of my gaming groups disintegrating since the start of the pandemic

7 Wonders is fine, but it's nothing amazing. I think it's pretty hard to find a board game that only has drafting as a core game mechanic. Drafting tends to be one part of several game mechanics. 7 Wonders Duel is excellent and a go-to 2-player game for me.

Codenames is really good. Probably one of the first board games I would recommend to someone who has only played family board games or Catan. My big problem with Codenames is that it's pretty cerebral. A lot of the fun comes at the end when the Spymaster can finally say their piece.

i find drafting quite exhausting in games that aren't pure drafters. even stuff like it's a wonderful world feels obtuse to me

25. Last Bastion
Expansions Played: N/A

Oh, hey, a co-op game. Been a bit.

This is the game on the list with the biggest need of a replay. It's been years since we last broke it out, and that's... Really not the game's fault.

Last Bastion is a retheming of Ghost Stories, Antoine Bauza's first real hit before his name was etched into relative board game immortality with 7 Wonders. That game has a reputation for being brutally difficult to win, even by the standards of popular cooperative games, and while it's generally agreed that Last Bastion isn't quite as punishing, it's far from being completely nerfed.

Initial plays backed this up. I even ran through a game solo when I first picked this up, which I hardly ever do. That was followed by a session at 3 players and then one at 2, and all three of those ended in pretty extreme failure. Then we all got together for a 4-player run wherein we got absurdly, absurdly lucky in every respect and basically stomped all over the deck that was our opponent. We'll never get dice rolls like that again.

It just left an impression best described as, "Oh. Well, okay." And like I said, I hesitate to call that a fault of the game - I don't want to criticize a game for not accounting for incredible player fortune. But it does speak to a flaw that I lambasted Eldritch Horror for and think is somewhat inherent to cooperative games in that they really have to hit a sweet spot to be fun, because when things go too well there's no feeling of accomplishment. With competitive games, you have a living, breathing, thinking opponent across from you that can learn and adapt and switch strategies and take agency. Cooperative games have only the scenario, so the only legitimate way to have replayability is to use randomness, and sometimes randomness just sucks.

Anyway, I don't want to muse on that sort of thing too much here instead of talking more about this individual game. Last Bastion drops you and your fellow heroes onto a 3x3 grid of randomly placed tiles that makes up the titular citadel and gives you what is essentially a tower defense game. Each tile on the grid and each playable character has unique abilities, which you'll be using to protect the place from an advancing horde of monsters (also with their own unique problems to cause) drawn each round from a central deck. Broadly speaking, each hero can move and fight OR move and use a tile action on every turn, in any order. Combat is mostly dice-based, but there's ways to mitigate the luck and help out your rolls. Included in the deck is a boss monster, the Warlord (though you can add more to increase the difficulty) - simply kill it when it eventually pops up and you win.

It's not a complicated game, as rules overhead is kept light and the only thing that takes some getting used to is the tile iconography. This game also distinguishes itself from something like Eldritch Horror quite a bit by having multiple good options for players on most turns, which reduces both the overall learning curve and the need for backseating - maybe you're not always making the one "BEST" decision, but you don't ever feel like you play the whole game as a fireman running to snuff out the thing that's going to cause obvious, imminent, total disaster if it's not dealt with IMMEDIATELY. The small board means you'll rarely be in a situation where you can't react to something promptly, and you've got good situational tools. You can battle two monsters at once from the corner spots, for example, but that's not necessarily always the most efficient use of actions.

In short, Last Bastion does a good job of creating a challenge that makes you think and synergize with your teammates due to its rapidly changing game state and healthy amount of viable options for success without forcing the need for extreme brain burning. Those options are simple and if you're playing the game right, bad luck shouldn't completely sink you. I've seen complaints that the theme is boring, especially compared to the spooky Chinese mythology of Ghost Stories, but I'm not bothered - I think "generic fantasy" works well for a game like this and it's still quite a pretty production.

