Board Gamers Anonymous

SPIEL Essen 2026: Believe the Hype? Episode 596

The games! The crowds! The rapidly shrinking shelf space! This week on Board Gamers Anonymous, Chris and Tim discuss SPIEL Essen 2026 and the buzz surrounding the latest board game releases. With 230,000 visitors and more than 2,000 new releases at the world’s largest board game fair, there’s plenty to get excited about. But how much should we believe the Essen hype?

Plus, in Roll for Review, we share our impressions and ratings of two games:

Chris: Treeline — Lead a forest clan to reclaim a city for nature, flipping tiles and competing for control of key positions. Can this small box deliver big decisions?

Tim: Excavation Earth (2021) — Alien explorers dig up humanity’s leftovers and sell their discoveries in a competitive market. One civilization’s junk is another civilization’s payday!

Keep the gaming going at our amazing website, BoardGamersAnonymous.com! Explore our episode archive, written reviews, Top 100 lists, annual BGA Awards, and most anticipated games, including our 51 Most Anticipated Board Games of 2026. Your next favorite game might be waiting there.

Love the show? Support Board Gamers Anonymous on Patreon to help us keep making more great episodes. Your support keeps the microphones on, the conversations rolling, and Chris and Tim debating what deserves a place on your table!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 595: Top Ten Phil Walker-Harding Games

From drafting the cartoon sushi plate to building a bear park, Phil Walker-Harding has designed board games that are easy to bring to the table and full of clever choices. But which ones are his best?

This week on Board Gamers Anonymous, Chris and Tim count down their Top Ten Phil Walker-Harding games! In Voice of the Gamers, we explore the designer’s catalog, celebrate the games that keep us coming back, and debate which deserve a spot at the top. Will your favorite make the list—or will it get left behind with the last piece of wasabi?

Roll for Preview

Tim — All’s Well That Ends: Gather your party for a cooperative fantasy campaign featuring tactical card play, new abilities, and Wildlands adventures. Let’s hope all’s well that ends with everyone still standing.

Tim — Gothic: A Shadow’s Quest: Enter the dangerous world of the Gothic video games in a cooperative adventure filled with quests, exploration, and deadly enemies. The Old Camp is waiting—and it doesn’t sound especially welcoming.

Chris — Origins of Light: A Final Fantasy Board Game: Return to the worlds of the first three Final Fantasy games in a tabletop adventure inspired by their Pixel Remaster editions. Assemble your party and find out if the crystals are still in trouble.

Roll for Review

Chris — Dragonarium: Draft tiles, shape landscapes, and manage elemental powers as you create dragon habitats. But can this dragon-filled spatial puzzle really take flight?

Tim — Misfit Heroes: Mix and match character cards to create an unusual band of heroes, then build their influence across the kingdom. It’s card crafting, tableau building, and a reminder that heroes don’t have to fit the mold.

What’s your favorite Phil Walker-Harding game? Write in and let us know which game belongs at number one—or which overlooked favorite deserves more attention. Contact Board Gamers Anonymous.

Visit Board Gamers Anonymous for more board game reviews, recommendations, and podcast episodes.

If you enjoy the show, please support Board Gamers Anonymous on Patreon and help us keep the games and the conversations going!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How to Win Friends and Influence Gamers

Which board game do you bring to game night when you have one chance to make everyone say, “We need to play that again”? This week on Board Gamers Anonymous, Chris and Tim share games to win over children, families, non-gamers, experienced gamers, and heavy strategy fans.

In Voice of the Gamers, we explore games that make a lasting impression through eye-catching production, memorable gameplay, and the right experience for the right crowd. Whether you’re introducing friends to modern board games or impressing someone who’s played everything, choosing the right game can turn a casual gathering into a regular game night.

Crowdfunding Updates

Kickstarter — The Lord of the Rings: The King’s Gambit: A return to Middle-earth with a new tabletop adventure.

Gamefound — Defenders of the Realm: Definitive Edition: A refreshed edition of the cooperative fantasy game about heroes defending their realm against advancing enemy armies.

Roll for Preview

Chris — Stormlight: War for Roshar: A strategy board game bringing the conflicts of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive to the tabletop.

