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Gaming Theory: Yes, I’m A Bit Of A Hipster – Here Is My Hipster List

In the last year, I realized something about my gaming habits and preferences that perhaps I should have, but never did notice. I seem to be a bit of a gaming hipster!? I think…

When I think about the sorts of games I like, regardless of category or genre, I find my tastes are a bit unusual compared to pretty much anyone I know around me. In fact, it’s kind of a problem because I very rarely get to actually play the games I would play if it were exclusively just up to me. Part of this I think, has to do with my age, I have been playing games for nearly 4 decades at this point, at least 2-3 decades more than most of my peers, which might explain my tastes to some degree; nostalgia and all that.

Regardless, in the spirit of Hipsterism, I thought I would talk about my preferences a bit, which, by default, has produced a kind of Hipster list!

What I will do is choose a genre of gaming, and for each genre, I will assume that I have a gaming group raring to play this weekend. Which game would I choose!?

Role-Playing Game

I’m going to split Role-Playing into three sub-genres because I do see RPG’s as something of a quirk of mine and picking just one game just won’t do.

Fantasy – 1st Edition AD&D
The classics in their original form can still be enjoyed thanks to the Wizards of the Coast reprints.

Here’s the thing: I love fantasy RPG’s—truly. I could spend hours agonizing over a top 10 list, shuffling titles around, and second-guessing myself. But one thing is certain: Classic 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most robust and compelling RPG traditions ever created for fantasy storytelling. Hands down.

Note, I did not call 1st edition AD&D a game, because to me, it’s always been more than just that, nor would I exactly escribe it as an RPG by today’s standards. AD&D is unique, a game with a very special approach and essence which did not exist before it in any game and has not been replicated in any games since. Every version of D&D that followed lost sight of this hidden essence, that magic that exists between the game as a rule set and the tradition that was born in Gygax’s definitive work. AD&D as a gaming tradition, an activity, and a collaborative storytelling tool, far exceeded the presumed simplicity of being a rule system and a game. I don’t know that Gygax intended for this to be true about his game, quite to the contrary, I think he was trying to create just that, a definitive rule set with AD&D, but like any art form, happy accidents happen. That happy little accident would never again be repeated, and every edition of the game has tried but failed to recapture the magic of the original.

Mind you, this is not for the lack of trying; in fact, I think most editions of the game have tried very hard to mirror the magic of AD&D, but the truth is that most designers even today can’t fully explain why this original version is different. I don’t think I could fully explain it either; it just is. An intangible quality exists in AD&D that is simply ineffable. As ineffable as it may be, I feel obligated to at least try to explain it, but I say this here and now, this is NOT about nostalgia.

Why do I gravitate toward this strange and inexplicable classic? Because I’ve always believed (as did Gygax) and still do that the most powerful, memorable role-playing happens when players don’t know the rules inside and out of how it’s done behind the screen. In the case of AD&D, it’s mostly because the rules are unknowable, thanks to the cryptic way in which they are described in what I consider the most important book in the RPG hobby ever written, the 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide.

The 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide is one of the most unique books ever written. It doesn’t just guide you through the process of creating worlds for players to live in, but it teaches you how to present that world in a way that will inspire players to believe in it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a critique of AD&D. Every player, given the chance, will lean into what they know; it’s only natural that when you know the rules of a game, you start using those rules to your advantage as a game. True magic happens when players don’t know how the game works. The less they know, the more they have to trust their natural instincts at the table. Not knowing the rules activates your imagination, and players start acting like people living in a story rather than characters moving through a system. They make choices that feel right, because they don’t have the option to make sure their choices are mechanically sound. This is the magic of AD&D, it refuses you the foundation of rules upon which to make decisions, leaving you to your collaborative imaginations. Some (in fact, most) would argue this is bad game design, but I would argue that it’s perfect game design. It makes the act of role-playing the only avenue for all participants. There is no game here upon which to hang your hat.

And that’s where the magic happens.

Especially in fantasy, where gods walk the earth, monsters lurk in the dark, and magic bends the very fabric of reality. Not knowing how everything works is a feature, not a bug. It creates a sense of wonder, of discovery, of trying things to see what they do. Players aren’t just learning about the world, they’re learning how its very physics of the world operates.

There were many versions of Dungeons and Dragons, both official and unofficial, but every book that followed 1st edition AD&D strived to be a rulebook first, presenting the game as a mechanical architecture for creating a game at the table that everyone, especially players, could understand. Only 1st edition AD&D saw itself as a creative toolkit for collaborative storytelling, targeting the DM as its master.

For me, 1st Edition AD&D will always be my first love and for that it can be easy to write it off as nostalgia and often with old school games this is the case with me, but not so with AD&D. If I had the chance, I’d run a classic game exactly as I believe it was always meant to be played: with a little mystery, a lot of imagination, and just enough chaos to keep everyone guessing.

Science-Fiction – Alternity

I was this close to picking The Aliens RPG by Free League Games. It’s a fantastic system for intense, edge-of-your-seat one-shots. But let’s be honest: once the xenomorphs are out in the open, the mystery that is the Alien movies vanishes, and with it, a lot of the drama. It’s hard to stretch that tension into a long-term campaign without it wearing thin, despite the fantastic game design that went into the Aliens RPG. I love it, but a good foundation for a long term RPG campaign – it’s not. It is a one-shot, nothing more, nothing less.

If Gygax is the pioneer of fantasy RPG’s, there is no question that Bill Slaviscek and Richard Baker were the pioneers of science-fiction RPG’s. Alternity is a master class in how science fiction should be approached as a storytelling game.

So in the end, it came down to a real heavyweight match: Star Wars RPG by West End Games versus Alternity by TSR/Wizards of the Coast. And while both hold their own with style and substance, I give the edge to Alternity for one reason only: The Stardrive campaign setting.

The setting designed by Richard Baker, one of the sharpest minds in the business, pushed Alternity over the top for me. It’s original, ambitious, and packed with the kind of rich lore that inspires long-term storytelling.

The Stardrive campaign setting is an epic tale of humanity’s rise to the stars, and despite being written in the late 90’s, the history of this setting rings more true today than it did back then. It’s a fascinating read, almost as if it’s a prediction.

But Alternity as a system is more than just a great way to bring a setting to life. It’s the unsung pioneer of the d20 era. Before 3rd Edition D&D made the mechanic mainstream, Alternity was already out there, blending class-based progression with skill-based freedom in a way that felt sleek and forward-thinking. It wasn’t just a set of rules, it was a toolkit for building any kind of science fiction world you could dream up. It’s the tragedy of the 21st century that Wizards of the Coast would take the d20 system invented with such perfection and completely botch it over the course of 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition D&D. They had the perfect model for a perfect system and decided to foolishly ignore it, but I digress.

Need spacefaring starships, cybernetic upgrades, rogue AIs, mutant powers, alien civilizations..the list goes on and on! It’s all there. Not just as a flavor, but with clean, well-designed mechanics that make it all sing at the table. There is no science-fiction setting that has ever been or ever will be created that you can’t replicate with perfection with the Alternity RPG.

I still believe that West End Games take on Star Wars is the best version of a Star Wars RPG to date. In effect, it makes Star Wars feel more hard science fiction, unlike the movies that pushed the setting into science fantasy.

Alternity gave us a framework where science fiction didn’t just feel possible, it felt limitless. That’s why, for me, it’s the gold standard for sci-fi roleplaying.

If I was going to run a science-fiction game today, there is no question it would be Alternity. The only exception I would make is for Star Wars, in that case, it would be the West End version of the game.

Other – Mage The Ascension

Over the past thirty years, I’ve run World of Darkness chronicles more times than I can count, and every single one stands out in my memory. There’s something about this universe that sticks with you. It comes in many shades: vampires brooding in neon-lit alleys, werewolves howling at the edge of the apocalypse, and wraiths lost in their own sorrow. But the default flavor has always been Vampire: The Masquerade.

And don’t get me wrong, Vampire deserves its fame. It’s probably the most iconic and approachable entry in the World of Darkness line, and for good reason. But if you came to me right now and said, “Run a World of Darkness game,” I know exactly what I’d pick: Mage: The Ascension.

