Our favorite games that we played in 2019 (not necessarily published this year). As usual we've rated these games based on the amount of time we spent playing them, which should be the best indicator of how entertaining they are.
10. The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game
7 plays, 12 hours (average play time 1.71 hours per game)
This excellent game was a staple of our collectible card game diet in the early 2000s, and we started playing it semi-regularly again last year. This year we even bought some new cards (well, published in 2005, but new to us) and we're planning a series of booster draft games over the next few months.
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full review.
9. Mansions of Madness Second Edition
5 plays, 13 hours (average play time 2.6 hours per game)
After showing up at #6 in 2016 and #3 in 2017,
Mansions of Madness dropped off our top 10 list last year, most likely due to the number of other miniatures-heavy adventure games we spent time on. It's a great game that plays almost like a light role playing game, with exploration and puzzle-solving taking precedence over tactical movement and combat, and the built-in app taking the place of a game master or villain player.
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full review.
8. Western Legends
5 plays, 13.25 hours (average play time 2.65 hours per game)
Western Legends has turned out to be exactly the game we were hoping it would be: an open world adventure game set in the wild west, where players choose whether to gain fame by being an outlaw, a lawman, a gambler, or, as was quite often true about the game's colorful historical characters, a little of each.
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full review.
7. Marvel Strike Teams
5 plays, 13.25 hours (average play time 2.65 hours per game)
It's too bad that this Marvel Comics miniatures game didn't catch on and isn't likely to see any further development. It had a lot of interesting ideas and concepts that I haven't seen in any other miniatures games, with a strong campaign element and emphasis on character development over multiple games. In this case I think the
Heroclix branding did more harm that good, as it really was its own game with very little in common with
Heroclix.
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full review.
6. Roll Player
7 plays, 14 hours (average play time 2 hours per game)
We usually come home from
GameStorm (Portland's yearly game convention) with a few new games, but they often tend to be impulse buys that we quickly lose interest in. Not so with
Roll Player, which is a great combination of tactical dice rolling and fantasy adventure. Who knew a game about creating a D&D character could be this interesting?
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full review.
5. Mythic Battles: Pantheon
10 plays, 20.5 hours (average play time 2.05 hours per game)
Mythic Battles: Pantheon was our most anticipated game in 2017, and it clearly didn't disappoint -- it was our number one most played game in 2018, and its number four spot this year is still respectable. It's a great skirmish/board game hybrid that offers the best of both types of game: a ton of different miniatures, a unique card-based system for activating units and a selection of beautifully illustrated boards that simplify movement and line-of-sight. And with around 80 scenarios offering a change to the normal "move to the middle and fight" brawls that most skirmish games tend to be, it will be a long time before we've exhausted this game's possibilities.
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full review.
4. Conan
12 plays, 20.25 hours (average play time 1.69 hours per game)
This is the fourth year in a row that
Conan has made our Top 10. It really is a fantastic adventure game, with a "one vs. many" style of game play that has the structure of a well-designed skirmish game combined with a board game's ease of play and the open-ended flexibility of a role playing game. Unfortunately the game's limited availability and high price point have made it largely inaccessible to a wider market of players, and an upcoming convoluted and confusing Kickstarter campaign doesn't look like it will help matters any.
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full review.
3. Dinogenics
11 plays, 20.5 hours (average play time 1.86 hours per game)
We weren't sure what to expect from this game: how would it compare to
Dinosaur Island? Would it be worth having both games? As it turns out,
DinoGenics offers a very different play experience, and while the two games have obvious similarities, they are different enough that we can justify owning both. And while it's core mechanics aren't all that innovative,
DinoGenics has proved to be a little easier to get to the table on a regular basis.
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full review.
2. Dune Collectible Card Game
11 plays, 24 hours (average play time 2.18 hours per game)
Although we were avid collectible card game players during their heyday in the 1990s,
Dune somehow passed us by -- we only recently started playing it. It is an old-school CCG through and through, with very complex rules that take a lot of repeat play to master, so this year we decided to commit to playing it regularly. The experience has been a lot of fun, but a little frustrating in that playing the game makes us want to buy more cards (the goal of any CCG), and cards for this one are very difficult to find.
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full review.
1. Star Wars Outer Rim
11 plays, 34.5 hours (average play time 3.14 hours per game)
This game took us by surprise in several ways. We were aware that it was coming but hadn't really planned on getting it, but a friend brought it over and after a few games we were hooked, and bought our own copy a few days later. It's a "pick up and deliver" style game similar to
Firefly or
Wasteland Express Delivery Service, but much easier to set up and play, and of course the Star Wars theme is an easy sell on game night -- we've been able to play this game with several different groups and everyone has enjoyed it immensely. Still, we were a little shocked when it turned out to be our most played game of the year.
Full review to come.
Honorable Mention
Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game
7 plays, 11.5 hours (average play time 1.64 hours per game)
Legendary: A James Bond Deck Building Game
8 plays, 9.25 hours (average play time 1.15 hours per game)
Although technically you could mix together all the different versions of
Legendary, we've never felt the need since each version of the game stands on its own so well, both thematically and technically, so we tend to think of each version as a separate game. If we were to add up the time we spent playing the different versions it would easily have made it into the top 5, and with an ever increasing number of IPs being added to the mix, if there isn't a
Legendary game for you yet, there probably will be soon.
Read the
full review of Legendary: Marvel.
Full review of Legendary: James Bond to come.
Most anticipated game of 2020
Judge Dredd: Helter Skelter
As of this writing we just got this game and haven't had a chance to play it yet, but it looks really interesting, with card and movement mechanics similar to
Mythic Battles: Pantheon without the sometimes overwhelming amount of content. Plus the game components look to be of extremely high quality. We've been burned on two other Judge Dredd games this year (
Judge Dredd: the Cursed Earth was a too-difficult co-op game clearly intended to be played solo, and
Judge Dredd: Block War was an unplayable mess), so hopefully the third time will be a charm.
