BGG Top Games – 1301 Through 1400

Sorry to break the “weekly” routine, but other posts needed to happen last week.

But hey, at least it’s Sunday!

Ok, that’s part of the next week, but still

It’s time for another look through the Boardgame Geek top game rankings, this time in the 1301-1400 range.

How about adding a link to the list, unlike previous installments!

Here’s the link to this batch of games, though keep in mind that it could very well have changed by the time you look at it.

One thing notable about this sequence of 100 games is that there are a lot of COIN games (Counter-Insurgency, a GMT staple).

And none of them that I’ve played (well, kinda).

The inspiration for this list came from the This Game is Broken podcast, where they did a “Higher & Lower” segment based on games ranked from 1000-2000.

I decided to look at each century and see what I’ve played, what I’ve reviewed, and what I might want to play.

As I mention above, keep in mind that this list can change over time, so if you look at this in a year or two, some of these games may not be on there.

They may have moved up, or they may have moved down.

Or they may have removed themselves in disgust, but hopefully not.

As far as games I own and have played, I have only played ten of them (smaller than ever!) and I own (or have owned) seven.

A small group, so this post may be dominated by games I want to play instead.

With all of that, let’s begin!

There is nothing on this list that I’ve played where I would say it’s an outstanding game.

There are definitely some good ones, though!

And some that I want to give another try because they are highly-regarded and I just felt “eh” in my only play.

The cornerstone of that one is Calimala (#1320)

This one is very highly regarded, and I might share the same opinion of it.

One day.

My first (and only) play of it was at 5 players and it was so chaotic that I’m not sure that’s the best player count.

The scoring system is really interesting and the action selection system is cool too.

The actions you can take are randomly laid out on the action grid.

You place your worker between two of the actions and you can do both of them.

Depending on how the actions are distributed, they may be related or may not be!

The cool thing is that when you place a worker, any other player’s worker that is there can also do the same thing.

When you place the fourth worker on the stack, that triggers the next scoring tile and the bottom worker is placed on the scoring grid.

The scoring tiles are also put out in random order, though you do know ahead of time in what order different areas will score.

With a lot of players, it’s pure chaos, especially if the action tiles are laid out in a way where one or two sets of actions are very popular.

That can make scoring happen quite quickly.

Once a scoring opportunity has passed, that’s it for that one!

Though usually each area is related to two different scoring options: the area it’s in and the column/row it’s in.

It’s very possible that one of the resource collection actions is paired with something totally unrelated, so you may not go there very often, which could slow scoring down, or at least make it less attractive to get those resources.

It’s an interesting concept for a game, but I would need to play it again (and maybe with fewer players) to really cement how I feel about it.

Machi Koro (#1343) was a game I liked for a while, but too many games have overtaken it and it’s far down on my list now.

Its main mechanism is quite common now, where you roll a pair of dice and activate the buildings with that number that are in your tableau.

If your opponents have buildings that can activate on other players’ turns, they activate their buildings as well!

I believe this might have the first (or certainly one of the early ones) to use the “roll dice and activate cards mechanism.

Of course, now games like Space Base and Bad Company (and many others) do it better by lessening the downtime between turns.

Other players can use your dice too, but not quite as effectively.

I find this one much too simplistic and actually kind of boring now.

There is a 2nd Edition out there. I don’t know how it changes things or whether it’s for the better.

But there’s also a Legacy version of it (somehow?), so it must still be popular enough to warrant it.

Anyway, worth a try if you like this sort of thing, but there are better ones out there.

Now we come to the original Castle Panic (#1372), not the new big box which I think has its own entry.

This is a really fun and basic cooperative tower defense game.

Monsters are advancing from the outer ring forest toward your castle and players are cooperatively trying to kill them.

You only win if every monster is dead, but you also can win even if only one of the six towers is still standing.

Each turn a new monster will come out, but each player then gets a turn to try and deal with the monsters that are on the board.

It’s a fun game but you really have to play with the Wizard’s Tower expansion to really make it a “gamer’s game”. The other expansions are nice but not necessary (and I haven’t played with the Engines of War expansion, which now I can’t because I’ve gotten rid of everything because I have the Big Box now, which is so big that it will probably never leave my house).

I enjoyed this one, got taken in by the attractiveness of the Big Box, and then…haven’t touched it since.

Maybe one day!

Finally, I have to talk about Riftforce (#1392), a really great 2-player lane-battler game where there are a bunch of battlers.

And you have play cards of your four elemental types that are in your hand to various lanes, or maybe activating them to actually help take out your opponent’s elementals.

I’ve played this one enough that I should probably review it, but it’s been a while so I don’t know how helpful of a review it would be.

But I do greatly enjoy it!

And I love the cards.

Anyway, I’ll see if I can review it one day and in the meantime, you should check it out!

How about games that I’ve played and reviewed?

There are a couple here.

The awesome trick-taking card game Diamonds (#1391) is always a mainstay at our conventions.

It has such great mechanics, where you are trying to secure diamonds in your vault before they can be stolen by others.

I like trick-takers that have other mechanics as well, and the fact that when you win a trick, you can take that trick’s suit action, but if you play off-suit you can immediately take your card’s suit action, really makes this game shine.

Claim (#1379) is another game I’ve reviewed, and another trick-taker!

