BGG Top Games – 3301 – 3400

One of these days, I’m going to learn that doing these Boardgame Geek century posts too early is possibly going to cause a rip in the space-time continuum, like what’s happening right about now.

What, you didn’t feel that?

We’ve all traded places with our other selves from an alternate universe.

Just because I want to get posts in the can early so I can get ahead and actually rest!

(I’m sure you’re wondering where this beard I’m sporting came from)

Since we are getting deeper and deeper into the BGG rankings, I’m expecting fewer and fewer games to be on my played list.

But not today!

Instead, there are enough that I’m not going to talk about them all, or I wouldn’t actually end up talking about games I might be interested in.

Nobody brought out the gong after last week, so it’s time for another BGG century!

The list I’m taking these games from is here, and if you can’t get it through your head that the numbers could change if you’re reading this a year or so from now, then I can’t do anything.

This week, I’ve played seven of them and own three, but there’s that rip in the continuum that makes it so I’ve actually played eight and own four (I’ll get to that in a minute).

No games that I own but haven’t played this week, so that’s a good thing.

I’m getting close to my introduction word limit, so let’s begin!

Here’s that time paradox that’s causing all of this cosmic havoc.

When I wrote last week’s list, this game would have been posted this week.

Now, as I’m writing this (a week ahead), this game would have been on last week’s!

Yes, I’m talking about Resafa (this was in this century of games when I wrote this post, but it’s currently #3259 and rising, as it should be!).

This game about trading in the kind of Mediterranean (more like off of there a bit, on land) is so good that it’s in my Top 50.

Trading, creating wells and canals, building up your workshops, it all clicks together in an amazing fashion.

But to save time, just read the review linked above and you’ll see why this game is so awesome.

Then we get down to a wonderful deckbuilder that should not be this far down, though I guess that’s because it’s a standalone expansion of a great game.

Valley of the Kings: Last Rites (#3339) is a great deckbuilding game and also the second expansion/sequel to Valley of the Kings (which is at #1283 and I remember complaining about it at the time)

I love deckbuilders with weird little mechanisms that set them apart from games like Dominion and Ascension.

In this case, there’s the idea that you are collecting sets of cards of the same colour (but each with a different name, because each name is on two cards in the set) for exponential points, but you can’t score them unless you’ve buried them out of your deck.

Tyrants of the Underdark had the promotion mechanic, where a card could be promoted out of your deck to get more points, but in that game they were still worth something if they were in your deck.

Not this time.

This time, they are worthless if they’re in your deck.

In addition, there is not a normal market row.

Instead, there’s a pyramid where you can only buy from the bottom row, and then cards will “collapse” from the top to the bottom to fill in the gaps.

The interesting decisions on when to actually bury a powerful card because the ability is so good but it won’t score are delicious.

It’s not in my Top 50, but I love this deckbuilder to death (ha! I kill me…there, I did it again!) and I’m glad that I’ve brought it to work and tortured gotten my coworkers to enjoy it too.

Secrets (#3365) is a game that I wasn’t sure I would like, but it’s actually kind of fun.

It’s a social deduction game in a way.

There are two teams in this one (plus one, or maybe two, independent hippies). You’re either on the KGB side or the CIA side.

However, your role can change without you knowing about it!

On your turn, you’ll offer one of your cards to another player.

They will either accept it or refuse it.

If they accept, they will score it.

If they refuse, you will score it.

Cards also have special abilities, and some of those abilities will have you switching your role marker with the “neutral” (as in unassigned) one that’s in the middle and that nobody knows.

You may be trying to score cards as a CIA agent, but then discover that you’re now KGB!

When you start the game, you look at your role. However, since role swaps are done without looking at the disc, you may end up not knowing whose side you’re on.

Once someone has scored a certain number of cards (based on player count), players reveal roles and count up their points.

KGB and CIA agents add their totals together (multiple players will be in each role) and whoever has the most is the winner!

Unless the hippie has the lowest total score, in which case they win.

This game was a nice surprise and really fun in my one play of it.

