Best Board Games of 2024 part 1 24-11

0:03 welcome to allies or enemies I'm Jess and I am Sean and today we are talking about our favorite games of 2024 and we're going to be doing a top 24 of 2024 partly because we think it sounds cool but in large part because there were just so many games we really likeed this year and even getting this down to 24 really broke our hearts so we're going to be doing this in two parts and we're going to be splitting that up basically in half this is going to be the first half of that and really all of these games are super solid yeah and so we rank them all individually first and then we took an average and we're going to be talking about our average 24 but there was disagreement in the order of the rankings and we each had one from our individual list that didn't make the average list so mine that got missed out is castle combo and in castle combo you are building a 3X3 grid and you're trying to make combos with those cards you're putting in but it's really quick it's really Snappy every time I play it I immediately want to play it again but we've only played it on board game arena yeah and that is why I didn't make my list because I just I like to feel and touch and smell especially smell and taste um games I don't I don't love playing them in a 2d screen so I think it probably loses something once we play it in real life I'm going to like it a lot more it probably would have been in our list if we played it in real life the one for me that didn't quite make it is in the footsteps of Marie C and I think this is

1:34 just a really terrific light engine buildy is kind of resource management game it's got this great tower thing that you're dropping cubes in and only some come out I don't know how it's magic and then you're taking those and then you're using those to fulfill different experiments and stuff and I just think it's it's really clever it's really quick um I think it's one that's going to pick up steam that kind of came out a little later this year and is going to pick pick up more steam next year yeah I'm really enjoying that the in the footstep series are covering scientists and I'm really curious about what's coming next but for us what is coming next is our official top 24 games 24 number 24 is super Club Rivals and in super Club Rivals you are football or soccer managers trying to put together the best team and this is a smaller two-player version of super club which we haven't played but it is simulating a soccer season you have multiple games where you're building your lineup you're comparing lineups to see who wins the game and then who wins the overall season and I think it does such a great job of simulating that like being a soccer manager yeah and I I love this kind of game so I had a bunch of these as like um computer games when I was a kid these like hockey manager games where you don't play hockey at all you just set up lineups and it's stats and and it's like comparing stats and I love that I find it fascinating and it works really well here and I really like like

3:07 the foldable thing that you put your team in and there's just little things like you can build up your players you can make them better you can train them you can like lend them out to other teams there's injuries but all within this like simple rule set yeah it's soccer's never been a favorite sport for me but this one works really well and did win me over to it a little yeah and I love the metag game of just trying trying to predict where you're going to put your strongest players and this really won me over to this type of game and it's our number 24 23 number 23 is arcs and I had this one this might be the one with the greatest disparity between where we place them and I think the reason for that is that I've played this at four players I played this a bunch of times at three or four players and you kind of need to that's really where this game shines and arcs is it's a mix of stuff it's got a tiny bit of trick taking it's got action selection it's really it's an area control game it's got interesting Resource Management mechanics there's just a lot of cool stuff in here from leader games made a lot of games I really like and it just it really shines when you're playing this at four players and you're in kind of the right situation for it this can be a really great game yeah and I have only played this at two players and I think it has so much I do like about it cuz I also really like that you get to choose what gets scored each round and there could even be it's rare but there could be a round where nothing gets scored and so that's really interesting because you're

4:37 definitely going to be leaning towards only a couple of those categories and really hoping that they end up getting scored so you can have these huge like shifts in points but I need to play it at three or four players yeah and I think the other thing too is just like for us it's specifically not really the sort of thing that we play so if you are more into kind of combative area control games this is going to be higher for you so maybe don't listen to us so much about this and listen to some of the other channels about this one cuz it's just it's not quite our Jam but I still thought I had some really interesting stuff and it is our number 23 22 our number 22 is windmill Valley and this is designed by Danny Garcia who's been on a real tear lately with a whole bunch of games and for a Euro game this is really like bright and colorful because it's all about a tulip so you have these windmills you have you're planting tulips you're selling tulips and it does a whole bunch of Euro game things in terms of building up actions leading to combos but in a way that's slightly more approachable that I feel like it's definitely not a light game but it is a lot more approachable than like fatel ler and other combo type games whilst doing something similar yeah I think this is kind of like like we talk about Gateway games all the time this is like the gateway to heavy games it's like it's it's not a Gateway game but it's like it's like a gateway to that next step because it does have this really interesting the action selection

