Loved your advice at the end. I had hit a stride of trying to find a bunch of games I’d “love” to play and just realized recently that I am just trying to fill a void I have. Games aren’t going to do that, that’s a fact. I do love playing games, but honestly I can’t ever find satisfactory enjoyment if I keep searching new games for it. I enjoy playing with people, that’s what it is all about, and I have more than enough games to do that with. I’m clearing shelves, and cutting my new game purchases too.
Just want to comment on how I like your editing of these rants. Lots of cutting, but it adds even more to your: "Straight to the point" perspective you are already giving. Great job, thats a talent. Thanks for your reviews!
I really love the honest videos. No promoting content, keeping it real. My suggestion for a video would be the same video but top 100 before 2015 or 2010.
I've just discovered this channel. There is something to be said about having a guy who could play an extra in a Guy Richie gangster movie talk about board games. Consider me subscribed and a big fan from now on.
As always refreshingly uncompromising views delivered in a way that makes you never want to spill his pint, keep up the good work and escape the bgg echo chamber!
BGGs top 100 boiled down: Cult of the new? Which of these suicide potions do I drink? Cool miniatures and fifty million dollars on Kickstarter? Here is a 10 but it could also be a 1 because they didn’t deliver the fucking game when they said. Tom Vasel says it’s good? Here’s a 10!
Your comments on how the BGG Top 100 list has changed and is now filled with a lot of overpriced, overproduced Kickstarter shite is spot on mate. "Cult of the New" is a very real issue/phenomenon and I'm just tired of it. When I got into the board gaming hobby about 10 years ago I bought quite a lot of games that were at that time in the Top 100 that are now no longer there. I used it as a guide to see what games were good and worth buying. Some of them had been there for years and others were relatively new but what I can say is that a lot of those that I bought back then (Puerto Rico, Twilight Struggle, Shadows Over Camelot, Hammer of the Scots, Memoir 44, K2, Ticket to Ride: Europe, Caylus etc.,) all still hold up exceptionally well and are still among my favourites, despite most of them not being in the Top 100 list any more. Whereas some of the new fair that has come along I've found to be really overrated with not much staying power. They might be better produced but they are otherwise quite shallow experiences, and many of them are SO long now! In short, I've come to love my older games more and I try to spend less time worrying about "the next thing" and "FOMO" and instead just appreciate the games I have already and try to share that with others in the hobby. Excellent channel, keep up the great work!
Very wise words. Thanks for making the series of videos. Very entertaining and an unbiased opinion. I was bitten by the KS bug during the pandemic. Am coming out of it and buying what I can afford either from retailers or more often, on the used market i.e. Brass Birmingham. Couldn't bring myself to pay retail for a game about Birmingham. As to the BGG list....bah humbug.
Pandemic season 1 was our first game that was not a common normal board game, and whoa did it open us up to a whole new world of board games we never knew existed!! Will never forget the experience of the campaign, and we couldn’t wait to keep playing
I really don't understand why Pandemic gets so much love. I like almost every other coop game more than it. Shadows over Camelot, Spirit Island, Horrified , Ghost Stories , Hanabi, Samurai Spirit to name a few.
Our group enjoyed Pandemic Legacy. We started it just before the real pandemic, played it monthly, had to rest up for a while due to lockdown and finished a while later after a fun campaign. We were lucky with some of the curveballs, I expect it’s possible to have a much harder experience through choices made prior to events unfolding. I’d not rate it 2nd best game of all time, but it’s well worth playing.
My reply went missing - not sure why- anyway, to summarise, we played it during the pandemic and liked it loads but given we saw up close (working in the nhs as we do) the lies and deceit the entire world was gaslit with during the pandemic the “twist” did not come as any sort of surprise.
BGG’s changed about 7 years ago. Ever since, it’s been Kickstarter fan boys ranking games before they can even play them based largely around promotion by board game pundits. It’s money spent, size of box, and number of miniatures equal ranking. 300-500 Gloomhaven: 1 with a bullet. Pandemic Legacy though, is every bit as good as its position makes it out to be.Season 0 is my favorite largely because it’s inspired by Pandemic mechanics but not at all the same game.
Love War of the Ring, love Star Wars Rebellion. So happy that you're an avid Twilight Imperium fan (was afraid you'd butcher it); spending a day with you and your crew playing that monster seems really awesome and a barrel of laughs XD
Played TI4 and felt like Samuel L. Jackson in Changing Lanes wanting to scream out “Can you give me back my time?!”. I’ve enjoyed watching these videos and was looking forward to you ripping TI4 a new one. I guess we don’t get everything we wish for.
@@RobertGerman nah man, the people were great and they are what made it bearable. Took way too long for what it is. Maybe speed up the first 4 hours and we’ll have something I would enjoy playing. Others love it, that’s cool. Just will never be for me.
You summed up the Top 10 perfectly! Remember, ya can't have slaughter without laughter...and as you slaughtered the "cherished,most adored and bestest ever" board games to ever grace thier presence on planet earth, I laughed heartily agreeing with you. Told ya once, I'll tell ya again...new games(last 5/6 years particularly so)are hyped and promoted by sponsored playthroughs and reviews on shameful channels. Gimme El Grande and Tigris and Euphrates any day over these miniature-infested bloatfests.
When it gets down to the BGG top 100, I recognize these are the best of the best, but only to certain groups of players with their own tastes in games. Gloomhaven may be one of the best dungeon crawlers, but to me, it's not in a category that I want to play. Clank is an exception to that, because it skips most of the rolling for damage, defense, spells of extra damage / defense, multipliers, dividers, factorials... More importantly, Clank is competitive, not cooperative. Gloomhaven has one thing I like, and that's the action selection between the top and bottom of the cards. More games should have that. Still, the BGG rankings and ratings are just a rough estimate of how much the average person will like a game, if they liked all categories. I have favorites that barely get into the top 10,000.
Agree, negotiation games are not as popular as other genres of games and they are inexistent in the top 100 of the website. Is it because they are bad? No, they are niche with some people who genuinely love them (eg: Adam from NRB, Jon from Actualol, me lol) BGG chary is more of a popularity contest than a quality certificate
They're not the best of the best. They're generally very good games that cater to a specific audience. Gloomhaven ranks highly because the only people playing it self-select into playing it. The game has multiple barriers to entry from the price, the complexity, the style of game, and even the setting. The ratio of good ratings is going to be much higher than bad ratings simply due to that. Games like Brass, Kingdom Death: Monster, and Twilight Struggle also fall into this. Twilight Struggle isn't a bad game, but was it really the best game of all time while it held the #1 spot? No. That's nonsense. Sequels benefit even more from the selection bias. If you didn't like Gloomhaven, then you're not going to get Frosthaven. So, even if Frosthaven is mostly more of the same with aspects that make it worse than Gloomhaven, it's going to race up the charts because the only people playing and rating it are Gloomhaven fans. Brass, Pandemic, Gaia Project, everything with a second edition, are all benefitting from people noping out of the series at an earlier point. The BGG community is also biased towards Euro games which is reflected in the Top 100. It's also not a particularly welcoming site with many of the old guard tending to disparage and chase away new gamers with differing opinions. BGG Top 100 aren't the best games. It's just the favorite games of a relatively large gaming community.
