Boardgame Brody's Top 6 Board Games of 2021

0:00 hey everyone board game brody here with meeple mountain let's talk about my top six games of 2021. first you might or might not know that the past two and a half years i've been traveling throughout the country as a travel nurse and so um my videos have had different tabletops different locations some showcase some amazing tables while others made um some poor choices onto what tables they included in that place but now we have settled down and we are no longer going from state to state across the country we have a new home and that i will soon have a board game room here i will need shelves for my games and any recommendations on shelves or a board game table please let them please mention that in the comments below anyways let's get right to this um 2021 was kind of weird i usually enjoy the medium to medium heavy game titles but this year for whatever reason i have some lighter games that i played for me with that are more in the family weight category so let's start this with number six botnick botnick is a great two player only tile placement game so you're taking turns placing on the main board but they can only go the tiles can only go on either your side or in the middle if you place

1:30 it on your side it needs to be on a spot without a tile already and have a link of either its color or its type to one of the center tiles that's on there already when placing your tile on the middle you will want to arrange it so it is a different color and a different type than your tile on your side because when that happens and there's no connection between them then the tile gets like broken off and you can then place it on your own board or your own network so you're growing your network this way and so you want more tiles to break off to include in your network you also might be helping the other player however um their tiles will be broken off if those rules happen for them as well so you'll be trying to look at trying to not help your the other player but trying to help yourself so that is why that middle board is so strategic but placement in your own network is also strategic ultimately you want to get as many tiles in your own network to score points you want colors touching each other not necessarily connecting through the pipes they don't have to but they can but just touching each other when there are no more tiles each player will then gain points for the colors that connect in their own network with each other i think you need at least four of the same color to get points and then flowers give you additional points it's a very strategic two-player tile placement game and you're trying to change things to make it better for yourself without

3:01 helping the other player again at six botnick by space cowboys all right moving to number five i have this here glory a game of knights this is my number five game by strategos games now i waited a long time to get this game and it was well worth the wait this is more of that medium weight game but a little bit different than any other game i've really played because during the game you're developing yourself into a night to then you want to become better to perform in the tournament so it all kind of leads up to the very end you're trying to get better armor you're trying to get a better horse you need to gain money relics and faith to use those but it's a worker placement game and each place you visit represents the time that you are taking to become a better knight anyways as you get better you're making it really so that your probability of rolling your dice during the tournament will have a better outcome and when you fight you'll have a higher number than whoever you're fighting you will then earn ways that like you can re-roll your dice but ultimately the worker placement stage is upgrading and then it comes to the tournament when you see how well that you can do this is a unique euro game and although sometimes it comes down to the role of the dice it's all about how you manage to prepare because you'll be manipulating your dice like crazy with everything that you're gonna be doing

4:32 again number five glory a game of knights by strategos games all right moving to number four my number four is destinies by lucky duck games all right so destinies so some of you might not be fans of the after event board games but i really enjoy most of them with destinies be no exception to that the thing that just blows things away from me is the app and how well it's done in destinies you'll be playing as one of the three possible characters and each have their own goal on how to win the game you will then explore the map and engage with uh oh so many different things or people and with time those people or things will change and move so it's not a stagnant board that you're exploring things change you will then get items that will help you but you also have two different ways that you can win the game because your character will have two different destinies and you get to choose which one to go after we liked playing this like a campaign game but you're gonna be playing as different characters from chapter to chapter you also will see these characters come back into play during later stories anyways i like what lucky dog games is doing they have a divinist coming up next with an app-driven gameplay and i hope that will make my list for next year as well because i'm very looking forward to it but if you like storytelling games then destinies

6:02 is the game that you need to check out again number four destinies by lucky duck games all right number three number three is cascadia by aeg so cascadia is just the perfect family weight game to play with your family this is one of those games that i know most of my brothers and my sister and their families will just love playing kind of like parks which they all love anyways cascadia is a puzzle tile placement game where you'll need to place tiles on your own little forest and then you'll need to place an animal on top of one of your tiles it could be the same one that you just placed or a different one each animal scores different ways so you're trying to place tiles in certain places but then you place certain animals on those tiles each animal type scores a different way so you're trying to place tiles in certain places on your network but then you need to play certain animals on certain one of those tiles but when you choose a tile in the draft you're choosing it with an already connected animal with it maybe you don't even want that animal but maybe you really want that tile so you might want a certain animal but not the tile so you are going to take those and you're going to need to place the tile somewhere and then you're going to need to place the animal somewhere in your network each will be scoring kind of in a different way anyways this is a fun family weight game i love the theme and i know this is going to be played over the holidays with my brothers and sisters and their families for a long

7:32 time again that's cascadia by aeg and also flat out games all right number two my number two of 2021 is this heavy box game hadrian's wall uh this is a roll or flip and right and if you haven't played this you need to check this out this is by garfield games also by renegade games hadrian's wall is probably the heaviest flip and right game out there currently or one that is fairly well known to people you have two large papers that you're playing on and then you are managing workers each round to have them make your empire better so places will require specific workers and as you use those workers you will get additional workers or resources to use to then go again so the game is a huge combo generator i'll place these to go here and then get this and then i'll take that with these to go here and get this and you just keep doing stuff trying to use your workers and resources the best way that you can and when you build or fulfill things the next round will provide you with more resources or more workers so that you're building up now there are rules where you have to do some things before others but ultimately you're not going to be able to do everything on the two papers so you will then be choosing which to focus your work on and hopefully get more combos and bonuses to score you the most points i love this combo generating game again

9:05 number two hadrian's wall by garfield games and renegade games here in the us all right now it's time for my number one and sadly i don't have it with me it's actually at my parents house where a lot of my other games are haven't got them all here yet but number one is mandalas stones by board and dice now i first played this game demoing it with the board and dice team online and i was so blown away it's so simple yet so complicated so you're moving around these pawns on the board to then release stones to then go to your player board but where you place them and how you place them on your board matters a lot so on your turn you either move the pawn to place stones on your board or you score stones on your board and take those off very simple right each location scores differently but the way that you place stones on your board will let you score more points at a time making the turn more efficient then there's a little race or a management of when you score because there are these bonus points on the score track that always are nice to grab as well the puzzle on the board of how you grab your stones is also fun as you're looking for the best moves on there to get the most stones but if that's not open you might decide to score instead so you're trying to manage which of the two actions you're gonna take as well if someone moves the pawns and it sets something up for you then you might

10:36 decide instead of scoring this round well i'm gonna go and collect four of these stones since you set it up for me anyways go watch my video on it to explain it a little bit better than i am right now again my number one game of 2021 mandala stones by board and dice so i actually have two honorable mentions that i need to say genotype of mendelian genetics game i just love how they made something that most people think is not interesting and as you know knowledge and stuff into a game into something very exciting so that game is awesome also kubitos by aeg this is a great racing game with bag building component and you get better and better dice to use that each has its own benefit super great game i wish you all a happy new year being in a more permanent place i will hopefully put out some more content for you all but for now please subscribe to the channel like the videos you all know those things and i'll see you later with games in 2022.

11:41 again this is board game brody i hope you enjoyed this video stick around and check out some other board game reviews to see what you might want to get to the table