Hello and Merry Christmas to everyone! When I decided to do a Christmas List (which seems like a must for every board game blogger) I decided I didn’t just want to do a list of MY wants. I wanted to enlist the help of a few friends on our Google+ board game group who all submitted their top 10 wish list so I could get a good round about of games that would fit any type of gamer as much as possible as we all have very specific likes and dislikes in games. I also felt this was a great exercise in learning which board game publishers really put out a product that people want beyond the typical hot game of the week bru ha ha that quickly passes for most games.
The list is comprised of the games (which ended up being 12 not 10) that were the most wished for on the post. The first two games got the most votes, the rest all received the same amount of votes and are in alphabetical order. I am not including any thoughts on this list as I feel the strength of the list is in the wanting of the games for the collections of other serious gamers.
So without further ado, the Top 12 Club Fantasci Board Game Wish List!
1. Archipelago
Publisher: Asmodee Games
Designer: Christophe Boelinger
Players: 2 – 4
Age: 14 to Adult
Game Time: 30 – 240 minutes
MSRP: $89.99
Each player takes on the role of an explorer and their team, mandated by a European nation to discover, colonize and profit from the archipelagos. These missions are supposed to happen diplomatically, by answering the needs of the local population as much as the regular demands from the continent. Archipelago combines exploration, resource management, optimization, cooperation, strategy, negotiation, corruption, commerce, suspicion, alliances and betrayals, even a hint of investigation! – Asmodee Games
2. Terra Mystica
Publisher: Z-Man Games
Designer: Jens Drogemuller, Helge Ostertag
Players: 2 – 5
Age: 12 to Adult
Game Time: 100 minutes
MSRP: $79.99
Terra Mystica is a strategy game with a simple game principle and very little luck involved:
You govern one of 14 factions trying to transform the landscape on the game board in your favor in order to build your structures. On the one hand, proximity to other players limits your options for further expansion, on the other hand though; it provides some benefits during the game. This conflict is the source of Terra Mystica’s appeal.
The 14 artfully designed factions, each having unique special abilities, as well as the exchangeable bonus cards allow for a large number of possible game plays that constantly keep this game entertaining!- Z-Man Games
3. Caverna: The Cave Farmers
Publisher: Lookout Games
Designer: Uwe Rosenberg
Players: 1 – 7
Age: 12 to Adult
Game Time: 120 minutes
MSRP: Not Available
Caverna: The Cave Farmers is a worker-placement game at heart, with a focus on farming. In the game, you are the bearded leader of a small dwarf family that lives in a little cave in the mountains. You begin the game with a farmer and his spouse, and each member of the farming family represents an action that the player can take each turn. Together, you cultivate the forest in front of your cave and dig deeper into the mountain. You furnish the caves as dwellings for your offspring as well as working spaces for small enterprises.
It’s up to you how much ore you want to mine. You will need it to forge weapons that allow you to go on expeditions to gain bonus items and actions. While digging through the mountain, you may come across water sources and find ore and ruby mines that help you increase your wealth. Right in front of your cave, you can increase your wealth even further with agriculture: You can cut down the forest to sow fields and fence in pastures to hold your animals. You can also expand your family while running your ever-growing farm. In the end, the player with the most efficiently developed home board wins.
You can also play the solo variant of this game to familiarize yourself with the 48 different furnishing tiles for your cave. – Lookout Games
4. Eldritch Horror
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Designer: Corey Konieczka, Richard Launius, Nikki Valens
Players: 1 – 8
Age: 14 to Adult
Game Time: 180 minutes
MSRP: $59.95
Across the globe, ancient evil is stirring. Now, you and your trusted circle of colleagues must travel around the world, working against all odds to hold back the approaching horror. Foul monsters, brutal encounters, and obscure mysteries will take you to your limit and beyond. All the while, you and your fellow investigators must unravel the otherworldy mysteries scattered around the globe in order to push back the gathering mayhem that threatens to overwhelm humanity. The end draws near! Do you have the courage to prevent global destruction?
Eldritch Horror is a cooperative game of terror and adventure in which one to eight players take the roles of globetrotting investigators working to solve mysteries, gather clues, and protect the world from an Ancient One – that is, an elder being intent on destroying our world. Each Ancient One comes with its own unique decks of Mystery and Research cards, which draw you deeper into the lore surrounding each loathsome creature. Discover the true name of Azathoth or battle Cthulhu on the high seas.