@@hugocruz2439 There's one negotiation game in BGG's top 100 (according to their mechanics). Pax Pamir is currently at 39 overall. That, and Bohnanza around 500, reinforces your point, I think. I just picked up Dahlias (Bohnanza with better art) and we enjoyed a 4-player game. I'm hoping to get Pax played soon. And there's a new game I want to play that is similar to Chinatown, but the name escapes me.
@@darbyl3872 pax pamir negotiation part is not prominent at all. It's an excellent game but if you want negotiation games you look for Chinatown, Zoo Vadis (this one is new and pure negotiation very entry level, i prefer to introduce the genre over Bohnanza), Sidereal Confluence (heavy weight) and my favorite one: Cosmic Encounter! It is fun, loud, tactical, diplomatic, cutthroat, extremely variable, it has bluffs, alliances, betrayals and the aliens literally break the game. Is an experience.
Burning through Pandemic Legacy in a week sounds . . . draining. My four person group finished it in 14-15 plays, every match except one came down to the wire, and every match - win or lose - ended with us collapsing back into our chairs and sitting in complete silence for minutes on end while we recovered ourselves. And by "minutes on end" I mean sometimes 10+ minutes of dead silence. If you're familiar with Dom drop/sub drop, it was that but from a board game instead of a flogging session. Or the drain you feel after multiple hours of an intense video game. It's incredible how the developers created a system so perfectly balanced, despite how radically the game state changed from play to play. Hands down the greatest board game experience I've ever had and likely ever will. Whom you play it with matters, but with the right group you'll understand why it's ranked so high - in my opinion it's the only game that deserves its ranking, and the only one I feel comfortable calling a masterpiece.
I really liked pandemic legacy, it improves on the base game significantly, but you have to go into it with the mindset that you’re only going to play it 12-24 times. As someone with a large collection, most games rarely see 10 plays so that’s pretty good. I also played through the campaign twice, and while you don’t get the surprise the second time around, it was still quite exciting. Ithink 3-4 total run through is about the most you can get before it feels like the same thing over again. Keep in mind that you need a brand new copy for each run through, so once will suffice for most.
So Martin Wallace (Brass * designer) now lives in Brisbane, Australia. I went to a gathering organised by a large and growing BG media group (podcasts, gamesday events, etc). They were actively pushing to get Brass Birmingham to no1 on this list. They were very open about it and were encouraging people to do the things that would get it to no1. And they are in Bris, Syd and Melbourne at least, maybe other capitals as well. Have a successful podcast. So a bit of reach.
to be fair, the only reason that Brass and Pandemic passes Gloomhaven was because of all the review bombing fake accounts on BGG that pushed them up. So many brand new accounts that only ever ranked two games, Gloomhaven as a 1 and Brass as a 10. Very convenient.
and rather juvenile for them to do so. Thankfully the press don't seem to have picked up on that, as such behaviour reflects badly on our hobby / opens our hobby to ridicule, when the vast majority of gamers are far more grown-up.
JotL is a good way to figure out if you are going to want to play Gloomhaven. For me, that answer was "no". Was happy to play through JotL, but it was more than enough to show me that it is just a video game being run manually as a board game, and is far too tedious as a result. Was a great time, but I absolutely do not want more of it.
It basically is a video game, you’re right. I too own JoTL, and enjoy it, but whenever I think of the other two games I find myself thinking, “I’ll just buy the computer game if I want to play those.”
I personally love war of the ring due to its asymmetric gameplay and razor thin victories. Usually this game goes down to the wire (I had one game where the last hunt pull on the last track space on mount doom determined who won the game). Each game I’ve played has been incredibly different than the last. This is largely due to the amazing cards present for each side. The cards you start with alongside the your dice rolls will determine what your first actions will be. I’ve have yet to have a boardgaming experience match the way I feel while playing war of the ring. That being said, I can understand why people may not enjoy it.
Right there with you on Ark Nova. I dismissed it, expecting to absolutely hate it (as I hated Terraforming Mars with a passion.) Thankfully I tried it and was glad I did. Great game. I'm a Dune fan, grew up with the Lynch movie + first book--really dig Dune: Imperium. Works well solo, too.
A lot of people say Dune is ugly. I don't get it. The looks are part of the reason it's near the top of my favorites. Anyway, I need to try Ark Nova, in spite of the animals. I really don't care for games with animals.
@@darbyl3872 Ugly maybe is the wrong word. Perhaps it's jarring after having the very thematic original board, where you really felt you were fighting over the planet. Instead this game has a more abstract board (along with very abstracted combat), and it's more functional than aesthetic (or thematic). It certainly doesn't shout 'Dune!'.
Pandemic Legacy 1, 2, and 0 are different enough that they DO deserve different entries. And We friggin' loved 'em. The basic pandemic mechanism is the same, but then gets turned topsy-turvy through the different stories.
I pretty much agree. I thought season 1 was great. Season 2 meh. And season 0 I'm struggling playing. Oddly, I think regular pandemic (with On the Brink) tops them all: it has elegant simplicity, challenge, and replayabilty the others don't.
BGG used to be sucha great site its sad what happened to it. If you display diveristy of thought they just call you nazi or racist or sexist or whatever...
@@harveydentsAgreed. It’s a woke nightmare. But then I am a racist, misogynistic, homophobic (which my husband finds odd as we are both gay), transphobic, islamophobic, sexist, Nazi. Apparently. And all I said was I thought children shouldn’t be sexualised.
Well i am a big fan of Gloomhaven so I could get all nostalgic about what a significant milestone it is for boardgaming, blah blah. But really i just love dungeon crawlers and GH has strategic play, interesting classes, and hand management. And no dice! Plus its coop where its easier to teach and limits alpha gaming. Overall i think its awsome, but i see how ppl dont like it... especially to get consistent plays, or some missions are samesy. I dont mind setup/teardown for a long game session. Ive been considering Mage Knight... but GH won me over.
For 2023 it would be cool to see if there are any changes (additions - subtractions) from your shelf that you want to talk about. Another cool one could be the games you like playing with 6 players, even though cyclades is your fav - is it your fav 6 player experience 🤷♂️🤔
Yes 6 player could well suit the format, as there are some that technically can take 6, but the experience can drag significantly. The ones that work well are so useful for a quieter game night, where getting 5-6 players playing one game, is better than splitting into 2 tables.
@@iansutton7416 I think he would have good insights into the 6 player field - as Blood Rage can play 6 - but does he have fun doing it or does he use house rules that make games more fun at 6? Im really curious for him to review Scythe Rise of Fenris as I have played it with 8 before to some success...
I do agree that the list is far from perfect. Certain games have very strong fan bases as seen from the Gloomhaven obsession. Changes I would make.... 1. No repeats: I don't want to see Gloomhaven and Pandemic three or more times. 2. Stop following the hotness: If the game is on its third edition it can qualify for the top 100. 3. I wouldn't allow you to rate a game until you actually received it and played it at least 5 times. I hate seeing 10 or 1 in the ratings on a game that isn't even out. Good points. Good entertainment. Thanks.
