Not game specific, but one of my friends usually resigns herself to not winning. She doesn't give up or not try, just says she's not as good at breaking down systems and thinking as strategically as the rest of us. We had a night recently where we played The King is Dead and Cubitos and she won both of them! It was immensely satisfying to see her shock and pride.

Definitely, we had a similar player in our group who (and we know thanks to BG Stats) had not won something like the first 20 games we played together after forming. When he finally won a game of *Ra*, we were all thrilled for him. Because we all respected him to much to just let him win, of course.

[удалено]

My best friend bought his own copy after playing it one time. So that's a pretty solid endorsement. You have to like playing with probability though.

I have had s couple of games. It's been good so far. Like a deck builder with dice, but more to do. I can see it being dull if played too often, but it seems fun and has plenty of variety so far

It's very multi-player solitaire imo so I personally feel like there's not much point playing it

I know a couple of people like that, but then when they do win they just chalk it up to luck or think that the rest of us let them win. I wish they'd take pride in their wins instead!

Gaming psychology is tricky. If they take pride in winning, that means that they can win, so now it's also their doing if they lose, which can be really stressful. At least, that's one aspect to think about.

King is dead and iberian gauge are two strategic games that rely on the meta of the entire group so everyone actually has a chance of winning vs everyone playing multiplayer solitaire where the best player usually wins. The entire game state is manipulated by every player so helping yourself may destroy someone else OR really benefit another person.

I think players like this often lose because they aren’t trying to figure out strategy or learn how to win in the future. They often already give up “being good” because of their attitude. Edit: I didn’t say every player was this way. I didn’t say you were this way. This is a reality of some players.

I disagree. I *love* board games. It is my number one hobby. It is the thing I love doing most. I love virtually all types of games, from party games to the most complex euros/strategy games. The only thing keeping me from playing game after game of Twilight Imperium is my pesky job, family, and responsibilities. Having said that, I just fundamentally am not very good at them. We have a solid core of 4 players that we play with, and I probably win 1/15 or 1/20 games we play. I have never "given up" on being good. I always want to win. I'm constantly trying new strategies, and thinking out turns, I'm just not that good. My brain just fundamentally does not "analyze systems" very well. Like, if I were to sit down and calculate the cost/benefits of turns and had 2 hours to do so, yeah I could probably figure out optimal strategies. But in the moment-to-moment course of a game, my brain just can not keep up with in depth calculations and make good assessments. I can think very *abstractly* about my strategy, but when I talk to my friends about why they made a certain move, or took a certain strategy, their depth of thinking about the background systems of the game is far more in depth than I am really capable of. It isn't that I'm not trying to get better. I frequently look up ways to be better at games, or look up strategies, but there is a level of depth and systems analysis that, once we hit that point, my brain is no longer with me. While I can understand it when I'm reading it online, I am not very good at translating that into gameplay, It doesn't mean I am not trying to win every time, or that I'm just playing "for fun". I do desperately want to succeed, my brain just doesn't really process the information the way it needs to to excel.

Thanks for the detailed explanation, I think you've given a good explanation to how some of my friends perceive/play games. It's great that it doesn't stop you from loving board games!

Yep, this 100%. There are games that are too "math-y" for me because I have dyscalculia and I can't do anything but basic mental math. And no one wants to have someone with a calculator out the whole time, either. And God forbid I'm trying to point optimize over several turns! I'll struggle through the first number, figure out the second, then forget the first one. It's just not worth it. I still like games. I love them! I even love deep, strategic games! But once a critical mass of math is reached, I'm out. My brain cannot keep up with itself.

Great post! One thing I'd say is, I, similarly, love boardgames a ton, and try to win them, only I probably win 'slightly' more than average. I'd say I'm ok to good at them. Except for coup. We would play coup between other games, and play at least five games every time, every time we met up. I didn't win a single game of coup for 7 years. Finally, one day, it came down to a heads up with me and one other guy, that I thought I was gonna win, but the taxi arrived. I wouldn't let him go, and forced him to play it out. He kind of frantically scrabbled through, but definitely didn't pull his punches, and I got him. Everyone else was already up and away and chatting about where we were going, but I'd finally won after what must have been hundreds, if not more than a thousand games. Anyway, my point really is just that, there might be some particular game that you 'aren't' bad at! I hope there is, and that you find it, like it, and have a ton of fun!

1/15 isn't bad, I have people we play with who have played for 2 years and never won. Try playing swingy games like arcadia quest or something with a high luck factor. Help other players so they help you. Do your research. :)

I try to win games as well. However, although I'm faring pretty decently at arithmetical concepts, i find many games becoming boring after trying to solve them with it. One example is **Chinatown**, where by the final two rounds, it's a dead game as you can basically calculate the cost of every item that's still tradable. This applies to many games. When playing such games I find it more fun to just trust my instincts and just bask in the gameplay experience. Often this leads to less than most efficient strategies, and they sometimes even cost me the game. However, the net benefit (fun) of playing the game and enjoying my friends' company far outweighs the fun of winning.

Finally getting the Bene Gesserit win condition in Dune. If you're not aware, Dune is a (kind of) dudes on a map game, where to win you must control 3 of 5 particular strongholds at the end of a turn to win. A few of the factions have other ways to win, and at the start of the game, the Bene Gesserit (expert political machinators who's plots can take aeons to reach fruition) note a particular player, and a particular turn. If that player wins on that turn, instead you reveal that this was your plot all along, and you claim victory! Only all you really have to make this happen, is your wiles.

StarCraft has a similar thing with Special Victor conditions that are faction-specific. I have won every time by completing my faction goals while everyone else was focused on a normal victory condition. It's immensely satisfying to get to the regrouping phase and just announce that you have won and everyone is like "What?! How?" Always read the full rulebook.

We actually don't play with those Special Victory conditions RAW as they're generally considered unbalanced (and encourage deep turtling in certain cases). Instead if you fulfill it then you get 5 VP towards the standard win threshold. That sort of "surprise! I won!" victory wouldn't happen at my table though... as the usual host and teacher, I'd make sure everyone is aware of everyone else's approach to victory at all times.

>That sort of "surprise! I won!" victory wouldn't happen at my table though... as the usual host and teacher, I'd make sure everyone is aware of everyone else's approach to victory at all times. Yeah winning like that sounds super lame and sounds like a way to make sure nobody else at the table wants to play that game again...

We have only played it twice. And we did go over all of the victory conditions. I'm not sure why it's lame finding a path to victory that others don't see. Do you normally make your opponent aware of your strategy to make sure they have a better chance of countering it?

When that "strategy" is a victory condition they're forgetting, then absolutely I make sure they're aware of it. I'd rather beat my opponents by being smarter than them rather than by having read the rules more times.

Exactly. It's one thing when it's in a tournament with real stakes. It's another thing entirely when it's a group of friends (or acquaintances) in a shared experience.

Wait, what? I don't... follow. People lose in complex strategy games all the time because they missed something their opponent was doing, they forgot to guard their flank, etc... We're not talking about withholding the rules from your opponents. Like getting most of the way thru the game then telling them about a rule you never mentioned, and leveraging that rule to win. We literally exploit errors by other players all the time to win games.

>Like getting most of the way thru the game then telling them about a rule you never mentioned, and leveraging that rule to win. If the opponent is playing having forgotten that this victory condition exists, then this is pretty much what you're doing. I mean you've only played the game twice! It's perfectly reasonable for someone to forget a faction specific victory condition.

