Top 100 Board Games Of All Time - 80 to 71 (2022)

0:00 Hello, welcome back. You must be glass for punishment cuz this is our third installment of our top 100 board games of all time. This is numbers 80 down to 71. So, we're edging closer to the meat and potatoes of this list. But, don't worry. This segment isn't going to be a load of soggy green beans. There's some tasty games on this part of the list. So, what are we waiting for? Let's crack on.

0:30 Bullocks. So, number 80 on this list is yet another dexterity game. I suppose you think I'm addicted to dexterity games and you would be right there. One of our favorite genres of games. This is a game called Flick Fleet. In this game, you will be, funnily enough, flicking little plastic spaceships across a table. We like to use a vinyl mat for this. And, you'll be competing against another player or when the new Xeno Wars expansion comes out, you'll be facing off against more than two players. And, you'll be firing your weapons by placing a die on top of your ship and flicking it and doing damage that way. It's a scenario-based game, so you pick which scenario you are going to play. You'll set up the multitude of different ships that are available and you'll scrap it out until somebody has fulfilled the objectives of the scenario. Flick Fleet is a fantastic game. It is actually made by two guys in their garage. They cut all of the ships themselves out of acrylic. And, this game is just proof of what you can do if you've got a little bit of dedication and a love for games, right?

1:38 So, number 79 on this list is a behemoth of a game. It comes in a box bigger than Cyril Smith's coffin. It's Fortune and Glory. In this game, you'll be taking on the role of a character from a pulp novel. You most likely want to go and do over the Nazis, but there's all sorts of different things you could do in this game. You'll be going to different locations like the Tomb of Wankers or the Brothel of Nasty Diseases. And you'll basically be rolling dice trying to complete different challenges. This is a Flying Frog Productions game, so all of the characters are actually real people, yeah? They're not mannequins or waxworks or anything like that. One of the problems with this game is the rulebook is shite. It's completely and utterly [ __ ] You have to go online and download a fan copy of the rules because the rulebook that's actually included in the game just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. There's probably a little bit too much blow in this. And like we said, the rules are the greatest barrier to entry, but there is a basic game you can learn. Just going to be running around the map. For sheer size and ambition, Fortune & Glory is the big massive hard-on of board games.

2:44 Number 78 is another game by Peter Horse, the guy who did Francis Drake. This is a game called Royals. In Royals, you will be placing cubes out on a map. I know I can hear all these Europhobes saying, "Oh, for [ __ ] sake, not another cube-pushing game." Well, no, cuz you're not actually pushing cubes on a map, but what you'll be doing you'll be trying to take control of different areas of Europe. You'll be trying to hire these personalities that will give you extra points during the game. And one of the beauties of this game is that you can kick people out of different regions, right? It's a very, very simple game. Suppose the theme is kind of tacked on. There's a whole bunch of strategy in Royals. It is quite cutthroat, and that's why we like it because you can stick a knife into your family and friends, can't you? Number 77 is a miniatures skirmish game. It's Star Wars X-Wing. We're going to be talking about the first edition because we hardly ever buy games that we already own, so we left it at that. In Star Wars X-Wing, you will be taking control of different ships from the Star Wars universe. And merely they ran out ships pretty quickly, so they were scraping the bottom of the barrel towards the latter end of this game's life cycle.

3:49 You'll be taking control of ships like the Millennium Falcon, a lot of X-Wings, Boba Fett's big massive purple helmet ship, B-Wings, A-Wings, Y-Wings, XYZ-Wings, and you'll be taking part in a bunch of scenarios. Essentially, you'll be flying around the table. Each ship's got its own special abilities. Each ship has got its own pilot, and you'll be trying to blast your opponents out of the Well, not sky, is it? But, like space type thing. This game came as a start pack. It was very very thin on the ground in terms of components, you had to go out and buy extra ships, which are like a tenner a piece. But, once you've built up a sizable fleet of ships on both sides, then really this game is quite exciting and quite tactical, as well. So, yeah, Star Wars: X-Wing, probably find the first edition quite cheap now. And if you can find it in a bargain bucket, it's definitely worth picking up.

4:40 Number I was going to say 78, 76 on this list is a game by Vladimir Suchy. It's a game called Shipyard. In Shipyard, you will be trying to construct different ocean liners by going to a series of rondels. You'll be picking up crew, you'll be putting funnels or propellers on your ship. Then, once you have done that, you'll be sending your ships out onto a blue ribbon show to basically see who's got the biggest dick. Shipyard looks like a pile of [ __ ] it's got horrible brown colors, and when you first unbox it, all of the tokens are just going to be loose in the box. You've got to go through and put them all in different baggies, so it is a pain in the ass in that respect. But, this game's got like four or five rondels, so if you're a rondel beast, then Shipyard is going to make you shout out cocklord as loud as you can at your Velux loft window.