Like Vampire, Mage puts players in the shoes of powerful supernatural beings. But where Vampire centers on politics, survival, and control over the mortal underworld, something players can more easily connect with, Mage reaches for something far more abstract and far more profound.

One of the big burdens of Mage The Ascension is that it’s focused on a wide range of unique takes on belief systems. It’s one of those RPG’s where everyone needs to read it cover to cover to really understand it, it’s difficult to present it as a GM. White Wolf games require a lot of self-reading because so much of the games storytelling is buried in the details of the setting and aesthetic backdrops, but nowhere is this more true than Mage.

In Mage, your faction isn’t just a club or a bloodline, it’s a belief system. A worldview. And the war isn’t over turf or influence, it’s over control of reality itself.

The Technocracy reigns in the modern age, shaping the world through science, reason, and the rigid laws of physics. But the twist is that, this version of reality is just another kind of magic, one that’s been accepted by consensus. Other mages, the ones who Awaken to alternate truths (the players), fight back not with bullets or blades but with paradigm-shattering ideas. The conflict is philosophical, spiritual, and metaphysical; the journey I can only describe as a mind-bending acid trip.

When you run Mage, you’re telling a story about characters who don’t just cast magic, they reshape the fabric of existence. And the more they push, the more the world pushes back. It’s a game where players don’t just feel powerful, they begin to believe in the power of belief itself.

To this day, I’ve never had the chance to run a full Mage chronicle—and I’ve been itching to do so for years. I love this setting. I ache for the chance to guide a group through its mysteries. If the opportunity ever came up? Let’s just say I’d be all in.

Boardgames

When it comes to board games, the number of categories is ridiculous, and I could make a solid argument for any of them. If, however, you forced me to pick three, forsaking all others, I think this would be the list.

Lifestyle Games – Twilight Imperium
Without question, the single best boardgame ever designed…period.

If I could conjure up a dedicated group of Twilight Imperium fans with the snap of my fingers, I’d be running a weekly game in a heartbeat, and I doubt I’d ever get tired of it. I know because I once had that, and it was and still is to this day, the best boardgaming experience I have ever had. It’s an irreplaceable memory that I will always chase because, in my view, Twilight Imperium is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

Twilight Imperium isn’t just a board game. It’s a commitment, a journey, and for those willing to invest the time, it becomes something greater: a lifestyle. This is a game with layers on top of layers. What looks at first like a complex 4X space opera transforms into an ever-evolving, deeply human drama of ambition, alliances, betrayals, and vision.

Yes, it’s long. But that time investment isn’t a drawback it’s what allows the story to breathe. The game unfolds like an epic saga, each session an emergent narrative shaped by the choices, fears, and aspirations of the players around the table. It’s a game that brings out raw human drama, both imagined and real at the table. I have seen how passionate players can get about this game and I thirst for those experiences.

On the surface, Twilight Imperium is a combination of a civilization builder and war game, filled with rich lore, factions with asymmetric powers, and galactic conquest. But dig deeper, and you’ll find a game of psychology, political maneuvering, negotiation, and strategic bluffing. As I like to call it, the real game behind the mechanical one. Every move is loaded with meaning. Every word spoken a ploy. Every silence held can shift the balance of power.

You don’t just play Twilight Imperium, you live it for the duration of the game. You embody your faction’s ethos. You forge uneasy alliances, backstab former friends, and navigate the ever-turbulent currents of the Galactic Council. You calculate every vote, every trade, every fleet deployment with a mix of tactical precision and raw gut instinct.

With two dozen unique factions, dynamic objectives, modular galaxy maps, and endless human variables, Twilight Imperium offers infinite replayability. It’s a true modern masterpiece, an epic that’s far too often overlooked because of its scale and length. But for those who make the leap, the rewards are unmatched.

This used to be a game I played all the time and I can’t think of any gaming experience I miss more, it’s right up there with 1st edition AD&D and Battletech!

Tactical Games – Battletech
Its a cross between boardgaming, miniature gaming and role-playing.

Some might call BattleTech a miniatures game and sure, technically it is. But to me? It’s always been a dice-chucker board game disguised as a tactical miniature game, dressed up in pewter and plastic, pretending to be part of the miniatures crowd while doing its own brilliant thing as a role-playing game. It’s a strange mixture but it works.

BattleTech is incredible for three big reasons.

First, the lore. It’s a sprawling, obsessively detailed tapestry of interstellar warfare, dynasties, betrayals, and battle mechs the size of small buildings. You can trace the fictional design history of a single ‘Mech model, who built it, where it was deployed, how it evolved with more depth and nuance than many real-world war machines. We’re talking more lore than Warhammer 40k, and I don’t say that lightly. If you’re a story-driven gamer like me, this universe is an absolute goldmine of narrative potential. It’s a robust setting that rivals most role-playing games.

Second, the game itself. The core mechanics of BattleTech have remained remarkably intact for over 40 years. In a world where games are constantly rebooted, patched, streamlined, or gutted for new editions and marketing cycles, BattleTech is a white elephant. Buy a rulebook or a miniature in the ‘80s, and your game is still valid today. Still playable. Still awesome. That kind of long-term commitment to players and collectors is practically unheard of in the tabletop world. And here’s the kicker: as of 2025, BattleTech is the third-highest-grossing miniatures game in the world. Proof positive that you don’t need to screw over your fanbase with constant reinvention for a cash grab to make a living in the industry.

But honestly, those first two reasons are just icing on the cake. The real reason you should play BattleTech is this:

It’s a glorious, chaotic, beer-and-pretzels dice chucking tactical slugfest. A crunchy, customizable, story-driven war game where everything that can go wrong probably will — and that’s the fun of it. Yes, there’s tactical play, but this isn’t chess. This is a cinematic, slow-motion trainwreck of overheating engines, ammo explosions, critical hits, and desperate Hail Mary maneuvers. It’s a game where you feel the damage, as your mech gets carved apart limb by limb in a ballet of ballistic fire and reactor meltdowns.

Only one other game I’ve played, Warmachine, gets anywhere near the same granular feel of mechanized combat. Unfortunately, like most miniature games, the constant rule changes, reboots, and updates completely ruined Warmachine. Battletech has stayed the course and remains all about managing your loadout, balancing your heat, and watching as your prized war machine limps across the battlefield, missing an arm and trailing smoke. That’s peak drama. That’s BattleTech.

I love this game. Always have. It’s one of the few on my shelf where pieces I bought in the ‘80s can legitimately still hit the table, no updates needed, no strings attached.

Sadly, like many of my hipster gaming passions, BattleTech isn’t exactly mainstream in my circles. I rarely get to play these days. But if someone asked me to drop everything for a match?

Hell yes. I’d be there in a heartbeat.

Event Games – Western Empire (Advanced Civilization)
The original Avalon Hill version of this game was quite ugly, like many games back then, they lived in your imagination which was kind of the point of table top gaming in general.

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you already know War Room is one of my favorite event games. It doesn’t make the hipster list, though, mostly because I actually get to play it and I believe it to be a well-designed modern game, there is nothing hipster about it. My friends are kind enough to indulge me once a year (usually around my birthday), and while it’s big, bold, and unique, at the end of the day, it’s still an Axis & Allies descendant.

Now Western Empires, or as I still instinctively call it, Advanced Civilization, is hipster gaming royalty.

Shut up and sit down, I think did the best and most honest review of this game I have ever seen, flaws and all, but they their is one observation that they sort of failed to make which is that what they saw as flaws in the game from a gamers perspective are very intentionally designed features. It’s sort of like accusing Star Wars of having too many lightsabers.

I’ve talked about this game plenty before, and for good reason. It’s a sprawling, epic beast of a board game. Designed for a minimum of five players, though let’s be honest, it really wants nine (yeah you heard that right). Clocking in at a cool 12 to 15 hours, it’s less a game and more a full-day historical event. It is, without exaggeration, one of the hardest games to actually get to the table.