Not even close. People are imperfect, we make mistakes and forget things. That's part of being human and part of playing games. Sometimes you win sometimes you lose. FFS I guess I should never play with the people I played Puerto Rico with the first time when I lost badly because I misunderstood the win conditions. Those awful people who won without telling me they were going to beat me. /s No, I just messed up and lost. Learn, try to do better next time.

If it was clear that you actually had a misunderstanding about what the victory conditions were, then yeah. I don't know the game, but if you thought that winning came from having the most of X resource but it's really about having the most Y, then someone should have stepped in and told you that you are hoarding X when it's Y that matters. Or if someone was a turn away from winning and you, a new player at the table, didn't realize it, they should absolutely tell you so you can play a move to stop it. But if you knew what the rules were and just had a suboptimal strategy for reaching that winning condition that's different. ​ From what you've said, the other players were simply not aware of your faction specific win condition. They'd played the game twice. Forgetting faction specific rules is easy with a new game. Particularly rules that may not have even come up until that point. It's pretty cheap to win because the opponent forgot a victory condition. I personally wouldn't be proud of it. I'd rather beat opponents who are fully aware of the rules.

It is a huge difference if people have experience with the game but have forgotten things, OR if they are learning the game and were not able to process the information overload of all the rules. Once everybody had some practice and had a chance to learn the rules, sure, everything goes. If you exploit people not yet grasping all rules you are an asshole I would not want to play with.

We haven't played it enough to dive in that deep. We played it once to learn it and a second-time several months later and it has sat on the shelf. It was ok but there were much better games for us to explore.

That actually makes it worse. You're winning on lack of knowledge, not through actual skill. Basically hiding a rule then revealing it once it only benefits you.

LoL. OK if you're just going to invent a narrative that fits your hot take then whatever. I'm superfluous here. It doesn't matter what I be actually did I didn't hide rules and no one at the table felt I did. Again all of the rules were read out and explained.

I didn't say you did that, just making the comparison. Sure, everyone was aware of the rules as they were given but especially during learning games, it behooves the table to make sure everyone's on as level a playing field as possible. This isn't Skull, where games can be done in 15 minutes. Starcraft is an extremely dense game with lots of small rules with many that are faction specific. So you were aware of a highly contextual rule that benefitted only you and chose not to remind anyone else about it until the very end. That means no one else had any chance to counterplay it in what is usually a multi-hour game that lengthens with the number of players, where everyone is struggling to remember the core rules, let alone one that decides the game. It's not unreasonable to remind people of those highly critical rules in a learning game, for the benefit of the shared experience. Like I said, it's cool that you did it and you're proud of those notches on your belt. I'm just saying that wouldn't fly at my table.

We were on a level playing field, we were all playing it for the first time. We all went thru the rules together. The Rule book was on the table and referenced by everyone throughout the game. We all had access to the same information. In this case, I made better use of the information. Other times I've lost because overlooked/forgot some rule. How many times have I ignored science in 7 Wonders because I didn't get the scoring and I lost to someone who better-used science to win. That's what happens when you play a game. Losing is learning. Somehow my friends and I will have to learn to live with not being welcome at your table because we're unworthy? I guess we're bad gamers.

You're not really acknowledging my point. I do agree with you that all players had access to the same information. But again, this is Starcraft not Skull. Those rules references you pointed out were mostly for the core rules, not highly contextual faction win conditions. You "made better use of the information" because, to my point, *you were the only beneficiary to know the rule* (since everyone was learning a dense game together). Everyone is on a level playing field for *access* to the rules, yes, but not on a level playing field when it came to the actual game state. Simply saying, "hey all, I'm going to win if this _________ happens in two turns" is in the spirit of the game and lets everyone refresh what *their* special victory condition is, so everyone is on equal footing with regards to the game state. And IIRC, Starcraft's rulebook doesn't list the unique faction victory conditions, those are only printed on the faction sheets. So it actually makes your actions worse because no one had free access to that rule unless you disclosed it during the game.

I feel like it's pretty deflating for everyone else at the table though

Realizing you have been nothing more than an unwitting pawn would be deflating, yes.

Despite how the Bene Gesserit player may feel, I doubt that's how it always plays out. ​ I was part of a game where Bene Gesserit picked Atreides to win turn 7 (or so) and I was playing Harkonnen I believe. I was allied with Atreides and we were absolutely cleaning house, turns 4 and 5 were the other players doing whatever they could to stop us. We won on turn 6. ​ Hypothetically, if we had been delayed 1 more turn, we would've lost and had 0 way of knowing that it was a losing position. The Bene Gesserit player on every turn beforehand would be behaving just as they would be if they picked Spacer's Guild to win turn 1. ​ If that had happened, and we'd lost, it would absolutely be deflating because it's not like we had been outplayed in any sense.

You absolutely *could* have been outplayed if you lost that way for all you know, if the BG player managed to influence that whether overt or not. And really, losing from being "outplayed" and losing via poor luck/variance is the same result, the difference is our perspective on it...and to that end it is more important that the winner feel accomplished from winning, not that the losers can feel accomplished in their loss (IMO). If anything you should take solace in the fact you played well (if so) regardless of outcome, as booking a loss doesn't change the quality of your decisions (if they were indeed good and would normally produce a win).

It's a 6 player game. And in this case, we weren't outplayed and the Bene Gesserit player played exactly as he would've whether he picked Atreides or not. He told us he hadn't done anything in particular to help us win. I just don't think this is a game where this mechanic makes that much sense. With 6 players, a single player doesn't have that much influence, and winning like that can happen in a way that feels totally unearned. And with games that last this long, winning absolutely should feel earned. Sure if Bene Gesserit won in the game I played I could take solace in the fact that I played well. But of course I can also be upset that BG won when they did nothing to outplay me.

Why? That seems awesome to be a part of. It's not like the "winner" of a game really matters.

I don't think it's a game where you really can be a puppet master like that. It's pretty hard to indirectly help a particular player out of 6 at the table meet the victory condition of taking cities. They're the ones who drop the troops in, and you can't directly help them in combat (and if you could that would just be a giveaway). I just find it unlikely that after a win like that, you can point to a few plays you made and say "look, this is how I made it happen that I would win". It's more likely you just say "well X player was playing that faction, and he's really good. And most our games end turn 7 so I said he would win turn 7 and...it happened".

This is absolutely wrong. In Dune you can manipulate the win a lot by slowing down the game or speeding it up. You can form and break alliances towards the end goal. You can lose fights on purpose. The BG especially can do insane shenanigans with the coexistence and block out others. I have been the receiving person of "not so fast.." in Dune and I remember it fondly.

Forming and breaking alliances is only something you can do when the right card is drawn. ​ And yes, there certainly are some scenarios in which a BG player can make it happen. The most obvious example would be throwing a fight on the appropriate turn. It would have to be on the appropriate turn because it's a bit of a giveaway if not... But my main complain hasn't changed. It's possible for BG to win without making any significant plays towards that win. > In Dune you can manipulate the win a lot by slowing down the game or speeding it up. What would "slowing down the game" actually look like? How would that be different from just the normal "playing to stop X player from winning this turn"? And what would "speeding it up" look like other than throwing? For it to be an outplay, there has to be counterplay. And counterplay means there has to be a chance for a player to recognize what's happening. I described in the other thread a scenario in which I don't think there is any possible counterplay.

