Top 50 Games of 2023 (50-41)

It’s that time of year again for what might just be the most prestigious gaming award from my specific post code! Welcome to the NoRerolls Top 50 Games of 2023 list; an arbitrary ranking of the games that I love.

This is a list of 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.  This year, this section of the list has a couple of new entries and then a bunch of games that were previously higher on the list. Let’s kick things off, shall we?

50: Dice Miner

Previous Position: New to the list

Year: 2021

Designers: Joshua DeBonis, Nikola Risteski

Publisher: Atlas Games

Plays: 1-4 players in ~20 to 30 minutes

A delightfully innovating dice game, Dice Miners plays around with the physicality of these little luck cubes, having players draft dice to add to their own collections. These are then rolled to generate points, effects, and interactions. The game is really simple at its core, and has a nice tactile element to it.

The game has a good mix of luck and skill. You can plan things out and make good choices on what dice to mine, but you are still ultimately at the mercy of the little blighters. You can stack the odds in your favour, but there’s still the chance that your rolls just won’t back it up. I like this, as it gives newer, less experienced players a chance at victory, even if they’re not as familiar with the different combinations and synergies. There’s even a bit of asymmetrical play – always a big plus for me – with the inclusion of variable player powers.

All in all, a nice game that I enjoyed. I could see this moving up the list if I could spend a bit more time with it.

49: Blood Bowl

Previous Position: 41 (-8)

Year: 1986

Designer: Jervis Johnson

Publisher: Games Workshop

Plays: 2 players in ~180 minutes

Blood Bowl!  Great game!  One of my earliest board games, and this still holds a special place in my heart.  It also holds quite a large place in my collection, as there are just so many boxes of it!  I’ve got the first, second, and third edition boxes, plus the most 2016 edition (pictured) and the even more recent edition.  I’ve got three painted third-party teams and have recently painted a GW Nurgle team.  The third party teams are a Shadowforge Pro Elf team, a Black Scorpion Skaven team, and a Warlord Games Dwarf team.

As with most miniatures games that are not Age of Sigmar, this has not made it to the table too often in the past few years, and not at all in 2023.  It’s still great, but I feel that it takes a little long for what it is.  Some people criticise it for the amount of randomness involved, but I think this is okay.  It’s not usually what I like in games but, with Blood Bowl, you know that this chaos is part of it.  You know what you’re getting into.  Also, minimising this randomness is why I quite like playing Dwarfs.  That said, I’d like to get some more teams painted up…

48: Forbidden Stars

Previous Position: 32 (-16)

Year: 2015

Designers: Samuel Bailey, James Kniffen, Corey Konieczka

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games

Plays: 2-4 players in ~120 to 180 minutes

Now out of print, Forbidden Stars continues to scratch a specific itch and does so using a familiar, fun theme, even if it has tumbled down my rankings this year.  If Warhammer 40,000 is the game of massed battles in the 41st millennium, then Forbidden Stars takes a step back and gives you control of the wider campaign, deploying ships and troops, moving your forces around the galaxy, engaging in coordinated battles in pursuit of objectives and artifacts.

The first few times I played this game, I did not really appreciate the combat aspect.  I’ve since gotten a better handle on this and I like it a lot more than I did.  I still enjoy the logistics of the game, building bases, amassing units and deploying them as required.  This is a heavy game, but it does a lot and a particularly great when played with all four players.  It’s just a pity there won’t be any expansions…

This is also a game where I feel that if I got it to the table more often, got some more games in, and really got my head around it, it could shine.

47: Kingdomino

Previous Position: 35 (-12)

Year: 2016

Designer: Bruno Cathala

Publisher: Blue Orange

Plays: 2-4 players in ~15-25 minutes

I like tile-laying games. Carcassonne, Patchwork, New York Zoo; all are absolute gold. I’ve really been enjoying Isle of Skye this year as well. Kingdomino is another fantastic, little tile-laying game. It’s light, fun, accessible, and charming. Don’t underestimate the importance of that last characteristic! 

Kingdomino is one of those games that, after trying it for the first time, I went and ordered it for myself. That’s always high praise. I’m considering picking up Queendomino as well, as I understand it’s very much a ‘next step’ game, adding a layer of complexity to proceedings.

46: Clank

Previous Position: 41 (-5)

Year: 2016

Designer: Paul Dennen

Publisher: Renegade Game Studios

Plays: 1-4 players in ~30 to 60 minutes

Clank remains a great game, though I do feel a little burnt out on it in 2023.  It’s a union of two genres that I really like.  Those are the deck builder and the dungeon crawl.  It works really well, with the engine you build with your deck coming to represent your hero and his or her capabilities.  Focus and optimise your deck for a focused and optimised hero.  Fill it with random nonsense and get… well… not that.

