Innehållsförteckning för Issue 102 från Tabletop Gaming

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Analysis Paralysis Definition: A long state of inaction a player can find themselves in on their turn, when there are a series of options to choose between. Sometimes shortened to AP. Our lives are filled with decisions. What do we want for dinner, which table do we join at the social event, which game shall we play? Decisions in games can be overwhelming. There are so many actions you could take, so many avenues you could pursue. But which is going to lead to your victory? Analysis Paralysis is the name given to that point in a game where you find yourself completely stuck. You know the rules, you know the options that are in front of you. And now you’re running through it in your head: well, I know…

As the last magazine was signed off and sent to print, we departed Tabletop HQ, destination bound for Harrogate. Of course, it was time for AireCon, a convention we describe as being just like a warm hug. If you’ve never visited, AireCon is a fantastic long weekend at the Harrogate Convention Centre. The heart of the convention is playing games, which means there are always long halls of places to game, a huge library, and fewer exhibitors than you may expect. This years event took place on the 12th-14th March 2025, and felt busier than ever, celebrating the big ten years of AireCon. We’ve found a few favourite games from our experience there to share with you. SPOKES Spokes is described as a colourful cycling board game, where in it you’re…

1 DOMINION Whilst many gamers would have been familiar with the deck-construction mechanics in games like Magic: The Gathering, it wasn’t until 2008 that the actual building of a deck could be seen as constituting a game in and of itself. Dominion vaguely told the story of rival monarchs racing to expand their kingdoms. No innovations there. Thankfully, though, its mechanics were novel enough to change the shape of card games forever. Essentially, players are hoping to amass the most victory points by strategically bolstering their initial ten-card decks with a variety of income-generating and special ability-granting cards. Whilst its slick and satisfying formula may have inspired countless other - arguably, more exciting - games, Dominion remains hugely popular. 2 VALLEY OF THE KINGS Deckbuilding games come in all shapes and sizes.…

Star Wars: Unlimited recently released its 4th expansion Jump to Lightspeed and it brought about some very exciting new changes. The pilot mechanic for one, looks like it has the potential to completely change the game as units can be attached to ships as upgrades, and don’t get me started on how much fun you can have with indirect damage. What this really got me thinking though, was how much of a fun case study the game now is of how much TCG companies are learning from each other and we are all benefitting from it. Take the new Carbonite Boosters for instance. They’re collector boosters from Magic The Gathering. They’re expensive booster packs, retailing for £24.99 each, filled with fancy cards. They even come in the same shape box…

Designer: Henry Lewis | Publisher: The Mystery Agency Ltd. Escape room board games have tried every trick in the box to replicate the physical actions of players being stuck in the same space together and needing to solve puzzles to escape. From hi-tech solutions, like the use of AR technology in Batman-themed The Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City to three-dimensional puzzles, like exploring a house with a flashlight for clues in Mystery House: Adventures in a Box, the escape room genre seemed to have utilised every gimmick. This is why it can be a palette cleanser to be presented with a simple game box that contains more conventional puzzles: a secret padlock number combination, a set of clues in a newspaper article, or a mystery hidden in a…

Designer: Peter C Hayward | Publisher: Button Shy Games Growing up I have fond memories of entertaining myself during car drives by playing the so-called ‘number plate game’. This would entail taking the letters of a number plate, e.g. CRV and coming up with words that included all those letters - like CRaVe, CReatiVe, CReVace, etc. It was literally hours and HOURS of fun that made picturesque drives like Cleethorpes to Scunthorpe even more exciting as we dashed past oil refineries, factories and landscapes flatter than a punctured blow-up bed. The reason for this little trip down memory lane is that when RNSM shot across my gaming radar, I immediately remembered the number plate game and thought this was the perfect opportunity to bring this amazing fun to the rest…

Designer: Steven Aramini, Jonny Pac | Publisher: Alley Cat Games Please stand back from the platform edge. The game now arriving at platform 1 is another train-based board game. Here it comes! But are you going to have to make space in your train-themed games night for this lightweight euro game set in North America, or is it not making a stop at your table? Station to Station is a lightweight eurogame, in which players gather resources, pick them up and deliver them to other places. Resources can be spent on other resources or on victory points. You can complete routes and orders to gain extra resources or score points. As the game goes along you can recruit employees that give you more resources or score you extra victory points.…

Designer: Antoine Prono | Publisher: Funforge In the cooperative tower-defence game Runemasters, players are the guardians, defending the Temple of Mankind from evil monsters, such as werewolves, orcs and undead archers. Guardians hope to last until dawn as the unending horde threatens to destroy the temple. It’s a story of good and evil, a tried and tested premise, that is simple but fits well with the key mechanisms of the game. It really feels like an epic battle of survival with heroes stationed in the temple, surrounded by the four lanes that serve as the paths for monsters to attack. With each turn more and more creatures will appear on the paths, making their way to the temple and, when they reach it, they will deal damage to the guardians…

