tabletopgaming.co.

uk June 2018

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NEW FLASH GORDON RPG | ARCHITECTS OF THE WEST KINGDOM

Display until 28/6/18
£5.25

FIREBALL ISLAND REMAKE | REVIEWS OF CRYSTAL CLANS & MORE

THE MAKING OF TIGRIS & EUPHRATES | JOHN KOVALIC INTERVIEW
 2-6
PLAYERS

20-40
MINUTES
PLAY TIME

Every year the Emperor walks through the Imperial

Gardens to greet the spring, every year he stops
beneath the sakura trees, and every year you try to
paint his picture. This will be your year!

Sakura is a light tactical game of pushing your

luck and pushing your friends. Each player will
simultaneously decide how far to move both their

“
character and the Emperor. The player closest to
“
Jostle to the front of the crowd ready
for your opportunity to shine, or keep
yourself in the background only to
leap forward at the right moment.
the Emperor when the cherry blossoms are reached
will gain a huge amount of prestige, but if you
push too far you risk bumping into the Emperor and
walking away in disgrace.

But beware! The emperor has a mind

of his own.
TIPS FROM CREATOR REINER KNIZIA

It’s the turn of the century, and it’s time to

live large!

Reiner Knizia’s classic auction game returns

in a new edition from Osprey Games!
Players must out-bid one another in an
effort to acquire the social status to
surpass their peers, whilst avoiding

“
scandals which will ruin their

“
Life offers many temptations and
aspiring to reach the echelons
of high society comes at a price.
reputation. The player who achieves
the highest status without going broke
will be crowned the winner!

3-5 20
Spend your money wisely, but keep
some reserves for the challenging
MINUTES
days ahead! PLAYERS PLAY TIME
TIPS FROM CREATOR REINER KNIZIA

BROWSE OUR FULL RANGE OF GAMES AT WWW.OSPREYGAMES.CO.UK

 EDITORIAL
EDITOR Matt Jarvis
01778 392 400
matt.jarvis@warnersgroup.co.uk

Welcome
CONTRIBUTORS Sam Desatoff, John
Dodd, Owen Duffy, Holly Gramazio,
Robert Florence, Sam Illingworth,
Richard Jansen-Parkes, Dan
Jolin, Joshua King, Andy Leighton,
Josher Lumpkin, Phil Robinson,
Alex Sonechkina, Charlie Theel, Paul

I
Wake, James Wallis, Eric Watson
f you’ve been a reader of Tabletop Gaming since it
HEAD OF DESIGN & PRODUCTION
Lynn Wright
began, you’ll remember that our very first issue featured
a list of 101 must-play games. This month marks three
DESIGNER Richard Hallam years since that list was published, and both games and
COVER IMAGES FROM ARKHAM HORROR, the magazine have changed massively in the time since. To
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, EXPLODING
KITTENS, PANDEMIC, THROUGH THE
mark the occasion, we asked you to tell us your favourite
AGES, TICKET TO RIDE, X-WING games of all time. This issue features that very list,
decided by your more than 5,000 votes. We think you’ll be
ADVERTISING
TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CALL surprised but satisfied by the final ranking – turn over to
GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER page 18 to see what you picked.
Claire Ingram 01778 391 179 You might find your next tabletop obsession in these
claire.ingram@warnersgroup.co.uk
Now Playing... pages, too, as we take a look at Architects of the West
GROUP TELESALES EXECUTIVE Lost Cities Kingdom – the follow-up to the acclaimed North Sea
Ben Jackson 01778 391 129 trilogy – the return of Fireball Island and the Flash Gordon
ben.jackson@warnersgroup.co.uk
RPG. Meanwhile, we celebrate firm favourites Tigris &
ADVERTISING DESIGN Euphrates and Munchkin by talking to designer Reiner
AND PRODUCTION
Nicola Lock 01778 392 420 Get in touch Knizia and artist John Kovalic, and discover how to sink even
further into the most immersive games with a soundtrack.
nicola.lock@warnersgroup.co.uk tabletopgaming.co.uk
The last three years have been some of the most exciting
MARKETING tabletopmag that gaming have ever seen, and there’s no sign that the
MARKETING BRAND MANAGER
Nicola Lumb
excitement is going to stop anytime soon. If you want to
tabletopgamingmagazine
see what more there is to look forward to be sure to check
MARKETING ASSISTANT tabletop_gaming_magazine out the latest news about this year’s Tabletop Gaming Live
Katherine Brown 01778 395 092
katherine.brown@warnersgroup.co.uk
convention on page 6. It’s going to be unmissable.