While the tasks on these Mystery cards (along with the locations of otherworldly gates, menacing monsters, and helpful clues) will often inform both your travel plans and the dangers you confront, you can find adventure anywhere in the world…even where you least expect it. It is during the Encounter Phase of each turn that players resolve combat or, alternatively, build their investigators’ personal stories by reading an encounter narrative from one of several types of Encounter cards. You might go head to head with a monster in Istanbul or find yourself in a tough spot with the crime syndicate in a major city. Maybe you will embark on an expedition to the Pyramids or research a clue you uncover in the unnamed wilderness. You may even find your way through a gate and explore a dimension beyond time and space.
Should you fail an encounter, the cost is steep. If you are fortunate, you will merely incur physical or mental trauma. However, you might also be compelled to take a Condition card, which represents a specific injury or restriction gained throughout your journey, such as a Leg Injury or Amnesia. You could find yourself getting in over your head to acquire assets and receive a Debt condition – or maybe you’ll owe a favor to something far more insidious than a debt collector, and enter into a Dark Pact! Whatever your condition, you would be wise to find a resolution with haste; many conditions have a “reckoning effect” which, if triggered, ensure a much more sinister fate.
All the while, the arrival of the Ancient One approaches. Its malign influence is manifested in Eldritch Horror as you draw Mythos Cards, which govern the appearance of otherworldly gates, fearsome monsters, and other ominous elements. Mythos cards keep your investigators under pressure, introducing new threats, even as the arrival of the Great Old One draws nearer! Since the investigators draw a new Mythos card each round, they’re certain to have their hands full battling foul creatures and following up on strange rumors, even as they work to solve their three all-important mysteries.
With twelve unique investigators, two hundred-fifty tokens, and over three hundred cards, Eldritch Horror presents an epic, world-spanning adventure with each and every game. – Fantasy Flight Games
5. Forbidden Desert
Publisher: Gamewright Games
Designer: Matt Leacock
Players: 2 – 5
Age: 10 to Adult
Game Time: 45 minutes
MSRP: Not Available
Gear up for a thrilling adventure to recover a legendary flying machine buried deep in the ruins of an ancient desert city. You’ll need to coordinate with your teammates and use every available resource if you hope to survive the scorching heat and relentless sandstorm. Find the flying machine and escape before you all become permanent artifacts of the forbidden desert!
In Forbidden Desert, a thematic sequel to Forbidden Island, players take on the roles of brave adventurers who must throw caution to the wind and survive both blistering heat and blustering sand in order to recover a legendary flying machine buried under an ancient desert city. While featuring cooperative gameplay similar to Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert is a fresh new game based around an innovative set of mechanisms, such as an ever-shifting board, individual resource management, and a unique method for locating the flying machine parts.
6. King of Tokyo
Publisher: Iello Games
Designer: Richard Garfield
Players: 2 – 6
Age: 8 to Adult
Game Time: 30 minutes
MSRP: $39.99
Play mutant monsters, gigantic robots and other monstrous creatures, joyfully whack your opponents, rampage the city and become the one and only King of Tokyo!
Combine your dice to gather energy, heal your monster or just slap others. Spend your energy to trigger permanent or one-shot special powers: second head, body armor, nova death ray…
Stop at nothing to become the King of Tokyo… but that’s when the real trouble begins for you! – Iello Games
7. Lords of Waterdeep
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Designer: Peter Lee, Rodney Thompson
Players: 2 – 5
Age: 12 to Adult
Game Time: 60 minutes
MSRP: $49.99
Waterdeep, the City of Splendors—the most resplendent jewel in the Forgotten Realms, and a den of political intrigue and shady back-alley dealings.
In this game, the players are powerful lords vying for control of this great city. Its treasures and resources are ripe for the taking, and that which cannot be gained
through trickery and negotiation must be taken by force!
Lords of Waterdeep is a strategy board game for 2-5 players. You take on the role of one of the masked Lords
of Waterdeep, secret rulers of the city. Through your agents, you recruit adventurers to go on quests on your behalf, earning rewards and increasing your influence over the city.
Expand the city by purchasing new buildings that open up new actions on the board, and hinder—or help—the other lords by playing Intrigue cards to enact your carefully laid plans. – Wizards of the Coast
8. Lords of Waterdeep: Skullport Expansion
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Designer: Chris Dupuis, Peter Lee, Rodney Thompson
Players: 2 – 5
Age: 12 to Adult
Game Time: 60 minutes
MSRP: $39.99
Scoundrels of Skullport adds brand new content for the award-winning, bestselling board game, Lords of Waterdeep. It’s not one, but two, complete expansions: the sprawling dungeon of Undermountain and the criminal haven of Skullport.
Each thrilling location has unique characteristics and offers new play options, including new Lords, Buildings, Intrigue and Quest cards.
Owners of Lords of Waterdeep can use one or both of these new subterranean locations to add depth to their game experience. There’s also a new faction, the Gray Hands, so now a sixth player can join in the fun! – Wizards of the Coast
9. Suburbia
Publisher: Bezier Games
Designer: Ted Alspach
Players: 1 – 4
Age: 8 to Adult
Game Time: 90 minutes
MSRP: $59.99
Plan, build, and develop a small town into a major metropolis. Use hex-shaped building tiles to add residential, commercial, civic, and industrial areas, as well as special points of interest that provide benefits and take advantage of the resources of nearby towns. Your goal is to have your borough thrive and end up with a greater population than any of your opponents.
Suburbia is a tile-laying game in which each player tries to build up an economic engine and infrastructure that will be initially self-sufficient, and eventually become both profitable and encourage population growth. As your town grows, you’ll modify both your income and your reputation. As your income increases, you’ll have more cash on hand to purchase better and more valuable buildings, such as an international airport or a high rise office building. As your reputation increases, you’ll gain more and more population (and the winner at the end of the game is the player with the largest population).
During each game, players compete for several unique goals that offer an additional population boost – and the buildings available in each game vary, so you’ll never play the same game twice! – Bezier Games
10. Takenoko
Publisher: Asmodee Games
Designer: Ted Alspach
Players: 2 – 4
Age: 8 to Adult
Game Time: 45 minutes
MSRP: $49.99
The Giant Panda and the Gardener
The players take the role of courtesans of the Nippon emperor and take on the role of caring for his Giant Panda by growing a bamboo plantation.
Their mission: to farm parcels of land, irrigate them, and grow green, yellow or pink bamboo. In turn, they see what the weather brings and perform two actions from among those offered to them: get a new plot of land or irrigation channel, grow bamboo, feed the panda or draw an objective card.
The game ends when a player has completed 7 to 9 objectives (depending on the number of players). The player who gets the best score by adding the total value of their completed objective wins the game. – Asmodee Games
11. The Duke
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Designer: Jeremy Holcomb, Stephen McLaughlin
Players: 2
Age: 13 to Adult
Game Time: 30 minutes
MSRP: Not Available
The politics of the high court are elegant, shadowy and subtle. Not so in the outlying duchies. Rival dukes contend for unclaimed lands far from the king’s reach, and possession is the law in these lands. Use your forces to capture enemy troops before you lose the chance to claim the land for yourself.
In The Duke, players move their troop tiles around the board and fl ip them over after each move. Each tile’s side shows a di erent movement pattern. If you end your movement in a square occupied by an opponent’s tile, you capture it. Capture your opponent’s Duke to win! – Catalyst Game Labs
12. Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed.
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Designer: Christian T. Peterson
Players: 3 – 6
Age: 12 to Adult
Game Time: 360 minutes
MSRP: $89.95
Twilight Imperium Third Edition is an epic empire-building game of interstellar conflict, trade, and struggle for power. Players take the roles of ancient galactic civilizations, each seeking to seize the imperial throne via warfare, diplomacy, and technological progression. With geomorphic board tiles, exquisite plastic miniatures, hundreds of cards, and introducing a rich set of strategic dimensions that allows each player to refocus their game-plan, the original designer Christian T. Petersen has seamlessly incorporated the better qualities of other recently popular games to improve on the game-play of the original TI, making it at once perfectly well-rounded and pleasantly familiar to experienced gamers.
TI3 is played by at least three players who belong to ten possible alien races, each with their own advantages and quirks. The ‘designer notes’ in the rulebook candidly and humbly acknowledge the inspiration for some of the improvements to the original game. The strategic game-play borrows the governing element from ‘Puerto Rico’ to involve players in an iteratively complex and yet fast-paced game experience with very little downtime. The game map, basic player progress and overall victory are dynamically determined in almost exactly the same way as they are by imaginative players of ‘Settlers of Catan’, while the “Command” system cleverly improves on the ‘oil’ logistical mechanism of ‘Attack’ to both manage turn-based activity and limit the size of armies, uniquely enabling weakened players to bounce back if they play their cards right. – Board Game Geek
Thank you to all who contributed to this list and for all your wisdom over the past year in our group! Ryan LaFlamme (www.thecardboardrepublic.com,) Craig Browser, Scott Hill, Alex Paulani, Jeromy French, Casey Harmon, Joe Mitchell, Michael Juneau, Brian Casey, Chris Goff, Neil Robinson, Jon Weber, Chris Shields, Jeff Horvat, Joshua Jackson, Zen L, Adam Day, Michelle Ross and Nate Parker.
Civilian, which heals and defends
Military, which deals damage and destruction
Corporate, which plays counters and interference
Occult, with esoteric rites that allow you to power up your zombie attacks
Club Fantasci 