It takes a special kind of co-op game to get past my bias against the format and I don't think Last Bastion is special, but it's a fun enough time.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by me, picked up for a good deal years ago. As I said, I'd definitely like to get this to the table again sometime soon to see if my extended time in the hobby changes my mind on any of this, and to get over our underwhelming last session. I can't imagine it will surpass Spirit Island as the go-to cooperative game for the group, though. (Since that's the only one left on the ranking, I don't think I'm spoiling anything here.)

oh, this is a ghost stories re-issue? i thought GS was... okay. only played it once and i'm not sure i felt any real sense of accomplishment during it. felt kind of punishing and workman-like. but then, i suppose a lot of co-op games are kinda like that?

the 3x3 map is fantastic though. just enough spatial puzzle to go with the punching-in-the-face-iness of it all

I would be really interested to try Ghost Stories if it was accidentally at some board game cafe or something that I stumbled on. If it's true that Last Bastion toned down the difficulty just a tad, I can see how GS could end up feeling more like stressful work than LB does. I do think that's true of the majority of co-op games, though. Their gameplay loops and strategies are just inherently more reactive than competitive games.

24. Viticulture (Essential Edition)
Expansions Played: Tuscany

Maybe the best example on this list of a game that, while being perfectly functional and enjoyable, just lacks some indefinable "spark" that sets it apart as something excellent.

Viticulture makes its players into inheritors of some old-timey vineyards and tasks them with transforming these rather sad offerings into thriving producers of wine. Its central mechanism is worker placement, with a central board split into different seasons that each have a set of worker spots. Multiple workers can go to an individual location, but usually there will be a bonus for the player who gets there first. Everyone also has their own player board for use in managing their wine products and structures and fields, and there are a few decks of Visitor cards representing folks who come for a tour that can help out in various ways. There's lots of ways to earn points, and when anyone reaches 20, endgame is triggered, prompting a few endgame scoring opportunities before the player with the most points wins.

I've never had a problem with Viticulture. In a lot of ways, it's a great example of the kind of worker placement I tend to like - interaction is limited but not completely absent, multiple strategies are viable, and options are never overwhelming. I'm also always a HUGE fan of a mechanic that lets players select and manipulate their own turn order with rewards for going later. It doesn't run long, the board looks nice on the table, and the ability to support 5 or 6 players is always a nice bonus.

But it's also just never really wowed me. There's not much of a satisfying game arc of peaks and valleys - every round basically feels pretty similar in the options available to you even though you'll have to rotate through doing different things. Doesn't exactly end with a bang, either, as the short runtime will often find the game ending just when you're starting to get a decent flow together, and not in a good "Aw, if I just had one more turn!" sort of way. And, while Stonemaier games are never lauded for their balance, this one always feels particularly luck-based and swingy to me. Visitor cards are highly variable in the benefits they offer, and the Order cards that determine what sort of wine you can sell and for how many points have similar issues. They feel like the things that should be determining your strategy, but there's too much randomness for that to be the case - too often it feels like the game is railroading you into your decisions despite the amount of options that are available.

Everyone I've ever played this with has liked it more than me, so I recognize I'm an outlier. As a lifelong teetotaler, I thought for a while that maybe the whole wine-making theme just wasn't landing with me, but upon greater reflection I've realized that I actually dig the theme quite a bit. It's a fun one for a euro that doesn't try or pretend to be outright exciting but still manages to feel somewhat novel for the space. Actually, I think part of my issue with the game is that the theme doesn't come through strongly enough - there are too many ways to get points that really don't have anything to do with making wine. I've seen wins and almost-wins that came without the player fulfilling a single order, and the most expensive and/or complicated wines feel like they're never worth it considering the amount of effort and actions they require.