Designer: Nigel Buckle and Dávid Turczi | Publisher: Mindclash Games After the fall of a powerful space empire, fringe survivors are left to reconquer it from the eldritch corruption that consumed its core. Following an extremely successful crowdfunding campaign back in 2021, Voidfall has released for retail. A hefty and complex box, promising a new take on the space 4X genre. If you’re not familiar, 4X refers to eXplore, eXpand eXploit and eXterminate. For more than a decade, Twilight Imperium and Eclipse: A New Dawn for the Galaxy have dominated the Space 4X genre. The maximalist ‘ameri-trash’ design of Twilight Imperium against the more euro-style Eclipse. Both have their fans and I have enjoyed both, though Twilight Imperium has a hold on my heart like few other games. I state…

Designer: David Blandy & Daniel Locke | Publisher: Copy/Paste Co-op There are far too many doomy, miserable games out there. Whether it’s Warhammer or just another dire dungeon crawler, the concept of positivity is a rarity; which is why ECO MOFOS!! stands out. This tabletop RPG celebrates the idea of “weirdhope” as a radical counterpart to the overbearing negativity of “grimdark”. From the first moment, Daniel Locke’s art grabs you, tickles you and inspires you to flip to another page. The cover features the hippiest punk person ever, and then the first spread is an enticing chunk of weird map tiles. Shortly afterwards is a double page comic that sets the scene whilst also looking incredible. Why have they included that? Just because they wanted to. Daniel’s art brings to…

Designer: Laurie O’Connel | Publisher: 12 Pins Press There’s been a glut of popular media about fight-to-the-death style scenarios in recent years. Battle Royale, Hunger Games, Squid Game; stories of normal people being thrust into life-or-death situations where they have to kill, or be killed themselves. Death Game by Laurie O’Connel is an excellent attempt to replicate that mass encounter in a way that still works without having to kidnap fifty of your mates and lock them in an abandoned crossbow-crammed maze. Death Game runs on a purpose-built system that has built constructed specifically for the premise. It begins with players collaboratively deciding on a setting; are they in a high-school, a billionaire’s mansion, or the North Pole? They secretly vote on a gimmick; everything is flooding, the giraffes are…

Welcome back to Tabletop Gaming! This is the last issue before UK Games Expo, and not only are we counting down the days, we’ve also been chatting to Richard Denning director of the event about the good ol’ days, the changes happening this year, and the future of our favourite weekend. That’s not all of course, as we’re diving into Forbidden Island on its 15 year anniversary, taking a look at the lore behind the new Magic the Gathering set, fixing the problem of Monopoly, talking to the designer of Harmonies, and checking out how board games are having a bigger part in a big day – weddings! Of course, to bring us into our regular reviews, we’ve got some stellar games, with some must-play recommendations, and perhaps a few…

CRAFTING THE COSMOS Designer: David Gordon & Tam Publisher: Office Dog Artists: Quillsilver Releasing at the end of March, this game has been receiving preorders and a lot of attention online. Crafting The Cosmos is a bright, starry science fiction game in which you are managing resources and cards to score points. It’s a pattern-based puzzle game where you want to surround nebulae with the correct stars to complete it, and then surround the completed nebula with life tokens to create advanced life. The gameplay includes manipulating marbles to choose which resources you gain, followed by careful choices of how to place them to score. If the price puts you off, this is available online on Board Game Arena to try out, including a simple tutorial to give you the…

Designer: David Carmona, Karen Nguyen | Publisher: Unfriendly Games Nekojima, I found out in the course of this review, basically means Cat Island. It turns out that in Japan, there are islands with a significant population of stray cats. On one such island – Aoshima – the internet suggests there are only four people that live there and 80 cats. I don’t mention this to manifest that a house there will appear on RightMove, but because I’ve played the game Nekojima, and I didn’t realise the folly of trying to build power poles around mischievous native cats was a genuine thing. Score one for educational board games! The game Nekojima is a dexterity based game, where the circular board is divided into four colours. You roll dice to get two…

Designer: Lauren Bello | Publisher: PostCurious Let’s begin this review by resolving any guesses as to what Th e Morrison Game Factory is about. It is NOT about the popular supermarket chain. Besides, it would have an additional ‘s’ in the name if it were. It is NOT about Jim, he of The Doors and tight-leather-trousers-and-no-top fame. And it is completely unrelated to Van, the dude who sang about moondancing. So just what is the game about? That’s a toughie to answer, what with this being a ‘puzzletale’, but it should suffice to reveal the bare bones: a ‘friend’ discovers an abandoned board game factory. Deep among the decaying paperwork and defunct machinery sits a box on a conveyor belt – freshly printed and untouched. That very same box now…

