Category Archives: Best of List

Best of List

Top 10 Lifestyle Boardgames Worth The Effort and Top 5 That Didn’t Make It

There are board games, and then there are BOARD GAMES!—epic, brain-bending experiences that redefine what it means to gather around a table for game night. Once you delve a bit deeper into this hobby with an appetite for depth and challenge, you’ll find yourself discovering games where gameplay often demands much more than the average player might be ready to give.

These aren’t your casual diversions. We’re talking about games that push the boundaries with intricate strategies, meticulously designed simulations, and often marathon-length play sessions. They’re the kind of games that give back as much as they demand.

But let’s face it: not every complex game is worth the time and effort. Many fall short, bogged down by poor design, unnecessary complexity, or a lack of payoff. In this article, we’re diving into the fascinating realm of “lifestyle” games—those games that go beyond entertainment to become a full-blown hobby. These are games so rich, so challenging, and so immersive that simply learning to play them well feels like an achievement in itself.

Let’s explore the best (and maybe a few of the worst) of this exclusive club. Buckle up; it’s going to be a long one!

War Of The Ring

This classic Lord of the Rings boardgame that is part adventure game, part strategic war game is without question one of the most endearing games on this list. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan looking for a two-player experience, this is the one that immediately pops into my head, but even as it does so, I can’t help but immediately point out the cautionary elements of this game.

It’s a long game and it’s a relatively complex game but this is not why I define it as a lifestyle game. The reality is that in order to get the most out of this game you need to have repeated plays of it, many…. so many repeated plays.

It takes many sessions to understand and come to terms with the subtle strategies of this game, the eben-flow of the asymmetric decks, the unique architecture of the map and the subtle way the gameplay is defined by the unique dice mechanic that may at first feel like a strange randomization in another why’s very thinky game, giving this one a kind of reactionary playstyle.

In short, this is not a game you play to try to win, rather you play the game to see what happens. In almost an RPG-like way, this board game is as much about telling the emergent tale of the entire trilogy of the Middle Earth story as it is a strategic war game. A concept that, for a Lord of the Rings fans, should hopefully spark excitement and anticipation. It’s a game where you get to explore what-if scenarios.

The game has a steep learning curve and the rules are not always intuitive, focused more on trying to bring out the story of the game and the realities of the Middle-earth world than being streamlined. Just explaining the game to a new player and having them come to terms with the nuances is going to take several plays and when you finally have that aha moment, you will find yourself in a permanent loop of “theory-crafting” different approaches, each demanding another session to try out your latest theory.

By the time you have played this game a dozen or so times, you will find yourself no closer to a definitive answer on how to play this game well or how to win at it and so you are drawn to it like a moth to a flame in the never-ending pursuit to figure it out. That is if it sticks the landing for you and I find that with many gamers, it doesn’t and this is why, finding like-minded opponents with a desire to explore the depths of this game becomes an important part of bringing the true nature and experience of this game to the forefront.

If you can find a good partner who loves Lord of the Rings as much as you do, what you have is an almost chess-like experience, a dual with eternal replayability that will have you creating and re-telling stories of “that one time” or describing past theories and gambits and its in this combination of attributes of the game, War of the Rings forms into a forever lifestyle game.

Western Empires

I have a love-hate relationship with this game mainly because it has this intangible quality, born part out of nostalgia for the classic game on which it is based (Advanced Civilization) but also because of its unusual mechanics that you will never see in any other game, creating this sort of abstracted, yet very story driven and personal experience. Simultaneously it’s frustratingly difficult to get to the table simply because of its scope and length of play.

It’s a massive game, playable by 5 to 9 players, but, quite clearly designed for 9 players specifically. A game that takes 12-24 hours to play, this is a massive epic-event game that can be made even bigger, up to 18 players by combining its sister game, Eastern Empires. To say this game is HUGE is an understatement. I say this without hesitation or exaggeration, this IS the single biggest boardgame ever made and I doubt we will ever see anything top it.

I don’t think it’s difficult to understand why I would proclaim this a lifestyle game, it takes enormous effort to get to the table, demanding a lot from its players, but why is it on the list? Especially given that this game also appears on my TOP 5 BOARDGAMES THAT WERE ALMOST GREAT, BUT HAD A FLAW THAT RUINED THEM list?

The answer is quite simple which is that the hard part of this game, unlike so many games on this list is simply getting X amount of players to sit down and play a game for Y amount of hours, in this case, the preferred X is 9 and the likely Y is 12-24 hours. It’s a bit much even for the most dedicated of gaming groups.

Despite its massive size, scope, and length, the mechanics of this game are surprisingly simple, at least in terms of understanding the “how” of playing the game. The beauty of this game is that it’s mostly a game about social interactions and player psychology. At the core of gameplay is trading resources and making high-level decisions, then living with some of the often impossible-to-predict outcomes. Much like real history, the story of the game is viewed in this sort of history concept where the culture you’re playing isn’t “you” or “your culture”, but this abstract engine you’re running in a grand historical concept of the world. You feel that personal ownership of the culture you’re running, as you would with any other civilization-building game, but there is this distance there because there really is only so much you can control strategically. This is a game you can win or lose simply because of bad luck, and that is a hard pill to swallow when you consider its length of play.

This is not a game you will win because you made the best strategic decisions, the best movement or tactical plan to overcome your opponent, or some clever leverage of mechanics. If there is any contributing factor to a victory it will be being the slickest salesman, the best negotiator, the most clever politician. It’s a game of subtle psychology, nuanced gambits, and social illusions, and these efforts make a huge difference but in the end, you might still get stuck with devastating calamities that will decimate all of your effort. As such the game is as much an activity as it is a game.

Yet despite that, a grandiose board it is. Massive and illustrious on the table, this game looks and feels like an event game, which makes this entry a unique lifestyle game to the list because it doesn’t have to be one. This is a game you can plan a big event around once a year and leave it at that, it works great for this purpose.

If however you can muster up the strength and the player count to get together more often, to dig deep into this games strategic layout, you will discover that in fact, while the game is played in the minds of the players, there is a lot to know about the motion and subtle tactics to this game. There is so much to learn and try out and while the game may not appear asymmetric as the only thing that differentiates one player from the other is the starting position on the map, this very small difference has a massive impact and each nation in this game has its own approach to be discovered.

Of all the games on this list, if I had my desires fulfilled this is the one lifestyle game I would choose for myself. A monthly game with a dedicated group to play this massive epic would be my definition of pure joy! As demanding as it is to get to the table, there is no doubt in my mind it’s one of the most timeless and unique gaming experience you can ever hope for.

Twilight Imperium

Over the years I have talked a lot about Twilight Imperium on this blog and it’s not a secret that I’m a fan, but when I talk to members of my group they often speak about this game in a negative light and I think that is because, contrary to what I used to believe about this game, it doesn’t make for a good event game. It is a lifestyle game, arguably almost exclusively so and that perhaps explains why my group maybe doesn’t love it the way I do, as I have, in the past, played this game as a lifestyle game and I know how that experience differs to simply running this as a once in a while event game which is the experience all the members of my group have with this game.

What is the subtle difference? The answer is that the game has an endlessly complex well of depth, not just in the way the rules execute, but in the subtle way the game is balanced between the sociology of the game and the impact of mechanics.

This is not a game you can win by outplaying everyone using mechanics alone, it’s a game where, like chess, you have to get your opponents to make a mistake and when that mistake is made and you leverage it, you make your move. Other (less experienced) players might look on this as a game they lost because someone did something stupid. In an event game, this can feel like king-making as players are unfamiliar with the subtle art of forcing a mistake in this game.

See the game is deep, very deep strategically with tons of unique interactions and hard-to-extrapolate balances hidden within the game’s uniquely asymmetrical elements with so much nuance, I could write a 12-book volume set on the strategies related to the different races in the game alone. This high-level understanding of the game however is not transferable, it’s not something you can teach, it’s the result of having played it countless times over two decades. This is not something I can explain to players even on a high level when teaching them to play so in an event scenario where the game is played as a one-off, players know the rules, but they are dozens of plays away from even realizing that such subtlety exists, let alone knowing what to do with that knowledge.

I don’t think I’m overselling it, I think a Twilight Imperium player will understand how this nuanced realization completely changes your outlook on this game, it’s why there is a such a difference of opinion on this game. You can really see the difference between a Twilight Imperium player that explored the depths of the game reviews this game, versus someone who casually dips their toes in. There is a massive difference in the two experiences.

Twilight Imperium definitely falls into the lifestyle or nothing category and I can always tell when I’m talking to someone who has “tried it once or twice” and someone who has “played it for years like me”. It’s almost like a secret language, a kind of understanding that can’t be learned from reading about the game or studying the rules of the game, watching or theorizing about it, this secret understanding comes only from countless repeated plays.

For science-fiction fans who love civilization-building games (4x games), Twilight Imperium is a revelation, and don’t let any other game marketing convince you otherwise. There are no games that do the same thing or even anything approaching Twilight Imperium. There are no games that come within a million light years of this one, in fact, many games make the claim that they are “lighter” versions of Twilight Imperium or are “shorter” versions of Twilight Imperium. This simply is a false advertisement and what’s egregious about these advertisements is that it’s clear the people making that claim don’t have the faintest clue what Twilight Imperium is or how stupid they sound when they make such claims. There are no alternatives to Twilight Imperium, it is a unique, white-elephant, one-of-a-kind lifestyle game that has no competition in this genre. It’s the ultimate Science-Fiction Civilization Builder in a class of its own.

Empire Of The Sun

Empire of the Sun, much like War of the Rings is an in-depth strategy game with a primary goal of telling (or perhaps better to say re-telling) a story, in this case, the entirety of the war in the Pacific.

The caveat is unlike War of the Rings, Empire of the Sun is a simulation and complex mechanics weigh heavily on the game, in a word, this is the most complex game I have ever played and by a considerable margin. In fact, it took the better part of a year of constant attempts to play it, pouring over rules, watching videos, studying the game and even direct interaction with its designer, Mark Herman before I was certain I was playing the game “mostly” correctly.

That in itself requires a level of commitment to the game that goes far beyond a typical board game night, placing it squarely in the lifestyle game arena.

It is a fantastic game, but it’s made by and for historical war gamers who care about the most finite of details the most accurate of representation and the most researched of content. Every inch of this game is as historically accurate as a historian could make it and the decisions you make in this game are very much the same decisions the generals of the actual war had to make, with outcomes that simulate this war with precision only the most informed historian could fully appreciate.

It is an amazing game with tremendous detail, it takes two very dedicated players, ready to spend hundreds of hours studying the nuances of this game and its many rules and rules exceptions, but it is also hands down one of the most rewarding games I have ever played. This game tells a story like nothing I have ever played before, and it does it with a hex map, some cards, and tokens.

From where I’m standing this is one of the best game designs in all of board gaming, it’s a masterpiece. If you are going to choose something as a lifestyle game, this one will not disappoint, with the caveat of course being that you have to get through a very tough learning curve first and you have an insatiable hunger for historical war gaming.

Paths Of Glory

While we are on the subject of historical war games, like Empire of the Sun, Paths of Glory essentially fits the same niche and in the same way. While arguably the learning curve is a bit simpler on the rules side, it’s no less robust, deep, and dynamic than Empire of the Sun.

There are a couple of things that segregate Empire of the Sun and Paths of Glory. The first is the historical period. World War I and World War II have a completely different set of political and geo-centric problems to solve, most notably World War I isn’t as cut and dry as good guys and bad guys and the war tends to escalate over time with more countries entering the war at different points in Paths of Glory which creates an entirely unique set of circumstances in each game. There are two distinct sides in this two-player game, but the game states can vary wildly from game to game, so it feels like a chess game where you are not even certain what pieces you will have in the course of the game to work with. In a way, it’s less tactical and more strategic with a lot of attrition.

The card play is quite similar between Empire of the Sun and Paths of Glory, there is no question that these games influenced each other, but I think Paths of Glory has a more dynamic system. In part because in Paths of Glory the recruitment of soldiers is part of the resource management, whereas in Emprie of the Sun you have a fixed schedule. This doesn’t make one better than the other, but you do tend to end up with a more dynamic outcome in Paths of Glory, as the flow of the game can be wildly unpredictable at times. Aside from the opening moves, there is very little pre-ordained strategy in the game. Empire of the Sun tends to, regardless of player decision, have certain historical points you will hit, but with Paths of Glory, things can become wildly different depending on player decisions and you will rarely have a historical outcome when the game finishes. You do a lot more historical re-writing in Paths of Glory and some players prefer that.

