Ankh is amazing for me, and regarding blood rage I have the exact opposite feeling: I never fell like playing blood rage because I could also play Ankh : )
Ankh is one of the best 2-player games I have/we know. Mind MGMT, Ankh and War of the Ring are great. Blood rage just doesn't cut it for 2 players. 95% of the time we play, we are only two of us, so ... yeah :). Edit: I like ankh more for 4-5 players as well. For 3 players, Ankh is on par with Blood rage, though the god meld system really does not fit 3 players, so we dont use it with 3 players.
I love Ankh! Best 2p area control game for sure, top 3 all time for me. From the Lang Trilogy: Ankh at 2p, Blood Rage or Rising Sun at 3p, any of the three at 4p, none at 5p 😋
Hmm you really need to play Ankh with the Pharaoh expansion before you put it in the "faded" category. It completely changes the game while adding to it... the Political Cards in particular are a winner.
I agree 100%. I also added some tweaks to the gameplay (like play with other types of monsters, not just 3, no merge, some nerfs and buffs to the ankh powers etc) and it is so much fun now.
I get the feeling this guy has never played a game more than 2 or 3 times, or possibly enjoys talking about games more than playing them. He does pack some great words per minute value into his content.
I have 1280 logged plays for 2022, and in that year alone, played more than 14 games over 10 times each. This year so far I'm at 514 plays logged and 10 games have more than 16 logged plays each. And this is all before I factor in the fact that I don't log all my plays...I forget a ton. You can like my videos or not, but there's no way on earth I'm letting someone imply that I don't play games :D
I really appreciate that you look back at 2021 and don't just feel you have to do 2022 for the reason you said - time to catch up and reflect. So often just looking back at the last year in the cycles of games we have means so many games are missed. Great stuff as always.
Bullet definitely hasn't faded for me. I have almost 300 plays and it is my #1. You don't have to play it real time if that is your issue, I would actually say out of all my plays, maybe 5% are real time. I just find that is hard for new players. It still works extremely will without the timer. They have also released 14 new heroines in addition to the base game and they are all very fun and interesting. Also still enjoying Adventure Tactics
Still hoping to play After the Empire, going to see if I can get the family back on Adventure Tactics. Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria will be coming to me sometime in the future. And I have your copy of Trick Shot but have yet to get it to the table! :) Two-player head to head games are more difficult for me to table as it's pretty just my 11 year old daughter who I'd play it with and we usually would rather play something with the family.
I agree with Destinies. I'm excited for Dark Quarter, that theme speaks to me more. I haven't touched Adventure Tactics since we finished the campaign. My family is excited to jump into the expansion content when we get it, but not a full restart. Also it was so cool to meet you at DTW and talk dad-shop :). Definitely going next year and we'll play a game next time!
I just started playing Adventure Tactics with my kids and I'm curious what the trajectory will be. We've been really enjoying it so far. I agree that keeping it snappy for the kids does require some between-scenario management by the adult. That said, I think I'd enjoy this even on with adults. My last foray into a dungeon crawler was Gloomhaven, which I found to be a miserable slog that our entire group quickly bounced off of. Adventure Tactics is definitely lighter, but I appreciate that progression is quick and the systems don't constantly throw barrier between you and doing fun/powerful things. That said, tabling any campaign games enough times to finish it is hard. So we'll see what happens.
I appreciate this look back to see how games have settled over a number of times playing. It's good to see how you feel about a game after the newness shine rubs off.
I had and sold Cubitos also preferring Quacks for that style. Looking forward to trying Rolling Heights though. Got time in with Adventure Tactics, lost track of where we were and now waiting for the new content to start over again with better organization of big box. Bullet - still love for the solo while UFS was more a miss for me
Great list! It reminds me that I still haven't tabled Ankh after 2 years of adding it to my collection; I shall make it happen in the coming weeks! 😆 Also, seeing a Final Frontier Game on the list makes me sad - because the company did not deliver Monsters on Board to me. Welp.
Re: Destinies: you may not be aware but fan created scenarios are now available. I have yet to try them myself but that’s definitely an area of potentially high intrigue. Also! iirc, they modified the solo options so that ‘exploration’ is an option a la LOTR:JTME
Ironically, I just got Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria and all currently available content for my collection. Looking to add the newest KS expansion. Hoping it does not fade for me too. Several of the games on this list were also on my radar but for one reason or another I chose to pass. Watching your videos has really helped me to decipher better what will and will not work for me and has also helped me more clearly see what I can part with as my collection is larger than it really needs to be. Of course, I say that on the same day that the expansions for Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition and the final expansion I was missing for Eldritch Horror arrive.
I don't have any on the list now but do have a pledge in for the trick shot second printing. It seems like such a great deal for those repainted minis. I got the alternates as well. I do love hockey as well. Maybe the time will fly.
