Tiny Epic Galaxies

The most popular of the Tiny Epic game series, Tiny Epic Galaxies, though small, is an interesting and complex game in a small package. The game primarily involves colonizing planets from your home galaxy to add the victory points required to win the game. It is, amazingly, available in an even smaller package called Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies, which is the same game in a package the size of a deck of cards which makes it an ideal travel game.

Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies

Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies

There is also an expansion called Beyond the Black that adds more features like pilots, exploration cards and additional planets.

Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black

Undaunted: Normandy

This new highly rated military game is based on the WWII invasion of Normandy and its aftermath. Undaunted is a deck building game in which you use your cards to seize the initiative, bolster your forces, and control your troops on the battlefield. The 18 double-sided terrain boards provide a vast number of possible battle situations featuring villages, hills, forests, rivers and fields.

I first heard of this on the Foster the Meeples Youtube channel. It has a 7.8 rating on BoardgameGeeks.

See a "How It's Played " video here:

See a good video review here:

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Undaunted: Normandy was the first of a series. It was followed by Undaunted: North Africa, Undaunted Battle of Britain, and Undaunted: Stalingrad. Also available is Undaunted: Reinforcement, an expansion for either Undaunted: Normandy or Undaunted: North Africa that also provides a solo play option.

Trekking the World

A virtual world travel experience in a board game from Underdog Games. One of the more popular recent game, it is now one of my favourites.

Each player is a world traveller who collects souvenirs and destinations. There are bonus points for collecting the most souvenirs, and points are gained on each destination. The highest point count wins.

A good video explaining setup and game play can be found here.

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See a full game play here.

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Solo Games

Besides the two player duel games there are many solo player games. Some solo games are multi-player games that also make good solo games, but a few are solo only.

Coffee Roaster, Friday, Maquis, and Under Falling Skies are some of the currently popular solo-only games. Some others are Star Trek: The Dice Game, Hostage Negotiator, Railroad Ink Challenge: Solo Board, and Unbroken. Many war games are solo only and I have a list of them here. A couple of videos recommending solo war games can be found here and here.

Many very small card-based solo games are popular: Orchard, Ragemore, Rove, and Mini Rogue. These and other card-based games are available from PNP Arcade as downloads to be printed, some free. Black Sonata is a highly rated solo game. Button Shy Games specializes in pocket sized card games and are quite popular. There are also many solo role playing games (aka RPGs). Here is a video on some of the more popular ones. For example try Last Tea Shop.

Two player games that also include solo play are Caesar!: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes!, Blitzkrieg!: World War Two in 20 minutes, Chai: Tea for 2, Death Valley, The Shores of Tripoli, Saboteur: The Duel, Navajo Wars, and One Deck Dungeon: Forest of Shadows. Concordia: Solitaria is a one or two player expansion for the game Concordia.

Some good multi-player games that include solo play are Alien: Fate of the Nostromo, Ark Nova, Arkham Horror (3rd Ed.), Cafe, Carcassonne, Cartographers and Cartographers Heroes, The Castles of Burgundy, Catan Dice Game, Chronicles of Crime 2400, Clans of Caledonia, Detective: City of Angels, Dune: Imperium, Everdell, A Feast for Odin, The Guild of Merchant Explorers, Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, Ghost Stories, Horrified, Imperium Classics, It's a Wonderful World, Lisboa, The Loop, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Obsession, On the Rocks, Scythe, The Search For Planet X,  Sleeping Gods, Snowdonia, Soloman Kane, Spirit Island, Star Wars Imperial Assault, Terraforming Mars, Tinners' Trail, Town 66, Wayfarers of the South Tigris, and Wingspan. Summit is an interesting mountain climbing game that can be played as either a solo, co-operative or competitive game.

