>> Hello, members and welcome to the weekly Top 10 list, obviously coming about a day late.
For this particular one I wanted to make sure that I had props, and so I waited
until later in the day on Monday and recorded at home, and you're seeing it now on Tuesday.
Thank you for being level two and three members and getting access to the Top 10 lists. We
appreciate the little bit of additional support that you give to the channel and to the network,
it is very much appreciated, especially in these times to keep us going. I wanted to do
this list for a couple of different reasons, the Top 10 Board Games of All Time, sort of.
Because there's been a lot of requests for it. People ask me
about board games on most of the shows. But also,
I wanted to make sure that our Top 10 lists weren't exclusively political. You might have
noticed we do a lot of political content, and so I'd like to branch out from time to time.
This was one that Francesca would have been a good sport on and joined in, but I don't think
her heart would have really been in it. And so I decided to do this one myself. And also,
conveniently, that gives me a full ten instead of just five. So I'm gonna be giving you my Top 10.
The overall sort of rules I've put for myself on this is, I want these to not just be the
games that I'm most interested in playing right now. I really do want it to be sort
of a look back at the games I most enjoyed. But that said, I do still have to wanna play them.
Like if I liked playing it ten years ago, but you couldn't get me to play it right now,
it's probably not getting on the list. And I also wanted to have a
mix of games. And so this is what I've got. On any particular day the rankings could change,
things could sneak into the Top 10, but this is what it's looking like right now.
And at number ten, to start off the list, I have a game that I haven't played in a
while. This is probably the game that is the longest gap since I last played it.
It is the X- Wing Miniatures Game. I have the rulebook as a prop
because my actual container that I have them in is massive and I'd hurt my back lifting it.
But if you're familiar with this game, it's a tabletop miniature strategy game where you have
little miniature representations of the spaceships from the Star Wars universe. Both from the movies,
but also the extended universe out to basically everything you can imagine,
comic books, books, and stuff like that.
And you and one other person, or in some variants a couple of extra people,
go at it with X-Wings and TIE Fighters and things like that.
It is a very fun game that you can put a lot of thought into, in terms of preparing
your force and the tactics you use to try and to take out the opposing ships during a game.
And it just really does feel like those Star Wars dog fights. You put your little
pilot in there and you can give it little upgrades and everything. And
it's a lot of fun. I've had a lot of fun over the years playing it, put a lot of money into it.
Haven't played it recently cuz you really do
have to commit to it. It's one of those lifestyle games, that if you're playing this,
that's probably all you're playing. But I'm not getting rid of it for a reason,
at some point I'm definitely gonna break it out again. So that's number ten.
Coincidentally, the number nine is the other sort of strategic, tactical game that I have.
This is one that I have played recently, and plan on playing in the near future.
That is the Funkoverse Strategy Game that I've played quite a bit with my wife,
and she's beaten my butt a whole bunch of times.
I have pretty much everything that they've released for it, aside from The Nightmare
Before Christmas. If you're not familiar with this, it is a tabletop strategy game.
You have little minis and they're on the table fighting each other.
But there are these little tiny Funkos, actually, let me open it up and show you.
Here's Harry Potter and The Joker, you can see,
and the Kool-Aid man. So that gives you an idea of what the game is like. It is characters from all
these different intellectual properties teaming up to fight each other. Whether capturing the
flag or just trying to knock each other out, controlling territories and things like that.
You can give little upgrades, one can be holding a wand, another can be riding on
the skateboard from Back to the Future. You can mix and match all this stuff, so that's
always been a lot of fun. And I'm excited to see what future IP's they come out for that game.
I'm hoping for Marvel someday, although the fact that they have DC tells me that's probably not
gonna happen. Lord of the Rings would be awesome. I was really hoping for Game of Thrones, that did
happen. So I have a feeling that if I put it out there, some of these might come in the future.
So that's number nine, the Funkoverse Strategy Game.
Number eight is going to be one of the smallest games on the list. I do play a lot of small games,
especially small two-player games. My wife and I, we play, most of the games I play is against her.
There's a lot of good little two-player card games, games like Jaipur and things like that.
But I'm gonna put Archaeology. Archaeology is a small little basically just a card
game where you are delving through the ruins of probably Egypt, I'm gonna guess.
