My Best New, And Most Played Games Of 2023.

 

Clicking on the game names on this post will take you to their appropriate page on BoardGameGeek.

I'm also going to include some pictures of games that I played in 2023...

...for a start, Flamme Rouge. I actually won this one. Only the second time that I have!

My Most Played Games in 2023.

1^st. 32 plays.

Just One. I love word games (except for anagrams, I can rarely do them (unless they come with a clue, then I often do get them.)), and this is one of the very best. I'm pleased that this tops this list.

2^nd. 23 plays.

So Clover! Another beautifully elegant word game.

3^rd. 20 plays.

Codenames. In third place, yet another word game! Again, beautifully designed with simple rules. Always fun.

4^th. 19 plays.

Tempel Des Schreckens. A favourite at my boardgames club, Isleworth Board Gamers, which, to be honest, until last year, I've rarely enjoyed. But I've grown to quite like it of late.

5^th. 13 plays.

Escalation! A classic from prolific games designer, Reiner Knizia. Another game with a very simple premise, play a card (or set of cards) with a higher number (or total) than the previous player.

Joint 6^th and 7^th. 10 Plays Each.

Mists Over Carcassonne. A co-operative version of Carcassonne (one of my favourite games). I've logged each round played as a separate game, which is why it's made my top 10. To be honest,I'm not a fan. I love the original but just don't really see the point of a co-operative version.

Scout. A great card game with some interesting mechanics that tickles my numbers sweet spot.

Joint, 8^th, 9^th and 10^th. 7 plays each.

Gizmos. I was introduced to this near the end of this year but after repeated plays still find it fun.

Undaunted: Normandy. A hybrid of a deck-builder and a wargame, with several different scenarios to play though.

Wingspan. A game about collecting birds in different habitats and building an efficient “engine” with them to gain more points than your opponents.

The end of a game of the giant version of Catch The Moon.

My Top 10 of games that were new to me in 2023. (In reverse order...to up the tension!)

10. Nigoichi. A clever word game.

9. Rome In A Day. A nice, “I cut, you choose”, territory building game.

8. Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas, Malleus Maleficarum Edition. I was after getting hold of a copy of the original version of this many years ago...but didn't! Luckily, a friend had a copy of this expanded version to sell, which I snapped up! It's really an abstract strategy game, with the theme of monks attempting to hold back the forces of darkness by collecting four books.

7. Cult Of The Death Knight, expansion for Escape The Dark Castle. I really like Escape The Dark Castle, with its Fighting Fantasy aesthetic. So was pleased that I was able to pick up the expansions that I didn't yet have, at UK Games Expo this year.

6. Terraforming Mars: The Dice Game. I haven't played the original Terraforming Mars, but I have played Terraforming Mars: The Ares Expedition, which is the version using only cards. I found TM:TDG a lot more fun. And TM:TAE, was pretty good anyway.

5. Rise Of Augustus. Fill up your cards with Legionnaires, as tokens are randomly drawn from a bag, in an attempt to score victory points. The decisions come as you decide which cards to assign the Legionnaires to, in an attempt to complete your objectives.

4. Sunrise Lane. A re-theme and update to the already very good Rondo. Well, I say re-theme, Rondo didn't really have a theme, but it did have nice tactile pieces.

3. Hard To Get. A very good co-operative party game where the clue giver has to choose between two opposite statements in order for their team-mates to eliminate cards in a tableau, hopefully leading to just one (the correct one), being left.

2. Secret Identity. A really clever, partly co-operative, clue giving/guessing game.

1. Lumen Fidei, a module for T.I.M.E Stories. T.I.M.E Stories is my favourite board game. So it's not really a surprise to me that this excellent module for it came out on top. It has an epic story set around the time of the Crusades. I played it with just one other person and although we completed it legitimately (albeit with an absolutely huge minus score), a full player count of four, may have made it easier.

The end of a two-player game of Escape The Dark Castle (without the aforementioned expansion). We got to the final boss, the Terror Of The Underworld. But were defeated by his ability to re-roll chapter dice once we'd removed them.

Honourable mentions. (Games that I liked but that didn't make my Top 10.)