@@BoardGameBollocks You misread. They said Mr. Beans, the *short-lived flatulent front man for the launch of Cross & Blackwell baked beans. * Launching the campaign on bonfire night, was probably not the brightest plan. RIP Mr. Beans. Your light shone brightly but briefly.
Pandemic Legacy is excellent and I can fully understand why it still sits at #2. Playing through it gave me and my wife some of the greatest board game moments. It works wonders with two players. The game length is kind of perfect for a busy couple, you can just squeeze a game in after putting the kids to bed, and for those who have all the time in the world it would be no problem playing two games in a row. It IS a legacy game though. Which means it ends up in the bin sooner or later. I've taken out most of the bits and use them as markers at the RPG-table, but the rest is long gone. So as long as you don't rate infinite replayability above all else I think you'll be pleased. Gameplay is really tight and even though we didn't lose a single scenario every scenario victory felt well earned and like a struggle. It is not recommended for groups who doesn't get it out regularly though. I can easily see this game getting stuck mid-campaign on the shelf. And it is not for people who suck at organizing.
We only lost 2-3 plays (I'm only positive about one), and every session (except Feb or Mar) came down to the WIRE. We'd either win on the ultimate or penultimate turn, or we would have won had we had just one more. Incredible game design given how radically things changed from month to month.
@@boredboardgamerkramer Yeah, we had a lucky run! There were many instances where we knew a card draw dictated losing the game or getting that next critical round. Sometimes taking risks that we knew could lose us the game but pulling through. We are in the middle of season 2 now and enjoying it a lot. Fantastic games!!
Such top 10s /100s are a good reminder that tastes differ. I have none of these 10, and never wanted to own any of them. Of those I've played, the experience didn't change that perspective. Overall I'm probably more strongly against the existence of such a top 100 / Ratings system. It really ought to be just some harmless fun, but I've seen too many people take it far too seriously, and the use of 'hate' ratings shows an incredibly juvenile mindset. That it's seen by some as 'definitive' is laughable.
I made a return to board gaming this year after a long hiatus. Naturally, I found the BGG Top 100 and went a bit apeshit with the acquisitions at first. There are some gems on this list for sure but the thing I've learned most about this list... is that they hold their resale value well once you find out loads of them are not delivering on your expectations (which, I admit, are subjective), and decide to divest of them on eBay. Oh well - it was worth going through the process to find which kinds of games or mechanics I truly enjoy, and buy those instead of whatever is being hyped at this exact moment. Brass Birmingham is staying in my permanent collection, though!
Whilst it would be lovely if we could just look at a game and instinctively 'know', it's not that easy, with sometimes smaller elements grating, or delivering surprising joy, or merely the whole hanging together (or not). Playing those games will definitely help refine your tastes again, but also to get a feel for what's going to work with the people you game with.
@@iansutton7416 I definitely agree. While there are no board games I've played this year that I've strongly disliked - most of them I *somewhat* like and a few of them I *really* like - I certainly compare each game I play against one another, and end up asking myself, "In a world where we have the opportunity to play Game X, would I ever choose to offer Game Y to my group on game night again?" Unless it fits a very particular niche or case use (ie, it's a game my wife would actually play...), if the answer is no, it's off to the cull pile. Definitely hoping to curate rather than collect. It's great that we're so spoiled for choice these days!
@@JonnyTenebrous Yes, despite the annual berating of the quality of the year's gaming releases, we really are still in a golden era of gaming. Like yourself, I had a while away from gaming (c. 1998 - 2013), as I moved to a different city and my new friends had different interests to my old friends. It took 15 years for me to realise I missed board games, and that it was ok to go along to a club to play games for games' sake (with the previous friends gaming was part of a wide range of stuff we did). Certainly coming back to it after 15 years, the volume of games published was amazing, and that games design had come a long way. I did buy a few duds on my return, but not too many, and have learnt to be very critical / set a high bar for buying / backing games, based on understanding our gaming group, my own preferences and having a better eye for potential issues.
Just wanted to let you know that War of the Ring is not a hidden movement game. If you believe so, you haven't played, silly. It's a racing game. And one of the best, right up there with ave caesar and pitchcar.
If you have even 3 total people to consistently play Pandemic Legacy...please do...Legacy type games are not as rare now, so it might not have the punch for you as it did for me almost 5 years ago... but give this one a shot. The overall experience is difficult to top. Thanks for all of your content. Hurry up to Las Vegas!
I have a deep skepticism of games that are themed with popular IPs. From Star Wars to Battlestar Galactica, from Lord of the Rings to Marvel superhero stuff, from games made by Cyanide & Happiness or Penny Arcade, and even spin-off games of more popular and beloved games; I feel like much of the ratings and hype are more influenced by how much people like the original IP rather than the actual quality of the game. People are more pleased and entertained by familiar names and artwork, more influenced by the positive feelings and fandom from something else, than they are by mechanics and game play of the game at hand. These games get very good/high initial ratings from eager and over-zealous fans who are falling over themselves to praise and worship something related to something they are familiar with and excited about. And they'll do this without even having played the game at all. And "fans" will die on a hill defending something they love rather than consider that something they like (even something tangentially related to it) might suck. Fandoms can be a blight upon good ideas. Your observations on the Sunk Cost Fallacy, KickStarter, and the board game community are things that I have often remarked on in the past. I think it's a conversation that needs to happen more ... if not to help those who are suffering from it, then to help those who are not suffering from it to recognize those who are and to avoid the pitfalls they are generating. Finally, I have a deep disdain for "Legacy" games. You know what we did to Risk games that got beat up (or water damaged (not like we didn't tell John that he was going to spill his damned Diet Coke like a dozen F'ing times before the stubborn jackarse did.))? We went nuclear on them and played a game of eras. Nukes, bio-weapons and blight, and we f'ed that board up good! Modern apocalypse, post-apocalypse ... and there wasn't much after that. We only did it twice. It was fun. But then we stopped playing Risk because Risk sucked. We _talked_ about doing the same to Monopoly, but we couldn't generate any enthusiasm for _actually_ playing Monopoly in any form. Then they started selling "Legacy" Risk ... and it cost more than regular Risk?! Like WTF?! Just go to a thrift store and buy and old copy of Risk to mutilate on your own! FFS!!!
lol - Birmingham improvement…“it’s like putting a c*ck ring on someone’s knob to make it look bigger”. Now that’s funny. Love your reviews. Also enjoy that your replies to comments have the same spice as your reviews. Keep it up.
Dune: Imperium is probably my favorite game, so I'm glad to see it on this list. Terraforming Mars was pretty good, but I don't know if it is top 10 material. I've only got TI:3, and I hear TI:4 is better, so maybe someday when I have "fuck you" money, I'll upgrade it. Everything else on this list doesn't belong here, though (although I haven't played Ark Nova...it just doesn't interest me).
