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Episode 24: Placing workers in a top 5 list
97 Plays1 year ago
The crew chat board games and go back to a top 5 list. This time they look at their favourite worker placement games.
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Transcript
Introductions and Greetings
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello there. Welcome to the board game, Chinwag. The regular clan is here. G-Money, Shane, Helen, Dave. How are we all? Good. Thank you. We are good. We are good. Tip top. There we go. We can cut that in anywhere. Brilliant. What were you saying, Helen?
Board Game Enthusiasms
00:00:38
Speaker
What physical games have people been playing? I got dead reckoning out this week with a couple of people.
00:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. So it was a fantastic game of Dead Reckoning on Monday. It's such a good thing to try and pull out. It was so good. It was nice and close. And it was a bit of a refresher where we all had to sort of remember how the card crafting system works and how you move around and explore partnerships. And we have agreed. So then after that, also doing a little bit of planning for our board games weekend. So we agreed it's coming along and we're going to try and knock one of the campaigns out.
00:01:14
Speaker
get a few games of dead reckoning going. She'll get to play it. That's John D. Clear, isn't it? Lots of big fans. Fighting and fucking in pirate ships is great. That's very, very aggressive mid game. Yeah, what? Did you say fucking? With each other. Oh, okay. Yeah. I've heard of this game. Yes. Give me that game. It's my Leisure Shoot Larry on board game.
00:01:42
Speaker
God, now there's a name I have not heard in many years.
00:01:48
Speaker
Someone has to come up with that game. Oh, God. I've just really gone back to the, um, what was the, um, you had to answer questions at the start to prove how old you were, like trivia questions. And the more you answered correctly, the further up the blind went when the lady was getting changed. You can't make that game anymore. It's so wrong in so many ways.
00:02:17
Speaker
That's so right. That's hilarious. Yes, well, there's no nudity in Dead Racketing, but there is pirates and pirate ships and bounty and booty and shooting for loot. So it's such a good game. And the mechanics around the card crafting is things borrowed from Mystic Veil, but it's a really unique way to manage upgrading and leveling your people and giving everybody a bit of a unique gameplay.
00:02:40
Speaker
Loved that.
Gaming Experiences and Anecdotes
00:02:41
Speaker
Also managed to play a couple of games. I had a game of Carcassonne for the first time in a fair while on Friday night. So that was always also quite good. And again, the crocodile board just got a bit of a workout this week. The kids have got a bit of a taste for it. So they're back in the hunt with flicking in the distance around. So yeah, it's been a fairly busy week of board game for me. Yeah, nice one. Anybody else?
00:03:08
Speaker
I play Kingdom Death Monster, that's it. Bit of KTM. You've been playing that for a while now, haven't you mate? Almost two years, I think. Far out. Okay. You want to elaborate on how it went or? It was awesome. Because our good friend, our good friend Haig was over playing Warhammer World Championships in Amsterdam. So he'd been missing for about two weeks.
00:03:39
Speaker
Um, he came back and in classic Hague form, he rolled 19 crits on the night. Wow. I don't think I've rolled 19 crits in two years. How'd he go? He's his own entity. I don't, I don't know if he's human. How'd he go in Amsterdam? Great. They came, um, they were in the top 25% New Zealand. Yeah. Um, so they went really well. Yeah. What were they doing?
00:04:09
Speaker
Warhammer 9th Ed World Championships. Oh, that's awesome. And then he went around England for like two weeks after. Did he get to meet Henry Cavill? No, but he he's effectively Henry Cavill in himself. Oh, that's a big call. He's the he's the gaming equivalent of Henry Cavill. Right. Is he handsome? Oh, yeah. That's funny. Don't ever go near him, Helen.
00:04:38
Speaker
Uh, I still remember the first time I came across Haig was when he bought a ticket to one of our game days. And, um, I just saw the name and I went, that's a made up name, like Haig McCloskey. And then, so I kind of went in going, I don't know who this Haig guy is. And then I met him and I'm like, what, what a dude, like he is such a nice guy. I got all the time in the world for Haig. He's awesome. It's a big personality. Yeah.
00:05:07
Speaker
Um, I've been, uh, Wednesday night I had a pandemic season zero. So I think we were playing another month in, in that game with myself, uh, fuel past Nick and, um, and Andy. And, um, we ended up adequate, which, you know, is just kind of limping over the line, but enjoying it. It's, it's pretty cool. Um, very much, uh, loving the game at the moment.
00:05:37
Speaker
And so that's every, we try and get that game every fortnight at my place. And then on Friday night, I played a bit of Spass Bus with Anita and Cass. That was good fun. And then we played Nanti-Narking. So for those that know, it was a Martin Wallace game. It's the re-skin of Unk-Morpok, the Terry Pratchett game.
00:06:08
Speaker
really easy, super, super simple, like it looks more complicated than what the game is and all you're doing is playing cards and worker placement and we knocked two games off in under an hour. Yeah right. But it would be a lot more challenging once we know, so what the game, the game in condition, everyone has their own game in condition, so you've got to achieve it. So for example, you know, you've got to have
00:06:37
Speaker
five people you know five of your own with area control or you've got to have uh seven trouble markers out on the board or you're gonna say i need to i need to learn all of the end game conditions because then you can start to see what people are trying to go for and block so there was really no blocking going on because no one knew what the end game conditions were so i could see the game going longer once you knew you know how to play a bit more and block but um
00:07:06
Speaker
You're trying to chain the cards as well, so you've got a hand of five cards. And so what you're wanting to try and do is play as many cards out of your hand as you can, then replenish. But then sometimes it's blocking going on even in the cards you have in your hand. It's good, very enjoyable. So looking forward to playing it again. I'm going to get it out to play with Anita and Cass again.