My Shelfie.

Seas Of Havoc.

Fire And Axe: A Viking Saga.

Star Trek: Away Missions.

The Wolves.

The New Game To Me With The Most Entertaining Name.

This award goes to Galaxy Cat Extension. An average game which has players attempting to build the longest cats whilst attempting to keep them safe from being abducted by aliens!

My board at the end of a game of The Castles Of Burgundy. I can't remember if I won or not (I doubt it), but I did have a fairly impressive pig farm!

Piggies!

Best Convention/Show.

This year, I attended (in order), UK Games Expo, SELWG, Warfare, and Dragonmeet.

The winner for me though is UK Games Expo. For my full round-up of it, check out my post on it here (or just scroll down to the next post on this blog).

UK Games Expo 2023

On Friday the 2nd of June, 2023, UK Games Expo returned to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England.

 

 

I got myself a ticket for all three days of the event (Friday the 2nd until Sunday the 4th), and travelled there with my friends, Richard and Chris. Richard and I were also to play in The Birmingham Brawl (a competition of the fantasy miniatures wrestling game, Rumbleslam from TTCombat), on the 3rd, and three three of us, along with three other friends, were to crew a virtual star ship, in the UK Star Ship Simulator, on the last day of the Expo.

My friend Ben, had done a sterling job, organising accommodation for 16 of us. The main draws were that it was affordable, available (both things which are difficult to come by in Birmingham during Expo) and had a large room in which we could play games!

By the time that Chris, Richard and myself arrived on the Thursday afternoon, the gaming was already in full swing. A Game of Saint Petersburg swiftly followed. 

 

 

After a while, we decamped to the NEC to pick up our tickets, and for those who had items to drop off at the bring-and-buy, to do so.

    Those assembled, split into two groups. One of which opted to go and get dinner, while the rest of us found a bar!

    After this, we reassembled in the cinema for a preview of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. I hate spoilers, so won't give anything away about the movie.

When the film had ended, we returned to our accommodation where, among other things, borrowing extra dice from another game, we had an epic, and very fun, nine-player game of Tumblin' Dice.

Friday saw the first day of the Expo itself.

 

    There were three halls this year, two of which were full of traders and demonstration games, whilst the third was set aside for tournaments and the ever popular bring-and-buy.

 

    After having a wander around Hall 2, Richard and I decided to check out the bring-and-buy, as the previously huge queue had somewhat subsided. The bring-and-buy itself was a little overwhelming, a great deal bigger than the last time I attended Expo in 2017.

    After over an hour of searching, I managed to find myself a couple of bargains.

After the bring-and-buy (and some lunch), the two of us finished having a look around Hall 2 and moved onto Hall 1.

One of the great things about UK Games Expo, is the many demo games that are being hosted.

    Pre-empting our forthcoming Rumbleslam tournament, Richard spotted a wrestling themed card game, All Time Wrestling, that he was keen to try out. So we gave it a go. The guy demoing the game explained the rules and gave us some useful gameplay tips. Sitting next to us, was a fella named Mohamed, who as it turned out, was none other than the game's designer!

    I had also seen a game I wanted to try as I had toyed with the idea of helping to fund the Kickstarter campaign for it, and had watched a game-play video of it. It's called NEXUS: Arena Combat System. The premise of the game is that you're a fight promoter on a star ship, pitting your combatant (known as a helot) against those of the other players. The components are high quality, with all the helots, crates, pillars, and flaming braziers, pre-painted. 

The demo game was fun enough (despite the fact that we didn't get to finish it as the halls closed for the day before any of us (Richard, myself, or the demo guy) had achieved victory), but I in no way thought it was worth the hefty £121 price tag they were asking for it.

On the way out, I got Richard to take my photo in front of a huge model of an Ultramarine, Space Marine, Terminator (from Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 setting).

Friday night saw more gaming back at the accommodation, and Richard, trying to finish painting the models that he was going to use the next day, all the while being distracted by...well, games.

Saturday saw Myself and Richard heading straight to Hall 3 to try and find the location of the Birmingham Brawl (the Rumbleslam tournament that we were to play in).