1. Modern art 2. Kingdom Builder 3. Indonesia 4. El Grande 5. Barrage 6. Madeira 7. Reef Encounter 8. 1846 9. Rolling Stock Stars 10. Ra 11. Go 12. Oath. There, I fixed it for you :D
I think I would have made a bigger grievance for Through the Ages and Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization as well as Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy and Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy being on the top 100 of BGG instead of GH/FH/JofTL or PL0, 1, 2. War of the Ring first edition fell to 168 so a similar argument could be made for that as well but just not on the top 100. PL0 is different enough from PL1 and 2 I think it could deserve its own entry. I think many would say that there are major differences betw FH And GH to warrant entries as well but when the oem is simply offering the new edition for sale to replace the old edition why do we have to see both entries? FH didn't replace GH, pl2 and pl0 did not replace pl1 but Eclipse, Through the Ages, and War of the Ring all had the past editions removed from sale. These aren't Terra Mystica/Gaia Project examples these are replacements. BGG needs to figure out a way to collapse editions together when they have clear 1 to 1 replacement situations. I do wonder if Ticket to Ride expansions all were on the top 100 back in their heyday.
Tried Gloomhaven with a friend but we gave up after 40 hours as the effort to enjoyment ratio was to low for us. Expected a dungeon crawler but got what felt like a light puzzle game. As for the card combat it was good but nowhere near good enough to sustain a game of such length. Having similar issues with Oathsworn atm. Fun enough but such a pain in the arse to setup and play and massively overproduced. Probably going to end up selling tbh.
I prefer the Lynch version of Dune But i still like the new. I totally agree why so many of the samish game, brass, gloomhaven, pandemic. But i think it is good that new games make the list. Many new games Are so much better than the boring old version they are iterations of. Yes i am looking at you caverna, puerto Rico, race for the galaxy. And the art has envolved and is so much better than Before. Hansa teutonica might be a good game But it looks so ugly i cannot endure it when there is a pletora of games similar but better looking. Thanks for making this videos i enjoyed them immensly
I agree, most peoples/groups/websites lists have games where I would prefer to burn my nuts on a BBQ than sit and play those games, if my mate brought around Brass, I would slam the front door in his face and tell him to FK off out the window. But If I made list of my favorite games I am pretty sure someone would say its a crap list. Like for instance I like Kingdom death monster, some triggered people don't like it because of the T*ts and Viol3nce, I really like both of those things and drinking lager, so KDM is pretty much a game I can love.
@@imnottellingyoumyname3050 And that is why these lists are so bad, because everyone has an opinion, I personally would throw Brass straight on a bonfire.
BGG censors reviews. I've been waiting to try war of teh Ring... Only a euro-lover would bash TI. Remember when Twilight Strug was top dog for like a decade?
Best spot on opinion: Gloomhaven. Rote, fiddly, lifeless with basically no story. Too much controversy and wankery. A colossal waste of time. Worst opinion: Ark Nova. It’s everything terrible about Wingspan, but longer, swingier, and somehow less interactive. It’s got so many uninteresting mechanism stapled together it would make Lacerda blush.
Completely agree that Board Game Geek rankings are rubbish. As well as the Kickstarter problem they're an average of everyone's tastes, which is about as useful to an individual as knowing that the average number of wheels on a vehicle is 2.8. No specific vehicle has 2.8 wheels. So, any chance of you doing an actual useful list of your top 10 board games? Which ones and why?
10) Star Wars: Rebellion - 8/10 , good game, happy to play. 9) War of the Ring - N/A, haven't played it but interested. 8) Jaws of the Lion - N/A, haven't played it and not that interested. 7) Dune Imperium - 7/10, a good game but not great. The expansions are also just "okay". 6) Terraforming Mars - 7/10, used to like this one more but it's lost its luster over time. 5) TI4 - 9/10, hard to get to the table but worth every minute. One of my favorite games. 4) Ark Nova - 5/10, I found it slow and frustrating and, honestly, quite boring. 3) Gloomhaven - 6/10, fine for what it is, I'd just rather invest that kind of time and energy in a pen-and-paper RPG. 2) Pandemic Legacy - N/A, haven't played but have played other Pandemics and don't much care for them. 1) Brass - N/A, haven't played and not interested. Not my style of game and I'd probably be bored to tears. Cheers!
This channel is basically everything that's true that would be downvoted to oblivion on Reddit. Such a breath of fresh air.
On reddit & bgg. F'em both.
Loved your advice at the end. I had hit a stride of trying to find a bunch of games I’d “love” to play and just realized recently that I am just trying to fill a void I have. Games aren’t going to do that, that’s a fact. I do love playing games, but honestly I can’t ever find satisfactory enjoyment if I keep searching new games for it. I enjoy playing with people, that’s what it is all about, and I have more than enough games to do that with.
I’m clearing shelves, and cutting my new game purchases too.
Just want to comment on how I like your editing of these rants.
Lots of cutting, but it adds even more to your: "Straight to the point" perspective you are already giving.
Great job, thats a talent.
Thanks for your reviews!
I use a program that cuts out the silence…really I’m just lazy
@@BoardGameBollocks I wondered...Sounds like it cuts out the bollocks to me! All the same: well done
"Frosthaven is like Gloomhaven thats been thrown into a snowman!" Hahaha, too good. 😂 Love the reviews.
I don t get why that channel has only 18 k subs. One of the best where you can have real opinion ... Keep going, really good job.
Love your blunt descriptions of the games. Very refreshing!
I really love the honest videos. No promoting content, keeping it real.
My suggestion for a video would be the same video but top 100 before 2015 or 2010.
I've just discovered this channel. There is something to be said about having a guy who could play an extra in a Guy Richie gangster movie talk about board games. Consider me subscribed and a big fan from now on.
Who you calling an "extra" and why you looking to get shanked?
@@boredboardgamerkramer My mistake, he would give Bullet Tooth Tony a run for his money
Best in the business! Keep up the great content!
Appreciate anyone who simply doesn't fawn all of the boardgame gods and tells it as it is. Brilliant. Merry Christmas.
As always refreshingly uncompromising views delivered in a way that makes you never want to spill his pint, keep up the good work and escape the bgg echo chamber!
Loving this series. Keep up the good work mate.
BGGs top 100 boiled down:
Cult of the new? Which of these suicide potions do I drink?
Cool miniatures and fifty million dollars on Kickstarter? Here is a 10 but it could also be a 1 because they didn’t deliver the fucking game when they said.
Tom Vasel says it’s good? Here’s a 10!
I hate the soulless shills who have evolved out of the gaming community. Blighters.
They need to put this quote on the Brass Birmingham box.
“It’s like Brass Lancaster with a cock ring!”
Your comments on how the BGG Top 100 list has changed and is now filled with a lot of overpriced, overproduced Kickstarter shite is spot on mate. "Cult of the New" is a very real issue/phenomenon and I'm just tired of it.