Chris — Lorenzo il Magnifico – A New Renaissance: A new take on Renaissance-era competition, building on the worker placement and engine building of Lorenzo il Magnifico.

Tim — On Call | A High-Octane ER Simulation Co-Op Board Game: A cooperative emergency-room simulation that challenges players to work together under pressure.

Roll for Review

Chris — Clash of Clans: The Epic Raid: Build your village, develop your army, and raid rival bases in this tabletop adaptation of the mobile game.

Tim — Kavango: Build a wildlife reserve in southern Africa, balancing animal conservation with the development of a thriving ecosystem.

What board game won over your friends or family?

Share your best game-night success story!

Visit Board Gamers Anonymous for more board game reviews, recommendations, and podcast episodes.

Enjoy the show? Support Board Gamers Anonymous on Patreon and help us keep the conversation rolling!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim’s Darkest Timeline: One Game Has to Go

Three great games. One has to disappear from Tim’s gaming options forever. And Chris has generously volunteered Tim to make every terrible decision.

This week on Voice of the Gamers, we put Tim through a gauntlet of impossible board game choices. Beloved classics, modern favorites, and games he thought were safe on his shelf suddenly face elimination. Will he sacrifice nostalgia? Betray his favorite mechanisms? Spend ten minutes arguing that the question is fundamentally unfair? Chris brings the choices, Tim brings the anguish, and everyone listening gets to judge him from the comfort of their own untouched collections.

In Roll for Preview, Chris explores Arctica, an Arctic ecosystem engine builder with gear-based player boards, while Tim dives into Oceanic, where marine life and habitats form a shared ocean ecosystem. Both are on crowdfunding—because apparently choosing which games to buy wasn’t stressful enough.

In Roll for Review, Chris looks beneath the greenery in Under the Leaves, a garden tile-placement game, while Tim heads down the rabbit hole with Rolling in Wonderland, a competitive dice-drafting adventure. After all those eliminations, Wonderland might actually feel reasonable.

Visit Board Gamers Anonymous for amazing tabletop content, more gaming discussions, and plenty of reasons to make room on your shelves.

Enjoy the show? Support Board Gamers Anonymous on Patreon to help keep the podcast rolling and fund Chris’s ongoing commitment to making Tim’s life unnecessarily difficult.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 592 – Never Play, but Never Purge!

It hasn’t hit the table in years. You can barely remember the rules. But suggest getting rid of it, and suddenly you’re prepared to defend that box like it contains a family heirloom.

This week, Chris and Tim tackle Never Play, but Never Purge! in our Voice of the Gamers feature: the games that don’t get played but will always have a home in our collections. From cherished memories and impossible-to-replace favorites to sprawling adventures waiting for the perfect group, we explore why a game’s value sometimes goes beyond its play count. Are we preserving a piece of our gaming history, holding onto the players we used to be, or keeping a seat open for the gamers we still hope to become? And exactly how many years can “we’ll play it someday” remain a credible argument?

In Roll for Preview, Chris heads to Middle-earth with The Lord of the Rings: The King’s Gambit, a reimagining of the beloved Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit that brings interconnected battles and the journey to Mount Doom to the tabletop. Tim answers the call of Defenders of the Realm: Definitive Edition, a return to cooperative fantasy adventure with a new gameplay engine, distinct defender decks, and enemies that require different approaches. Apparently, protecting our shelves wasn’t enough—we also need to protect entire kingdoms.

Then, in Roll for Review, Chris explores Minikin City, a strategic card game where building your city means balancing immediate rewards against scoring opportunities unlocked by its tiny inhabitants. Tim examines Mosaic: A Story of Civilization – Wars and Disasters, an expansion that adds naval units, military conflict, and disasters to your civilization-building ambitions. He also reviews Falling, James Ernest’s frantic real-time card game where everyone is plummeting, and victory means hitting the ground last. From building a tiny city to weathering civilization’s upheavals to delaying a very personal disaster, there’s plenty to discuss.

What’s the one game you never play but will never purge?

If you haven’t yet, check out the recently updated BGA website at www.boardgamersanonymous.com.

And if you enjoy the show, support Board Gamers Anonymous on Patreon at www.patreon.com/c/bga.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices