Rex Devlin

A shelf with about 50 board games.

Well, here’s one of them.

Too annoyed to talk about boardgames today.

But this time they really mean it. Pinky promise.

She had plans for thanksgiving and they were gonna make her work. Priorities. Or something.

A bunch of dum-dum lollipops (suckers)

Live look at senate democrats considering opening the government for the “promise” of a vote on the ACA in December.

The Rose King box.

The Rose King (was 38)

Oddly I’ve just started playing this more. Little gremlin loves it. It’s an interesting area control game with different scoring (the size of your groups squared). Still great; just played a lot of shiny things that feel more too 50 lately.

Game of Tak down to scoring for flats.

First game of Tak on the board I made. Squares a little small, but it works.

Lords of Waterdeep box.

Lords of Waterdeep (was 44)

Getting a reprint. It’s a good game. Great intro to worker placement. Again, not bad, just not top 50, for now.

Five Tribes box cover

Five Tribes (was 45)

Still a great game. It just hasn’t excited me as much as the top 50. Still gets broken out now and then years later.

Dale of Merchants box

Dale of Merchants (was 46)

There’s a ton of variety in the box. Credit where due. For me, the fact that it’s a race means the deckbuilding never gets juicy. So repeated plays left me dropping my feelings on it.

Ark Nova box.

Ark Nova (was 47)

This was new and shiny to me when it hit the list. Probably rated it a little high. It’s not way low, but out of the 50 makes sense for me. Long and a little much for what I care for these days.

Box for Splendor Duel.

Splendor Duel (was 48)

There were some decent falls off the top 50 but first is just a bunch that were hanging on. I still love the splendor games. This isn’t much below 50 anyway. Just played a lot of good games this year.

Well... this aged well.

Wonderland’s War boardgame box.

Wonderland’s War (was 49)

I still like this one, but it just won’t get played. At least not with my normal group. Someone bounced off how long the game took, especially since they seemed unable to dig out of a bad position. So, not surprised to see it drop. Maybe I’ll get others to play more.

Bohnanza boardgame box

Getting to end of the year. Before we visit my revised Top 50 boardgames, let’s talk about the ones that fell off the list.

Bohnanza (was 50)
There’s not a whole lot to say. I still love this game, and a lot of the top 100 are based on my whims at the time.
This is still a top tier trading game.

BG Stats Oct 2025 Plays: 12 H-index: 1 Games: 11 New: 2 Players: 8 Locations: 3 Hours: 8 Days: 9 Botswana: 2 Castles of Mad King Ludwig: 1 Alhambra: Family & Friends Compact Edition: 1 Ra: 1 Stonespine Architects: 1 Living Forest: 1 Backgammon: 1 Fort: 1 March of the Ants: Evolved Edition – Deluxe Edition: 1 8 designers: Dirk Henn: 18% Reiner Knizia: 18% (Uncredited): 9% Aske Christiansen: 9% Gord!: 9%.

October plays. Another light month.

Probably needs some touch up still, but, Tak board.

Bought a cheap box to turn into a Tak board. It’s designed. Need to see how the paint pens come out before deciding how minimal the line work will be.

Gaines: *gets in a 1:1 debate with AOC*
*still manages to come in 5th place*

“This is the year someone announces a Tigris & Euphrates reprint.” - me, every year.

The Rose King end game state.

A few games with younger gremlin. She won at The Rose King. Jerk. I mean, yay!

“We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that.”

Ooooh, I have the Japanese edition, but this one is so pretty, may need another copy.

This is just ridiculous. That’s clearly Nirvana.

Darn. I’d just nominated him for the Nobel Piece (of Shit) Prize.

BG Stats Sep 2025 Plays: 9 H-index: 2 Games: 7 New: 3 Players: 7 Locations: 3 Hours: 5 Days: 8 The Rose King: 2 Toy Battle: 2 Darwin's Journey: 1 Forest Shuffle: 1 Mega Man Pixel Tactics: Mega Man Blue: 1 FlipToons: 1 Draftosaurus: 1 13 designers: Alessandro Zucchini: 14% Antoine Bauza: 14% Corentin Lebrat: 14% D. Brad Talton, Jr.: 14% Dirk Henn: 14%.

September was busy. So few boardgame plays.

To be fair, he doesn’t really care about the cronies either.

Container, GRUNTZ, and Triangulation Out of print for far too long—the legendary Container returns! + Discover GRUNTZ's sharp duels and Triangulation's witty word-guessing.

2 projects backed this week. If everyone can stop making new games for a few months that’d be great.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/boa...

Dogs of War by Play to Z A shattered realm. Six feuding Houses. You, a Dog of War, shift battles, forge betrayals, and seize glory to rise as the ultimate victor.

That was an easy back. Such a good game.

gamefound.com/en/projects/...

Box cover for Toy Battle game

Saw someone post some gameplay of Toy Battle (I don’t remember who, sorry). Looked neat, so I tried it on BGA. Definitely a fun little game. Of course it’s sold out everywhere.