Innehållsförteckning för Issue 100 från Tabletop Gaming

JUST £20.97 £16.99 FOR 3 ISSUES OF TABLETOP GAMING MAGAZINE* Subscribe and save with Tabletop Gaming Magazine The UK’s no.1 magazine dedicated to board gaming, RPGs, trading cards and card games The most convenient and cheapest way to receive your monthly magazine FREE GIFT • Subscriber-only artwork covers • The latest board game news, previews & reviews • Deep dives & interviews with world famous creators and designers Get a free copy of Joking Hazard’s Texas Hold It (worth £12.99 RRP) card game when you subscribe* To see our latest subscription offers go to: www.ttgami.ng/Issue100 or call 01778 392034 and quote TTGM/Subs25 *T&Cs apply – Offer available while stocks last. Valid from 21.01.2025 onwards, when you subscribe via a quarterly Direct Debit (3 issues).…

VOIDHEART SYMPHONY Rowan, Rook, and Decard have just announced they are revisiting one of their earliest games, Voidheart Symphony. This is a game of revolution, as you play rebels fighting against The Castle. The Castle is capitalism’s power run amok, an organisation of monsters both figurative and literal that runs the world. You will tear it down with bare hands, magical weapons, and powers unimagined. The original version is currently available with a new edition crowdfunding in a month or so. COLD CITY & HOT WAR The RPG scene has a fair few titles that the phrase ‘cult hit’ could be applied to. The double bill of Cold City and Hot War both nestled into the UK scene’s consciousness when they originally came out around 2006 and have held a…

Never played Star Wars: Unlimited before? Here’s a few things you should know: IT’S EASY TO LEARN Star Wars: Unlimited has some really robust guides on how to play the game, whether you’re a pro, or it’s your very first game. The big differences between it and the more common thread of trading card games, is that you battle on two fronts – ground and space. That means that you can be losing the battle on one side, and yet still win the war overall! START WITH THE STARTER SETS There’s a reason Starter Sets are created, and it’s to make it as easy as possible to get into the game. Even with these moving to Spotlight Decks, having pre-built opportunities to play mean that you can learn the basics,…

JUST ONE I’m a sucker for a word game. And Just One is, I am prepared to say, the indisputable king of party word games. It’s amazing what you can do with a few name-plate sized whiteboards and some coloured pens. Write a one-word clue to help another player guess a word. But, if yours is the same as anyone else, both are removed from view. You will be shocked at what you learn about people. MONIKERS You learn something new every time you play a game of Monikers. It’s a basic game of taking turns to give clues to help your team guess famous people. Twist: the famous people range from Isaac Newton to Grumpy Cat. By the end of the game, you can recognise something you’d never previously…

Pokémon was an absolute sensation when it launched in the ‘90s, and the Trading Card Game that accompanied it caused an absolute fervour with scenes of parents and children alike frantically searching for packs with little luck being commonplace. Since then, the card game has largely been a lot more readily available but it has seen some real boom periods, most notably in 2016 when the launch of Pokémon GO reignited Pokémon fever and in 2019 when the pandemic hit. Then, people couldn’t spend their money on their usual hobbies and the Pokémon TCG became a haven for many an isolated gamer. Well, it would appear that we’re back in another boom. On January 17th The Pokémon Company International launched the first wave of products for the new expansion Prismatic…

As tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs) grow, trends come and go. In RPGs these trends revolve around the systems that are at the core of the games. In 2015 a game hit Kickstarter that brought new ideas to the heist genre of play. This genre had been dominated by the meticulous planning of cyberpunk game Shadowrun for many years. The new kid made heists fast paced, dynamic, and player led. That game was Blades in the Dark. Set in the city of Doskvol, Blades in the Dark casts you as a criminals looking to make the most of a power vacuum and work your way up in the underworld. Crucially you can’t leave the city, meaning you have to deal with the consequences of your actions one way or another. As…