Viticulture is a good game, but there's no one thing about it that I can point to as a reason to play it over other stuff. It just doesn't offer excitement or anticipation when it hits the table. I play it, have a perfectly fine time, it goes back in the box, and then I never think about the experience again. That's a pretty good encapsulation of this tier.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by my best friends. It's interesting - as I mentioned earlier, I'm the low man on Viticulture in both this and our previous group, but nobody's made much of an effort to get this off of the shelf recently, so I think even they might share the opinion that it's lacking that WOW factor of some other stuff in our collections. I'm sure there will still be a decent amount of plays in our future, though, and while I don't think it's out of the question that it might click one day, I kind of doubt it. Worker placement just seems to be getting more and more creative these days, and I think that'll make it even harder for Viticulture to find that perfect storm.

haven't played it enough but i really enjoy viticulture

I hear the Tuscany expansion is what really makes it shine with more seasons to work around but I haven't been able to try it

hey, here's one i've played many times, both from owning it and because it's on BGA and is a quick one to knock out with my wife

i had some stuff partially typed but my phone lost it. here are my main pros/cons of VC -

pros
- the production is wonderful
- the theme makes a ton of sense in many regards and is linked closely with mechanics
- it's accessible because you only have to read the cards you actually draw instead of evaluating a marketplace
- the grande worker also makes the worker placement less punishing
- the extra bonuses when you play with more than 2 players are great
- the wakeup track is really neat
- seasons are a good idea

cons
- in the 2p game it sucks not having the 2
- turn order is doubly important due to having two seasons
- not having a card marketplace makes the game very luck-based
- other than the bonus powers, the worker placement is fairly uninspired
- the game is not very "tightly" designed - the way the money economy works in particular is kind of shoddy (super-important early; later in the game you have almost nothing to spend it on)

overall i feel it has a lot of great ideas and makes them super-accessible. i kind of resent its popularity because i think the execution and tightness of the design are sacrificed in some ways for that overhead ease (e.g. no mitigation of the swingy cards).

tuscany (just the board) adds complexity which is nice and gives some more options on actions you can do when you've otherwise run out of useful stuff to do, which is also nice. i like thematically that there are four seasons. but it amplifies one of the bigger annoyances of VC, which is the importance of being first - now you're first in all four seasons.

it's also just more complex than "base" viticulture and isn't available online, so i've just played base a lot more than tuscany

Just a quick bump this morning. Between work and the holidays, I haven't had many opportunities to do writeups or get the group together for games.

Anybody that isn't already should go check out the other board game ranking going on right now!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80661298

23. Here to Slay
Expansions Played: None

Unstable Games doesn't exactly have a reputation for creating "gamers' games" - and they're not trying to. They want their games to be casual affairs, to bring out "Awww, look at this cute art" reactions in the midst of chaotic and violent theming, to come out quick and get off the table just as quickly, to act almost as background noise to table chitchat, and maybe to sell a few T-shirts along the way. They all have an air of "Hey, games are silly, don't take them too seriously" about them, and even as someone who tends to gravitate toward the heavier side of the hobby, I can appreciate that.

Here to Slay is generally regarded as their best work, and I agree it's mostly a winner. It's a simple card and dice game where the goal is to either assemble a full party of heroes - Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Thief, and Mage - or defeat three monsters. You get three action points on your turn to distribute as you see fit. Drawing or playing a card, or rolling to try and activate a hero's special ability, costs one point. Fighting a monster (also a dice roll) costs two. Discarding your hand to draw a completely new one costs all three. There's a wide variety of ways to mess with your fellow players, either with the hero abilities or through other cards that let you contest card plays or change the value of dice rolls etc.

Action point and "Take That" mechanisms are generally unpopular among the hardcore gaming populace, the former because it has a tendency to induce analysis paralysis and the latter for pretty self-explanatory reasons of feeling somewhat mean spirited a lot of the time. Here to Slay makes them both work just fine, though. You don't have that many options for your action points, especially if you use two of them to fight, and in many many cases, you'll have an obvious "best" path. And the Take That works because it's really the main conceit of the game - you have to get in your friends' ways, and once one of them starts the dominos falling, the gloves immediately come off from everyone else. Most of it requires a dice roll anyway, and I find negative effects in competitive games like this to be much more palatable and entertaining when they're based on random chance. Getting a lucky roll to screw over your buddy is great, but you know what's even better? When your buddy confidently tries to screw you over in return, only for his roll to fail spectacularly and cause everyone at the table to laugh.