00:07:33
Speaker
We're all going to understand what the end game conditions are for each role. That's been me. I've had a bit of board gaming, not a lot. I'm disappointed, actually. I've been a bit crook this weekend and my gaming partner, Joe, he's got a newborn. So whenever I'm a bit crook, I think it's not the right idea to say, hey, come around and play games and take that home to your newborn.
00:08:00
Speaker
But yeah, we were supposed to play Dude Imperium again this weekend with the Immortality expansion, which I've not played yet, because we played Dude Imperium.
00:08:08
Speaker
I think the last weekend or the weekend before and taught two folks the game for the first time. They loved it. I can't remember whether I spoke about it last week. Actually, no, I didn't speak about it last week because I edited the episode and I don't remember hearing about it. But yeah, about halfway through the game, it clicked.
00:08:31
Speaker
And you could see that one of them in particular was very keen just to run it back again and play it a second time straight away because he'd figured everything out. His wife was a little bit more keen to go home and have dinner because it was about half past five. And she could see that Helen was in the kitchen cooking dinner at our house and might not have been the best time to start a new game, even though I was fully up for it.
00:08:53
Speaker
So we could have, but yeah, that was it. We had a really good game and didn't hear him. And yeah, we were supposed to play immortality today, which is a bit disappointing, but sorry, yesterday, we'll get there. And Yash and I got from work. We have, we played Taghi on Friday during our break. And that's such a great game. It's been a while as well since I played that, but
00:09:16
Speaker
It's yeah, it's at one of those two player games where it's, it's a solid 60 minutes, like 45 to 60 minutes to play the game. Um, but I know sometimes in two player games, you're not going through the motions, but there's not a lot of decision space. You just kind of, you know, what you're doing, you go out, you do it and whoever gets the most victory points wins. Or I feel like in Taghi the whole time, you're racking your brain about what you need to do, where you want to go, like,
00:09:44
Speaker
It seems a bit more deep than most short two-player games. So yeah, it's just been a long time since we've played it and I've left it at work because we both really enjoyed it. So we'll probably pull it out again through the week next week, which would be cool. Yeah, so that was, they're probably the standouts for me. A lot of BGA. We played, oh, actually last Friday family game night, we played Draftersaurus. Have any of you guys played Draftersaurus?
00:10:13
Speaker
No, I haven't. All right. So for those who have kids, firstly, buy it. It's great fun. Super easy. Plays in about 15, 20 minutes. And it's just a simple drafting game. It's the new Sushi Go for me. Like it's Sushi Go was always the drafting game that I'd sort of, you know, would be the entry level drafting game. This, it's so simple. You get, you got six dinosaurs in your hand. You choose one.
00:10:41
Speaker
and then you pass your handful to the next player and everyone gets the new handful, chooses another dinosaur. But as you choose them, you've got to place them on the board based on these spaces on the board. One, you need to have all of the same dinosaur and the more of the same dinosaur you get, you get more points. One, you have one of every different dinosaur and the more of those you get. One of them, you've got to have two dinosaurs of the same kind and then they're in love and then you get points. But if you've got three of them, it doesn't matter. If you've got one of them, it doesn't matter, you don't get points.
00:11:07
Speaker
And then you've got the lonely dinosaur that has to be the only one of that type of dinosaur in your whole zoo. Otherwise, you don't get any points. And all these little things and ways to score points. There's two different sides of the board. So there's a bit of variability there. But super simple. We played it for Friday game night. My two older kids aren't really into board games that much. But they both wanted to play a second time, which is so we did. I think we actually might have even played it three or four times. So it's definitely simple, fun.
00:11:36
Speaker
easy drafting game. Draftosaurus was a bit of a highlight last week. Brilliant. I'm going to grab that for my nieces. That'd be a good game for them.
00:11:48
Speaker
Well, Helen actually bought it. She runs a board game club at her school during lunch breaks and she went on and bought it that night for the addition to the collection. So yeah, it's not just, not just me who's saying that. It's also educators across Capella agree. So good.
00:12:13
Speaker
Just a quick question before we get into whatever else we're going to talk about. But on that note, Steve, obviously Draftsosaurus is a nice easy game to get into and learn.
Planning and Recommendations for R U OK Day
00:12:23
Speaker
I've been asked to run an R-U-O-K day on the actual day for work. And so we're going to take up the boardroom. And basically for the whole afternoon, people can come in and out of the boardroom and play a board game.
00:12:41
Speaker
So I'd be keen to know what kind of board games you guys think I should be taking, noting that, you know, it's, um, we're pretty much going to be having majority of people that are not board games in the room, but maybe I should have a couple that potentially are midway. Just in case there are a couple of board games that come along. Um, and I'm thinking like, this is all would be one definitely that gets packed away and splendor. Anything else you guys would recommend that I need to
00:13:10
Speaker
ensure that I have in the collection for the day. Um, I would definitely suggest some, some of those like so clover or just one code names, those kind of big group party games, depending on how many people you get. Um, I don't know if you guys are familiar with door for Atlantic. It was nominated for this build as ours this year. It's really interesting because it's a pretty easy game.
00:13:33
Speaker
Um, it's apparently it's based on a video game. I've never heard of the video game, but anyway, um, it's the, the, the thing with that game is though, it's a cooperative game, but you don't have to be in it from the start and you don't have to be in it till the end. So if you're running a thing where people can come and go, you can, they can kind of come in and you give them a very simple explanation of the rules. Cause it's a very easy game and they can play a few turns and then go somewhere else. Or, you know, if, if you've just started a game and they've missed the start, it doesn't mean they have to wait for the game to end. They can actually just join in.