But it’s a 2-player trick-taker, where you are using the first round’s tricks to build your second round hand, with some unique faction abilities depending on what factions you are playing with (I only have the base game so haven’t tried any of the others).

This fast game brings trick-taking to the two-player realm and I am here for it!

It’s also incredibly fast and really easy to teach. I taught a co-worker the game while we were waiting for our third co-worker to join us!

As seems to be usual, there’s also a stand-alone Smash Up expansion in this grouping.

Smash Up: Monster Smash is a great addition to the Smash Up universe, with interesting new factions with effects I really love!

How can you go wrong with Vampires and Werewolves?

That’s the extent of my reviews, so let’s talk about some games I haven’t played (at least not on the table).

First, this list seems to be the COIN (Counter-Insurgency) list because there are literally three COIN games on it.

A Distant Plain (#1301) is a game I own but haven’t had the chance to play yet.

It highlights the American attempt to bring democracy to Afghanistan while trying to fight Al Qaeda.

The four factions in this one are the Coalition forces and the Afghan Government facing off against two insurgent factions: the Warlords and the Taliban.

This is an early game in the series (2013) and some of the immediate impressions of the situation have changed due to recent events (the American withdrawal), but it still looks like a fascinating game.

Another COIN game I actually have played, but only asynchronously on Rally the Troops.

Andean Abyss (#1346) is a COIN game about the insurgency in Colombia with the government forces against two different Insurgent factions, and the Cartels.

It’s very similar to Cuba Libre, a game that I have played, but the map is bigger and there are of course other differences.

The implementation on Rally the Troops is excellent and I highly recommend it.

The third COIN game is one that really interests me because of the subject matter.

Falling Sky (#1303) is a COIN game taking place in Gaul in Ancient Rome, between the Romans and three different insurgent Gallic factions.

Granted, not all of the factions may be rebelling.

It may be in their best interests to ally with Rome against the other insurgents.

Because only one play can win, right?

I know this is a favourite of my friend Michal, so I’m sure he will comment with some insight about the game.

I’d love to play it one day.

There’s also plenty for the wargamer that doesn’t like COIN.

For the People (#1363) is an American Civil War game from 1998!

It’s one of Mark Herman’s old designs, and it was revamped and rereleased for its 25th anniversary in 2023 by GMT Games.

It’s a card-driven wargame that covers the entirety of the Civil War, from Pennsylvania to Alabama and Florida to Texas.

Cool idea! I haven’t seen it so I don’t know how much I would like it, but card-driven wargames are generally awesome so I’d love to try it.

There’s also Wilderness War (#1359), a game from GMT about the French & Indian War in the mid 1700s (prior to the American Revolution).

This war was also covered in the masterful Bayonets & Tomahawks, but this is an interesting design too, from 2001!

This one, though, is another card-driven wargame that came out three years after For the People, so it probably has some genetic material from that one even though this one was designed by the esteemed Volko Ruhnke.

And this one is on Rally the Troops!

Lets move on to some games I’d like to play, not counting the wargames mentioned above that I would definitely love to!

From everything I’ve heard about it, Strike (#1304) just seems like chaotic dice-chucking fun.

It seems more like a “fun” game than a “good” game, but those are good too!

Let’s blurb this one since I don’t know much about it.

“The game consists of an “arena” (the game box with an insert) and lots of dice. The goal is to be the last player who still has dice. At the beginning, one die is in the arena. The active player throws another die into the arena. If both dice now show the same number, the player must take them out and end the turn. If not, the player can decide to throw in another die (possibly trying to overturn other dice) or end his/her turn. A die which shows the X face is removed from the game, as is any die which falls out of the arena. A player who holds no more dice is eliminated from the game. The last player who still has dice is the winner.”

Simple, random, and maybe not that great.

But it sounds like a blast!

The Search for Lost Species is a follow-up to the great deduction game The Search for Planet X.

There are definitely some changes from the original game, so I’d like to try them out.

Let’s blurb this:

“Thousands of plants and animals have been discovered but haven’t been seen for decades and could be on the brink of extinction. In order to save these species, we must first find them again. The Search for Lost Species is a game about this real-world search. You are scientists on an expedition to find one of those lost species, focusing on those in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The organization Re:wild has compiled a list of lost species around the world. They engage in expeditions with numerous partners to find these Lost Species, and encourage others to conduct their own expeditions to rediscover these amazing Lost Species. In this deduction game, you’ll work to locate these lost species and put them back on the map!”

There are six different lost species to search for, which means there’s a bit more variability than the original game.

Could be crap?

Could be good?

I’d love to try it.

Finally, a bit of nostalgia.

Ambush! (#1336 and going strong!) is an old-school solitaire wargame that I played as a kid.

Each mission is a “programmed paragraph” mission.

You outfit your squad and then you put them on the map.

I don’t know if anything has changed from the original, but when I played it, the big 8×11 cards were put into a folder with holes strategically cut into it.

There weren’t any “turns” as such. You kept moving your men forward as you wanted to, revealing the next secret using that folder and card.

When shots rang out, it was time to try to eliminate the threat!

I had fond memories of this one, though all of them are a bit foggy so I can’t really give a clear outline of how you played it.

Who knows? It may have changed since then anyway.

But I remember loving this one as a kid.

There are, of course, many more games on this list that I’m not talking about.

Have you played any of these?

Do you want to?

Any others on the list you’d like to play or that you really love?

Let me know in the comments!