When I got into the board gaming hobby about 10 years ago I bought quite a lot of games that were at that time in the Top 100 that are now no longer there. I used it as a guide to see what games were good and worth buying. Some of them had been there for years and others were relatively new but what I can say is that a lot of those that I bought back then (Puerto Rico, Twilight Struggle, Shadows Over Camelot, Hammer of the Scots, Memoir 44, K2, Ticket to Ride: Europe, Caylus etc.,) all still hold up exceptionally well and are still among my favourites, despite most of them not being in the Top 100 list any more. Whereas some of the new fair that has come along I've found to be really overrated with not much staying power. They might be better produced but they are otherwise quite shallow experiences, and many of them are SO long now!
In short, I've come to love my older games more and I try to spend less time worrying about "the next thing" and "FOMO" and instead just appreciate the games I have already and try to share that with others in the hobby.
Excellent channel, keep up the great work!
Frosthaven: it's Gloomhaven that's been thrown into a snowman! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Brilliant channel and such a breath of fresh air. Tell it how it is. 😂
Very wise words. Thanks for making the series of videos. Very entertaining and an unbiased opinion. I was bitten by the KS bug during the pandemic. Am coming out of it and buying what I can afford either from retailers or more often, on the used market i.e. Brass Birmingham. Couldn't bring myself to pay retail for a game about Birmingham. As to the BGG list....bah humbug.
this guy is the best boardgame reviewer ever.
I really like brass and its my favorite game but your comment about the number 1 game being about Birmingham was so funny and so true.
Every “campaign in a box” game is just failing to be a video game.
Yes!
Beautiful always thought that exactly, mite be hard work but would love to see your top 100 then to now as I do play nearly the same games you do.
I do a top 100 every year. You can find them in the playlists.
Pandemic season 1 was our first game that was not a common normal board game, and whoa did it open us up to a whole new world of board games we never knew existed!! Will never forget the experience of the campaign, and we couldn’t wait to keep playing
I really don't understand why Pandemic gets so much love. I like almost every other coop game more than it. Shadows over Camelot, Spirit Island, Horrified , Ghost Stories , Hanabi, Samurai Spirit to name a few.
All the way from the back, thank you my man!
I knew it was you…
Our group enjoyed Pandemic Legacy. We started it just before the real pandemic, played it monthly, had to rest up for a while due to lockdown and finished a while later after a fun campaign. We were lucky with some of the curveballs, I expect it’s possible to have a much harder experience through choices made prior to events unfolding. I’d not rate it 2nd best game of all time, but it’s well worth playing.
My reply went missing - not sure why- anyway, to summarise, we played it during the pandemic and liked it loads but given we saw up close (working in the nhs as we do) the lies and deceit the entire world was gaslit with during the pandemic the “twist” did not come as any sort of surprise.
Thank you Sir! This guy is so funny :) and straigth to point love it !
The conclusion was spot on.
It is sick to me that there are no COIN games on the top 100!
Which do you recommended for new players?
@@BoardGameBollocks Cuba Libre
Splendor count?
BGG’s changed about 7 years ago. Ever since, it’s been Kickstarter fan boys ranking games before they can even play them based largely around promotion by board game pundits.
It’s money spent, size of box, and number of miniatures equal ranking. 300-500 Gloomhaven: 1 with a bullet.
Pandemic Legacy though, is every bit as good as its position makes it out to be.Season 0 is my favorite largely because it’s inspired by Pandemic mechanics but not at all the same game.
Love War of the Ring, love Star Wars Rebellion. So happy that you're an avid Twilight Imperium fan (was afraid you'd butcher it); spending a day with you and your crew playing that monster seems really awesome and a barrel of laughs XD
Played TI4 and felt like Samuel L. Jackson in Changing Lanes wanting to scream out “Can you give me back my time?!”. I’ve enjoyed watching these videos and was looking forward to you ripping TI4 a new one. I guess we don’t get everything we wish for.
I've found the people I play with can make all the difference in how I perceive and enjoy a game. Maybe try a different group?
@@RobertGerman nah man, the people were great and they are what made it bearable. Took way too long for what it is. Maybe speed up the first 4 hours and we’ll have something I would enjoy playing. Others love it, that’s cool. Just will never be for me.
You summed up the Top 10 perfectly! Remember, ya can't have slaughter without laughter...and as you slaughtered the "cherished,most adored and bestest ever" board games to ever grace thier presence on planet earth, I laughed heartily agreeing with you. Told ya once, I'll tell ya again...new games(last 5/6 years particularly so)are hyped and promoted by sponsored playthroughs and reviews on shameful channels. Gimme El Grande and Tigris and Euphrates any day over these miniature-infested bloatfests.
When I read your comment I immediately thought of Quackalope and Board Game Co. Can't think why.
Happy Christmas and Merry Bollocks to all!
Love the review, what would be your no.1 game of all time
I do a top 100 every year. Check the playlists 👍🏻
When it gets down to the BGG top 100, I recognize these are the best of the best, but only to certain groups of players with their own tastes in games. Gloomhaven may be one of the best dungeon crawlers, but to me, it's not in a category that I want to play. Clank is an exception to that, because it skips most of the rolling for damage, defense, spells of extra damage / defense, multipliers, dividers, factorials... More importantly, Clank is competitive, not cooperative. Gloomhaven has one thing I like, and that's the action selection between the top and bottom of the cards. More games should have that.
Still, the BGG rankings and ratings are just a rough estimate of how much the average person will like a game, if they liked all categories. I have favorites that barely get into the top 10,000.
Agree, negotiation games are not as popular as other genres of games and they are inexistent in the top 100 of the website. Is it because they are bad? No, they are niche with some people who genuinely love them (eg: Adam from NRB, Jon from Actualol, me lol) BGG chary is more of a popularity contest than a quality certificate
They're not the best of the best. They're generally very good games that cater to a specific audience.
Gloomhaven ranks highly because the only people playing it self-select into playing it. The game has multiple barriers to entry from the price, the complexity, the style of game, and even the setting. The ratio of good ratings is going to be much higher than bad ratings simply due to that.
Games like Brass, Kingdom Death: Monster, and Twilight Struggle also fall into this. Twilight Struggle isn't a bad game, but was it really the best game of all time while it held the #1 spot? No. That's nonsense.
Sequels benefit even more from the selection bias. If you didn't like Gloomhaven, then you're not going to get Frosthaven. So, even if Frosthaven is mostly more of the same with aspects that make it worse than Gloomhaven, it's going to race up the charts because the only people playing and rating it are Gloomhaven fans. Brass, Pandemic, Gaia Project, everything with a second edition, are all benefitting from people noping out of the series at an earlier point.
The BGG community is also biased towards Euro games which is reflected in the Top 100. It's also not a particularly welcoming site with many of the old guard tending to disparage and chase away new gamers with differing opinions.
BGG Top 100 aren't the best games. It's just the favorite games of a relatively large gaming community.
@@hugocruz2439 There's one negotiation game in BGG's top 100 (according to their mechanics). Pax Pamir is currently at 39 overall. That, and Bohnanza around 500, reinforces your point, I think. I just picked up Dahlias (Bohnanza with better art) and we enjoyed a 4-player game. I'm hoping to get Pax played soon. And there's a new game I want to play that is similar to Chinatown, but the name escapes me.