This debate is neither here nor there, in my eyes, these are both amazing games, and frankly, if you play one, it makes learning the other easier, so for me personally, if you choose a game like Empire of the Sun as a lifestyle game, it’s not a big stretch to include something like Paths of Glory as part of your repriotore just to shake things up now and again.

Terraforming Mars

This might be a rather odd entry into this genre because Terraforming Mars is actually a relatively simple game to understand, it really doesn’t take that long to play, at least compared to other games on this list and it does just fine as a pickup and play game for a board game night.

So, how does this one make it onto the list of a lifestyle game? There are three unique reasons that allow this game to rise from your typical euro game pick-up game and into the realm of lifestyle games.

The first is the unique game states that this game creates, driving a truly dynamic and highly competitive atmosphere at the table with a tremendous amount of nuance and interaction between players that require both short term and long-term planning and execution. Much like a collectible-competitive card game draft, players create their tableau from a combination of card draw (random cards) and spending resources on cards that become available, meaning the game is both pro-active and re-active. This creates a unique set of circumstances each game that never repeats, resulting in a fascinating puzzle for you to solve and requiring new strategic direction each game.

The second thing is that the game, on a competitive level, is incredibly tight. The more you play this game, and the closer you get to that most optimum play level, the more critical of a role each action you take has on the outcome of the game. It’s a very interesting effect in the game that you can really see, but when you first start playing the games victory point difference can be as much as 50+ points, but after a while people start winning this game by 2-3 points. You come to a sort of strategic mastery level of playing this game, but to get to that, you have to go really deep into this games amazing and diverse gameplay. You really have to outthink your opponents on an incredibly high level and build engines based on the unique combination of resources (namely cards) that become available to you. The replayability here is infinite and you are never truly done assessing the games finer details.

Finally and perhaps most importantly the game has a plethora of expansions that completely re-define established elements and this drives the game to ever-increasing complexity and sophistication. The game becomes almost overwhelming robust and this is a good thing for a lifestyle game because one of the key requirements of a good lifestyle game is that there is no end or repetition in what you are doing, each game is a new challenge and just when you think you have it figured out, you add one of the expansions that completely unravels all the theories and forces you to re-think and re-imagine your victory.

To me, Terraforming Mars is a highly competitive and very intelligent game that really deserves to be on this list, its nuanced and it takes time to really fully grasp its high-level strategies and even when you get there, each card draw, each card draft, and each play on the board forces you to redefine your route to victory.

War Room

This Larry Harris-designed masterpiece is my favorite game of all time and while I believe it to be far better suited as an Event Game, I do believe it has the mustard and stamina to also be a lifestyle game.

This World War II monster, designed by the same guy that brought you Axis and Allies, is a simulation of the entire war, designed for up to 6 players. It takes about 10-12 hours to complete a game of War Room so this is definitely not a casual game by definition, but the reality is that the rules are quite simple and it is a team game so personally, I think it works great with both experienced and amateur players.

As a lifestyle game however there is one caveat because while the rules are simple there is considerable depth, especially in the math of the game and the way the asymmetrical and hidden movement works. It’s a game that is part psychology and prediction and part mechanical execution, making it a much more human experience. This is not a game experience an AI will ever replicate because a huge chunk of the experience is trying to outguess and out-think your opponent in a more general rather than mechanical way. What I mean by that is if you could see the movement of your opponent, you would win 100% of the time regardless of which side you’re on. This is not a game that comes down to dice or position, it comes down to predicting what your opponents will do and responding to those actions. Do it right and you WILL win.

As such it’s then also a game about trying to get your opponent to guess wrong and cleverly trapping them into believing you’re going to do one thing, while you do something completely different. Like real war, its all about intelligence and counter-intelligence, the more you know the more successful you will be.

I love this game above all others, it’s not only a fantastic game, but its actually an amazing interactive experience. It’s one of those games where you will spend as much time looking at the board as you will looking into the eyes of your opponent to try to guess what they are thinking.

Love, definitely deserves to be on this list!

Warhammer 40k

I have to admit, it pains me to put this one on this list because frankly, I don’t think it’s that good of a game mechanically. I say that while in the same breath, having to admit that I love playing it, I love building models and painting them and it’s one of the few games in my collection that sit in a display case with pride.

Warhammer 40k is not just a lifestyle game, it is a self-contained lifestyle hobby and while it’s stupidly expensive and there are far better miniature games out there, not to mention far better ways to spend your money, my life would simply feel incomplete without Warhammer 40k on the agenda at certain intervals.

I don’t play it nearly enough, it sort of comes in spurts of enthusiasm, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, planning for games, painting, and fiddling with it. It’s just something that you are drawn to as a gamer and it’s perfect for people who enjoy a solo hobby that is also occasionally a game you can play with someone. A game that is mostly a creative endeavor that doubles as a social activity and to some extent is also an actual game.

This list would be incomplete without Warhammer 40k on it and while there are many other miniature games out there, I find I don’t obsess over them in quite the same way. It is worth saying as well that 10th edition of Warhammer 40k is a much better game than previous editions were and there is a clear move towards a more streamlined and accessible experience with each new edition.

What else can one say, 40k is an addiction for many gamers, myself included and there has to be a reason for it. Tyranids for life!

Star Wars Unlimited

It’s not the only collectible card game that I’m going to put on this list but it certainly is the latest and greatest and to some extent at least, this game is shaping up to be the first real contender to face off against Magic The Gathering. Now, I will say that it’s a long way off before it reaches that goal, after all, Magic: The Gathering is a game that has been in constant development for decades, so the library of cards and, as a result, deck building possibilities is nearly limitless. That said, I think Magic: The Gathering has a lot of core mechanical legacy issues that will never be fixed that Star Wars Unlimited addressed on day one, so in a sense, it’s a CCG that has been greatly influenced and learned from the grandaddy (MTG) of CCG’s, yet maintains that robust, high level addictive replayability that MTG is famous for.

To understand why this game is shaping up to be a lifestyle game and not just another soon-to-be-extinct CCG you have to understand the three core design elements that make this a true competitor to MTG.

The first is mana management (aka card playing resource). Star Wars Unlimited uses a fixed rather than random “mana” for the lack of a better word system, unlike MTG’s “land” system. This means that there is a real competitive consistency to the game, you are going to get mana always and at certain intervals and while there is ramping up cards, there is a kind of control here. You are not going to lose X amount of games simply because you got unlucky and drew too much land or not enough, a problem that has always existed in MTG and essentially makes both deck building and competitive play an often frustrating experience.

The second is set mechanic control. One of the big issues with MTG is that there are countless broken combos that are born from set mechanics that all interact with each other, creating this crazy situation where you can do unlimited damage on round one, or spawn unlimited creatures and all other manner of game-breaking combos.

In Star Wars Unlimited each set introduces two new, self-contained mechanics that don’t really interact with mechanics from other sets so there is this fixed stability in the game and this effectively eliminates game-breaking combos. Not to be confused with cards and effects on a single card that can be too much, this still happens, but at least there aren’t these accidental introductions of broken game mechanics that can and often do ruin CCG fun time.

Finally it is the Star Wars universe, and say what you will about Disney’s trouble with managing the franchise, people still do and probably always will love the Star Wars universe. It’s a franchise that is older and far more known than the MTG universe, and there is a certain attachment and fundamental connection players have to the game. This is a game where each card you draw is clearly tied to some person, thing or moment in the Star Wars universe and there is this “feel good” story element in cards rolling out on the table. It’s also notable that FFG has gone to great lengths to make sure card combos are related narratively, with classics like Han shooting first and power levels like the Emperor and Darth Vader fitting to the thematic cores of the story upon which the game is based.

This is a fabulous game with tremendous replayability, it very quickly became a “standard thing” in my gaming life, and I foresee it having tremendous longevity where my collection will just grow infinitely. Thanks to the game’s great stability and FFG’s attention to detail, at least right now, the game is on a fantastic path with a bright future ahead of it.

Lord of the Rings The Card Game

I’m almost tired of hearing myself talk about this game so I’m going to make it short and sweet. This solo/cooperative living card game by FFG is the single, best card game I have ever played.

It’s very challenging, easy to learn, impossible to master, diverse and dynamic and has been supported by FFG for over a decade, now in its second edition which is exactly the same as 1st edition just repacked. It was so good the first time around, they saw no reason to change it, that, is the sign of a brilliant design, when no one can think of a way to improve it.

This is my favorite lifestyle game. I have been playing it since it was released, and I simply never tire of it.

Games That Don’t Make it but tried

There are a few games that really desperately want to make it into the lifestyle category but there is some flaw/reason that prevents it from succeeding. I mention them here only because they are great games, but this tragic flaw of simultaneously trying to be a lifestyle game, but failing to be one puts them in this odd limbo that results in them missing the table more often than hitting it.

Game Of Thrones: The Board Game

My gaming group and I play this game typically once a year at our big board gaming weekend getaway in the summer ,and frankly, I love this game. It captures the Game of Thrones theme with perfection, its deeply strategic and always tense. It’s got everything you want out of a game fit for a lifestyle spot, but unfortunately, it has one tragic flaw.

When you replay this game a couple of times in a row, clear patterns start to emerge, key plays, strategies and round executions start to repeat. This is a solvable puzzle and while I would argue it has sufficient dynamics to keep a yearly game exciting as everyone essentially forgets everything over that time period, on repeated plays this game really falls apart and you really start to see the design warts. Lord knows there are plenty of them.

I discovered this kind of by accident by playing the digital version on Steam for a couple of weeks back to back. After a few games, it all started to look like the same game over and over again.

Game of Thrones The Board game just lacks the stamina and the diversity and dynamics needed to qualify it as a lifestyle game, there just isn’t so much to discover and unravel here. Once you get the core nuances there are just so many “moves” you must make and reactions just become kind of predictable.

It’s a very long game, however, so it’s not really a good fit for a typical board game night, relegating this one to a once-in-a-long-while event game. I love it,4 but it just doesn’t stick to the landing as a lifestyle game.

Star Wars Armada

I’m a huge fan of Star Wars Armada, I think the concept of capital ship combat in the Star Wars universe is brilliant, and I love the unique movement mechanics and the amazing diversity of ships and upgrades, perfect for those of us who love list building.

Unfortunately, it falters in two main categories that knock it out of contention as a lifestyle game.

First and this one is kind of obvious, a miniature war game that has no hobby element, means that the only thing to do with your minis is keep them on a shelf until you are ready to play. There is no hobby here outside of the game which in general is kind of the main thing about miniature gaming, that personal touch and obsession of building and painting “your” army. Sure you can do some repaints, but there are only so many interesting takes on “grey spaceships”. I will say that there are benefits to this drawback for those of you out there who want to play a miniature game but don’t want to deal with the hobby.

The second issue and far more important is what I call the “default winner” effect. Basically most games of Star Wars Armada assuming a reasonably equal level of understanding and skill level in the game can be called with near-perfect precision based on list building and initial deployment.

This is a very decisive game and the battle outcomes really don’t surprise you, in fact, most of my friends got so good at this that we can look at two lists and tell you who is going to win with 99% accuracy. There just isn’t enough in the mechanics of the game to wildly alter the outcomes and while two players with wildly different skill sets can certainly create surprise outcomes, in our group, everyone was pretty expert at the game so it just became far too predictable.

This one hung out for quite a while until we all made this discovery and we all enjoyed it but these days it doesn’t take more than a match to remind all of us while we no longer play this game with any regularity.

It just lacks sufficient dynamics to be a lifestyle game.

Eclipse: The Second Dawn For the Galaxy

I was really excited for the second edition of this game, it really promised a lot and at first it seemed like it would deliver, but even as it sits near the top of my list, I can tell you hear and now that it’s rise on the list will be as rapid as its climb. In fact, right now, I would say it doesn’t even make the top 20 anymore.

The reason for this sudden shift is the stark realization that the mechanics are just too static and there is virtually no dynamics in the game at all. Initially, you might think with a mixed galaxy, asymmetrical races and dice for resolving combat that there would be plenty of ways games diverge into unique experiences, but the reality is that the mechanics are so tightly wound that in effect, every game of Eclipse is essentially a parallel version of every other game of it played.

Worse yet is most of the activity of the players is mostly irrelevant, the only thing that matters is scoring points and the board state really has minimal impact on that. It’s just like any other standard Euro fair, figure out how to build a good engine and then just let it spin.

This is a fine way to play a game and I love engine-building games, but Eclipse was not supposed to be that. It was supposed to be a faster, more streamlined 4x game that could compete with Twilight Imperium and it was definitely my hope that it could be the next big lifestyle game.

The aesthetic is there, all the pieces are there but the game just doesn’t come together to create a repeatable experience. It’s a bit like playing checkers, after a while you can’t remember one game from the other, sure outcomes differ, its not like the game is unbalanced or anything but its just a very bland game full of routine and default (many choices but one obviously good one) kind of a game.

