BGG Top Games – 5001 – 5100

We’re now on the downward slope heading to the 10,000 level of games ranked on Boardgame Geek.

Yet there are still some decent ones down here!

That just goes to show you that a low-ranked game does not necessarily mean it is bad.

Of course, the ones I’ve actually played in this century put the lie to that (except one caveat), so maybe I shouldn’t speak too soon.

Even going this far down the rabbit hole, I’m still enjoying writing these and I hope you’re enjoying reading them.

Let’s check in on our two experiments that have been going through these posts, though I think this may be the last week for them.

The Game Makers ended last week at #2641 and I’m starting this post way late, on Monday!

Right now it’s at #2603, which means it’s still moving up, but in almost a week it’s only gained 38 spots.

At the time of this posting, it’s at #2587 and I think it’s time to stop following it.

It may still keep creeping up, though. Maybe check back in a few weeks?

How about Wingspan Pocket?

Last week it ended at #1331.

This week, on Monday, it’s at #1283, again not a huge jump.

With it being at #1247, I think it’s time to stop this one too.

Still some steady growth, and I will definitely (eventually) make it into the Top 1000, if not higher.

Definitely the last week for both of these.

Which will give me more room to talk about other stuff!

This week’s list is here, though keep in mind that, as usual, if you come to this post in a year or two, the numbers and games will likely be completely different.

It’s like magic!

Or the passing of time, take your pick.

I’ve played two of the games this week and don’t own either, though one additional game is actually a standalone expansion so I guess it counts and would make three (and one I own).

I’m at my introduction quota, so let’s begin!

The first game on this list that I’ve played is a fun little hand management game, but ultimately it’s kinda fine?

For as short of a game as it is, I really liked it, but it’s not something I’m clamoring to play again.

Dance of Ibexes (#5069) is almost like a tile version of 6 Nimmt (or whatever the hell name it’s going by right now).

That’s because you are secretly choosing one of the numbered tiles in your hand (instead of cards) and then placing the tile on the board in ascending numerical order.

If a row is full, you have to start a new row, getting the points for it (points are bad).

Unlike the card game, some spaces actually have an icon on them that will have you do something, or gain/lose something.

If you place a tile on an eagle, you get that number of points, which is not good!

But at least you’re not gaining the row points.

The scoreboard is cute, you can get new tiles if you are willing to take a few points, and the game ends when somebody hits 60.

It’s a fun game. Nothing to write home about but also nothing to really criticize.

The other game I have played but don’t own is next on the list!

Oddland (#5071) is a game that we played wrong the first time, but even knowing the right rules, I’m not sure it’s my type of game.

Oddland is basically a card (tile, but in card-form) laying game where players are cooperatively building a habitat, but building those habitats to benefit their own animals over the other players’ animals.

On your turn, you place a card either adjacent to another card or overlapping two of the squares of the card.

When you do this, you are trying to create (or improve) good scoring habitats for one of your creatures.

Each player has one of each type, and they score based on the scoring card that’s placed out (I can’t remember if there are multiple scoring cards for each animal, like in Cascadia, but I would assume so?).

We ended up playing with the expansion, and when you do that, you’re supposed to take a couple of animals out.

We didn’t do that, so we didn’t play it exactly as it should have been played, though we followed all of the rules of actual game play.

It’s way too chaotic for my tastes, with no way that you can really plan for your next card placement, and your ideal habitat for one of your animals could get cut off immediately by another player placing their card to make it impossible to grow it further.

Maybe another try might help?

I’m not chomping at the bit.

The third game is my caveat, and it’s also really cool.

Smash Up: World Tour – International Incident (#5062) is a standalone Smash Up expansion, meaning it works fine as its own game if you’re only playing two players (I will not play it as a 2-player game unless I have to).

I do love this expansion, though, with the four different nationalities and the parodies within.

Like the Canadian Strategic Syrup Reserve!

Because you know we have one.

There are the French Muskateers, the Mexican Luchadores, and Sumo Wrestlers as well.

Smash Up is a fun game, and this expansion’s factions are really great.

I linked to the review above if you want to find out more.

With those out of the way, we’re not even close to halfway through!

Let’s see if we can find some real winners for games I’d love to check out.