00:14:03
Speaker
Um, which is pretty, pretty unique. So in that circumstance, it might work really well. Yeah. And look, any dexterity style games, like minute work or class or, you know, crocodile, anything like that, like that, they're five to 10 minute games. You, you can get them within two seconds and you kind of know what you got to do. Yeah. And very tactile. People sort of can understand that a lot quicker, I think. Yeah. And that's good.
00:14:33
Speaker
There's a few more. Are you looking for shorter games? Yeah, yeah, like anything up to a half an hour, really. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, another good one. I've got, I've got a few, you know, that whole case that I carry around. So I'm just going to take that whole case that I've got that a quick games in there, like Scout, six nimped.
00:15:01
Speaker
And there's a few others that I've got in their card games as well. But maybe Cat in the Box could be for someone who's a little bit more advanced. Azul's always a good one, nice and easy. Ticket to Ride, if they've got an hour, maybe I'll keep that in the collection.
00:15:20
Speaker
Again, just on Helen and her Capella crew, because she really likes to get to ride and she was worried that it's too long for a lunch break. So I suggested like ticket to ride London or ticket to ride New York, one of those shorter 20 minute ones where you get sort of similar feel to and it doesn't take as long. Yeah. It's booking out already. So there's quite a fair number. So it's up to around 30 people that are going to be traveling in throughout the afternoon so far at this stage. That's amazing. Yeah, it's nice.
00:15:51
Speaker
You should, my only sticking point is you've mentioned the Zool and Splendor, and if it's, are you okay, Day? Quite often at the end of a Zool or Splendor, I am not okay. That could be vicious games, especially if it's two player. It is. I could be taking Blood Rage or The Godfather or something like that along. Or Whispers.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, leave this war of mine at home, that's it. Yeah, no, no. Nobody needs to feel sad, I don't think. No, no. It's definitely not the thing we're going for. Thank you, that's a good... I've got a lot of those games, so I'll make sure I pack and hit those. I wasn't even thinking of party games too, by the way. I've already said that would be perfect. Yeah. Especially for a bunch of bankers, they'd be the end of that for sure. Yeah.
00:16:45
Speaker
Awesome, thank you. What sort of a bear raid is that stockbroker one that you showed me? Bear raid, oh yeah, that's a bit long, but probably a little bit too advanced I think. There's a new one though called Stonks. I don't know if you guys have seen that. I was going to see if you can grab it for me when you go overseas, Steve. That definitely had the Dyerstown venue. It's a card playing version of bear raid, Dave. Okay. So you've got to drive the price up and down of the shares.
00:17:15
Speaker
but it's all card driven. It looks really good. Fair enough. And I'm saying that because that's pretty much my email address too. S Tonks. Yeah, right. Who would have known? Copyright that. So. Helen, I feel like we forgot about you with the games being played. Oh, I've literally done nothing but paint for like a year. So I haven't, you know, other than my
00:17:42
Speaker
solo game of Arknova I play before I go to bed. I really haven't played a lot. Splendor came out on BGA, just turned off Splendor. See, I can't even talk anymore. Canvas came out on BGA this week. Yeah, I started up a game. I played that. There's no point in playing that game.
00:18:05
Speaker
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00:18:31
Speaker
So what are you excited to play on your trip, Steve? Have you been researching and watching reviews and stuff? So much stuff. The list is getting too long. One of the guys actually...
00:18:43
Speaker
put up on the channel that he was wanting to play the entire something of the something games. So in other words, like the whole starting at the North Sea, starting with shipwrights, playing all through shipwrights, playing all through the West Kingdom. Sorry, playing all through North Sea, playing all through West Kingdom and playing through South Tigris up until the second one, back to back.
00:19:07
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, that sounds awesome. But I actually said no because I'm like, it's my first retreat. There are so many things that I want to try that I don't want to just block out a whole day on games that I've played all of, like I've played all of those games. So yeah, I want to kind of free up my time a bit, but there's some games like I really want to try even like things that I could easily go and buy and play, but just haven't had a chance to. Like I'm really keen to try Acropolis.
00:19:33
Speaker
It seems to be a pretty light to medium game. It sounds interesting. I'm very keen to play Foundations of Rome. That's probably one that's really sticking out. I mentioned before in the previous episode mobile markets is definitely something I want to play.
00:19:49
Speaker
Yeah, there's heaps. I've deliberately not set up too much stuff. I have set up a game of scythe. Well, I've jumped into a game of scythe, I should say, because why not? But the rest of the week, I'm really just going to walk around and look for, you know, looking for players signs and just jump in and try stuff. I'd be keen to play Last Light again, like a physical version.
00:20:16
Speaker
I was really happy that Roy actually included, um, elements to assist with people with colorblindness, which is really cool. Um, so yeah, I, yeah, there's, I could go on night. I just, in the end though, I just, I'm just looking forward to being there and just literally jumping from table to table and trying new stuff. And yeah, it's going to be awesome. I'd love to play. I don't know if it's going to be able to be happening because I'm sure that Tom will be a very busy man, but I would love to have a game of cosmic encounter with Tom because I still have yet to play cosmic encounter.
00:20:46
Speaker
Um, and it's like one of his favorite games and it just sounds like the sort of game where the people you play with might make it. So that might be a bit of fun if I could organize that, but yeah. That would be awesome. Yeah. Just ask. Yeah. Well, my intention is apparently he's always there early. So I figured that I'll probably just head down early one day and try and organize a game with it with him.
00:21:09
Speaker
Even if it's not with Tom, I just like to play it with like seven players and have a blast, but yeah. Yeah. Either way. Yeah. So it's getting very real. It's getting to the point where we're like, there's, there's this.