PUBLISHED BY
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Claire Ingram
Matt
Matt Jarvis Editor
Warners Group Publications PLC
The Maltings, West Street, matt.jarvis@warnersgroup.co.uk | @liquidmatt
Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH
01778 391 000 Q U I C K S TA R T
www.warnersgroup.co.uk

NEWSTRADE DISTRIBUTION
It isn’t It’s not relevant It’s a
Warners Group Publications PLC
01778 391 150
overdramatic whether I like privilege to
PRINTING
to say that it my games! It’s be able to make
This publication is
changed my life about whether it’s something that
printed by Warners for the better. something that brings some joy
01778 395111
other people into people’s
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 no
want to play. lives.
responsibility for any effect from errors or omissions. While Laura Cranston on one of the Master designer Reiner Knizia Munchkin artist John Kovalic
every care is taken with unsolicited material submitted for Greatest Games of All Time, p18 returns to Tigris & Euphrates, p36 tells his story, p58
publication, we cannot be responsible for loss or damage.
While every care is taken when accepting advertisements, we
are not responsible for the quality and/or the performance
of goods and/or services advertised in this magazine. The
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) exists to regulate the
content of advertisements. Tel: 020 7429 2222 tabletopgaming.co.uk 3
© Warners Group Publications Plc, 2018
 In this issue
06 AT A GLANCE 35 KICKSTARTING 58 JOHN KOVALIC
Your 30-second guide to the latest in gaming FROM SCRATCH The man behind the iconic look of Munchkin and
Holly Gramazio prepares to launch Art Deck Cash ‘n Guns tells the story of his artwork
08 FIRST TURN
Before he weaved Stuffed Fables, Jerry 36 HOW WE MADE 60 ON A ROLL
Hawthorne got furry with Mice and Mystics Reiner Knizia returns to his empire-building Designer Corey Young explains how he’s
masterpiece Tigris & Euphrates reinventing the dice tower – and why it matters
10 10 OF THE BEST
Keep your braaaaaaains in these zombie games
41 THE INDEPENDENT SHELF 63 PLAYED
The must-play games you shouldn’t miss this
13 ROLE CALL Inspiration can be deadly in Bemused
month, whether you want to be a medieval
14 ALL THE JAHRES 42 GAME SOUNDTRACKS guild master or, urm, a cloud
Gamers and musicians explain how you can
Manhattan reaches for the sky(scrapers)
tune into the sounds of the tabletop 83 PAINTING GUIDE
Part two of our Star Wars: Legion series
17 MY FAVOURITE GAME 47 THROUGH THE AGES gives the Rebels a cause for celebration
Juma Al-JouJou meets The Resistance in Avalon
Following the journey of route-building games
ON THE COVER 88 DUNGEON MASTER’S
18 THE GREATEST GAMES 48 FIREBALL ISLAND GUIDE TO ROLEPLAYING
The ‘80s classic is back with a bang – its Why you should venture into the unknown and
OF ALL TIME creators show us the hottest release of the year consider playing RPGs with strangers
We count down the 150 best games on the
tabletop – as decided by you! 51 PLAY IT SMART 91 EVENT REPORT
Going old-school with retro board games Surprise! It’s Ambush!
26 ARCHITECTS OF THE
WEST KINGDOM 55 FLASH GORDON RPG 92 CLUB DIRECTORY
Shem Phillips sets sail from his Viking North Writer Scott Woodard saves the universe with
Sea series with a new trilogy of games The Savage World of Flash Gordon 95 SHOP SPOTLIGHT
32 HAVE YOU PLAYED? 57 UNEARTHED ARTEFACTS 98 TABLETOP TIME MACHINE
Axis & Allies picks its sides in World War II Will Late Oil Humanity survive the Mall of Horror? We discover the clues about the original Cluedo

18

4 June 2018
26

THE GAMES
1829 47
Age of Steam 47
Apples to Apples 58
Architects of 26
the West Kingdom
Art Deck 35
Axis & Allies 32
Bemused 41
Black Souls 81
Blood Red Skies 70
Call of Cthulhu 23
Cluedo 98
Crystal Clans 64
Dark.net 78
Dead of Winter 10
Dungeons & Dragons 25
Empire Builder 47
Escape the Dark Castle 51
Fantasy AGE 75
Feudum 67
Fireball Island 48
58 48 Flash Gordon RPG 52
Get the MacGuffin 69
High Society 76
Illuminati: 58
New World Order
Lords of Hellas 65
Magic: The Gathering 24
Mall of Horror 57
Manhattan 14
Manhattan Project 2: 72
Minutes to Midnight
Mice and Mystics 09
Munchkin 58

52 Muse
Penny Papers
77
71
Adventures
Petrichor 68
Pioneer Days 73
Raiders of the 26
North Sea
Railways of Nippon 79
The Resistance: Avalon 17
Rise to Nobility 66
Startups 75
42 Star Trek 69, 80
Adventures
Star Wars: Legion 83
Ticket to Ride 47
Tigris & Euphrates 36
Tokaido 42
Zombicide 10
Zombies!!! 10, 42

tabletopgaming.co.uk 5
 AT A GLANCE
FIRST PARTICIPATION PARTICIPATION GAMES AND
OPEN GAMING DETAILS
studios coming to Tabletop Gaming Live
this September.
GAMES, OPEN GAMING We’re excited to announce the first The publisher will showcase popular

