Top 10 BRUTAL & CUTTHROAT Board Games

hey everybody today I'm talking about my top 10 most brutal and Cutthroat board games so these are games where you need to be prepared to get a bit nasty in order to overcome your opponents now a few caveats on this list and number one I have completely avoided any social deduction style games because you know that's part and parcel with those designs and the same goes with like war games and I've also made a note that all these are games I actually enjoy you know there are some games I would consider the higher or would have made the list but I didn't like them so I've excluded them from the list but I will mention them after my personal top 10 now before I get into the top 10 I want to give a shout out to the show sponsor kendra.

co.uk who are my go-to online retailer and if you use the link in the show notes or the QR code then you can get 5% off your first order at number 10 I have Tifa tashion also known as good Critters I'm going to talk about Tashan because that's the version I have and I think the more realistic kind of political um theme suits the game better and it makes it feel more cutro so this is a negotiation Style game where there's going to be a president and it's up to the president to divide these money cards out amongst all the players and they can divide them however they see fit they can give it all to one player they can give it to themselves divide equally whatever they want and once the president is satisfied how he has divided out that money all the other players are going to choose a card in their hand and reveal them simultaneously with the other players and those actions will kind of change the landscape some of them might say I support the president's choice because I'm getting a lot of money so I want to keep him in power some might say well I'm going to try overthrow the president and if there's enough of those votes then the president is going to get kicked out of the round and the president is going to moved on to the next player you can blackmail people or counter black mail people by using this kind of Double Bluff mechanism or you can even skim money from the top of the cash deck as long as you are the first player to do that and because this is a freefor all negotiation game um you can all kind of conspire with each other to try and work out things to suit you and of course because the money cannot be divided up equally then people are going to get locked out and as long as you have the majority you might stay in power um but these people who've been locked out might try to rope in other people and convince them to join their team and even tried to bribe them U so you can imagine all the little clicks and little subdivision that goes on here and the collusion and so on it is a brutal game it's vicious I wish I could play it more because it does require higher player counts but it's not a social deduction game but it's social deduction almost adjacent um and it is just so so good and I wish the original theme the te attaching theme was distributed widely rather than it being kind of cartoony with the reprint cuz it just UPS the tension even more but I love this one but it is so so mean that is Tashan at number 10 at number nine I have Mexico now this is a more traditional area control Style game where you have a a basic board to start with but as the game progresses you are placing these River tiles on the board to carve up the board and create regions where you are competing for influence by means of placing these temples now because you are creating these regions yourself players might spend quite a bit of effort to almost complete a region then somebody else might sneak in there and finish it off which can be very frustrating and also because of the way the influence Works players might spend just enough to win the region and then the next player will come along SN sneak in there and then Place one just one more than the previous person so there's just constant kind of nibbling at each other to try and get these majorities but where the real cut forat in each other game comes through is when the board starts to get quite populated you can block other people's play pieces in so they can't move at all or you can kind of move Bridges away from them so it's going to spend them cost them more action points in order to um kind of move around and be more efficient and yeah those little things can really determine who the Victor or the loser is and also you don't even have to have certain regions in order to score points and people might spend a bit of effort to build these temples in these kind of neutral regions and then you can build kind of a a river around that region to make that region worth fewer points than it would have been worth so everything here is again very cutthoat you need to be on the ball you need to be hyper alert to make sure that you're being efficient and to kind of put a little blockades in front of your opponent whenever you can so that is Mexico at number nine at number eight I have Manhattan so this is an older area control game where you trying to build these skyscrapers in these six different uh cities all you're doing on your turn is that you're playing a card which will show a location where you can place one of your skyscrapers and but the problem is with these skyscrapers just because they're on the map it doesn't mean they're necessarily yours for the remainder of the game because if your opponent chooses to build on top of you and has a kind of the kind of layers or the levels of a building Equal or more than you then they can build on top of you and take that building for themselves and what you're doing is that you are competing for majorities you're competing for every single building you have are you're competing to have the highest tower and so on and this game really does become um almost Petty in a way when you get into a bit of a dispute with another player you'll just do whatever you can to try and take over their buildings and I think maybe the reason why this game ended up on this list was because whenever I play this game I'm always the target of everybody's aggression now I don't mind it it's very funny it's a very simple game and it's actually quite light-hearted but if you play it with a likeminded group and you do get competitive then it can be you know claw out and every single opportunity you'll do you'll try try and shaft your opponents and steal their buildings but a lot of fun but with a pretty you know pretty vicious streak that is Manhattan at number eight at number seven I have hanza Tonica one of my favorite games of all time actually and the way this game is so Cutthroat is because the board is just not big enough to hold everybody's pieces so if you're not familiar with hand of Tonica it's a root building Style game where you're placing your pieces on the board trying to connect two places together and when you do that you can kind of cash them in and put some influence in these buildings now the problem is that people can deliberately get in your way meaning that you have to spend additional actions to bump them out of your way and not only is that frustrating for you because it slows you down they also get a reward for doing that so the game actually encourages you to get into each other's way and of course when you get bumped off you can bump off into other people's way and then they'll bump you off again you can spread