Enemy Action: Kharkov (#5004) is another eastern front World War II simulation from Compass Games. The second in John Butterfield’s “Enemy Action” series, this one is a two-player game or solo game with an AI managing the other side.

It’s also fairly low complexity, supposedly, but that could be in relation to other, heavier wargames?

Sometimes even a less complex wargame is too much for some people.

Apparently it is definitely designed for solitaire play, which is great when compared to those games where the solitaire is tacked on.

The playtime also says “15-300 minutes.”

I have to wonder what the point of a 15-minute game is? Maybe it has a graduated introduction to the game’s concepts, so each lesson is around 15 minutes?

It does look really cool and I’ve heard great things about the Enemy Action series.

I was always a sucker for Eastern Front games back when I was doing wargames, so this would definitely be interesting.

I almost have to include I Made You a Mixtape (#5027) because I have just received my Kickstarter copy of another mixtape game and that review will be going live hopefully later this week or next week!

This was co-designed by Mike DeLisio, one of the Dice Tower guys, along with Dan Hughes.

In this game, Mike’s kid (well, the description names him as Dan DeLisio, so I just assume!) is heading off to college. He’s letting the players raid his music collection, but in return he wants them to make him a mixtape as he’s going off to college.

So this isn’t a romantic mix tape like the game I’ll be reviewing.

This game is an “I split, you choose” game where players will be trying to put together the neatest mixtape and judge by “how well it’s themed, how the tracks flow with each other, and the balance of lengths between side A and side B.”

The song cards look cool and it would be interesting to try this out. It plays in 30 minutes or so and it looks pretty neat overall.

I have to wonder about the song names in this one because they appear to be real songs! I know Rock Lobster (and really dig it).

They appear hand-written, but is that just the styles of the cards? And if it is, did they get the rights to the names? Or do they need the rights if they just use the name but don’t identify the artist?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I’d definitely play this one if I had the opportunity.

Yes, there is another Forest Shuffle!

Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains (#5055 when I wrote this, but now at #4995) might be worth starting another experiment, because it literally just came out so there’s no way it’s staying down this low.

I’ve actually played this, but only asynchronously so it doesn’t count as an “official” play.

It’s now in Alpha (or maybe Beta) on Boardgame Arena and I’ve been playing multiple games of it with a friend of mine.

It’s pretty cool!

It has the familiar Forest Shuffle mechanisms of building an ecosystem and getting fauna and flora in it, placing them on all four sides of a card.

But this one introduces Rivers.

When you play a tree, you can also play a card from your hand underneath it as a river.

Or, just like Dartmoor has moors, there are standalone rivers that you can play.

Also introduced, of course, are fish to go with those rivers.

Rivers can have two animals or plants underneath them. If they’re attached to a tree, the tree can also have the normal left/right/top cards placed as well.

Standalone rivers can only have top/bottom, just like the moors.

It’s an interesting variation on the game, once again providing different paths for scoring.

Another might-be experiment (gotta have two and both of the current ones are going away!) might be Duel of Meloch (#5034).

This is not just a combination of Scythe and Expeditions (both from Stonemaier Games), but from what I understand is literally a game where one player plays Scythe and one player plays Expeditions, but against each other!

This one also just literally came out a month or two ago, so we’ll see how high it rises.

It will not be staying down in this century long.

I’m going to post the entire publisher blurb from BGG just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, especially because I’ve never played Scythe (but Expeditions was fun!)

“Duel of Meloch is a standalone game that combines mechanisms from two existing games, Scythe and Expeditions, into a 45-minute head-to-head clash. One player uses the Scythe rules and components (including a new faction and player mat); the other player uses the Expedition rules and components (including a new mech, character, and companion). As long as you know one of those games and your opponent knows the other, you can play Duel of Meloch, and you don’t need anything other than Duel of Meloch to play this game.

The duel takes place in a tight space on a new double-sided map—only 10 locations and 2 lakes—in a race to 4 stars on a new double-sided Triumph Track, so every turn is crucial. The devious Meloch keeps the game close by giving a small boost to your opponent every time you place a star.

All existing Scythe factions, player mats, encounter cards, and factory cards are compatible with Duel of Meloch, as are all existing Expeditions mechs, characters, companions, and discovery cards (items, meteorites, and half of the quests). Likewise, the components in Duel of Meloch are compatible with Scythe and Expeditions: For Scythe, 3 new Factory cards, 6 new encounter cards, a completely new set of 60 combat cards; for Expeditions, 30 new discovery cards (items, quests, and meteorites).”

