Weirder western tales

I love westerns, and as such I have a huge weakness for games in that genre, of which there are surprisingly few. While I prefer a straight-up historical western, I'm willing to settle for weird westerns with fantastical elements added, and that more-or-less describes the theme of Grimslingers.

Grimslingers is really two games in one: a fairly simple combat game about dueling sorcerers, and a much more engaging cooperative adventure game in which players work through a storyline that introduces them to the world of the game, fighting weird monsters and gaining spells and items along the way.

The dueling game is really just a combat system and not particularly interesting on its own -- the cooperative game is where Grimslingers really shines. Players start out with a hand full of basic spells and a few items, moving around on a small map to gather more powerful spells and better pieces of equipment, gain experience that allows them to play more effectively, and unfold the events of the (admittedly very linear) story.

It's still essentially a combat deck-building card game, and a somewhat clunky one at that, but it does have a few interesting innovations. Principle among them is that players don't have a randomized deck. Instead, they have a maximum hand size (which increases as they gain experience) and a "stash" that they can freely look through and take cards from at certain points during the game. Once used cards are put into either a discard pile or a deactivated pile, and can only be recovered by spending energy points, the game's main currency for playing cards.

Additional cards are earned by defeating monsters and also at certain points in the storyline, which makes it a little different from the usual "play cards to buy more cards" mechanics that most deck-building games employ.

Despite these innovations, the game play is a bit clunky. Having two different discard piles with slightly different rules governing them is needlessly fiddly, and too much of the game rides on random dice rolls or draws from a separate deck of numbered cards. In a recent game we played, we made it three quarters of the way through the game, only to be defeated by a random event card and some bad number card draws.

But all that aside, the real point of the game is as a framework to hang the setting on, and a wonderful setting it is. The world of Grimslingers is a perfectly balanced mix of western, post-apocalypse, science fiction, and fantasy, with a surprising amount of humor thrown in, and supported by some truly spectacular artwork. The game is clunky, but not so clunky that it distracts from the world it takes place in.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) Game play alone would probably be a 2, but the setting is so vibrant and original that it more than makes up for it.

• Grimslingers official website
• Grimslingers on BoardGameGeek

Viking roundup, part 3

We picked up Hnefatafl (the Viking Game) at the British Museum in London, and as such it's more of a souvenir of our trip than a game we plan to play regularly. That said, it is actually a pretty engaging game, sort of an asymmetrical version of chess with fewer rules and (in my opinion) slightly more interesting strategy.

The defending player gets 12 pieces plus a king. These pieces start in the center of the board, and the goal is for the king to reach one of the corner squares. Meanwhile, the attacking player gets 24 pieces that start along the 4 edges of the board. Any piece other than the king can be captured by sandwiching it between two opposing pieces, or between a piece and a corner space; the king can only be taken if he's closed in on all 4 sides.

Our experience playing the game is that it's substantially weighted in favor of the attacker, but still pretty challenging for both sides. It's possible for the attacker to effectively block the corner squares, but it's also pretty difficult for him to keep his blockers in place, since he also needs to use his pieces to chase the king around the board and (hopefully) capture him.

The attack and defense game play isn't particularly viking themed, but Hnefatafl is purported to be a game that was actually played in Scandinavia during the viking era. If nothing else, it can clearly be seen being played on the History Channel's excellent Vikings TV show.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) We don't spend that much time playing abstract strategy games, but this one is more interesting than a lot of them.

• Hnefatafl on BoardGameGeek

Battlefield classic

Even though I probably only played Stratego once or twice as a child, I've always had a weird fascination with it, and I've spent several years hunting down the collector's wooden box edition that Milton Bradley put out in 2002. For years it seemed to be the only one that wasn't readily available, but I did eventually find one at my friendly local game shop (Guardian Games in Portland, Oregon), which carries a substantial selection of used games.

Now, having played the game a few times as an adult with a wealth of gaming experience, I still find it weirdly fascinating.