AND WARLORD GAMES

participation games and open gaming miniatures wargame Bolt Action and new
coming to the Tabletop Gaming Live rules for historical title Black Powder,

CONFIRMED FOR convention in London’s Alexandra Palace

TABLETOP GAMING LIVE
RPG sessions coming to London convention as
Bolt Action studio demos new miniatures title
this September 29th and 30th.
Several RPGs will be available to
play in regular sessions at the massive
board game, miniatures and roleplaying
game event, including Starfinder
(pictured, left), Pathfinder, Call of
Cthulhu, RuneQuest and HeroQuest.
Starfinder and Pathfinder sessions will
consist of one-hour demo games that will
be available throughout the Saturday
and Sunday of the weekend show.
Call of Cthulhu, HeroQuest and
RuneQuest sessions will also be run during
the entire event, with longer sessions
of approximately three to four hours.
Multiple sessions will be held each day.
In addition, Tabletop Gaming Live will
feature a dedicated area for open
gaming in Alexandra Palace’s expansive
West Hall. Players will be able to bring
along their own games – or games
from the show itself – and play freely
with friends and family using one of the
area’s many tables.
That’s just the start for Tabletop
Gaming Live’s participation game and
live seminar track plans – keep your eyes
as well as featuring new World War II
aerial combat game Blood Red Skies and
samurai skirmish title Test of Honour.
It will also be demonstrating its
first game based on cult British comic
2000 AD. Gunslinger skirmish-style
game Strontium Dog features all the
popular characters from the much-
loved comic strip and allows players to
form their own posse or gang and play
scenarios inspired by the comic – or
create their own storylines.
Other companies set to exhibit their
latest games on the show floor include
Fantasy Flight Games, Catan Studio,
Days of Wonder, Z-Man Games, Cubicle
7, PlayFusion, Thames & Kosmos,
Osprey, Mantic, Warcradle Studios,
GCT Studios, Tactic Games, Warbanner,
Anvil Industry and Rubicon Models,
plus a slew of major retailers, artists,
designers and more, such as Wayland
Games, Zatu Games, GamesQuest,
Battle Foam, Firestorm Cards, Leisure
Games and Ralph Horsley.
Tabletop Gaming Live will be held
on Saturday, September 29th and
Sunday, Sunday 30th in Alexandra

TICKETS ON SALE
peeled for further news very soon! Palace, London. Tickets are on sale
now from as little as £10, with family

FROM JUST £10 WARLORD GAMES JOINS LINE-UP

Warlord Games has become the latest
and weekend passes available. Visit The
Ticket Factory and search for “Tabletop
Visit theticketfactory.com to book and save addition to the growing list of major Gaming Live” to get yours today.

KNOW YOUR NUMBERS

SIX 5 24
One Week Ultimate Werewolf
ONE

My Little Scythe, last year’s family-

sees the social deduction series friendly remake of the strategy hit
crossover with tile-layer Castles by five-year-old Vienna Chou and her
of Mad King Ludwig, with rooms

1
A six-hour radio father, is getting a full release this year

0
giving players different roles
play based on
Call of Cthulhu Guild Ball is retiring
Jessica Estephan
Nyctophobia is a board game metal miniatures over
campaign Masks has made history
you play with zero vision, trying the next two years,
of Nyarlathotep as the first female
to escape an axe-murderer while with plastic models
will be broadcast winner of a Magic: The
blindfolded – for real! becoming the norm
this summer Gathering Grand Prix

REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE

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6 January 2018

STAY ON TARGET
X-Wing’s second edition
adds Force powers and
squad-building app
Star Wars miniatures game X-Wing
is jumping into hyperspace with a
newly-revealed second edition.
Due for wide release on
September 13th, the updated version
of the space-combat dogfighting
hit plans to make matches even
smoother to play, with some
interesting and potentially game-
changing tweaks to the gameplay.
CONGR-AZUL-ATIONS
This year’s Spiel des Jahres nominations revealed
The Spiel des Jahres has
announced its 2018 shortlist.
In the running for the prestigious
German ‘Game of the Year’ award
are Azul, Luxor and The Mind.
Meanwhile, the titles competing for
the ‘Expert’ Kennerspiel des Jahres
are Ganz Schön Clever, Heaven & Ale
and Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg.
THE TABLETOP GAMING PODCAST
AVA I L A B L E O N I T U N E S , S T I T C H E R A N D P O D C A S T S . C O M
D O W N L O A D I T T O D AY AT T T G A M I . N G / T T G P O D C A S T
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For the latest news from the world of gaming visit
tabletopgaming.co.uk/news
This includes a bigger role for
the Force, with Force-sensitive
pilots getting their own unique set
of abilities to use during fights,
from enhancing their aim (Obi-Wan
Kenobi impressions at the ready) to
predicting their opponent’s actions.
Outside of the game itself, the
tournament scene will be refreshed
with a new app designed to help
players build squads and track their
collection. The cards in the box won’t
include points values this time around,
letting Fantasy Flight update the cost
of ships and upgrades dynamically in
response to the evolving X-Wing meta.
Finally, the family-friendly Kinderspiel
des Jahres will go to Emojito,
Funkelschatz or Panic Mansion.
In the first such award since
2010, Pandemic Legacy: Season Two
will be recognised with a special prize.
The winners of this year’s Spiel
and Kennerspiel des Jahres will be
announced on July 23rd.
The app, which will be available both
on mobile and via a website, will also
stop players from accidentally building
illegal squads for organised play.
X-Wing Miniatures Game:
Second Edition will launch with a
core set featuring the game’s now-
standard one X-Wing and two TIE
Fighter loadout, with plenty of ship
expansions set to follow.
First edition ships will be made
compatible with the second edition
via £47 conversion kits, which will
be specific to each faction and
include the components needed to
update them to the new format.
PAINTS & TECHNIQUES
STORMTROOPERS
U N D E R C O AT : W H I T E
SPEEDER BIKES
84
We asked…
The summer’s here! What’s
your favourite game to take
away on holiday?
You said…We are travelling for a year and a
half and took four games with us.
San Juan and Castles of Burgundy:
The Dice Game are our favorites.
Mike Belsole
We’ve just returned from two
nights away camping. We enjoyed
a few games of Jaipur. Compact,
quick and fun for two players.
Paul Hardy
Card games – as they are easy
to pack. Sushi Go!, Exploding
Kittens, Fluxx, One Deck Dungeon,
Thunder & Lightning being our
family’s favourites.
Kerry Colyer
With creative use of multi-deck
boxes we regularly take Splendor,
Hey, That’s My Fish!, Love Letter
and Exploding Kittens. Gives us a
nice range of options for minimal
packing space.
Craig Duffy
My wife and I play Fungi whilst on
holiday, often with a bottle of wine.
@Banokles1980
A bit of Armchair Cricket. Alright,
not on trend (or even in production!),
but still a great holiday game.
Scott Shea
7 Wonders: Duel. Small, perfectly
formed, requires thought but not
too much, a little something for
Mum and Dad when the kids are
asleep. Also, iPad with Carcassonne,
Puerto Rico, Tikal, Suburbia, Lords
of Waterdeep, etc. etc.
@thedicemechanic
Get in touch
S TA R WA R S : L E G I O N
PAINTS USED
‘Ard Coat Ceramite White Jokearo Orange Runefang Steel
Abaddon Black Dark Reaper Karak Stone Tau Light Ochre
Agrax Earthshade Dawnstone Leadbelcher Ulthuan Grey
Baneblade Brown Death World Mournfang Brown Warpstone Glow
Biel-tan Green Forest Nuln Oil XV-88
Celestra Grey Eshin Grey Rhinox Hide
BASE COLOURS SHADING
Abaddon Black: Apply a coat to the eyes Celestra Grey & Lahmian Medium: Make a
and helmet details, blaster and exposed mixture of three parts Celestra, two parts
areas of cloth. Lahmian and two parts water. Carefully apply
this to all of the recesses in the armour.
Dark Reaper: Add an edge highlight to the
black sections.
SUB-ASSEMBLIES
Usually while modelling it is normal to
build the entire model before painting.
SCOUT TROOPERS
Sometimes, however, it is a good idea U N D E R C O AT : W H I T E
to leave them in sections. The speeder The scout troopers follow the same
bikes are a good example of this. The guide as the stormtroopers – the only
base, bike and rider were all kept exception being the handlebars, which
separate. This allows for an appropriate
undercoat on each, and ease of masking
use the same steps as the metals on the
bikes but are painted black beforehand.
for the bases.
SPEEDER BIKES
U N D E R C O AT : B L A C K
May 2018
tabletopmag
tabletopgamingmagazine
tabletop_gaming_magazine
AT-ST
U N D E R C O AT :
UNDERCOATING B LACK
Each element of this force is
undercoated with a different colour, for
ease of painting. They will use either black STEP 1
or white – the speeder bikes use both. Mechanicus Standard Grey: Apply
Each entry will specify under the title a very light drybrush over the entire
what colour we advise you use. model, but apply a more focused,
heavier drybrush towards the
front and top.
STEP 2
Dawnstone: Apply a further drybrush
over the previous area, but only around
two-thirds of where the paint was
applied in the previous stage.
HIGHLIGHTING FINAL DETAILS
Ceramite White: Add several thinned Jokearo Orange: Apply a basecoat over
layers over the armour, waiting for the the whole pauldron.
previous coat to dry before applying the Tau Light Ochre: Apply a layer over the top STEP 3
next. Tone back the wash where necessary of the pauldron, away from the helmet. Celestra Grey: Apply a very light drybrush
– just ensure you leave the recesses the Abaddon Black: Apply a line around the rim. across the entire model. Apply a more
