[Pentegarn]

Think I will necromancer this thread with my current top 10 favorite board games

10) Thunderstone Quest - The third edition of the Thunderstone deckbuilder game. They further improved how dungeon delving works in the game and removed food cards which totally fixes the junk draw issue of previous editions. The balance of dungeon delving is at its best where you will always have a productive action to take regardless of draw thanks to the various sub actions within the village action. Game ends when you find 4 keys hidden throughout the dungeon and the big bad appears. You get one final turn where you draw an extra 4 cards and keep all but 2 of your choice then you either attack the big bad or take one more turn. Most points based off your deck value and vp tokens wins

9) Crusaders Thy Will Be Done - A mancala based action game where your knights crusade accross the countryside smiting heathens and building castles, churches, farms, and monuments that enhance your basic actions. Actions include Crusade (where you kill Prussians, Saracens, and Slavs), Move (move your knights around the map) Build (build a building in an empty territory), A scoring action where you collect points based off the power points on that action, and an enhance action that increases your permanently increases your power when crusading. When the set number of victory point tokens are given out the game ends.

8) Manhattan Project Energy Empire - A worker placement dice game set in post WW2 era Earth. Power is needed to heal and you are one nation trying to become the best at generating power. But watch out how much pollution you generate while doing so. Every turn you either place a worker/energy to achieve and action, or you pull your workers back and take a personal goal for end game scoring. When you pull back you gain back your workers and generate energy tokens by rolling your power plant dice. If your highest value roll has pollution on it, you gain one or 2 pollution which has to be cleaned up or else it costs you end game points. Each time pollution happens (or in the case no pollution is rolled, a pollution is burned) the countdown till the end of the round comes closer to ending. When a round ends and event happens. The first 3 events are pleasant and may gain you a free worker, die, or resources which are given to everyone, but the last 3 events are more catastrophic like plagues, power shortages, sanctions, taxation, pollution increases and the like. The game ends at the end of the 6th round and your pollution, dice, buildings, and personal goals are added up and high score wins

7) Reavers of Midgard - A shared action selection and set collection game. Each turn a player chooses an action that he gains a bonus for, then everyone gets to do said action. Each round everyone chooses one action. Game ends after 6 full rounds.

6) Hyperborea - a 4x (explore, exploit, expand, exterminate) bag builder (think deck builder but instead of cards, you use cubes) You draw 3 cubes per turn and place them on your personal board to take actions that allow you to move, attack, add more troops, add more cubes, gain victory points, or gain technology cards that give more action choices. Points scored by gaining cubes in your bag (other than grey ones, those are worthless and take up junk) holding territory, killing different players, killing non player faction creatures, gaining tech, gaining victory point gems, getting achievements, generating troops and so on. Game ends depending on number of achievements accomplished, player count, and pre-chosen game length

5) Scythe - This one, like all Stonemaier Games, is polarizing. I fall on the side of those who love it. It's a post apocalyptic action selection, area control, resource management game. Select an action and if you possess the correct amount of goods, take the attached build, recruit, develop, or upgrade action. If you reach certain milestones, such as maxing your battle power or popularity, building all your buildings or mechs, generating all your workers, finishing a quest or winning a battle, you add a star to the score area. The game ends after a player gets their 6th star placed. Your score is based off accumulated coins many of which are given at end game based off of territories controlled, stars placed, and goods left all multiplied by your popularity tier rating. It plays great but also looks incredible with the mech and leader minis, goods all over the board, and beautiful game art

4) Power Grid - Pound for pound, this is the most balanced game ever made. The catch up mechanic is top notch so it is almost runaway leader proof. Each round you participate in auctions to buy power plants and power resources which you use to power cities. The order of bidding is determined by who is the leader which results in whoever is in last place has the bidding advantage. The game ends when a certain number of cities have power plants in them and most powered cities at the end of the game wins.

3) Puerto Rico - I love shared action games, be it the previously mentioned Reavers of Midgard, Race/Roll for the Galaxy, Exodus Fleet, or New Frontiers. But this is the granddaddy of the genre. You select from a series of actions, be it prospect coin, sell goods, increase your farm, build buildings, generate goods, ship, etc. The person choosing the action gets a special bonus benefit while everyone playing then gets to do the action. The game ends when points or colonists run out.

2) Brass Birmingham - Martin Wallace has designed a lot of great games, London, A Few Acres of Snow, Mythotoppia, Age of Steam, Automobile, but my favorite one is easily Brass Birmingham. It's a hand management style game where your cards have city names or actiion symbols on them. Each turn you play 2 cards which can either allow you to build in a specific city or build a specific building in a city connected to your supply chain. The cards can also be used to take a loan, ship goods, build canal or rail depending on the era of the game you're currently in, or gain 2 wild cards to be used later. The game is played over 2 eras where you go through the cards until the deck dries up, reshuffle and start the second era and repeat this till the deck dries up again. Most points after that wins

1) Castles of Burgundy - Stephan Feld's "Guernica" You are competing to create the best section of kingdom by using 2 die rolls per turn to either take a tile from the board, place a taken tile onto your board, sell the die roll for die manipulating workers, or sell a stack of goods you collected. Plays across 5 rounds with 5 turns per round where the quicker you fill in a section the more points that section is worth.