I'm hoping the expansion for Shadow Kings of Valeria fixes it w/ the asymmetric powers. I also enjoyed the game but aside from my initial plays the first week I don't think I've gotten it out since. The games system was good, but despite the number of cards there felt like too little variability in your strategy from game to game.
I wanted to love Destinies more than we did. We just got frustrated with finding each others objectives and having trouble finding our own lol. Merchant’s Cove we still really love, but honestly it doesn’t make it to the table a great deal.
There's only 3 types of objectives and each player has 2 of them. I agree that Destinies is pretty meh. But, you need really bad luck to have trouble finding your objectives.
@@VaultBoy13 Fair! We have played two or three times. Both times we did indeed have terrible luck. We do plan on finishing the story out though. There’s definitely some aspects to it that we enjoy.
I'm curious what happened with Planet unknown for you, it's neither in the top lists nor in the faded list, so I guess it was just "good" when you finally got it?
I would throw Cyclades in there for good measure, considering it is one of Alex's favorites. I believe the themes are close enough for a solid comparison.😁
@@JohnClem56 That's very possible! I've only played Blood Rage and Ankh and I much prefer Ankh and I haven't even played with the Pharaoh expansion yet. lol It's nice to get varied opinions though. Maybe Alex just doesn't go crazy for Egyptian themes??lol
I agree. Cover sucks. I totally ignored the game for a long time due to it. Only got it on a big sale, which the sale price prompted me to check its reviews (which are positive).
You gave up Merchants Cove right before the Kickstarter delivered. Booooo. But I would also NEVER play it solo, I'd rather slam my hand in a sliding glass door multiple times.
We all remember the hype merchants pushing Ankh & Destinies as if they were the new GOATs that must be played. I thought Destinies was fine--I really don't think I'm a Lucky Duck guy. They consistently provide "pretty good" experiences for me and with how difficult it is to get games to the table, "pretty good" isn't enough. And Ankh is touted as best with two players, but imagine that investment when there are so many incredible two-player games at a fraction of Ankh's price. Eric Lang peaked with Blood Rage (which is still one of my favorites).
Ankh rose to being 219 on BGG, Destinies at 322. Those are good numbers. You don't have to like them, and they may have gone down a notch for me, but "the hype merchants" were right. Thousands of games come out each year, only a tiny minority of those break the top 1000, let alone the top few hundred.
For games that have so much in common I experience them as having completely different personalities. Blood rage is the most accesable and casual. Rising sun is extremely political and promotes dealsnand discussions between players Ankh is the chess-iest (totally a word). It has even less forgiveness than the others (and all of them will let you fail out of contention if you get it wrong). It's deceptive. The simplest action selection but the most cut-throat game play. It's really grown on me the more I've played it but it's not casual. Need to be prepared for a crunchy experience.
@@joelbergvonlinde1389 Personally, I'd rate Blood Rage worse than pretty much every other area control game. I prefer playing Smallworld over Blood Rage.
Ankh is so good . And it feels near perfect for my boardgamegroup with the pharao expansion .
I am enjoying that you have been adding more pictures of the games that are talked about!
Ankh is amazing for me, and regarding blood rage I have the exact opposite feeling: I never fell like playing blood rage because I could also play Ankh : )
Ankh is one of the best 2-player games I have/we know. Mind MGMT, Ankh and War of the Ring are great.
Blood rage just doesn't cut it for 2 players. 95% of the time we play, we are only two of us, so ... yeah :).
Edit: I like ankh more for 4-5 players as well. For 3 players, Ankh is on par with Blood rage, though the god meld system really does not fit 3 players, so we dont use it with 3 players.
I love Ankh! Best 2p area control game for sure, top 3 all time for me. From the Lang Trilogy: Ankh at 2p, Blood Rage or Rising Sun at 3p, any of the three at 4p, none at 5p 😋
Yeah Ankh is so much more interesting to me then Blood Rage. Out of the three games it’s my favorite one.
Disagree. Ankh is a snooze fest at 3p.
Thanks for keeping After The Empire around! The expansion is nearly done, and hopefully some of the additions will freshen it back up for you :)
We made the cut!
Hmm you really need to play Ankh with the Pharaoh expansion before you put it in the "faded" category. It completely changes the game while adding to it... the Political Cards in particular are a winner.
I agree 100%. I also added some tweaks to the gameplay (like play with other types of monsters, not just 3, no merge, some nerfs and buffs to the ankh powers etc) and it is so much fun now.
Hey Alex. Great content. Also, thanks for playing with me at DTW (The Crew & Paris). You have a genuine personality.
It was a pleasure hanging out :) Looking forward to the next one :)
I will say that I'm definitely still loving Bullet, the cooperative works fairly well for us.
I get the feeling this guy has never played a game more than 2 or 3 times, or possibly enjoys talking about games more than playing them.