shaded colour. Build the layers until you ‘Ard Coat: Apply a layer over the armour. focused and slightly heavier drybrush to
10 RPGs YOU MUST PLAY IN 2018!
have a clean, flat white. the top/front edges.
Dawnstone: Apply a spot highlight to
the black areas. Also apply to the square
indents on the helmet.
PLUS OUR REVIEW OF D
UNGEONS & DRAGONS’
NE W E XPANSION
BASE January 2018
COLOURS STEP 4 tabletopgaming.co.uk
Mournfang Brown: Basecoat the bike casing. Blue Horror: Apply an edge highlight,
Leadbelcher: Apply a light drybrush to the focusing on the top and forward edges
black areas.
Death World Forest: Apply a
basecoat to the bedding roll.
SHADING &
LAYERING
Nuln Oil: Apply a light wash to the black
areas and the recesses of the casing.
Agrax Earthshade: Apply a wash
to the bedroll.
HIGHLIGHTING WEATHERING
Runefang Steel: Apply an edge highlight to Leadbelcher: Apply small ships and dashes
the black areas. to the edges of the casing to represent
FALLOUT: WASTELAND WARFARE |
XV-88: Apply a light drybrush to the upper chips and dents. Add the majority to the
areas of the casing and then an edge
highlight on all the hard edges.
front end of the casing.
BOGUS
Baneblade Brown: Apply a layer over
the bedroll.
Nurgling Green: Apply an edge highlight to
BOARD GAMES
Do you own
the bedroll straps.
a fake?
tabletopgaming.co.uk 85
STUFFED FABLES | FAKE BOARD
LEARNING
EVOLVED
Games aren’t
just
help you boost fun – they can also
GAMES
your brainpower.
Professors and
students tell us
the cranium-cram about
Darwinian delight ming benefits of
Evolution
FALLOUT
Words by Anna
Blackwell
Wasteland warfare
Nuclear PHWOAR! We go behind the
the action-packed post-apocalyptic scenes of
JANUARY 2018
minis game
STUFFED FABLES | CIVILIZATION:
THE MAKING OF DOMINION | A NEW DAWN | VENGEANCE |
AZUL
STAR SAGA PAINTING TIPS | PHOTOSYNTHESIS | MASSIVE DARKNESS
Display until 29/1/18
HNEFATAFL: THE VIKING BOARD
£5.25
HUNT FOR THE RING | TABLETOP
LIVESTEAMERS | RAXXON | AND GAME
MORE
tabletopgaming.co.uk 44 February 2018
7
 FIRST TURN
JERRY
HAWTHORNE
The creator of Stuffed Fables on the game that set him off along
on the fuzzy-fantasy adventure path: 2012’s Mice and Mystics
Interview by Dan Jolin
BACKGROUND
“When I designed Mice and Mystics I was working in a
full-time job cutting hair. But I’ve always been into board
games. When I’d fall in love with one I would tinker with
it and make my own homemade editions. Back in 2004 I
discovered Heroscape, by Hasbro. I thought it was fantastic
and I ended up accidentally meeting Craig Van Ness, who
designed it, over the internet. I just gushed about his game
and he brought me on as a playtester, and the next thing you
know I was being paid to make extra cards and stuff. That
just blossomed gradually into my job as a game designer.”
COMPONENTS
“I had a lot of inspirations in my head for Mice and
Mystics. Some resided in anthropomorphic literature,
like the Redwall novels [by Brian Jacques] and the
Mouse Guard series [by David Petersen]. But my biggest
influence was Tom and Jerry, where you’d have all those
action sequences which did clever things with the scale.
That was something I really wanted to capture.”
OBJECT
“My daughter was struggling with learning how to read and
I was convinced I could help her, but the only tools I had
to work with were my passion for game design and stories.
She was really interested in mice at the time, so I thought
of an idea where you could have little chunks of reading
broken up by little chunks of gameplay and make it a way
to display for her how you can bring your imagination to
life. I used a little game-mechanic system that I had been
tinkering around with before that, for a family co-operative
superhero game. I just translated that all over into mice,
and that’s how I came up with Mice and Mystics!”
SETUP
“My biggest challenge was trying to create a game that
could be consumed by a wide variety of ages and a wide
variety of gaming skills. If I really want my messages and
a game to reach its target audience, it has to play within a
certain amount of time and has to have a certain amount
of ease-of-learning.”
HOW TO PLAY
“Mice and Mystics is a co-operative family adventure game
where each player is a little mouse that has to save the king,
who’s been put under a spell. And the way it plays is similar
June 2018
The
to a traditional dungeon-crawl game, but obviously all the
characters are little mice so all of the items and stuff are
idea
repurposed little household things. There is some reading
involved, and you play through chapter by chapter. It’s sort
is that no
of like a bedtime story. The idea is that no matter how small
you are, you have the ability to change the world. No task is
matter
too monumental for people who work together as a team.”
END OF THE GAME
how small
“I love the way Mice and Mystics turned out. It still stands
you are,
up well. It’s a story of virtue and duty and honour and
co-operation and it teaches all of these skills that are great
you have
for anybody to learn. Especially new gamers and young
gamers. Are there things could have been done better? Yes. I
the ability
think some of the rule density could have been streamlined
– which is why with Stuffed Fables I wanted to have a
to change
game system that means you don’t have to go back to the
rulebook. I would love to do a 2.0, so to speak, and apply the
the world.
things I’ve learned with Stuffed Fables. Number one, I would
get rid of the tiles, and do everything in an adventure book.”
STRATEGY TIPS
“If there’s anybody out there who is thinking about
designing games, but they think their idea is too big to
actually do, then that’s a good sign. Don’t be afraid to try to
break out of the normal. In order to really have an impact
and make your efforts worthwhile, you’re gonna want to
bring something to the industry that’s new and fresh and
hasn’t been done before. And the only way we’re gonna
accomplish that is with dreamers. People who think big.”
tabletopgaming.co.uk 9
 1 DEAD OF WINTER
There’s something about the end of the year that
brings the dead out. In Dead of Winter, it’s not just
the zombies that pose a threat; everybody’s working
together to survive the onslaught of the walking
dead, but each player also has their own secret