After 3-4 plays of this gam,e I’m fairly sure it’s going to collect dust on my shelf for a very long time, in fact, I may even cull it from my collection, it was that much of a disappointment in the end.

Mage Knight The Board Game

There are many adventure games out there and over the years, I have found plenty of them I don’t like, but Mage Knight is a unique exception for me and there is very good reason for it. It, unlike most adventure games, doesn’t try to replicate the role-playing experience and actually focuses on bringing quality game mechanics with excellent card management and card play, clever and difficult scenarios designed to actually defeat you and outstanding expansions that lean on the games existing strength, rather then just giving you more of the same. In a word, its a “real” game, rather than what you get with most adventure games, which is a sort of quasi role-playing activity.

This is a massive game, Mage Knight doesn’t really hold your hand and as such is had a considerable learning curve, a long play time and is in a word infinitely replayable; all qualities that fit well with a lifestyle game, there is plenty to explore.

With everything going for it, it still manages to fall short of a lifestyle game. Mainly I think because it’s one of those games that once you learn the nuances of each of the characters, that mastery leads you down a road of automatic moves that are sort of preordained. It’s a bit like figuring out the patterns in Pac Man, once you know them you end up playing the game the exact same way each time you pick it up.

The different scenarios while interesting and fun in their own right, really do not alter the approach you will take. There are just some clear builds you discover and after that the game becomes quite repetitive despite its generally very dynamic game state.

This means there is a kind of cap on the game as a lifestyle game, play it enough times and it runs out of fuel.

Its a fantastic game and I would never suggest that its not, but life style games need this sort of infinitate discovery element where no matter how many times you play it, there is always more to discover, new strategies, approaches and puzzles to solve. This game is just limited in that department, once you discover its patterns and secrets, it goes stale quite quickly.

Through The Ages

This is a bit of a heart breaker for me personally as Through The Ages is without question one of my favorite games of all time, sitting pretty in the number 9 spot on my top 20 list and having been on my best of list since the first time I played it almost years ago.

This is one of the best civilization building games I know, its highly competative, deeply strategic and overwhelming diverse. In many ways it is a great lifestyle game but it has one key caveat that really sort of disqualifies it.

The main issue is that if you play it enough, patterns emerge and those patterns lead you down very specific highly effective playstyles that essentially disqualify all others, really answering the question “What is the best strategy” with a definitive answer.

A good lifestyle game is an unsolvable puzzle, or at least one that you must solve in a unique way each time you play and unfortunately, Through The Ages for all its depth and meaningful gameplay, has tricks and “must do’s” that really kill its lifestyle game potential.

It’s a fantastic game, I play it every chance I get, but the only way your going to beat me is if I explain the core “answers” to you, at which point the game becomes a tight and interesting “lets see what happens” sort of thing, but there is absolutely no way you can beat me at the game otherwise. I’m not going to bore anyone with the answer here, in fact, its kind of a spoiler as it will take you many plays to figure it out, but eventually, if you play it long enough you will unravel the mystery of Through The Ages. At which point it’s a bit like watching Harry Potter, knowing full well how it will end. Still fun, but there aren’t going to be any twist endings.

Best of List

Top 20 Boardgames of all time 2023-2024 Edition

It’s been a while since I updated my best-of-all-time list, so today we remedy that situation. I have been looking forward to making this list this year, but as is always the case, the choices where hard and it took almost as much time to decide as it took to write the article. Here we go!

20. Underwater Cities

A new addition to my list, this is a game that had an immediate impact on me the first time I played it and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I just saw, from the get-go, all the amazing possibilities and I couldn’t wait to start exploring it.

It might be infatuation, games usually enter my list that way and it’s only through many follow-up plays that I will determine as to whether or not a game is worthy to remain on the list. That said, I think it’s looking pretty good for this one.

This little Euro about building cities underwater has a lot in common with many other long-time classics on this list. It’s a tight little worker placement and resource management game with that simple design, but that deep gameplay combination that makes so many of my favorite Euros grace our tables on repeat. I’m looking forward to seeing if the hype holds up long-term. Could it be a challenger worthy of comparison to Terraforming Mars? Maybe with some expansion, for now, it’s got novelty on its side and that is good enough for me.

The brilliant part with Underwater Cities is that it managed a little magic trick very few Euros pull of which is that at its core all mechanics of this game are critical to winning. You can’t ignore or disregard any part of it, do so and you WILL lose. Everything on the board is part of your strategy, it all matters and I love that. So many games have key mechanics that are essentially pointless or victory point areas that simply don’t matter which is both a trap for inexperienced players and a boring element of the game that goes mostly unused. Few games manage to avoid such pitfalls but Underwater Cities ensures that everything included really matters.

More than that, Underwater Cities makes sure that every card in the game serves a purpose within some strategy, there are no useless cards you never play which is so common with card-driven games as well. I’m reminded of Terraforming Mars which has cards that are simply dead draws that you never use.

Great game with tons of potential.

19. Tapestry

Tapestry is something of a staple game in my group’s consciousness, but it rose and fell off our radar over time. We don’t play it often but every time it does come out, we are all reminded of its brilliant yet rather odd mixture of complexity merged with elegant simplicity. Simply put, this is a fantastic game we all love, we just sometimes forget about it in the mix of the hundreds of games we own and play between the seven members of my gaming crew.

I love describing the core rule of the game because it’s so simple. For each round, you move a cube on one of 4 paths (Science, Exploration, Technology, or Military). That’s it, that’s the game. What happens on those spots, how the mechanics and resource management converge to create strategy, is where the genius of this game stems from. It’s more than that though because there are lots of resource management games out there, What makes this game unique is the dynamic “cultures” you can play, each with its own angle on the game, its own advantages, and its own mechanical architecture. This mixed with the critical play of Tapestry cards creates infinite dynamics making each game a true white elephant experience.

I would not argue all of these “cultures” are created equally, there are certainly winners (looking at you Historians) and losers (Mystics), but we have found over the years playing this game that anyone can win with just about any culture, it’s just about solving that immutable puzzle that lays within and the dynamic nature of how board state develops.

I think it’s worth taking a moment to pat the developers on the back for the expansions to Tapestry as well. Usually, I’m lukewarm on expansions, they tend to overcomplicate already great games and with little payout. With Tapestry the expansions service the game well, adding great new, alternative options that help struggling cultures and balance out the really strong ones. Well done!

Arts and Architecture in particular is a true gem so far as expansions go. It adds an Arts track that makes having a 5th player viable in the game. Until this expansion, being the 5th player and being last in the turn order at the start was a very tough position to win from and this expansion really remedies that.

Fantastic game, I’m happy to both recommend it and bring it back to my best-of list, it deserves the praise and honestly probably should have been on this list all along.

18. 1830: Railways and Robber Barons

Slipping some in recent years, the 18XX game that started an entire sub-genre of gaming is one I find fewer and fewer opportunities to play this one with only a single play in the last 24 months (roughly). That is not a reflection of its quality in any way shape or form, it’s just a bit tough of a game to get to the table.

I still think this is one of the best economic games ever made, in fact the entire 18XX game genre is amazing with wonderful handling of the stock market and company management, a great system for creating and running railways with a deep and meaningful, albeit cutthroat, strategic core gameplay. It’s just a great game, but it does fall into that “takes a long time to play” category of games for most people, so it’s hard to get a crew together to play it.

I can strongly recommend the 1844 and 1854 variants as well, what is cool about this one is that you have two games with two very different focuses. One is more focused on stock markets and investment elements, while the other is more focused on train operations and company management. Both are fantastic.

It’s also not particularly easy to teach so unless you are playing all the time, it can be a bit rough to remember all the rules and pass them on to players even if they are coming back for a 2nd or 3rd run. In fact this one is kind of guilty of having some gotcha rules, so knowing the games mechanics in great detail is critical to success and this can frustrate less attentive players. Suffice it to say it’s just a “difficult” game for a number of reasons and it’s hard to muster up the strength and excitement to get it to the table. It’s definitely a lifestyle game, but fortunately, if you learn one 18XX game like 1830, you are pretty much ready to play any of them.

Even with all that said, I get requests for this one from select members of my gaming group so it is in our consciousness and there is a desire to play it, but yeah, it’s a tough one to recommend to the average gamer. You really need to have an affinity for economic train games, the obvious being obvious. It’s a classic favorite of mine, but it’s getting harder and harder to justify its existence on this list and it drops on this list as a result of the “I must be playing it” rule that I have layered over this list to ensure that everything on here is everything I’m actively still playing.

17. Star Trek Fleet Captains

I’m happy to see this game still make the list, but it’s been quite a while since I was excited to get it to the table. This is a great 2-3 player game for Star Trek fans only which I’m finding fewer and fewer people are these days, though I definitely think its the best Star Trek game I have ever owned or played.

The premise is quite simple, it’s a kind of competitive adventure game with everything you know and love about Star Trek crammed into one game, you get the characters, the ships, the missions, the stories, and the atmosphere you know and love. It’s about the same feeling I get as watching classic Star Trek from any era without the edge lord bullshit of modern Star Trek which by the way, I hate, a stain on an otherwise perfect franchise!

Great game, a great theme, a great look, it has everything you want out of a Star Trek and is the only Star Trek game you will ever need once you have played it. It covers the original series, next-generation series including Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and the Enterprise series. In my view, when Star Trek was at its absolute best.

Unfortunately, this one is out of print and what is available on the secondary market is crazy expensive. It’s kind of a bummer for someone reading this today and wishing to get their hands on it. Before you ask, no I will never sell this one, it’s a permanent fixture and a pride of my game collection.

17. Tides of Iron

Despite having not played this one in quite a while, I will still stick to my guns here and say that this is the single, best tactical World War II game ever made. It’s got simple rules with deep meaningful gameplay without that historical “edginess” a lot of historical war games can have. This is a historical war game made so that anyone can play it without that “war gamer” mentality of most historical war games jammed in there.

Not only that, Tides of Iron uses a lot of very familiar historical war game mechanics so if you want to sort of explore the genre further, it’s a really great ground floor, a sort of entry level into the larger world of historical war games. For a long time, I had a regular opponent for this game and I played the crap out of it and I never felt any need for the many expansions that were put out for it. These days Tides of Iron is played mostly online through various virtual tabletops but it has a niche, but loyal audience and it’s not difficult to find them.

Sadly I don’t think this one is in print right now either, so it can be difficult to find but it was nicely supported for a very long time so there are plenty of copies out there on the secondary market unlike many out-of-print games, this one is very much “gettable”. If you are looking for a great two-player World War II game, this is a fantastic one, well worth the investment

16. Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan

New to the list, for as long as I can remember I have wanted to try a war game using a “blocks” system, reminiscent of classic games like Stratego where you have a sort of dynamic fog of war in which each player can only see their own units. Somehow I knew I would love this sort of game and my instincts were quite right.

I love medieval Japanese themes, probably among my favorite historical and cultural eras so this game in particular fit like a glove. I waited a long time for an updated printing, picked it up and it did not disappoint.

This is a card-driven game (which is another genre I love) combined with a “block” game in which players fight over Japan in a bid for the shogunate in a very straightforward war game.

It does have that “historical war gamer” feel to it, but the mechanics are relatively simple and straight to the point, the gameplay is deep, the strategic elements refined and as a whole the game is perfectly balanced. This game has been around for a long time and for good reason, It truly is a game of skill, but it’s not so involved that a player needs multiple plays to be competitive. Most people I have introduced the game to took to it right away and put up a good fight even on their first run. It’s ranked 200 on Boardgamegeek which is pretty decent for a historical war game, but notably, it holds a very prestigious 5th highest-ranked war game on BBG which is a pretty big deal.

I highly recommend this one for fans of war games, looking for a great two-player experience and though it’s the only block game I have ever played, I would imagine it does quite well by comparison to others in its genre. This is a game with awesome replayability, a new fixture in my collection, and one I always look forward to getting to the table.

15. Terraforming Mars

Putting Terraforming Mars on this list at this stage may seem quite odd, why has it never made the list before? The answer here is quite complex, but it is worth pointing out that this was Gamersdungeon 2016 Game of The Year and scored a 3.65 on its review which is quite decent for a Euro on this site. I’m harsh with Euro games probably because I find games that are not interactive to make for a weak experience and many if not most Euro games are practically solo games you play simultaneously. That is not he case for Terraforming Mars however and not the reason it has been excluded from this list before.