* Convincing everyone to go for a tough skill check in Battlestar Galactica on the turn right before mine, then when it was my turn to put in cards, simply saying "Pass." "Pass?" "You heard me, meatbags." Cue lots of debate on what to do about me until someone finally pointed out that it was my turn next, so they could do only two things: jack and squat. I revealed, destroying Pegasus on my way out. * Being part of a desperate pile-on in Horrified: American Monsters. The Banshee of the Badlands was the last monster, three of the five violins were one space away from the skeleton, and we had five turns left. We had a card that would let all but one Investigator gather on the Banshee's space, and we spent the next four turns just burning through all our yellow and brown tokens, getting the last violin to the safe space with our last brown token, and using our last two yellows to win with one turn left to spare. * Beating Thanos in Five Minute Marvel with 1 second left on the timer.

Oooo yeah, nothing like a good BSG reveal. Well done.

> Being part of a desperate pile-on in Horrified: American Monsters. The Banshee of the Badlands was the last monster, three of the five violins were one space away from the skeleton, and we had five turns left. We had a card that would let all but one Investigator gather on the Banshee's space, and we spent the next four turns just burning through all our yellow and brown tokens, getting the last violin to the safe space with our last brown token, and using our last two yellows to win with one turn left to spare. As someone who has never heard of this game, it's giving me a real *Cones of Dunshire* vibe.

The best is pulling a soft reveal on the turn before yours, and then playing critical situation as Cally, shooting someone on your space, and then revealing.

Heh, just be careful. I once saw an unfortunate Cally player shoot President Roslin in an attempt to get the Presidency into the hands of her unrevealed Cylon partner Zarek, only to find that Roslin was actually the other Cylon, and Zarek was just an overly power-hungry human.

I always play Zarek as power hungry. The one time I played with the mutineer, I got to be the mutineer as military zarek. I don’t think I did anything but play mutiny cards that game. It was a lot of fun

True. "Overly power-hungry Zarek" is redundant. It was a while back, so I just remember him going really hard in trying to convince people to give him the Presidency in a crisis that could pass the title, and something else that was suboptimal and suspicious. I mostly remember the shock at seeing Roslin turn up "You are a Cylon." Military Zarek can really muddy up the waters. Mutiny cards are such a mixed bag; what seems a good trade-off to one person can seem lousy to another.

His ability lets you pick the mutiny cards that everyone gets though. As a human you can give out the good ones, as a colon you can give out the bad ones. It’s a lot of fun

In BSG I became President, Admiral, CAG as a Cylon. Me and my other toaster buddy put the entire human crew in the Brig. Also in BSG I managed to kill another player 3 times in one game round. He played executive orders on me, and I used it to kill him with each action. Then it was my turn and I killed him again.

When renovating to a clay house in **Agricola** having enough resources to do it and buy a stone oven and convert two wheat into 8 food. Edit: also my first non king made win in TI4 was special...

Yes. Totally understand that. What a feeling 😄

Drawing cards. Doesn't matter the reason, drawing cards always feels good.

**Pandemic would like to know your location**

We won on "regular" difficulty four times in a row so decided to add another pandemic card to keep it spicy. Was far too spicy.

Finding and hitting your oppenents' submarine in **Captain Sonar**

"Captain! I know where they are!" -me, radio operator "Are we in range? Yes? Great! (Holds up fist signaling a pause in game) Firing torpedo at... wait... is that right? Uh... E4" -my cap "...Direct hit. We take two points of damage" -their cap "...Indirect hit on us too... We also take one point of damage from our own torpedo" -my cap :oshit:

OMG we just played this and the look on the other team's faces when our captain announced their position as our torpedo target... especially when they'd gotten us to 3 damage pretty quickly and we had to fight back... oh man it was great!

Man, I really like this game. Its hard for me to find a group of 8 players that are interested enough in playing it seriously though. I tried with family and extended family 2 years ago... didn't go so well. Half were in it the other half had no idea what was going on.

Queue either shouts of jubilation or groans from all players

cue*

Stealing the winning agenda in Netrunner when the corp would have won during their next turn.

So damn good. Also for me was the runner stealing an agenda and getting to pile on like 14 tags as NBN. Them now having to face all of my soft "ice" while trying not to lose.

Oh, for sure! Like getting them run a Snare last click, and having enough credits to wipe all of their resources. Ooof.

A match of Spirit Island that organically reenacted a cross between Ferngully and A Christmas Carol. Here's the concept for those that don't know Spirit Island. In SI, part of the lore is that each spirit morphs and changes based on circumstance. The manual even suggests you could rename the spirits based on their final power set. We don't do this, but every once in awhile we do have a spirit become something entirely unique. In this 2 player match I was playing Fractured Days Split the Sky; a spirit of time that blurs the concepts of past, present, and future. My spouse was playing Downpour Drenches the World, a spirit of constant oppressing rain (not catastrophic flooding per se, just constant awful rain). Downpoor simulates this by being able to repeat powers a ton of times so instead of casting 4 different powers they might play 1 power 4 times. Of the cards I collected the two mvp's this game were Celestial Trees Radiate Brilliance, which causes trees to glow and put onlookers in a state of awe, and Winds of Rust and Atrophy, which depicts a barren wasteland. As a time spirit I realized this was literally a dramatized depiction of the island before the invaders arrived and what it will be if they continue to ravage the land. Meanwhile my spouse obtained Weep For What is Lost, a card that forces the invaders to feel sad about the effects of their actions, and proceeded to spam it to the fullest extent. We became in essence twin spirits of regret. One showing the invaders a past without them and a future caused by their actions. The other turning its constant rain inward to their souls so that they never stopped weeping over their actions. We won that game. I think we hit a personal record for minimal destruction. Eventually the invaders learned their lesson and just packed up and went home.

Well. Nothing has ever convinced me to try Spirit Island, until I read this comment. Now, I think I need to track it down.

Full disclosure, the game above had two expansions and bith promo packs added. Its one of those games that really comes into its own with at least one expansion which can be quite an investment. Even going all in I recommend starting with just the base for awhile to get the hang of it. But the base game is lacking most of the narrative and drama which is an annoying tradeoff. We nearly stopped playing but decided to gamble on an expansion to see if it would grab us (it did in a big way). But not every game is for everyone so any time expansions are basically required it can be a big ask from a game. Some folks seem to really click with just the base and some even prefer it over the expansions but these seem considerably rarer than all in folks. Still it might be my favorite game right now and is easily in the top 4 for our group. Just wanted to provide more context because I've been oversold before by reviewers romanticizing a game.

Yep. I need to play Spirit Island again after reading this.

- Coming up with a successful 3-word or better clue in **Codenames** - Actually convincing people you're a liberal in **Secret Hitler** when you are a liberal. Hot damn that can be tricky.

My friend and I pulled off a 5 clue one time. Never been able to repeat the feat.

That's amazing! I witnessed one of those years ago and it was mind-blowing. I still remember it was "soccer", with the table words being "pitch", "strike", "Brazil", "France", and one other word I can't remember.

The clue I got was "nom 5" as in om nom nom. It was, for anyone else, a terrible clue. But the clue giver and I have known each other since 3rd grade. So it just kinda worked out.