00:21:21
Speaker
There's a BGG thread where people are organizing games and it's like, it's four pages long now. There's just like, and a week ago there was like three comments and now it's four pages. Cause everyone's like, Oh, it's only in two and a half weeks. It's like really soon. It's kind of hard to believe when I'm sitting here in Emerald that in two weeks time, I'll be at the con, like I'll be there. So yeah. Awesome. Cannot wait. Very cool.
00:21:49
Speaker
All right, so Shana, you had a topic idea for this evening.
Exploring Worker Placement Games
00:21:53
Speaker
I did. And I don't know if we're all prepped for it or not, but I mean, that shouldn't be too hard. I thought, why don't we list off our top five worker placement games? Something nice and easy. Probably wouldn't have to think too hard about it. And wrangle them off. How do we feel about it? Grew in. Sounds good. Yep. Sounds good.
00:22:19
Speaker
Can I ask- Since we've done a top list of anything. It has been a while. Can I ask a qualifying question first? Yes. When you say worker placement, do you mean like worker placement is the main mechanism or just any game that's got worker placement in as a mechanism? Yeah. For example, doing Imperium would count then because there's worker placement and doing Imperium.
00:22:45
Speaker
Yeah, because I've got a game in mind that you probably go... Does Scythe count as worker placement? It should, right? Oh, it should, 100%. It does, yeah, yeah, yeah. No. It's like, I didn't... It's like action selection, though, isn't it? Yeah, you have... It's just your dude that picks the action. You're not placing him on the map. I didn't think it would because, yeah, it's just... I mean, I guess there are workers out there and depending on where you place them, you might generate more stuff.
00:23:13
Speaker
But yeah, it's, it's a, yeah. If side can be on a list, why not? Like, yeah. You define it however you want it. Yeah. It goes on all lists. We're not going to get keep working placement. Best Uno version, side number one. I mean, like that year that wingspan won every award and it's just a solo game. Best two-player game. How could I score an eggs in wingspan, man?
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't. I didn't. I told you. This game's awesome now. But you can't do it every time because then you're just not, you know, you're just sitting at the bar in Western legends. If you're doing that, like you just.
00:23:58
Speaker
It's just a lazy game, but it's good to do it as a component, right? If you go, there's actually no point. If I'm going to have to spend three tokens plus two eggs to place a bird that's only worth four, just for when you could lay four eggs and not lose two, like it's just, it's a no-brainer.
00:24:16
Speaker
That was, that broke my streak too. That was the first game in, I don't know how long that I didn't score between 85 and 95 in wingspan. 70. So I couldn't get any birds in the greenery. I only got in the grassland forest lands, whatever it's called. I only got one bird in there the whole game.
00:24:33
Speaker
Do you know what? It felt like nobody though, apart from G Money and because like, and then like was really doing the side, like the end around like that. What didn't seem to be a big, and they were very egg based end around things, which is also catered towards the eggs. I reckon that was my first game of Wingspan in about three years. So I was just clicking buttons. It's like me and Tapestry. I have no idea what I'm doing. Again, just clicking buttons.
00:25:02
Speaker
I just copy whatever DG does and then give him the tech powers. That's my whole strategy. It's working out pretty good so far. It is, yeah. All right, how do we want to do this? We want to go five, four, three, two, then one. Around the ground, so not drawing out. Everyone says they're five, then everyone says they're four. Is that what you're thinking, or? So everyone says they're five and then four, then three and two, and then one. All right. That sounds good. We had a meeting about this guy.
00:25:31
Speaker
Did we put it on the agenda? Was it on the agenda? Is there minutes? I didn't see any minutes. I fully pretend that I'm prepared for this. I'm putting them in order now. There's no water. No water. All right, I'll go first. Go for it. Thank you. So number five and number four. That's it. All right, so number five is Everdell. I like Everdell a lot. I liked it when it came out, but it was a little bit
00:26:01
Speaker
Bleh, like there wasn't a lot to it. The expansions, if you play all the expansions together, that game's got a fair bit of teeth in it then. There's a lot of different things you can do. I mean, it all basically comes down to the same thing, but it has got a fair bit of chunk to it once you chuck in all the expansions. And you can play it with pretty much anyone.
00:26:23
Speaker
You know, kids will play it, adults will play it. It's a pretty solid game. And then I really like Lost Temple of Arnak. I still play that till today. I know a lot of other people played it for a while and then sort of stopped. I like the first expansion, like with all the characters. Don't know what the second expansion's all about. I know there's another one coming out soon. But I've always got a game of Arnak going on. I reckon it's pretty good.
00:26:51
Speaker
Yeah, that last one was just released over in the US, so. So Steve, that's my segue for you to see that. Okay, ready? I am doing the whole holiday carry-on luggage only until we get to the end, so. Yeah, that sounds like your problem, though. Yeah. No, we'll buy a bag in Los Angeles before we fly home, so I'll find a good board game store in Los Angeles and stock up, I think.
00:27:18
Speaker
And then post it to me from Enroll when you get home. The longest possible route. I've got about six hours to kill in Brisbane between flights before we fly home. So yeah, come to the airport and we play a game in the terminal. You can teach me. I was going to say, wouldn't it have been cheaper just to send it from the States? And that way you don't have to lug it anywhere. Don't bring your luggage.
00:27:44
Speaker
And we just want a chance to catch up with Steve at the airport and pick up our games. By that logic, how would it be cheap of him just to order it and not even bother himself with me going into it? Because then he doesn't get the added benefit of putting you out if he just orders it. So that's it for me, Everdell, followed by the less lost temples of Arnak. Very cool. Two good choices there.
00:28:13
Speaker
Okay. I am not prepared for this. So I'm just going to say random games and they won't be in the order of one to five. Um, but I'm going to stick with my love of stone Maya. So I would put bit of culture in there. That's a very heavily based worker placement. It's on a list that I just, uh, googled.