Designer: Tim Eisner, Ben Eisner | Publisher: Druid City Games Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders is a big game. The length of its title is rivalled only by its list of components. Don’t be too intimidated, as this is comfortably smack dab in the middle of the campaign dungeon crawl genre. It’s easier to grasp than titles such as Gloomhaven and Kingdom Death: Monster, but arequires more effort than Vagrantsong or Kinfire Chronicles. There are so many of these games and it’s difficult to establish an identity amongst the crowded field. Tidal Blades 2 seeks individuality through a Pixar-like aesthetic, coupled with an intriguing card system that requires some thought without succumbing to cognitive overload. First off, the setting is certainly joyful. It’s flush with colour and the…

Designer: Cole Werhle | Publisher: Leder Games It’s rare for a game to truly have an “essential” expansion, but I think Leaders and Lore might be just that. Leaders and Lore is a set of cards to add into the base game of Arcs: Conflict and Collapse in the Reach which dramatically bolsters the existing set of leader abilities and lore powers that can be used to add a layer of much-needed spice to a normal play session of Arcs. When using this expansion, Arcs is much the same as usual. There’s the trick-taking for action selection, the dynamic objectives through the ambitions system and there’s gathering your entire army against a squad of opposing spaceships and rolling a big pile of combat dice. It’s all still here. This expansion…

Designer: Brent Povis | Publisher: Pegasus Two player card games about the right size to take to the pub are my forte. It’s amazing what we can achieve without even needing playing pieces or a board. The cards of Fungi transform the table into the forest floor beneath your feet as you venture out to try to collect matching sets of various types of mushrooms, store them in your baskets, and cook them on your camping stove. Mushrooms have, on the whole, passed me by. I’ll eat a generic mushroom, but I’ve heard the funky types are all the rage these days. A radio DJ the other day talked about her standard order at the local coffee shop being a Mushroom Matcha Latte, and I am still none the wiser.…

Designer: Felix Isaacs | Publisher: Mythworks If you missed our must-play review last year, The Wildsea is a tabletop RPG set in an aggressively botanical post-apocalyptic world. The Verdancy heralded the end of civilization, when trees began to grow at an exponential rate, covering the earth with seas of rustling branch-tops. One of the most enigmatic aspects of The Wildsea was that windswept realm of endless treetops and the impenetrable depths beneath. The core book literally has a page for The-Darkness-Under-Eaves that refuses to clarify what’s down there, but—a little like Heart’s expansion of the hidden underworkings of Spire—Storm & Root opens up the depths of the undercanopy as well as the broad reaches of the skies above. Storm & Root handles all of this new material with the same—superb—information…

Designer: Chris Lin, MingYang Lu, Eric Zeringue | Publisher: Brother Ming Games This is a two-player duelling game with an alluring central conceit: instead of brawny fighters throwing fists, you’re skilled artists painting, dancing, and even sculpting your way to victory. It may sound bizarre, but the anime aesthetic supports this mystical premise where each artist character constructs or performs their particular style of art in order to damage and debilitate their foe. It’s functionally a traditional Street Fighter style duel translated to a card-driven miniatures skirmish game, yet it bears the trappings of grace and beauty. The quirky setting is realized with gorgeous components. The artwork is evocative of the spirit, covering much of the components with verve. Re;Act is a looker, the type of artifact worthy of…

Cooperative games are such a standard part of the tabletop gaming landscape that it’s hard to think that a couple of decades ago, they seemed like quite a rarity. Back then it appeared to be all ‘you sunk my battleship’ and ‘you owe me more rent’, rather than ‘travel to that island, then I’ll pass you The Statue of the Wind’. Among the pioneering cooperative games, which paved the way for numerous others, was Forbidden Island by Matt Leacock. In fact, it’s been 15 years since the title was first released, which meant we thought it was a perfect time to catch up with Matt about its creation and cooperative games in general. First though, a quick rundown on what Forbidden Island is and how it plays. You and up…

This month we’re visiting Albania on the Balkan peninsula. During our brief stop, we’ll be discovering their traditional card games and, perhaps, revealing some examples of how the country’s history has informed modern tabletop games. In 1997, Franco Pratesi wrote an article entitled ‘Albanian Card Games - A Recent Tradition?’ for the academic journal ‘The Playing Card’. Pratesi conducted interviews with locals on the topic of gaming traditions, and had surmised that older generations of Albanians would likely recall card games played with the standard forty-card Italian decks common in neighbouring countries. But his preconceptions were wrong; many Albanians recalled their parents and grandparents not playing cards at all, instead favouring board games. Predicting that these games were likely draughts and chess, Pratesi was surprised to learn that the preferred…