6:09 mechanic is this windmill that's two gears that are shifting and you can build that up as you go through the game and create these interesting Combos and there are a bunch of combos but at the same time it's not like all the way brain burning it's like brain tickly it's like it's got that little bit and I think it's going to kind of scratch that itch for some folks or it's going to create that itch that doesn't sound good but it's G to create that kind of like interest in these heavier games one of the lighter board and dice games but it's such a nice Gateway into that kind of thing yeah and I feel like we had different expectations that we thought it was going to be heavier than it was but then once we played it a few times we actually realized there is a little bit more under the hood than after our first game and it is our number 22 21 our number 21 is Terminus and Terminus is a really interesting mix of mechanics cuz it's got this rondelle and I love a Rondell but it's got this Rond Del action selection system this cool kind of Market manipulation where you're putting you've got really nice looking resources but how much they cost depends on how many people have bought and it's got root building that goes with that stuff and again that's got like some creative bits to there's a lot of stuff in here that you're like oh yeah I've seen that oh but not quite like this oh I've seen oh but not quite it's got a lot of that going on in this game and yeah this was another one that you know surprised me a little bit it wasn't quite what I expected it to be but it was actually I think a little bit better

7:40 than I expected it to be and and I I like this one a little bit more every time we play it yeah cuz it looks like a root Builder and there is that but there is so much more because on top of everything you said there's also these ways to make those actions stronger and you can add other like your own people to other people's ones personal goals there's also public goals so it is a really thinky game where resources are very tight because the market of when you get things and when you put them back is really important yeah and we we really like a game where you can build up your actions and you can and those actions kind of change and evolve throughout the game and so you've already seen that a couple times on this list and this one is our 21 20 our number 20 is cities and this is designed by Phil Walker Harding who we are big fans of who loves taking like one mechanic and leaning into it and so this is like drafting the board game so you are drafting your tiles and you are adding them to make various cities and every game there is a different city but you are also drafting the buildings that you're putting on drafting your goals and so you're drafting everything about it to to create your own personal City yeah and like you say this is really this is really drafting this is like drafting on drafting but it works well because you've got those kind of different levels of drafting because

9:11 you're making those chunks of your city you're drafting the houses that you're putting on the chunks you're also drafting the goals that you're doing for the places and then you're drafting these little parks and water things that are going to go on top and it's also got that tile placement part of it as well where you're actually putting all of that stuff but yeah I I really like this a got this for me because he was like oh this is a Shawn game this is 100% a Shawn game so he surprised me with a copy of this and it was it it to Phil Walker Harding games usually are but this totally is and I really like this we played this a ton in those different cities are really interesting yeah I was going to say the different cities really play differently and I like that they try and tap into the actual like aspects of the city so in Venice you're do trying to do ones with like a lot of water and canals and so cities is our number 20 19 our number 19 is Tower up and this is just such a pretty game there's so much table presence to this game and this is kind of an abstract strategy game that everyone is using the same board on so you are you're building up these towers like it says and you're building them up and so you're putting out Towers on this board and every time you put one down you got to also put Towers on everything adjacent to it with the same colors so on your turn you're either doing that or you're getting more pieces to build more Towers in the future but but that is it's really there's like more going on there than I had expected there to be because everyone else is doing that too and you're really trying to push people into a corner you're trying to fulfill these goals but I think a big part of it

10:43 is just how pretty it is yeah it is really easy to I think explain and to play but there's a lot of strategy that the more you play you realize of like o if I put this one here and then all these buildings get built that's then going to block this off meaning you won't be able to add to it so the abstract strategy puzzle is really interesting and then there's goals you're trying to do and you're trying to get up the tracks so even for a light game there are like a couple of different routes that you can go for trying to get the most points yeah and I definitely thought this was easier than it was and we played with our our friend Neil who brought it over and he whooped us cuz he's played it a bunch more and it was like oh I see there's a lot of you need to know some stuff to to play this game well but that is Tower up our number 18 is tree society and Sean picked this up because it looked pretty it does and it's by designers we know and like Matthew Dunston and Brett J Gilbert and in tree Society you're building this like the society in trees like yeah it's like indoor it's like if indoor was made by Bankers yeah and you're doing that by you have these fruit that you're collecting and you're trading the fruit in for these great looking coins these nice chunky tree coins and you're spend ending that to get new cards and then for new cards you're trying to like level those cards up until they go into your Society but some of the cards like help your engine some of them are like just points some of them help you get more coins and there's different like types of cards