00:28:44
Speaker
No, I find that game really good. I'm really excited to try the expansions with it. And I think at one point, once I sort of need to treat myself, I will just get the whole set with the wine cart and wine case and everything. But yeah, no, I think that's I mean, I think it's a good game. Yeah, like I said, I'm really excited to do the expansion
00:29:08
Speaker
where I get the Tuscany expansion, where I get to play the other two timeframes. Um, but yeah, so that's my number five. Um, and my number four, I'm going to cheat a little bit and go tapestry because what, I don't know. Is it a worker placement? I mean, you place workers. Your whole thing is moving people around, but you're not placing them. So does it count? I guess is my query.
00:29:33
Speaker
I mean, whether they're called workers or not, it's the same deal, right? You're moving something, taking its action and getting its benefits, I guess. Yeah, I would think so. It's good enough for us. You say it is, it is. Perfect. There you go. That's my number four. Thank you very much. Can't create a civilization without workers. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Egypt, quoted. And the workers need somewhere to live. So you build all their houses for them as well.
00:30:03
Speaker
Fantastic. DG. I wanted to put Agricola on mine. I always said it was Agricola, but I'm now convinced that that's wrong. Is it not Agricola? No.
00:30:18
Speaker
I think the general pronunciation is Agricola. Pronunciation. That's the worst. Did you read that on an advertisement? No, it's just everybody says it, like everybody's talking about games they're like, oh yeah, Agricola. I'm like, what's that? What if that's Agricola? Anyway, so that's me. That was actually one of the first games I bought new. So when I started building my board game collection, that was, I traded in my Nintendo GameCube.
00:30:47
Speaker
Go in curricular on scope credit.
00:30:51
Speaker
Um, and yeah, played it a few times. It was a, it's a tough teach when you're moving from sort of. Yeah. Milton Bradley, like, um, standard games to hobby gaming, um, D money had gone with easier ones like, uh, Catan and Puerto Rico. And then we sort of ramped it up to a curriculum pretty quickly. So it's still got a good place in my heart. It's so hard to get to the table these days and play, but still enjoy it a lot. And number four on Mars.
00:31:19
Speaker
I'm going to go with that's worker placement because slightly more selections and stuff, but yeah. It's such a bad ass game, but yeah. And almost thematic level stuff. I really enjoy it every time players very hard and gets challenging to get to the table with a established group of people that know what you're doing, but it's really enjoyable. So number four for me.
00:31:45
Speaker
Awesome. Steve. Uh, well, I was tossing up for my number five. So because it's already been mentioned, I'll leave viticulture and I'll go with the other option. Um, which similar to Dave's story of Agricola was my first worker placement game and really my first foray into sort of more meaty of board games. And that was, uh, Lords of Waterdeep.
00:32:06
Speaker
I distinctly remember going into the Wicked Goblet in Cairns and saying to the guy, I've just gotten into the hobby. I played like Ticket to Ride and Splendor. But I'm looking for something a bit more interesting and different style of game. And I was looking at Rising Sun or Lords of Waterdeep. And he said, based on what you've told me, put Rising Sun down for now. You can get that later.
00:32:29
Speaker
He's like, get Lords of Waterdeep. And I'm like, I would have never picked this up because it's Dungeons and Dragons. I've never really been into Dungeons and Dragons. He's like, don't worry about the theme. Theme doesn't matter. And he was so right. And I went back to my motel room. I was there for a work conference. I went back to my motel room. Back in the days of buying games and learning how to play them on the same day.
00:32:48
Speaker
let alone the same year. So that was fun. Um, yeah, it's just really introduced worker placement as a mechanic and one that I immediately loved. So it's no surprise that a lot of games in my top 10, um, uh, worker placement games, this isn't in my top 10. It's actually, it is a lot of better worker placement games, but yeah, that nostalgia reason, I think without Lords of Waterdeep, you know, I might not have even been into the hobby as much as I am. So.
00:33:14
Speaker
Um, and my number four is my favorite game. Um, the reason it's not number one is because while it is a worker placement game, theoretically it's, um, I guess not in the traditional sense. And that's T O T Y con, uh, your workers are your dice that you move around and take actions with. It's not really the same as other worker placement games, but it's still a worker placement game. And I will never say no to a game of Tio. Awesome.
00:33:40
Speaker
Excellent. My number five is Steve, the same as yours, Lords of Waterdeep. I love it. It's so simple. And the reason why I like it as well is because Lauren really likes it. So it's one of the games that we will pull out and a worker placement game that we will play together. So for me, that is my number five. Very simple, very simple. It was one of the first worker placement games I actually played too.
00:34:10
Speaker
And then when I taught it to Lauren, I thought, she's going to absolutely hate it because of the Dungeons and Dragons. And she said, it's one of the best games I've played. So, and that's even in her top 10. So yeah, so definitely that one for me is number five. Number four is, it has to be a Shem game, tossing up between two, but it has to be a circadian's first life. To me, that was my first Kickstarter.
00:34:38
Speaker
And it was my first Shem Phillips game that I purchased. Love it. Love the game. It's worker placement but using dice. We can manipulate the dice and then put them out onto complete reactions to the game. So five and four. And a good first kick start of that was. What about that list of games? We could just go over games we can and play everything that's just been mentioned and it'd be awesome. It'd be awesome.
00:35:06
Speaker
And I'm going to run a shim tally. So one. Yeah.
00:35:10
Speaker
I'm about to go up. There essentially was going to be another one in there, but I don't think it's going to... I limited myself to one. Yeah, I did too. I did too. I'm shocked, Shane. It says that Mintworks is a worker placement game. Is that not a record to your list? All the way from season one. It's got a callback, folks. We've still got another three more to announce. No spoilers.
