It’s that time of year again for those 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. You can click here to visit the first part, featuring games 50 through 41. Today, we’re looking at games 40 through 31. There are a couple of new entries in this part of the list this year. Let’s resume, shall we?
40: Carcassonne
Previous Position: 29 (-11)
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.
39: A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition)
Previous Position: 24 (-15)
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 made a return last year and has fallen a bit this year.
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, forcing you to take tough decisions as to the variety of different actions you could take on your turn.
This is another game where the group you play with will change your experience considerably, and kingmaking is a big factor at play. 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 is definitely the Baratheons. I love starting out at Dragonstone and invading the mainland. I suppose I could do similar with Greyjoys, but then I’d be playing as the Greyjoys. No.
Ours is the fury!
38: Dominion
Previous Position: 27 (-11)
Year: 2008
Designer: Donald X. Vaccarino
Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Plays: 3-4 players in ~30 minutes
The big daddy of deck-building games has tumbled down the ranking this year. I love this game. It’s just the purest 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.
37: Mutant: Year Zero
Previous Position: 19 (-18)
Year: 2014
Designer: Tomas Härenstam, Petter Bengtsson, Chris Birch, Anders Blixt, Thomas Johansson, Nils Karlén, Kosta Kostulas, Chris Lites
Publisher: Free League
Plays: I dunno, how big is your table? in hours to years, pal
Any book by Free League is a work of art. Mutant: Year Zero is no exception. The game itself is also really good. The underlying system that Free League designed is absolutely solid, and is a fantastic example of a nice, modern dice-pool system. It’s now been rolled out to other games like Alien, Blade Runner, Coriolis, and others.
I’ve had a lot of fun with this game over the past couple of years. My favourite bit is actually not the core system, but rather the base-building aspect, which I’ve written about previously.
My last attempt at running this did not go well. It started fine, but it just ended up drifting apart and was ultimately very unsatisfying. That disappointment might be a factor as to why it dropped quite so much this year.
36: Warhammer 40,000 (10th Edition)
Previous Position: 23 (-13)
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 (Eldar) in third edition. I probably stopped playing around the fifth edition.
I really got back into the game during ninth edition with my Necrons. I also took part in last year’s club league, using my Daemons. I enjoyed the games a lot more than I thought I would. Since then, tenth edition has come out.
Now, you might think from the 13-place plunge down the ranking this year that I dislike this new edition. That would be incorrect. I like it a lot, actually. Were we still in ninth, it would have plunged far further, and possibly off the list altogether. I’ve just not played that much, and other things have entertained me more. Hopefully this year will see it bring me a bit more joy.
35: Blitzkrieg
Previous Position: New to list
Year: 2019
Designer: Paolo Mori
Publisher: PSC Games
Plays: 1-2 Players in ~30 minutes
This was a new game for me this year, and one I enjoyed. It’s a classic tug of war-style wargame wherein you fight for control of different theatres of war. In that regard, and only really in that regard, it’s a bit like Twilight Struggle. There’s a lot more to Twilight Struggle, but one of the elements of that game that I enjoys is the tug of war. You definitely get that here!
The game is really straightforward, but it presents some genuinely challenging decisions when it comes to the commitment of resources. You can contest particular theatres for specific bonuses, but you know that in doing so, you are opening up somewhere else for your opponent. Every decision matters, and that’s a great part of what makes this game compelling, if not sometimes a tad frustrating!
I’ve not felt the need to buy this game as yet, but I had a great time with it.
34: Lords of Waterdeep
Previous Position: 46 (+12)
Year: 2012
Designers: Peter Lee, Rodney Thompson
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Plays: 2-5 players in ~60 to 120 minutes
Lords of Waterdeep has been a game that rockets up and down and in and out of my list. It returned to the list last year, having previously fallen out of it altogether. This year, it sees a significantly improved standing as I have found myself looking more to worker placement games. It does still hold up as a pretty solid worker placement game that is easy to get to the table. The game has enough cards and buildings to make it quite replayable and there’s also a fantastic app version for even easier play. This still seems to be the standard, gateway-style worker placement game for new gamers or those new to the genre. It was also my game of the month back in May!
33: Warcry
Previous Position: 9 (-24)
Year: 2019
Designer: Uncredited
Publisher: Games Workshop
Plays: 2-4 Players in ~30 to 60 minutes
Warcry is really fun. It just doesn’t seem to be fun enough for me to actually play. I have been looking to other skirmish games this year, and have been playing a lot more AoS, so this has been left somewhat by the wayside.
In terms of gameplay, Warcry is not really a cut-down version of Age of Sigmar, but rather a completely different game that just looks pretty similar. It’s certainly a big step up over the old Age of Sigmar Skirmish rules which were fine, but not really anything special. This ruleset is just so intuitive and simple, and I really appreciate it for what it is.
I’ve been a bit disappointed that the game has, like Kill Team, become a game that is released primarily as big box release after big box release. It’s a horrible release model.
32: DC Comics Deck-Building Game
Previous Position: 33 (+1)
Year: 2012
Designer: Matt Hyra, Ben Stoll
Publisher: Cryptozoic Entertainment
Plays: 2-5 players in ~45 minutes
Rising incrementally for the second year in a row, we have the DC Deck-Building Game. My biggest criticism of this game remains unchanged, in that you could play much of the game on autopilot. There’s generally no reason not to just play all of your cards every turn. There are no real decisions to be made in the playing of cards like there is in, say, Dominion. It’s too free, too open, too loose.
That said, it’s still a lot of fun, and you’ll see that it’s actually above Dominion this year. The game looks really pretty and is full of references for comic fans to feast upon. You do get to make decisions on the content of your deck as you buy cards from the middle of the table. It’s a good, accessible, fun deck-builder that doesn’t take too much thought and has a ton of expansions if you want to add more cards to your mix. Despite the flaws, this still sees a lot of play, and probably more play than a lot of my “better” deck-builders which might explain why it ranks pretty well.
31: Warhammer Underworlds
Previous Position: New to List
Year: 2017
Designers: Dave Sanders (lead designer)
Publisher: Games Workshop
Plays: 2 players in ~30 minutes
This is a game that I revisit every so often, but have never really stuck with. I love the minis. There aren’t many warbands for this game that don’t look fantastic. I finally got around to painting one of them this year, too!
The game is pretty straightforward, and very tight for a GW game. It’s actually the only Games Workshop game where I consider credible competitive play to be possible, though I know many will disagree with me on that.
I like that the focus has, in more recently years, been taken off of building your deck, putting less pressure on players to buy everything to get all the best cards. That’s a toxic business model that is best left to the likes of Asmodee! Hey, X-Wing, I’m looking at you…
Keen to play this more, and to paint up more of the fantastic minis.
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