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 EDITORIAL
EDITOR Christopher John Eggett
01778 392 400
christopher.eggett@warnersgroup.co.uk

MINIATURES EDITOR
James Winspear

Welcome
01778 395 018
james.winspear@warnersgroup.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS
Owen Duffy, Richard Jansen-
Parkes, Matt Jarvis, Dan Jolin,

W
Alex Sonechkina, Charlie Theel, elcome to The Best Games of 2019! Over
James Wallis, Eric Watson, Chad the next 195 pages discover all of the most
Wilkinson
positively reviewed games of the year. We’ve
HEAD OF DESIGN & PRODUCTION included our Must Play, Yes, and Probably games from
Lynn Wright the last twelve months of reviews and bundled them
DESIGN Richard Hallam together so you can easily look back on what made
2019 special. What’s more, it’ll be easy to decide on
ADVERTISING what to play next using this, our guide to the 181 best
TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CALL games of the year!
ACCOUNT MANAGER We had some odd themes emerging this year,
Murdo MacLeod 01778 391 129 generally all in good, wholesome spirits. The runaway
murdo.macleod@warnersgroup.co.uk
success of beautiful bird-pleasing engine-builder,
MULTI MEDIA SALES EXECUTIVE Wingspan, shows us that there’s no excuse not to have
Elizabeth Ridge 01778 395 059 an impossibly good looking game that offers brain-burner
elizabeth.ridge@warnersgroup.co.uk fun. There’s building a society in Villagers, the deceptively
ADVERTISING DESIGN simple port colour matching joys of Copenhagen, and the
AND PRODUCTION blooming of the desert in Ishtar – all of which leave you
Nicola Lock 01778 392 420 with the feeling of the world being a slightly better place
nicola.lock@warnersgroup.co.uk
when you get up from the table. Hopefully that’s how we
MARKETING all feel about tabletop gaming as we exit 2019.
MARKETING EXECUTIVE So now is the time to relax and begin your journey
Katherine Brown 01778 395 092 Get in touch through the best games of 2019. Enjoy.
katherine.brown@warnersgroup.co.uk
tabletopgaming.co.uk
PUBLISHED BY
tabletopmag
PUBLISHER Claire Ingram
claire.ingram@warnersgroup.co.uk tabletopgamingmagazine
Warners Group Publications PLC
tabletop_gaming_magazine
The Maltings, West Street,
Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH Christopher John Eggett Editor
01778 391 000
warnersgroup.co.uk Q U I C K S TA R T
NEWSTRADE DISTRIBUTION It’s a tough, Appropriately A simple
Warners Group Publications PLC
01778 391 150 complex, enough, premise,
PRINTING some might say Hargrave’s game short playing time
This publication is merciless game. is a soaraway and lightening-fast
printed by Warners
01778 395111
But lock into it success turns
and it will blow
The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily
those of the publishers. Every care is taken to ensure that
the content of this magazine is accurate, but we assume
you away
no responsibility for any effect from errors or omissions.
While every care is taken with unsolicited material Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition, p42 Wingspan, p54 Copenhagen, p126
submitted for publication, we cannot be responsible for
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regulate the content of advertisements. Tel: 020 7429 2222 tabletopgaming.co.uk 3
© Warners Group Publications Plc, 2019
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
020 1066, TEARS TO
MANY MOTHERS
191 20 SECOND SHOWDOWN
184 5ER FINDEN
081 AERION
105 AIR, LAND & SEA
029 ALONE
065 AMAZING TALES
176 ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
OF THE INNER SEA
138 ARRAIAL
175 ARTSEE
134 ATELIER: THE
PAINTER’S STUDIO
033 AUZTRALIA
006 AZUL: STAINED
GLASS OF SINTRA
145 BAHAMAS
148 BAND OF BLADES
167 BARGAIN QUEST
090 BATTLE RAVENS
048 BETA COLONY
117 BLACKOUT: HONG KONG
188 BLITZKRIEG!
113 BLOCKBUSTER
008 BLUE LAGOON
155 BOSK
092 BUMÚNTÚ
079 BUSHIDO
076 CALL TO ADVENTURE
019 CAMEL UP: SECOND EDITION
128 CENTURY: A NEW WORLD
060 CITY OF GEARS
099 CITY OF MIST
118 COMBO FIGHTER
097 CONQUEST: THE LAST
ARGUMENT OF KINGS
126 COPENHAGEN
059 CORE SPACE
078 CORINTH
049 CRUSADERS: THY
WILL BE DONE
133 CYBERPUNK RED
JUMPSTART KIT
156 DEAD MAN’S CABAL
160 DEEP BLUE
4 The Best Games of 2019
105 DEEP SPACE D-6
182 DETECTIVE CLUB
178 DIE HARD: THE
NAKATOMI HEIST
132 DOPPELT SO CLEVER
(TWICE AS CLEVER!)
061 DUAL POWERS:
REVOLUTION 1917
150 DUNE
170 DUNGEON ACADEMY
162 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS –
BALDUR’S GATE: DESCENT
INTO AVERNUS
019 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
– WATERDEEP: DUNGEON
OF THE MAD MAGE
147 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
ESSENTIALS KIT
113 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS:
ACQUISITIONS
INCORPORATED
086 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS:
GHOSTS OF SALTMARSH
122 DUST IN THE WINGS
112 EMBARK
022 ENDEAVOR: AGE OF SAIL
141 ESCAPE ROOM IN A
BOX: FLASHBACK
010 EVERDELL
083 FARSIGHT
145 FINGER GUNS
AT HIGH NOON
028 FORBIDDEN LANDS
047 FORBIDDEN LANDS:
RAVEN’S PURGE
051 FURY OF DRACULA:
FOURTH EDITION
081 GALACTIC SCOUNDRELS
179 GATES OF DELIRIUM
026 GEN7: A CROSSROADS GAME
056 GENESYS: SHADOW
OF THE BEANSTALK
106 GLADIATORES: BLOOD
FOR ROSES
194 GLORANTHA: THE GODS WAR
014 GOODCRITTERS
047 GORUS MAXIMUS
039 GUARDIAN’S CALL
034 GÙGŌNG
158 HADARA
168 HAKO ONNA
091 HAND OF FATE: ORDEALS
024 HAVEN
070 HELLBOY: THE BOARD GAME
014 HEROES OF TERRINOTH
103 HIGH RISK
104 HIGH TREASON!: THE TRIAL
OF LOUIS RIEL, JULY 1885
146 HONGA
135 IMPERIAL SETTLERS:
EMPIRES OF THE NORTH
089 INUIT: THE SNOW FOLK
192 ISHTAR: GARDENS
OF BABYLON
140 JAWS
080 JOHN CARTER OF MARS RPG
088 JONATHAN STRANGE &
MR. NORRELL: A BOARD
GAME OF ENGLISH MAGIC
170 JUDGE DREDD:
HELTER SKELTER
035 JUDGE DREDD: THE
CURSED EARTH
037 KEY FLOW
103 KEYFORGE: AGE OF
ASCENSION
051 LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS
RPG: EMERALD EMPIRE
130 LETTER JAM
154 LIFEFORM
073 LINDISFARNE
169 LOCKUP: A ROLL
PLAYER TALE
179 LOVELACE & BABBAGE
164 MACHI KORO LEGACY
042 MAGE KNIGHT:
ULTIMATE EDITION
186 MAIN GAUCHE
161 MARVEL CHAMPIONS:
THE CARD GAME
058 MARVEL STRIKE TEAMS
181 MEGACITY: OCEANIA
109 MEMOIR ’44: NEW
FLIGHT PLAN
183 MENTAL BLOCKS
120 MILITO
144 MIREMARSH
191 MISTY
025 MONOLITH ARENA
190 NANTY NARKING
147 NATURO BARUTO 189 STAR WARS LEGION:
CARD GAME CLONE WARS CORE SET
052 NEMETON 096 STAR WARS: OUTER RIM
121 NĒTĀ-TANKA 087 SUMMONER’S ISLE
032 NEWTON 102 SUSHI ROLL
098 NOCTILUCA 064 SWORDCRAFTERS:
EXPANDED EDITION
184 ORCHARD
180 TAN-TAN CARAVAN
027 PANDEMIC: FALL OF ROME
163 TAPESTRY
100 PANDEMIC: RAPID RESPONSE
013 TEOTIHUACAN:
174 PARKS CITY OF GODS
116 PATCHWORK DOODLE 084 THE BOLDEST
122 PATHFINDER ADVENTURE 123 THE EXPANSE RPG
CARD GAME: CORE SET
025 THE GRIZZLED:
125 PATHFINDER: ARMISTICE EDITION
SECOND EDITION
066 THE LORD OF THE RINGS:
142 PAX PAMIR: SECOND EDITION JOURNEYS IN MIDDLE-EARTH
124 PERIODIC: A GAME OF 193 THE TAVERNS OF TIEFENTHAL
THE ELEMENTS
062 THINGS FROM THE FLOOD
012 PLANET
035 TOKYO HIGHWAY
172 POWER RANGERS:
HEROES OF THE GRID 153 TONARI
166 PRÊT-À-PORTER: 057 TREASURE ISLAND
THIRD EDITION
153 TUKI
149 RAGUSA
110 UNDAUNTED: NORMANDY
072 RED ALERT: SPACE
FLEET WARFARE 094 VEJEN
068 RES ARCANA 071 VICTORIAN MASTERMINDS
017 REYKHOLT 074 VILLAGERS
109 ROBINSON CRUSOE: 116 VILLAINOUS: WICKED
ADVENTURES ON THE TO THE CORE
CURSED ISLAND –
MYSTERY TALES 050 WAKENING LAIR
114 ROLL FOR ADVENTURE 093 WARHAMMER FANTASY
ROLEPLAY: ROUGH
187 ROMANCE OF THE NIGHTS & HARD DAYS
PERILOUS LAND
165 WARHAMMER
044 SCORPIUS FREIGHTER UNDERWORLDS:
BEASTGRAVE
173 SET A WATCH
129 WARHAMMER: AGE OF
036 SHADOWS: AMSTERDAM SIGMAR – WARCRY
141 SHIPSHAPE 132 WELCOME TO DINO WORLD
136 SHŌBU 038 WESTERN LEGENDS
183 SILVER 065 WILDLANDS: THE
ADVENTURING PARTY
118 SLIDE QUEST
171 WINGS OF GLORY:
018 SOLENIA TRIPODS & TRIPLANES
085 SORCERER 054 WINGSPAN
016 SPEED FREEKS 046 YU-GI-OH! TRADING CARD
GAME: SPEED DUEL
045 SPELL SMASHERS
152 ZOMBICIDE: INVADER
124 SPIRE: STRATA
108 ZWEIHÄNDER: REVISED
040 STAR CROSSED CORE RULEBOOK

tabletopgaming.co.uk 5
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
AZUL: STAINED
GLASS OF SINTRA
Mosaic, mo’ problems
ike the broken shards of glass that
L inevitably pile up in its 3D tower,
Stained Glass of Sintra breaks
the original Azul into fragments before
rearranging it into a new pattern. Like
a lot of art, how attractive that pattern
appears to you will likely depend on
your perspective.
Gluing the pieces together is Azul’s
clever take on tile-drafting, with players
claiming one colour of the lozenge-like
panes of glass from one of the circular
factories on the table and leaving the
remainder for their opponents (or them)
to potentially sweep up off the floor later
on and add to their arrangement.
The translucent cough sweet
appearance of the tiles aside, this
drafting is where Sintra hews mostly
closely to its predecessor. The rest of the
6 The Best Games of 2019
30-45m 2-4 8+ £40
WHAT’S IN game is a remix of sorts of Azul’s wall-
THE BOX?
◗ Nine factory displays
◗ Four palace boards
◗ 32 pattern strips
tiling puzzle, spinning out its combo-
building scoring and pattern-completion
into a different yet familiar form.
Here, for instance, there’s a glazier
◗ Four glaziers
who limits which strips of the variable
◗ Eight markers
◗ 100 pane pieces player board can be filled as they travel
◗ Scoring board from left to right, forcing players to
◗ Starting player tile plan ahead to slot in as many panes as
◗ Bag they can before the glazier is eventually
◗ Glass tower
reset to the left like a typewriter. The
progressive movement of the glazier
neatly counterbalances a combo system
that makes filling in right-hand columns
first more valuable, as any completed
strips to the right of a newly-finished
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… AZUL
Stained Glass of Sintra is essentially a remixed and more variable version of this
year's Spiel des Jahres winner, but there’s still plenty to recommend it.
window add bonus points to that
score, presenting the chance to set up
game-winning combos with the right
strategy. It's a notably different but no
less interesting flow to Azul’s rewarding
of adjacent tiles on a grid, and gives a
nice structure and flow to each round.
Rather than collecting matching
sets of tiles, the patterns are a mixture
of colours to begin with, making them
tricker to complete as your glazier hops
between strips. Broken glass is near-
unavoidable, handily dropping into the
3D tower and losing players points as
they claim – deliberately or not – excess
panes for a single column. Completed
columns flip over to a reverse side, before
being removed – the variable setup of the
strips’ order combines with two different
play variants that reward either adjacent
completed columns or specialising in a
particular colour for a game that's a tad
more complex and variable than Azul.
In this way, Stained Glass of Sintra
joins Queendomino as a follow-up to
a Spiel des Jahres-winning game that
builds on a simple gameplay hook with
a slightly more complicated expansion
of those ideas. The difference here is that
where Queendomino and Kingdomino
could be combined, the Azul games
remain completely standalone, so there's
not quite as much value in owning both.
Whether Stained Glass of Sintra will
be for you will come down to whether
you’ve already played Azul and, if you
have, how much you personally favour
pure elegance over deeper strategic
complexity. The shifting glazier and
combo system gives it a unique feel, and
the variability means there’s more to play
around with here if Azul has started to
wear thin. If you're yet to play any form
of Azul, this is an excellent game to pick
up by itself. It’s a mish-mash of ideas, but
together they can be beautiful – it just
depends on where you’re standing.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
It’s not just Azul with see-through
pieces. Stained Glass of Sintra takes the
scoring and pattern-making puzzle of the
tiling smash hit and offers something
new – whether that’s new enough for
you will depend on what you're looking
for: pure elegance or deeper complexity.
Presented by the South
London Warlords,
Salute 2020 is the
biggest independent
one-day wargaming and
gaming event in the UK.
Once again, we have a
huge number of UK and
international traders
attending the show at
ExCel London as well as
plenty of demonstration
and participation games
to enjoy. We will, of
course, be running
our renowned painting
competition on the day.

SATURDAY 18TH APRIL 2020

DOORS OPEN 10.00 -17.00
SALUTE is held at
Tickets
ExCel London, which
is very easy to get to. £10.00 in advance or £20.00 (cash only)
Here is a simplified
transport link map.
at the door.
Under 16s FREE with a paying adult.
Again this year there will be several
‘golden ticket’ prizes.
Tickets are now on sale from our
Facebook page and website:
www.salute.co.uk
NB: there is no bring and buy at Salute 2020.
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

BLUE LAGOON
Dr. Knizia’s been watching Moana
30-45m 2-4 8+ £25

re you the kind of person randomly scatter resources and landscapes quickly filling up with

A who, no matter how much

you love to slap a new game
on the table, still groans at the sight
of a big, thick rulebook? Do you hate
it when your rules explanations for
friends and family members have to
go on longer than some entire games?
Do you find yourself constantly
reassuring people sat around your
table, “Don’t worry, it’s actually fun?”
Well, here’s some great news for you:
Blue Lagoon’s rules fit onto a small,
four-page pamphlet, and it won’t take
you longer than five minutes to either
learn or explain them. Yet the game
itself has impressive tactical depth.
As with many of the crazily prolific
Reiner Knizia’s titles, Blue Lagoon
thinly drapes an appealing theme
– Oceanic island settlement by
seafaring Polynesian tribes – over
smooth and seemingly join-less
abstract mechanisms. Player
interactivity is maximal and there’s
virtually no downtime whatsoever,
with each turn involving a single action
(place a settler – either boat-side-up in
sea, or person-side-up on land – or a
village) with little analysis paralysis.
After laying out a board which
depicts eight verdant islands, you
statuettes on set stone-circle sites,
having blindly drawn the chunky
wooden tokens from a linen bag.
These must be collected, with sets
of resources earning points (from
five for a pair to 20 for a quartet) and
a 10-point bonus given for one of
each type: coconut, bamboo, water
and precious stones. The statuettes,
meanwhile, earn you four points each.
But you’re doing far more than
running around the map, scooping
up as much loot as you can. There’s
also an area-control element to Blue
Lagoon, which rewards players for
gaining the majority presence on each
island, for populating the most islands
and, in a Ticket to Ride-ish manner,
chaining the most islands together
with your strings of settlers.
While there’s no way for rival
settlers to actually fight – this is a
gentle Euro through-and-through
– you can still get pretty brutal
with your placements, blocking
your opponents’ island-chaining
attempts, or effectively cordoning off
entire swathes of territory with your
settlers. Which is why Blue Lagoon
works best as a three- or four-
player game, with its Polynesian
jostling tribespeople.
Interestingly, Knizia has
also made this a game of two
halves – literally. First you have
the exploration phase, in which
players are allowed to place a boat
anywhere on the board, as well as
a settler or village directly adjacent WHAT’S IN
to another piece. Then there’s the THE BOX?
settlement phase: after working out ◗ Game board
the half-time scores (which can be ◗ 120 settler
counters (in
a bit fiddly, and does slow the game
four colours)
down) the board is completely reset, ◗ 20 villages (in
except for the villages, which stay four colours)
wherever they were put and become ◗ 24 resources (in
the launching points for your fresh four varieties)
bout of settler-placing. It feels less ◗ Eight statuettes
repetitive than you’d expect, and if ◗ Linen resource bag
you’ve thought tactically about your ◗ Score pad
village placement in the previous
phase it’ll really pay off. Besides, with
gameplay this dreamy, you’ll hardly
complain about more of the same.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
A sweetly simple, gorgeously
presented and blissfully accessible
game that deserves to become as
widespread and beloved as the big
Eurogame classics.

TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
TICKET TO RIDE
There are echoes
of Alan R. Moon’s
railway-racing
perennial in the
island-chaining
element, but
it’s more about
the way Blue
Lagoon works
as a welcoming-
to-all, entry-level
experience.

8 The Best Games of 2019

tabletopgaming.co.uk 9
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
EVERDELL
If you go down in the woods
today, you’re in for a great game
f you're looking for the remedy to a
I cold, rainy day, Everdell, a worker-
placement game set in a medieval
fantasy world of forest animals,
somehow manages to replicate the
feeling of being tucked under a thick
comfy blanket with a nice hot drink.
It is an incredibly feel-good game
about preparing for winter and
building up your town, nestled in the
roots of the Ever Tree. Players send
their workers – hedgehogs, bunnies,
squirrels and turtles – around the
board to collect resources. These will
be used to build up each player’s town
by adding construction and critter
cards to their own play space.
Every construction has its
own occupant; for example, the
store has a shopkeeper bunny.
Once it's been built, their
respective occupant
becomes free to
play in future turns.
There are also other
10 The Best Games of 2019
40-80m 1-4
light engine-building elements, as
some cards have effects that trigger
seasonally, while others produce a
resource when constructions or critters
are played. So, while at the beginning
of the game the actions are seemingly
restricted, midway through and
especially towards the end of the game
opportunities become bountiful.
The game’s board has permanent
spots to visit, but also change each
game with a random draw of forest
cards (more spots for resources or card
gathering) and special events (benefits
and victory points). A simple, yet quite
effective way to add replayability.
Everdell also comes with a
fantastic solo variant that sees
you compete against the
troublesome Rugwort, a
devious rat out to ruin your
harvest. It can be played
at three difficulties
or one long game
over the three-year
cycle. The gameplay is familiar to the
multiplayer variant, except Rugwort
will block options across the board
and score points for every card you
play, so strategy is key. To add even
more strategic thinking to the pot, that
13+ £55 Rat’scallion scores points for every
special event you miss each year so
collecting these becomes vital.
A visually stunning part of Everdell
is the cardboard Ever Tree that looms
impressively over the game board.
Thematically it does a lot of legwork
– it's easy to imagine little forest
animals scurrying around its roots to
collect twigs and pebbles. But as for
WHAT’S IN the gameplay itself, it has absolutely
THE BOX? no effect. Items placed on its branches
◗ Game board could be simply laid down next to the
◗ Four basic events board and although it has a neat place
◗ 30 point tokens
for storing the main deck it is actually
◗ 20 occupied tokens
◗ Eight-sided die quite fiddly to have it there. The bigger
◗ 128 critter and issue, however, is that in a four-player
construction cards game it potentially blocks one of the
◗ 11 forest cards players from seeing the board. While
◗ 16 special pretty and thematic, the Ever Tree is
events cards also very impractical.
◗ Victory card The other components, however,
◗ 30 berries are impeccable. The gorgeous
◗ 30 twigs
artwork could have been taken
◗ 25 resin
◗ 20 pebbles straight out of Brian Jacques’ Redwall
◗ 24 workers novels. Resource tokens are not only
◗ Ever Tree shaped after what they meant to
be – berries, pebbles, twigs and resin
– but are also made out of materials
that aim to replicate the feeling of
holding that particular item. Pebbles
are smooth and shiny, as if polished
by the river (and indeed, that's
where they can be found on the
board!), while the berries are rubber
and very slightly squishy. Everdell’s
TRY THIS IF components are some of the highest
YOU LIKED… quality I have ever seen, and those
VITICULTURE tactile elements are an addition to an
It is never explicitly already standout presentation.
said what you do
Absolutely magical and a visual
with berries in
Everdell – perhaps feast, Everdell is not the most original
you could be making worker-placement game, but it is
mulled wine to definitely one of the most enjoyable.
warm you up in the It may have cute animals, but it is
winter? Regardless, strategically deep enough to satisfy
both of these are seasoned board game lovers.
great worker- ALEX SONECHKINA
placement games.
WE SAY
Beautiful from crown to roots, Everdell
magically manages to raise spirits
through feel-good gameplay that is
completely non-confrontational but also
enticingly challenging.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 11
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
PLANET
Want to try your hand at world-building?
hen publisher Blue Orange
W pulls out the stops it
really pulls out the stops
– anyone who was wondering how it
could top the boxful of trees that was
Photosynthesis stopped in their tracks
the moment they saw Planet. This is
a game about building an ecosphere
in which you literally build a... well,
not a sphere but a 12-sided planet: an
eco-dodecahedron. Not just one of
them, but four.
And they’re magnetic. Or, rather,
the tiles are magnetic, and the eco-
dodeca– look, I’m just going to call it a
planet from here on – the planets have
metallic discs on each side. Each tile
is divided into two or three biomes,
out of five: oceans, grasslands, deserts,
mountains and ice caps, and you’ll be
arranging the tiles so they line up to
make bigger biomes. Except you’re not
laying them flat, you’re arranging them
in an optimal pattern around a three-
dimensional object, and for most of us
that’s not going to be easy.
12 sides means 12 turns, and for the
first couple you’re just choosing and
placing tiles. From the end of the third
turn onwards animals will come to live
12 The Best Games of 2019
on your planet if you’ve created the
right conditions for them, in a fashion
that would make Darwin roll his eyes
and reach for the nearest bottle of gin.
Different species want different
things. For example, pandas will move
to the planet with the most forest,
bears look for the largest single forest
WHAT’S IN that’s connected to mountains, while
THE BOX? squirrels will go to the largest forest
◗ Four plastic planets that’s not touching an ice field. So your
◗ 50 magnetic tiles task is to look at what animal cards
◗ 40 animal cards are coming up – they’re all face-up –
◗ Five biome cards and create spaces on your planet that
they’ll like more than your neighbour’s.
There are also biome cards.
Everyone gets one facedown and it
affects your score; you get one point for
every bit of your biome on your planet,
but animals of that biome in your
collection at the end score half. Do
you aim for a monoculture on a desert
world, or biodiversity?
It’s the animal collection that’s
the heart of the game. On paper this
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… AZUL
If tile-placement with lovely pieces and family-friendly mechanics are your thing
then Planet will sit comfortably next to 2018’s most awarded game.
30m 2-4 8+ £30
is a great example of elegant and
clear mechanics coupled with clever
components: part puzzle, part outdo-
your-friends gameplay. In practice it’s
a little thin on strategy: the 3D boards
make it hard to keep tabs on where
everything is on your own world, let
alone everyone else’s.
It’s not a gamers’ game, but it’s
good entertainment. It’s easy to teach,
choosing and placing the tiles is fun, the
sense of the planet coming together is
satisfying, and looking at your collection
of animals at the end to work out what
crazy biosphere you’ve made is a
delight, except perhaps to any geologists
and biologists around the table.
JAMES WALLIS
WE SAY
It’s a shame the gameplay isn’t as
brilliant as the components, but that
doesn’t mean this is a poor game. And
despite the theme, don’t expect any
educational content whatsoever.
TEOTIHUACAN: CITY OF GODS
As tough to win as it is to pronounce
esigner Daniele Tascini is best
D known for 2012’s Tzolk’in: The
Mayan Calendar, a complex,
strategic game that used interlocking
plastic gears to represent the passing
of the seasons. Now he’s returned
with another release that combines
rich, brain-burning gameplay with
impressive physical bits, and it sees
him diving once again into ancient
Mesoamerican history.
Teotihuacan: City of Gods casts
players as citizens of an ancient
shrine-city in what’s now present-
day Mexico. It challenges you
and your opponents to advance
your social standing by hoarding
goods, constructing buildings
and demonstrating your devotion
to the gods. As you play you’ll
dispatch workers, represented by
chunky coloured dice, to quarries,
lumberyards and gold mines, and
along the way you’ll help to build and
lavishly decorate the city’s central
pyramid – a three-dimensional
structure that grows over the course of
the game as players contribute to its
development.
On first inspection, it all
looks impossibly complicated.
Teotihuacan’s board is a mass of
tracks, stats and symbols that looks
disturbingly similar to an Excel
spreadsheet. But dig through its
24-page rulebook and it all starts to
make sense.
The entire board, it turns out, is
one giant rondel. You’ll move your
dice around it, taking different actions
based on the spaces they land on.
Some earn you resources, others
allow you to build houses. Some let
you develop new technologies, or add
wooden blocks to the temple pyramid.
What makes things tricky is that
the effect you get from each location
depends on the number of workers
you send to it. Placing a single die on
the gold mine, for instance, might
get you a single nugget. But sending
two or three could see you showered
with precious metal, with a few
bonus victory points thrown in for
90-120m 1-4 14+ £45
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 12 map tiles
◗ Four scenario sheets
◗ 12 investigator sheets
◗ Six reference cards
◗ 32 headline cards
◗ 40 archive cards
◗ 36 anomaly cards
◗ 96 event cards
◗ 72 encounter cards
◗ 12 ally cards
◗ 28 item cards
◗ 10 spell cards
◗ 26 special cards
◗ 37 starting cards
◗ 12 condition cards good measure. It means you’ll face all pays off, it leaves you feeling
◗ 62 monster cards constant decisions about whether to impossibly clever.
◗ 48 clue/doom tokens
use your dice together for powerful This deep, satisfying gameplay
◗ 42 damage tokens
◗ 42 horror tokens effects, or spread them across comes at a price. Teotihuacan is
◗ 40 money tokens multiple regions, allowing for greater a complicated game, and it has a
◗ Five anomaly tokens tactical flexibility. handful of niggling rules exceptions
◗ 30 focus tokens Whenever you use one of your that will see you referring back to the
◗ Six dice workers, they’ll gain experience, manual as you play. If you’re willing
◗ 24 remnant tokens represented by increasing the number to invest a bit of time and thought,
◗ 18 Mythos tokens shown on their die, and using highly though, this is a powerfully engaging
◗ 10 marker tokens skilled workers can also help you pull brain-burner. And if you’re a real
◗ Six activation tokens
off more effective moves on your turn. glutton for punishment, it comes with
◗ Event deck holder
If they ever advance to their sixth some variant modes which ramp up
and final side, though, they “ascend” its challenge to new levels.
– a euphemism for snuffing it – and OWEN DUFFY
you’ll replace them with a new recruit
starting at the lowest level. WE SAY
The result is a pervasive sense of Teotihuacan comes with a positively
transience. You’ll build your way intimidating array of tactical possibilities,
to a powerful position, only to start and it’ll take you multiple playthroughs to
get to grips with the range of strategies
again with low-level dice. But with
it offers. Once you do, though, it’s a
each repetition you’ll grow stronger, precision-engineered assembly of
constantly gaining new ways to boost interlocking parts, and there’s a genuine
your score. You’ll spot point-scoring sense of experimentation and discovery
opportunities and put together clever as you pull on its various levers to see
combinations of actions; when it what happens.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED... THE ORACLE OF DELPHI
Like Stefan Feld’s game of fickle Greek gods, Teotihuacan presents you
with a host of interesting ways to score points and challenges you to
forge your own path to victory.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 13
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

HEROES OF TERRINOTH
45-60m 1-4 14+ £37

eroes of Terrinoth is a co- Flight released in 2015 and then took The gameplay is almost entirely

H operative fantasy quest card

game from Fantasy Flight
Games and designed by Brady and
off sale in 2017 when its licensing
deal for Warhammer came to an end.
Yep: this is Warhammer Quest with all
Adam Sadler, who created the co- traces of Warhammer scrubbed off it.
operative Warhammer Quest: The How different is it? The action
Adventure Card Game that Fantasy has been relocated from the Old
World to Terrinoth, a fantasy
setting so bland that its most
remarkable feature is how
utterly unremarkable it is. Art
and text have been changed,
characters, monsters and
quests are different, but the card
design and graphic elements
remain the same. In
Warhammer Quest
the player leader
token is a torch; in
Heroes of Terrinoth
it’s a torch with fewer
spikes on it. You
want the game in a
nutshell, that’s it.
unchanged, and that’s a good thing. One
to four adventurers (biffy, spelly, healy
and stealthy) set out on one of eight pre-
programmed quests, working their way
through a stacked deck of encounter
cards via a number of locations.
Heroes choose from four possible
moves on their turn, but once it’s used
each move card is tapped and can’t
be used again until reset. This is what
gives the game most of its tactics,
and turns it into an almost puzzly
resource-management challenge.
It’s clever and fun, but it never feels
like a dungeon-bash or an adventure
quest. Where the atmosphere of
Warhammer pervaded Warhammer
Quest, Terrinoth’s second-hand
fantasy tropes aren’t enough to give
Heroes of Terrinoth any flavour beyond
cardboard. It’s back and it’s still fun –
but it’s simply not the game it was.
JAMES WALLIS

GOODCRITTERS
30-45m 4-8 12+ £24

remake of German bluffing It’s laughably simple, both in the way The game’s only notable blip is

A game Tiefe Taschen with

criminal creatures in
the place of corrupt politicians,
GoodCritters is the perfect example of
less being more when it comes to the
ratio of rules to having fun.
In the vein of stick ‘em up party
favourite Cash ‘n Guns, the action
centres around the greedy crims
divvying up a stash of loot. The boss
– you know they’re top of the pile
because they have a preposterously
oversized ring that says so – splits the
loot cards as they like between their
minions and themselves, and everyone
gets to vote on whether it goes ahead
or not. Or they might just skim the top
of the deck for the next bit of cash, but
only if they’re first to do so; otherwise
they’ll end up empty-handed. Or they
could rob someone else – which might
backfire and see them losing a loot card
themselves if their target has guarded.
you’ll pick it up within about 20 seconds
and the guarantee you’ll end up cackling
as you skim valuable sculptures and
its variable play length, which is
strangely fussy to set up at first – a few
rounds and you can eyeball it.
paintings while your rivals uselessly As light to play as it is lighthearted,
guard against your threat marker – which GoodCritters is a uproarious social
is just as handy for targeting an actual bluffing game that your group will gladly
robbery as it is for messing with people. play without needing to have a gun
The game knows that the best stuck in their face – foam or otherwise.
entertainment here is each other, and MATT JARVIS
gives you just enough toys to play
around with as you try to appease
everyone enough to canvass votes while
ensuring you stay at least a few grand
ahead of your “equal” partners
on the sly. The optional payoff
tokens add slightly more
concrete ways to forge alliances
– though always temporary – for
those who want a little more
control, but the game works
best with likeminded players
unafraid to smooth-talk before
sticking the knife in.

14 The Best Games of 2019

 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
SPEED FREEKS
Gorkamorka goes X-Wing via Mad Max
nce Games Workshop
O re-released modernised
versions of Necromunda
and Warhammer Quest, we knew it
wouldn’t be long. Gorkamorka, the
skirmish game of cobbled-together
Warhammer 40,000 Ork vehicles, is
cherished by those who bleed green.
It was a phenomenal system with a
high degree of verisimilitude and a
vibrant campaign system that rivaled
‘Munda. It was nearly perfect.
So, Speed Freeks is here and I have
some good and some bad news. The
bad news is that this is not Gorkamorka
– well, not exactly. The good news is
that this is a killer design that takes that
beloved concept and tosses it into a
blender with X-Wing and a bit of good
old-fashioned Car Wars. Like an Ork
Nob guzzling his prey’s lifeblood, the
resulting concoction goes down easy.
It’s impossible to discuss this game
and not highlight those ridiculous
buggies. While we’ve seen those bikes
before, we haven’t seen anything like
those two low-profile high-octane
thrill rides. Both models consist of
a large number of bits and will take
quite some time to assemble – but
they’re totally worth it.
16 The Best Games of 2019
30-60m 2 14+ £90
WHAT’S IN The barricades and piles of detritus
THE BOX?
◗ Eight multi-part
plastic miniatures,
including two
are also very sharp. They keenly sit atop
the large folded board sections that make
up the play surface, tying together the
veneer of Mad Max and 40,000. This all
buggies and six
sets the stage for the bloodbath to come.
motorcycles
◗ Six plastic The system is relatively flexible and
barricades very engaging. It’s a dice-allocation
for terrain mechanism where you assign from
◗ 84 damage, data your pool to different stats such
and Kustom as moving and shooting. Each is
Job cards triggered in their appropriate phase
◗ Four folded double- and you’re given significant control
sided game boards over whether you want to slam on the
◗ Two dashboards
gas or unload with all you’ve got.
and player screens
◗ Two sheets Anyone discussing this game is going
of tokens to have a hard time getting away from
◗ A plastic range ruler the X-Wing comparison. This is apt
◗ 21 dice because movement is handled via a wide
range of templates in similar fashion.
Combat is comparable as well, in that
the attacker rolls dice looking for hits and
the defender tosses the bones looking to
cancel ‘em. It’s simple and it works.
Once you drill down into the
muck, though, it’s easy to see this
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… X-WING
If you’re a fan of X-Wing and you’ve been itching for a Mad Max: Fury Road
counterpart, the time is now. This borrows some familiar concepts while
introducing a wild and zany ride that’s unique to Speed Freeks.
isn’t exactly X-Wing. The movement
is much more dynamic and wild,
allowing for huge turns and a zany
series of manoeuvres. This dynamism
simply requires you pump more dice
into the manoeuvre pool and give up
opportunities for combat.
There’s also a subtle nod to Steve
Jackson’s classic Car Wars as your
vehicle can drift, spin and lose
control. This captures that Mad
Max: Fury Road gumption – you
can never quite predict where an
opponent will veer.
The core gameplay of Speed
Freeks is exactly what it needs to be.
It’s a game that’s a bit lighter and
more free-spirited than its primary
competitor Gaslands. However, it
does face some challenge. It’s quite
difficult and expensive to expand,
and it also lacks a full-fledged
campaign system.
The latter is disappointing as it
distances the release quite a bit from
its predecessor. This is softened
due to the variety in scenarios and
several ways to engage the game, but
it still feels like a jagged scar on an
otherwise alluring visage.
Speed Freeks may not be perfect,
but it’s certainly a hell of a ride.
As a boxed game crammed full of
flavour and atmosphere, it succeeds
in pairing that charisma with a very
solid system of madcap automobile
dueling. It’s mayhem on wheels and a
long-toothed Ork is behind the wheel.
I’d suggest you strap in but there’s
nary a seatbelt in sight.
CHARLIE THEEL
WE SAY
It’s not exactly Gorkamorka, but a
worthy modernised release packed
with attitude.
REYKHOLT
Everything’s gone greenhouse
iven he created the mother
G of all farm-based worker
placement games – namely
Agricola – the idea of Uwe Rosenberg
making another farm-based worker-
placement game presents something
of a double-edged shovel. He’s the
master of earth-turning and meeple-
plonking, so it’s got to be a surefire
hit, right? But then, if we’ve already
got Agricola (and for that matter
Caverna), do we really need Reykholt?
The truth is, Reykholt was never
going to surpass, or even match,
Agricola. But few games will, whatever
their theme or mechanism. More to
the point, aside from the fact that it
involves worker discs that gradually
block out a limited menu of actions,
and features wooden goods tokens, it
feels significantly different.
The setting is modern-day Iceland
rather than 17th-century Central
Europe, and you’re not playing a family
struggling to subsist, but a bunch of
happy-looking gardeners hoping to
most impress visiting tourists with the
quality of your cauliflowers, carrots,
tomatoes, mushrooms and lettuces.
You’re not ploughing fields; you’re
seeding parcels in greenhouses. There
are no animals you’ll have to slaughter
to feed your starving children. And
when you harvest during each of
the game’s seven rounds, it’s not a
question of survival but, surprisingly,
of winning a race.
The major point of difference
between Reykholt and Rosenberg’s
other arable offerings is you don’t,
well, score points. There’s not a VP in
sight. Instead, the fruit and veg you
yield from your carefully maintained
greenhouse cards are used to pay
your way around the tourism track at
the end of each round; this being a
chain of tables that rings the board. To
advance to the table that depicts two
carrots lying on its surface, you have to
remove – that's right – two carrots from
your stock. Then three tomatoes for the
next table, three lettuces for the one
after and so on, until you run out of
veg and can go no further this round.
30-60m 1-4 12+ £58
Although, in a neat little twist, each
player can claim a bonus and take the
veg depicted once per “tourism time”,
which only makes you think harder
about your long-term veggie-growing
strategies. Because the winner is, quite
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… VITICULTURE
Rosenberg worked with Viticulture designer Jamey Stegmaier on the expansions
to his wine-maker-placement debut, and you can certainly feel its influence here.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗ Double-sided game board
◗ Covering tile (for three-
player games)
◗ Eight game round tiles
◗ 40 goods tiles
◗ 160 goods tokens
◗ Five goods boxes
◗ Four manager tokens
(one in each colour)
◗ 12 worker discs (three
in each colour)
◗ Sheet of stickers for
the worker discs
◗ Four player cards
◗ Start Player card
◗ 23 greenhouse cards
◗ 36 service cards (in five sets)
◗ 34 story mode cards
simply, the player who ends the game
furthest around the track.
Every choice you make feeds into this
slowly escalating table scramble. You
can always look several tables ahead
and plan out exactly what it is you need
to grow, but it’s often a challenge to
stick to that plan, especially when
your options become limited by the
kinds of greenhouse you’ve obtained
and the actions your opponents take.
As you’d expect from Rosenberg,
it all clicks together perfectly and,
despite the gentle and cheery theme,
once you arrive at the final round,
it can become quite frantic as you
see your lead slipping, or someone
unexpectedly catches up with you.
With several different decks of
bonus-giving strategy cards (which,
interestingly, have to be shared with
the player to your left or right in the
three- and four-player version), a
solo mode and a light-campaign-ish
story mode, Rosenberg has also once
again built added longevity into his
game. While it won’t ever replace
Agricola in our hearts, Reykholt does
at least reaffirm the German design-
maestro’s mastery of his craft.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
Another gentle winner from a
Eurogaming giant, which enjoys more
depth than Rosenberg’s recent tile-
laying trio, but is lighter and quicker
than his big worker-placement classics.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 17
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
SOLENIA
A bright and airy trip above the clouds
s you play, Solenia floats along as
A gently as the plastic airship that
charts its route through the centre
of its stunning board. Make no mistake,
though – as breezily as it moves, this is
a game stuffed with clever ideas and
winning execution that just refuses to be
weighed down.
The action is completely card-driven:
a set of just three cards in each player’s
hand, drawn from an individual deck of
only 16, stretching the strategy as taut as
the skin of a balloon. Each numbered
card – 0, 1 or 2 – either gains or delivers
resources when placed on a location
on the board, which can be adjacent
to either the airship or another of that
player’s cards. This creates a wonderfully
elegant concentration of claustrophobic
area control, as players gradually expand
outwards from the blimp in a race to
collect the goods and exchange them for
points and other bonuses ahead of their
rivals. The tight number of options and
objectives results in a game that plays
short and quickly but still feels satisfyingly
strategic, with pure efficiency in the order
in which you play all of your 16 cards over
the course of the game determining your
standing by the end.
The exceptionally stripped-back
cardplay combines with Solenia’s
stunning masterstroke: a day-night cycle
that the board transitions through as the
airship proceeds, periodically propelled
18 The Best Games of 2019
30-45m 1-4 10+ £34
WHAT’S IN by the 0-value cards of the players. The
THE BOX?
◗ Airship figurine
◗ Five double-sided
game board strips
visually arresting movement from dawn
to dusk across the modular strips is for
more than just looks, too; the sunshine
and moonlight bring with them different
◗ 48 delivery tiles
◗ Star-shaped gold/ opportunities for players to obtain
point tokens resources and deliver them to needy
◗ 15 wood tokens cities. Players have to deliver to locations
◗ 15 wheat tokens during both day and night to maximise
◗ 15 stone tokens their score, requiring them to plan ahead
◗ 15 water tokens accordingly with the changing board. It’s
◗ 64 airship cards a gorgeous idea that’s gracefully executed,
◗ Four player boards and lifts the straightforward gameplay to
◗ 24 improvement tiles
new heights.
◗ Die (for the
solitaire game) The momentum of the board also
grants bonuses as players’ previously
placed cards reach the back edge of the
flight path, handing out extra resources
and points as they’re removed from the
strip and the flipped section returns to the
front. The combination of immediate gain
and delayed benefit subtly adds an extra
consideration to the placement of cards
without weighing the rules down at all.
The included solo rules against a
simulated opponent controlled with
a die work well enough to enjoy, even
if they lack much of the direct jostling
for position as the result of the random
rather than tactical placement of cards.
On the other hand, with more players,
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… WILDLANDS
The card-driven action of both of these elegant strategy games offers up
plenty of tactical decision-making without getting overly complicated.
the compact board can become crowded,
diminishing the ability to fully plan
ahead – two or three people is where
the game works best. The optional
advanced rules add a little more reward
and asymmetry to the game without
complexity, though the standard game
has plenty to recommend it as a fast,
elegant experience.
Solenia flies high, lifted by its balanced
mixture of outstanding presentation
and simple but meaningful gameplay.
It does lose a little air with too many
people, and even its slightly heavier
variants will feel too lightweight for
those after more substantial strategy; but
taken as something that plays in under
40 minutes, looks exquisite and does
something new with familiar elements,
it’ll leave you feeling like you have your
head in the clouds.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
It’s light, stunning and as fun as it is
fast. Solenia puts together a tight
card-driven take on area control and
resource delivery with impeccable
visuals and inventive ideas for
something that doesn't need to stay
aloft for long to have you soaring high.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS –
WATERDEEP: DUNGEON OF
THE MAD MAGE
or all the talk of
F dungeons in Dungeons
& Dragons, you’d be
amazed by how little they
feature in many modern
campaigns. This is something
that Dungeon of the Mad Mage
aims to correct with a torrent
of entertaining subterranean
adventures.
The campaign is a sequel
of sorts to Waterdeep: Dragon
Heist and sends the party on
a quest into the sprawling
complex of Undermountain.
Though there are a handful
of hooks that can give the
heroes their first nudge into
its cavernous depths, the book
makes it clear that the thirst for
CAMEL UP: SECOND EDITION
amel Up (as it’s now undeniably
C called, thanks to the new
logo of this second edition
clearing up the ‘Camel Cup’ debate)
is the definition of a feel-good
game: a fast and fun, simple and
silly betting experience that takes
the unpredictability of rolling dice
and turns it into near-unbeatable
entertainment that’s just as good at
home with the kids and grandparents
or over a few drinks with friends.
The basics here remain the same: roll
dice, move camels and try to predict
which will cross the finish line first.
Camel Up 2.0 takes the brilliant chaos
of seeing the racers pelt it around the
track with potential passengers stacked
on their humps and amps it up even
further with two misguided dromedaries
running in the opposite direction, which
can see the leader quickly carried to
the back of the pack. It’s a fantastic
addition that leans into the game’s
sudden reversals of fortune and risk-
reward of placing bets early and comes
320 11+ £39
adventure, gold and glory
is probably going to be the
main motivation.
This may not sound
particularly exciting, but it
gives the entire campaign
a unique feel among the
world-shattering quests of
earlier books. It shows that
sometimes it can be fun to
just kick in a few doors, dodge
a couple traps and dump a
fireball on whatever unlucky
creatures cross your path.
It’s a little unfair to act as
though Dungeon of the Mad
Mage doesn’t have much in
the way of story, however.
While there isn’t too much
in terms of grand arcs, there are a
out a complete winner. (The new rules
can be ignored for those who prefer less
chaotic outcomes – but if you’re not
here for that teetering tower of camels,
you’re probably missing the point.)
The game’s creators clearly know
its strengths as a spectator game: the
new 3D pop-up palm trees on the
board and plastic pyramid dice-shaker
(replacing the cardboard original) join
hundred little stories that emerge
as the adventurers explore. They
might spend a few sessions weighing
their options in a conflict between
minotaurs and dark elves, and then
find themselves uncovering a hidden
gate that links the dungeon to an
orbiting asteroid.
However, there’s no getting around
that fact that they’re all variations
on a theme. Playing a campaign of
Dungeon of the Mad Mage from start
to end is going to mean spending an
awful lot of time exploring monster
lairs and dodging traps.
This may not be a problem for
some groups – the dungeon crawl
was the foundation of D&D, after
all – but many modern roleplayers
cut their teeth on more narrative
campaigns and may well tire of the
trek down into Undermountain after
six months of questing.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage is a
campaign that knows exactly what
it wants to be – and that’s a stack of
fun, old-school dungeons for the
party to delve.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
30m 3-8 8+ £37
the still delightful camel meeples, plastic
Egyptian pounds (clink!) and outstanding
refreshed artwork from Chris Quilliams
for a table setup that invites the hours
of laughter and cheer it deserves.
If you’ve already played Camel Up,
you know what you’re in for – only
better. The only caveats here are that
this comes at a cost: around a tenner
more than the original game, depending
on where you look, and the inability
to use the longer track and modules of
expansion Supercup, which makes it a
bit of a needless upgrade for existing
fans. There’s also a superficial increase
of the minimum player count from
two to three that has no bearing on
gameplay – other than reflecting that
the betting still works best with bigger
groups. Those minor points aside, if
you’re yet to experience the hilarity
of seeing a stack of camels wobble its
way around a race track, this version of
Camel Up will have you laughing harder
than ever.
MATT JARVIS
tabletopgaming.co.uk 19
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
1066, TEARS TO MANY MOTHERS
Because you can never have too much Saxon violence
ou might not be able to rewrite
Y history, but with 1066, Tears
to Many Mothers you can at
least replay it. And replay it you will,
because British designer Tristan Hall’s
follow-up to fantasy quest card game
Gloom of Kilforth is sure to draw you
in like a greedy Norman duke to a
shiny English throne.
What first strikes you about 1066
is its sheer, astonishing attention to
detail. Every card in its two hefty decks
(one for the Normans, one for the
Saxons) features some finely rendered
artwork: the illustrators’ flattering
impressions of real historical figures
who were involved in the build up to,
and execution of, the pivotal seaside
scrap at the Battle of Hastings.
The detail’s not just in the art; every
card treats you to flavour text that is
well worth reading. Not only does it
flesh out the era you’re recreating,
in many cases adding life to the
characters, units, events and
tactics you draw, but will also
likely teach you something new
20 The Best Games of 2019
about this famous historical event. It
is a laudable feat of research, all in the
service of the game experience.
1066 isn’t just pretty on the surface.
Hall has crafted a non-collectible
card-game duel which is appealingly
asymmetric but also deftly balanced.
Each side has its own strengths
and weaknesses, and its own set of
objectives, too. While both players
are ultimately aiming to win the day
WHAT’S IN at Hastings, the battle is only the final
THE BOX? act of the game, the last of several
◗ 173 cards objectives via which Duke William
◗ 80 teardrop tokens and King Harold must follow their
(red and blue)
own journeys.
◗ 22 attribute
modifier tokens For the Normans, it is primarily
◗ First Player token about securing papal support for this
nation-invading adventure. So the
emphasis is initially on building up
your cards’ total zeal value. Every
card you play on the game grid,
in one of the three rows (front
line, middle line or back line) or
three wedges (each representing
a section of the final battle),
can contribute to achieving
the current objective come the
round’s end. Well, as long as you
haven’t tapped it to execute an action
or make use of any resources it might
give you. The Saxons, meanwhile,
will first be trying to build up the
other main stat, which is might, with
Harold and his troops charging
around the country repelling
other invaders.
While steaming ahead
of your opponent
and clearing your
objectives first does
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
KEYFORGE: CALL OF THE ARCHONS
It might not be as big as Richard Garfield’s latest card-
duelling monster, but 1066 is similarly innovative and
addictive, and has far greater educational value.
30-40m 1-2 10+ £35
give you an advantage (though a
slimmer one than you’d like), you
need to keep an eye on the greater
need: getting your strongest and
most effectively synergistic cards on
that battle grid – while destroying
your opponent’s strongest cards
whenever you can – for when it all
properly kicks off at Hastings.
Unless you manage to kill your
opponent’s leader before then
(which is a rare occurrence) or your
foe burns through their deck (also
unlikely), the only way you’ll win is
by being the first to deal 10 damage
to two of the three wedges. While
you can chip away at the wedges
during the build-up, it’s only when
both players have cleared all their
objectives that the really furious
fighting happens, giving the game a
glorious sense of climactic impact
and final reckoning as arrows
fly, horses fall and axes sink into
enemies’ faces.
Unlike Kilforth, which could last
for hours, 1066 is a tightly calibrated,
relatively quick-play experience,
but it feels no less epic and will
demand encores. With all the care
and attention Hall and his artists
have lavished on it (including a neat
solo mode) this indie card-based
face-off arguably deserves the same
attention as its recent blockbuster
equivalent, KeyForge.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
A superb asymmetrical card game
which throws into just one box
everything you need for hours of
engaging, thrilling historical action.
Full disclosure: The author of this
review was a backer of 1066, Tears
to Many Mothers on Kickstarter.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 21
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Double-sided
game board
◗ 95 trade tokens
◗ 49 building tiles
◗ Five start
building tiles
◗ 42 asset cards
◗ Six governor cards
◗ Five player mats
◗ 175 population discs
◗ 20 status track cubes
◗ Start player crown
◗ Card glossary
◗ Score pad
◗ Four track extenders
ENDEAVOR: AGE OF SAIL ◗ Exploit components

A fleet treat that’s pretty neat

60-90m 2-5 13+ £70

ndeavor is a modular civilisation each player’s nation to the interactive It’s worth taking a few words here to

E Eurogame sailing under the colours

of a historical nautical exploration
sim. Its box comes packed with so many
optional bits and pieces for rules variants
there’s even room to squeeze in a spare
cardboard ‘U’ to Britishise the spelling
on the cover. All this probably sounds
like enough to sink any hope of a tidy,
reasonable-length playing experience
but, like seeing tonnes of heavy wooden
planks somehow float on water, Age of
Sail is remarkably shipshape.
Keeping everything buoyant is the
game’s hull, a tight construction that
firmly nails together worker placement
and area control. Players expand their
onshore player board each turn with
building tiles, granting the ability to
deploy ships, occupy far-off cities,
attack rival nations and generally
spread their influence beyond Europe
to the rest of the globe by placing their
workforce of discs on both the tiles
and the central board. This gathers the
staple resources needed to grow their
empire – wealth, culture, industry and
influence – and ultimately propels
them towards amassing the glory
needed to rule supreme after seven
pleasingly fast-flowing rounds.
The simplicity of the central
gameplay lets the game glide smoothly
between the individual progression of
jostling for control of regions,
particularly as players race to claim the
valuable position of being governor of a
newly-opened part of the world.
Though its many mix-and-match
rules variants, referred to as ‘exploits’
and featuring unique components and
scoring objectives, take inspiration
from the 16th- to mid-19th-century
background, Age of Sail keeps its
gameplay thoroughly dry, allowing the
waves of immersive theme to lap at the
edges of the game but never quite seep
through to dilute the pure strategy.
This makes the inclusion of a deck
of cards designed to replicate the
historical presence of slavery particularly
curious. The designers clearly recognise
the sensitive material they’re playing
with, giving an admirable amount of
space in the rulebook to a justification
of acknowledging their treatment of the
topic and encouraging further reading.
Subject aside, in play, the cards make for
a genuinely intriguing mechanic – one
that can grant players who choose to
engage in the entirely optional business
of slavery industrial benefits (at the
cost of their morality, of course) but
loses them glory later on if the abolition
of slavery comes to pass, which other
players can choose to accelerate, for
social or strategic reasons.
praise Endeavor’s box, which might well
be up there with the best game inserts
going. Each player’s components are
separated for near-instant play out of
the box, and the display of building tiles
similarly comes with little more setup
effort than popping the clear lid off the
tray. The entire game looks fantastic, but
the combination of its gameplay and
storage make for exceedingly smooth
sailing indeed.
Endeavor’s gameplay-focused design
won’t have you feeling the salty spray
of the sea on your face in the same way TRY THIS IF
as more immersive, thematic nautical YOU LIKED…
adventures on the table, but its masterful NAVEGADOR
construction as a graceful, well-paced Find searching
strategy game and the astonishing for far-off lands
level of variety offered by its exploits is thrilling? These two
impossible not to appreciate. It’s gaming’s nautical exploration
ship in a bottle; you’ll find yourself games have the
setting but don’t
wondering how one game fit so much
skimp on strategy.
inside without simply falling to pieces.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Those expecting a rollicking seafaring
adventure will be left high and dry.
Though its presentation and setting
are highly evocative, this is a game
focused on the strength of its strategy
gameplay – and in those terms, it’s
very strong indeed.

22 The Best Games of 2019

 “Superbly packaged, Forbidden Lands is a pleasing combination of ‘Old School’ nostalgia and
FOUR TIME fast, simple mechanics with unobtrusive narrative elements designed to bring aspects of the
ENNIE WINNER character into play.”
–REVIEWS FROM R’LYEH

freeleaguepublishing.com
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
HAVEN
All the elements of a good game
classic conflict of expanding
A urbanisation versus the
innocence of nature is the
premise of two-player battling and
area-control game Haven. One player
takes the side of nature and uses its
seekers, leaflings and forest creatures
to win territory from the city and its
rusty machine servants.
Haven spreads its gameplay over
two areas: the game board, where
players try to take over locations, build
shrines and move elementals, and the
battle area, where seekers from both
sides face each other in a fight for the
control of havens.
The fighting mechanics are
fairly basic: add the number
of swords on the cards together
and the highest number wins.
Yet, there are some clever little
mechanical twists that change the
generic addition of numbers into
part-luck and part-strategy combat,
where almost every encounter is
tense until its resolution.
24 The Best Games of 2019
45m 2 13+ £24
All cards have a secondary number
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ 30 seeker cards
◗ 20 lore power cards
value called ‘lore’. Each location,
where the battles take place, has a
maximum lore allowance, meaning
that players can’t pile all their minions
◗ 20 haven tokens in one spot and must actually consider
◗ 10 cog tokens card placement seriously before
◗ 10 leave tokens
committing. Cards can be moved or
◗ Four victory
point cards removed from the space, but if the
◗ Three elemental location is triggered and you have too
standees much lore, all your cards are discarded.
◗ 18 lore tokens When playing a card from your hand,
◗ 12 shrine tokens its value is hidden to your opponent.
◗ 24 offering cards If played from the deck, you have no
◗ Six hidden
choice: you get what was picked, and
artifact cards
that card is revealed simultaneously to
both players and placed face-up.
When the battle is close, and there
are no good cards in your hand,
it’s is all too appealing to tempt the
fates and play a top card from the
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… THUNDER & LIGHTNING
Where Thunder & Lightning impresses with the deep thematic ties in its
gameplay, Haven shows that exciting battles can have simple mechanics
but still be strategic and tense.
deck, not knowing whether it will
help you win or push you over the
lore threshold costing you the whole
fight. Even when luck is not in your
favour, it never feels overly unfair. The
individual decks are small, making it
easy to remember cards, especially
since they are reshuffled several times
throughout the game. Knowing what
you already played and having even
a rough memory of what is in the
discard pile gives a good indication of
the risk of drawing blindly.
While there is definitely an element
of luck, Haven is still more balanced
towards strategy, making the game
perfectly paced and suited for two
players. There are several approaches
to winning and similarly various
outcomes to every fight, which can
be utilised for end-game scoring.
It’s quick and easy to learn but gives
enough to think about every turn.
Echoing its own theme, inside Haven
there is a conflict between a desire to
keep the game fair and remain true to its
concept. The decks, besides the pretty
artwork, are completely identical, except
for three cards. It is as if there was a lack
of confidence in Haven’s core gameplay.
Half a step was taken towards reflecting
the different characters of the two
sides – nature and the city – but
without fully committing to that contrast.
It's a missed opportunity, as the game
should either play exactly the same for
both sides, or be different enough so
it is noticeable and players can take
advantage of varying deck strengths.
Haven’s thematic conflict may not be
entirely convincing, but its gameplay is
compelling enough to keep coming back
to. It has enough depth to keep players
engaged, but is also swiftly paced and
doesn’t outstay its welcome.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Haven might look like an area-
control game, but at its core it
is actually about the tense battle
between nature and the city. The
only disappointment is that the
conflicting characters of the two
sides are not reflected in any other
way besides the beautiful artwork.
THE GRIZZLED:
ARMISTICE EDITION
here The Grizzled packed
W the entirety of the First
World War into a tense and
punishing half-hour card game, this
deluxe and expanded version threads an
even stronger sense of the camaraderie
and suffering of those who served on
the frontline through an impressive new
campaign that allows it to examine each
beat of the conflict more intimately.
The co-op gameplay is relatively
untouched from the original game and
its only expansion At Your Orders!, but
has been remixed here into a series of
chapters that progressively roll out new
mechanics inspired by the major events
of the war. The Grizzled was never the
most complicated game to understand to
begin with, so the benefit is all tone: the
relief of the Christmas truce and the terror
of the arrival of gas are that much more
pronounced when they arrive at their
MONOLITH ARENA
here are moments in a
T reviewer’s life where you want
to punch something. You learn
a new game, and halfway through the
rules explanation someone says, “So
it’s like Neuroshima Hex, then?”
Yes. Monolith Arena, by the
designer of Neuroshima Hex, is very
like Neuroshima Hex. You
could say it’s a fantasy
reskin of Neuroshima Hex,
but the box doesn’t say
that, and I’ve never played
Neuroshima Hex so I can’t
judge for sure. But arena
combat between colour-
based forces made of hex
tiles looks very similar.
Each side is a pile of
hex counters that includes
champions, runes that
power up champions
and order tiles that let
champions do things
they can’t normally do
like move, rotate, push an
45m 1-4 14+ £47
rough historical markers accompanied The fully painted miniatures
by affecting licks of narrative.
Even more meaningful are the
helping hand cards that create ongoing
in the bigger box are as gorgeous
as the cards’ artwork yet arguably
unnecessary, but they hammer home
relationships between players’ soldiers this premium-priced collection as
that persist throughout the campaign, being a tribute: both to the centenary
or can be used once at the cost of your of the 1918 armistice
overall score to buy a reprieve from and illustrator Tignous,
the shells for a moment. The other big whose death in the 2015
gameplay addition sees inexperienced Charlie Hebdo shooting
recruits join the fray that the veterans and the subsequent
must train up, but also reveal their cards exhaustion of
to the group, allowing some chance to existing artwork
plan ahead and work closer as a team – has led the game’s
unlike the deliberately limited strategy designers to suggest
of the individual players. These minor Armistice Edition
touches provide interesting gameplay will be the final
shifts to consider and bring the heartfelt Grizzled game. If
tale of the friends at the centre of the that’s the case, it’s a
conflict to the fore; you get the impression remarkable way to
that this was the memorable experience say goodbye.
The Grizzled was destined to become. MATT JARVIS
30m 2-4 10+ £36
opposing unit away or declare Ultimately you need to defend
battle. When battle is declared
every champion on all sides
resolves its attacks in initiative
your banner, which sits atop your
monolith: a stack of counters
that can unfurl into three pieces
order, and suddenly the arena is across the battlefield, which is not
a lot emptier than it was before, exciting enough to have the game
because most champions can named after it and fundamentally
only take one point of damage. misunderstands what the ‘mono’
part of the word means.
Play is fast and tactical: you
place tiles, jockeying for position
and highest initiative, and then
battle is joined – this happens
several times each game – and
special attacks trigger, and it doesn’t
go the way you expected. The four
forces are pleasantly different, and
the art is impressionistic not hyper-
real fantasy.
Monolith Arena claims it’s a
skirmish game but in play it’s so
elegant it’s almost abstract. The
armies’ themes get a bit lost, but
in the tense experience you’ll
hardly notice.
JAMES WALLIS
tabletopgaming.co.uk 25
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
GEN7: A CROSSROADS GAME
Don’t worry, you haven’t missed Gens 1 to 6
ou are the seventh generation of
Y crewmembers on a colony ship
on a 210-year journey to a distant
star system and things are about to go
wrong – though perhaps not the way the
game designers intended.
Gen7 is a seven-session campaign
game using the Crossroads narrative-
choice system that appeared first in
Dead of Winter. It’s a semi-co-op:
players must work together to overcome
a common threat, but at the same time
you’re jockeying for the morale points
that will raise your individual rank,
giving you bonuses in future sessions.
By placing dice you’ll fill seats in the
ship’s facilities to get the resources to
complete tasks and objectives – some
personal, some operational and some
mission-critical.
You won’t get much of that information
from the rulebook, which is barebones.
That’s because many of the actual rules
and special conditions are delivered on
cards and other components, most of
which unlock as the game goes on. While
many campaign games alter after each
session, Gen7 pushes that pretty far. New
boards, new decks of cards – a lot of stuff
can change, and the whole experience
can be replayed to tell a completely
different tale.
The core story is delivered in a thick
ring-bound volume, structured like a
solo gamebook. The choices it offers
are clever, often moral ones with no
26 The Best Games of 2019
WHAT’S IN clear right answer, and you’ll need to
THE BOX?
◗ Plot book
◗ Ship log
◗ Five barracks
negotiate and vote on your decisions – a
higher rank provides more votes. The
Crossroads cards add more player-based
story elements. It’s decently written but
placards
slow. This isn’t a great epic. There’s about
◗ Track board
◗ Nine ship location enough plot here for a single direct-to-
boards video movie.
◗ 34 crew dice Ultimately what it lacks is atmosphere.
◗ Resource tokens Dead of Winter is not the same game,
◗ Rules cards but playing it was tense, human and
◗ Crew cards occasionally terrifying, because the threat
◗ Personal objective cards was obvious: zombies and starvation.
◗ Episode objective cards Gen7’s mechanics are simply mechanical.
◗ Crossroads cards
It never feels like you’re controlling a
◗ Schema cards
◗ File cards spaceship crew. The logbook, an RPG
◗ Operations character sheet where you choose the
task cards ship’s name and record its stats, is a nice
◗ Critical task cards touch but nine small boards do not give
◗ Officer perks cards the sense of journeying through space.
◗ Operations When things are getting tense, placing
chief badge dice on grey cards to earn resources
◗ Assorted markers punctures the fiction that the narrative
◗ Nine sealed
sections build up.
packages
The Crossroads system, which ought
to give players their individual story
challenges and tasks, never catches
light. That's partly because we simply
kept forgetting to take the cards when
we were meant to. It may be subtitled ‘A
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… HOLDING ON:
THE TROUBLED LIFE OF BILLY KERR
Another campaign game where succeeding at worker-placement challenges
leads to an unfolding story. They couldn’t be more different in tone, but they’re
equally clever and involving.
60-90m 3-4 14+ £90
Crossroads Game’ but the system is not
at the heart of the gameplay; it’s bolted
onto the side, doesn’t feel like a coherent
part of the structure and slows down an
already long experience.
Back in the 1990s, as the Eurogame
juggernaut was hitting top speed, there
was a name given to big-box games
lacking the elegant structure of the
German newcomers: Ameritrash.
They weren’t necessarily bad – some
were brilliant – but they had too many
mechanics and components doing too
many things in too many directions.
Gen7 is a modern Ameritrash game.
It’s a box full of exciting-looking bits and
promise, and it does clever things with
interactive narrative, but it’s fiddly and
lacks focus. When you’re paying £90 you
want to be sure the core mechanic isn’t
going to get dull after a few sessions. For
some groups, this will be their game. For
others, leave it in hibernation.
JAMES WALLIS
WE SAY
It’s a seven-session commitment,
but if you like story-heavy games
and worker-placement then
prepare to come aboard.
PANDEMIC: FALL OF ROME
A spin-off that marches its way to the top
tart talking about a co-op game
S where players travel around a
map clearing it of cubes and it
is immediately obvious what is being
described. Whether those cubes are
diseases, growing water levels – as in
2017’s Rising Tide – or an angry hoard of
Visigoths has become more and more
irrelevant. You say Pandemic and, no
matter the theme, everyone instantly
knows what the game will be about.
Having such definitive gameplay
comes at a disadvantage: it is so robust
that not much can be done to it. Little
changes might spice up the familiar
gameplay by adding a couple of exciting
twists here and there but, essentially, no
matter which version finds its way onto
your table, you are still playing Pandemic.
Sometimes it is a better version – two
fantastic seasons of Pandemic Legacy
testify to that – and sometimes it is
worse, but, either way, it’s Pandemic.
Good news: Pandemic: Fall of Rome
is one of the better spin-offs. It tries its
absolute hardest to bring something
new to the series, with some fairly
minimal yet meaningful additions.
This time around players are the forces
of Rome defending its territories from
invading barbarian tribes. To win, players
have to form treaties with all the tribes –
or eliminate them. The usual Pandemic
end-game conditions apply, meaning
there are more ways to lose than win –
achieving the latter requires co-operation,
planning and tactical thinking.
The most significant change in Fall of
Rome revolves around the introduction
of tribe forces on the map. Instead of
immediately spawning into a location as
with the infections of typical Pandemic,
they travel along set migration paths,
so it might actually take them a couple
of turns to arrive at their destination.
While this may seem like an advantage
for players, allowing them to plan better,
the influx of tribes is still not easy to
control. One careless move and it is easy
to find yourself overrun.
Clearing locations is trickier and a lot
more reliant on luck. Players roll dice
40-60m 1-5 8+ £47
based on the number of legionaries
present. The dice can clear tribe cubes
and activate characters’ special powers,
but may also eliminate friendly forces.
When the game is hard already
and relies so heavily on co-operation, WHAT’S IN
planning and strategy, the luck element
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
that rolling dice brings could have ◗ Three battle dice
been frustrating. Fortunately, it is not. ◗ Seven role cards
It enjoyably raises the stakes and adds ◗ Seven pawns
tension. This could be because the dice ◗ 70 player cards
and special powers are balanced just ◗ Seven reference cards
right. Or simply, because it just makes ◗ 49 barbarian cards
complete sense; sometimes even the ◗ 100 barbarian cubes
most carefully planned battles go awry. ◗ 16 legion
◗ Six forts
In presentation and component quality,
◗ Five alliance tokens
Fall of Rome is a clear improvement on its ◗ Invasion rate marker
predecessors. From nice chunky tokens to ◗ Decline marker
gorgeous card backs, it looks beautiful laid
out on the table. The theme inspires and
enriches the look of the game to its benefit.
Pandemic fans will not be disappointed
by the latest instalment in the series. Fall
of Rome is still intrinsically Pandemic but
with added freshness and challenge. All
the same, the game could be just as easily
serve as an introduction to the series.
Pandemic Legacy remains the
ultimate Pandemic experience. But in
the growing parade of smaller spin-offs,
Fall of Rome confidently marches at the
front of the procession.
ALEX SONECHKINA
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
WE SAY
Pandemic: Fall of Rome doesn’t PANDEMIC
While the original
redefine Pandemic. However, as
a new instalment in the series, it Pandemic will
brings new and interesting ideas always be a co-op
that manage to improve on the classic, Fall of Rome
gameplay so many know and love. definitely offers more
both in gameplay and
visuals, and could
become a go-to in
the series.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 27
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
FORBIDDEN LANDS
Old-school roleplaying for a modern world
he dark dungeons and fog-grey
T morality of Forbidden Lands offer
a delightfully old-school take on
the traditional fantasy RPG, creating a
sense of freedom that rewards GMs for
a hands-off approach and allows the
players to truly forge their own destiny.
The game comes to us from Free
League, the Swedish studio probably
best known for 2017’s Tales from the
Loop. Though the tone of Forbidden
Lands is about as far as you can get
from the doe-eyed wonder of that RPG,
it shares the same retro approach and
charming take on childhood memories
– in this case the awe and excitement
so many of us felt when we first
encountered fantasy gaming.
Almost every aspect of the game,
from the beautiful black-and-white
design to the enormous map found in
the starter set, sparks happy memories
of leafing through old D&D books or
daydreaming epic adventures sparked
by Lord of the Rings. The titular
Forbidden Lands are stuffed with all
28 The Best Games of 2019
the magic swords, abandoned castles
and horrible monsters you could wish
for, and the rules are designed around
allowing the players to explore and
quest to their hearts’ content.
While it’s certainly aiming for an
old-school feel, the mechanics that
propel the game along are thoroughly
modern and supported by a few rather
fascinating innovations. The core
ruleset has stats and skills that feed
into a dice pool that will feel
very familiar to anyone who
has played other Free
League games; even
newcomers should
be able to get a handle on
things within a few minutes.
Perhaps the biggest quirk to the
system is the complete absence of hit
points or any other kind of health score.
Instead, any damage you take cuts into
your stats, so physical damage reduces
your strength while emotional trauma
slashes away at your empathy. As you
rely on these stats to defend yourself from
damage in the first place, a battle can
very quickly push you right to the edge.
This may not be such a huge
problem, however, as forcing your
character to the limit of their abilities
is the only way to gain ‘willpower’ –
the resource used to perform special
abilities and cast spells. The most
practical way to generate willpower is
to re-roll a failed check, which comes
at the risk of taking damage while
boosting reserves of inner strength.
It’s a strange system that seems ripe
for abuse, but once you get it onto the
table it works surprisingly smoothly.
The fact that magic is a product of
desperation and defiance in the face of
death fits well into the world, which is
another way that Forbidden Lands sets
itself apart from the crowd.
The setting, and indeed the overall
tone, manages to be both unrelentingly
bleak and strangely liberating. The
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
WARHAMMER FANTASY ROLEPLAY: FOURTH EDITION
Forbidden Lands is almost as dark and violent as the world of Warhammer, but
offers a different take on freedom and exploration.
208 11+ £38
entire game is set in a kingdom that
was effectively walled off from the rest
of the world and left to die at the claws
of a demonic mist that killed anybody
foolish enough to leave their homes
after dark. Anything resembling a
shining bastion of civilisation has long
since rotted away and countless ancient
manors and treasuries lie empty save
for the dead and the desperate.
The game kicks off a few years
after the blood mist mysteriously
disappeared, leaving the land free to
explore for the first time in centuries.
How the players shape this dangerous
land is entirely up to them.
While the lore is incredibly
compelling, it does have a few weak
points that might leave readers
scratching their heads, most of which
revolve around the surprisingly limited
impact the blood mist seems to have had.
Many of the backgrounds suggested
in the players’ guide involve travelling
extensively as a child, which in theory
would have been near impossible, and
the towns and villages seem plucked
straight from a conventional dark fantasy
world rather than one where settlements
were forced to survive in near-isolation
for hundreds of years. These may seem
petty concerns, but the blood mist is
such a fascinating idea that it’s frustrating
when it fails to gel with the details.
This doesn’t change the fact that
Forbidden Land is a beautiful game
that offers a chance for players to
experience something that captures
the feel of old-school adventuring but
still feels fresh. It’s well worth a look
for anyone looking for something
different to their fantasy gaming.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
WE SAY
It’s like someone took hazy childhood
memories of a classic D&D game
and mixed them with a dash of
bleak Scandinavian darkness.
Picture courtesy of BoardGameShot

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Hero sheet
◗ Evil screen
◗ 21 item cards
◗ Four character cards
◗ 104 reaction cards
(four decks)
◗ Eight green starting
ALONE mission cards
◗ Eight blue starting
If you’re not afraid of the dark, you will be mission cards
◗ Eight final
1-2h 2-4 13+ £70 mission cards
◗ Four reference
cards
emember the motion tracker in Alone’s real masterstroke is the stops things being too predictable on

R Aliens that Ellen Ripley used to

locate approaching xenomorphs,
your heart pounding in time with the
relentless bup-bup-bup-bup as the dots
blipped ever closer? That feeling is the
feeling of playing as Alone’s isolated
hero, fleeing the nightmarish terrors
that lurk in the dark: your friends.
Alone is a sci-fi dungeon-crawler
with a refreshing premise. The solo hero
is trapped in a labyrinthine network of
corridors and rooms, only able to see a
very limited portion of the environment
at any point. In the parts of the map
they can’t see, on an overlay of the
entire environment hidden behind a
screen, the ‘evil’ players summon alien
monstrosities and lay traps for the
unsuspecting explorer to encounter as
they try to survive a series of missions.
Having a player serve as a DM-like
overlord isn’t exactly new to dungeon-
crawling games, but it’s well executed
here. Once you’ve wrapped your head
around the three (3!) rulebooks in
Alone’s box, the game’s reaction-based
gameplay quickly becomes second
nature, as the hero moves around,
scavenges for kit and tries to avoid being
turned into extraterrestrial tagine by
the evil player(s) as they lay down cards
after each action to spawn creatures,
move them around and make portions
of the map more dangerous. Both
sides of the fight can combo actions
and cards together – at a cost – so the
choices never feel stilted or limited, and
there’s never too much downtime.
claustrophobic atmosphere achieved
by its line-of-sight mechanics, which
remove sections of the board that the
hero player can no longer see, allowing
monsters to sneak up in the dark and
spring out at them if they fail to explore
ahead – or are forced to run and take
their chances. Just as engaging is its
clever use of light; the hero can repair
light units to illuminate sections of
the environment, letting them gain
the upper hand over monsters that
thrive in the darkness. Combat, when
it occurs, is fast: a few dice chucked
to dish out wounds, with a variety
of different aliens, from facehugger
stand-ins that move fast but go down
in a couple of shots to slow-moving
worms that are formidable in the dark
but useless in the light, offering plenty
of chances for variation.
There are some other smart
additions, including a basic system
of unlockable hero abilities and a
sizeable inventory board that lets them
keep track of where unseen noises are
coming from – something that the evil
players can use as distractions to their
advantage. The constant pressure of
time on the hero keeps things moving
at a fair clip, gently prodding them out
of a safe ‘check every corner’ approach,
while the opportunity to complete
optional objectives for extra benefits
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… DESCENT: JOURNEYS IN THE DARK
Alone’s sight-based action brings something new to the dungeon-crawling
format, making those journeys in the dark even more dangerous.
either side of the screen.
Alone’s gripping atmosphere suffers
only in its adherence to sci-fi cliché
◗ Compass
◗ Eight room tokens
◗ Six mission tokens
◗ Eight dice
– none of the monsters or heroes are ◗ Two map sheets
overly memorable, and the map tiles ◗ 10 doors
are near-identical grey corridors. The ◗ 15 creature tokens
repetitive visuals add to the sense of ◗ Two boss tokens
◗ Two difficulty
being lost in a maze, but do little to
level tokens
bring the world alive, even during the ◗ Five hero miniatures
campaign mode. ◗ Three cultist miniatures
The game’s other stumble is that ◗ Cultist leader miniature
it works best as a head-to-head ◗ Three hybrid miniatures
experience for two players. While ◗ Three spores miniatures
adding a second or third evil player ◗ Three parasite
adds an interesting element of restricted miniatures
communication and co-operation, it ◗ Three worm miniatures
◗ Alpha Worm miniature
doesn’t go far enough to make up for the
◗ Mech miniature
diluted tension of a one-on-one chase. ◗ Eight room tiles
Alone doesn’t quite stand completely ◗ 17 corridor tiles
apart from the dungeon-crawler crowd, ◗ Round marker
but its tense use of unseen danger and ◗ Eight turn tokens
reversal of the one-versus-many format ◗ Six adrenaline tokens
gives it plenty to recommend. Bring it into ◗ 73 charge tokens
the light and it might just surprise you. ◗ HP marker
MATT JARVIS ◗ Four stairs tokens
◗ Light/blocked tokens
◗ Evil leader token
◗ SC marker
WE SAY
Alone’s inventive use of line-of-sight ◗ Stairs/LCU tiles
◗ Danger/condition
really makes the horror lurking in the
dark feel truly frightening – even if its tokens
monsters aren’t all that memorable ◗ Hero token
once you see them. It’s decent fun
with three or four, but a two-player
hunt is where it shines brightest.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 29
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 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Map board
◗ Tracks board
◗ Four study boards
◗ 10 objective tiles
◗ 10 specialisation
tiles
◗ 12 income tiles
◗ Four medicine
income tiles

NEWTON ◗ 20 potion tokens

◗ 48 bookshelf tiles
(12 for each colour)
The tabletop appliance of science ◗ 32 coins
◗ 10 invention tiles
90-120m 1-4 14+ £50 ◗ 20 development tiles
◗ 18 bonus tokens
ir Isaac Newton, it’s safe to say, complete rows and columns on a grid, components and actions, you’ll quickly

S was a man who could handle

some pretty complex concepts.
Several complex concepts at the same
time, in fact. He was a smart cookie,
old Izzy was. So it’s only right that the
Eurogame that bears his name should
give its players a lot to get their own
brains around. So much so, it’s likely
to get your head spinning the first
time you play it.
The loosely-fitted theme casts each
player as an 18th-century scientist
competing to earn the most prestige.
They can do this in a number of ways:
travelling around Europe, sending
their students to innovate new
technologies, studying, attending
lessons and, erm, earning money.
All this requires a lot of cardboard
on the table. One board depicts a
tangle of routes around Europe, while
another bears the work track, for
reaping coins, and the technology
track, which boasts a branching,
flow-charty array of one-way routes
towards scientific discovery. On
these you’ll randomly place a variety
of tokens during setup, which grant
a multitude of bonuses when your
meeple passes over, or lands on them.
Then each player has their own study
board on which they will have to place
little tiles depicting bookshelves to
thereby earning victory points, while
also playing down their action cards
onto their ‘desk’.
This final aspect is the game’s
core mechanic and is by far its most
satisfying. Blending elements of hand-
and engine-building, it allows players
to add cards to their hand which,
when played to their desk, grant them
both one of five basic actions (work,
travel, study and so on) and also
provide a unique bonus from each
card. The value, or strength, of each
action is determined by the number
of relevant symbols on display on the
player’s desk – a cog for ‘technology’,
say. You can build these up through
some judicious discarding, because
at the end of each of the game’s first
five (of six) rounds you’ll be forced to
chuck out one of your played cards,
losing its bonus but adding its basic
action value to your desk.
Elsewhere, you’ll be shoving
meeples from point to point around
the two central boards and positioning
tiles in a manner that will very familiar
to fans of Uwe Rosenberg’s recent
output. It’s all smartly balanced by
designers Simone Luciani (Lorenzo
Il Magnifico) and Nestore Mangone
although, once you’ve finally got
your head around all those bitty
realise that the surest way to success
is to focus on your studying as soon
as possible and set yourself up for a
◗ Seven city tiles
◗ Six university tiles
◗ Three ancient
land tiles
◗ 20 master cards
steady stream of victory-point income
at the end of each round. ◗ 24 starting action
cards (six for
After all, nobody’s going to be able to
each colour)
take it from you. There is so little player ◗ 45 action cards
interaction in Newton that you can play (15 for each level)
it solo with hardly any rules adjustment. ◗ Four summary tiles
The absence of take-that will be off- ◗ 16 students (four
putting to those who like a bit of cut and for each colour)
thrust to their gameplay, and it can feel ◗ Four scientists (one
like each player is just sat in their point- for each colour)
scoring silo. But with so much going on ◗ 48 travel cubes (12
for each colour)
each turn and everything so clockwork-
◗ Eight player markers
calibrated, there’s every chance you’ll (12 for each colour)
be too busy thinking to notice. ◗ First Player token
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
A heavyweight Eurogame that
demands a lot of your processing
power, but rewards you with multi-
layered depth. Though if you’re
fussed about player interaction,
it might not be for you.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
A FEAST FOR ODIN
Similar to Uwe Rosenberg’s Norse
epic, Newton treats its players to a
huge variety of options each turn,
with a bit of tile-laying to boot.