    Fortunately, this was on the table to attract our attention!

There were sixteen spots in the knockout tournament. However, one person couldn't make it, so the way that the competition was structured, meant that one person would have a bye in their first round and get through to round 2 without having to play in the opening stage.

    It just so happened that Richard got the bye. I, on the other hand, got knocked out in the first round! I did play a second game though, just for fun, against a guy who had also been knocked out in round 1. (I lost that game too!)

    Here's a picture of my team (albeit a bit blurry).

(From left to right: Amazonian Grappler, Treeman, Gravedigger, and Amazonian Brawler.)

    Richard got through to the final, in which some questions about a rule pertaining to his team arose. I won't go into the minutiae of it, I'll just say that Richard was playing the rule exactly as it was written, but that might not have been how the designer of the rule intended it to be used. (We reckoned that an official errata entry would be forthcoming about it.) Richard and his opponent, along with the tournament referee, all came to a mutual agreement about how to proceed however, and in the end, Richard came out victorious.

The excuse that I came up with for not winning was that, being a vegan, I couldn't accept a prize that was made, mostly, of leather...and that, being a vegan, I probably wouldn't have been strong enough to lift it anyway!

After the tournament, we returned to Hall 1, where, among other things, we went to see wrestling fan , and aforementioned designer of All Time Wrestling, Mohammed. He asked us if we'd like to try out the prototype of the second edition of a board game he had designed called Conqueror: Final Conquest. We did, and agreed to meet him in the Playtest area the next morning.

Richard and I wandered around the rest of Hall 1, and, among other things, came across the area of games company Gale Force Nine. A few things caught our eye, including the soon to be released, Star Trek: Away Missions. 

I initially didn't like the look of the miniatures in the game, as they had a kind of, what I'd describe as an animation ascetic, with exaggerated features. However, that look worked with the look of the board pieces and the game-play feel.

    The core set, themed after The Battle Of Wolf359 (which any Trekkie will know was when a Borg Cube destroyed a Federation fleet on it's way to attack Earth), sees (in one of the game's scenarios) Federation officers, aboard the Enterprise-D, attempting to repel a Borg incursion. One of the players, plays as Commander Riker, Lieutenant Commander Data, Lieutenant Worf (my favourite Star Trek character) and the annoying Commander Shelby. (According to the guy showing us how to play, I wasn't the first person playing a demo that day, that had commented that Shelby was annoying! (Also, while we were playing, a couple wandered over and one of them also, commented the same!)) The other player plays as the dreaded Borg.

    The game is played over three rounds and has players scoring points by achieving objectives that they have on a hand of cards. In addition to these cards, each player also holds cards that may give them an advantage in achieving those objectives.

    It was fun but (despite there also being a scenario, that has the Enterprise Crew exploring the Borg Cube) I wonder how much replay-ability it might have.

Sunday saw Richard and myself heading to the Playtest area as soon as we got to the NEC as, at 11, we had an appointment to crew a star ship in the UK Star Ship Simulator!

We met up with Mohammed, who took us through the rules of the second edition of his game, Conqueror: Final Conquest.

The three of us, Richard, Mohammed, and myself played as ancient empires attempting to assert ourselves across Southern Europe and North Africa.

    We each started with a hidden objective card. Unfortunately, mine encouraged me to attack Rome. (Richard was playing as the Romans!) My empire, the Carthaginians crossed the sea from North Africa in attack. Unfortunately, by the time I did so (having spent a few turns improving my unit numbers and empire's abilities), Richard had expanded into the south of Italy and South-West into Sicily, and was able to out-flank my advance.

    After my unsuccessful foray into Europe, I decided to swap my objective card for another, mystery one. This one, it turned out, would reward me for expanding across North Africa. Something that I had already started to do!

We didn't get to finish the game however, as Richard and I had to rush to The Hilton to, along with four other friends, to crew the Star ship Artemis.

I was looking forward to the UK Star Ship Simulator as it was something that had piqued my interest since I first saw it at the UKGE in 2016.

    Due to some technical issues, our "ship" was running half an hour late. This, though, allowed us a lengthy discussion as to who would perform which role on the crew. I ended up as captain!