@@darbyl3872 pax pamir negotiation part is not prominent at all. It's an excellent game but if you want negotiation games you look for Chinatown, Zoo Vadis (this one is new and pure negotiation very entry level, i prefer to introduce the genre over Bohnanza), Sidereal Confluence (heavy weight) and my favorite one: Cosmic Encounter! It is fun, loud, tactical, diplomatic, cutthroat, extremely variable, it has bluffs, alliances, betrayals and the aliens literally break the game. Is an experience.
Burning through Pandemic Legacy in a week sounds . . . draining. My four person group finished it in 14-15 plays, every match except one came down to the wire, and every match - win or lose - ended with us collapsing back into our chairs and sitting in complete silence for minutes on end while we recovered ourselves. And by "minutes on end" I mean sometimes 10+ minutes of dead silence. If you're familiar with Dom drop/sub drop, it was that but from a board game instead of a flogging session. Or the drain you feel after multiple hours of an intense video game. It's incredible how the developers created a system so perfectly balanced, despite how radically the game state changed from play to play. Hands down the greatest board game experience I've ever had and likely ever will. Whom you play it with matters, but with the right group you'll understand why it's ranked so high - in my opinion it's the only game that deserves its ranking, and the only one I feel comfortable calling a masterpiece.
I really liked pandemic legacy, it improves on the base game significantly, but you have to go into it with the mindset that you’re only going to play it 12-24 times. As someone with a large collection, most games rarely see 10 plays so that’s pretty good. I also played through the campaign twice, and while you don’t get the surprise the second time around, it was still quite exciting. Ithink 3-4 total run through is about the most you can get before it feels like the same thing over again. Keep in mind that you need a brand new copy for each run through, so once will suffice for most.
Great advise at the end!
Where is your top 100 list? :) would want to watch
They’re in the playlists
Now I'm curious about your top 100.
I do one every year at Christmas. Past ones are in the play lists
So Martin Wallace (Brass * designer) now lives in Brisbane, Australia. I went to a gathering organised by a large and growing BG media group (podcasts, gamesday events, etc). They were actively pushing to get Brass Birmingham to no1 on this list. They were very open about it and were encouraging people to do the things that would get it to no1.
And they are in Bris, Syd and Melbourne at least, maybe other capitals as well. Have a successful podcast. So a bit of reach.
Now it's the right time to apply some pomade around the rectal cavity, gentlemen.
to be fair, the only reason that Brass and Pandemic passes Gloomhaven was because of all the review bombing fake accounts on BGG that pushed them up. So many brand new accounts that only ever ranked two games, Gloomhaven as a 1 and Brass as a 10. Very convenient.
and rather juvenile for them to do so. Thankfully the press don't seem to have picked up on that, as such behaviour reflects badly on our hobby / opens our hobby to ridicule, when the vast majority of gamers are far more grown-up.
Excellent video. Quality bants! 😂
JotL is a good way to figure out if you are going to want to play Gloomhaven. For me, that answer was "no". Was happy to play through JotL, but it was more than enough to show me that it is just a video game being run manually as a board game, and is far too tedious as a result. Was a great time, but I absolutely do not want more of it.
It basically is a video game, you’re right. I too own JoTL, and enjoy it, but whenever I think of the other two games I find myself thinking, “I’ll just buy the computer game if I want to play those.”
Love the super cute baby shotgun in the thumb.
It’s actually a dildo
@@BoardGameBollocks might explain why you’re so angry 😜
Touhce, old bean…
I personally love war of the ring due to its asymmetric gameplay and razor thin victories. Usually this game goes down to the wire (I had one game where the last hunt pull on the last track space on mount doom determined who won the game). Each game I’ve played has been incredibly different than the last. This is largely due to the amazing cards present for each side. The cards you start with alongside the your dice rolls will determine what your first actions will be. I’ve have yet to have a boardgaming experience match the way I feel while playing war of the ring.
That being said, I can understand why people may not enjoy it.
Right there with you on Ark Nova. I dismissed it, expecting to absolutely hate it (as I hated Terraforming Mars with a passion.) Thankfully I tried it and was glad I did. Great game. I'm a Dune fan, grew up with the Lynch movie + first book--really dig Dune: Imperium. Works well solo, too.
A lot of people say Dune is ugly. I don't get it. The looks are part of the reason it's near the top of my favorites. Anyway, I need to try Ark Nova, in spite of the animals. I really don't care for games with animals.
@@darbyl3872 Ugly maybe is the wrong word. Perhaps it's jarring after having the very thematic original board, where you really felt you were fighting over the planet. Instead this game has a more abstract board (along with very abstracted combat), and it's more functional than aesthetic (or thematic). It certainly doesn't shout 'Dune!'.
Pandemic Legacy 1, 2, and 0 are different enough that they DO deserve different entries. And We friggin' loved 'em. The basic pandemic mechanism is the same, but then gets turned topsy-turvy through the different stories.
I pretty much agree. I thought season 1 was great. Season 2 meh. And season 0 I'm struggling playing. Oddly, I think regular pandemic (with On the Brink) tops them all: it has elegant simplicity, challenge, and replayabilty the others don't.
I agree with you on a lot of games. Pandemic Legacy Season 1, in my opinion deserves the no.2 spot...at least
Yes - thank you for breaking free from that echo chamber that is BGG and gaming reviewers to suckle on the teets of that community.
BGG used to be sucha great site its sad what happened to it. If you display diveristy of thought they just call you nazi or racist or sexist or whatever...
@@harveydentsAgreed. It’s a woke nightmare. But then I am a racist, misogynistic, homophobic (which my husband finds odd as we are both gay), transphobic, islamophobic, sexist, Nazi. Apparently. And all I said was I thought children shouldn’t be sexualised.
@tozmom615 Tbf I’d be surprised if just one of you were gay 🤷♂️
@@BoardGameBollocks lol. So would we. Although I have my suspicions as he didn’t like “gay sauna”….
I’ve been eating porridge every day for 15 years. Yummy!
Well i am a big fan of Gloomhaven so I could get all nostalgic about what a significant milestone it is for boardgaming, blah blah. But really i just love dungeon crawlers and GH has strategic play, interesting classes, and hand management. And no dice! Plus its coop where its easier to teach and limits alpha gaming. Overall i think its awsome, but i see how ppl dont like it... especially to get consistent plays, or some missions are samesy. I dont mind setup/teardown for a long game session. Ive been considering Mage Knight... but GH won me over.
For 2023 it would be cool to see if there are any changes (additions - subtractions) from your shelf that you want to talk about. Another cool one could be the games you like playing with 6 players, even though cyclades is your fav - is it your fav 6 player experience 🤷♂️🤔
Nice ideas
Yes 6 player could well suit the format, as there are some that technically can take 6, but the experience can drag significantly. The ones that work well are so useful for a quieter game night, where getting 5-6 players playing one game, is better than splitting into 2 tables.
@@iansutton7416 I think he would have good insights into the 6 player field - as Blood Rage can play 6 - but does he have fun doing it or does he use house rules that make games more fun at 6? Im really curious for him to review Scythe Rise of Fenris as I have played it with 8 before to some success...
Well done, Mate. Well you got there.
