Great Review. Things that make you guys stand out: -Good Lighting -Great positive energy -you picked games you liked instead of games people expect to see. -titles of games stay on screen for easy scrubbing. -multiple beautiful shots of components. -Passionate, concise descriptions of key game mechanics.
4:17 - 10. Everdell 7:39 - 9. Kitchen Rush 11:17 - 8. Pursuit of Happiness 15:43 - 7. Rajas of the Ganges 19:23 - 6. Architects of the West Kingdom 23:15 - 5. Champions of Midgard 27:37 - 4. The Prodigals Club 31:47 - 3. Shakespeare 35:52 - 2. A Feast for Odin 40:08 - 1. Viticulture
Great list Murphs! I always love a game of Lords of Waterdeep, Orleans, Keyper or the most violent and confrontational worker placement game of all, Sons of Anarchy!
My favorites are Lords of Waterdeep and The Godfather: Corleone's Empire. I need to play Feast for Odin, Viticulture and Architects of the West Kingdom.
My list is something like 1. Dominant Species 2. Keyflower 3. Agricola 4. Ground Floor 5. Dungeon Petz 6. Bus This is by no means my favorite mechanism, but these are all really great games.
I'm so glad Shakespeare made it high on this list. Great list guys. Fun as always. My favorite worker placement at the moment is probably split between Raiders of the North See and Architects of the West Kingdom.
Pleasantly surprised you picked Viticulture #1. I have it and don't drink either but I grow grapes and like gardening, so the theme is interesting. You can pretend you are making wine, grape juice, or vintage vinegar.
Anachrony is tied with AFfO as my favorite worker placement game, they're both fantastic. A Feast for Odin's expansion was released today. I'm so excited to get it to the table! Targi is a great worker placement game that you should try. And it's cheap! For Rajas I just describe the dice as your resources. Currency works too, but that can get confused with the money track, so I like resources.
Very impressed by your continual evolution, guys. Very slick production and great interplay. You are a fab and fresh element of the board game reviewer scene.
My favorite worker placement games are from the Manhattan Project series. I also enjoy Lords of Waterdeep, The Godfather, Stone Age and Champions of Midgard (we at least agree on one)
Ah, worker placement. Objectively the greatest and most awesome of game mechanisms. It separates the wheat from the chaff in terms of whether a so-called "gamer" is actually for real. If you don't like worker placement, you clearly don't even belong in this hobby. :D
Have you tried Targi? It is our favorite two player worker placement game and with the expansion it's even better 😁 I loved that you implemented pictures of the games into the video!
Love to see Rajas of the Ganges on the list, it's one of my favorite games! Have you played with the stuff in the Goodie Boxes? They add a lot of great stuff. In Viticulture I really like the way the grande worker is used.
Good gateway I haven’t seen listed is Asking for Trobils. Fun cartoony space theme plus at 2 players you can bump the opponent from a spot and collect an extra resource. Thanks for adding pictures of the games. 👍
Tribune is my favourite. Worker Placement is not my favourite mechanism, as it was created to take the teeth out of the auction games of the the 90’s and early 2000’s.
Great video lads. I really enjoy Sons of Anarchy for a different spin on worker placement. There's much heavier player interaction than most WP games. The board is different every game and you have to react to how it changes each round. There's a tonne of sideline deals, negotiating, and backstabbing. The big downside is you need 4 for it to be good, and the expansion and 5 to make it sing. If you're not getting in each other's way a lot, it loses something.
MIDGARD!!! Got a bunch of worker placement games in last year weekend. Was excited to learn everdell. Gameplay was HO hum. Berries were best part. Oh well. Play the games!
Late comment but I havent seen it mentioned. Manhattan Project: Energy Empire is a very good worker placement with the interesting mechanics of still being able to go to a place already taken, but it costing you more, and no set rounds, you choose when to take all your workers back and start over, to keep it brief.
I played Shakespeare once, but wasn't impressed. It just seemed like a bunch of striving for not a lot of points. I may give it another shot if an opportunity comes up, though, if only to assert that you guys are wrong. :P
I'd say worker placement should be defined as when you're on a space there should be a mechanism to "hinder" your opponent. Whereas most worker placement games simply stop an opponent, now its open for other games to create other methods to hinder an opponent.
Have you guys played Grimm Forest? Like Everdell it is a great starter game for newbs getting into board games and worker placement games. Plus, the artwork is beautiful.
how about an index in the sub? 1. viticulture 2. ff odin 3. shakesphere. Instead of viticulture which sucks, go for V:EE which is awesome. And I never heard of Arhictecs.
Great list guys! Viticulture and Feast for Odin reign supreme! If you haven’t already, give Manhattan Project Energy Empire a go...it’s a very satisfying experience!