I'm not saying I'd want to play a 75-90 minute game like this by any means. Here to Slay clocks in at a tidy little 20-30 minutes, maybe up to 40 on a rare occasion where everyone is getting incredibly lucky or unlucky, and that's just the right amount of time to keep everyone annoyed in a playful way instead of a tired, frustrating way. The two win conditions feel pretty balanced (insofar as anything in this game is balanced), and we've had plenty of games end with both of them. I've seen some people house rule that you need a full party AND three monster kills to win, and while I personally haven't tried it that way, I see the appeal of making things a little less prone to abrupt and unsatisfying endings.

I've discovered that this game also has a valuable niche as a filler game that directly sets up other heavy-interaction games. It's so much easier to get my overly nice, conflict-averse game group in the mood for a Root or Inis or something once they've warmed up on Here to Slay. We're all frustrated with at least one other person at the table and can't wait to start destroying them in a more serious, higher-stakes, longer game. The art is fantastic, too, even by Unstable Games standards - the "generic fantasy" theme is perfect for their style and every critter is cute in their own way.

It's just fun, pleasant pandemonium. It's the farthest thing from groundbreaking in any way, but for its $20 price tag, it does its job tremendously well.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by me. It's been our go-to filler game lately and while nothing tends to hold onto that spot for a super long time, I do think this one has a bit of staying power to still be broken out fairly frequently once its time in the limelight ends.

haven't played that one and don't know much about it! it sounds like it could be a fun novelty game to try out but unsure if it would be my cup of tea!

We have a new addition to my shelf of shame - got a great deal from BoardGameGeek on the second deluxe edition of Wonderland's War, which has been near the top of my wishlist for a while. Going to make a concerted effort to get that one to the table very soon.

how often do you manage to get game nights lately?

I believe we only managed to get together twice in December, but fortunately they were both pretty long and packed days.

Half of our group is going on a family vacation starting tomorrow for at least a week, so January might be another leaner month. Life should slow down after that, though, so hopefully we'll get back in a good rhythm.

good luck on that! frequency of game nights is by far my biggest barrier :)

As it is for many, I know!

Having the group so accessible now has opened up the problem that I'm just probably going a little too crazy buying games, though. Probably gonna stop for at least the first half of the year now, unless some already-cheap games that I want end up showing up with some even better deals.

I'm still alive even though Seabass put me to shame with how quick he finished his topic!

22. Sushi Go!
Expansions Played: None, unless you'd count Sushi Go! Party

With how super light and approachable it is, I don't feel like I have much to say about this game and I don't really feel like I need to, either. The second simultaneous drafting game on the list after 7 Wonders, as I mentioned in that game's writeup, I think this one is just better in every way. The theme is more unique, more pleasant, and fits the mechanics better. It's quicker and simpler without sacrificing interest. There's no setup and teardown overhead so it's incredibly easy to play more than once at a time, and it's a super welcoming package all around for even the most inexperienced of board gamers.

Everything here just feels very tight in a way I don't think you'd initially expect at first glance, and I think it's because the scoring options are pretty perfect in their simplicity. Ten different cards with exactly the right variety, especially if a good group meta develops. Sashimi and especially Tempura always seem like they get a little undervalued in my group, so I'm able to swoop in under the radar and rack up some mildly uncontested points that way. Wasabi can be incredibly strong, but if the players next to you are paying good enough attention and/or want to hate draft, OR if you yourself aren't counting cards well, it can backfire hard. You always have to keep the Puddings in the back of your mind, too... Unless you're willing to just sacrifice those 6 points from the very beginning and focus on exploiting the card plays you consequently free up while all your opponents fight for them amongst themselves... Of course, if you take that tactic in too many games, maybe one friend catches on and quietly just plays one Pudding at the very beginning to do your strategy better.

There's a deceptive amount of thinking going on under the hood here if you really want to try hard. Read the friends, keep track of which cards you see, stay cognizant that Brian will never let anyone beat him in Maki Rolls if he can help it, so on. But if you want to just shut your brain off and throw down some adorable cards and see what happens, you can do that too. You'll still have a good time and maybe even still be competitive if everyone else has galaxy brained themselves into oblivion.