00:35:41
Speaker
Let's just say it's going to get minty fresh. Which mint game? Back to you G, 3 and 2. Yep, okay. So I'm going to go number 3, Dune Imperium. That has worker placement in it. It's not primarily a worker placement game.
00:36:03
Speaker
I do enjoy that game. I don't think I've ever met anyone so far that doesn't like that game. No, that's right. I agree. And it has no right to be as good as it is. It's just the perfect storm of like good old well done mechanics that have been tried and tested through many different iterations of the game with a really good theme like all over the top of it. It all works really good. And then I'm going to go for
00:36:33
Speaker
Oh, I can't split these two, but I'll go for Paladins of the West Kingdom. But it was between that and Feast for Odin, because I played Feast for Odin for the first time, and holy shit, that game's incredible. So I can't split those two. Really glad to hear that, G-Money. I'll start up another game on BGA. Whenever you teach someone a game like that, you're like, oh, I won't say we should play it a second time. I'll wait till they say it.
00:36:58
Speaker
I don't know what's happening. I'm going to cheat and tie those two and I don't care what anyone says. Yeah. Very good. Um, back to Helen. Okay. So now I've done my research. You've done your giggles. Yeah, I'm good. Um, my number three is five tribes.
00:37:25
Speaker
So I've only played it once, but I bought it straight away because I loved it so much. So everybody knows what Five Tribes is obviously. It's the genies and the workers. You bought it off me, didn't you, Ellen? Pretty sure I did. Yeah. I got it because I didn't play it because I owned it for so long. Does that mean that, like Shane's rule, you're never allowed to play it again because you sold it? Well, I never played it in the first place. It was so interesting.
00:37:55
Speaker
There you go. Um, and my number two is Great Wall. Um, I love that game. It's a great game. So, but you know, again, your entire job is picking where you want to go. You put your people there. Technically they are soldiers, but you know, workers, soldiers into like interchangeable. Um, but yeah, I think that game is brilliant. I love playing it. It's always different and it's always fun.
00:38:25
Speaker
So that's my number two. Never played it, want to play it. It's really good.
00:38:33
Speaker
So, and you can stuff people over too, because they, if somebody's going, I'm wanting to build, you can tell that they're wanting to build. You can go, I'm not going to actually let you, you know, get wood this time. So you can't, or I'm going to go there first. So that I make it hard for you and stuff like that. It's yeah. Can't win the game if you don't get the wood. That's really hard wood anyway.
00:38:57
Speaker
It's interesting because I think worker placement lends itself to it's either potentially very sort of safe and calm and not interactive or it's very aggressive and you know you can really hurt people. There's not a lot of like messing with people and worker placement guys I don't think but but they're both fun.
00:39:17
Speaker
I don't know, like, yeah, worker placement's not my first choice of mechanics and games. I know, you know, a lot of people love it. There's a lot of good games on these lists, but yeah, the aggressive worker placement games, I tend to find more, more fun. So for my list, dwellings of elderbell number three. Yeah.
00:39:34
Speaker
A good choice. That is an aggressive worker placement game where you can really mess with people. It's a great game. I love that game. Some of the workers are only aggressive. And some of the placements are just to fuck with people. And then number two, June Imperium. So we already mentioned it. And Steve, I think you'll enjoy the expansion once you get to play with it. It is probably something there's
00:39:58
Speaker
different feedback, I guess, from different groups that we play with. But most people wouldn't take any of it out. It does make it a lot more stuff. And there is a little bit bloaty with the different tracks and the different actions. But I think it still feels like a quite good put together game and all the strategies are all balanced. And there's no sort of one that's better than the other, even with a couple of expansions. So yeah, love Juniperium, love playing that. Good choice.
00:40:26
Speaker
Well, I guess we'll just keep the Jin Imperial Life going. That's my number three. Yeah, obviously Rise of Ix, I've played a bit, but yeah, I hear that immortality comes with a way to refresh the cards available, which sounds awesome, because that is something that can kind of slow the game down if everything on the board's like five or six credits to buy and it's early game and no one's getting that kind of coin.
00:40:50
Speaker
It's a it's a one off and a lot of games that we played you don't actually remember to do it because there's more options now to buy cards or spend stuff on you also probably not as focused on it. Yeah, right. So it seems like slightly less important but it does also give you that that one to once per game you can just wipe the whole market away and restack it.
00:41:12
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds like a good thing. Um, a good addition. I, um, I, my number two, because GM only cheated and put two of these number two, um, this cheating, this is, um, this is my architect slash Raiders slash paladin slash five counts, uh, plus wayfarers position. Um, really thought that would be his entire list.
00:41:35
Speaker
I went with architects because architects is my favorite Shem game and it is a pure worker placement game. I love it. It's very hard to have a bad game of that. So yeah, architects and you speak about
00:41:51
Speaker
It's such a great example, G-Money, of a game that does both of the things you were just speaking about. It isn't a very restrictive worker placement game. You can go wherever the hell you want. But I love the fact that by going to so many places makes you vulnerable to being rounded up and put into the guardhouse. So it brings about that confrontation that even though it's an open worker placement, it still has that confrontation, which is awesome. Yeah. So that's my number two.