For those who aren't familiar with the game, Stratego gives each player an assortment of pieces of different ranks, ranging from humble scouts to the powerful Marshall, plus a handful of bombs, a devious Spy, and one flag. The goal of the game is to capture your opponent's flag. Pieces are arranged on the board with blank faces towards the opponent, so he doesn't know which pieces are where until he starts sending his own pieces out. When a piece enters the same square as another piece, the one with the lower rank is eliminated, with a few exceptions: a bomb will eliminate any piece (along with itself) unless that piece is a Miner, and a Spy will eliminate an opposing Marshall (the highest ranked piece) if it is the attacker. Bombs and Flags can't move, and Scouts are the only pieces that can move more than one square at a time.

At least half of the game's strategy is in the setup, figuring out where to place your various pieces at the start of the game. Will you put all your Scouts at the front and run them at the opponent's front line right away? Or will you fill your front row with bombs to take out your opponent's first attackers? Or maybe it will be better to surround your flag with bombs, but what if that's what your opponent is expecting you to do, and he manages to clear the way for his Miners to easily defuse your bombs?

The rest of the game is a series of decisions involving what pieces to sacrifice in order to learn which pieces your opponent has where, and a struggle to remember the position of those pieces once revealed. It's a bit of a guessing game, but it's really more about choosing what pieces to send into enemy territory and when, and where to position your flag so that it remains protected.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) Stratego doesn't quite have the timeless elegance of chess, but nevertheless it's an engaging game that's a classic for good reason.

• Stratego on BoardGameGeek

Viking roundup, part 2

Continuing our look at the weirdly large number of viking games we've acquired recently.

Champions of Midgard is a viking themed worker placement game, which means we can't help but compare it to Raiders of the North Sea, especially since we picked up both games within a few months of each other. Apart from the obvious similarities, however, the two games couldn't be more different.

For the most part, Champions is a more traditional worker placement game. Each player gets a set number of workers, which they use to compete over common spaces on the board. Spaces are a mixture of resource gathering and opportunities to fight monsters such as trolls, giants, draughr, and dragons, which is the primary way to score victory points. Players use their workers to recruit warriors (represented by dice) and supplies which are needed to travel to far off monster-infested lands.

An interesting wrinkle on the "use resources to fulfill quests" theme is blame, a currency in the game that subtracts from a player's score. One of the spaces on the board is the Troll, and the player who successfully fights the Troll each round gets to give a blame token to another player, and get rid of one of his own if he has one. If no one fights the Troll, every player gets a blame token. Blame tokens are worth negative points at the end of the game in a somewhat exponential manner: one blame is -1 point, 2 is -3 points, 3 is -6, 4 is -10, and so on, so managing blame becomes a critical part of the game's strategy.

Warriors are represented by dice which are rolled to combat monsters. The different types of warriors are not necessarily better or worse than each other; sword- and spearmen provide some defense, allowing you to play it safe, while axemen tend to do more damage but provide no defense, meaning that more of your warriors will be killed in combat.

There's a fair amount of variety as far as what you can choose to focus on in the game, and this is guided to some extend by Destiny cards, which grant extra points at the end of the game for accomplishing goals such as having killed the most of a particular type of monster, or having the most gold or food left over at the end of the game.

It's a little more involved than Raiders of the North Sea, and a lot more fantastical, to the point that I think it has more in common with Lords of Waterdeep than any of the more historical viking games like the North Sea series. It is definitely sufficiently different that we play both games fairly often, sometimes even in the same weekend.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) A good mix of worker placement and dice rolling, with a fun theme and some neat twists you won't find in other games of this type.

• Champions of Midgard official website
• Champions of Midgard on BoardGameGeek

Top 10 games of 2017

These are the games we spent the most time playing this year (not necessarily games that were published in 2017).

Last year the list was strictly in order of how many hours we spent playing each game. We did more or less the same this time, but we disqualified any games that we didn't play at least five times over the course of the year.