motivation that could result in them deliberately sabotaging
their fellow survivors’ chances of making it through. This
psychological shakedown happens in the background of
plenty of dice rolling to hunt for food and supplies in various
locations, influencing the way that players work together
(or apart). Powered
by the game’s flagship
Crossroads system of
storytelling, Dead of
Winter was followed by
standalone expansion
The Long Night and
spin-off Raxxon, providing
plenty more reasons to
never trust anybody.
Undead survival guide:
World War Z. (Humans are
2
CITY OF HORROR
Another zombie game that puts the focus on the conflict
between the living, this remake of Mall of Horror is full of
backstabbing and negotiation. Players send their group of characters out into
the world in search of items and weapons, but it’s the game’s voting system
that’s most important. When the zombies attack a location, players must
decide whom they chuck out to become chow for the undead, with the survivors
scooping up the supplies – followed by another vote to decide who gets to
keep them, of course. Trading resources to bribe players to let you survive is
commonplace, and the chance to cut throats is overwhelming. With characters
including a pregnant woman, priest and child, you’re guaranteed to be left feeling
guilty, though. Still, sometimes it takes hard decisions to survive.

10
the real thing to fear.) Undead survival guide: Night of the Living Dead. (Watch your back.)

OF THE BEST
ZOMBIE GAMES
It doesn’t matter whether it’s shambling corpses or
sprinting infected: there’s no escaping the crowd of games filled with the
undead. Here’s our pick of ten terrifying titles that will keep you playing
from Night of the Living Dead to Dawn of the Dead
Chosen by Matt Jarvis

3 TINY EPIC
ZOMBIES
Refusing to shamble along at the leisurely pace
of its reanimated stars, Tiny Epic Zombies packs
five different game modes – including co-op and
free-for-all – into just half an hour. Players keep on their toes,
picking up weapons and dispatching the undead as they race to
complete objectives – but failing to manage the growing swarm
4
ZOMBIES!!!
It’s time to dice with the
dead! Players are survivors
traversing city streets
packed with zombies. The
only way to make it through
is to roll dice, trying to keep ahead of the
slow but relentless crowd. Get caught
and it’s more rolling to dispatch your
can be deadly, and your characters can end up becoming undead attackers. The first person to escape
themselves if you’re not careful. via helicopter or clear the streets of 25
With a massive number of zombies wins, but you’ll have to restart if
options but a short play time you’re killed. Zombies!!! is as enthusiastic
and easy rules to pick about zombies as its three exclamation
up, Tiny Epic Zombies marks suggest, cramming in dozens of
certainly lives up to walker miniatures. The series has had
its name. plenty of expansions and spin-offs since,
including the reversed Humans!!!, where
Undead players become the zombies trying to
survival guide: eat the living.
28 Days Later.
(Zombies have Undead survival guide: Dawn of the Dead.
rarely moved quicker.) (Get to the chopper!)

10 June 2018
5
ZOMBICIDE:
BLACK PLAGUE
The Zombicide series has no shortage of ways to take
out hordes of the undead, but we’d pick Black Plague
as our favourite thanks to its gameplay improvements
and mash-up of zombies with a medieval fantasy setting. The co-op
survivors this time are knights, magicians, dwarves and more, able to
chop their way though with weapons or magic spells to ultimately defeat
the necromancers responsible for the zombie uprising.
Undead survival guide:
Army of Darkness.
(Groovy fantasy world,
but no boomstick.)
6 LAST NIGHT
ON EARTH: THE
ZOMBIE GAME
A B-movie-style romp
through a world filled with the undead,
Last Night on Earth leans into its
cinematic theme with artwork starring
real-life actors and a CD soundtrack of
music to really make you feel like you’re
inside a zombie movie. The small-town
heroes are controlled by one team,
the undead another, and the modular
board can be used for a variety of
different scenarios. The best version
to pick up is the 10 Year Anniversary
Edition, which includes improvements
from the original’s expansion and
other updates.