It was a struggle
Man you basically buried al lot of my favorite board games with this one
I do agree that the list is far from perfect. Certain games have very strong fan bases as seen from the Gloomhaven obsession. Changes I would make....
1. No repeats: I don't want to see Gloomhaven and Pandemic three or more times.
2. Stop following the hotness:
If the game is on its third edition it can qualify for the top 100.
3. I wouldn't allow you to rate a game until you actually received it and played it at least 5 times. I hate seeing 10 or 1 in the ratings on a game that isn't even out.
Good points. Good entertainment. Thanks.
If I remember correctly 10 of these are basically diffrent versions of the same game....3 times gloomhaven, 3 times pandemic, 2 times brass.
Yup…Clown World
You're the second best thing to come out of the UK, right behind Mr.Beans.
I’m better than Mr Bean
@@BoardGameBollocks You misread. They said Mr. Beans, the *short-lived flatulent front man for the launch of Cross & Blackwell baked beans.
* Launching the campaign on bonfire night, was probably not the brightest plan. RIP Mr. Beans. Your light shone brightly but briefly.
Pandemic Legacy is game guy as SeaFail right?
Legend. What a roast
Pandemic Legacy is excellent and I can fully understand why it still sits at #2. Playing through it gave me and my wife some of the greatest board game moments. It works wonders with two players. The game length is kind of perfect for a busy couple, you can just squeeze a game in after putting the kids to bed, and for those who have all the time in the world it would be no problem playing two games in a row.
It IS a legacy game though. Which means it ends up in the bin sooner or later. I've taken out most of the bits and use them as markers at the RPG-table, but the rest is long gone. So as long as you don't rate infinite replayability above all else I think you'll be pleased. Gameplay is really tight and even though we didn't lose a single scenario every scenario victory felt well earned and like a struggle. It is not recommended for groups who doesn't get it out regularly though. I can easily see this game getting stuck mid-campaign on the shelf. And it is not for people who suck at organizing.
We only lost 2-3 plays (I'm only positive about one), and every session (except Feb or Mar) came down to the WIRE. We'd either win on the ultimate or penultimate turn, or we would have won had we had just one more. Incredible game design given how radically things changed from month to month.
@@boredboardgamerkramer Yeah, we had a lucky run! There were many instances where we knew a card draw dictated losing the game or getting that next critical round. Sometimes taking risks that we knew could lose us the game but pulling through. We are in the middle of season 2 now and enjoying it a lot. Fantastic games!!
Such top 10s /100s are a good reminder that tastes differ. I have none of these 10, and never wanted to own any of them. Of those I've played, the experience didn't change that perspective.
Overall I'm probably more strongly against the existence of such a top 100 / Ratings system. It really ought to be just some harmless fun, but I've seen too many people take it far too seriously, and the use of 'hate' ratings shows an incredibly juvenile mindset. That it's seen by some as 'definitive' is laughable.
what is BGG?
Thinks the David Lynch version of Dune is better than the new one - Liked
Thinks the Spicediver Edit is the best version yet - Subscribed
Word up!
Like not even my top ten best games are on this list... Unfortunately i bought lots of games before i found that out... Oh well. Keep it up!
TM is one of best engine building games, but yes, artwork are random pictures from google :-)
Pretty big Pandemic Legacy S1 spoilers on those screenshots... though I don't know if it really matters at this point. :)
I doubt anyone will remember spoilers from a 5 sec static screen grab.
I made a return to board gaming this year after a long hiatus. Naturally, I found the BGG Top 100 and went a bit apeshit with the acquisitions at first. There are some gems on this list for sure but the thing I've learned most about this list... is that they hold their resale value well once you find out loads of them are not delivering on your expectations (which, I admit, are subjective), and decide to divest of them on eBay. Oh well - it was worth going through the process to find which kinds of games or mechanics I truly enjoy, and buy those instead of whatever is being hyped at this exact moment. Brass Birmingham is staying in my permanent collection, though!
Whilst it would be lovely if we could just look at a game and instinctively 'know', it's not that easy, with sometimes smaller elements grating, or delivering surprising joy, or merely the whole hanging together (or not).
Playing those games will definitely help refine your tastes again, but also to get a feel for what's going to work with the people you game with.
@@iansutton7416 I definitely agree. While there are no board games I've played this year that I've strongly disliked - most of them I *somewhat* like and a few of them I *really* like - I certainly compare each game I play against one another, and end up asking myself, "In a world where we have the opportunity to play Game X, would I ever choose to offer Game Y to my group on game night again?" Unless it fits a very particular niche or case use (ie, it's a game my wife would actually play...), if the answer is no, it's off to the cull pile. Definitely hoping to curate rather than collect. It's great that we're so spoiled for choice these days!
@@JonnyTenebrous Yes, despite the annual berating of the quality of the year's gaming releases, we really are still in a golden era of gaming.
Like yourself, I had a while away from gaming (c. 1998 - 2013), as I moved to a different city and my new friends had different interests to my old friends. It took 15 years for me to realise I missed board games, and that it was ok to go along to a club to play games for games' sake (with the previous friends gaming was part of a wide range of stuff we did).
Certainly coming back to it after 15 years, the volume of games published was amazing, and that games design had come a long way. I did buy a few duds on my return, but not too many, and have learnt to be very critical / set a high bar for buying / backing games, based on understanding our gaming group, my own preferences and having a better eye for potential issues.
Just wanted to let you know that War of the Ring is not a hidden movement game. If you believe so, you haven't played, silly. It's a racing game. And one of the best, right up there with ave caesar and pitchcar.
If you have even 3 total people to consistently play Pandemic Legacy...please do...Legacy type games are not as rare now, so it might not have the punch for you as it did for me almost 5 years ago... but give this one a shot. The overall experience is difficult to top. Thanks for all of your content. Hurry up to Las Vegas!
Now - DO DICE TOWER NEXT!!
Which top 100? They do 2,345 of them a month
@@mchamberlain7408 Yes they definitely 'jumped the shark' with their ridiculous amount of top 100s this year
I have a deep skepticism of games that are themed with popular IPs. From Star Wars to Battlestar Galactica, from Lord of the Rings to Marvel superhero stuff, from games made by Cyanide & Happiness or Penny Arcade, and even spin-off games of more popular and beloved games; I feel like much of the ratings and hype are more influenced by how much people like the original IP rather than the actual quality of the game. People are more pleased and entertained by familiar names and artwork, more influenced by the positive feelings and fandom from something else, than they are by mechanics and game play of the game at hand. These games get very good/high initial ratings from eager and over-zealous fans who are falling over themselves to praise and worship something related to something they are familiar with and excited about. And they'll do this without even having played the game at all. And "fans" will die on a hill defending something they love rather than consider that something they like (even something tangentially related to it) might suck. Fandoms can be a blight upon good ideas.
Your observations on the Sunk Cost Fallacy, KickStarter, and the board game community are things that I have often remarked on in the past. I think it's a conversation that needs to happen more ... if not to help those who are suffering from it, then to help those who are not suffering from it to recognize those who are and to avoid the pitfalls they are generating.