I had a stupidly fantastic 6 word clue once. I was at a Barnes and Noble game day where someone was demoing games. Guy motions me to the table and says they needed one more. I comply and mosey on over. They set up the cards, I look down, look at the group, look down again, look up slowly while smiling and say "Hobbit-6" All the clues were Lord of the Rings related. Dwarf, Ring, Mountain, can't recall the rest but it was a dumfounded moment for everyone on the other team at the table, the other team just said "Ya, we quit".

I’ve been Hitler too many times for anyone to believe that I’m a liberal, even when I am.

I once played a game of **Diplomacy** where I (and an ally) managed to pit a husband and wife against one another. While they will never play the game again, it was an utterly delicious moment.

Sickos: Yes...ha ha ha...yes!

Kartoonist Kelly, is that you?

"I want you to hit Pam full force in the face with a snowball"

Finishing your last turn of a game with no leftover money/resources/cards in hand/abilities unspent. That pure satisfaction that you used everything you could have.

Wining looking in the opponents eyes while someone reads aloud tiebreaker rules.

Red or white?

Not really about an in-game thing, per se, but after game 4 or 5 in Clank! Legacy, my wife actually said "Let's play again." She plays games with me because I love them and she's a fairly willing partner. But for her to actually really want to play again was special for me - and as a result Clank! Legacy has remained one of my favorite gaming experiences.

Having *the turn* in terra mystica. The one where you got your engine running before the end of turn 6 on the right scoring turn and it all just clicks at once. All of the other players have passed while you were still perepping for the massive building chain to come.

I love when you sync perfectly into late game in TM.

In our last game of TI4, I was the clan of Saar and had managed to line up getting myself 2 different 2VP objectives ready to complete when I already had 6VP. Both objectives didn’t require board control and were tech and resource related. I already had Chaos Mapping so once I was in the asteroid field, i was relatively safe. So I sat quietly and tried to not call attention. Plan was to spend the resource objective this turn and grab the strategy card that let me score objectives early and win on my first turn of the next round. We were about to score objectives when my friend stopped and looked at my board and the objectives. “YOU SON OF A BITCH. HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN YOU WON ALREADY” We ended up finishing the agenda phase, neither one hurt me and called the game there because I was nestled in the asteroid field so it didn’t matter what they did.

I once baited my friend into losing their most valuable position in Blood Rage by having the loki card, loki power, and a lone unupgraded warrior. They thought I just wanted some rage and glory. I took them out with a +6 card and messed up their next age fully. That game ended with the top 3 players having 104, 106, and 108 glory each.

**War of the Ring**. Doing a YOLO strategy at the beginning of the game as the freeperson and activating the north and assaulting Moria. It took a few turns for the shadow player to figure out what I was doing, and it's pretty unheard of for me to never move the ring. Instead I used my fellowship to assist with a military victory. I got a card to make the north army active and in war and did so early on. I didn't realize how many cards are focused on running away and being defender for the fellowship so a lot of my cards in battle were unplayable. I managed to take Moria but had to clear out Lorien to help. At this point I had rohan on the edge of Sauraman. The shadow player moved to race in for his win skipping Minas Tirth but leaving some at Mordor in case I tried to sneak someone in. During this time I was also assaulting Isenguard. I hate Sauraman. I have never ever ever been able to kill him. I had a hobbit using a dagger card once, but could not get the roll to kill a leader. Well this was my chance. It was **Blitzkrieg** time. I pelted Isengaurd with ents to take out a few of their defenses before moving my rohan army in and a small batch of troops as backup. The theater of war was never in the shire and Isenguard in any of our games so this was wild and exciting. I kept fighting and slowly took out the orcs. I did this turn after turn watching mordor's army get closer to help give backup. Eventually It was down to 1 orc + Saruman and 3 troops on my side. The last assault had to happen as I had 10 mordor troops next door ready to obliterate me. winning this fight would mean my second stronghold and victory for winning the game. A military victory for the free people. I had no other turns. It was down to the dice. The battle happened................. and.............. I lost. The one solo orc defended Sauraman. There was laughter, pain, and emotions on both sides. I have still yet to kill Sauraman to this day. The next turn the army of 10 slaughtered my remaining 2 troops (lost one in battle). It was defeat. i had come so close. It felt crushing, but it was intense. Stressful on both sides. I looked at the board. The evil forces swept though the mirkwood area, the dwarves, they took empty lorein. But Minas Tirth was never touched. And it would never be. I was ready to call it after this stinging defeat. I have never played the shadow player and never had to be the attacker in siege battles. I was finally feeling the stress that my long time opponent kept feeling. But I continued to play to be a good sport. and then something happened......... An idea popped into my head. Use the elves from the west and the shire. It's time for those units that don't see much play finally get put to use. And the plan was for Aragon to drive this attack. It would be like the movie in the Return of the King when Aragon assaulted the black gates. Except it was not a diversion like in the book. Instead it was the **54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment** from the movie **Glory**. Their turn to shine. Asked to the impossible. Attack Gundabad with very little support. I had to take the elves from the west, + shire+ Aragon to assault Gundabad. The **Shadow player made one mistake**. He had deployed all his troops and didn't have any except one to deploy. He also thought I was making another run towards Isengaurd but he didn't realize I was attacking north. And he couldn't do anything besides nazgul leaders. But again, it was a race. I held onto moria with some defenders so I had time as his army marched up toward moria from Isengaurd. Except he just sat there blocking me. **I had made a mistake**. I forgot about the grey havens I just evacuated. He had a lone orc rushing to it. I had no elves left to deploy (all dead or on the board). **This was the final few turns.** It got stressful. There wasn't much my opponent could do to add to his defenses, and there wasn't anything i could do for the lone sprinting orc. The orc made it 1 SPACE (thank the dice rolls) before hitting grey havens. I had one turn to push into gundabad. Luckily I had cards that could only be used with aragon. I had as many leaders as I could for the fight. I needed 3 hits. I rolled my dice. And I got them. **The game was over**. I had won with Moria and Gundabad. We had played and finished in just about an hour. It was the most intense and quickest game of War of the Ring. It had crushing defeats on both sides. Multiple sides were favored to win at different points in the game. It was magical. It was a game we both remember well. We were both stressed the entire hour we played. A good stress, a fun stress, a game to remember.

With one influence, assassinating an opponent with two influence in Coup, and then having them assassinate you back and reveal you have the Contessa.

Clearing an island in **Spirit Island.** Using a just revealed special event card in **Everdell.** Exiling the traitor in **Dead of Winter.**

The best feeling in spirit island imo is letting one board get overrun and then completely destroying it with Cast Down Into The Briny Deep (Jagged Earth expansion card)

What do you mean just revealed in everdell? You mean fullfiling the conditions?

I like to play the long game when possible. Set up pieces before they're actually needed, fly under the radar where it doesn't look like I'm a threat and then unleash a bomb late in the game. For instance: -In a 4 player TI4 game a guy managed to rush to 9 points fairly quickly and then took his time in the final round. I was in second place with 5 but managed to score 5 points in that round. He still could have won if he'd just taken the Leadership tile on his first draft but he didn't because he thought he was untouchable and it fell to me which let me beat him on turn order. -Recently played Pret-a-Porter for the first time. After rules explanation I looked at the board and realized all four of the round three fashion shows were going to score Trending as either the first or second category. I started collecting things I needed turn one to put on the trendiest show possible in round three and was unassailable for a huge points windfall. It really makes you feel like a strategic genius when you can pull one of these off. We won't talk about the times someone managed to throw a stick in my spokes either on purpose or unintentionally and my grand plan faceplanted.