The main reason for it never making a list is because frankly I just didn’t really play it after the initial novelty of it wore off. It had collected dust for the better part of 4 years and I never felt motivated to get it to the table. It is a well-designed game but it is excessively long with a slow, boring start and it’s not particularly fun to teach or even play with people who don’t already know how to play it well. This is one of those games where if you are new, I’m going to beat you senseless for the first dozen or so games until you figure it out.

Over the last few years, several things have changed in my gaming group and for the game in general. For starters, they released several expansions for the game that all targeted the thing about the game I disliked the most which was its slow start and length. The Prelude expansion in particular cuts out that first full hour of the “nothing happens” period at the start of the game. In addition, everyone in my group continued to play the game and they all got good at it, so now when we sit down to play, everyone knows the rules and everyone is very competitive and the game moves at a reasonable pace.

The Prelude expansion for Terraforming Mars is quintessential, I would not play this game without it. It single-handedly cuts an unnecessary, boring first hour out of the game and probably should just be a standard inclusion in a future edition.

Those two things combined have catapulted this game to the front of the line and it got a massive resurgence in my gaming group. Under such ideal conditions, Terraforming Mars shines and is without question what I recognized about it early on, a true gem in the rough that takes a bit of work to fish out. I love this game, I always have but there are lots of games on my shelf I love that rarely see play for various reasons. War of the Ring for example is among my favorite games of all time but it’s a complex two-player game that takes many hours to play. It’s an absolute bear to teach, and like Terraforming Mars sucks balls when playing against new players who don’t know what they are doing, so it’s nearly impossible to get to the table and I haven’t played it in years.

Terraforming Mars earns its rightful place on this list and I’m happy to add it and I’m especially happy to be playing it again.

14. Great Western Trail

This Euro about running cattle in the old west resurfaces on my list for several reasons, but perhaps only one matters which is that I’m playing it all the time online and at home. This game started to run cold for me for a long time but it just keeps coming back around because it is so replayable, so fun, and challenging. It’s just a really good game and I’m happy to welcome it back to my top games list.

I think this is the only game that has ever completely dropped off my top games list and then made a comeback. This is a game that I recommend to all hobbyists without any caveats, for me it’s almost like the new Settlers of Catan, just a staple of my gaming collection worthy of a wide range of situations.

There are two new variants of this one now which give fans even more cowboy for their buck, Great Western Trail New Zealand and Argentina, as well as the Rails of the North expansion.

I haven’t tried the new variants of Great Western Trail, so I have no opinion to offer there, but I have tried the expansion and like most expansions, I find it completely unnecessary. All Rails of the North does for the game is extend its length and makes an otherwise very elegant game, messy, adding needed complexity to the rules.

This expansion adds an entirely separate mico-game with where trains can go, pretty much ruining an otherwise perfect game. It’s a very hard pass.

I personally saw no reason to upgrade to the 2nd edition of the game, but I do find that it’s a bit more streamlined, so if you can get the 2nd edition, it’s probably the way to go. The changes are extremely minor though, so if you already own the 1st edition, there is no reason to get the 2nd edition.

13. Hansa Teutonica

This 2009 Euro about building trade routes first made an appearance at our big board gaming weekend a few years back and has been a staple of that event ever since. The more I played it the more I wanted to play it and at this point, I have come to realize that this one belongs on my list.

This is a tight little action economy type of game about building trade routes in Germany and I will grant you, so far as the theme goes it does not sound exciting because it’s not. This is a thinker, one of those games that will make your brain hurt but win you over on mechanics. It’s a highly interactive Euro with a lot of take that kind of moves and just fits perfectly with my gaming crew of sociopaths who love to watch the world burn.

There is nothing particularly “special” about this cube pusher on a high level, it’s very traditional victory point salad-style game, but it has this really clever interaction and tension from start to finish and the games are always close. I find when my group plays this one, everyone is highly attentive and contemplative with each move. It’s a thinky and clever game that draws out the competitive nature between players and ultimately creates a great gaming experience.

I find this game is far better with more players and though it can run a bit long, on the 2-3 hour side, I find that during the end game, everyone is wishing there were just a couple of more turns so that they could finish this or that route. It is long but in a good way.

Great game, I definitely recommend it if you’re already a fan of Euro games.

12. Western Empires

This one made my TOP 5 BOARDGAMES THAT WERE ALMOST GREAT, BUT HAD A FLAW THAT RUINED THEM list in the number 1 spot for one very critical reason and that is that it has player elimination, made more egregious by being a 12+ hour event game. It’s a terrible sin, especially given that Western Empires is a remake of the 80’s classic Advanced Civilization and 999 games did not take the opportunity to correct this one game-breaking flaw.

Still, it would be a stone-cold lie to pretend like the game is not extraordinary even if it is a product of its time (aka a remake of Advanced Civilization for better or for worse).

Western Empires is not just a game, it’s a gaming experience, an event game of epic proportions that allows for a large gaming group (even larger if you blend it with Eastern Civilization to create Mega Civilization able to support up to 18 players). In fact, the more the merrier, this game really shines with a full table.

While elimination is a part of the game, it’s not exactly a likely scenario with players who are even moderately competent, but it’s a tough game to get any experience with because how often do you have 9 players willing to spend 12+ hours at the table?

I love it, I would love to play it a hell of a lot more than I get an opportunity to, and I do think if you have a group that can get this to the table, this is a gaming event on a scale of which nothing ever produced can match. It’s a one-of-a-kind, white elephant and it earns its place on the list of best games of all time if for no other reason than posterity!

11. Spirit Island

When it comes to complex, intricate, and deep cooperative games, there is only one game that rules the genre today and that is Spirit Island. Easily one of the most elaborate and dynamic cooperative games I have ever played with infinite replayability as well as one of the most challenging games in existence. Be prepared to lose…a lot.

It boasts a massive library of expansions, each one better than the last, Spirit Island is practically a hobby in its own right, certainly a lifestyle game. You can play this one solo, though I think it’s a much lesser experience. This game is best played in a group of 3 or 4.

It’s a long and very contemplative game, you spend a great deal of the time discussing how to approach the constant influx of micro puzzles that need to be solved and there is nothing quite as satisfying as coming up with an answer to seemingly impossible-to-solve situations. In fact, the satisfaction of winning a game of Spirit Island is so rich, I can’t think of a game I’m more eager to play.

It is a time-consuming game though, even with a group well versed in the rules, Spirit Island is an absolute minimum of a 3-hour experience and will usually hit that 4-5+ hour space which means it borders on an event game. I would argue it’s actually a great game to build an event around, though it’s not the sort of “everyone is laughing and having a good time” type of event, more of a “serious gamers” type of event, which is not my personal favorite way to run big gaming events. I rather have everyone drinking beer and giggling at my events and this game doesn’t really produce that kind of atmosphere.

Fantastic game, destined to become a classic.

10. Paths of Glory

I will be the first to admit that this is not a game for most people, hell even among historical war game fans this game falls into a rather niche genre. For one it’s based on World War I which is a historical period that isn’t exactly well-known, in some ways it almost feels like you’re playing some sort of historical fantasy game. It’s a card-driven game, it has a point-to-point map and it’s driven by some quirky mechanics to flesh out the history you probably don’t know that much about. Suffice it to say, it’s peculiar from most perspectives.

That said, I find it to be an establishment in its own right, this is a game you can study, learn its intricacies, and really dive deep into the many implications of strategies and counter strategies. It’s absolutely one of the most beautifully designed games I have ever run across, but it demands a lot from a player, a true commitment to find its genius and if you can find a regular opponent that enjoys all of these amazing nuances as much as you do, you get magic at the table.

Hands down one of my favorite historical war gaming delicacies, this refined masterpiece is a piece of gaming history no true hobbyist should pass up. Historical war games simply don’t get better than this, it’s a historical war game that is itself a piece of gaming history by which all others are measured in my opinion.

9. Through The Ages: Story of a New Civilization

Through the Ages in one form or another has been on my top gaming list for many years, at one point even rising to the number 1 spot. I’m a huge fan of Vlaada Chvatil, I find him to be a completely uncompromising and highly original game designer. By being that however, he tends to make very niche games that for most gamers fall into either the “love it” or “hate it” category with little in between.

I consider Through The Ages Chvatil’s Mona Lisa, but he has brought other amazing original titles like Mage Knight The Board Game, Codenames, Galaxy Trucker, Dungeon Lords, and Space Alert most of which grace my shelves, all distinctively unique and classics in their own right. Each one is more ingenious than the last, he is an absolute miracle worker. You want to be a great designer, play his games, and learn how it’s done.

Through The Ages is more than just a brilliant original design, it’s one of the most intriguing, robust, and challenging games I have ever played. It’s definitely far too long falling into that “pretty much all day” category, but I can’t think of another game on this list that I would happily call in sick to work and spend 8 hours in a chair playing. This is a game that keeps you busy, you are constantly trying to assess and reassess your situation, formulating your grand strategy, and trying to find that narrow line to victory. It feels very much like a race in a lot of ways.

It’s an engrossing, full-bodied Euro game that treats you with intelligence and respect. You always know what you want to achieve, but finding the route to victory is difficult yet so satisfying. No game have I ever played that I enjoyed both winning and losing as much as Through The Ages, it is an absolute masterpiece of game design.

If you lack the time or players to get this one to the table, I highly recommend the digital adaptation. It shaves a couple hours of the gameplay time and its a perfect translation of the table top game.

8. Dune Imperium

At this point, I consider Dune Imperium a staple of my gaming collection and a default option for any board game night. I have spoken about this game endlessly and with how popular it is, it’s pointless to recommend it as anyone reading this has probably already played it. If you haven’t, you’re being silly, this is your next purchase, no gaming collection is complete without this one on the shelf. Its perfectly suited for any gaming group of any level and being a Dune fan is just a candy-coated toping and is not mandatory to enjoy this title.

Its clever combination of deck building and worker placement is flawless, its balance a perfect diamond and it looks amazing on the table. I adore the Dune setting and as a fan, I can tell you that the theme sticks the landing made even better with perfectly executed expansions. It’s a tight, strategic and dynamic Euro that basically perfects every mechanic it uses. There is nothing wasted, nothing overcooked, it’s effectively a perfect game.

If I have any complaints about Dune Imperium is that I don’t get to play it often enough.

7. Twilight Imperium 4th edition

Twilight Imperium has been swimming around on my top 10 list for more than a decade at this point, I have played it so much over the years I have lost count. It is one of my all-time favorites, one of the greatest epic civilization builders ever made and one of the best event games I have ever owned. It is pure magic in a box but any recommendation comes with some caveats.

It’s a very long and complex game that requires a fully committed table of 4 to 6 players ready to give up their day and fully engross themselves in this 4x game that is as much about game state as is player state of mind. That is not an easy table to fill. It’s also a tough and not always fair game, equal footing is not a thing here with various dynamics that are only leveled by player interaction and game knowledge. In a way its both a test of your skill and your character, with a lot of take the mechanics and sometimes even mean-spirited moves that are required to win. It takes a mature audience with the ability to handle this style of competitive game, definitely not something for everyone. Over the years I have found far more players that are not suited to the game than I have those that are.

The more years pass the fewer TI4 games I have as a result and though I dare not say it is fading out of existence, over the last couple of years I have found much easier games, less in-your-face games of its ilk to get to the table and so I find myself sort of replacing it.

I think Twilight Imperium is a masterpiece, an experience that cannot be matched, there is no doubt in my mind it’s one of the best games ever made, but I would say you want to make sure you have at least 4 players ready to take on this beast. It’s a lifestyle game without question.

6. Eclipse The 2nd Dawn for the Galaxy

Eclipse, though I would argue is not a replacement for Twilight Imperium by any stretch of the imagination, certainly is the game I would pull off the shelf in most company to get a 4x experience. Eclipse is a Euro-style game, with clear rules and considerably less punchy mechanics. It’s also a lot shorter game than Twilight Imperium by at least 2-3 hours, so it’s a hell of a lot more accessible and easier to get to the table. You don’t get the same experience mind you, but you do get a great, full-fledged 4x experience nonetheless.

Aside from its obvious comparison to Twilight Imperium, it has its own thing going on. There are a lot of unique handling of classic 4x mechanics, in particular in the area of technology development and fleet building. It’s a diverse and interesting system that allows players a great deal of freedom in customization over the units they will conquer the galaxy with.

It also has a much easier-to-digest point-scoring system so there is a lot less meta-explanation required to understand the difference between knowing the rules and knowing how to play as is the case in Twilight Imperium.

The result is a much lighter, very entertaining, and very approachable 4x game that doesn’t require you to do a lot of event planning. Like any other board game, you can just pull it out and play.