Finally, I have a deep disdain for "Legacy" games. You know what we did to Risk games that got beat up (or water damaged (not like we didn't tell John that he was going to spill his damned Diet Coke like a dozen F'ing times before the stubborn jackarse did.))? We went nuclear on them and played a game of eras. Nukes, bio-weapons and blight, and we f'ed that board up good! Modern apocalypse, post-apocalypse ... and there wasn't much after that. We only did it twice. It was fun. But then we stopped playing Risk because Risk sucked. We _talked_ about doing the same to Monopoly, but we couldn't generate any enthusiasm for _actually_ playing Monopoly in any form. Then they started selling "Legacy" Risk ... and it cost more than regular Risk?! Like WTF?! Just go to a thrift store and buy and old copy of Risk to mutilate on your own! FFS!!!
Well said!
Brilliant video!
lol - Birmingham improvement…“it’s like putting a c*ck ring on someone’s knob to make it look bigger”. Now that’s funny. Love your reviews. Also enjoy that your replies to comments have the same spice as your reviews. Keep it up.
Brass Birmingham #1. Hell yes!
Is it over now? Good.
I’m doing 200 to 100 starting tomorrow….
Dune: Imperium is probably my favorite game, so I'm glad to see it on this list. Terraforming Mars was pretty good, but I don't know if it is top 10 material. I've only got TI:3, and I hear TI:4 is better, so maybe someday when I have "fuck you" money, I'll upgrade it. Everything else on this list doesn't belong here, though (although I haven't played Ark Nova...it just doesn't interest me).
Brass Birmingham is a really neat game very crisp but yeah …. Number one, no? I would take GAIA Project!
Ares Expedition is better than the original Terraforming Mars in my opinion
The original TF is the definition of average
I agree
And rtfg is better than both :)
1. Modern art 2. Kingdom Builder 3. Indonesia 4. El Grande 5. Barrage 6. Madeira 7. Reef Encounter 8. 1846 9. Rolling Stock Stars 10. Ra 11. Go 12. Oath.
There, I fixed it for you :D
What's your top boardgame of all time?
Cyclades with Stationfall a close 2nd
Loved Pandemic Season 1. Just finished season 2. Not quite as good but it's up there. Agree Brass is good but not number 1. That should be Root. 😈
The Best…..Portsmouth’s finest!
What would you rate as No1? 😏👍
My fave game is Cyclades
I’ve heard Birmingham is beautiful in January.
I think I would have made a bigger grievance for Through the Ages and
Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization as well as Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy and
Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy being on the top 100 of BGG instead of GH/FH/JofTL or PL0, 1, 2. War of the Ring first edition fell to 168 so a similar argument could be made for that as well but just not on the top 100. PL0 is different enough from PL1 and 2 I think it could deserve its own entry. I think many would say that there are major differences betw FH And GH to warrant entries as well but when the oem is simply offering the new edition for sale to replace the old edition why do we have to see both entries? FH didn't replace GH, pl2 and pl0 did not replace pl1 but Eclipse, Through the Ages, and War of the Ring all had the past editions removed from sale. These aren't Terra Mystica/Gaia Project examples these are replacements. BGG needs to figure out a way to collapse editions together when they have clear 1 to 1 replacement situations. I do wonder if Ticket to Ride expansions all were on the top 100 back in their heyday.
Tried Gloomhaven with a friend but we gave up after 40 hours as the effort to enjoyment ratio was to low for us. Expected a dungeon crawler but got what felt like a light puzzle game. As for the card combat it was good but nowhere near good enough to sustain a game of such length.
Having similar issues with Oathsworn atm. Fun enough but such a pain in the arse to setup and play and massively overproduced. Probably going to end up selling tbh.
I prefer the Lynch version of Dune But i still like the new. I totally agree why so many of the samish game, brass, gloomhaven, pandemic. But i think it is good that new games make the list. Many new games Are so much better than the boring old version they are iterations of. Yes i am looking at you caverna, puerto Rico, race for the galaxy. And the art has envolved and is so much better than Before. Hansa teutonica might be a good game But it looks so ugly i cannot endure it when there is a pletora of games similar but better looking. Thanks for making this videos i enjoyed them immensly
I agree, most peoples/groups/websites lists have games where I would prefer to burn my nuts on a BBQ than sit and play those games, if my mate brought around Brass, I would slam the front door in his face and tell him to FK off out the window.
But If I made list of my favorite games I am pretty sure someone would say its a crap list. Like for instance I like Kingdom death monster, some triggered people don't like it because of the T*ts and Viol3nce, I really like both of those things and drinking lager, so KDM is pretty much a game I can love.
+1 tits
I'd understand your point if you'd have picked a game that was genuinely bad. I think your example, Brass, is excellent.
@@imnottellingyoumyname3050 And that is why these lists are so bad, because everyone has an opinion, I personally would throw Brass straight on a bonfire.
Ark Nova with more than four? Uhhh. It takes forever even with three. :)
It’s 4 max
BGG censors reviews. I've been waiting to try war of teh Ring... Only a euro-lover would bash TI. Remember when Twilight Strug was top dog for like a decade?
Best spot on opinion: Gloomhaven. Rote, fiddly, lifeless with basically no story. Too much controversy and wankery. A colossal waste of time.
Worst opinion: Ark Nova. It’s everything terrible about Wingspan, but longer, swingier, and somehow less interactive. It’s got so many uninteresting mechanism stapled together it would make Lacerda blush.
Pandemic legacy is really really REALLY good indeed
There's this one guy that uses the word "ours" quite a lot 😘
He is a voice of the people; his mum, wife, and children for starters 👍😇
Completely agree that Board Game Geek rankings are rubbish. As well as the Kickstarter problem they're an average of everyone's tastes, which is about as useful to an individual as knowing that the average number of wheels on a vehicle is 2.8. No specific vehicle has 2.8 wheels. So, any chance of you doing an actual useful list of your top 10 board games? Which ones and why?
10) Star Wars: Rebellion - 8/10 , good game, happy to play.
9) War of the Ring - N/A, haven't played it but interested.
8) Jaws of the Lion - N/A, haven't played it and not that interested.
7) Dune Imperium - 7/10, a good game but not great. The expansions are also just "okay".
6) Terraforming Mars - 7/10, used to like this one more but it's lost its luster over time.
5) TI4 - 9/10, hard to get to the table but worth every minute. One of my favorite games.
4) Ark Nova - 5/10, I found it slow and frustrating and, honestly, quite boring.
3) Gloomhaven - 6/10, fine for what it is, I'd just rather invest that kind of time and energy in a pen-and-paper RPG.
2) Pandemic Legacy - N/A, haven't played but have played other Pandemics and don't much care for them.
1) Brass - N/A, haven't played and not interested. Not my style of game and I'd probably be bored to tears.
Cheers!
Looks like whatever he hates, I like...
But we will always come back for more as anyone who loves the hobby I've got time for
And yet the world keeps turning
Played one episode of Jaws of the Lion and never touched it again......sold it at the sellers market. Just didn't do anything for us.
Anyone who didn't like the new dune film is dear friend of mine