Ripper's Top 100 Games 90-81

Ripper's Top 100 Games

2015 Edition

 

              I have been in the gaming hobby for seven years now ever since I ordered my first batch of games with Chaos in the Old World in 2009. This has been an amazing experience for me and I have grown to love so much about this hobby. I remember that my very first exposure to the hobby was with Vikings; a board game I bought my girlfriend (now wife) for her birthday since she loved to talk about it. After playing it for the first time I was hooked and made my first board game order the very next week. Since than my collection has grown to over two hundred board games and I host a game night every week at my home. I truly love this hobby and couldn't imagine my life without the fond memories, experiences and friends I have made through it.

Last year I decided to make a top 50 board game list since everyone seemed to be doing it and I had a blast trying to sort through my collection to find my favorite games. I have decided to continue with this list only this year I am expanding the list to included my top 100 favorite board games. Now I know I should have posted this list in January since I made it the last week of 2015 but the Ripper is lazy some times. So after sitting on my shelf for two months, I have finally gotten to the task of publishing my top 100 games of all time, 2015 edition. I have compared this list to my first list and will include the statistics for games that appear on both list. I hope to continue to make this list every year and hope that you enjoy my 90-81.

 

   90. Kemet

 

            Being a pagan means that I find any ancient world themes to be particularly interesting and ancient Egypt is an theme that I quite enjoyed. Most games with an ancient Egypt theme focus on building pyramids or finding the lost treasures in some tomb, few actually portray ancient Egypt at all. Kemet  is one of the few games to actually portray ancient Egypt as the players are tribes of Egypt fighting to gain the favor of the gods and unite Egypt under their rule. This is a typical dudes on a map game where you are summoning units to the board along with special monster units in order to take control of territory. Unlike others games of this type, Kemet promotes combat on the very first turn due to the small map size and the need to expand to gain victory points. Each players also has three giant d4s of different colors which allows them to buy advancements from a common supply granting special powers to the players. Add to these to a unique card based combat system and you have an awesome light war game that I can get almost all of my players to play.

• Fast paced light war game
• Technology advances with unique pyramid theme
•  Ancient Egypt themes is a plus  

 

89. Last Night On Earth 

 

            Last Night On Earth is an good, old fashion Ameritrash game with simple mechanics that can be taught to anyone. This is an board game version of the Left 4 Dead video game series with several of the scenarios being similar to missions from the game. You play a typical person in a small town caught in the Zombie apocalypse and must survive the scenario goal to win while another player takes on the forces of the Zombie horde. Game play is simple as the human players spend their turn searching the map to draw item cards while avoiding the growing horde that the Zombie player is sending after them. The game has some awesome humorous elements such as the Last Night On Earth card which the Zombie player can play on a space containing a male and female hero forcing them to skip their turn in favor of other activities. Overall, this is a great beer and pretzel game that is all about the over the top zombie experience.

• Great light game that captures the heart of the zombie genre
• Some great humor is included on the cards
• Great gateway game with simple mechanics
• Old fashioned Ameritrash done right 

 

88. Russian Railroads

2014 Ratting # 33 (-55)

 

            Anything with a train theme is seen as a good thing in my game group so naturally when I heard there was a train themed worker placement game I had to get it. Russian Railroads is a standard euro game where you are placing your workers on the main board to improve your railroads allowing you to build track, hire engineers and upgrade your industrial complex. In the game you have your own board where you are building three different lines at the same time and each line has several markers on it which represent different levels of track. During the game you will take actions to move various track pieces but you can only move advance track as far as your basic track has gone. This is a really cool concept and I really enjoy this mechanism in this game. Now this game is a huge point scorer meaning that you will score points for every thing you do and your score will be in the hundreds.

• Train themed euro
• Cool track laying mechanic
• Smooth game play
• Simple mechanics, some good decisions to make 

87. Letters From White Chapel

2014 Ratting # 46 (-41)

            Since I modeled my board game persona after the infamous Ripper, it would be no surprised that Letters From White Chapel would be on my list. In this game, one player is Jack the Ripper as he moves across the board trying to kill his victims without being apprehended by the other players who are the lead investigators trying to catch the ripper before he claims his final victim. This is a simpler version of Fury of Dracula using a very basic version of the mechanics. I enjoy the historical elements  put into the game and it is a great teaching tool for the hidden movement mechanic. My only complaint is that it is ten times more fun to be the Ripper as the police players don't have that many options on their turns.