even further and so on so whatever you do you're going to get in each other's way in this one it's always described as kind of a knife fight in a phone booth because again you can't move without getting or rubbing shoulders with the other players a constant back and forth on who's controlling those regions where you take certain actions in terms to um build up your engine you could be G giving other people's points sometimes you might want not want to do that and just not go to this placees just out of spite even though you really do want that action so when the um higher player accounts come into play with this game it does get very Cutthroat and you want to be super efficient and sometimes you will take moves just to be Petty and just to spite the other players rather than actually helping yourself it might help yourself a bit later but a lot of the time you'll just take turns just to get in your opponent's way which is always funny so that is hanza to Tonica at number seven at number six I have Babel so I was actually trying to avoid putting two-player only games on the list because with two player only games of course you're going to try and hurt your opponent because they are your direct and only competition and damage to them is going to hurt you but Babel is so brutal that I could not avoid putting it on the list um because straight from the get-go your objective here is to not only hurt help yourself but to directly hurt your opponents so this is kind of a tower building Style game where you're trying to construct these towers on different locations by playing these cards now whenever you play the certain number of these cards in order then you'll get to use a pretty horrendous ability to hurt your opponent such as tearing their Tower down in that location or converting their troops into your own or getting rid of their troops completely so you're always not only trying to help yourself but equally trying to hurt your opponent and slow them down and you get straight from the um the go here you're punching your opponent in the face and it's going to be you know whoever is the nastiest and whoever can hurt your opponent more will probably win this one so notoriously known as one of the meanest games out there which is quite interesting considering it is an U Rosenberg design but I love it I love it I love it but you know you do need to know what you're getting into when you play beel so that is Babel at number six at number five I have photosynthesis so I think the reason this one came higher on the list was because how disarming it is because when you look at it it looks like a very pleasant game where you're just building up this little Woodland by by placing these trees and growing them and so on um in actuality it is a vicious abstract strategy game where you are again trying to plant these trees on this circular board and um you need your share of the sunlight so each round there's going to be a sun that rotates around the board and the Sun is going to of course shine on the trees come from a certain direction if you are exposed to the sun then you're going to get growth points and start enhancing your trees but if you are in the shadow of your own or other players trees then you'll get nothing and of course as the game progresses you want to start placing your trees not only to help yourself but to put as many of your opponent's trees in your shade as possible you'll even deliberately leave trees in place that you could probably harness and start getting points for just to annoy your opponents um again it gets very very tight you know The Bard is very small there's not much maneuverability um so every placement matters sometimes you can completely starve your opponent of light um and again because it is so pleasant to look at the vibe of the game you just look at it and think this is going to be a nice Breezy relaxing game and that is not the truth at all it is very very mean especially if you play with that spirit so that is photosynthesis at number five okay so let's move on to number four and I think this is where it starts to amp up again in terms of the Cutthroat nature and the brutality of these games so at number four I have Kaus so Kus is one of the original worker placement style games simple Resource Management collect resources contribute to the church and get points now the problem with this game is that well the mean part of the game is that each round there's going to be more kind of buildings and put on this track basic all the work placement spots are on this road essentially and there is a piece called the Provost and the Provost is this um porn that's going to move up and down the road at the mercy of a the players and a particular worker placement spot gives you a lot of jurisdiction over how the provos moves but any placement after the Provost is not going to activate and what this will normally mean is that some players will put a lot of investment into um planning all their actions all the resources they need then another player will go onto the provos spot and move it further this way so that all their efforts are completely nullified and they'll get nothing that turn it is so tense and typically all the actions you want are right on that borderline where the Provost is there conspiring with the other players because if there's a a runaway leader and they are taking all the spots to the right of the Provost the other players will say you know what let's move it this way a bit and just stop them doing anything this round it is really quite hurtful actually when people take that action and completely just cuts your legs out from under you um but it is again it is part of what the game is all about and there's also some additional wrinkles that you can use to hurt your opponents financially for example if you pass for the round but your opponent wants to keep going um they have to spend more money per worker for each additional placement in relation to who everybody else who has dropped out so if you know that your opponent really needs to do something and you're somewhat not that interested in this round you can do without it you can drop out early and force your opponent to drop out because they cannot afford to go on any longer one of the original work rep placement games still one of the best but that provos piece is going to be very very polarizing um I'm sure if people get shafted by the um the Provost and um weren't really expecting it that might make them very salty and they won't play the game again but like with all these games if you know what you're getting into it can be a lot of fun despite the brutal nature of it so that is Kus at number four at number three I have barrage so this is is a unique Euro strategy economic game to say the least is a game about all about trying to um capture water and turn that water into energy and as with the real kind of water system it takes the least pass of resistance goes from the top of the mountain flows down this mountain range getting caught in dams hopefully your own dams but the way the board is designed um just lends itself to a lot of interaction and a lot of pretty mean and Cutthroat interaction at that because the cheaper spots on the board are towards the bottom of the mountain where you can build up your infrastructure of your kind of power stations and your your little turbines and your dams but because the again the water flows from the top to the bottom as the game