32 The Best Games of 2019

AUZTRALIA
An outback tale of steam, sheep and shoggoths
n 2013, designer Martin Wallace
I released A Study in Emerald. A
tabletop adaptation of a short story
by author Neil Gaiman, it transported
players to an alternate Victorian age
where a band of revolutionaries led by
Sherlock Holmes conspired to overthrow
the tyrannical rule of creatures from
H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Now
Wallace is back with a sequel and, while
there are still plenty of cosmic horrors
to confront, his new game shifts the
focus from 19th-century Europe to the
Australian outback in the 1930s.
With the rest of the world largely
reclaimed by humanity, the tentacled
interdimensional beasties have
retreated to heart of the Australian
continent. You and your fellow players
plan to forcibly return them to the cold
void of space; while your foes might
be eldritch beings with sanity-sapping
psychic powers, you’ll be taking them
on with crack infantry regiments,
airships and heavy artillery.
What’s surprising about AuZtralia,
though, is that while its premise
revolves around the fight against
Cthulhu and his squiggly minions,
combat is only one part of its much
larger package. As you aim to wipe
an assortment of monsters, ghouls
and cultists from the map, you’ll also
develop the land, building railway
networks to transport your troops,
mining resources like coal, gold
and iron, and establishing farms
producing sheep, cattle and corn.
It means that from your very first
turn you’ll face a multitude of different
tasks, and you’ll need to prioritise
them carefully. Should you focus
on extending your rail routes deep
into the continent, allowing you to
strike at distant enemies? Should you
concentrate on mining, hoovering up
resources before your rivals can claim
them? Should you stick to the coastal
edges of the board, where the more
varied terrain allows you to build a
diverse mix of farms and ranches? Or
should you build your army, battening
down the hatches for the inevitable
onslaught of monstrous foes?
30-120m 1-4 13+ £68
You’ll make these choices under raising the possibility that the game
some serious pressure. AuZtralia uses
a Patchwork-style time track, where
each action you take progresses
itself might emerge as the eventual
winner. But it turns out that a few
well-placed howitzer rounds can
you a different number of spaces stop even the most blasphemous and
depending on its complexity. Once unspeakable of beings, and the result
you and your opponents reach a is that taking them on feels more like
certain point, the ancient horrors pest control than a desperate fight for
WHAT’S IN lurking in the wastes will start to the fate of humankind.
THE BOX? awaken, moving inexorably towards In just about all other respects,
◗ Four ports
your carefully-built rail lines, farms though, AuZtralia is a hell of a ride
◗ 80 cubes
◗ 12 discs and ports, creating an escalating – a madcap mix of mechanisms that
◗ 80 railway tracks sense of tension as more threats somehow comes together in the most
◗ 28 cattle farms emerge across the board. It’s a deft satisfying way.
◗ 28 corn farms combination of strategic challenge OWEN DUFFY
◗ 28 sheep farms and mounting threat.
◗ Four player boards AuZtralia also gets points for
◗ Game board the diversity of its artwork, which WE SAY
◗ 10 infantry tiles depicts characters of all genders and On paper, AuZtralia looks like there’s
◗ Five armoured no way it should work. It throws so
ethnicities — something which would
car tiles many disparate elements into its
◗ Three airship tiles have surely horrified the notoriously
xenophobic Lovecraft. mechanical melting pot that it seems
◗ Three artillery tiles like it should be a confused mess. But
◗ Four armoured If there’s one shortcoming, it’s
it pulls it all together into a cohesive
train tiles that its monsters never feel truly and compelling whole, and the result
◗ Old One disc terrifying. They creep across the is an impressive blend of strategy
◗ 10 Old One map, blocking your railways and and tension that sees you competing
damage cubes despoiling your farms. Along the against the game’s AI antagonists just
◗ 35 Old One tiles way they’ll score points of their own, as much as your human opponents.
◗ 50 coal
◗ 50 iron
◗ 50 cold
◗ Seven phosphate
◗ 36 personality cards
◗ 40 Old One cards
◗ 30 event cards
◗ Four player aids
◗ 20 survey tiles
◗ ◗Attack marker
◗ 15 victory point tokens
◗ 13 sanity tokens
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… VIA NEBULA
It’s another route-building, resource-grabbing Martin Wallace game,
but it comes in a more family-friendly package.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 33
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
GÙGŌNG
No bribes required
to put this on the table
bribe is not a bribe if it is an
A exchange of an expensive
gift for a slightly cheaper gift
and a favour, right? At least, that was
the policy of Chinese officials of the
Forbidden City under the rule of the
Longqing Emperor, who attempted to
battle the increasing bureaucracy and
corruption of the Chinese government...
apparently to little success.
This is the main inspiration behind
Gùgōng, a worker-placement game set
in the Forbidden City where players
are the noble families vying for favour
with the Emperor by innocently – and
lawfully – exchanging gifts (definitely
not bribes!) with the highest officials
for an assortment of favours. The
theme is a strong glue that holds
together what could otherwise could
be perceived as a disparate collection
of mini-games.
Mechanically, Gùgōng is still a rather
unconnected mishmash of area-
control, set-collection and even racing
games that are activated through
worker placement and somehow
found on the same board. However,
having various officials, responsible for
34 The Best Games of 2019
hands and even anticipate their moves,
which adds a nice layer of strategy and
indirect player interaction.
What makes the exchange of cards
even more meaningful are the destiny
dice, a series of randomly-rolled
numbers that, if matched at the end of
the round, give players extra workers,
the supply of which is always tight. This
makes every turn a tug-of-war between
actions the player either wants to or
can take, the available number of
workers and, finally, a gentle nudge
of the destiny dice that encourages
players to compete for the same cards.
So, while there are plenty of spots
on the board, even in the two-player
mode, there is enough competition
and interaction between players.
Gùgōng is a game that greets new
players by overwhelming them with
a complex-looking board, slightly
fiddly setup and a smorgasbord
of iconology. Once the anxiety of
this first encounter subsides, it
becomes clear the gameplay is very
straightforward and easy-flowing
from round to round. It does feel,
however, that the proportion of setup
time versus actual gameplay (which
60-90m 1-5 12+ £54 lasts only four rounds) is unbalanced.
When the board is completely set up
WHAT’S IN different branches of the government it looks gorgeous, but the number of
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ Five player boards
◗ Round marker
– whether that’s building the Great
Wall to protect from Mongol attack
or engaging with in-palace intrigue
small cardboard pieces that require
sorting out and placing overextends
the preparation time and feels slightly
– helps it all make perfect sense. It is unnecessary considering how simply
◗ Start Player marker
ultimately up to the player to decide and swiftly the game actually plays.
◗ Next Start
Player medal which parts of the board they would Despite its excesses, Gùgōng is an
◗ 38 gift cards like to get involved with and which easy game to like. While essentially an
◗ 11 solo cards objectives to chase in order to progress. assortment of small mini-games on the
◗ 32 travel tokens There are a couple of elements same board, a clever and interesting
◗ Six bonus travel that set Gùgōng aside from the typical theme brings all of its elements
tokens worker-placement gameplay template. together into a unified whole that’s
◗ 15 decree tiles In order to place a worker on the greater than the sum of its parts.
◗ 20 jade board, players need to exchange gifts ALEX SONECHKINA
◗ 15 Grand
– cards of values one to nine – with the
Canal ships
◗ 60 servants official responsible for that particular
area of government. If the gift value WE SAY
◗ Five double servants Governmental corruption is definitely
◗ Five travellers is higher, the player can perform the
wrong, but play your gifts right and
◗ Five envoys respective actions, whereas with a you will succeed for sure in Gùgōng.
◗ Five VP discs lower value card, they just get a new While the message is a bit off – if
◗ Five intrigue markers card for the next round. As there are there was intended to be one at
◗ Three destiny dice limited cards in play, it is fairly easy to all – this is a solid worker-placement
know what every opponent has in their game that is easy to enjoy.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… COIMBRA
Coimbra is slightly better at easing players through a panic-inducing, complex-
looking board behind which simple yet excellent gameplay is hidden. However,
both games do well at uniting a variety of mechanics on the same board into
coherent and exciting play.
JUDGE DREDD:
THE CURSED EARTH
he Lost Expedition was one of
T the small-box gems of 2017,
with Peer Sylvester’s compact
card game capturing the challenge
and beauty of surviving – and dying,
and dying again – in the rainforest.
Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth,
themed after 2000 AD’s notorious arm
of the law, remains just as punishing
and visually breathtaking, swapping
lush plant life and colourful creatures
for brilliant comic-book artwork from
Dredd artists Rufus Dayglo and Dan
Cornwell, showcased magnificently
on oversized cards.
The core of the action remains the
same: players lay down cards from
their hands to collectively form a
row, hoping that their combination
of symbols to spend and receive
resources such as rations, ammo and
expertise – rearranged consecutively
in the ‘dawn’ round, left as-is at
dusk – can be survived in order by
TOKYO HIGHWAY
f you’ve heard of Japanese
I publisher Itten it’s probably for
quirky games like Stonehenge and
the Sun, which requires a pendulum
suspended from your ceiling, or Yeti
in the House, where a yeti hides in
your actual house. Tokyo Highway is
its first title to get proper distribution,
and the closest thing it’s done to a
normal game. That doesn’t mean it’s a
normal game.
Tokyo Highway is a rare hybrid: a
tactical stacker. Each player builds
a network of roads that rise up, dip
down and snake around. When
you place a road that crosses over
or under another player’s road
without touching it, you can put
a car on it. First player to place all
their cars wins.
The game has plenty of emergent
strategy, as the table becomes covered
in a glorious and intriguing network
of roads and finding new places to
30-50m 1-5 14+ £25
Judges Dredd, Anderson and Giant. here to present a new challenge and
The added complication of radiation
that must be balanced against health
and the potential to use psi powers,
different feel. Though a few unlucky
draws can still leave you doomed,
you’ll be heading back out on the
which puts an interesting twist on hunt as soon as you can.
the restricted co-operation with MATT JARVIS
your fellow players, feel like natural
additions given the setting and give
more to consider without muddling
the simple central gameplay.
The landscape takes on more of
a role here too, as locations that the
team travel to add one-off or ongoing
effects, marking them out against the
relatively samey forest cards of the
Amazon. Applying even more pressure
and changing up the pace is the fact
it's a race against a game-controlled
gang of criminals to reach the slightly
randomised destination of their target
– the returning competitive mode pits
the players against each other.
If you’ve played The Lost Expedition,
it’s familiar territory but there’s enough
30m 2-4 8+ £35
build and score becomes increasingly tweezers are some help, but
challenging. The threat of running
out of building supplies encourages
people to build low, but the big points
those with steady hands and slim
fingers will have an advantage.
It’s equal parts tactics and
come from soaring high. balancing – and it’s a shame the
It’s beautiful. With starkly balancing is a little unbalanced,
minimalist components, the grey of because otherwise this is a delight
the roads and columns offset by the that you shouldn’t bypass.
bright colours of the cars, it’s very JAMES WALLIS
satisfying on an aesthetic level.
Where the game falls down
is where it falls down. If you
dislodge an opponent’s
piece you have to
replace it, but the
roads become
so interlocked
that it’s really
hard without
knocking over
other bits –
not to mention
remembering what
went where. The included
tabletopgaming.co.uk 35
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
SHADOWS:
AMSTERDAM
A little bit Dixit, a little bit Codenames,
but a game all of its own
hadows: Amsterdam could
S be described as the visual
deduction of Dixit combined
with the co-operative minesweeper of
Codenames. It could be described that
way, but you’d be doing it a disservice.
Yes, there are echoes of those other
games in the way that it sees two
opposing teams racing around a hex
grid, one clue-giving ‘intelligence
officer’ on each side hoping to steer
their detectives toward three hidden
pieces of evidence and the client
they must deliver them to by silently
handing them sets of deliberately
ambiguous picture cards. Are they
giving you this image of a tree because
they want you to go to the park, the
flower shop or just because it’s mainly
green, like the helicopter pad?
What makes Shadows different to
the careful consider-every-possibility
mulling of Codenames, though, is that
it’s played completely in real time,
neither team having to wait for their
rivals to select a clue or make their
move before they scoot their moped
miniature and its anthropomorphic
rider to their next destination. What’s
more, both intelligence officers share
the same grid of ten available intel cards
to give as clues, so nabbing the perfect
36 The Best Games of 2019
30m 2-8 10+ £23
WHAT’S IN hint comes down to a bit of luck, speed
THE BOX?
◗ Seven double-
sided districts
◗ Starting tile
and the faith that your team will know
exactly what you're thinking.
With the pressure of identifying a
wealth of visual similarities against
◗ Three obstacle tiles
◗ 84 intel cards the clock having the potential to
◗ Six evidence tokens overwhelm and frustrate, Shadows
plus bases smartly limits things. The detectives’
◗ Two police tracks mopeds only move one or two
◗ Five police tokens adjacent hexes at a time, determined
◗ Two screens by how many clue cards they’re given.
◗ 40 map cards It’s a small but meaningful detail that
◗ Two tracking means you never have to consider the
markers
entire board and can instead focus
◗ Two detective
figures on where you are, stopping detectives
from spending precious seconds
frozen with indecision – or making
desperate guesses to try and outpace
their rivals. Impassable obstacles
around the centre of the modular
layout, constructed from six of seven
double-sided ‘districts’ and a handful
of intel cards each round, further break
up the map to keep things moving.
A combination of evidence exclusive
to either team and hexes that can be
claimed by either side, depending on
who gets there first, sets up enough
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… MYSTERIUM
Like hunting for picture clues to solve a mystery? Shadows: Amsterdam will pit
you against a real ticking clock – and the other team.
opportunities to butt heads without
the feeling that everyone is continually
treading on each other’s toes. In the
same way, only half of the police hexes
– landing on three loses the round for
that team – are common between the
hidden map cards used in team-colour
pairs by the intelligence officers, so it’s
not just a simple case of avoiding the
spaces where the other team gets caught.
The artwork, themed around
Amsterdam and its animal citizens,
pops with character and colour. As with
Mysterium and Dixit, the images are busy
enough for a variety of clues to make
sense – even with a bit of a leap at points
– while being clear enough for elements
to stand out and give a sense of the setting.
Having sets of the pictures locked
into the seven preset districts helps
speed up setup and makes it easy to
change the board between rounds by
flipping them over, but can lead to the
same images becoming overly familiar
game after game. A few more districts or
enough intel cards to create completely
randomised layouts would’ve been
welcome. That said, the large number
of potential map arrangements behind
the screens and limited number of
clues available for each move mean
that Shadows doesn’t wear out its
gameplay too quickly. The only part of
the box that truly feels unnecessary is
the small tracker marker used to follow
the detectives’ movement on the map
cards – more fiddly than it’s worth given
how easy it is to see where they are on
the main board, but at least specified as
optional in the rules.
Shadows: Amsterdam isn’t quite
as evergreen as Codenames or Dixit,
but it’s a game that offers something
fresh and different in a familiar mould.
The switch to real-time deduction sets
it apart, with the head-to-head race
making it a standout party game. All
the evidence points to a game that
belongs in your collection.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
The real-time race across the
board means that Shadows:
Amsterdam feels original as an
experience and is huge fun to boot.
It’s well deserving of your time.
KEY FLOW
45-75m 2-6 14+ £50

ey Flow review in nine words: Except sometimes it’s aaargh.

K it’s Keyflower, minus hexes

and auctions, plus card
drafting. Done!
From Key Flow’s art it looks like it’s
going to be pastoral and lovely, but
this is an intelligent, fiercely tactical,
If you don’t know Keyflower then challenging title with ever-changing
that’s as useful as mud, of course. gameplay. Speaking as a designer, I
So: both games are from the same wish I’d created this. As a player, if
design team. Both are surprisingly you like engine-builders then this is a
intense engine-builders, where each must-try.
player constructs and populates a But you can’t ignore the similarities
village over four seasons, gathering to Keyflower. They’re like parallel
resources and scoring points based universe versions of the same game
on their buildings. Different things and, honestly, if you have one
happen in different seasons: ships then you probably don’t want the
arrive in summer, stores are filled in other. For me Key Flow just has
autumn, everything scores in winter. the edge but then I like drafting
Key Flow ditches hexes for cards, games. One thing’s for
and your villages are built along a river sure: if you’re
(bottom level) and a road (top level). new to the
The way the cards are placed is not Key universe,
just strategic, it’s also deeply satisfying. either of these
You’re creating a lovely community titles makes an
that makes stuff and trades with its excellent start point.
neighbours and it’s just ooooh. JAMES WALLIS

Out Now!

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 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
WESTERN LEGENDS
Card Fight at the O.K. Corral
ost western board games lack
M the sweeping scope of the epic
genre. You can duel in Bang!,
rob trains in Colt Express and herd cattle
in Great Western Trail – but rarely has
a single game attempted to paint the
entire canvas of life in the Wild West.
Stepping in through those swinging
saloon doors with its spurs jangling and
a cocktail stick stuck firmly between its
teeth is Western Legends, a sandbox take
on being a rootin’-tootin’ cowpoke that
ambitiously tries to widen the lens to
cover everything from prospecting for
gold to reveling at the local cabaret.
Its kitchen sink approach to
gunslinging adventures is given
a dependable throughline by the
legendary points that players score, and
which are awarded for almost every
notable action in the game. Win a game
of poker, get LP. Sell gold nuggets at the
bank, get LP. Defeat a rival in a duel, get
LP. It’s a tidy way of letting a player who
wants to avoid combat completely and
spend their time amassing money to
upgrade items (more LP) or completing
their character’s specific goals (you
guessed it: LP) stay neck-and-neck
with an anarchic outlaw robbing other
players of their nuggets, cash and cattle.
38 The Best Games of 2019
Western Legends is so keen to push
the edges of its world horizontally that it
often avoids the opportunity to dig a little
deeper into each separate part, leaving
it a little shallow under the impressively
broad surface. While the universal nature
of LP means you can hypothetically
focus on a single part of the game, the
simple nature of each action – roll two
dice to prospect, collect then deliver a
token to herd cattle, play poker just with
the three-card flop and so on – means
you’ll likely find yourself sampling a little
bit of each portion rather than feasting
on just one, to avoid becoming bored if
nothing else. While the player characters
that populate its world are a diverse wild
bunch of real-life heroes and villains,
they too feel a little underserved by a
few random story cards that offer only
licks of generic flavour and individual
goals that are simply additional ways to
score LP rather than anything especially
character-driven or narrative-focused.
Fortunately, this all feels like a missed
opportunity rather than a critical flaw;
the lightness of the rules means things
move swiftly and everyone has the
60-90m 2-6 14+ £60 opportunity to see everything, making
the experience an enjoyable western
WHAT’S IN Adding to the feeling of open-world romp rather than a heavy simulation
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ Six player mats
◗ 12 scoring cubes
freedom are the wanted and marshal
tracks, which layer in an aspect of
morality and reward (or punishment)
of the real-life drudgery of prospecting
or cattle herding. There’s plenty of
opportunity for a spot of roleplaying
to players’ exploits. Players that indulge your particular spin on Jesse James or
◗ 12 story discs
in bank heists and cattle rustling Bass Reeves, too – though that’ll depend
◗ Two prospecting dice
◗ 36 gold nuggets can earn regular LP each turn while on whom you’re playing with.
◗ Six wound tokens wanted by the law, but risk being Western Legends succeeds because it’s
◗ End of game marker arrested by the sheriff or ‘good’ players, willing to sacrifice a bit of depth for the
◗ 16 cattle tokens losing some of their fortune, LP and straightforward fun of galloping around
◗ 18 legendary tokens possibly giving an upper hand to their the Wild West, taking in the breadth – if
◗ First Player token opponents. Staying on the straight not the depth – of its expansive world.
◗ Six player aids and narrow by arresting outlaws, It’s a hugely entertaining way to spend
◗ 12 character cards dispatching bandits and wrangling an hour or two in the company of
◗ 40 story cards
cattle, meanwhile, awards bonus LP at cowpokes; just don’t look too hard,
◗ 52 poker cards
◗ 11 Man in the end of the game, making it more of otherwise you’ll notice that the bullets
Black cards a long-term commitment but a path are blanks and that breathtaking sunset
◗ 48 goal cards that can swing the final standings. is little more than a painted screen.
◗ 54 money cards The more immediate gains of being a MATT JARVIS
◗ 13 fight cards fugitive – and the risk-reward feeling
◗ 54 item cards of being constantly on the run it
◗ Six player miniatures brings – versus the slower burn and WE SAY
(with coloured Western Legends is a massively
delayed gratification of the marshal
plastic rings) fun romp through the Wild West
gives the game a satisfying level of that chucks almost every cliché
◗ Sheriff miniature
◗ Six bandit miniatures variety, interaction and player impact you can think of into a single box to
◗ General Store stand on the world without saddling it with serve up a shallow but satisfying
convoluted rules. feast of cowpoke exploits.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… XIA: LEGENDS OF A DRIFT SYSTEM
Looking to expand your legend from a far-flung galaxy to the dusty plains? The
sandbox of Western Legends will give you plenty to play around with.
GUARDIAN’S CALL
Defend the realm by hoarding and lying
uardian’s Call looks like a
G generic fantasy RPG, but
it isn’t an adventure game
at all – despite including player
minis and a score tracker that looks
suspiciously like a dungeon crawl.
It’s a straightforward bluffing and
set-collection card game, filled with
impressive components and smart
balancing elements that help elevate it
beyond being Liar’s Dice with cards.
Guardian’s Call features five guardian
cards that players should be collecting for
the war effort: weapons, shields, spells,
artefacts and villagers. The primary
method to acquire cards into your
tableau from your hand is to offer them
to your fellow adventurers, facedown.
The gameplay works similarly to
Liar’s Dice; you can opt to tell the truth
or bluff, and it’s up to your targeted
opponent to suss out the truth or the lie.
A sixth guardian card, the curse, offers
a fun bit of take-that as the loser in the
offer is forced to lose a card.
Each guardian card type offers a
different set bonus. Weapons and
shields simply score victory points at the
end, while artefacts can be traded in for
treasure cards that provide more victory
points and special abilities. Rescuing
villagers is far from altruistic, as well,
moving your mini along the castle track
board to nab extra victory points at
certain intervals.
In every offer there’s a winner and a
loser, depending on if your opponent
guessed correctly. Smartly, Guardian’s
Call gives the loser a single coin as
compensation. You can then use three
coins to purchase a card directly from
the market of face-up cards, or five
30-45m 2-5 14+ £30
coins to discard a curse from the market
for victory points. It’s an intuitive and
effective balancing system, and helps
make Guardian’s Call much more
manageable for kids (and the hopelessly
honest) despite the 14-plus age rating
on the box.
Quest cards help add a welcome dash
of variety. Each game features three
random quests that offer bonus points,
such as collecting the fewest weapons
or including only two different types
of cards in your tableau. Quests often
change the inherent value of certain
cards in a game, leading to even more
deliciously duplicitous mind games.
Where Guardian’s Call truly
succeeds is in its components. You’ve
never seen a simple card bluffing
game as well-moulded as this one.
Each adventurer includes a full player
board that provides a nice rundown of
each set-collection bonus, as well as a
coloured mini for the castle track board.
The card art is colourful and lovely, and
everything is incredibly well-organised
in the box thanks to the included Game
Trayz insert.
Great components don’t make a bad
game good, but they can make a relatively
simple game much more memorable
and attractive. It’s disappointing that the
individually-named hero classes don’t
differ much from each other, and the minis
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Castle track board
◗ Five player boards
ultimately feel like a wasted opportunity.
Despite its relative simplicity, Guardian’s
Call can be hilariously enjoyable with the
◗ Five player minis right group of devious adventurers.
◗ 20 player offer tokens ERIC WATSON
◗ 120 guardian cards
◗ 20 treasure cards
◗ 18 quest cards WE SAY
◗ Council card Guardian’s Call is one of the best-
◗ War card looking set-collection games we’ve
◗ 72 victory seen, but it’s still a very simple
point tokens gameplay concept and may not
◗ 36 coin tokens do enough to attract non-fans
◗ Starting player marker of social deduction games.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM
Take the card bluffing of Sheriff of
Nottingham and add different set-
collection bonuses and more ways
to acquire victory points.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 39
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
STAR CROSSED
The tower of love
ith just two players, a
W couple hours and a tower of
wooden blocks, Star Crossed
manages to conjure up unparalleled
stories of romance, tragedy and comedy
– as long as you’re able to relax and
shrug off the awkwardness that can
come from in-character flirting.
The box describes it as “a game of
forbidden love” and, while that sounds
a little vague, that’s exactly what it is.
There are no presumptions about what
setting you might use or what tone you
should work towards, because the only
hard-and-fast requirement Star Crossed
imposes on its player characters is that
A) they feel a powerful attraction to one
another, and B) they have a very good
reason for not acting on that attraction.
Everything else – the genre you want
to riff on, how silly things are going to get
and how grounded you’re going to be in
reality – is decided by the players when
they kick off a session. One game could
drop you into the realistically grimy shoes
of two soldiers sharing a mud-slicked
trench in a time when a love affair could
lead to prison or worse, while the next
may propel you into a wacky sci-fi setting
where a starship science officer establishes
a relationship with a sentient gas cloud.
Many games claim to only be limited
by the players’ imaginations, but in
the case of Star Crossed it’s completely
40 The Best Games of 2019
43 11+ £39
accurate. For some people, picking from
a functionally infinite list of scenarios can
be a rather daunting prospect, but once
you get used to the idea and learn to go
with the flow you’ll be scribbling potential
pairings as you sit on the bus or lie in bed.
There’s more to the game than smashing
characters into each other, though, and
while the rules are feather-light they do
manage to elegantly capture a feel of rising
tension and anticipation. This is achieved
through the teetering tower of wooden
blocks – think Jenga – that acts as a rough
stand-in for the sensible part of them that
knows the relationship can’t work.
As scenes play out and the characters
grow closer by revealing intimate secrets
or accidently brushing hands/tentacles/
mind-probes, the players must draw
bricks from the stack and place them on
top. If the tower topples to the table then
the characters’ resolve breaks and they
act on their emotions, with the exact
consequences depending on how many
bricks were placed over the course of
the session – a representation of how
close they grew.
Watching your wooden edifice sway
and teeter as your characters bare
their hearts is an electrifying, tense
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… FIASCO
Star Crossed comes to us from Bully Pulpit, the same publisher as Fiasco, and
shares a similar love of GM-less storytelling and off-the-wall improvisation.
experience, with the blended fear and
anticipation of the crashing of wood
and spraying of blocks across the floor
managing to provide a real link between
the in-game world and reality. Making
the decision to throw out a hand and
intentionally sweep the tower to the
ground at a story-appropriate moment
is one of the most satisfying moments
found in all of roleplaying.
All of this does come at a cost,
however. Star Crossed is a game
of intense emotion and intimate
moments and, while this makes for
great stories and excellent roleplaying,
it can sometimes be hard to play.
In many ways this isn’t a fault of the
game, but rather an issue with the entire
concept. Indeed, Star Crossed does
an incredible job of making sure that
every player stays safe and comfortable,
with plenty of encouraging words
about setting boundaries and avoiding
uncomfortable topics.
This doesn’t change the fact, however,
that playing out an intense romantic
relationship can be, well, embarrassing.
Not everyone will feel this way,
of course. There are plenty of folks
comfortable enough in their skin and
sexuality to laugh off any awkward
moments, but if the idea of reading love
poetry out loud sends flushes of anxiety
across your cheeks you might struggle
to find the detachment needed for
comfortable play.
This all raises the question: is it
worth shelling out for a game system
that you might hesitate to pull out for
the local games night or a session with
your friends or family?
If this was a review for something
practical – a washing machine or a car –
then the answer might well be no. But it
isn’t. It’s a review for a game that can be
awkward, embarrassing and beautiful all
at the same time. If you’re the least bit
interested in its sweetly simple concept
and have a couple folks to play with, Star
Crossed is well worth taking a gamble on.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
WE SAY
Despite the simple rules, Star
Crossed isn’t always the easiest
game to play – but when it works
it’s a truly wonderful experience.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 41
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Fame and
reputation board
◗ Day and night board
◗ 26 hex map tiles
◗ 204 deed cards
◗ 56 unit cards
◗ Seven hero cards
◗ 14 skill description
cards
◗ 12 tactics cards
◗ 54 wound cards
◗ 23 site description
cards
◗ Four city cards
◗ Factions card
MAGE KNIGHT: ULTIMATE EDITION ◗ Scoring card
◗ Four castle
Sizing up a tabletop giant miniatures
◗ Seven hero
1-4h £115
miniatures
2-4 14+
◗ Volkare miniature
◗ Eight mana dice
efore there was Gloomhaven, from which they must play cards with its mechanisms and the game flow

B there was Mage Knight. Vlaada

Chvátil’s 2011 fantasy conquest
game wasn’t a legacy title, nor was it
strictly a co-op (though co-op play
rules were included). But with its
modular hex map, hero miniatures,
action-card system and emphasis on
granular, every-little-decision-counts
strategy, it was an inspiration for Isaac
Childres’ hit game.
Now, eight years after its debut, it’s
back and bigger than ever. Literally.
It’s been repackaged with its three
expansions (The Lost Legion, Krang
and Shades of Tezla) in an Ultimate
Edition box that is annoyingly far too
chunky to fit in your Kallax shelves.
Including everything but the Atlantean
kitchen sink, it’s an impressive
relaunch. But how does it bear up in
this post-Gloomhaven world?
The short answer is: extremely well.
Of course, Mage Knight: Ultimate
Edition won’t win back any detractors.
The rules remain just as complex
and chewy to digest, while the game
itself is brutally difficult. Combining
deckbuilding, exploration, conquest
and very light RPG elements, it gives
each character their own ‘deed’ deck,
the utmost of care and a crystal-clear
focus on good planning. Those cards
offer a basic action (Move 2, Block
2, Attack 2 and so on) and a stronger
action that requires a once-per-turn
mana boost of the correct mana type,
drawn from a source of regularly
re-rolled dice. Any card can add one
to the strength of any action if played
sideways, but this is often suboptimal.
As is wandering aimlessly, or even
curiously, around the board. As is
getting wounded, each wound putting
a useless, non-discardable card into
your hand. As is anything else which
in any way impairs your ever-crucial
play tempo. Start lagging and the
game is lost.
For some, it might feel overly
mechanical, a little soulless. It doesn’t
help that the story is scant and your
characters, while represented by
colourful pre-painted miniatures, are
blanks. It’s all about the nitty-gritty of
your choices each turn, and it requires
a lot of thought. If played with others
who are still learning its knotty ropes,
the downtime can become crippling.
But, as with Gloomhaven, once you
and your fellow players click with
smooths, it will become one of the
most satisfying tabletop experiences
you’ve ever had.
◗ 68 mana gems
◗ 42 skill tokens
◗ 140 shield tokens
◗ Eight turn
order tokens
That is why Mage Knight is worth
the attention of newcomers. There ◗ 145 enemy tokens
◗ 15 ruins tokens
is an undeniable thrill to powering
◗ Volkare clix dial
your Norowas or Goldyx around the ◗ Volkare token
Atlantean Empire with smart cardplay ◗ Two avatar tokens
choices, often via combos which ◗ Necropolis token
you didn’t realise were there at the ◗ Hidden valley token
start of your turn, but emerge as you ◗ Five graveyard tokens
begin laying those deed cards down.
It is puzzley in the best way possible
– absorbing rather than frustrating –
which is also why it’s an amazing solo
game. So much so, some Mage Knight
fans prefer it as a solitaire experience.
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
It is certainly one of the best out GLOOMHAVEN
there and, despite its complexity If Isaac Childres’
and numerous components, has combination of
a blessedly quick setup time, too. cardplay and
On that front at the very least, it has miniatures battles won
Gloomhaven beat. you over, get stuck in
DAN JOLIN with one of the games
that inspired him.
WE SAY
It’s a tough, complex, some might
say merciless game. But lock into
it and it will blow you away like a
strength-eight siege attack.

42 The Best Games of 2019

tabletopgaming.co.uk 43
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

SCORPIUS FREIGHTER
Rogues' galaxy
45-75m 2-4 14+ £58

rom Han Solo and Chewbacca who’s played rondel-based games like Just as your crew has a powerful effect

F to Mal Reynolds and the crew of

Serenity, deep-space smugglers are
among the most beloved characters in
science fiction. It seems that wherever
human civilisation spreads across the
stars, there are roguish entrepreneurs
ready to make a few bucks with a spot of
less-than-legal trading.
Scorpius Freighter gives players
the chance to hop into the cockpit for
themselves and attempt to forge their
fortunes as daring cargo ship captains
operating on the wrong side of the law
and the far side of the galaxy.
Its action unfolds in the Scorpius
Sector, governed by a despotic regime
that controls all commerce between
its three inhabited worlds. You and
your opponents are ostensibly well-
behaved agents of the repressive rulers,
shuttling supplies between planets.
In reality, though, you’re not averse
to doing a little unofficial business on
the side, and you’ll aim to complete
lucrative missions to become the most
prosperous smuggler in the system.
On each turn you’ll choose one of a
selection of available actions by moving
a government spaceship around one
of the planets on the central board. It’s
a setup that will feel familiar to anyone
Mac Gerdts’ Antike, but it’s never felt
more thematically appropriate than here,
where it represents spacecraft dropping
out of orbit to perform different tasks.
You’ll take on cargo contracts, arrange
under-the-table missions, train your crew
and add a variety of new upgrades and
gizmos to your freighter.
It’s these last few actions that give the
game its depth and sense of progression.
You’ll begin with a four-member crew,
each with different abilities letting them
take more powerful actions, or granting
you new ways to score points. But you’ll
only be able to take advantage of their
skills if you unlock them during the
game, and it means you’ll need to think
carefully about the potential strategic
edges they offer.
For your first few games, you’ll
command pre-assembled crews with a
collection of skills designed to broadly
complement one another. Once you’ve
gained a little experience, you and your
opponents will draft crew members
before you play. If means that even
before you take your first turn, you’re
spotting synergies and potential tactical
approaches in a way that feels almost
akin to drafting a deck in a collectible
card game like Magic: The Gathering.
on the way you play, you’ll incrementally
improve your ship to open up new
options and opportunities over the
course of the game. Adding more storage
space for different types of goods makes it
easier to complete different haulage gigs.
Building new engine drives, docking bays
and fanciful sci-fi gadgets grants you a
host of useful advantages.
It means that your ship gradually takes
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
on its own character, and with some ◗ Game board
advanced game options that subtly ramp ◗ Three motherships
up the level of challenge for veteran ◗ Four dreighter boards
space-dogs, there’s plenty about Scorpius ◗ 38 crew cards
Freighter to keep you coming back for ◗ Four cards each in
further adventures. seven different factions
OWEN DUFFY ◗ Starting player tile
◗ Four standard
credits tiles
WE SAY ◗ Four standard
Scorpius Freighter strikes a brilliant goods tiles
balance between thoughtful strategic ◗ 13 cockpit tiles
planning and the story that unfolds as ◗ 12 contract tiles
ships become more powerful and crews ◗ 32 equipment tiles
gain valuable experience. Its interlocking ◗ 36 side deal tiles
elements may seem complicated ◗ 30 storage tiles
at first, but the game’s iconography ◗ 25 gray data cubes
and player aids mean it doesn’t take ◗ 25 pink meds cubes
long to master its rules and focus on ◗ 25 green goods cubes
becoming the galaxy’s most notorious ◗ 25 orange
smuggler. Add a respectable dose of credits cubes
replayability, and this is a universe that’s
well worth getting into trouble in.

TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED...
TEOTIHUACAN:
CITY OF GODS
It’s a million light
years removed
from Teotihuacan’s
Mesoamerican
theme, but both
games use a
rondel-based core
and come with
plenty of intriguing
tactical options.

44 The Best Games of 2019

SPELL SMASHERS
How to spell Scrabble with a D & D
s you’d expect from
A Christopher Chung, the
designer of Lanterns,
Spell Smashers is a tranquil group
experience of making pleasing
patterns so that you can KILL
MONSTERS with THE POWER OF
YOUR MIND. The English language
even has a special word for these
mind-patterns: ‘words’. Yes, someone
finally did the Scrabble/D&D mash-up
that nobody’s been waiting for. What’s
surprising is not that it exists, but how
good it is.
You’re all fantasy adventurers,
except the game never really makes
that clear. You get a fistful of cards
with letters on them, and each turn
you make a word. The number of
cards in the word gives you the
initiative order; the numbers and
symbols on each card gives the
amount and type of damage you’re
going to do.
There are 26 monster tiles, one per
letter of the alphabet, but they get
paired with modifier cards with cute
names and bonuses, so you can fight
a vexing bugbear or a calamitous
45-60m 1-5 12+ £47
revenant. Doing damage gets you WHAT’S IN useless vowels. I could have spent
money because hit points are coins, in
a mechanic that makes no sense but
works really well. Killing a monster
THE BOX?
◗ Town board
◗ Five player boards
◗ Five ready tokens
gold to get rid of them with potions,
but if you’ve got a lousy hand then
you’re probably short of gold already.
gets you its tile, which is worth victory Old-timers may be reminded of the
points, but the tile also adds a new ◗ Five player aids Judge Dredd board game of the 1980s.
◗ 26 monster tiles
permanent letter to your collection, so Like that, Spell Smashers makes little
◗ 84 letter cards
the [E]lemental is a popular target and ◗ 24 wound cards logical sense and isn’t particularly
the [Z]ombie less so. ◗ 24 gear cards tactical, but it’s a lot of fun. The lack of
If the monster wounds you then ◗ 29 quest cards direct competition means kids can keep
you take a wound card for each one. ◗ 36 modifier cards up with their parents and there’s enough
Wound cards have tricky letters or ◗ Four boss strategy that, like Scrabble, a clever player
letter combos on them and are harder monster cards has a good chance of beating someone
to play, but you can pay the shaman in ◗ 30 ale tokens who’s swallowed a dictionary.
town to get rid of them. ◗ 15 potion tokens JAMES WALLIS
◗ 55 coins
The town is where things get a bit
◗ Five monster crests
unstuck. The second part of each ◗ Round marker
round is spent here, and you can heal
WE SAY
◗ Tiebreaker marker A delightful twist on an old idea,
wounds, get quests, or buy equipment, Spell Smashers isn’t elegant
potions or ale. It’s meant to be a den but it is smart and fun. If you like
of interesting choices but it never word games or hitting monsters
becomes that, and it feels over-fiddly. for money, you should try it.
The core of the game is absolutely
solid and if you like word games then TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
there’s plenty to enjoy. It’s not perfect; PAPERBACK
there are a few weak spots and blind Like the card-drafting word-making
spots. I have a particular quibble game, Spell Smashers brings a new
with the mix of letter cards, having twist to an old formula and wraps it
twice got stuck with two Ws and some in a great theme.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 45
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

YU-GI-OH! TRADING CARD WHAT’S IN

THE BOX?

GAME: SPEED DUEL

DESTINY MASTERS:
◗ 20-card Yami
Yugi deck
In the blink of a Blue-Eye ◗ 20-card Ishizu
Ishtar deck
10m 2 6+ £10 ◗ 20-card
Pegasus deck
◗ Nine skill cards
hile it may not have the will give you more options to fine- main game's overgrown gameplay

W
mainstream fame of Magic:
The Gathering or Pokémon,
the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game has
been going on strong for 20 years now.
Like any collectible game with dozens
of card sets and rules additions, it can
seem overwhelming to jump in now if
you missed the train by a decade or two.
Speed Duel, a reboot in some ways
and spin-off in others, aims to solve
this problem. Based on the Yu-Gi-Oh!
mobile app Duel Links, it’s a blazingly
quick introduction-level simplification
of the game’s extremely pleasing
“summon cool monsters, spells and
traps to mess up your opponent”
battling. And it works a treat.
The first two Speed Duel starter
sets – Destiny Masters and Duelists of
Tomorrow – include three compact
decks of just 20 cards, each themed
around one of the series’ main
characters and able to be played right
out of the box. Despite there being two
initial sets, you only need one to play
with two people – though getting both
tune and mix things up once you’ve
mastered the decks they come with.
Each character is also represented by
a selection of skill cards – a Duel Links
mechanic making its physical debut
– one of which can be equipped and
activated during fights to introduce a
little more variety to play styles.
Although regular Yu-Gi-Oh! cards
aren’t officially allowed to be used in
the new format, the Speed Duel cards
(they’re subtly watermarked with a
hologram) can be split out of their set
lists and built into custom decks, or
even taken into the main game as the
next step up for those left hooked.
While Yu-Gi-Oh!’s signature brand
of over-the-topness can still seem a
little ridiculous to the uninitiated at
first – player life points, attack values
and defence stats all measure in the
hundreds to thousands, while the
relative power of monsters is symbolised
by a line of stars that would leave the
Hollywood Walk of Fame feeling bare
– the back-to-basics reduction of the
(three for Yugi,
is refreshingly quick to get to grasps three for Ishizu and
with. Draw a card, summon a monster, three for Pegasus)
play spells, lay traps and attack your ◗ Three ultra rare
opponent – potentially all in the same variant cards
turn. Everything moves so quickly and
DUELISTS OF
damage is dished out with such speed TOMORROW:
that it can be almost bewildering when ◗ 20-card Seto
your first few matches come to an end in Kaiba deck
a single-digit number of turns. ◗ 20-card Mai
There’s certainly value to be found Valentine deck
here for existing fans, with Speed Duel’s ◗ 20-card Joey
entirely separate card list allowing Wheeler deck,
rare cards and old favourites to make plus three extra
deck cards
a reappearance in what is currently a
◗ Nine skill cards
much more reasonably-sized pool. Even (three for Kaiba,
so, players who have already stepped up three for Mai and
to the meatier full experience might find three for Joey)
the trimmed ruleset here overly basic and ◗ Three ultra rare
lacking strategic options by comparison. variant cards
Speed Duel seems unapologetically a
Yu-Gi-Oh! aimed at those who remember
playing as kids and want a cheap, easy
way to relive their nostalgia (early
noughties playground hotness Blue-Eyes
White Dragon is present and correct),
those who are currently kids and want
something to blitz through multiple TRY THIS IF
times during lunchtimes, and people YOU LIKED…
tempted by the idea of a fun trading card POKÉMON
game but intimidated by the pressure of
TRADING
CARD GAME
building decks and learning the meta. Looking to relive
On those fronts, Speed Duel is a flying a childhood spent
success. It manages to feel like the Yu- swapping cards in
Gi-Oh! you remember, without saddling the playground, or
itself with the weight of the game’s own simply after a quick,
success. Sure, it’s ultimately a set of fun and exciting
stabilisers for the proper thing that you’ll card-battler to
probably want to remove at some point, enjoy? Here’s an
easy way in.
but when whizzing along is this much
fun, you wouldn’t be blamed for simply
enjoying the ride for as long as it lasts.
MATT JARVIS

WE SAY
Veteran players will likely find the
simplified gameplay a little lacking, and
it might only sustain others so long.
That said, Speed Duel is a wickedly
fast and massively fun way to dive into
a magnificently enjoyable card game
– whether it’s your first time or not.

46 The Best Games of 2019

GORUS MAXIMUS
20-45m 1-8 13+ £20

s sure as Maximus was about It works and plays well, but lacks the depth of the similar

A having his vengeance (in

this life or the next), this
gladiator-themed trick-taker is one
of the most gorgeous card games
you’ll lay on your table this year.
Or should that be gore-geous? Star
illustrator Kwanchai Moriya’s vivid,
cartoony artwork doesn’t hold back
on viscera-spraying depictions of
violence – there’s even a brain-
eating ostrich. It’s so eye-grabbing,
it’s almost a shame Gorus Maximus'
swift gameplay doesn’t allow you to
hold onto each card for longer.
Despite the blood-and-sand-y
dressing, this is really a quick,
straightforward trick-taking game
that could have worked with any
theme. It was Moriya, in fact, who
suggested gladiators, because he
wanted to have fun drawing them
(and clearly did); Canadian designer
Conor McGoey had originally
devised the game with a regular set of
cards while on holiday with his wife a
decade before.
twisting the mechanic with a
trump-changing device whereby
the leading suit, or ‘school’,
Tournament at Camelot or the
innovation of the theme-sharing
Gladiatores (whose release we still
can switch when a matching eagerly await). Gorus Maximus’
number is played, representing a greatest strength is its looks. And as
crowd-favoured gladiator being we know, they can go a long way.
challenged by a new contender. DAN JOLIN
McGoey’s points system allows
for some neat strategies, the 0 card
being worth five points if you manage
to end the round with its school as
the 'preferred' one (i.e. trump) and
the 8 card inflicting a potentially
crippling minus-four points at tally
time, making it a great take-that
against the bout-winner.
After each round,
the player with the
most points takes
a crowd favour
token. The first
to three tokens
wins. It’s as
simple as that.
It is quick, easy,
engaging and fun,

FORBIDDEN LANDS: While this can make running the sites

a little overwhelming, it also allows for

RAVEN’S PURGE absolutely anything to happen – there’s

rom the first trip in a filth-
no chance of the party derailing your
plans when there weren’t any rails to
224 17+ £28 begin with, after all. A quest to an orcish
fortress might end with a dawn raid
It sets out a rough plot involving alongside an elvish strike force, or the

F encrusted slavers’ camp to

the pivotal showdown with
a genuinely disturbing demonic
sorcerer, Raven’s Purge manages to
perfectly capture the blend of epic
fantasy and dark horror that defines
Forbidden Lands. Just be warned
that nothing comes easy in the
wastelands, and both players and GM
will need to put in some solid effort if
they plan to come out the other end
intact.
A lot of this comes from that fact
that – in line with the RPG’s love of
freedom and exploration – Raven’s
Purge shies away from a traditional
linear campaign structure and
instead acts more like a toolbox
stuffed with locations and characters.
magical elven rubies, a legendary
crown and a battle to decide the
fate of the Forbidden Lands, but it’s
expected that the quests will come
together in bits and pieces as the
adventurers forge their own path.
The meat of the campaign comes
in eight large adventure sites that
range from an old quarry that’s been
taken over by a band of party-loving
ogres through to an ancient mine that
houses a powerful demon with the
mind of a child. Rather than having
any pre-determined events play out
or obvious quest hooks to leap on,
each site simply comes loaded with
suggestions of what could happen
and a solid list of characters to play
around with.
party could end up with an emperor as
a friend and an army at their back.
Sometimes it can be hard to pick out
important details about a site, and a
more concise sketch of the campaign’s
introduction would be nice, but the
writing is generally solid and the
presentation is truly second-to-none. Just
beware that Forbidden Lands is definitely
a game aimed at older players, and that
some of the content can get a little nastier
than standard fantasy villainy.
The free-roaming soul of Forbidden
Lands can make it an acquired taste,
but if you’ve had a crack at the boxset
and want to expand your adventures in
the darkness Raven’s Purge should be
an easy purchase.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES

tabletopgaming.co.uk 47
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
BETA COLONY
An alpha experience with
zeta components
ate to the party, I tried
L Terraforming Mars not long ago
and found myself instantly in
love, regretting I hadn’t played it sooner.
From its sci-fi theme, tightly interlaced
with simultaneously co-operative and
competitive gameplay, to its engine-
building element, the pace of which is
controlled by the players themselves,
Terraforming Mars left me asking for
more of the same. Beta Colony answered.
In Beta Colony, the players are
similarly improving the viability of a
planet by mining its moons for resources
and building pods on its surface. The
hexagonal tiles used to signify the areas
that players control will look familiar
to anyone who has tried Terraforming
Mars before. Here, however, the
similarities in gameplay between the
two games end. Beta Colony manages
to replicate the theme and some of the
feel of Terraforming Mars while also
successfully standing apart.
During their turn, players take four
coloured dice that determine their
choices for that round. One die is used
48 The Best Games of 2019
30-60m 2-4 14+ £60
for movement around the action track –
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 60 player crew
◗ Game board
◗ Round marker
represented by your ship orbiting around
the planet – while the second determines
how well that action is performed.
Based on this alone, there several
◗ Five player mats options to consider. Some spaces earn
◗ 16 player markers bonus victory points if they are activated
◗ Nine cycle cards
with a particular colour dice; others give
◗ Eight cultural
achievement cards bonus resources. When buying pods
◗ Eight cultural to populate the planet, the dice value
achievement tokens determines from which row the pods can
◗ 40 colonisation be chosen. However – and this is such a
pod tiles refreshing feeling – rolling a six on a dice
◗ 30 fuel is not always good. Dice values primarily
◗ 16 artefacts correspond to different marketplaces
◗ Four player that players have access to and, as items in
spaceship
those markets are random, rolling a one can
◗ 16 dice
be more worthwhile than a six, depending
on what players are looking to do.
Even when rolling a higher number
on the dice generates more resources,
there are plenty of ways for players to
manipulate the dice to avoid the luck of
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… TERRAFORMING MARS
If you enjoyed developing life on the Red Planet, Beta Colony manages to quench
the same thirst.
the roll completely defining their choices.
Fuel can alter the number of spaces
players can move and there are plenty of
bonuses to go around if you match the
colours correctly.
A twist to the dice-rolling mechanic
that I haven’t seen any other games
do before is that players use the same
combination of dice colour and value
during that round. While no two players
will ever have the same turn – there are
just too many options and goals to aim
for! – this still makes the game feel fairer.
It is akin to giving every player the same
number of resources and letting them
spend them as they will. Everyone starts
on equal ground and uses their wits to
progress further.
Matching colours correctly is definitely
the key to doing well in Beta Colony. The
colours of dice matter, as do the colours
of the pods and the type of the terrain
they are placed onto. Given how much
planning and colour co-ordination that
takes, limiting players to just two actions
per round is a great move. There is just
enough to plan and think about to tickle
the brain, but not enough to overtax
players or make rounds confusing.
With its absolutely superb,
challenging and even innovative
gameplay, the quality of Beta Colony’s
components is a real disappointment.
While the thin cards and lack of any
kind of box insert (or even some
extra plastic bags to make setup
quicker) can be overlooked, there
were just too many chipped wooden
tokens to ignore. It feels like the
gameplay embraces players, while the
component quality pushes them from
the game before they get the chance fall
in love with how it plays.
There may have been an oversight on
quality control, but every other part of
Beta Colony is top of the range. It brings
bright colours to dark space and finds a
way to turn luck into strategy, managing
to stay unique and fresh while doing so.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Beta Colony only misses being a
must-play due to its poor component
quality. Otherwise, this is a fantastic
game that surprises, challenges
and impresses from the first turn.
CRUSADERS: THY WILL BE DONE
Knights of the Rondel Table
rusaders: Thy Will Be Done’s
C theme and gameplay might be
rooted in tradition, but this is a
game that feels thoroughly modern.
Crusaders powers itself along with a
reversal of the mancala-like rondel found
in Trajan – designer Seth Jaffee openly
credits Stefan Feld’s innovative game as
being a key inspiration in the rulebook.
Whereas in Trajan the final space of
the rondel landed upon was the action
performed, in Crusaders it’s whichever
segment from which the action tokens
are plucked that is executed.
It’s a smart inversion that eliminates
the risk of space-counting overthinking
and lets the number of tokens
redistributed one by one around the
circular action wheel neatly dictate
each action’s power, lending a now-
or-later consideration to decisions.
As troops are mustered, buildings
erected on the central hex map and
new knights sent forth from castles to
conquer further territory, the bonuses
they provide to the actions give a
satisfying sense of growing power
and ability, keeping things galloping
forward at a very decent speed.
The game takes a similarly
refreshing approach to its subject
matter, focusing on the growing
influence of orders – players each
control one of ten, with unique
abilities keeping the replayability
high – in Europe during the medieval
era, rather than just their military
campaigning. (A designer’s note
carefully acknowledges the efforts
made to avoid trivialising the dark
period, and the deliberate liberties
taken with historical accuracy.)
It’s a depiction of expansion and
development, rather than slaughter
and suffering, and the presentation
and streamlined mechanics come
together well to achieve a stisfying
sense of momentum.
In fact, despite its blood-soaked
setting, Crusaders is surprisingly
combat-free – at least, you won’t be
clashing swords with your fellow
knights at all. The ‘crusade’ action
allows you to clear out Prussian, Slav
and Saracen foes from regions of the
map using a simple comparison of
strengths, awarding influence and
other bonuses but increasing the
remaining forces’ might; additional
points are awarded for whoever
defeats the most and second-most
armies at the end of the game. When it
40-60m 2-4 14+ £58
comes to overthrowing other players,
however, it’s more a case of passive-
aggression. There’s no direct iteration
between players beyond claiming a WHAT’S IN
token or constructing a building in an THE BOX?
area first, giving the game more of a ◗ Four player boards
feeling of an engine-building race to ◗ 24 action
charge across Europe and spread your wedge tiles
influence fastest than a head-to-head ◗ 12 knight tokens
skirmish over space. ◗ 64 building tokens
With almost every action in the game ◗ 48 action tokens
◗ 20 troop tokens
providing points in the form of influence,
◗ 10 knight order tiles
no turn feels wasted. The player-specific ◗ Double-sided
number of tokens acts as a timer for game board
the game as they gradually trickle into ◗ 32 enemy tokens
players’ possession, but a short and ◗ 30 building
easy list of end-game scoring bumps bonus tokens
from fully upgraded buildings, sets of ◗ Six enemy majority
defeated enemies and so on means award tiles
that the final outcome remains in flux ◗ 61 influence tokens
until the last. The risk of feeling limited
to using segments with only one or
two action pieces on them is avoided
through the option to upgrade a wedge
instead of taking an action, allowing
improved spaces to be used for more
efficient combos and options to remain
open. The flow of pieces around the
wheel quickly becomes second nature,
building up the delayed gratification of
seeing tokens gradually clump together
on spaces before performing powerful
actions and being showered in influence.
It might not be the same reward as
wiping gangs of soldiers off the map,
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
but it feels seriously good all the same. TRAJAN
Its reasonably brief length, tight set With Stefan Feld’s
of familiar core actions and lack of pioneering game
bloodlust won’t necessarily satisfy those credited as a key
after an epic conquest on their table, influence, Crusaders
but Crusaders’ deep-enough spin on is a natural next
the intuitive, approachable foundation step on your
of mancala makes it a wholly solid rondel-powered trip
through history.
experience with plenty to appreciate.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Crusaders’ inversion of rondel action-
selection drives along a brilliantly strategic
and utterly satisfying hour of expansion
and development, with plenty to think
about without becoming a drag. It’s a fresh,
fun approach to a theme and gameplay
that are as traditional as they come.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 49
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
WAKENING LAIR
Awaken your inner adventurer
akening Lair doesn’t pull its
W punches. This co-operative
dungeon crawler loves to
overwhelm players with monsters. It will
spawn a dungeon boss on the first turn.
It will laugh in face of your bad rolls. Yet
its simple gameplay and quick play time
prevents players from getting frustrated.
It is so easy to go again, and again, and
again until you finally emerge victorious.
Wakening Lair understands exactly
what players want out of a dungeon-
crawler: explore rooms, fight some
monsters, grab awesome loot and then
battle the main boss. The whole game is
basically a race to kill as many monsters as
you can to level-up by adding weapons
and magic items to your character card
before the big bad spawns.
This straightforward gameplay
loop – kill a monster, get loot, become
stronger – is very satisfying and sustains
the momentum of progressing and
evolving. The loot cards provide the
choice of a weapon or a magic item so,
if one of them is not very useful to your
character, you always have a viable
option in another. There is little fluff in
the loot design: the cards might not have
much variety, but all the powers are
nicely balanced and useful in a fight.
While this targeted selectiveness
works very well for the loot, the same
50 The Best Games of 2019
doesn’t always apply to monsters.
There are plenty of dungeon bosses,
each with their own special ability and
a certain way to kill them. Their cards
look appropriately impressive and
menacing, even in Wakening Lair’s
almost chibi-like cartoon art style. The
other dungeon-dwelling monsters,
however, lack variety. The excitement of
discovering a new room and revealing
a new monster quickly dissipates. If you
WHAT’S IN have encountered that monster before
THE BOX? you know exactly how you kill it, and the
◗ Nine hero cards fight relies mostly on the luck of your
(double-sided) roll, rather than strategic thinking.
◗ Six monstrous There are dungeon-crawlers,
terror boards such as One Deck Dungeon, that
◗ 24 monster cards
successfully strike a balance between
◗ Monstrous Terror
Awakens card dice-rolling and strategic planning for
◗ 24 treasure cards each fight. Wakening Lair, however,
◗ 12 room cards prefers to leave most of it up to
◗ Three dice chance. It does attempt to introduce
◗ 30 effect markers a bit of thought into fights by handing
◗ 40 damage markers monsters certain weaknesses and
creating combos between weapon,
item and room powers, yet even that
is somtimes not enough to outweigh
the luck of the odds.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… ONE DECK DUNGEON
What Wakening Lair lacks in strategic dice adaptability (at which One Deck
Dungeon excels) it makes up for by creating a simple yet satisfying gameplay
loop that spurs players to beat its dungeons against any odds.
30-40m 2-6 14+ £40
This feels like a missed opportunity
but is also understandable because
Wakening Lair is undeniably a gateway
game, wanting to be approachable,
easy to learn and to play. Adding more
complication and layers to its core
dice-rolling could have snowballed into
needing to similarly inflate other parts
of the game that already work perfectly
fine. To keep it nice and simple, players
roll up to three dice maximum, and
then either hit or miss. They also roll for
monster attacks, which can feel a little
disheartening – especially if your attack
results in a useless roll of one, whereas a
monster attack lands with a deadly six.
It may not always feel fair, yet
Wakening Lair is always fun. It manages
to compensate in other areas for its
fairly minor shortcomings, while
sustaining a gameplay loop that is both
satisfying and challenging.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Wakening Lair is definitely a game for
those who are itching for a smaller and
quicker dungeon-crawler experience.
FURY OF DRACULA:
FOURTH EDITION
ury of Dracula has been a hidden
F movement classic for more
than three decades. Its fourth
edition – the game’s first update
since 2015 – marks a very welcome
return for the epic one-versus-many
vampire hunt across Europe, despite
some production missteps and few
significant changes for existing fans.
LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS RPG:
EMERALD EMPIRE
hen a book is dominated
W by settings, locations and
characters it usually falls
squarely into the domain of the GM,
but navigating the complex politics
and social rules of Rokugan makes
the detailed breakdown of Emerald
Empire virtually required reading for
Legend of the Five Rings players, too
– the fact that it comes with a handful
of new character options is just the
icing on the cake.
Where the core rulebook was short
on setting in favour of laying out the
rules, Emerald Empire approaches
things from the complete opposite
direction. The overwhelming majority
of the book is filled to the brim
with facts, figures and fiction about
everything from mighty castles to
lonely fishing villages, with only one
chapter containing new rules.
The game itself remains a standout
experience, as up to four hunters
chase the Count between cities, trying
to catch his trail as he spreads despair,
seeds new vampires and lays traps for
the troublesome humans.
At a couple of hours minimum it
runs long, but the tension of working
together to continually close the net
while loading up with garlic, stakes
and other items – moving at night
is too dangerous, but supplying
after daylight risks giving powerful
abilities to Dracula – makes the time
whizz by. A few lucky card draws can
swing the favour one way or the other
– particularly in the rock-papers-
scissors-ish symbol-matching combat
– but with the right players on either
side it’s a thrillingly close-run thing.
If you already own the third
edition, there’s no need to pick this
up. The only notable additions are
Players can use this to craft
their backstories and build their
relationships with the wider world,
while GMs use it to fuel adventures
and excitement throughout the
campaign. A section on dark rituals
and forbidden magic is particularly
potent with possibilities and could
easily end up forming the heart of a
campaign or adventure.
One welcome addition throughout
these background sections are
semi-regular sidebars explaining
how the beliefs, spirituality and
cultural aspects of the Japan-inspired
Rokugan relate to actual real-world
customs. These are great primers for
handling things with appropriate
levels of respect and care, while still
having fun at the table.
On top of learning more about
their clan and the world they live
2-3h 2-5 14+ £55
pre-painted miniatures – well done,
and delightfully thematic in a game
already dripping with atmosphere –
and slightly bigger cards.
The other noticeable changes are,
unfortunately, not so good. Misprints
on all but one of the character boards
may confuse newcomers, while the
contrasting colours of the hunter and
Dracula event cards (previously only
the middle symbol differed) means
that the risk-reward of drawing from
the bottom of the deck at night can be
undone by a slightly exposed edge.
These are disappointments, not
deal-breakers. With the game’s past
editions previously out-of-print and
only available at an inflated cost
for a long time, the fourth edition
makes a bloody fang-tastic game
easy to find once again. That's
furiously good news.
MATT JARVIS
303 14+ £40
in, players also get the chance to
pick from a handful of new options.
These include the chance to create
a character from one of the imperial
families – a choice that presents
countless story threads for your
GM to pluck on – and a pair of new
monk disciplines, but perhaps the
most interesting options are the
Kitsune and the Kolat Saboteur.
These are both roles that stand apart
from the usual dynamic of a loyal
and honourable party, starting the
character off with a false identity and
a whole heap of secrets to keep.
Emerald Empire is a resoundingly
solid book and a must-buy for any
adventurers looking to truly invest
in the world of Rokugan. For once,
the GM may even be able to get the
players to chip in to buy it too.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
tabletopgaming.co.uk 51
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
NEMETON
A glowing, growing delight!
emeton sees players become
N druids, reinvigorating the forest
using the power of the moon
and the help of their animal familiars.
Despite its dark, sombre box art, this is an
uplifting game full of colour, with themes
of rebirth and co-operation, celebrating
the power and beauty of nature.
While competition between the
players is present, it is very non-
confrontational, with every player
expanding the forest, creating more
opportunities for all by populating the
board with flowers and places to visit.
The only action that allows players to
mess up one another is intentionally
low on impact and aggression; one
player can take a resource from
another but, even then, they must give
a resource in exchange. Nemeton is
much more concerned with everyone
doing well and enjoying their stroll
through the growing forest, among its
old oaks, rivers and water features.
52 The Best Games of 2019
the most, while avoiding making their
opponents’ turns too easy by providing
them easy-to-reach resources.
Some tiles generate special areas,
where another host of available
actions become available. Players can
go to the Nemeton stone monoliths to
use their accumulated plants to brew
victory point-giving potions, fly to old
oak trees to exchange resources or
visit water features to call on familiars.
Each one of these three options
spreads like a tree branch into several
other sub-options to choose from. For
example, every familiar has its own
ability that can either be immensely
useful or will sit on the player board
for several turns until you remember
you can use it.
At the end of a turn, players can
get achievements based on what they
have accomplished in the game so
far. Some of them reward the number
of potions brewed or how many
special areas in the forest were visited.
On their own, these are not hard to
achieve. However, the sheer quantity
of them, combined with all the other
things players need to do on their
turn, make them that much easier to
forget about. Instead of having one or
two objectives players absolutely must
get, Nemeton has 11, which dilutes the
players' focus.
Nemeton has great ideas – oh,
75m 2-4 12+ £50 so many great ideas – wrapped in
a beautifully-coloured package
WHAT’S IN That said, Nemeton’s forest is no with 3D components and an ever-
THE BOX?
◗ Four character cards
◗ 80 character tokens
◗ Two forest boards
walk in the park. On its own, no single
feature or element of the gameplay
is overly complicated, but the sheer
expanding whimsical forest made
up of its hexagonal tiles. Yet it can
also feel slightly overwhelming with
amount of options and objectives can choice, where the sheer number of
◗ 24 oak cards be hard to wrap your head around. objectives and powers make it easy to
◗ 75 plants
This is a game that definitely takes forget to use them. Luckily, Nemeton’s
◗ 14 3D elements
◗ Eight special several playthroughs before players world is enjoyable enough to venture
movement tokens get a good and firm grip on everything into again and, with more experience,
◗ Four figurines available to them. the game will keep growing on you.
◗ 38 animal tiles Players begin a round by laying a tile ALEX SONECHKINA
◗ Game board that triggers certain areas on the board
◗ 14 special tiles to grow plants, the game’s main source
◗ 40 forest tiles of victory points. The tile placement WE SAY
◗ Eight Triskell tokens Nemeton is a beautiful tile-laying
itself is a little pattern-recognition
and resource-management game
puzzle that test players’ attentiveness that has a lot to offer. It may
and their power of foresight. Players take a couple of playthroughs to
need to think carefully about what they familiarise yourself with the myriad
are trying to achieve on their turn and of options available, but this will
how the tile placement can benefit them definitely be an enjoyable journey.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… CARCASSONNE
The basic tile-laying in Carcassonne is uplifted in Nemeton through the magical growing
power of the moon, lending extra strategic weight to every new piece of the board.
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Our digital edition is available to download to all devices,
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The first roleplaying game set in the world of Android: Netrunner will put you right at
the centre of New Angeles’ cyberpunk dystopia. Step into the Shadow of the Beanstalk
Words by Matt Jarvis
ndroid: Netrunner is dead, long
A
live Android.
When Fantasy Flight
announced last summer that
its living card game reboot of
Richard Garfield’s ‘90s CCG
Netrunner would be coming to
an end after six years, the news
was unsurprisingly received with an amount of shock
and disappointment among fans. Disappointment
that one of – if not the – most acclaimed competitive
tabletop games ever made was being cut off in its
prime, combined with the surprise of the timing
mere months after the game had been updated
with a revised core set and long-awaited rotation for
tournament play.
Even those working on the game seemed surprised
Go to: pktmags.com/ttg-tbg19
at the decision of Wizards of the Coast – the Magic: The
Gathering maker that owns the rights to the original
Netrunner – not to renew the licence it had granted to
Fantasy Flight to work on Android: Netrunner.
“It seems like the timing couldn’t be worse to
announce the end of the game line,” studio head
Andrew Navaro wrote in a blog post at the time, while
lead developer Michael Boggs described his own “mix
of sadness, confusion and nostalgia” at being told the
game was to be brought to a close.
Both designers added their hope that Netrunner’s
passionate community would keep the game alive after
its final expansion, Reign and Reverie, wrapped up its
impressive six-year run.
“I hope and believe the community will keep it alive
for years to come,” said Boggs.
“Just because we won’t be printing it anymore
doesn’t suddenly turn it into a game that’s not worth
playing,” Navaro added, pointing out the continued
popularity of the original Netrunner among fans long
after it too had stopped being updated: “Their patience
and dedication were eventually rewarded by the
resurrection of the game they loved.
18 January 2019
for all digital offers
Unfortunately, digital subscribers are unable to receive exclusive promo gifts, subscriber covers or discounts at this time.
THE BEST KIDS’ GAMES LITTLE WARS
EX NTSID
CO IN
TR EN E
T O P L AY W I T H T H E Y O U N G ( A N D O L D ) T H I S S U M M E R H O W WA R G A M I N G M A D E I T B I G
A T
tabletopgaming.co.uk August 2019
“Personally, I hold out hope that one
day Netrunner will return, and that our part in its
history will be regarded as a significant chapter of its
much longer journey.”
TAKE BACK CTRL
While Android: Netrunner’s fate had been sealed,
buried amongst the bittersweet reminiscences lay
a flicker of hope for the future of the wider Android
universe – the futuristic setting Fantasy Flight had
relocated its reboot of the card game to in place of
Netrunner’s origins in the world of ‘80s tabletop RPG
Cyberpunk 2020.
“While Android: Netrunner is coming to an end, the
worlds of Android will continue to be explored, from
the gritty streets of SanSan to the warring colonies of
Mars,” Fantasy Flight vowed.
The next journey into the cyberpunk world would
turn out to be the deepest exploration of the Android
universe yet. Shadow of the Beanstalk is the first
roleplaying sourcebook to take place in the setting,
giving players the chance to live out their adventures in
both the near-future real world depicted in murder-
mystery series starting point Android and its follow-up
board games New Angeles and Android: Infiltration, S U M M E R O F R O L E P L AY I N G S P E C I A L !
and the Matrix-like virtual space known as the
Network that served as the battlefield for Netrunner
and cyber bank heist Android: Mainframe. Where
those games each focused on just one slice of the
connected world, Shadow of the Beanstalk brings all of
the parts of the universe together for a closer look at its
&
technological and social strata than ever before.
“Up until now, you’ve seen Android in either a big-
picture view – the Worlds of Android [book] and the
Android and New Angeles board games – or through
a lens that’s very focused on the Network: Android: Shadow of the Beanstalk
Netrunner,” says developer Samuel Gregor-Stewart. is the most intimate look
“In the board games, you’re flying over New Angeles at at Android’s cyberpunk
a very high level – quite literally in some cases – then universe to date
swooping down to have specific interactions.”
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 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
WINGSPAN
We’ve just hit beak board game
irds are inspiring creatures.
B The nightingale spurred Keats
to write it an ode. The kestrel
compelled novelist Barry Hines to pen
A Kestrel for a Knave. And without the
condor, we never would have got, er,
’80s Michael Crawford-starring action
comedy Condorman. Now we have
Wingspan, from designer Elizabeth
Hargrave and Scythe maker Stonemaier
Games, which brings a sense of feather-
fine avian grace to the tabletop. And,
thanks to its impeccable execution and
bar-raising visual design, it’s fair to say
it’s closer to Keats than Condorman.
Wingspan sells itself as a
“competitive bird-collection, engine-
building game”, but it’s a far more
sublime experience than that rather
functional sum-up suggests. Yes,
it’s competitive, but it’s one of those
Euro-stylers where you feel more like
you’re playing with your competitors
than against them. It’s not very swingy,
there’s scant take-that and you won’t
have any reason to get pissed off
by your opponents’ tactics, beyond
expressing envy at the sweet card
synergies they may have pulled off.
And yes, it’s an engine-builder,
but what you’re building here
is something pleasant, peaceful
and organic: namely a welcoming
environment for birds to come and
hunt, feed and nest, as depicted by
its large, gorgeous player boards.
54 The Best Games of 2019
WHAT’S IN Each turn, you select one of four
THE BOX?
◗ Goal board
◗ Bird tray
◗ First Player token
straightforward actions: play a bird
card down to your board, by paying
the right food-token combo and
obeying the bird’s habitat restrictions;
◗ Five player mats gain food, by selecting one or more
◗ Birdfeeder dice tower
rolled dice from the lovely, self-
◗ Score pad
◗ 170 bird cards assembled birdfeeder dice tower;
◗ 26 bonus cards lay eggs, by taking some delicious-
◗ 16 Automa cards looking (but in no way edible) egg
◗ 75 egg miniatures miniatures and placing them on your
◗ Five custom bird cards; and draw bird cards, either
wooden dice blind from the deck or by choosing
◗ 40 wooden one of three elegantly fanned on a
action cubes moulded plastic ‘bird tray’.
◗ 103 food tokens
For any action other than playing
◗ Eight goal tiles
◗ Automa rulebook a bird, you then activate any placed
bird cards in the relevant habitat, one
by one, from right to left. If you’ve
been careful with your placement,
then you’ll be joyfully executing
those aforementioned envy-inducing
synergies. If not, it’s just fun seeing
how things have worked out and what
you can gain. Besides, your placement
tactics may have been driven more
by achieving your hidden end-game
bonuses, or going for the randomly
selected end-of-round bonuses.
Wingspan’s lack of hard-edged
strategy and direct player interaction
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… GIZMOS
Phil Walker-Harding’s engine-builder is more literal, but its accessibility,
innovation with components and synergy-sparking mechanisms make it
a great primer for the Wingspan experience.
40-70m 1-5 10+ £50
sounds like it might start to turn dull,
but this is never the case. Hargrave has
calibrated it so each turn passes quickly,
while you always feel engaged with
what other players are doing. You might
be keeping track of how their habitats
are developing. Or quietly hoping
they don’t take that food die you were
banking on nabbing. Or just listening to
them read the bird fact at the bottom of
the card they’ve just played; it really is a
learning experience.
There are many great games out
there, but there are few you can
honestly say feel perfect. Wingspan
is one of those few. Looks-wise, it is
a work of art. Play-wise it is a gently
absorbing and genuinely relaxing
dream. Theme-wise it feels as original
as it does universal. It’s hard to
imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy
playing it. It is simply inspiring.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
Appropriately enough, Hargrave’s
game is a soaraway success. It
will appeal to casual gamers as
much as hardcore players, and
if there is any justice it’ll become
the big crossover hit of 2019.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 55
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
GENESYS: SHADOW
OF THE BEANSTALK
Jacking back into the world of Android
rom computer-hacking to bio-
F modification, Shadow of the
Beanstalk has everything you
need to launch your Genesys game into
the neon-lit streets of the cyberpunk
genre – though the smorgasbord of
tropes does give the setting itself a
distinctly generic feeling, this may not
actually be a bad thing.
Like the previous Genesys
sourcebook to hit shelves, Realms of
Terrinoth, Shadow of the Beanstalk
is designed to get players exploring a
world first seen in other Fantasy Flight
games. In this case it’s the corporate-
dominated near-future that’s home to
both the Android board game and the
recently-defunct Android: Netrunner
living card game.
This is a world that neatly ticks every
cyberpunk cliché going. Corporate
giants grow clones for menial jobs,
street toughs with luminous hair jack
into vast oceans of data and the streets
are awash with designer drugs with
achingly sci-fi names like Pixel or
Sting. At the very centre of it all stands
the titular Beanstalk, a vast space
elevator that forms the heart of the
sprawling mega-city of New Angeles.
This isn’t just reflected in the fiction,
either, with a wealth of new rules and
options all designed to help you play
out your neon and chrome fantasies.
There are new templates for playing
as mechanical bioroids or long-limbed
humans born and raised in micro-
gravity, skills dedicated to knowing
what’s hot on the Net, and careers for
hackers and tech experts. If you want
to, you could build a cyborg cop armed
with a futuristic hand-cannon and a
drinking problem, or a genetically-
modified courier with chameleonic
skin and an ear for online gossip.
Beyond all the new options and
slick tech on offer, there are a couple
solid changes to the core Genesys rules.
The first of these is a codified favour
economy – a way of tracking who owes
what and how big a deal their obligation
might be. While it may seem like a
pretty minor deal, it meshes incredibly
56 The Best Games of 2019
256 13+ £40
well with the cyberpunk ethos of
information being power.
The other major system laid out within
Shadow of the Beanstalk is computer
original, all this would become a
lot harder. Perhaps that counts as TRY THIS IF
hacking or, to give it its official title, damning by faint praise, but it’s true. YOU LIKED…
‘Running the Network’. Breaking into a Folks who are already invested SHADOWRUN
well-protected system isn’t settled with in the near-future of Android and It lacks the fantasy
just a single roll, but rather a lengthy and Netrunner will certainly get a kick elements that make
involved process of battling defences out of the lore and info-dumps, Shadowrun unique,
but Shadow of the
and grabbing data where you can. and those that just want sweet
Beanstalk is a much
In many ways this acts as a kind of cyberpunk rules will find exactly simpler way to hack
secondary combat system for the game what they want. It’s not the most mega-corps in a
and, just as the more hands-on members exciting product of all time, but it dystopian future.
might buy new guns or combat drugs, works. Sometimes, what else can
a group’s dedicated runner can equip you want but that?
themselves with all kinds of sweet tech RICHARD JANSENPARKES
to make things easier.
When it runs well the system can
be wonderful. Having the runner work WE SAY
alongside the rest of the team, opening Like other Genesys settings the world
doors and disabling cameras as they of Android is rather cookie-cutter, but
break into a black-ops lab, can be a the rules have everything you need for
thrilling experience that really drives a strong cyberpunk adventure.
home the cyberpunk dream.
However, while the book has some
fairly solid guidance on keeping
things fun here’s plenty of scope for
it to be handled poorly. Having one
or two characters spend most of a
session trying to grab vital data while
the rest of the table twiddles their
thumbs can be unforgivably boring.
Shadow of the Beanstalk is a setting
painted in broad strokes and, while it
lacks any depth or – if we’re being honest
– originality, there’s still plenty of room to
build your own stories and characters. In
fact, in many ways the generic cyberpunk
feel of the book works out in its advantage.
With a slight shift to your
perspective you can begin to
approach Shadow of the Beanstalk
as less of a setting guide and more
like a general cyberpunk toolbox that
Genesys GMs can plunder as they see
fit. Yes, you can use it to run games set
in the Android universe, but with only
a bit of tweaking you can take a shot at
something more directly inspired by
Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell, or
even something of your own creation.
If Shadow of the Beanstalk was a
little more off-the-wall, a bit more
TREASURE ISLAND
Golden Silver
reasure Island is a hidden
T movement game with no hidden
movement. That small caveat
aside, this pirate scavenger hunt is one of
the most inventive and original entries in
a genre populated by the likes of Fury of
Dracula and Whitehall Mystery.
It helps that the premise is so
irresistible: it’s a treasure hunt, plain and
simple. Long John Silver – controlled by
one player – knows where the booty is
hidden on the island, but has been locked
up. He ekes out vague clues to the rest of
the pirates, who are all out for themselves
in the search for the buried chest. They’ll
share some knowledge, but other hints
given to individual players can be kept
secret. They might want to consider
working together at least a little, though,
as Long John will eventually escape and
race to reclaim his treasure first.
Lacking the fraught cat-and-mouse
pursuit of other hidden movement games
due to its static target, Treasure Island
manages to whip up just as much tension
and energy as the greats of the genre
by letting players draw on its laminated
board. The pirates move around,
conducting searches to narrow down
45m 2-5
the possible locations of the treasure,
while every few turns Long John offers
tantilising hints as instructed by cards.
The treasure’s somewhere south or west
of you! It’s not within five miles of the
temple! It’s not in this district! Almost
all of the hints are accompanied by the
immense satisfaction of scribbling on the
board (or your own mini-map, in the case
of a private clue), using a caliper, rulers
and templates to quickly turn it into a
glorious confusion of lines, circles and
crosses. The simple act of drawing brings
the hunt for treasure alive – it’s impossible
not to feel swept up in the excitement
of working out the shrinking number of
places where the plunder could lie.
Of course, pirates aren’t exactly in
the business of honesty. Long John can
choose to tactically lie a set number of
times, with the unknown veracity of his
clues throwing just enough doubt into
the mix to keep the pirates guessing
throughout Treasure Island’s extremely
reasonable runtime. Meanwhile, the
pirates have a limited number of more
powerful special actions individual to
each character, making Treasure Island
more than a simple game of hot and cold.
With the exception of pirates stumbling
onto the motherlode by pure luck –
not impossible, if generally avoidable
– Treasure Island masters its pace. The
clues feel well tuned to narrow the net
10+ £45
without leaving the pirates guessing
blindly or Long John feeling cornered
too early, ramping up the specificity at a
rate that makes the closing turns come
neatly down to the wire. Allowing Long
John to escape makes for a dramatic
finale, avoiding a jarring sudden finish
when time runs out. While the game’s
semi-competitive scavenger hunt sings
WHAT’S IN best with three or four people, it scales
THE BOX? comfortably to a one-on-one showdown.
◗ Five screens Treasure Island’s great pleasure of
◗ Four mini-maps doodling is also where its few hiccups
◗ Four memo sheets arise. Vincent Dutrait’s artwork is beautiful,
◗ Five miniatures but the lush forests and rolling seas of
◗ Four turn order the map often make the multicoloured
tokens
pens tough to see. As the board is filled
◗ Game board
◗ Calendar board with scribbles, it quickly becomes an
◗ Four character sheets overwhelming mess of information to try
◗ Two mini rulers and parse; something that the mini-maps
◗ Ruler aren’t too well equipped to help with. At
◗ Caliper points, the sheer amount of brain-burning
◗ Small search feels like it belongs in a three-hour strategy
template heavyweight, rather than a sub-hour game
◗ Large search of pirate hide-and-seek. There can also be
template
a fair amount of fiddliness when it comes
◗ Small compass
◗ Large compass to drawing lines – the rulebook encourages
an amount of flexibility, so it’s not a
◗ Five markers
◗ 11 district hints
◗ Eight compass hints
◗ Seven starting hints
◗ 11 Black Spot hints
game to play with pedants. It’s worth
noting that the rulebook in our copy of
the game, which suffered from confusing
wording and poor structuring, has since
◗ Eight information been updated with a significantly better
tokens version available online.
◗ Chest
A few small blips ultimately can’t
◗ Six chest tokens
◗ Treasure token detract from Treasure Island’s buoyant
◗ Long John Silver sense of fun and adventure. It’s a
mini-map simple pleasure wrapped up in a
brilliantly creative package that’s a
treasure well worth discovering.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
The busy visuals can be a problem,
but the pure joy of seeking out
buried booty makes Treasure
Island a fantastic addition to the
hidden movement genre.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
FURY OF DRACULA
Looking for another stellar one-versus-
many hidden movement board game
based on a classic of literature from the
turn of the 19th century? You’re in luck!
tabletopgaming.co.uk 57
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
MARVEL STRIKE TEAMS
Clix bait
Designer: Andrew Parks | Artist: Errick Dadisman, WizKids team
arvel Strike Teams is a
M spin-off from the HeroClix
series, turning the collectible
miniatures game into a dungeon-
crawling board game that pits one
villainous ‘mastermind’ against some of
the best heroes the comic-book world of
the Avengers has to offer.
In place of HeroClix’s busy bases,
which rotate as characters take damage
and display all of their relevant stats, from
speed to range, the bases of Strike Teams’
miniatures simply state their current level
and available build points. These points
can be spent to outfit each character with
a different array of equipment and skill
cards during each mission, providing a
straightforward but incredibly satisfying
level of customisability and shifting
group dynamic. You might decide to
make Iron Man a ranged fighter in one
scenario, only to have him fight up close
when you need to hunker down and
protect something the next. Levelling-up
– achieved during a campaign – is just as
simple, with characters spending points
amassed by completed objectives to
expand their potential pool of abilities.
On the battlefield, the action is as
smooth and solid as Captain America’s
vibranium shield. A combination of
individual character action points and
shared command points that can be
58 The Best Games of 2019
and become more expensive to perform
as damage is taken, so there’s no
feeling of spamming the same powerful
move to mow down row after row of
opponents – although the mastermind
1-2h 2-5 14+ £58
player will certainly feel the might of
their superpowered foes, especially
with fewer players.
With such dependable and fun
gameplay at its centre, it’s a shame that
Marvel Strike Teams’ outer layers don’t
quite live up to the promise of its colourful
superhero brawling. Missions consist of a
random map (one of six, plus the tutorial)
and three random ‘stages’, each consisting
of a generic objective that typically
lasts for around four game rounds and
presents a way for either side to score
points: rescue a prisoner, attack a given
object and so on. While the randomised
nature provides a good dose of
replayability, it lacks any real throughline
to hang a full campaign on and feels
quite bland – especially as winning or
losing comes down to points, rather than
a specific epic moment for the goodies
or baddies. The lack of personality
outside of the heroes themselves is
WHAT’S IN spent by any member of the group made worse by the map tiles, which can
THE BOX?
◗ Four hero figures
◗ Mastermind figure
◗ Two villain figures
power a diceless system similar to
Monolith’s slick Conan. Actions cost
points for set amounts of movement and
be arranged into a variety of plain grey
warehouses (one side is technically the
Hydra base, which is also grey) with only
damage, but carry over from turn to turn a few sentry turrets, crates or barrels in
◗ Six henchman figures
and can also be spent to defend, dodge fixed locations to really set them apart.
◗ Eight character cards
◗ 64 action cards or otherwise react to the enemies’ turn, The uninspired mission structure
◗ Seven map cards making it a pleasing challenge of careful and dull presentation – outside of the
◗ 19 scenario cards resource management and strategy miniatures themselves, which do bring
◗ Victory card rather than luck. (The only die in the the world to life – undersells what is
◗ 30 map tiles box presents an optional push-your- otherwise a thoroughly competent and
◗ 20 character tokens luck chance to gain or lose additional enjoyable dungeon-crawler. The robust
◗ 16 objective tokens points, which feels a bit tacked-on if gameplay excels at making its stars feel
◗ 18 objective point ultimately inoffensive.) superpowered, with the flexibility of
(OP) tokens
The combination of customisable selecting how your hero will tackle each
◗ 22 status tokens
◗ 12 round tracker powers and quick, tactical combat feels scenario giving plenty of reason to come
tokens as good as being a superhero should. back and experiment with different
◗ 25 duration tokens Cap can deflect incoming fire and loadouts and styles. If it could only
◗ 20 spawn point tokens bounce his shield off multiple goons, borrow a little more of the colour of its
◗ 12 large rubble while Iron Man can zoom around on comic-book inspirations, Strike Teams
tokens his jets before firing lasers and missiles could be a truly super experience.
◗ Four small at unfortunate baddies, Quake can MATT JARVIS
rubble tokens cause tremors and Agent May provides
◗ Four door rokens
covering fire. Scenery on the map WE SAY
◗ 20 yellow action
tokens provides cover but, in a nice interactive It doesn’t look nearly as good as
◗ 60 red wound tokens touch, can be destroyed or even it plays, but the action is strong
◗ Two command dials chucked across the stage with the right enough to make this an extremely
◗ Custom action die skill. Abilities have a cooldown period solid superhero dungeon-crawler.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… CONAN
Powered by a similar conservation of action points and with an all-on-
one setup, Marvel Strike Teams’ superhero theme may make it a more
approachable brawler than the fantasy adventure.
 WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Eight trader miniatures
◗ Nine purge miniatures
◗ Three civilian miniatures
◗ 11 character boards
◗ Eight class boards
◗ Purge board
◗ Two ship boards
◗ Eight plastic crew
dashboards
◗ Plastic hostility tracker
◗ Seven dice
◗ 20 event cards
◗ 42 counters

CORE SPACE ◗ 189 plastic pegs

◗ Token pouch
◗ 100+ equipment
Rogue traders tokens
◗ 2ft/60cm square
1-2h 1-2 14+ £80 gaming mat
◗ 90+ 3D cardboard
ore Space is a game best described you’ll like Core Space or not. The game it’s difficult to find the rules that specify terrain pieces

C as a hybrid of a miniatures
skirmish game and dungeon-
crawling RPG. Players control a crew of
traders as they attempt to gather loot,
complete various objectives and avoid
the deadly Purge, either in a standalone
scenario or as part of a larger campaign.
The action takes place on a decent
quality playmat divided by modular 3D
scenery, with each mission having its own
unique layout. The game certainly looks
impressive when it’s all set up, though
the game’s generic sci-fi setting feels
like a missed opportunity in terms of art
direction. Whilst the board is gridded,
traders and NPCs – the civilians and Purge
miniatures – all move by ruler in inches
and shoot using line of sight, making the
moment-to-moment gameplay more akin
to something you’d find in a skirmish-
level wargame than a traditional board
game. The grids are instead primarily
used for as a reference point for laying
out the scenery for each mission, though
in practice they’re also quite useful for
quickly eyeballing distance as well.
The need to clip together walls and
fill crates with items means that setting
up will definitely take a good 20 minutes
to half an hour or so, particularly for the
first few games. Your attitude to this fact
will probably be indicative of whether
is really best played as a running
campaign, and it’s the sort of title that’s
meant to be played over the course of a
few evenings with the same group. (The
core box has enough for two players,
with expansions allowing for more.)
In essence, the action is divided
between exploring and combat on the one
hand, and resource and crew management
on the other. The progression system has a
very strong RPG element; each member of
your crew not only comes with an innate
skill, but a choice of different skill trees
containing half a dozen or so different
abilities apiece. On top of this, each
ability often has a number of upgradable
levels that have a different effect on your
crewmember. Some items also confer
their own abilities. It’s certainly an in-
depth system, but its sheer size means it
can often be a little overwhelming, and
there’ll almost definitely be times you
forget that one of your characters had a
specific ability at their disposal. All the
different variables also means that the
box comes with a lot of tokens and such,
which can be a bit finicky at times.
The only other major bugbear comes
down to a few hiccups in the rulebook.
Some of this is just a matter of slightly
unintuitive layout, though there are a few
outright omissions as well. For example,
what order civilians should act in if there’s
more than one, as well as how many
health points each Purge unit or civilian
has. Minor complications like these don’t
derail the experience too much, however,
as once you get started you find the game
sequence to be fairly intuitive.
On that note, the gameplay has a
nicely balanced level of risk and reward
that helps create a sense of urgency.
You often need to try and complete
secondary objectives and gain valuable
items to upgrade your crew or trade for
cash. This is vital in a campaign, since TRY THIS IF
as well as outfitting your characters
YOU LIKED…
STAR SAGA
to deal with greater challenges, you’ll Sharing the same
also have to keep your ship maintained developer as Core
and have enough funds to deal with Space, Star Saga
unexpected developments. However, is a more linear,
the Purge are an omnipresent threat streamlined game
whose numbers increase as the game that tones down
progresses, and things can go south the RPG elements
very quickly if you’re not careful. in favour of a
greater emphasis
JAMES WINSPEAR
on combat.
WE SAY
If you’re prepared to invest the
time required to properly get into
the meat of Core Space, you’ll find
an entertaining romp with mostly
intuitive mechanics whose gameplay
clips along at a solid pace.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 59
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
CITY OF GEARS
Clockwork, not hard work
or a game that looks and runs
F like clockwork, City of Gears has
plenty of electrical spark running
through it.
Behind its steampunk appearance
is a fitting mechanical meshing of
gameplay. There’s the management
of resources as players roll dice to
gather steam, gears and electrical
charges. Gears can be spent to
connect up the central nine-by-
nine grid of city tiles (randomly
placed during setup and revealed as
they’re explored), creating bridges
for meeple-like workers – powered
by steam or more potent electricity
– to travel along and extend their
owner’s network of tiles. The gear
links double as a way of activating
ability combos on connected tiles
when resources trigger one location’s
ability, granting the chance to
reap bonus resources and victory
points along a well-constructed
web. Gears also feature an optional
‘development’ ability that can instead
added to a factory, building up an
array of bonus actions and scoring
opportunities that gently expand the
initially simple loop.
What begins as a relatively docile
expansion out of your factory quickly
becomes a scrappy tussle for control
of each city tile. The robotic workers
can zap rival automatons into a pile
60 The Best Games of 2019
of scrap, sending them back to the
factory and forcing them to traverse
the board once again. Zaps can also
be spent to destroy the gear links
connecting tiles, cutting off rivals’
valuable networks. With workers and
gear links determining ownership
over tiles – and their victory points – at
WHAT’S IN the end of the game, City of Gears’
THE BOX? latter half can be surprisingly blood–
◗ 16 production dice erm, oilthirsty. Luckily, getting zapped
◗ 24 automaton isn’t a game-ending setback, so the
worker pawns
heated competition never feels cruel.
◗ 80 ownership markers
◗ 36 resource tokens The comfortable combination of
◗ 30 movement tokens spending dice results, expanding
◗ Four converter your presence on the grid and
development cogs activating tiles zips along surprisingly
◗ 40 standard cogs quickly – playing on the standard
◗ Four opening board (a low-conflict option for
day cogs bigger groups is included), the
◗ Gear bag endgame can come around before
◗ 18 city tile boards
you know it. The random nature of
◗ Four factory
player boards the sudden finish – which is triggered
by pulling three white gears from
◗ 60 prestige markers
the bag, and immediately ends the
◗ Nine discovery tokens
game – can be a bit jarring, especially
as multiple (or even all three) white
gears can be pulled on the same
player’s turn, leaving little chance
to react or make good on certain
scoring requirements.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… LORDS OF WATERDEEP
Supposedly an inspiration for the dice-rolling steampunk game, this
Dungeons & Dragons spin-off remains a reliable strategy hit years later.
45m 2-4 8+ £55
While the randomness of rolling
dice and drawing gears is deftly
balanced in the rules – two unwanted
resources can be converted to any one
alternate and saved for future turns,
and gears must be drawn together
and can only be used once per turn
for a gear link or factory development
– City of Gears can still occasionally
fall prey to the luck of the draw. The
blunt conclusion means that a lucky
scoring bonus drawn in the last few
turns can suddenly swing the game
in a player’s favour, while the limited
number of resources still makes duff
rolls frustrating to a degree.
These small and shared frustrations
pale in light of the game’s well-
considered mixture of points-
gathering and player interaction,
leaving the cardboard machinery
running smoothly with nary a hitch.
It’s wrapped up in an impressive
presentation that provides the
pleasure of plonking the chunky
plastic gears into star-shaped
holes along the edges of the tiles to
link them together – although the
iconography used to denote certain
development effects could be clearer
at points.
City of Gears is a well-oiled
machine built with dependable parts.
It might not feel like the freshest
experience on the tabletop, but
there’s a certain charm to its sheer
reliability as an enjoyable, if not
outstanding, hour of gaming.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
City of Gears is as solid as they
come, combining conventional
route-building and scoring with a
surprisingly heated level of player
interaction towards its slightly jarring
end. Like its clockwork visuals, it’s an
experience you can count on to run
dependably, even if there are more
modern-feeling successors out there.

DUAL POWERS:
REVOLUTION 1917
Don't you know it’s gonna be alright?
he 1917 Russian revolutions and
T the civil war they sparked were
complex and bloody, and their
eventual outcome would go on to
change the world forever. Dual Powers
distils the events, figures and conflict
of the momentous year into a head-
to-head struggle for power between
the Provisional Government and the
Petrograd Soviet that’s beautiful to look
at and impressively streamlined to
play, but lacks the rich thematic depth
to make it a true classic.
The tussle between the state power
formed in the wake of Tsar Nicholas
II’s abdication and the rising socialist
movement led by a worker council is
symbolised by a Twilight Struggle-like
tug-of-war points tracker along the
bottom of the board, which swings
back and forth as the two sides claim
regions in Petrograd. Each player has
four actions each round to recruit
new units, move them around the
board or recover their strength before
up to three of the regions are scored,
handing points to the dominant force.
Despite the complexity of the real-
life politics involved, the core of Dual
Powers remains this trim area-control
conflict throughout, powered along by the
smartly designed deck of command cards
45m 1-2 13+ £39
WHAT’S IN that can be used for one of two available
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ Six region tiles
◗ 48 command cards
actions or played as an secret objective.
These secret objectives are one of
the elements that make Dual Powers
more than a run-of-the-mill battle
◗ Six leader cards
◗ Eight historical for territory. Each player plays a
information cards card facedown at the beginning of a
◗ Two player aid cards round, secretly selecting one of the
◗ Eight leader tokens regions that will be scored and how
◗ 26 unit tokens many points the controlling side will
◗ Score marker earn. A third region is dictated by
◗ Blockade marker an area of ‘unrest’, which is known
◗ Day marker by both players. The combination of
◗ Month marker
hidden and shared knowledge cleverly
◗ Will of the
People marker introduces an element of bluffing
◗ Three objective and deduction into the movement of
markers units around the map, as you try to
◗ 27 opposing deduce where your opponent might
unit tokens (for score that round while misleading
solitaire variant) attempts to counter your own points
◗ Three difficulty grab. It works brilliantly, enriching
level tokens (for the straightforward strategic cardplay
solitaire variant)
on the board with the potential for
psychological jousting.
While Dual Powers wears its
historical dressing loosely, the setting
allows for the comfortable addition of
some fantastic asymmetrical gameplay.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… TWILIGHT STRUGGLE
Two players using tight cardplay to battle for control during one of history’s
most pivotal moments? That sounds familiar…
The government and socialists each
have three leaders who can be called
upon, deploying to the board as unique
units and allowing for special actions,
such as revealing your opponent’s
secret objective or blocking a
movement route between regions.
Each played card has a cost in time
which advances a calendar through the
year of 1917, granting bonus actions
for landing on certain dates and later
triggering the return of Trotsky from
exile, who can lend his strength to
either side to begin with before allying
permanently with the Bolsheviks in the
summer. The calendar also serves as a
timer for the surprisingly brisk game,
handing victory to the dominant side if
neither player manages to swing public
support far enough in their favour.
Neutral units who lend their strength
to whichever side has the ‘Will of the
People’ – which can be claimed once
by each player by using Kerensky or
Lenin – present another interesting
way of keeping the board-based
competition consistently dynamic.
Along with its exceptional visual
presentation, these sprinkles of Dual
Powers’ historical theme stand out
as the highlights of a game that is
otherwise solid and satisfying, but
still lacks flavour – despite the chance
to dive into a period with a wealth of
potential. The tight, tense cardplay,
layers of hidden information and
asymmetric area-control strategy make
for an enjoyable abstracted two-player
experience, but it’s hard not to feel that
there was a missed opportunity here to
make something both as mechanically
robust and steeped in its setting as
Twilight Struggle.
Had Dual Powers managed to find
the middle ground of its own tug-of-war
between theme and gameplay, it could’ve
been something extraordinary. Instead,
it’s remarkable – but not revolutionary.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Dual Powers is a well-designed and
fun two-player game with a fantastic
look and a promising theme. It’s just
a shame that the theme doesn’t go
deeper, resulting in something that
doesn’t live all the way up to its potential.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 61
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
THINGS FROM THE FLOOD
Back in the Loop
he nineties were a weird time to
T be alive, weren’t they? The radio
would jump from the Spice Girls to
the Prodigy, grown adults wore parachute
pants without any trace of irony and who
could forget the way your friends kept
stumbling into weird mysteries involving
psychotic robots and science gone
horribly wrong. No? Okay, maybe that
last bit is unique to the teens from Things
from the Flood.
Things from the Flood stands somewhere
between being a direct sequel and a
particularly hefty expansion to the wildly
successful Tales from the Loop. In many
ways it feels like the original game reflected
in a funhouse mirror, staying essentially
the same but becoming a little taller, a bit
broader and much, much more sinister.
Where the earlier game dropped you
into the shoes of kids investigating sci-fi
mysteries in the ‘80s, this time you take up
the role of a bunch of mid-‘90s teenagers.
The core idea of sticking your nose into
weird events while dealing with the trials
and tribulations of everyday life is still
present but, in moving from carefree
youth to troubled, angst-ridden puberty,
Flood has adopted a much darker, grittier
and altogether moodier tone.
The sense of optimistic wonder that
littered Tales’ robots, hover-trucks and
mysterious portals is mostly gone, wiped
out by the titular flood that destroyed
the mysterious Loop facility. Robots
are revolting in Russia, malfunctioning
machines are spontaneously growing
62 The Best Games of 2019
flesh along their wiring and all the adults
are acting particularly weird.
These weird and often disturbing
phenomena are what drive the
investigations and intrigues of Flood.
A group might spend a few sessions
tracking down a rogue android who’s
been abducting rough sleepers for bizarre
experiments, for example, or searching
for a missing classmate that everyone else
in town has mysteriously forgotten.
Long stretches of these adventures can
be driven along without the need for any
dice, as the game retains a strong narrative
focus, but sooner or later the teens are
bound to run into trouble. When they do,
the mechanics that keep things ticking over
are simple and straightforward – though
they’ve acquired a few interesting twists.
Whether they’re sneaking past some
security guards or clocking a rogue ‘droid
with a street sign, players build a pool of
d6s based on their character’s skills and
stats and try to roll sixes. A straightforward
task might require one success, while a
shot at the near-impossible needs three.
So long as you’re careful to stick to
your strengths and take advantage of your
surroundings you should have usually have
a decent chance at passing the check, but
life and luck aren’t always that kind. If you
fail your character might well end up with
some kind of negative condition – and, if
things go bad enough, they might leave
the game completely. Sometimes this
means they bleed to death in a snowy field,
and sometimes it means child protection
222 13+ £35
services catch wind of the broken bones
and whisk them away to a foster home.
If that sounds a little bleak, that’s
because it is. Things from the Flood is a
surprisingly dark game, largely because WE SAY
despite the sci-fi twists it has a much It’s darker, deadlier
more accurate portrayal of teenage life and a little depressing
than most films or TV shows. Drugs, sex in places, but this
and self-loathing all weave their way follow-up takes
through the pages in a way that manages everything that
to be both refreshing and disturbing. made Tales from
the Loop great and
Where Tales had kids invoking their
adds a new twist.
luck and pride to gain bonuses to their
rolls, Flood’s teens instead rely on their
shame and scars. It’s not a particularly
significant rule change in terms of how
the game plays mechanically, but it has a TRY THIS IF
huge impact on how it feels. YOU LIKED…
Importantly, the designers have
KIDS ON BIKES
If you loved Kids
recognised that there’s much more to the on Bikes’ blend of
teenage experience than writing depressing small-town mystery
poetry and vomiting up your first Bacardi and supernatural
Breezer. There are plenty of moments of light danger, Things from
and fellowship amidst the darkness, and the Flood might be
they taste all the sweeter for the contrast. right up your alley.
Within Flood’s pages you’ll find some
incredible art, a solid mini-campaign and
more ‘90s nostalgia than you can shake
a slap-bracelet at. If you’ve played Tales
you might balk at the idea of buying what
amounts to a tweaked version of the ruleset,
but this puts just enough of a spin on the
game to make it a truly unique beast – one
that’s equal parts enchanting and horrifying.
Which makes it a pretty solid take on
being a teenager, actually.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
C O M I N G D E C E M B E R 1 0

freeleaguepublishing.com
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

SWORDCRAFTERS: EXPANDED EDITION

Well weapon
20-30m 1-5 6+ £48

n Swordcrafters you craft a sword. version of that way of splitting cake the Expanded Edition. It contains so

I Out of cardboard, sadly, and the

blade you’re going to create has
a strange blocky quality that looks
more like a child’s construction toy
or something from a mid-‘90s Final
Fantasy game, but it’s an actual 3D
sword with four sides, each studded
with gems in the way that regular
swords aren’t. At all.
Put that aside for now. You’re
going to make your sword by slotting
cardboard tiles together, so the sword
will have four sides. Essentially you’re
building four columns, and the tiles
you put on each side will depend on
(1) what tiles you can get, (2) how
long the other sides are and (3) what
victory conditions you’re trying to
complete. Here’s the nub of the game:
it depends.
You get your tiles each turn
by cutting them. Yes, it’s clever;
mechanic as metaphor, all that. You
lay out a random selection of tiles in
a grid, then the first player splits it in
two, horizontally or vertically, and
the next splits one of the halves, and
so on. Then you go round again, each
taking one of the chunks. It’s a game
between kids, and it works really well.
There’s a huge first-player advantage,
but that’s based on who takes one
particular tile, so it all functions.
Then you build your sword, which
is really satisfying. The tiles are robust,
the grooves well cut; it all holds
together surprisingly well. You can
even swing it about a bit. No idea how
long it’ll last, but I’m optimistic.
And then you score. In the basic
version of Swordcrafters there are
three ways of getting victory points:
longest sword, sword quality (sets
of gems per side) and sword magic
(particular gem combos, on cards).
This works fine. It’s a decent game
in vanilla form, but this review is for
many Kickstarter stretch goals so that
getting them all back in the box is a
genuine struggle.
More importantly, it adds another
three routes to victory points: sword
mastery, relics and tips. The clever part
is that you’re not supposed to use them
all at once. You mix and match. The
rulebook even includes advice on which
ones work together particularly well. WHAT’S IN
Each one completely changes THE BOX?
the tone of the game. The core cut- ◗ 91 sword tiles
and-decide mechanic stays, but the ◗ 12 sword guards
◗ 10 sword hilts
combinations of gems you’re trying
◗ 12 sword tips
to create, either turn by turn or at ◗ Five sword pommels
the end of the game, goes upside ◗ 18 sword magic cards
down. Relics are particularly great, ◗ 48 sword relic tiles
sword tips a little disappointing, but ◗ 24 sword
they all bring their own flavour and mastery cards
add longevity. ◗ 10 solo player
Swordcrafters looks like a kids’ variant cards
game and it’s simple enough for the ◗ Scoring tracker
◗ Five player tokens
family, but there’s both breadth and
◗ First player token
depth here – and length too, because ◗ Forge tile
the funnest part is seeing who’s got
the longest. Come for the displays of
potence, stay for an intriguing and
delightful game experience.
JAMES WALLIS

WE SAY TRY THIS IF

Swordcrafters is packed with
novelty, charm, intelligence and thick
YOU LIKED…
cardboard. It’s unique and a lot of fun.
SPLENDOR
Mechanically it’s
nothing like Splendor,
and it’s not about
the gems either. But
the two games have
a similar flavour, and
the way they engage,
puzzle and satisfy is
tonally close.

64 The Best Games of 2019

AMAZING TALES
oleplaying, when you get down
R to it, is all about make-believe.
Whether you’re stabbing goblins
in a dingy dungeon or uncovering
shadowy conspiracies in a neon-tinged
future metropolis, imagination is the
beating heart of the hobby.
That should make it a perfect activity
for parents to share with children. But for
the most part, designers and publishers
are happy to tailor their products to an
older crowd, with many games revelling
in complicated rules and violent themes.
Even when RPGs do cater for younger
players, they tend to assume that
they’ve at least reached reading age.
Amazing Tales is different. An
introductory roleplaying system with
an emphasis on fun and creativity, it’s
designed specifically for pre-school
and primary-aged kids. Its rules are
incredibly light – in fact, they pretty
much fit on a single page – and
rather than endless stats, tables and
modifiers, it comes packed with hints
on how to keep children engaged and
interested through a game.
WILDLANDS:
THE ADVENTURING PARTY
ast year, Martin Wallace’s
L Wildlands blew us away with its
super-slick, ultra-refined card-
based take on the miniatures skirmish
genre. Its appealingly motley factions
and busy, colourful double-sided
board, made it clear from the start that it
would benefit from expansion sets, and
publisher Osprey Games hasn’t held
back from delivering them. First out of
the gate was the six-strong reanimated
horde The Unquiet Dead, and now
we have The Adventuring Party – a
quartet of classic questing hero types:
barbarian, rogue, wizard and cleric.
With one fewer party member than
the other base set factions (and two
fewer than the zombie gang), they might
appear underpowered. But Wallace
balances that by adding a new action to
20-40m 2-4 4+ £17
Much of this is common sense:
keeping sessions from running too
long, handing players a degree of
creative control and using characters’
failures as an opportunity to introduce
interesting twists to the plot rather
than as sudden brick walls. It’s the
kind of advice that could equally
apply to grown-up roleplaying. What’s
really helpful, though, are the pages
that deal specifically with GMing for
kids: providing them with interesting
questions, keeping things from
becoming too scary or stressful, and
harnessing the energy, enthusiasm and
imaginative quirkiness they bring to
the table.
Other than this, the bulk of the book
is made up of pre-made settings for
adventures, but it’s far more interesting
to work with your kids to create one of
your own. By adult standards, Amazing
Tales may seem rather light on actual
content. But as a new twist on storytime
and a way to join your children in
creative play, it’s priceless.
OWEN DUFFY
30-60m 2-4 14+ £20
this deck: a heal, for the cleric character, warlock’s tower and a deep, crystal-
Thom. This can really make a difference
in the thick of battle, and offers a great
way to confound your opponents.
studded canyon), it’s clear these
expansions are going to keep coming.
On the evidence of The Adventuring
You can also recast the heroes as a Party, that can only be a good thing.
gang of troublesome looters – game- All we need now is a Scythe-style
controlled characters with preset actions Automa deck to make a solo mode
who move around the map during your possible, and we’re set.
battle and try to nab the players' crystals. DAN JOLIN
It’s a fun enough addition to the scrappy
chaos, but in truth this faction is best
appreciated as an active participant.
In fact, we’d go as far as to say they’re
the finest faction yet. Only having four
of them gives you more tactical focus
(protect the healer!), which certainly
adds an appropriate against-the-odds
thrill when playing them.
With new maps also on the
way (May’s Map Pack 1 features a
tabletopgaming.co.uk 65
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
THE LORD OF THE RINGS:
JOURNEYS IN MIDDLE-EARTH
An adventure you won’t go Sauron
olkien’s stories were always
T about the journey, rather than the
destination. The most memorable
scenes of The Hobbit and The Lord of
the Rings take place on the way to the
Misty Mountain and Mount Doom: trolls
turning to stone, crossing the Bridge of
Khazad-dûm, an old ring in a cave.
Journeys in Middle-earth is itself part
of a longer tale. Its app-powered blend
of narrative exploration and combat
has roots in the spectacular second
edition of Mansions of Madness, while
its lore situates it in the same post-
Hobbit, pre-Fellowship gap as The Lord
of the Rings: The Card Game.
While the two share basic gameplay
elements, Journeys is far more than
Mansions with prosthetic elf ears and
hobbit hair glued to its feet. In place of the
Lovecraftian game’s fatalistic dice rolls
– the ideal fit for that universe’s doom-
and-gloom horror – Journeys implements
an original system of drawing cards from
individual character decks to resolve tests
thrown up by the app, from battles against
roving goblins and orcs to interactions
with rangers and townspeople.
The personalisation of the decks based
on each character and their selectable
D&D-ish role in the party – whether
66 The Best Games of 2019
1h+ 1-5 14+ £90
a pathfinder tuned for exploration or
musician able to buff their companions
– brings a meaningful layer of roleplaying-
lite progression to the experience. Over the
course of an ongoing campaign (the core
box’s Bones of Arnor arc runs across more
than a dozen separate scenarios), you
gradually come to know your character and
WHAT’S IN their deck’s unique make-up of symbols
THE BOX? and abilities, spending amassed experience
◗ 22 journey map tiles points and upgrading equipment to spec
◗ Two battle map tiles them further in a specific direction.
◗ 31 plastic figures The subtle depth of the card system lets
◗ 83 item cards
Journeys to become so much more than the
◗ 15 boon cards
◗ 28 fear cards sum of its parts. Recalling the turn-by-turn
◗ 28 damage cards refinement of deckbuilders, players can
◗ Ten terrain cards remove cards from their deck as ‘prepared’
◗ 172 skill cards abilities, temporarily removing their
(basic/hero/role/ symbols from aiding with tests but offering
weakness/title) up other potential benefits. ‘Scouting’ at
◗ Six hero cards the end of each turn allows cards to be
◗ 30 terrain tiles
prepared or placed on the top or bottom
◗ 12 enemy banners
of the deck, offering deliciously agonising
◗ 84 assorted tokens
choices over when to keep skills ready
versus guaranteeing a successful test.
Being able to effectively customise and
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
MANSIONS OF MADNESS: SECOND EDITION
Journeys’ gameplay is clearly based on the Lovecraftian adventure game, but its
engaging cardplay, updated app and deeper story hooks make it a fitting successor.
control your deck like this, particularly in
the dedicated ‘battle’ scenarios separate to
the exploration-focused ‘journey’ chapters,
brings Journeys’ combat closer to the
crunchy tactical cardplay of Gloomhaven.
The app is far improved from Mansions’
virtual GM across the board, bringing flash
visuals, a Howard Shore-aping soundtrack
and the ability to track, save and resume
a playthrough with the same characters.
Replayed scenarios feel genuinely fresh
thanks to new combinations of baddies,
items, interactions and environments,
with the central narrative generously
supplemented by random side quests and
able to branch as the result of critical player
decisions. The variability of enemies’
behaviour – which can include gangs, elite
toughs and a variety of keywords that force
players to switch up their battle strategies
on the fly – combines with the cards on
the table to ensure encounters feel more
than menial. The plot beats and writing
are generally effective enough to keep you
adventuring and conjure up the sense of
Middle-earth – bar a few moments where
certain dialogue feels a little limp coming
from the mouth of a bloodthirsty orc.
Journeys is a step-up from Mansions
on the table too, its miniatures a leap in
quality from flimsy cultists. The switch
from sweeping arrangements of modular
hex tiles to the close-knit battle boards
dotted with terrain (which springs up
in animated 3D on-screen) achieves a
pleasingly cinematic changing of pace and
showcases the strength and flexibility of the
central cardplay. The result is a juggling of
exploration and action that you can see and
feel, and excels at sustaining the energy and
scope the RPG-ish campaign deserves.
If Mansions and The Lord of the Rings:
TCG’s stream of expansions are anything
to go by, Journeys’ core set will be just
the beginning of a new Middle-earth
epic. When the journey is this much fun,
there’s no way you’ll ever want it to end.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Building on the impressive atmosphere
and gameplay of Mansions, Journeys
drops the dice for a meaningful card-driven
system and the involving progression
and storytelling of an RPG-lite. It’s an
adventure you won’t want to miss.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 67
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

RES ARCANA WHAT’S IN

THE BOX?
◗ 40 artefact cards
Res for the Galaxy ◗ 10 mage cards
◗ 10 monument cards
30-60m 2-4 14+ £35 ◗ Five places of power
◗ Eight magic items
ames about battling spellcasters There’s a nice system of pre-built decks And then there are the dragons. You ◗ 150 essence tokens

G are speckled across the modern

history of the hobby, from
pioneers like Warlock and Wiz-War to
heavy hitters like Magic: The Gathering
and recent contenders like Mage Wars
Arena. And yet there are new things to be
done with the idea of gathering magical
energy and summoning stuff with it.
Res Arcana is from Tom Lehmann, the
mind behind Race for the Galaxy, and,
while this is not the same game or even
a sibling of it, it shares the same DNA.
They’re both tight, intelligent games where
you build a tableau of cards, with their own
language of symbols you’ll have to learn,
and both reveal their tactical richness the
more you play and understand them.
Opening up the box, the first
impression is of elegance. Everything
has its place: the essence tokens are
in a five-sided holder that lifts out, all
the components have room to breathe
and both the art and graphic design
are beautifully in tune with the theme.
Second impression: there really isn’t
very much in the box. That doesn’t
mean there isn’t much to the game.
Everyone is a mage, each with a special
power and a hand of eight artefact cards
– three up and five down. That’s your lot.
for novice players, and a drafting option.
But still, those eight cards are all you’re
going to get for the whole game. Your job
is to manipulate them, along with spells,
to gather resources to unlock your
other cards, to gather the gold needed
to buy monuments and ‘places of
power’, which are the main sources of
the ten victory points you need to win.
This is, you’ve probably gathered,
not a wham-bam battle of mages, but
an altogether more subtle affair. You’re
building an engine, but it’s a very small
and finely engineered engine – more of
a Swiss watch movement than the great
terraforming machines of some other
games – and it must be built with delicacy
and care because every point is crucial.
Res Arcana has obvious overlaps with
other Tom Lehmann games, and other
mage-fighting games – the five essences
have more than a numerical resemblance
to Magic's mana – but tonally it’s a
thing apart. This is so stripped down, the
cards so finely balanced and the sense of
increasing power so real as you muster
your cards and your understanding of
their language and the way they relate to
each other grows. It’s engaging, satisfying
and encourages you to want to master it.
can forego the obvious point race to
victory and spend your essences on
monsters instead, and the monsters
◗ 12 essence chips
◗ Four reference cards
◗ First Player token
◗ Summary tile
will royally screw up your opponents’
plans. This is the cherry on Res
Arcana’s cake, bringing the inter-
player fire that many engine-builders
lack. They don’t end the game, but
their appearance alters its direction.
It’s a masterclass in elegant game TRY THIS IF
design, and an antidote to all those YOU LIKED…
games that cover the table and fill RACE FOR
your brain with fiddly details. Despite THE GALAXY
the small number of cards, it’s not a It’s the obvious
game that gives up its secrets quickly, comparison. If you
and I feel I’ve only begun to explore it. enjoy Race for the
Thankfully once you’ve mastered the Galaxy then you
should get this to
rules it zips along at a good pace; you
the table as soon
can easily get in two or three games in as possible.
an evening, and I won’t be surprised if
you do.
JAMES WALLIS
WE SAY
Theydies and gentlethems, please
welcome Sand Castle Games to
the international stage. This is a
seriously impressive first release
from a new publisher. Expect it to
be on awards shortlists soon.

68 The Best Games of 2019

tabletopgaming.co.uk 69
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
HELLBOY: THE BOARD GAME
Hell to play
ellboy: The Board Game lands
H with the punch of the Right
Hand of Doom.
Released in time with the new
cinematic reboot of the series, but
hewing closer tonally and visually to
Mike Mignola’s original comics, Sophie
Williams and James Hewitt’s rompy
dungeon-crawler pits the agents of
the B.R.P.D. against evil frogs, eldritch
tentacle monsters and, worst, the ticking
clock of encroaching doom. Mignola was
himself involved in producing the look
of the game – and it shows. The cards
and player boards are faithful to the
comic-book artwork, while the purple,
turquoise and blue hues of the garish
map tiles that make up each modular
layout are a breath of fresh air against
the dank dungeons and murky forests of
so many bland dungeon-crawlers.
The blending of exploration and
combat lands somewhere between
the winding Lovecraftian narratives
of Mansions of Madness and the
room-by-room adventure of Hewitt’s
own Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower.
The players generally spend the first
act of each scenario gathering clues,
dispatching minor monsters and
clearing room, racing to progress
their insight against a creeping doom
counter. Whether the players are
prepared or not, a final confrontation
is eventually triggered, with the team’s
efforts to investigate the paranormal
goings-on putting them in better or
worse stead against a final boss and/or
their gribbly minions.
The two-act structure gives a strong
backbone to hang the meat of Hellboy’s
gameplay on. An intuitive test system
combines three dice of varying strength
– dictated by the characters’ individual
traits – with an effect die that can
trigger events both good and
bad, from extra damage and
rerolls to guns running
out of ammo and
enemy special
abilities. Dice
can be upgraded
or downgraded as
the result of various
70 The Best Games of 2019
60-90m 1-4 14+ £75
situations – firing into an area with – major archenemy Rasputin joins a giant WHAT’S IN
multiple characters, taking damage,
spending additional action points –
letting fights feel pleasingly dynamic and
frog monster and tentacle monster in the
core set – similarly feel more than robotic
pistol fodder thanks to boss behaviour
THE BOX?
◗ Hellboy miniature
◗ Liz Sherman
miniature
strategic without bogging rolls down in decks that come into play during the finale.
◗ Abe Sapien
endless rulebook-checking. Character While its gameplay feels designed to
miniature
abilities and the opportunity to load up stand up to repeat plays, Hellboy is held ◗ Johann Kraus
with equipment before a mission invite back by the lack of enemy variation and miniature
replayability and co-op experimentation small number of case files in the core box. ◗ Game tiles
as you hurl enemies into scenery, wade Without picking up one of its expansions, ◗ Door and
into groups to dish out melee blows or you’ll find yourself facing off against furniture tokens
pick off baddies across the map. It’s still a just four frog minion types during each ◗ Custom dice
dice-chucking dungeon-crawler at heart, playthrough: something that can become ◗ HQ board
but one that manages to feel fresher and a bit one-note. Given the efforts of the ◗ Action cubes
◗ 18 minion
more exciting than many of its peers. rest of the game to keep its scenarios as
miniatures
Much of this satisfaction comes fresh as possible, it’s a disappointing ◗ Rasputin miniature
down to its creators' clear willingness sticking point. That accepted, the core ◗ Tentacle monster
to just let players have a good time. box is a strong foundation to build on. miniature
Hellboy can be punishing, but it Hellboy is a game that thrums with ◗ Giant frog
never punishes the players. There’s the energy and attitude of its big, red star. monster miniature
no permanent player elimination – as It’s an accomplished dungeon-crawler, a ◗ Core agent cards
in Silver Tower, characters can rest to riotous experience and a hell of a time. ◗ Encounter deck
recover health and revive knocked out MATT JARVIS ◗ Requisition deck
◗ Deck of Doom
allies – and dice rolls can almost always
◗ Case file deck
be boosted or modified to help avoid ◗ Enemy deck
the frustration of bad luck.
WE SAY
Offering up more interesting
As well as the overarching ‘case gameplay and richer scenarios
file’ scenarios, Hellboy uses decks of than the typical dungeon-crawler
exploration and event cards, dubbed the fare, Hellboy is a fitting tabletop
Deck of Doom, to inject semi-randomised tribute to the seminal comic-
situations into each playthrough. While the book character and his world.
broader storytelling means that
Hellboy’s scenarios lack some
of the narrative richness such
as Mansions, the peppering
of thematic flavour into the
moment-to-moment dungeon-
crawling experience gives the
TRY THIS IF
game an effective feel of the YOU LIKED…
comics and helps colour WARHAMMER
in each scenario and the QUEST:
characters. The bosses SILVER TOWER
Hellboy builds on
elements of co-
designer James
Hewitt’s past
dungeon-crawler,
making sure to
put the feeling of
fun first.

VICTORIAN MASTERMINDS
Get your moustaches twirling –
the world’s not gonna destroy itself
henever you see the
W CMON logo on a box,
you can be sure it’s going
to have high production value. But
sometimes you can’t help but wonder
if a game really, honestly requires all
that table space and moulded plastic.
On the surface, Victorian
Masterminds looks like a big game.
It has a big theme: competing
steampunk supervillains try to build
their own doomsday machines and
dominate the globe. It comes from a
pair of big designers, namely Blood
Rage creator Eric M. Lang and the
brain behind 7 Wonders, Antoine
Bauza. And it presents an impressive
tabletop spread, with chunky,
cartoony miniatures representing
buildings (which earn points when
captured) and scientists (who can
be spent to shortcut to certain
achievements along the way).
In fact, the game is a surprisingly
light worker-placement, engine-building
hybrid which, honestly, could have
fitted in a box half the size if it just used
cardboard counters and cards instead of
environment-bothering plastic figures
45-60m 2-4
and tokens. Not that this is a devastating
issue (unless the price point puts you
off); Victorian Masterminds is a fun-
enough little game.
Partly, it involves building gigantic,
deadly contraptions, which are
chosen from six possible options at
the game’s start. You have to gather
materials to piece your machine
together, placing jigsaw-style
components on a fetching blueprint
player mat. Partly, it requires
assigning agents, who are drawn
from the top of a shuffled, facedown
stack of thick, plastic gear tokens and
placed on one of the board’s five cities
(London, Paris, Moscow, Rome or
Washington D.C.). Each site will take
up to three stacked agents (two in a
two-player game), before they have to
be turned over and resolved in order.
Each agent will firstly snaffle a
resource specific to the city, then
trigger its own power. So the gunner
can attempt to capture a building,
for example, while the saboteur will
negate the next agent down’s power.
The fact that you can’t choose your
agent – well, until you collect enough
Da Vinci Codex tokens – adds an
extra stratum of challenge. It helps to
have a good memory, just in case you
end up accidentally sabotaging your
own efforts.
However, there is a bit of a
disconnect between the two halves.
While the agents help build the
machines, and the machines boost
your powers, you don’t really feel
how these gigantic inventions
impact on the game world. It’s
the agents who do all the work in
the capitals, while the machines sit
rather passively off to the side. Surely
with the OTT, cartoony steampunk
style, you’d want to imagine your
gargantuan, metallic tarantula
rampaging down the Strand, or
looming over the White House?
Instead, it feels like it never leaves
the workshop, especially as the game
ends when the first machine is built.
For both Lang and Bauza this is
definitely a minor work. It’s certainly
serviceable, looks great and adds a
neat little twist to worker-placement
mechanics, but it doesn’t quite
bolt together into a resoundingly
satisfying whole. And, we suspect,
14+ £40 would have worked just as well at
half the size and price.
WHAT’S IN DAN JOLIN
THE BOX?
◗ Central board
◗ Secret Service board
◗ Six machine sheets
◗ 48 machine
segment pieces
◗ 20 agents gears
◗ Four firepower
markers
◗ 85 part tokens
◗ 30 mayhem tokens
◗ 48 Da Vinci
Codex tokens
◗ 24 mission cards
◗ 20 building miniatures
◗ 12 scientist miniatures
◗ Monocle of
Forgetfulness token WE SAY
A straightforward game elaborately
presented, which is most likely
to appeal to fans of worker
placement. But it’s far from either
of its designers’ best work.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
IMAGINARIUM
A similarly steampunky game, which
also blended worker-placement (to
a lesser degree) and engine-building
(to a far greater degree).
tabletopgaming.co.uk 71
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
RED ALERT: SPACE FLEET WARFARE
Star phwoars
o quote Douglas Adams: “Space
T is big. Really big. You just won’t
believe how vastly, hugely, mind-
bogglingly big it is.” So it’s appropriate
that the gaming mat for Red Alert is so
massive that even a decent size kitchen
table will struggle to find room for it.
This preference for bigness in some
ways captures the essence of Red Alert;
it’s a title that takes a broad-brush
approach to gameplay to capture a
suitably epic sense of space combat.
Set millennia in the future, players
control the fleets of two rival factions –
the Commonwealth Alliance and the
Rebel Confederation – as they duke it
out for supremacy in the starry void.
The game is an iteration of Richard
Borg’s Commands & Colors series,
where the board is comprised of a hex
grid and split into three sectors. Each
of a player’s spaceships occupy one
hexagon on the board, and activating
them depends on which sector the
hex is in (right, centre or left). Players
have a small hand of command cards
drawn from a communal deck and
replenished each turn; unit activation
is determined by which card the player
chooses to play. For example, a card
may allow two units from the left sector
to activate, or two from the centre and
so on. It’s a wonderfully simple but
72 The Best Games of 2019
WHAT’S IN effective mechanic that adds a sense
THE BOX?
◗ Starfield game mat
◗ 92 starships
◗ 92 ship bases
of uncertainty to the proceedings; not
only do players have to prioritise which
precious few units they can use on a
given turn, but they have to do so within
◗ 154 poles
the limits of the cards they’re dealt.
◗ 18 space
feature tiles Apart from the look of the miniatures,
◗ 36 star tokens the factions in the game are identical,
◗ 32 faction markers so strategising depends largely on
◗ 11 red alert markers choosing which cards to play and how
◗ Three cloaking you utilise the different types of ship in
device markers each fleet. Some command cards come
◗ Six capital ships have special abilities that break up the
◗ 50 unit markers routine of gameplay, and further tactical
◗ Two victory stands
choices are afforded from a second deck
◗ 60 command cards
◗ 50 combat cards of combat cards. Each ship type is nicely
◗ 12 task force cards distinguished from its brethren and fill a
◗ 12 battle dice variety of combat roles; fighters are fast,
◗ Two unit summary short-range ships whilst battleships are
sheets more cumbersome but come equipped
with longer-range weaponry, for
example. The game also has an element
of resource management, as certain
actions like repairing damaged ships or
using combat cards require spending
valuable star tokens.
The combat avoids stagnating into
a war of attrition because destroying
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… THE GREAT WAR
Another entry in Borg's Commands & Colors series, The Great War takes a similar
set of mechanics as Red Alert and transports it to the trenches of World War I.
60-90m 2-6 14+ £100
enemy ships is largely secondary to
completing objectives and scoring
victory points. One feature of the combat
dice is the titular ‘red alert’ symbol. Used
to represent a malfunction on a ship,
it forces that unit to retreat and severly
hampers its capability, meaning that
outright destruction of a unit isn’t always
the only outcome of combat.
The only major niggle with the game
is a potential lack of replayability. The
rulebook only has six missions, two of
which are tutorials, and it would have
been nice if there had been more. The
game does include an army list-building
element for these scenarios, however,
and with a little bit of imagination players
could try to make up their own missions.
It’s also a shame that for a game so
accessible, the £100 price tag may put
off some players who would otherwise
appreciate its approachable nature.
What stands out most about Red
Alert is that it manages to strike that
balance between creating mechanics
that are straightforward and simple
but also provide a level of depth
that allows for complex strategising
and engaging moment-to-moment
gameplay. Space warfare is one
of those ideas that could easily be
mishandled and turned into an
obsessively over-detailed game with
a novel-length rulebook, but here
that temptation has been roundly
avoided. What players get instead is a
game that’ll clip along at a brisk pace
and make them feel like the daring
commander of a vast starfleet armada
in the process.
JAMES WINSPEAR
WE SAY
Simple but not simplistic, Red Alert
is a thoroughly enjoyable game
that offers both strategy and visual
spectacle. Though somewhat
pricey, its mechanics are elegant
and its gameplay dynamic.
LINDISFARNE
A snack for Odin
Designer: Damien Fleury, Alain Pradet | Artist: ann&seb
indisfarne is a whole lot of game
L in not a lot of box. With just a
deck of cards, three smallish
boards and a few handfuls of tokens,
this Viking dice-roller manages to
create an experience that feels like it
belongs in a package several times the
size – and price.
At the centre of the Norse action
is dice-rolling, with players chucking
cubes equal to the number of Vikings in
their clan: six to start, then fewer as they
head off to European shores in search
of regions to pillage. The results can be
assigned to each of the boards to try and
achieve the most unique die results,
longest consecutive run of numbers or
largest number of matching rolls. The
diverse objectives – with the caveat of
having to place at least one token and
only being able to assign dice to a single
board each turn – means that the luck of
the dice is offset, leaving enough room for
a competitive, tactical feel. The chance to
collect dice-modifying runes for unspent
Vikings at the end of a round opens up
control of the cubes further, without
taking away the excitement of throwing
down and seeing what turns up.
Achieve one of the objectives and
you’ll swipe one of that board’s attached
cards, which is where Lindisfarne’s
second clever half comes into play. The
cards can be worth points alone, but
also earn points for the player with the
largest collection and offer bonus score
for completing connected sections of
the panoramic frescos that run across
several cards. Meanwhile, objective
cards award specific sets of card suits,
based on the various destinations; cards
from the Viking home of Norway grant
WHAT’S IN bonus actions and scoring opportunities.
THE BOX?
◗ Three map boards Dice-rolling and card set-collection
◗ Six dice are two staples of the gaming world, and
◗ 38 destination cards Lindisfarne doesn’t necessarily reinvent
◗ 20 objective cards the wheel when it comes to its gameplay.
◗ 24 Viking tokens The rules will be familiar to those who’ve
◗ 12 rune tokens spent time in similar small-box card and
◗ First Player pawn dice games, and can be picked up in a
couple of minutes by everyone else.
That said, what the combination of
dice and cardplay here lacks in originality,
it makes up for with dependability as
tight as a longboat's planks. It’s wholly
satisfying to assign dice, collect cards and
score points, and the quickness of turns
and setup makes a good experience
even better. You’re left with the feeling of
having played a much more substantial
game thanks to the mixture of gameplay
elements and scoring considerations
coming together seamlessly.
Where Lindisfarne excels in making
its components go the distance – the
three main map boards flip over to
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… RAIDERS OF THE NORTH SEA
Love Vikings? This pairing of compact Norse-themed Eurogames will give you
plenty of gaming joy to be thankful Thor.
30-45m 2-4 15+ £15
come a final scoring sheet, cards score
in at least three different ways – its
presentation feels a little less inventive.
The muted wood effect and awkward
arrangement of its three Europe-forming
central boards, which serves a gameplay
purpose but looks strangely disjointed,
sits alongside cards that are nicely
illustrated but lack any individuality
versus any one of the countless Viking
games out there. In a word, the look of
Lindisfarne is forgettable.
Lindisfarne won’t change the world.
Taken piece by piece (of the few pieces
there are), its gameplay mechanics
and look are overly familiar and fail to
do anything special alone. Put them
together, though, and this compact set
becomes so much more than the sum
of its parts. It’s fast and fun, and asks
little of your time or money. A lot for a
little – who can argue with that?
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Its gameplay isn’t revolutionary –
but the amount it crams into an
extremely reasonable package is. This
is a thoroughly solid and strategic
experience that deserves the small
space it’ll occupy on your shelf.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 73
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

VILLAGERS
A top tableau-builder for your tabletop
30-60m 1-5 10+ £20 WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 170 cards
he Middle Ages were tough. An Bedded firmly beneath this positive Some villagers have value because

T era characterised in large part by

repression, poverty, warfare and
plague. The latter offers the thematic
starting point for newcomer designer
Haakon Gaarder, with Villagers’
European communities ravaged by
the Black Death and struggling to get
themselves back on their feet after so
many of their citizens have been lost to
the disease.
Sounds pretty grim. But Villagers’
bright, cheery illustrations and
graphic design (all impressively
done by Gaarder himself ) tell a
different story.
Despite being a competitive game,
it’s is all about co-operation – building
a new community by welcoming
new people to your village, and then
finding ways for them to help each
other, with greater rewards for all the
more co-operation you encourage. So,
in order for a jeweller to set up shop,
for example, you’ll need to establish a
production chain starting with a miner,
via a seeker and spelunker, plus you’ll
need a bit of help from the blacksmith
– hopefully one in your own village,
but if not, you can call on one of your
neighbours’ at a small cost.
and appealing theme (bolstered by
some admirably diverse character
design) is a tableau-builder that,
like Elizabeth Hargrave’s recent hit
Wingspan, involves many pleasing
card synergies. Every game will
end with each player leaning over
a sprawling set of cards, laid out
according to their relevant suit-driven
production chains, and totting up
points yielded by a variety of carefully
constructed interactions.
As with most tableau- or engine-
builders, player interaction is fairly
limited, although you will be able to
affect other players’ villages through
some of the ‘special’ villager cards
(the apprentice, for example, can
be played to nab a villager from
a rival), which adds a snatch of
take-that flavour. You’ll also be
drafting cards in the first phase of
each round, which means there is
some competition for the six face-up
cards on ‘the road’ where potential
villagers are laid out for selection,
each placed below a facedown
stack which can also be drawn from
semi-blindly, knowing only the card’s
profession-based suit.
they provide an essential link in a
production chain to a high point
scorer you might have in your hand.
◗ Six card dividers
◗ Five player boards
◗ 150 coins
◗ Kickstarter
Others enable you to unlock other expansion pack
cards, yielding a two-coin bonus. (Deluxe Bundle only)
Others give you big bonuses during ◗ Coin chest (wooden
the game’s two market phases, coins) (Deluxe
which come when the second and Bundle only)
final of the road’s six facedown
stacks are depleted.
It’s all satisfyingly implemented,
and neatly compact too, both in terms
of box size and play time. Gaarder
has also included a dynamic solo
mode, where you have to build your
village while being harried by an
evil countess, with her own deck of
challenging events. Which is all even
more impressive when you consider
this is the designer’s first published
game. We can’t wait to see what he
produces next.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
If you like your tableau-builders then
you have to check this one out.
Villagers is slickly implemented,
moreishly fun and, if you buy the
basic set, welcomingly inexpensive.

TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
WINGSPAN
It doesn’t have quite
the same wow-
factor production
value, but Villagers
shares Wingspan’s
strong sense of
gentle-but-deeply-
involving gameplay.

74 The Best Games of 2019

tabletopgaming.co.uk 75
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Four player mats
◗ 24 runes (acrylic)
◗ 45 character cards
◗ 92 story cards
◗ 44 hero and
anti-hero cards
◗ 40 experience tokens
◗ 11 adversary
quest cards

CALL TO ADVENTURE
Everyone’s got their own story to build
30-60m 1-4 13+ £35

he young apprentice vowed Many RPG players would agree card to your hand) and you can spend

T to wreak vengeance on the

Assassin’s Guild that executed
her father. But in order to do so, she
had to train as a killer and infiltrate
them, learning dangerous forgotten
lore along the way.
The foundling squire was an
unabashed thrillseeker, though he
had a good, unselfish heart. After
defeating a foul sorceress he put aside
his daredevilish ways and became
an enlightened master, sharing his
wisdom just as he’d once shared his
gains with the needy.
The lone hunter earned praise for
his heroic acts, yet all along he was
pursuing a villainous, secret agenda,
manipulating events for the benefit of
his dark, demonic master.
In most games, this trio of fantastical
narratives might offer a starting point:
a set character you select to head off
on further tabletop adventures. Call
to Adventure takes a different, rather
novel approach. All of the above
represent three different players’
endgame outcomes, each formed from
a tableau of tarot-sized cards collected
and played during an interestingly
narrative-driven engine-builder.
that character creation is the most fun
part of the process, and what Johnny
and Chris O’Neal have done here is
construct an entire game around that
idea. Where their Boss Monster was
about building dungeons, this is about
building protagonists. Starting with an
origin, a motivation and a hidden destiny,
each player builds their own three-act
story by choosing traits to add to their
character or challenges to set them – each
challenge offering two different paths,
often (but not always) presenting a choice
between a triumphant or a tragic result.
It’s a very simple structure, and most
sessions may whizz by too quickly for
some hardcore gamers’ tastes. But the
O’Neals tweak up the engagement
levels by adding hero and anti-hero cards
which can help with challenges or hinder
other players’ attempts and, best of all, by
replacing dice-rolling with rune-casting.
Satisfyingly cast in smooth acrylic,
Call to Adventure’s runes represent the
seven core D&D stats – strength, dexterity,
constitution, etc. – and can be cast only
in combinations that specific challenges
allow. However, you always have a set of
three core runes (one of which has a 50/50
chance of adding a hero or anti-hero
experience to add in ‘dark runes’, which
can boost your result while potentially
pushing you down your player mat’s
corruption track towards the ‘dark side’.
It’s a superb alternative to dice and
has been integrated so well it doesn’t
feel like a novelty. Indeed, it makes up
for some of the game’s flaws, such as the
way the tableaux are tricky to arrange, TRY THIS IF
with gained cards having to be tucked YOU LIKED…
under the character cards in such a way DUNGEONS
that they’re all too easy to whack out
& DRAGONS
Call to Adventure is
of alignment at the slightest brush of all about character
a shirt sleeve. Or a scoring system that and narrative
feels more fiddly and less intuitive than creation. So
it should for such a relatively light game. much so, it could
But these are minor complaints. If conceivably inspire
you’re a sucker for fantasy and appreciate character ideas for
games that are fuelled by narrative, then players of D&D and
you should definitely answer this Call. other fantasy RPGs.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
A neat, swift, story-driven tableau-builder
whose rune-casting element provides an
elegant and innovative alternative to dice.
Full disclosure: The author of
this review was a backer of Call
to Adventure on Kickstarter.