5:28 Number 75 is a game called Rococo. This is a worker placement game about making dresses. Right, in Rococo, you'll be getting different resources to get different dyes and different cloths. You'll be trying to make the best dresses possible, so that you can show them off and eventually take control of the display at the top of the board. Rococo was out of print forever and ever, and they did reprint it in a luxury deluxe edition for some bizarre reason because I didn't think Rococo was that popular to demand one of those refreshes. But yeah, I think that's going to be the only way you're going to be able to get hold of this one. The theme is completely different to what most people would play. But if you like making dresses, or even if you like wearing dresses, then Rococo might just be the game for you.

6:17 Number 74 on this list is one of the most brutal board games ever made. It's Robinson Crusoe: Escape from the Cursed Island. In Robinson Crusoe: Escape from the Cursed Island, you're going to be trying to escape from a cursed island by fending off wild beasts. You'll be trying to build your shelter. You'll be trying to protect your shelter from the harsh weather conditions. And the main draw of this game is the fact that you're going to be having these event cards coming out, and you get the option of dealing with the event cards now, or putting off dealing with them. So, they're going to come back bite you in the ass later, but the rewards are going to be greater, yeah? We've only ever beaten this game once, and that was on the Castaways beginner scenario, right? And when we did beat it, it was a fantastic feeling. But we don't play this game to win because the chances are that you're not going to do that. But we just play this for the story and to see what happens. It's one of the greatest cooperative games we have ever played, and it even plays really well solo because you're going to be able to take a dog and Friday with you on your descent into inevitable doom.

7:19 Number 73 on this list is another dexterity game. This time it's made out of wood. It's called Tumbling Dice. In Tumbling Dice, you'll be putting your dice onto a plinth at the top of a series of cascading levels, and you'll be flicking your die down these levels, and it will either fall off the board, in which case you get no points, or it will come to rest, and then you will multiply the pips on the die by the number on the level that you landed. We went out and bought a shitload of extra dice for this so we could play it with up to like 20 people. All you do is that you just walk around the table and when it's your turn, you flick the die and then you come back round. And it works really really well. There is an element of skill to this. You got to be very careful how hard you flick the die and it's really fun when you knock other players dice off of the lucrative times four multiplier. Tumblin Dice is a bit like a British pub game. It is big. It's going to be difficult to store this if you ain't got a lot of space. But having said every time we pull out Tumblin Dice, it goes down a storm and I just love it.

8:17 Number 72 on this list is a game that sort of yo-yos up and down our top 100 every year. It's a game called Archipelago. For me, this is Christophe Boelinger's masterpiece. It's essentially a 4X game. I'm going to try and remember what 4X means. It means explore, exploit, exterminate, and [ __ ] off. So in Archipelago, you'll be placing your meeples out on the board to get resources. These will allow you to build buildings and take control of different regions. Everybody's going to have a secret objective and there's also going to be a public objective. But the thing is, everybody is going to score your secret objective so you've got to be mindful about what other people are doing. There's also loads of personalities and different structures that you can build in this game and it borrows a lot of mechanics from other games. So if you don't want to spend, say, 10 weeks playing 10 different games, then you could play Archipelago and get a taste of all of those different games, right? So yeah, it's been on our top 100 since we started doing this and yeah, it's a fantastic fantastic game.

9:16 Number 71 on this list is probably regarded as Uwe Rosenberg's masterpiece. It's Agricola. This is a 15th century farming simulator. And please armchair historians, don't tell me it was like a 16th or 17th century cuz I don't give a [ __ ] But yeah, in Agricola, you will be placing your workers out to the board on different spaces to get resources. You'll be trying to embellish your farmstead with different animals. You'll be plowing fields. You'll be planting crops. And each round, a new action space comes out. You're going to know what all the action spaces are, but you don't know what order they're going to come out in. Another thing about Agricola is you've got these occupation cards that change the game up. There is a [ __ ] load of these occupation cards, so the game is going to be different every single time you play it. Agricola has been updated by other games like Caverna and A Feast for Odin. For us, Agricola is the original real deal, and this is the one we like the most. So, there you go. That is number brain dead.

10:19 Number 80 down to 71. If you are thinking about doing yourself in, then please just send me an email. I'll send you a link for a rope that is in the garage, cuz I can't be asked to take it down to the tip. So, you might as well get some use out of it, right? Hopefully, you are finding this interesting, maybe a little bit funny, as well. I don't know how cheap you lot are. So, come back for the next installment, which is going to be 70 down to 61. And those games are logically going to be better than these ones. I'll see you later.