Designer: Mathieu Aubert | Publisher: Zygomatic You’ve played Dobble, right? It is an incredibly simple game; a circular card is covered in symbols, and you need to find the matching symbol on your own card. There is always exactly one match between each card, yet it can feel utterly impossible—until you see the match, hidden in plain sight the whole time. Different variants involve collecting all the cards, or competing piles, or stealing from others. It’s fast, it’s fun, and as the youth leader of two different youth groups, I’ve probably played it 10,000 times. In fact, looking at my shelves it turns out, for some reason, I actually own three copies of Dobble—so I’m obviously the perfect target market for Dobble Connect. It’s just a shame that it’s… not…

Designer: Stefan Feld | Publisher: Queen Games Pirating has always been a beloved board game theme. What may surprise you is that Stefan Feld, mostly famous for heads-down themeless euro games, has managed to make arguably his most thematic game yet. And, despite having to navigate this world of conflict, plunder and treachery, Nassau also stays true to Feld’s euro credentials. Released as part of the Feld City Collection, Nassau reimplements one of his earliest designs, Rum and Pirates. It does this by keeping most of that one-hour tactical euro in place but making it part one of each round; adding a modern Feld point salad euro on top as part two. In part one players take turns to place their pirates onto a mazey street map collecting resources. You…

Designer: Cole Wehrle | Publisher: Leder Games There’s a lot of space in this small box. Arcs is the latest offering from esteemed publisher Leder Games whose previous offerings, Root and Oath, became cult favourites for their quirky takes on classic genre tropes. On paper, at least, Arcs appears to be more regulated. A space combat game with resource management and expansionism. The goal in a game of Arcs is to reach a victory point threshold before your opponents and this is achieved through a series of straightforward actions: building and moving ships, dice-based combat, constructing settlements, acquiring upgrades, and taxing cities for resources. The secret sauce is that this is wrapped up in a trick-taking style action selection system, on any given round of turns your choice of actions…

Designer: Eilif Svensson and Åsmund Svensson | Publisher: Chilifox Games Castles of Burgundy was one of the first hobby games I fell in love with. I still play regularly and while a few other similar tile-layers have stuck around on my shelves (notably Maori and Fertility), most others have fallen short. I’m pleased to say Spectacular has once again bucked that trend. Spectacular is played over 15 turns, on each of which you’ll simultaneously choose two items (dice and/or tiles) to add to your animal reserve. Your board has 20 spaces which can hold a tile and a dice, so you won’t quite be filling it. Tiles must match by colour to make scoring areas while placing dice onto them increases their scoring value. Each player has a unique set…

Designer: Adam Španě | Publisher: TLAMA Games One of the more overlooked game mechanisms I tend to love involves turn order being predicated on the power of your previous actions. Patchwork, Thebes, and Tokaido are great examples of this and we can now add Sneferu to the ranks. Of the three, Sneferu is closest to Patchwork in terms of its gameplay. Despite the nicely realised ancient Greece theme, this is an unashamedly abstract offering in a relatively small box that you can get played in less than an hour. The rules get out of the way fast, leaving you with a pleasantly thinky time management puzzle to wrap your head around. The main gameboard pictures the Nile running through its centre with what looks like, and essentially is, a race…

Designer: Nils Hintze & Tomas Härenstam | Publisher: Free League The Electric State might seem oddly familiar. Perhaps you’re vaguely aware that a Chris Pratt, Millie Bobby Brown venture has been commissioned by Netflix on it. Or maybe, you’ve got a wider appreciation for science fiction and have come across Simon Stålenhag’s work; an artist who imagined the world of The Electric State and created the concept art that shaped it. Regardless of your introduction to the premise, or lack thereof, this RPG reimagining sets the stage for an experience that pays plenty of homage to the original interpretation, while giving players enough agency to control this sandbox for themselves. The title rolls with the themes set up in The Electric State, creating an adventure that celebrates the journey itself…