Undead survival guide: Zombieland. (Self-aware, with plenty of laughs.)

7
ZOMBIE DICE
This time, you’re the zombie! Life as one of the walking
dead isn’t easy. First off, you’re constantly hungering for
more brains to eat. Secondly, those pesky humans you’re
trying to eat keep trying to kill you (again) with shotgun
blasts. Roll the dice and push your luck to keep collecting
grey matter to munch, while avoiding the three shotgun blasts that will
lose you everything you’ve collected that round. The first person to hit the
spooky number of 13 wins – it’ll take luck and risk-taking to get there!
8 ZPOCALYPSE
A sandbox for telling stories of survival in a zombie-filled
post-apocalyptic wasteland, Zpocalypse puts players in
charge of a squad of survivors that must venture outside
of their fallout shelter to discover locations and gather
food, weapons and more to fight off the undead and build
up their bases with walls and barbed wire to survive just one more day.
Players earn points for killing zombies,
building defences and completing objectives,
making it an open-ended competition of
Undead survival guide: Warm Bodies. survival. Its sequel, Defend the Burbs, offers
(A view from the other side.) up a slightly different style of game with
a tower defence-style battle against the
encroaching zombie horde.

Undead survival guide: I Am Legend.

(Survival in the dead, dread wastes.)

9
THE WALKING DEAD:
10 EARTH
REBORN
Set hundreds of years in the future, Earth
Reborn takes the zombie apocalypse to the
nuclear post-apocalypse. Two rival factions are
battling to control what remains of the Earth, but one of them – the
Salemites – have decided to bolster their forces with the reanimated

ALL OUT WAR

When it comes to zombie universes, there’s little bigger than The Walking
corpses of the dead. The militaristic and science-
orientated forces of NORAD must deal with the
undead threat across different scenarios, with
Dead. As popular as a rotting corpse with flies, the comic-turned-TV show the game able to generate a huge
has seen plenty of tabletop adaptations since it first stumbled out of that variety of missions outside
locked barn, but among the best is All Out War, which captures both the of the tutorial-like set of nine
struggle to survive in a world turned upside-down and the danger of the last included. It’s immersive, silly
few humans left alive. With loads of characters from the original comic books in all the right ways and
mixed in with a solid core of skirmish battles – not to mention the zombs, buckets of fun.
who will come running at the first sign of a free meal – All Out War is both an
outstanding Walking Dead game and a great miniatures game, full stop. Undead survival guide:
Zombies vs. Robots.
Undead survival guide: Erm, The Walking Dead. But the original comics, obviously. (Dead silly, ridiculous fun.)

tabletopgaming.co.uk 11
Role Call
A journey back to the beginning of roleplaying, with the changing of once familiar settings
Words by John Dodd
DUNGEONS &
DRAGONS: INTO
THE BORDERLANDS
Where OSR truly began,
this is a reimagining of the
classic D&D modules In
Search of the Unknown and
Keep on the Borderlands. It
contains the full text of the
original modules and a full
conversion to Fifth Edition
rules, with a mini-campaign
to introduce players to
the adventures that have
begun the stories of so
many characters.
Goodman Games | $50
June 2018
LONE WOLF: STARFINDER: THE EDRPG: MILITARY TRAIL OF
THE REALM OF THIRTEENTH GATE SUPPLEMENT CTHULHU:
SOMMERLUND The fifth part of the Dead The latest expansion CTHULHU CITY
The complete guide to Suns adventure path for for the Elite Dangerous A new setting for Trail
Sommerlund for the Starfinder. The characters RPG, this book covers the of Cthulhu detailing an
Lone Wolf Adventure must travel deep into larger and more powerful alternate Arkham: a
Game. Enclosed within the Vast to find the Gate spaceships that can only world where the power of
are details on the of Twelve Suns where be accessed by those the Mythos holds sway,
different factions within the Cult of the Devourer who hold a rank in the humanity’s struggle is
Sommerlund, from the already hold sway, there military. It encompasses long over and humans’
royal family to druids to find the secret held new rules for rank only remaining purpose
and darklords. There within. Including new relics, progression within the is to serve the will of the
are also maps and races and a whole archive military and a catalogue revealed gods. Includes a
gazetteers for all the of new creatures, this is of new warships, as well complete noir campaign
provinces and cities of a complete adventure for as more backgrounds for in the world where
the region. ninth-level characters. new characters. darkness has won.
Cubicle 7 | £27 Paizo | $16 Modiphius | £8 Pelgrane Press | £27
tabletopgaming.co.uk 13

