Innehållsförteckning för Issue 101 från Tabletop Gaming

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When last I wrote this column, the world was on the cusp of a fundamental change that has now arrived. The changing of the guard in the United States has been a worrying time for many across the globe and in such tumultuous times it is easy to dismiss our hobbies as less important or a frivolous distraction. I firmly believe that the opposite is true. In dark times our hobbies can become moments of respite. They can give us hope for a better future, and be a safe harbour amongst the dark seas. WHY WE FIGHT Currently in early access, Why We Fight, is from UK Indie Publisher Stop, Drop, and Roll. Their previous titles include a board game about cooperatively saving the planet called Earth Rising. They are…

1 AGRICOLA Whilst not strictly the first, Uwe Rosenberg’s farming classic set the blueprint for worker-placement games. Its theme of 17th-century farming might seem cute and wholesome (if we ignore the historical context of harsh living conditions and poverty, alongside the unsubtle subtext of starvation), but this is a strategically dense and cutthroat game, where mistakes can be costly. Still, Agricola remains popular for those wanting a fiercely competitive game, alongside the almost meditative tactile experience of arranging and nurturing their own farm. Furthermore, Agricola gets bonus points for popularizing the use of adorable little animal meeples; watching those little wooden sheep, cows, and pigs multiply never gets old. 2 EVERDELL If soulless cubes and sheep meeples aren’t cute enough for you, Everdell has you covered. This gorgeous game of anthropomorphic woodland…

This time, we’re taking our cues from ancient mythology, a subsection of the fantasy genre which has served as the backbone of storytelling for thousands of years. Gods, monsters and selfless heroes, the legends of olde should provide the perfect traits and tropes to add new flair to your games. Remember, regardless of the genre in use, the ideas here could evolve to link up with any RPG, from the Cyberpunk universe, all the way to Call of Cthulhu. THE LOCATION Players can start their journey in a mysterious woodland, home to all manner of fantastical creatures. The rivers and trees are protected by nature deities, many of which travellers question the existence of. This space has played home to a fair few wild hunts over the centuries, each larger…

Meeple Definition: A small, usually wooden, playing piece shaped a bit like a person. All the meeples, so many meeples. And don’t we love them. Imagine a world without the meeple! Where instead of person shaped pieces (which is all a meeple really is), we moved only cubes, coins or counters. It has become, after dice, probably the single most recognisable symbol of the board gaming community. And, although we’re referring to symmetrical meeples, which come in all colours and sizes, depending on how strictly you maintain the initial definition, you’ll find games including all kinds of animal meeples and monster meeples. I’ve found myself talking increasingly often in my reviews about the meeples, their size, their colour, their gait. All playing pieces are part of the draw when looking…

Designer: Patrick Matheus, André Luiz Silva Negrão | Publisher: Arcane Wonders For those old enough, the idea of returning to our youth and engaging in a non-stop binge of epic video game bliss is too good to be true. That’s the premise of Video Game Champion, Arcane Wonders’ latest offering in their vaunted Dice Tower Essentials line. While this title promises all of the fevered button this concept entails, it unfortunately gets caught up in a repetitive drudgery that mimics its thematic balance of performing chores and pleasing your parents. The goal is to play through and conquer various video games. You’re attempting to complete these cartridges more quickly than your opponents, thus proving your prowess as your street’s video game champion. There is an odd thematic assertion here that…

Hello! Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers? Who are you and what are you known for? Hiya! I’m Paul Stapleton, and I’ve been designing board games since 2012. I guess in Brighton I’m known for BN1, the board game I made all about my home town. But more recently, Paupers’ Ladder and the world of Brighthelm have started to stick their heads above the parapet, which has been a lovely surprise. What was the spark that led to Paupers’ Ladder? All my gaming passion can be traced back to discovering Talisman when I was 13. The genuine sense of adventure, never knowing what you were going to find next and the seemingly endless well of things to discover really stayed with me. Those strands eventually found their way…

Designer: Christwart Conrad | Publisher: Heidelbar You can’t have too many filler card games (fact), so if you’re hunting for a new one, it’s well worth looking for Snatch It! Don’t be put off by the cartoony froggy theme, as while this does slot safely into the family card game category, there’s enough going on to keep your gamer pals happy, too. Snatch It! has its roots in the fishing/ladder climbing card game traditions, as you’ll be playing numbered cards to match or beat others to claim cards/score points. However, there are enough clever little twists to make it stand out. The game has 108 purple and orange cards (54 of each) numbered 1-6, plus nine blue Swarm cards that can be used as a 0 or 7. These are…