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10. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

6 plays, 8 hours (average play time 1 hour and 20 minutes per game)
Position last year: 4

The Legendary game system has proven to be extremely robust, with several new flavors coming out in 2017 including Big Trouble in Little China, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the notoriously poorly illustrated Firefly, along with an expansion for Legendary Encounters: Alien that allows one player to play as the Alien Queen. But for sheer variety and replayability you really can't beat the original Marvel version. We haven't even come close to playing all the different possible combinations of heroes, villains and plots the game has to offer.

Read the full review.

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9. Raiders of the North Sea

5 plays, 8.25 hours (average play time 1 hour and 40 minutes per game)
New to the list this year

Raiders of the North Sea combines some really smooth and deceptively simple game play with absolutely stunning artwork and graphic design, making it a great experience on every level. I fully expect it to make our top 10 again next year.

Read the full review.

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8. Steam Park

6 plays, 10.5 hours (average play time 1 hour and 20 minutes per game)
New to the list this year

Steam Park is a game that we've always enjoyed but hadn't bought our own copy of until recently. It's got one game element that I don't particularly care for (a speed-rolling segment at the start of each round), but I was able to come up with a few variant options to fix that and the game remains one of our favorites.

Read the full review.

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7. Cthulhu Wars

7 plays, 14.5 hours (average play time just over 2 hours per game)
New to the list this year

We've always loved Cthulhu Wars, and our enthusiasm for it was rekindled this year when a huge chunk of Kickstarter expansions arrived for the game. The miniatures are what most people talk about (and they are spectacular), but it's also a great "armies on a map" conquest game with very smooth rules and a surprising amount of depth.

Read the full review.

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6. Wasteland Express Delivery Service

5 plays, 16 hours (average play time just over 3 hours per game)
New to the list this year

A "pick up and drop off" mission solving game that is probably responsible for knocking Firefly: the Game off the top 10 list (it was #2 last year). Its world isn't quite as immersive as Firefly's, but the Mad Max-style post apocalypse theme is fun and still a little underrepresented in board games. Plus, it comes with the best in-box storage system I have ever seen.

Read the full review.

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5. Champions of Midgard

11 plays, 22.5 hours (average play time just over 2 hours per game)
New to the list this year

It's surprising that two Viking-themed worker-placement games are in our game library at all, let alone both in our top 10 for the year. But Champions of Midgard is actually quite different from Raiders of the North Sea: a little more complex, a little more random, and a lot more fantastical, with players competing for the opportunity to defend the village from trolls and other mythical beasts.

Read the full review.

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4. Star Wars: Rebellion

7 plays, 29 hours (average play time just over 4 hours per game)
New to the list this year

A two player game that takes 4 hours to play has understandably limited appeal, but it's perfect for a couple who are Star Wars fans and frequently spend entire weekends playing games.

Read the full review.

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3. Mansions of Madness (Second Edition)

10 plays, 29 hours (average play time just under 3 hours per game)
Position last year: 6

Mansions of Madness continues to be one of our primary go-to adventure games, and a great example of how to integrate an app into a physical board game the right way: the app supports the game and makes it easier to play, but doesn't turn it into a video game.

Read the full review.

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2. X-Wing

15 plays, 29.75 hours (average play time 2 hours per game)
Position last year: 1

We didn't spend quite as much time playing X-Wing this year, but it wasn't for lack of trying. The steady flow of new ships has kept the game fresh, and the older models have had some new life breathed into them by our recent (admittedly late-to-the-party) discovery of Heroes of the Aturi Cluster, a fan-made fully cooperative campaign mode with an ingenious AI for controlling the opposing ships.

Read the full review.

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1. Conan

26 plays, 31.5 hours (average play time 1 hour and 15 minutes per game)
Position last year: 5

Last year I predicted that Conan would take the number one spot this year, and it's easy to see why. It is an extremely compelling game that is easy to play and incredibly immersive. In spite of a confusing Kickstarter campaign and a somewhat muddy rule book, the game is well supported with a regular flow of new scenarios, and I'm sure we'll be playing it regularly for years to come.

Read the full review.

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Honorable Mention

There were a few games that would have made the top 10 if we were going strictly by hours spent playing, but fell just short of the minimum of five plays that we decided on for this year.