76 The Best Games of 2019

Come Adventure with Us!

www.brotherwisegames.com
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
CORINTH
Does the roll-and-write get
your goat or get your GOAT?
orinth feels and looks familiar.
C There’s a pool of six-sided dice.
There’s trading of goods. It’s set
in a historical port. It’s a roll-and-write.
Deliver the elevator pitch and you’ll
be asleep by the second floor. But drift
off in the lift and you’ll miss out on a
delightful little game that makes up for
its lack of originality with pure pleasure.
There’s another key reason Corinth
might seem so familiar. It began life
as Yspahan: The Dice Game, a spin-off
from Sébastien Pauchon’s Spiel des
Jahres-nominated dice-drafting debut
from 2006.
Yspahan’s way of divvying up a pool
of dice between six different actions sits
at the centre of Corinth’s gameplay, as
players take it in turns to take a group
of matching cubes from the harbour
board and cash them in for goods, gold
or the ability to navigate their steward
around a grid of icons for various extra
bonuses and points.
Dice stack up from the bottom of the
main board in ascending value, meaning
that not every action is guaranteed as
a choice each round (gold, goats and
moving the steward are always a given),
and the number of cubes determines
the strength of each action. It’s a simple
but superb way of offering up constantly
78 The Best Games of 2019
20-30m 2-4 8+ €20
shifting decisions and risk-reward
moments; do you fill out the more
numerous and easily-gotten lower-
value boxes on your sheet, or go for
the less common but potentially more
prosperous high-value results?
Grabbing goods gradually fills up
shops and completes districts – the
WHAT’S IN main way of scoring – while gold can
THE BOX? be spent on extra yellow dice to boost
◗ 150 game sheets only your roll or combined with goats to
◗ Nine white dice construct buildings for an array of helpful
◗ Three yellow dice effects to boost your score. Meanwhile,
◗ Harbour board any roll’s value can be used to send the
steward sauntering around the market
that number of spaces, with the Snake-
like challenge of never crossing your own
path; taking your time and landing on the
corners of the grid can reap a significant
amount of points, but could waste dice
better spent on filling out shops.
Though the ‘pick dice, do something’
core is almost laughably easy to grasp,
there’s plenty of things to keep in mind
and consider as you maximise your score
– the result is a very comfortable position
between strategy and simplicity.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… YSPAHAN
The clever dice-drafting is here, along with several of the elements of Pauchon’s
older game in a condensed form. Plus, it’s much easier to pronounce. Win-win.
Yspahan’s transition to a faster,
sleeker roll-and-write game is
frictionless, the alternating dice-drafting
and race to collect one-off bonuses only
available to the first player to fill out all
each district’s shops giving a refreshing
level of interaction and strategy to a
genre that often falls prey to the isolated
competition of ‘multiplayer solitaire’.
The passive-aggressive dice-picking of
players comes to the fore even more in
the two-player mode, where one person
gets two turns each round. At around
half the length of its predecessor (it’s
a perfect lunch game), Corinth moves
quickly but never feels passing.
Publisher Days of Wonder’s consistent
excellence when it comes to presentation
and production only helps seal an
easy deal, with the box’s sparse set of
components exuding quality. In a game
where the dice are the thing, they shine
here, looking, sounding and feeling
pleasing to chuck across the table or into
the box lid. The player sheets are similarly
a delight, neatly keeping everything
easy to track without sacrificing some
splashes of colour and visual flair.
Yspahan fans will find plenty that’s
familiar here, wrapped up in a smaller,
shorter, better-looking package. Those
after a new roll-and-write after last year’s
deluge of newcomers shouldn’t pass
up a more interactive and thoroughly
entertaining entry in the genre. Everyone
else deserves 20 minutes of fun and easy
(but still satisfyingly thinky) dice-rolling
and pen-scribbling. Something old(ish)
in the form of something new(ish), it’s
a pleasure through and through, even if
it’s not breaking any untouched ground.
When your biggest complaints
are that the box doesn’t include any
pencils and 150 sheets feels like too few
for the number of times you’ll want to
play, you know Corinth is a game that’s
doing something very right.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
It’s nothing particularly new – that
doesn’t matter one bit when
is such fun to play. It looks great,
teaches fast, plays quick and has just
enough depth to make it interesting
to return to time after time.
BUSHIDO
Five ninja stars out of five
he experience of two-player
T fighting games usually involves
methodically chipping away at
an opponent’s health, the crescendo of
victory preceded by careful planning over
several turns. Then in bursts Bushido and
asks: how would you like it if you could
kill your opponent in one go?
Your initial gut reaction to this
suggestion is probably that the fight
would feel unfair and unsatisfying.
With Bushido that couldn’t be further
from the truth. Here you appreciate the
sudden resolution of each fight because
it gives you the chance to go again, try a
different approach and build up a new
hand of cards. And if that doesn’t work?
Go again. And again.
Every element of the game – cards,
abilities, dice, tokens – has such a
precise purpose that if a player manages
to combine them all together for one
swift and deadly attack, it never feels
unjust but impressive – even if you are
on the losing side. While dice-rolling
is the core mechanic of the combat,
a lot of thought and planning comes
before it; luck in no way dominates
20-30m
the gameplay and is secondary to the
strategic elements.
Setup in Bushido is a crucial part of
the pre-combat phase. Players draft
technique cards that each belong to
different schools of combat, the styles
of which range from attack and defence
to dodging and focusing. While all the
schools have a good mix of abilities and a
variety of dice that can be drafted through
the use of their cards, their specialisation
has an effect on the flow of gameplay.
For example, the fire school focuses on
dealing a lot of damage and thus allows
players to primarily draft attack dice.
2-4 8+ £29
A five-card draft is really not a lot,
especially as there are both strategic
WHAT’S IN advantages and disadvantages to focusing
THE BOX?
◗ 20 dice
◗ 31 technique cards
◗ 12 weapons cards
too much on a particular school. However,
this is also what makes each turn count
and adds weight to every decision.
◗ Two hit tokens Players choose a weapon that can
◗ Four lock tokens enhance the abilities of the cards they
◗ Two guard tokens have just picked up previously. The
◗ 16 rage tokens final step of setup is to choose a guard,
◗ 10 torii/armour tokens which provides players with a base
◗ Two player boards set of dice to draft. These vary in their
offensive and defensive capabilities
depending on how aggressive players
want to be and also affects the bonus
they gain from their chosen weapon.
Only after this does the actual fighting
takes place. With the right combination
of techniques, weapon, a little luck of
the roll and a couple of bonus tokens, a
match can be over in just a few turns. If
a player can strike their opponent five
times or more undefended in one round,
they win immediately. This is not the only
path available to players, so if they want to
methodically chip away at their opponent’s
health over a series of turns, there is
absolutely a card build that will sustain
that type of gameplay as well. Even then, a
match will not last more than 30 minutes.
Bushido proves that being quick and
thoughtful do not have to be antithesis
to each other. It may be easy to play, but
the options and combos built into all
elements of the game will take several
plays to master and take advantage of
their full potential. Whether you prefer
that step-by-step carefully planned
combat or one fast finishing blow, Bushido
will let you fight the way you want to.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Bushido hits hard and fast in a flurry
of satisfying combos that can leave
you in awe. It is easy to be Bushido’s
fighter but hard to be its master.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
STREET FIGHTER:
COLLECTIBLE CARD GAME
While the UFS games provide
thoughtful, methodical combat, Bushido
doesn’t limit its players by fighting style
or take up a lot of time, offering
brawls that demand a rematch.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 79
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
JOHN CARTER OF MARS RPG
Interplanetary pulp perfection
t first glance there doesn’t seem
A to be anything too special about
John Carter of Mars – there’s
no unique mechanic or complicated
gimmick to help it stand out from the
crowd. Once you dig a little deeper,
however, you soon find that what the
game lacks in bells and whistles it
more than makes up for with a sheer,
unwavering commitment to having fun.
The entire game emits waves of pulp-
tinged excitement like a ball of madly
grinning radium, and it’s clear that the
designers made a conscious decision
to ditch any idea that didn’t mesh with
the theatrical heroics of the original
Barsoom stories. Everything from combat
to character creation encourages players
to leap out of windows, ride chandeliers
and pause a pitched battle to challenge the
enemy commander to an honourable duel.
It’s a refreshingly blunt take on the
pulp adventure genre, but in all truth
it’s probably the only real way to match
the tone of the setting. Dreamed up by
Edgar Rice Burroughs – also known for
creating Tarzan – the Barsoom books
are packed with tales of derring-do and
impossible heroism that would be a
shameless power fantasy if it wasn’t for
the air of cheerful sincerity it exudes.
The world Burroughs created is
saturated with violence and honour in
equal measure; it’s a world of radium-
infused rifles and jewelled princesses,
where multi-limbed monsters roam the
wastes and airships drift over blue canals.
Nothing about it seems particularly
80 The Best Games of 2019
278 13+ £42
original to modern sensibilities, but the
gleeful blend of so many different ideas
produces something that can’t easily be
found in tabletop gaming.
In order to achieve the properly pulpy,
heroic feel of John Carter of Mars, the
team at Modiphius has streamlined and
trimmed the 2d20 system, which has also
cropped up in several titles including Star
Trek Adventures and Mutant Chronicles.
It’s still chunkier than most deliberately
lightweight games out there, but any kind
of rule that could distract from the action
has been tossed out of the window.
One of the more obvious examples of
this comes from that fact that it doesn’t
bother with a traditional skill system.
Rather than parcelling out a couple of
things for each hero to be good at, the
game chooses to operate under the base
assumption that they’re all effortlessly
competent at anything they put their
minds to, whether that’s sneaking into an
enemy camp or tracking a band of raiders
through the burning Martian desert.
Some characters will still handle some
tasks better than others thanks to their
core stats, and every background lists a
couple of areas where individuals may
struggle, but beyond that they’re given the
room to be almost comically skilled.
This may sound a little silly, but
the titular John Carter was a dashing
hero who managed to instantly excel
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… PULP CTHULHU
There are a lot of similarities between John Carter of Mars and Pulp Cthulhu,
but the former leans into the madcap adventures a little harder.
at everything from duelling to piloting
airships, so why should our own heroes
be limited by such paltry things as training
and practice? Sure, it’s not wildly realistic,
but that isn’t the point of the game.
Several other areas have been trimmed
down, too. Every sword deals the same
amount of damage and movement is
abstracted into a handful of rough bands.
There aren’t any rules for cover; it’s
assumed that when characters are shot at,
they’ll naturally leap behind a convenient
pillar while thinking up their next quip.
This does detract from the game’s
tactical combat, but that’s not what John
Carter really cares about either. Combat’s
main role isn’t testing player skill or even
luck, but giving the characters a chance to
show off their bravery and strength.
Players who get their kicks from
mechanically optimising their builds
or struggling through dangerous, dirty
worlds of darkness may quickly tire of the
game’s antics. If you’re after a few nights
of gaming guaranteed to stick a smile on
your face, however, this is an unexpected
gem just waiting to be uncovered.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
WE SAY
Everything from the rules to
the artwork drips with liquid
heroism. It may be a little dumb,
but it’s undeniably fun.
GALACTIC SCOUNDRELS
AERION
he Oniverse is a collection
T of whimsical but strategic
games set in a mysterious
dreamland. They’ve been around
since 2010’s Onirim, all by the same
designer and artist, all for one or
two players, and none with much
explanation of the setting. Opening
olo play is a big thing in games
S right now, but only a few let
you play capital-S Solo, as in
Han. Galactic Scoundrels wears its
influences on its sleeve; it’s a game
of smuggling, sabotage, smirking
and shooting first, with three rounds
titled Episode IV, Episode V and
Episode VI.
It’s a card-based narrative game.
You’re all captains of scrubby little
starships. A job comes up and all
players can bid for it in a bluffing
round based on Liar’s Dice. The
player who ends up with it must do
the mission; this is mostly the other
players playing encounter, character
or twist cards, and the captain trying
to counter them with traits, crew or
passengers, dumping their cargo,
or bartering with the other players
for help. There’s bluffing, lying and
cheating, tensions build, ships get
upgraded and jobs get harder.
your first one feels like starting a
series of novels with the third book.
Aerion, the latest, is a dice
game of building sky ships by
rolling dice to buy components
(blueprints, material, crew) from
one of six piles, by matching the
score combinations they need. It’s
like Liar’s Dice without bluffing,
and rerolls have to be paid for by
burning uncollected resource cards.
Complete all six ships and you win;
run out of cards and you lose.
It’s a clever game of intersecting
constraints, and squeezes a lot
of ideas into its small box, but
‘clever’ doesn’t necessarily mean
‘enjoyable’. The basic game is dry
and unexciting, but another trait of
the Oniverse games is that each one
comes with several expansions in
the box – six in the case of Aerion.
Once you’ve mastered the
basic game you’re encouraged
90-120m 3-5 13+ £24
Every time a card is played,
the person who played it must
build it into the unfolding story
of the job, so the game turns into
a collaborative story. At least, it’s
supposed to, though we found
it bitty and small-e episodic.
Although the individual cards
catch the atmosphere of Star Wars,
Firefly and similar stories, it’s too
easy to get stuck with a hand that
shuts you out of the play, and
therefore the narrative.
It’s entertaining – natural
storytellers and genre fans will
enjoy the experience – but the
gameplay is too random to
appeal to competitive gamers, the
narrative isn’t solid enough for
story game fans and, at one-and-
a-half to two hours long, Galactic
Scoundrels is never going to set a
record for the Kessel Run.
JAMES WALLIS
15m 1-2 10+ £24
to mix and match these add-
ons, almost at random. In fact
most of the components in the
box are for the expansions, not
the base game. There’s a good
variety, but no indication of which
ones fit together best. Some
recommended combinations
would have been nice, but then so
would having the cards pre-sorted
to start the basic game, instead of
having to dig through the decks to
find them.
If you’re new to the Oniverse,
the place to start is probably
Onirim. Aerion works well – it
balances chance and strategy, it’s
a tight solo or two-player co-op
game, and the expansions are
integral to the design, not stretch
goals tacked on at the end – but it
makes few concessions to the new
arrival in its unique universe.
JAMES WALLIS
tabletopgaming.co.uk 81

Set in a grim future, Farsight immerses players in a
world where powerful Private Military Corporations
ight over the Earth’s last remaining resources.
Developed over 8 years, Farsight brings
in-depth wargaming to the table in a way that’s
elegant, accessible, and easy to engage with.
Each turn, players deploy units face-down to the
battleield, revealing them when they’re spied upon,
or enter combat. On a parallel ‘Shadow Map,’ hidden
specialists are deployed to help spy on the enemy,
sabotage units and shift the course of the war.
As the corporations battle for control of the ield,
for building and crafting, but in the city, players get
access to powerful combinations of actions.
But Ragusa has a trick up its sleeve - when
building in the city, your houses may reactivate the
houses that are already there, whether they belong
to you or another player. This simple rule keeps
everyone engaged, even when it’s not their turn,
and means that your early choices can give way to
Set in the titular Renaissance city in the 15th
a huge advantage later on in the game.
century, Ragusa tasks players with building the
Meshing together worker placement, market
city, its walls, and making use of its growing
manipulation, hidden objectives and trading,
economy to ind their fortunes!
Ragusa isn’t without its complexity - but still only
Each turn, players place houses in and around
asks players to make one choice per turn, keeping
the city and countryside, which is split into hexes.
things light and fast.
Instead of placing on the hexes, players build
between them - activating all 3 surrounding hexes.
1-5 PLAYERS - 60 MINS PLAYTIME - £55 RRP
In the countryside, this means collecting resources
events ranging from weather to deadly plagues
encourage players to review their strategies. The
irst player to capture 8 of 12 areas, or the 3 areas
closest to their opponent, claims victory.
Out the box, Farsight supports 2-4 players,
with a blank map, cards to customise the terrain,
and enough units in the box for each player to
build a completely unique army to wage war with!
Our favorite thing about Farsight is just how
easy it is to get to grips with for the amount of
strategy it ofers. With four simple phases and a
handful of combat modiiers, Farsight eases players
into efortless strategic gameplay. Before long you’ll
be lanking, ambushing and conquering your rivals.
2-4 PLAYERS - 60 MINS PLAYTIME - £60 RRP
THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
FARSIGHT
A battlefield for veterans and rookies alike
hen one thinks of
W wargames, the words
‘suitable for new gamers’
and ‘plays within an hour’ are not
the first that come to mind. But
with Farsight that is exactly what you
get. It maintains the core staples of
the venerated genre and introduces
some exciting twists of its own that
make for a quick, approachable and
strategic game that will neither scare
off rookies nor bore veterans.
What immediately grabs with
Farsight is its Battleship-like
mechanic of hiding specialists –
spies, saboteurs, seers and supply
lines – somewhere on the map.
Every specialist has an ability that
can help the fighting units on the
board, giving them an advantage
over the opponent’s forces. The
abilities are not all-powerful and
have to be placed strategically on
certain areas of the board (marked
on players’ individual maps, so
the opponent doesn’t know their
location) to affect hostile units.
While it is very tempting to use
the specialist powers as much as
possible, there is a danger that
the opponent may guess at their
location and send an assassin to
eliminate them, removing them
from the game completely.
WHAT’S IN The specialist abilities add
THE BOX?
◗ Map board
◗ Four player boards
◗ Two dry-erase pens
excitement to the battlefield. Through
their addition the game becomes more
than simply positioning units of the
right strength to take objectives and
◗ Start team token
eliminate opponents. Sabotaging at
◗ 48 casualty tokens
◗ 24 status tokens the right moment or placing an extra
◗ 24 base tokens unit through a supply line can easily
◗ 40 faction tokens turn the tide of battle. Yet it also doesn’t
◗ 20 hit dice feel overpowered or unfair, because
◗ Two co-ordinate dice the opponent can figure out the secret
◗ 26 event cards location of specialists and take them
◗ 80 specialist cards out of play. A well-timed specialist
◗ 136 unit tiles combo feels great but a perfect pinpoint
◗ 36 terrain cards
assassination feels even sweeter.
You will need all the strategic
advantage you can get. In Farsight
the presumed dominance over the
battlefield does not necessarily mean
a guaranteed victory. There are several
paths to victory and while some of
them can be achieved with brute
force, others may be done through
cunning and careful tactical play.
While the combat is still dice-
based (there is a dice-free mode
for those players who would like
to eliminate the element of luck
from their gameplay completely), it
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… BATTLESHIP
Borrowing from the classic and expanding its gameplay to offer a far deeper
experience, hidden unit deployment is Farsight’s centrepiece, making this light
wargame challenging for newcomers and grizzled vets alike.
50-90m 2-4 12+ £58
doesn’t detract from the strategy and
thinking that surrounds it. The luck
spices up combat, adding a bit of
unpredictability, but doesn’t subtract
from a well-executed manoeuvre. The
sequence of actions can be as, if not
more, important than the units that
get moved on the board.
Farsight is so much more than big
mechs smashing each other on the
battlefields of different terrains over
faceless objectives. It is still generic
enough to give a certain detachment
from the brutal realities of war and to
allow players to think of its combat
in an abstract chess-like puzzle style.
However, its hide-and-seek gameplay
element, reminiscent of Battleship
but with more substance, adds a lot
of excitement and layers to accessible
combat gameplay.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Farsight is a great starting point for
those new to the wargaming genre,
while for veterans it still retains
enough freshness with its Battleship-
like hidden placement mechanics.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 83
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
THE BOLDEST
And the Beautiful-est
he Boldest can easily put some
T of the prettiest board games
to shame. Its calm, and at first
glance understated, art style reveals
impressively intricate details the more
you look, and tells the story of the game
better than any rulebook exposition
ever could. This is a story of adventures,
of venturing into the forest to defeat
mysterious monsters and find precious
items and artefacts.
Adventuring in the world of The
Boldest is reserved for the best(est) –
which, in this case, means strength in
numbers. Only the biggest party earns
a spot on the expedition and therefore
gets to enjoy its spoils. Players, under
the cover of screens, select adventurers
of the same type and assign them to one
of the three expeditions. Once all the
choices have been allocated, the type of
parties and their number are revealed,
and the player who has the most cards
in each category heads into the forest (a
84 The Best Games of 2019
skip a round before they can be played
again – apparently, the adventuring
party ends up feeling a bit hungover after
celebrating their successful expedition
and needs a day’s break. So if an
opponent won the bid for the warrior
expedition last turn, it is safe to assume
that they won’t have a lot of warriors
to compete this time around.
In a nice touch, each faction of
adventurers has its own artwork and
– and this is important – a different
animal companion. Condolences,
however, must be given to the red
player, who in an roster of animals
filled with cute otters, kittens and dogs
drew... a frog. Animals serve as the
joker cards of the game, able to bolster
the strength of any group: another great
move from designer Sophia Wagner
who demonstrates clearly throughout
the gameplay (because another
reminder never hurts) that animals are
simply better than humans.
There is only one fault with The
Boldest: the quality of its components
doesn’t rise to heights of the quality of
its artwork. The cards and other pieces
are thin and flimsy, and even the main
board bulges as it is placed on the
table. In a less attractive game, this
might have been a smaller problem,
but when you want to preserve and
admire every component of the game,
its fragility is disappointing.
30-90m 2-5 10+ £60 The gameplay of The Boldest might be
simple: bid some cards, claim rewards,
WHAT’S IN grid of cards offering a variety of victory make sure enough cards are left to play
THE BOX?
◗ Double-sided board
◗ Five player screens
◗ Five flag tiles
points) to collect the rewards.
While it may seem that the bidding in
this adventuring auction is quite random,
next turn – yet it has enough variety and
abilities to stay strategically competitive
and enticing, without needlessly
there are actually quite a few in-built overcomplicating things. There is always
◗ Five planning tables
tells during each round. For example, just enough to sustain the players’
◗ Five hamlets
◗ Central tableau most characters can only pick up items interest and encourage them to return
◗ 140 forest cards from the bottom-most row of the forest, to the mysterious forest once again.
◗ 180 hero cards meaning that all players will essentially ALEX SONECHKINA
◗ 10 starting be competing for the same four items. If
item cards one of them is particularly rich in victory
◗ Five fire cards points, it becomes pretty clear which cards WE SAY
◗ Four starting The Boldest easily stuns with its
other players will put down to get them.
artefact cards beauty, even if the component quality
It may be really hard to predict does not adhere to the high standards
exactly how many cards of each type of its artwork. Its auction mechanics
an opponent has, but guesstimating are simple, yet offer compelling
the approximate number is pretty easy. gameplay with enough depth to keep
The cards played in the last turn have to the game interesting and challenging.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
SPARTACUS: A GAME OF BLOOD & TREACHERY
Bidding was one of the best parts of Spartacus, a game that mixed several game
mechanics and styles in one arena. The Boldest manages to tie a similar auction
aspect closer to the core gameplay, even if thematically it makes a little less sense.
SORCERER
Custom-mage combat
30-90m 1-4 14+ $50

their deck, discard pile and even their WHAT’S IN

orcerer’s simple, one-word
opponent’s hand to maximise their THE BOX?
fighting power. ◗ Four character
Victory isn’t just playing your cards decks (each with
right, though. In a decision that will a skill card and
no doubt turn off those players after 10 deck cards)
a purely card-based clash, Sorcerer’s ◗ Four lineage
decks (each with
battle phase uses dice to determine how
a skill card and
many hits are dished out on either side 20 deck cards)
of each battlefield. The unpredictability ◗ Four domain
of the dice is smartly mitigated by the decks (each with
common ability to gain reroll tokens that a skill card and
can be used to improve your own rolls 10 deck cards)
or hamper those of your opponent, with ◗ Blood Pool card
successful hits divided up into critical ◗ Four player boards
strikes divvied up by the attacker and ◗ Three London
battlefield boards
normal blows decided by the defender,
◗ Underground
allowing some control over how battlefield board
devastating a lucky roll ends up being. ◗ Seven battle dice
The addition of dice in itself isn’t a ◗ One energy die
problem – their integration with the card ◗ Seven wooden cubes
abilities feels natural and well judged ◗ Six red glass beads
together, forming both a personalised when it comes to fairness. But it is in the ◗ Six blue glass beads

S name is the unassuming top

hat from which it pulls an
endless stream of colourful scarves.
Its lore brings together zombies,
vampires, hellish demons, Medusan
snakepeople, Lovecraftian cosmic spawn
and you-name-it in a battle for Victorian
London. Its gameplay is similarly
missing only the kitchen sink, as it
mashes up card-battling, dice-chucking,
deckbuilding and even area control in a
smorgasbord of interlocking mechanics.
What’s so impressive about the whole
thing is how satisfying and easy it is to
get to grips with, even if its overstuffed
nature leaves a few baggy areas.
Best of all, Sorcerer is tremendous fun
from the off. At its centre is a Magic: The
Gathering-style card-battler, as players
summon minions and cast spells to
claim two of the three regions of London
represented by boards in the middle
of the table. Like Magic, there’s a huge
amount of joy to be found in assembling
your personal deck, but Sorcerer cuts
out the anxiety and effort of learning
specific card combinations and selecting
every card individually by simplifying
each player’s 40-card ‘grimoire’ to three
component parts: character, lineage
and domain. Each is represented by a
fixed list of 10 or 20 cards that combine
deck with distinctive gameplay effects
and a unique ‘avatar’ represented by a
cardboard standee who can lend their
abilities to a battlefield each round. The
decks can be selected specifically, drafted
or randomised in a matter of seconds,
resulting both in a game that feels like
it has a significant amount of flexibility
out of the box (extra decks are available
as expansions) and the entertainment of
creating a custom character in the vein
of KeyForge’s algorithmically-generated
decks, with the likes of Ariaspes the
Necromancer of the Screaming Coast
and Miselda the Bloodlord of the
Haunted Forest hammering home the
game’s enjoyably over-the-top tone.
Seeing how your particular deck
holds up against your opponent’s –
whether for the first or fortieth time
– is a delight. With three battlefields
to squabble over, the added layer of
area control as minions hop between
adjacent locations to lend their
strength to allies or weaken enemies
gives Sorcerer’s combat a different,
dynamic feel to the direct head-to-
head confrontation of traditional
card-battlers. The interaction between
cards on both sides of the table amps
this up, as abilities pop off left, right and
centre (literally) and players dig through
battles that Sorcerer can begin to groan
under its own weight. Both players
having the chance to force rerolls, trigger
◗ Four avatar standees
◗ Three card dividers
◗ Foam block
◗ Three fate counters
abilities and activate each card in turn ◗ 69 damage/
for up to three battlefields with eight omen counters
minions apiece can lead to Sorcerer ◗ 49 arthropod/
slowing down during what should be flame counters
the most exciting part of the game. It’s
this bagginess that means the game can
take up to 90 minutes (or more) to play,
falling well outside the realm of being
a snappy half-hour duel – particularly
given the extra table space required.
In some ways, though, Sorcerer’s
excess is part of its charm. It’s a game TRY THIS IF
to gorge upon, experimenting with the YOU LIKED…
glut of deck combinations available and MAGE WARS
the surprisingly digestible gameplay ARENA
offered by its buffet of cards, dice, Sorcerer is another
generous mash-up
boards and tokens. It runs a little
of card battles,
long, but it’s hard to regret those extra customisable
minutes spent in the company of a deckbuilding, dice
game that offers so much. rolling and board-
MATT JARVIS based action.
WE SAY
Its battle phase could be tighter,
but Sorcerer rewards the extra
time it requires with a tremendous
combination of gameplay elements
and a world overflowing with deck
combinations to play around with.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 85
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS:
GHOSTS OF SALTMARSH
Seafaring scenarios that won’t leave you salty
rom ghost ships and smugglers
F to shark-people and kraken, this
seaborne supplement for D&D’s
fifth edition cheerfully plunders the
long list of nautical clichés to craft
a half-dozen quests that – though
they may not have the world-shaking
consequences or careful plotting of
other campaigns – offer a pirate king’s
hoard of swashbuckling excitement.
Rather than a central villain to
overthrow or dire threat to battle, the
scattered adventures of Ghosts of Saltmarsh
are linked by their connection to the sea
and the bustling port town of Saltmarsh.
Each of them is chunky enough to last
at least a couple of sessions of fun and
provide their own little arcs of excitement
and explanation, whether that involves
raiding a sinking ship or negotiating
with marsh-dwelling lizard folk.
Like 2017’s Tales from the Yawning
Portal, each of the individual quests is a
reimagined take on a classic adventure
from D&D’s history. Where its predecessor
kept each of its dungeons neatly separated
from the others, Ghosts of Saltmarsh
puts some effort into working them into
a more-or-less functional campaign.
The slight hesitancy over this comes
from the fact that you probably won’t
be able to take the book as it is and run
smoothly from the first page through to the
final one. If you look at the recommended
levels of the individual adventures you’ll
86 The Best Games of 2019
spot a few gaps here and there – even
if they all lined up, the nature of RPG
parties means you’ll probably have to take
diversions into unmarked waters anyway.
Fortunately, the designers have planned
well for this; there are plenty of tables,
maps and adventure hooks to lead you
off the beaten path with comparatively
little pain. Everywhere you look there are
diversions and missions to occupy a party
for a few days or interesting NPCs for them
to befriend. The stage is set for political
manoeuvring within the town of Saltmarsh,
or you could choose to ignore this in favour
of more battles against pirate princes.
Importantly, the need for these
diversions only really begins to appear
once the party have a few adventures
under their belt. Hopefully by that point
everybody should be more comfortable
with the idea of going off-script; it’s very
unlikely that newer GMs will be forced to
pull together something entirely original.
Once you feel comfortable in the setting
and the rules, there’s some truly impressive
scope for expanding things how you see fit.
Of course, there’s nothing forcing you to
run Ghosts of Saltmarsh with a campaign
in mind. Most of the adventures work
wonderfully as one-offs – though a trio of
the earlier examples feature direct links that
can be awkward to work around – and are
kept generic enough that it’s the work of a
few minutes to slot them into any campaign
or quest that happens to head seaward.
256 13+ £39
Even if you don’t use any of the
adventures at all it may still be worth
picking up the book for its lengthy rules
on sea combat, sailing and battling
underwater beasties. These really add to
the windswept nautical feel of the tome;
simply upgrading a ship until it sprouts
countless ballistae and magical sails can
become the focus of an entire campaign.
The toolbox nature of the rules and
adventures provides something new to
D&D; in many ways Ghosts of Saltmarsh
works best when it’s used to provide a
backbone to your own homebrewed
campaign rather than as a completely
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
self-contained unit. Most kitchen-table D&D –
campaigns end up carving out their own WATERDEEP:
stories anyway, and few pre-written DUNGEON
adventures suit this quite as well as this one. OF THE
If you’re looking for something that will MAD MAGE
constantly force the characters into action If you enjoyed the
the more focused D&D campaigns may chance to peel
suit you better, but if you’re comfortable dungeons off from
Mad Mage you’ll love
with letting the players stumble their way
doing it with Ghosts
into dramatic finales this latest book will of Saltmarsh.
set you on a course for many months of
smooth sailing.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
WE SAY
If your group has any interest in
seaborne adventures this is an
easy buy, whether you run it as
a campaign on pinch adventures
or ideas at your leisure.
SUMMONER’S ISLE
Wyrms and trolls and sprites, oh my!
Designer: Artist:
odesty is too unappreciated
M a virtue in board games
these days. With Kickstarter
encouraging a ‘bigger boxes, better
components, more miniatures’
approach to game design (with,
admittedly, some spectacular results),
it’s easy to overlook the value of a
travel-friendly, small-box game that
won’t knacker your back lugging it
to your next game night. And just
because a game is light, that doesn’t
have to mean it’s lightweight.
Summoner’s Isle, the debut title
from independent designer Robbie
Munn, is one such game. It comes
with a compact, double-sized board,
a selection of dinky cardboard tokens
and a single custom die for each
player. Its rulebook is only a few
pages long, and most participants will
absorb how to play before the first
round is half over. Yet once you get
stuck in, you’ll find your mind racing
with all the tactical possibilities each
game presents.
Like Root it is an area-control affair
with a relatively limited number of
40-60m 2-4 12+ £20
WHAT’S IN areas to control. Like Risk it gives
THE BOX?
◗ Double-sided
game board
◗ Four wyrm tokens
you only three kinds of ‘troop’ to
deploy. Each player is a summoner,
contesting for supremacy of a single
island to prove their creature-
◗ 12 troll tokens
◗ 36 sprite tokens conjuring worth. The first to earn 36
◗ Four turn energy triumphs outright, although if
order counters the game reaches six or seven rounds
◗ Four energy counters before that happens then the player
◗ Journey rune with the highest energy at the end
◗ Four six-sided of the final round is the winner in a
custom dice lesser sense.
◗ Cloth token bag The tricky thing is you need
◗ Eight rules
to spend that energy to put your
summary cards
creatures on the island, placing
them on any available space when
you do so – even in the middle of
territory already dominated by
another player. Also, the further
along the energy track you are, the
greater energy penalty you have
to pay at the end of each round;
while anyone lagging behind will
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… ROOT
They’re very different games in terms of strategic weight, but if you’re
the kind of player who enjoys making animals fight over limited territory,
Summoner’s Isle will certainly appeal as a lighter alternative.
conversely receive a bonus to
their energy – a neat mitigation
mechanic which prevents runaway-
leader syndrome. So summoning
energy needs to be carefully
managed throughout.
The core of the game involves
placing and battling with those
creatures. There are the little
sprites, which are weak but low-
cost, and receive a defence bonus
if supported by their spritey pals,
who also grant a significant energy
bonus at each round’s close. There
are trolls, tough and versatile, able
to pull off three actions each during
their activation phase. And for each
faction there is a single wyrm: big,
strong and allowed to switch places
with adjacent allies at an energy
cost, to slither through to the
frontlines at the start of each turn.
With small territories and few
placement spots, it doesn’t take
long for any game, even two-player,
to become hotly contested – and
swiftly contested, too, as combat is
slickly resolved with a single die roll.
Each game plays quickly, meaning
its engaging intensity is maintained
throughout, and there are no
attention dips, with each round’s
phases arranged so there’s barely
any downtime. There is a player turn
order (always favouring whoever’s
lowest on energy), but the phases
are arranged by creature rather than
by player: so everyone’s wyrms go
first, then everyone’s trolls, then
everyone’s sprites.
It may not be to everyone’s
tastes – especially those of us
who love plonking finely-wrought
minis on expansive boards – and
the board design might be a bit
too busy for some. But there’s an
undeniable appeal to the compact
(and reasonably-priced) elegance
of Summoner’s Isle. It is a modest
success, in all the best ways.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
It’s fierce, fast and fits nicely
into your carry-on luggage.
Sometimes small is beautiful.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 87
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
JONATHAN STRANGE &
MR. NORRELL: A BOARD
GAME OF ENGLISH MAGIC
Will the book-based game
leave you under its spell?
onathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A
J Board Game of English Magic has a
lot of expectation to live up to. It’s
designed by two of the co-creators of the
thematically rich, mechanically complex
Lord of the Rings adaptation War of the
Ring. It’s illustrated by Ian O’Toole, the
talented artist behind the sumptuous
visuals of Vinhos, Lisboa and The Gallerist.
Its source material is Susanna Clarke’s
dense Hugo Award-winning, Man Booker
Prize-longlisted, adapted-for-TV bestseller
crammed with erudite homages to classic
literature and a spectacularly realised
vision of an alternative 19th-century
Britain where magic is real, but forgotten.
Given the combined cachet of its
creators, maybe the board game was always
going to face an insurmountable challenge
of anticipation. Whatever the reason, it’s
hard not to feel that Jonathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell is a little less than the sum of its parts.
That’s certainly not to say it lacks craft.
Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello’s
svelte gameplay – War of the Ring fans may
be in for a shock at the length of both the
game and its rulebook – smartly seesaws
between the characters’ pursuit of social
standing and their efforts to revive magic.
88 The Best Games of 2019
60-80m 2-4 4+ £40
WHAT’S IN The need for balance is reflected by the
THE BOX?
◗ 48 invitations
◗ 48 introductions
◗ 33 feats of magic
dual-use invitation and introduction
cards held by players, which can either
be spent at the matching locations
around the board’s map of 1800s Europe
◗ 24 spells to leverage more social opportunities or
◗ Six named
instead used to contribute the naturalistic
connexions
◗ 18 books of magic elements required to cast spells. Actions
◗ 12 cards of Marseilles selected at the outset of each turn, which
◗ Four magician pieces can’t be repeated until all tokens are
◗ 44 wooden discs recovered, help dictate which elements
◗ Fairy disc can be used, making maximising your
◗ Year token conjuring during each round vital. This
◗ Map of Europe increases the characters’ magicianship,
and London the trait that will define their standing by
◗ Four magician boards
the end of the game. Social prestige may
◗ 78 spell element
tokens not put Strange, Norrell, Miss Redruth
or John Segundus on top alone, but
attending the right balls and shaking the
right hands enables the characters to gain
companions who make their ascent to
magical mastery that much easier.
When the end of the game might come
is unclear. Strange and Norrell’s arch
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… PANDEMIC
Travelling around a map playing your cards carefully sits at the centre of both
of these games, though the competitive and co-op titles are different enough
to sit side-by-side.
nemesis, the Gentleman with the Thistle-
down Hair, gathers strength as cards are
drawn and periodically pops up every few
rounds, giving players the chance to defeat
him and bring the game to an immediate
end by surpassing his own magical might.
If they fail… nothing happens. The game
continues, the characters continue to tour
Europe and perform tricks, and the years
pass until the Gentleman returns again.
If he remains undefeated by the end of
the game, there’s little consequence; the
game just ends up being a little longer. It's
underwhelming in its fleeting execution,
and struggles to make the pursuit of
magicianship feel like anything more than
a thinly-veiled point-counting exercise.
The disappointing lack of atmosphere
and theme extends to the entire game.
While the gameplay is perfectly fine
as an hour of action selection, board
movement and cardplay, with interesting
decisions present in how those cards
are used, it never feels especially
magical. The Gentleman’s appearance
and spells drawn when feats of magic
are completed allow for occasional
interludes to the core of moving, drawing
and discarding cards, but outside of
O’Toole’s outstanding dressing of the
components Strange & Norrell largely
fails to engage with the promising setting
of its source material.
From another creative team, the game
would feel like a perfectly acceptable
adaptation of a popular book. The
fundamentals are there: the gameplay
enjoyable enough to pass the time, the
lightness of theme elevated by exquisite
presentation. From this particular line-up
of tabletop talent, however, it’s hard to
shake the sense of a missed opportunity.
What could have been something
extraordinary is simply conventional.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell doesn’t
quite live up to the lofty expectations set
by its creators – that doesn’t mean it’s a
bad game. The balancing of social standing
and magical power is cleverly reflected
in the dual-use cards, and presents
plenty of interesting decisions to mull
over. Plus, it looks astonishing. It doesn’t
quite feel as magical as it should, though,
leaving a feeling of unfulfilled potential.
INUIT: THE SNOW FOLK
Do you intuit it’s Inuit in it innit?
fter the furore over Manitoba last
A year, and its crass inaccuracies
about native American tribes,
the makers of Inuit must have known
their game would be examined with
a fine walrus-ivory comb. Inuit’s
rulebook opens with a statement on the
importance of respecting the history
and traditions of actual cultures, and
lists three Inuit consultants in the
credits. Board & Dice has taken care to
get this one right. Which, given that it’s a
re-theme of 2017’s Natives, which got it
wrong, is definitely a good thing.
I don’t think anyone’s going to
be complaining about issues of
representation in Inuit, because
they’ll be too busy complaining that
this is £40 for a mostly empty box with
only 160 cards and four long, thin
boards. Aerion (reviewed on page 75)
has 133 cards, plus dice and tokens in
a smaller box, and is nearly half the
price. Plus Aerion has six expansions
included; Inuit has two.
Price doesn’t just reflect
components, of course – it’s also
about the quality of the experience
and its longevity. Does Inuit’s style of
play justify an inflated price tag?
At its icy core Inuit is a simple
engine-builder, where your engine
is one of four villages: Crow, Raven,
Owl or Puffin. Each turn you activate
one group of your villagers to gather
something from the Great White, the
pool of face-up cards in the middle.
Whalers gather whales, bear hunters
WHAT’S IN bring back polar bears and so on.
THE BOX? Shamans find rites and spirits which
◗ Four village boards give you one-off abilities or special
◗ 117 base
scoring conditions; scouts add extra
game cards
◗ 46 optional cards to the Great White, and elders,
module cards crucially, find more Inuit to add to
◗ Scoring pad your village.
The more villagers you have
in a group, the more cards they
can gather. But they may be from
different villages, which means
they’ll work for you but their final
victory points go elsewhere. If it
wasn’t clear, the player with the
most victory points (from hunted
animals, rites, spirits, weapons and
villagers) when the Polar Nightfall
arrives wins.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… SPLENDOR
Inuit puts a different spin on simple engine-building, and both games are quick
to learn and have rich, evocative art.
45m 2-4 13+ £40
There isn’t much opportunity for
player interaction, at least in the basic
game, apart from taking Great White
cards you know other players want.
But that helps things rattle along at
speed, and the ever-changing mix of
the available cards prevents too much
strategising in advance. When your
turn comes, there will probably only
be one or two things you’ll want to do.
It’s interesting, but not deep.
The expansions – although if they
come in the box they’re not really
expansions, more like optional
components – add conflict between
the villages, legendary characters,
great game and seasons. There’s
nothing radical here; most of the
extra cards amount to little more
than higher victory points, and
the addition of seasons is fine but
doesn’t change enough. If I’d paid
for either as an actual expansion, I’d
have been disappointed.
It’s not great with two players,
and suffers a little from the
runaway-winner problem and its
opposite; once you drop behind
– and all that takes is a couple of
rounds where other people are
adding villagers and you aren’t –
catching up is very hard.
There’s much to admire in Inuit:
it’s fast to teach and play, evocative,
has clever touches, looks great, and
its attention to cultural detail is
admirable. On the downside: forty
quid. At half that price, without the
expansions, I’d be raving about this as
a modern gateway game. As it is, it’s
definitely worth a play, but play before
you buy.
JAMES WALLIS
WE SAY
Inuit does a lot of things right and
has atmosphere in spades, so it’s
a shame it’s priced itself out of an
area of the market where it could
have shone like the midnight sun.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 89
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
BATTLE RAVENS
Become Vi-king of the hill in this battle of wits and luck
n contrast to how it’s usually
I portrayed in pop culture, a lot
of Viking Age conflict was less a
screaming charge of axe-swinging
maniacs and more a deadlier version
of a rugby scrum. Such warfare
involved two sides in tight formation
pushing at one another behind a wall
of shields, taking thrusts with swords
and spears when the opportunity
arose. It was grinding, it was slow and
it was bloody. Inspired by these brutal
melees, Battle Ravens pits two players
against one another as they struggle
to slaughter each other’s army of
cardboard Norse and Anglo-Saxons.
At its core, the game is essentially one
of resource allocation and probability
values. Each square of the game board
represents one segment of the player’s
battle line, and is filled with a mixture of
warriors split between hirdmen – who
take two hits to remove – and bondi,
who only take one. Each player also
has access to three stands of thralls;
support units who don’t count as part
of the battle line but can be spent to
reroll attack dice. In order to claim
victory, players need to wrest three
squares from their opponent’s side by
eliminating all enemy warrior stands
within each and occupying them with
their own troops instead.
Winning is a matter of skill,
planning and luck. Each player is
allocated a number of the titular battle
90 The Best Games of 2019
ravens, tokens that serve as action
points to be used on each square the
player holds. (Rather morbidly, the
in-game justification being that where
the fighting is thickest, the hungry
ravens swoop in to feast on the fallen.)
Each token can be spent performing
one of three actions – attacking,
blocking or moving units to an
adjacent square. The former two are
done by means of a dice roll (one dice
per token spent), with sixes scoring
two hits (or blocks), fives or fours one,
and threes or less a failure. Players
spend the beginning of a turn placing
their tokens in alternating sequence,
then proceed by activating each
square in an order of their choice,
again one after the other. A turn is
completed when all tokens have been
expended. These – along with thralls
– are then restocked and the next
turn begins. Each army comes with
a small deck of faction-specific cards
that confer bonuses, another strategic
element that also helps to give some
individual flavour to each force.
On paper, the rules system appears
so simple as to lack room for much
strategy. This couldn’t be further from
the truth, and Battle Ravens manages
to achieve that coveted sweet spot of
a ruleset that’s straightforward and
easy to learn whilst also providing
a great amount of tactical depth.
Players constantly have to guess their
45-60m 2 14+ £35
opponent’s moves and play a delicate
game of risk and reward. Do you
dedicate all your tokens to a few key
squares, or try and distribute them
evenly? Use too many tokens to attack
and you may be left with too few to
subsequently defend yourself. Play
too conservatively and a few bad dice WHAT’S IN
rolls may find you on the losing end THE BOX?
◗ Game board
of a war of attrition. With so many
◗ Two Anglo-Saxon
variable factors, the real meat of the army punchboards
game comes down to knowing how ◗ Two Norse army
and when to use the resources at your punchboards
disposal each turn. ◗ Nine dice
In truth, it’s hard to find any real ◗ 20 tactics cards
faults with Battle Ravens, although there ◗ 78 plastic stands
were a few times when it felt like there
was a slight second-player advantage.
Because of its short length, players are
kept on their toes throughout and each
dice roll carries a real degree of weight
– a good thing too, given how much of
it players will be doing. The gameplay
reflects the theme well and at no point
did the latter feel like superfluous visual
dressing over the mechanics. Battle
Ravens is a solid title that will appeal
regardless of whether you’re a Dark Age
history buff or not.
JAMES WINSPEAR
WE SAY
A characterful game of historical
warfare, Battle Ravens offers an
engaging, tactical experience that’s
deep but doesn’t outstay its welcome.
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
WAR CHEST
Like Battle Ravens,
War Chest presents
a game of strategic
combat where
players have to
combine luck,
skill and resource
management.
 WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Central board
◗ Four adventurer
miniatures
◗ King of Skulls miniature
◗ Four player boards
◗ 40 food tokens
◗ 30 token shards
◗ 32 usage cubes
◗ Eight health/
fame markers
◗ Four king tokens
◗ 48 encounter cards

HAND OF FATE: ORDEALS ◗ 32 minion cards

◗ 20 curse cards
◗ 18 pain cards
The deckbuilder gets another twist ◗ 14 relic cards
◗ 12 royalty cards
in this dark fantasy adventure ◗ 157 dealer’s cards
◗ 12 quest cards
90m 1-4 14+ £50 ◗ 12 quest
reward cards
ince Donald X. Vaccarino invented Australian designer Michael ‘Barantas’ unique abilities, these are limited and ◗ Four curse tokens

S the deckbuilder with Dominion,

the genre’s become rather hard to
avoid. Not that anyone should be trying
McIntyre combines these elements deftly,
with encounter cards arranged facedown
for miniatures to land on and turn to
utterly absent from the competitive base
game, denying the characters any sense
of individuality beyond the art on their
◗ Time marker

to avoid it – it's a versatile and satisfying
core mechanic that makes for great game
escalation and tactical variation. It also
slots well into other genres. Wizards of
the Coast hybridised it with area control
to pleasing effect for Tyrants of the
Underdark, while last year Andrew Parks
smartly bolted it onto dungeon-crawling
and team skirmishing with Dungeon
Alliance. Now we have the rather
gloomily-titled Hand of Fate: Ordeals,
a handsome-looking video game
adaptation that combines deckbuilding
with exploration-based adventure.
Each player chooses one of four
characters, who have been magically
sucked into a deadly metagame and
stripped of all their memories, skills
and equipment. They must explore and
compete in a randomised, three-tiered
mini-world to build their strength back
up and defeat a trio of bosses: a Jack, a
Queen and a fearsome King. The hero
with the most fame at the end triumphs
– unless you’re playing the co-op (or
solo) variation, in which case a mini
‘campaign’ is included for your group
to attempt.
reveal events, both good and bad. This
makes the game reminiscent of Tristan
Hall’s Gloom of Kilforth albeit on a smaller
scale, and with the encounters reset for
each of the three boss levels.
The deckbuilding feeds into this
through cards which provide food, which
is the fuel for moving around the board,
but also help in combat situations where
you need to keep pushing on against
numerous or powerful foes. Some cards
provide 'effort', which is spent to pick
up new, more powerful cards, while
others still provide equipment, which
goes straight onto a player-board tableau
rather than into your discard pile, for
extra, stacked-up benefits.
One of the most pleasing elements is
the combat. Here, attack cards and cards
from your deck are bound to a weapon
(at the cost of some effort) and their
accumulated points spent to fell foes. The
danger being, you have to draw a certain
number of cards blind, adding a frisson of
risk to each scrap.
It’s all rather neat, but Hand of Fate
does have its flaws. While the co-
operative mode gives each character
boards and the shape of their minis. The
main game also swiftly turns samey, with
the same encounters coming up during
repeated plays. Co-op mode should
mitigate this somewhat, but the rulebook
includes only one measly three-scenario
adventure, with further campaigns rather
cynically held back for expansions.
Still, we have no complaints about how
it all looks. Thanks to artist Jessie Gillespie
(who provided the illustrations for the
video game original) and the ubiquitous TRY THIS IF
Ian O’Toole, the game has a magnificent
YOU LIKED…
GLOOM OF
table presence, with a vast, wood-and- KILFORTH
burgundy central board, woodcut-style Tristan Hall’s fantasy
art on the cards and a wealth of sturdy quest game doesn’t
tokens. If nothing else, Hand of Fate involve deckbuilding,
could lay claim to being the best-looking but it shares a
deckbuilder yet. similarly doomy
DAN JOLIN atmosphere with
Hand of Fate, as
WE SAY well its card-based
Though it lacks properly implemented exploration element.
variable player powers and is stingy
with its campaign mode, there’s a lot
to like here. Not least its impressive
appearance, and the slick way it
enables you to empower your questing
characters through deckbuilding.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 91
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
BUMÚNTÚ
Gawj of the Jungle
umúntú is a game that knows
B exactly what it is and as such
polishes every last precious
inch. Lovers of chunky tiles will rejoice
with what this set-collector has to offer.
From the colourful and playful design
of its African animal tiles down to the
practical player screens with clear
iconography, Bumúntú makes sure
that no part, no matter how small or
important, is of subpar quality.
The care with which Bumúntú
presents itself translates to its
gameplay. Players place their leader
meeples on a randomised ‘jungle’
of tiles, which each animal has its
own way of traversing. For example,
flamingos can fly up in the air
and land on the same type of tile
anywhere on the board, whereas with
a rhinoceros tile, players charge to
the end of the board, pushing aside
92 The Best Games of 2019
30m 2-5 8+ £39
WHAT’S IN anyone else in their way. When a
THE BOX?
◗ Jungle board
◗ 80 animal tiles
◗ Five tribal
player uses a tile’s special movement,
they collect that tile and place it
behind their screen – if they cannot or
do not want to perform a special move
leader pawns
for any reason, they can still move one
◗ Animal favour board
◗ 10 animal favour space, but without collecting the tile.
markers The most interesting part of
◗ 32 food chips Bumúntú’s gameplay is how the
◗ Five player shields collected tiles score at the end of the
game. The scoring board is always
shifting and changing as the game
progresses. The players have a chance
to adjust the victory point value of
a certain animal if they pick up any
brown tile. So if you have collected a
lot of black mambas, it would make
sense to move those higher on the
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… AZUL
If you loved Azul’s beautiful bright tiles and deep strategy, Bumúntú’s chunky
tiles and newcomer-friendly gameplay will be equally enjoyable.
track so they score more victory
points when the game ends.
At the same time, a bit of strategic
thinking goes into choosing exactly
when to pick up the rare brown
tiles and readjust the scoring board
without giving away too much of your
plan to your opponents. Push your
best animal up the rankings too soon
and players will know to lower it the
next time they have the opportunity.
Getting the last brown tile becomes
incredibly important – it signifies
the end of the game but is also
the last chance to affect
the scoreboard.
There is only
one nitpick
that can be
aimed at Bumúntú.
Although there are ten
different animal tile types, all with
their own special movement rules,
most of them feel quite samey.
Despite that, gameplay never feels
boring or repetitive. If the game
only focused on collecting animal
tiles, the lack of movement variety
may have been more pronounced,
but with the dynamic scoring in
place there is enough to do and
pay attention to every turn. While
the movement options are similar,
they are flexible at the same time,
providing players with meaningful
options every turn. Only towards the
end of the game, when the board
becomes much less populated with
tiles, does the movement become
slightly more restrictive.
Bumúntú may look unassuming,
or even simplistic, but it is far from it.
Focusing only on two main concepts
– set collection and dynamic scoring
– ensures that both elements are well
designed throughout, making the
game a real treat to play.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
At a cursory glance, Bumúntú may
seem too simple in looks and play.
Yet by focusing on the essentials
and ensuring that every part of
the experience holds up to a high
standard of quality, it quickly becomes
a game of few flaws and a lot of fun.
WARHAMMER FANTASY ROLEPLAY:
ROUGH NIGHTS & HARD DAYS
Capers and carnage in the world of Warhammer
ou may
Y not think
that the
tangled plotlines
and noble
dramas of Shakespearean comedy
would fit in with the blood-soaked
darkness of the Warhammer Fantasy
RPG, but Rough Nights & Hard Days
somehow manages to pull it off,
blending drunken barons, masked
lovers and murderous rat-men into
a series of enjoyable – if slightly
messy – adventures.
The first campaign of WFRP’s
fourth edition, the book is divided
up into five adventures that can
theoretically be plundered for
one-off quests but slot together
into a cohesive whole. What starts
off as a chance meeting with a
noblewoman’s retinue in a roadside
tavern pulls the party into a series of
parties, weddings and formal duels,
every one of which is interrupted by
up to a half-dozen side-plots that all
compete for the spotlight.
The opening adventure, for
example, has a main thread
revolving around a fateful run-in
with the party’s future employer
and the murder of her champion
fighter. At the same time, however,
the noblewoman’s lawyer is
quarrelling with some villainous old
companions, a local noble is facing
the consequences of his philandering
ways and a band of smugglers are
running into difficulties with their
unwilling cargo. Oh, and a charming
pickpocket is running about the
place, stealing whatever he can and
generally being a distraction.
If that sounds like a lot of plates
to keep in the air, that’s because it is.
Each of these threads could probably
be spun out into their own adventure
without too much difficulty, and
keeping track of who’s doing what
and where everything is requires a
solid amount of both preparation and
improvisation on the GM’s side.
95 13+ £24
When things flow smoothly, broad strokes, the deluge of side-plots
however, the mishmashed plots
and activities filling the room create
a wonderful feeling of vitality.
and distractions starts feeling rather
familiar once you’ve been through a
couple of them.
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
LEGEND OF
The intentionally messy nature Again, this is an issue that can be THE FIVE
proceedings create the illusion of a side-stepped with a bit of confidence and RINGS RPG
living, breathing world where people gusto from the GM. Nothing specifies Though their tone
are always scheming and acting on that the adventures need to take place couldn’t be further
apart, the courtly
their own, regardless of whether the directly after one another and the lengthy
dramas of L5R are
players pay attention to them or not. gaps between engagements can take strangely similar
In order to help you keep track of the form of more straightforward palate to those in Rough
events the bulk of every adventure is cleansers drawn from other sources. Nights & Hard Days.
broken up into short, time-stamped Rough Nights & Hard Days is a Though with fewer
paragraphs that tell you what happens solid recommendation for any WFRP samurai and many
throughout the day. This does an fans looking to mix up their games more rat-men.
admirable job of providing a rather or launch an interesting campaign. It
solid script to plan around, but it does can be daunting at times, and players
all come across as rather prescriptive. looking for simple punch-ups and
Confident and experienced GMs will battles may get frustrated with the
probably be happy to take them as the complex plots and scheming getting
suggestions that they truly represent, in the way of their fun, but when
but if you’re new it can be incredibly it works well it can kick off some
daunting if – or, more likely, when wonderful roleplaying.
– the players' actions throw things RICHARD JANSENPARKES
wildly off course.
Even with these reservations
factored in, the adventures are
WE SAY
A slice of high-society farce mixed
still incredibly fun and well-worth with Warhammer Fantasy’s ink-black
a look from any WFRP group. humour and bloodlust that isn’t the
However, the decision of whether simplest campaign out there, but
to use the book as a campaign or a is among the most entertaining.
handful of isolated adventures is an
unexpectedly tricky one.
If you just looked at the plot and the
events that drive it forward, it seems
pretty clear that you could run the
entire thing from end-to-end without
too much difficulty. This makes things
easy for the GM and allows them to
get the most out of the themes and
characters that punctuate the entire
collection – so why would you ever
choose to split them up?
The biggest issue is one of
repetition. This seems like an odd
complaint for a book so stuffed
with ideas and imagination, but
the problem isn’t with the content
of the various adventures so much
as their tone. Every one of them
follows the same rough structure
and, despite their differences in the
tabletopgaming.co.uk 93
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
VEJEN
You’re gonna need a bigger oxcart
ever let it be said that
N American games have a
monopoly on drama. Where
countless US releases offer players
the chance to pilot starships or battle
their way through monster-infested
dungeons, new Eurogame Vejen
lets you and your friends… buy and
sell goods in the Middle Ages while
plodding around on ox-drawn carts.
It’s not a prospect that immediately
gets your blood pumping, but beneath
this docile facade lies a game full of
careful planning, economic wrangling
and reacting to changing circumstances.
You’ll start from modest means, with
just a handful of coins and some big
ambitions – and an ox. Over the course
of 12 rounds you’ll travel between
the towns of Denmark and Germany,
buying fish and grain in some locations,
selling iron and lumber in others,
setting up a network of storehouses and
attempting to save up enough to bling
out your cart with sturdier wheels or
some extra storage space.
While it might sound simple, though,
life as a wandering trader is far from
easy. As you criss-cross the border
between the two countries, you’ll deal
in two currencies – Danish kroner and
German thaler. Their values fluctuate
as you play, meaning that with some
94 The Best Games of 2019
1-2h 2-4 12+ €55
judicious forward-thinking, you might
be able to buy low and sell high, turning
a tidy profit. But there’s also the risk that
you’ll invest in resources only for the
financial markets to turn against you,
leaving you with the bitter prospect of
making a loss on a trade.
There are a handful of things you can
do to turn events in your favour. Trading
goods between far-flung cities lets you
charge higher prices than shuffling
WHAT’S IN between more closely-located ones, with
THE BOX? the promise of exotic goods encouraging
◗ Six city boards customers to pay more. Upgrading your
◗ 150 building tiles cart allows you to travel further on your
◗ 85 goods tokens turn, seeking out places where your wares
◗ 65 coin tokens
will fetch the highest price. Investing in a
◗ Scoring pad
sailing ship lets you skip between ports,
avoiding slow overland routes. Building
mills means you can convert basic items
into more lucrative manufactured goods.
The result is that each round
hopefully sees you becoming wealthier
and more powerful. You’ll also navigate
a series of random events, with storms
impeding sea travel, plague cutting off
your passage through cities or spikes
in demand for certain goods providing
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… CAPTAINS OF THE GULF
Its theme and core mechanisms might be very different, but the process of
upgrading your cart feels a lot like improving your vessel in the shrimping boat
strategy game.
rewards for players who can amass them
in the greatest quantities.
It makes for thoughtful fun. But
while Vejen is an economic Eurogame
to its very core, its turn structure sees
players alternate taking a single action
at a time. It means that play progresses
fairly quickly, with rivals trying to chain
together individual actions for the
greatest cumulative effect.
There are a couple of potential flat
points. The values of currencies change
randomly, and if the cards decree that
they don’t move much throughout the
game, it feels a touch anticlimactic.
There’s also a lot of iconography to get
your head around. But Vejen combines
a respectable cerebral challenge
with a level of complexity that isn’t
too intimidating for folks new to the
heavier side of the hobby.
OWEN DUFFY
WE SAY
If Vejen’s bone-dry theme doesn’t
immediately discourage you, you’re
probably the type of player who might
enjoy it. Its fluctuating currency
system sometimes fails to fire in
interesting ways, but it rewards long-
term planning while forcing players
to adapt to unpredictable events.
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

STAR WARS: OUTER RIM

A hive of fun and villainy
2-3h 1-4 14+ £63

uter Rim is a game that begins objectives. Having Lando zoom between the narrative, and not quite enough story

O with the same bravado and energy

as John Williams’ opening fanfare
to the Star Wars films. It throws you
into the galaxy far, far away as a rogue
ready to make their name echo down
the generations by doing all manner of
questionable side job, from smuggling
illegal goods to capturing or even killing
targets – all for the right price.
The roleplaying-lite arc of the game
is harder to resist than a Jedi mind trick.
Han, Lando, Jyn Erso and other familiar
faces are here, but they’ve largely been
stripped of their established place in the
canon, starting out with little more than
their particular set of skills, the starship
equivalent of a battered Ford Cortina
and a handful of credits. It’s up to you to
take them on a romp across the game’s
eye-catching crescent of a map board,
zooming from planet to planet to acquire
jobs and bounties and build up your fame
– Outer Rim’s literally winning trait.
The sandbox nature of Outer Rim
allows for a joyous remixing of Star Wars
lore as you see fit. Han Solo can become
a bloodthirsty assassin, Boba Fett a keen
merchant of goods. Character goals
– which grant money, fame and new
abilities – gently nudge you in a particular
direction, but aren’t so restrictive that
you feel railroaded. Characters met
via encounter cards on planets or by
interacting with contacts (who can also
be the target of hits, sparking a hunt to
capture or eliminate them) have the
chance to join your crew, while the ships
for sale through markets can turn into
named vessels by achieving the right
planets in Slave I accompanied by Greedo
is as fun as it sounds.
With the surprisingly tight gameplay
loop (Rebellion this ain’t) essentially
boiling down to a case of picking
something up from one planet and
delivering it to another, Outer Rim tries to
sustain its momentum on the fun of being
part of the Star Wars universe. Jobs and
encounters can lead to simple branching
events resolved by straightforward dice
rolls, with equipment and skills modifying
the chance of success. You might be
attacking a Rebel base, taking part in a
high-stakes game of sabaac or dogfighting
with one of the patrols chasing you across
the galaxy; either way, you’ll be rolling.
Even succumbing in ship or ground
combat doesn’t have much of a penalty
– a relatively small fee and the inability to
move on your next turn. It’s all quite light,
but it works because the dollops of story
and narrative on each card pin it all back
to the game’s draw factor: Star Wars.
At least, it works for a while. Outer
Rim’s glaring issue is that for a sandbox
game, the sandbox feels extremely
shallow. There’s a healthy supply of
cards in the box, but given the number
of different decks, you’ll cycle through
the lot soon enough. Some events can
play out in a variety of different ways,
but many of the contacts and jobs
will be identical in every playthrough,
which begins to wear away the feeling
of open-endedness that the rest of the
gameplay allows.
With not quite enough gameplay
depth to paper over the thinner parts of
offering to justify its fairly rudimentary
base gameplay, Outer Rim ends up an
experience lost in the middle-ground. In
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 12 ship sheets
a shorter game, these weaknesses may ◗ Four player boards
not have felt as noticeable, but here the ◗ 16 reputation tokens
overly-long running time leads to things ◗ 22 contact tokens
feeling more and more stretched – and all ◗ 16 patrol tokens
but ensures a sense of having seen nearly ◗ Eight character
everything after only a few full plays. standees
These lows are particularly ◗ 40 damage tokens
disappointing because the highs are ◗ 60 credit tokens
◗ 70 encounter cards
so high – that first hour of building up
◗ 70 market cards
your remixed character and turning in ◗ 53 databank cards
bounties and goods to bump up your ◗ Eight character cards
ship, equipment and crew might well ◗ Four reference cards
be among the best tabletop Star Wars ◗ 12 goal tokens
experiences going. But as the hours ◗ Two map endcaps
wear on and that momentum slows, ◗ 10 AI cards
what were exciting exploits increasingly ◗ Six dice
begin to feel like repetitive busywork. ◗ Six map tiles
Future expansions may give Outer Rim
the full depth of immersion in the Star
Wars universe that this promising but
unfulfilled game deserves. Until then, it’s TRY THIS IF
fun enough to still be worth experiencing YOU LIKED…
at least one – but don’t be surprised XIA: LEGENDS
when it ends up sitting in the cupboard OF A DRIFT
until it has a bit more to offer.
SYSTEM
Outer Rim uses
MATT JARVIS the might of the
Star Wars universe
WE SAY to help ground
Outer Rim has a brilliant premise, a its open galaxy –
slick set of rules and a ridiculously making it a familiar
fun first hour. What it lacks is the counterpart to the
depth of gameplay and story to fully sci-fi sandbox game.
sustain that excitement across
its lengthy running time. With the
right expansions, it could be a real
Star Wars gem – until then, it can’t
quite fully deliver on the promise.