Designer: James Emerson | Publisher: Lucky Duck Games Tranquility: The Ascent was the game that almost didn’t get made. You’ll know from our feature earlier in the magazine the ins and outs of this – the publisher going out of business, and the designer and artist scrambling to get the game made and to backers regardless – but the game eventually did get made, and that meant we were able to get a copy and decide for ourselves if it had climbed to dizzying heights or was stuck at the bottom of the mountain. Thankfully, it’s fair to say it’s done well. The original Tranquility gives you a large stack of numbered cards, and tells you to place them in order, drawing one at a time in a grid formation.…

Designer: Baptiste Vaiana | Publisher: Helvetiq Publishers Helvetiq are most well known for their tiny box games like Odin, Bandido and their Matchbox series. I like to imagine that this game too, may first have been planned as a tiny game before deciding the coloured blocks were too fiddly. I have no evidence of this, it’s just a pleasing thought to me, imagining those playtest debriefs. Yaxha is a pyramid building, cube placement game. It’s a swish looking box, classy and softly colourful. Its hallmark is a fun drafting mechanism in which everyone picks the set of bricks that they want, but if more than one person picks the same set, the person with a better turn order gets to take them. As a balance, they also then lose that…

Designer: Inka & Markus Brand | Publisher: Huch! As a seasoned gamer, it’s hard not to see the prefix ‘The Card Game’ and read ‘the cash in’. But Rajas of the Ganges is a strange game to cash in on, as while it did okay, it wasn’t a blockbuster release. Also, as renowned game design couple Inka and Markus Brand designed it (think Exit and Andor amongst many others), I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Rajas of the Ganges fans will recognise the hallmarks of its big brother, including the art of Dennis Lohausen. You’ll be sailing, collecting buildings and goods, and seeking assistance from palace luminaries; all to gain two types of victory points in the shape of coins and fame. And you’ll be…

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Designer: James M Hewitt | Publisher: Warcradle Studios For my entire lifetime, the undisputed titan of miniatures wargaming has been Games Workshop. Their key titles Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 involve tabletops filled with tiny plastic warriors; specifically, tiny 28mm-high warriors. In recent years there’s been a resurgence in much smaller scales, such as 6mm for Mantic’s Warpath, or, in the case of Armoured Clash, 10mm. Why does this matter? It means a much smaller amount of plastic and painting can field you an entire army. Yes, the painting is more fiddly, but it also allows you to recreate truly huge conflicts without remortgaging your house. Warcradle Studios have released a number of starter boxes for Armoured Clash, but we’re looking at The Battle For Singapore two player starter set; which…

This issue is a real fun one for some varied topics, and we’re delving into the unknown. Not least are we talking to the artist and the designer of SETI (the game that seems to have lived at the top of the hotlist for ages, and the one our reviewer described as a must-play game) but we’re also diving into The Crew for some behind the scenes details. We’ve also caught up with the designer and artist of Tranquility, and found out about their tumultuous journey – from a successful first game to the closure of the publisher following the second Kickstarter, it’s a really interesting look at what happens when crowdfunding goes wrong, and in trying to get to a happy ending to the tale regardless. I also really…

Copyright law is a complex topic. There are numerous characters out there, and yet more crossovers that we’d love to see in a tabletop game, that may never get the chance to be spotlighted in that industry because they are owned by a specific brand. Yet, there are some heroes, villains, and worlds that have been reimagined time and again, due to their presence in the public domain. But where does the difference lie, what does that really mean, and how it has come to impact the tabletop gaming landscape? THE PUBLIC DOMAIN There’s been a lot of talk recently about major characters entering the public domain. Icons like Winnie The Pooh or Steamboat Willie, are now getting horror makeovers due to their copyright rules shifting. This has prompted some…