He does pack some great words per minute value into his content.
I have 1280 logged plays for 2022, and in that year alone, played more than 14 games over 10 times each. This year so far I'm at 514 plays logged and 10 games have more than 16 logged plays each. And this is all before I factor in the fact that I don't log all my plays...I forget a ton.
You can like my videos or not, but there's no way on earth I'm letting someone imply that I don't play games :D
The kickstarter prices for Ankh are not fading.
I really appreciate that you look back at 2021 and don't just feel you have to do 2022 for the reason you said - time to catch up and reflect. So often just looking back at the last year in the cycles of games we have means so many games are missed. Great stuff as always.
Bullet definitely hasn't faded for me. I have almost 300 plays and it is my #1. You don't have to play it real time if that is your issue, I would actually say out of all my plays, maybe 5% are real time. I just find that is hard for new players. It still works extremely will without the timer. They have also released 14 new heroines in addition to the base game and they are all very fun and interesting. Also still enjoying Adventure Tactics
Still hoping to play After the Empire, going to see if I can get the family back on Adventure Tactics. Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria will be coming to me sometime in the future. And I have your copy of Trick Shot but have yet to get it to the table! :) Two-player head to head games are more difficult for me to table as it's pretty just my 11 year old daughter who I'd play it with and we usually would rather play something with the family.
I agree with Destinies. I'm excited for Dark Quarter, that theme speaks to me more. I haven't touched Adventure Tactics since we finished the campaign. My family is excited to jump into the expansion content when we get it, but not a full restart.
Also it was so cool to meet you at DTW and talk dad-shop :). Definitely going next year and we'll play a game next time!
Hi Alex, tip for Lizard Wizard, on the setup take the one for one player less than you are actually playing
I just started playing Adventure Tactics with my kids and I'm curious what the trajectory will be.
We've been really enjoying it so far. I agree that keeping it snappy for the kids does require some between-scenario management by the adult.
That said, I think I'd enjoy this even on with adults. My last foray into a dungeon crawler was Gloomhaven, which I found to be a miserable slog that our entire group quickly bounced off of.
Adventure Tactics is definitely lighter, but I appreciate that progression is quick and the systems don't constantly throw barrier between you and doing fun/powerful things.
That said, tabling any campaign games enough times to finish it is hard. So we'll see what happens.
Good luck with it!
Alex, play Ankh with the pharao exp. It adds powers and abilities, i Think you will love it! 😊
Sadly Alex likes the ADHD nature of Blood Rage, so even Pharaoh probably won't help sway him.
I appreciate this look back to see how games have settled over a number of times playing. It's good to see how you feel about a game after the newness shine rubs off.
I had and sold Cubitos also preferring Quacks for that style. Looking forward to trying Rolling Heights though.
Got time in with Adventure Tactics, lost track of where we were and now waiting for the new content to start over again with better organization of big box.
Bullet - still love for the solo while UFS was more a miss for me
Own both. Love both.
Man, you got rid of Bullet!
That's it!!!
I'm cancelling my Patreon!!!
XD
Great video, nice work! The minis in Trick Shot looked great. I'm not a sports guy either and I'm interested in trying that game out now.
Great list! It reminds me that I still haven't tabled Ankh after 2 years of adding it to my collection; I shall make it happen in the coming weeks! 😆
Also, seeing a Final Frontier Game on the list makes me sad - because the company did not deliver Monsters on Board to me. Welp.
Re: Destinies: you may not be aware but fan created scenarios are now available. I have yet to try them myself but that’s definitely an area of potentially high intrigue. Also! iirc, they modified the solo options so that ‘exploration’ is an option a la LOTR:JTME
Ironically, I just got Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria and all currently available content for my collection. Looking to add the newest KS expansion. Hoping it does not fade for me too. Several of the games on this list were also on my radar but for one reason or another I chose to pass. Watching your videos has really helped me to decipher better what will and will not work for me and has also helped me more clearly see what I can part with as my collection is larger than it really needs to be. Of course, I say that on the same day that the expansions for Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition and the final expansion I was missing for Eldritch Horror arrive.
I don't have any on the list now but do have a pledge in for the trick shot second printing. It seems like such a great deal for those repainted minis. I got the alternates as well. I do love hockey as well. Maybe the time will fly.
We still love cubitos. I find it actually competes with automobiles but I love both games so I can't cull either one.
Bullet is best as a solo or 2p co-op game, I highly recommend it. Similar thing with Merchants Cove, love it as a 2p game.
Wonderland's War is back on your shelf! :D
chronicles is one of the best Coop games I have played, I enjoyed it more than gloomhaven and finished both.
I still have not received adventure tactics =/
Cubitos is the only game I own of that list. Seems the others never even had the chance to fade in this house. Hehe
My adventure tactics hasn't even been delivered 😪
Clash of Cultures is haunting me now. It is telling me to pick it up, hovering in the background.