I hope Tartan brings it to a Sunday game day when he’s able to come (if he even reads this) because I’d love to play it again.

Terror Below (#3371) is a game that I owned for a while, got it out a couple of times, and just decided that it wasn’t for my game group.

Granted, one of those plays was at 2 players and I’m not sure it works that well at that player count.

This is unofficially Tremors: the Boardgame. Giant worms are terrorizing the southwest United States and you are trying to kill them.

Or at least survive them.

Moving around will cause vibrations in the ground that might cause the worms to erupt from the ground and maybe devour somebody.

Or maybe they will leave some eggs lying around.

You’re trying to get to 20 VP by collecting worm eggs and delivering them to certain spaces, or maybe actually killing worms (which is possible, but very difficult).

You don’t get to go after the worms, though.

Instead, you have to be prepared for when they erupt in your space.

This is a hilarious game, though it was a bit too fiddly for our game group and so I ended up trading it away.

I did like how you play cards to move around the board, and you have to be aware of where the worms might come up.

And have weapons that might deal with them.

This was fun, but very random and it’s more of an experience than it is a game.

You can’t really plan for a lot of it, sadly.

I wouldn’t mind playing it again, but it’s not something that I needed to own.

Harvest (#3344) is noteworthy not because it’s an awesome game.

It’s fine, and I wouldn’t mind playing it again just to cement it.

It’s noteworthy because it’s a game that Tim & Joanne (who I met at February’s Bottoscon and have been wonderful to me) introduced me to at the Terminal City convention in March.

It’s a very quick filler game with some cutthroat mechanisms that actually make it quite fun.

There’s a field card out on the board, and players are going to be placing tiles on it.

You’re going to have your hand of tiles to place on this board, and the each player is also one of those colours.

If you don’t have any tiles on your colour’s field, then you have to place your tile there.

However, if you do, you can place a tile on anybody else’s field that isn’t empty.

When a tile is placed that completes three in a row (in a column/row or diagonally), then those tiles will score.

But the trick is that the player whose field that tile is in will score that tile.

So don’t put the 40-pointer in somebody else’s field!

You may be helping other players score points, but hopefully you’re making it so you’ll score more.

Harvest is fun little game, easily playable in a lunch time, but also a very old game (1992!).

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it is noteworthy.

It was fun, but it was even more fun because we were playing with Tim & Joanne.

Finally, we have another Knizia classic.

Ivanhoe (#3338) is a card game where you are basically playing cards in an attempt to win 5 tournaments in a medieval European setting.

The theme doesn’t matter too much, though.

Each hand is a tournament, and you are trying to have the highest value cards in that tournament.

When somebody leads a colour, you have to follow that colour when you play your card(s), unless you have colourless cards which can be played anywhere.

When you play, you have to build your already-played value to beat the value that’s already highest on the table.

You can’t play a card if it doesn’t beat what’s on the table.

You’re trying to win a tournament of each colour in the game, because that’s how you win!

The cards are neat, and some of them aren’t colours but instead are action cards that will let you do something.

The game goes very quickly and I enjoyed my one play of it.

I wouldn’t mind playing it again.

Maybe it will come out to another convention one day (or maybe even last week’s convention, since I’m writing this before that!)

That’s all I’m going to say about games played, because there are some games that are actually noteworthy or that I’m actually interested in playing.

There seems to be another Unmatched game, in this case Unmatched: Battle of Legends Volume 3 (which has moved up to #3295 after I’ve written this).

This 2-player duel system actually seemed really cool.

I tried the first version of it with a friend, and she didn’t really care for it, but I though it was intriguing.

Let’s blurb this one to get a better idea of how it runs.

“Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you’ve mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups.

Battle of Legends, Volume Three features four disparate heroes: the pirate Blackbeard, the beastly Chupacabra, the trickster Loki, and the cursed and gifted Pandora. (Blackbeard, Chupacabra, and Loki are all runners-up from a deck-design contest.)