12:14 that you play with each game yeah you've got like six different sets or eight different sets or whatever it is and then you're using four of those don't quote me on these numbers but you're not using all of the different clumps of cards and the clumps of cards play really different and really do change the game but it's in a sense it's just like kind of a simple engine building is thing where you're trying to fulfill these goals but every turn is like kind of interesting and because all the cards do something slightly different they're all pretty interesting it's very like Matthew Dunston and Brett J Gilbert make these just terrific light fast but still thinky games stuff like Guild of merchant explorers which we loved as well and this kind of is a little bit it's very different mechanically but a little bit of the that same feel and that's something we just generally like and it is so pretty 72 our number 17 is saltford you are in this like Nordic fishing Village and it has a really clever action selection mechanism because what you're doing is you are drafting Dice and then you use the dice you draft to move it down your board and activate the different actions as it passes and so that's really clever because you can add actions to your board building those up but you're also going to be a bit Limited in what you can do based on like the role of the dice and what's available to draft yeah it is it's a d often dice drafting games feel a little bit too limiting to me but

13:45 this one really doesn't because you've got enough ways to change them or and enough ways to change your board and to think ahead and because you see everything at the start and so you can really think about which ones am I going for which ones do I think other people are going for and all of the stuff you're doing is just a little bit different it's all kind of fun so you're adding more buildings you're fishing and you're getting fish and you're putting them on boats you're moving up these tracks and you can really focus this game in different directions I think the last game we played everyone playing all focused on a different thing and we all ended up fairly close-ish in points and I love that when there's different paths that you can take it really makes it more replayable and your board and your actions are always going to be so different and it works well I think at all player accounts and that's our number 17 16 our number 16 is Rage and this is a flip and right game and it's basically like it's silver and gold and trails of tucana had a baby and I love both of those games and so you are crossing off terrains trying to get to different spots on your Maps but what's really interesting is you are able to go through multiple Maps so you can choose how long you want to stay on a map because once you cross from one ship to your other ship you move on to a new one so sometimes you might want to really try and get everything off of that map other times you might be like all right on to the next one yeah and this game moves at lightning speed this is such a fast game because it's this draft and pass game is how you're actually getting those cards and so everyone's always

15:16 playing at the same time and I think the biggest problem we have is like slowing it down enough that everyone is keeping at at the same Pace because everyone just wants to go go go go go and quickly fill up everything because it's exciting and like everything you do is kind of like that little mini dopamine here right because you're always getting points you're always Crossing off stuff to cross off other stuff doing these little combos getting stuff out of bags and moving on to new maps all that stuff's really satisfying we've introduced this to a ton of people everyone has liked it this is this is one that I see as playing a lot more in the future yeah and because it's draft and pass you might choose which ones you want to cross off based on what your neighbor might be looking for right yeah there's hate Crossing yeah exactly you're like oh I know you want this one so I'm going to take it which is always fun and it is our number 16 our number 15 is flat iron and this is made from the same designers who made our number one game last year which was White Castle and they have been doing a lot of cool stuff but this is based around the flat iron building in New York which is a building that I really like and you're building this building from the bottom up this is one of those bottom up buildings not one of those top down buildings you're going to start at the bottom and build it up I don't know but this it is you're building it from the bottom up and so you've got one worker that you're putting out in these different spaces and then that's giving you cards and you're building up this whole bunch of cards and you're going to set off all these different actions so you're trying to build up these like Columns of cards while also actually building up this building and it looks really cool too

16:48 yeah and it's a two-player game and there are only four well I guess kind of five worker placement spots that you can go and so you're also very much trying to get in the way of the other to what they might to because if you're there they're blocked and they but also making that hopefully you can go to the spot you want to go to on your turn and it is an interesting balance of wanting to build up your actions whilst also doing the actions cuz the game moves pretty quickly yeah and when you go to those spots it's like you get a card that isn't necessarily linked to the spot that you're actually setting off the cards you don't you understand it when you play it and I strongly suggest that you do play it cuz this just it's a really cool game and it is our number 15 14 R number 14 is Ironwood which is another two-player specific game and it is a very asymmetric game where one of you are playing as the Ironclad trying to build cities and the other are playing as the wood Walkers who are trying to protect nature and collect their totems and how you're doing all of this is by playing cards but the cards are all different so they give you different actions and they're multi-use so you have to choose whether to spend cards for their action or to use them in battle and usually the strongest cards are going to be strongest in both fronts so it can be a tough choice about which cards to use when yeah and all of those

