BGG Top Games – 4901 – 5000

We’ve hit the 5000 mark in our examination of the Boardgame Geek game rankings, one century of games a week, and it feels quite cool, actually.

I’ve really enjoyed doing this series, and it has kept me consistently writing as well, which is another benefit.

It also has a few fans who participate almost every week (some do it on Discords channels that I’m in, rather than posting on the blog), which makes me very happy.

I plan on continuing this until somebody tells me to stop, so there you go!

I know I said last week that I’d probably stop at least one of the two experiments that we’ve been following, but there was some big growth this week, so maybe not!

First, The Game Makers was at #2773 when last week’s post went live.

It’s now Saturday and it’s already jumped up to #2679.

That’s almost 100 spaces and it hasn’t even been a week yet.

Now it’s at #2641, which is a pretty good jump from last week.

Maybe it’s time to keep this experiment running, at least for another week.

Secondly, Wingspan Pocket was at #1453 and really slowing down last week.

However, it’s now Saturday and it’s already up to #1383.

Not as big of a boost as The Game Makers, but it is something!

With it now being at #1331, which is another 100+ jump.

Another week, then?

Both are living on borrowed time, but so far the borrowing is working.

This week’s century of games can be found here.

The usual caveats apply, though.

If you’re coming to this post after there’s a new US president, then it will most likely have changed!

Unless that happens tomorrow…

I have played four of them and own (or previously owned) two of those played games.

Not a lot! But better than last week.

Anyway, I’m over word budget, so let’s begin!

The first game on the list is actually a really good one, but I just didn’t get it to the table much so I traded it away.

Penny Press (#4955) is a game about building a newspaper.

This game is set during the time of “yellow journalism” and has you putting stories in your paper that are more likely to sell papers.

There are five different “beats” of story types out on the board, and you will be assigning reporters to the stories that are placed there.

These stories will have to fit into your paper.

Each time you go to press and publish your paper, the next paper will have an advertisement that will inhibit where you put the actual stories, since they have to fit in the grid.

As more and more stories in a particular beat attract interest, the amount of points they’re worth increases.

The stories that you can put in your paper are yours based on how many reporters you have assigned to it.

However, there isn’t a set stage that you go to press in, so you have to make sure you have the majority of reporters assigned to it as the point where you take the “go to press” action.

That can be a bit dodgy sometimes.

Even if you don’t scoop the story up, if you have reporters on it, you get a small residual benefit, which is nice.

You gain points for the stories that are in your paper, but you also lose a point for each open space that isn’t covered by a story.

That’s where the ad can get really annoying.

I really enjoyed this game and I think I’ve played it a couple of times on Boardgame Arena since trading the actual game away.

I should have probably kept it, as it is a fun one.

The second game I own and have played is a great card-driven lunchtime game from GMT Games.

Flashpoint: South China Sea (#4962) is a game about the struggle between the United States and China for influence in the South China Sea region and the countries situated there.

I talked about this game in my August 2022 “New to Me” games post, where I mentioned I would be reviewing it…then never did.

Oops!

Anyway, this is another in GMT’s “lunch time” series of games where you can get a fairly deep card-driven game done in less than an hour.

You are essentially playing China or the US and trying to exert influence in various areas next to the South China Sea.

There are two spheres of influence: Economic and Diplomatic, and you can use the action points of the card (or the event, if applicable) to add these influence tokens to the area.

The cards favour either China or the US, and when you play a card, you can also play a card from the top of the discard pile, but this time it’s only if it has the same symbol under the action point number. Usually it’s just that you have to play a stronger AP card.

You can also choose to score a scoring card based on the flag in the bottom left.

That’s another unique thing, as players can decide when scoring happens.

When the third campaign (i.e. round) is over, all of the scoring cards will score in numerical order, so even if you don’t plan on using a scoring card during the campaign, you do have to keep an eye out for that.

For a lunch time game, the game is quite intricate, though it does play very smoothly and easily in that hour time frame.