Combat is resolved quickly by comparing attack and defense cards. However, each card’s unique effects and a simple but deep timing system lead to interesting decisions each time.

The game includes a double-sided board with two different battlefields (one of which is Santa’s Workshop, which features a new map mechanism), pre-washed miniatures for each hero, and custom life trackers. As with every Unmatched set, these heroes can face off against fighters from other sets – even the villains in Unmatched Adventures.”

I love how modular it is and how you can mix and match enemies from other sets (shades of Final Girl!)

Here’s a picture from the basic set that illustrates how the maps work, though it sounds like this version has an even more intricate map.

I almost started collecting this, but when my 2-player opportunities dried up, along with my main 2-player opponent not really caring for it, I kiboshed that idea pretty quickly.

But it is fun, and it’s actually available as an app (though I’m not sure how many expansions they have in there).

There’s also another Columbia block wargame called EastFront: The War in Russia (#3312), which isn’t something I necessarily am dying to play, but I do find it interesting because it’s a 1991 game and I wonder how it’s held up.

What’s interesting about this one is that it’s either a standalone game or it can be part of the “Eurofront Series,” and that is amazing!

Even if I don’t know what that means.

Block wargames are cool because the fog of war is achieved by having the blocks standing up by facing you, so your opponent doesn’t know what you have.

Step losses (as in losses inflicted on a unit that don’t end up destroying it) can be shown by rotating the block so that the actual strength of the unit is on the top of the block.

That could mean up to 4 step losses if the game wanted to.

The game covers the entirety of the conflict between the Soviet Union and the Germans in World War II, with several scenarios covering different portions of the war.

At 4 hours, and 2 players, not something I would ever play.

But I love that it exists!

Another wargame, this time by GMT, is a series of games that I would love to get into at some point, but probably not until I’m retired (if somebody else has them).

Stalingrad ’42 (#3374) is one of the early operational level wargames designed by Mark Simonitch.

This one depicts the German 1942 assault on Stalingrad, the Soviet city that became the death cauldron and turning point against the German onslaught.

But it’s not just the assault on the city.

Instead, it covers the entire southern German advance in 1942, from June onwards.

This is one of the “ZOC Bond” series of games by Simonitch, where not only do units exert “zones of control” (meaning each hex adjacent to a unit may force units moving through it to stop moving, among other things), but also some units have “Zones of Influence” two hexes away, that can also affect units in some manner.

The game covers the southern German offensive and the system is well-regarded by wargame grognards, so it’s something I’d definitely like to try one day.

I had to laugh a bit at the statement “With four maps and low unit density, the game delivers a grand view of the campaign…”, which I’m sure is accurate, but I think the maps take up a lot of room, so it’s interesting that there is low unit density on those maps.

Some of my wargaming friends (maybe Grant, if he’s reading this?) can comment on how well the system works.

It’s been refined a whole bunch in various newer “ZOC Bond” games, which is why it interests me as much as it does.

Finally, let’s get back to Reiner Knizia and a rather new game that was released as part of a trilogy (at least one of which was a reworked Knizia game).

ORBIT (#3304 when I wrote this, but sitting pretty at #3293 right now) is a space race game that I literally know nothing about.

Let’s blurb this one:

“ORBIT (Orbital Race Between Interstellar Tourists) is a 24th century tactical space race with simple turns, yet challenging possibilities. Players compete to visit all planets of the system, then return to their starting planet first.

On your turn, you play a card, activate its actions in any order, then draw back up to your hand size. Cards allow you to do a combination of things: move your ship, collect energy for bonus movement, advance planets along their orbit, or even reverse the orbital direction of a planet.”

What does that mean?

I don’t know!

I know it’s a Knizia game and those are always interesting, even if I end up not liking the game.

The first game (or two) in this Cosmic Silos trilogy were remakes of previous Knizia games, but this one is brand new.

Would I like it?

I’d like to find out!

There we go with another century of games on the Boardgame Geek rankings page.

Anything in here intrigue you?

That you love to play?

Or that you hate?

Let me know in the comments.