Designer: Ian Davies | Publisher: Mantic Games Did you know that the Halo video game franchise is now more than 20-years-old? First released in 2021, the series has been through its difficult teenage years and is now probably thinking about saving for a mortgage and settling down… although ironically, saving for the house deposit will probably take until 2560 when the first video game is set. In those 20+ years, Halo has graced the tabletop in various forms (HeroClix and Fleet Battles among them) but most have sunk without a trace. So can Flashpoint finally turn the tide? Well, the short answer is definitely ‘yes’. Published by Mantic Games - the brains behind the likes of The Walking Dead: All Out War and Hellboy (which both successfully translated popular licences…

This issue is a real landmark – after nearly ten years, we’re proud to be presenting our 100th issue of Tabletop Gaming! Whether you’ve been with us since the very beginning, or this is your very first issue, we can’t thank you enough for being part of the journey. To celebrate, we’re handing reigns to the founding editor of the magazine - who has written a feature about bringing our very first issue to reality. We’re leaving a legacy by looking at the best legacy games, and celebrating longevity by checking out the longest board games. David Parlett, our esteemed writer of Tabletop Time Machine tells us more about the gaming magazines that paved the way, and we’ve got our usual amazing features and reviews to keep the goodness going.…

The London Toy Fair is a yearly event, that focusses on the Toy and Game market. It differs from our usual gaming conventions we head to, as it’s all hidden behind doors – open only to the press, media, and trade, rather than the general public. Instead of being a space to sit and play games with others, you’re more likely to find huge walled stands, sometimes even a reception desk at the front of each, and a requirement for appointments. There are usually more business suits than casual wear, but it’s then contrasted with characters from all sorts of toy franchises running around in the aisles between stands. It’s fair to say it’s a little different, but we’re happy to offer a peak behind the curtain at what’s upcoming……

Designer: Eric M Lang, Ken Gruh | Publisher: Hasbro Life In Reterra is set on post-apocalyptic Earth. While that prospect sounds bleak, this new world promises hope, community and resourcefulness. The objective is to rebuild society, creating spaces for humankind to harmoniously begin again – with tongue-in-cheek memorial sites to honour relics of a bygone era, such as mobile phones. Initially, Life In Reterra appears to have a light touch that’s perfectly pitched for the family market it’s chasing. After choosing from one of three card sets, players place a terrain tile from the supply in front of them or lay an existing tile from their starting hand. These tiles look like square dominoes, featuring a quadrant of different, or occasionally the same, landscapes – from sand to forest…

Designer: Rob Daviau | Publisher: Restoration Games The Unmatched series of skirmish games have been around for a while now - twenty sets and counting since 2019 - but Restoration Games are showing no signs of slowing down. Admittedly, some recent sets have taken the (rather predictable) Marvel route, but the battlegrounds of the Unmatched game system are still host to heroes both unexpected and intriguing. Slings and Arrows is a testament to this, opening the curtains for Shakespeare and his creations to add some violent theatrics to the game. Shakespeare himself is the head honcho here - his deck was a winning entry at a 2020 design competition - and he is a fine example of how the Unmatched designers continue to demonstrate innovation within the game system. Along…

Designer: Hisashi Hayashi | Publisher: Synapses Games Establishing myself as a merchant in Meiji era Japan has never really been on my bucket list, but that’s the setup in this middle-weight, worker placement eurogame. Despite the theme, money isn’t the only goal, other things are important too. It’s a varied, strategic game full of ways to score points, tough decisions to make on every turn, and no single route to victory. The game builds, strategies change, it almost feels like being at the frontier of an expanding city. Discovering Yokohama is a fantastic experience. For this 2024 release, the new publishers have given the 2016 original a glow up. It plays almost identically to the previous version, but the pieces, artwork and rulebook have been redesigned to incredible effect. It…