If you guys haven't had the chance I highly recommend Chimera Station by Tasty Minstrel. The twist of upgrading your workers to have unique abilities is so fun, and planning which modules to build and where on the map to maximize your benefit without giving too much to your opponent is a great puzzle as well. I also really like Alien Frontiers, and Alchemists
You should try Coal Baron the card game. You must play exactly one more worker than the previous person spent to play at a spot. I also love the mind-melting The Gallerist. There are only a handful of spots to place on but so many decisions. My favorite Lacerda game!
So glad you drew attention to how fine Mike's hair was looking. Now I don't have to worry whether it's ok for me to be admiring Mike's hair 👌... but I am worried that you want to get rid of all the redheads 😯
You need to play Coldwater Crown. It is my #3 worker placement behind Viticulture and Architects, and The Sea expansion should be arriving any day now.
It wasn't on your list, so I can only assume you haven't played it yet, so check out Anachrony. It's probably my favorite worker placement game at the moment. Very cool and unique theme and some new mechanics that really tie in with the theme. Check it out.
Great list, definitely have to try most of these sooner than later. Some of mine definitely are Scythe, Anachrony and Lords Of Waterdeep. I have wanted to get Raiders of the North Sea for a long time. Do you guys reckon you liked Architects more?
My top ten would be: 1. Champions of Midgard 2. Argent: The Consortium 3. Anachrony 4. Viticulture 5. Charterstone 6. Everdell 7. A Feast for Odin 8. The Rise of Queensdale 9. The Pillars of the Earth 10.Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery
Rajas of the Ganges is a great game indeed. Resource/commodity are most fitting terms for the dice? considering that you already have a wealth track that you also use as a currency to pay for actions :) My top 10 list is the only correct list out there though :)
I take it you haven't been able to try Anachrony yet? If you get a chance it is very worth your time. I haven't tried Shakespeare or Prodigal's Club but Anachrony has jumped above all my other favorite worker placement games. Hah, I typed this comment while you were going through Viticulture, hadn't gotten to your comment about Anachrony yet :)
We actually have played it at this point, we were able to play it about 3 days after we recorded this. It was very good, we played at 4 and I don't think I'd eve do that again, it's too long. And I think I will like it much much more after another play or two. It was good, but I think I need to be a little more familiar with what I am doing.
@@TheBrothersMurph Repeated plays definitely help. For just the base game I like 3 players best, if you throw in the expansion module Pioneers of New Earth I like playing 4 player. Either way once you know the game 25-30 minutes a player is the normal playing time.
have yall tried Nippon (industrialization of Japan in the 1870's), Seems yall have Scythe (am surprised its not on yalls top 10), Euphoria (high tech and mind blowing drugs). I am also a fan of Lords of Waterdeep, Stone Age, & Charterstone(Legacy worker placement).....
You guys need to play Euphoria, it is even better than Viticulture! If you like it, you should also do Charterstone the Legacy worker placement game with similar mechanics. Also check out Splotter's Bus, the first worker placement game.
Instead of Midgard play Waterdeep, it is kinda similar, but much much better, without the luck, and plus interaction due to the buildings you buy and the intrigue cards.
Great list. Love your passion. I'm definitely going to have to give Architects and Viticulture a try. Love 🍷, so it looks right up my alley. My favorite WP is Dino Island. Also just got Treasure Mountain and am enjoying it a lot.
First of all, I really appreciate your distinction between worker placement and action selection as those lines blur very easily (I think my brother and I more or less settled on a similar classification). Also, I definitely agree that the front loading of information makes teaching worker placement a big challenge. Some worker placement games that are our favourites that weren't mentioned: Alchemists (it definitely toes that worker placement/action selection line - though I would argue that it has a lot of denial - intentional or otherwise). Dungeon Petz. Lords of Waterdeep (though this has probably fallen out of our top ten WPG - and I feel doesn't scale as well as newer games in the genre). Charterstone? (this one in particular we still don't know how we feel about it yet). And the big one Anachrony. Only played it once. It's nice, but don't know where it would rank yet!
Agree with all of this. Dungeon Petz is a huge favorite of ours. We like it more than some of the games on here, but it's more of a straight worker placement, and we wanted to put stuff that differs from each other more. And Near and Far(and Above and Below) isn't on the list for the same reason as Dino Island, it's technically a worker placement game, but it really doesn't feel like it. There's so much more going on
I have not yet played Viticulture, Feast for Odin, or Pursuit of Happiness, so I've got some worker placing to do! My current top ten: Orleans, Raiders of the North Sea, Lords of Waterdeep, Champions of Midgard, Stone Age, Ex Libris, Lancaster, Targi, The Godfather: Corleone's Empire, and Jorvik. I only played Shakespeare once and didn't have a good experience because the person teaching the game didn't really know how to play and kept killing us by taking time out to re-read the rules. I'm sure it would improve the more times I would play it.