The game packs a lot into a little space!

This game might get traded away or sold because I don’t really have a 2-player wargame space right now, but I’m glad I bought it and have played it a few times.

It’s been so long, though, that I don’t think I could review it without another play.

I’m not even sure I should mention Bombay (#4965) because I remember that I played it, but I have no memory of the actual game.

It was played one time in 2014!

It’s essentially a pick up and deliver game set in India in some indeterminate past.

I mean, they’re using elephants to carry the goods, so it has to be fairly far back.

In addition to delivering stuff, you can also build palaces (which cost people to travel through) and earning City tokens when you visit a city.

It even has nice, colourful plastic elephants.

I have no memory of how I thought about this game. Even my BGG rating was probably done a year or two after the fact, so may not be accurate.

It’s a very light game, apparently, and doesn’t take up much time.

I will probably never see it again.

Finally, another game that was just kind of meh was Rajas of the Ganges: Cards & Karma (#4974).

This one is a card game version (in a sense) of the classic board game that I haven’t actually played!

In this one, you are trying to acquire dice cards and resources to flip over six goal cards (your train, essentially).

It is kind of neat because the cards that you are drafting and using are multi-use, as either dice or the buildings that you want to build.

The other side of the card actually has a dice value, but I forgot to take a picture of that.

Not only does the building side of the card show you what colour the die is, it doesn’t give you the value, so you have to get a bit lucky (unless you know all the cards or something).

Cards can be buildings, palace action cards, goods, or a ship.

Ships must be collected in numerical order, because if you take a lower-numbered ship, all of your previous ships go away.

You spend Fame points (which you must do, it’s not an option) to flip over the left card of your train. You can spend money to flip over train cards from the right side.

When all six train cards are flipped, the game will end, though the current round is completed first.

I didn’t mind this game, and it was nice and quick.

It wasn’t a must-play game, but I wouldn’t be opposed to trying it again.

That’s what I have played before, so let’s get into some interesting games before I have to wrap up (Mom calls me home at 3000 words).

I first want to mention Ascension: Skulls & Sails (#4928), mainly because it’s one of the two expansions for Ascension that has never made it to the app.

I’m not sure if it’s because it would require a complete reprogramming of the board layout or what, but I’d really love to try this one.

You’re still doing the Ascension thing of buying cards and defeating monsters, adding to your deck, but now you are also sailing around (by gaining crew) the board map, to either challenge opponents or the Kraken at the end of the line.

You also now have a “Raid” card that will allow you to steal treasure from other players’ hands.

Considering how long the only “treasure” has been the energy shards, I think that’s a welcome addition and should meld well with the expansions with shards.

No picture, but since I don’t really play this game on the table anymore, I would love it if it came into the app.

But they bypassed it with the latest expansion, so it’s probably not happening.

One can dream!

Since Blitz Bowl was covered last week, I should probably mention that Blitz Bowl: Season 2 (#4914) is actually in this century!

It’s probably mostly the same, though last week’s was actually the “Ultimate” edition, so maybe this one isn’t quite as advanced?

It did come out two years before the Ultimate.

I can’t really tell how many teams come with this version of it either.

Like I said last week, I would love to try this one out one day.

For Andrew, why don’t we try an older wargame?

Battle Above the Clouds (#4983) is an entry in Multi-Man Publishing’s “Great Campaigns of the Civil War” series.

This is a game about the western theater of the American Civil War (the first in the series that’s in the west, apparently) and includes both the Chickimauga campaign of August/September 1863 and the Chattanooga campaign from later that yaer.

Given there are two campaigns and multiple scenarios in each one, I’m sure there’s a huge amount of content in this one, with scenario games taking about 3 hours (which isn’t bad for a wargame!).

This photo seems to be from a VASSAL game, but it still gives you an idea of what it would look like.

How well does it hold up with the newer editions, since this was published in 2010?

I’d be interested in finding that out.