00:42:22
Speaker
Good choice. How good did it feel to list all of those Shem games though? There's no other designer where it's like throw cicadians in the mix too like where you could pull off a game pull it someone just says oh we're gonna play a something of the something something game and you're like yep sign me up I mean like I don't need to know anymore you don't even have to fill in those words I mean
00:42:46
Speaker
It's, yeah, incredible. We actually do need to get Chaos Order to the table a bit more. I don't think we've even got at the table in a while. Yeah, it's been a while. That has to happen. Number three for me is Dwellings of Eldervale. Similar to you, Dave. Loved the game and had some great experiences playing it. So,
00:43:10
Speaker
For me, it's where we've had some experience in the way Helen completely fucked us over the last time we played it. Sat there the whole game. She hated the game, but then she did. Insert any game here. Last play. But it was great. It was good. And then number two for me is another one for experience is the godfather, Corleone's empire at full player count is
00:43:39
Speaker
the best fun I've ever had in a board game where you have people ready to flip tables. There's F bombs getting dropped. There's the C word being used. It is fantastic. So when I do play it, I make sure that we're over in a corner so that we're not disrupting anyone else because yeah, it can get quite brutal, but it's brilliant. I love it.
00:44:09
Speaker
Back to you, G. What is your number one worker placement game? I can mix it up if you want. I'll go, it's all right. Go. On Mars, best worker placement game I've ever played, plus it's got Mars in the title. So it kind of makes me think I'm playing Terraforming Mars without playing Terraforming Mars.
00:44:30
Speaker
And just a shout out to this week's sponsor, Mars, because apparently last week's sponsor was Earth, and this week is Mars. So. Getting to all the planets. Next week, onward to Venus by Martin Wallace. Helen, you're number one. Well, I mean, it's going to have to be dwellings, right?
00:44:52
Speaker
Because I'm just so damn good at playing it. No, I do love that game. And I can't think of any others. I was hoping I could get away with Blood Rage, but I'm like, no, it's really not worker placement. You use people and you place them, but they're not really workers. So I don't think I could get away with it. So I'll definitely go dwellings. And I do love dwellings.
00:45:22
Speaker
But Blood Rage is also another game where you just whoop everybody. Yes. It's just fun.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah, from your perspective. I was winning, when I was teaching it, I was winning too much that I actually sabotaged myself just so the gap wasn't so big. Still won though. Yeah, yeah. But by 50 instead of by 100. I eased off on the second lap. Well, I just ended up having so many people, I could just literally destroy all of their people and have them have none left on the board.
00:45:59
Speaker
She didn't actually sabotage her gameplay, she just miscounted 100 points. I've only gone around once, so I haven't gone around twice. I stopped counting then. Very good. Number one for me, it's a damn good game. It's Barrage. I play a lot of Barrage on BGA.
In-Depth Game Discussions
00:46:24
Speaker
I play not enough, nowhere near enough Barrage in real life.
00:46:28
Speaker
I love that as a worker placement game, that's the only mechanic that you have really is the worker placing and putting out the infrastructure on the dams, on the water flow. It's very passive that you can, the only way to interact with other people really is to get there before them or take the stuff that they want before that they want it.
00:46:50
Speaker
Otherwise, you're almost playing your own game in terms of how you connect in with the networks and how you manage the water flow. But as a puzzle, it's unreal. As a potential area control resource management game, it's unreal. A big barrage fan. Well, my number one has also been mentioned already.
00:47:12
Speaker
Again, Dave, you talk about how tight games like this can be sometimes and how brutal they can be. And it's hard to imagine that in a game with 66 worker placement spots, someone could put out a worker and you go, Oh, you bastard. That's the one spot. Yeah. And that is feast for Odin. A feast for Odin is just, just an amazing game. And.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah, exactly that. There's so many options, but it always seems like the bastard before you took the one option that you were ironing off, and then you got to sit there and go, what else do I want to do now? And what I love about that game is everyone's at a different stage with a feast for Odin. We played a game now. I say I like it, but it's also somewhat unfortunate is that you can tell the people who have played it before. There's definitely a learning arc there.
00:47:58
Speaker
But I also love the fact that the first time you play it, you're going, oh, I don't want to get it. How the hell could you fill an island? Like, that's impossible. I know why I'm getting an island. And then after like 15 plays, you're like, all right, I've got two islands. I've got a couple of huts. I might go and get a third island. I haven't even started on my main board yet, but I don't really care about that right now. Like you just just seven rounds to just do whatever the hell you want. It's I think it's the only worker placement game I can think of that's also a sandbox game. So, yeah, Feast for Odin is amazing. Yeah.
00:48:29
Speaker
I think the first time I played that was on BGA with you guys, and I enjoyed it. It was good. I really enjoyed it. Mine number one, it's in my top 10. I love the game. It's grown even more since I've been playing it on BGA. I think I've got four or five games of going at the moment on BGA, which is screwing with my head at present, is City of the Big Shoulders. I love it. It's by far.
00:48:59
Speaker
It's even growing in my top 10 now, but it will work at placement point if you have so many limited workers that can just do so much. You just got to map it out. Yes, I use that word, Peter. Once you get it right, God, it's brilliant. It is so good. And then even when you think you fucked it up and you find another pathway to get there and you've actually done it sooner than what you had or what you were going to do in the first place,
00:49:28
Speaker
That makes sense. So you've actually then freed up another action. You just, this is brilliant. Um, love it. And I'm so fucked off the other day. I saw it on marketplace for sale. I missed it by a record of 15th and I'm not happy. Well, just think about it. Your, your number one game is like as zero carbon footprint for you, Shane. Like he's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, didn't he earn that at one point?
00:49:58
Speaker
and sold it. Oh gee, there it is. I was going to say, who's going to do it? Who's going to do it? That's so cool, now. It's Helen. It's all the passengers, just everybody's like. You should have owned it. You stole my Star Wars Rebellion, though, you piece of shit, Shane. Did you see that one? I saw that one. Yeah, you stopped that up pretty quick. How is seeing the big show is not in your list, Dave?
00:50:24
Speaker
Oh, I forgot. He's perfected it. It's a player elimination game for Dave. It's right. It would be a very obvious worker placement game. I should have put it in my list. It didn't come up on any of the work placement lists. I looked up.