    When we "boarded" The Artemis, we found that there were still some technical issues going on. Only one of the four large screens that, in Star Trek would have made up the main viewer, was working. And Chris, our communications officer had to use a lap top rather that the bespoke console that the other bridge officers had access to.

    I won't give any spoilers as to the content of the scenario, but I will say that we failed our mission!

After this, our crew dispersed, and Richard and myself returned to Hall 1.

We though we'd try out a comic book themed dice manipulation game called Kapow!, from Wise Wizard Games, the company that released the excellent deck-building card games, Star Realms and Hero Realms. We played two games with the "Volume 2" set. Despite the game featuring things that I love (comic book characters and dice (which can be customised and manipulated through gameplay), I was underwhelmed by the game itself.

One of the Kapow! player boards and screens (with the life counter to the left). It looks more complicated than it actually is.

After a bit more shopping and wandering around, we met back up with Chris and headed back to London.

The whole event and "extra-curricular gaming" were great fun. I'm looking forward to going back next year!

Star Trek The Experience.

Way back in 2008, I went to Las Vegas in the USA. Now, while I loved the atmosphere of the place, I don't gamble, so a lot of the entertainment was lost on me. I did however visit The Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon which were both pretty cool. Within Las Vegas itself however, the best thing that I did was visit Star Trek The Experience.

Star Trek The Experience was an attraction in the Las Vegas Hilton from 1998 to 2008. For loads of information on it you can view the Memory Alpha page for it by following this link.

The main part of the attraction were a couple of, well, experiences, that rivalled anything that Disney or Universal Studios have to offer. Obviously, whilst in those you couldn't take pictures (not that I'd have wanted to as I was too busy enjoying them), but hanging around waiting for them to get running, in the Star Trek area, I was able to snap away. So here are some of the pictures that I took that day. (I've had to lighten some of the photos so that the images are actually visible, so apologies for the graininess of some of them.)

The Enterprise NCC-1701, the Constitution Class refit, that first debuted in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Picard's Enterprise. The Galaxy Class NCC-1701-D.

Voyager.

Whilst waiting for the experiences I met a couple of people from the Star Trek universe. One was this Klingon. On hearing my accent he said to me

    "You're English! You had a mighty empire...once!"

His profile on the Star Trek The Experience website said that he had travelled back to the 21st Century from a Time Station. (Apparently with the intention of insulting holiday makers.)

I also met this fellow. A Borg who had been rescued from The Collective and was trying to regain his individuality.

Talking of The Borg, they also had a prop replica of what was left of one incarnation of The Borg Queen after its demise in Star Trek: First Contact.

And back to the Klingon's, another prop replica. This time the bat'leth known as The Sword Of Kahless.

And, the Klingon Bird Of Prey.

Best And Worst Games Of 2022.

On my boardgames club's (Isleworth Boardgamers) forum on Boardgame Geek (possibly the most exhaustive resource about boardgames on the 'net), at the end of every year, our members sum up their thoughts on gaming over the past 12 months, with a focus on new or new to us, games.

Here are my somewhat rambling thoughts on the subject.

All the links in this post will take you to the appropriate page on Boardgame Geek.

Top Games That I Had My First Play Of In 2022.

Marvel Crisis Protocol.

I bought the core set of this this in 2020 and have been slowly adding to it with some of the expansion boxes. I didn't get to play it until last year though. It is absolutely brilliant. The representations of the characters are bang on. (I was a huge fan of Heroclix some years ago but somewhat frustrated with the generic powers and abilities that the characters in that game possessed. MCP doesn't suffer that problem in the least.) The game-play is simple to learn but with each character, comes more complexity with their individual abilities and the way in which they synergise with each-other. 10/10

My, so far, only fully painted character model for MCP - Ultron (from the core set).

Red Alert - Space Fleet Warfare.

A game that I'd been looking at for years. I was only put off by the rather high price tag and less than great models. I finally got to play it last year though. It's great! It is part of the Commands And Colours series by Richard Borg which include Memoir '44 and Battlelore. The only downside to it are its rather homogeneous looking starship models. These do not detract from the game-play however, as each unit (when deployed on the table) also will have a token with it that gives the players, at a glance, the details of that unit. 9.5/10 (the point five off of a full score is only due to the models.)