There is a ton of strategy in the game so you get the full robust 4x experience, You’re not trimming any fat here, it’s just a lot more streamlined, and perhaps it’s fair to say more focused on letting the mechanics do the talking. Great game, definitely deserves the win over Twilight Imperium if for no other reason than it sees far more table time.

I will say this about the Twilight Imperium to Eclipse gaming experience comparison. Twilight Imperium is to Eclipse what fine dining is to Taco Bell. Meaning, it is not a game of which one can become a connoisseur, you are not going to turn Eclipse into a lifestyle game or plan events around it. Your exploration of the nuances of this game is relatively shallow by comparison to Twilight Imperium. In short, Eclipse is a fantastic game, but it’s not a unique gaming experience.

In a perfect world, I would pick Twilight Imperium over Eclipse always, but as I live in the real world, Eclipse is a far easier game to get to the table and far more approachable by the overwhelming majority of gamers. If you are looking for a truly robust and heavy 4x game that you can really sink your teeth into, Twilight Imperium has no equal.

5. Star Wars Unlimited

I will be the first to admit that I’m smitten with this game and its addition to the list notwithstanding, putting it in the number 5 spot is presumptuous at best. Still, I cannot deny how addictive this game, how clever the mechanics are and what a joy it is to build decks and play Star Wars Unlimited the CCG. I can think of no game I played this year that has had this much pull.

Not since Magic The Gathering when it was first released have I bought into a CCG with so much excitement and gusto. I really hope that Fantasy Flight Games continues with this CCG with the delicate and precision it requires, because right now after the core game release and its first expansion, I can say without reservation that they nailed it.

In theme, mechanics, the business model, the right mixture of rarity and the delicate balance are all nearly pitch-perfect. It’s on such a great track and if FFG can keep the momentum going, I can see this game making a big, long-term splash in the competitive CCG genre and in my gaming group. It’s without a doubt one of the best CCGs I have played in a great many years.

4. Imperial Struggle

There is no game on this list that I long to play more than Imperial Struggle, the absolute king of the influence control card game genre. The little brother to Twilight Struggle, this quasi-card game takes a side step from its forebearer, and rather than focusing on the card play itself, it instead shifts the focus of influence control to a far more elaborate and complex area control game and in my humble opinion, nails it.

Imperial Struggle handles the history of the 100 year war between England and France splendidly, while creating a complex and highly replayable card-driven area control game that offers tons of dynamics, but retains that “strategic pre-planning” you got with Twilight Struggle hand management. Unlike Twilight Struggle however you don’t need to memorize the decks in order to be competitive, this is far less a game resolved by player knowledge and far more on player strategic execution at the table and it’s why I find it a far superior game to its predecessor.

You might notice that Twilight Struggle is not on my list, but that is not meant as an insult, I really do love playing Twilight Struggle, I think it’s a fantastic game, but it’s one that is incredibly difficult to get to the table in good form. What I mean is that the game is difficult to teach, it takes many plays to be proficient at it and its an absolute chore to play against an inexperienced opponent. The only way to get experience is to lose tons of games and that is neither fun for the teacher or the student.

Imperial Struggle suffers from a high learning curve as well, but the game is played on the table, not in the nuance of card management and that just makes it a lot more approachable and a lot easier to offer advice and teach as you play. I find it much easier to get someone into a competitive state and you can be off and running with this game with great competitive matches after no more than a game or two.

I love Imperial Struggle, I think it’s hands down one of the best games ever made and earns its rightful list at the top of this list.

3. Lord of the Rings The Card Game

Lord of the Rings the living card game to me is the single best solo game ever made and this is how I play it almost exclusively. Not to say it’s not also a great cooperative game, because it’s outstanding when played in 2 or 3 players, but the game requires a high-level commitment to deck building and that is not an easy thing to get into if you’re not collecting. Building decks for others to use works ok, but this is not a casual pick-up-and-play game either so without that full buy-in from everyone at the table it’s not going to deliver on its potential.

As a solo game, however, LOTR is an absolute beast and a masterpiece of the highest order. I adore this game, I have been playing it with considerable consistency for the better part of a decade and I’m as excited to get it on the table today as I was the day I got it.

It has tons of expansions with amazing versatility and is unquestionably one of the most challenging games on this list. Every victory in this game is so satisfying, it feels fantastic, but it’s a brutally tough game. Every quest is a self-contained puzzle to be resolved and it’s truly a rare deck that is up to the challenge of conquering all of these. You spend a lot of time rebuilding decks and it’s just pure joy for card players like me. Every build is designed to target a specific puzzle presented by the countless quests and that moment when you figure it out and beat something that seemed simply impossible to overcome is an experience no gamer should live without.

If you like card games and are looking for something for solo play, in particular, if you love the Middle Earth setting, this game is perfect for you and comes with my highest recommendation.

2. Empire Of The Sun

I can’t lie, while I love all sorts of games to me there is nothing quite as engrossing and as addictive as a big, epic, historical war game and I’m completely fascinated by the war in the Pacific which I think is one of the most strategically complex conflicts in all of human history. To replicate it in perfect detail in a card-driven war game, especially one designed by the master himself, Mark Herman, the Chuck Norris of historical war game designers is absolute bliss.

Empire of the Sun has a learning curve so high, that there is nothing to compare it to, it is one of the most involved and intricate games I have ever learned to play. It took me the better part of a full year before I was playing the game correctly. Hell, it’s an achievement in its own right just to understand how to play, let alone learning how to play it well. Teaching it is an absolute nightmare but when you find someone who has taken the time to learn, the result is table magic.

This game is a masterpiece of historical war game design, You feel powerful and in command of the entire war from one of the two sides (Allied Forces or The Nation of Japan) and you get a sense of rewriting history. it is in a word, one of the greatest games ever made.

1. War Room

War Room is a unique entry to my list, it’s unquestionably my favorite game of all time, but it’s unique in that I don’t normally recommend it to most gamers and gaming crews.

The reason is simple, this massive game that comes in a box larger than classic Milton Bradly master series games is a 12+ hour epic level war game. To call it niche is an understatement. It takes a gaming group with very specific tastes to really get the most out of this one.

As an event game I think it’s quite perfect. It’s a team-based game so you don’t have this “I’m doing badly but still have to play for 10 hours” thing a lot of event games have which is a huge boon. There is a sense of camaraderie and interest in the stuff going on, on the board even if you’re not involved and it has these great moments of planning and contemplation with exciting “let’s see what happens” resolution.

You also don’t need to grind games out to a finish, at any time either side can surrender and you still end up with a satisfying resolution as there are no victory points, you either win the war or you don’t.

Mechanically the game has hidden orders (ala-classic diplomacy) and a clever use of initiative so each round you put in your orders and then later discover how it all plays out. There is a lot of risk management and mitigation but the board is so big and the number of orders you can give is quite limited so you have to pick your battles carefully. It’s all about strategy, making feints, long-term and short-term planning and glorious combats that play out on a semi-tactical battle board for those exciting dice-chucking moments. Its just the perfect game for a big gaming event, but I would always caution gamers considering the purchase that no matter how enthusiastic you are to play this game, and believe me I understand the pull. There is nothing worse than owning it and watching it collect dust so make sure you have the gaming crew ready to put in the hours on this one.

One of the best gaming experiences you will have ever, bar none.

Conclusion

Comparing the list to the one I did in 2022 a few games have dropped from the list.

Root was hanging on in the number 20 spot, but doesn’t quite make the cut this time around. I still think it’s a great game, but it has two core and related issues that are really tough to get around. Its an absolute bear to teach largely due to its most prominent feature, the asymmetrical sides which leads to the second issue which is that it never makes the table because playing against people who are learning really spoils the game. It’s one of those games where everyone needs to know what to and not to do, else a weak link can king make someone pretty quickly and kind of ruin the game for everyone else. It’s a bummer, I love playing this game, but only with people that are already proficient at the game. It’s actually a surprisingly quick game when everyone knows how to play and one of the longest and most painful ones to bring the table when people don’t.

War Of The Ring also drops off the list. Over the last decade, this game has been dropping from my radar and collecting a lot of dust. Much like root, the issue isn’t the game, it’s teaching the rules and that combination of playing against someone who doesn’t know what they are doing is really boring. The fact that it’s a two-player game also doesn’t help in my situation as a 2 player game night is pretty rare around these parts these days. I love it and hope I will get to play it in the future, but for now, it goes the way of the Dodo bird.

The U.S. Civil War also makes an exist. I love historical war games, especially big epic ones but this one is just not to the tastes of most of my gaming crew. The good news is that its a fun solo game and I do pull it out once a year to have a run at it and I do enjoy it, but that is not the stuff of a best-of-all-time game.

Peloponnesian War also exits but just barely. It was a battle between a stone-cold classic that I love to play and a new lover (Underwater City). I chose Underwater City less so because it was new and more because games are generally more fun to play against opponents. Peloponnesian War is an amazing and very unique solo game, I love the hell out of it and I expect it might even resurface on this list in the future but for now it sleeps in the unregistered 21st position on this list.

Washington’s War was largely replaced by Imperial Struggle. These are two card-driven influence games and though I think they could happily live on the list together, the truth is that since I got Imperial Struggle when a two-player opportunity comes up, I have a heap of games that I would rather play, in particular Imperial Struggle. The same thing for Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul, I love it and will happily play it but given the opportunity, I’m more likely to jank of Imperial Struggles chain instead.

The Big Board Gaming Weekend!

In less than 48 hours the annual big board gaming weekend begins and for 8th year in a row, my crew will get together for a 4 day fun-filled and non-stop gaming weekend. There are sure to be new games that will show up and as I do every year, there will be a thorough blog post!

Best of List

Top 10 Collectable Card Games Of All Time

In the early 80’s there were three games that really defined what would become the tabletop gaming hobby. Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer 40k, and Magic The Gathering. Magic The Gathering of course is the grandaddy of collectible card games but fast forward over 40 years later and CCG’s have become a sub-hobby all on their own.

I don’t talk about CCG’s very often but in the last decade, CCG’s have gone through something of a renaissance and with each new CCG that has come out, the genre is making leaps and bounds for the better.

In today’s list, I will pick my top 10 collectible card games from the awesome past to the wonderful present. Enjoy the list!

10. Legend Of The Five Rings (1st edition)

Legend of the Five Rings 1st edition by Alderace Entertainment falls into what I like to call the “Hardcore CCGs” category from the 90’s . This was a fairly robust game from a robust gaming era that was very heavy on the theme and backstory and for fans out there, it wasn’t just a card game but much like other early CCG’s like Magic The Gathering, Legend of the Five Rings was a lifestyle game.

I think what separated LotFR from other LCG’s was that it was part of a multifaceted franchise that covered gaming as part of a spectrum. You had Legend of the Five Rings RPG which in the 90’s was competing against heavy hitters like D&D and Vampire The Masquerade. You also had a miniature game line called Clan War which competed against the Gameswork shop heavy hitters like Warhammer Fantasy. Finally, you had a huge library of novels dedicated to the story of this amazing game world, books which when released coincided with card set releases so that when you read a book about a certain part of the history of the game, you then got to play it out in the card game.

Unfortunately despite very modest economic success, Legend of the Five Rings in all its forms was never terribly popular and never reached anything beyond its extremely niche audience.

Fantasy Flight Games picked up the rights to the Legend of the Five Rings and revised the game in a second edition, but this too saw only minimal success and ultimately faded out of existence rather quickly.

This game was made for fans and it catered very heavily to this niche audience. In my humble opinion, this is one of the all-time classics that rightfully deserves to be on this list even if it’s at the tail end. It is an amazingly rich and complex game with tons of great lore to support it and without question, some of the best art ever put on a gaming card. Awesome, albeit retired CCG.

9. Magic The Gathering

I was hesitant to put this one on the list at all because I could file a 500-page novel worth of complaints about it, its design, the company that runs it, and the endless stream of bullshit that makes this a game I have no desire to play at all.

Still, there was a time when I lived and breathed magic and it wasn’t a short time, most of the 90’s by my estimation. Like other games from the 90’s Magic The Gathering was a lifestyle game and equally as all games in the 90’s, it was mostly broken as fuck!

Yet, Magic The Gathering endures and by all accounts it’s still one of the most popular CCG’s on the market today and this has been so since its inception. No CCG ever has nor likely will come even within a light year of the success Magic The Gathering has seen. Magic The Gathering sells more cards in a year than all other CCG’s combined sell in a decade. In a word, there is no such thing as “competition” when it comes to market share, Magic The Gathering rules undisputed.

How? Why? It’s a good question. Mechanically Magic The Gathering has a lot of design flaws that would never be put into a game today. It’s a game where you can build a legal tournament deck in which you can win a match before your opponent ever gets a turn to play. You can build decks that spawn an infinite number of monsters, or do an infinite amount of damage. The amount of stupid shit in this game is endless but I think the reason people like it and perhaps rightfully so is not despite these things but because of them.

