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Board Gamers Anonymous

Board Gamers Anonymous

Written by: Board Gamers Anonymous
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Welcome to Board Gamers Anonymous, the podcast where everyone is welcome at the table. Hosted by Chris and joined by a rotating cast of passionate gamers, Board Gamers Anonymous brings you lively conversations about the games we love, the games we don't, and everything that keeps us coming back to the table. Each week, we dig into the biggest questions, debates, trends, and hot takes in tabletop gaming, alongside reviews, previews, recommendations, rankings, and plenty of opinions. From the newest releases and modern classics to the designers, mechanics, and moments that make this hobby great, BGA is about more than what's in the box—it's about the people around the table. After more than 13 years and nearly 600 episodes, we're still playing, arguing, laughing, and asking the most important question of all: **Whose turn is it?!* Pull up a chair. You're always welcome at our table.Board Gamers Anonymous LLC
Episodes
  • Tim’s Darkest Timeline: One Game Has to Go! Episode 593

    Tim’s Darkest Timeline: One Game Has to Go! Episode 593
    Oct 12 2026
    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
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Never Play, but Never Purge! Episode 592

    Never Play, but Never Purge! Episode 592
    Oct 6 2026
    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
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    1 hr and 28 mins
  • What if?! Tabletop Twists- Episode 591

    What if?! Tabletop Twists- Episode 591
    Sep 27 2026
    Episode 591 – What If?! Tabletop Twists What if one moment in tabletop gaming history had gone differently? This week on Board Gamers Anonymous, Chris and Tim are messing with the timeline. In our Voice of the Gamers feature, we ask the tabletop questions that probably shouldn't be asked: What if a landmark game had never been published? What if a major designer had made a completely different choice? What if an influential publisher never existed? What if a convention never took off—or a game that changed the hobby had completely flopped? Change one decision, remove one game, alter one moment…and suddenly the tabletop hobby we know today might look very different. We're pulling at the loose threads of gaming history to see what unravels, what takes its place, and whether we'd even recognize the hobby on the other side. Roll for Preview Chris checks out Bookwyrm: A Cozy Strategy Game of Beautiful Bookshelves, a cozy strategy game where book-hoarding dragons attempt to organize their overflowing collections, building and scoring bookshelves while inevitably being tempted to acquire even more books. Because apparently dragons and board gamers have exactly the same problem. Tim previews Electrify, the upcoming engine-building game from AEG designed by John D. Clair and Ian Hutchison. Players develop an evolving energy industry across five revolving sectors, upgrading and chaining actions as they attempt to meet an increasingly power-hungry world's demands. Roll for Review Chris heads somewhere considerably less cozy with Enemies of Gotham City, a competitive area-control game that puts Batman's famous rogues—not the Caped Crusader—in the spotlight. Joker, Poison Ivy, Penguin, Two-Face, and the rest battle for control of Gotham while Batman and his allies attempt to ruin everyone's perfectly reasonable plans for criminal domination. Tim reviews Dewan, a fast-playing competitive game of territory, placement, and hand management from designers Johannes Goupy and Yoann Levet. Players lead their tribes across a resource-scarce landscape, establishing camps, gathering resources, and completing story objectives along the way. So join us as we review what's coming, what's hitting our tables—and then completely rewrite tabletop history. Because every great game starts with "What if?" This week, we're asking what happens when the answer changes everything. If you haven’t yet, check out the recently updated BGA website at www.boardgamersanonymous.com. Be sure to connect with us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/boardgamersanonymous, on Bluesky at bsky.app/profile/bganonymous.bsky.social, and 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
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    1 hr and 19 mins
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