• Hidden movement game
• Historical, gothic theme
• Gateway Game
• Great graphic design and art style 

 

86. Rune Wars

2014 Ratting #50 (-36)

            Rune Wars is a problem solver for me as it is a war game that I can't get to the table with my main gaming group. Half of my group are pure euro fans who dislike aggressive tendencies in games and want something more than combat in a given game. This makes it hard to get any type of war or dudes on the map game to the table. Rune Wars however, allows people to also focus on questing since each faction has a hero who has to journey around the map. It also helps that the game is mostly focus on acquiring dragon runes and not all out destruction of the other players. These dragon runes can be gained through other methods than just controlling territory and I found that these small additions make this a game that is just right for all the players of my game group.

• Love the universe
• War game my wife is willing to play
• Different play style for each player
• Interesting combat system 

 

85. Wiraqocha

2014 Ratting # 43 (-42)

 

            I normally don't care all that much for dice games unless the dice are used in a interesting method or have a awesome theme to go along with it. Wiraqocha, which is a hidden gem for me, meets both of these criteria. Wiraqocha has a steam punk theme where you represent esteemed explorers who travel to a newly discovered lost land to harvest the rare crystals there in the name of the Empress. In this game you will be rolling some dice and placing them on hex shaped tiles that all have a certain dice combination printed on them in order to gain resources or special abilities. You can also reinforce dice on tiles placed early in order to keep control of the said territory and the game has a certain weird charm to it. Combine all this with the multiple winning conditions and you have a game that should be given more love.

• Steam punk theme
• Great artwork
• Dice game that doesn’t feel like it is just a random fest
• Unique little game 

 

84. Viceroy

            Viceroy is a truly beautiful game that has some of the best artwork I have every seen in a game along with some very interesting card play that truly makes this a great game. Viceroy has you playing as a manipulator who is building a pyramid of power within a kingdom attracting important people to your network in an attempt to gain power for yourself. The concept of a pyramid is central to the game as you have to play cards into a pyramid formation and the cards have special abilites for each level of the pyramid. So when you gain a card you have to decide which albility will help you the best and you than need to arrange it so that you can play it on that level of the pyramid. This will lead to some interesting decisions as you often have to choose from several extremely good options on each card. Viceroy also has a interesting bidding mechanic where you have to guess what everyone else is bidding as if two people share a bid no one will win that card. This will lead to a second bidding bound round and it is possible no one will get the card depending on the bid.

 Some of  the best artwork in a game ever

• Bidding mechanic
• Pyramid building
• Interesting Card Play 

 

83. Freedom: The Underground Railroad

            I am a fan of cooperative games but there have been a lot of cooperative games lately that just haven't scratched the itch for me. It seems like there are just simply too many clones out there and I was surprised when I played Freedom: The Underground Railroad.. For one, this is one of the most interesting cooperative games I have played since it plays like no other game out there.  The card driven game play and the fact that there are only a certain number of cards added to the board each round really makes this a excellent game. Overall I found this to be an odd but highly satisfying cooperative game.

• Unique theme
• Interesting twist for an cooperative
• Hard game to win and master 

 

82. Vegas Showdown

2014 Ranking # 41 (-41)

            Vegas Showdown is one of the earliest games to be added to my collection and is one that I have played over a hundred times. In this light auction game you are trying to build the most impressive Vegas casino by purchasing tiles that than have to be place on your player mat which represent the building space for your casino. Most tiles will either give fame which acts as points, revenue which represents the money your casino can make, and population which is how many people are attracted to your establishment.  Over the course of the game you are trying to gain the highest in each category, fill the three different section of your player mat, connect one end of your casino to the other, and build diamond patterns using the corner of your tiles. The only problem I have with the game is the components as the player mats are paper instead of cardboard.

• Awesome theme
• Auction mechanics
• Tile building
• Easy to teach, simple game play

 

81. Cthulhu Wars

            We will end this section with one of the biggest box games I have in my collection as it takes an entire shelf to itself. Cthullhu Wars is a game with miniatures larger than most games and takes an entire table to set up. It is similar to Chaos in the Old World being a lighter implementation  of that game but there are enough differences that I would really say it is a copy of that game at all. Both games have a completely different feeling when you play them and are only really similar in basic mechanics. In Cthulhu Wars you are playing a great old one who summons cultist and monsters to the map battling other old ones as you all bring about the destruction of the world. It is a epic looking 'dudes on a map' game and a great addition for any Cthulhu mythos fan.

• Best miniatures I've seen in a board game
• Cthulhu theme
• Collector Item