There is something uniquely clever to a game that has so much depth and interaction, that if you study it long and hard, you can completely unravel it.

I crap on it, but it is the granddaddy of CCG’s and this list would be incomplete if I did not put it on the list so here it is, but frankly, I can think of a 100 CCG’s I rather play than Magic The Gathering. It does however have its charm, I can’t deny that of all the games on this list, I have played Magic The Gathering the most and so its place in CCG history and this list is secured.

8. Vampire Eternal Struggle

Vampire Eternal Struggle is to me, everything you think you want to have in a great CCG, which results in an overcooked game to a point where the game is nearly unplayable. Its a effectively a game that appears to be designed by Vampire The Masquerade fans that kind of don’t know what they are doing, but fully understand what a Vampire The Masquerade CCG should feel like, if that makes any sense. This was not all that unusual for a card game in the 90’s, making stupidly complex card games was kind of a thing back then, but even so far as complex CCG’s go, Vampire Eternal Struggle stretched the definition.

This was a game that could take upwards of 3-4+ hours to finish a single match, there was a ridiculous amount of rules weight and card interaction and in a lot of ways it mimicked the obscene level of detail that was customary in The Vampire The Masquerade RPG.

As overcooked as it was, however, there was true magic in the way the game executed because it did what White-Wolf RPGs were famous for which was to tell an amazing story. This was a game that even though I haven’t played it for 20 years, I still remember specific matches I had. All-nighters where me and a couple of friends effectively created our own little micro-universe for an evening in the world of darkness.

It was a unique game in a couple of ways. First and foremost it was best played in multiplayer, rather than head-to-head which separated it from most of the CCG’s out there that had modes for multiplayer but weren’t designed for it. The second thing was that you had this amazing world of darkness behind it, a setting so fleshed out and so recognizable to fans that each card had impact and meaning that went well beyond anything you would expect to be able to put into a card. Above all else, however, it was a brutish and harsh – take that – kind of a game, with ruthless mechanics that brought a lot of emotion and player interaction that went well beyond the mechanics of the game, much like the RPG on which it’s based.

This was a fantastic CCG and recently the game was revised and reprinted so it is still very much available today for people to explore. I would caution however that this is a game made for Vampire The Masquerade fans, by Vampire The Masquerade fans. If you don’t know what that is and why it’s awesome, this game is definitly not for you, if you do, you probobly already know about this game and don’t need me to tell you how awesome it is.

7. Arkham Horror LCG

Arkham Horror the card game was released by Fantasy Flight Games in 2016 during a period when FFG was producing CCG’s under the Living Card Game strategy where rather than having random booster packs, you would have pre-constructed expansions. It was also not a competitive card game but rather a cooperative card game in which players would effectively go around a dynamically constructed game board based on a location and solve mysterious while fighting monsters using decks they built.

I own and love this game, I actually think it’s pretty fantastic but generally speaking I also think it has one major flaw which is that it’s a cooperative game where once you complete a “quest”, it’s a bit like a legacy game where a lot of the hype and excitement disappears and the game starts feeling like your watching a scrooby-doo re-runs.

The format just lacks sustainability and while I still love picking this game up every long once in a while and playing a few rounds, it lacks freshness unless you are constantly buying the latest expansions. I did that for a while until I realized that I would effectively play each expansion once and then never go back to it because I knew the story, I knew the mystery, I had figured it all out.

It’s a very fun game mechanically but it almost feels like it would have done a lot better if the “quest” creation was turned over to the community and the game was a digital card game rather than a physical one. If you had an endless stream of new challenges that you could play on a daily or weekly basis, I think the game would have a lot more longevity.

Needless to say, even with this one flaw, I think this is a brilliant game and deserves to be on this list.

6. Warhammer 40k Conquest

I have to admit I only played this game a few times and never actually bought into it and there is good reason for it, but still the few times I played it, it made a big impact on me and I always think of it whenever the subject of CCG’s comes up. Like Arkham Horror this was one of many Fantasy Flights LCG’s (Living Card Games), but it was a 2 player competitive game. I think this is one of the most underrated competitive card games out there today.

The theme and franchise appreciation here is important as the card game and the cards themselves capture the Warhammer 40k universe perfectly but what I think really made this game stand out is that the interaction and speed of play was balanced perfectly. It’s a tight game where players are making impactful decisions with each card play and games are almost always definined by decision rather than deck or card draw, it really is a game of pure strategy and I think that is actually kind of rare in card games. Most CCG’s are defined by deck building as much as strategy but this one is one of those games where what deck you played mattered considerably less than what you do with it at the table.

Above and beyond that however I think the asymetrical factions really shine here, each faction had its own thing going on and FFG made sure every faction of the 40k universe was covered before the game went end of life so its a self contained and very complete feeling card game set. The fact that it went out of print and is no longer supported doesn’t matter and thankfully they printed so much of this game its actually quite easy and cheap to get a hold of a complete collection.

Really fun game, I think this is still well worth getting today even if its out of print. Just a very good, self contained, head to head experience built around an awesome franchise and a great theme. A game made for 40k fans.

The only reason I have personally never bought into is that in my gaming group, at the time, we had a lot of stuff going on gaming wise and it was a rare situation where economically I had to make some tough calls. I regret that, I wished I owned the entire set and plan to some day soon purchase it for my collection.

5. Star Wars Destiny

Heading into the top 5 on my list, it would be criminal to exclude Star Wars Destiny, without question one of the best Star Wars franchise CCG’s ever produced. It suffered from a rather poor business model and went extinct rather quickly, which was a real bummer, but it remains in my collection and I’m to this day always ready to pull it out and play.

This CCG is quite unique in that it uses dice as part of the card play mechanic and it also makes use of a very tight deck which makes deck building a really light element of the game which is great for beginners. That said, I actually think the nuance of this game is difficult to grasp and many veteran card players felt the luck element of this built in dice mechanic made it a less competitive experience. That might or might not have been true, but to me, competitive is not a reason to or not to play a game, I think as long as the game is fun, that is all the juice it needs. Destinty was certainly that.

I think Fantasy Flight Games should have stuck to their LCG model for this game because one of the things that really killed this game is the fact that you often needed 2-3 cards (with coinciding dice) in order to make a certain card playable, this was especially true about heroe’s so what you ended up with is a lot of cards and dice that you really couldn’t put in a deck and remain reasonably balanced for the general power level of the game. This mixed in with the fact that most of the hero/villain cards where uncommon and rares, made collecting the right cards a pain in the ass and more a frustrating than fun experience.

In the end FFG also had a lot of trouble balancing this game and their were quite a few broken and OP cards as well as a lot of junk cards you would never use for any reason. I’m not sure if the issue was with a lack of testing or what but at the end of the day the game did have a few issues.

Nonetheless, I consider this one of the all-time great CCG’s, just a super fun, tight little game that was very approachable albeit probably one of the most expensive to collect, in particular if you were going for competitive play. These days you can still find it in bargain bins and I say it’s still well worth getting a collection going.

4. Android Netrunner

Netrunner is a unique entry on this list for two reasons. First, it’s the only game on the list that is truly asymmetrical, yet managed to be a well-balanced competitive one on one CCG. I can’t think of any card game in the history of card games that does this, it’s a white elephant in this regard. Secondly, this is the only game in the history of card games that I can think of that died at what I would consider to be the height of its success. Quite literally this game got better and better with each expansion and when it was cancelled they had released what I would consider to be the best expansion ever released for the game. How and why it was discontinued is just a complete mystery to me.

The wonderful thing about Android Netrunner was that it was one of those rare cases in which deck building, while important, was not the defining factor for victory. How you used your cards, how you approached each match and your knowledge of the game had far more impact than the strength of your deck. More importantly, it was about the fairest playing field in a CCG ever put out mainly because, like most Fantasy Flight Games of this era, it was a living card game so everyone was building decks from the same set.

I played this game exclusively with the same opponent for several years online using tabletop simulator so I never actually purchased a single card, but I consider those games to be among the card gaming experiences I ever had.

This is an auto-buy in my book, one of the best card games ever made with some of the best card art ever printed.

3. Game of Thrones The Card Game (2nd Edition)

We are now reaching what I consider to be the creme de la creme of card games. Game of Thrones the card game is without a doubt the king of multiplayer games, one that captures its theme with perfection both mechanically and visually.

I love this game, but like many CCG’s I’m a dabbler rather than a committer, but this is more a result of economic self-preservation than anything else. There are many collectible games out there, I buy into and pay obscene prices for many of them, and at the end of the day you have to make some hard choices, one can’t expect to be able to buy into everything.

That said I have friends who went ape shit and we have more than enough cards in the gaming group for us to have an occasional crack at this one and I consider any such opportunity an absolute pleasure.

This is a fantastic CCG that captures the momentum of the Song of Ice and Fire story, ensuring that characters are at the heart of the game, with thematic powers that result in play resolutions that truly tells a Game of Thrones story.

Of all the games I recommend on this list, this one comes without caveats, even if you are not a Game of Thrones fan, this is such a great card game that even without the appreciation of the theme, this is a great design. Good games like this come along only once in a while and they are not to be missed, this is an auto-buy in my opinion for card lovers.

2. Star Wars Unlimited

Star Wars Unlimited dropped like Thor’s hammer into the CCG scene, stealing the show and proving that there is plenty of fresh ideas and new life left to bring to the genre. This is without question my new love. I never thought anything quite as good as Star Wars Destiny would ever come around again and bring Star Wars to the CCG table top, but I was wrong, Star Wars Unlimited is perfection personified.

As of this writing, only the initial core set for the game has been launched with the first expansion only 24 hours away as of this writing, so it’s hard to predict the game’s future. That said, the first release was absolutely perfect blend of deck building, competitive play and precision design. This game is so good and I know I’m not the only one who thinks so because it is absolutely impossible to purchase unless you pre-order and anything that is in stock in seconds after it drops. It’s that good.

I will never proclaim a Magic The Gathering killer, because I don’t think any such thing will ever come along, but Star Wars Unlimited is objectively a superior game to Magic The Gathering in every measurable way, yet has the same addictive deck-building quality and card interaction that made MTG such a landmark game.

I don’t care who you are if you are not playing Star Wars Unlimited, you are missing out on the single best competitive CCG ever made by a massive margin, there is absolutely nothing in the same league with this game. It’s a modern masterpiece.

1. Lord of the Rings The Living Card Game

I will be the first to admit that Lord of the Rings The Living Card Game is a personal taste thing more than a perfectly designed game. This is my number-one choice, not THE number-one game. That honor goes to Star Wars Unlimited. Still, with that said, I love this game above all others for a single, indisputable reason and that is that it captures Middle Earth with such perfection, such epic scale and so much thematic joy through its gameplay and art that I honestly could not bare to ever put any CCG above this one. It’s not just the perfect CCG, its a perfect game.

Like most Fantasy Flight Games, this is a game from the Living Card Era which I think is perfect for a cooperative deck-building game. For me the reason I love this game so much is that it’s every bit as good playing solo as it is playing in a group. Its perfect with experience CCG players and complete newbies who have never played a card game before. Its scalable with quests that take 15 minutes to epic sagas that take weeks to complete. It has deep, strategic deck-building elements or can be used with default theme decks. In a word, every conceivable gaming situation you have, it has you covered.

Love this game, there is nothing in the world of tabletop gaming I can recommend more than Lord of the Rings the Living Card Game. It’s perfect.

    Best of List

    Top 5 Boardgames that were almost great, but had a flaw that ruined them

    I have not been writing enough as of late for this blog, but my life is busy, and writing is a hobby not a job so I often have to take breaks. One type of article that is usually easy and fast for me to write is a top X list, so today that is what we are going to try to achieve.

    This might be a wonky list but I do find that many games out there look amazing, have a cool franchise behind them or just seem like they will be great and end up letting me down. It’s how and why they end up on my shelf and on this list. Today we pick out 5 and talk about them. Here we go!

    5. Crusader Kings by Free League Publishing

    Crusader Kings the PC game is one of my all-time favorite strategy games, I have played it for more hours and years than I care to admit.

    A big part of the joy of Crusader Kings is that you essentially re-write history from the perspective of a single historical person, influencing people and nations around them. You create a legacy over time (a family dynasty) and you try to keep that legacy alive and thriving through your blood relatives, offspring, and noble claims. It’s a lot of fun.

    When Crusader Kings the board game was announced, I didn’t hesitate even for a second, it was on my shelf and the table at the first opportunity.

