BGG Top Games – 4001-4100

We’re now starting to get into the 4000s in the Boardgame Geek game rankings, and while this century isn’t as bad as last week’s (though hopefully you think my post about it was A+, would highly recommend!), it is close.

However, there are always interesting games to talk about, which is why I think this series is so rich in material, and why I keep doing it.

At least last week had a game I own and have played that is extremely awesome.

This week doesn’t even have that.

In fact, it has a game that I barely remember playing!

But it does have some games that I’d like to talk about, so there is that.

This week’s list can be found here, and let me reiterate (are you getting tired of me yet?) that the games on this list might change, or at least their rankings might.

Some 3rd world despot might come along and declare these rankings invalid, which I guess would mean that all of these posts would cease to exist!

I would not like that.

My numbers this week are better than last week’s, but still kind of in the crapper.

I have played four of the games on the list and own two (one which I haven’t played).

There could still be some interesting games to talk about besides what I’ve played!

It’s getting to the point where that part is more fun to write than the first part.

Anyway, let’s begin!

The first game that I both own and have played, and which actually isn’t too bad (though I need to play it one more time to review it) is Arcana Rising (#4025), from Grey Fox Games.

Designed by Tim Armstrong, this is a game about a magical competition where you are trying to fire off the best spells.

I own it, but I haven’t played it since 2022 when the Kickstarter arrived and I played it twice.

I’m not sure why it didn’t come out a third time, but I should probably rectify that!

Arcana Rising is a card-drafting game with some similarities to 7 Wonders in that the cards go around the table, you draft one and then play it or do something else with it.

You’re also building a bit of an engine with them, which is where it differs from that classic.

The Moon Board will tell you what spells can be cast that round, so you may want to pay attention to that when you’re drafting.

When you take a card, you can either pay the resources to play it, or discard the card to cast the spells (that match the current round) that you already have played.

The round markers are set out so that each type of spell will only be cast twice per round, so it’s pointless to do that if both tokens have already come out.

It was an interesting game and I’d love to bring it out again (maybe I will when we get out of the Summer doldrums and have more people come to our game days).

I still own it, haven’t traded it away, but for some reason just moved away from it.

I will change that!

The next game I played back in August 2015, way before I even started blogging!

Pizarro & Co (#4041) is a game that I have no memory of playing whatsoever except the title.

In fact, I only have one picture of it and it is not a good one!

But I’ll post it here anyway.

Instead, since I don’t know anything about this game, let’s blurb it.

“Players are kings (or queens) bidding for the services of six famous explorers — Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus, Francisco Pizarro, Vasco da Gama, James Cook, and Marco Polo. As the game progresses, competition for the explorers’ services increases as each explorer has fewer expeditions available for investment. In the end, only one ship for each explorer makes the final trip and only one king earns those rewards.”

Each explorer has a different power, with some giving money, some points, and some have other abilities.

In the next round of bidding, each explorer has one fewer ship, but only those who have invested in him can actually bid.

The rest of the blurb explains more about how to play, but it still doesn’t really give me a sense of how this game plays.

It was Spiel des Jahres recommended back in 2003, so maybe there’s something that I was missing because I was still new to the hobby?

Have any of you actually played this and can refresh my memory?

Another game played isn’t as bad as I’ve rated it, really.

Couture (#4075) is a very quick-playing card game of trying to keep on top of the fashion trends.

It’s a card drafting game where you are drafting a set of cards.

The three cities (Paris, New York, and Tokyo) will each have 3 cards dealt to them.

Players will use their bidding cards to bid on each one (if they want to).

The highest bid gets the first choice of cards. The second highest gets second.

Third gets the third choice, but if only two players bid, then the first player gets the third card (which could be bad!).

If only one bids, then they get all of the cards.

There’s a bit of set collection, but also some of the cards will give you direct points, other cards will give you more powerful bidding cards (or maybe lesser bidding power but also a point or two).

This is a very fast game, which is why I like it more than it would otherwise warrant.