And you're trying to get little bits of clay pots and pharaohs masks and things like that
to eventually donate to the museum, I'm gonna say.
Hopefully not sell. I'm gonna say donate. That's bad enough. But anyway, it's a fun game. There's a
little bit of random chance in it. But it's pretty quick. It's pretty easy. It's nice and thematic.
And so we've played that many times and enjoyed it. So that is the number eight, Archaeology.
Number seven is one of the first big games, maybe the biggest game, aside from my number one.
This is Wasteland Express Delivery Service coming in at number seven. This is a game that I think
might be the first game my wife ever bought for me kind of on a whim, and knocked it out of the park.
This is a big pickup and deliver game, you can sort of see a little bit here.
Imagine a post apocalyptic destroyed area, and these outposts,
and then you get things delivered. And so you're one of the people with a vehicle
that's driving around to deliver weapons and food and water and things like that.
You're upgrading your car like in Mad Max, and maybe fighting a little bit,
getting radioactive. And just trying to
do these little delivery missions and accomplish your objectives before the opposing side.
We've played it a bunch of times, although not recently, actually we need to play it again soon.
But it's a very fun game. It infuriates me that it apparently wasn't more popular, because this
is the exact sort of game that would benefit from expansions. And so far it hasn't gotten like an
official one. And I think there's a lot that they could do there in this like Mad Max-type world.
But anyway, Wasteland Express Delivery Service is an awesome
game. It's a little bit heavier than some of these other games I've talked about.
But it's very much worth it. Takes a little bit to set up too, but it also has like the
best organization system in the box, out of almost any game I can think of.
So that's number seven, Wasteland Express Delivery Service. My number six is over here.
And this is going to be Clank!, a Deck-Building game. This is a game, you're getting a lot of
glare there. So you can see an adventuring party that's going into this underground
area and they are attempting to steal stuff before this dragon awakes up and drives them all off.
It's a deck-building game. So you start off the game with this tiny little deck. And as you play,
you buy new cards to add into your deck. And as you go through your deck,
you're using these new, more powerful cards
to venture deeper into the dungeon to defeat monsters to buy even more powerful cards.
So that you can grab an artifact and then get back out of there before you get knocked out,
and hopefully get more points than the other people in there. We've played this one a
bunch. We're now playing, I've got down here Clank!, Legacy, which is a version of Clank!,
where every time you play it, the game changes for the next time.
Your deck might be a little bit different, the board might be a little bit different.
It's very fun. But for the purpose of this list, I'm just gonna say Clank! We really like
deck-building games. And this is a particularly good one. Not super complicated. People who are
super new to board games might not wanna jump immediately into this.
But after they've played one or two games, something like a Splendor and Azul, this is a good
next step game, I think, in Clank! They also have a sci-fi version, Clank!, in outer space. So that
is my number six. Number five is here. And this one, the box is not going to lure you in on this.
So you're just gonna have to take my word for it, but my number five is Istanbul.
It's one of my wife's top three. Maybe I should rank it a little bit higher. But
Istanbul is an awesome game, with two cool expansions that all fit in this little box.
So basically, what Istanbul is, is you are in Istanbul back in the medieval period, or maybe
even a little bit earlier than that. And you're a merchant that's gonna be wandering around this
little city made out of these tiles, collecting different sorts of resources, delivering them.
Trying to patch up your wheelbarrow, which for some reason has a bunch of holes in it,
praying at different mosques and things like that.
All in the pursuit of these different rubies. And the first person to,
I think something like six rubies, wins. But the thing about this game that's good,
that sounds like a bunch of different board games, but this is a very tight
game. You're making these little discreet choices, which tile in are you gonna go to?
And generally when you go to it, it's gonna block off other people, cuz it
costs more money to go there, they're not gonna want to pay that. So you going to a spot
also means that the next person can't. So you don't wanna be late to a spot,
you gotta go there now, but you wanna go everywhere because every space is good to go to.
And for some reason with this game, it almost always ends up that the person who wins,
the other person could have won if they just had one more turn. It's a very tight game,
very tight decisions, the expansions are awesome. It's not even a very expensive game, by the way.
So Istanbul, if you're looking for, again, one of those next step games, it's just a very clean
classic. Like of this sort of euro resource gathering sort of game, this is probably always
going to be one of my favorites actually. And so that is the first of the top five, Istanbul.