To put it in perspective, I haven’t played a live game of Advanced Civilization in over 20 years. Two decades. And yet, I’ve always kept a copy on my shelf. Just in case. Always hopeful that one day this one will get its moment in the sun.

At its core, Western Empires is a game of historical empire-building and economic maneuvering. There’s trading. There’s a touch of area control. Sometimes, it even pretends to be a war game. But really, it’s about managing the wild, unpredictable chaos of history. You stretch your reach, you push your luck, and you try to outmaneuver your rivals not with brute force, but with sharp wits and sharper tongues.

One of the biggest reasons this game rarely hits the table, aside from the sheer time investment and player count requirements, is that modern gamers often expect strategy games to reward clever, clean moves. Western Empires doesn’t care about your strategic brilliance. This is not a game of perfectly calculated efficiency. It’s a game of negotiation, adaptability, and psychological warfare. The best players aren’t the ones with the most optimal city placement, unit movement or strategic planning. They’re the ones who can read a room, spin a trade, and deliver a betrayal with a smile while staying the course of the inevitable and uncontrollable ups and downs of the game’s natural ebb and flow.

You don’t play the game, you play the players. That’s where the real magic is.

There’s really nothing else quite like it. The closest modern comparison might be Small World, and that’s a real stretch for a comparison, as it matches only some of the subtle nuances of mechanics. Western Empires occupies a weird, wonderful niche all on its own.

And that’s why it’s here, on the hipster list. I know full well this kind of game isn’t for everyone. Hell, it’s barely for anyone. Finding eight other souls who are all willing to commit an entire day to a relic of the 80s is an impossible task in most gaming circles. But if I ever found the right group, you better believe I’d make this a yearly tradition, right up there with War Room.

Quirky, chaotic, and criminally underplayed. That’s what the hipster list is all about.

Euro Games –

Miniature Games

When it comes to miniature games I would argue there are also quite a few different ways these games can be categorized, but I think a simple way to do it would be to split it between casual games and competitive games. It’s a broad, but it’s easy to distinguish way to do it. I would only add one third category, which I would call semi-miniature games, in which I would place miniature games that don’t have a miniature painting hobby component at all.

Casual – Warhammer 40k
40k is an all-encompassing hobby, stretching far beyond simply playing the game, and that is kind of the point of it. It’s a bit like loving Star Wars.

Ironically, in 2025, playing the most popular miniature game in the world might be the most hipster thing you can do.

Why? Because the moment Warhammer 40k comes up in conversation, it’s almost guaranteed someone will start rattling off a list of games that are “better in every way” and listing all the things that are wrong with 40k. And they’re not wrong, there are more balanced, more strategic, more thoughtfully designed games out there, lots of them. But sticking with something you know could be objectively replaced by a dozen superior alternatives? That’s peak hipster energy!

But let’s talk about the most fascinating part of the 40k experience: the community.

Across the globe, the Warhammer 40k community treats the game like a competitive titan, and to be fair, it is the largest and most active competitive tournament scene in all of tabletop gaming, by a long shot. The sheer scale of organized play is staggering.

And yet… Games Workshop, the company behind 40k, doesn’t seem to agree. At all.

To GW, Warhammer 40k is primarily a miniature line, secondarily a source of lore and novels, and somewhere far down the list, it’s technically a game. Their support for competitive play feels more like a reluctant nod to what the community chooses to do with their game, than a purposeful commitment or intent for it. The rules are often unbalanced, the game systems are regularly reworked or mismanaged, and it’s clear that game design is not what drives the brand. What we have here is a competitive community built on a system that was never meant to bear the weight of serious play. And somehow… it thrives on that very thing.

In a word, I would argue that Warhammer 40k is not a great competitive game, and when people trash-talk it, that’s really what they are talking about. But it’s a fantastic hobby and a super fun, casual experience, aka, exactly what it’s designed to be.

It’s a beer-and-pretzels dice-chucker in a gothic sci-fi shell, where the real joy comes from painting your army, crafting your own narrative, and then putting it all on the table to roll some dice and blow stuff up. The rules are often clunky, the strategy is there only to a point, but largely buried under layers of “smoke and mirrors.” Winning isn’t about mastering a perfect system, it usually comes down to how well you roll the dice.

And despite all that? I love it.

The mission system is genuinely dynamic, with flavorful objectives and varied scenarios that keep the game feeling fresh. The list-building is wide open, full of creative options and wild combos. But at its core, this is a casual game through and through, one that thrives on the atmosphere around the table and the lore on which it’s based, not in the pursuit of perfection of its gameplay.

Warhammer 40k is about collecting and painting miniatures, swapping war stories, and diving into the endless supply of pulpy, over-the-top lore of a universe where everything is grim, dark, and somehow still gloriously silly.

It’s a hobby. A vibe. A lifestyle, even. Flaws and all, I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.

Competative – Songs of Ice and Fire
I would argue that Songs of Ice and Fire the miniature game is the only rank and file miniature game ever made that actually works well as a game rather than a terrible history lesson about how boring war on the battlefield actually is.

I’ll be the first to admit: I don’t play A Song of Ice & Fire much these days. It’s had a rough road, marred by some truly questionable management decisions over the years and plagued with availability problems. But even with all that baggage, I still consider it one of the most compelling competitive miniature games out there.

This is very much a game that lives in the “I wish” category. I wish it had been better supported, wish it had stuck the landing in balance and they did it all much faster, and wish it still had a place at my table. There’s a part of me that’s still hopeful it’ll stabilize and find its footing again, maybe even make a comeback in my group.

I went in deep on this one. Despite its flaws, I found A Song of Ice & Fire to be one of the most engaging strategy games to hit the miniature scene since Star Wars: Armada. At its core is a genuinely smart design, layered list-building, unique unit interactions, and some fascinating sub-war game mechanics like the NCU board and tactical card play. When it clicked, it really clicked.

Except when it didn’t.

To be fair, most of the problems I ran into weren’t with the design itself — they were with the balance. And yes, you could argue that design and balance go hand in hand (and you wouldn’t be wrong), but I still think there’s a meaningful distinction. A game can be brilliantly designed but hampered by poor balancing decisions, one can be fine-tuned, the other is just a flaw. That’s A Song of Ice & Fire in a nutshell: great foundation, uneven execution.

Now, I haven’t kept up with the latest updates, so maybe things are better these days. But in my local scene, the damage was done, people moved on, and getting a game back into circulation after a group loses faith in it is no small feat.

And then, there’s the personal hurdle: painting.

This one’s tough for me. Being a mass army game, ASOIAF demands batch painting. Lots of similar models, unit after unit, rank after rank. And repetitive painting is my kryptonite. I just can’t stay motivated painting the same miniature ten times in a row. It sucks the joy out of the hobby for me, and ASOIAF is particularly brutal in that regard with no list building avoidance some games offer.

All that said? I still think this is a fantastic game. It deserves recognition. It’s competitive, it’s clever, and when it’s running smoothly, it offers a rich tactical experience that not many miniature games can match. That’s why it earns a spot on the hipster list, a flawed gem that still shines when the light hits just right.

That said… its time may be running out. Modern miniature design is evolving fast, and with games like Warcrow on the horizon, strong contenders are lining up to take this slot permanently.

The Most Fun – Star Wars: X-Wing
In my mind, Star Wars X-Wing is still one of the best miniature games ever made. PERIOD.

When talking about the miniature game hobby, there’s always one title that sparks debate, some say it barely qualifies as a miniatures game at all. I’m talking about X-Wing. And frankly, I don’t buy the skepticism. Slap those sleek ships onto a sprue and suddenly there’d be no doubt where it belongs.

Yes, it’s pre-painted. Yes, it’s more accessible than most. But that doesn’t disqualify it, it redefines the space. X-Wing was designed to walk the tightrope between a serious competitive game and a relaxed casual experience, and it succeeded. Brilliantly. This game brought three key advantages to the table that most miniature games either ignore or fail to execute well. And those three factors are why X-Wing stood tall in the market for years, even managing to shake Games Workshop out of its golden-era complacency.