00:50:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's because it's not great ranked. And I think part of that is it's very hard to play because it's on BGA, but unless you know about it, you probably don't play it. And the actual physical copies are really hard to get. But I saw a confirmation that the license has been sold and a new print runner will be happening at some stage soon. So Shane, you may even want to just hold off and, you know, get a new print edition when it comes out. Yeah. When you said it was hard to play, I thought you were saying only smart people could play it.
00:51:23
Speaker
No, no, I mean, it's a relatively straightforward games. It's hard to play well, I think, from that way that you're talking, Helen. But no, it's actually not that complicated. It's just very non-accessibly available to play. It's actually a really easy game to teach because you start off with such limited spaces and then as the game progresses, more spaces become available. So it's not like you've got a wealth of information you need to take in. Yeah.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah. You teach the base of six actions and the icons. And then the questions that come up is what does this icon mean? You go, well, this is it. So as it grows, it gets in that complexity of the choices that you have, but the mechanics are very simple. Yeah. Once you get that engine going where you can just leave, leave one of your companies alone for the rest of the game, the engine just builds itself. You just like, yeah, love it. Love it. Then you go buy another company and then you go buy another company.
00:52:20
Speaker
What a list. That is an awesome list of games. I played very few games on that list. So I obviously need to expand my knowledge. I also learned tonight that I'm actually, for a board game podcast, I'm really shit at talking about board games. So I apologize.
00:52:44
Speaker
I am not good at it. Self-burn, those are rare. Have you got everybody here? Everybody tonight. You gotta remember, Helen, you were a guest and then we all went, shit, she was really good. We should just have her on the show. This is the route that we need to steer this ship. And I'm sure you have all regretted it every day since. Oh wait, she fooled us into thinking she actually knew what the fuck she was talking about?
00:53:15
Speaker
If anyone wants to sit around and talk about Stomaeo games all day, I am all ears. It's an awesome list for everyone that wants to get out and try a worker placement game. There's a couple of that you won't be able to get, but for now anyway. Well, whatever you do, if you're going to buy City of Big Shoulders, just don't tell Shane. We'll just wait until he buys it again and then just buy it off him.
00:53:43
Speaker
No, someone needs to steal it. Every copy you get, someone needs to steal it. They just take it. He goes up to Emerald to see Steve and he's like, why do you have 17 copies?
00:54:00
Speaker
Great game, mate. And when he gets back, I'll give him the Lost Ruins of Arnak expansion for G-Money to take back. Yeah, it's sweet. It only took two years to get here, mate. Right.
Community Engagement and Future Plans
00:54:14
Speaker
All I can ask for is David, for the R U OK, Dave, if you could please ensure that Citi Big Shoulders is packed. It'll be there, that's for sure. Thank you. Well, speaking of, actually, I'm kind of excited. I think
00:54:28
Speaker
It's been a little while, but I'm running a TI teach for a full game of people. Um, and I believe almost all new people, I think it's a couple of people that have played it before, but yeah, depending on how many we get, I think we have seven or eight. There was a bit flakiness, but, um, Joe, Mr. Joe cashabella is going to give us a hand and run the teach. And I think I'm trying to.
00:54:51
Speaker
convince him to actually play and be kind of like the rabbit that everyone chases after. So then I can sort of manipulate everybody else into enjoying their experience and learning how to play the game, but also taking Joe down hard. So yeah, looking forward to that. It's going to be a good day, but yeah, introducing eight new people to the wonderful world of TI is going to take most of it for me. That's awesome. And thank you for putting your hand up for that. And let's call out the other
00:55:22
Speaker
people that put their hand up to do teachers on the day too, so thank you for all of those. People in our wonderful community that we put the call out for anyone that would like to do a teach and we had an overwhelming response and yeah, we've got that day of that whole Saturday is completely planned. And it's a sellout, which is even better. That's awesome. Well done, Gus.
00:55:46
Speaker
Yeah. And thanks to Kylie too. Again, Kylie is just a wonder woman. She's amazing. I think she can get done with a special call out to VR distribution as the day and let's play games. So we're going to sponsor the event even better and free food. Yeah. Free food's always a bit of a draw card. It's hard to say no. Yeah.
00:56:17
Speaker
Oh, it was a pretty decent episode, folks. It was far less eventful than the previous episodes, so that's going to make a lot easier this week. Keep it clean, Steve. Keep it clean. We can fucking run out if you want. We're almost there, guys. We're almost there. I have to get back to painting.
00:56:39
Speaker
I'll edit this bit out if we do end up recording next week, but I will not be around for the next eight or so weeks. So to all of our four listeners, I'll chat to you in a couple of months and I'll report back on everything about Dice Tower Retreat and just general America holiday stuff. So yeah. Enjoy mate, relax, put your feet up.
00:57:00
Speaker
and meet some wonderful people. That's the plan. Go to some wonderful places. I just, uh, I just booked, uh, the Alcatraz tour, uh, for when we were in San Fran and after booking it realized that it was on Friday the 13th. So I'm like, Alcatraz on the 13th, Friday the 13th. That sounds like a match made in heaven. Dave, you've been to Alcatraz, haven't you?
00:57:21
Speaker
I have. I wasn't the hugest fan of Sam Fran and it was sort of the rough end of our trip and we were all a bit tired and the weather was shitty and we'd done so much fun stuff, but Alcatraz was the only glowing thing that I would say. I enjoyed it so much. It was an awesome experience. Yeah, I can't wait. Well, we'll finish off the podcast there. Thanks everyone for listening and we'll catch you. They'll catch you on the next one.
00:57:49
Speaker
Thanks guys!