96 The Best Games of 2019

CONQUEST: THE LAST
ARGUMENT OF KINGS
Marching onto new lands with only a few missteps
ne of the great strengths of
O Conquest is its aesthetic.
With a visual style equal
parts Renaissance artwork and Dark
Souls, filled with ornamental armour
and masked monstrosities, it’s clear
that its creators – including former
Warhammer 40,000 and Lords of the
Rings Strategy Battle Game designer
Alessio Cavatore, who handled
Conquest's ruleset – have spared no
expense in creating a setting suitably
grimdark for their new wargame.
The miniatures action itself is of the
rank-and-file variety, using regiments
comprised of square-based figures with
detailed rules for movement, reforming
and attacks on the front, side or rear flanks.
Combat is a quick, bloody affair;
unlike other wargames where players
roll to hit, then wound, attacking units
simply roll once to determine whether
a blow has been landed. Comparative
modifiers (the attacker’s strength
versus the defender’s toughness value
or suchlike) have been completely
eschewed in favour of a simpler method
of having a base armour save value.
Special rules are layered over this
system of rolling to hit, rolling to
save; depending on the type of blow
inflicted, the defending unit may suffer
a negative penalty to their armour
value or have to re-roll successful saves.
It’s a simple system that saves time by
not forcing players to continuously
resort to comparison charts.
Combat is further sped up by the
morale system, which requires players
to roll for additional casualties after
a regiment loses units. It certainly
makes for a quick game overall, but
can feel a bit punitive at times.
The real gameplay standouts are
Conquest’s two signature features.
The first is the way deployment works.
Instead of setting up armies at the
beginning of the game, players roll
each turn to see what class of unit (split
between light, medium and heavy) will
arrive. Light regiments show up earlier
in the battle, with medium and heavy
units entering the fray later on. It’s a
clever system that prevents games from
becoming stodgy ‘line-up-and-fight’
affairs, made more nuanced by the
addition of a battle line, which allows a
player to bring in units from the sides
of the table as their forces gain ground.
The other major feature is Conquest’s
card-based activation system. Players
have a stack of command cards, with
each corresponding to a given unit. A
turn alternates between players as they
activate each unit, which they do by
playing its card. The twist is that players
have to arrange their command stack
at the beginning of a turn, locking them
into a sequence of play regardless of their
opponent’s moves. Much of Conquest’s
appeal comes from working out what
order to activate your regiments in, an
element of forethought and planning
that adds to the tactical depth.
2h 2 12+ £75
WHAT’S IN
Beyond the mechanics, however, THE BOX?
the core box itself is somewhat anemic;
each side feels more like a taster force
than a fully-fledged army. Though most
◗ 69 miniatures
◗ 12 dice
◗ Eight command cards
◗ 20 secondary
wargames do this to compel players to
objective cards
invest in the game, it feels particularly ◗ Six thematic
noticeable here. The dearth of regiments objective markers
may also be down to the purely physical
consideration of how many sprues can be
fitted into the box. The figures are 38mm
in scale – a size that few if any other games
use – and compared to regular 28mm
miniatures even a baseline Conquest
human is virtually ogre-sized. It’s a very
disappointing move as it severely curtails
much of the interchangeability that is the
lifeblood of wargaming; most gamers’
scenery will be the wrong scale and there’s
little chance of using the miniatures as
proxies for anything else, despite the
fact that the core box’s human faction
are essentially just medieval soldiers.
Overall, Conquest hits more marks
than it misses, and is worth a look if
you’re interested in seeing a new take
on fantasy mass-battle systems.
JAMES WINSPEAR
WE SAY
A game with a unique aesthetic,
Conquest introduces some interesting
mechanics to the rank-and-file TRY THIS IF
wargame system, but is let down
YOU LIKED…
slightly by the miniatures themselves. RUNEWARS
MINIATURES
GAME
Though less
visually unique
than Conquest,
Runewars offers
fans of regimented
fantasy wargames
another system
with which to sate
their bloodlust.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 97
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
NOCTILUCA
Shem Phillips goes from raiding the North Sea to nicking
little glowy things from jungle pools
ew Zealand-based designer
N Shem Phillips is best
known for his eye-catching,
historical-themed games, like his
North Sea and West Kingdom trilogies.
But Noctiluca reveals a different side
to Phillips – a gentler, quieter side.
The theme casts players as jungle
divers who travel to remote pools
and compete to fill jars with tiny,
bioluminescent creatures called
noctiluca scintillans that light up
the warm waters like a Christmas
tree whenever the sun falls and the
temperature’s right. However, this
idyllic, exotic theme is thinly – and
pleasingly – veiled over a nifty abstract
game where each variety of noctiluca is
represented by Sagrada-like gem dice
of a particular colour, which players
harvest and place on cards in specific
configurations to earn points.
98 The Best Games of 2019
30m 2-4 8+ £30
WHAT’S IN It is a swift, smooth game of two
THE BOX?
◗ Double-sided
game board
◗ 12 pawns
halves, where the pool-representing
board is refilled after the first bout of
diving and play switches from clockwise
to counterclockwise (a change which
◗ 104 noctilua dice
has significant tactical relevance).
◗ Black die
◗ 30 jar cards The strategy is bubble-light and its
◗ 30 point tokens rules can be explained in a couple of
◗ Four favourite cards minutes. But it is a compelling and
◗ First Player marker absorbing game, from artist Bree
Lindsoe’s attractive designs (each
of these wee dinoflagellates looking
like a particularly cute Pokémon) to
Phillips’ knack for making a simple
little mechanism go a long way.
After the board is ‘seeded’ with
randomly-placed dice (four each on
the pool’s inner circle of hexes, five
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… SAGRADA
Both games feature pretty dice that have to be drafted and placed in
particular ways, though Noctiluca is by far the simpler and quicker of the two.
each on the outer), each player takes
turns to place one of their pawns on
an unoccupied shore. From here they
can trace a straight line in two different
directions: one way will take three
hexes, the other four, before you
hit the opposite shore. They then
choose a number between one and
six and pick up every die which shows
that number along that line – no matter
what colour it is. Of these dice, as many
as possible should be placed on any free
matching colour slots on that player’s
jar cards. Any that can’t be placed are
passed to the next player (on the left
if it’s the first half of the game, on the
right if it’s the second). This player may
take one and place it on their card, then
continue passing the dice around, with
each player doing the same until no
more dice can be placed. Then it’s the
next player’s turn, and play continues
until all the shores (of which there are
12) are taken, in which case the second
half kicks off, or the game ends.
There is no attacking in Noctiluca.
Smart players will choose numbers that
yield nothing for their fellow divers, while
the harshest move you can pull is taking
a new jar card from the face-up piles on
offer that you know another player might
need. After all, each player has a secret
favoured noctiluca that will earn them
bonus points, and as there are only four
kinds of the single-celled blighters it’s
quite easy to figure out which ones your
opponents are aiming for.
It is a mellow Euro through and
through, ideally positioned as a family
experience or a gateway to the hobby,
and it comes with a decent one-player
mode, too, if you ever fancy a solo
swim. There might not be enough
to it for some players’ tastes – and
colourblind players will find it tough –
but if you don’t mind your games being
a quick dip rather than a deep dive,
Noctiluca is well worth the plunge.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
A smooth, gentle and colourful
light-strategy dice-drafting game
that lives up to Phillips’ reputation
for smart, attractive design – even
if it’s a world away from his North
Sea and West Kingdom titles.
CITY OF MIST
Legends and lies in the big City
ome games are defined by
S their mechanics or their
playstyle, others by the worlds
they seek to recreate. By far and
away the most enticing aspect of
City of Mist is its tone – a fantastical
spin on noir laid out in purple and
black, bright neon and crackling
parchment. It’s a game for diehard
story-lovers and storytellers – and
though it’s not the cleanest gaming
experience out there, it has the
potential to be one of the coolest.
The game is set somewhere in The
City – always written with capitals – a
modern metropolis packed to the gills
with normal, everyday folks going
about their normal, everyday lives.
Woven between them, however, are
those people touched by the mythos
and imbued with the powers of
mythical figures plucked from legends
and fables. A woman locked up in a
corporate tower may have the magic
hair of Rapunzel, while an investment
banker cursed by their own rampant
success might inherit the power of
Midas and his golden touch.
Only those touched by the
mythos themselves can resist the
mind-wiping effects of the titular
Mist. Fortunately, that’s a category
that happens to include the player
characters, each of whom is drawn
to investigate the weird crimes and
dangerous phenomena that are a by-
product of a city crawling with heroes,
monsters and demi-gods.
The sheer range of options this
simple setup provides is almost
impossible to grasp. Many games
claim to only be limited by your
imagination, but City of Mist comes
a lot closer to actually achieving this
than most.
For example, a team of investigators
could include a fitness instructor with
the strength and anger-management
issues of Hercules, or a sinister
librarian whose urban legend-
inspired powers allow her to enter
mirrors and find those who speak her
name too many times. If you want,
you could riff off stories drawn from
TRY THIS IF
497 13+ £40 YOU LIKED…
MONSTER OF
The Christmas Carol or the dreamtime with the game requires the entire table THE WEEK
myths of Aboriginal Australians and
everything in-between.
Many systems would crack under
to commit a glossary of new concepts
to mind. In more conventional RPGs
this would be considered pretty
Both games use
the same core
mechanics and
monster-hunting
the weight of trying to balance all standard stuff not worth mentioning, concept, but City of
the powers and abilities these bring but for a game that focuses so heavily Mist amps up the
to the table, but City of Mist handles on the storytelling side of things it’s an drama and danger.
it by pretty much ignoring numbers unusually high hurdle.
entirely. Characters don’t get stats Minor irritations like this, however,
or attributes to fiddle with; instead may be the price we need to pay for
everything from their magical something as inventive as City of Mist.
invulnerability to the car they drive The concept is a beautiful blend
is reduced to a series of simple tags of gritty detective serial and Neil
– ‘virtually unkillable’ and ‘old taxi- Gaiman’s American Gods, with oodles
cab’. When you run into a situation of room for players and GMs alike to
that requires a check, whether cannibalise their favourite stories,
that’s punching a hole in a wall or while the writing is sharp and solid.
convincing a cop to let you onto a And – just in case there was any doubt
crime scene, you just count up all the remaining – the art and style are
beneficial tags that apply and add that genuinely fantastic.
to your dice roll. If you love stories, you’ll probably
While this is wonderfully simple love City of Mist. If you love stories
in theory it can get rather muddy in that are about stories, that becomes a
actual execution. At any one time a near-certainty.
character will have four themes that RICHARD JANSENPARKES
define them – some mundane, some
fantastical – each of which has four
tags associated with it. On top of this
WE SAY
Style and drama ooze from every
you factor in statuses that can range page of this beautiful book. It takes a
from ‘sleepy’ to ‘dead’, deal with a slew little more effort to crack than most
of environmental tags and manage a story-driven games, but when things
handful of meta-currencies. click it offers something truly special.
All of this helps the game achieve
story beats and reach for concepts
that would be close to impossible
in a more streamlined system, but
that does some at the expense of the
silky-smooth play usually enjoyed
by games built on the same Powered
by the Apocalypse framework that
City of Mist uses. This isn’t helped by
the fact that the game’s dedication
to preserving immersion
extends to the barrage of new
phrases and terms created for its
mechanics, not all of which are
particularly intuitive.
Your heroes are ‘rifts’,
for example, while
enemies are
‘dangers’ and
experience
is ‘attention’.
Getting familiar
tabletopgaming.co.uk 99
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
PANDEMIC: RAPID RESPONSE
Chaos planes
Artist:
oscow needs water and
M power. 5,000 miles away,
Tokyo is desperate for
food and first aid. At the same time,
Johannesburg calls out for vaccines
to save South Africa. You have 120
seconds to save the world. Go.
If that sounds daunting, you’d be
damn right. Pandemic: Rapid
Response is as intense, stressful
and chaotic as they come. It’s also a
hell of a lot of fun – as long as you
can stand the pace.
FUSE designer Kane Klenko has
taken the co-op heart of Matt Leacock’s
globetrotting hit and pressurised it even
further, setting the race to travel around
the world and save major cities from
infection against an ever-ticking sand
timer. Each round gives players just
two minutes to create supplies aboard
a high-tech plane and drop them off to
the right locations. But you’ll have to fly
there first. Oh, and move the supplies to
the cargo bay before they’re delivered.
And deal with the waste they produce.
And ensure you have enough resources to
make them in the first place. And simply
move between the rooms in order to use
them. Spent too many precious seconds
considering your next move? Tough luck,
there’s an extra city in need of aid now
and you’re running out of time.
Rapid Response is an often
overwhelming experience. While the
game plays in real time, players still
take turns one at a time in sequence, so
there’s the added anxiety of knowing
you’re holding everything up when you
hesitate – and the fact that the dice used
to activate rooms and perform actions are
only rolled at the start of your turn means
there’s only so much you can plan ahead.
Reacting to your results (limited re-rolls
grant some relief, but cost valuable time)
and communicating with your fellow
players (“We need first aid for Mexico
City!” “I’ll fly us there!”) is crucial. It’s
not a game to play with people who are
going to umm and err for excruciating
seconds turn after frustrating turn, nor
people who are going to complain for the
rest of the evening when you unwillingly
hesitate for a split-second. It’s tough,
100 The Best Games of 2019
and the fixed timer means there’s little
leeway. It won’t be for everyone, and
you’ll probably lose a lot to begin with.
When it all comes together, though,
it does so with the sweat-inducing
excitement of James Bond defusing a
bomb with 0:07 left on the timer or Ethan
Hunt stopping millimetres from a laser.
As the gameplay flow becomes second
nature (double-checking rules and
chaotically chucking pieces around can
WHAT’S IN quickly scupper early rounds) and the
THE BOX? group around the table begins to think as
◗ 24 dice one (like the best rounds of The Mind),
◗ 20 supply crates Rapid Response’s sustained seconds-from-
◗ Four player pawns disaster tension becomes a masochistic
◗ Plane with stand thrill. It’s an electric jolt of excitement
◗ 24 city cards that lasts for just long enough – albeit
◗ Seven role cards
one that will might leave some frazzled.
◗ Four reference cards
◗ 15 crisis cards There’s enough Pandemic in here for
◗ Plane board Rapid Response to feel familiar among
◗ Sand timer the shock of the new, too. The characters
◗ Nine time tokens – newly-named, rather than simply
◗ Waste marker defined by their job – once again have
individual abilities, giving each player
a meaningful specialism without being
hemmed into repeating the same task
over and over. The reveal of a new city as
the timer hits zero has the same creeping
dread as drawing infection cards in the
original game, with the few random
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… FUSE
Klenko’s real-time bomb-refusal game shares the second-to-second pressure
and chaotic co-op of the designer's thrilling first entry in the Pandemic series.
20m 2-4 8+ £39
cities used each game making it hard to
always have a bulletproof strategy for
success. Ramping difficulty levels and
optional crisis cards – which make for a
particularly brutal experience – round
out what already feels like a particularly
crammed two minutes.
Rapid Response will frustrate,
intimidate and outright anger some
players. At its worst, it’s a mess of
chaos, confusion and stress intensified
by an unforgiving clock. Find its rhythm
with the right people and that intensity
becomes its greatest asset, a rousing
crescendo of co-operation, fast thinking
and a little bit of luck. You’ll want to
immediately chuck it in the bin or play
again. Either way, it’s 20 minutes you’ll
find hard to forget.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Rapid Response’s tough difficulty
and stressful time pressure really
won’t be to everyone’s tastes – this
is a game that requires the right
people, right state of mind and
right fortunes to come out on top.
When it does, it’s a brilliantly intense
blast of thrills and fun that will leave
you exhausted – but satisfied.
 nigh t...
g a m e
o u r b oard
n l i g h t on y to life!
s u wo rl d
Shine e n e w
g a w hol
i n
and br

8+ 30
min
2-4

Available at Your Friendly Local Board Game Store

 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
SUSHI ROLL
Dice? Rice? Nice!
ushi Roll has a killer name. It
S also has a killer premise: take
the quick, clever and delightfully
cutesy card-drafting of Sushi Go!
and swap the cards for dice. Simple
– and potentially as boring as plain
white rice. Fortunately, Sushi Roll
does enough that’s different to offer
a satisfying side dish to its delicious
predecessor and, despite a couple of
small splutters, still goes down a treat.
The pick-and-pass heart of Sushi
Go!’s hands of point-producing nigiri,
sashimi and maki combinations
remains reliably familiar. This time,
it’s a single die that you get to keep,
with similar scoring conditions (sets,
multipliers, having the most) for each
course’s platter of dishes, plus a final
burst of points for scoffing the most
pudding over the entire three rounds.
On the whole, it’s not massively
different from Sushi Go!’s pleasingly
straightforward points buffet – and
with good reason, given how fast and
fun designer Phil Walker-Harding
made it to begin with.
The colourful dice look predictably
fantastic, fetchingly engraved with the
various foodstuffs they offer. (Each
102 The Best Games of 2019
20m 2-5 8+ £25
WHAT’S IN player’s menu handily summarises
THE BOX?
◗ 40 scoring tokens
◗ 30 dice
◗ 20 pudding tokens
each die’s faces.) The bright design
makes it easy to spot what another
player has, allowing you to quickly
scan the table and plan ahead as the
◗ 18 menu tokens
conveyer belts of dice make their way
◗ 12 chopsticks tokens
◗ Five conveyor belts around. As in Sushi Go!, the foody
◗ Five trays theme and its presentation – even
◗ Dice bag if artist Nan Rangsima’s grinning
cartoon nibbles aren’t showcased
quite as prominently here – continues
to be an unmitigated delight.
Chopsticks and menus (introduced
in the expanded Sushi Go Party!)
are the most notable departure from
the card game, this time appearing
as tokens that can be spent to give
players the chance to re-roll any
number of dice – a welcome bit of
control over your odds – or swap a die
with another player. The die-swapping
chopsticks make for a more direct bit
of interaction between players, and
further help to deal with the chance of
rolling rubbish. It’s a small but notable
shift from Sushi Go!’s limitation to
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… SUSHI GO PARTY!
Helped along by its still-charming visuals, Sushi Roll adds some new
ingredients but keeps Sushi Go!’s tasty drafting at its centre.
passive-aggressive picking that neatly
throws up different decisions and
strategies, and gives Sushi Roll an
individual flavour.
The downside is that allowing
for fair player-on-player powers
requires Sushi Roll to drop the snappy
simultaneous turns of Sushi Go!,
replaced by a slower one-at-a-time
use of tokens and die selection by
each player. Each new round also
requires all players to re-roll their
pool of dice after (sometimes a little
awkwardly, depending on your table)
sliding their cube-loaded conveyer
belt to their neighbour. It’s not enough
to cause the game to choke but,
especially in comparison to Sushi
Go!’s rapid-fire passing of cards, these
moments can feel like splutters.
Looking at Sushi Roll’s box, you
might be surprised at the contents.
Despite being significantly larger than
the hardy metal tins of the previous
games, the box feels far more empty.
The selection of dishes has been
stripped back from Sushi Go Party!’s
mix-and-match menu; a random
handful of dice are pulled from a bag
for each new round, but there’s no
official way to tailor the play style to
your choosing. With Sushi Go! a top-
tier travel-friendly game and Party!
serving up plenty of personalisation
and replayability in a still-compact
package, Sushi Roll’s superfluous
size and inflexibility feels like an
unnecessary step backwards.
The gameplay of Sushi Roll isn’t
quite as perfectly formed as its name.
If you don’t already own Sushi Go
Party!, that remains the better overall
experience unless you’re absolutely
craving some dice action. That said,
if you’ve had a blast with Sushi Go! in
the past and want something fresh,
or want a decent dice game that looks
great and plays easily, Sushi Roll is still
worth ordering.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Even with a couple of small sticking
points, Sushi Roll is enough fun –
both familiar and fresh – to make
it a worthwhile addition to Phil
Walker-Harding’s Sushi-verse.
HIGH RISK
ush-your-luck games can
P be divisive. Some players
love their blend of tension,
frustration and elation. Others can’t
stand their reliance on random
chance over planning and strategy.
This tiny game of rival mountaineers
attempts to satisfy both camps and,
for the most part, it does a pretty
good job.
You and your friends take control
of parties of climbers, aiming to
be the first to reach the top of an
imposing, snow-covered peak. On
your turn you’ll roll and re-roll a
handful of dice, aiming to score
mountain symbols to ascend towards
the summit, and avoid danger icons
that can send your lead mountaineer
tumbling down the treacherous
slopes.
It’s similar to the fan-favourite
Zombie Dice, but with a board-based
KEYFORGE:
AGE OF ASCENSION
hen KeyForge, the new
W game from Magic: The
Gathering creator Richard
Garfield, was unveiled in 2018, many
long-time card game fans weren’t
quite sure what to think. Like Magic,
it saw players do battle using decks
of cards representing elite troops and
dangerous creatures. Unlike Magic,
though, it didn’t allow players to build
fine-tuned custom decks, instead
handing them pre-constructed sets
of cards assembled by a computer
algorithm, with no two ever exactly
the same.
Now publisher Fantasy Flight
has released the first expansion to
the game’s card pool, and it seems
like many of the new additions are
intended to slow down the pace of
play, restricting players’ options and
reducing the potential for massively
swingy turns that tilt the game in one
10-20m 2-4 8+ £14
track for players to race along. What It’s not complicated, but it comes
stands out about High Risk, though,
is the way it lets players control the
amount of danger they’re willing to
with just a smidgen more to think
about than similar releases, and it’s an
attractive family game or entrée before
expose their adventurers to. When something meatier on game night.
a climber falls, they come to rest OWEN DUFFY
below the next-highest member of
their team. It means you’ll need
to decide whether to
rush individual
meeples towards
the top of the
track, risking
them falling all
the way to the bottom,
or move in a more
careful, consolidated
group, reducing
the effect of
accidents, but
potentially allowing more
courageous and/or reckless players
to zip ahead of you.
20-40m 2 12+ £24
competitor’s favour. There are the new duplicitous or controlling tactics, and
Alpha and Omega keywords, which
denote cards that can only be played as
the first or final action on players’ turns.
each deck presenting new tactics to
master. But it also takes the game in a
slightly more thoughtful direction. Age
There are cards which impede your of Ascension doesn’t introduce many
opponent’s ability to gain the mystical dramatic overarching changes, but
energy known as æmber. And there are it still throws up plenty of interesting
new ways to prevent opponents gaining situations and strategies.
keys – aka victory points. OWEN DUFFY
It might seem like a step back from
the kind of exciting and dramatic
moves that appealed to many fans in
the game’s earliest days, but working
around these roadblocks takes some
real cunning. And if you don’t fancy
getting too technical, you can always
grab a Brobnar deck; the race of
gleefully aggressive giants still prefer to
smash their enemies’ faces first and ask
questions later.
The first KeyForge expansion
retains the original set’s flavour, with
different factions offering aggressive,
tabletopgaming.co.uk 103
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
HIGH TREASON!: THE TRIAL
OF LOUIS RIEL, JULY 1885
Anyone for a game of Hangman?
n July 1885 Louis Riel, one of the
I leaders of the Northwest Rebellion
that had pitted the local First Nation
and French-speaking Métis people
against the British Government of
Canada, was put on trial for treason,
found guilty and hanged.
The trial was fixed. It was moved
from Winnipeg to Regina, and the
jury members – six, not 12 – were all
English or Scottish. Riel’s defence
team tried to show he was not guilty by
reason of insanity, a claim Riel fiercely
denied. The jury took half an hour to
find Riel guilty. They recommended
mercy, but the judge ignored them.
The trial of Louis Riel is one of the
most important cases in Canadian
legal history and Alex Berry, a
Canadian and a lawyer, has turned it
into a board game.
It’s an ambitious project. There’s a
reason there aren’t many games based
on court cases: the cut and thrust of
legal debate and deliberation is not
104 The Best Games of 2019
loyalties lie and trying to lock them,
and using cards or spending points to
move the tokens for religion, language
and occupation up and down their
numbered tracks. The final score
is a combination of the two, and if
the prosecution amasses at least a
hundred then Riel is for the drop.
Technically it’s very impressive.
On the table the legal cut-and-
thrust tends to turn into tit-for-tat:
the dynamic of moving tokens up
and down tracks or putting them
on juror cards, only for the other
player to take them off, fails to thrill.
And if you haven’t done the reading
on Riel then it’s going to be a dry,
mechanical 45 minutes.
This is the second edition of the
Main image courtesy of James Wallis
game, co-produced between Victory
Point Games and German publisher
Frosted Games (as evidenced by the
board with English on one side and
German on the other). There’s no
solo mode, which is a shame; the
setting and the system would be a
good fit for one.
High Treason! is a really interesting
demonstration of how real-world
systems and historical events that
aren’t battles can be simulated on the
tabletop. I’m not sure the end result is
exactly fun – but I’m certain it wasn’t
for Louis Riel, either.
1h 2+ 14+ £29 JAMES WALLIS
easy to condense down to cards and
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Board
◗ 45 trial cards
◗ Six what-if cards
counters. You don’t have to know
about the Riel case to play this game
but it helps, because without that
background the game is mostly about
◗ 12 juror cards trying to influence the jury with chits
◗ 54 trait markers
and sliders.
◗ Nine phase
summary cards The players are the prosecution and
◗ 34 sway markers defence, while the gameplay is in five
◗ Nine game-board phases that replicate the course of a
markers trial and comes on like a stripped-
◗ Two plea markers down Twilight Struggle. The cards
represent opposing attorneys, witnesses,
testimony and evidence, each with
different (if sometimes samey) effects. WE SAY
You may find your hand is full of cards Canadian lawyers will love this.
that help the other side, but most have Canadians, lawyers and people
into interesting uses for games will
something you can use, or at least can
get a kick out of it. If none of those
be burnt for action points. things grab your imagination, then
Winning is a clever combination at least read the background and
of working out where the jurors’ cards before you start to play.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… ARTICLE 27
Mixing simulation and fun is tricky, but Dan Baden’s game of negotiations in the UN
Security Council is a similarly clever brew of clever ideas and real-world processes.

olo gaming has been on
S the rise lately, with many
multiplayer games including
a special single-player mode to cater
for those times when life gets too busy
to get a group of friends around the
table. Even so, entirely solo games
AIR, LAND & SEA
espite being designed by Jon
D Perry, half of the design duo
behind the impressive Time
Barons, it might be easy to pass Air,
Land & Sea by.
Generic in appearance and small
in size, this war-themed two-player
game easily disappears among flashier
releases. While the compact box is not an
issue – in fact, it’s an advantage if you're
after a smaller game to take travelling
DEEP SPACE D-6
remain a bit of an anomaly – and that
makes Deep Space D-6 a curiosity.
Its creators might not have had the
rights to put a coat of Star Trek theme
over the gameplay, but the licence
is almost irrelevant because Deep
Space D-6 echoes profoundly in its
feel to the space-venturing franchise.
A player acts as a captain of one of
four of RPTR-class starships, assigning
workers – dice roll results – to different
stations to deal with internal and
external threats.
There might not be much
exploration – besides discovering more
enemies – but there is a lot of crisis
management. You need to balance
keeping your shield and hull repaired
while trying to deal with malfunctions
and shooting enemy ships, made even
harder through dice-rolling because
there is never a guarantee that you
will get the crew members you need
to deal with the most immediate
disaster. And, usually, after one threat
15-30m
– its looks could definitely let it down.
It’d a shame because the gameplay
underneath is simple yet very clever.
Players assign cards from their
hand to the three titular theatres of
war, drawing their hand from single,
shared deck of cards with values one
to six in three respective suits. The
highest combined total value of cards
wins the theatre they are assigned
to – however, having lower-numbered
30m 1 10+ £24
is dealt with, a new one – or three – is
very quick to appear.
Deep Space D-6 is at its most
fun when every turn of a new
threat card could easily be game-
ending, especially given the threat
of Oroboros, a big bad boss ship,
appearing at any moment. The threat
curve of the playthrough depends
very much on your ship itself. The
available vessels differ not only in
looks, but also in how dice outcomes
can be used. While variety is always
welcome, it makes some ships more
challenging than others. For example,
the Mononoaware ship is a bit too
good at turning enemies into space
dust, and therefore loses much of the
gameplay’s tension and excitement.
Deep Space D-6 is well calibrated
for a single player in size, setup
and play time. Its slightly uneven
gameplay is uplifted by effortless play
and a good sense of humour.
ALEX SONECHKINA
cards doesn’t immediately imply a
loss. The lower the value, the stronger
2 14+ £15 the ability accompanying the card,
a system that wonderfully balances
each option. The game is centred
on how well you can perform with
the hand you’re dealt while making
educated assumptions about the
cards your opponent has.
Luck plays little to no part. If a player
looks at their hand and estimates that
winning two theatres of war is not
possible, they can forfeit immediately.
That way their opponent is awarded
fewer points than if the game was
played in full and lost. Having the
option to end a round at any point,
without letting it hopelessly drag on,
is as much of a strategic decision as
playing the cards themselves.
Air, Land & Sea is exactly what you
would expect from one of the creators
of Time Barons: its understated
gameplay values its own intelligence
and that of its players. While its looks
might not catch your eye, it’s worth
seeking this game out.
ALEX SONECHKINA
tabletopgaming.co.uk 105
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

106 The Best Games of 2019

GLADIATORES: BLOOD FOR ROSES
Are you not entertained? Well, you will be
Designer: Jason Maclean Jones, Rob Barrett | 40m 2-5 12+ £35

e all know what to expect

W from a card-based battle

game, right? Pull a hand
from a deck, spend resources to play
summoned beasties or warriors
down into a battlefield, then bash
their heads together. It’s great fun,
don’t get us wrong, whether it’s
KeyForge, Sorcerer or 1066, Tears to
Many Mothers. But when a card game
comes along that treats combat in a
whole new way – one that actually
makes it feel like combat – you have
to sit up and take notice. Rather like a
bloodthirsty Roman in the front row of
the Colosseum, in fact.
Gladiatores: Blood for Roses is, as
you’d expect, set in the cut-and-thrust
world of Roman gladiatorial combat.
Each player selects a ludus (gladiator
school) with its own unique power,
then over an agreed number of events
– the Tribune’s Trophy, the Consul’s
Chalice and so on – they have to bid
for big-name gladiators (each with
their own special abilities and cards)
before throwing them into the arena
to take part in a series of mano-a-
mano melees against their choice of
the other players’ fighters, while also
secretly betting on who they think will
be the last man (or woman) standing.
What makes it distinct from other
battle card games is the way those
combats play out. Every player starts
each event with a big hand of cards
(14, or 18 with two players), and
each card represents a combat move
in one of three categories: attack,
defence and effect. After selecting
your opponent, you open with an
attack. They must play a specific
defence card to counter it, in which
case you must counter in turn with
a specific effect card, which in turn
will require a specific counter of its
own. This strategic back-and-forth
continues until one player cannot
play a card (for example, a disarm or
grab to counter the previous player’s
parry), in which case the bout ends
and the effect of the topmost card is
applied. If it’s a cleave, for example,
the losing player would receive a
WHAT’S IN wound, you would receive a crowd
THE BOX? favour token (important for scoring
◗ Bidding board glory), and then you’d have the
◗ Five player option to play another card down,
ludus boards namely ‘subdue’, which cannot be
◗ 194 combat cards countered. The hand as a whole
◗ Eight gladiator cards
also represents your gladiator’s
◗ Six event cards
◗ 25 tactics cards constitution. If it runs out, you’re
◗ 12 sponsor cards out for the count, so you have to be
◗ 25 life point tokens careful about how it’s managed.
◗ 30 crowd It works fantastically, each play
favour tokens feeling like a fresh beat in a furious
◗ 40 betting chips fight scene, the drama building as you
◗ Eight gladiator markers throw down a new card. So much so,
◗ Five ludus tokens that in three- or four-player games
◗ Five ludus
you won’t even mind the downtime
bidding tokens
◗ Active player marker as two others duke it out. But this
◗ Five turn order trick-taking-ish mechanic is just the
markers pounding heart of a game that has
much more to it. In addition to the
aforementioned bidding and betting
elements there is a neat mini-game
device in the ‘glory wheel’, where
each player trades the crowd favour
they’ve earned for cheese-wedges of
victory-point-granting glory, aiming
to complete a full circle and thereby
end the game.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… 1066, TEARS TO MANY MOTHERS
The mechanisms are different, but the two games share well-explored historical
themes, vivid artwork and a smart way to recreate battle through cardplay.
In truth, you can live without all
the trimmings and still have a great,
streamlined experience which only
involves the combat and gladiator
cards – indeed, designers Jason
Maclean Jones and Rob Barrett
helpfully suggest a quickplay variant
which focuses purely on this.
There are niggles: the cardboard
counter components aren’t of the
best quality (quite a few of ours
ripped as they were being punched
out) and resetting between events is
a bit fiddly, as you have to return all
the discarded combat cards to their
three decks, while also separating the
gladiator-specific cards into their own
piles, making mix-ups hard to avoid.
But that doesn’t mean Gladiatores
shouldn’t raise its bloody gladius in
triumph. Thumbs up.
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
Gladiatores is innovative, impressively
immersive and eminently replayable. It
feels like the closest a card game could
ever get to actual gladiatorial combat.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 107
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
ZWEIHÄNDER:
REVISED CORE RULEBOOK
Delightfully dark low fantasy
he subtitle for Zweihänder is “Grim
T & Perilous RPG” and honestly
there’s no better way to describe
it. It’s dense as treacle, dangerous as a
raging fire and grimmer than a taxi queue
at 3am, with a thoroughly old-school feel
that will delight veteran gamers without
driving away curious newcomers.
The game has actually been out in one
form or another for some time now, but
its creators have just released this revised
and retooled version of the core book. If
any fans of the series are worried that the
new art or designs would take away from
the monochrome, gungy aesthetics of the
book they can rest easily – Zweihänder
is just as dark as ever, and with a page
count reaching almost 700 it can still be
used as a potent bludgeon if required.
The game’s origins lie in a hacked-up
version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
and, despite some significant changes,
the darkly humorous tone of the older
title bleeds through every page. Though
it’s not set in any particular world,
the tone draws from the same muddy
late-medieval European vibe, where
crossbows compete with flintlock pistols
and rural farmers flock to squalid cities
in search of a better life.
Yes, it’s a world of fantasy but the more
mystical aspects are kept obscure and
dangerous. There are elves in the forests,
but any wanderers are much more likely
108 The Best Games of 2019
to receive an arrow through the neck
than any aid. Magic flows on the winds
but it’s an untrustworthy and dangerous
tool, and those who tap into its power risk
death at the hands of a superstitious mob.
In fact, the risks inherent to growing
power are a near-constant theme
throughout Zweihänder, as greater
strengths also bring more chances
for characters to grow corrupt and
decadent. The entire game deliberate
distances itself from the traditional
Dungeons & Dragons power fantasy,
from its risky approach to spellcasting
to the lethality of its combat system.
Even a high-powered character armed
with the best weapons money can buy
can fall to nameless brigands if they
charge in without a plan or simply get
unlucky. While it can be painful to see a
hero you’ve spent months crafting lose an
eye to a stray arrow, the sky-high stakes
of every single combat encounter lend
an incredible weight and importance to
each attack roll and dodge.
One unfortunate side effect of all
this is that combat can be a little slow at
times, especially for newer players who
are still coming to grips with the range
of actions on offer. Even once everyone’s
up to speed fights can still drag on
as attacks are met with parries and
injuries cause rolls on one of the tables
squirreled away in the GMing rules.
669 15+ £45
This is another distinctive aspect of
Zweihänder – its overwhelming love for
random tables. There are tables for hit
locations, injuries and magical mishaps, but
nowhere is this this love more apparent than
during character creation. If you follow the
rules as they’re written, you’ll randomly roll
up everything from your character’s starting
profession to their eye colour – the impact
that blind chance can have is immense.
Though you may head into the game
dreaming of the silks and gunpowder of
an elegant highwayman, there’s a good
chance that you’ll end up in the smelly
sandals of a club-toting peasant with all
the charisma of a damp log. The rulebook
is very explicitly opposed to re-rolling
or simply picking results at will, instead
asking players to enjoy discovering the
character produced by their random rolls.
If players can embrace this – along
with the fairly solid chance that their
current character gets decapitated within
the week – the unexpected combinations
the dice throw up can lead to some truly
special roleplaying moments. However, a
sizable slice of the roleplaying population
is going to struggle to enjoy playing a
character that simply doesn’t appeal to
them at first glance. TRY THIS IF
Others may also be turned off by the YOU LIKED…
deliberately lo-fi and old-school nature
WARHAMMER
FANTASY
of the book, with black-and-white ROLEPLAY:
pencil drawings the order of the day. SECOND
Again, though, this is clearly a decision EDITION
made by the designers and, though the While it wouldn’t
illustrations sometimes come up a little be fair to describe
short, the words are absolutely wonderful. Zweihänder
Zweihänder is an enormous tome. as a clone of
It’s dense and it’s dark, and so are the the old WFRP
games, you could
adventures it produces. Grasping the
probably describe
many rules and concepts bound within it as a younger,
its pages isn’t a simple task, but it is a modernised cousin.
very rewarding one.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
WE SAY
Many deliberately old-school, dark
and dangerous games can make
newcomers feel unwelcome.
Zweihänder might be a little
intimidating, but its infectious
enthusiasm draws you in to every page.
MEMOIR ’44:
NEW FLIGHT PLAN
echanized doom’ is how
‘M Ernest Hemingway described
warplanes in For Whom the
Bell Tolls. This doom rains from the sky in
New Flight Plan, the latest expansion set
for Memoir ’44, the World War II entry in
the Commands & Colors series.
The rules have tackled planes by
designing them as harassers, unloading
onto enemy units as they sweep over
them in an attack run. Whilst the box
comes with 16 different plane models, in
pure gameplay terms they fall into one
of three types – fighters, fighter-bombers
or bombers.
The planes all move the same distance
and use the same amount of dice
when attacking ground units – what
distinguishes them is what dice symbol
counts as a hit when attacking, how
many dice each type rolls for dogfighting
and the special effects that come from
playing air combat cards, a new deck
ROBINSON CRUSOE: ADVENTURES
ON THE CURSED ISLAND –
MYSTERY TALES
R
obinson Crusoe: Adventures on the
Cursed Island is still one of the best
exemplars of co-operative board
games where theme cannot be separated
from gameplay. The survival game is
tough and unforgiving, but winning
usually brings cheers, sighs of relief and
fist pumps all round.
With its strong thematic links,
Robinson Crusoe’s gameplay is based
around a number of island survival
scenarios, completing which will
essentially end the game – although
this can take a while, making
replayability fairly good. That is until, of
course, new ones can be added. This is
where Mystery Tales, the game's second
expansion, comes in, delivering a whole
new ‘horror’ mode and full-blown
campaign with progression across
multiple playthroughts.
30-45m 2 8+ £49
used alongside the main command pack. convey) whilst others can be played with
Planes are generally tough to take down,
especially from the ground, but only have
a limited amount of ammunition before
or without the air combat rules.
In short, New Flight Plan isn’t game-
changing, but nor is it game-breaking
they have to fly off the map and reload. either. It integrates well with the main
Depending on the scenario, fighters feel rules and adds new tactical decisions
like the most versatile of the three choices to an already solid core. The only real
if only by dint of the fact that they come downside is the price point, as the box
with the most ammunition. isn’t really revolutionary enough to justify
Aesthetically speaking, the 16 plane it costing roughly the same amount as
figures have been sculpted as nation- the base game. Nonetheless, invested
specific replicas rather than just generic fans of Memoir ’44 will likely find this a
tokens, which is a nice feature even if worthwhile add-on.
it’s one clearly designed to appeal to the JAMES WINSPEAR
historical wargaming and Airfix crowd.
The game comes with 21 new scenarios
split between the Western Front, the
Mediterranean Theatre, the Eastern
Front and the Pacific Theatre. Some of
the scenarios are designed specifically as
air-heavy encounters (in the Luftwaffe Air
Attack, for example, the German player
uses a planes-only force to disrupt a
1-2h 1-4 14+ £47
There are plenty of new scenarios, completely from the original Robinson
cards, events and treasures in the box that Crusoe. In a game that already has
will continue to bring one disaster after lots of bits that means a lot more bits,
another into the already not-so-idyllic snowballing into a longer setup and
island life. Horror mode is particularly organisation.
tough, adding more supernatural If you love Robinson Crusoe, it is hard
elements into the game. not to be glad for more of it, especially
The campaign is clearly inspired by when it comes packed with some fresh
legacy games, interweaving narrative and fun gameplay twists. Although, the
breaks into the gameplay and allowing biggest mystery remains how fishing and
players to make story decisions. However, hunting parrots gives you bananas.
it is a little bit half-baked, not completely ALEX SONECHKINA
committing to the plot twists, permanent
alterations or even secret-cards-hidden-
in-the-box extravaganza that you might
have come to expect from the genre.
What is most surprising is how little
of the base game the expansion actually
uses. The characters and majority of the
decks are replaced rather than combined,
essentially separating Mystery Tales
tabletopgaming.co.uk 109
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
UNDAUNTED: NORMANDY
D-Day dream
revor Benjamin and David
T Thompson’s 2018 breakthrough
War Chest was wargaming
boiled down to its basics: the chess-
like tradition of carefully manoeuvring
units and planning moves to take your
opponent’s pieces combined with
modern additions of asymmetrical player
armies and bag-building to determine
the actions available each turn.
Undaunted: Normandy, released after
War Chest but in actuality the design
on which the earlier game was based, is
likewise an inventive hybrid, this time of
deckbuilding and World War II skirmish
wargames. Far more thematic than War
Chest’s light medieval dressing in its
multi-scenario campaign, based loosely
on the real-life US 30th Infantry Division,
Undaunted plays out on two fronts: the
ground-level tactical board game where
US and German troops vie for control of
objective points, and the card game used
to command those same units by gradually
refining your deck full of riflemen,
scouts, snipers, commanders and more.
The two halves gel seamlessly. The
control over your deck provides a level
of flexibility in how you tackle each
scenario; higher-ranked leaders can
reinforce the deck with certain cards
to allow their matching units to move,
attack and take points more regularly,
110 The Best Games of 2019
with the division of troops into multiple
squads and unit types – each with their
own cards required to issue orders –
giving the feel of a properly strategic
experience. Do you rush in with nimble
scouts, slowly push up with heavier units,
spearhead an attack or apply pressure on
multiple fronts? The interplay between
moving tokens across each modular map
and speccing your deck to suit whichever
strategy you choose flows naturally,
allowing for gameplay that’s greater than
the sum of its two parts.
Fixed squad loadouts for each of the
scenarios (part of the game’s efforts to
maintain historical accuracy, though a
custom skirmish mode would’ve been
a welcome bonus) make Undaunted a
little more restrictive than War Chest’s
customisable armies, but the core
deckbuilding is wide enough in possibility
in itself to make up for the tighter setup
– plus you can always switch sides to
give each mission a fresh challenge.
Undaunted’s approachable
deckbuilding and skirmishing never
becomes weighed down by minutiae and
excessive rules – the main learning curve
of the game is adjusting to its lingo, where
you ‘command’ rather than draw cards,
‘bolster’ rather than buy units to add to
your deck and ‘conceal’ to clutter your
rival’s deck with fog of war. This language
45-60m 2 14+ £30
highlights the immersive sense of the
battlefield that Undaunted achieves with
minimum fuss, offering an exquisitely
trim central system that still manages to
feel like a tactical wargame in its clever
meeting of gameplay and theme.
For example, scouts must lead the
way ahead of general infantry, exploring
tiles that only then can be moved onto by
other units. But spreading your troops too
quickly comes at a cost – fog of war cards
gained by scouting act as junk in your WHAT’S IN
deck until they’re removed by performing THE BOX?
◗ 54 US cards
reconnaissance, reducing the likely
◗ 11 US combat
efficiency of your four-card hand. It’s a counters
creative way of simulating the difficulty ◗ Four US spawn
of observing and communicating over markers
increasingly stretched battlefields, ◗ US target marker
masterfully captured in the process ◗ 18 US
of continually evolving your deck by control markers
adding and removing cards. ◗ 54 German cards
Quick dice-based attacks – modified by ◗ 11 German
combat counters
simple strength, defence, cover and range
values – present the chance for terrain to
play a part in battles, with the luck factor
making for those memorable wargaming
◗ Five German
spawn markers
◗ German target
marker
moments of lone scouts taking down ◗ 18 German
machine gunners against the odds. control markers
Successful attacks permanently remove ◗ Radio marker
cards from a player’s deck, reducing ◗ Initiative marker
units' effectiveness, with only the final ◗ 18 board tiles
◗ 14 objective
card’s elimination removing the matching
markers
token from the board – a gut-wrenchingly ◗ Four ten-sided dice
tangible way of seeing squads gradually
whittled down and weakened, rather
than endlessly removed and respawned
as in other games.
Undaunted’s blend of deckbuilding and TRY THIS IF
skirmishing is a perfect gameplay pairing. YOU LIKED…
Combined with its clean presentation and MEMOIR ‘44
Trevor Benjamin
an engrossing commitment to its historical
and David
setting, it becomes a terrific trifecta. It’s a Thompson’s
rewarding experience that excels across deckbuilding-driven
the board – and confirms its already gameplay has the
lauded designers as two of gaming’s instant-classic feel
most exciting new creators to watch. of Richard Borg’s
MATT JARVIS Commands &
Colors system.
WE SAY
Undaunted is a brilliantly accomplished
design, offering an engrossing WWII
wargame in the guise of an approachable
deckbuilder. From its immersive
campaign to its tight and tense squad-
level gameplay, it’s a flying success.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 111
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
Main image courtesy of Matt Paquette
EMBARK
Sets off but lacks some wind in its sails.
mbark disregards a potentially
E complicated discussion on the
topic of colonisation to instead
approach its theme in a simplified
and abstract manner, embodied by
its cube workers. They are just game
pieces, serving a primarily mechanical
function. Don’t think too much about
workers travelling to an untouched
island and mining it out of resources
or cutting down its forests to build
villages – instead, think strategically
about fitting your workers on card ships
because if they don’t make it to the
island, you’ll miss out on victory points.
Behind this flawed theming, there is
solid gameplay with a lot to offer. There
is an element of bluffing and strategy,
as players secretly assign their workers
to different boats. Only a full ship can
travel to the island, but miscount the
number of available spaces or mistime
assigning people and someone may be
left off the trip, their player missing out
on those valuable points.
When loading cubes on the boat,
workers are assigned roles that they
will perform once on the island. The
colonists begin building huts, while
explorers discover more of the island’s
secrets, unlocking its special abilities
and increasing its victory point value
at the end of the game. There are
112 The Best Games of 2019
30-60m 14+ £39
2-5
jobs on the island that require some
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Five double-sided
island boards
◗ 36 boat cards
co-operation from the players, such as
exploration. While some tasks will be
unaffected by an opponent’s presence,
such as building villages, others, like
◗ 20 talent cards mining, will be in direct competition.
◗ 60 ore tokens
If a miner arrives on the island but
◗ 79 victory
point tokens all relevant spaces are occupied, they
◗ 20 farm tiles become a colonist instead and so
◗ 15 lock tokens ship spaces are never wasted – it is
◗ Five player screens worth mentioning that this rule is not
◗ Five player boards clear in the rulebook and had to be
◗ 150 cubes clarified with the publishers via the
◗ First player token BoardGameGeek forums.
Different island tiles and ships add
a bit of variety to the game each time
– while these are not necessarily game-
changing, they are just enough to spice
things up. Special talent powers, chosen
at the beginning of each game, have
the potential to affect the gameplay
significantly, not only encouraging
players to adopt a particular strategy
but, depending on the card, even giving
some players an unfair advantage.
After several playthroughs, our group
unanimously agreed to remove the Jack-
of-All-Trades and Wanderlust cards
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… REVOLUTION!
Revolution!, like Embark, is designed by Philip DuBarry and features
the same secret bidding against opponents at its core, but is a little
bit more cut- throat.
from the game because they simply
gave too big of an advantage to whoever
picked them up.
The art of the talent cards expands
on the theme of the game, although the
setting’s fantasy elements are easy to
miss if you’re not looking closely. The
graphic design of the game in general
is very clear, but there are instances
when it can cause confusion. Some of
the colours of the player cubes match
the colours of the roles on the boat,
making it seem as if the pink player,
for example, can only have warriors
travelling to the island. Simply adding
a few more colours could have easily
cleared that up.
Embark makes itself very easy to
enjoy. Its gameplay is tight and fast,
offering just enough player interaction
to keep everyone involved without being
overly confrontational. It easily traverses
the seas of having enough strategic depth
to become engaging and challenging,
without losing approachability and
ease of play. It’s a good game, but a less
problematic theme could have made it
that much easier to enjoy.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Navigating Embark’s gameplay is
effortless and joyful, as long as you sail
past the implications of its theme.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS:
ACQUISITIONS INCORPORATED
224 13+ £39
ave you ever thought that The book itself is devoted to in the piratical city of

H fantasy adventuring needed

more corporate structuring,
nebulous morality and seriously
silly comedy? If so you’re in luck,
because while the latest Dungeons
& Dragons supplement leans a
little heavily on references, it gives
DMs across the world a chance to
embrace the wackier aspects of
their roleplaying.
Entirely based on a long-running
collaboration between the folks
behind the Penny Arcade webcomic
and D&D publisher Wizards of the
Coast, the book’s mere existence is
a tribute to RPGs’ moves into the
mainstream. What started out as
a faintly silly podcast in 2008 has
grown to encompass live shows,
streamed adventures and celebrity
collaborations, all revolving around
the titular Acquisitions Incorporated
– an ever-expanding corporation
devoted to reaping the maximum
profits from the adventuring biz.
helping you set up your very own
Acq Inc. franchise and is stuffed
with new player options to help
with that. There are rules for using
fantasy-tinged corporate roles such
as the ‘Documancer’ or ‘Occultant’,
as well as spells that incorporate
royalty payments and backgrounds
for sons and daughters of famous
adventurers keen to make their own
name in the world.
None of the options bring
revolutionary new powers to play,
but they’re damned fun and have
the chance to be genuinely funny
too. This strong sense of humour and
absurdity extends through the lengthy
campaign that takes up much of the
book’s page count.
Rather than encountering just some
faceless bandits, for example, the party
run into a group led by a skeleton
who refuses to believe she’s long
dead, instead loudly muttering about
allergies. Later, an important contact
Luskan is attempting
to revolutionise the
industry with a line
of peg-hands and
foot-hooks.
Hidden behind this
silly façade, however, is a
genuinely well-written,
well-structured story.
It’s heavily scripted in
the very beginning and
the nature of playing a
franchise means the
party is rarely in total
control of their goals,
but there are plenty
of opportunities for
players to forge creative paths through
the melee.
If you’re already a fan of the various
Acquisitions Incorporated podcasts and
games this is a wonderful supplement.
Even if you aren’t, it’s still worth
checking out if you want to bring absurd
comedy to your weekly sessions.

BLOCKBUSTER
30-45m 4+ 12+ £20

arty-game purveyor Big Potato used to (often arbitrarily) lump their chance at guessing, and nabbing,

P savvily taps into the deep well

of ’90s nostalgia with a new
title that, honestly, is little more
than a movie trivia-based team
game, but knows how to keep things
entertainingly engaging and, above
all, well presented.
The box is an old-school VHS
cassette box, just like the ones we
used to bring home from the local
Blockbuster. The board
is a representation of a
parking lot, complete
with mini-
Blockbuster
signage. The
game’s film
genres match
those the
now-defunct
rental chain
stock in. There is a lot of novelty
value on show. But the gameplay
offers a bit more depth than you
might expect.
After a head-to-head opener,
where two opposing team members
see who can think of the most films,
for example, “with a spy” or “set in
the future”, the guessing begins. The
winner of the first round draws six
cards, each showing a movie title in
one of eight genres. They pick three for
themselves and pass the other three to
the opposing team. Against the timer,
each side must try and guess their
three titles: one from a single word,
one from a single quote and one from a
single, charades-style action.
The twist is if your team guesses
all three before the 30-second timer
buzzer goes off then they have a
the other team’s cards too – the aim
being to collect at least one card in all
eight genres for the win. At the end of
each round, both teams can discard
three cards in the same category
to steal one of any genre from their
opponents, adding some light take-
that strategy and helping keep the
play time nicely tight.
It all clicks together really well, and
you don’t need to have spent years
reading Sight & Sound to enjoy it; if
you don’t know a quote from the film
you’re trying to get your teammates
to guess, then just make one up that
sounds right. It prioritises having
fun over showing off knowledge,
minimising the potential for game-
spoiling smart-arsery. Oh, and don’t
forget to rewind.
DAN JOLIN

tabletopgaming.co.uk 113
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Four game board pieces
◗ 10 hero boards
◗ Four adventure boards
◗ Vortex of
Resurrection board
◗ Card holder board
◗ Storage chest board
◗ 20 hero dice
◗ Four bonus dice
◗ Territory die
◗ Four skulls
◗ 24 enemy cards
◗ Master of
Shadows card
◗ 24 special

ROLL FOR ADVENTURE enemy cards

◗ Four turn
overview cards
When fantasy questing gets a bit dicey ◗ Master of Shadows
overview card
30m 2-4 10+ £30
◗ Boundary tile
◗ Six barrier tiles
he Old Kingdom is in trouble. the fortress walls (needing four each of through that forest to secure a gem, ◗ Five chain tiles

T The Master of Shadows is

coming to plunge the land into
darkness, with his monstrous horde
rushing ahead of him. The only thing
that can stop this Sauron-esque big
bad is a fabled magic item, which
must be powered by a set of powerful,
Infinity Stone-a-like gems, hidden
away in looming fortresses, searing
deserts and gnarly forests. That, and a
hell of a lot of dice rolling.
Roll for Adventure hardly breaks
the fantasy-quest mould. Indeed,
as visualised by German publisher
Kosmos, it’s a bit of a throwback
theme-wise, with so-so '70s kids’
storybook-style art and a disappointing
lack of diversity in its depiction of the
10 playable heroes. (There’s an even
gender split, but can we please stop
treating medieval fantasy as a whites-
only genre?) Fortunately, once you
get past that, there’s much to enjoy
in its quick-play, light-strategy-but-
challenging co-operative mechanics.
Each player has five dice, which they
must roll and place in a variety of ways.
Perhaps to contribute to an effort to hack
through the forest (which requires a long
string of fives or sixes), or hammer at
twos, threes or fours). Or maybe venture
into the Ice Cave, where you can place to
unlock bonus dice. To complicate things
a little, only one number can be chosen
and placed, before the remaining dice
need to be re-rolled, repeating the
process until each player has emptied
their pool. And depending on how they
dice are placed, that pool may become
perilously depleted.
Further complication comes in
the constant onslaught of monstrous
enemies – one drawn at the end of
each turn. Other than the shadowy big
boss, each can be killed with a six (or
a combo of placed dice adding up to a
six), and really should be before they do
too much damage, either attacking their
relevant territory, losing you the game
if its ‘health’ falls to zero or consigning
placed dice to the ‘Vortex of Oblivion’.
Oh, and that’s another way dice can be
placed: into the ‘Vortex of Resurrection’,
until a total value of 10 is reached, and
all obliviated dice are returned.
There are a lot of options for each
player, which can lead to some
enjoyably knotty decision making,
geared towards maximising team
effort. Would it be better to push on
knock that troll on the head before he
trashes the Ice Cave or toss a cube into
the Vortex of Resurrection to give the
◗ Four end-of-game
markers
◗ Four board
connectors
dice-starved next player something to
actually do on their turn?
Variable hero powers add a little TRY THIS IF
spice, while designers Matthew YOU LIKED…
Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert, the team PANDEMIC:
behind last year’s excellent Raids, build RAPID
in longevity and difficulty escalation RESPONSE
with optional special monsters Both games involve
(dragons, phantoms and giants) and co-op dice placement
and variable player
trickier dice-placement challenges on
powers, with the
the territory boards’ B sides. Although emphasis on achieving
the base game is challenging enough – well-calibrated
especially if playing as a family, which teamwork. Though
Roll for Adventure feels made for. Roll for Adventure isn’t
Like all great co-ops, it takes quite so pressure-
balanced, focused teamwork to bring cooker, and offers
that big, shadowy bad guy down. Just some added depth.
like in that big fantasy trilogy we read
once. You know the one…
DAN JOLIN
WE SAY
It’s not a looker, but it is a player.
The co-operative dice-placement
works well, and each turn requires
enough thought and attention to
keep you hooked throughout.

114 The Best Games of 2019

BUILD A CITY. MAKE A FORTUNE.

BACK IT TODAY ON

AVAILABLE NOW
AVAILABLE NOW from
from your
your local
local
games store
games store or
or online
online games
games site
site
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

PATCHWORK DOODLE
20m 1-6 8+ £13

dding another patch to the Replacing the cardboard tiles with advantage of the shape they need to

A polyomino-quilted world of
Patchwork and its quicker
version Patchwork Express is
Patchwork Doodle. Players are once
again trying to fill a grid with Tetris-
style pieces – except in this roll-and-
write addition you’ll being drawing
them in.
pencils has made quite a difference to
the game, although the core concept
itself has changed very little. It is no
longer limited to two players – as
long as pencils and grid paper are
in supply, there is no limit on the
number of players. Whereas in the
original Patchwork players claimed the
polyomino they wanted to weave into
their quilt, therefore limiting the pool
of available pieces, in Doodle the same
piece is drawn by everyone and the
number of different shapes has been
carefully designed to fit a set number
of rounds.
Doodle dispenses with its
predecessor’s button economy as
a means of earning victory points,
focusing entirely on filling up the grid
in the most strategic and productive
manner. Players have special
powers that they can use to take the
draw. Final scoring is most rewarding
when the grid has been filled in
thoughtfully and efficiently.
The simple act of drawing lifts up
the game. Whether you are shading
the pieces in different colours or
drawing them with various patterns,
every grid quilt gains a little bit of its
author’s personality. The simplicity
of the shapes allows anyone to be an
equal competitor in the game and, no
matter the artistic prowess, produce
something visually pleasing.
Patchwork and the various tile-
placement games before and after it
have covered the topic of geometric
shapes filling a grid thoroughly,
yet Patchwork Doodle effortlessly
manages to fit something fresh
and special into the well-worn
gameplay pattern.
ALEX SONECHKINA

VILLAINOUS:
WICKED TO THE CORE
40-60m 10+ 8+ £25

ast year’s Villainous was a introduce even more welcome of experiences as a standalone game

L surprisingly ambitious treat,

handing control of a classic
Disney baddie to each player and
pitting them in a race to complete
their own movie-specific nefarious
deeds first, whether it was Captain
Hook vanquishing Peter Pan or Jafar
fulfilling his wish of becoming a genie.
Wicked to the Core is both an
expansion to that game, introducing
three new characters into the rogues’
gallery, and a standalone game in its
own right, ditching the main game’s
unnecessary plastic cauldron for a
smaller box and halving the maximum
player count to three – arguably the
game’s sweet spot anyway.
Snow White’s classic Evil Queen,
the delightfully hot-headed Hades
from the House of Mouse’s nineties
riff on Hercules and – one for more
younger players – Dr. Facilier from
2009’s The Princess and the Frog
variety to Villainous’ winning
asymmetric cardplay.
The beginner-friendly Hades is the
– though the full set is definitely
still worth getting to try out all the
character combinations.
most straightforward of the bunch, As far as Disney sequels go, Wicked
marching an army of titans across his to the Core is more Simba's Pride than
board to Mount Olympus. Dr. Facilier Return to Never Land. It’s wicked, but
and the Evil Queen, meanwhile, wicked good.
present more inventive mechanics for MATT JARVIS
advanced players to get to grips with.
The former gains an extra 'fortune'
deck that has cards added and
removed in a deckbuilding-lite
fashion and must constantly
struggle with opponents
for control of a talisman,
while the latter lacks a direct way to
vanquish heroes, having to brew
up poisoned apples by spending
power tokens instead.
All three characters feel like
worthwhile additions to
the original roster, as well
as offering a fair spread

116 The Best Games of 2019


BLACKOUT: HONG KONG
Finding light in the darkness
he first experience of playing
T Blackout: Hong Kong is very
much in keeping with the game’s
world gone dark, if a bit less dramatic.
There's confusion, as a single round of
eight different phases unfolds with all its
related myriad of rules and objectives,
then a bit of panic, while trying to
understand how all the steps come to
inform each other and in what way the
main goal – gaining the most victory
points – can be achieved.
While the rulebook helpfully walks
players through every phase of the
game, outlining all rule minutiae and
even including gameplay examples,
it can't get across the bigger picture.
Being introduced to every stage of the
game one at a time helps to calm the
initial feeling of being overwhelmed
with choice, but only playing through
every round and seeing how the actions
in one phase influence and feed into
later stages of the game will help you
to understand the logic and flow of the
gameplay. For the first couple of rounds,
and even possibly for your first game,
Blackout: Hong Kong will be a case of
stumbling around in the dark.
But just as your eyes eventually come
to adjust to the dark, Blackout: Hong
Kong becomes more approachable over
75-150m 1-4 14+ £44
time as your understanding of the game
grows. And getting through that initial
struggle becomes absolutely worth it.
Blackout is divided between players’
individual boards, where the progress of
their actions and objectives are tracked,
and a map of Hong Kong where the
area-control part of the game takes
WHAT’S IN place. The game also has elements
THE BOX? of resource- and hand-management
◗ Hong Kong board and deckbuilding, which interweave
◗ Four player boards elegantly with each other to form a
◗ 50 coins sequence of actions that require careful
◗ 24 transport tokens execution and planning.
◗ 48 scout tokens The core of the gameplay involves
◗ Four locked markers
managing volunteers by allocating them
◗ 12 GPS tokens
◗ Four markers 0-6 to different tasks. Once sent out on an
◗ 136 cards errand, it takes time to gather them back,
◗ Three resource dice so new ones need to be recruited by
◗ Starting player marker completing objectives. Volunteers serve
◗ 20 secure district as jack-of-all-trades for all elements of
markers the game: specific sets of colours help
◗ 100 cubes complete objectives, and volunteers
◗ Four score discs
can be sent scouting for resources or
used to perform special actions, as well
generating cubes for the area-control
element of the Hong Kong board.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… MOMBASA
An earlier game by designer Alexander Pfister, Mombasa has a sunnier
setting and lay the road for some gameplay ideas that Blackout: Hong Kong
executes well.
Players need to think not just several
turns but several rounds ahead, so
some analysis paralysis should be
absolutely expected. The satisfaction
of getting a sequence of turns planned
and completed perfectly or the
frustration of making a misstep along
the way are all part of what makes
Blackout: Hong Kong so entertaining.
The sheer amount of strategies and
possibilities this game has to offer
makes it a challenge you will want to
figure out.
While aiming high mechanically,
Blackout: Hong Kong falls flat
thematically. The premise of the
citywide blackout is always lurking
somewhere in the peripheral. Your
resources are essentials like water,
food, fuel and tools. Various actions in
the game are activated by volunteers,
such as mechanics, doctors or leaders.
Players can go scouting in the dark
districts to find useful resources.
However, none of these elements ever
weave themselves together coherently
but remain disjointed, thematically
similar pieces scattered through the
game. As the premise of the game
has so much promise and potential,
it’s a shame it was primarily used as
a coat of paint for identifying types of
resource cubes.
The disconnect between the game and
the theme also affects the art. While the
board showing the map of Hong Kong
can become quite pretty as it gets more
populated with cubes, the rest of the
components are just okay.
It may not be the most exciting or
enticing-looking game – if you are
attracted by its theme, you may be
disappointed. Still, Blackout: Hong
Kong’s gameplay elevates it above these
missteps. It effortlessly combines many
styles of gameplay in one coherent
and challenging structure, offering a
fun struggle to try to master and an
absolute delight to get right.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Blackout: Hong Kong doesn’t
manage to fulfil the promise of its
theme, but its gameplay deserves
a place in the spotlight.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 117
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
COMBO FIGHTER
number of tabletop games
A have attempted to match
the blazing button-mashing
speed and deep combo-executing
complexity of arcade fighting games
such as Street Fighter. Combo Fighter
is one of the most accomplished
efforts yet.
It’s a game of bluffing, skill and
luck, as the players simultaneously
execute moves by revealing cards
from their hand – each turn
mimicking a split-second button press
in a video game. The cards are drawn
from a deck individual to each fighter,
with the make-up of the rock-paper-
scissors-ish move list split across
attack, defense and footwork actions
that each trump one of the others.
What allows Combo Fighter to land
its hits so successfully is its clever
combo system. Winning a round
allows a player to chain together cards
form their hand into a combo, as
dictated by clear symbols. This means
opening with an evasive feint that
SLIDE QUEST
s there an emerging trend of
I designers using game boxes
as game components? 2015’s
delightfully zany Loony Quest
emulated platforming video games
by having players scribble paths on
transparent plastic sheets before
laying them on ‘level’ boards in the
game’s packaging to see whether
118 The Best Games of 2019
10m+ 2-4 12+ £30
deals zero damage can provide the
chance to follow up with a devastating
series of punches and kicks. Particular
combinations execute signature
moves, dishing out even more damage
– represented by removing cards from
the deck.
The strategy involved in planning
out winning combos makes Combo
Fighter more than blind luck,
without bogging it down in clunky
rules around initiative or card
combinations. Battles rarely take
more than 10 minutes, especially
once players have memorised
their characters’ handful of special
abilities, and keep the blood pumping
throughout.
Like jumping on an arcade
machine, it’s a perfect game to fill
a few minutes with friends. But it
doesn’t quite land a knockout blow.
There’s a welcome selection of rules
variants, including tag teams, a
battle royale and a simple single-
player AI, but the lack of ability to
they’d managed to avoid deadly
traps. 2016’s finger-flicking penguin
pursuit game Ice Cool transformed
its box into an Antarctic high school
full of corridors and classrooms
for players to navigate. And
recent family-friendly dice game
Troll & Dragon used its box as a
subterranean grotto full of glittering
gold and diamonds.
Now there’s a new addition to the
bunch in the form of Slide Quest,
a co-operative dexterity game
that sees players collaboratively
navigating a plastic knight
across a succession of perilous
environments, finding their way
around obstacles and attempting to
avoid plunging into gaping chasms.
The game uses some simple but
clever engineering. Before you
play you’ll place a cardboard map
sheet on top of a plastic tray that
customise your deck in any way
means that Combo Fighter’s variety
feels disappointingly limited –
especially with only four characters
in the base game. (The VS Pack
expansions add two more each, and
make for decent two-player intro
sets by themselves.)
Even so, the central experience of
going toe to toe is outstanding – with
a few more characters in the roster,
Combo Fighter could end up becoming
something very special indeed.
MATT JARVIS
15-45m 2-4 7+ £20
sits suspended in the centre of the
box. Players can tilt it in different
directions using four plastic handles,
causing their plucky hero to roll on his
steel ball-bearing base as the ground
beneath him shifts. Each successive
zone comes with its own set of
objectives, obstacles and enemies to
confront, and getting it right requires
perfect co-ordination. It’s all too easy
for one mistimed jolt to send the
knight crashing unceremoniously
through a hole in the ground.
It may rely on a physical gimmick,
but it’s a hell of a fun one. One
downside is that with fewer than four
players, someone will have to control
multiple levers. But if you can reliably
round up three reasonably dextrous
teammates, it’s an absolute blast for
families, or even for suitably childish
grown-ups.
OWEN DUFFY
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 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
MILITO
Bitesize battles that don’t take an age to play
ar was endemic in the ancient
W world; history is littered with
the ashes of civilisations and
the bones of the slain. Aiming to recreate
these fierce struggles on the tabletop,
Milito sells itself as a card-based, diceless
wargame for two players. The game is a
reskinned version of Field of Glory from
designer Martin Wallace, its main new
feature being six nation-specific decks in
contrast to its predecessor’s generic two.
The setup is simple. Five terrain cards
are drawn from a deck of nine and laid
in a horizontal line between the players.
Most of these cards represent plains,
although there’s also three cards for a
forest, a hill and rough terrain, which all
have different effects on gameplay. Each
card in the line is a column players seek to
control; capturing three wins the game.
Players choose their army by taking
the appropriate deck. Each contains a
number of different unit types, most
of which are exclusive to that force.
Each army has different strengths – the
Republican Romans boast hard-as-nails
elite infantry, for example, whilst the
Carthaginians have mighty war elephants
at their disposal. Each faction is balanced
against the others, although the Ancient
120 The Best Games of 2019
British – who lack any heavy hitters – take
a bit of mastering to play correctly.
Every deck is split between leader
and unit cards, though only the latter
are deployed in columns. Combat is
resolved by comparing the attack and
WHAT’S IN defence values of two units, which are
THE BOX? modified with a card from the respective
◗ Nine terrain cards player’s hand or top of the deck. Modifier
◗ Achaemenid cards are played facedown and then
Persian deck simultaneously revealed. Whilst unit
◗ Alexandrian cards played as modifiers have no effect,
Macedonian deck
leader cards confer benefits or penalties
◗ Ancient British deck
◗ Carthaginian deck to a unit’s stats, and occasionally have
◗ Imperial Roman deck special bonuses for specific troops as well.
◗ Republican It’s a simple way of adding uncertainty to
Roman deck combat, and revealing one’s card makes
for a nice ‘a-ha!’ moment in a turn.
Milito’s rules are straightforward, though
since victory is usually only a turn away
beginners may need a few playthroughs
to get the hang of things. The leader cards
and the way that units can opt to withdraw
convey a suitably ‘historical’ sense to
the proceedings, conjuring up images of
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… BATTLE RAVENS
Another capture-three-of-five-columns title, Battle Ravens’ cardboard figure
conflict succeeds where Milito fails by capturing the essence of a historical
wargame and translating it into a different genre.
30-45m 2 14+ £27
generals galloping behind the lines to issue
orders and units attacking in feints. That
said, Milito still feels like a straightforward
card game with a historical warfare theme,
rather than its self-styled description as a
wargame that’s been translated into a card
game. This isn’t necessarily a criticism, but
it seems unlikely that anyone transitioning
from a wargame to Milito is going to feel
like the gameplay has been replicated
to any great degree.
Overall, Milito is a popcorn game – a
short, pleasant experience, but one that
leaves little impression after playing it.
If you’re a fan of ancient warfare games
and often find yourself with half an hour
to kill this may be the title for you, though
it wouldn’t go down as one of history’s
great tragedies if you gave it a pass.
JAMES WINSPEAR
WE SAY
A bite-sized game of ancient
combat, Milito is fun whilst it lasts
but provides little beyond that.

n this worker-placement and
I resource-management game,
players take on the role of a member
of the Frostrivers tribe competing
to become the next successor to
the most revered elder of their
community, Nētā-Tanka. Refreshingly,
the competition does not involve any
combat or confrontation between
the potential successors. Instead,
they have to prove they are suited
for the role by performing generous
acts, looking after the well-being of
their clan and being an outstanding
member of the society. What a lovely
message all-around!
Nētā-Tanka has a bountiful supply
of everything you’ve come to expect
from worker-placement games. There
is a central tribe board with spots to
visit, resources to collect and exchange,
items to purchase, and special actions
to gain. Every player also has their
own clan board, where all their good
deeds will be tracked as the game
progresses. They can feed their clan by
collecting mushrooms and meat, build
a high totem pole and tents, or procure
various items. Throughout the game,
players are likely to dip into each of
these categories, building them up to a
certain extent or focusing more in one
particular area.
NĒTĀ-TANKA
Totems, tents and tactics
Designer: Artist:
WHAT’S IN While Nētā-Tanka
-Tanka has very
THE BOX?
◗ Two-sided village board
◗ 16 nomads
◗ Visiting nomad
traditional worker-placement
gameplay, it has one mechanic that
sets it aside from the rest: the links.
Positioning two of your meeples in
◗ 12 reminder tokens the spots next to each other creates a
◗ Two two-sided
link between them, generating bonus
totem pole boards
◗ 12 canoe tiles resources or actions. Therefore, if all
◗ Four final tiles four meeples are linked, three extra
◗ 12 Nētā-Tanka cards actions are gained. While the bonus link
◗ 10 objective cards actions are not as powerful as those that
◗ 15 solo objective cards are generated by the proper spots on
◗ 18 handicraft cards the board, having so many extra abilities
◗ 137 resource tokens will still bring a significant advantage.
◗ Two buffalo tokens The resources picked up through the
◗ 20 generosity tokens
links may not be immediately useful,
◗ Nine link tokens
◗ 17 solo link tokens but as there are so many objectives to
◗ Four copy power tokens fulfil, they will not be wasted either.
◗ First player token While an exciting and fun mechanic,
◗ Round counter token links also make the game more
◗ Score pad predictable and less varied at the same
◗ Masterful achievement time. It is a grave mistake not to make
stickers sheet a single link in a round. At the very
least, each player should be creating
one or two each turn as to not to lag
behind their opponents. Therefore,
players tend to clamp all their meeples
in a certain area of the map. Of course,
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… EVERDELL
While not quite reaching the warm and fuzzy feeling that Everdell delivers so expertly,
Nētā-Tanka is similarly a worker-placement game that focuses on the joys of menial
tasks and doing good deeds, while avoiding combat or confrontation in its gameplay.
60-90m 1-4 14+ £55
they can be blocked, although once
the game’s more than generous special
power of ‘cloning’ is unlocked, that
becomes very hard to do. Typically,
spending a meeple to block someone
just limits the number of links you can
create and so usually not worth doing.
In an attempt to tick off all mechanics
that tend to be associated with worker-
placement games, Nētā-Tanka includes
hidden objective cards, completing
which earns players victory points. The
presence of these cards is mystifying as
they are almost completely irrelevant
to the gameplay. The objectives are
broad enough that players will be doing
them anyway as the game progresses
and so do not need further victory
point encouragement. Furthermore,
three victory points are very unlikely
to change the course of the game and
so the revelation of secret objectives
falls flat. In the single-player mode,
objectives are necessary, but the goals
are different to those in the multiplayer.
Nētā-Tanka is a very competent and
enjoyable worker-placement game.
There is something very idyllic and
calming in collecting mushrooms
and wood to feed your clan and build
huts. There aren’t any big end-of-game
reveals and the competition between
other players is non-confrontational.
The biggest challenge is to sequence all
your actions in the right order to gain
the most out the links created by the
meeple placement. Despite the presence
of the links mechanic, there is very little
revolutionary about Nētā-Tanka, but
you will be entertained nonetheless.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Nētā-Tanka gently tries to inspire
us to be more generous and help
others around us, while delivering
everything that is expected from a
conventional worker-placement and
resource-management game.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 121
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
PATHFINDER ADVENTURE
CARD GAME: CORE SET
ix years ago, Paizo launched
S a fresh spin on Pathfinder,
which boldly attempted to
distil the RPG experience into an
expandable card game. Essentially a
DUST IN THE WINGS
Designer:
handsome square box with
A a minimal cover design
showing a beautiful creature
in flight – you’d be forgiven for thinking
Dust in the Wings is in Wingspan
122 The Best Games of 2019
'hunt the card, burn the deck' affair,
it span out over various campaigns,
allowing players to level-up their
characters by building decks and
taking dice-roll-boosting feats. It
worked well, but it’s fair to say it
became eclipsed by even more
ambitious RPG-lite campaign games
– first and foremost Gloomhaven.
Now the Pathfinder Adventure
Card Game is back in a new
edition (albeit entirely backwards-
compatible). It’s slightly better
looking, slightly slicker and slightly
more fun. The 2019 Core Set includes
a more generous roster of characters
than the first edition’s Rise of the
Runelords base set, complete with
pawns, and the Adventure Path now
comes in storybook form, allowing
for more narrative embellishment
(though this rarely gels with the
actual gameplay). One of the key
Artist:
territory but you’d be wrong. This is
a charming almost-abstract that bigs
up its connections to mancala, one of
humanity’s great ancient games, but
makes it about butterflies instead.
Dust’s board is a five-by-five
meadow of squares with flowers in
them and one butterfly per flower
at the start, randomly blue, red and
yellow. On your turn you take all
the butterflies from one square and
move across the meadow, putting
one down in each space you visit. If
your last butterfly is in a space that
fits the pattern shown on one of the
face-up ‘composition’ (groups of
colours) or ‘gathering’ (numbers and
arrangements) cards then you get the
card and its associated reward.
The ballyhooed link to mancala is
only in the way you place butterflies,
not in the way you score. This is a game
of observation rather than strategy
90m 1-4 13+ £50
mechanical changes is the addition of
hero point tokens, rewards which can
either be spent to gain feats or held in
reserve to allow re-rolls, adding some
very welcome mitigation.
Yet, despite being quite a
simple game at its core, it remains
burdened by a knotty ruleset, stuffed
with super-specific terminology
that may turn off new players.
For example, cards aren’t merely
played; they’re revealed, displayed,
reloaded, recharged, discarded,
buried or banished.
It’s hard to imagine this second
edition winning over hordes of new
players, and it is very pricey for
what you get in the box. But once
you acclimatise to its tricky lexicon,
it remains a charming and very
replayable co-operative experience –
and a treat to play solo, too.
DAN JOLIN
30-45m 2-4 14+ £40
and planning. The board and scoring
cards are visible to everyone, so you
can’t spend a turn or two setting up
a grand pattern because someone
else will either spot it and nab it first,
or won’t spot it and will blunder
straight through it instead, wantonly
scattering butterflies as they go.
The rules are short and well
explained, and the gameplay is
pleasing for those who like visual
puzzles. However Dust has the same
problem as its stablemate Inuit: it’s
a charming and easy to learn game
with lovely components and high
production values, and a box and
sticker price about 65% larger than
they should be. At £25 this would be
a nice buy and a great present. At
its suggested price of £40 we can’t
recommend it – though the butterfly
meeples are hard to resist.
JAMES WALLIS

