by Justin Bell

Every week, usually on Monday afternoons, someone in our Wednesday night game group starts a new round of messages to set up that week’s game schedule.

Someone agrees to host; sometimes, it’s the guy whose partner is out of town and can’t travel anywhere unless they host (those kids will get you!). Sometimes, a person has a game they want to get to the table that is too large to transport easily, a big piece of chicken with a hundred minis, a massive board, a 400-piece poker chip set.

In other cases, we need someone with a house or apartment big enough to host; when we have just 5-6 players, everyone in the group has space. But from time to time, a 10+ person group needs a place to go, and not everyone has the table space to take on 3-4 tables at the same time.

Once that process is locked up, we get into the real business of the week: the board game horse trading. Everyone has something they would like to get to the table, and subtly nudging the group is just as powerful as using a word avalanche sledgehammer to get commitments.

One table is always a non-negotiable: whoever hosts gets to put out whatever they want on “Table One”, as it is known in the thread. “Guys, it’s my birthday this week, so I’m gonna put _____ on Table One, so I’m looking for people to join me. The rest of you: play whatever you want.”

Sometimes, even the host pick becomes a warzone. When the host of our night two weeks ago threw out Obsession as his game of choice, just as many people raised their hand to say yes as did those who vehemently tried to argue that Obsession is a different beast depending on player count. After a steady back-and-forth, the host relented, and got The Castles of Mad King Ludwig out instead. (The poor guy couldn’t even get the first-choice game he wanted to the table on his birthday!!!)

When you are excited about something, you’re expecting everyone else to be excited about it, too.

Until they are not.

Last week, I got in line early.

I didn’t want to host, but I did have that all-too-familiar train game itch. (Everyone gets this itch, right?) I gently lobbed two options into the thread: Landmarks of the Lost Atlas—the new expansion for Railways of the Lost Atlas, which I picked up a few weeks ago—and Railway Boom, one of my top 10 picks from 2025.

I was happy to table either one. (Yes, train game purists: Railway Boom is more auction game than train game. Railway Boom doesn’t have diesels, “double O” city locations, certificate limits, or private companies. But there are nominal routes built on a map, train cards, station tokens, and operating costs. Most importantly, there’s a train illustrated on the box cover. Train game.)

The hosts had their eyes on Águeda: City of Umbrellas (a title sitting squarely on the hosts’ Maybe Pile), so Águeda was reserved for the first play on Table One. I waited to see how many other people might want to play one of the train games on Table Two.

I was excited. Everyone knows how great these games are, right? The responses should begin piling up in the next few minutes…and now all I need to figure out is the poker chip situation and we’ll be all set.

But that’s not what happened. One guy threw me a curveball, knowing that I can be persuaded if we stay roughly adjacent to the family of games I tossed into the ring.

“Could I sway you towards 1889 or 1894 instead?” he offered. (This, from the other consistent train game regular in our group, the one who brings Age of Steam to every game night like I used to do with Brass: Lancashire a couple years ago.)

I do love Shikoku 1889 (the Grand Trunk Games update of 1889: History of Shikoku Railways is gorgeous and a weeknight train game) and I badly want to try 1894 (the words “dynamic” and “brutal” show up a lot in the game’s BGG comments area). But my mind was made up: I want to table Landmarks of the Lost Atlas, with Railway Boom being a reliably excellent route-building auction game as my backup plan.

“Nope, not this week,” I responded to Mr. Age of Steam. “But in future weeks, absolutely.”

My confidence was still high. Any minute now, other players will kneel at the altar of the choo choo.

“Any minute now” turned into the rest of the day. No one else threw any titles into the chat, but Mr. Age of Steam made it clear that my message did make it out. Do I need to find new friends if I can’t get some buy-in on train game time this week?

The mind games carried into the next day. I’m not pushy, so I didn’t send out a reminder—”ahem, guys, who’s with me on the choo choo situation?”—but I considered it.

No one bit. I was so excited to get a train game to the table…why aren’t you?

Wednesday night rolled around, and I arrived at the host’s house with Landmarks of the Lost Atlas and the base game in tow. No one else had a burning desire to get anything else to the table, so Landmarks made its way to Table Two after all.

That was great, and I had a great time playing. We had a train game rookie with us for a four-player game that included Mr. Age of Steam. A short teach, a long setup (we used a pre-built map for the “Short” game), and a surprise bankruptcy meant that we got the thrill of adventure, the agony of defeat, and the commentary from everyone on what they did and didn’t like all packaged up into a two-hour gaming event.

As it turned out, no one was as excited as I was…and, I can live with that. I think using everyone else’s passion and energy as a gauge is usually a mistake; at almost every sitting, even for a game that is brand new to all players, someone at the table is significantly more excited for the play than others.

It’s usually easy to get me to agree to play a game that someone else is really fired up to get to the table. I may or may not buy in during the play; it’s your game, or it’s the “hot” game, or it’s a game that another reviewer has to work through in the course of their travels, so they are obligated to play it. (As a reviewer myself, those can sometimes be the toughest nights.)

I try my best to match the excitement others have for a game if possible, at least as long as the game remains fun and competitive. That’s where the passion can really fall off quickly. A runaway leader saps a game of its chance to shine. Rules complexity—or, worse, a poorly-written rulebook—throws people off the scent of what the designers imagined when they put the game together. Even a single frustrated player can make life tough on everyone; at times, I am that player. That has made it easier to imagine the moment when a play experience derails.

Fortunately, none of that happened during our play of Landmarks of the Lost Atlas. And now, my choo choo cup has been refilled; I am excited to pay it forward and join up for someone else’s big night soon. Just a couple weeks before, we had a person that desperately wanted to get Lisboa to the table; happy to oblige. A night full of party and/or trick-taking games? It’s your night, partner.

I know how excited you are. I’ll try my best to get fired up, too!