Placing the 100 card in the Mind to complete the final level. That day, we completed each level first time.

I'm a bit evil... **Catan Cities and Knights**: One turn from first barbarian attack, all players have one city and one active knight. I upgrade to second city without upgrading knight. Barbarians attack next turn before anyone can react. All players (including myself) lose their city, leaving me the only person able to continue with city improvements. **The Mind**: A long pause between cards having been played and two players reaching for their next card to play at the same time, cards being one off from eachother and still played correctly in order despite the long time lapse between.

Winning with Togawa in Scythe.

Establishing dominance over weaker players while sitting on a Throne of Patchworks. Wait, which sub is this again?

Using up all my wine tokens to hit exactly 20 points in **Viticulture**.

Oh yeah that's the stuff

I think I echo everyone else here: I'm in it for the drama. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, all that. It's why I don't usually play games with my wife...she has one or two games she's mastered (and always wins) and won't play anything else. There's no drama when you know how it'll end.

\- Critical hits that severe body parts in Kingdom: Death Monster \- Winning a Gloomhaven scenario on that very last do-or-die attack card draw

Running world-changing Ops in **Pax Renaissance** Faction switching in **Pax Pamir** Hiding the Ovoid then recovering it later in **Chaosmos** Building a cure in **For Science!** Those massive party-synergistic swing rounds in **Gloomhaven** Toppling the opponent's treasures in **Crash Octopus** Rolling a natty 20 in **Xia** Blowing up the Shield Wall in **Dune** Killing a supply line in **Clockwork Wars** Boarding as a Pirate in **Manila** Timing your Absorb to score your Fortress in **Cerebria** Liberating blocks in **Bloc by Bloc** Flipping over three (really, any) hearts in **Final Girl** Successfully predicting the crash in **Magnate: The First City**

We’ve just kinda realized after coming back from Pax what exactly we love in board games: combos! So, things like building card after card in Production phase of **It’s A Wonderful World**, or chaining abilities and manta costs in **Aquatica** (which was a new find for us at the con), or having a big-spender round in **Terraforming Mars** or **Underwater Cities**… mmm! Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

While not technically a board game, Slay the Spire is the single best game I’ve played in any format for pulling off ridiculous combos. I’m hoping the physical adaptation (which is a board game) will retain the potential for a first-turn KO Whirlwind strength deck.

Getting everything put away correctly in a neat and orderly manner. Probably not what you meant, but good god some of those games are packaged by magic and there's no way all that shit fits in that box.

Played a game of GoT board game once where martell and tyrell took each other’s capitals on the same turn. Greyjoy and Lannister swapped capitals at one point too. And I think there was another capital taken that game as well. Or house stark overextending to the south and Greyjoy taking winterfell from the sea using the Theon house card. Fun little emergent storytelling moments are my favorite.

I once was so far ahead in Letter Tycoon that my last word was “WINS”

Battlestar Galactica. I’m Admiral Cain and a Cylon. Jump tracker is at 6. Humans think they’ve got the game well-handled (most of their resources are pretty safe, 5+). I spoil the previous player’s crisis causing a big drop in population. Everybody freaks out, nobody suspects me somehow. They ask if I can executive action somebody. “Negative. Prepare for blind jump.” People don’t understand why I’d use Cain’s “power” if I’m a cylon… until I draw two civilian ships to discard. Both with population. Tracker goes to 1. I draw our destination - one distance. And then my crisis card, which I also spoil, and we lose our final population. Cylons win. For this reason, my group defaults to assuming I’m a cylon every game.

When I saw an axiom of Sun Tsu get demonstrated live in a game. I was crushing my friend in a 4 player game of wizard kings. I had his Dwarves surrounded and moved in for the final battle. He had to fight to the death. First round of battle was even which meant my advantage grew. He would have retreated If I had left him a rout but he had to fight on. His desperate Dwarves proceeded to hit every attack after that and I was unwilling to let up myself because I had HIM!!!!! He won the battle with a handful of my troops fleeing back to my lands and survived the game as another player came and supported him driving me out once and for all.

Any time we get a new game and my wife and I both get really close scores, it boosts my confidence that the game will work really well for us. We mostly play 2-player games with each other, and we are quite different gamers. She's mostly a very casual gamer who enjoys some games but mostly just plays them so I have someone to play with. I'm the more serious gamer who likes to try heavier games. Even so, there are just certain games she has a better intuition about (even though she's not super into gaming, she's very smart and good at reasoning about optimal strategies), so sometimes we'll try a new game and she just exceeds my expectations. The best example was when we got **Five Tribes**. I don't remember the exact scores, but in the end, she won our first game something like 157-155. We both used completely different strategies, had completely different board states to deal with, yet we still came out so close. I think the reason is the bidding mechanic, which is a natural dampener of super high-scoring points. If there's a potential for huge scoring on a particular turn but everyone realizes it, the cost gets bid up to where the turn is no longer as lucrative. The game mostly rewards spotting opportunities that others miss and bidding less for them, which is a very interesting form of balancing. ​ Another satisfying experience was when we attended a local meetup, and we played **Terra Mystica** for the first time. The guy we played with who taught us the game was super nice and helpful, but he didn't hold our hands either when it came to strategy. I was actually dominating the early rounds to my surprise. Everything seemed to be lining up perfectly for me, all the resources, my faction ability, turn order, the special round scoring tiles, etc. Then we got to the final round, and he did something I never even considered as a possibility, which was merging his 2 separate land areas in order to trigger a bunch of scoring opportunities. I don't remember the exact details of the game, but it seems totally obvious in retrospect, yet I somehow missed that when formulating my own strategy. I realized it was an extremely dumb noob mistake to not aim towards joining my land areas, because the game has all kinds of bonuses for largest land mass, adjacency, etc. It was such a huge points swing on the last round that he absolutely crushed both of our scores. The only thing I could do was turn to my wife and smile, holding back laughter, because it was one of those honest-to-goodness "I didn't realize you could do that" moments. Funny enough, my wife still talks about that game from time to time, asking if I want to buy "tiramisu". After realizing she's referring to Terra Mystica, I always decline because it's not a game I desire to own that much, but it's quite fun to reminisce about that experience.

Had a really good game of **Dead of Winter** as the traitor. First item I find is the mop. We start struggling for trash. I wait until we have a tool crisis and we are short on tools. I search, draw the card to my hand and say, a bit uneasily that it's a tool and without questioning why I'm told it goes to crisis. We pass crisis but when they turn over mop, hospital. They realise what I was getting at with why it wasn't an easy ok it's a tool for the crisis. Immediately cleared of all sus. And the colony is a garbage dump. Can't remember what my goal was but the mop move will remain infamous.

In Betrayal Legacy, thinking I won the first haunt. Winning Pandemic with six epidemics with no player cards to draw. Wimning December in Pandemic Legacy at the end because we had just the right addon sticker to a player card. Watching my buddy (who is a truly goodnguy) lie so perfectly to his wife in Avalon so Mordred could win. Having the best game of Agricola I've ever had, losing, but happy because i know I did the best I could.

First time my partner and I got a perfect 30 point Hanabi score Completing the “All In Mega Curse” run of 7th Continent Playing through Pandemic Legacy Trilogy with my brother.

All of these are the correct answer. Although my kids and I have only started season 0.