THE EXPANSE RPG
A soft route into hard sci-fi
or a series so enamoured of
F the complex realities of life
beyond our atmosphere, the
tabletop adaption of The Expanse is
a surprisingly manageable package.
It’s still packed with all the hard sci-fi
that fans of the books and TV series
could want, but blending this with
the flexible AGE system has produced
something capable of capturing
anyone looking to geek out in space
without drowning in rules and charts.
Set a few hundred years into the
future, The Expanse is a rough-and-
ready sci-fi universe dominated
by tensions and lingering conflicts
spread across our own solar system.
Though futuristic, the tech on
display is comparatively grounded
in reality – think super-efficient
engines rather than warp drives,
fancy guns rather than lasers – as are
the conflicts you’re likely to run into
while playing the RPG.
This doesn’t mean that there
isn’t plenty of scope for action
or adventure, however. The void
holds many dangers for players to
stumble into and plenty of paths for a
campaign to head down.
In fact, one of the greatest
strengths of The Expanse is the sheer
range of different genres you can
explore with it. A standard campaign
might set the players up as the crew
of a freelance spaceship roaming the
solar system, just trying to keep their
£40
253 13+
bellies full and the engines fuelled,
but the ruleset could just as easily
shift over to a military adventure,
a tense political drama. You could
even switch over to an action-
packed run-in with some of the
setting’s more exotic elements, such
as the zombie-like creatures created
by an alien molecule.
While this is incredibly liberating,
it does sometimes leave the book
feeling a little vague when it comes
to expectations. Should you lean
into the sci-fi tropes and start the
players off with their own ship, for
example, or take a more realistic
but slightly confining approach and
make them part of a crew or unable
to travel freely?
Once things get off the ground
– possibly literally – the game is
easy to manage without being
simplistic. It’s comfortably mid-
weight in terms of complexity,
combining a very straightforward
core mechanic with plenty of scope
for players to customise their
characters and pull off exciting
‘stunts’ if they roll well enough.
There’s a fairly long list of these
abilities for players to pick from,
ranging from a ricochet shot that tags
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… TRAVELLER
The Expanse is a little more grounded than the granddaddy of sci-fi RPGs, but
it pushes many of the same star-gazing buttons.
a foe hiding behind cover to a chance
to take out a ship’s engines. While this
is potentially going to slow down your
first few battles (or chases, or social
encounters) a table will probably have
their favourites nailed down within
a couple hours and from then on it
becomes second nature.
Even with these stunts to hand,
however, combat can be a deadly
affair. Rather than any abstract HP
system, The Expanse keeps track of
damage by eating into a character’s
luck and applying conditions to
them. While a single shot isn’t likely
to take down an uninjured character,
two or three solid hits from a decent
marksman are likely to leave them in a
pool of blood on the floor.
Of course, sci-fi games rarely
restrict their battles to taking potshots
with rifles, and a solid chunk of The
Expanse is taken up with rules for
ship-to-ship combat in the depths
of space. This is perhaps the most
involved and complex encounter
you’re likely to encounter in a game,
with several phases involving several
members of the party each round,
but it’s also incredibly tense. In all
honesty it’s not a wildly deep system,
but it’s one that does a pretty great job
of achieving its goals.
The presentation and design of the
rulebook – often something left as an
afterthought in more hardcore sci-fi
games – is generally impressive, as is
the art. As a minor annoyance it runs
afoul of a few more typos and errors
than is entirely comfortable, but only
a handful of these could cause actual
confusion over rules.
When all this is accounted for,
The Expanse is a thoroughly solid
system for exploring the setting, and
is flexible enough that with a bit of
tweaking it could easily be modified
to work with a dozen other mid-tech
sci-fi universes.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
WE SAY
Flexible sci-fi with a focus on guns and
engineering instead of laser-swords
and future-tech. Worth a look, even
for newcomers to the setting.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 123
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
SPIRE: STRATA
Designer:
he first full-size follow-up
T to one of last year’s most
exciting indie RPGs, Strata
oozes dark charm. Packed with
new player options, locations
and scenarios to play through,
it’s a well-crafted supplement
that adds a slab of ideas to the
base game.
A twisted fantasy-punk take
on persecution and revolution,
Spire transported players to a
towering mega-city where high elven
overlords thrive on the toil and misery
of downtrodden dark elves. With
oppression and dread hanging in the
air, it feels strangely appropriate that
rather than shaking up the status quo
Strata simply aims to expand it.
Perhaps the most obvious additions
are two new classes for players to add
to their party of revolutionaries. Both
PERIODIC: A GAME
OF THE ELEMENTS
espite being a game inspired by
D the periodic table of elements,
Periodic is closer in excitement
to dropping potassium in water than
reading from dusty textbooks.
It’s clearly been created with its
educational benefits in mind, but the
gameplay is much more interesting
than you might assume from the dry
premise. Even so, there’s actual scientific
backing to what you’re doing – players
spend or collect energy tokens to adjust
their atomic mass and increase their
ionisation energy and atomic radii
(it’s less complicated than it sounds),
moving around the periodic table to
124 The Best Games of 2019
are fascinating for rather different
reasons, and in their own way do a
rather wonderful job of capturing the
book’s tone.
The Inksmith, for example, is
where Spire grounds its obvious
love of storytelling, with spells that
compel someone to walk through the
door with a gun or invoke the mighty
powers of Narrative Convenience.
The darker, grimier and harrowing
side of the setting comes with the
thoroughly spooky Shadow Agent,
who are robbed of their sense of self
during a dark initiation and turned
into perfect spies.
Along with this is a wealth of
information on fresh districts about the
Spire, painting a beautiful picture of
both the very highest neighbourhoods
and the very darkest, dingiest slums. The
creativity perhaps peaks among these
claim the individual elements listed on a
variety of different goal cards. Finishing
your turn in specific groups – noble
gases, halogens, metalloids and so
on – advances you along the academic
achievement track, earning extra points.
The objective cards’ scientifically-
accurate specificity give the game a
charming sense of quirkiness, as you race
to be the first to concoct ‘disinfectant
for pool and hot tub water’ (HOCl and
HOBr, if you’re wondering) or the ‘gas
inside incandescent light bulbs’.
Hidden agenda cards and a light
amount of player interaction and
strategy through claiming energy spent
by your opponents and the chance
to benefit from goal cards others
fulfil complete a design that finds a
comfortable resting point between
genuine educational value and
not leaving everyone around the
table bored out of their minds. The
gameplay is a compound of familiar
ideas, but the approachable delivery
makes it easy to digest the pill of
235 13+ £30
chapters, as do the chances for fresh
character advances and equipment.
The chunkiest portion of the book
is devoted to ten brand new scenarios,
evenly divided among the heights and
depths of society. Each provides an
interesting take on the world, especially
those designed for one-shot games or
very short campaigns with specialised
characters. An early mission against an
elven noble treating her staff as living
dolls is particularly fascinating and
horrifying in equal measures.
While these are all great reads,
some of the more high-concept
scenarios aren’t the easiest to run,
sacrificing clarity in favour of elaborate
storytelling. Honestly, though, if you
aren’t on board with a slice of the
dramatic it’s unlikely you’re a fan of
Spire in the first place.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
40-60m 2-5 10+ £39
knowledge wrapped in the middle – and
worth playing just for fun.
Considering its creators were working
with a grid of squares certain to elicit
flashbacks to tedious chemistry lessons
for most people, the colourful and clear
presentation means you’ll quickly start
finding your way between seaborgium
and livermorium with ease. Though given
the pop and clarity of the rest of the game,
it’s a shame that the near-identical
visual similarity between the pink and
purple player pieces caused confusion
for our group on multiple occasions.
It won’t set the world on fire, but
the fact that the designers have turned
out something this enjoyable whether
you’re revising for your science exams
or not simply has to be applauded.
And if you (or someone you know) are
looking for a way to learn your Ac to Zr
that doesn’t go down like a Pb balloon,
this becomes a must-have. It turns
out the most important element in
Periodic is surprise.
MATT JARVIS
PATHFINDER: SECOND EDITION
Magic, monsters & maths
hen you sit down to a game
W of Pathfinder: Second Edition
it’s very hard to forget that you
are, in fact, playing a game. Where other
titles turn their back on complex rules and
highly-tuned characters in favour of light-
touch storytelling, Paizo’s latest take on
traditional fantasy adventuring absolutely
revels in it – for better and for worse.
A great many people will see this
focus on mechanics and raw numbers
as an instant red flag. However, if you’ve
ever sat down with an RPG character
sheet and felt the urge to tinker until the
rules on the page fit in with the badass
you picture in your mind, creating and
playing out your chosen hero can be
unbelievably satisfying.
We say ‘hero’ there, because Second
Edition is very much a game about larger-
than-life heroes setting out on magical
fantasy quests. While you could certainly
use it to weave tales of courtly intrigue
or desperate wilderness survival, the
heart of the RPG revolves around beating
up monsters, exploring dungeons and
extracting big piles of loot.
If that all sounds very familiar, that’s
because – like its predecessor – this new
Pathfinder is directly based on Dungeons &
Dragons. Indeed, tucked away at the back
of the core rulebook you can still find the
text of D&D’s 19-year-old Open Gaming
Licence. While it retains a lot of the
touchstones that have helped define the
genre, such as classes, spell slots and the
d20, however, the developers haven’t been
afraid to make a few sweeping changes.
Perhaps the most obvious of these
is that the smorgasbord of action types
638 13+ £48
available in earlier editions has been
heavily streamlined. Rather than having
turns divided up into distinct chunks,
every character simply gets to do three
things each round. Want to spend
your entire turn sprinting across the
battlefield? Go for it. Feel like stabbing a
dude, raising your shield and then using it
to smack someone else? That’s fine too.
While it can take a little while for
players who cut their teeth on First
Edition to adjust, this single change helps
combat flow a little easier. It also helps
avoid the depressing moments where you
waste a bundle of actions because there’s
nothing useful to do with them.
More than a few of the game’s sacred
cows have been sacrificed for this new
edition, too. The noble paladin is no
longer a core class, for example, having
been replaced by the much broader
‘champion’. A character’s ancestry also
plays a reduced role in choosing their
class, allowing you to flesh out kinds of
weird and wonderful concepts without
sacrificing too much effectiveness.
In fact, this is one area where
Pathfinder: Second Edition truly shines.
There are plenty of games out there that
offer incredible choice when it comes
to character creation, but it’s rare for
these choices to be backed up with hard
mechanical consequences. This means
that the enormous blade being lugged
about by the goblin barbarian isn’t just
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… GENESYS
Pathfinder's second edition is a fair bit chunkier than Fantasy Flight’s genre-
spanning RPG, but it has the same love of fiddling with characters and rules to
create exactly the hero you want.
a reskinned longsword, it actually deals
extra damage, while that pirate you
dreamed up can find abilities helping
her specialise in underwater fighting,
climbing ropes and navigation.
All this minutiae and minor details
come at a cost, and that’s complexity.
Even first-level characters have a long
list of abilities, powers and skills to pick
from and, as campaigns stretch on and
power levels climb, things can begin to
get increasingly hard to manage. Much of
the fun in Pathfinder comes from playing
your character effectively, and doing that
requires you to be on top of spells, special
actions, focus powers, magic items and
much more besides.
On top of this, the core ruleset seems
absolutely determined to make sure that
virtually every action a hero might take
is codified, written down and measured.
There are more than 100 words devoted
to the rules for pointing out a hidden
enemy to your friends, for example, with
different mechanical results depending
on how the dice roll goes.
Enjoying Pathfinder isn’t easy. It
requires you to find real enjoyment in
mechanics as well as roleplaying, a love
of shameless heroism, and either the
willingness to memorise a lot of rules or
the confidence to ignore the ones you
don’t feel like following. If you and your
friends tick those boxes, however, it does
an incredible job of hitting everything you
could want from a brand new RPG.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
❚ WE SAY
A slab of a core book for a monster of a
system that offers incredible customisation
at the cost of more complex mechanics.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 125
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
COPENHAGEN
So good we just can’t cope
here’s a never-ending
T discussion about the best
games to introduce new players
to the tabletop, and favourites like
Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne and
Alhambra almost always feature in
the conversation. These ‘gateway
games’ pull off a delicate balancing
act, presenting players with
meaningful choices while keeping
complexity low. The handful of
games that do it well have become
some of the most treasured titles
in the hobby. Now there’s a new
addition to the bunch.
Copenhagen is ostensibly
about building brightly-coloured
houses along the Danish capital’s
waterfront. But beyond some
cheerful artwork and half a
paragraph of flavour text in its
rulebook, it doesn’t do much to
carry its theme. In reality, it’s an
abstract, Tetris-style puzzle. What
makes it shine, though, is the tight,
elegant and fast-flowing experience
126 The Best Games of 2019
it squeezes out of an absolutely
minimal set of rules.
You and your opponents start
the game with square-grid player
boards representing houses under
construction. On your turn you’ll
choose one of two actions: take
some cards from a communal pool
arranged around the city’s harbour,
or play cards from your hand to
claim building tiles to add to your
board. As you play you’ll aim to fill
in as much of your grid as possible,
earning points for every row and
column you complete.
What makes things interesting are
the rules for gaining and spending
cards. To grab a tile, you’ll need to
discard a set of cards matching its
size and colour – so, for example,
a red tile made up of four squares
would cost four red cards. While
you’ll be able to pick up two cards on
your turn, they have to be adjacent
to one another in the available
row. With the selection drawn
25-40m 2-4 8+ £45
from a randomly shuffled deck,
you’ll often be unable to take
cards of matching colours,
forcing you to think
about the most useful
combinations to add
to your hand. Should
you spend a few turns
amassing a handful of WHAT’S IN
green cards to buy a big, THE BOX?
potentially game-changing ◗ Harbour board
tile? Or should you try to ◗ Four player boards
◗ 20 special ability tiles
pick up smaller ones in
◗ Four scoring markers
multiple colours – less ◗ Scoring track
lucrative, but much ◗ 70 facade cards
easier to acquire? You’ll ◗ 62 facade tiles
always have to think a ◗ End of game card
few rounds ahead and, when the
luck of the draw scuppers your
plans, you’ll need to be able to
change your tactics on the fly.
It’s a simple but satisfying
process, but it’s only the
foundation of Copenhagen.
You’ll also score bonus points for
building arrangements of windows,
and as you play you’ll earn a
variety of special abilities. Used
judiciously they can swing the game
in your favour, and add a sense of
progression and increasing power.
Ultimately, Copenhagen
boils down to a simple choice
repeated on every turn: take some
resources, or do something with TRY THIS IF
the ones you already have. It’s a YOU LIKED…
formula that’s worked brilliantly TICKET TO RIDE
in games like Splendor and Ticket They’re miles apart
to Ride, but Copenhagen never thematically, but
feels samey or derivative. It takes both games force
the family-weight Eurogame players to choose
between acquiring
blueprint and makes it its own –
cards or advancing
the result is magnificent. their position, and
OWEN DUFFY both are fantastic
options for newbies
to the hobby.
❚ WE SAY
Copenhagen comes with a simple
premise, short playing time and
lightning-fast turns, but never at the
expense of interesting decisions. Its
special ability tiles add a real sense
of progression, and the result is
worthy of a place in the pantheon of
great family-friendly Eurogames.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 127
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
CENTURY: A NEW WORLD
Emerson Matsuuchi's historical trading
trilogy reaches its spicy conclusion
ou’ve got to hand it to
Y Emerson Matsuuchi. Century:
A New World doesn’t just mark
the finale of his none-more-Euro,
cube-trading, 300-year-spanning
trilogy. It also marks the last part of a
triptych that, thanks to his ‘mixable
game’ design ambition, combines in
a variety of ways to create no fewer
than seven variants. In addition to
the three base games (Spice Road,
Eastern Wonders and this), there is a
fourth which combines the first two,
two more which each combine A
New World with one of its prequels
and an epic seventh which bundles
together all three.
And it works. Really well, in fact
– as long as you don’t mind the faff
of setting up and packing away with
two or three different boxes, and
happen to already own either or
both of the previous games. When
you combine with Spice Road, that
game’s cube-trading cards can form a
player’s own ‘trade route’, which beefs
up the engine-building element. The
Eastern Wonders version adds that
game’s explorable modular tile map,
with its islands offering up additional
cube-trading options. And the full-on,
entire-trilogy-on-one-table version
128 The Best Games of 2019
folds it all together in a surprisingly
elegant way, offering a wide range
of options per turn, at the risk of
increased analysis paralysis.
But how does A New World work
as a standalone game? As with its
predecessors, it comes with four
cube-represented commodities – this
time corn, meat, tobacco and fur, in
keeping with its 16th-century America
setting. And, again, the core of its
gameplay involves switching up these
commodities to create combinations
that will allow the purchase of game-
end point rewards. However, the
prevailing mechanic here is now good
old, reliable worker placement.
Each player starts with six settlers
(each represented by a disappointingly
diddy meeple), but can build to a
maximum of 12. Like A Feast For
Odin, these often have to be placed
in multiples to pull off more valuable
actions and, similarly to Charterstone,
other players’ pieces don’t necessarily
block you – you just have to place one
more settler than usually required,
which sends your opponent’s settlers
back to their player board, allowing them
to be redeployed during future turns.
It’s pretty straightforward,
medium-weight stuff, and won’t
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX
◗ Six double-sided
location boards
◗ Four double-sided
player boards
◗ Four bowls
◗ 105 wooden cubes
(in four colours)
◗ 48 wooden workers
◗ 56 points cards
◗ 25 bonus tiles
◗ 10 exploration tiles
45-60m 2 14+ £30
exactly bother the titans of the
genre, such as Agricola or Lords of
Waterdeep. What adds some flavour
is that each of the points cards grants
benefits when claimed, either one-
offs (for example, adding settlers to
your pool) or ongoing, which brings
some gentle engine-building into
play. There are also bonus tiles to
purloin, which encourage set-
collection strategies, too.
Like the previous Centuries it’s all
smoothly implemented and lavishly
presented – though the location TRY THIS IF
boards really should have been tile- YOU LIKED…
thick, rather than outsized cards. In THE OTHER
truth, despite its standalone charms, CENTURY
A New World is probably best enjoyed GAMES
by those who have already travelled Goes without saying,
with Matsuuchi along his Spice Road really, that if Spice
and around his Eastern Wonders spice Road and Eastern
Wonders tickled
islands. After all, it is the all-three-
your taste buds,
games combo which impresses the then A New World
most – a real triple-treat. will go down well.
DAN JOLIN
❚ WE SAY
It’s fine as a relatively simple worker-
placement standalone, but it’s through
its mechanism-blending marriage
with the other Century games that
A New World really stands out.
WARHAMMER: AGE OF SIGMAR – WARCRY
Breaking the mould whilst breaking bones
ameless creatures prowl the
N twisted landscape in search of
prey. Blasphemous chants to dark
gods rise from harsh throats to the skies.
Blades ring in the ruins of once-great
cities. This is Warcry; set in the wastes of
Warhammer’s Mortal Worlds, the game
pits eight new Chaos warbands – as well
as several existing Age of Sigmar factions –
against one another in a brutal skirmish-
level wargame.
The game is very much the fantasy
answer to Warhammer 40,000’s Kill
Team; a low-model-count game that
requires less upfront investment than
its mass-battle equivalent and generally
takes less time to play.
In fact, even more so than Kill
Team, it’s a continuation of the pivot
Games Workshop made several years
ago towards fluid gameplay that
eschews the heavy bookkeeping and
stat-checking of old. On a moment-to-
moment level, play alternates between
opponents as they activate a single
model. A model unit can perform two
actions each time it’s activated: move,
attack, disengage from combat or wait.
Nowhere is Games Workshop’s
new approach to game design clearer
than combat. One of the veteran
publisher's oldest principles has been
the tiresome roll-to-hit, roll-to-wound,
roll-armour-save system. This has been
removed for a much simpler – and
much more fun – method of using a
single roll, yet gameplay doesn’t feel
simplistic as a result. This is down in
large part to the innovative initiative
WHAT’S IN system. At the beginning of a round
THE BOX? both players roll six dice to see who
◗ Four-page
quickstart guide goes first. The player whose roll
◗ 22-by-30-inch contains the fewest repeated numbers
folding game board goes first, whilst doubles, triples
◗ 20 fighter cards and quads become points to spend
◗ Four ability cards on special abilities, adding a new
◗ 36 terrain cards layer of tactical depth and resource
◗ 36 deployment cards management to the proceedings.
◗ 36 victory cards Warcry shows smart design choices
◗ 36 twist cards
not only in the rules themselves, but
◗ 18 dice
◗ Range ruler also in how those rules are conveyed. As
◗ 79 tokens well as a quickstart sheet to let players
◗ Ruined city terrain get stuck in, the mechanics themselves
◗ Iron Golem warband are made intuitive through the use of
◗ Untamed Beast visual cues or ‘runemarks’ found on
warband the various cards the game uses. You
◗ 12 Chaotic beasts can easily tell which character can use
◗ Warcry poster which abilities by matching the symbol
on their fighter card to those on the
abilities sheet. Mentioning this sounds
trivial, but it’s remarkable how much
these simple features speed up play.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… KINGS OF WAR: VANGUARD
Another high-fantasy skirmish wargame, Vanguard offers fast and bloody
gameplay, and includes killer scarecrows to boot!
1-3h 2+ 12+ £100
The only real complaint is the
terrain deployment system. Warcry
features a card-based mechanic to
determine the layout of the scenery
in the box for a given battle. This is
odd, since, as well as a self-contained
system, Warcry is also a ruleset
intended to be used as a wider
skirmish game. Because of the specific
nature of the cards and scenery,
however, this mechanic is effectively
tied to the box itself and comes across
as a somewhat cynical attempt to get
players to invest in the full set rather
than just buying the core book. Whilst
using other scenery as a proxy or just
eschewing the mechanic altogether
wouldn’t be game-breaking, it still feels
more like a tacked-on gimmick rather
than a core element.
The miniatures and terrain are of
the usual high standard that Games
Workshop is known for, with the
attendant high number of details on
each model that’s either a boon or
a curse depending on your feelings
about painting them. Aesthetically
speaking, the creativity seems to
have been unevenly distributed
between the two factions included
in the box. Whilst the Iron Golems
have a distinctive look with sinister,
portcullis-like helmets and an
emphasis on curved armour, the
Untamed Beasts come across more
as generic barbarians bedecked in
loincloths and animal bones.
Proving that streamlining does not
equal dumbing down, Warcry may
very well prove as popular as Kill
Team as a go-to skirmish game for
wargamers. The Gods of Chaos would
surely be pleased.
JAMES WINSPEAR
❚ WE SAY
Fast, intuitive and brutal, Warcry
isn’t just a new system to flog more
miniatures, but a genuinely entertaining
skirmish game in its own right.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 129
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
LETTER JAM
B_oody bri_ _iant
f you’re looking for a new post-
I Codenames word game that’s fruity and
fresh, Letter Jam is it.
Everybody starts the game with a
secret five-letter word decided by their
neighbour. The five letter cards are
shuffled; it’s your job to rearrange them in
order to spell out the hidden word. Easy,
right? Wait, did we mention you can’t see
what letters you have?
Yep, Letter Jam borrows the quirky
hold-your-cards-backwards trick of
fireworks-making co-op game Hanabi
and applies it to a twist on a Hangman-
like spellathon.
Everyone can see one of their fellow
players’ letters each round, and must try
to spell out a word using the visible letters
around the table to give as many people
clues to their current letter as possible.
(So you might be working out the gap in
B_SKET, while your E-holding neighbour
puzzles over BASK_T.) But you only have
so many rounds to try and work out all
five of your letters – you can’t return to a
letter once you’ve decided what it is – so
the pressure’s on to decode your letters
and secret word as efficiently as you can.
Like Codenames and Decrypto, it’s
a social deduction word game par
130 The Best Games of 2019
excellence, combining its simple ‘spell a
word’ premise with the brain-burning co-
op challenge of both giving effective clues
and working out those given to you.
Anyone can choose to give a clue
(the green and red clue tokens ensure
that everyone gives a hint at least once),
vaguely indicating how helpful their hint
might be – “This five-letter word helps
three of us and uses the wildcard.” – to
decide amongst themselves who should
go this turn.
While there’s a nice amount of
flexibility to ease the pressure on those
who prefer to guess rather than give,
this is Letter Jam’s only real sticky spot:
depending on the letters and players,
coming up with the best word possible
can result in several minutes of quiet,
game-dragging umming and erring, and
potentially cause frustration if someone
feels their thought-over perfect clue went
to waste or someone blew a precious turn
on an ultimately unhelpful hint.
After everyone gets into the swing of it,
though, these moments of hesitation and
disappointment tend to be rare – and the
few that occur are often worth it for that
moment you quickly pull out a nine-letter
masterpiece that causes everyone to
45m 2-6 8+ €17
immediately solve their current letter. (A
satisfaction only increased by clinking the
fruity poker-chip tokens on the table to
indicate the letters in your clue.)
As you might expect, Letter Jam’s social WHAT’S IN
deduction element means it tends to THE BOX
work best with more players (extra heads ◗ 64 letter cards
around the table help with coming up ◗ Wildcard
with clues quickly, too), although it does ◗ Four setup cards
scale nicely to smaller groups; decks ◗ Pad of guessing sheets
of cards stand in for absent humans, ◗ Eight numbered tokens
◗ Six pencils
drawing a random letter to help with
◗ Six card stands
hints. There’s a nifty way of keeping ◗ Six red clue tokens
players who swiftly solve their word to ◗ Nine green clue tokens
remain engaged in the action, too, with
bonus letters earning extra points if you’re
keeping score.
Deliciously challenging, superbly
original and executed to perfection,
Letter Jam is the next great word-
guessing game. To put it a fruitier way: it’s
f_cking fantastic.
MATT JARVIS
❚ WE SAY
Letter Jam is a great co-op game, an
outstanding word game and a brilliant
experience – just be prepared to
scratch your head over that perfect
clue. When it hits you, though, you’ll be
unable to conserve your excitement.
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
HANABI
If you love staring
at card backs while
thinking intensely
about how to help your
friends, these make
for a perfect pair.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 131
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
WELCOME TO DINO WORLD
elcome to Dino World
W brings together two of
the hottest trends on
the tabletop right now: roll-and-
writes and dinosaur theme park
management. Though, as anyone
who’s been playing Yahtzee and
watching Jurassic Park for the past
two-plus decades knows, they never
really went out of style.
It’s a broad surface, but there’s plenty
of depth underneath. This is a longer
and heavier roll-and-write than much
of the genre, with players laying out an
arrangement of dino pens, paths and
attractions on their grid while having to
manage the power generators needed
to keep the electric fences buzzing.
The basics are still familiar enough
to pick up in a few minutes – roll dice,
write things in boxes – but the need
DOPPELT SO CLEVER
(TWICE AS CLEVER!)
he follow-up to last year’s
T ‘pretty clever’ roll-and-write
smash hit Ganz Schön Clever,
Doppelt so Clever might not be twice
as clever as its astute predecessor
– but it’s still an impressively smart
next move for the series.
There’s a little more to wrap your
head around here than in Ganz. You
still chuck dice and choose which
to jot down on your sheet carefully
– sticking lower-value cubes on the
132 The Best Games of 2019
to carefully plan your layout and
pursue varied scoring options here
give plenty to consider. Do you build
a bunch of big ol’ carnivores for big
points, cram in smaller herbivores,
fill out the park with features or try to
strike a balance? A random selection
of public objectives introduce a little
bit of indirect player interaction
through a race to claim them first, as
well as shuffling up the options each
game – even so, the otherwise limited
sense of other players means you do
play in a bit of a bubble.
Managing power and park
security are among Dino World’s
more satisfying elements, so the
game’s ‘Lite’ mode – which trims
things back to a much more simple
puzzle of arranging pens with little
risk of anything going wrong – feels
box’s silver platter for your opponents
to pick at – but the different
placement and scoring hoops to
jump through have been remixed and
expanded in a way that makes Doppelt
a satisfying and natural step up for
masters of the original.
The most significant and
interesting addition is a silver die,
which lends a literal silver lining to
sacrificing lower rolls to the platter –
with the die counted as a wild colour,
you get to check off every other die
you send to the tray by claiming
the cube, scoring for fuller
rows in the silver area. With
timing key to making the
silver die most beneficial
without leaving yourself
with chaff or handing too
many valuable dice to your
opponents, it’s an excellent new
mechanic that opens new strategies
up without straying too far from
Ganz’ highly enjoyable blueprint.
40-70m 1-75 12+ £25
disappointingly bare compared to its
‘Danger’ mode, where generators can
malfunction and players have greater
control over their rolls and park
layout. The game makes its complexity
easy to digest, so there’s really no
reason to limit your experience to the
Lite experience and miss out on the
best the game has to offer.
Dino World will satiate your hunger
if you’re after a roll-and-write with
a little more meat to chew on. The
limited interaction won’t appeal to
everyone and the Lite mode should
simply be skipped, but the full game
is a worthy addition to both of its
crossover genres whether you’re here
for the dice or the dinos. At the end of
the day, any excuse to draw a T-Rex is
one worth taking.
MATT JARVIS
30m 1-4 8+ £13
Poor rolls and losing dice to the tray
aren’t quite as limiting as before, either,
with a new bonus power allowing
players to return cubes from the platter
back to their available pool. Even so,
changes such as Doppelt’s remixed
yellow area – which requires checking
off numbers twice to score them – mean
that there are even more tricky decisions
involved in pushing your score as high
as possible, making the added control
over your dice a welcome balance to the
more complex placement rules.
Ganz was one of the best games
of last year. Doppelt is more of what
made that game so great, but with
some welcome extra layers of tricky
decisions. If you’re totally new to the
series, the slightly simpler Ganz is
probably still your best starting point
– but this is a fantastic and worthwhile
follow-up when you feel you’ve
mastered that game. Go on, make
yourself feel clever again.
MATT JARVIS

CYBERPUNK RED
JUMPSTART KIT
Old-school future visions
f a good starter set is meant to act as a
I little torpedo loaded with everything
great about a game, the Cyberpunk
Red Jumpstart Kit is a solid hit. There
are a few spots where rather archaic
design clashes with slick modern
presentation, but within the space of
two booklets and some handouts this
box jacks players right in to the neon-
pulsing heart of cyberpunk.
Set in an alternate-timeline
version of the 2040s, Cyberpunk Red
is the latest version of a game with
a pedigree stretching back more
than three decades – a time when
you could get away with calling a
cyberpunk game Cyberpunk. The full
RPG is slated for release sometime
in the next year or so, but until then
the Jumpstart Kit is designed to give
players and GMs alike a taste of the
game and the world it inhabits.
If you want to picture that world,
just conjure up every single trope and
cliché you could possibly associate
with the word ‘cyberpunk’ and then
give it a slight brushing with ‘80s
flair. While that sounds like an insult,
it really isn’t meant to be. Rather,
the sheer, shameless dedication to
embracing everything cyberpunk-ey
smashes any inhibitions keeping you
from leaning into the roleplay.
On top of this, it also means that
you really don’t need to already be
98+ 13+ £29
invested in the setting in order to hit
the ground running. Even if you only
have a passing association with the
genre you already have a grasp on
shady megacorps, futuristic street
gangs and visor-clad cyberhackers.
This is especially helpful in a starter
set where slashing the time from
opening the box to rolling dice should
be as low as possible.
It helps that the rules are – initially,
anyway – simple to work with.
Overcoming challenges, whether they
involve scaling a wall or impressing a
contact with a sweet guitar solo, requires
a d10 roll modified by some combination
of raw attributes and trained skills. Roll
high enough and you pull it off. Easy.
As you delve deeper into the game,
however, the complexity swiftly grows.
Hand-to-hand combat is surprisingly
chunky, with options to grapple,
choke and throw your enemies about
the room, while ranged battles involve
consulting a chart showing how hard
it is for different classes of weapons to
nail a target at certain ranges.
It’s rare that this crosses the line into
confusion, but every now and then
the simulationist approach of earlier
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
GENESYS: SHADOW OF THE BEANSTALK
Cyberpunk Red’s rules are a little more fiddly than the Genesys system, but it
also comes with an attitude that its more generic cousin can’t quite match.
Cyberpunk editions peeks through and
adds an extra layer of bookkeeping and
detail to things. As you take damage,
for example, you need to track how
much of your armour is ablated away
– and if you use your rifle on the three-
round setting, you need to make sure
you’re using the burst sub-table, not
the primary one.
This love of little details, a reliance
on reference tables and occasional
glimpses of old-school approaches
to GMing – it’s been a while since an
adventure suggested making players
suffer for “the sin of powergaming” –
does make Cyberpunk Red feel weirdly
archaic at times. Whether this is a
positive or not will depend on you and
your playgroup, but it certainly does
give the game a distinct feel and tone.
Indeed, the original Cyberpunk
was a child of the ‘80s and Red still
seems to have one shiny black boot
firmly planted there. Spandex-clad
‘Chromatic Rock’ is still the sound
of rebellion in its version of the
2040s, mirror shades are the height
of fashion and mundane objects are
made to sound cooler by sticking the
word ‘cyber’ in front of them.
If you read that and feel yourself
shrinking away, Cyberpunk Red may
not be for you. It’s a game that pulses
with a love for the genre’s aesthetics, its
themes and its retro-futuristic vision of
our future. If you can drop any sense
of irony and embrace the babble about
Black ICE, get cybered up and go throw
down with a booster gang, you’re going
to have run with the Jumpstart Kit.
In fact, the biggest problem with the
box set is that it currently acts as an
introduction to nothing in particular.
At time of writing the full version of
Red doesn’t even have a release date,
so if you do fall in love with the world
you’re forced to jump back to an earlier
version of the game or cool your heels
until the final product hits.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
❚ WE SAY
You couldn’t get more cyberpunk if you
tried. This starter set kicks off with a
shower of neon glamour, it’s just a pity
there’s no full game to move on to.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 133
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
ATELIER: THE PAINTER’S STUDIO
A game that makes a good impression
e’re in the late 19th century,
W in the midst of one of the
greatest outpourings of
art in history – the Impressionists, the
Post-Impressionists, the Romantics
and others. In Atelier you’re not one of
them. Instead you’re running a studio of
artists, competing against other studios
to produce a steady volume of paintings,
as well as masterpieces to win patrons
and reputation.
Publisher AEG has gone to town on
the presentation of Atelier. Collecting
the paintings is the goal of the game and
each one is beautifully reproduced on
a tarot-sized card in a way that lets the
classic art breathe. The player boards are
artists’ palettes – not simple white cards
like the ones in Bob Ross: Art of Chill, but
handsome tools that look the part but are
also beautifully functional.
On the other hand the meeples that
represent your art students are… there’s
no two ways about this, they’re priapic
and bootylicious. Obviously they’re
meant to be holding a palette and
brush, but unfortunately their silhouette
suggests something rather cruder.
What do you do with your collection
of horny students? You use them to get
four colours of paint, which you need to
complete paintings, but you can only get
a paint colour if you’ve put more students
around it than anyone else and then
make the right dice roll.
134 The Best Games of 2019
WHAT’S IN Each turn you roll and draft four dice,
THE BOX?
◗ Four player boards
◗ 40 painting cards
◗ 16 patron cards
and the results let you deploy or move
students, collect paint, or spend paint to
complete a painting. Each painting has a
unique power which gives you boosted
◗ 48 art student meeples
or additional abilities, plus you can burn
◗ 60 paint cylinders
◗ 16 dice dice to get inspiration tokens, which you
◗ 20 inspiration tokens can spend for later re-rolls, paintings
◗ First player marker or even new patron cards, which give
◗ First master marker victory-point bonuses.
Ultimately and inevitably it’s all about
VPs, which come from your paintings.
There are four schools of painting, which
affect the game less than you’d think;
you’re not collecting sets, you mostly
build your collection based on what your
patron wants, what paint you have and
what powers and VPs the card carries.
There’s no reward for cornering the
market for Monets.
The gameplay is clever and intricate,
it’s well-balanced and paced, though in
the end it’s not tremendously tactical.
It’s difficult to work out what paintings
another player is likely to go for, or to
block them. The students tussling for
paint is amusing but the game makes it
easy to bypass that whole process. The
paintings’ abilities feel like they ought
to come together for a kind of engine-
building system but it never gels.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… SPLENDOR
Not the best game about art, or even the best game about art this year, but it’s
an clever, engrossing and agreeable way to get a small lesson in art history..
30-45m 2-4 14+ £39
Despite all that, despite all the
misgivings, it’s fundamentally nice. The
whole thing is pleasant and satisfying
to play, and building your collection
of classic art is lovely. It’s somewhere
between dice drafting, worker placement
and engine-building. If you want a full-on
worker-placement game about art then
you should go for Fresco, if you want heavy
player interaction and dominating the art
market then Modern Art is your game, but
Atelier occupies a space somewhere in the
middle, and seems comfortable there.
Atelier is a keeper, which for a games
reviewer with limited storage and a
collection that started in the 1980s is high
praise. It’s not one of the finest games I’ve
played, it doesn’t dazzle with originality – I
wouldn’t even use the word ‘great’ about it –
but there’s something in the box that I want
to experience and share again. Even though
the mechanics never quite capture it, the art
world of the late 19th century is a charming
and attractive place to spend an hour.
JAMES WALLIS
❚ WE SAY
Not the best game about art, or even
the best game about art this year, but
it’s an clever, engrossing and agreeable
way to get a small lesson in art history.
IMPERIAL SETTLERS:
EMPIRES OF THE NORTH
King in the North
mperial Settlers, Ignacy Trzewiczek’s
I civilisation-and-engine-building
card game, pushes out the corners
of both its world and gameplay in this
accomplished new instalment.
Empires of the North is both a
refinement of Imperial Settlers and a
new game entirely. The central tableau-
building is still here, with players adding
to their layout of cards to produce
resources, construct buildings and earn
victory points. Gone is a common shared
deck; the three factions in the box are
now fully asymmetric, with the Inuit,
Vikings and Scots (each is separated
further into two clans) offering a way
of playing that’s even more pleasingly
individual and thematic.
Also absent is Imperial Settlers’ more
deckbuildy auto-generation of resources,
with goods now carrying over between
turns and players having to manually
produce the supplies needed to build
and power their array of VP-churning
buildings. The only thing you will get
back each turn are workers, which now
come with their own interesting choice
of being traded to keep cards or kept to
activate building abilities.
Having to consider how you save and
spend your resources outside of a single
45-90m
turn gives Empires a distinctly different
feel with a little extra breathing room for
newcomers to the series – something
that the swap from five set rounds to
a winning total of 25 points also helps
with, without dragging out the overall
play time.
The cardplay is supplemented by
a new action-selection rondel that
players assign two counters to in order
to perform key actions: harvesting extra
resources from farms, gaining more
workers and so on. It gives the game an
engaging extra dimension and, rather
than feeling like an awkward system
bolted on for the sake of newness,
ends up being a clever way of building
a stable foundation of regular actions
under the varied and draw-dependent
abilities of the faction-specific cards.
There’s an engaging spatial element
to the rondel as well, with counters
able to trigger an extra adjacent action
at the cost of food, meaning up to
four actions can be taken each turn to
maximise your civ’s expansion. It all
knits together seamlessly, managing
to expand the strategic options outside
of players’ card tableaus without
diminishing the central loop of playing
and activating cards.
1-4 10+ £57
WHAT’S IN
As a whole, Empires is a softer and THE BOX
more approachable experience than
Imperial Settlers. The race to 25 points
means there’s more leeway for new
◗ Scoreboard
◗ Expedition board
◗ Six clan score markers
◗ First player marker
players to get to grips with their clan’s
◗ 33 Ulaf Clan cards
individual cards and abilities, without ◗ 33 Nanurjuk Clan cards
the pressure of a limited number of ◗ 33 Heidel Clan cards
rounds. The earlier game’s player-on- ◗ 33 Glenn Clan cards
player attacks have been dialled back ◗ 33 Panuk Clan cards
here, merely exhausting ability cards ◗ 33 Mackinnon
for that round instead of destroying Clan cards
them completely, making Empires less ◗ 12 nearby island cards
explicitly aggressive and punishing. ◗ 10 distant island cards
◗ Five action tiles
Even so, the game introduces
◗ Four clan tiles
more passive competition through ◗ Eight action pawns
the sail action, which lets players ◗ Goods tokens
send out their boats to conquer (for
permanent benefits and VP) or pillage
(for instant rewards) islands near
and far. Weighing up the benefits of
cheaper immediate return against an
investment in longer-term advantages
is an interesting decision to make,
and plays nicely into the extra effort
required to produce goods and keep
your civilisation’s engine running. Like
the rondel, the expedition board is an
unexpected addition to the central
card game, but never feels anything
other than a welcome and well
considered addition.
Although Empires seems on paper
to be Imperial Settlers with extra TRY THIS IF
boards and mechanics thrown into YOU LIKED…
the mix, it’s a testament to how tightly IMPERIAL
the systems old and new have been SETTLERS
locked together that it winds up being It’s familiar, but
both a faster and more satisfying not that familiar
experience overall, whether you’re – Empires of the
coming to the series for the first or North is different
(and good!) enough
fortieth time. Heck, we’d be so bold to
to deserve a
say it’s not a descendant of Imperial space next to its
Settlers – it’s a deserved successor. predecessor on
MATT JARVIS your shelf.
❚ WE SAY
Building on Imperial Settlers’ enjoyable
engine-building cardplay with smart
gameplay additions and a softer touch
that set it apart from the original,
Empires of the North is an excellent
next step for the newly founded series.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 135
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
SHŌBU
Four boards, one heck of an experience
ave you ever seen those
H stunning feats of intelligence
and strategy where chess
grandmasters face off against dozens
of opponents at the same time, and
still manage to come out on top?
Simply playing Sho-bu makes you feel
like a genius, without the need to be a
member of Mensa – the real genius is
the game itself.
The game presents itself like a
lost traditional design dating back
centuries, but it’s a modern creation
from co-designers Manolis Vranas
and Jamie Sajdak. Its name, Japanese
for ‘game’ or ‘match’, is a bit glib, but
hints at its echoes of the likes of Go.
The rustic components that make up
its modest offering – four wooden
boards, black and white stones, a
short length of rope – are gorgeous; as
simple on the surface as Sho-bu’s rules
appear to be. At first, anyway.
You wouldn’t guess it, but Sho-bu is
a game of mirrors. Its gridded boards
reflect each other: two dark, two light,
one of each tone on either side of the
central rope. The black and white
stones start along opposite sides, like
the classic mirrored setup of chess or
draughts. And every move is actually
two, identical except for one important
136 The Best Games of 2019
difference. Each turn, a player moves
one stone on one of the boards on their
side of the rope up to two spaces in any
direction, like a stubborn chess queen.
This is their ‘passive’ move. Then,
they repeat the move exactly – same
direction, same distance – with any of
the stones on either of the boards of the
opposite tone (dark rather than light, or
vice versa), but this time the stubborn
queen can shunt a stone of the opposite
colour from their path as they go: the
‘aggressive’ move. It’s a beautifully
clever idea, and it’s delivered with
breathtaking confidence and clarity.
The aim is as basic as rocks,
rope and wood. Remove all of your
opponent’s stones from just one board
by pushing them off an edge and
you win. But this simple challenge
is multiplied across the four boards;
going for broke on one board is a quick
way to find yourself being thoroughly
trounced. Instead, it becomes a game
of managing your stones on every
board: moving and evading passively,
attacking aggressively, and keeping
your opponent on their toes on all
four fronts.
A few turns into your first game,
as your brain rewires to scan and
cross-reference possible moves across
20m 2 8+ £29
the grid of grids, you start to feel like
those chess grandmasters effortlessly
juggling multiple games at once. Yet
Sho-bu’s diamond-cut rules mean
WHAT’S IN
that you won’t start to struggle under
THE BOX?
the pressure – the call-and-answer ◗ Four wood boards
way of executing moves allows for (two dark, two light)
the exciting moments of trapping an ◗ 16 black river stones
opponent’s piece against an edge and ◗ 16 white river stones
the challenge of ensuring you’re able to ◗ Cotton dividing rope
retreat your own piece when cornered.
Sho-bu absolutely deserves a place
in the pantheon of modern abstract
classics alongside the likes of Tak, Hive
and Santorini. Its inspired gameplay
twist elevates the simple competition
at its centre to a deeply strategic but
pure experience; the beautiful natural
presentation completes the sense that
you’re playing something that may
very well become the timeless classic it
aims to emulate.
MATT JARVIS
❚ WE SAY
A classic in achievement if not in age,
Shōbu is beautiful inside and out. The
brilliantly clever mirroring of simple
moves gives way to a competition
across four fronts that will leave you in
awe – and considering the strategy for
your next game. It’s a pure pleasure.
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
TAK
Both Shōbu and
Tak are two-player
abstracts invented
in the modern day
with the timeless
feel of games
that’ve existed
for centuries.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 137
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

ARRAIAL
A-rraial head-scratcher
Artist: 20-30m 1-4 8+ £44

etris-style tile-laying puzzles aren’t

T exactly in short supply. From

Patchwork to Blokus, Cottage
Garden to Bärenpark, a growing
number of releases play with the
classic video game’s concept of slotting
awkwardly-shaped pieces into a grid.
It’s easy to see why; it’s simple,
intuitive and addictive, qualities
which have ensured people still obsess
over the original game more than 35
years after it was created in the Soviet
Union. But with so many tabletop
designers using it as the basis for their
own games, it’s difficult for individual
releases to stand out from the pack.
Arraial manages to do so, and in
the process creates a thoughtful and
competitive challenge backed up
by a distinctive art style and a fun
physical gimmick.
Based on the Portuguese tradition of
summer street festivals, it casts players
as rival party planners attempting
to draw the biggest crowds to their
respective celebrations. Sit down and
play, and it quickly becomes clear that
this is a thematic gloss on what’s really
an abstract game.
Over a series of three rounds, you’ll
choose cards from a rotating cardboard
turntable. Each card corresponds to a WHAT’S IN the best possible use of them as they If you’re looking for a head-to-
tile of a particular shape and colour, and THE BOX? are. It also introduces a pronounced head brainy battle this is a simple but
whenever you choose a card you’ll add ◗ Four player boards competitive streak to the game, with absorbing option. While it doesn’t
the matching tile to your board, scoring ◗ Card selection dial players positioning the wheel to ensure work anywhere near as well with
◗ 24 shape cards
points for completing horizontal lines or their opponents get cards in the least bigger groups, it’s never a bad thing to
◗ 72 shape tiles
creating groups of same-colour pieces. ◗ 56 visitor meeples useful orientation possible. The result is have another good two-player title on
What complicates matters is that ◗ Four couple meeples that you’ll find yourself examining your your shelf.
you’ll have to add each tile in the ◗ Round tracker card opponents’ boards as carefully as your OWEN DUFFY
orientation shown on its card. There’s ◗ Round tracker token own, and there’s an almost chess-like
no chance to flip or rotate pieces as ◗ Four level bars quality to your decisions as you consider
you add them to your board, making ◗ First player token not just your own plays but the ones ❚ WE SAY
Arraial far more restrictive than many you’re leaving open to your rivals. Arraial comes in the midst of a flood
other Tetris-inspired titles. Instead, if It’s most pronounced in two- of Tetris-like games, and does an
admirable job of differentiating itself
you want to change the orientation of player games, where handing your
from the scrum. It’s best played
tiles on offer, you’ll need to turn the opponent a collection of useless tiles in very specific circumstances:
cardboard dial showing the available feels deliciously nasty. With higher strictly with two players, and against
cards – but doing so comes at a price. player counts the antagonism largely an opponent who appreciates its
You’ll only be able to take three actions evaporates, meaning Arraial only really blend of spatial puzzle-solving and
on each of your turns; every time shines as a one-on-one battle of wits. passive-aggressive competition.
you shift the dial, you’ll sacrifice an
opportunity to add a piece to your grid.
It means you’ll constantly ask yourself TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… PATCHWORK
whether it’s better to rotate cards to If you like slotting shapes together, you’re spoiled for choice. But Arraial is
an advantageous position, or make definitely worth a look.

138 The Best Games of 2019

 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
JAWS
The head, the tail, the whole damn thing
Designer: Artist:
art of the genius of Steven
P Spielberg’s Jaws is the way it
holds back on showing the
shark. Despite its monstrous girth,
Amity Island’s subaquatic stalker
largely goes unseen. So it makes
perfect sense that this officially-
licensed, Ravensburger tabletop take
on the movie should place hidden
movement at the core of its play. Far
more appropriate, surely, than the
1975 game of the same name, which
was just a fishy remix of Buckaroo!
Jaws: The Game’s fidelity to
Jaws: The Movie is impressively
implemented. The double-sided board
allows for two acts, which closely echo
the film’s genre-flip from suspense
thriller to men-on-a-mission action.
Act One presents a map of Amity
Island, around which one player must
secretly swim in the role of the shark
(call him Bruce if you like, but never
“Jaws”), tracking their moves and
three-actions-per-turn on a pad, only
revealing the results when it involves
triggering a motion sensor on a floating
barrel or eating a swimmer.
The other players each take the
role of Chief Brody (Roy Scheider),
ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard
Dreyfuss) and shark hunter Quint
140 The Best Games of 2019
(Robert Shaw), who co-ordinate their
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX
◗ Double-sided board
◗ Shark meeple
◗ Two boat meeples
actions and special abilities to try and
foil the shark by attaching two barrels to
the beast. Brody can close beaches and
use his binoculars to spy the big fish;
◗ Three crew meeples Hooper can use his ‘Fish Finder’ to force
◗ 16 shark ability cards
the shark to reveal their rough proximity;
◗ 16 resurface cards
◗ 22 gear cards Quint can launch barrels into the water –
◗ 16 Amity event cards if he dumps one where the shark is, then
◗ Three dice the monster is revealed and the barrel is
◗ Shark tracker pad attached. But if the shark chomps down
◗ Four character boards nine swimmers before those two barrels
◗ Four board clips are attached, then it prevails.
◗ Eight boat tiles Either way, the board is then flipped to
◗ 40 tokens Act Two, where all three crew members
are placed aboard the Orca, represented
by eight precarious tiles. (It’s not the
biggest of boats.) The game now becomes
a straight-up battle, with the shark
launching surprise attacks out of the
water by secretly choosing one of three
‘resurface’ points, determined by a trio of
played cards. The crew, meanwhile, have
to anticipate where their finny foe will
appear, and each targets what they think
is the right tile. If they guess correctly,
they roll dice to attack. Then the shark
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… MAN-EATER!
This Jaws-inspired 1976 game also set a secretly-moving shark player against
the others, though they each took the role of swimmers trying to survive.
60m 2-4 12+ £25
lays into the boat, either damaging a
section (flipping the tile to its damaged
side) or destroying it (removing the tile
completely), depending on the roll. If
the shark destroys the Orca, or eats all
the crew, it wins.
It’s hard to imagine any fans of the film
not enjoying all this – especially when
the drama deviates so entertainingly
from the original. In one of our games,
Brody was killed (no Jaws 2!) and Hooper
finished the shark off with a hammer. It’s
not exactly a deep, crunchy game, but it
is hugely accessible, super easy to learn,
beautifully presented (right down to the
’70s-style fonts) and with the blockbuster
hook provides an ideal gateway title: to
games in general and to the hidden-
movement genre in particular. In short,
it’s pretty damn Jawsome.
DAN JOLIN
❚ WE SAY
A strong big-screen-to-tabletop
adaptation, which bottles the spirit of
the movie as a thoroughly entertaining
two-games-in-one experience.
SHIPSHAPE
hether it’s as the father
W of the legacy genre or
one of the minds behind
Betrayal at House on the Hill,
Rob Daviau has made a name for
himself as one of the most joyously
creative game designers out there.
ShipShape continues his reputation
for brilliantly playful and inventive
games, but in a much lighter form.
The premise is grinningly simple:
bid for goods, stack goods in your
ship’s hold, score points. The goods
are gold, cannons and contraband,
and they appear as arrangements on
frame-like foam tiles that you literally
pile up on your board, squishing (not
literally) ship rats with the barrels and
booty when you can.
Here’s the Daviau twist: to score,
you look down through your three
stacked tiles and count the bits you
can see. It’s oh-so-simple, but a
delightful visual gimmick every time.
The 3D trick adds a cunning layer
ESCAPE ROOM IN A BOX:
FLASHBACK
he second in the Ronseal-
T titled Escape Room in a Box
series following last year’s The
Werewolf Experiment (and technically
a sequel to that game, though you can
dive straight in here), Flashback is an
enjoyable and polished puzzler – but
it comes at a cost.
Flashback’s headline feature is its
three separate paths of puzzles, each
involving a slightly different style of
brainteasing and culminating in the
cracking of an actual combination
lock to open three colour-coded
containers. What’s inside we’ll leave
for you to discover, but the mental
and physical reward for getting the
answers right is a welcome treat.
The riddles are clever and varied,
ranging from classic wordplay and
visual tricks to one especially ‘cool’
20-50m 2-6 8+ £29
(literally) to each turn’s opening another Daviau game – though we
bidding too, as players peer down the
stack of tiles, trying to bid just right
using their numbered cards to get
suspect he’s already thinking up his
next clever trick.
MATT JARVIS
a particular tile in the tower – and
predict what precious goods might lie
under the bits blocking their view.
There’s some interesting not-too-
high, not-too-low objectives in the
scoring, with too much contraband
voiding one player’s take (it gets
confiscated) and too few cannons
earning you zilch. New boards with
different starting setups are dealt out
for each round, keeping things nicely
balanced between players – even over
three rounds, the light rules mean
things wrap up swiftly.
With things kept to a basic, the
central gimmick is the thing here,
but it’s absolutely enjoyable enough
(almost) by itself to make ShipShape
a rollicking half-hour or so of light,
breezy fun. We just have our fingers
crossed that it sees a fuller outing in
can be played carefully enough to
keep its components intact (or they
can be reprinted online for free),
making it well worth passing on once
you’ve bested it.
90m 2-9 7+ £33 For the right price, Flashback
makes for an hour or so of satisfying
physical gimmick. They individually head-scratching – just don’t go in
land comfortably between
straightforward and moderately
cryptic, but even with three branches
expecting anything more than it says
on the box.
MATT JARVIS
to complete the entire experience
comes in a little short of the promised
90 minutes on the box – it took us just
over an hour to complete all three
paths with just two brains between us.
Despite the quality on show, the
quantity (or lack of ) makes Flashback
a little hard to wholeheartedly
recommend for the steep asking
price versus strong and cheaper – if
less flashy – alternatives such as Exit:
The Game. If you can rustle up three
groups of friends willing to chip in
together and tackle one path each
during three separate playthroughs,
it becomes a much more attractive
offering. As another plus, the game
tabletopgaming.co.uk 141
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
PAX PAMIR: SECOND EDITION
Great Game, or greatest game?
ole Wehrle continues to
C prove that looks can be
deceiving. The designer’s
2018 masterpiece, Root, dressed up
oppressive imperialism and cut-throat
guerrilla warfare in rabbit ears and
pastel colours. This, an overhaul of
Wehrle’s 2015 title set during Britain
and Russian’s 19th-century tussle over
Afghanistan, has the divided map
regions, unit blocks and historical
grounding of a wargame. In reality, it’s a
political stock market of investment and
reward, timing and opportunity, loyalty
and betrayal.
Pax Pamir takes an inside-out look
at The Great Game. Players aren’t the
British or Russians vying for control of the
region, but local Afghan leaders looking
to ally with the dominant side. The only
problem? That side keeps changing.
The mercurial alliances both on the
board and around the table flow freely
before suddenly hardening into a cold,
sharp blade in the back. Players throw
their lot in with the British, Russian
or Afghan forces, helping to build up
their (current) partner’s armies and
roads in regions whilst flattering them
with gifts and the ever-appreciated
assassination of rival figures. But
there’s no use backing a losing side,
so players can invite patriots from
another regime into their row of
cards – and even eliminate their own
advisors – sacrificing all goodwill with
their former ally in order to impress
whichever of the three forces looks
142 The Best Games of 2019
45-150m 1-5 14+ $85
to be pulling ahead before each of
the game’s four points-calculating
dominance checks triggers.
With multiple players able to support
the same side (which forbids you from
destroying the tribes of a fellow ‘ally’
on the board, but doesn’t stop a sneaky
WHAT’S IN assassination behind the scenes to
THE BOX? effectively eradicate their presence
◗ Cloth map in a region, one of Pax Pamir’s many
◗ 36 coalition blocks delightfully slippery tactics), while still
◗ 55 cylinders
jockeying to be the favoured partner
◗ 36 coins
◗ Six ruler tokens for the maximum points boost, victory
◗ Five loyalty dials comes down to timing and a ruthless
◗ Five player boards ability to side with others only as long
◗ Favoured suit marker as it benefits you. It’s unflinchingly
◗ 16 event cards opportunistic, but never cruel.
◗ 100 court cards Other games have built tension
◗ 26 Wakhan cards and excitement on top of similar ideas
of shifting alliances. Pax Pamir feels
different. Building up your tableau of
court cards – expanding your actions
from buying and playing cards to
encompass taxing, battling, spying and
more – with the knowledge that you
may have to sacrifice them in a few
turns’ time and start afresh means that
the game never stands still or lulls into
predictability. The challenge of knowing
when to switch sides – early enough
to benefit from building up the most
influence, but without giving others
the opportunity to spur another faction
ahead – remains constant, especially
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… ROOT
The two games don’t share much in the way of gameplay, but both demonstrate
designer Cole Wehrle’s knack for ingenious ideas and stunning presentation.
once the board is reset after a successful
dominance score. Event cards, a
double-value final check to allow
surprise from-behind reversals and an
instant-win runaway leader condition
means the tempo never drops up to the
last minute.
The truth is that Pax Pamir’s
brilliance comes with some caveats.
While how to play the game can be
explained in a matter of minutes (some
easily-missed crucial details will need
you to consult the rulebook the first
few games), properly understanding
the staggering nuances its basic
concepts give way to and the balletic
dance of loyalties required to elevate
the experience to its fullest heights
will likely take some players several
playthroughs to even begin to grasp.
For some, this will lead to frustration
– and means that groups of mixed
familiarity might find it hard to give
everyone an ‘enjoyable’ time. It’s an
experience that rewards effort and
commitment; both the effort and the
reward can be immense.
It also plays best with enough people
to allow for those temporary alliances,
sudden treacheries and combined
efforts to push a particular faction into
(or out of) the top spot. The two-player
game is a different, meaner beast, and
enjoyable in its own way, while the
AI-controlled player Wakhan makes for
an interesting human replacement, but
its varied behaviour comes at the cost of
slightly fiddly rules and a lack of spirited
table diplomacy.
Even during what can be a slow climb
trying to absorb its sheer complexity,
Pax Pamir is endlessly fascinating. It’s a
game that, for those who don’t bounce
off its harder edges, demands to be
played again and again to discover the
intricacies of an experience that really
does stand apart from what’s out there.
The more you play it, the more you’ll
want to play it – and, like those spinning
loyalty dials, it’ll always offer you
something new to side with.
MATT JARVIS
❚ WE SAY
A game of opportunity and ruthless self-
interest, Pax Pamir is a complex experience
that rewards every ounce of the effort it asks.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 143
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
MIREMARSH
Squelch squerch, squelch squerch…
oblins are, without a doubt,
G fantasy’s ultimate underdogs.
They’re small, they’re smelly
(probably), they’re very easy to kill,
but they’re nothing if not viciously
persistent. Miremarsh does little to
subvert this species stereotype. In fact,
it positively revels in it.
This murky, lurky game of
miniature-based, dice-fuelled swamp
exploration and combat gives each
player a bog-goblin who starts with
a specific set of custom dice and a
unique power. Poker, for example,
can roll an extra die when attacked
by the swamp creature which stalks
the board, while Lugger can hold one
more piece of equipment than the
other goblins (each piece providing
a precious bonus die). Don’t get too
attached to them, though. Because,
unless you’re uncommonly lucky,
your goblin will die.
The aim is to be the first goblin to
complete one of four horrible quests
(“Slay the last unicorn”, “Desecrate the
halfling’s garden”, and so on), located
at each of this strikingly-rendered,
double-thickness board’s corners. Or to
be the last goblin standing (we’ll come
back to that later). However, there’s a
time limit, set by the fact that, at the
end of each turn, you have to consume
– i.e. discard – one of the nine fish you
144 The Best Games of 2019
WHAT’S IN start with. If you ever need a fish and
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ 42 swamp
location tiles
don’t have one, you’re out of the game
(again, we’ll come back to that).
All your actions are determined by a
dice roll at the start of your turn. Roll a
◗ 19 monster tiles
foot? That’s a move. Roll an eye? You can
◗ 15 goblin miniatures
◗ Two swamp turn a tile and spy what random dangers
creature miniatures await. Roll a sword? That’s a hit. Roll a
◗ Five coloured bases pentagram? That’s any action you want
◗ 23 Custom dice it to be. Roll a tentacle? Oh dear: that
◗ 15 Goblin cards means the player to your left activates the
◗ Nine pet cards swamp creature, which moves around
◗ 14 Knick-knack cards the board, inconveniently attacking
◗ Nine spell cards whoever it comes into contact with.
◗ 40 equipment tokens
Most locations, including the quest tiles,
◗ 20 gold tokens
◗ Nine bones tokens require passing a multi-tiered, push-your-
◗ 45 fish tokens luck challenge – usually fighting a creature
or dodging a trap. If you don’t have the
required symbols on your dice, you can
roll the remaining cubes once more. If
you fail the challenge, you’re dead.
But you’re not necessarily out of the
game. There are other goblins waiting to
join the squelchy fray, drawn from a limited
deck. Just grab a new set of dice, a new
miniature and carry on; perhaps on the very
spot your other goblin died, thereby picking
up some of their dropped loot, if you’re
happy to spend a fish to do so. Although,
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… WELCOME TO THE DUNGEON
Another ‘toony fantasy title that dares its players to push their luck and involves
player elimination — though it comes in a much smaller box and will cost you
much less.
30-50m 1-5 14+ £55
if the goblin deck’s empty then – you
guessed it – you’re out of the game.
Like the green-hued antagonists
themselves, Miremarsh is nasty, brutish
and short. And, with its dark sense of
humour, pretty fun too, if you don’t
mind lots of dice-throwing and possibly
winning or losing on a single roll. It
also involves player elimination, which
for many gamers is an understandable
no-no. However, the game is calibrated
in such a way that this all comes very
close to the game’s end, with players
dropping out quickly, providing a great
burst of climactic drama.
It’s hardly sophisticated, tactical,
groundbreaking stuff, but does it really
need to be? It’s goblins, innit?
DAN JOLIN
❚ WE SAY
An impressive product with high-quality
components (albeit with text that’s a
little hard to discern in dim light) whose
comedy-fantasy theme is well matched
by its breezy mechanics. Though it might
be a tad too frothy for some players’
tastes, and it’s hard to strategise
when so much depends on the dice.
 BAHAMAS
f you ever wonder what spawns the from the plane he’d hijacked with
I idea for a new game, then Bahamas
will give you plenty of mental fodder.
Was it inspired by the true story of D.
$200,000 in a suitcase, never to be
found, or the traditional card game
Old Maid?
B. Cooper, who in 1971 parachuted You’re scum and villainy with
special abilities, arguing over the
loot you’ve stolen, but your plane
is going daaahn and there aren’t
enough parachutes. Worse, there are
fake parachutes that look like a fluffy
backpack, and ending the game with
one is an instant lose. Can you (a)
survive, (b) with the most money?
It sounds like Cash ‘n Guns on a
plane, only without the guns. Actually
it’s a dice-drafter, and the die you
choose (or get stuck with) determines
your action. You can draw action or
cash cards, steal them from other
players, or use your character’s special
power. Cash sits in your hand until
someone steals it, while actions can be
played at any time. It ought to be fast
and furious, but the cards are mostly
about stealing cards or changing dice.
FINGER GUNS AT HIGH NOON
here’s an ineffable joy to chaos. Everyone reveals their
T finger guns, isn’t there?
Pointing your index finger
at someone and saying “Bang”
choice at once, but different
weapons can cancel later
actions in the hierarchy – so
is gleefully childish – as it turns your power shot is wasted
out, a whole game based on the if you get blown up. The
idea turns out to be just as silly chance to turn a thumbs-up
and enjoyable as you’d hope. into a posse-up and damage
Finger Guns expands your multiple players as long as
arm-ament from the classic you can convince most of the
single-shot digit with an array group to join you makes for
of satisfying hand-to-hand some fun shifting alliances
weapons. You can rock devil and broken promises. It’s
horns to lob dynamite at your silly, but not stupid – as the
neighbours, order up health- ability for eliminated players
restoring vittles with a number to gang up as ghosts and
of fingers (match someone else take revenge on the living
and no-one gets to drink), fire off together proves.
a five-fingered power shot (no, not Finger Guns’ gameplay is as well-
like that) or lasso an ally card from worn as its western theme. It’s Rock,
the middle of the table for an instant Paper, Wizard without the revolving
or ongoing effect, as long as you’re spellbook of hand gestures and race
the only person twirling their fist. to get to the treasure; Bang minus
What makes Finger Gun work as the social deduction and stack of
a game is that there’s order to its cards; Cash ‘n Guns sans the cash
30m 4-8 10+ £15
The trouble with Bahamas is that
it’s all take and no give. You can
grab cards from other players, but
only a few action cards will tell you
if they’ve got the parachute you
desperately need. Plus there’s no way
to give away a fake parachute; you
have to hope someone will steal it by
accident – and that’s the core of Old
Maid, a card game we played as kids.
There’s nothing wrong with
reusing old game systems, but Old
Maid isn’t a good fit for gangsters
staring death in the face. Bahamas
is fun enough but it’s lacking in
surprises or teeth: you can’t stab
your friends in the back, shoot them
in the face or pawn off a fake chute
as a real one. Combined with rules
that read like a bad translation (but
designed to look like a plane safety
card, a nice touch), Bahamas feels
like an economy-class version of a
better gangster game.
JAMES WALLIS
20m 3-8 14+ £15
(or guns). But there’s a simplicity to
Finger Guns that makes it such an
obvious crowdpleaser – you could
lay down the player aid with the list
of gestures in front of almost any
player and have them instinctively
know how to play.
This simplicity is the game’s
greatest strength and most notable
weakness (other than the naff slider
clips used to track health). For
some, the relatively straightforward
approach to finger-gunning down
your friends won’t have enough to
sustain more than a couple plays.
For most, this will quickly join the
ranks of quick-draw party favourites
to pull out when you want to have
some laughs with friends and not
think too much. And to be honest,
if you can't abide pointing at things
and going “Bang” every now and
then, maybe you need a little more
silliness in your life.
MATT JARVIS
tabletopgaming.co.uk 145
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
HONGA
Always pet the big cat
laying Honga, a family-
P orientated worker-placement
game, gives the unmistakable
feeling of déjà vu. It isn’t that the
game isn’t good or fun, but it feels
like something you’ve played several
times before.
There are spaces on the board
that generate resources which can
then be exchanged for victory points.
Sound familiar? Going to another
location on the board rewards
players with extra points and there is
a spot where players can engage in
slightly risky bidding to – that’s right!
– earn even more points. Like many
worker-placement games, Honga
supports multiple strategies of play
and is fairly good at making sure all
of the places on its board work and
reinforce each other.
Despite following a pattern that a
lot of other worker-placement games
have also adopted, among these very
familiar mechanics is one element
146 The Best Games of 2019
30-45m 2-5 8+ £27
WHAT’S IN that strives to make the game distinct.
THE BOX?
◗ Five player trays
◗ Honga play figure
◗ Depot board
In the case of Honga, it is a titular
sabre-toothed kitty that demands
constant pets.
Instead of using meeples to
◗ Game board
activate locations on the board,
◗ 46 action discs
◗ 32 barter cards Honga features discs divided into
◗ 25 bonus cards four sectors, some of which contain
◗ Mammoth tooth handprints. Players orient the
◗ Five cavemen handprints on a disc in the direction
◗ Five scoring markers of the action they want to take and,
◗ Starting player marker optionally, Honga, the kitty. As long
◗ 30 mammoths as Honga has been paid attention to,
◗ 20 food tokens it will stay in the centre of the board.
But if you neglect to give the big kitty
even a bit of your attention, Honga
will jump on your board and begin
to eat your resources until another
player fails in their pet duties.
Handprints are located in two
or three of the four sectors on the
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… LORDS OF WATERDEEP
Honga takes the core concepts of worker-placement games, like Lords of Waterdeep,
and makes them lighthearted and approachable for non-gamer families.
special discs, which only one player
can have at a time. This means that
unless the player is ready to face the
wrath of the sabre-tooth, one of their
actions each turn will always be spent
on pets, leaving at the most two free
actions. This is not a lot – and players
will always try to pet Honga, as the
fallout from not doing so never makes
the reward of the extra action worth
it. Therefore, Honga acts less as a
risk-reward element and more as an
in-built action restriction in order to
make the game more challenging.
Indeed, it is fun to rotate discs in
your hands, trying to figure out the
most effective orientation, while still
making sure that one handprinted
sector faces Honga. But that comes
at the expense of choice and, as
discs are dealt at random, players’
decisions end up being more
reactionary, rather than pre-planned.
Honga’s components are mostly a
hit, with one significant miss. Tokens,
player boards and, of course, the
centrepiece of the game, Honga – a
large meeple-like token showing
the sabre-tooth – are all really
impressive. The biggest letdown is
the discs. Made from fairly thick, yet
still flimsy, cardboard, they are hard
to shuffle and fiddly to place on the
board. As these are the components
players will be handling most during
each game, this misstep in design
quality feels significant.
Despite the presence of the
attention-seeking sabre-tooth and
the rotating discs, Honga follows an
overly-familiar worker-placement
formula. Even so, its sunny theme
and light strategic gameplay will
absolutely find fans among the
audience the game is aiming for –
families. Its approachable level of
complexity and engagement along
with – mostly – standout components
make it very easy to enjoy; just don’t
expect groundbreaking gameplay.
ALEX SONECHKINA
❚ WE SAY
Honga may not be particularly original,
but its easy pick-up-and-play gameplay
will be challenging and fun enough
for a game night with the family.
NATURO BARUTO CARD GAME
his anime adaptation is the first
T in a new series of expandable
card games built on designer
Ryan Miller’s Chrono Clash system.
The system will be familiar to players
of last year’s Crystal Clans, using a similar
resource of ‘time’ to play cards; a central
track shifts back and forth between
the players, with more expensive cards
pushing the tracker further onto the
opponent’s side, giving them more
opportunity to play cards on their turn.
It works smoothly as a built-in
balancing mechanism, with every card
able to be played from the off – albeit
with the risk of handing your rival more
of a window to retaliate. Here, cards
can also be willingly discarded from the
field to summon more powerful battlers
from a separate deck of oversized cards,
setting up interesting strategies and
combos as you try to run down your
rival’s stack of facedown guardian cards,
which activate as a last defence with
their own individual powers.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
ESSENTIALS KIT
here’s something wonderfully
T precise about the naming of the
Essentials Kit. In one smallish
box it holds everything needed to sink
your teeth into the latest version of
D&D and, though veterans might find it
a little lacking in substance, there’s no
better place for newcomers to hop on
and get rolling dice.
This kit comes along as a replacement
of sorts for the D&D Starter Set that first
hit shelves five years ago. Just like its
predecessor it provides a stripped-down
Card effects activate like
programming code, with a line of icons
depicting when things happen, what
they happen to and what they do. You’ll
almost certainly read them like a robot
to begin with: “When attacking. Your
battler. In your discard pile. Goes back
to hand. Draw one card from extra
deck.” Most of the symbols are relatively
intuitive, although a couple are less
obvious at a glance and take a little
more effort to learn. Once they click
into place like a second language, the
universal system’s strength is revealed
– it’s a satisfying and streamlined way
of executing chains of effects, keeping
the action frictionless throughout
reasonably tight matches.
As an expandable rather than
collectible game, each of the two core
sets comes with enough to play with two
people – though you’ll likely want both to
allow four-player matches and to open up
options for long-term replayability thanks
to the approachable deck construction.
64+
set of the core game’s rules, providing
just enough to get rolling with the most
iconic combinations of classes and
fantasy races.
Of course, the open-ended nature
of RPGs means that even this limited
slice of the ruleset is enough to keep a
table happily hacking their way through
several months’ worth of dungeons. With
that in mind, the Essentials Kit comes
packed with just over a dozen short
adventures and encounters that can be
woven into a neat little campaign or just
30m 2-4 6+ £35
Your mileage with the Naruto
card game will likely depend on your
personal affiliation with the anime,
but with a Godzilla follow-up already
on the way and more spin-offs a
near-certainty, it’s a strong start for the
Chrono Clash system as a whole.
MATT JARVIS
used to give the players a taste of the
game’s many elements.
These quests will probably be the
greatest lure to existing players looking
to snaffle up the box set, and don’t
13+ £25 disappoint on that front. They’re generally
well-written and mercifully concise. Even
the most complex takes up just four pages
– an ideal length for newer DMs looking to
avoid overly complex plots or mysteries.
Alongside the books the kit is stuffed
with a solid fistful of cards showing
magic items, important NPCs and
noticeboard quests, as well as a set of
dice and a DM screen. In all honesty
the quality of these accessories is a
little shaky – the screen is thin enough
to barely qualify as cardboard – but
when you consider the price it’s hard to
complain with any real conviction.
If you’ve never dabbled with the
latest version of D&D this is the
easiest, cleanest way to do so. It offers
a delightful taste of the dangers and
delights of tabletop roleplaying in a
way that should be instantly familiar to
anyone who has so much as glanced at
pop culture in the past 40 years.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
tabletopgaming.co.uk 147
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
BAND OF BLADES
We are Legion
rapping your head around
W Band of Blades isn’t the
easiest thing. At first glance
it looks like yet another dark fantasy RPG
with a couple of neat ideas, but once you
get it to the table you realise that the twists
and turns just keep coming until you’re
spiralling into an entirely new kind of
game altogether – one that ditches the
soft edges of the sandbox in favour of
razor-sharp storytelling.
The first of these quirks is the fact that
Band of Blades neatly straddles the line
between game system and campaign.
Every time you kick off a campaign,
you’re going to playing out the same
rough scenario – the desperate retreat
of The Legion in the face of an undead
horde led by warped divine warriors.
This doesn’t mean that every game is
going to be exactly the same, of course.
Different tables will make different
choices, dream up different characters
and play events out in different ways, but
the general goals and themes are always
going to be the same. While it may seem
a little limiting, this narrow focus allows
every aspect of the game to work together
in a way that simply wouldn’t work if
things were fully freeform.
For example, the simple fact that
you’re always playing as The Legion
rather than the traditional party of
wandering adventurers means that
you’ll always have a broad cast of
characters to play around with. This is
important because in Band of Blades
you don’t just play as just one hero, but
rather The Legion as a whole. Kind of.
There’s likely to be a small group of
specialist fighters who function as the
main characters, but over the course of
a campaign the players will probably
jump into the shoes of a half-dozen other
legionnaires as missions (and drama)
demand. On top of this every player takes
the role of one of the Legion’s top officers,
who don’t go head into the field at all,
instead overseeing things like supplies,
intelligence and mission selection from
the relative safety of the camp.
This can be a confusing concept to
grasp, and one that requires every player
to be comfortable with multiple roles,
148 The Best Games of 2019
but when it clicks into place it creates
something rather wonderful. Between
the ensemble cast, shifting perspectives
and episodic structure Band of Blades
campaigns feel like they could be
directly pulled from slick TV series like
Battlestar Galactica or Game of Thrones.
This is only heightened by the
rulebook’s almost fanatical devotion
to cutting out any moment that isn’t
exciting or relevant to the plot. If a
session’s primary mission involves
raiding an occupied village for
supplies of black powder, the squad’s
travel and initial approach are
covered with a quick ‘engagement
roll’ and the actual action picks up as
they first engage with the garrison of
gloomy, crow-masked monsters.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
ZWEIHÄNDER: GRIM & PERILOUS RPG
The feel of these two games is about is different as you can get, but both share
the same tone of horror, desperation and damn good stories.
450 13+ £36
When those moments of conflict do
arrive – whether they come in the form of
a fight, an attempt to sneak past sentries
or smash down a poorly-guarded
door – they’re all handled by the same
core mechanic used in other Forged in
the Dark games, such as Blades in the
Dark. At a base level this is a simple
check involving a handful of d6s and a
conversation with the GM about what the
consequences might be, but there’s a lot
of details floating around that can make
things surprisingly complicated.
Judging a single roll requires you to
consider whether the character’s position
is controlled, risky or desperate, whether
they have potency, what their scale is
relative to the task and the threat of any
foes. None of the individual parts are too
hard to handle, but there’s a lot of systems
to keep track of and the rulebook doesn’t
do a great job of neatly presenting its ideas.
Checking the rules on making a
slightly complicated check may send
you hopping across entries separated
by hundreds of pages of text, which is
far from ideal in a game where pacing is
so key. After a while the factors involved
become second nature, but the GM’s
first few steps into the game feel more
complicated that they really should be.
Once you do get rolling, however, there
really is something special about Band
of Blades. Where so many games can
be described as “like X but…” it stands
entirely alone, sharp as a knife and dark
as gunpowder. Its limited scope can be
a little off-putting to those who want just
one system to play for years at a time, but
if you want something built with a single,
sublime goal in mind you need to get
your hands on this book.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
❚ WE SAY
A genuinely fascinating slice of
dark military storytelling that
can easily hook a group into
months of gritty adventures.
 WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Double-sided board
◗ Five player boards
◗ 30 resource
tracker cards
◗ 26 ship cards
◗ 16 bonus cards
◗ 10 solo cards
◗ 22 wall pieces
◗ 66 houses
◗ 77 towers
◗ Five wooden discs
◗ 18 clear beads

RAGUSA
We built this city on rocks and, um, fish
60m 1-5 14+ £40

editerranean trading, you Many of these districts allow every player counts. On the flip side, it is

M say? Worker placement, is it?

