Obligatory 2015 Essen Spiel Post Part IV: Top 10 List (Part I)

Essen is upon us!  Just a few days left until one of the largest boardgame conventions in the world begins and 10’s of thousands of people descend upon Germany in order to buy new and shiny games.  I wish I could be there.  But, since I can’t, I instead do my Essen Spiel series to lighten the sting.  If you haven’t yet checked them out I’ll have the links below to my first three posts.  Post one took on my top 5 game expansions, post two took on my top 5 reprints, and post three took on my honorable mentions that just  missed my overall top 10 list.  Check out the links below for these posts and then come back for more! 

Essen Spiel 2015 Top 5 Game Expansions

Essen Spiel 2015 Top 5 Game Reprints/Re-Implements

Essen Spiel 2015 Honorable Mentions

Now that we’ve finished that, we move on to my top 10 list!  This post will take on my game 6-10 and these are just some great-looking games.  I’m not even sure that all of these games will be released in the United States.  Regardless, I can’t wait to check them out and see what others are saying about them.  Enough preamble, here we go!

#10 – Signorie (What’s Your Game?)

Signorie is a dice rolling, hand management, and worker placement game designed by Andrea Chiarvesio and Pierluca Zizzi and will be released by What’s Your Game?  This game uses dice which are in a common pool and you (as a Lord of a prestigious family) take these dice and place them in your city.  The color of the die and the number on said die create both the action and the cost of said action.  I love mechanisms like this and Andrea Chiarvesio has already been successful with dice placement in Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm.  These two have also worked together on Hyperborea so they have a good report.  Add that to the fact that What’s Your Game? always seems to pick great games and we may just have another great game on our hands here.  I’m looking forward to this one and it already looks great!

#9 – Bretagne (Placentia Games/Post Scriptum)

Bretagne is an economic, action point allowance, area control game designed by Marco Pozzi and will be released by Placentia Games and Post Scriptum.  This game finds the player using worker placement in order to build lighthouses along the coast of 19^th century Bretagne.  Players use their turns to take actions to get resources, trade resources, get cards or money, hire workers or engineers and build these lighthouses.  What makes this interesting is that players can score immediately when they build or hold off to possibly gain more points at the final scoring.  This game looks absolutely beautiful and I think the theme is very cool.  I’m looking forward to hearing more about this and hope that it will get a release in the United States.

#8 – Dice City (Alderac Entertainment Group/Artipia Games)

Dice City is a dice rolling, worker placement, city building game that is designed by Vangelis Bagiartakis and will be released by Alderac Entertainment Group and Artipia Games.  This game finds the players using their board which has six columns and five rows which correspond to the colors and faces of the five dice that each player has.  These dice are rolled and put on their row and column intersection and the players are then able to use these actions to get better buildings and defeat bandits and attack other player’s cities.  This is a beautiful-looking game with fun dice rolling and mitigation for those who really hate luck.  I think this will be right up my wife’s alley as well so this may be a Christmas purchase.

#7 – Tail Feathers (Plaid Hat Games)

Tail Feathers is a miniatures flight game with dice rolling that is designed by Jerry Hawthorne and will be released by Plaid HatGames.  This game is set in the Mice and Mystics universe also by designed Jerry Hawthorne.  This game just looks great!  It is a battle game where you have mice/rats on birds that you will use are airborne troops.  There are ground troops as well that you can use to attack the air units or can go on missions where they will attempt to take out the other team’s nest.  This game uses the same dice and you can actually use any models that you have from previous Mice and Mystics games.  I have been more interested in this game of late and have found in not just entering my list but moving quickly up it.  This may be the X-Wing style game for my wife and I.

#6 – Simurgh (NSKN Games)

Simurgh is a worker placement, tile placement, fantasy game designed by Pierluca Zizzi and will be released by NSKN Games.  This game finds the players as the heads of powerful clans where dragons and humans live and hunt together.  Each player can breed these dragons and use their powers to help make their own house the most powerful of them all.  Turns go around with each player able to take one main action and then any number of free actions that they have to spend.  The players build the board with tiles and then are able to send their workers there at later times with some spots only able to be taken by dragon riders.  This is a beautiful looking game by a solid designer and I hope that it is picked up for an eventual United States release.

There you have it, games 6-10 of my top 10 releases at Essen Spiel 2015.  This year’s Essen is really ramping up into a great convention.  Again, I wish I could be there, but at least I can rest assured that most of the great games that come out there eventually make it over to the States for us gamers to purchase.  What do you think of these 5 games?  What did I miss?  As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to make them below.  Come on back tomorrow for my final post in the Essen series where I will take on my top 5 of the convention.  Until next time, game on!