18:20 cards are super strong and you got a whole bunch of cards they all do really different things you got three cards that always come back to your hand that you kind of need to build up to those goals and your goals you only have to do three times but the heart of this game really is frustrating your opponent is trying to stop your opponent from doing the thing that they're doing while slowly kind of incrementally building up so they can't possibly stop you from doing what you're doing and those two factions play so differently and it really is interesting to play either side of that and we've often played it where we play one side then we just switch and play the other side and it looks lovely the components are beautiful and it is our number 14 13 our number 13 is Solstice and this is three in a row of two player specific games can you tell that this is a two-player specific Channel but we really like solstice Solstice is this tiny little box with adorable art and what you're doing is you're drafting these little like wooden chips they're actually not cards and you're putting those out into rows and they just go in order of color and of number and you got to get them all to connect up because you get points for connecting up your thing as big as you possibly can but also you want to make little groups of four because then you attract animals into your little cute Forest setting and those animals all have special powers and special scoring and this is just it's a super fast game it's a game where you really have to keep an eye on what your opponent's doing and what they want and take away what they want as much as you can and it's it's just it's a game

19:51 that we play over and over and over we played this so much on BGA before we went and bought a copy and our copy is actually in French but we just learn the rules in English as well because it was worth it for us and boy we played the crap out of this yeah cuz it is just like one picture that has then been subdivided so there is no repeats of tiles so you can very much tell what your opponent is building like oh they have all of the center tiles okay that's going to be tough for me to get and we definitely play it where we'll play until the other person eventually wins so if Sean play wins four games we'll play five if that's how long it takes for me to then win yeah we've had nights where I had a real lucky run where I went like 10 in a row and I was like please just win so we can go to bed but also I'm not going to let you win but it's one of those where you're going to play over and over and over and it is our number 13 our number 12 is doggerland and I really I got into the theme of this one because it's just super interesting that this is set in the North Sea before there was a North Sea so doggerland was the space between the UK and France you you might all be like we already knew that well I didn't know that until this year okay but I think it's fascinating and you're doing all sorts of like ancient civilization stuff so you're like painting in caves and you're hunting mammoths and you got Shaman doing stuff and you're making love to make new villagers and it's it's all that sort of stuff and it's just a really tight cool system I love that everything you do ties into the theme in

21:21 this as well it's just a very very thematic game and it everything that you're doing and like the scarcity of food and how there's like a summer and winter in the winter you need to have Furs or else people are going to get too cold and all of that stuff's in here yeah I love how thematic it is like if you want to hunt a really large animal then you have to send a whole bunch of your people and just the visual of having all of these like wooden meatles around this Mammoth is great and it's just it's so thinky it's so tight and you really have to plan ahead yeah you really do and and again this is another one where you can build up your actions and I really like it when I can build up my actions in a game and this does it really well and that makes doggerland our number 12 our number 11 is loot which is number one for the funnest name to say easily but in this game you are Vikings and it's got this cool kind of combination of you're putting your Vikings out on this board in order to gain your resources in your buildings and then you also have this tile placement puzzle in front front of you where you're adding those and you're trying to fill these different goals and I really like that that you've got this part here that's just you that's like a heads down kind of a like a solo game but then you've got this other very interactive map where you're getting stuff and I think that works really well yeah and what is particularly interesting is that you're able to add goals to your board as well so you're continually doing these little

22:52 mini puzzles on your board hoping especially if you can add goals that are like complimentary to to each other and so it's really a little bit more thinky than you expect with a little bit of a Calico feel but not nearly as as challenging as Calico yeah and with those goals too because you can add as many as you want and it really is a like limiting yourself like making sure you don't take too much too quick which is what I generally do in this but also not waiting too long and so I like that part of it as well and this is our number 11 and that is it that is part one of our top 24 of 2024 and we're going to also obviously have a part two is one always does that's going to cover the other half of this list thank you so much for watching please let us know in the comments if you played any of the games we talked about and as usual please like subscribe and hopefully we'll see you next time for another game