Top 50 Games of 2022 (30-21)

The least prestigious award in tabletop gaming returns after a 2 year, pandemic-related hiatus! Woo and/or yay!

Welcome to our top 50 games list for 2022, in which I list my personal top 50 games at this point in time.  My choices are not limited to games from this calendar year, but instead, represent my current thoughts on the top 50 games to me.  Next year, some of the games featured may move up and down as my opinions change and I get the chance to play more games or revisit old favourites.

This series will comprise 5 posts, each covering 10 games as we work down from number 50 to number 1.  You can click to visit part 1 and part 2, and today we’re on part 3, comprising games 30 through 21:

30: Arcane Academy

Previous Position: 38 (+8)

Year: 2016

Designers: Eric M. Lang, Kevin Wilson

Publisher: IDW Games

Plays: 2-4 players in ~30 to 45 minutes

This game is all about building an engine and managing resources, though at quite a simple level.  There are only two resources to be managed, after all.  The engine comes in the form of the board, where you want to both get the best tiles down and ensure that you have effective links to maximise multi-tile activations.  Resources are important and the choice of project cards is important but, to me, the game is won or lost on board construction.

I love it when I can get a good engine going and just steamroller everyone.  This is not always possible but is so satisfying when it does pay off.  In all honesty, it’s also pretty rare for me. It’s also a really easy game to teach, which is always a plus!

29: Carcassonne

Previous Position: 14 (-15)

Year: 2010

Designer: Klaus-Jürgen Wrede

Publisher: Z-Man Games

Plays: 2-5 players in ~30 to 45 minutes

I’m appreciating simpler games these days and you don’t get much simpler than Carcassonne. Yeah, Carcassonne continues to be a really cool, really simple game. It’s one that I love playing with kids and adults; with gamers and non-gamers.

There’s just something nice about taking a tile and playing a tile. There’s something rewarding about seeing the map grow with each turn, taking strange twists and turns. There’s something really special about this game. I actually have a few expansions in the German big box edition that I have, but these rarely see play as I just love the purity and simplicity of the original, core game.

I’ve recently played Isle of Skye for the first time. It has some striking similarities to Carcassonne, but with bidding and variable scoring rules. I could see it making the list in future years, once I’ve had a chance to get a couple more games in.

28: Quadropolis

Previous Position: 18 (-10)

Year: 2016

Designer: François Gandon

Publisher: Days of Wonder

Plays: 2-4 players in ~30 to 60 minutes

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Quadropolis when I picked it up on a whim. I wasn’t expecting a city simulator or anything as complicated as that, but nor did I expect the game to be quite as abstract as it is. It’s a tile-laying game where players are trying to put combinations of districts in specific patterns to maximise points. It’s a bit of a pasted-on theme, but the game is a lot of fun and the artwork is cute.

Like many of the games from Days of Wonder, it’s pretty accessible and I’ve played it with my friend, parents, and groups of kids. It’s always pretty well received, but most people do better on their second playthrough, once they fully understand the scoring system, which is really the only (slightly) complicated bit of the game.

It’s funny that this game is so close in placement to Arcane Academy this year, as they’re quite similar games.

27: Dominion

Previous Position: 20 (-7)

Year: 2008

Designer: Donald X. Vaccarino

Publisher: Rio Grande Games

Plays: 3-4 players in ~30 minutes

The big daddy of deck-building games. I love this game. It’s just the best of its kind, and it’s a game I can play with lots of different people. It’s also great that my wife loves it, so it can make it onto the table quite often. I’ve not gone overboard with expansions, but I kind of wish I had. There’s still time…

The biggest thing that sets this game apart from many other deck builders is that you actually have to make decisions about what cards to play and what cards to buy. Games like the DC Comics Deck Building Game and Star Realms, although both fantastic, give you no reason to not just play all of your cards on every turn. Dominion only allows you to play one action card and make one purchase as standard. I’ve written about this before, at length, but it really does come down to the structure. I like Dominion’s structure and the decisions it forces the player to make.

26: Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia

Previous Position: New to the list

Year: 2013

Designers: Jamey Stegmaier, Alan Stone

Publisher: Stonemaier Games

Plays: 2-6 players in ~60 minutes

I backed the Kickstarter for this years ago and it sat on the shelf unplayed. This is not a new story… In this case I was completely missing out. The game is fantastic. I like worker placement games, but I only actually had Lord of Waterdeep, and I was getting bored of that. Adding this game to the mix (just before lockdowns began) felt pretty good.

The game is a fun worker placement with some cool resource management and excellent theming. I love the theme, which sees each player try to build their own little dystopian society in the post-apocalyptic hellscape. Fun!

