I watch a lot of board game reviews every month. However, I actually add only a few of them to my “buy list”, as board gaming can be a very addictive and expensive hobby :). So I have decided to start a new blog series called “Best of the Last”. I will give a brief overview of why I like a specific game based on the reviews or a playthrough I have watched every month. Hopefully, this will save you some time and money if you happen to stumble upon this series.

Rajas of the Ganges

Designed by Inka and Marcus Brand (designers of Exit game series) and published by R&R Games and Huch Games Rajas of the Ganges is a worker placement game set in the 16th century India. Each player controls a region in India and is trying the raise its prestige and wealth.

The actual game board is really colorful and beautiful. That in itself is a plus compared to most Euro games. The regions that each player control is represented by a separate player board where each player gets to place tiles that he collected by placing workers and using dice as resources on the main board. Almost has a mini puzzle building aspect. The tiles also give you more special abilities.

The main board gives you a ton of options for worker placement, gathering resources (resources are mostly dice in this game that you get to roll right after you collect them). You even have boats that you can move down a river to collect money, points and all kinds of resources. The river has a racing feel to it.

One of the coolest things about this game is the scoring track and how the end game is triggered. The main board has two separate point tracks around it. There is a prestige track that starts on one side of the points track and the money track starts on the opposite side. Once a player’s prestige track and the money track cross each other the game ends. I think that is really interesting.

If you would like to watch a quick review of how this game plays, click here to watch Tom Vasel from DiceTower.

If you want to watch a more detailed play through, Rahdo from Rahdo runs through has a two-part play through.

Western Legends

The theme alone made me very interested in this game. For some reason, there are no spaghetti Western-themed games out there, at least not one that I like. I know Great Western Trail was a hit and it seems like a good game, it is more traditional and realistic cattle farming simulation. Western Legends is your typical, Hollywood western movie. You can be an outlaw or a lawman, you can gamble, rob banks and fight bandits, go mining and find some gold.

The game comes with a whole bunch of western legends you can choose from. Billy the Kid, Doc Holiday, Geronimo, Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp and more. You move around the board going the different locations and activating the actions related to the location you are in.

You can do things that will make you a wanted criminal or you can help catch criminals. There is even a small semi-coop aspect to this game. There are two events that need to be resolved by the end of a round and they are hard to complete by yourself. And if they are not completed at the end of a round they go away and you miss out on a lot of legendary points.

You can even have shootouts. Play poker. Each player has his own secret objective cards to begin the game if you complete them these objectives can earn you a lot of legend points. However, the board is wide open. You can just be a poker player and earn points and money, go mining. You do not have to play this game as a shoot em up game at all.

This game just had its Kickstarter, published by Kolossal games and designed by Herve Lemaitre. The artwork and the components look great as well. I cannot wait for it to be available for retail so I can get myself a copy.

On a personal note, I think it would be very cool to have a Western-themed co-op game!!

Here is a playthrough with Rahdo.

Petrichor

Published by APE games and designed by David Chircop and David Turczi, in Petrichor you are a rain cloud moving around the earth trying to find the best “crop” to rain on:). Talk about an interesting theme.

You set up a random number of crop tiles and each player gets a rain cloud and a single raindrop in that cloud. This is an area control game, and each crop tile will earn you points if you are the controlling player for that crop. How do you control a crop tile? By making it rain:). If a cloud gets 8 raindrops in it, no matter what color the raindrops are, it rains automatically.

The game revolves around card play. Each player has a number of cards in his hand and these cards represent different seasons. Each season card has a specific action that a player can take when played. This is how you are going to move clouds around, add more raindrops or even make a cloud rain etc.

There is a second action a player has to take based on the card he plays on his turn and that is voting. The card you play shows what weather event you can vote. At the end of the round, the two weather events that have the most votes happen and change things for the clouds and the raindrops on the main board.

The art looks gorgeous, the theme is very unique and the gameplay looks like fun. The points for the area majority for different crop cards are cool too, there is one crop tile that gives more points to a player that has the 2nd most raindrops. I really like this game. Add to my buy list!

Tom Vasel explains the game in detail here.

If you have any comments, questions or any other games you would like to mention, please feel free to leave a comment. Happy gaming!!