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Board games are a pretty consistent gift for me at Christmas time. I love opening a new game and getting it to the table some time in the week off I traditionally have. Unfortunately, there’s only one person in my friends and family who has their ear to the ground when it comes to board games so I have to rely on the wishlist feature on Board Game Geek (or right here on Zatu!) Of course, the downside of a list is you can’t necessarily rank the games you want or explain why you want them.
Happily, I have access to a blog, so here we go!
Forges of Ravenshire
Forges of Ravenshire is a game I played a long time ago on a stream with the designer, and it was something I fell in love with. In the story of the game, you’re competing smiths attempting to become the Forgemaster over the course of four rounds (or seasons, because we like seasons when playing as anthropomorphic animals.)
Each season starts with the gathering phase where players will acquire contracts, recruit guild members, and gather resources. Much like Raiders of the North Sea, you’ll place a worker, which are dice in this game, and then take another one back, gaining multiple resources and triggering different guilds as you go.
After the gathering phase is the production phase. Take those 3 dice workers you have taken and now place them on different areas of your forge to gather more resources, make charcoal or steel, and forge contracts to make money.
The game was really fun, and I loved the familiarity of the mechanisms but the ingenuity of bringing them together a different way. It’s a shame it’s been so long, so maybe Santa will be generous this year.
Inventors of the South Tigris
The end of the South Tigris series has come with Inventors from Garphill Games. The game is set during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, circa 850 AD, and has seen Baghdad become home to thousands of scientists. As a result of the research, the inventors have been inspired to create contraptions to impress their peers. This is done by using dice to take actions, including training the Craftspeople, developing their Workshops, Researching and Inventing, Building, Testing and Publishing the wacky inventions.
I’ve enjoyed this one on TableTop Simulator, and I really like the obscurity of the inventions you can create. You mash together an adjective and a noun, so you get some silly combinations. Where else could you invent Horse Powered Eye Glasses?
Orleans Expansions
I really like Orleans. I rediscovered my love for the game in the last year or so and I’ve played it a fair few times recently. As with a lot of games, after a while, things can get stale, so bringing in some new content is always a great way to keep a game in the collection. In this case, there are two expansions I have my eye on. The first is Orleans: Invasion, the first big expansion which introduces six scenarios, including a cooperative mode, a two player head to head mode and three solo scenarios, which pleases the solo gamer in me when I can’t get anyone to join in. The other expansion is The Plague expansion, which makes the game a lot tougher. Different events will occur, causing some restrictions throughout the game and a new blocker to the bag building, “corpse tokens” must be added to the bag, meaning you need to pay attention to the various methods of removing them.
I love the concept of both expansions, so the more the merrier!
Tales of the Arthurian Knights
Tales of the Arthurian Knights is a reimplementation of the hugely popular, but controversial, Tales of the Arabian Nights. Instead of exploring the world of Arabia, and beyond, you’re instead exploring the British Isles, completing missions and following various paragraphs as you trigger encounters and strange folk.
I really enjoyed playing Tales of the Arabian Nights, following the insane story lines with gameplay which took several hours but really didn’t feel like it. Moving the setting to Britain and streamlining the gameplay will likely bring some new life into the system and I’m really looking forward to exploring this one.
Minos: Dawn of the Bronze Age
Games with an ancient Greek theme are always ones I’m interested in, and the latest offering from Board and Dice has got my eye. Minos: Dawn of the Bronze Age has players running around Crete, attempting to become the leader of the civilisation. The game has an interesting dice drafting and action selection system whereby the higher dice values allow you to bump up some tracks and get some helpful bonuses, but the lower numbers give stronger actions. As you go, you’re also building your own personal tableau of cards to give some huge variation between games. Programming games aren’t usually for me, but the way in which you decide to order your actions is fascinating and I’m willing to give this one a chance. Plus, you know, theme really helps here.
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