First, the pacing. X-Wing matches are quick, typically 45 minutes. That’s practically warp speed in miniature gaming terms. It made the game ideal for tournaments and casual nights. You could run multiple matches in an evening, try out a bunch of new lists, and still have time to argue about who really shot first. There’s no hour-long rules refresh or setup slog—just “Hey, want to play?” and you’re in. That kind of approachability is rare in the hobby.

Second, it’s Star Wars. That’s not just thematic dressing—it’s a gateway. The brand brings in people who’ve never even looked twice at a miniature game. You don’t have to explain the appeal of piloting an X-Wing. You show someone the TIE Fighters screaming across the table, and they’re already halfway sold. I’ve never seen a non-gamer pick up Warhammer 40K on a whim. But X-Wing? That’s the one that brings in the curious, the casual, the movie fans, the dads and uncles and kids who just want to fly the Falcon.

Third, and maybe most importantly, X-Wing made high-level tactical play accessible. The rules were simple on the surface, but the depth was staggering. Movement planning, arc dodging, list synergies, action economy, there was real meat on those bones. You didn’t have to learn 200 pages of codex lore to be competitive. But if you wanted to go deep, the game rewarded you. It hit that perfect balance: easy to learn, hard to master.

X-Wing wasn’t just another miniatures game. It was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment in the hobby. It opened the door to a new audience, streamlined what was possible in design, and reminded the rest of the industry that a game could be both fast and deep, fun and tactical, cinematic and competitive.

Whether you play it today or remember it from its heyday, X-Wing deserves its place in the conversation, not just as a miniature game, but as one of the best games to ever grace a tabletop. In my personal opinion, its the single best miniature game that we have gotten in the 4 decades of I’ve been around.

Best Design – Star Wars Armada

When first announced, everyone thought that this would be X-Wing but with capital ships. It certainly looks the part, but Star Wars Armada is an entirely different and far heavier game that demanded a lot more from its audiance.

One final entry I’d like to sneak onto the hipster list—and I say this with as much objectivity as a subjective opinion can carry—is my pick for the best-designed miniature game out there.

To take this crown, a game has to meet a singular, uncompromising criterion: skill must reign supreme. Like chess, where grandmasters fall only to their peers, this kind of game leaves no room for chance to decide the victor. It must be a pure contest of mastery, where the dice are just accessories, not arbiters of fate. And in the world of miniatures, that game is Star Wars: Armada.

Sure, there are dice. But make no mistake, those little cubes only matter when two evenly matched minds clash. In Armada, outcomes are forged not by luck, but by foresight, precision, and relentless practice. It’s a game that rewards not just play, but study. The kind of study that turns casual fans into hardened tacticians.

But here’s where it gets really compelling: Armada doesn’t just test you on the battlefield. It demands mastery before the first ship even hits the table. The list-building is deep, nuanced, and packed with options that will make your head spin if you’re not ready for it. Understanding the shifting meta, anticipating counter-play, these are not fringe skills, they’re the bedrock of victory. The game is highly deterministic, which means your preparation matters as much, if not more, than your moment-to-moment decision-making at the table.

That it’s set in the Star Wars universe, with massive capital ships slugging it out in glorious slow-motion ballet? That’s just the sweet, sweet icing on a very dense, very intimidating cake. But fair warning: Armada is not a casual fling. It’s a demanding, often unforgiving beast that can feel downright brutal if you approach it half-heartedly. You don’t play Armada, you train for it, like a chess grandmaster gearing up for the championship board.

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, 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.

    Board Game Reviews

    Star Wars: Destiny By Fantasy Flight Games

    While I had initially passed on it, Star Wars Destiny the collectible card game landed in November 2016 with a bang on the gaming scene and its clear over the last year it has gained momentum globally.  It celebrated its 1st birthday in style, enjoying a top 5 spot on the ICV2 most sold collectible card game on our little blue planet.  While I have been slacking on reviews the last few months (work, life, etc.) and the result of a very RPG focused agenda, I could not ignore this one any longer, I had to take a closer look.     Destiny has enjoyed a very quick road to success as far as collectible card games go, though it should come to the surprise of no one given that FFG was behind it.

    It really just seems like Fantasy Flight Games doesn’t know how to fail and while it took some leg pulling to get me to shell out for a CCG (more on why that is later), I finally got behind the wheel, albeit belayed, to give this little Star Wars bird a thorough whirl.

    Overview

    Final Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star christmas_star(3.9 out of 5 Stars)

    Star Wars: Destiny is a classic formula for a CCG dueling game on the surface.  Two players build decks and face off against each other trying to knock the other out to win the game.  Like all FFG games however, Destiny takes the theme, in this case Star Wars and pushes it a bit closer to its roots.   By making it about special Star Warsy signature characters with special powers and throwing  the entire thing on its head by adding specialty dice the game entered into an entirely different CCG genre than most card games fall into.  While not a white elephant, the genre today is quite thin competition wise.

    The DCG (Dice Collectible Game) is a new genre that was only recently established, Destiny has really confirmed that this is going to be a thing now.

    We have seen this emerging genre before in games like Dice Masters (its primary competitor), which has also been very successful (enjoying the no 9 spot of top 10 collectible games on ICV2 as of this writing).  Star Wars Destiny however boasts a powerful IP, the stupidly high quality components and original art work of  FFG and two of the most successful designers at FFG Corey Konieczka and Lukas Litzsinger. Suffice to say, it has a lot going for it out of the gate.  Today we look under the hood of this year old stud and see if it earns all of its accolades.

    Components

    Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
    Tilt:christmas_star

    Pros:  High quality components made to last, dice in particular are extremely well done, awesome visual appeal that gets you in the mood.

    Cons:  The box and storage are poorly thought out, the extra storage binders sold separately are not a whole lot better leaving you on your own to find a storage solution.

    Star Wars: Destiny follows the very high standard that we have grown accustom to for games coming out of Fantasy Flight Games.  The card stock is the best you can get, the dice quality is amazing and the entire thing has a spit shine on it that will get you excited to play with the pieces.

    It wouldn’t be Star Wars without a good Darth Vader card, FFG has done a great job with the art enhancing the experience and confirming that they are the best in the business.

    The dice deserve particular mention here, I already mentioned Dicemasters which is the only point of reference in this rather small genre, but by comparison, Destiny blows it out of the water, it may just have the best dice I have ever seen in a dice game or any game for that matter.  The dice are big, colorful, clear and of the absolute highest quality.  They are a joy to roll, just the feel of them in your hand is going to get your gamer juices flowing. Compared to Dicemasters which, well lets just say it, was a big disappointment component wise, FFG really invested in Destiny’s signature component and it shows.

    I love the fact that FFG understands what is important to gamers, if you are going to make a dice game, make sure the dice kick ass!

    If there was any disappointment for me it was in the packaging, which I consider a “none review-able” item in terms of scoring a game, but I’m going to bitch about it anyway.  The absence of a storage solution will annoy you.   Booster packs are obviously a “rip them open” situation, which is fine, but there really is no good “box” to put your stuff in when it comes to Destiny.  The two player box has a very flimsy box that rips easily, which won’t last and it uses the side opening boxes all gamers loathe as do the pre-built expansion decks.  While the plastic casing inside was pretty good, giving you a place to put some of your dice and perhaps some hope of a solution to store some what you will ultimately collect, quite simply after opening the game and opening some boosters I was left with a mess of cards and dice with no where to put them.

    The dice binders sold separately by FFG are pretty, but the design was poorly thought out.

    FFG does offer Dice Binders, which would have been great even if sold separately, but I found the choice of being able to store 40 dice but only 44 cards only further fueling my frustration.  Basically a single deck has 10-14 dice in it, while having exactly 30 cards.  The binder is way too big for a single deck of dice, but far too small to have more than 1 deck because a lack of card storage.  It’s not a terribly smart accessory, leaving everyone trying to scramble and figure out an alternative storage solution.  It’s kind of lame enough to put things in a non-reusable box, but offering a pointless accessory is pouring lemon juice on the wound.  Suffice to say I was pretty disappointed, but luckily this component has nothing to do with the quality of the game so I mention it more out of frustration than any impact on the games score.