The set up at the start of the second scenario.

Scout.

A lovely little game from Oink. The theme is totally irrelevant as it's a game about numbers which tickles my sweet spot. (I want to point out that not all games about numbers tickle my sweet spot but this one is really satisfying.) 8/10

Undaunted: Normandy.

A mix of war game and deck-builder. It shouldn't really work but does, really rather well. I've only played the first two scenarios so far but am looking forward to trying them all. You can play as either the U.S. or German forces and the game's asymmetry allows for even more longevity from a scenario based game than might otherwise be so if the forces and objectives involved for both players were identical. 8/10

Top Game That Was Released In 2022.

Reload

This game was touted to me as the board game version of Fortnite. I've never played Fortnight but it did look somewhat interesting so I thought I'd give Reload a go. I played in a three-player game and enjoyed it very much. You play as an enhanced human (each of the different characters have a different special ability), competing in a televised death-match on an island that gets more and more dangerous as you advance through the game. Reload has a very innovative scoring mechanism, whereby you add different sized chits to a score-track depending on what achievements you complete during the game. The first payer to fill their track wins. 8/10

Best Expansions.

Marvel Crisis Protocol. - Punisher And Taskmaster.

This was released in 2020 but I had my first play with The Punisher in 2022. I've not used Taskmaster yet but The Punisher is incredibly fun. You can gain “Vengeance Tokens” when an allied character's card is flipped or they are taken out of action, which can then be used to boost your attack. Also, You can blow up pieces of scenery, with pre-planted booby traps, which can damage enemy characters who have wandered too close. Or just coldly gun down your enemies. All very Frank Castle. 10/10

Star Wars: Outer Rim - Unfinished Buisiness.

This gives you more content for an already awesome game. I played as Jyn Erso from the brilliant movie, Rogue One. 10/10

Biggest Disappointments.

Gladiatores: Blood For Roses.

I Backed the Kickstarter for this (twice (the first time funding failed)) and was so happy when it went into production. I got around to playing it last year. All the mechanics, on paper, seemed solid, but they just didn't come together to form a great (much anticipated by me) game. 2/10

Lucky's Misadventures.

The premise is that, whilst out walking your beloved dog, the eponymous Lucky, he chases a character called Pumpkin Jack through a portal into a realm know as Oddtopia. Players attempt to achieve one of three instant win conditions or amass more points than their opponents by the time the “Fate Deck” has been played through twice. Another game where the game-play seems like it will be a lot of fun after reading the rules but that fails to deliver on that assumption. 1/10

Best Convention/Show.

I went to three games conventions/shows this year SELWG and Warfare (both wargames based) and Dragonmeet (which combined role-playing, board gaming and a small amount of miniatures-based gaming.). All were good. Warfare, in Farnborough maybe due to the novelty value (as it was my first time going), plus the fact that I was able to pick up loads of boosters for the now discontinued game TANKS, for just £3 a piece tops this list. Not to say that SELWG wasn't great fun too. I was able to find all the paints I needed for various gaming projects, plus the correct water-slide transfers for my TANKS tanks. Dragonmeet continued to get bigger (as it has been doing almost yearly since it was taken over by games company Modiphius) and I got to play the new Terminator role-playing game from Nightfall Games.

Best Miniatures That I've Painted This Year.

This isn't about my best paint-jobs of the year, but rather about the nicest models out of all the ones I've painted in the last 365 days (which isn't actually that many). This award goes to Otherworld Miniatures' Hob Goblin Warriors. They are metal, which for a start is good in my book, as I much prefer painting metal models over plastic or resin ones, and are just great sculpts. Otherworld Miniatures' models are inspired by early roleplaying games and, just this week, I used my hobgoblins to ambush my players' characters in Port Blacksand in my Advanced Fighting fantasy campaign.

Dice Quiz.