    From the reading of the rules, the aesthetic, and the very clear attempt at replicating the PC game experience, Crusader Kings the board game had everything going for it and it seemed like it was going to make a nice smooth tabletop transition.

    Unfortunately for all of its mechanics that do replicate the feel of the PC game and capture that experience, the one thing that didn’t transition particularly well and ultimately caused this one to flop is the overindulgence in randomness.

    One of the key mechanics of this game was random draws from a bag to resolve conflicts between players or between player and game, but unfortunately, the impact of this one mechanic simply had too much impact on the game, so much so that it overwhelmed any aspect of a strategy. Good consecutive draws from this bag that was used for resolving various conflicts could and often did result in such a huge impact on the outcome of the game that in the end, that is all the game is. Draw tokens from the bag, do it well, you will win, do it poorly and you will lose.

    It’s really sad because a lot of the mechanics in the game are well thought out, but this random token draw resolution system just breaks it.

    For such an expensive game, I honestly can’t recommend it, but it was quite ok the first couple of plays as it takes time for people to notice the flaw, but once everyone does, it’s a bit like a movie trailer that spoils the plot of the movie. At that point, there is no longer any reason to see the movie, other than just to go through the motions and that is exactly how Crusader Kings feels after a couple of plays.

    4. Archipelago by Ludically

    Archipelago is a game with a questionable theme, colonization, which rubs some people the wrong way. To me, it’s history, and I’m not phased by the fact that the history of mankind is filled with ugliness. I like playing games with a good historical theme and when that is mixed with dynamic world or engine building mechanics, I’m always ready to try it.

    Archipelago promised to be a kind of civilization builder with exploration mechanics built around a dynamically constructed hexagon game board. It had all sorts of clever mechanics, a kind of mixture of Euro mechanics with resource management, and some cool development elements.

    All together the game played quite well and although I will point out that some of the art was unnecessarily extra racist which did not sit well with me, the core flaw of the game was the hidden victory conditions.

    All victory conditions are hidden, you don’t know how to win the game or what to focus on. You find out at the end of the game what the victory conditions are and how you faired. As the victory conditions could be quite varied and there can be odd mixtures of things that matter at the end of the game, who won was completely random.

    It’s about the most nonsensical way of handling victory conditions I have ever seen in any game, it felt a bit like playing chess except that if you get checkmated, there is a 50% chance that you win the game and a 50% chance that you will lose.

    It completely ruins this game and unfortunately, this victory conditions mechanic is buried into the core game so deeply that there is no good way to house rule or alter it without fundamentally changing how the game is played.

    I hope that someday someone with some sensitivity training and some common sense game design experience makes a 2nd edition of Archipelago because I think there is a lot of potential in this one, but as it is, this is a very hard pass.

    3. Exodus Proxima Centauri by NSKN Games

    Proxima Centauri is marketed as “Twilight Imperium Light”, a promise many games make but few deliver. Of all the ones I have tried, only Eclipse The 2nd Dawn for the Galaxy and Proxima Centauri come close.

    Unfortunately, where Eclipse succeeds, Proxima Centauri fails pretty hard in my opinion.

    I will make the assumption that you know what Twilight Imperium is, if not, the basics are this. It’s a space civilization builder that is driven by classic 4x gameplay ala classic Master of Orion in which players are a space-faring civilization fighting for control of the galaxy. It’s a simple enough concept but the one aspect of this genre of gaming is that in principle, it’s driven by politics, negotiations, trade deals, and deception. In a way these games are two games in one, the one taking place on the table and the one taking place in everyone’s head. These are games where an action you take can be seen as aggressive, a pre-emptive strike, or even a prelude to war, and as such players often act in character and respond in ways that aren’t necessarily strategic, but personal within the context of the game’s story that ultimately becomes a sort of made up history between players.

    It’s part of the fun of these games and really at the core of why the fan base loves them.

    Games that claim to be like “Twilight Imperium”, which by all accounts is considered the premiere and undisputed king of this genre of games are making a pretty bold claim and have a lot to live up to.

    The issue with Exodus is that while it has all the troupes of the genre you would expect, in effect that core 4x gameplay, the game gives players no good reason to interact in that all-important diplomatic/negotiation-social interaction space. In essence, you just play the mechanics like you would any Euro game. Sure what people do affects you, but you don’t have enough take-that mechanics or reactions you could take to give the game that diplomatic and political edge or fear of retaliation or consequences to people’s actions created by other players for which Twilight Imperium is famous for.

    Additionally, there are some quirky and very intensive shuffling of tokens that just adds to the administrative end of the game, but adds virtually nothing strategically. It’s one of those games in which there are some great ideas but none of the mechanics are all that refined.

    What is worse is that it’s only marginally shorter than Twilight Imperium, which is important because one of the only reasons anyone ever really looks for alternatives to Twilight Imperium is game length. TI4, for example, takes 6 to 8 hours to play and one of the core reasons why often Eclipse is recommended is that it can be played in half that time with much of that Twilight Imperium core 4x gameplay intact. Exodus can’t even claim that as the game takes a minimum of 5 to 6 hours to complete and commonly exceeds that time.

    In the end, it just doesn’t make the cut as a 4x game. I think it’s an ok game, I’m not suggesting it’s bad but if you are looking to get into the 4x space civilization-building games, Twilight Imperium and Eclipse are superior in every category so I’m not sure why you would pick this one over those two fantastic options.

    2. Kemet by Matagot

    Kemet is, or at least, was kind of a moderately famous game mainly because they had Dice Tower that gave it a lot of free advertisement. I would argue, in its own way it’s a cool, very fair war game built around mythology which I think is a great theme for a war game.

    In Kemet which is a kind of worker placement war game, players essentially build up armies that include mythical monsters and fight each other for control of the map and ultimately victory points. One of the key mechanics is making “advancement” purchases that give you various benefits. Each of these advancements has a color associated with it and a kind of general theme to that color.

    The nice thing is that it’s not a dice chucker so there is a cool card mechanic to resolving battles, so all and all it’s very tactical and strategic. It is great, except for one flaw which once you discover it, the game is completely ruined.

    Spoiler alert, but the white advancement is at least 3 to 1 more powerful than the advancement of other colors. Buy those and you auto-win. If everyone is aware of this, the game is a race to buy up as many white advancements as possible, it is a mathematically impossible strategy to defeat. In fact, if everyone is aware of this flaw in the game, the game is decided by turn order and nothing else.

    This broken mechanic ruins the game once discovered, its a real bummer.

    1. Western Empires (Eastern Empires) by 999 Games

    I’m going to make this short and sweet because I think Western and Easter Empires, also known together as Mega Civilization, also known as Advanced Civilization, also known as Civilization is one of the all-time classic “BIG” strategic civilization building games out there. It’s not just a game, but a staple of gaming history and Western and Eastern Empires are the modern remakes that only make minor adjustments to the original with nicer art and components, maintaining its core, classic formula.

    It’s not just a game, it’s an experience, but it does have one huge fucking flaw (pardon my French but I want to scream it) and that is that the game has player elimination.

    This game was originally designed in the early 80’s and here we are in 2024 and this core, fundamental and game-breaking flaw that will keep this off your table is still built into the game. In fact, Western and Eastern Empires lean into this and have created an official rule on how to “give up and go home” if you’re doing badly in the game.

    The issue is that the game can and does take about 9-12 hours to play, maybe even longer if you combine both games into a Mega civilization for up to 18 players. It’s a major event game which is fine, an event game is an event game, it takes a long time to play because that’s what events are. That is not a flaw, but if 4 hours into the event you can be put in a position where you are asked to leave… hey thanks for coming, go home! Fuck that….

    To me that is just unacceptable, I would never invite people to my house to play an all-day event game and then halfway through it eliminates them from the event because they sucked too much at it. It’s no problem that there are winners and losers, but to get eliminated from play, I can’t get over it.

    I can understand that in the 80’s board game design theory was in its infancy but what a missed opportunity for 999 games to correct what is undoubtedly the most destructive and game-breaking part of the game. I own Western Empires but I know that I will never put it on the table, not as long as this flaw exists. It’s crazy but it’s quite literally a game mechanic that is extremely toxic and rude to the players, aka, the guests at your house that came over to have fun.

    It is the unquestionable king of stupid shit ever put in a game, I can’t believe no one has corrected it over the last nearly 40 years of its existence.

    Best of List, Board Game Reviews

    Top 10 Gaming Experiences Of 2023

    2024 was a great year for gaming for me, but as I started this list originally set to be the best games fo 2023 I realized that a lot of the games that I played weren’t technically games released in 2023. Hence, this year, the list is more about my top 10 gaming experiences rather than the top 10 games of 2023.

    I did however create a small section at the end of the article talking about some 2023 releases that I thought where worthy of note.

    Ok enough foreplay, let’s get into it!

    10. Eclipse: Second Dawn For The Galaxy

    I picked up the 2nd edition of Eclipse on a whim, not so much because I felt the 1st edition was so great, quite to the contrary, but because there was so much positive word on this follow-up that I had to try it.

    I’m glad I did, 2nd edition Eclipse is a great game, a vast improvement over 1st edition and it hits a sweet spot in the area of science-fiction-based galactic civilization games with an epic feel.

    I think to understand what I mean about sweet spot you have to understand that I love my Twilight Imperium when it comes to this genre, it’s my go-to game for science-fiction civilization-building games. This comes with a BIG but, as it is a six to eight-hour game that is pretty difficult to get to the table with a structure that doesn’t exactly speak to my and many other gaming crews universally. In fact in my group we so very rarely play Twilight Imperium at this point, it’s collecting a lot of dust, to such a degree that were it not among my favorite board games of all time I might consider cutting it from my collection.

    Twilight Imperium 4th edition without any question in my mind is a much better game than Eclipse, but it’s such a massive all-day event that it is difficult to get to the table. Case in point, it was not played in 2023 at all!

    Eclipse 2nd edition on the other hand hits a lot of the same highlights as a game for me but it does it in under 4 hours, or less even if you have a group that knows the rules well.

    More than that it’s a game that gets right to the meat of the action from turn 1, there isn’t a whole lot of posturing and political pre-gaming in the game like there is in Twilight Imperium, which means it’s a lot more of a game than an experience. TI4 is very much an event-focused gaming experience but Eclipse manages to be a board game you really can just pull out and play like any other. This puts it in a unique position in my collection.

    I still don’t think it’s anywhere close to as good a game as Twilight Imperium is, to me TI4 remains the king of science-fiction-based galactic conquests and civilization-building games, but Eclipse is much easier to get to the table and it is a very fun gaming experience.

    For fans of the genre, I think this discussion is well-known and common. Suffice it to say if you’re a fan of Civ-Builders, this is one of the best ones around as it finds that all-important middle ground that allows it to hit the table without a lot of fuss.

    9. Viticulture

    Strangely enough, this game was on my shelf in shrink wrap for the better part of 3 years before I got it to the table. This year I finally managed to pull it out, learn how to play and get it to the table.

    I was very pleasantly surprised by this one. This is a very solid worker placement game with a lot of variation both in strategy (ways to win) and calculation of moves (planning ahead). The game rules were really clear so even when learning to play on the first pass, you are immediately deep-diving into the possibilities, there was no major learning curve. Almost as if all previous experiences with other worker placement games apply and you’re just playing kind of a different take on the same core principles common in all of these types of games.

    That said, it wasn’t boring. There are a lot of really clever combinations, it was a very tight game rather than your typical super point structure where one guy has 200 VP’s at the end of the game and another 350. Everyone in our games was in the running with the winner edging out by 2-3 points typically. The game is available on boardgamearena.com which is a great bonus.

    Very competitive and interesting game, didn’t overstay its welcome, in fact, it felt kind of short which adds to the pressure of scoring points as soon as possible as much as possible as you could as you can see way in advance that the game would end in a few turns.

    Just a good solid, worker placement game well worth getting with plenty of replayability. Great stuff, highly recommended.

    8. Sekigahara: The Unification Of Japan

    This one was on my must-try list for a very long time, several years at least. I had heard so many good things about it and it checks all my boxes as I love anything based on Medieval Japan, I love war games, I love two-player games, I love card-driven games and I have for so long wanted to try a block game. I was very excited when the game was finally reprinted and became available and snagged it up.

    Sekigahara is a part strategy but mostly a tactical game about positioning and outthinking your opponent with a lot of timing-based master planning built into it. It isn’t just about getting your armies in place, but it’s about making sure you have the right cards, at the right time for the right battle.

    It’s one of those games where you need to have a plan for the hand of cards you are dealt and the right strategy for the unit position. It’s not enough to have one or the other, this game is all about timing things perfectly.