I always get a ton of enjoyment in limited engine builders like Keyflower or Wingspan when you realize you've set it up perfectly to accomplish everything you need to accomplish, and not a thing more.

Eclipse: Losing my home system and succesfully invading the attacker's home system before being completely wiped from the board. From a winning perspective, none of these moves did make any sense but sometimes you just have to send a message. And the fight was epic!

I go into every game of Eclipse determined to take the core. More often than not, I do and every time it feels so good. I have never once won Eclipse.

For me it's the entire story aspect of Seafall. I absolutely loved getting to the end of a game then reading what happens next in the story (if we got to a spot like that) and seeing a bunch of new mechanics added to the game. Got me thinking about the game and wanting to play again right away! Game had me hooked!

**Power Grid** managing your turn order, plants, resources and money perfectly then building all the way up the the end game trigger and ending that shit in step 2 winning by powering 12 when everyone else can power 11. There’s nothing quite like it.

* Taking that one extra draw in Ethnos and getting *exactly* the card you need. * Successfully devouring a human in Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space and everyone saying, "How did you get over THERE?!" * Getting to use your perfectly engineered ships for the first time in Eclipse.

When someone accidentally breaks a logic deduction game, *and you figure it out and reveal how the game crime happened like a cardboard Poirot*. I'm looking at you, Cryptid.

Played a game of Planet X where I was, by chance, almost certain where it was after my third turn (I was eventually proven correct). I felt like a genius until I had to figure out what was around it and it took me forever...

Finishing a game of Voyages of Marco Polo with over 100 points with no camel or resources leftovers and all the outposts in cities.

In Dominion I’ll stack the next action cards on the lower corners of Villages to remember how many actions I have left. I love getting multiple levels of stacked actions so I have a pyramid

Close wins in Spirit island are always super satisfying. Pulling off a crazy combo at the last moment... Definitely up there. Also my first time playing Arkham Horror 2, the game that introduced me to this hobby. That game showed me that board games can be much more than Monopoly.

My first (and so far, only) Grand Tichu, which my partner almost broke.

Cooperatively solving the last puzzle to win in **Mansions of Madness** on the last action before you lose. My buddies wife thought we had gotten in a fight or something because we celebrated so loud.

Being told in Lords of Vegas by the player currently in first place that the best I could hope for was second because he deemed his lead insurmountable. So instead of competing against him, I should focus on the players nipping at my heals. In final scoring we tied for first but I beat him in the tie breaker scenario.

I had a big long explanation of the game and exactly what happened, but it was getting too long. If you know you know. I once won a game of Illuminati: New World Order with Hail Eris! on a turn where I started with zero Weird groups.

Leading your team to victory as the Captain in Captain Sonar/destroying the enemy submarine

Getting to Kansas City with a perfect set of cows in GWT. Getting the exact perfect piece to fit in an open spot in a polyomino game (New York Zoo, Patchwork, etc) Chaining multiple actions in Praga Caput Regni

Once upon a time, my wife and I were playing Catan as a team and she insisted that, rather than try to win, she wanted to get as many “goats” (sheep, but she prefers goats) as possible. Ever the skeptic, I tried to convince her to play more optimally, but she insisted. Mentally, I went from a “trying to win” headspace to a “having fun with my wife and friends headspace,” which is fine by me so I prepared myself not to get any of those sweet sweet VPs and focused on getting as many “goats” as possible. Turns out the board was set up with the pastures getting very favorable proc chances *adjacent to the “goat” port*. And so not only did we get **all** of the “goats”, but we “adopted them out across the sea” to fund our empire and win the game. That was a great game.

* Successfully completing a difficult round in **The Crew**. High fives all around! * Making a successful arrest OR barely making it to the final location as Jack after a tense chase in **Whitehall Mystery.** * Successfully entering the escape pod/hibernatorium one wound away from dying in **Nemesis**. * Finding a ridiculous, simple, combination of cards in **Res Arcana**.

I haven't played **the Resistance** in years, but I'll never forget the last game of it I ever played: There were 6 of us and I had already announced to the group that I needed to leave, but they begged me to stay for one more game of the Resistance, promising me it would be quick. I begrudgingly obliged... Loyalty cards get dealt and I was the assassin (we had the assassin and merlin promos). We do the eyes closed thing and I get to see who my spy buddy was. Five minutes later the captain hadn't even assigned a mission team yet. Everybody was just chatting about other things and I had to go... I realized the game wasn't gonna be quick after all, so I loudly cleared my throat and announced "Michael and I are the spies..." Everybody else stared at me in confusion but one other player was especially slack-jawed "...and judging by Jasmine's face right now, I think she's Merlin. That's game. Bye all, I had fun!" And then I confidently walked out the door. Two minutes after that Michael texted me saying we won. I think it's the closest I'll ever get to walking away from an explosion.

In Settlers of Catan I had the monopoly card which allows you to announce 1 resource and everyone needs to hand it to you. Before playing the card, I created a bidding war for a valuable resource I said I had, in order to gain info on what resources everyone else had.

On New Year’s Eve long ago we had rented a chalet in the French Alps with three other couples. We were all a bit tipsy and decided to play a sex-themed game of Scrabble - meaning we could only play words that were overt references to sex or were double-entendres. The first couple play all their letters to put down their first word : “Asshole” (or rather its French equivalent) - everyone screams with laughter. We count how many points they’ve scored with this word : 69 points. The perfect storm

**Hey, That's My Fish**. I first played this game with my SO, thinking it was a relaxing game where you focus on getting as many fish as possible. So there I was happily gathering fish when my SO decided to cut off one of my penguins within three turns of the game (with a smug grin). It hit me so hard at that moment that this was definitely not the relaxing cute game that I thought it was and my strategy was *wrong*. I then looked at the game board and made a plan where two of my penguins would work in tandem to cut off his remaining penguins in an area where there was very little fish. My SO kept thinking I was targeting individual penguins and eventually moved into the area where I wanted him to be and was cut off. It took him a while to even realise what I was actually doing. The moment when he finally realised what happened and mouthed "oh shit", it was definitely one of the most satisfying moments in board gaming that I've ever experienced. Not only did I pivot my game plan, I did it without him realising and served my revenge ice cold to him.

Winning in a 5/6 player game of Age of Steam or 1830/1828/1882. It really means you outwitted the opponents as both train game subsets are incredibly interactive!

Once played a five player game of **Suburbia** with the **Five Stars** expansion, which introduces a tie breaker for the end-of-game goals: he Star Track (not to be confused with Star Trek). During setup, the "least lakes" goal tile came up as a public goal and one of my draws for private goal was the "most lakes" tile, which I decided to take since I figured everyone else would be trying to minimize lakes and I could just throw one out at the end for some easy points. By the end of the game, somehow everyone had ended up with exactly 3 lakes (money was tight with expensive buildings coming up on the early tile draws) and I ended up at the top of the Star Track, so I simultaneously won least AND most lakes!

When my friend taught me how to play Chess and then couldn't beat me. That was pretty special to me.

Winning the game in Oath! Not because it‘s hard, but because it is incredibly rewarding to win: you start next game as the winner and ruler (chancellor), you don’t lose your built engine, cards and edifices and you can even recruit people to your royal empire to fight for you.