Designer: Laurence Grenier & Fabien Tanguy | Publisher: Repos Production It took me a long time to enjoy learn to enjoy mushrooms. For most of my childhood I was a very fussy eater, and it wasn’t until a friend tricked me with a pizza secretly filled with fungus that I began to appreciate it. That friend would enjoy Fairy Ring, a game where you’ll need to use towering stacks of mushrooms in devious ways to score as many points as possible. There’s an unusual mechanism at the heart of Fairy Ring; each player sets up cards in a line in front of them, and that line forms a figurative ring around the table. Each turn you will move your Fairy token a number of cards to the left—once they leave…

Designer: T. C. Stephen | Publisher: Osprey Games The Silver Bayonet series remains one of the most memorable additions to the tabletop wargaming space in recent times. Originally designed by Joseph A. McCullough, this book-based campaign, which repurposes military miniatures, has rapidly grown to include new territories and armies. The Silver Bayonet: Italy - The Shades Of Calabria, might be one of the most ambitious supplementary texts to date, and in my opinion, easily rivals the height of the Canadian expansion. As is often the case, players are drawn to this new realm thanks to the rising dead, and grim conflicts which threaten to destabilise the region. Set in the gorgeous titular Italian region, this interpretation of The Silver Bayonet takes the backdrop of a disastrous Earthquake, a crusade against…

Ah, Dobble - the sweet little game about matching up different symbols. You know, the sort of game you can produce at family parties and no one bats an eyelid. It’s basically snap, right? Looking at cards, matching pictures and shouting stuff. Sounds just like snap. Well, dear reader, you would be wrong because Dobble hides a terrible secret. Yes, it may have cute little pictures of dolphins, zebras and ghosts… but Dobble is actually based on complicated mathematical algorithms that you’d normally only find in dusty old maths textbooks stuffed in that shadowy cupboard at the back of the classroom. The cupboard where sometimes you think you can hear the cries of little Timmy who went missing after going in there to look for the spare pencils and never…

Party Game Definition: An easy to learn game focussed on fun and socialising. Tabletop gaming can do many things. It can be a space for people to come together and hone skills like reasoning, planning and thinking outside the box. It can be about conflict, negotiation, or about teamwork. Sometimes, gaming using logic, asks you to spend time managing cards and resources and contemplating the best moves. Other times, it’s about doing something absolutely ridiculous and letting those around you see you in a totally new light. Okay, it may have been harsh to say party games can be described as fun, as if others can’t. All games are fun to some extent, but a game like Hegemony isn’t going to be immediately fun at a party. There are some…

As always, the ideas put forward below can be applied to any roleplaying game, and can be adapted and morphed to suit the mechanics of the title in question. Pirate adventures are becoming so much more common within the genre, and indeed whether it’s in science fiction, fantasy, or even horror, there are tropes from these swashbuckling adventures that can easily be accessed via a completely different genre. We’ll provide the location, characters and narrative twist, and then you can sail on ahead to craft the RPG you want to play. THE LOCATION We begin in a port or harbour, a busy location full of smugglers, fishermen and those looking to trade their goods in new lands. It’s a vibrant and bustling spot, with a sense of danger in every…

Back in 2023 we covered the tiny nation of Brunei, the smallest country we’ve visited on our tabletop tour. This month we’re heading back to the island of Borneo - of which Brunei constitutes a small portion - to see what else we can find. Whilst technically a shared territory between Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia - all countries we’ve previously covered - the inevitable cultural crossover, and Borneo’s status as third largest island in the world, makes it worthy of a closer look. This is most prominent when examining Borneo’s traditional games, which, whilst having their origins, permeate between borders in interesting ways. The mancala-style game of Congklak, for example, may utilise different playing materials (shells, seeds, beads), rules variants (typically concerning the number of pits or holes), and design…