So you’re basically buying an expansion to both games that you can also play by itself and bring the other stuff in?

That’s a cool concept.

Tim (I think?) from the Boardgame Hot Takes podcast talked about this recently and it sounded really good.

If you like Scythe, anyway.

It’s 2-player only, so probably wouldn’t get played by me much, but I’d give it a whirl.

How about something really fast, really funny-sounding, and will make you hungry?

Ramen Fury (#5061) is a fast card game about making a bowl of ramen noodles and eating it, all before your opponents can spice it up so that it’s too hot!

The blurb is hilarious, so I’ll put that here:

“Rush to prepare and slurp up delicious bowls of ramen filled with tasty ingredients in the use-your-noodle card game Ramen Fury. Collect combos of cards to score for different recipes while adding garnishes to boost your points. At the same time, watch out as other players throw spicy chili peppers your way or swipe foods right from your bowls! It’s “take that” fun that will have you calling for takeout!”

A 2-5 player game that takes 30 minutes and is about eating noodles?

Sign me up!

Couldn’t find a picture of the game on the table, but the card artwork looks pretty neat.

It also appears to be a bit of hand management and set collection, which I also love.

I’d definitely give this a shot!

Let’s go back to the wargame category for a moment (you’re welcome, Andrew!)

Peloponnesian War (#5033) was published by GMT Games in 2019 and is a reimplementation of The Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BC (published back in 1991) and is a 1-2 player game that has some unique mechanisms.

It was designed by Mark Herman, so you know it’s going to have that.

The solitaire system used here sounds really cool, so much so that if I had the space at home to implement it, I probably would!

In this one, you don’t choose a side and play against a bot, essentially.

Instead, you play a side until you are winning. If you are losing, then the “game system” keeps going and you have to keep playing your side.

However, if you start winning, then you are forced to go to the other side and try to react against that.

“The duration of the war and the player’s performance determine victory. In this manner the player competes against himself in the classic tradition of the Greek tragedy.”

I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I know there’s a way to win, a way to lose, and a way for the game to end!

GMT’s new edition of it has a mounted map and player boards, thick counters (hard to clip? I don’t know, as I am not a heathen clipper! Let’s see if that generates any response here…).

It also appears to have point to point movement on the map.

Is this a great game?

I don’t know, but it looks intriguing.

It takes 90-240 minutes, but I’m not sure where the discrepancy comes from because the description doesn’t mention scenarios.

Maybe that’s for the 2-player game?

No indication from the description of how the 2-player game plays, but I’m intrigued enough that I’d love to see it.

Finally, let’s talk about a game that I’m not sure why we’re talking about it here.

Thebai (#5049) is a game designed by David Turczi and published by Board & Dice back in 2025, but for some reason it’s languishing down here below the #5000 threshold.

Did it just not catch on with people?

I’ve never heard of it, though I’m sure it was probably announced in the Board & Dice newsletter email I’m subscribed to, so maybe it just wasn’t that memorable.

Maybe because it’s a 1-4 player game that supposedly takes 1.5 – 2.5 hours, and we all know what stated run times are like?

Let’s blurb it just so we know what we’re talking about here:

“In Thebai, players assume the role of influential leaders from noble families during the tumultuous late Bronze Age. Throughout the game, players are tasked with rebuilding the Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes, while restoring the city’s exports, praying to the gods of the city, and protecting the lives of the citizens as grand heroes spill each other’s blood outside the gates.

The game lasts 10 rounds, each divided into an Action phase and a Fate phase. During the Action phase, players use one Citizen die, and then move their Archon on the Cadmea. During the Fate phase, players may get additional scoring opportunities, depending on their accomplishments and for protecting the city gates. After final scoring the player with the most Victory Points is the winner.”

It looks like a typical Euro type game with contracts and endgame bonuses and things that you do out on the board.

Maybe that’s why it hasn’t hit bigger?

I don’t know, but I’d love to try this one.

It’s Turczi, it’s probably worth at least one play.

Now that we’re down below 5000, it will be interesting to see what types of games we see here.

This is a good example of it, though.

Anything in here you like, or would avoid?

Let me know in the comments.