Top 10 Surprise Games of 2018 

I really enjoy/miss when you show pictures of the game you are talking about.

Tom is right (at 1:04:16), every time someone would ask a question about anything other than KeyForge, we'd lose it. Ha! That was a fun InFlight report.

Zee´s description of the cover of Carpe Diem was hilarious! :-)

Keyforge has been my biggest surprise of the year, I was skeptical the whole way till I played it with my friend and it blew us away.

Awww man I miss such crazy moments like this! “Aaaaahhhh Cash Grab!” 🤣

Totally agree with Toms No.2 : Vindication. Turned out to be way lighter and faster than i expected, but that just made me want to play it more often

The hammer was fixed in playtesting, but it got a lot of press when the ks launched. Don't worry it's not an issue in final game

I am completely surprised that Sam liked a bunch of Zombie and Viking games. 2018 better slow down with these blindsides. I cannot take anymore!

Zee, I laughed for a good five minutes at "Walking Bread", thanks for that. 😆

Does anyone know when crown of emara will distribute in the U.S.?

The mic is really quiet in this video.

Im really curious at trying deep madness, didnt have money though for the reprint kickstarter. :( Not sure about Keyforge, might try it one day though.

You 3 really had me laughing with this one! Good list and funny people :)!!

I couldn't stop laughing with this one with you guys :). Good job!

is there a dice tower video for vindication

Great banter!

I like to pretend Eric is at least playing the drums during the cut scenes.

That was fun - thank you! Ticket to Ride NY, Gingerbread House, and Illusion would be on my list - Wolfgang Warsch in general: The Mind, Ganz Shön Clever, Brikks, Quacks (just ordered)

Lol you guys are hilarious! Keep up the good work!

What I'm really interested about is what do you think of Master of the Galaxy by Ares Games? I think it is awesome, I thought it would be on one of your lists or at least you do a review on it

“Stay in school kids.” This public service announcement brought to you by the Healey. You will love Blood Rage or he will find you.....

Funny enough Brass was my biggest surprise of 2018. I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I would.

There's already a thread on Fantasy Flight's forums about Keyforge decks that, once the right cards are in place, can win in 1 or 2 turns.

I really miss pictures from the actual games...

great to see some love for deep madness, Zee has an eye for elegant design in miniatures games

Zee enacting Carpe Diem cover made my day :D

At around 1:00:40, I think the name you guys were looking for there is "Phillip N. Wright".

This list is always better then the actual top 10 games of the year

Did Zee say 'crap'? The earth moves. Awesome.

That Fertility joke, though.. :D

I am currently designing a euro-game called 'the walking bread.' sad that zee spoiled it...

Zee gets a prop and the hilarity is immediate!!

What is the song at the end?

I love that Sam got caught up on the Victorian Racoons.

as far as I know, the ‘Manassas Hammer’ was found and fixed in play testing. so its not a problem and should not come up as an issue.

Keyforge is doing incredibly well at my store and I think it will continue to do so especially with the release of future sets. I would love to see more Unique Deck games in the future. (FFG's Android theme, PLEASE!!!)

Loved Zee’s unintended double entendre... “Get whaled upon by giant creatures in the dark deep”...

Crown of Emara is so good. I can’t wait for it to get to the states. If it had a more interesting theme it’d be all over the place.

Wow, so honored to have The King's Guild chosen as Tom's #4! Thanks Dice Tower!

The only question I have about this list is, why does the game Lincoln have Lance Henriksen on the cover? Great video as always gents!!!!

Part of what makes Smartphone Inc's cover look good is the style the art is in, which is fresh and quite a bit different than the 70s illustration style that many trading in the Mediterranean games have. I honestly think guy in front of castle would be interesting art if the style was a bit more like this

Sam is somewhere in my TOP 10 grumpy zombie viking dwarves -list.

Zee talking about the cover of Carpe Diem... LMAO

How could I forget Mark Herman"s For the People.