25: Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress

Previous Position: New to the list

Year: 2018

Designer: Uncredited

Publisher: Games Workshop

Plays: 1-5 players in ~120 to 180 minutes

I came to Blackstone Fortress a little late. A great entry in the Warhammer Quest series, I’ve had a lot of fun playing this at club. it helps that we’ve been playing on one friend’s fantastically-painted set.

It’s a dungeon crawl, which is a genre that I really enjoy. It’s also 40K, which is cool, thematically. I really like the range of different characters, and how different they feel from one-another. I previously played the navigator, and am now enjoying the Zealot. I just like burning things! Wiping out a whole hex with an almighty blast from my flamer is insanely fun.

24: A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition)

Previous Position: Returning to the List

Year: 2011

Designer: Christian T. Petersen

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games

Plays: 3-6 players in ~120 to 240 minutes

Whatever your opinion on how the show ended, this game is really good. it dropped off the list in previous years due to what I think is a natural fatigue with the property.  It’s an area control game where the goal is to take over castles and keeps, allowing you to raise armies and continue your conquest of further castles and further keeps.  The game also features resource management, as you’re limited in how many armies you can muster and must carefully consider how to use the tokens generated by the land you control.  Your order tokens are also quite limited, allowing you to take a variety of different actions in your turn.

This is another game where the group you play with will change your experience considerably.  Some groups will be quiet and focused, whilst others will be wheeling and dealing, offering and breaking alliances left, right, and centre.  Try it with a few different groups and see what sort of approach you like.  Also make sure to try out different factions, as starting location makes a big difference to how you play.  My favourite faction to play would definitely be the Baratheons.

Ours is the fury!

23: Warhammer 40,000 (9th Edition)

Previous Position: New to the List

Year: 2020

Designers: Uncredited

Publisher: Games Workshop

Plays: 2 players in ~120-240 minutes

It’s no secret that my favourite flavour of Warhammer is Age of Sigmar. It’s such a great game. My first Warhammer was 40K, though. I started out with some books in second edition and picked up my first army in third edition. I probably stopped playing around the fifth edition.

I really got back into the game recently, in the latest (ninth) edition with my Necrons. I’ve recently taken part in our club’s 40K league. I’ve done alright with my Daemons, winning two games and losing two. I actually enjoyed the games a lot more than I thought I would. The core game is pretty solid, though the matched scoring is a bit of a mess. Convoluted nonsense, really.

I’d like to play more 40K in the coming year. I’d like to be in the same position as I am with Age of Sigmar, where I can happily field a decent army, entirely painted. I’ll get to it. Probably…

22: Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries

Previous Position: 25 (+3)

Year: 2004

Designer: Alan R. Moon

Publisher: Days of Wonder

Plays: 2-3 players (2-5 in standard Ticket to Ride) in ~30 to 60 minutes

The ultimate example of a solid gateway game, Ticket to Ride continues to make me happy in my heart.  We’ve picked up so much of it!  The original game, Europe, Rails and Sails, Germany, UK, and Nordic.  I also picked up most of the other maps at the bring and buy at Tabletop Scotland 2019.  Nordic is my favourite map, so I’ve used that as my example edition for this entry.

I love that I can break this out with any group and it just works.  I love that This is a game my wife will play, my gamer friends will play and my parents will play.  I love that it’s just so beautifully produced.  I will, at some point, pick up more of the maps, but I don’t even really need them.  I’d be happy playing the original version over and over and over again.  The maps are just gravy.

21: Dungeons & Dragons (5E)

Previous Position: 3 (-18)

Year: 2014

Designer: Jeremy Crawford, Mike Mearls, Bruce R. Cordell, Peter Lee, Robert J. Schwalb, Rodney Thompson, James Wyatt

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast

Plays: Ideally 4-6 over however long you want. Again, RPGs…

D&D has been in my top 10 every year despite not necessarily being my favourite game, so I was surprised to see it tumble down the list a bit this year. It’s good, of course, and this edition is really good, but there’s a shelf of RPGs behind me as I type this that I’d rather play on any given day. I think my D&D-fatigue is what’s precipitated this fall. I still love it. I still want to play. Just… could we maybe try something else? There are so many more interesting roleplaying games.

The groups I’ve played with over the past few years are what preserve the game as being worth playing. I’ve made new friends through this game, played in the longest campaign I’ve taken part in for any RPG, and just had a damn good time. D&D has broadened my horizons.

D&D also reinvogorated my after-school tabletop gaming group. It had been dwindling as our older members moved on, but by focusing on both younger children and on RPGs specifically, we’ve more than tripled our previous attendance figures. Again, it’s also been fun, but also a lot more work than it had previously been!

See you next time for part 4, featuring games 20-11