Haven’t played it in a while, but my couple of plays were pretty good.

Finally, there’s Milestones (#4094), a game that I would love to play again.

I haven’t played this one since 2018, so it’s been a while!

But I remember liking it quite a bit.

I’m going to refer to my “new to me” post about this one for information on it. I actually played it twice in 2018 but haven’t seen it since.

Players are working together to build up a town with roads, market places, and houses all in the same kingdom.

However, you’re not working totally together, because you want to make sure you build your stuff on the prime real estate in the town, making your buildings more prestigious than some other fly by night operation.

You can’t just jump into that area, though, as you have to build off of what’s already there.

What’s cool is the action selection mechanism and how resources are gained.

Each player has a rondel they move along. The top part is where you get resources, but you can’t do anything with them until you turn the corner and move along the bottom.

I remember really liking this one a lot, and it got two plays in the same year.

But it never came out again so it never got played again.

I’d love to rectify that.

The other game that I own but haven’t played yet is Combat! Volume 1 (#4070) from Compass Games.

This is a solo game of World War II combat where you are running a squad of American soldiers in Europe (subsequent sequels have added the Russian front and I think Pacific is coming).

I bought this game because it looked cool, but once again I bought a solo game that I don’t have room to play.

WTF?

Also, I got it from Noble Knight Games.

I’m not sure if this is a Compass Games problem or a Noble Knight Games problem, but the countersheet was barely punched at all.

I was punching the pieces, trying to use a slicer at some points, and many of the counters have either extra stuff attached to them (yes, you counter clippers, I know I could address that) or they ripped and they look terrible.

Again, a whole bunch of them are like this.

This was terrible, and it also means I can’t trade it away or sell it, because the pieces are so shitty.

One of these days I will play it, though.

Apparently the rules aren’t the greatest, but the living rules in subsequent editions are usable with the original game, so I may try that on VASSAL one of these days.

Still, I’ve soured on it because of how much trouble I had punching it.

Such a shame.

Let’s get to interesting games now, and one I want to mention even though it won’t be anywhere near this century by the time this posts on Wednesday.

The Game Makers (currently as I write this, it’s #4022) is a brand new game from Bezier Games that hit Kickstarter last year and will be hitting store shelves soon.

When I started writing this post last night, it was something like #4099.

Let’s see how high it gets by the time this posts!

It’s now #3713.

That’s incredible!

I’ve played this on Boardgame Arena a few times and it’s a fun little game about making games.

It has tons (over 300) of fully licensed games and game images from over 100 different game companies as you are producers creating your own games and putting them on your shelves.

It has a central warehouse rondel where you put your workers onto the job.

Doing more or getting more of something works fine, except then that worker isn’t available for a number of turns.

Here’s a bit of the table presence of the game.

It’s an interesting game.

I couldn’t convince myself to spend that much money (it was an expensive Kickstarter, though there is a lot in there!) but I enjoyed my plays on BGA and wouldn’t mind playing it on the table one of these days.

Let’s see how high this game goes by the time this post goes live.

A wargame (cheers, Andrew!) that just seems very cool but I can’t justify getting it myself is Men of Iron Battles Tri-Pack: Men of Iron, Infidel, Blood & Roses (#4012 though now it’s jumped up to 3995, how is that possible????).

For some reason, this one has intrigued me since my good friend Zilla Blitz did a video on this pack, and it teased me into buying the next one.

This series of games is about battles in the 10th – 15th centuries in Europe, and I actually bought Men of Iron V: Norman Conquests (which has battles in England during the Norman invasions).

These battles take place during the years 1455-1487, including the classic battle of Agincourt, along with earlier battles in the other modules (there are three in this one!)

All of them are tactical games of maneuver and forcing your opponent’s flanks, and it has a unique way of doing things, where turns don’t actually end.

Instead, you have to steal initiative away from your opponent somehow, in a way that I’m not necessarily familiar with.