Number four is another deck-builder. And that is The Quest for El Dorado. This is one we've played
many times, and I love this game. So imagine you are an expeditionary party that's going
into the jungle, and trying to get through to find the mythical city of El Dorado.
And the way that you do that is you're going to have these little hexagonal areas
of different types of terrain, maybe little villages or
forests or water or mountains. And it's a deck-building game, so you have
cards that let you traverse different types of terrain, but they're really like weak.
They don't let you go very far in one move, they don't let you go through really thick forest or
really deep water, I guess. Maybe it's rapids or something.
But you can buy better versions of those cards. And you have these little meatballs that are
moving around, and they importantly block other players from moving through an area.
So you can be a real dick and block off passages between two mountains. But anyway, it's another
one of these really tight games. It's a race, you're trying to upgrade your deck, while also
moving as far and as fast as you can, so you can get the El Dorado before they do.
There's an expansion for this. It's also quite good. Again, not a very expensive game. I think
they're coming out with a new version of it. They might have already. If not, it's coming out this
year with a subtly different art style, but a very good game. I really recommend this one.
Love teaching this to new people. That's my number four, The Quest for El Dorado.
At number three we have one of the newest games on the list for me. I think it might be the newest,
maybe tied with Funkoverse. I'm not entirely sure. But number three is The Quacks of Quedlinburg,
which up until recently was like my wife and I's game of the pandemic.
It's a game we played a bunch. This is a game where you are quacks, you are people who are
putting together potions back during Medieval period, Renaissance, something like that.
Importantly, your potions don't actually do anything, but you do wanna make them look really
impressive, and make them smoke and bubble and interesting colors and stuff like that.
And the way that you play the game is, in the way that these are deck builders,
Quacks of Quedlinburg is a bag builder. You're gonna have a bag and you're gonna put these little
tokens that represent different ingredients into it. And each round of the game you're gonna be
pulling those out, hoping to get ingredients that are gonna give you a lot of points,
before you pull out too many of the one type of ingredient that cause the entire thing to explode.
And that gives it a great risk and reward sort of feel. You wanna pull out as much as you can,
but you don't want to explode, because then you're not gonna get any points.
And over the course of the game, you get to put so much stuff in your bag.
It starts off as this tiny little thing with just a few things jangling around in it, but by the
end, it is just full of different things for you to pull out. And if you've made bad decisions,
then it's gonna be a hot mess that you're pulling out of there, but that makes it a lot of fun.
And for whatever reason, out of all these games, and a lot of these have tactical
considerations and strategic concerns, this one never feels like, you can just relax,
it'll be fun. Just pull stuff out and see what happens. And then maybe throw a spider
in there or something, or a mushroom, I don't know, maybe put a pumpkin in there, whatever.
But it's always fun. And it's never too tense. Like this is a good game
to just relax. Maybe have a movie on or something like that. Quacks of Quedlinburg,
my number three. My number two is going to be, I guess, the highest ranked of these economic
games. This is an engine builder game, and I guess it's my favorite engine builder game.
That is Terraforming Mars, very popular game by Jacob Fryxelius. This is a game where you are
Terraforming Mars. Shocking, I know. You are one of multiple corporations that over the course of a
couple of hundred years are gonna try to make Mars habitable for other people. And the way that that
works is you are going to be accruing money and steel and titanium and plants and energy and heat.
And you're going to blast it into Mars by building minds and cities and trying to get moss and trees
and plants and pets, even penguins. You're trying to put down oceans and build up forests.
And basically you start off with this barren Mars, and you start off with basically nothing.
But as you build up more and more of your own industry, you're gonna be able to do more and
more to Mars to make it habitable. And by the end of the game, you feel like a behemoth,
and Mars, as a direct result of your efforts, and the efforts of the other players,
is this totally built up place with cities and oceans and all of that?
And it's awesome. It's awesome. There's a bunch of different strategies you can take. There's a bunch
of different expansions for this. I haven't even played all of them. There's like two expansions
I haven't played. But there's ones that let you colonize Venus, go out to the outer asteroids, one
that sets up a government on Mars that has little political machinations going back and forth.