Sushi Go! excels in its reliability. It works equally well as an opener or filler for game night as it does for a casual "beer and pretzels" kind of party. I don't know if I'd quite call it a gateway game, because despite its surprisingly clever and layered gameplay, it's probably a little too light and breezy for me to think I could invite a friend who enjoyed it to play even something like Sagrada next time without them feeling like they may have gotten a little more than they bargained for. But it's easily my favorite game to play with non-gamers and it's plenty fun with gamers too. It just does its job really damn well.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by me. Sees a fair amount of table time (although less so lately since my group took so well to Here to Slay) and considering its versatility, I don't see that changing. This is the exact right tier for it, though.

Since my group was pretty consistently at least 5 people if not 6 or 7, I played a good amount of Sushi Go Party. Very reliable fun as you said

don't think i've ever won a game of sushi go, despite having played it double-digit times. i think the game is okay. main difference from 7W is that the 3 rounds are the same. 7W has different cards for different eras and an increasing engine.

in general probably a case of "i prefer 7W on BGA but might prefer sushi go in person because it's so much simpler." never played any variant of party either.

Sushi Go is definitely easy and fun. I showed it to my family in Thailand and it was...tough explaining it. I thought it was simple and the pictures spoke for themselves, but there's actually kind of a lot of complication behind it. Should have went with something even more simple!

How about a twofer today?

21. King of Tokyo
20. King of New York
Expansions Played: None

I've seen some people have really strong opinions on which of these games is better, but they're similar enough to me to feel like basically the same game, even if I would have to say I have a slight preference for New York if you forced me to choose.

Though I didn't play it myself until much later in life, I remember seeing a YouTube playthrough of King of Tokyo yeeeeeears ago that was almost definitely my first exposure of any kind to modern board games. I don't think I'm alone there, either - at one point, at least, this seemed to be among the most well-known games that you couldn't find in Grandma's closet. Maybe it even still is, but I think I'm too deep in the hobby now to make that determination.

Anyway, I think everyone's familiar enough that I don't have to do much of a breakdown, but I will anyway. These games are Battle Yahtzee. Everyone plays as a monster, and you roll six dice up to three times on your turn and do what they say. You can attack, heal, score points, or gain energy that can then be spent on power-up cards. King of New York redesigns the point-scoring system and adds in a couple new die faces with the extra spaces that allow you to destroy buildings for various benefits and potentially provoke a military attack in response. If you're the last monster standing or first to score 20 points, you win. In all but the very first turn of the game, there will always be one monster (two at higher player counts) in Tokyo (or Manhattan, depending on the version). While there, you score points and energy at the beginning of every turn, and your attacks hurt everyone else, but you can't heal. Attacks from outside the central area can only hurt the monster(s) inside it.

It's silly, it's quick, it's a reliably great time. Who doesn't want to play a game that lets you be a kaiju every once in a while? These games pull a lot of fun out of a very straightforward set of rules and limited decisions. Your choices never amount to much more than which of a few dice to reroll or which card to buy or, most critically, when to get out of the central area, but you'll agonize over them every time anyway. The greatest moments here come when someone tries to push their luck by staying in the central area for one more round because they've got plenty of health and one other player needs to heal, only for a different bloodthirsty monster to commit completely to rolling attacks and killing them with a lucky result. There's an elegance to the lunacy here, and you can switch up your strategies frequently between games without ever getting bored.

Nobody tends to like player elimination in games, but it's about as far from being a problem here as it could possibly be. You can easily fit 3 or 4 games into an hour, so if someone dies early, you can bet they're going to be back quickly anyway and with a literal vengeance. The more grudges that develop between players, the more chances you have for moments like that one I described. These are rare games that not only don't lose anything from immediate runbacks, but actually benefit from them.