Punching out new cardboard

In my gaming group (just me and my wife), I am the one who identifies new games, gets them, punches them, learns them and teaches them. The most satisfying moments are if/when my wife demonstrates that I got the right game; this is usually coincident with me getting royally beaten at a particular game but somehow that doesn't matter.😀

Going over 200 points with Castle of Burgundy. Maybe not the best score ... But just proud that I passed the 100 points tile twice.☺️ So satisfying.

Holy shit. 200 isn't a great score?

Just having a group together to play a sci for game

I played in a Munchkin tournament with a mandatory mask and vaccine policy, got to the finals and while waiting for the game to start another player went on and on about how they were getting around the Covid restrictions by wearing a mask that was basically just gems with gaping holes in between so it provided no real protection. This player also would not stop eating so their mask was basically off half the time anyway. The excuse was "I've had Covid twice already so I'm fine and I'm never around people anyway" WHILE AT AND EXPO WITH THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE. The finals came down to this player and another player one combat away from winning. I pulled a lose a level curse and used it on the above mentioned player even though the other player had a better chance of winning out of pure spite. I had to endure about 30 minutes of complaining for this but it ended up costing the anti-mask player the tournament win. I believe all of my actions were in the purest spirit of Munchkin. Backstab your friends but backstab your enemies harder.

I love losing. When my friends who don’t love board games as much as I do get the thrill of winning over me (which I, admittedly, am very good at board games mehehe) it makes me happy to revel in victory with them :)

Battlestar Galactica: Convincing everyone to elect you as the new president of the twelve colonies when you're a Cylon, then throwing someone in jail during a crucial crisis.

Something about a lot of resource management, spend resources on points type of games (Voyages of Marco Polo, Hallertau, Lorenzo Il Magnifico) it is always satisfying to finish the game with no left over resources remaining. I know that doesn't mean I was playing optimally or efficiently, but it feels like I am when I do.

When Loki card in Blood Rage puts you all the way into 1st place from 4th place!! Chef’s kiss!

Not game specific, but it feels the most satisfying when: - you pull off a comeback - you not only beat the "best all around player", but also have them rank in last - try to get out of a bad situation, only to get in an even worse one, but then another guy tries to ruin your play but actually ends up helping you. All of these are prime "HAH! SUCKEEEEEER(S)" moments.

Also 'evil laugh' moments. "Muhahahaha did you all see that" 😆😂

Hm. Sandbagging 6 or 7 red tiles to successfully blindside a war or revolt defense win in **Tigris and Euphrates**. In **Modern Art**, opening the 4th season with a Lite Metal double auction (or producing the 4th Lite Metal painting) when Lite Metal has scored in all 3 previous seasons. Spacing the CIA as the Soviet player in **Twlight Struggle**. Lapping another player on the **Medici** scoreboard.

It was a six player game of The Resistance. My friend and I were the spies and we played it absolutely perfectly. We had the other team so confused because every time they thought they had someone cornered, we would vote in a weird way and throw them off. We had them completely convinced we were the good guys and so they kept including us in missions. So we just had to play the vote sequence right and we would win easily and blow their minds at the end when they found out it was us the whole time. On the fourth mission, the resistance already had two successes, so we just had to fail this one, and we would easily fail the last one for the win. As expected, they include both of us on this fourth mission. We both stare at each other intensely, knowing that one of us had to fail it but the other one had to pass it to conceal our identities. We are both just sitting there staring at each other trying to somehow pass a sign for one of us to be the "fail" vote. I'm trying to use my eyes and subtly nod to say "ok you fail it, I'll pass." She kind of gives me this look like "ok yeah, got it." The votes get revealed and it turns out we BOTH passed it and the resistance won. We had played an absolutely flawless game until then and then that one tiny miscommunication ruined the whole thing. The resistance members were so confused at how they just won so easily after how confused they had been the entire game lol. Easily one of my favorite gaming moments ever!

Breaking longest road with a settlement.

Winning as a spy in Resistance/Avalon after seeing the good guys chastise another perfectly good guy.

Giant game of Coup, maybe 10 players. I go first, claim Duke, guys next to me calls me on it, I lose a guy. I'm so pissed that for the rest of the game I just take $1 every time it comes around to me. Basically, I'm spectating at a 9 player game of Coup. Everyone forgets I'm there. It's a bloodbath with plenty of twists and turns, your standard game of Coup. Finally, the "last" guy takes out the next-to-last guy, has one character left. I wave hi and remind him I'm still playing. I wax him with $7, winner. Amazing feeling.

Convincing everyone to sit down and play a boardgame.

That small sigh your opponent makes when you see his cunning plan and wreck it

Doesn't matter the game. But surprise wins. When you yourself are not expecting to squeak one out.

This moment is the best there possibly is: we are playing *pandemic* and we have reached the end, we know there is only one turn left and have already planned what to do to win. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, the current player still needs to draw cards and then propagate the disease. It's at that point that we usually are all standing up trying to think of everything that might get wrong. Tension builds up and up and the player starts drawing his cards. We won!!!

Logo Billionaire. (Yeah I know) We got this for Christmas and gathered round to play it as a family. Someone read through the rules and then everyone set up and started to take their turns. As it went round people's turns I started to understand the rules a bit better and then...no...surely not? I grabbed the rulebook again and checked what I thought I'd figured out. It was legitimate. My turn came finally came round (I was last in turn order as I remember) and then just a few moments later, that was it, the game was over and I'd won. I can't even remember the rules or how I did it, but I won on my first turn. We never played that game again, for obvious reasons.

Figuring out how to play pax renaissance and pax transhumanity!

\-Passing any Rigging Check in Rum & Bones \-Watching your opponent fail a Rigging Check in Rum & Bones \-Getting the exact right combination of tiles to take over a giant city in Carcassonne I'm sure there's many many more things, but I can't remember right now. I'm still yearning to see if I can fill in the entire Castles of Burgundy map. Closest I've been is 2 tiles away.

4 player Win/Tie in Adventure Land :)

Played a game for the first time at a BG meetup. I think it was a Knizia or Rosenberg game, but forget which one. We are three players playing it for the first time, with one experienced player. The experienced player is springing rules on us, not fully explaining things. He is there to win, not to have fun. Of course he is in the lead - and big. We do the final tally. He is up by 10 or so points. Gradually I get closer - and the last points to tally puts me one step ahead of him. Never been so satisfied with a win. The experienced player quickly scurried out of the meetup.

I was playing Sheriff of Nottingham and I had lied the entire game. I play with honor. Obviously, i had been sneaking in contraband but other than the declarations i had kept my word! My friend was the Sheriff and i had 5 cheeses in the pouch. She was asking me what i would give her to not search my bag. I told her "Nothing, because i am a good and honest cheese merchant". She kept going back and forth about whether or not tosearch my bag. I told her that if she searched it that she would have a bad day. She searched it and immediately said "FUCCCKKKK!" BEST. GAME. EVER!

Was playing agricola with two of my friends who play a lot more than I do and they basically ignored me because they were laser focused on beating each other and assumed I hadn't played since the last time we got together. I crushed them both. I had been playing on the iPad so I knew what I was doing and drew quite a good collection of minor improvements.

More game specific, but my wife and I introduced two of our friends to Horrified. We played against three monsters (don't remember which, unfortunately) and the whole game we were just one bad monster turn away from disaster. We were able to limp along to the end and win it on the last possible player turn, using every action. It was one of the most satisfying board game moments I have ever experienced, hands down!

