I Need This Board Game...

# of Players: 2 Playtime:  2-3 Hours Core Mechanic: Deck Building/Area Control Theme:  18th Century North America Type: War Weight:  Heavy Year:  2011 Rating: 8* After discovering how fantastic a two-player game could be with Twilight Struggle, I was in search of something similar.  Around this time, A Few Acres of Snow was released and had just made its way into the Top 50 on BGG.  There was a lot of hype surrounding this release and I gave in, especially as people were calling this Martin Wallace’s take on Dominion, which was a game that I really liked at the time. Set in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries, one player is the British Empire while the other player is France.  The game is played over a map with each player building up a deck of cards consisting of either empire or location cards.  Location cards will be used to settle new villages, upgrade villages, build fortifications, and siege your op...

The Essential Collection - 9 Games ($385 CAD/$300 USD)   Worker Placement: Farming: Agricola ($65 CAD/$50 USD) City Building: Le Havre ($80 CAD/$60 USD) Role Selection: Puerto Rico   ($40 CAD/$35 USD) Party: Wits & Wagers ($35 CAD/$25 USD) Network Building: Power Grid ($40 CAD/$35 USD) 2-Player: Abstract: Hive ($25 CAD/$20 USD) War: Twilight Struggle  ($60 CAD/$40 USD) Filler: Love Letter ($10 CAD/$10 USD) Jaipur ($30 CAD/$25 USD)

For a brief recap of how I came up with my list, refer back to my previous post: 2018 Top 100 Games of All-Time - #100-91 Here we go with #70-61! #70 - Mr. Jack This is a great cat-and-mouse two-player game that could climb the rankings with more plays. The different character abilities are interesting to mix around and I can only imagine that the Extension makes things even fresher. For now I prefer Mr. Jack Pocket but that might be only since I've played it a lot more. #69 - Forbidden Desert This game works well as a gateway cooperative game that can be used as a stepping stone to Pandemic. It is highly thematic and easy to learn with excellent components. The ability to adjust the difficulty is good and helps add something for experienced gamers who might want a bit more of a challenge. #68 - Caverna: Cave vs Cave The latest 2-player implementation of one of Uwe Rosenberg's larger games, this one tackles the cave worker placement of my ...

For Part I: Thoughts on Board Game Inserts - Part I --------- For this second part, I thought I would take a look at putting together some mini-reviews of some of the board game inserts I have tried, along with some comments on others that look interesting to me, but I have not yet had the chance to use. The Broken Token This is the original wooden insert for me and they are just fantastic. If there are multiple companies offering wooden inserts for the same board game, I have always gone with The Broken Token first. The only times I have not is when they did not have one available at the time and then I always have a regretful feeling once they finally do and I have something else. The inserts are usually well thought out for maximum organization and accessibility while playing and the quality is top notch. For some games they have come out with luxury crates as a storage solution for the base game and expansions, such as for Galaxy Trucker and Rising Sun. While very...

For the review of the tabletop version, see here: Review #2: Hive Price: Free Rating: 8* This is a review for the unofficial Hive with AI app for Android, not the official Hive app. For the longest time I had the official app but when I saw that there was no tutorial, it just sat there on my phone. I had never played Hive before and would rather play through a tutorial instead of reading the rules. Then I stumbled upon this unofficial implementation and was impressed by its production values and inclusion of a tutorial! Granted, it is a very simple game but it was done well and the AI is difficult for me to beat on the harder levels - either that or I'm just terrible. There is no fluff to this app - as soon as you open it up you are presented with a board ready for your first move. In the top right there is a drop down menu allowing the user to choose a variety of options, of which I will highlight a few notable ones. The first is the level of the AI, which r...

# of Players:  2-6 Playtime:  2-3 Hours Core Mechanic:  Network Building/Auction Theme:  Industrial Type: Euro Weight:  Heavy Year:  2004 Rating: 9.5* This is the definitive network building game for me. One of the earliest games I played, at first I was overwhelmed by how complicated the rules seemed to be. Five phases per round, auctioning, resource management, and network building - this was a heavy game. But after a few rounds, the different mechanics of the game came together and it was a really good introduction to games with different phases. It left a strong impression on me and continues to rank highly. Each player represents a different power company and the winner will be whoever can power the most cities at the end of the game. As previously mentioned, the game is played over several rounds, each of which is split into five phases. The first phase determines player order. As a great catch-up mechanism, depending o...

# of Players: 3-7 Playtime: 0-30 Minutes Core Mechanic: Trivia Theme:  Betting Type: Party Weight: Light Year:  2005 Rating: 7* Probably one of the most popular or at least well-recognized trivia games out there is Trivial Pursuit. I think Trivial Pursuit is easy enough to learn and play but no fun at all unless you're on team or know a lot of trivia. Wits & Wagers twists this formula by allowing players to not only score points for knowing the answers to the questions, but also for knowing who knows the answers. This transforms the game from a trivia game into a betting one, or from bland into absolute fun. The game is played over seven rounds. Each round, a question will be asked that has an answer in a numerical form, such as "how tall...", "how many..." or "what year...", etc. Each player or team will write down their answer on their answer card and then all these cards will be collected and sorted from highest to lo...

This series will provide short, regular updates for the different collections so you can see which games I have reviewed are part of each collection. I will also be providing rounded pricing in CAD and USD for reference from BoardGameBliss and Cool Stuff Inc., respectively. I think eventually I'll be taking into consideration price and the overall value of a collection but not at this time. The Heavyweight Collection - 6 Games + 1 Expansion ($280 CAD/$215 USD)   Worker Placement: Farming: Agricola ($65 CAD/$50 USD) + Farmers of the Moor (OOS) City Building: Le Havre ($80 CAD/$60 USD) Role Selection: Puerto Rico ($40 CAD/$35 USD)   2-Player: Abstract: Hive Pocket ($25 CAD/$20 USD) War: Twilight Struggle ($60 CAD/$40 USD) Filler: Love Letter ($10 CAD/$10 USD)