I'm so happy to see you both picked Witcher: Old World on your lists (I'm from Poland so a tiny bit of patriotism is showing), I'm having a blast each time I play it with my friends, either competitive regular mode or vs Wild Hunt, mixing the expansions and dealing with exploration cards. It's certainly my number 1 of the year and all together right now :) And also thanks to your playthroughs and reviews I backed the campaigns for Tanares Adventures and The Isofarian Guard and can't wait for those two to arrive - thank you! Oh and Professor Meg - your hair is very pretty, and Alex - I'm starting to get jealous of your beard, whatever I do I just can't get mine to be that good looking. Looking forward to many more vids from you this year! :)
Marvel Zombies is currently my group's favorite game. Since I got the rest of my pledge we've been pulling random characters from the core game, the Xmen, the Guardians expansion and stretch goals to test out. It's been a challenging and fun way to try out all the new powers and abilities. We also added all the new Zombie/Super Heroes and bystanders to the decks which has brought a welcome and crazy amount of variety to the gameplay. I love all the wacky scenarios and match-ups that can arise. It's been a blast!
The dynamic duo! My top 5 of 2023: Marvel United Spidergeddon, ICE, Sleeping Gods Distant Skies (maybe if it technically made it), Oros, Taverns and Dragons.
For Northwood was one of those games I threw in my cart and never picked it up. Went to snag it a few months back and it was gone at that point. I can't find it anywhere! Not even at my 2 go-to FLGSs. That said, I was able to snag 20 Strong with both expansions, so I have a nice small-box solo for now. Great lists and glad to see Witcher up there! I haven't seen it on a lot of 2023 lists surprisingly.
So little love for The Vale of Eternity or Astro Knight Eternity (vastly improving the first iteration). Granted, they landed in late 2023 but still deserve a bit of attention.
Lol to be expected. As much as I respect their content, my opinions are usually very contrary to theirs. I believe dice tower loved it too, I tend to align more that way.
Nice video and interesting lists! Guess I need to look into Sankore. Sounded like a lot of crunchy tension. We must be missing something with Beast though. We played a few games (3-player) and it fell really flat for us. It should be something we really like but we didn't find the drafting or gameplay very interesting. Generally felt like there were really few decisions of consequence that you could make because it was always obvious what choice you had to make. Anyway, what are we missing with Beast???!!!!!
Just sold Victorum, it's a lovely game and the combat was quite good but I had to face the fact that when I wanted to sit and play through a character developing combat challenge I would pick Too Many Bones every time. TMB just has more interesting characters and Victorum was too long a game (I know they're fixing that). Add in the box that is not storage friendly at all, Victorum takes up a LOT of space. Would like to try For Northwood but I can't find it for sale anywhere in the UK, maybe not available on this side of the pond yet?
With games like Castle of Burgundy that are just remakes, I would only leave them in like this type of list if the new content is enough to push them into the Top 10 of 2023. Vineyards is ok, don't think it makes the game better then it already was, its just good to change content once and a while.
so when you did your top 100 you mentioned you still hadn't played CoB with the new Vineyard expansion. Has that changed? because I really love the new expansion. I think it adds some extra decision space, and on those occasional bad rolls, it can give you some good options when you'd normally be stuck just taking workers. That and the production shot it to my #1 game. I was quite surprised when I was doing my PubMeeple list but I just want to play it moreeeeeee! anyways, thanks for another great Vid from you and Meg
I guess i need to pickup for northwood, I'm not a fan of trick taking games but the insane hype around it i feel i should give it a chance, not like i'd break the bank getting it anwyays. Still want Ticket but haven't found it to buy anywhere, and i can only play solo games these days. Still curious about apiary, typically i love SM games so I'm like i feel i'd enjoy, but idk still.
Isn't For Northwood a 2021 game? It just seems to have increased in popularity (and maybe availability) in 2023. BGG has it listed as 2021 and it seems to have won awards as a 2021 game as well.
The print and play version came out in 2021, but retail only came out in 2023. The retail version has multiple gameplay changes such as a different scoring mechanism, balanced rulers, and a campaign :) I think of it as a 2023 game too.
How do you feel about the negative review of Ticket To Ride Legacy that Shut Up and Sit Down just put out? Agree, disagree, feel like y'all just like different things in games?
There is an interesting contrast between Alex saying it brought back the excitement of Pandemic Legacy, and SU&SD's view that it was missing what made Pandemic Legacy exciting. Two very different views.
As much as I think SUSD has some of the most incredible board game content out there, I have unfortunately found over the years and that not only do I not align with them, I usually actively unalign with them 🙂 if they like something, there's a decent chance that I won't, if they don't like something, there's a decent chance that I will.
Personally I don’t love the collab videos. The banter seems to stall and really kills the pace of the video for me. But great lists and another great year of games!
Have you tried Thunder Road Vendetta, Pirates of Maracaibo, World Wonders, Dune Imperium Uprising - total bangers of 2023!!! The Witcher Old World is the biggest disappointment I have ever had in the board gaming hobby - too much money for the long, boring game it is.
My favorite game that came out in 2023 is probably Patterns: A Mandala Game. The scoring is the same as Mandala but the gameplay is different, and in my view a better game. I love Mandala, but there is still some randomness with card draws. Patterns is a no luck area control game with tons of choices, depth, strategy, and can be quite vicious when you get good at it.