Well, I still remember Tailfeathers. The review I watched expressed concern about just what its intended audience was and whether it would find it...

Did you guys not try Street Masters: Rise of the Kingdom? Hands down my favorite game of this year. Went in expecting nothing, and yet its topping the list. Good solo, and at every player count past that. So many options in the way you combine stages, villians, and heroes. And once you get past all that, they have a "story mode" with short stories for the heros. If you havnt played it, youre doing yourself a dis service. Its amazing.

You should lower the volume of those number transitions, scared the shit outta me hahaha

Heroes of Dominaria was surprisingly solid, especially if you play the variant where you start with 2 mana on each space. The miniatures were completely useless, and it could have benefitted from variable player powers, but overall still good. Hail Hydra Is a great game, but thus far, we have yet to have Shield Win, as the double "Hail Hydra" seems to often be enough to end a game. especially if it is done in coordination with an enemy damaging the city. Azul Stained Glass was surprisingly fun. Having played Azul dozens of time, I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it is, how much for control you have over what you do and how much easier scoring was to keep track of. Keyforge my group and I have been enjoying. I am curious to see what kind of staying power it has. The game takes a lot longer to play so far than I expected. Hopefully more plays will speed it up a little. Crown of Emara is really under people's radars, but it is just a solid fun game to play. I wish I could score a copy in the US.

"Books have words. It's disgusting." 😂

The Walking Bread are the baddies in video game Overcooked 2, Zee!!! :P

All Hail Brass!!! I laughed out loud this time :D

9:35 I want to see that movie, too. :)

"Books have words. It's disgusting!" :D

Crown of Emara doesn't get released until Q3 of 2019... don't tease me in a 2018 list if I can't buy it. :)

Let's make a bus route is a great game! I am so not a roll (flip) and write person, but this game wow!

"There is nothing scary in the game - unless you look for it. And then there is. But it's not there." What.

Hey Sam, Richard Garfield also designed King of Tokyo!

Is it just me, or does Zee look slimmer? Maybe i dont watch enough DT videos.

What in God's name is up with the pictures between each number??

A keyforge deck is only half of the game, you need 2 to play :) and some counters on top of it from any game

Crown of Emara is amazing!!

At 36:20, about finding a dominant strategy in the game Lincoln, Sam said, "People usually play games once and then they go play other games. " If he meant people usually play games once "in one sitting", that might be true. But you could find a dominant strategy in a game, if the game has one, by playing the game many times over time. If Sam meant that people usually play a game once and then they don't play it again ever, that is definitely NOT true. Most of the thousands of people who purchased any BGG Top 100 game play it several times at least; enough to find a dominant strategy, if there is one.

Man the audio on these videos is always so quiet.

Burritos are a better delivery system. Agreed. The mics are on. ;)

7:24 Thanks, Zee, for saving me from having to comment that. :) >> 19:58 The best/worst thing about that joke is that he was actually right. >> 21:56 Not what that word means. :) >> 30:48 Has Tom been watching The Dragon's Tomb? :) >> 31:33 Zee's gotta be trolling... >> 44:01 I'd noticed that - Century: Spice Road and Raccoon Tycoon come to mind.

59:00 Try Dairyman!

The audio is too low!

Ha ha. Victorian Trashbandits. Totally stealing this for my band name.

dV Giocchi will do anything with Bang; there was a Halo(Bungie)-themed Bang once.

Sometimes I get the impression that Sam and Zee really don’t like each other. Put them in a room together for an evening and see who comes out alive.

Legacy: Dwarven Viking Zombies: The Reckoning

May need one of those cash grab guns for work.

it's funy cause not a single person on the cover of walkign dead no sanctuay is still on the show

How is the King’s Guild a bad name?

No one says NOOOOOO!!!!! like Zee.

More pictures...Please! The rest is good

As a professional plumber I say: "Let's hear it for feces!"