Prevailing opinion seems to be that Tokyo is the superior version of the two games because of its snappiness - New York lets you move around the city's boroughs at the end of every turn if you so desire, and with every one having randomized buildings and army responders with different rewards, it adds a little more brain overhead. I can certainly understand how that can feel like it gets in the way of the mindless dice chucker spot that these games are trying to fill on the shelf. I really like that slight uptick in complexity, though, and it inarguably makes you feel more like a kaiju rampaging through the streets. Isn't that what we're going for here?

My only real complaint about the games is that the deck of cards for power-ups is quite big, but only three are ever dealt out at a time and it costs a valuable 2 energy to wipe and replace. These powers are a big part of the game's fun, but there's probably some in there that we've never even seen just because you only cycle through a few of them every game. Fortunately, there's no real need to wring your hands about balance here, so you can easily come up with some house rules for that if you feel the need.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: New York is owned by my best friends and we pull it out frequently. They don't ever make for the kind of memorable, lasting experience that would ever make me move them up a tier, but they've had impressive staying power in a hobby with few examples of that for good reason.

forgot to comment here - haven't played KONY but i like KOT a bit. i have just never found quite as much excitement in it as i have in other games of similar weight.

I think I prefer Dice Throne for my Yahtzee dice chucking game but King of Tokyo / New York with some expansions thrown in is still fun

KommunistKoala posted...

I think I prefer Dice Throne for my Yahtzee dice chucking game but King of Tokyo / New York with some expansions thrown in is still fun

I'm with you there! Which I guess is obvious considering I haven't ranked Dice Throne yet.

19. Inis
Expansions Played: None

This writeup is probably going to be less than this game likely deserves, because it's among the games in my collection that's been played the least. Hasn't even hit the table since my wife joined the group, and... I'm not 100% sure why that is, but I have some ideas.

On paper, Inis should very much be my jam. It shares mechanics and design philosophies with at least half the games yet to be ranked in higher tiers. Drafting, political negotiation and table talk, multiple paths to victory, simple rules with a lot of room for clever strategy, all wrapped up in gorgeous artwork. But in our limited plays, it just never seemed to sing like expected.

This is an area control game that is very polite as regards the "control" part. Players start off being all up in each other's business and stay that way for the whole game, but combat isn't just triggered by two players being in the same area. Specific cards have to be played, and even then, players have the option of agreeing to end things before they get too bloody. Inis doesn't want you to gain influence and power by just wantonly killing everyone else - it wants you to be clever about it and to really think about when it's advantageous. It also becomes a case of mutually assured destruction in some cases, because the map is so small (especially on earlier turns) that it can often be quite easy for another player to benefit more than the attacker by swooping in and gaining a foothold where forces have been depleted, especially when you consider that the map also contains Citadels that serve as totally safe havens in which players can completely hide forces from the destruction happening around them.

But also, there will be plenty of times you might not even really have the option to do any of this. Actions in Inis take the form of cards that each do something very specific and, in the grand scheme of things, very minor and simple. Options to do something as mundane as moving or putting new forces down are relatively limited, so you have to figure out ways to do a lot with a little. These cards are drafted as in 7 Wonders: take one and pass. All forms of action selection in board games are effectively opportunity cost mechanisms - doing one thing means you're choosing not to do another - but in Inis, you're also denying that thing to everyone else, which is equally important.

It manages to do something interesting with the endgame as well. Once you've met one of the victory conditions (which are, broadly, widely spreading out your forces, controlling certain structures, or having control over enough other players' forces), Inis requires you to use your turn to take a token that basically serves as a megaphone shouting "I'M GOING TO WIN!" If you still meet the condition when play gets back around to you, you do indeed win. I can never decide how I feel about this, because it feels like it should drive an exciting end with every player desperately trying to stop the one in the driver's seat, but it just never ends up being as climactic as it sounds.

Inis is a very, very smart design. "Elegance" is a word that's kind of become a meme in the board game community for how overused it is, but it really does fit this one. It's a title with a lot of strategic depth and potential for getting even deeper with each repeat play, and it does all that with minimal rules to learn. But I wonder if it's maybe a little too elegant. You do so little on any one turn that you only ever feel like you've gotten a few tiny inches closer to victory, and while that definitely creates tension, it also creates a game that feels like it's not all that FUN.