    Theme

    Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
    Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

    Pros: Fantastic artwork, quotable cards and familiar characters will delight the senses and give you that Star Wars feeling.

    Cons:  Some might find the blending of eras and lack of cannon annoying, for the record, I do not.

    The big advantage of using a big IP like Star Wars is that once you throw some pictures of Darth Vader on the cover, you already have a built in following to the theme.  When I judge a games theme however I’m trying to make a connection between the setting and the mechanics.  Does the theme influence the mechanics and shine through while you play, does it fuel the imagination or impact your sense of the experience, is there some sort of concept of time and place, does it tell a story through play.  All of those things help to enhance a game and are important if you are buying into a game hoping to get some replication of the Star Wars universe.  Does Destiny provide this?

    The short answer is yes and no.  Its not exactly what I would call a storytelling experience.  The combinations can get pretty weird as the entirety of the Star Wars universe is blended into a single game.  You will see content from the Phanthom Menance, the old trilogy, the new trilogy, the cartoon and a bunch of stuff you probably have never heard of unless you are a die hard consumer of everything Star Wars.  While it maintains what I would call “The Star Wars feeling”, there really isn’t a sense of a story, time or place, but rather a kind of scramble of everything into a single game.  Now I would imagine most people will not really care, but the first time I built a deck I had Nute Gunray, Boba Fett and a Tie Pilot all in the same deck and that is only a slightly weird combination in terms of what is possible.  If your sense of cannon is easily offended and throws off your sense of Star Wars continuity, this game will abuse that to all hell as you mix and match characters, equipment and locations from pretty much every source and era of the Star Wars universe to make your decks.

    Quotable cards like this, paired up with great art will put a smile on your face, but the effects don’t always connect mechanically to the theme.

    To me personally this was more a quirk than a problem, everything in the game is definitively Star Wars and belongs in the theme as a whole and the whole concept of trying to maintain cannon in a CCG is far fetched anyway.  The theme shines largely through the fact that every card in the game is universally quotable and as a Star Wars fans playing cards like “He doesn’t like you” instantly takes me back to the movies.  That with the amazing art, is more than enough to give Star Wars: Destiny a well deserved passing grade.  Its very clear that the designers of the game were Star Wars fans.

    If you are looking for a more thematic experience, one in which the cards mechanics are linked up to a thematic story and experience, I would venture to guess Destiny is probably not that game.  While it certainly houses Star Wars as an IP under one roof, its really more of a game about gameplay than trying to accomplish some sort of thematic tale of events, for that you might need to seek out the Star Wars LCG.  Even there however I think you would find that there is a general blending of “everything”, as this is really how most card games are, this one is no different.

    Gameplay

    Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
    Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

    Pros: Streamlined, easy to teach, easy to learn mechanic. Robust card pool with a wide range of deck building options make this dueling game a winner.

    Cons: It’s a small game with big investment requirements, in particular if you plan to compete.  Casual players should approach with caution.

    I think without argument when it comes to dueling card games, gameplay is without question the single most important element that needs to be done right for it to be successful, a moot point when one does a review of an already successful game, but none the less.  For any collectible games unfortunately there are many external factors that can really affect the gameplay experience,  in particular ones like Destiny that use the random booster concept.  While I won’t dwell here, I will say that I prefer the now well establish FFG Living Card standard which alleviates a lot of the anxiety and potential gameplay or balance issues randomness and investment differential can create.  When buying into a CCG this really comes with the territory and in many ways is an extension of the games “pre-game” deck building concept.  I will talk a bit more about my feelings about the CCG concept later, but let’s first talk about the gameplay in general.

    Center stage in a CCG is always going to be deck building. Great thing about Destiny is you can grab a card, see what it does and immediately go off on a tangent on potential ways to build an entire deck around it.

    On the positive side, the mechanics of the game itself and how it incorporates dice in particular is really well thought out here.  Destiny is a very tight and streamlined game, cutting out a lot of the nonsense of old school CCG’s like the “I can’t do anything” turns or “Mana screwed” issues, or “not enough cards dilemma”.  All that is eliminated and in a fashion that is both fair, consistent and reliable.  Each turn from the first to the last round is going to have you contemplating your plays one action at a time, rather than complaining about some shitty game state you find yourself in.  There is always something you can do, in fact, most of the time there are hard choices and tactical decisions that you must choose between which really fuels both deck building (the pre-game, game) and the constant re-assessment of the in progress game.  There is constant tension throughout, your always trying to solve some puzzle at every stage of the game.  You are rarely out of options.

    I especially liked the fact that there are very few “no result” dice results, which is great given its a dice game and a part of your success will be affected by how well your roll.  You might not always get what you want and depending on how you built your deck you may or may not have things to control your dice, but because you can discard a card to re-roll dice and most dice generally have only positive results (something), your getting benefit from them most of the time in some way.  Its interesting as well how despite a pretty massive card pool, each card/dice combination brings something new to the table.  There are no “bad” cards really that I found, there are just cards that are clearly designed with certain types of deck builds in mind.  Sure, one can say that clearly some cards are more competitive than others, you will of course see the emergence of a meta where certain cards see more play.  That said however I found that when I zeroed in a character, a piece of equipment or even a certain mechanic, there was a deck waiting to be built out of it.  This creative pre-game deck building element of CCG’s in general is arguably one of the most addictive parts of the game, though your collection will dictate how much flexibility you have here and unfortunately this will also affect how balanced your experience will be.

    The point here however is that there is a lot of design space when it comes to deck building assuming a robust collection and let’s face it, when it comes to card games like Destiny or really any collectible game, even miniatures, the concept of list building or deck building is a game in its own right.  You will spend countless hours contemplating “builds” and when discussing the game you will always be talking about it in terms of deck building.  This is part of the fun and really part of the gameplay of Destiny, trying to find that perfect combination of cards and tactics to win more than you lose.  On a competitive level you’re always working on trying to outsmart the meta and in a sense in competitive play I imagine this becomes an entire new level of gameplay where you know what people will play and your trying to build decks that can beat those decks.  This stacking of concepts gives Destiny many layers of game to explore but aiming to play competitively isn’t going to be the only driver to trying to find that perfect deck combination.  Its a built in feature of the game, serious, casual, competitive or not, you are going to be trying to build the best decks you can.

    On a ground level there is much to like about Destiny but my favorite really has to be the hero design.  Each hero card has a two costs, a one die cost and a two die cost.  With only 30 points to spend on heroes, it means you are not going to have this “put the best you have in a deck” approach.  The cost is a huge limiting factor ensuring the most powerful heroes come with the drawback of limiting who you can partner them up with.  This tender balance is well done and while their are certainly some pretty great combination that formulate the competitive meta, the game really isn’t won or lost on heroes alone.  The deck you build that supports them is far more critical, in particular the equipment that brings in additional dice.  A seemingly innocent 10 point hero can be turned into an unstoppable machine of death with the right combination of gear and this both plays into the strategy of the deck building and the tactics at the table.  This all in turn helps to bring that tightness of play to the game.  Contemplating the possibility feels endless, even with a small investment you will discover countless combinations to try out, driving both the addiction to collect and to play.

    Its unfortunate however that to get the most out of pretty much every hero you will need to collect both dice for him.  The way the cost works out, if you buy 1 die for say 11 points, getting the second one might only cost you 3 or 4 points more.  Hence building decks with heroes for who you don’t have 2 dice for is extremely inefficient and doing so will definitely result in a sub-optimal deck that in turn will affect your rate of success in particular when facing more optimized 4 dice, dual hero decks.  This makes collecting a sizable collection that much more important to deck building and in general to your success in the game.

    You have already spent 12 points on a character with 1 die and it will cost you 4 more to get the other die. It’s clearly the optimal decision but you can’t make it if you don’t have a second copy which puts you into that awkward space of either making a sub-optimal build or simply not use the card.