By the time you read this, you’ll be able to pick up the latest expansion of the Disney Lorcana trading card game; Archazia’s Island. What’s special about this set, apart from the debut of properties like Bolt and an increased focus on the various adorable pets of the Disney Universe, is that it feels like the card designers have gotten their feet under them and started taking more risks, leading to some of the most interesting cards we’ve seen in the first seven sets of Disney Lorcana. So, where should we start? MUSHU – MAJESTIC DRAGON My personal favourite card in the entire set is a character that has been at the top of the most wanted list for a long time. It might have taken Mushu a while to…

Designer: Urtis Šulinskas | Publisher: Red Cat Prove yourself the most eloquent and verbose of all the pirates. Washed up on the shore, you’ve found this coded message and you know solving it is going to help you pass those quiet evenings with your crewmates. It’s a small, shiny, word based party game with a box in the shape of a bottle. It grabs attention, looks fun, and, now that I’ve inspected closer, possibly has nothing to do with pirates… Even if the seashore theme, rolled up scroll message and gemstones feel very piratey. The rules for how to play are written on the scroll rolled up carefully inside the bottle, which is itself both the box and an integral part of gameplay. It’s an exciting start to a game.…

Designer: Paul Stapleton | Publisher: Bedsit Games In Paupers’ Ladder, designer Paul Stapleton has created more than a game. He’s brought to life a whole world players can jump into and immerse themselves in. This new second edition has added cards, more birds to choose from, and a solo mode. Last month I talked about the smallest meeples I’ve ever encountered, in my Yokohama review. I’m pleased to say, Paupers’ Ladder Second Edition is so far winning the largest wooden meeples. Each hefty pauper meeple has a bird companion meeple of a similar weighty size. The mission is to leave your home town accompanied only by your friendly, as yet untrained bird, in search of virtue. The first player to master three virtues is the winner. Turns out, there are…

Designer: Satoru Nakamura | Publisher: Allplay Push your luck games always seem to go down well in our house. Whether it’s eating tasty brains in Zombie Dice, diving for sunken treasure in Deep Sea Adventure or mining for gold in My Gold Mine, push your luck games have a tendency to be easy to explain and quick to play. What’s more, there’s nothing better than watching your opponent risk it all… only to get blasted by a shotgun, stranded at the bottom of the sea or roasted by a dragon. Lure, on the other hand, is a push your luck game with a slight difference. You see, rather than always trying to roll the most dice or collect the most treasure, Lure encourages you to keep things small but hopefully…

Designer: Hisashi Hayashi | Publisher: Pegasus Spiele Bomb Busters was one of the most talked-about titles at 2024’s Essen, without even being new. A do-over of the Japanese game Bomb Squad – recut with more missions and components – is this remake even more explosive than the original? The aim of this cooperative is simple: defuse bombs by ‘cutting’ matching pairs of numbered blue wires, while avoiding game-shortening yellow wires and game-ending red ones. Each mission has a different set-up and corresponding set of rules, but largely all follow the same format: players take turns picking a numbered wire from their own set and then trying to find a match with their teammates. Communication is largely forbidden with only the active bomb disposal agent permitted to talk, and even then,…

Designer: Adrian Adamescu, Kristian Amundsen Østby, Florin Purluca and Kjetil Svendsen | Publisher: Alion Sparks brings together four designers, with at least two whom you may already be familiar: Kristian Amundsen Østby from Santa Maria and Escape: The Curse Of The Temple, as well as Adrian Adamescu of Sagrada and Dice Theme Park fame. It’s a fair observation that these are chaps who enjoy a die, so it’s no surprise that Sparks centres around dice drafting. The action takes place in a factory, building and sending robots down the production line (no purpose really given). Randomly, a team of animal assistants is there to help. The reason why staff take the form of animals is never explained, presumably because it would be too dull to have humans and too meta…

Designer: Jérémy Ducret | Publisher: La Boîte de Jeu I wouldn’t normally suggest plunging a hand into a bag full of monsters but, in the case of Evil Corp, it’s unavoidable. This is a bag-builder - deck-building’s more tactile cousin - where players will be filling said bags with a variety of monstrosities before releasing them upon defenceless villagers in an attempt to secure the position of CEO at the titular Evil Corp. Each round is divided into ‘Day’ and ‘Night’, although this can be more accurately interpreted as ‘actually playing the game’ and ‘upkeep’. By day, players take turns performing one action; play a monster; recruit a monster and add it to the bag; or activate a monster’s ability. Much of the decision-making arises in the playing of monsters…