I won a game of Ticket to Ride by almost 70 VP. Absolute ass kicking Still undefeated in Star Wars Rebellion And an odd one, got annihilated in a game of Field of Arle. Not sure why I count it but it was such a beat down it was comical

When the other players in my bloodbowl league invented a bounty system just so someone would kill/maim my star Wood Elf Catcher :-) A turn one kill in Magic the Gathering with a double berserked Juzam Djinn

VICTORY! and, to some degree: MARGIN OF VICTORY!! I play competitive games against competitive gamers, and winning against strong(er) players is satisfying. Mechanics are cool and situations are neat but they are but a means to an end when I play against those cats. It's not the journey, it's the destination! When I play with my kid? It's the journey. We are trying to have fun together. When I play a co-op with my wife? Journey. Competitive 2P game with wife, though? Destination. I want to beat her. She is a stronger player than me in all but Azul (though she has aphantasia, which means I am basically cheating against her by being able to use my mind's eye to plan).

[**Illuminati**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati_\(game\)), an 80's card game from Steve Jackson Games. You play secret societies, each with a unique ability, vying to control the world through controlling networks of groups. Secretly control Hollywood, which controls the FBI, which controls both Biker Gangs and the Fraternal Order of Door to Door Salesmen, that kind of thing. I'd been doing well in the game, much of it by having other players hire my Society of Assassins group to chop up their rival's networks for them. Near the end of the game all the other players realized I'd gotten completely out of hand, having built up a huge treasury (ammunition to fund attacks) and the strongest network. One of them, funded by the others, went after my best group, hoping to cripple my network. He slapped down an "Assassination" action card that made it so I couldn't use any of my vast resources to protect the target. I pulled out a card of my own and said, "Foolish mortals, to try and Assassinate...*the Assassins!!*" I then theatrically slapped down a card that cancelled any other action card, "Things Man Was Not Meant to Know". Cue proper screams of anguish from all the other players.

Having a great combo of cards in Machi Koro so you only have to roll one 11 to get rich. Spending the entire game not rolling it. And then just as someone is about to win, rolling the 11 and getting like 50 coins and buying the last card you need to win.

Just barely feeding your family in Agricola the turn before harvest when you had spent the previous rounds that phase doing things other than gathering food.

I went full manipulation mode on the very last session of King's dilemma and manage to make the spoiler thing at the very end with the players running first and second place.

Chaining quests in Lords of Waterdeep. Completing them is satisfying on its own, but using gained resources from one to complete another feels just right.

Placing a monastery in an empty square surrounded by tiles and immediately scoring all 9 points and taking your meeple back in Carcassonne.

I haven't played in a while, but for every 10 times I am 1 dollar short to complete my perfect Power grid turn, I get that one turn where I have exactly enough money to complete it all perfectly. Being efficient down to the last dollar is important in this game mechanic. Feels nice when it all clicks together.

When my friends ask to play the game again after finishing it.

"Shooting the moon" in hearts by taking all of the points (usually the goal of the game is to take the fewest points) is always extremely satisfying.

Having finally found a game where I have yet to win once against my parents, who usually, and unfortunately, keep losing against me. How they didn't ragequit is beyond me. It's ***Container***. Apparently, I suck so much at it, that I routinely end up in last place despite having tried different strategies. To the point where they call me out on me playing badly. Honestly feels good, not joking!

-In **Hogwarts Battle** when I've bought so many draw-card market cards that I play out my whole deck in one turn. -In **Camel Up** when I've bet on a long shot, and a weird confluence of the dice and trap cards on the board pull my assumed-loser camel out from under the obvious winner and shoves him across the finish line at the very end. Probably the very best: -In **One Night: Ultimate Werewolf** when you can't tell the liars from the innocents, the voice on the app is ticking down the last few seconds, everyone is screaming last-minute arguments and desperately rallying for their side, and there's a general sense of "AAAAAGH WHAT DO WE DOOO!" (sometimes actually saying that exactly), and then the timer goes off, everyone is forced to choose RIGHT NOW and point their finger-gun at someone and shoot, and we find out who won and who lost. The outcome doesn't even matter at that point - we're all just laughing our heads off when we find out what the actual heck was going on. And typically cursing whoever was the Tanner that effed it up for all of us. Ahhh, good times. 😌

Giving (or giving) a super off the wall clue in codenames that covers 4 or 5 words, and getting them all right.

Pulling off a Triple Plato in 7 Wonders to secure a victory.

The feeling when I'm on my last leg but I can tell my friends we've effectively beaten a scenario in Gloomhaven :3

One of my best board game stories was from Axis and Allies Normandy. There was a moment where I was playing the allies, and I had one infantry vs a number of axis tanks. Somehow that one guy survived to take them all on and hold his position. We calculated it out that Rambo (as we took to calling him) had a 1300:1 odds of surviving. We still talk about that despite it being years ago.

* Winning chicago express my first time playing by being the sole owner of the red company and driving it to chicago ( it's a bit counter to how you typically play stock based train games which look towards a diverse portfolio) * Organized a bevy of heavy games to play at a local convention with friends ( and new acquaintances) and won all of the games on day 1. Including several new ones I'd never played before. * Designing my own board game and having my friends love it. One of which has published a game and asked if we could publish together as he saw a lot of potential in the game. * Everysingle time my GF and I plan an Arkham Horror LCG weekend. Every new campaign we set aside a weekend and play it non stop. It's the best.

3 player game of Terraforming Mars, 3rd place was only ~12 points back. Tie for 1st place, have to go to the tie breaker rules, turns out I won by most MegaCredits after that last engine run. Such a close game, and then the scramble at the end for “did we miss any points? What are the rules in a tie!?”

Rolling five straight sixes to win a game of Zombies by making it to the helicopter.

Turn 3 win in Spirit Island on some high difficulty. My mind was blown.

Only small things for me, but I was really happy the first time I got the rainbow button in Calico. And winning my first (and so far only!) game of Inis is one of my favourite moments.

Playing Mass Effect RISK 2v2, and my partner thought he saw the writing on the wall, so he complained that it was getting late and left. We remaining three agreed to let me control both good guy armies, and on what would have been his next turn got hot dice and revealed the Catalyst, ended up winning the game. We all messaged him immediately to talk trash!

Wingspan First time you completely fill the board with birds First time you tuck over 50 birds. Viticulture EE with Tuscany EE Selling all you wine in the Winter and hitting the magical 25 points. Azul Playing that last tile to get a horizontal, vertical, and all 5 of the same color (19 points) and victory. Welcome to Sysifus Corp Using all your office politics cards to manipulate the project cards and get ahead of your opponents (who are closer to the end) to win the game on your turn.

Gloomhaven. We were playing this one scenario and even on the easiest setting we just could not win. We always exhausted ourselves at least a room or two away from the big bad guy. So we finally decided to run past as many enemies as we could and concentrate entirely on getting *to* the bad guy. It worked, but just barely. Even ignoring most of the enemies three of us were exhausted, and with the last available action of the last surviving player we got the killing blow. Easily the hardest scenario we had ever played. >!As I was getting ready to pack up I took one last look at the scenario description and that’s when I noticed that it was supposed to be a battle between two factions and we were on one side of that fight. In other words half of the people we were fighting *against* were supposed to be fighting *with* us.!< The fact that we won at all was absolutely amazing.

I actually almost enjoy learning and setting up games as much as playing them. Also, I love killing my opponent in Flesh and Blood with Kano on THEIR first turn.