    Many cards have zero cost, or are low cost, which means your success isn’t really driven by resource availability during a round entirely.  In fact you will spend most rounds with very few resources or sometimes even none and it does not prevent you from participating aggressively in the events of the round.  I love the fact that the game goes back and forth with each player getting a single action you, the end result is that you always have an opportunity to respond to the changing state of the game based on your opponents last play.   This fuels the game tactically as it ensures that while you can plan, you must constantly adjust.  Pulling off those deadly combos isn’t just a matter of fact, there is a counter to everything both in terms of cards you can field in your deck but also what order you make your plays, the timing of them and of course the always important results of the dice.  Battlefileds are also a part of the overall strategy of the game and can sometimes offer significant advantage to getting your timing right.  All this amounts to a consistently interesting and ever changing state of affairs on the table.   You might have a plan, a player takes one action and you find yourself completely re-assessing the entire round.  Things turn on a dime and I absolutely love that.

    In short, the game-play is absolutely fantastic from a mechanical stand point, you have a lot of control over your destiny making this without question one of the most aptly named games in the FFG lineup.

    There are low cost, 1 die cards like this one, but these are clearly meant to be paired up with the more expensive heroes, suffice to say 3 die decks are not completely out of the question and certainly designed into the game as an option.

    A big part of your success in any match is going to be in the pre-game deck building, really a game in its own right and a core part of CCG’s in general.  You have a lot of choices to make here including which characters to use, what equipment, upgrades and support cards to add to your deck which in turn defines what dice you will have available in the course of the game and of course the all important event cards which is really where much of your subtle strategy comes from.   In many ways this is also the flaw of the CCG model because what cards you have available is a limiting factor of your collection, one that is largely randomly done through the booster concept.  Its particularly a problem when you are on a tight budget and you find yourself facing opponents with a more flexible income.  This differential can and probably will create some imbalances.  You might not have those 2 dice heroes, so you may find yourself facing 4 dice vs. your 2 or 3 from your limited collection and that is a major unbalance in the games structure.  In fact I found even after buying all of the starter packs and 2 of the big booster boxes I only have  5 heroes for who I have 2 dice, significantly reducing not only what parts of my collection I can make but in particular what types of decks I can make that are optimized.  Most of my decks are made up of 3 heroes 3 dice, simply because I have no other option and when facing a 4 dice deck I’m at a pretty severe disadvantage.

    Suffice this is just part of the CCG model, for better or worse.  The question of course is, should this affect the games score and the answer is a simple no.  I can’t count being a CCG against a game if a CCG is exactly what it intends to be.  It’s a collectible game, collecting is part of the game, an expensive part and if you think that’s unfair than you should definitely skip this game, but it does not make Destiny any less of a game.  Mechanically speaking I have to rate the game with the assumption that I have the entire collection and in that capacity this is a fantastic game.

    The caveat for me in the model is the 2 dice hero model balance of the game.  Essentially the game is designed on 30 points worth of heroes, however the average cost of a 1 die hero is about 8-12, and the average cost of a second die for the same hero is 3-5.  This means that if you spend points for 1 die of a hero, if you don’t buy the second die you have locked your deck into being a 3 die deck in all but the rarest circumstance with no way to work out the math any differently.  This creates an inherent problem with how collecting works, but more importantly it impacts greatly the global balance of the game where effectively a player who has a set of 2 die heroes of every sort will always be able work out decks to have 4 dice, but a person who does not have 2 dice heros to work with will be locked into the less optimal 3 die decks constructed from either 2 or 3 heroes.

    To me the decision to balance the game this way hurts it. Only including 1 die in a booster, not to mention making all heroes “rare” or “legendary” at the least means that you will struggle to make use of your collection even if its fairly robust.  I for example don’t have any 2 die yellow (good guy) heroes in my collection which means all yellow hero (good guy) cards are effectively not used at all unless I want to play with a sub-par, 3 die decks which frankly after a few frustrating efforts I know well enough that it’s just not fun.   The disadvantage is too great against a 4 die deck.  Effectively these 3 die types of decks feel incomplete and can create a frustrating experience to say the least when facing a player who has a complete 4 hero deck.

    I think this pain point is significant enough to affect the score of the game, to me, this is more a design decision problem than a CCG model problem.  Grant it, it can be overcome through collecting but personally I think there is a limit to how much a CCG model should impact the balance of a game based on collecting and how much a CCG model can demand before you can make use of your collection.  I would say right now, after 200 dollars spent, perhaps 10% of my collection is viable to be used in a deck thanks to this awkward hero/die pairing issue.  Most of the cards I can’t use are great and I would love to use them but the lack of the 2 dice hero pairings I need to do so means I have to build those less effective 3 dice decks. After a fair amount of testing it’s abundantly clear to me that 4 dice vs. 3 dice is more than just a disadvantage, it’s a serious unbalance, its not game breaking but not easy to ignore either.  In short, you need the pairings, its really not an option in most cases.

    Still, from a stand

    Replay-ability and Longevity

    Score: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star
    Tilt: christmas_starchristmas_starchristmas_star

    Pros: The robust nature of CCG’s combined with FFG’s commitment to the product means this game likely has a long and bright future ahead of it.

    Cons: To really get the full experience you are going to have to dive knee deep into this, with a constant push to expand your collection driving your replaybility.

    The really nice thing about collectible card games is that we can generally rely on the publisher to continue to put out expansion after expansion for their game, in particular with FFG.  This in its own right gives Destiny a huge advantage in this category as we know it will be heavily expanded.  For CCG’s, expansion is also one of the most important categories as decks get old, cards get old and you are always going to be chasing a refresher.

    There are a great many unique and interesting event cards that can significantly alter how events play out in the course of a game.  Much of the longevity of this game will rely on FFG constantly creating new cards that continue in this tradition.

    Still lets assume for a second you don’t make a major investment in the game, how much can you replay that same 2 player starter deck before it gets boring and loses its polish.  The answer is more than you expect, but probably not enough. Considering the two player box is 30 bucks retail, I would say you get considerable bang for your buck, but CCG’s like Destiny beg to be expanded, its assumed you will deck build and it really is about finding new and clever ways to beat your opponents.  I think the 2 player set is a nice, cheap way to find out if you like the game, but in the end unless you expand your replay-ability is going to be fairly limited.

    Personally after a few plays I was ready to start deck building and needed cards to do it with.  I think I got the 2 player set, played 4 or 5 times and ordered 2 booster boxes in the same week.   I managed to get it on a discount but by the time I was done ordering stuff I was a good 200 bucks into it.  The question now is how far will this take me?  The answer is not nearly as far as I had hoped.  Part of the problem is the dependency on 2 dice hero pairings.  As mentioned before after 200 bucks I still don’t have pairings for the vast majority of my heroes, in some cases entire sections of the game, for example I don’t have 2 dice for yellow heroes so my yellow hero cards really don’t have a home in any decks right now.  That was disappointing.   Suffice to say you will need to collect, trade and/or buy off the 3rd party markets to really get that replay-ability and deck construction possibilities going that this game is capable of and that is going to be a significant investment of your time and money.

    Each time you add to your card and dice pool you are going to see worlds opening, new deck possibilities, new approaches and in turn more replay-ability.  Really this is typical of collectible games, their longevity generally relies on expanding your collection and Destiny is no different, but in my opinion its far more difficult to do with Destiny, due to the way the model is setup.

    In general though I think the replay-ability is very good, there are significant variations in the different sets and new mechanics are introduced in each set that shake things up and refresh certain elements of the game opening up the reusing of cards you might have previously overlooked.  I also think with each new set the 3 hero, 3 dice combinations become more viable and competitive than before.  I noted that when building decks “digitally” with online deck builders with cards I don’t have yet I was able to construct some 3 dice, 3 hero decks that I believe would be a significant challenge for a 2 hero 4 dice deck.  Suffice to say I think some of these collection vs. balance issues can be resolved through mixing the sets and opening the door to more ways to replay the game.

    I have high hopes for the longevity of the game, but CCG’s need to establish large card pools for that longevity to really stick.  Destiny remains a question mark in that department, I’m not 100% sure how far I will take the game, but certainly FFG is going to tempt me with the constant expanding.  I think Destiny has a bright future for the dedicated player.