The game can get a tad repetitive, hence the drop in placement for a second year in a row.  I love the deck building, but the dungeon crawl gets a little stale if overplayed.  Maybe it’s just that it’s the same 2 maps, over and over.  There are expansions with new maps (and Catacombs, which generates a randomised map through exploration), but I’ve not picked any of these up.  That said, still a great game!

45: Twilight Imperium

Previous Position: 37 (-8)

Year: 2005

Designer: Christian T. Petersen

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games

Plays: 2-6 players (more with expansions) in ~180 to 240 minutes

This game previously fell down the list because of how hard it is to get to the table and that is again the case this year.  The few times I had played the third edition were pretty great.  It’s climbed back up the list because the fourth edition is even better.  The game is expansive (and, let’s be honest, expensive), and deep, and it gives players so many different paths to follow and options to consider.  It’s also a lot more intuitive than you might expect.  There’s a lot there, a lot to remember, and a lot to keep on top of, but there’s no individual part that I’d consider to be overly complicated in itself.

On the one hand, I’ve not managed to get this to the table much. On the other, I’m never going to be able to do that. This game is a big commitment that I reckon we’d only get to play a couple of times a year, tops. That’s okay; it is what it is.

44: Frostgrave

Previous Position: New to the List

Year: 2015

Designer: Joseph McCullough

Publisher: Osprey

Plays: 2 players in ~60 minutes (there’s scope for more, but this is generally how we play)

Frostgrave had a moment in our local club back when first edition first came out. I wasn’t really dealing with miniatures at the time, so I didn’t pay much attention and it passed me by. Now, we have a few folk interested in second edition and it’s experiencing a resurgence. This year I painted up two warbands (some soldiers and some cultists) and one of them, the soldiers, has seen some action on the table. My opponent fields cultists, so it seemed better to take the soldiers.

The game is simple, yet satisfying, and I’m really delighted with how it played. I’m hoping to get it to the table a bit more next year and am toying with the idea of trying to build out the bestiary for it.

43: Hero Realms

Previous Position: 38 (-5)

Year: 2016

Designers: Robert Dougherty, Darwin Kastle

Publisher: White Wizard Games

Plays: 2-4 players in ~20-30 minutes

Star Realms is my most played game ever.  That is, it’s my most played game if you let me count digital playthroughs.  For years, I would play a few rounds of the Star Realms app each and every day.  Over time, the app kind of killed this game for me.  It was just too much repetition and I stopped enjoying the experience as much as I should.

I took a break from it.

The thing is, it’s still a great game with a lot going for it!  First up, it’s a deck builder.  Immediately, I’m going to like this game.  Then, the art is cool.  This is even truer for Hero Realms (hey, look, I’m getting to the point!), the fantasy version of the game, which is bloody beautiful, and has actually replaced Star Realms in my regular rotation.  It’s also really competitive.  You and your opponent are pitted against each other and properly go for it, throwing hero after hero at the one another.

42: Santorini

Previous Position: 39 (-3)

Year: 2016

Designer: Gord!

Publisher: Spin Master

Plays: 2-4 players in ~20 minutes

I like that this is basically a platformer in board game form.  For such a cute, simple game it always amazes me how vitriolic a game of Santorini can become.  This is especially true when one player forgets the function of another player’s ability and is taken by surprise.  Salt.  For.  Days.

This is a game that is accessible to a wide range of players.  Most of my games have been with kids, and it works well with them.  The building aspect of the game is satisfyingly tactile and you end up with a really beautiful board by the end, assuming nobody just runs away with an early victory. That happens.

41: Dead of Winter

Previous Position: 14 (-27)

Year: 2014

Designer: Jonathan Gilmour, Isaac Vega

Publisher: Plaid Hat Games

Plays: 2-5 players in ~45 to 210 minutes

Dead of Winter is a great semi-cooperative game where players work together to meet a shared objective whilst also trying to fulfil an individual, secret objective.  The Crossroads cards, for which this series of games is named, is an event deck that triggers each turn if and when specific pre-requisites are met.  The Crossroad cards take a game that would already be great and add a random element that really works well to up the ante and create truly tense situations.  Some of the cards really screw you over, too!

I love working with others and planning out how to meet the shared objective in this game.  I do try to meet my personal, secret objective, but I always try to keep a firmer handle on the shared one.  Maybe this is why I lose so often…  Dead of Winter is tense, fun, and occasionally manic.  It can present truly difficult decisions, but also hilarious situations.  This is a game that really develops a narrative in a natural, unforced way.

The game has tumbled down the rankings this year. As with Clank, this is from burnout. it turns you can have too much of a good thing. The game is fantastic, but you can become a bit jaded to the Crossroad mechanic over time, and there’s a lot to set up and put away. It still sees a lot of play, but it’s rarely my first choice any more.

See you next time for part 2, featuring games 40-31