    The game moves at a neck-breaking pace, which is awesome for a war game as you can sit down and play two or three matches back to back. I would say each game lasts at the most two hours and if you have two players that know the rules, you can finish a match in under an hour.

    It has a static start, but the dynamics of the game create a lot of variability as so much of the game is focused on the cards in your hand. There is a kind of veteran learning element to the game, if you know the deck and you know the map you are going to have a big advantage over a novice but by the same token, the learning curve is quite short so it doesn’t take long for you to get to a point where you are dissecting the games core properties.

    I would not recommend this game to all gamers universally, I think it’s important that you enjoy competitive war games and have a healthy love for card games, as this game does not apologize for being kind of a straight-to-it card-based war game. It’s that, if that is not your thing, this game does not offer or cater to other aspects of board gaming, if it is, this game is right up your alley.

    Definitely one of my favorite new additions to my collection in 2023.

    7. Vampire: Prince Of The City

    This is a bit of a strange one, as it is a game released back in 2006 and it was a completely random unprompted purchase by a member of my gaming crew which made its debut at our yearly big board gaming weekend.

    My gaming crew loves all things Vampire The Masquerade, originally a role-playing game made by a company back in the 90’s called White Wolf. The world of darkness is the setting in which Vampires live and these days there are quite a few new games that have come out for this universe including Vampire: The Masquerade Heritage which came out in 2020, Vampire: The Masquerade Chapters (2023) and Vampire: The Masquerade – Vendetta (2020) just to name a few. All great, modern games, but Vampire: Prince of the City is an older model.

    Vampire Vendetta, another game in the world of darkness is a much faster and more mechanically driven take on a similar concept. To date, this remains one of my favorite Vampire The Masquerade-based games.

    Vampire: Prince Of The City is a game about controlling a modern-day city from behind the scenes through the manipulation of politics and economics. Vampires don’t play by the rules of course, they indoctrinate their pawns using supernatural methods.

    In the game you represent an elder vampire that uses influence to take control of areas on a map and the only other competitors are other elder vampires (other players). Players collect “assets” that help them to do this more efficiently of course, which can range from collecting people, equipment or unique strategy cards.

    The game is quite long and has quite a bit of diplomacy between players in which they plot against each other, sometimes working together and sometimes betraying each other. The goal of the game is to come out on top, but the game is structured in a way where if two players decide to gang up on you, things are going to become difficult if not impossible. The driving force is of course that when two players work together, often one of them comes out of it better than the other, leading to the inevitable betrayal and restructuring of alliances.

    These politics which remind me a lot of the classic game of Diplomacy, are really what pushes the game forward far more than actual mechanical actions players take which is a style of play that is really right in my gaming crews wheelhouse.

    The point is that this is not a game you win on mechanics, it’s a game you win through political and diplomatic manipulation between the players, in a lot of ways, its a game of psychology.

    This is a very long game and this is probably the only black mark against it and notably one of the key complaints from most reviewers. Its an event-style game but I would say if you are into games that cause heated debates and player-to-player diplomacy, this one brings that sort of playstyle to the table in spades.

    Fantastic game in my humble opinion, with a great theme, but not for the faint of heart. This is a bit of a pig that is going to take some time to get done, but so well worth it in my opinion. Exactly the sort of vampire-focused experience that represents the world of darkness setting on which it’s based.

    6. Spirit Island

    I say this all the time, I’m not a huge fan of cooperative games typically, except when I am and then I love them. A great example is Lord of the Rings LCG, it’s one of my most played and beloved games that I have collected like a total fanatic.

    Spirit Island is warming up to be another exception for me. I have only played a couple of times, but this game is just so well designed, so tight, so difficult, and handles the cooperative element so well.

    My biggest problem with cooperative games is that when I play, I often feel like I don’t need the other players to win and/or I need the players to do very specific things under my instruction in order to win, so when they take unoptimized actions that cause us to lose (even when I know better) it annoys me. This covers most cooperative games and it’s why generally, I do not enjoy them.

    Spirit Island is different because it is far too complex and has far too many moving parts, not to mention unknowns like other player’s cards to a point where micro-managing each other as players is impossible. You just have to rely on each player to handle their own business and leverage their own strategy and ask for help when they need it.

    This means that each player has to create and execute their own approach to the game which is supported by the fact that each spirit in the game is asymmetrical. Everyone must be generally aware of high-level events and be ready to assist others who run into trouble why dealing with the problems on their side of the board.

    This setup is quite fantastic in particular in the scope of the game’s very high level of difficulty and increably diverse dynamics. There is so much going on in this game, so many different strategies thanks in large part to the huge diversity of “spirits” players can select. Each spirit has its play style, its special powers and power cards.

    It’s a really deep and very long game, a gamer’s game essentially, definitely not for the dabbler. There is a big learning curve both to learn how to play and how to play well. There is also a lot of levels of difficulty so you’re never going to find a way to “beat” the game, its replayability is effectively unlimited.

    Fantastic game in my book, definitely deserving of all the awards and praise it has received over the last couple of years since its release. Highly recommended, but only for the truly fanatically hardcore and highly dedicated gamers, this is not something you pull out on family board game night.

    5. Lord Of The Rings LCG

    My all-time favorite solo and cooperative game.

    Like almost every year since I started collecting, Lord of the Rings the LCG has been a central part of my weekly gaming routine. It’s a rare week that I don’t pick up a game or two of LotR LCG, it has been and continues to be one of my favorite games to pull out.

    Now I normally play this cooperative game solo, but this year I managed to get a few multiplayer games going and like me, my gaming crew enjoys this one as well. Of course, the big fun of this game is getting super into it, building your own decks, creating your own solutions to the countless quests that have been released for this game as well as doing the big campaign. Not everyone gets into the game on that level and frankly, as a dabble it’s okay, but this is a game for fanatics who are ready to do serious deck building and that means collecting. Still, it’s a lot of fun to play on any level and pretty easy to do as this game has a pretty low learning curve.

    I have talked about this game so many times on this site, I don’t see any reason to say more, just have a browse, there are plenty of articles about this one. I love it and true love lasts forever!

    4. Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul

    The card-driven influence control genre which at this point has become quite broad is one of my favorite in board gaming. This includes games like Washingtons War, Twilight Struggle and Imperial Struggle just to name a few.

    I have introduced this particular one to several people this year, members of my gaming crew as well as my brother-in-law who is a bit of a board gaming dabbler.

    Each time this one comes out, it gets solid reviews across the board from everyone which is more than I can say for all other influence control games that tend to be a bit more niche. Not to say that this is the best of the bunch, in my opinion, it’s not, that honor falls to Imperial Struggle. What I find to be the core reason this one tends to do better is that in Rome vs. Gaul thanks to its dichotomous sides, one being (Rome) far more difficult to play and succeed at and one (Gaul) being much simpler, it works great for introductions.

    The end result is that the first-time experience is fun for both players (experienced and novice) and creates a great competitive game. This tends not to be true about most influence control games that have many specialized strategies. Typically when teaching someone something like Twilight Struggle, as an experienced player you are going to crush your opponent the first 5-10 games before they catch on.

    That however I don’t think is the only thing that separates Rome Vs. Gaul. I think it has a cool historical theme, looks amazing on the table and has very clear winning conditions that are easy to grasp without a heavy chrome layer of exceptions. It’s just a very intuitive design, a great competitive take on the card-driven influence control genre.

    Its main flaw is that once both players become experienced with the game you will find that winning as the Rome player becomes exceedingly difficult, there are just too many almost impossible-to-overcome Gaul strategies so the game tends to be a bit unbalanced when two players of equal skill are playing the game. I find the game needs some house rules to correct this.

    That doesn’t change my opinion about it as I find most of the time when I pull it out I’m dealing with a new or less experienced player and this game is great for that purpose.

    Highly recommend this one if you are a fan of CDG influence control games like Twilight Struggle and Washington’s War in particular.

    3. Great Western Trail

    I play a lot of Great Western Trail, mainly because it’s available on Boardgamearena.com. As of this writing, I have played 110 games with 35 victories. That is a lot of Great Western Trail and most of that I did last year which means I was averaging several games a week.

    I think a big part of the reason I like Great Western Trail is that each time you play you must be adaptive. There is no winning formula, the circumstances of each game are different and what your opponents are doing matters a lot in this game which is not always, in fact, rarely the case in Euro games like this. This is a game where after 110 games, I can still get completely crushed because of circumstances and risky moves that did not pay off. It’s really what I love about the game, it remains a challenge to win no matter how much I play it.

    The interaction between players in Great Western Trail is subtle but profound and I think it does a great job of being simultaneously easy to learn but deep strategically. I think its one of the most unique and intriguing Euro games that has come out this side of the decade.

    It’s without a doubt my current favorite, chill back and play game and I find every time I go to boardgameareana.com for a fix, this is the one I reach for. I own the hardcopy as well and every time I pull it out with my friends or family it lands well.

    Just a really good all-around board game for all occasions. It’s my go-to Euro game.

    2. War Room

    The truth is that my gaming group and I play War Room once per year on my birthday since I got it a few years back. It’s become something of a tradition at this point but this one never disappoints. I can remember the details of every game of War Room I have played and it’s always a great time.

    This is not a particularly deep game, it is, for the most part, a bit more complex version of RISK or Axis and Allies and while I know some people take it quite seriously as a war game, for me, this is just a good time in a box. For my gaming group it’s more of a fun party game where we play war for the day, roll some dice and come up with new inside jokes that will play out for the rest of the year.

    I do love War Room as a game though, I do think it’s a fun strategic puzzle and there are plenty of great/difficult decisions to make and you can in fact get pretty serious with it. Given how long and huge it is, this is not a game you just spring on a group, so I can understand why many group give it this serious treatment. This is an event where you have to arrange food, snacks, and drinks and make a whole thing out of it, because 12 hours is about the average play time. It’s essentially a kind of party war game to me.

    I love it, it’s been my favorite board game of all time since I discovered it and I think that will remain to be true for a long time.

    1. Empire Of The Sun

    Empire of the Sun is a very complex game and is not recommended for the uninitiated.

    There is no question that all my really serious and competitive gaming in 2023 was done with Empire Of The Sun. I have completely abandoned any hope of ever getting this one to the table with my local gaming group, it’s just too big of a commitment for them and it’s too niche so this year I went online to search for opponents.

    I found plenty and ever since I have had several active games going online over vassal of Empire of the Sun and it has become an absolute obsession for me. This highly complex game with a massive learning curve only works when you have two players completely dedicated to not only learning how to play but enforcing those rules with impunity.

    I found exactly such opponents and I have been overthinking this one for the entire year and it’s been an amazing experience.

    While War Room is my favorite game of all time, Empire of the Sun is the best game design I have ever run across. Mark Herman is a genius in my book and I have said it before, but this is the Mona Lisa of his career.

    In Empire of the Sun you execute World War II in the Pacific Theatre as either Japan or the Allies in extreme detail on an operational level. It boasts an intimidating 50 page rulebook with a ridiculous amount of chrome for what I can only describe to be one of the best simulations you will ever experience.

    I do not recommend this to anyone except the most dedicated fan of war games. This is not something you dabble or “learn to play”, this is the equivalent of studying chess as a hobby. You will spend hundreds of hours studying every unit, every detail of the map, and every rule that governs the game and creates endless strategies for you to test. It’s exhilarating if you are into that sort of thing, it’s a complete nightmare of a board game if you are not.

    I love it with a deep passion.

    2023 releases worth a mention

    I’m not the sort of gamer that chases the cult of the new anymore and I find that my gaming selections are more based on what I already love than chasing the dragon. That said there were a few interesting games that came out this year and I think they deserve some mentioning for better or worse.

    Hegemony: Lead Your Class To Victory

    This one is gaining a lot of momentum in the gaming community, slowly climbing the boardgamegeek ladder and for good reason. Without question one of the most interesting designs on an unusual subject. It’s an asymmetrical game where players work together to develop a functioning society represented by each player acting as a part of the government or social order. Based on politics and economics, this is a game about governing, a combination of cooperation and competition. It made my must-buy list in 2023.

    Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game

    I know, we need another deckbuilding game like we need a hole in our head, but ever since Star Wars Destiny tragically ended, finding a replacement for it has been something of a desire I suppose. There are a few games actually in the works, but this one made its debut in 2023 and it certainly looks to be the frontrunner.

    Great art, simple mechanics with a straight to it approach in the competitive dueling space.

    Deck building games of course require the game to have longevity, which is the most difficult element to asses at the start of a games run. Star Wars Destiny for example started out on fire in terms of popularity, but petered out quite quickly and didn’t survive its adolescence. A common problem in the collectable card game space, a fate that may very well be in this games future.

    That said, I’m always hopeful and this one certainly has my attention.