It seemed really cool, which is why I bought the later one.

But I realized it would never get played, so I did end up selling it.

But I’d love to play it sometime!

Then there’s Blueprints of Mad King Ludwig (#4021), yet another iteration of the Mad King Ludwig theme (is it getting overdone?), this time in roll and write (or, in this case, flip and sketch) format.

Trying to fit together differently-sized rooms to make the best layout, and you’re having to draw these on a grid?

No thanks.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not good!

It’s just not for me.

The idea is intriguing, with you choosing rooms and trying to lay out the best castle floor plan.

Let’s blurb this one:

“Select rooms to add to your castle’s floor plan. As you complete rooms’ entrances by connecting them to other rooms, earn new abilities such as adding or removing entrances, earning new bonus cards, and taking extra turns. Keep your eye on the King’s favors to beat out your opponents for public goals, as well as create courtyards and moats around your castle for some massive points to get ahead! The player who sketches the castle most suited to the whims of King Ludwig takes the royal victory!”

At least this blurb actually tells you what you’re doing in the game (somewhat).

Looking at the picture above with the completed castle, it just reinforces that this game isn’t for me.

But it does look intriguing for others!

Soothsayers (#4049, but let’s see where it ends up by Wednesday) is getting a lot of buzz and also has just shown up on Boardgame Arena.

The Boardgame Hot Takes podcast has one of the guys (I can’t remember which! Sorry) including this one in his Top 40 games of all time, so that’s already enough to make me sit up and take notice.

I know nothing about this game other than that the BHT guys like it! (or at least one does).

Let’s blurb this one:

“You are a powerful mystic in a tense race against rivals to control the fate of the universe. Capture the Empress, the Moon, even Death itself, and harness the arcane powers of the tarot to bend destiny to your will.

On your turn, choose an action: earn coins, draft cards, ascend to higher levels, or capture a tarot card. Rival soothsayers may choose to follow your action, but if you have a higher level, they must pay you for the privilege.”

It all sounds intriguing, but I can’t really fathom game play based on the BGG description.

Guess I’ll have to trust the BHT guys that this one is good!

Do they have that much power?

I don’t know, but it’s now #3926.

It could be the fact that it’s on BGA now, but I think it’s the BHT guys.

Adding on to that, I think it’s hilarious that Tarot is #4037, though. Created in 1425, according to BGG!

A really old game.

The Battle of Versailles (#4087) came out just when my 2-player gaming was starting to peter out in favour of higher player counts in the office at work, because otherwise I might have invested in this one.

This game is not a World War I game about the final peace treaty, but is instead a fashion battle between five American designers and five French designers, in an epic battle to win over the fashion world.

Or something like that.

This battle was an actual event that the American designers won.

Go ‘Merica!!!

Anyway, let’s blurb how this plays.

“In the game The Battle of Versailles, players take the role of either the France or U.S. team, facing one another by playing action cards to show off their best dresses, to attract the most popular celebrities, or to annoy the opponent by spreading bad gossip. They also compete to contribute more than their opponent to the reconstruction of the palace of Versailles.”

This one sounded intriguing and got a lot of praise from reviewers, like the Dice Tower’s Chris Yi (I think he was one who liked it, but he can correct me if I’m wrong).

The artwork on the cards is gorgeous and I’d really love to try this one some day.

Finally, one that intrigues me because it’s designed by Paul Dennen, of Dune: Imperium and Clank fame.

Lightning Train (#4076) is a fairly new game, so may bump up by the time this posts.

It’s a bag building game where you’re getting resources into your bag to then draw and placing chips into open stations across the map.

It’s kind of a bag building train game!

I don’t think 18XX fans will necessarily like this game.

But they might!

It looks interesting, though, and I’d love to try it some day.

I respect Dennen’s work and this could definitely be a good one (though I’ve read middling reviews).

What will next week’s century bring?

Who knows?

Any games in this century I should check out? Or avoid?

Any you love or hate?

Let me know in the comments.