progresses somebody else might build a dam just above your little engine or or your infrastructure to completely cut you out of the game and render that Dam completely useless yes it's expensive to do so but the investment might be worth it so it's all about trying to cut the kind of cut the legs out from under your opponent to block them off to divert this water to suit you and to guide it away from your opponents uh and not only is the board State hyper Cutthroat you know every single placement matters you need to very meticulously plan things but the actual scarcity of the actions you want to take is cut through as well because the the worker placement spots where you're using to take your turns quickly dry up so there is a real turn ax to get to every single action you want but to be honest all the interaction and the main part of the game the meanness does come from the board itself and trying to build higher up that mountain to capture every single droplet for yourself and to bleed your opponents Dry still if you played this game you'll know exactly what I'm talking about it is again sharpen your claws from the get-go that is Barrage at number three and number two I have arborium now this is a card game and it somewhat fits in the same cample category of games like photosynthesis where on the surface it looks very peaceful and pleasant because it's all about building an arborium full of trees um but in reality it is horrendous so this is uh a game where you're trying to manage a hand of cards to build a little Tableau of trees in front of you trying to create Pathways of numbers to score victory points sounds very simple now where this game is amped up in terms of its brutality is the fact that cars in your hand are very important because if you have the majority of one of the suits of cars or the tree types in your hand then you are the only player who's going to score that particular type and what this means is that if your opponent puts a lot of effort into creating a huge network of trees and and their little Tableau they think they're going to get a lot of points they probably kept a couple of cards back but you you have one or more trees than they do or total value of trees than they do of that particular type then you are going to stop them scoring that category at all and because the way the numbers are are paced at different values um you can you know you can Trump your opponent without them even realizing you're doing it and when it comes to the big reveal at the end of the game about Who's got what in their hand then it can completely just blow the wind out of your Sal thinking you know what my whole game depended on me having majority of that type and you spitefully kept them in your hand just so I couldn't score them now the the interesting thing about this game is not only that but the fact that you do have a limited size of uh hand size I think it's only seven cards in your hand so if you want to be that mean you are going to almost spite yourself because the cards you're keeping are blocking up your hand and limiting your your scoring options but sometimes it is the right decision to make and you can win this game by hurting your opponent and you know you can even win this game on a very low value of points for that reason by far the most brutal card game I've ever played um again if you've played this game you'll know what I'm talking about it is pretty damn horrible but in a great way because it's a great design that is Arboretum at number two and finally at number one and to be honest this is quite a distant number one uh this is the Estates so the Estates by far the most cutthroat the most mean and nasty game that I have ever ever played it's an auction an economic Style game where you are spending cash with a um a closed economy actually so no money is ever introduced into the game uh and you are using this cash in order to auction or bid for these different buildings and rooftops and things and you are basically investing or taking ownership of certain companies um and trying to score points based on the the height of these buildings or the strength these buildings essentially Now The Twist on this game is that the buildings will not score anything unless they complete that row so people are investing in things trying to make sure that they fill a complete row up and meet this kind of Border if that happens then they're all going to be eligible for positive points great now the problem is that you can invest in expanding that border so if players heavily invest in a particular building type or a row of these buildings then you might think you know what let's just keep extending the Border getting them more and more negative points as they go and that's a really kind of viable strategy to do that in fact that's a key decision uh in the game it's a very careful balancing act because you don't want to be the sole occupant of a particular row because again the other players are going to conspire against you and make sure that you do not score those points meaning that you want to somewhat Blend or mix with the other players to make sure you all have a a kind of a horse in the race really um otherwise you are going to get get shafted by the other players but still this is so so mean when you know you've spent the whole game investing in a bunch of buildings and you end on you know negative 50 points because the other players have been so horrible and just kept extending that borderline so that you could not finish any buildings um it's a great design but I do need to be in the right mood to play it another game where you're going into it with a mindset of you know what let's will be friends now and all all agree to be friends at the end of the game but during the game all bets are off I'm going to do whatever I can to win it um I highly recommend Everybody Plays this game at least once I'm sure some people will bounce off it hard because of the Cutthroat nature of it some people are going to love it um but I think you need to experience at least once just to um see if you've got it in you to uh to hang with the big boys and play a game like the Estates so that is the Estates anable one so there we have it that concludes the top 10 games let's just give some honorable mentions now so food chain magnet brutal game um but I didn't like it so hence why I didn't make the list uh reat another very Cutthroat area control Style game uh games like libertalia I considered citadels could be mean uh Lifeboat was another very mean one um some of the games I hadn't played that I probably would make this list if I had played them because they are widely considered to be brutal games like Game of Thrones games like diplomacy but other ones I considered were pinata was another two-player game that can be very mean because you can deliberately sabotage your opponents uh scoring uh emot was another one as well where you can try and divert your opponent's um points to the wrong regions where they don't want to go to and even games like tigers and Euphrates are considered as well but these ones didn't quite make the uh the top 10 and I'm quite happy with this top 10 actually albeit they might be in a different order if my mind changed but I hopefully you have enjoyed the video If you have please be sure to hit like And subscribe to the channel and check out my other content too but for everybody else I'll see you next time on chairman of the board bye-bye