I like Inis. I think it's better designed than some of the games still yet to drop on this list - in some cases, significantly so. But the majority of the time, if I stare at my shelf trying to pick a box to bring out, it just feels so mundane compared to other games that are much more messy and loosey-goosey. Games like this normally bring an enjoyment that extends beyond the last card played or die rolled, where every player sits back in their chair and tries to point toward that one bombastic move that won or lost them the game and learn from it. Inis doesn't have those moments because it doesn't have bombastic moves. And I hesitate to call that a flaw, because it's... Not, really. It's very much intentional and a big part of why this game is good. But it's also why I have yet to have an experience that makes me think it's great.

Seriously, though, returning to the artwork for a second, this game's look is incredible. I know that's the coldest take ever but it needs to be said anyway. Inis makes the absolute most out of its limited amount of cards and map tiles and commits to making them all beautiful and distinct. It's almost easy to get distracted during the drafting stage just appreciating the cards, and though I guess it's kind of a silly thing to praise, I love how big they are too. More board games should go Celtic, is what I'm saying.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by me, and doing this writeup has really made me want to bust it out soon. Popular opinion seems to be that this game is best at four players, and I think the group is better equipped to handle a game like this now than we may have been when we last gave it a shot. This game ticks so many of my boxes that I could see it really exploding up the ranking if we finally get that session that clicks. Otherwise, I'll probably be looking to trade it, though, because as of now, it doesn't do anything that some other game in my collection doesn't do better.

i demoed inis when it was new at gencon and thought it was incredible, but have only played it once since. it feels really clever, but i kind of suspect these high-confrontation games aren't really for me.

should ask my friend who owns it about playing it next time we get together though

I feel like Inis is really trying to be kind of a high-confrontation game for people who don't like high-confrontation games, as you mentioned. I feel like there's probably paths to success that involve little to no conflict of any kind for skilled players in certain groups. But I can understand how it might still fly a bit too close to the sun in some respects just due to its genre.

18. Dice Forge
Expansions Played: None

This is an easy game to talk about, because it's fun for some very simple and obvious reasons but held back from excellence for reasons that are equally clear. As the name implies, this is a dice chucker through and through, with a rarely-seen gimmick in that you'll be repeatedly removing the actual faces on your dice to replace them with better ones.

That's it. That's Dice Forge. On every turn, every player rolls their dice to get the resources shown on them, and the active player has the choice of spending those resources to either upgrade their dice or buy a card. These cards provide victory points, special recurring effects, or even more die faces. I've basically just taught you how to play the entire game; all you'd need to learn when you sit down is iconography and a couple special edge rules. There's a hilariously pasted-on fantasy theme, but frankly, all that does is make for some flowery and unnecessary terminology for certain actions even if the art is fun and colorful for what it is.

Really, this is a fun twist on engine building where the dice themselves are the engines. It's wonderfully tactile - popping the faces on and off never gets old, and it's pretty easy unless you're my best friend, who for some reason really struggles with the necessary fine motor skills and usually resorts to using a fork. Dice upgrading isn't a terribly unique mechanic in board games, but I'm not aware of many other examples that let you physically do it in this way. It makes things extra customizable, and the novelty doesn't hurt. The game is also marginally less dependent on luck than you might think - I have a weirdly high win rate despite famously having lifelong poor fortune in dice rolling of any kind. You have to be closely tuned in to the game arc, because at a certain point you have to stop focusing on upgrades almost entirely. Knowing when to make that choice is usually the key to victory, and it doesn't necessarily come at the same time in each game.

As far as drawbacks? Well, for the light filler game that it is, it's a bit of a table hog, and the setup and teardown is annoying not just for the glaring reasons but because getting all the cards in their proper places is annoying, especially if you don't have the full complement of players (in which case you have to remove some). Once you do have it all set to go, though, it's quite snappy - 10 rounds that don't take very long due to the fact that you don't have to make many brain-burning choices. Playing multiple sessions back to back is very doable if you're inclined.