At a glance, Fabio Lopiano’s
Ragusa is yet another standard-issue
Eurogame, complete with quaint
wooden components, an attractive
VP track-framed board and a gently
historical theme – in this case building
and bartering in 15th-century
Dubrovnik. But, similar to Lopiano’s
last offering, Calimala, it offers a
rather neat mechanical twist.
Each player starts with a set of
buildings, their number determined
by the player count. Each turn, one
of these buildings is placed in one of
six sites located around the perimeter
of a hex on the board map, with each
hex granting a particular action. It
might simply reward a resource,
such as wood, stone, olives, grapes
and fish (which for some reason can
substitute any other resource, if you
have enough of them). Or it might be
one of several urban districts, such as
the market, which allows you to trade
with a visiting merchant ship, or the
mason, which enables you to place
a section of city wall (the aim being
to own the longest stretch of wall for
extra VP at the game’s end).
house that surrounds it to use its
action when a new building is placed
there, in clockwise order. If any of
those other houses is your own, then
you can multiply your gains. If they
belong to other players then they, in
turn, also get to take the action. It’s a
smart way to keep player engagement
maximal throughout every round,
with downtime virtually non-existent.
Not only that, but every time a
building is placed, it also triggers
the actions of the two other hexes
it adjoins, creating a wide variety of
effects and encouraging even deeper
strategic attention. Plus, if any of these
hexes is one of those aforementioned
urban districts, any other buildings on
those will also be triggered.
After a simple, resource-gathering
start, then, the game quickly
complicates into a series of cascading
action effects. The downside of this
is it becomes tough to track what
exactly is happening where and to
whom, especially as every building
placement comes at a resource
cost, which it’s all too easy to forget
about amid all the who/where/what
calculations – especially at high
rather less engrossing as a two-player
game, while the solo version rather
inelegantly requires two dummy
players to manage. Clearly, like Catan
– and Calimala for that matter – this
is truly a three-to-five-player title,
with the one- and two-player modes
merely bolted-on variants.
Also, despite the ingenuity of its
mechanisms, it does lack personality
and a sense of drama. Despite its TRY THIS IF
interesting historical context, the theme YOU LIKED…
feels rather vanilla, with no character- CALIMALA
based human factor to latch onto, Ragusa further
while it would have benefitted from explores Lopiano’s
some form of take-that interaction, interesting take on
worker placement,
like the subversive chicanery allowed
as introduced in his
by other city-builders, such as Lords 2017 debut.
of Waterdeep or Citadels. Still, if you
like your games to be more puzzly and
point-crunchy than theme-y, then
Ragusa is certainly worth a visit.
DAN JOLIN
❚ WE SAY
A mechanically impressive
game that will be appreciated
by Eurogame purists, but if you
prefer to really connect with a
theme, it may leave you cold.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 149
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
DUNE
Sand, spice and everything ni– OH GOD A WORM
fter 35 years effectively lost
A from the tabletop, Dune is
finally back. Designed back in
1979 by the creators of the seminal
Cosmic Encounter – one of the most
influential and greatest games of all
time – the tabletop adaptation of Frank
Herbert’s sci-fi doorstop is similarly
held up as a masterpiece of player-
driven interaction and asymmetrical
gameplay. So, how does the classic
hold up today, four decades on?
Very well, as it happens. This 2019
edition isn’t quite the original game
remade, but it’s close. The changes are
mainly efforts to tighten up the overall
experience (though it still runs long) and
make clearer some of the infamously
loose rules created by Dune’s unique
factions, which revel in the way they offer
exceptions to the core loop of bidding for
treachery cards, deploying forces on the
surface of Arrakis to seek out valuable
spice and battling with each other
for control of the sandy planet’s main
strongholds using the game’s costly luck-
free battle wheel system, where troops
lend their strength by dialling in how many
you’re willing to sacrifice. It’s a testament
to its innovation at the time that the
largely untouched gameplay still excites
and entertains throughout its lengthy
playing time; the multiple hours slide
by in fits of laughter and outrage alike.
Although you can get by with a couple
of empty seats, the way the six factions
differ and interact makes a full table
150 The Best Games of 2019
the absolute best way to play, providing
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ Two battle wheels
◗ Six player shields
the friction necessary to have sparks
fly as players make and break alliances
in pursuit of victory. Whether it’s the
Fremen control of the deadly storm that
◗ Six player sheets circles the board and the sandworm that
◗ Six player markers
bursts up to devour forces, or the Bene
◗ 30 leader discs
◗ 120 force discs Gesserit ability to briefly take control of
◗ 21 spice cards opponents’ combat preparations and
◗ 33 treachery cards pull a surprise last-minute victory by
◗ 30 traitor cards predicting the winner hours beforehand,
◗ 16 Bene Gesserit the relatively simple fight over control
prediction cards of the board is lifted by its ripeness
◗ Six alliance cards for off-the-table social confrontation,
◗ Six storm cards diplomacy, betrayal and sudden
◗ 156 spice tokens
moments of reversal and surprise.
◗ Destroyed shield
wall token The factions all have an equal shot at
◗ Storm marker victory if played right, but Dune isn’t a fair
◗ Game turn counter game per se; even with its fragile alliances
◗ Five special limited to two people in the new rules
Emperor forces (the uncapped teams of the original are
◗ Three special an ‘exotic’ variant), it’s a game that finds
Fremen forces its unforgettable highlights in seeing your
◗ Sandworm token leader suddenly poisoned or revealed to
◗ Kwisatz Haderach
be a traitor, your all-out attack fall prey
card and counter
to a lucky defence card, your former ally
turn against you to chase glory alone,
and a wickedly compelling maelstrom of
chaotic situations and swings in standing.
Its advanced rules unlock its full power
and exhilarating lopsidedness, at the cost
of a more punishing need to carefully
manage the spice economy to upkeep
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… COSMIC ENCOUNTER
Both games willingly throw fairness and balance out the window in favour of
asymmetrical chaos and one-of-a-kind moments created by the players.
2h 2-6 12+ £40
your forces and fiddle with slightly more
rules; a worthwhile trade-off, even if
there’s a definite purist appeal to the
‘basic’ mode and its more reasonable
play time. Like modern asymmetric
successors like Root, it takes multiple
plays with each of the factions to properly
appreciate their place in the world – so
playing with total newcomers or those
that struggle to get into the ‘character’ of
their faction can be a steep hill to climb.
With a full table of the right people, Dune
feels less like a relic of gaming past that’s
been frozen in time since 1984 and more
like a game that could’ve been invented in
1979, 2019 or 2059 and still feel as brilliant.
Like Cosmic Encounter, it’s an experience
that’s been often imitated in the decades
since, but never quite replaced. This
beautiful new edition is a fitting tribute to a
game that deserves to be discovered (or
rediscovered) by more players who've
missed out on 35 years of chaotic fun.
MATT JARVIS
❚ WE SAY
Its brilliance is in the way its different
factions bounce off each other, so
you’ll miss out on something special
if there’s only a few of you. When
everything lines up, it’s clear why
Dune has remained a legend even
during its long, long absence.
 GAMES
STORE
NOW OPEN!
B U Y Y O U R FAV O U R I T E
G A M E S , F E AT U R E D
IN THIS MAGAZINE,
D I R E C T LY F R O M U S !

tabletopgaming.co.uk/games
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
ZOMBICIDE: INVADER
Dead space
n Zombicide: Invader – the sixth
I standalone instalment in the undead-
slaughtering series – players are
trying to survive ways of Xenos: deadly
mindless aliens that are basically
zombies in sci-fi outfits... because you are
playing Zombicide.
The series has managed to transport
players from an apocalyptic modern mall
to a medieval setting ravaged by a plague
to, now, a mysterious dangerous alien
planet without ever losing its core identity
and what makes it recognisable.
Here is the good news: if you like
any of the previous Zombicide games,
you will like Invader, possibly even
more than its predecessors. The bad
news is that if you were not a fan to start
with or were hoping to see something
dramatically different from a Zombicide
game, Invader won’t surprise you.
Like in every Zombicide game, players
control a group of six characters with
various strengths and weaknesses who
are trying to survive a zomb– sorry,
a Xeno onslaught, while completing
various missions on a modular board.
You will search for items, distract Xenos
with noise and – sooner, rather than
later – fight through multiple hordes and
attempt to stay alive together.
No other board game does the
‘overwhelmed by enemies’ feeling better
than Zombicide. Even opening the box
152 The Best Games of 2019
and seeing a truly astounding collection
of Xeno-zombie minis of all shapes and
sizes is impressive. Once almost all of
them have spawned on the board – which
happens more often than you might
think – and surround your characters, it
feels both terrifying and exciting at the
same time.
Invader does do a few things differently
compared to past Zombicides. The
thematic changes are especially fun.
For example, there is an important
distinction between interior and exterior
environments; characters will need
to pick up and equip oxygen canisters
before they can venture into the vacuum
outside, and weapons with bullets won’t
work – so players will need to be careful
about what they are carrying!
The biggest addition is the mould,
a mysterious space goo that across
throughout the board acting like an
additional spawn point for enemies and
another way for the players to lose if it
overtakes the map. Abomination Xenos
are a very formidable foe that spread the
mould and are tough to kill, requiring
them to be dealt with quickly to prevent
further infection.
For the first time in the series, a
concentrated attack is introduced, which
allows even weaker weapons to focus
their power for a chance to take down
tougher enemies. This helps players
1h 1-6 14+ £90
in the early game before better gear is
found, especially in dealing with the more
frequent abomination spawns.
The mould tokens – big cardboard
blobs – are the only disappointing
component in the whole game. They
look big and alien compared to the rest
of the board, which is appropriate, but
at the same time don’t quite compare
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
to the quality of other components.
◗ Nine double-sided
Aside from the excellent minis, Invader’s game tiles
plastic player boards are well designed ◗ 72 miniatures
to hold all the items cards and track the ◗ Six survivor plastic
characters’ health, experience and skills. dashboards
Zombicide: Invader easily ticks all the ◗ 48 plastic trackers
boxes of what you’ve come to expect ◗ Six dice
from the games in the series and finds a ◗ 125 mini cards
way to add a bit more to the table. Even ◗ 15 mould cards
◗ 50 tokens
so, the new additions do not necessarily
bring novelty to the game but rather help
the usual gameplay fit the new theme.
If you love the feeling of adding several
fistfuls of minis to the map and the
satisfaction of clearing just as many off
the board during your turn, Zombicide:
Invader will be right up your airlock.
ALEX SONECHKINA
❚ WE SAY
Zombicide is still Zombicide, even
in space. With solid gameplay and
a small mountain of excellent minis,
Invader is a great game for series
lovers and newcomers alike.
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
ZOMBICIDE
If there’s no
exhausting your love
of dealing with the
undead, the series
has you covered
from all angles,
whether it’s sci-fi,
fantasy or a classic
shopping mall.
TONARI
lex Randolph was one of the
A pivotal games designers of
the 20th century – that ‘was’ is
because he died 15 years ago. Tonari is
not the result of a session with some rice
wine and an Ouija board; it’s based on
an abstract game Randolph created in
1986, Veleno, given a 2019 remix by Bruno
‘Citadels’ Faidutti.
Despite its new fishing theme Tonari is
still basically an abstract, built around the
hex-based board of the original and the
two ideas that drove Randolph’s design.
These are: everyone moves the same
counter (a fishing boat here) one space at
a time to pick up tiles, and at the end your
score is added to the score of the player
on your right and the player on your left’s
score is added to yours.
The tiles on the board are mostly fish
and you score by collecting sets of them,
some by number and others in Sushi
Go!-style combinations. A few tiles give
special moves or abilities.
It doesn’t sound like much, but the
stroke of genius is the score-sharing.
Every turn, you’re looking to help the
TUKI
t’s easy to see why stacking games are
I so perennially popular. From classics
like Jenga to modern releases like
Rhino Hero, they’re often tense, tricky
and intuitive. Block-building newcomer
Tuki manages to stand out from the
crowd with a pressure-packed puzzle
player who comes after you, setting
them up for an optimum move, while
preventing the other players getting near
the tokens that will do well for them – the
profitable five-point pink fish which has
to be approached in a very specific way,
or the prawns which give eight points
to whoever has the most but none to
anyone else.
This is the dynamic that makes the
game sing. You can play it with two
that demands steady hands and quick
thinking in equal measures.
Ostensibly it’s inspired by stone cairns
created by Inuit peoples in the Arctic
Circle. In reality, it’s pretty much entirely
abstract – but what it lacks in theme, it
makes up for with fast-paced, brain-
teasing gameplay.
You and your opponents start the
game with identical collections of
coloured blocks. On each round you’ll
draw a card showing the bricks arranged
in a particular configuration, then race
to replicate the pictured stack using your
own pieces.
What makes things complicated is
that the arrangements on the cards
are often impossible to recreate
without overbalancing your blocks and
sending them clattering to the tabletop.
Fortunately, you’ll also be able to use
white ‘snow’ bricks to prop up and
30m 2-4 10+ £29
people and it’s solid if unexciting, but
the moment three or four are involved it
takes off into uncharted waters, as you try
to work out what the player before you
is trying to make you do and where you
should leave the boat for the next player.
Tonari is a simple concept with simple
rules and fast play, but for a filler game it
has surprising depths. Give it a try: you
might be hooked.
JAMES WALLIS
15-30m 1-4 8+ £39
support the pile, hopefully allowing you
to complete the design before your rivals.
The first player to win five rounds
claims victory; the result is a frantic
race. With no time to think your plans
through in detail, you’ll try different
approaches, carefully repositioning
pieces that don’t quite fit and howling
in frustration as an opponent beats you
to the goal by a split second. The only
flat point is the four-player mode, which
sees one player sitting out of the action
on each round. While it doesn’t come
with an official solo mode, you can
always challenge yourself to see how
many structures you can complete in
five minutes.
It’s hard to imagine a simpler premise
for a stacking game, but Tuki creates a
tough and addictive challenge out of an
absolutely minimal set of rules.
OWEN DUFFY
tabletopgaming.co.uk 153
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
LIFEFORM
We can’t lie to you about your chances,
but you have our sympathies
idley Scott’s Alien is having a
R bit of a tabletop moment. In
the past year, the 1979 sci-fi
horror masterpiece has been adapted
into three different board game
experiences, like some kind of triple-
whammy 40th birthday present. First
to hatch was Awaken Realms’ mini-
festooned Nemesis. Coming soon is
Wonderdice’s fully licensed Alien:
USCSS Nostromo. And this month we
have Lifeform, from Hall or Nothing,
the same indie outfit that gave us the
excellent Gloom of Kilforth and 1066,
Tears to Many Mothers.
Like Nemesis, Lifeform is not an
official adaptation. But designers Mark
Chaplin and Toby Farrands are huge
fans of the movie, whose creators (Scott,
writer Dan O’Bannon, designer H.R.
Giger, et al) are thanked in the credits.
Their game – which sets one player as
the ‘Star Beast’ against two to three
others, who each control a pair of crew
members – is a beat-by-beat tribute.
There is a self-destruct countdown.
There is an escape shuttle that, under
certain game conditions, becomes
the location for a desperate final
showdown. There is a ship’s cat. And
154 The Best Games of 2019
1-2h 2-4 14+ £45
there is an android that malfunctions them onboard, then getting everyone
and works against the crew.
The most impressive thing about
Lifeform, however, is the way it so
on the shuttle and launching it before
the ship explodes – or before the nasty
stowaway kills them all. It is very
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
effectively weaves its deep-space tough, but appropriately so, in a fun, ◗ Game board
survival-horror atmosphere. Each nail-biting way. ◗ Alien lifeform
crew member starts with a hand of Meanwhile, playing the alien character board
only three cards, each card typically is also enjoyable, especially if ◗ 10 crew
offering a limited menu of action you have a feline, mouse-toying character boards
◗ Ship’s Cat secondary
options. Adding to that hand is a sadistic streak. You get a more
role board
dangerous business. You have to use easily-replenishable hand, far more ◗ SIS-TER mainframe
up your whole turn to equip two or flexibility with your action selection secondary role board
three cards, with the consequence that and you can kill a human character ◗ 167 cards
the self-destruct tracker will move up outright just by executing an attack ◗ 138 tokens
one or two places, respectively. (If the action (assuming they don’t play a ◗ 10 character discs
ship goes boom, the alien player wins.) life-saving reaction card). ◗ Ship’s Cat disc
Otherwise, you’ll most likely use your In truth, it is rather unbalanced ◗ Android standee
turn to play a card, which may allow if you’re playing in a head-to-head ◗ Three lifeform
image standees
you to move your two characters one duel. More often than not, the crew
chamber each around the hulking, doesn’t stand a chance. With three or
labyrinthine ship. Or maybe activate four players, however, it’s more evenly
one of their skills (most of which weighted, with the lifeform needing to
are, rather meanly, one use only). Or divide its murderous attention among
perhaps attack the encroaching space- the scrabbling space-miners and the
beastie with a flamethrower – which human players getting to stay in the
doesn’t kill it, but merely forces it back game as either the ship’s cat or its
a few chambers. rebooted computer if they lose both
The crew’s aim is to stock the escape their characters.
shuttle by picking up mission tokens Like its toothy antagonist,
dotted around the board and loading Lifeform is not the most attractive
game – the artwork and board
design are an acquired taste – while
the heavyweight, sprawling rules
are difficult to absorb, to quite a
frustrating degree during
the first TRY THIS IF
few plays.
YOU LIKED…
LEGENDARY
But once ENCOUNTERS:
everyone is ALIEN
settled in, human Legendary is a very
and monster alike, different game
it evolves into an (being a deckbuilder),
absorbing and but Lifeform shares
thrilling experience. its affection for the
DAN JOLIN source material to
a similarly fan-
pleasing degree.
❚ WE SAY
Once you tune in to the rules and
initially bewildering board, there’s
tons to enjoy here – whether you’re
struggling to survive as the crew, or
feasting on all those fleshy, squealy
space-snacks as the Star Beast.

BOSK
A game for all seasons
pring brings fresh-sprouted
S trees growing up through the
dirt. Summer’s warmth invites
people to wander among the trunks,
taking in the beauty of it all. Autumn
sends golden leaves drifting down
to the ground in mosaic patterns,
before winter resets everything
fresh for another year. In Bosk, the
changing of the seasons isn’t just an
abstract concept dressing up another
otherwise generic strategy game;
they’re real, tangible phases, distinct
from each other as frost and sunshine
but woven together into a single
kaleidoscopic picture – albeit with a
couple of loose ends.
Within its four-season structure,
Bosk is two different area-control
games in one. The first, the game’s
spring and summer rounds, is the more
straightforward. Players place eight trees
of differing values on the intersections
between the gridded board's rows
and columns (‘trails’ in the game’s
charmingly pastoral lingo), before totting
up who has the highest and second-
most total along each vertical and
horizontal line. Letting someone claim
a plane undefended nets them more
points, rewarding deliciously dickish
blocking at the cost of claiming your own
private stretch of the countryside.
20-40m 2-4 13+ £44
Bosk’s second, stronger act pulls
the game’s impressively cohesive
vision together. You see, those trees
aren’t done with once they’ve been
scored in the summer. In autumn, the
players spend their limited supply of
numbered tokens to force each tree
to shed a specific number of leaves
to the ground, placing them in a line
as directed by the shifting wind. The
WHAT’S IN leaves stake a claim to the squares
THE BOX? between the trails depending on
◗ 32 leaf tiles who controls the most and second-
◗ 144 leaf tokens most squares in each of the different
◗ Four squirrel tokens territories – but freshly-dropped
◗ 32 trees leaves can cover those already on the
◗ Wind board floor, making it a literal pile-on as the
◗ Game board
tokens mount up. The ultimate affront
◗ Wind direction marker
◗ Hiker is the squirrel, which each player can
◗ Score track deploy to permanently seize control
of a square – forget the bucolic theme,
don’t be surprised if you see blood on
the leaves.
Each of Bosk’s area-control puzzles
is interesting enough alone, but it’s
in the way that the more passively-
competitive first half of the year
seeds the direct territorial struggle
of the second that the game reaches
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… PHOTOSYNTHESIS
If you go down in the woods in either of these games, you’ll find a surprisingly
tight-knit tree-growing competition.
above the canopy. Weighing up
the separate-but-linked scoring
possibilities of both rounds at once
while you position your trees in the
spring can be a little overwhelming –
especially when teaching newcomers
– but there’s enough control over
where your leaves fall during the
autumn round to avoid the second
half feeling futile after a so-so opener.
Not to mention that the payoff of
seeing your leaves scatter across
the board and cover those of your
opponents comes with its own sense
of technicolour satisfaction.
The seasonal flow of Bosk makes its
two-in-one dose of abstract strategy
easier to digest – it’s honestly hard
to think of a more fitting theme or
presentation, outside of peeling edges
on the card trees – but it also introduces
a jolting start-stop momentum to the
game. Having two of the four seasons
be scoring rounds with similar but not
identical rules makes the already over-
fussy scoring conditions (with different
point values in spring and summer
depending on who’s first and second,
if they’re tied, if there’s only one player
present, etc. for each and every trail/
territory) suck up more of the otherwise
reasonable playing time than you’d
ideally like, especially with more players.
(The gameplay itself adjusts comfortably
across the two- to four-player range
thanks to scaling play areas.)
When you’re in the thick of its
thickety creation, though, Bosk is
wonderful. Slightly baggy scoring
aside, its movement through the
seasons is a remarkable thematic
accomplishment, while its
surprisingly sharp competitive edge
gives its mirrored structure plenty to
offer those after a meaningful strategy
game – or two. Bish, bash, bosk.
MATT JARVIS
❚ WE SAY
Bosk’s complimentary but distinctive
spring and autumn rounds work
together in sweet harmony to
offer a really intriguing game
of two interconnected halves,
wrapped up in a beautiful natural
theme – just be prepared to
curse those damn squirrels.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 155
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
DEAD MAN’S CABAL
Missing this would be a grave mistake
elcoming players to a
W spooky, yet also strangely
adorable, underground
necromancer’s lair is Dead Man’s Cabal,
a game that believes that if you are
lacking in friends, you should simply
raise them from the dead. It effortlessly
mixes the macabre with humour
(special credit goes to Denis Medri’s
creepy-cute artwork), transforming
what could have been a very by-the-
book Eurogame into something special
with a swift incantation – and lots and
lots of skulls and bones.
In Dead Man’s Cabal, players
compete to get the most victory
points by raising various characters
from the dead. It is an almost too-
familiar formula of gathering the
correct resources, completing the
corresponding card and receiving
the appropriate number of points.
However, its in-game economy and
unique actions elevate this basic
blueprint, taking centre stage and
making earning points the least
interesting part of the experience.
Dead Man’s Cabal has two
currencies: bones and skulls, in four
different colours. Bones are a minor
resource that are easier to acquire
and used to enhance player actions.
Skulls, on the other hand, are the main
156 The Best Games of 2019
60-90m 2-4 8+ £48
tool in the necromancer’s toolbox. To
raise the dead, players will need to go
to the sanctum and use the correct
combination of skull colours, some of
which may already be there and others
which can be placed from the player’s
supply. For a successful ritual, the skulls
must be connected by the pentagram-
WHAT’S IN style pattern. This initially looks like an
THE BOX? easy task, but as the sanctum gets more
◗ 32 white rune tokens populated and players begin to discard
◗ 30 black rune tokens skulls from the board, it becomes
◗ Ossuary tracking skull more complicated and requires careful
◗ Ossuary tracking board
planning and even some bluffing.
◗ Score track board
◗ Six connector The players visit the ossuary each
hallway boards turn, where a grid of skulls can be
◗ Five action boards manipulated by drawing a random skull
◗ 84 cube from the bag and adding it to one of the
◗ 64 skulls rows. The middle row of the ossuary
◗ 40 bones determines which action all players
◗ Skull draw bag will perform that round; a white skull
◗ 35 ritual cards will allow them to visit the scriptorium
◗ Eight void tokens
where different runes can be purchased,
while a gold skull will take them to the
athenaeum, where players select which
character they will be raising next, and
so on. The active player will also discard
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… DINOSAUR ISLAND
While the themes might be as different as white skulls and pink dinosaurs,
Dead Man’s Cabal, like Dinosaur Island, comes from the creative minds at
Pandasaurus Games. If you like the latter’s brain-scratchy gameplay and
component goodness, Dead Man’s Cabal delivers that and more.
one of the skulls from their supply to
perform a private action that only they
can take that round.
This way, the skulls cycle through
the course of the game: from the bag
to the ossuary to the player’s supply
to the sanctum and back to the bag.
The balance of colours in play – and
consequently the number of actions
available – is delicate and ever-
changing. Figuring out how to best
manipulate this supply chain to gain the
most out of your turn, while attempting
to hinder your opponents, is the main
skull-scratcher of the game. Even minor
changes can have a rebound effect
on all the sequences of the round,
encouraging players to consider all the
stages and rewarding them by making
even the smallest decision matter.
It also helps that the impeccably-
sculpted and detailed skull pieces are
really fun to hold and play with. The
same applies to the bone tokens, which
are shaped like actual bones, and
the beautiful cow skull used to track
actions. Dead Man’s Cabal is full of
little details like these that really help
build up the atmosphere. The rooms
are connected by small corridor board
pieces, which are irrelevant to the
gameplay but visually immerse players
in the catacombs of dark magic and
mystery. The only minor letdown is
the rune tokens, which are slightly too
small and fiddly.
It may initially present itself as dark
and gloomy, but Dead Man’s Cabal
is full of heart and humour. It takes a
generic Eurogame blueprint, casts some
magic on it and raises it up to become a
rewarding, thoughtful board game that
will engage all your very much still alive
friends around the table.
ALEX SONECHKINA
❚ WE SAY
You would never expect to find so
much cheer and levity in a game
that initially promises grim darkness,
yet Dead Man’s Cabal delivers. Its
variable turn mechanic encased in a
clever in-game economy uplifts this
game beyond the expected Eurogame
structure, delivering terrific gameplay.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 157
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
HADARA
A very European approach
to world domination
here’s a deep-seated part of
T the gamer psyche that wants
to rule the world. For proof,
you only need to look at the shelves
of your local game store where titles
like Civilization: A New Dawn, Clash
of Cultures and Through the Ages offer
the chance to conquer rivals while
endlessly fiddling with tech trees and
resource tracks.
Indulging this near-Napoleonic
obsession with supreme power
can be a lot of fun. And now there’s
another release which gives players
the chance to make their mark on
the world as a benevolent leader/
merciless tyrant.
Hadara – Arabic for ‘civilisation’
– is the latest release from German
designer Benjamin Schwer. His
2018 game Crown of Emara was
an intricate brainteaser that put
players in the shoes of nobles vying
for the throne of a fantasy kingdom
and prized clever play and careful
planning over direct antagonism.
158 The Best Games of 2019
45-60m 2-5 10+ £58
Schwer’s latest offering is
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Five modular
board segments
◗ 15 sets of
calculated to appeal to a similar
crowd. It sees players become leaders
of rival nations competing to lead
their people to glory. Over the course
advancement cards of three epochs, or game rounds,
◗ Five player boards they work to build their economies,
◗ 40 achievement tokens
strengthen their armies and reach
◗ 10 gold medal tokens
◗ 20 resource tokens new heights of cultural sophistication.
◗ Eight bonus tiles To do that, you and your opponents
◗ Five starting
resource tiles
build collections of cards representing
different types of cultural advances.
◗ 25 colony tiles On each turn you’ll draw two,
◗ Player references discarding one before deciding what
◗ Scoring pad to do with the other. You can pay
some gold to add it to your empire,
where it will boost your standing in
some of the four tracks that chart your
culture’s development. Or you can
sell it, removing it from the game in
exchange for some quick cash. After
repeating the process four more times
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… 7 WONDERS
If you like drafting cards and building empires, Hadara takes the concept to a
new and brainier level.
with different decks on the rotating
central board, you’ll get to draft
the cards players discarded earlier
in the round, giving you a chance
to pick up some potentially useful
ones neglected by your opponents –
including the most interesting purple
cards, which give their owners new
special abilities to incorporate into
their strategies.
It’s a quick and intuitive
process that conceals some
of the game’s complexity by
breaking it down into a series of
pretty simple decisions. It also
leaves plenty of room for different
tactical approaches, and the
almost Feld-esque scoring system
throws victory points at players for
an array of different achievements,
opening up all sorts of potential
routes to victory for anyone who
can spot them.
It’s a very abstract approach to
civilisation-building, though. There
are no clashes between armies, no
great wonders to erect, no historical
figures to recruit to your cause and
no real interaction between players
beyond occasionally snatching a
card your opponent might have in
their sights. The option to ‘plunder’ or
‘integrate’ colonies for gold or resources
also feels a tad unsettling at a time
when games are starting to question
their portrayals of imperialism.
If either of these points is a
dealbreaker, you’re better off exploring
the mountain of other civ-simulators
available. If not, Hadara manages to
be elegant and intuitive while holding
some real hidden depths.
OWEN DUFFY
❚ WE SAY
Hadara breaks big strategies down
into a series of quick decisions whose
complexity only really becomes
apparent when you chain them
together. Its central rotating player
board adds a nice aesthetic touch,
and the wide selection of cards means
you’re likely to have very different
experiences on repeat playthroughs.
It’s very low on player interaction,
though, and definitely not for you if
you aren’t a fan of Euro-style games.
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
DEEP BLUE
20,000 leagues of its own
Designer: Granerud, Pedersen | Artist: Fructus, Biboun, Djib, Naïade, Coimbra, Piéro, Torres, Trèfle Rouge
eep Blue delivers glittering treasure
D from the depths of the ocean
without leaving you gasping for air.
A passion project six years in the making
from designers Asger Harding Granerud
and Daniel Skjold Pedersen – who continue
to shine bright after this summer’s standout
Copenhagen – Deep Blue is a peppy blend of
a board-based race to fruitful diving spots,
card-based deckbuilder as players hire crew
to their boat and bag-based push-your-luck
test as they scour the sunken wrecks for
treasure. If that sounds like a design at
risk of sinking under its own weight, no
need for fear; Deep Blue’s approachable
gameplay makes even the deepest depths
feel like your local swimming pool.
Diving means drawing gems from a
central bag until you decide your luck
has been pushed as far as it’ll go. Surface
voluntarily and you’ll score for all you drew;
run out of air (blue gems) or encounter
too many threats (black gems) and you’ll
be forced to return empty-handed, with
only the cards you cashed in during the
dive giving you points. This means, one
way or the other, you’ll rarely lose it all
– it’s forgiving enough to encourage risk-
taking and avoid annoyance over a dive
scuppered by bad luck, without trivialising
the consequences of ‘just one more’.
You likely won’t be diving alone. One of
Deep Blue’s highlights is how social its bag-
pulls feel compared to the solitary token-
fishing of other bag-builders like Spiel des
Jahres winner The Quacks of Quedlingburg.
160 The Best Games of 2019
Players on the same diving spot can all cash
in cards from their hand to rack up points
as the ‘dive leader’ pulls gems from the bag,
and those that last as long as – or outlast, if
they have the right cards – the dive leader
stand to benefit from all the gems pulled.
The collective nature of diving – boats
on adjacent spaces can rush to join a dive,
WHAT’S IN without the scoring bonuses for spending
THE BOX? an action to 'scout' ahead – lights up
◗ Main game board the murky depths. There’s a delightfully
◗ 10 plastic boats tempting Deep Sea Adventure-ish risk-
◗ 50 crew member cards reward to playing chicken with the black
◗ Five plastic and blue gems, hoping to force your
treasure chests rivals to run out of defence cards and
◗ Five player boards
resurface, allowing you to claim all of
◗ Dive site board
◗ 120 victory the sunken treasure for yourself.
point tokens Extra crew members can be hired for
◗ 15 wreck tiles each player’s boat by spending cards as
◗ Diving bell pawn cash; discarded cards are reshuffled and
◗ 31 plastic gems redrawn from each players’ individual decks,
◗ Cloth bag providing an engaging deckbuilding-lite
◗ Six starter level of ability to customise your available
bonus tokens actions and scoring methods as you please
◗ Seven 'Captain’s
each game. Crew occasionally add new
Log' scenario cards
gems to the shared bag, inviting a rush to
hire occultists and archaeologists to make
the otherwise worthless green and purple
gems worth something, and allowing players
to score from various gem colours and
combos during dives – as well as keeping
you recalculating the odds of the next pull.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… THE QUACKS OF QUEDLINBURG
If sticking your hand into a bag to pull out random tokens fills you with the right
amount of tension and excitement, Deep Blue is worth bringing onboard.
45m 2-5 8+ £42
The control over how you score and
mitigate bad luck makes Deep Blue often
feel more deliberate in strategy and less
frustrating than several other push-your-
luck games. Each wreck tile can only be
dived once, creating a delicious tension
between building up your crew cards to
dive for longer and score higher versus
the race to get to spots and clear them
out before your opponents. The tiles are
randomised each game, with the four
‘sunken city’ tiles that trigger final scoring
coming with their own variable rules for
some welcome extra twists every session.
The game does hit a few bumpy waves
here and there. For all the efforts to the
contrary, misfortune can still rear its head
every now and then, making the effort to get
to a diving spot that ends three pulls in feel
wasted or one stonking run by an opponent
feel hard to catch. While the game roundly
looks fantastic, the gold and silver gems
are tough to tell apart at a glance and the
plastic chests used to hide point tokens
are an unnecessary indulgence given
that all scoring is open. The social pile-on
of dives also makes it a more interesting
game with more people, though the
fixed number of dives gives it a different
momentum with fewer, allowing players
more time to build up their crew without
worrying there’ll be nothing left.
On the whole, Deep Blue crests
through these minor bumps to pull off an
entertaining and engaging experience. The
chances to jump in on other players’ dives
and the shared agonising over whether
to risk another pull from the bag keep
everyone fixed to the table throughout.
It’s a lot of fun and – like those
twinkling gems – you’ll find it hard to
resist just one more go.
MATT JARVIS
❚ WE SAY
Deep Blue pulls off an impressive
melding of different gameplay
ideas together in an attractive
and accessible – and best of all,
hugely entertaining – experience.
 brawl, the encounter deck can be
created from a different combination
of villain, plot and obligations each
time, inviting plenty of gameplay
variety and customisability. (It helps
that the core box includes a full set of
cards this time around, so you won’t
have to buy two copies to mix things
up or play with more people.) Deck
construction is laughably simple, with
the modular sets making things a
doddle to put together.
Champions’ real masterstroke is
in its alter ego mechanic, which lets
players switch between their hero’s
superpowered form and everyday
persona – T’Challa, Peter Parker, Carol
Danvers and so on – each turn. Being
in one form or the other allows for a
different stock of abilities (typically:
heroes attack, alter egos heal), giving

MARVEL CHAMPIONS: an authentic sense of managing your

two different lives. It’s a strategic

THE CARD GAME consideration, too: the villain attacks

heroes but has the window to scheme
Hulk smashing when alter egos are present, so victory
comes down to timing your attempts
120m 1-4 12+ £60 to bring them down and working with
your fellow Avengers to maximise
here’s a directness to Marvel WHAT’S IN allies, upgrades, events and more to your assaults. What the scenarios lack

T Champions that hits you like a

swing from Thor’s Mjolnir and
keeps you glued to this new co-op
THE BOX?
◗ 350 cards
◗ 100 tokens
◗ Five hit point trackers
wear down the main villain’s health
with physical attacks, while stopping
too much threat building up on their
in story specifics, the characters make
up for with the sense of staying true to
the comics – this may well be the most
living card game like one of Spider- scheme card with ‘thwart’ attacks. authentic Marvel game yet.
Man’s webs. Cards are paid for by discarding other Cutting back to the essentials without
This is a simpler game than cards for their resources – a tidy rule sacrificing the strategic joy of deciding
previous LCGs Lord of the Rings: The that makes for some tough decisions how you use your cards leaves Champions
Card Game and Arkham Horror: TCG, about what to spend and what to play, a stronger experience, set apart by its
though designers from both were as well as throwing up interesting punchy direct gameplay and reverential,
involved in the making of this and ways to boost certain abilities by authentic treatment of its superhero stars.
its gameplay is clearly built on that spending the matching icons. Like any living card game, its true longevity
incredibly strong foundation. Even The villain (either Spider-Man’s Rhino, will be tested in the months and years of
so, Champions trims things back to a Black Panther’s Klaw or the Avengers’ expansions to come, but this core set – by
leaner heroes-on-villain battle; while Ultron here) returns fire with their own all measures a hugely enjoyable and fully-
there are evil plots aplenty to foil, encounter deck, which makes attacks featured game in its own right – is a Hulk-
there are no location cards to move slightly unpredictable with the potential smashing way to make an entrance.
between, fewer numbers to crunch for added damage and throws up various MATT JARVIS
and the unfolding narratives tend other events and minions to deal with
to be far more straightforward ‘beat – including specific ‘obligations’ that
the baddie’ scenarios. If you haven’t are added depending on the heroes ❚ WE SAY
played an LCG before, this is probably used, and must be resolved by them The gameplay of past LCGs has
been cut back to its brilliant
the best one to jump into yet – but in a fun sense of individual peril, as
basics in this fantastic superhero
don’t take that as a sign of this being a well as minor side schemes to juggle celebration. The alter ego mechanics
lesser experience in any respect. alongside the main plot. are a stroke of genius, and the
Champions’ simplicity puts its While the narrative rarely goes characters feel just like their comic-
outstanding cardplay front and centre. deeper than a surface-level comic-book book counterparts. Excelsior!
The players’ superheroes – Black
Panther, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… MARVEL LEGENDARY
Spider-Man and Iron Man make up If you like deckbuilding your own superhero, Champions does the best job yet of
this core set, with more already on making its heroes feel properly powerful, with the welcome new perspective of
the way in expansions – summon their vulnerable alter egos.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 161
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS –
BALDUR’S GATE: DESCENT
INTO AVERNUS
One hell of a campaign
ne of the joys of D&D is its ability
O to transcend the traditional
boundaries of Tolkien-esque
fantasy – to take your game to places
much weirder than even the deepest
dungeon, and to battle foes fouler
than even the mightiest dragon. This
is exactly the feeling that washes over
you as Descent into Avernus propels
your party to hop planes of existence,
negotiate with dark gods and ride
infernal war machines into reality-
warping battles.
Quite possibly the most ambitious
campaign to come out for Fifth Edition,
Avernus is a wild rollercoaster of a ride
that taps into everything from Mad Max
to Dante’s Inferno by way of heavy metal
album art. The main plot thread revolves
around freeing a city bound within the Nine
Hells and redeeming a fallen angel, but
things are written with enough flexibility
to allow parties to take whatever oddball
routes through the darkness they desire.
Along the way they’re likely to run into
a vast cast of characters and, for all its
grand ideas and epic scale, this may be
where the campaign shines the brightest.
162 The Best Games of 2019
256 13+ £39
There are plenty of charming allies for
the party to deal with – such as Lulu the
Hollyphant, a miniature winged elephant
who can shoot magical sparkles from her
trunk – but the rogues’ gallery of enemies
is equally impressive.
Indeed, one of the themes running
through Avernus is that of battling
against a greater evil and having to make
deals with unsavoury sorts in order
to survive. In most adventures Mad
Maggie, a night hag warlord with a knack
for creating infernal war-buggies, would
be an outright villain to hack down
and defeat, but this time around she’s
likely to end up as a valuable source of
information and supplies.
And yes, in case you were wondering,
there are plenty of rules for climbing into
Maggie’s weird war machines and blasting
them around the wastelands of Avernus.
Thankfully these are kept pretty slim and
to-the-point, and are certainly more of
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
D&D: MORDENKAINEN’S TOME OF FOES
If you dug the cosmic wars set out in the Tome of Foes, you’re going to love
actually playing with them in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus.
an add-on to the base D&D system than
their own side game, but there are just
enough options included for the party
to splash out on their own custom-built
vehicle if they want. So long as they don’t
mind burning through the souls needed to
power it, of course.
If that last sentence didn’t make it clear
enough, Avernus is a campaign with a
pretty significant slice of moral ambiguity
to it. While the core goal of saving the city
of Elturel is a nice, noble aim, the book
makes it clear that you can make things
as tough for your party as possible. DMs
are encouraged to push party members
into deals with devils and demons, to take
away the easy route and keep a little shard
of darkness gnawing away at the heroes.
Indeed, it suggests setting up the party
with a dark secret right from the very start.
Perhaps they stole something or were
involved in a failed coup, or perhaps they
were all part of a murder. No matter what,
this is a wonderful way to both tie the
heroes together right from the opening
and plant a seed of corruption for the DM
to exploit further down the line.
This move into the grey and gritty side
of things won’t be to everybody’s tastes –
sometimes you just want to play heroes
without things getting complicated – but
it really does help to make Avernus feel
like something special.
Even as you flick through the book, it’s
tough not to feel gripped by sudden ideas
and opportunities for your players. Whether
you’re looking at a piece about an injured
devil surprised by their sudden sympathy
for hell-chickens or checking out the many
paths to a final epic encounter with the
fallen angel Zariel, you’re always presented
with options and room to explore.
There really is a lot to love about
Descent into Avernus. It’s inventive without
being silly, dark without being depressing
and challenging without being laborious
to play. The more horrific aspects may
require a careful touch from the DM if
everybody’s going to stay happy, but that
is a task that is well worth the reward.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
❚ WE SAY
The most sweeping and epic campaign
yet published for D&D’s fifth edition,
and possibly the darkest too.
TAPESTRY
Scythe’s creator weaves a swift
and satisfying civ game
he isolationists have walled
T themselves in on a desert
island, where they’ve pioneered
irrigation and amassed a formidable
military. Across the globe, a nation
of entertainers send their citizens
out to explore the world, equipped
with their knowledge of clocks and
air conditioning. Both pale in their
innovation to the inventors in the west,
who boast siegecraft, concrete and canned
food thanks to their accelerated research.
This is the familiar yet strange world
of Tapestry, an ambitious and largely
successful attempt by Scythe and
Charterstone designer Jamey Stegmaier
to turn the epic task of building a
tabletop civilisation for the ages into a
swift, slick pursuit of victory points.
It’s impressively fast-flowing turn to
turn, breaking down the development of
each player’s civ into four basic tracks:
science, tech, military and exploration.
You pay the resource cost, move one
space and do what the space says, from
revealing new regions of the main hex map
to conquering said regions or inventing
a technology. Advance far enough and
you’ll unlock buildings – ostentatious but
undeniably striking painted 3D miniatures
– to add to the layout of your separate
city board, scoring points as you fill rows
and columns of the sudoku-like grid.
The largely intuitive icons and simple
actions make what seems a potentially
dense mishmash of gameplay concepts
– expanding on the map, filling your city,
advancing up tracks, adding tech cards
to your display, increasing your income
by upgrading yet more tracks on your
player board – easy to absorb, and ends
up delivering a game that feels varied
and pleasingly adaptable to different play
styles. You might go all-out on inventing,
exploring, expansion or city-building – or
some combination of each. Striving for an
even balance feels a little less viable than
it could given the rewards for reaching the
ends of certain tracks, but the more than a
dozen asymmetrical player civilisations
– each with a different unique ability –
add to the opportunity to take a different
path each time you play, stopping
Tapestry from becoming one-note.
The meat of the game’s ‘advance’ turns
is punctuated by five ‘income’ rounds,
where exhausted resources are refilled,
points are scored and the civilisations
advance to a new era with tapestry effect
cards played on their mat – another way to
diverge your nation from your neighbours’.
Later income turns see your haul of VP
leap from single digits to dozens of points
at a time thanks to upgrades and abilities, a
satisfying sense of gaining momentum that
also keeps everyone feeling like they’re
in it to win it until the end – our final
scores were all relatively close, despite
worrying gaps opening up earlier on.
Each player takes their own income
turns when they want, which allows
for the welcome ability to largely go
90-120m 1-5 12+ £90
at your own pace, but the game only WHAT’S IN
ends when everyone has had five. It’s a THE BOX?
◗ 16 asymmetric
curious decision that has the downside
civilisation mats
of leaving some players twiddling their ◗ 18 unique painted
thumbs for several minutes while landmark miniatures
those remaining catch up, bringing the ◗ 43 tapestry cards
welcome pace of the rest of the game to ◗ Seven trap cards
an awkward and juddering end. ◗ 33 tech cards
Tapestry’s other sticking point is its
Tapestry ◗ Three custom dice
theme – or lack of one. Having no specific ◗ 50 outpost miniatures
path for players to take makes for some ◗ 100 income
building miniatures
amusing stories and diverse strategies –
◗ Double-sided
“My merrymakers invented time travel game board
before paper!” – but for all the asymmetric ◗ Five unique capital
civs and tapestry card effects it’s largely city mats
lacking flavour, leaving it feeling coldly ◗ 48 territory tiles
mechanical under the glossy surface at ◗ 15 space tiles
points. (It does look roundly fantastic, ◗ Five income mats
at least.) Even the most exciting-looking
buildings mostly translate to plugging
holes on a grid (their arrangement
◗ 20 custom
resource tokens
◗ 65 player tokens
◗ Two reference guides
beyond that counts for nothing), while ◗ Six reference cards
inventing the most destructive and ◗ 28 Automa cards
terrifying weapon in human history – the ◗ Automa mat
nuclear bomb – feels oddly inert, allowing ◗ Automa rulebook
you to simply score points and cover
one of your own tapestry cards. If you’re
not willing to bring your own sense of
personality and storytelling to the game,
it can become little more than an exercise
in moving up tracks and scoring points.
If you’re willing to go along with
Tapestry’s gleeful – if illogical – remixing of
human history and forgive its sometimes
shallow theme and disjointed conclusion
for the sake of its thundering central
gameplay, it’s a game that will keep you TRY THIS IF
coming back to lead another civilisation YOU LIKED…
to greatness in a new way. It might have a SCYTHE
couple of loose threads, but it’s hard not Jamey Stegmaier
to find yourself woven into its charms. excels at making
MATT JARVIS interesting
strategy
games that are
surprisingly easy to
❚ WE SAY pick up. Tapestry is
It’s not the most immersive
right up there with
civilisation game around (although
his masterpiece.
it gives you the ingredients to tell
some entertaining stories if you’re
willing), but Tapestry’s tight gameplay,
varied strategies, pacy momentum
and snowballing scoring make it
an immensely pleasing experience.
Plus, it’s a heck of a looker, too.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 163
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
MACHI KORO LEGACY
It’s simple. It’s short. It’s the best
legacy game since Pandemic?
hen news broke that
W the family-friendly
city-builder Machi Koro
was to receive a campaign-based
reworking as Machi Koro Legacy,
many players were surprised.
While the original dice game had
plenty of fans, its quick and simple
approach to civic administration
seemed a little light for the multi-
session, story-driven treatment.
That, combined with the fact that
the majority of games following in
the trail of 2015’s Pandemic Legacy
(whose prolific co-designer Rob
Daviau earns yet another legacy
game credit here) haven’t exactly
set the world on fire, meant that
expectations for this latest release
were muted.
Play the first game in Machi Koro
Legacy's series, and the minimal
anticipation seems pretty justified.
As with the original version, players
become rival mayors aiming
to turn their small towns into
bustling cities. On every turn the
active player rolls some dice, with
different results triggering effects
on an array of building cards that
you’ll add to your town as the game
progresses. Rather than adding
anything meaningful to the mix,
the opening game actually removes
164 The Best Games of 2019
some cards, including the ones that
let you steal cash from your rivals.
The result is a stripped-down and
de-fanged version of a game that
was already simple and not overly
antagonistic. Thankfully, things
quickly improve as you move into
the body of the campaign.
Each playthrough sees new
buildings added to the available
selection. They come with new
effects for players to experiment
with, and it’s possible to put
together some impressively
powerful combinations. There are
also visitors who wander between
players’ towns, setting off various
events as they go. And critically,
the campaign introduces a handful
of ways for mayors to mitigate the
inherent randomness of dice-
chucking, something that could
very quickly become frustrating
over the course of 10 sessions.
It’s difficult to go into greater
detail without giving away too
many of the game’s secrets, but it
quickly becomes deeper and more
engaging than its predecessor; by
the time you’re a few games in,
vanilla Machi Koro starts to feel a
bit lacking in comparison. While
there are new rules, strategies and
components to unlock each time
30m 2-4 10+ £48
you play, they’re introduced at a WHAT’S IN
rate that’s easy to stay on top of,
making this undoubtedly the best
legacy game to introduce to kids or
THE BOX?
◗ Two dice
◗ Four player
town boards
casual players.
It’s all tied together with cute, ◗ Three sets of
legacy cards
stylish presentation. Your cards
◗ Plastic coins
depict buildings with bold shapes ◗ Six mystery boxes
and popping, vibrant colours. The
chunky plastic coins are a definite
improvement on the original
game’s cardboard discs. Even the
oversized dice add to the sense of
fun. The game’s flavour text paints
a world of naïve childlike wonder
that feels a bit like something
out of Studio Ghibli, and while
the campaign doesn’t come with
much of a storyline attached, it’s
just enough to keep everyone
engaged and stop things feeling
dry and mechanical.
It’s enough to make you wonder
whether other entry-level games
might be suitable candidates for
a legacy overhaul. What would
Ticket to Ride look like if you had to
slowly build a rail network across
a continent over multiple game
sessions? How would Kingdom
Builder feel if its citizens changed
and its landscape was developed
over time? Could we one day play
through campaigns in Alhambra, TRY THIS IF
Splendor or – don’t hit me – YOU LIKED…
Catan? If Machi Koro’s example is MACHI KORO
No surprises here.
anything to go by, the prospects
If you enjoyed the
seem hopeful. original Machi Koro,
OWEN DUFFY this campaign-
based reimagining
expands on its core
❚ WE SAY appeal in some
interesting ways.
It may stumble out of the starting
gate with a less than thrilling first
impression, but Machi Koro Legacy
unfolds into an intriguing campaign,
adding new elements at a pace that
keeps things interesting from one
game to the next. Its short play time
makes it easy to binge on – and while
that means you might get through
its legacy portion in three or four
sessions, you’ll still be able to play
the game in its final finished state.
WARHAMMER UNDERWORLDS:
BEASTGRAVE
Miniature mayhem that offers a bounty of beastly butchery
25-40m 2-4 8+ £45

n the Realm of Ghur lies the terrible

I land of Beastgrave, a place of

predators and bones and rock. At the
centre of this land, brooding like some
titanic god, is the mountain. Vast and
malevolent, warbands find themselves
drawn to it like moths to a flame,
there to do combat in the depth of the
mountain’s labyrinthine tunnels. But
now a new terror, a curse from the city
of Shadespire, has spread its tendrils to
this unhallowed region, awakening the
dead to once more pick up their arms
and fight in endless conflict.
Beastgrave is the latest iteration
of Games Workshop’s Underworlds,
a miniatures skirmish-cum-
deckbuilding game set in the Age of
Sigmar universe. The game pits rival
warbands of roughly half a dozen
figures against one another on a hex
board. In addition to the miniatures,
players arm themselves with a deck of
cards consisting of upgrade, ploy and
objective cards used to buff characters,
perform some special effect or achieve WHAT’S IN viable. Character cards have keywords, mechanics to new players and
glory points respectively. Some of THE BOX? which interact with certain cards for speed up game flow. This is true of
these cards are universal, whilst others ◗ Six Grashrak’s particular effects. It’s a nice touch that Beastgrave; this iteration of Underworlds
are specific to a given warband, and Despoilers miniatures adds another angle to strategising, and features small but useful tweaks like
◗ Five Skaeth’s Wild
much of the appeal of the Underworlds it’s satisfying to watch them interact to the bolding of handy information and a
Hunt miniatures
series lies in creating strategies and ◗ 11 fighter cards effectively pull off damage-dealing or combat sequence flowchart.
tactics by putting assembling and ◗ Two double-sided glory point-winning combos. The only real gripe with the box
optimising your deck. This time round, game boards Another thing that’s changed is is the fact that some elements – the
the box features a band of Sylvaneth ◗ 102 upgrade, ploy the more active role terrain plays. aforementioned cards to turn objectives
(aka wood-elf) hunters against a pack and objective cards Most notably, players can set down into lethal hexes and some counters for
of Chaos-worshipping beastmen. ◗ 126 tokens a lethal hex token each at the start use with certain special abilities – have
Beastgrave builds on the solid formula ◗ 11 Warhammer of the game, making the terrain been withheld from the box to be sold
that has made Underworlds so popular, Underworlds dice a more prominent hazard to deal as accessories or later expansions.
offering gameplay that’s fast, bloody with. Similarly, objective tokens can JAMES WINSPEAR
and rewarding. The factions – each with be flipped to become fanged maws
enough cards to make an entirely faction- grown from the solid rock, turning
specific deck – feel balanced against one prizes into deadly traps for the unwary ❚ WE SAY
Fast and tactical, Beastgrave is
another. Skaeth’s Wild Hunt favours speed – although disappointingly the box
an excellent continuation of the
and hit-and-run tactics, whilst Grashrak’s itself contains no cards to do this. Underworlds series that offers
Despoilers reward a mixed play style Games Workshop’s more recent new strategies whilst improving
of objective-hunting and foe-slaying. releases have shown an increasing ease of play with subtle but
Beastgrave introduces several minor understanding of how to teach clever layout refinements.
but important tweaks. The guard action –
which can be used to increase a fighter’s TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
defence – has been buffed, meaning WARHAMMER UNDERWORLDS: NIGHTVAULT
that figures won’t get driven back a hex, The other main box set for Underworlds, Nightvault features the valiant Stormcast
making objective holding that much more Eternals facing off against the ghostly Nighthaunt and is fully compatible with Beastgrave.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 165
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
PRÊT-À-PORTER:
THIRD EDITION
A brain-burning collision
of finance and fashion
n 2010, Polish designer Ignacy
I Trzewiczek released the first
edition of Prêt-à-Porter, a complex
economic strategy game which cast
players as the CEOs of rival clothing
companies. It was tough, taxing and
intensely competitive, and quickly
earned a reputation for being every
bit as cut-throat as the fashion
industry itself.
Now Trzewiczek has returned with
a new edition, much to the delight of
players who have spent years trying to
get hold of the previously hard-to-
find game.
The first thing that strikes you
about this latest incarnation is the
breathtaking box art by illustrator
Kwanchai Moraiya. It exudes boldness
and style – suitably enough for a game
about high fashion – and the rulebook
comes with the same visual flair,
featuring a diverse cast of characters
showing off different styles of couture
on every page. It’s enough to make
your mouth water before you’ve even
started punching out the components.
166 The Best Games of 2019
90m 2-4 14+ £53
WHAT’S IN Once you have, you’re presented
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ Four player boards
◗ 50 design cards
with a game that’s as brainy as it is
beautiful. Over the course of one in-
game year, you and your opponents
compete to design stylish garments,
◗ 24 contract cards
hire talented staff, buy high-quality
◗ 24 building cards
◗ 24 employee cards fabrics and organise prestigious
◗ 10 credit cards catwalk shows. Your ultimate goal
◗ Three loan cards is to make more money than your
◗ Four player aid cards rivals – that requires the ability
◗ 10 fashion show tiles to adapt to constantly changing
◗ 197 tokens circumstances, always thinking two
◗ First player marker
◗ 12 action markers
or three moves ahead.
Throughout the game you’ll
◗ Turn order tile
dispatch your employees to take
◗ Eight upkeep markers
◗ Calendar marker different types of actions on behalf of
your company. Most of your available
options involve acquiring cards
representing models and managers
for hire, new departments to add to
your office or new designs for items
of clothing.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… CASTELL
Like the Catalan-themed game of daring acrobats, Prêt-à-Porter sees you planning
for a series of critically-important events and hoping to reap the rewards.
Different cards come with
different effects, letting you take
new types of actions and giving you
advantages over your fellow players;
spotting and exploiting useful
synergies between them is a huge
step towards victory. Any cards that
players don’t snap up during a round
are discarded before the next one
begins, meaning you’ll need to be
quick and perceptive enough to take
advantage of fleeting opportunities.
To become the world’s most
prestigious design house, you’ll aim
to dominate a series of fashion shows
held in cities around the world. Each
rewards companies for different
things. Some prioritise the quality
of your collections. Others reward
players who manage to release a
bigger range of clothes than their
opponents. Some are obsessed with
current trends, while others grant
prestige points to the companies
with the slickest PR operations.
To win, you’ll need to spot the
shows you stand the best chance of
impressing at, while working to do
as well as you can in the ones that
aren’t to your advantage.
The end result is tense and
stressful in all the best ways. You’ll
need to constantly evaluate whether
the money you spend hiring staff,
training employees or developing a
particular clothing line is going to
provide a worthwhile return on your
investment, and it’s dangerously
easy to get it wrong. Prêt-à-Porter
emphatically isn’t a candidate for
a chilled-out game night, but it
encapsulates the high stakes risk-and-
reward of running a business in a way
that’s often thrilling.
OWEN DUFFY
❚ WE SAY
It’s tense, tight and strategic. It’s
visually stunning. Its well-laid-out
rulebook breaks a complex game
down into easily understandable steps.
Its economic theme won’t please
everyone, and it comes with some
admin that can sometimes feel a bit
fiddly and repetitive. But, if you fall
into the niche it’s aimed at, Prêt-à-
Porter has a huge amount to offer.
BARGAIN QUEST
An easy sell
very aspiring hero knows that
E in order to succeed at monster
slaying they need to be true of
heart, strong, skilful and able to hold a
sharp sword at their side – or a springy
bow, if they prefer to shoot from high
ground. Durable armour is good
to have too, just in case a monster
decides to hurl some fireballs back.
Supple boots wouldn’t hurt either, if
you find yourself needing to run away.
Therefore, every hero knows that
before any fighting, shopping needs to
be done. The shopkeepers of Bargain
Quest are here to fill that need. What
the wannabe heroes don’t realise,
however, is that the shopkeepers are
business people first – and that often
means the adventurers’ wellbeing
comes second…
This priority of profits over people
is on the players’ conscience in
Bargain Quest as they take on the
role of these traders, trying to entice
various heroes to come into their
establishment and buy their wares.
In order to do so, they’ll engage
in some cheeky (to put it mildly)
practices. Every seller chooses an
item from their hand to put in their
shop’s display – this is how they
attract potential customers to pop in.
The player with the most attractive
display is the first to choose a hero to
visit their shop. Once they’ve been
hooked, they can sell them whatever
they wish – as long as it matches
their class requirements, of course;
you can’t sell a knight a magic staff!
A hero may walk in enticed by a holy
sword but leave with a torch and
healing potion instead.
Once the questing customer has
left the shop and headed on to meet
their adversary, there is nothing
more for the player to do. If heroes
are equipped well, they will defeat
the monster, earn glory (star tokens
that provide victory points) and
money. They may even return to the
shop again if the next item in the
display looks interesting enough. If
the hero doesn’t defeat the monster
but survives, they may still return
to the market. However, if they are
killed in the fight, they perish with all
their supplies and a new hero rises to
the challenge.
Bargain Quest can really test the
altruism and good intentions of
20-60m 2-6 8+ £39
players. They will want to help and
cheer their hero on, as defeating
monsters earns them victory points.
But the shopkeepers also need
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 112 item cards
◗ 16 hero cards
money to hire staff with bonus
powers or upgrade their storage ◗ 20 employee cards
in order to keep more items or to ◗ 12 upgrade cards
◗ 96 coin tokens
make their shop display fancier. If
◗ 60 star tokens
a hero’s funds dry up, it becomes ◗ 10 wound tokens
more profitable to send them to ◗ Quest token
certain death to be replaced with a ◗ 12 monster cards
new adventurer with a full purse on ◗ 18 adventure cards
the next round – a legitimate way of ◗ Six folding item
securing victory. shop boards
Not unlike the heroes, the players
can become easily endeared with the
adorable shops. They are represented
by folded boards with shop fronts
on the cover and detailed interiors
inside, full of character and warmth.
The heroes, shop assistants and
item cards are full of references and
in-jokes to Dungeons & Dragons,
roleplaying and fantasy, making
every new card reveal exciting.
Playing in a bigger group allows
Bargain Quest to really showcase its
variety and sense of humour as more
heroes and items reveal themselves TRY THIS IF
throughout the course of the game. YOU LIKED…
It also makes the player interation BOSS
more prominent, as rival traders are MONSTER
more likely to try and entice the same Bargain Quest is the
hero to come to their store. The game reverse side of Boss
Monster; instead
doesn’t scale as well for two players,
of a great monster,
falling a bit flat. you are a proprietor
Whether you plan to be a well- of an adorable
meaning shopkeeper outfitting shop outfitting the
your heroes with your best wares, heroes who will then
or are in it just to make money, it is descend into Boss
impossible not to be charmed by Monster’s evil lair.
Bargain Quest. It is a light hand-
management game that doesn’t take
itself too seriously but knows how to
sell you a good time.
ALEX SONECHKINA
❚ WE SAY
Bargain Quest manages to pose
a moral dilemma while immersing
players in an adorable humorous
setting. However you decide to act,
you will want to set up shop here.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 167
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

HAKO ONNA
Hide and shriek in a haunted house
90m 3-5 14+ £29

ako Onna is a game based on while the other players have their eyes find the Hako Onna’s tile then they die

H Japanese horror movies like The

Ring and The Grudge, aiming
to emulate their tight claustrophobic
experiences heavy on suspense and
shocks. A hit in Japan a couple of years
ago, it’s now available in an English-
language translation from WizKids.
At first sight it looks like a cut-down
Betrayal at House on the Hill, with one
villain and no characters. You’re a group
of ‘visitors’ trapped in a mansion made of
square tiles – only nine of them, including
the second floor and a basement, but see
above about claustrophobia. One player
is the Hako Onna, the ghost of a woman,
trapped in the house. The visitors win by
escaping, defeating the ghost in various
ways or laying her to rest; she wins by
killing all the visitors, or if they all give up
and scream, “I lose all hope!” which is an
unusual rule but gives you an idea of the
tone of the game.
At the core of the game are its two
rather lovely movement systems, both
packed with atmosphere. The Hako Onna
moves by swapping her tile with any of
the facedown tiles that litter the rooms,
closed. This idea, that the Hako Onna
acts and moves in darkness, is simple but
really effective.
Meanwhile when one of the players
moves they have to add a wooden
disc to a stack on the ‘noise board’,
and some of the discs have pearl-like
bumps on them so the stack is crooked
and unstable. If it topples, the visitor
has made a noise and the Hako Onna
immediately gets a turn.
It’s like Jenga in miniature. There
actually is a horror RPG, Dread, that uses
a Jenga tower to represent the increasing
tension in the story, and Hako Onna’s
system is a tiny, perfect version of that.
And the game’s structure is like the
hidden movement of Fury of Dracula in
reverse; you get clues to where the ghost
is in the house, and you try to stay the hell
away from there.
The visitors explore the house, looking
for the items they’re going to need to
either escape (get the safe combination,
open it and retrieve the keys) or beat
the ghost, and naturally they do this by
‘peeking’ at facedown tiles – and if they
immediately. If I have a major criticism
then that’s it: death is capricious, and
feels like bad luck rather than bad
strategy. However, the dead player then
becomes a Hakobito, a minor ghost, and
can prevent the remaining visitors from WHAT’S IN
getting the tiles they need. THE BOX?
There’s a lot I haven’t covered: items ◗ Nine room boards
◗ Four visitor
and their powers, the Hako Onna’s summary boards
special powers, the diaries, how the ◗ Three misc. boards
visitors win. Space doesn’t permit (it’s ◗ 58 story tiles
that claustrophobia again). You’ll have ◗ Noise board
to take my word for it that everything ties ◗ Six noise discs
together to create an absorbing narrative ◗ Six noise cards
and you do feel like you’re inside a well- ◗ Four visitor pawns
crafted horror story or movie. ◗ Door barrier
◗ 10 Hako Onna
JAMES WALLIS
power cards
◗ 10 diary cards
◗ Six visitor item cards
❚ WE SAY ◗ Time of Despair card
It’s not short (unless you’re very unlucky),
◗ 11 advanced cards
it’s not rules-light, sometimes it’s not
very tactical and the only major thing
that changes from game to game is the
layout of the house. But it’s got boxes
of atmosphere, and at this time of year
I’ll take that over any number of elegant
abstracts with ghosty meeples.

TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
BETRAYAL AT
HOUSE ON
THE HILL
It’s the obvious
comparison, but
Hako Onna is
a tighter, more
focused and more
portable game,
with fun mechanics
and a different,
darker tone to its
American cousin.

168 The Best Games of 2019

LOCKUP:
A ROLL PLAYER TALE
et in the universe of Roll Player
S is Lockup, where the aspiring
heroes of the fantasy adventure
are replaced with prisoners hoping
to escape their confinement in the
unbreakable Kulbak Prison. Only
the strongest gang, who survives the
gladiatorial-like battle in the prison’s
coliseum, will earn their freedom.
This theme may have been entirely
forgettable, if not for the game’s
gorgeous main board that masterfully
uses its isometric perspective to fill
every room of the dungeon with
volume and atmosphere.
Players assign members of their
prison gang to these rooms to earn
resources or perform actions. In a
traditional worker-placement manner,
these will become victory points by
the end of the game.
Player interaction is the heart and
soul of Lockup, elevating it from a by-
the-book worker-placement and set-
collection game. Only the gang with
the strongest numbers can perform
actions in each room. Players can
place as many members as they like in
each location, but only once.
However, Lockup is not just a
number-counting game. A player can
49-90m 1-5 10+ £48
place a limited number of their gang
members facedown, therefore hiding
their strength from their opponents.
This simple addition of uncertainty
and bluffing makes all the difference.
Did your opponent hide the tile
because they really want to win the
action spot? Or are they trying to
make you overcommit so they can
spend their powerful units elsewhere
with little competition? What other
tiles do they still have left in their
hand to play?
Lockup is a clever worker-placement
game full of player interaction in a
modest package. It is faster to set up
and play than most games in the same
genre, yet the gameplay has not been
sacrificed in any way to achieve this.
The Roll Player universe has become
richer with Lockup’s addition.
ALEX SONECHKINA
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
JUDGE DREDD:
HELTER SKELTER
ast year’s Wildlands was just
L too good to leave alone. Thanks
to Martin Wallace’s smooth
integration of simple cardplay with
fierce miniatures skirmishing, three
expansions quickly followed, adding
factions and a couple of
DUNGEON ACADEMY
ith roll-and-write games
W on the rise, it was only a
matter of time before the
words ‘dungeon-crawling’ were added
into the mix to hit the buzzword
bingo. That said, in the case of
Dungeon Academy, it’s best to put any
cynicism to the side.
170 The Best Games of 2019
new maps. Now Osprey has
published an entirely new game,
transposing Wallace’s slick
mechanisms to a crazed, 2000 AD
comic-strip mash-up, in which
reality's boundaries have fragmented,
causing the likes of Slaìne, Strontium
Dog and Nikolai Dante to rampage
around the streets of Mega-City One,
much to the annoyance of the local
law enforcers.
But this is more than a
straightforward, sci-fi reskin with
a savvy geeky twist. Helter Skelter
introduces new tweaks to Wallace’s
system – for example, adding in
Psi powers that allow cards to be
stolen from other player’s hands
and gives each team access to
a unique power, such as Celtic
warrior Slaìne’s ability to ‘warp
spasm’ into a berserker rage.
The dungeon is made up of 16 dice
rolled at the beginning of each round.
Each die face represents monsters
that will cost health or stamina to beat
or, rarely, a potion that will replenish
some of the hero’s strength. Players
will draw a path through the dungeon
each round and, if they survive at
the end, earn victory points and loot.
Sounds simple, right?
Well, as it turns out, with two
different health bars, a little bit of
monster variety and the addition of a
timer, no dungeon is simple. Even in a
four-by-four grid, it is easy to get lost
or end up fighting one monster too
many. Both mistakes and successes
are fun, and even the light penalty
for coming last doesn’t discourage
players from heading into the next
level of the dungeon.
While Dungeon Academy nails
its mechanics and the feel and ease
of the game, its components are bit
hit-and-miss. At the beginning of the
30-60m 2-4 13+ £60
It also vitally refines its
source game. There’s no more
wild movement, and you can
no longer play a card to draw
two more during your turn. But
there are more opportunities to
interrupt another player’s turn,
making Helter Skelter a little more
focused and tactical. Plus, the
card design is much clearer now
(gone are the confusing character
portraits on the right-hand side)
and they’ve finally realised they
really should distinguish between
the 6 and the 9 on the map cards.
Even if you’re not into the cult
British anthology comic that inspires
this future-shocking Wildlands
iteration, it still stands as a new and
improved version of one of last year’s
greatest tabletop experiences.
DAN JOLIN
20m 1-6 10+ £30
game, players assemble the dice tray
– which sets up the dungeon without
revealing the roll results ahead of the
players’ start. This is well done, if a
bit fiddly.
The game advises player to place
health and stamina tokens on the
pad to indicate which monsters they
have defeated, but the tokens are
bigger than the grid, making tracking
the monsters in turn harder. Also,
the rulebook encourages players to
download the free Dungeon Academy
app: a timer for 30, 45 and 60 seconds.
It’s completely unnecessary given that
all smartphones used to download the
app have the same basic capabilities.
Dungeon Academy looks
deceivingly simple, yet beating its
dungeons isn’t easy. It may have gone
for excess in its components, but
its gameplay is honed and distilled
to essentials that make it both
entertaining and challenging.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WINGS OF GLORY:
TRIPODS & TRIPLANES
Threedom fighters
ver since H.G. Wells first
E envisioned sinister tri-legged
fighting machines from the
Red Planet stalking their way across
Horsell Common, his influence in pop
culture was assured. Ares Games has
taken his signature work of science-
fiction and merged it with Wings of
Glory, the aerial combat wargames
set during the bloody years of the
First and Second World Wars. The
end result is a boxed starter set that
provides quick, entertaining games of
man versus Martian, but feels like it
could have included a bit more than
it offers.
Those who’ve played aerial
combat games before – particularly
X-Wing – will find many similar
mechanics used here. Each game is
split into turns, with play occurring
simultaneously during each phase of
the turn. The three phases of a turn
revolve around movement. Each
unit on the board – whether they be
tripod or triplane – has a console
with slots for three movement
cards. At the start of a turn, players
select how their vehicle(s) will
move by selecting cards from their
movement deck and placing one in
each of the three slots. Players then
Artist:
simultaneously reveal the first card
and move correspondingly. The
game eschews movement rulers, and
instead uses the cards themselves
as measures. Shooting and actions
likewise occur simultaneously.
Players do the same thing for the
following two phases, after which a
WHAT’S IN new turn begins.
THE BOX? This core gameplay loop makes for
◗ Mk.I 'Locust' a game that’s both entertaining and
tripod miniature fast. Though not a new mechanic,
◗ Nieuport 16 having to plan how each vehicle is
aeroplane miniature
going to move not only adds strategic
◗ Manoeuvre decks
◗ Special ability cards depth to the proceedings, but also
◗ Damage decks helps reinforce the concept that the
◗ Tokens player is piloting a machine with
◗ Terrain actual tolerances and velocity rather
◗ Rulers than just game pieces. The game also
has a random element in the form
of damage, which is determined by
drawing the top card from one of
several decks depending on the type
of weapon used.
The units the box comes with
feel mostly balanced. In terms of
hit points and raw firepower the
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… GASLANDS
A skirmish wargame ruleset that lets players turn toy cars into engines of death,
Gaslands is well worth a look if piloting heavily armed vehicles is your thing.
30m 2 13+ £47
Martian tripod is – not surprisingly
– the tougher of the two, though
this is counterbalanced by the fact
that it has to spend an action and
energy token to shoot, whereas no
such penalties affect flyers. Likewise,
whilst the plane is nearly always
going to lose out in a straightforward
shooting match, it’s given a
much-needed edge by dint of its
manoeuvrability. Random damage
effects like engine fires and electrical
short-outs prevent things from
becoming predictable.
The main gripe comes not from
the gameplay but from the few areas
where the game feels like it should
have had more in the box. The
rulebook comes with six scenarios,
though only two of them can be
played using the core contents, as the
rest require the purchasing of separate
airplane and tripod packs. Including
content like this that can only be used
with additional purchases is always
a cheap move – and one that would
be rightly called out if a board game
tried to pull it – but seems to be par
for the course for wargames. Likewise,
as entertaining as the game is, having
only one model each side inevitably
means that games will get stale
after a while. The inclusion of more,
different miniatures (like the ones
cheekily advertised on the box’s back
cover image) and a healthy number
of scenarios would have gone a long
way to making a set with greater
entertainment value.
JAMES WINSPEAR
❚ WE SAY
A box that feels like it should have
included more in it, Tripods & Triplanes
nonetheless delivers a fast, tactical
experience that’s fun whilst it lasts.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 171
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
POWER RANGERS:
HEROES OF THE GRID
A Megazord of a board game
aving been burnt before by
H board games that entice you
with nostalgia, I approached
Power Rangers: Heroes of a Grid with
low expectations. If nothing else, I
would probably enjoy the wonderfully
detailed miniatures of the rangers and
their various adversaries, including
Rita Repulsa, Knasty Knight, Pudgy Pig
(by far the most glorious) and others,
while reminiscing about the series
from my childhood.
My initial worry that the game was
more about looks than gameplay
was dispensed within the span of a
single playthrough. Heroes of the Grid
assembled a set of interesting and
enticing separate parts into a Megazord
of a board game.
At its distilled core, Heroes of the
Grid is Pandemic in a Power Ranger
outfit – just switch disease cubes for
the Putty Patrol. Yet it is far from being
a mere copycat. Some ideas have been
simplified – for example, condensing the
board to five areas, making movement
easy but maintaining control of areas
harder. If one of the areas becomes
overrun with Putty Patrollers it must be
172 The Best Games of 2019
cleared as urgently as possible because,
once it cascades into adjacent areas,
it becomes almost impossible to stop.
Once all the areas are overrun and enter
a panic state, the game is lost.
It is the ‘clearing’ of these areas that
gets a deeper, layered treatment in
Heroes of the Grid. Every ranger comes
with their own deck of attacks, moves
and manoeuvres that they can utilise
during the fight. Some cards simply
do damage to enemies, while others
generate tokens that can be spent on
more powerful moves or can otherwise
be used to help other players during
each round. Putty Patrollers and
monsters also come with their own
decks of varying actions. As the attack
cards are laid out for the round, players
can assess which enemy cards are more
dangerous and should be prioritised.
The rangers’ remaining health is the
size of their deck –when the last card
runs out, they have been defeated. This
means using your most powerful attacks
at the beginning of the fight may not be
the best strategy, especially as monsters
and, eventually, the main boss make
their appearance.
45-60m 2-5 14+ £85
Card management becomes key, as WHAT’S IN
players decide if they need to team up to
defeat the enemy or if their hand is strong
enough to face them alone. Players can
THE BOX?
◗ Five ranger figures
◗ Five character cards
◗ 24 foot soldier figures
always discuss together which enemy
◗ 20 foot soldier
attacks need to be throttled and if the
enemy cards
rangers can take some damage to save ◗ 20 foot soldier
powerful cards in their hand for the deployment cards
next round. The rangers’ decks have ◗ Boss figure
just enough variation to make every ◗ Eight boss
card draw exciting, but not too much enemy cards
to exhaust players with options and ◗ Boss deployment card
abilities. Each ranger is different – which ◗ Four monster figures
might seem like an obvious statement, ◗ 32 monster
enemy cards
but not every game makes such an effort
◗ Four monster
to make its characters stand out. Some deployment cards
rangers’ cards are more attack-focused, ◗ 50 combat cards
while others are better at manoeuvring ◗ Power board
and generating energy tokens. ◗ Six Zord cards
During your first game, you’ll be ◗ Megazord token
able to learn your deck and begin to ◗ Five location boards
use your cards in an informed way, ◗ 15 energy tokens
taking advantage of natural combos ◗ 12 action tokens
◗ Lead ranger token
and figuring out which cards can be
◗ Four panic tokens
discarded and which should be kept in ◗ Six combat dice
reserve for stronger enemies. While the ◗ Power marker
Putty Patrollers are not as dangerous as
they are numerous, if left alone, their
cards can combine to deal a significant
blow. As the enemies get stronger, so
do the rangers. They gain experience
by defeating enemies that allows them
TRY THIS IF
to unlock Zord cards, and eventually YOU LIKED…
a Megazord card that provides bonus PANDEMIC
actions during fights. Heroes of the Grid is
The Power Rangers theme may just as tough to beat
have been the initial draw of Heroes as Pandemic, with
of the Grid, but take that away and the added challenge
this is still a great area-control and of having to fight
card-management game in its own the Putty Patrol,
instead of just
right. It presents a tough fight, but with
removing them.
some strategy, a bit of luck and great
teamwork, players can give Rita one hell
of the headache.
ALEX SONECHKINA
❚ WE SAY
Board games based on a beloved
licence unfortunately tend to rely too
much on the theme at the cost of
gameplay, but Power Rangers: Heroes
of the Grid doesn’t pull any punches.