Recently, we saw the release of the 7th expansion of the Disney Lorcana trading card game, the rather exciting Archazia’s Island. Last month we talked about some of the most exciting cards in the expansion, but we’ve had a few weeks of actual play in actual game stores with actual cards leading to actual results and I can tell you that actually, Sapphire is great. Maybe too great, we can argue about that another time. What I really want to talk about today is why Sapphire is so great and why I’m sure it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. In terms of data; we don’t have any Disney Lorcana Challenges right now to draw on and, as I write this, Set Championships have not yet begun, but we have plenty…

Designer: Not Designer Credited | Publisher: Evan and Josh’s Very Special Games Company Some games are just nonsense – in a good way. Tiny Laser Heist is such, pitting players in a semi-cooperative experience where they must use little rubber hands on the end of sticks to lift plastic diamonds from the board while avoiding laser tripwires. Oh, and this must be done in less than 90 seconds. This is a game of laughter and hijinks. One player is assigned the role of Mastermind. They invite others at the table to join in the heist so they can assemble their team. To do so, everyone must agree to split a public pool of money cards between the participants, possibly engaging in a few minutes of negotiation to coax helpers along.…

Designer: Matthew Dunstan & Dave Neale | Publisher: Space Cowboys I’m a sucker for a cooperative game and Perspectives does something special. It’s a slow-paced, intense game of depth, focus, and communication. I say slow-paced. It ramps up, at the right table, as players take individual facts to build a full picture, sparking off each other’s descriptions and tripping over their own thoughts as they try to figure the whole thing out. If the group is right for it, this can be a rollercoaster ride of excitement. Perspectives (Blue) is the second Perspectives game, providing new scenarios for new players and those who have already played through the original (Orange) version. It’s a simple game. Each player gets a number of cards. If you are playing with more players everyone…

Designer: Jérémy Ducret &, Romaric Galonnier | Publisher: La Boîte de Jeu The King of Babylon wants a city to gift to his Queen and it’s down to you to design it. The only problem is he also asked your rival and you’re now locked into an urban planning showdown. The Architects of Amytis is a charming small box game for two players. You’ll take it in turns to add a tile from the market to your 3x3 city board. Each tile features both a building and a colour. Buildings score when they’re placed, typically in relation to what else is on your board. For instance, a market gives points for each other type of building you have in your city. The building abilities are simple and reward some forward…

Designer: Rob Cramer | Publisher: Button Shy Games Not to get philosophical here but do you ever wonder what constitutes a ‘game’? What is it about the DNA of even the most simple titles that makes them an actual game rather than just a ‘puzzle’ or brainteaser? Is a sudoku puzzle a ‘game’? If you took it in turns to complete a number, would that make a sudoku more like a tabletop game? It’s similar to the age old question - is soup a drink or a food? And obviously that depends on the receptacle you’re using. No debate! The reason for this philosophical question comes after playing Zebra, one of the latest wallet games from Button Shy, which treads the extremely thin line between actual game and a puzzle…

Designer: Cole Werhle | Publisher: Leder Games Move over Twilight Imperium, I think you’re about to be unseated. Arcs: the Blighted Reach is an expansion of Arcs, in the most literal sense. It expands the game from compact space combat and resource game into a grand opera of player-driven narrative and complex and ever-changing political allegiances. From the base game, The Blighted Reach takes the core actions and rules and adds new systems and mechanisms. I can’t cover it all here, and honestly, I don’t want to, so much of this expansion is about discovery and variety. Here’s the basics: now each player takes the role as a regent of The Empire, whose lumbering purple dreadnaughts populate the board, putting players into a temporary alliance as long as they’re in…

Designer: Sophia Wagner | Publisher: Helvetiq Stormy weather ahead, I hope you packed your coat. Strato is a solo puzzle game from Helvetiq, who are known for small and delightful boxes of pocket-sized games and puzzles. Strato is that again – another neat box containing very little but a stack of satisfyingly shaped long, thin cards and a rulebook. In this game, which despite some charming artwork is largely without a strong theme, you set up and solve card puzzles centred around using different powers to reorganise one or more rows of cards into a target configuration. There’s a set of ten increasingly difficult levels, each of which uses some number of card types, which are based on different weather conditions. On your turn you simply play a card, use…

Designer: Nathan Dowdell | Publisher: Modiphius As a fan of Star Trek, I consider myself very lucky to live in a time where there are so many great series to choose from. From Kirk’s adventures in the original 1960s series and Picard’s in The Next Generation to the animated shenanigans of Lower Decks and the beautifully realised Strange New Worlds, there is no shortage of Trek to enjoy. This is now truer than ever, thanks to Modiphius’ Star Trek Adventures, which released its Second Edition last year, which serves as a great introduction to players wanting to take their first steps into the final frontier. In it, you get a concise overview of the core mechanics, and a three part adventure – enough to take novice players off into the…

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