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Leaving Earth

4 plays, 22.5 hours (average play time just over 5 and a half hours per game)

We really do love everything about this game (utterly unique game play, top-notch graphic design), except for maybe the incredibly long playing time, which is what prevents it from hitting the table more often.

Read the full review.

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Marvel Heroes Strategy Board Game

4 plays, 10 hours (average play time 2 and a half hours per game)

We started playing Marvel Heroes regularly again out of frustration over how tedious Heroclix has become. We've even created some new characters and villains in an effort to freshen up the game a little.

Read the full review.

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Star Trek Customizable Card Game

4 plays, 9.5 hours (average play time 2 hours and 20 minutes per game)

It's amazing how often we dig out this old CCG from the 1990s. It was one of the first games we played together, and we still enjoy it from time to time. There are a lot of good Star Trek games out there, but this one is still the best at evoking everything that was great about the show.

Read the full review.

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Most anticipated games for 2018

There are a few games that just arrived or haven't arrived yet, that I have particularly high hopes for. I think these three might make the top 10 list next year.

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Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks

Doctor Who has had a somewhat troubled board game history, but this one is from Gale Force 9, who proved with their excellent Firefly board game that they understand how to incorporate theme into their games rather than just "painting it on." I've only read the rule book so far, but it looks like it gets to the heart of what Doctor Who is all about: travelling through time, having adventures and fighting monsters.

Official website

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Dinosaur Island

A game about building a dinosaur zoo, from the creators of Wasteland Express Delivery Service and Dead of Winter? Yes, please. Although the '90s style graphic design is a bit obnoxious (way too much pink) the game looks solid and I'm really looking forward to trying it. I fear it may replace Steam Park in my amusement-park-building-game affections.

Official website

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Mythic Battles: Pantheon

I was on the fence about this one, but the Kickstarter campaign took place when I was in the full flush of euphoria over how awesome Conan was, and not only does Mythic Battles include a Conan crossover element, it looks like a pretty good game in its own right.

Official website

War in space

At their core, the Star Wars movies are about the journey from adolescence to adulthood, with characters such as Luke Skywalker and Rey learning about their abilities and place in the world, Anakin Skywalker finding his ultimate destiny as Darth Vader, or even Jyn Erso finally finding a cause worth dying for. It's the human drama that really makes the Star Wars saga as compelling as it is.

But it's also about a whopping big war in space, and that's the part that Star Wars: Rebellion successfully translates into a board game. The box says it's a game for 2-4 players, buttthe four player option just splits each player's duties, and isn't really worth considering. This is definitely a two-player game, as befits the Star Wars saga's rather black-and-white struggle of Empire vs. Rebellion.

What's interesting about the game is that it isn't just an armies-on-a-map Risk-style game with both sides starting out equal. Each player has different goals: the Empire, which starts with a lot more resources, must use a combination of deduction and brute force to find and wipe out the hidden Rebel base, while the Rebel player has to accomplish hit-and-run objectives to drive down the Empire's popular support and undermine its credibility.

Game play involves using the personalities of the Star Wars universe such as Han Solo, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and even Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt, to attempt missions and lead attacks into enemy territory. Missions can be a simple as using diplomacy to convince a planetary system to join the Rebellion (or the Empire), or as complex as leading an attack on the Death Star, the destruction of which will seriously undermine the Empire's credibility.

The characters available to each player are revealed gradually over the first half of the game; no game is ever exactly the same, as you never know whether you will end up with Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, or lesser known characters like Wedge Antilles to work with. Additionally, the mission and objective cards vary from game to game, which keeps the game fresh over multiple plays.

Rebellion is a very complex two-player game that takes about four hours to play, so it definitely isn't going to be for everyone. But if you like rich, deep strategy games and you like Star Wars, it can't be beat.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) The limited number of players and long play time prevent it from getting to the table on a regular basis, but this is usually the first game I think of if I want to play a Star Wars game.

• Star Wars: Rebellion official website
• Star Wars: Rebellion on BoardGameGeek