Top 10 Hidden Gem Board Games - Chairman of the Board

[@ianmcclellan7269]

After watching this, I not only insta-bought Xi'an, but I also became a proud Patreon backer. Keep up all the great videos!

[@justind8586]

YES when the world needed him most, he delivers

[@pascalcharland2778]

Thanks for comvincing me with Monasterium. It seems right down my alley... I'm also attracted by Mammut (love the designer) and Tumble Town... You are on fire lately with so many videos! Awesome job!!!

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

Thanks so much.

[@Coffeemaker1978]

Very interesting choices so far! I hadn’t heard of #10 & #9 before.

[@davidfavre6145]

Very interesting subject ! The only one that i have heard is Monasterium. It looks like a really good game and thank you to let us know about Xian ! I’m looking forward for this one as well 👍

[@Coffeemaker1978]

This is one of your best videos so far, you are now in my top 3 of youtubers I just have to watch ❤️😄

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

Thanks so much.

[@timu.6452]

Borrowed Mammut from my game club on your recommendation and played it over the weekend. A little tricky to grasp on the first few turns but after that it was a lot of fun. Not one i need to own, but I'm glad i played it.

[@bobcattom5997]

I'm a big fan of Reiner Knizia. I haven't played Chartae but glad to hear you like it! Also enjoyed bloating his credentials to hundreds of classics and thousands of games designed!

[@SideGameLLC]

Wow! I haven’t heard of any of these. Here you go again Dan, adding more to my list. Great list!

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

Haha. I can only apologise.

[@alarrad]

Excellent list!, Now the difficult part will be to try to get them...

[@paulspo]

I am 1 of those X'ian Owners. I love the game. Don't get it to the table as often as possible unfortunately. However I do think the rules needed some work.I will play this game anytime. Thanks for the great video.

[@leecurkeet7654]

Xian is on sale at funagain for $11.99. I just bought it there. Thanks for the heads up. As soon as I seen it I remembered this video. Otherwise I may have just passed by it.

[@BillyIndiana]

Great video! I love the game suggestions. It is always fun to find a hidden gem. Looking forward to checking out Chartae & Xi'an.

[@woolvey]

Monasterium hasn't been released in the US. That will definitely affect the number of owners on BGG. Mammut sounds like its drafting mechanism is the same as Thiefs Market. I like the mechanism but probably don't need two lighter weight games that use it. I own and love Pyramids. I don't see it around much though. There's a couple of others you mentioned I'll take a closer look at, so thanks for the list!

[@DaweDelete]

Thanks for the video, I've made a late pladge to Tumble Town, seems very fun!

[@scottchladek1770]

Thanks for the great video with some really unique games. Just ordered a few games thanks to your descriptions and reviews.

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

Let me know how you find them!

[@boardgamefangirl]

I won Masque of the Red Death on a Facebook giveaway. I need to get this played! Also, John Clowdus games are interesting but I only own his small game The North.

[@jonsmith9518]

I’d hate to be the first one knocked out of a 6 player game of Masque of the red death. Perhaps that takes it down a notch. I’ve been searching for a copy of Merchants of Muziris for a long time here in Canada. It’s not common to see it on the secondary market. Super rare. Jaipur on the other hand is everywhere. Every store has it in stock and it’s bought and sold on the secondhand market regularly. I own Jaipur but would gladly flip it for a copy of Merchants as I do agree with your assessment that it’s a more interesting game and offers more interesting choices with the special powers on the cards. Cheers!

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

All the eliminations happen in one sequence, so no downtime :)

[@Orthor-hy1wt]

I actually own The Big Score. I had backed it on Kickstarter. That is the only one that I have from this list. I should look into these...

[@J-Wheeler-G]

I love Counterfeiters, I don't see anyone talking about it. Also love The Duke.

[@deepdivemusicreactions]

great titles. I will check a few of those for sure!

[@seniscram7958]

I own Xi,an. I own it because you mentioned it in a top 50 a year or two ago. Glad I bought it! Very good, fun and aesthetically pleasing game. I also picked up Mexica because of that same review. That one is a hidden gem too.

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

Amazing! Really glad you enjoy those titles. While I completely agree that Mexica is a bit of a gem in terms of nobody really talking about it, it did have it's moment in the spotlight and has remained in print for nearly twenty years now. Thanks for the comment!

[@edmundengland]

How strange, two days I suddenly tried to find the name of the game (Xi'an) and now you recommended it! Big thanks. I had a interesting situation where two kids, one with special needs suddenly got interested in Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small I had in the country. I hade forgotten the rules but improvised. It was a bit too difficult. But we hade great fun. But love to give them something simialar. Euro farming game for kids. Do you have a tip?

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

It might be worth looking into the recent Uwe Rosenberg trilogy of games - Indian Summer, Cottage Garden, or Spring Meadow. Hope this helps :)

[@edmundengland]

@@ChairmanoftheBoard yeah, never thought of those. But those I sometimes see cheap second hand. We tried playing the game one day, other she went to school and after that we played the game. She said that she had being thinking about the game all day. My heart melted then.

[@diamondmeeple]

BGG comment: "Excessive randomness in gameplay (you draw cards to find out which resource-gathering actions you can take and whether you will be screwed in player order on the actions that convert resources to points) covering for the fact that the base point-collection and area-majority game isn't very interesting."

[@inezkestens5561]

Great video! Really interesting games! I've bought Xi'an a while ago because i thought it was really interesting. Now i see it discounted a lot but when I looked for it, it was really hard to get. Very good different kind of game. I think Monasterium suffers a bit because of it's price point. It's the reason why I haven't bought it, even if it seems to be right up my alley. I have a lot of similar games in my collection so I hesitate paying €50/60 for it. If it was €35/40 I would have bought it instantly. It may be a bit nitpicky but this is an expensive hobby :p

[@Juegosmontt]

Faltaron imágenes de apoyo

[@drccddmm]

Have you played rajas of the ganges? Although it is very different kind of games from tumble town, do u have a preference between these two?

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

Coincidentally, I'll be playing Rajas for the first time tomorrow. So I'll try and remember to answer this question after!

[@drccddmm]

@@ChairmanoftheBoard looking forward to it

[@WuschelofDespair]

Masque of the red death sounded really interesting until it was a player elimination game. I sold Bang! and made sure to never ever buy a game again, where people have to wait for the rest to finish.

[@ChairmanoftheBoard]

The player elimination happens in one big sequence at the end. There's no waiting at all.

[@WuschelofDespair]

@@ChairmanoftheBoard then I‘ll gladly take a look, thanks for the tip ☺️

[@afrank525]

+1 Tumble Town