Designer: Mike & Joss Petchey | Publisher: Huff No More As a vegetarian, I’ve only been fishing once, a conflicted afternoon spent desperately hoping not to catch anything. Not once did I find myself outraged at a lack of shrimp or desperately hoping to get my hands on pufferfish; poor preparation indeed for the experiences Sakana Stack offers. As rival vendors in the Tsukiji Fish Market, you aim to offload all your produce cards before your competitors, and to do so in quantities they can’t hope to match. The mechanics of this card-shedding competition are similar to the winner-takes-all approach of trick-taking; you take it in turns to place a stack of fish cards. If you can place a stack with a total value higher than the previous player’s, theirs…

Designer: Jack Caesar | Publisher: Caesar Ink Doomsong describes itself as“a Roleplay Macabre set in a world on the cusp of a Biblical apocalypse”. It’s dark, it’s filled with death, and there’s a range of nasty traitor gods who want to use you to their despicable ends. Everything is presented in a wonderfully gothic style, with gritty, monochrome pen-and-ink illustrations. The only colour in the entire book is where heretical power is used; for example, pages involving the works of the god Rot may have brown mould, whilst Bliss floods areas with a vibrant pink. Gorgeous inside, Doomsong is also an imposing tome on the table. In fact, it may have the nicest production of any book I’ve held. Embossed, faux-leatherette covers, a GM screen dust jacket, and a pouch…

AZUL DUEL Designer: Michael Kiesling Publisher: Next Move Games Artists: Maëva da Silva They heard us. We’ve all been crying out for more versions of Azul. It transpires gamers just love designing ceilings! Maybe it’s because we prefer being inside. The original Azul can be played with two, but now this version has been optimised for the duelling experience. It’s a very different game, with what feels like a lot more scope. You aren’t limited to the paint by numbers of the original, as you choose the pattern tiles to place in your grid as you go. Some of the predictability is removed, making it harder for those who can think three or four moves ahead in the standard game. All of the touch decisions remain. There are scoring goals…

The big discussion in the Pokémon TCG community lately has been the availability, or lack thereof, of the exciting new expansion Prismatic Evolutions. The set dropped in mid-January but finding it on shelves has been a test worthy of Christopher Colombus and this is far from the first time it has happened. Debut sets from recent TCGs like Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter, One Piece Card Game: Romance Dawn and Star Wars Unlimited: Spark of Rebellion have all been highlighted by empty shelves and cries from fans of “why don’t they just print more”? For Pokémon and Prismatic Evolutions, the answer is easy. They are. They really are. The Pokémon Company international, Bandai, Ravensburger, Fantasy Flight Games and, well, all TCG companies are profit-making companies. They exist to make money.…

Easily accessible and tonnes of fun, The Marvel Multiverse RPG made waves when it officially launched back in 2023. Debuting at the height of the MCU, and just as the Multiverse became an integral part of that on-screen universe, this particular role-playing game was instantly appealing. Players were keen to see how the brand would progress from there, and it began with a Deadpool spin-off and an X-Men expansion. Now, the title is set to enter the Spider-Verse, with a new expansion book focusing on our favourite spiders, and a whole host of Spider-adjacent heroes and villains. Ambitious in its scope and instantly compelling as a narrative base to build from, the book draws its influences from decades of stories featuring the webslinger’s most popular comic runs. We spoke with…

Designer: Friedemann Friese | Publisher: Rio Grande A longside sci-fi, zombies, and beige-looking historical cities, trains are the other board game theme staple. Free Ride USA walks the rails between Ticket to Ride and Trans-Europa. The rules are as simple too, with the usual map of track spaces and cities. However, it plays differently enough from both to deserve a place on a train game fans’ shelves. There are two main actions in Free Ride USA: build track, or move your train between connected cities. As with Ticket to Ride, you’ll be completing routes to gain victory points - but your plans are common knowledge. As with Trans-Europa, as the network expands, you’ll be able to use the routes of your opponents - but at a cost. Players start with some track,…