Is Ex Libris really a worker placement game? It didn't really strike me that way looking at it. Almost looked like a more in-depth, better themed Arboretum or something. Also genre quibbles aside, how is the game, I've been interested in that?
Yes, @@shanerion, the primary mechanic in Ex Libris is using your workers to visit different modular locations to acquire books to shelve in your personal library tableau. There are interesting rules about building your shelf alphabetically. And you get points for different types of books you collect each game, which helps replay ability. I like the variety of player powers and worker placement options as the modular locations are shuffled each game, so new locations come out each round. Player interaction is pretty good as there are spots where you can block or even help other players. It is a little thinky, so probably not for gateway gamers, but I have played with my teenagers as well as my gaming group and both enjoyed it. I would definitely give it a try.
Ugh I am so torn between these two games. Reviewers tend to prefer Champions of Midgard, but commenters seem to prefer Raiders. The Dice Tower guys just did their top worker placements as well relatively recently, Champions of Midgard did really well on their top 10 lists, I don't think Raiders even made their top 10 lists... Yet on Reddit or RU-vid comments people say Raiders is better. RIP
I don't really get it honestly. Maybe it's because the art is a bit more flashy in Champs? Ultimately, the different colored workers and how they are used, combined with the fact that the dice aren't a necessary component to win in Raiders is what seals the deal for me.
There are so many great worker placement game out there. Heck, you could probably make a top 10 dice placement games by themselves. My list would look something like 10. Lords of Waterdeep (the archetype), 9. Grand Austria Hotel, 8. Coldwater Crown (fishing ???? really ???? yep!), 7. Harbour, 6. Pioneer Days, 5, Artifacts Inc, 4. Architects of the West Kingdom, 3. Raiders of the North Sea, 2. Rajas of the Ganges, 1. Coimbra. I still need to play Nusfjord and A Feast for Odin as both could easily find a place on the list.
@@shanerion that is a very fair question. As I said, I still have a lot of very well respected worker placement games yet to play so I think that plays more into it than cult of the new :-) I am also biased in favor of dice placement in particular, hence the high ranking for Artifacts, Inc. That said, there are some things really working in Coimbra's favor. Variability in the pilgrim track, voyage cards and end game scoring bonuses is good, the favor and character cards not so much. The NPC that clogs up the market at lower player counts is brilliant. Wish more games did something like that. It is my number 1 right now, better than Rajas and the Garphill games. Rajas will probably fall faster than Coimbra. I'll let you know in 6 months if it still is :-)
@@bobnetherton4957 Wow better than the Garphill games. I would say those are the perfect metric. Rajas looks interesting because I can't tell if it's a worker placement with some tile laying, or the other way around. If money was no issue all of them would be in my collection no question... Coimbra is very aesthetic and very appealing, but it's hard to crack open the wallet yet again when there are so many fantastic games...
Marco Friedenberger need is an interesting word. We LOVE viticulture. And Tuscany takes it next level so I’d (mike) say yes. With that said, viticulture essentials was so good it made it to number 2 of my all time favorite games. And Tuscany is even cooler. So just know that when you are ready, Tuscany awaits!
Also, I picked up Demon Worker because Zee talked me into it. I havent had a chance to play it yet; the 3 player minimum makes that difficult. But it looks really fun
Hahaha Conan as Right Said Fred dressed as a beekeeper, claiming to be the beekeeper from the village people because congress wouldn't let him sue Napster because no one illegally downloaded Right Said Fred's songs. Hahahahahahahaha
...I'm still going to say anachrony...cause...thaT's my jam aigh?...chill...I just love that game...I'll go out now..I understand...BUT I'LL COME BACK!!!! from the future!!!
Thanks for the video. Skimmed your picks and looks like you guys have really just scratched the surface of this genre. From the comments it looks like you guys are pretty new to the hobby so keep digging. There are greater games out there to be played.
Uhg RU-vid has been going back through our videos and putting tons of ads in the middle. Sorry about that, we disabled the mid video ones. Thanks for letting us know
Well, I have a few comments/questions. What do you think about Raiders of the North Sea? I've heard that in Viticulture you make pink wine by mixing red and white wines? As a French and wine lover, it hurts :) (still wanna try that game though). If you love Shakespeare, you might be interested in the next game from the same designer: Neta-Tanka. It has a very interesting twist about having a bonus if you link two actions which give nice indirect player interactions.
I personally consider it a tile laying game rather than worker placement. IMHO in a "worker placement" game the placing of workers typically determines your action(s) for the round. Whereas in Carcassone you do get to place meeples to score but the tile you play really determines which options you have not the placing of workers. Either way it's a good mix and a great game.
Nope just don't drink. We come from a long long line of alcoholics and addicts and watched what alcohol did to members of our family. DIdn't want to go down that road.