Also, your thoughts on Slapshot by Columbia Games?
Not Chronicles of Drunagor! I love this game, might even be my personal #1.
You broke my heart Fredo....Shadow kingdoms should be loved by all 😂
I'm hoping the expansion for Shadow Kings of Valeria fixes it w/ the asymmetric powers. I also enjoyed the game but aside from my initial plays the first week I don't think I've gotten it out since. The games system was good, but despite the number of cards there felt like too little variability in your strategy from game to game.
Would getting the new expansion for shadow kingdoms of valeria possibly change your mind? Have you considered waiting for it before culling it?
I wanted to love Destinies more than we did. We just got frustrated with finding each others objectives and having trouble finding our own lol.
Merchant’s Cove we still really love, but honestly it doesn’t make it to the table a great deal.
There's only 3 types of objectives and each player has 2 of them. I agree that Destinies is pretty meh. But, you need really bad luck to have trouble finding your objectives.
@@VaultBoy13 Fair! We have played two or three times. Both times we did indeed have terrible luck. We do plan on finishing the story out though. There’s definitely some aspects to it that we enjoy.
I'm curious what happened with Planet unknown for you, it's neither in the top lists nor in the faded list, so I guess it was just "good" when you finally got it?
Have these games really faded though?
I think this just your Fomo mindset at work
How is it fomo? Fear of missing out on what?
@@BoardGameCo I think maybe what he is/was trying to say was that because you play so many new games all the time stuff fades more easily for you.
Play this not that kemet and Ankh? ^^ both Egypt themed and both a bit in the shadow of Blood rage :)
I would throw Cyclades in there for good measure, considering it is one of Alex's favorites. I believe the themes are close enough for a solid comparison.😁
Can't give you his rationale for it but I'd bet a fair amount of money that his answer is
Blood Rage > Cyclades > Kemet > Ankh
@@JohnClem56 That's very possible! I've only played Blood Rage and Ankh and I much prefer Ankh and I haven't even played with the Pharaoh expansion yet. lol It's nice to get varied opinions though. Maybe Alex just doesn't go crazy for Egyptian themes??lol
I like Kemet, but this would be an easy decision for Ankh.
@@JohnClem56 That's probably Alex's order. My order would likely be the exact reverse.
What, you no longer like Merchants Cove?
I just bought a new version because of your recommendation.
I very much like Merchants Cove. But most of my game group is only ok with it so it doesn't get played.
Destinies is lik $50 whilIt's pretty good for what you pay. Still haven't finished it though.
Cubitos really suffers for that cover. A very good game, but that cover does not represent the gameplay at all.
I agree. Cover sucks. I totally ignored the game for a long time due to it. Only got it on a big sale, which the sale price prompted me to check its reviews (which are positive).
Never got any of these games fortunately, probably wouldn't have survived after your last games leaving the collection video 😜
I can only recommend Bullet as a solo game. The real time aspect doesn't add to the game at all for me.
I have about 300 plays with bullet and only play real time maybe 5% of the time. It works just as well with no timer.
Ty for this video!
You gave up Merchants Cove right before the Kickstarter delivered. Booooo. But I would also NEVER play it solo, I'd rather slam my hand in a sliding glass door multiple times.
Tenth!
We all remember the hype merchants pushing Ankh & Destinies as if they were the new GOATs that must be played. I thought Destinies was fine--I really don't think I'm a Lucky Duck guy. They consistently provide "pretty good" experiences for me and with how difficult it is to get games to the table, "pretty good" isn't enough.
And Ankh is touted as best with two players, but imagine that investment when there are so many incredible two-player games at a fraction of Ankh's price. Eric Lang peaked with Blood Rage (which is still one of my favorites).
Ankh rose to being 219 on BGG, Destinies at 322. Those are good numbers. You don't have to like them, and they may have gone down a notch for me, but "the hype merchants" were right. Thousands of games come out each year, only a tiny minority of those break the top 1000, let alone the top few hundred.
Ankh is best with 4, but yes, Blood Rage is still better. Blood Rage is better than pretty much all games, so that isn’t saying much
For games that have so much in common I experience them as having completely different personalities.
Blood rage is the most accesable and casual.
Rising sun is extremely political and promotes dealsnand discussions between players
Ankh is the chess-iest (totally a word). It has even less forgiveness than the others (and all of them will let you fail out of contention if you get it wrong). It's deceptive. The simplest action selection but the most cut-throat game play. It's really grown on me the more I've played it but it's not casual. Need to be prepared for a crunchy experience.
@@joelbergvonlinde1389 Personally, I'd rate Blood Rage worse than pretty much every other area control game. I prefer playing Smallworld over Blood Rage.
Yes, I'm first!
Not first 😂
Third?
First?
first :P
Almost first :P