If you've read my previous post, you'll know that, while my Wednesday night games club, Isleworth Board Gamers was on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some of our members posted quizzes and such on our BoardGameGeek forum. You might even have had a go at solving the crossword in that blog post. Along with that crossword, on BGG, I posted a quiz entitled "Look At The Dice, Name The Game." I thought I'd repost it here so a wider audience can have a go at it.

Some of the games are well known, some fairly obscure. Nonetheless, if you guess the game from the picture alone, you get 2 points but if you need to use the clue (looking things up on-line or on BoardGameGeek at this point is fine), you get 1 point. There are a total of 24 points on offer. I've put all the clues after all the pictures so that you can have a good look at all the dice before you resort to the clues (if indeed you need them). The answers are at the very bottom of this post. Good luck!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

CLUES.

1. Board-based World War Two wargame from Days Of Wonder.

2. Co-operative adventure game from Themeborne Ltd, inspired by Fighting Fantasy Books.

3. Gladiatorial combat with pre-painted, metal miniatures from em4miniatures.

4. Word Game by Reiner Knizia from Big Potato Games.

5. World War Two air combat game from Warlord Games.

6. Fantasy Flight's hugely successful space combat game that uses the Flightpath System.

7. Wizkids' less successful space combat game that uses the Flightpath System.

8. Board-based sci-fi wargame from Braincrack Games.

9. Steam-powered robots play sport in Privateer Press' Warmachine setting.

10. Dice-drafting superhero game from Wizkids.

11. Discontinued fantasy wargame from Fantasy Flight.

12. Egyptian-themed abstract strategy game from Yay Games.

ANSWERS.

1. Memoir '44.

2. Escape The Dark Castle.

3. Ludus Gladatorius.

4. Clickbait.

5. Blood Red Skies: Battle Of Britain.

6. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game.

7. Star Trek: Attack Wing.

8. Farsight.

9. Grind.

10. Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers Vs X-Men.

11. Runewars Miniatures Game.

12. Ominoes.

Games Crossword.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, my usual Wednesday night board games club went on hiatus. During this time, members kept in touch using our forum on the great website that is BoardGameGeek. Among other things, some of our club members posted quizzes. Inspired by this, I decided to get in on the act and came up with this crossword.

All the answers relate to games in BoardGameGeek's top 500 except for one which is way doewn the list but fitted so nicely into the grid.

You will probably need to copy the image below and print it out. Please don't write on your screen with a permanent marker. 

Answers are at the bottom of this post. Enjoy.

ACROSS.

5. Part of a plant which attaches it to the ground and provides water and nourishment. (4)

7. Lay tiles to help build this walled French city. (11)

10. See 6 DOWN.

13. (And 4 ACROSS) Wizard paladin. (4,6)

14. Alloy of Copper and Zinc where UK Games Expo was in 2019. (5,10)

15. (And 9 DOWN and 20 ACROSS) Epic occidental route. (5,7,5)

18. Joan Of Arc was Maid of here. (7)

20. See 15 ACROSS.

21. (And 17 DOWN) A single thing is all. (4,3)

22. Abbreviated year of this memorable recreation of the D-Day campaign. (9)


DOWN.

1. Grim Reaper's farming implement. (6)

2. (And 16 DOWN) Terror in Lovecraftian town. (6,6)

3. Ready, steady, __. (2)

4. See 13 ACROSS.

5. Collect tiles before the sun god stops you. (2)

6. (And 10 Across) Making the red planet like Earth. (12,4)

8. A long time ag in a galaxy far, far away, roll dice to decide your fate. (4,4,7)

9. See 15 ACROSS.

11. Dark place of safety. (10)

12. Natural environment of organism. (7)

16. See 2 DOWN.

17. See 21 ACROSS.

19. Spanish blue. (4)

ANSWERS.

ACROSS.

5. Root.

7. Carcassonne.

13. Mage Knight.

14. Brass Birmingham.

15. Great Western Trail.

18. Orleans.

21. Just One.

22. Forty-Four.

DOWN.

1. Scythe.

2. Arkham Horror.

3. Go.

4. Ra.

6. Terraforming Mars.

8. Star Wars Destiny.

11. Gloomhaven.

12. Habitat.

19. Azul.