SET A WATCH
High-camp fantasy
nyone who’s played Dungeons
A & Dragons will be familiar with
the scenario: after a long day’s
questing, your battered party settles
down for a long campsite rest. Or at
least, that’s the plan, until the DM
decides to disturb your HP-recovering
40 winks with an onslaught of rest-
ruining monsters.
Todd Walsh’s co-operative battle
game takes this scenario and amps
it to the max. Your team of four
characters (cleric, rogue, ranger,
beast master and so on) have to
travel the land to nine different
spawning points where much
monster-slaying must occur. Rather
than one of your team taking guard
duty while the others sleep, in Set a
Watch one of the party rests in camp
– whose fire needs to be judiciously
maintained – while the other three
stay alert, working together to slay
the oncoming monsters.
Mechanically, it’s all based on dice
assignment. Each character rolls
three dice (either six-sided or eight-
sided, depending on their class)
after the new location is revealed at
the start of the round. Based on this,
the group must decide who rests in
60m 1-4 10+ £29
WHAT’S IN camp, placing their dice to different
THE BOX?
◗ Magnetic box and
fold-out camp board
◗ Six adventurer boards
effect on the rather neat little camp
board, which is the box lid folded
out. They could place any number
to chop firewood and increase the
◗ 30 adventurer
campfire’s strength, thereby allowing
ability cards
◗ Nine unhallowed for more monsters to be revealed
creature cards as they line up outside the camp.
◗ 42 creature cards Or they could place a six to heal
◗ 20 location cards someone (by refreshing one of their
◗ Nine six-sided dice exhausted action cards). Or they
◗ Nine eight-sided dice could place a double or triple on
◗ Four rest tokens the runes, to allow for extra bonus
◗ Fire token actions, like permitting the other
players to re-roll, or to permanently
remove a creature card from the
horde, which is a pile of nasties
guaranteed to attack en masse during
the epic ninth and final round.
Once all the camp actions are done,
then it’s time for the watch phase,
when the other three characters have
to try and defeat all the monsters
screeching their way. Dice can be
placed directly to score damage
or assigned to action cards (each
character has three active, randomly
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… ROLL FOR ADVENTURE
If having just one co-operative fantasy dice-placing adventure in your life isn’t
enough, Roll for Adventure and Set a Watch make a great double-bill.
chosen from a deck of five during
setup) to pull off special moves. This
is a pleasingly puzzley process, as
the group works together to figure
out how best to make the most of all
their different rolls and, indeed, roles.
You really do need to maximise your
efficiency during each and every turn
– this is not a forgiving game, even on
its easy setting.
Summon cards will teleport in
powerful unhallowed monsters who
can really screw you up, while any
undefeated creatures at a round’s
end will force the party to exhaust a
number of cards as damage, before
joining the horde. If a player has three
exhausted cards at the start of a watch,
they can’t fight. If everyone’s cards
are exhausted at the same time, you
lose the game. Furthermore, if the
campfire ever goes out, someone has
to exhaust a card to rekindle it.
At heart, this is a tower-defence
game, so will appeal to fans of that
genre, though it can start to feel
a bit sloggy towards the end, as
the beasties just keep on coming
and your party members struggle
to avoid exhaustion. The fact that
one player has to sit out the main
combat action each round is also
problematic, baking in a fair chunk
of downtime for a quarter of the table
if you’re playing with four. That’s not
so much a problem at lower player
counts, however, as there are always
four characters no matter how many
people are playing. If you play solo,
you control all four; two players take
two each; and with three players –
the clunkiest player count – a ‘flex
adventurer’ is chosen each round that
the in-camp player controls during
the watch phase.
As tough as it is, and as relentless as
it gets, Set a Watch plays smoothly and
demands your full tactical attention in
an absorbing way. Never was getting a
good night’s sleep such hard work.
DAN JOLIN
❚ WE SAY
The dice-placement tower-defence
mechanisms gel well, though you’d
be forgiven for feeling rather
overwhelmed during the final rounds.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 173
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
PARKS
Take a photo, it’ll last longer
as a board game even truly been
H breathtaking before? If not,
Parks has a pretty good shot at
being the first.
This is a game that oozes beauty
from every last cardboard pore, from
the picturesque landscapes showcased
on its main tarot-sized cards to the
metal first player token worthy of a
high-altitude gift shop and the wooden
tokens that make up its resources –
including a dozen miniature animals, all
of which are unique and stored in tree-
shaped trays. And rightfully so, given
that the game was primarily created to
show off the art of the Fifty-Nine Parks
Print Series, an effort to get artists to
illustrate all of America’s national parks
in truly spectacular style. Their work is
understandably the highlight here, but
the rest of Parks does the artwork ample
justice. It is, in a word, stunning.
Of course, that beauty isn’t much
good if the game itself turns awe into
snores. Fortunately, Parks’ chilled-out
gameplay and lightly competitive race
to visit the most parks (and, looking
at them, why wouldn’t you want to?)
makes for an enjoyable time.
You’re hikers, making your way
along a trail made up of randomised
action tiles each round. Most grant
resources, while others present other
174 The Best Games of 2019
abilities: swap tokens for others, draw
canteen cards for reusable effects,
and so on. Resources buy park cards
worth points, and each player also
has a secret objective that can bump
their score a little more after the four
seasonal rounds finish.
The gameplay is competitive
and strategic, but gently so. Two
hikers can’t occupy the same
location unless the moving player
extinguishes their campfire token,
which is re-lit once one of their
two walkers hits the final space;
otherwise, there’s no real restriction
to how far you move to the right,
inviting a Tokaido-like balance
between moving slowly enough to
amass valuable resources and fast
enough to grab the cards and tokens
you need ahead of your rivals and
potentially block their path. It’s all
wonderfully tranquil: you pause to
take photos for points (the miniscule
polaroids are all different, of course),
fill your water canteen to activate
abilities that reset each round and
spend sun tokens to purchase hiking
gear that enables ongoing effects.
The layers are stacked up lightly, but
there’s more than enough to keep
you digging once you start peeling
them away.
30-60m 1-5 9+ £TBC
Each season brings a new round-
specific effect and weather pattern
– a charming way of adding bonus
resources to the tiles – as well as
adding another tile to the reshuffled
trail, extending it a little and adding WHAT’S IN
more strategic options. The pace
THE BOX?
◗ Tri-fold board
feels comfortable; you have more ◗ 48 park cards
resources, reserved parks and general ◗ 10 season cards
ability to do what you want to in later ◗ 12 year cards
rounds, so it’s not a case of dragging ◗ 36 gear cards
things out as players hop towards the ◗ 15 canteen cards
last few cards they need. ◗ Nine solo mode
The gameplay won’t blow you away event cards
with originality or intensity, but that’s ◗ 10 trail site tiles
◗ Trailhead
not really the point. Like wandering the
◗ Trail End
awe-inspiring peaks, valleys and woods ◗ 10 hikers
of America’s vistas, Parks is a game ◗ Five campfire tokens
that you can just sink into for a while, ◗ Camera token
enjoying its comfortable level of strategy ◗ First Hiker market
enough to stay with it for the reasonable ◗ 16 forest tokens
time it asks without having to toast ◗ 16 mountain tokens
your grey matter over the campfire. ◗ 30 sunshine tokens
Speaking of which, the separate single- ◗ 30 water tokens
◗ 12 wildlife tokens
player mode is nicely considered, with
◗ 24 photo tokens
dedicated event cards and a neat way of
simulating a rival player with rangers as
you aim for a high score – not enough
to make Parks a solitaire standout, but a
sweet added extra.
The reality is that with a lesser
presentation, Parks’ unassuming
gameplay – though enjoyable and
clearly made with passion and care –
probably wouldn’t be strong enough
alone to make it particularly memorable
versus other games. That’s missing the
screen-printed forest for the highly TRY THIS IF
detailed trees. Combined with some YOU LIKED…
of the best artwork the tabletop’s ever TOKAIDO
seen, this beautiful little package feels Two calm, beautiful
perfectly formed: a gentle, gorgeous games about
stroll in the fresh air that’s content to walking and
enjoying nature’s
just breathe it in. Open the box and let
sights, Parks and
your breath be taken away. Tokaido are a
MATT JARVIS perfect pair.
❚ WE SAY
Parks isn’t all about its looks – though they
certainly help. Unassuming as it seems,
this is a delightfully serene game with
enough going on behind its magnificent
artwork to make visits to every one of
its natural beauty spots worth the trip.

ARTSEE
Monkey see, monkey doodle
hate that title. It’s clever-clever
I and doesn’t tell you about the
game. It took me a couple of
days to realise it’s a pun on ‘artsy’
– except with ‘see’ because this is a
game supposedly about seeing art
by attracting people to the gallery
you’re running, by having a better
collection of interesting paintings
than your rivals. And it sort of is,
except for one glaring problem: it’s
not about the art.
There’s no shortage of games about
paintings recently. Atelier: The Painter’s
Studio gives you the chance to create
some of the world’s great masterpieces
(or, at least, pay penniless students
to create them for you) and they’re
lavishly illustrated on tarot-sized cards.
ArtSee also has masterpieces but
they’re the size of postage stamps. “Is
that a still life or a portrait?” one of the
players asked at one point. “I know it’s
30m+ 2-5 12+ £29
a still life,” I said, “because the tile has a
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 32 starting
exhibit cards
◗ 48 main exhibit cards
blue background.”
So you’re a gallery owner, with a
small gallery of two cards and a hand
of three. Cards have colours, but more
◗ 20 masterpiece importantly they have two or three
tokens paintings on them, a combination of
◗ 45 visitor meeple
blue and/or yellow and/or red and/
(in five colours)
◗ 65 prestige tokens or green. On your turn you draw,
place a new card in your gallery,
score it – which may mean other
players benefitting too – try to buy a
masterpiece and re-draw.
For a game with a five-part turn it
zips along at a good speed. The trick
is that each coloured card you place
has an arrow pointing left or right, and
when you add it to your gallery – on
an existing card or to the left or right
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… THE GALLERIST
If you fancy an exploration of the art world in game form but you only have 20
minutes instead of two-and-a-half hours, ArtSee will see you right.
of one – you score for all the paintings
of that colour in the column the arrow
points to. However, if you place a
card on the left of your gallery with
a leftwards arrow you score for the
righthand column of your lefthand
opponent’s gallery, and vice versa.
This is a really smart mechanic in
a game that’s full of them. It means
careful players will build towards
the middle, not the sides, at the risk
of limiting their scoring chances. I
was fairly sure there’s an optimum
gallery shape but my testers kept
proving me wrong.
It’s not all about laying the right
colour in the right place, because each
card has other effects. If you play a
red, every other player can put one
of their meeples (tiny but beautifully
carved) on the front red cards in
their gallery. When they add another
card to that column they remove the
meeples and score prestige for them,
because this is the sort of game where
points are called prestige.
Very quickly you’ll realise how
carefully intertwined and balanced
the different actions and systems
are. Every card you place has
multiple implications, and you
should watch every action your
opponents make up to and including
drawing a new card, but you never
feel overwhelmed by choices. It’s a
rounded and satisfying experience.
The only problem is that at no point
will you feel like you’re the owner of an
art gallery. The theme is a convenient
wrapper around what at heart is a
clever abstract. It does need a theme,
and the world of art ought to be a good
fit, but the pictures on the cards are so
tiny that they could have been almost
anything. But then this isn’t a game
about art, it’s about prestige. ArtSee is
definitely clever, but more engagement
with its theme would have made it
something really special.
JAMES WALLIS
❚ WE SAY
Mechanically it’s intelligent, tactically
it’s surprisingly rich and the concept
is original and easily grasped. The art,
on the other hand, is barely visible.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 175
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
OF THE INNER SEA
Brutus has nothing on this
ncient Civilizations of the Inner Sea
A comes on a bit strong. It has a name
as dry and dusty as the history
books its millennia-spanning depiction of
almost 4,000 years of human civilisation
draws from. Its main map is two expansive
boards, easily filling most tables with its
brown and blue humdrum. There are no
epic miniatures, fancy components or
frame-worthy illustrations – just a deck of
cards, some wooden blocks and discs. Lots
and lots of discs. It even has a rule named
after the mythological Grecian hero
Aeneas, for crying out loud. At a glance, it
seems a wargame designed by committee
or neural network; if the words ‘Mare
Internum’ don’t get you chomping at the
bit, you wouldn’t be forgiven for passing it
by as just another ‘one of those’.
That’d be your loss because,
underneath the fairly plain and drab
surface, ACIS is one of the most riotously
entertaining and downright savage take-
that games in a long while.
It’s a game of rising and falling
civilisations, built off the timeless blueprint
of the genre’s seminal forebear, 1980’s
Civilization. Each player’s discs stack up
in the regions around the Mediterranean,
building from single-tier camps (which
can co-exist peacefully with other factions’
tokens, in an abstract representation
of wandering farmers and traders) to
176 The Best Games of 2019
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Map board
(two halves)
◗ Ten civilisation displays
◗ Solitaire player aid
◗ Six player aids
◗ 110 cards
◗ 400 wooden discs
◗ Five embossed
wooden cylinders
◗ Seven wooden blocks
+ sticker sheet
◗ Playbook
2-5h 1-6 12+ £80
double-decker settlements that provide
extra discs on future turns and three-
storey cities that generate victory points.
Combat is mostly a war of numbers: most
discs wins, with the option to modify the
outcome with ability cards and discard
cards instead of sacrificing discs. It’s
simple and effective enough as a basic
strategy game, but far from the highlight.
That’s the boring but necessary bit.
It’s in the game’s central card phase that
things kick into overdrive. ACIS’ cards
are a maelstrom of constant chaos,
inviting players to unleash everything
from floods, volcanoes and earthquakes
to barbarians and the Black Death on
their opponents. The ferocity of the cards
is almost hilariously dialled up to and
beyond 11 – discs are removed as quickly
as they’re placed, and you’ll often build
one of the game’s world wonders only to
find it reduced to rubble moments later.
If you’re after a fair and balanced chin-
stroking strategy experience, this ain’t it.
The take-that-ness of the game will
make it an acquired taste for many, but
get on board with its unbridled bedlam
and you’re in for a hell of a ride. As far as
historical reenactment goes, this is the
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… CIVILIZATION
ACIS’ nastiest gameplay harkens back to the brutal calamity trading of the
genre-defining masterpiece. It’s a well-deserved heir to the throne.
equivalent of dressing in a toga for a boozy
party. As such, the chaos does unravel
the costume at points; while the game’s
asymmetrical player civilisations introduce
an illusion of sticking to history, the
random nature of the events means there’s
little sense of progression through the eras.
The odd duck nature of ACIS’ smooshing
together of epic wargame and snappy
(and stabby) party game leaves a few other
loose ends. It’s a game literally measured in
epochs – in other words, despite the quick-
flowing individual rounds (of which there
are between two and four each epoch) it
can run seriously long, especially with more
people. Don’t let that put you off, though;
the game can be neatly truncated to a
couple of hours by reducing the number
of epochs played or playing to a point
limit, losing little in the process. Plus, the
map and gameplay scales comfortably to
smaller groups – although the need to set
up both sides of the table-swallowing board
regardless due to the fixed score and epoch
tracks is a bit of an oversight.
Don’t mistake ACIS’ fairly breezy core
rules for an overall lack of depth, either. This
is a game that comes with a surprisingly
thick playbook full of historical scenarios
both multiplayer and single-player, ranging
from the fall of Rome to a solitaire challenge
that casts you as the God-King of Egypt.
There are optional variants galore to mix in
as you please, as well as advice on crafting
custom scenarios – the impressive level of
customisability makes a great, fun game
even better.
And that’s what ACIS is, at the end
of the day: fun. If the idea of a historical
wargame that doesn’t take itself too
seriously is up your street, there’s likely
enough looseness here to make ACIS
the game you want it to be. Grab some
friends, tie a bedsheet toga around your
waist and embrace the chaos.
MATT JARVIS
❚ WE SAY
It’s frequently savage, often silly and
refreshingly straightforward. ACIS
is wargaming at its most laidback,
embedding a riotous take-that party
game in the centre of a sweeping
strategy epic. Don’t mistake that
simplicity for stupidity, though: this is
a game that largely lets you make it
what you want – but it’s always a joy.
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 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

DIE HARD: THE NAKATOMI HEIST

Yippie ki-yay, board-game lovers
60-90m 2-4 15+ £30

welve terrorists. One cop. combinations of numbers (found While the game’s fidelity to its

“T The odds are against John

McClane… That’s just the
way he likes it.” So the original tag line
in the top-left corner of each thief
card) to crack the codes on six vault
locks, represented by a randomly
source’s storyline is admirable, this
does make it very linear, and replays
become repetitive, although switching
went, when the Bruce Willis-starring assembled grid of numbers. This is the sides does change it up a little. Also,
high-rise action thriller Die Hard hit thieves’ win condition (in addition to for a movie which is all about one guy
cinemas back in 1988. Now, thanks to blowing up the building’s roof in Act winning against all the odds, it does
The OP Games, we can nostalgically III), unless they kill McClane first by seem considerably easier to win as
relive that hardy, resourceful and whittling down his draw deck. McClane, especially as he essentially
WHAT’S IN
wisecracking New York cop’s first THE BOX? Both sides have a trio of objectives levels up during the three acts, while the
adventure in tabletop form. It comes ◗ Double-sided board per act. The thieves’ are optional, code-cracking is far more of a slog for the
fitted out with some very impactful, ◗ 80 John McClane but always useful, giving them extra thieves than their bare-footed foe’s tasks.
Mad Men-style silhouette-based action cards lock-breaking actions. McClane’s Even so, if you’re a gamer who won’t stop
graphic design, a Hollywood- ◗ 40 Thief action cards are compulsory, the only way he can quoting Hans Gruber, this would still
appropriate three-act structure (each ◗ 25 Lock cards trigger each new act and ultimately make a great Christmas present.
act expanding the fold-out board, ◗ 1 John McClane win the game. By moving, shooting, DAN JOLIN
giving a pleasing sense of escalation), player board shoving, punching and sneaking
◗ 1 Lock tracker card
and components liberally festooned his way around the impressively
with the film’s most quotable lines.
◗ 1 John McClane figure
expressionistic board, he must pull
❚ WE SAY
◗ 1 Hans Gruber figure It’s a handsome production (aside
Given the one-man-army theme, ◗ 7 Thief figures off such plot-based achievements as from its incongruously ugly figures),
designers Pat Marino and Sean ◗ 1 Die finding a pair of shoes (that don’t fit), and enjoyably faithful to the
Fletcher have appropriately fed ◗ 17 Blue lock cubes throwing a thief out of a window, and movie, but a lack of variation in its
McClane’s heroic struggle into ◗ 12 Red support/ scaring the hostages off the roof. narrative limits its replayability.
an asymmetric one-versus-many draw blood cubes
structure, similar to the recent Jaws ◗ 1 Lead thief marker
game, except this time the team of ◗ 40 Objective tokens
◗ 16 Objective tiles
one-to-three facing the lone player
take the role of the villains, rather than
the heroes.
Each turn, every player throws
down a single action card; McClane
from a hand of five, drawn from
his own act-specific deck which
also represents his health, and the
thieves (they’re not actually terrorists,
of course — spoiler alert!) from a
hand of three drawn from a shared
deck. Appropriately for a character
scrambling to survive, the McClane
player has to be more careful about
their card management. Anything
they play will be saved and shuffled
into future act decks, so they need
to keep an eye on which act-specific
actions might later prove useful. But
once they’re down to two cards in
hand, they have to discard those and
redraw a whole new hand, inevitably
losing some handy actions.
The thief players, meanwhile,
have to coordinate using minimal
player communication, not only to TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… JAWS
select the best fly-in-the-ointment- They’re both nostalgia-indulging movie adaptations involving one-versus-many
swatting actions, but also the best play and featuring some impressive visual design. .

178 The Best Games of 2019

LOVELACE & BABBAGE
15-30m 2-4 14+ £20

ollowing the footsteps of 19th Almes, a design mind behind the which the majority of subroutines

F century computing pioneers

Ada Lovelace and Charles
Babbage is not an easy task, but
series of Tiny Epic games, takes
head-on… and succeeds with
impressive effortlessness!
convincing players that sums and In Lovelace & Babbage, players
multiplications – under time pressure use the grid board to manipulate
no less! – can make a fun board game their numbers through the power of
is equally as challenging. One that maths to produce their individual
Lovelace & Babbage, a game by Scott subroutine value, imitating the
programming of an early mechanical
engine. If players have completed all
their number crunching correctly,
the subroutine unlocks a special
power that can be used on following
turns. For an added challenge,
players can also try to achieve the
values of various patrons, which
provide another method of earning
victory points at the end of the game.
On paper, this sounds like too
much maths to handle, however the
flow of the gameplay does a good job
at easing players in. Top rows of the
grid contain easier calculations, with
and patron cards can be achieved,
while lower rows, which are only
unlocked in later rounds, are harder
to incorporate in the players’
‘coding streams’ but also reward
bonus points for the effort. Tactical
players will be able to use subroutine
powers to cheat the system, making
calculations easier or victory points
higher, and, in case of a mistake, a
special debugging action can be used
to recalculate the round.
If any thought of maths is panic-
inducing, then Lovelace & Babbage
may not be the right game for you.
However, in any other case, you can
safely put any reservations aside
(and carry the one). As a game about
celebrating achievements in science,
Lovelace & Babbage has done
something truly magical to make a
rather dry subject so exciting
ALEX SONECHKINA

GATES OF DELIRIUM
45m 2-4 14+ £44

very new board game begins or insane phases of the game. This

E with the usual ritual of punching

pieces, unwrapping cards and
placing a board. This custom can
induce bubbling excitement or dull
disappointment amongst participants
as they make their first impressions.
Gates of Delirium suffers from the
latter as it looks very much like a bog-
standard worker-placement game.
That is, until you play your first turn.
Fans of Eldrich Horror, will
immediately recognize the familiar
Lovecraftian setting of Gates of
Delirium, including mysterious
monster-spewing portals, except in
this case you want to summon all
the horrors. Much like the monsters
lurking just beneath the portal’s veil,
Gates of Delirium hides its best bits
right in front of you. Dual-toned
cards – which can be easily mistaken
for a single action – have two distinct
options that can be taken during sane
creates an immediate dilemma of
which half to use at the expense of the
other. Two cards are played per turn
in the usual attempt to earn the most
victory points.
You face a multitude of set-
collection options: building maps,
uncovering ancient ruins and storing
lost pages from secret tomes, all of
which score in different ways. You
will also be attempting to gain control
over sections of the world map to
coincide with portal openings to score
maximum points.
Gates of Delirium finds a way to
lull you into a deceptive sense of
simplicity when you first lay your eyes
on it, but once you begin to unravel its
mysteries, you’ll be enthralled by this
delightfully-dark board game. At its
best you may even begin to question
your own sanity.
ALEX SONECHKINA

tabletopgaming.co.uk 179
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
TAN-TAN CARAVAN
Every woman, every man, join the caravan of…spice?
lue Orange games have a knack
B for releasing deceptively clever
yet accessible small box offerings.
Just look at the popularity of the award
winning Kingdomino or the two-player
stacking action of Wakanda. Tan-Tan
Caravan, the latest release from Russian
design Trio Trehgrannik, fits snugly
alongside the publisher’s back catalogue,
but does it offer something deeper?
In stark contrast to their last game,
Inuit: The Snow Folk, Trehgrannik have
shifted the action from icy card drafting
in the Arctic Circle to sweltering set
collection in the markets of Morocco.
The game sees players competing amidst
the hustle and bustle of Tan-Tan market,
trying to amass the greatest collections
of local crafts. Remarkably, with just a
set of cards and a small central board,
Trehgrannik have condensed what could
have been an expansive economic Euro
into a modest, but undeniably brain-
burning thirty-minute experience.
Setup is a welcome breeze, with six
of the game’s miniature cards being laid
out across the board’s lower half and the
remaining stack placed beside them. The
cards depict various goods, from tasty
local delicacies to precious jewellery,
alongside pesky mice and powerful
character cards. The lower section of the
180 The Best Games of 2019
board represents the market, with the first
card (known as the purse) dictating how
much money players can spend on their
turn. The remaining five cards have their
costs displayed above them. The aim of
the game, and its central puzzle, is to fill
the caravan on the top half of the board
as many times as possible. Being the first
player to do so puts them at the front
WHAT’S IN of the queue, ready to snatch the most
THE BOX? valuable goods.
◗ 1 Game Board Gameplay is swift regardless of player
◗ 105 Cards count, with each turn offering the active
player one of two options; buy goods from
the market, or stock the caravan. Buying
goods allows the player to simply add
them to their hand. Stocking the caravan
allows the player to then place these cards
onto the caravan. Simple right? Well not
quite. The market in Tan-Tan Caravan
is an intensely dynamic place, with each
purchase resulting in seismic shifts in
the value of goods, how much money
will be available to the next player, and
how full the caravan is. Planning when
to fully stock the caravan is key, and this
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… SUSHI GO
If you’re looking for another accessible set collection game, albeit with some
different mechanics and deeper decision making, then Tan-Tan Caravan is
worth taking a look at.
30m 2-4 8+ £18
is trickier than you might think. If you’re
not careful, those cards you spent a turn
buying and a subsequent turn placing
might end up scoring points for your
opponent! It’s ludicrously frustrating in
the best of ways.
This all adds up to a tense and
strategically deep game; qualities which
are arguably obscured at first glance by
Tan-Tan Caravan’s light Euro aesthetic
and sparse components. Its theme might
not immediately bounce of the game’s
tiny board, but taking a look at your
opponents’ desperate grimacing faces
as they eye up an increasingly bloated
caravan comically reflects the intense
rivalry occurring behind the scenes of
a bustling market’s humid alleyways.
Praise must also be given to artist Sylvain
Aublin’s inviting illustrations, which help
emphasise the game’s setting with their
pastel hues and an impressive use of light
and shadow.
Thankfully, the arguably tired theming
of Tan-Tan Caravan gives way to a
pleasantly presented and mechanically
sound game which proudly takes its place
in Blue Orange’s catalogue. It may not
have the awards and colourful charm of
Kingdomino, or fellow set collector Sushi
Go, but its deceptive simplicity makes it
an excellent gateway choice, perfect for
subtly demonstrating just how clever
games can be.
CHAD WILKINSON
❚ WE SAY
Whilst its theme of trade and riches
amongst the bustle of the Moroccan
streets might inadvertently mirror
the increasingly crowded market of
set collection games, Tan-Tan Caravan
admirably rises above the noise,
delivering a quick and hotly competitive
Euro gaming experience. Despite not
having the most immersive of themes,
Tan-Tan Caravan serves as a great
appetiser for those hoping to turn their
friends on to heavier Euro style games.
MEGACITY: OCEANIA
Big smoke on the water
45-60m 2-4 8+ £35

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
he future is wet. Very wet. With to be a residential building (which Fox (Holding On) and Jordan Draper

T sea levels rapidly rising, building

homes for people on land is
no longer feasible. The solution is to
create sprawling megacities which
float on the ocean’s surface, on
immense high-tech platforms. Not
only is this endeavour innovative and
challenging, it turns out, it is also fun.
Megacity Oceania is a dexterity
game with a strong, engaging theme
and a welcome infusion of light
strategy. Each player works together to
create the titular floating metropolis,
but against each other to complete
contracts and earn the most prestige
by, say, constructing the tallest
building, or making their tower out
of a single material (glass, concrete
or steel).
Interestingly, all of your
construction has to happen when
it isn’t your turn, making the game
almost entirely downtime-free. While
the other players are busy taking their
goes, you must beaver away with
your building pieces, a crazy array
of geometrically formed plastic tiles,
to create your own mini Gherkin,
Burj Khalifa or Sydney Opera House,
following the rules of whichever
contract you’ve selected. It might need
means it must sit on a red hex-tile
platform), at least 55 storeys high,
comprise exactly eight pieces and
include an archway, for example.
When your turn comes, however, you
must pause construction. At this point
you’ll have two options: if your building
isn’t complete, you’ll take two actions
(three in a two-player game). You can
pull new building pieces out of the
bag, take a platform, or choose a new
contract, among other things. If your
building is complete, however, you can
choose to deliver it to the city, which
must be arranged around a Central
Park tile at the play area’s centre.
This is where the dexterity really
comes in. Your stacked-and-
balanced skyscraper must be sturdy
enough to withstand being slid along
the table surface and slotted next to
another tile. If it falls over during its
journey, your turn is over and you
have to reconstruct.
Each delivery proves entertainingly
tense, especially as every other player
has to stop what they’re doing and
watch until your building’s in place. Of
course, someone could be a jerk and
knock the table during such delicate
manoeuvres, but designers Michael
(Import/Export) encourage a semi-
cooperative group mindset: you’re
building this city together, after all,
◗ 1 Rulebook
◗ 1 Bag
◗ 150 Building pieces
in three colours
◗ 29 Double-sided
and the real joy is in watching it grow,
both vertically and horizontally across hexagonal tiles
◗ 36 Contract cards
the play area. Winning almost feels a
◗ 1 Awards Bar
secondary concern to this painstaking ◗ 9 Award tokens
act of creation. ◗ 2 Rulers
As you might guess, the game ◗ 1 Tallest
is more entertaining with a higher building marker
player count, especially as with two ◗ 32 Player cubes
players your building efforts will be in four colours
interrupted more regularly. Even at ◗ 60 Prestige tokens
four, it can become a little frustrating
at times to be snatched from your TRY THIS IF
tower-creating focus by people YOU LIKED…
ordering you to stop and take your MEN AT WORK
turn. But this is a minor niggle. Rita Modl’s stack-
Megacity Oceania is a true delight, in and-balancing game
terms of its gentle strategies, its visual also involves dextrous
challenges, but doesn’t
impact and, most of all, the sense of
match Megacity
satisfaction you get whenever you Oceania for depth and
successfully add a building to the city. visual appeal.
Who ever thought climate catastrophe
could be such a hoot?
DAN JOLIN
❚ WE SAY
A dexterity game that’s so good,
you’ll probably enjoy it even if you
don’t like dexterity games.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 181
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
DETECTIVE CLUB
The team behind Mysterium have done it again
etective Club was a hit at Essen,
D but that was Essen 2018 and
it’s taken over a year for the
game to get a proper release in the UK.
Given its pedigree – it’s from the same
Ukrainian publisher and one of the
same designers as Mysterium – that’s a
weirdly long time, but the world today
is a weird place and if I was them I
wouldn’t be putting much effort into
pleasing the UK right now either.
Mysterium was a brilliant collision
between Cluedo and Dixit that created
something greater than the sum of
its parts. From its name you might
think Detective Club was another
riff on a ghostly murder mystery – a
whooodunnit, if you like – but you’d
be wrong. It is, however, another game
that owes a huge debt to Dixit. As in:
another big deck of cards with surreal
images on them.
I am not a fan of Dixit. I like it fine,
with the right people and if there’s
nothing more interesting to play. It’s a
game that’s fairly satisfying but never
tense or exciting, and distinctly lacking
in strategy or anything more than
informed guesswork.
182 The Best Games of 2019
At first glance and even first play,
Detective Club looks like Nevskiy
has gone back to the Dixit mine that
produced Mysterium and scraped the
last of the ore from it. This time it’s
the surreal cards smashed into the
structure of a spot-the-conpirator-
before-they-work-out-the-theme game
like Spyfall or A Fake Artist Goes To
New York.
It goes like this: one player writes
a word on all-but-one of the supplied
notebooks, and everyone has to play
two cards from their hand that fit it – or,
if they’re the conspirator, what they
think the word might be, based on the
cards other people have played. There’s
a discussion and everyone votes on
who they think the conspirator is, with
points for being right and points for the
conspirator not being caught.
It’s a really good fit. The surreal cards
(brilliantly illustrated by the team at
M8I Studio) introduce exactly the right
amount of ambiguity for all players,
on whichever side, to make even the
simplest word into an interesting
challenge. The genius of Mysterium lay
in the enjoyment of watching people
45m 4-8 8+ £25
overthinking simple problems and the
same is true here: at the moment the
truth is revealed half the table slap their
foreheads and wonder how they could
have missed the obvious clues.
It’s quick to learn and plays
reasonably fast, everyone is involved
with every card-turn – how does that
image fit the theme? might that player
be the conspirator? – and it makes you
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
feel clever when you’re doing well, but ◗ 168 Evidence cards
not stupid when you’re doing badly. It ◗ 58 Victory
demands a certain amount of focus and point tokens
concentration, who ultimately wins is ◗ 8 Voting tokens
hardly important, but everyone will ◗ 8 Player markers
have had a good time. The presentation ◗ 7 Notebooks
is polished and elegant, and this would ◗ 1 Pencil
be a nice thing to give to friends as a
gift. Unless they already own Dixit.
Setting your game up against an
established modern classic like Dixit
is a fool’s errand. Dixit has the brand
recognition, a Spiel des Jahres win,
and cute rabbit meeple. Detective Club
can only contend with nice wooden
magnifying glasses, scoring tokens
instead of a track, and places for two
more players. And, I would argue,
better and more enjoyable gameplay.
Yet it’s not a challenge to Dixit, it’s
more like Dixit+, a game that can sit
comfortably alongside its older sibling.
You can even play it with your existing
Dixit card-decks, if you want a quick
expansion – or even the decks from
Mysterium too. And while Dixit can run
into problems if played with people
you don’t know, this works equally well
with friends, strangers or both. TRY THIS IF
Like Mysterium, Detective Club
YOU LIKED…
DIXIT
wears its influences on its sleeve but Well, obviously. But
it’s much more than you’d expect Mysterium fans will
from ‘Dixit meets Spyfall’. It’ll be enjoy this too: it’s
interesting to see where Igames draw lighter and shorter
the inspiration for their next big release but tickles the same
– though if it’s ‘Dixit meets Monopoly’ parts of the brain.
I’m out.
JAMES WALLIS
❚ WE SAY
Easy to pick up and pleasantly social,
this is great as an opener or for playing
with game-curious friends. Goes well
with wine and a selection of cheeses.
MENTAL BLOCKS
SILVER
ilver is a card game about
S werewolves without any
werewolves in it. That’s fine
though as this is a gentle memory
match card game with a werewolf
veneer that mostly disappears as
soon as the game’s main mechanics
become apparent.
This is no bad thing; the mechanics
are fun. Place your cards face down in
front of you (this is your village) and
have a peek at two. Play cards from the
ollaborative party games can
C be hit and miss, often not
because of anything in the
game but because of the people who
have been invited to the party itself. It
would be hard to believe that anyone
wouldn’t happily dive in to the foam-
block-building fun of Mental Blocks.
It’s a game of understanding one
another’s point of view. Each player
taking a secret perspective card and
then using the colourful but tastefully
designed foam blocks, (cuboids and
triangles of varying sizes) to build the
3D form from their perspective against
the clock. But of course, it depends
how you look at it. Your collaborators
have their own perspective on
the 3D object you are building so
communication is the key. Often a
round will start with someone wildly
building their view and others no-no-
noing their way through it. You’ll soon
get to know how your group likes to
see things, for good or ill.
deck or from the face-up discard pile.
Match, usually from memory, more
than one card to reduce the size of
your werewolf-attracting villager pool.
Swap and discard your cards to end
up with the least werewolf-enticing
village before a player calls time
Anyone can call an end to the game
as part of their turn. Then everyone
else gets a go to sort themselves out
and then cards are flipped and scores
are settled.
10-20m 2-9 10+ £30
The game has a nice difficulty
curve, taking you from 'family' to
'challenge' progressively. It also
comes with a number of rules
modifiers, like “you cannot directly
touch any white blocks” which can
be randomly dealt out to add further
roadblocks to proceedings.
The game expands up to nine
players and includes a “traitor”
mode when there are a good number
of builders at the table. This mode
allows for one player to attempt
to ruin the game by convincing
the others their moves are wrong.
Naturally, this mode can be won by
the rest of the table correctly voting
out the traitor.
This is foam block fun at its
best. A collaborative game on the
theme of having a well-structured
argument with loved ones that
delivers exactly the kind of
interaction you’d hope.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT
30-60m 2-4 14+ £20
It’s a kind of memory poker, but
when you draw a queen (or rather a
witch, apprentice seer, or similar) you
can play their effects by discarding.
These effects are where the mechanics
shine. Throwing away high-werewolf-
attractiveness cards comes with the
benefit of their effects, such as peeking
at someone else’s cards, stealing one,
swapping the next top deck card and
so on.
The artwork favourably reminded
various players around the table of
the Frozen and Brave Disney movies,
which certainly doesn’t harm its
family friendliness. It has a disarming
'play in a caravan or tent while it is
raining' vibe that lets you forgive any
real criticism. Light gameplay which
can be easily picked up by everyone
with a little depth for mixed groups
makes it perfectly fine for what it is,
even if it is missing its claws.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT
tabletopgaming.co.uk 183
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

ORCHARD
10m 1-4 3-6 £30

esigned for very young fruit in the baskets already.

D children Orchard is a
charmingly made game of
chance about collecting fruit from
the orchard before a voracious
raven swoops in and eats it all. The
educational goals are to encourage
correctly choosing colours to match
the roll of the dice, motor skills, and
understanding basic chance.
The pieces are beautifully crafted
brightly-coloured wooden fruit
(including cherries with thread stems).
Once rolled and collected these are
placed in attractive reed baskets.
Roll a basket and the child can
pick double the amount of fruit
from anywhere – teaching a kind of
resource management. Roll a raven
and a piece of the puzzle at the centre
of the board is added to. If this raven
is completed before the game ends,
the children 'lose' although it’s hard
to argue it’s a heavy loss with so much
If there were any criticism it is that
it’s not particularly well signalled as
to where the child should start with
the puzzle-pieces. Clearer signposting
around the edges may have helped.
The building of the raven puzzle does
provide a sense of mild threat, and is,
as with everything else in the game,
handsomely put together.
The game is collaborative and
encourages working together, fostering
an understanding of chance. If the
children take all the fruit from one tree
when they have rolled basket, they
learn this makes things more difficult
for the team. With that comes a sense
of doing the right thing for 'we' and
not 'me'. If your goal is to give a group
of young children the chance to learn
about collaborative gaming, with a
tiny bit of resource management then
Orchard is a charming place to start.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT

5ER FINDEN
20m 98+
1-4 13+
7+ £29
£TBC

he recent glut of roll-and- containing the collection of icons shown stay that way for the remainder of the

T write games has seen some

fantastic new releases hit store
shelves. Now they’re joined by 5er
Finden, a simple game from family-
friendly German publisher HABA
which combines a quick setup and
straightforward rules with a surprisingly
taxing degree of challenge.
In each round, players roll a set of five
dice showing a variety of symbols. Then
they simultaneously search their personal
square-grid player boards looking
for contiguous groups of five boxes
on the dice. It almost explains itself, but
the game gets real mileage out of the idea
with two different modes to discover.
In one, players simply race to find as
many valid groups as possible on their
sheets. At any point, someone can flip
a sand timer counting down to the end
of the round, and it makes for a real
pressure-cooker sense of tension.
The second mode is a bit more
thoughtful. You’ll play through 12 rounds
trying to find just a single scoring group
at a time. But the tiles you mark off
game, giving you less room to work with
and making things progressively more
difficult as you play.
There are some flaws. When you
can’t find a set of point-scoring boxes,
it’s advantageous just to flip the timer
to impede your opponents. And the
double-sided player boards have one side
that’s the same for all players, making it
possible for unsporting types to copy their
rivals’ work. But 5er Finden is a fun and
frantic test of your powers of perception.
5er Finden demands quick wits
and careful observation, and racing
to spot scoring groups before your
opponents is enough to make your heart
beat faster. It’s simple and accessible
enough to play with kids, but its
more demanding second game
mode means you can ramp up the
challenge if required. If you’re a roll-
and-write fan, it’s a strong addition to
your collection.
OWEN DUFFY

184 The Best Games of 2019

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THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
MAIN GAUCHE
hen you consider that the
W original rulebook ran to
almost 700 pages it’s hard
to imagine that the grimdark world of
Zweihander could possibly need more
content, but this hefty little supplement
proves that there’s always room for more
weird and wonderful ways for characters
to doom themselves.
Where other books out there dedicate
themselves to certain themes or setting,
Main Gauche’s selling point is that it
offers more. More professions, more
spells, more weapons and armour –
more everything really. It’s not the most
inspiring theme out there, but it’s fun as
hell and able to slot into all whatever dark
and messy campaign you have planned.
Within its pages you’ll find rules
for brewing up Witcher-inspired
mutagens, for running battles atop
speeding stagecoaches, for firing
arcane flamethrowers and riding
aboard zeppelins. There are dozens
360+ 13+ £39
of new professions – the closest thing
Zweihander gets to classes – to pick from,
though for several of them it’s not hard
to see why many of them hit the cutting
room floor on the first pass. Not because
they’re bad ideas or poorly written, but
rather because they could be challenging
to toss into a game with brand-new
players and GMs.
The Reaver, for example, has special
rules that dictate they are always afraid of
the sea, while a randomly rolled Nomad
is going to fare rather poorly indeed if
your entire campaign is set within the
walls of a city.
You could certainly argue that dealing
with these kinds of issues is what makes
the chaos-loving game fun, and if you’ve off until you’re happy to add in the extra
already played enough of the core game chaos Main Gauche brings, but if you’ve
to be interested in a supplement these already fallen in love with the gritty
hurdles shouldn’t faze you too much. horrors of the core game the new book
In fact, this rather neatly sums up just offers so much that it’s impossible not
the entire book. If you’re brand new to to recommend.
Zweihander it might be worth holding RICHARD JANSENPARKES

ROMANCE OF THE
PERILOUS LAND
The Best of Quests
etween the knights, mages and
B monsters there’s very little in
Romance of the Perilous Land that
hasn’t already been tackled by countless
other fantasy RPGs, but its sheer
commitment to British folklore manages
to create something
both incredibly charming and
thoroughly playable.
This is rather impressive, as the
elevator pitch for the game – an
Arthurian spin on a 20-year-old
Dungeons & Dragons ruleset – doesn’t
sound all that appealing. It’s only when
you crack open the rulebook and plough
through the rules that you realise there’s
a lot more creativity on display than first
meets the eye.
Let’s start with the setting itself. The
titular Perilous Land is very much a stand
in for the British Isles and while its stories
are all formed around a core of King
Arthur, Merlin and the knightly heroism
that surrounds them, this is far from the
only myth that’s been mined to make the
world. Robin Hood and his Merry Men
are a major in-game faction, for example,
and listed among the bestiary are
creatures as well-known as brownies and
an obscure as the enormous dun cow.
There’s a genuine love of folklore
running through every page of Romance
255+ 13+ £25
of the Perilous Land and while not
everyone will recognise the references
and allusions, they nevertheless combine
into a world that begs for exploration.
There is an expectation that the GM
is pretty comfortable with folklore-ey
tropes to get things running smoothly,
but it’s hard to imagine anybody picking
up the game without at least being
interested in these kinds of stories in the
first place.
The other sizable chunk of creativity
surfaces in the rules themselves, which
– despite having their core based on
D&D – feel really rather distinct and
surprisingly streamlined.
Part of this can probably be attributed
to the fact that a lot of the more reality-
warping powers and spells found in more
traditional fantasy RPGs don’t really fit
in with Romance of the Perilous Land’s
ethos. It’s a world where brave knights
duel with dragons and cunning mages
weave spells that can raise the dead, but
not one where characters can expect to be
casually teleporting their way across the
battlefield or shaping the face of reality
with the wave of a wand.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… KING ARTHUR PENDRAGON
Romance of the Perilous Land is just as in love with myth as Greg Stafford’s
knightly classic, but is a tad more flexible in its approach
This all contributes to a stripped-down
magic system that players should be able
to grasp in a matter of minutes and a
limited number of choices available when
your heroes level up. For some the slim list
of options will be a mark against the game,
but there’s no denying that it makes things
incredibly easy to pick up and play.
The game’s overall focus on simplicity
and mid-weight magic bleeds over
into the mechanics too. Different types
of armour don’t make characters or
monsters harder to hit, for example, but
instead absorb damage over the course
of a fight. This has the twin benefits of
cutting down on mid-battle maths and
also allowing heroes to fight their way
through several life-threatening bouts
per day without relying on endless
sources of magical healing to explain
away the wounds.
Of course, while this isn’t the highest
of high fantasy, it isn’t exactly striving for
realism either. Romance of the Perilous
Land isn’t a game that cares too much
about simulating ancient combat or
revelling in the mud and blood of
gritty battlefield horror, and if you go in
expecting to look over a chart of which
polearms excel at fighting cavalry, you’re
going to be disappointed.
Instead of seeking to seize one extreme
or another, it sits warmly in the middle,
comfortably nestled down in a collection
of fantasy tropes and old stories that most
of us have internalised so completely
we forget where we heard them in the
first place. It’s not a game that’s likely to
blow any minds or revolutionise the RPG
scene, but it’s a fun, easy-to-handle way to
while away a rainy afternoon with friends
– ideally with an open fire crackling away
in the background.
If you have any interest in British
folklore Romance of the Perilous Land
is a treasure trove of interesting ideas
and fresh takes on old stories. And if you
don’t – even if you aren’t from the British
Isles – it’s a fun mid-weight fantasy setting
to play through; one packed with weird
creatures and brave heroes.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
❚ WE SAY
A surprisingly slick fantasy RPG that
neatly blends Arthurian myth with
regional legends from across Britain.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 187
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
BLITZKRIEG!
A quick-witted dice-chucking challenge remains fun to play
orld War Two in 20
W Minutes” seems like an
awfully ambitious tagline
for a game. But Blitzkrieg!, the latest
release from Libertalia designer
Paolo Mori, attempts to pull it off. The
result is a slick and surprisingly rich
offering that crams a globe-spanning,
century-defining conflict into about
as much time as it takes to make and
eat a sandwich.
The game hands players command
of allied and axis forces fighting for
control of different theatres of conflict
around the world, from the bloody
beaches of western Europe to the
steaming jungles of south east Asia.
As the war grinds on, you’ll deploy
your land, sea and air forces to various
regions to seize control of territories
before your opponent manages to
grab them.
What makes things tricky is that
you’ll never be certain exactly what
sort of forces you’ll have at your
disposal. With each passing turn
you’ll draw a succession of chips from
a cloth bag representing different
units. Army tokens can take control of
land spaces, navy tokens can occupy
the seas, while air squadrons are more
flexible, able to be dispatched to any
type of terrain. But with your units
jumbled up in your bag, there’s no
guarantee that you’ll have access to
188 The Best Games of 2019
the ones you need at any given time,
forcing you to fight as well as you can
with the troops you have at hand.
It forces players to react to
unpredictable and rapidly fluctuating
circumstances, but while the heart of
Blitzkrieg! lies in deciding how best
to use your tanks, ships and planes,
there are some other important
elements to consider as you play.
Different territories come with
WHAT’S IN an array of useful bonuses for their
THE BOX?
◗ 5 symbol dice controllers. Some let you mount
◗ 4 double-sided bombing raids which wipe out your
player boards enemy’s units before they’re able to
◗ 4 dry-erase markets enter the fray. Others let you draw
◗ 12 shape- additional chips, giving you a wider
scoring tiles selection of forces to choose from.
◗ Sand timer And some allow you to add special
tokens to your bag representing spies,
scientists and powerful advanced
regiments, all of which can help edge
you closer to victory.
It means that sometimes you’ll
consider throwing units into fights
you can’t hope to win, purely to
secure bonuses which are vital to your
strategy. While your turns are always
quick and simple, they require real
thought, and it’s crucial to work out
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… TWILIGHT STRUGGLE
Like the lauded two-player Cold War game, Blitzkrieg is all about judiciously
taking control of different regions and attempting to turn the tide of conflict in
your favour. Here, though, it’s condensed into a fifth of the playing time.
20-30m 1-2 10+ £25
which regions to aggressively fight for
and which you can afford to let go.
The result is a tight, taxing and
cerebral back-and-forth battle. It’s
undeniably abstract, but here that
almost becomes a statement in itself. In
this top-down view of conflict, there’s
no room to consider individual sacrifice,
suffering or heroism. The human toll of
war – the shattered lives and burned-
out cities – fades into the background.
Soldiers, sailors and air crew become
anonymous resources thrown at
the objectives which you as their
commander have decided are necessary
to victory. In that, Blitzkrieg! captures a
fundamental truth about armed conflict
that’s absent from many far more
nuanced and detailed simulations.
OWEN DUFFY
❚ WE SAY
Unlikely as it seems, Blitzkrieg! really
does manage to cram a meaningful
Second World War game into around
20 minutes. It unavoidably sacrifices
thematic realism in favour of speed and
simplicity, but it still presents plenty
of hard choices and opportunities for
strategic master strokes.
STAR WARS LEGION:
CLONE WARS CORE SET
A war in a galaxy far, far away remains fun to play
asers spit from blasters, speeders
L zoom and lightsabers slash in
this latest outing of Fantasy
Flight’s Star Wars wargame. Will you
stand with the Jedi, or heed the call
of the Dark Side? The new Star Wars
Legion: Clone Wars box set brings the
action to the prequel trilogy, pitting
Obi-Wan Kenobi and Republic Clone
Troopers against the devious General
Grievous and his army of droids.
In expanding the game along the
timeline Clone Wars doesn’t change
any of the existing mechanics, so the
biggest draw in gameplay terms remains
its distinct approach to activating an
army’s units. Each player has a set
of command cards which contain a
number of pips and information about
how many orders that card confers. It’s
these command cards that give Star
Wars Legion a lot of its depth. At the
start of a round both players essentially
have to make a blind bid; each selects a
command card and places it facedown,
then simultaneously reveals it. The
player with the fewest number of pips
gains priority and gets to go first. The
hook comes with the number of orders
that card confers, which are are issued
by an army’s leader to ensure a unit
activates. Units not issued orders have
to rely on randomly drawn tokens to
activate. These tokens designate unit
types (commander, support, heavy
and so forth), and a token will have to
correspond with that unit’s type in order
to be successfully used.
In practice, this forces players to
prioritise which units they want to use
most on a given turn, and leave the
rest to chance. Command cards with
fewer pips have fewer orders, creating
a tradeoff between gaining priority
and making sure enough units do
what they’re supposed to at the crucial
moment. It’s a fun minigame that adds
both strategy and uncertainty to the
proceedings, reflecting the on-the-fly
nature of making decisions in the heat
of battle. The rest of the game is fairly
par for the course for a wargame; units
perform two actions (move, shoot and
so forth) and a true line of sight rather
than theoretical system determines
whether units can see one another when
shooting. Overall, the action is fast and
keeps bookkeeping to a minimum.
The main focus for the box set are the
new miniatures. The Republic Clone
Troopers are made in the same PVC
semi-flexible plastic that most Star Wars
2-3h 2 14+ £90
Legion miniatures are made of, and – for
the foot soldiers at least – go together
well enough (if you’re planning to paint
them it’s highly recommended that you
keep the arms separate when doing so).
The PVC minis have some mold lines,
but they’re not too offensive and can be
filed away without much hassle. The real
news is the Separatist Alliance faction. WHAT’S IN
The new models are all hard plastic and THE BOX?
come on frames. Sadly, there’s no getting ◗ 39 plastic
around the fact that they’re finicky as all miniatures
hell to put together. Admittedly, the idea ◗ 8 plastic barricades
of recreating spindly droids in miniature ◗ 15 dice
◗ Three movement
was always likely to create problems, and
tools
it’s a neat feature that the scorpion-like ◗ Range ruler
droidekas can be assembled in either ◗ Eight unit cards
fighting mode or as a rolling hamster ◗ 40 upgrade cards
wheel of doom, but the number of small ◗ 12 battle cards
fiddly parts makes assembly a chore. ◗ Round counter
In swapping out the contents of the ◗ 107 tokens
original starter set, the box comes with
all the attendant limitations the first set
came with. Something that seems to
have become endemic with wargames
generally is the tendency to treat starter
sets as teases for the wider experience,
rather than a really meaty out-of-the-box
experience, and that remains true here.
Like the first box, the number of special
dice included just aren’t enough and, TRY THIS IF
more importantly, the lack of units means YOU LIKED…
that most of the game’s mechanics lose CONQUEST:
their lustre at that level, in particular the THE LAST
command system. Each side only has ARGUMENT
four units, and the uncertainty factor OF KINGS
If you enjoy
generated by non-ordered units only
wargames that
really works at the standard army size of try to mix things
around double that number. up when it comes
Despite these shortcomings as a to unit activation,
box set, Star Wars Legion remains Conquest’s card-
an engrossing and fluid experience, based system of
whether you’re a fan of the films or creating an order
a wargamer interested in different of activation before
approaches to the genre. each turn is well
worth a look.
JAMES WINSPEAR
❚ WE SAY
Despite carrying over some of the niggles
from the first box set, Clone Wars is a
reminder of what makes Star Wars Legion
an engrossing and tactical wargame.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 189
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019
NANTY NARKING
Swap Discworld for Dickens with Martin Wallace’s
new-look Ankh-Morpork
f Nanty Narking is proof of anything,
I it’s that there’s nothing wrong
with a good remake. Eight years
ago, Martin ‘Brass’ Wallace treated
gamers and Terry Pratchett fans
alike to the best Discworld-based
tabletop experience yet, in the form
of Ankh-Morpork. Players took a
secret character with their own
secret victory condition and set them
loose in Pratchett’s crackpot fantasy
metropolis, drawing and playing a
wide variety of action cards based
on the comedy series’ rich and
wonderfully weird dramatis personae.
Then the licence expired and the
game disappeared, leaving anyone
who hadn’t already added it to their
shelves deprived of a damn fine area
control title.
Until now, that is. Well sort of.
Thanks to Phalanx, Wallace’s game
is back from the dead, mechanically
speaking at least. All its finest
190 The Best Games of 2019
features are present and correct: the
secret win conditions (which can
still end a game a bit abruptly, but
that only adds to the tension); the
appealingly detailed city map on
which players vie to control different
boroughs; the chunky deck of cards;
the entertaining random event
WHAT’S IN which shakes up the game-state;
THE BOX? and the slick action system, which
◗ Double-sided board
makes it easy to teach and learn,
◗ 91 Plastic miniatures
◗ 161 Cards while keeping it suitably varied and
◗ 4 Player-aid cards palatably complex.
◗ 50 Cardboard coins In short, each turn a player simply
◗ 12-sided die plays a card and does what it says,
◗ Rulebook picking (in order) from a small menu
of possible card actions: place an
agent, perhaps, or place a building,
or remove a trouble marker, or
assassinate someone else’s agent, or
take a special card action.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… ANKH-MORPORK
Well, it kind of goes without saying, really. They’re basically the same game!
60-90m 2-4 14+ £70
In terms of how it plays, there is little
difference — less, in fact, than there
is between Wallace’s Wildlands and
its own re-skin Judge Dredd: Helter
Skelter. What’s changed is the theme,
from top hat to steel-toes. Whereas
before it was Discworld’s motley
capital that was, as Pratchett put it,
“Two meals away from chaos,” now it is
Victorian London. And, thankfully, not
yet another cog-spinning steampunk
take on the late-19th Century, although
it does have a fictional spin, blending
historical figures (Gladstone, Disraeli,
Darwin, Jack The Ripper) with
fictional characters from the era:
Samuel Pickwick, Victor Frankenstein,
Moll Flanders, Fagin and, of course,
Sherlock Holmes. It is a little odd to
see Charles Dickens placed alongside
his own creations, but it works well,
with all the thematic elements proving
an appropriate match for their former
Discworld counterparts. So this
time it’s Holmes who wins by simply
preventing anyone else from meeting
their victory condition as Captain
Vimes once did, and Fagin who
triumphs through the spreading of
trouble, like the Dragon King of Arms
before him.
Obviously, fans of Pratchett (who
remain legion) will miss the original
theme, but Phalanx compensates with
a wealth of detailed miniatures and
variant cards and characters which
deepen the game for those who like to
add a layer or two. Oh, and in case you
were wondering, “Nanty Narking” is
Victorian slang for “Great fun”. We can’t
think of a more appropriate name.
DAN JOLIN
❚ WE SAY
One of those rare games that’s
easy to grasp without sacrificing
complexity. Upgrade the above
rating to ‘Must Play’ if you don’t
already own Ankh-Morpork.
MISTY
rawing pictures on a steamed-
D up window isn’t the most
obvious theme for a game,
nor perhaps the most commercial.
Thankfully for Misty it’s also a vapour-
thin layer over a solid little card game
with minimal components (a box,
55 cards, rules in six languages) and
some pretty neat gameplay.
It’s a combination card-drafter and
engine-builder, which is a neat trick
in a game that claims it’s good for
six-year-olds. Each player is building
a window of 4x3 or 3x4 panes, each
with a steamy picture on it. You draft
hands of six cards, placing each new
card within the grid; and then you do
it again with another six cards.
Here’s the science bit: there are five
types of cards. Ordinaries do nothing.
Cards with an arrow on them (trucks,
scooters, rockets, leaves, balloons,
unicycles) will move one space in
the direction of that arrow. Happy
faces are worth extra points in pairs,
20 SECOND SHOWDOWN
flowers are worth an extra point, and
monsters eat flowers.
Once your window is finished you
activate it, choosing one card at a
time. All the arrow cards will have to
move, any flowers will be eaten by any
monsters – but if you can move a card
over a monster first then it can’t move
and the flower and its points are safe.
So the activation phase is an exercise
in damage limitation and it becomes
a delightful brain-tickling puzzle, full
of those exasperating moments when
you realise you’ve got it all wrong but
too late; and then you get to watch the
other players activate their windows
and get it all wrong too.
I was genuinely surprised by
Misty. I didn’t expect much from it,
and apart from the card-drafting the
only interaction between players
is watching and offering unhelpful
advice. But it’s satisfying and
surprisingly strategic, the points-
chase is close, and my youngest child
e can all be a bit wary of
W party games, especially
ones as whacky looking as
20 Second Showdown. After all, it might
be a bit of forced fun.
And it is. And it’s great. Two teams
of varying size, take turns completing
funny tasks read out by the (wisely
mandatory) judge. There’s a big
silly looking sand timer that hisses
your 20 seconds away as you have
to mispronounce each of your team
members’ names in an amusing
way, or you have to draw a tattoo on
yourself, or hug a nearby fern.
It’s an energetic game, perfect for
a gathering of young people. Mixed
groups, such as when your great
aunt plays, might struggle with being
wheelbarrowed to the nearest door.
There is also a minor drawback in
that you do tend to have to rummage
through the hosts house to find some
20m 2-4 6-99 £10
who’s been known to kick tables
over when losing was engrossed and
delighted by it.
Misty is a clever little filler that
won’t change your life but will
brighten your evening. Ignore the
recommended ages – this is too good
to be left to six-year-olds.
JAMES WALLIS
20m 5-20 10+ £25
items. If this causes you panic… maybe
take it to a friends’ house instead. Or
cheekily have the more common props
nearby so that there’s less faffing.
Despite these very minor setbacks
all of the challenges are fun, and
well designed. The use of a “judge”
in every game (giving it the slightly
wonky 5-20 player range) means there
is always someone to rule on the
outcomes being valid or not. The help
cards could be of use for those trickier
situations where you’d like someone
else on your team to complete your
task – and acts as one way to keep
things under control.
It’s a game all about doing the silly
things on the cards and laughing about
it, yet it remains deeply competitive. So,
while not ideal for a family game, it may
be absolutely perfect for student halls
and other joyfully chaotic venues.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT
tabletopgaming.co.uk 191
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ What’s in the box?
◗ 4 Player boards
◗ 6 Double-sided
terrain boards
◗ 1 Carpet board
◗ 6 Cup tiles
◗ 42 Vegetation tiles
◗ 8 Blooming tokens
◗ 26 Tree cards
◗ 20 Trees
◗ 6 Fountains
◗ 114 Gems
◗ 16 assistants
◗ 1 Water can
◗ 1 Double-sided
scoring pad
◗ 1 Set-up
ISHTAR: GARDENS OF BABYLON instructions sheet

Make the desert bloom

45m 2-4 14+ £44

shtar is a strategic game of choices. together, you build a world that is grow the most flowers, and connect

I It is touted as a game to mix co-

operation and competition, and it
delivers in watering-cans-full.
It’s a tile-laying game which may
put you in mind of Carcassonne.
Take tiles in order, play them on to
the board, and play an action from
the tile, if there is one. These actions
may be to place an assistant meeple
to claim a flowerbed and garden, or
upgrade a skill to gain a momentary
or persistent advantage. When
placing your funny shaped vegetation
(triangle, straight, bananaish) ensure
you’re connected to a fountain or
other greenery, and collect any gems
underneath. You can’t connect two
fountains and you can’t connect to
a garden already owned by a player
(including yourself ). Spend your gems
on trees, upgrades and so on, and
plant trees if you have acquired one.
Do this until the tiles begin to run out
and tot up the points. Sounds simple?
It is, but the gardens of Ishtar have
deep roots.
Some of the draw of tile laying
games is the collaborative aspect:
both aesthetically interesting and
playfully wonky. You are solving a
board with your friends, even if, in the
end, you’re trying to be the owners
of the best garden in the desert. The
game is lush in its design, making
it a satisfying pleasure in turn the
arid (if gem-strewn) land green and
blooming. As is buying an attractive
tree card and placing the lovingly
hewn little green trees on an open
vegetation tile. The tree cards are so
interestingly verdant and varied that
it’s very easy to assume this is the only
way to win on your first play-through.
In Ishtar, because the laying of the
tiles isn’t directly competitive, it does
feel like a co-authored experience.
The competition comes in whatever
form you want it to – and it’s less
combative for that. You might decide
that you want to gather the most
gems and also upgrade your skills
so that your victory is in the form of
leftover wealth. Or you could focus on
collecting trees, or the adjacency of
sacred stone tablets in your garden.
You could decide you want to just
the biggest contiguous flower bed.
You may decide on trying to own as
many fountains as possible is your key
to victory. But you do have to make a
choice of how you want to play.
With this variety of options you TRY THIS
tend to leave something on the table IF YOU LIKED…
at the end of game. It’s one of those
CARCASSONNE
If building out a
games where people sit back and satisfying landscape
discuss what they should have done with friends and
differently, noticing the slight edges claiming victory
their opponents got on them and through a variety
commending them for it. You want to of means works
play the game as soon as you finish for you, Ishtar is a
it – because there were so many fast-paced inheritor
strategies you did not manage to of this space on
gaming nights
enact. You know next time, you can
play differently, and you want that
next time to be immediately.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT
❚ WE SAY
It’s a tightly balanced game that has
bloom-based fun available to everyone
around the table in buckets. Even when
you don’t win the world is better for
having played the game, and you’re
probably about to play it again.

192 The Best Games of 2019

THE TAVERNS OF TIEFENTHAL
Drinking beer has never felt so brilliantly analytical
olfgang Warsch is one
W of the most prolific and
varied designers in board
gaming today. His recent output
includes the addictive roll-and-write
Ganz Schön Clever, luck-pushing bag-
builder The Quacks of Quedlinburg
and the impossibly simple co-op card
game The Mind. If there’s a thread
running through his work, it’s that he
tends to take a single clear idea and
puts it at the centre of his designs,
resulting in some very clean and
elegant games.
The Taverns of Tiefenthal turns
this idea on its head. A deckbuilding,
dice-drafting, engine-building action
selection game, it casts players as bar
owners in a medieval German village.
It’s a seemingly crazy combination
of different ideas and mechanisms.
But improbable as it seems, Taverns
pulls them together in a coherent,
thoughtful and engrossing whole.
Each player starts the game with
an identical deck of cards containing
staff and patrons for their bar. On
every round, you’ll play cards from
your deck until your premises are
full of customers. Then you and your
opponents each roll a handful of
dice, choosing one and passing the
remainder to your neighbour until
everyone has a set of four.
Once the drafting is done, you’ll
need to decide how to use your dice.
You can allocate them to customers
to fulfil their drinks orders and
generate income, with different
visitors demanding different values
before they cough up some cash. Or
you can use them to order more beer
from the local brewery, which lets you
entice new and higher-paying punters
through your doors.
It’s a pretty intuitive process, but
what makes the game so enjoyable
are the extra bits it bolts on to this
bare chassis. As you play, you’ll be
able to recruit new staff or build
improvements to your business.
Extra servers grant you bonus dice,
letting you take extra actions on your
turn. Expanding your cellars lets you
stock up on beer, or stash excess cash
between rounds. Investing in more
60m 2-4 12+ £35
tables lets you accommodate more
customers. And doing a kitchen
refurb grants you some flexibility,
allowing you to tweak the numbers on
your dice.
The result is a sense of progression
that unfolds over the game’s eight
rounds. You’ll start off trying to
WHAT’S IN squeeze a small profit out of your
THE BOX? regulars – loyal, but not exactly
◗ 4 modular lucrative. But by the final few rounds
player boards you’ll be buying beer in staggering
◗ 28 dice volumes, serving up gallons of
◗ 4 beermats schnapps, hiring a host of entertainers
◗ 80 tavern cards and welcoming a crowd of wealthy
◗ 48 guest cards nobles to your establishment.
◗ 61 noble cards
Played in its basic mode,
◗ 28 regular cards
◗ 16 bard cards Taverns feels a bit like a game with
◗ 7 start cards training wheels attached. But it
◗ Round marker comes with a selection of included
◗ First player marker expansions, and each module
◗ Monastery board you add brings a touch of extra
◗ Monastery markers complexity and new elements to
◗ 4 beer storage incorporate into your strategy.
markers It won’t please anyone looking
◗ 4 cash storage
for antagonistic player-on-player
markers
◗ 4 reputation competition – its focus is squarely
markers on improving your own bar, not
◗ 20 schnapps tokens messing with your rivals’. But as an
◗ 3 schnapps tiles evolving puzzle it’s packed with
◗ 12 entertainer tiles variety, and seeing your plans come
◗ 4 guestbooks together is as satisfying as a cold beer
◗ 40 guest on a hot day.
signature tiles OWEN DUFFY
❚ WE SAY
The Taverns of Tiefenthal is a mad
mix of mechanical elements. It’s also
a Eurogame to its core, and if you
crave heaps of player interaction and
thematic immersion, you’re not likely
to enjoy it. For everyone else, though,
it offers a brilliant blend of risk and
randomness alongside clever planning.
TRY THIS IF YOU
LIKED… THE QUACKS OF
QUEDLINBURG
Taverns’ deckbuilding element has a
similar tension to its designer’s hit bag-
building release. But there’s just more
going on here, and it’ll keep you coming
back more often to try new strategies.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 193
 THE BEST GAMES OF 2019

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 36 miniatures
◗ 16 six-sided dice
◗ 43 tokens
◗ Starting player
marker
◗ Double sided map
◗ Double sided hell tile
◗ Double sided
sky dome tile
◗ Chaos rift/ spike tile
◗ Chaos rift
struggle card
◗ Kylerela tile
◗ 50 rune cards
◗ Four hint cards

GLORANTHA: THE GODS WAR ◗ Victory track

◗ Oblivion Box tile
◗ Four empire sheets
Where Gods (and noobs) fear to tread ◗ 24 gift cards
90-2h 3-4 14+ $129

he heavens roar and beings of too far in the dust) that prevents any fact that Glorantha is essentially a game

T unimaginable power clash in a

bid to determine the fate of the
cosmos. Primal deities face off against
one another in the heavens. Legendary
warriors do battle with twisted beasts.
Temples to mad gods ring with prayers
wrenched from harsh, guttural throats.
This is Glorantha, the new strategy
game from Peterson Games, creators of
Cthulhu Wars.
Mechanically speaking, Glorantha
is a direct sequel to the Cthulhu Wars
series, recreating the same gameplay
system with a few tweaks here and
there. The game essentially revolves
around scoring victory points whilst
accumulating and spending power to do
so. Power is most commonly used to do
one of four things; creating or upgrading
buildings, summoning units, moving
said units or engaging in battle against
opponents. Each round is broken
down into a number of phases, each
of which comes with sub-systems of
varying complexity. The game is highly
asymmetrical, and understanding how
your faction works is absolutely crucial
to victory. However, Glorantha features
a number of passive mechanics (such
as ensuring that the player with the least
amount of power each round isn’t left
one player from steamrolling the others,
such that even by the late game things
can still prove tense.
One big missed opportunity is the
lack of story. Make no bones about it;
Glorantha is a game that’s gone out
of its way to look pretty, with lovingly
rendered artwork and a host of trophy-
sized miniatures ranging from mighty
thunder gods to macabre monstrosities
that wouldn’t look out of place in
Kingdom Death (minus the gratuitous
nudity). But the problem with this is that
whilst the striking imagery speaks of a
rich background lore, nowhere in the
124 page rulebook are players given an
insight into it. That’s not to say that no
lore exists. In fact, it’s quite the contrary
– the book even informs players that the
setting has been around since 1975 and
has an extensive list of books, art and
games to its name. The problem is that
considered as boxed experience in and of
itself, new players are given no foothold
into this world, and as such have no
context for the action unfolding on the
tabletop. This is something that would be
fine for Cthulhu Wars since Lovecraft’s
mythos is pretty much common
knowledge these days, but in this case
the absence of fluff only underscores the
for those already part of the club.
This in a nutshell is the core criticism
of the game, if criticism it can be called.
Glorantha is the kind of game that could
only ever exist thanks to crowdfunding
sites like Kickstarter. It’s a game made for
enthusiasts by enthusiasts, for the type
of player who’s used to meaty games
like this, who already has an established
gaming group and who’s nearly certainly
played Cthulhu Wars. Whilst there’s TRY THIS IF
nothing wrong with giving players more YOU LIKED…
of what they want per se, it comes with the CTHULHU
inevitable downside that new players who WARS
might otherwise have approached the It’s an obvious
game are going to feel left out in the cold choice to
and give a pass. This is a shame, because recommend,
the level of tactical depth, careful resource but being so
clearly aimed at
management and need for diplomacy
the same core
amongst players makes for an experience demographic it’s
that’s absolutely capable of sucking them virtually impossible
in across multiple playthroughs. not to point to
JAMES WINSPEAR this Lovecraftian
strategy game as
an alternative.
❚ WE SAY
Conclusion: Tactical, deep and
rewarding, Glorantha is marred only
by its concomitant lack of beginner-
friendliness. It’s a ‘yes’ but a qualified
one; if you’re not already onboard,
prepare for a bit of wading.

194 The Best Games of 2019

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ANKH: GODS OF EGYPT | MUTANT CHRONICLES | KINGS OF WAR RPG

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Turning tabletop
games into
I S H TA R : page turners
GARDENS
OF BABYLON
S TA R WA R S
LEGION:
C L O N E WA R S
TAV E R N S O F
TIEFENTHAL
THE HISTORY
OF MUTANT
CHRONICLES
device at any
MEGACITIES:
OCEANIA
+MORE!
We travel to the
epic retrofuture
sci-fi of the 90s time; formatted
ANKH specifically for
mobiles – no
Eric Lang talks about making
players feel like gods

more zooming!
Display until 6/12/19
£5.25

KINGS OF WAR RPG READING THE ROOM

Things get personal in Pannithor Roleplaying without railroading

3 MONTHS FROM JUST £14.99

pktmags.com/ttg_digi20