Designer: Paul Stapleton | Publisher: Bedsit Games This “Tiny Tin Tale” was my second foray into Paul Stapleton’s Brighthelm world. Somewhere in my Pauper’s Ladder Second Edition review, you’ll see me falling in love in real-time. When you take your first steps into Brighthelm, it doesn’t matter which you get to first. They don’t tell the same story, and you don’t need any prior knowledge for either. They do take place in the same timeless, vivid, madcap world that you absolutely want to find yourself lost in. You’ll hold in your hands a tiny purple tin with an idyllic scene of a seaside town. There can’t be much in here, you think, it’s tiny. Fast forward fifteen minutes and you find yourself digging in the scrapyard for the materials you…

Designer: Matúš Kotry | Publisher: Czech Games Edition The app-driven Alchemists board game proved a big hit for publisher Czech Games Edition back in 2014, and it still sits comfortably inside the Board Game Geek Top 200 games of all time. Despite its cartoony artwork and light theme, its gameplay was surprisingly complex. Making it all the more surprising that, a decade later, a child-friendly follow up has found its way onto the shelves. Little Alchemists shares the same fantasy theme, art style and general feel of its older brother. Once you’ve downloaded the (compulsory but free) app for Apple or Android, players take turns choosing two ingredients (tiles), scan them with the app to see what colour potion they make, and record the result on their tracker. Later customers appear,…

Designer: Dave Neale, David Thompson | Publisher: Osprey Games While it’s been several decades since the height of game books such as Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf, this type of game never really disappeared. War Story: Occupied France is seeking to re-establish this paragraph-driven adventure format as a modernised and relevant tabletop experience. This inspired effort includes asymmetric characters, fold-out maps, and nuanced tactical positioning. It draws from the wealth of modern hobby titles to lift the format into something more substantial and formalised. For the most part, this approach works and results in a game that merges old and new for an intriguing narrative-driven board game. The structure is a three-mission campaign where players are expected to carry forward a roster of soldiers from one mission to the next.…

Designer: Maël Brunet & Julien Chaput | Publisher: Mindclash When it comes to asymmetric strategy games, they can often be event games. Afternoons or even days can be set aside to tackle the likes of Star Wars: Rebellion or War of the Ring. Even the poster child of asymmetric strategy, Root can be tricky to fit into a game night if you need the time to teach it as well. Enter Ironwood, a game promising a rules light experience that you can play in around an hour but still enjoy the same strategic satisfaction of marshalling troops and cunning plans. Ironwood pits the guerrilla Woodwalkers against the industrial might of the Ironclad. Venturing out from their mountain cities, the Ironclad seek to harvest enough resources to construct three forges, securing…

Designer: Peter Ridgeway | Publisher: Osprey Games For fans of the joyful celebration of soon-to-be hibernating bears “Fat Bear Week” broadcast from Katmai, Alaska every year, all of your Octobers have come at once with Katmai: the Bears of Brooks River. This two-player card game sees rival bears vying for dominance of the Brooks River, fighting for the right to feast on the salmon in its waters. In Katmai, each player uses one of two almost identical decks of cards, featuring artwork and the names of real bears from the Brooks River area. The board lays between the players, a river made up of tiles which cards can be placed in front of. Each round, players put a card face down onto a river section, in turn order, which are…

Designer: Japanime Games | Publisher: Japanime Games Core Connection is all about young female mech pilots taking on a sinister global conspiracy. It’s a deck builder, with most of the standard features you’d expect from the genre: you start off with a weak deck of ten basic cards, shuffle them and draw five. The game’s economy uses a system familiar from games like Star Wars: Unlimited – play cards from your hand face down to use them as resources for the turn. They represent the upper limit of your spending power when you buy a card, what strength of attachment you can bolt onto your mech, or what kind of tactic card you play. Unlike similar systems, however, they’re not used up by any one action – they’re more like…

Designer: Caleb Zane & Sean Ireland | Publisher: Haunted Table Every page of Triangle Agency’s core rulebook cemented one idea: That this RPG celebrates the genre as much as it can. This is not only a love letter to tabletop gaming, but also a homage to classic shows like The X-Files, from which this title draws its influence. But what is Triangle Agency at its core? Well, it’s meta, satirical, and supernaturally fuelled. With the rulebook written as a training manual for employees, the zany tone of this project is set right away. The original illustrations contribute to an astounding aesthetic, which transports players into a wacky and imaginative world. Corporate horror, strange investigations and shocking twists fuel a game full of promise, and this has instantly established itself as a…