Dice Forge isn't any kind of masterpiece, but its memorable gimmick and super easy gameplay make it an ideal "beer and pretzels" game (or "soda and pretzels" in my group's case, given that none of us really drink). I don't like to play it too often because it does get repetitive, but I think it accomplishes its goals pretty much perfectly.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by me. This is in the running for the most frequently played game in my group, and while I definitely think it's hit the table more than it's maybe deserved to over the years, I've never gotten tired of it to the point that I'd expect it to lose its spot in this ranking. I'd like to pick up the expansion eventually to see if it might get a bit of a boost; don't think that's impossible.

There's another tier finished. Next up is going to be...

Almost Always Down to Play Tier
17. ???
16. ???
15. ???
14. ???
13. ???
12. ???
11. ???
10. ???
9. ???

And here's a list of what's left.

Azul
Calico
Cascadia
Dune: Imperium
Everdell
Flamecraft
Great Western Trail
Kingsburg: Second Edition
Marvel Dice Throne
Obsession
Root
Sagrada
Scythe
Spirit Island
Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef
Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition
Wingspan

dice forge has a fantastic gimmick and doesn't outstay its welcome, and i agree it isn't super luck-based. it is a bit "loose" as opposed to tight - i am reminded a bit of quacks of quedlinberg

17. Azul
Expansions Played: None

Azul has a well-earned reputation as an uber-popular gateway game to the point that I don't really feel the need to make this writeup very long. Most people have played at least one of its versions at least once, especially if they got into the hobby in 2017 or later like I did - indeed, it was one of the first few modern board games I was ever introduced to. It's pretty, it's simple, and it's got a fun little theme even if doesn't come through very strongly (okay, or at all) in the gameplay. The tiles are very fun to handle, the rules can be taught in just a few minutes even to non-gamers, and it isn't long by any means.

My favorite thing about Azul is how well it allows for different playstyles depending on your group and mood for the day. Do you want to approach this as primarily a head-down, multiplayer solitaire where you're laser focused on your own board and don't give much thought to anything other than drafting the best tiles for you at any given time? You can pretty much do that and score just fine. Do you want to constantly be checking on your friends' boards to see which colors they're neglecting, and/or to open up prime hate-drafting opportunities? You can definitely do that, too. I've had enjoyable sessions where everyone was playing both styles and also good sessions when there was a mix of the two. It's a surprisingly versatile game in that way, and it makes for fun moments where one of your opponents really hits someone where it hurts with a hate-draft and everybody's like, "Oh, okay, it's gonna be one of those kinds of games."

The game arc is one I tend to love, too, where you start off with the possibility to go in literally any direction and end up with an increasingly narrow scope by the end and you have to be very careful not to put yourself in a corner, especially if it's a more conflict-heavy session. Outright disastrous rounds don't really happen all that often, but when they do, they're all but impossible to recover from. And despite all that, the drafting stays snappy all the way through because there are rarely, if ever, circumstances that would tend to induce analysis paralysis.

"Smooth" is the word that always comes to mind for me for Azul. Smooth drafting, smooth scoring (if a little bizarre - I and the rest of the group always need a quick refresher on how exactly it works), a smooth teach, even the tiles themselves are smooth. It's little wonder that it's become such a staple of the hobby.

Collection Status and Future Outlook: Owned by my best friends. We don't play it super often because there's nothing it does exceptionally well (i.e. better than other game options), but it all comes together into a very reliable package. We've never gotten tired of it and I don't think I ever will.

Smooth is such a good descriptor for azul.

Plays nice and quick on BGA so it's a fun warm up game. I would like to try some of the other versions though

I tried the garden version once. It was confusing and less than elegant, but all of us were playing for the first time. I might enjoy it more on a second go.

I'd be interested to try out the other versions too, but not enough that I actually want to spend the money for it. Heard conflicting reports from "all of them are better" all the way to "none of them are better." It'd be good to find a board game cafe who has them but, alas, there are none around here.