Am I the only one who heard Sam say “Absolut Feces” like a fecal tasting vodka? (I am not a drinker so, I have no idea how vodka tastes)

after hiding the cashgun, I have only one thing to say: #samdoesntlikefun

Top ten games still in shrink wrap.

Bashing Tail Feathers. Way to stomp on a grave.

Age of steam

I'm surprised that none of the top 10 biggest surprises were games that they were expecting to be good actually turned out to be bombs?

Seems like the order of these top 10's should be reversed. Do top 10 surprises, top 10 artwork, etc. and then have top 10 of 2018 at the end of December or beginning of January so it isn't out of date so quickly.

I'm calling it, Shadespire will be on Sam's list.... ;)

ok I really, really thought the money gun was funny.

Ok I'm only a few minutes in, but why does this have to be about games you like. Were there any you were surprised were so bad?

I am with Sam, Azul is not a good-looking game.... I think there is alot of "Emperor's New Clothes" going on.

Honesty is always appreciated by the consumer, but I don't know if it's going to win you any favor for your channel. If you get a reputation for being too honest, it may limit the amount of opportunities you have to get publishers to send you things. It is hard to make a clear definition that you don't like a particular aspect of a thing, but that the rest of it may be amazing and worth the money. If you review both the minis and the game, then that may be much more of a fair representation. My copy of Edge: Dawnfall appears to be in much better shape than the one you were able to get, so I'm not sure how indicative a single sample review is of how they are assembled. I'm a manager at a quality control company in a different industry and I can tell you there's a reason our entire industry is in the US rather than anywhere else in the world - the commitment to quality is much higher. We even tried setting up an office in Poland years ago (where AR is located) and just couldn't make it work. I will say that as far as game materials, I'm less disappointed on the minis I got (as my box seems to be in pretty good shape), as I am on the supplemental story materials that I paid extra for. They didn't even run them through a basic spelling/grammar check before printing. They may have never even been proofread.. and I paid extra to get the story bundle. I went through Nemesis with a fine-toothed comb for them for free and hopefully they fixed the grammar and spelling issues that I sent off to them for that game. At least the game part of the hobby seems to be on solid footing. The games have big boards with lots of paths to success. Nemesis has the social deduction aspect that I think is incredibly interesting. Even Edge has multiple paths and a TON of scenarios to play through each faction with an in-depth story and legacy mechanics. Even the story bundle I complained about has some great stories ("Karak the Screamer" has been the best so far, but a simple spell check would have prevented "fwight" instead of "fight" from making it through to the printer as one example) that are getting me pumped to get this painted and played. They didn't crowd-source the QC on Edge, but they did on Nemesis. I hope they continue to learn from their mistakes and get better while continuing to push out games that are interesting to play. You may have been happier with the Chapter box rather than the Reborn.

None of the ones I thought would be interesting are available. Games from 2018 that cant be found in 2019, so can they really be called 2018 games when they are kickstarters that aren’t available to anyone beyond backers?

I am so shocked Sam liked TWD: No Sanctuary so much... I really really dislike it, and am struggling to sell it.

Zee and Sam swap back to normal seats please! Just feels wrooong =)

Why do people prefer Dice Bang over Real Bang? I love Bang but hate Bang Dice Game

It's not a real video without a few poop jokes

My top 10 list, yes these are not necessarily new games, but first time for me: 1: Blood Rage 2: Starship Samurai 3: Monsterpocalypse 2.0 4: Splendor 5: Space Cadets Away Missions 6: Magic The Gathering 7: Arcadia Quest 8: Specter Ops 9: Ticket to Ride 10: Zombicide Green Horde

Sam does that mean 3rd Reich is out of the question to play :)))

My surprise of the year is why anybody would like KeyForge - it's just another boring old Magic deckbuilder clone. Or like Zee said, "Beeeeeeh" ^_^

Most disappointing games of 2018?

I think original Azul is ugly too, Sam! I like the new one!

Victory Games Civil War, GMT Civil War, SPI War Between the States much better Civil War games.