It's a lot of fun. It's a very expandable game, a very popular game, with an awesome online
implementation as well. Number two, Terraforming Mars. I've played this a lot during the pandemic.
And there's a case to be made that it could be my number one, but I chose a different one because
there's something about this game.
It's a huge game in terms of how many expansions have come out. There's like nine expansions or
something like that. It takes up two big, full, heavy boxes in my collection. That if someone were
to break into my house I could probably bludgeon them to death with just the expansion box.
But it's always fun. It's my favorite co-op game. It's my favorite sort of story game where
you're playing and you're making decisions. But you're mostly just playing to see what happens
and what story happens. That is Eldritch Horror. Which I know a lot of hardcore gamers look down
on now that it's a little bit old and it's very lucky and random and stuff like that.
But it's just so much fun. I love this sort of story. That's why I was so
excited for Lovecraft Country, which came out this last year.
And this is like playing a world trotting version of that. You and one to six other people
are gonna be going around 1920s Earth, visiting different cities, investigating different
mysteries, fighting monsters and closing gates and dealing with cults, and perhaps finding artifacts.
And you're gonna be going up against this elder god and all of their different monsters that
they deploy around the world. And through the course of it,
you might get cursed and become paranoid, but also find the Necronomicon and an ancient sword.
And then you get some professor who's gonna follow you around.
But then you get corrupted, and it turns into infection, and then you die.
Usually you die or you go insane, but the game continues and you can still play afterward. And
it's just a lot of fun to see what happens to your character. The last time I played,
which was this last Saturday, I was Norman Withers, I think was my name.
I was an astronomer who believed that I could figure out what was going on with the
Elder Gods mathematically. And by the end of the game, after some really rough times,
and poor Norman Withers almost died at one point,
he was down to just one health and one sanity, and if either of those hits zero, you die.
He eventually found an alien lightning gun, and these ancient scepters that made him a
god in both fighting and magic casting. He had upgraded himself in terms of training
his strength in his mind and his will in all of that. He was effectively a demigod,
this astronomer. And I knew he had it in him from the very beginning.
People doubted him. But he knew it was gonna happen. Anyway, that can happen. Or alternatively,
my friend Hal, he was playing a handyman. The handyman was doing work around the world, going
around killing monsters, closing gates. And then I think he went insane like right before we won.
But we're always gonna remember that, because he was a boss up until he went insane. But anyway,
there's a lot of expansions, you can get a lot of extra content for this. New monsters to fight,new
items to get, new spells to cast, new Elder Gods, to go against, new sideboards.
Like you play the world, but if you'd like, you can have an area that zooms in on Antarctica or
on The Dreamlands, or on Egypt, or God only knows. You can fight against a massive miles long worm
that's literally destroying cities. Like they're no longer on the board, they don't exist anymore.
And there's no other game that just has that. It takes a couple of hours. It's a little bit
complicated, not in terms of the rules, but the setup. But it's just so much every game produces
a story. Even if you lose, and you're probably gonna lose, you're gonna have fun doing it.
And that for me is what board games are all about. And so I don't play in the physical
version as much as I would like anymore with the pandemic and everything, but there's an
online version that I play. It's a lot of fun. I don't think I'm ever gonna get sick of it.
I feel like if I was going to, it would have happened by now. So my number one board game
of all time as of right now, Eldritch Horror. But all these Top 10 are awesome, let alone the
others. I mean, there's so many games here. Like this game, Survive, I love this game.
This is one of the first board games I bought. I love it. It's so fun. I've had fun with a lot
of these, Dead of Winter's pretty cool. My wife loves Outer Rim. I love it too, but for me it's
similar to Wasteland Express. And I feel like I only need one of the two on the Top 10 list.
But they're all awesome. So many good games you can't even see down below.
There's a lot of other games down there. You don't even know they're there. But anyway,
I love it when all of you ask me questions like about what game you should get,
what game for your parents, what game for your kids, those sorts of things.
I love talking board games. And so I was very glad
to get requests to make this video. Hope that you enjoyed it. Thank you for both watching
this video and also for supporting the network and having access to it in the first place.
So I'm excited to find out what Top 10's you'd like to see in the future.
You can always send those to us on the team, the community tab on the YouTube channel,
by tweeting me and things like that, or by leaving comments or super chats during the show.
So until the next time, thank you for watching.