Designer: Meng Chunulin | Publisher: Dranda Games New continents have risen from the sea! Time to set sail with dumpy lizard soldiers and nervous undine diplomats to exploit the stuffing out of them. It’s colonialism, but uWu. The production on Explorers of Navoria is characterised by attention to detail – from the spot gloss on the box art to the linen finish rulebook. Every card has lavish, original artwork depicting Navoria’s magical denizens – the style recalls Kyle Ferrin’s forest animal illustrations for Root. The screen-printed explorer meeples are not just differently coloured but have subtly different shapes and designs – again reminiscent of the lovely meeples in Root. All of which led to my first – admittedly perverse – misgiving going in. The brilliant artist behind these illustrations, Meng…

Designer: Asger Harding Granerud | Publisher: Days of Wonder In some ways, HEAT is the perfect game to release an expansion for: it has an enthusiastic competitive following, with people repeat-playing it hundreds of times, and it presents a modular strategic puzzle that is easily added to. On the other hand, the base game is unusually expansive already. I was intrigued to see if Heavy Rain brings enough to the table to be worth the price of an additional game. In the box you get the pieces for an additional player setup, another large, double-sided map, six new advanced upgrades, seven new sponsorship cards and four new event cards. Weirdly, given the name “Heavy Rain”, there are no new weather or track conditions tokens. The maps are the assets most…

Designer: Tomáš Holek | Publisher: Czech Games Edition I’m always excited for a new Czech Games Edition release as the publisher has proven itself one of the best in the business at everything from components and rulebooks to innovation and pure fun, in genres ranging from party to deep strategic. Better still, this one was designed by promising newcomer Tomáš Holek who had already impressed with Galileo Galilei and Tea Garden. What could go wrong? As it happens (spoiler alert), very little. SETI is a beautifully crafted midweight euro game which nails its ‘search for extraterrestrial life’ theme with aplomb. The components, explanations, iconography and player aids are as good as we’ve come to expect. While it can run long (especially in those first few plays) the game has a…

Designer: Laurent Guilbert, Jérôme Daniel Snowrchoff | Publisher: Super Meeple Now lost beneath the cold North Sea, Doggerland was an area of land inhabited by humans thousands of years ago. In the 21st century, however, Doggerland is an action-programming based eurogame for one to four players. How things change! In Doggerland, players each take the role of a tribe of hunter-gatherers who must explore their changing terrain, hunting for food and expanding their social civilisation. The game plays mostly like a typical euro-style game, collecting resources and using them to generate points or more efficient actions. These actions include building upgrades, buying point-scoring tiles, and sending your tribe on expeditions to gather natural resources, or to hunt down larger and angrier resources from the various animal denizens of the land.…

Designer: Tristan Hall | Publisher: Hall or Nothing Productions Tristan Hall is a designer who has deviated from the traditional tiles and miniatures approach to dungeon-crawling and proved that predominantly card-based delves can be just as immersive and thematic. His Kilforth series has established a distinct fantasy world with games such as Gloom of Kilforth and its sequels, whilst Veilwraith scaled things back to the grim, bare essentials. Kreel Manor is the latest entry, building upon Veilwraith’s card mechanics but forgoing the monochrome art and sparse storytelling in favour of gorgeous colour illustrations and a more defined narrative; one that takes players into the twisted and dangerous locales of the titular abode. A full campaign of Kreel Manor consists of five adventures. Adventures one and five are always the same,…

Designer: Osprey | Publisher: Michael “Wheels” Whelen Wargaming as a genre can be really inaccessible for many potential players. The need for miniatures, the dense sets of rules, the never-ending expansion of alternative materials that add to the complex world; it’s all just too much for some. Not to mention, it can be pretty expensive. Massive brands like Games Workshop have a loyal audience, but for first-time players, myself included once upon a time, it feels like there’s just too big a hill to climb. But that’s where FREAKZ! comes in. Where other titles may lay down roadblocks which might mean a player is pushed away from the potential hobby, FREAKZ! instead builds bridges. The very premise behind FREAKZ!, at least from a mechanical sense and from my perspective playing…

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