    Conclusion

    Star Wars: Destiny is a challenging, varied and robust game that takes this genre to an entirely new level.  Its got the chops to be a great competitive game and its design streamlined to a point of near perfection.  It really is an absolutely fantastic game.

    Unfortunately it’s CCG model not only comes with the standard economic trappings and overhead of a collectible game but is burdened by a core balance issue if you are not fully committed.  If you want to make reasonably competitive decks, even more so than typical CCG’s, you are going to have to invest heavily, perhaps more so than other CCG’s out there.

    I would say for experience CCG players looking for their next challenge this is definitely one you should not pass up, but for casual gamers I think this is one to skip.  The 2 player game is too limited and getting into it uncommitted is going to be disappointing.  Its an all or nothing game in my humble opinion.

    What Makes It Tick

    Star Wars Armada: What Makes It Tick Part III

    Wave 5 is here and what a fantastic wave it is. Not only did we get the usual new ships & new squads but this wave brings with it Corellian Conflict a new campaign mode for Armada that breathes new life to Star Wars Armada in an epic way.

    In Todays What Makes It Tick I will be picking up Star Wars Armada about two waves since my last article and while I could bore you with the reasons why I haven’t been playing, the reality is that with the last couple of waves the game has been reborn and I’m excited about it again. Today I will be talking about some of the more controversial and interesting cards to come out in recent waves. Enjoy!

    Bomber Command Center
    Coming out of the Imperial Assault Carriers and Rebel Transports expansion packs Bomber Command Center has become the new hotness in competitive meta proving itself at the Star Wars Armada World Champion in 2016 in which both the 1st and 2nd place lists made heavy use of the card. If there is any card you must be prepared to deal with in the Meta in 2017 it’s definitely this one.

    The debates over whether or not this cards effect should be stack-able have raged for a while, but officially at this moment the answer is, yes it does stack.

    There are so many advantages and ways to leverage this card but the best, most common and perhaps most effective way is to simply spam the shit out of it. While it counts as a “Fleet Support Upgrade Card” limiting it to the Assault Carriers and Rebel Transports, truth is, even if it wasn’t it would still likely be the meta to put them on those ships anyway. These are some cheap, disposable ships that can actually be pretty hard to blow up and as such in most matches they are largely ignored ensuring that Bomber Command Centers remain in play and you are able to leverage them throughout the match.

    The ability to re-roll black bomber squad dice is nothing short of overwhelmingly powerful thanks to the dices ability to roll hit/crit results. When running two or three of these ships, not only do you gain an activation advantage thanks to having more ships on the table then your opponent but the effect stacks allowing you to reroll your bomber squad attacks multiple times. Not to mention having disposable fleet blockers. The advantages here vs. the point cost to put them on the table can only be described as dirt cheap.

    Cheap with a scatter and capable of some potent upgrades like Slicer Tools and Bomber Command Center, the new transports are a force multiplier that has changed the competitive meta in a big way.

    We saw this effect in the world championship final bout this year and there is no question in how deadly this combination is. Flying 8 Y-Wings (80 points!) protected by Intel and some escorts with 3 bomber command centers and what you end up with is a fleet of squads that can practically guarantee 8 hits & 8 Crits every single bloody round. Sure there is the logistics of making sure everything is exactly where it should be during the course of a match. While the pro’s make that look easy, believe me that it’s not that simple, but suffice to say in the right hands this Bomber Command Center supported by a fleet of Bomber based squads is a deadly combination no capital ship can withstand.

    Consider the base for the list.

    3 Rebel Transports (GR-75 Medium)+ Bomber Command Centers = 78 Points
    8 Y-Wings + 2 HWK – 290 = 104 Points

    Your base list is effectively 182 with 218 points left to fill out the list.

    That base combo is already deadly in its own right, but imagine now throwing in Commander Sato or as the world champion did General Dodonna. It really is brutality unleashed, the potential for damage from this very cheap base is staggering. You would be hard pressed to combine 182 points into something that could unleash that many dice with so many re-rolls and because the dice are scattered over 8 separate rolls, capital ship defense are rendered useless against them.

    I would personally advise not spamming Transports, really, one command center is plenty.  The black die is pretty dependable, if you happen to roll a blank once, you aren’t likely to do it twice in a row.  Having a single command center, maybe two should be more than sufficient.  The pro’s might not agree with me, but I work under the assumption that we aren’t all pros, I’m certainly not.  For me, its better to get more effects, ships and squads on the board then it is to put all my eggs in one basket.

    Now we could talk about how fantastic this combination is but the truth is that whether you are going to use it, or face it, you need to know how it unravels. How do you deal with such a list and combination of effects? Well that was a question many tried to answer and failed during the World Championship, but I do believe there are a couple of things that could ultimately challenge a list with this base.

    One thing I can say upfront is that you can’t ignore the Y-Wings or really any bomber spam. That just simply won’t work, not unless you plan to stay out of the fight entirely. But unlike the classic Rhymer Ball, you can outmaneuver the slow moving Y-Wings and more importantly leverage the fact that the Transports themselves, while sturdy for their size and point cost can be rendered defenseless with a couple of new upgrades we got in recent waves as well as some old rarely used upgrades. Blowing them up early is the key as without the squadron support and re-rolls, Y-Wings are considerably less effective and can be rendered useless through some clever maneuvering. That however is easier said then that as typically the squads are placed up front so anything that wants to shoot at the transports is going to have to deal with the fighter/bombers leading the battle.

    You’ll be seeing a lot more of this one, in particular on ships that are black die focused. Getting accuracies has become vital in the modern competitive meta post wave 4.

    For the Rebels a good place to start is the MC30 (Torpedo Frigate) with  H9 Turbolasers. This all but assures that when firing at an Assault Carrier or Rebel Transport that you are going to be able to squash that Scatter and mop up those 3 points of hull in one swift round. Two would be even better. Strategies will naturally vary but you aren’t going to one to come up the front and you probably want to make your opponent split his attention. You definitely don’t want to do what the 2nd place holder did during the championship and go up the front in some vein hope that you can survive the bombings. You won’t, there isn’t a ship in the entire game no matter how you equip it that can withstand 8 bombers shooting at it especially when they can re-roll those black dice multiple times.

    The same is true for the Imperials, though it’s worth pointing out that as deadly as this combination is in a rebel list, with a Rhymer ball and bomber based list, a similar list for the Imperials can be as deadly if not deadlier thanks to the range advantage not to mention that Imperial ships are cheaper. So of course while you could counter with Gladiators in a similar fashion as the MC30’s, one way to counter a bomber list like this would be to have your own.

    The main strategy at the base of it is to get rid of those support ships with Bomber Command and the best way to do it is to ensure you have at least one accuracy to get rid of its main protection which is the scatter.  This probably explains are worlds champions reasoning behind using 3 Transports with bomber command, he knows that little 18 point transport is the key to his list so he tripled down to make sure he always has those re-rolls.

    Suffice to say though this is all very theoretical, as the world champion proved during the competition this year, it is much easier said than done. It’s a very strong meta list and flown well it can put out considerable damage.

    Many would argue that Bomber Command Centers are overpowered but keep in mind that they are 8 points which is on the high end in terms of upgrades and they currently must be placed on very soft ships that can quickly and easily be dispatched. Since the strategy is so heavily based on these support ships, you have a very obvious weak point to target.

    The new expansion offers us a number of new options but the E-Wing with snipe is finally an answer to those annoying “Intel” based ships.

    One other thing to keep in mind is that a heavy anti-squadron based list that can quickly overwhelm the Intel and escorts is also a good option.  Especially in the form of A-Wings and now with E-Wings.  Good anti-squadron is always a good choice in a list as has always been the case for facing heavy bomber lists, but Y-Wings in particular are quite tough and can often win squad based fights so it’s important that your anti-squad suppression is well thought out and preferably using the “Counter” keyword. Don’t presume Y-Wings in particular are easy to kill, they do pretty ok in dog fights in large numbers and have the hull points to outlast in big fights, in particular with an opponent who will be highly motivated to get them back on their bombing run making use of heavy anti-fighter fire from their capital ships.