The SoloBoardGamer has solo variation rules for many multi-player games including: 7 Wonders Duel, Azul, Brass Birmingham, Catan, Jaipur, Risk, Forbidden Island, Undaunted Normandy, Wingspan, Cartographers, Agricola, and Arkham Horror. BoardGameGeeks also has, in their files section, instructions for solo play; some are the manufacturer's version and some are created and submitted by users. The site Mautoma provides solo rules and print-n-play cards for many popular board games: Brass Birmingham, Brass Lancashire, Marco Polo, Mombasa, Viticulture World, and others. If you don't want to download and print the solo deck you can use the online automated deck on their website.

BoardGameGeeks rates the top 100 solo games. The top 10 are Spirit Island, Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition, Marvel Champions: The Card Game, Arkam Horror: The Card Game, Too Many Bones, Gloomhaven, The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Terraforming Mars, Aeon's End, and Ark Nova.

Better Than the Original

A number of classic and popular games are now seen as too simple by many contemporay game players. One of the games that gets the most vitriol is Monopoly. A game that is considered to be superior to Monopoly is Lords of Vegas.

The newer variations of Risk — Risk Legacy, Risk Europe, Risk Star Wars — are considered to have much better play features than the original. Other better alternatives to Risk are Axis & Allies, Memoir '44, Undaunted: Normandy, and Undaunted: North Africa. Tom Vassel of Dicetower has a good discussion on the alternatives here.

Inkognito: A Carnival of Spies in Venice has some elements of Clue, but has many more elements in play. Players reveal clues to other players but play in partnerships and have a mission to complete.

Another approach to upgrading classic games like Risk is offered in New Rules for Classic Games by R. Wayne Schmittberger. He develops new rules to make these classic games more interesting. This includes Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Chinese Checkers, Boggle, Mastermind, Hearts, Scrabble, Chess, Checkers, Backgammon, Pente, Eleusis, Bridge, Poker and Go.

Hnefatafl - Viking chess

Hnefatafl is an old board game that was popular in medieval Scandinavia. It was also popular in Northern Europe during the Middle Ages but declined with the introduction of chess. The game disappeared and the rules to the game were lost. Discovery of playing pieces and boards lead to the modern reconstruction of the game and rules in the early 20^th century.

Unlike chess, one side is playing defense (white) and the other offense (brown or black). The game is similar to one aspect of chess in that all moves are, like the rook in chess, orthogonal. An unusual aspect of the game is the asymmetry of the opposing sides. The defensive side has 12 "soldiers" and a King; the offensive side has 24 soldiers. The offensive side can capture (and remove from the board) a white piece by moving a piece so that it and another offensive piece are on either side of a white piece. White can also capture opponents pieces. 

For the King to be captured, he must be surrounded on four sides, which is the goal of the offensive team. The goal of the defensive team is for the King to move from his initial central position to one of the four corners while avoiding capture. If the King succeeds in moving to one of the four corners, the white team wins.The game is now readily available.

Memoir '44

From Days of Wonder, the creators of Ticket to Ride, comes the very popular war game, Memoir '44. The selection of command and tactic cards and dice throws determine the course of the military maneuvers. It won The Wargamer 2004 award of excellence.

From Boardgamegeek: “Memoir '44 includes over 15 different battle scenarios and features a double-sided hex game board for both beach landings and countryside combat. Each scenario mimics the historical terrain, troop placements and objectives of each army. Commanders deploy troops through Command and Tactic cards, applying the unique skills of his units – infantry, paratrooper, tank, artillery, and even resistance fighters – to their greatest strength.... [According to game designer Richard Borg], ‘The game mechanics, although simple, still require strategic card play, timely dice rolling and an aggressive yet flexible battle plan to achieve victory.’”

Memoir '44 base game, the New Flight Plan expansion and the Equipment Pack:

There are six expansions available:

There are two alternate battlefield boards:

And there are four alternate scenario maps:

Through Jungle and Desert

The Battle of Khalkhin-Gol

Sword of Stalingrad

Disaster at Dieppe

Here is a video explaining the game:

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