Just before Christmas, the boardGOATS meet for food, have a bit of a party, and decide the winners of the GOAT Awards.  Sadly, that wasn’t possible last year, so this year we made up for it with lots of crackers, cards, and lots of festive treats.  While waiting for food, the group voted for our favourite game of the year.  As in previous years, we awarded two prizes:  the Golden GOAT for our favourite game and the “GOAT Poo” award for our least favourite.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

As usual, everyone had three points to hand out for the Golden GOAT Award plus a bonus if wearing Festive Attire, but we limited each person to a maximum of two points per game (after a little controversy over the voting last time).  Everyone could also nominate up to two individual games for the GOAT Poo Prize.  This year, there were several nominations for  GOAT Poo, but the clear winner was Dingo’s Dreams.  This is probably quite a clever game that we would normally enjoy, but we played it online with lots of people, none of whom had any idea what they were trying to do.  As a result, the complete chaos made for a very un-fun experience all round.

– Image by boardGOATS

With all the online games, there was less competition than usual, but the 2019 winner, Wingspan, was very nearly the first game to win the Golden GOAT award twice.  In the event, it was just pipped to victory by Praga Caput Regni – quite an achievement given that only four people in the group had played it.  While discussing possible candidates for Moment of the Year everyone fondly reminisced about the time Lime accidentally joined an online game of 6 Nimmt! with a bunch of Frenchmen, but that was last year.  The GOATS have long memories though, and it would seem that they still haven’t forgiven Pink for stealing everyone else’s gems in Niagara, despite his repeated assertions that he was “just following the rules”.

– Adapted by boardGOATS from image by BGG Contributor El_Comandante