    A-Wings remain a very cheap anti-squadron solution, the ultimate in shutting down heavy bomber lists for the rebels.

     

    Rapid Launch Bays

    Another widely discussed card that just entered the frey in Wave 5, discussed not so much for its potential effects on the meta, but more in regards to what the card actually does. Arguably the most poorly worded card in Armada to date, it’s difficult to decipher how it actually works, but today we are going to try.

    So let’s look at the wording here.

    Poorly worded cards like this makes things difficult, in particular right after release when your trying to run competitive tournaments without the clarity of a FAQ.

    The first part I think is quite clear. You effectively set ships aside so that you can deploy them during the match. This in its own right creates a lot of opportunity for exploiting interesting tactics, namely bringing slow moving ships into the fight. There are many slow squads in the game that often have trouble getting into position and this card addresses that issue by not only getting them to the battlefield but keeping them protected (un-targetable) while in the safety of their carrier ship.

    The tricky wording in the second section of the card is where all the discussion comes from.

    There are three points of contention here.

    First is the “you would activate with this command”. The second is the word “Instead” and finally the last part “It cannot move this activation”.

    There are really two ways you can read this. The first is that since the card says “For each squadron you would activate with this command you may instead.. do x and y”. This suggests that this is a special action, not governed by the rules of activation. Meaning that the squadron comes into play “not activated”. Allowing you to simply put it into play and set it up for future activation’s.

    The card follows up with “It cannot move this activation” which is perhaps the most confusing element of the card. What activation is it talking about? The ship activation or the squad activation. If it’s the squad activation this suggests the exact opposite, that the ship is activated, but it simply cannot move, hence it can attack according to standard activation rules.  Keep in mind that standard rules always apply when their is no specific exception given on a card. If it’s a ship activation on the other hande, it suggest that its not activated but since its not, you should with another squad command point you be able activate the ship and attack, but still can’t move.

    The general two questions here are, is it activated and if so while we know it can’t move, can it shoot? That’s the big debate. Activated or not and can it shoot or not.

    The answer is at best inconclusive and it has been so far ruled in a number of different ways, though none of them official by FFG. While an explanation is sure to come at some point, for our house games and in particular if you are running a tournament we still need to answer this question.

    My general sense of the card is that in the last part where it mentions “It cannot move this activation” is a reference to the ship activation, not squad activation. The logic here is that the spending of your squad command points during the activation can be split up, some of the points going to activating squads normally and others using Rapid Launch Bay.

    I think it’s best to see it in action with an example.

    Lets say you have an Assault Frigate with 3 squad points and a squad token that has 2 B-Wings stashed away using Rapid Launch Bays.

    The slow moving B-Wing suffers greatly as a result of its slow speed, rapid launch bays addresses that problem.

    You activate the ship and reveal a squad command. Now its time to spend the points. You spend the first two points to put out your B-Wings in distance 1 of the carrier. They are not activated, this is all you can do with those two points, however you of course have 2 points remaining (one from the command and one from the squad command token). You now activate your B-Wings using your remaining two points, now since it’s still the same ship activation you can’t move them, but you can attack, so if you had ships in range you can attack with the B-Wings.

    I believe this is the intent of the card, now of course this is not official and some including myself would argue that in the last part of the wording of the card it could be referring to squad activation which would suggest that you could use a single squad point to put out a B-Wing, activate it and attack (but not move). However I would argue that if this was true, this card would be stupidity over powered at only 6 points. You could in this case have 4 B-Wings stashed away, put them all out and attack with all 4 of them in a single action, with Extended Hanger Bays and a squad token you could do this with 5 B-Wings. Throw in command centers and you’re talking about a card that would completely redefine how the game is played. Even in the first scenario this is a very powerful effect but in the second scenario it’s just way out of hand. While you might be able to argue the translation, it would be hard to justify the power of this card in the scope of the game and its ultimately because of the question of balance, I believe the card will likely be ruled as our first example not our second.

    Currently in most tournaments, including local regionals the first scenario is being used, it’s what I would recommend you use until the official FAQ is released.

    Rebel Pelta Class Command Ship

    The Command version offers 3 squad command and a offensive retrofit, setting it up to be a focused support ship.

     

    The Assault version gives us red/black dice with 2 anti-squadron fire and a ordinance slot, making this a more shooty support ship.

    Ok so let’s talk a bit about the new ship, specifically the Pelta Class Command Ship which is definitely the one I’m personally most eager to try. Finally we have joining the world of Armada a proper pure support ship that can affect the battle field on a global level. Now we have had quasi support ships in the past like a Redemption, Projection Experts fitted Nebulon-B or the more recent Rebel Transport with Bomber Command Centers, but the Pelta is different. It has no range qualification for its Fleet Command slot as  these global effect driven cards simply require the spending of a token.  In that little slot a lot of magic can happen opening an entirely new world of options for list building. This however is just one small part of the Pelta.

    The first thing you might miss, but is important to note is the 4 engineering on a small ship. This is important because this ship will largely want to stay out of big fights and given its slow speed and maneuverability, being able to take a licking and keep on ticking is important when those flankers show up. 4 engineering means 2 shields each round without any special tokens or support and given its 3 on the front, 2 on the side and 1 on the back configuration and the fact it has 3 defense tokens (Brace, Re-direct and Evade), this is a sturdy ship with good recovery for its class. No one is going to come around and just melt it like they would easily do with a Nebulon-B fitted the same way.

    More importantly it has a Support Team slot which means it can make use of Projection Experts when it’s not being shot at, sharing the wealth and further qualifying it as a proper support ship.

    The fact that is boasts an Offensive Retrofit might have you scratching your head but thanks to gear like Phylong Q7 Tractor Beams, Rapid Launch Bays and Engine Techs you have serious versatility in choosing this ships role and capabilities.

    Now the cost on this ship can get crazy quickly and you probobly don’t want to try to combine too many effects on it.  Its best chose to serve a very specific role, though more than any other ship in the game, its role can very dramatically depending what upgrades you put on it.  I think its for this reason more than any other that I’m already in love with the ship.

    This is largely an untested ship though and so its honeymoon period may be short but it’s not hard to see the benefits of cards like Shields to the Maximum, All fighters follow me and Entrapment Formation. With no range requirements you have what amounts to the first truly global effect on the battlefield able to reach everyone always. You can effectively build entire lists around these core concepts and that in its own right I believe will be well worth the investment but the truth is that unless a ship can fight or add something to a fight on its own its usually not worth putting into most lists.

    Spending a engineering token to give every ship in your fleet one free shield for 6 points is a fantastic trade off, especially in a game where every shield point counts.

    Thankfully for that purpose we have the Assault version of the ship, a far more shooty version that one can draw comparisons to the Gladiator.  In the assault version you gain an ordinance slot that can be leverage to throw in some additional fire power while still offering the core support features of the Pelta.  For the aggressive minded player this is a fantastic alternative to the more focused command version.

    Some Musings

    I truly believe that much of what has come out in Wave 5 is geared more towards the new campaign mode in mind than 400 vs. 400 point pitched matches and I believe the Pelta is one of those elements. Consider that Shields to the Maximum for example affects all “friendly” ships. That includes your allies when doing an all-out offensive during the campaign. So suddenly the impact of that command ship is even on a grander scale!

    Its more than just the ship though.  In the campaign mode you are always thinking about the war, not just the individual battles.  You are also always thinking about the survival of your different ships and squads and as such you are likely going to be looking at upgrades and list selections very differently.  Equipment like Rapid Launch Bays can protect squadrons and offer you a choice as to when and even if you really want to risk them in a particular battle.    The choices and reasoning behind making them are going to change in the campaign and I believe a lot of what we got in wave 5 supports that.

    My point is that I can’t say for certain that things like Rapid Launch Bays for example will be a thing in the competitive meta in 2017, but you can definitely expect to see them in the campaign as its clear the uses there are more defined.

    That’s it for today’s article, hope you found something useful in it.  Fly Safe!