I’ve always wanted to try one of these games, but I’m not sure I have the brain capacity to actually do it.

Maybe one day.

Browsing through the games in this century, how can you pass up a game with a title like So, You’ve Been Eaten (#4915).

This is a 0-2 player game (I’d love to know how that works, the BGG page calls it an “autonomous simulation”) about having been eaten by some huge beast and trying to mine the crystals that reside in the stomach!

You’re sitting in the belly of the beast, trying to mine the crystals and everything, and only if you get enough of them will your company actually decide to activate your jet pack and blow yourself out of there.

That sounds messy.

But don’t worry.

If you don’t mine enough crystals, you’ll just continue through the beast’s bowels until you’re…um, expelled.

However, the beast has other plans and actually wants to digest you!

Basically, you’re either the miner or the beast, and the beast can use bacteria to break you down into nutrients.

It sounds weird.

Here’s a picture of the game on the table.

Would I want to play this?

Maybe? Just as a laugh if nothing else.

Let’s go for cute now, instead of weird.

Pilgrims (#4916 and it’s moved up about 50 places since I first started writing this post!) is a “competitive family game” about going on a journey and trying to collect the best tales to share around the campfire.

Let’s blurb this one so I don’t have to try and describe it.

“The game is played over 4 rounds and it is built around a movement-puzzle mechanic, where each turn presents a small riddle: how to best combine your party’s movement abilities to navigate the map and collect the right cards. The players try to complete as many adventure cards as possible and gain victory points. These points symbolize the fame and wealth, both material and spiritual, that their group has acquired.

Each player will move their piece across the map to collect items and gain new companions for their group. By successfully combining their character and item cards, they can trigger additional actions. The collected items and companions will then be used to complete adventure cards. Each completed adventure rewards the player with victory points and a permanent upgrade that will help them throughout the game. The player with the most victory points at the end of the 4th round wins.”

It also has incredibly cute artwork.

It’s based on the video game of the same name, which I have never heard of. I assume it’s a family game of some kind, though.

It sounds intriguing, looks cute.

What more could you ask for?

I’d try it once.

You don’t need to have a family that plays game in order to play family-weight games.

Sometimes they’re just fun on their own.

Finally, let’s go back to a wargame and the Vietnam War, with GMT’s Silver Bayonet: The First Team in Vietnam 1965 (25th Anniversary Edition) (#4949).

I won’t be typing that whole name anymore.

This game depicts a pivotal fight between the US and a North Vietnam Army division in the la Drang Valley.

This game originally came out in 1990, but this 25th anniversary edition streamlines the whole system to make it easier to play as well as enhance the accuracy of the order of battle.

This battle resulted in a change in NVA tactics as the superior firepower of the Americans blasted them away, but not before their “lure and ambush” tactics resulted in a number of US casualties.

Here’s a blurb to mention the rest of the changes:

“This re-issue of GMT Games’ 1990 CSR Award winning title that started it all keeps the original operational system, but streamlines to it to include innovative combat resolution integrating maneuver combat, close assault, artillery bombardment, and support from gunships and air sorties.

Increased accessibility to primary and secondary source material has made it possible to make changes to more accurately represent both sides’ unique capabilities without significantly altering or breaking the base game system. The major changes involve patrols, ambushes, landing zones, and the 1st Cav Brigade HQ, while minor changes tweak movement, combat, and coordination game mechanics to showcase radically different strengths and weaknesses the FWA and NVA force brought to the battles in the Ia Drang Valley.”

It looks really dense and with a weight of 3.9, that’s not a surprise!

There’s a lot packed into this game, which is probably why the time range (between scenarios and full campaign, I’m assuming) is 30 minutes to 16 hours.

It looks very cool, but oh so intimidating as well.

There you have it!

We’ve reached 5000 in the Boardgame Geek game rankings, and we’re still going strong.

Anything in here I missed you think is noteworthy?

Thoughts on these games?

Let me know in the comments.