Replaying the winners of the Spiel des Jahres so you don’t have to
M
ost descriptions of the games that
won the Spiel des Jahres in the
1990s make the award sound like
a battle for supremacy between Wolfgang
Kramer, who had dominated the 1980s like
a meeple colossus, and Klaus Teuber, as a
feisty David to Kramer’s Goliath. But spare
a thought for the future greats who scored
their first wins this decade: Alan R. Moon and
Andreas Seyfarth.
Seyfarth is not a prolific designer. In his
career he’s produced fewer games than Reiner
Knizia has in the time it’s taken you to read
this sentence. His first titles were designed on
commission, tying in with popular characters
like Zorro and 19th-century German pranksters
14 June 2018
All the
Jahres
Words and photographs by James Wallis
MANHATTAN
Year of win: 1994
Designer: Andreas Seyfarth
Number of players: 2-4
Playing time: 45 minutes
Worthy winner? Yes
Worth playing now? Yes
Availability: Reprinted earlier this year
Price: £47
Max and Moritz. Manhattan was his first
original game and, in the roster of Spiel des
Jahres winners, it’s often unfairly overlooked.
Partly because it gets eclipsed by the game
that won the year after – Settlers of Catan,
profiled next month for all you wood-for-sheep
fans – and partly because of bad luck. But the
paradoxical fact remains that Andreas Seyfarth,
two-time Spiel des Jahres winner, is best known
for his 2002 runner-up: Puerto Rico.
Manhattan doesn’t deserve that lack of
reputation. Even among the cracking games of the
mid-nineties, it was and is a class act. It’s a game
of competitive skyscraper construction in six cities
around the world. Each player has an identical
selection of bits of buildings, each between one
and four floors, and a random hand of cards that
show the location where they can be built – not
which city, but a specific position in the three-
by-three grids that form the cities. That makes as
much sense as most local-government planning
regulations, so we’ll let it pass.

In the roster of Spiel des
Jahres winners, Manhattan
is often unfairly overlooked.
The clever part is the structure of the game. It
runs over four rounds. At the start of each one you
choose the six building bits you’re going to play
that round, then you play them into a new space
or onto an existing building and everybody adds
up their score so far. There are points for the tallest
skyscraper, for having the most buildings in each of
the cities, and for each edifice you control. But you
can only lay claim to a tower if one of your pieces
is on top of it – the penthouse – and you can only
build onto a skyscraper if the new piece means at
least half of the floors are your colour.
The position cards are random but balanced;
there are five for each space on the grid, which
means that buildings will be evenly distributed but
there’s no guarantee that you’ll get the cards you
want. So your strategy has to be fluid, constantly
evolving as things go on, which makes each game
pleasantly different. Meanwhile, having the tallest
skyscraper is like the longest road in Settlers of
Catan: people get massively overinvested in
controlling it, even though it’s not worth many
points. It’s all about the status.
Manhattan pulls off the trick of being fast
and thinky at the same time. You have to pay
attention to new developments in all six of the
cities, and be ready to react to other players. It
has that Scrabble dynamic of never giving you the
resources you want, so you have to make do with
the resources you’ve got. And all the time you
know – because it was you who chose those six
pieces at the start of the round – that you are the
architect of your own misfortune.
The mid-nineties were a golden period for
Eurogames, the first blooming of the titles that
would explode out of Germany and take the
world by storm, and Manhattan can hold its
head up alongside the best of them. Like Settlers
of Catan, Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne, it’s
simple enough for a family game, but complex
enough for experienced gamers; accessible
to newcomers but rewards exploration and
repeated play; and different enough each time
to remain engrossing. So why hasn’t it had the
recognition it deserves? The answer is bad luck
or, rather, unlucky timing – twice.
Manhattan came out in 1994, the year after
Magic: The Gathering changed the face of the
global games industry. Magic didn’t get as
much as a nomination for the Spiel des Jahres,
but nobody in the industry was thinking about
anything except collectible card games. If you
were thinking of something else, it was probably
the fact that Games Workshop had just floated
on the stock market with a value of £35 million.
Mayfair Games, the company that went on to
release Manhattan in the US, thought its future
lay in the SimCity CCG.
Mayfair’s edition came out two years later,
reframing the game from global cities to areas
of New York, but using the original German
card designs which featured computer
renderings of recognisable skyscrapers: the
Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building...
and the World Trade Center. And so it was
that just after the turn of the millennium, as
Eurogames were starting to break big in the
US, the market appeal of a game about tall
buildings in New York abruptly collapsed to
ground zero.
But times change, tastes change, memories
fade, the US elects a president whose reputation
is built on New York skyscrapers and making
America bigly again, and there’s a new edition
of Manhattan in town. The oranges and greys
of two decades ago have been replaced by
transparent pastel pieces, and the computer-
rendered towers are gone in favour of smiling
Manhattanites in bright colours. Give it a try: it’s
an architectural classic, and the view from the
tallest building is quite something.
Next month: Klaus Teuber’s masterpiece is
unleashed upon the games world, and nothing
will ever be the same. We refer, of course, to
the best-selling Kettlers of Satan. Wait, no...
tabletopgaming.co.uk 15
my favourite game
JUMA AL-JOUJOU
The Clans of Caledonia creator reveals his hidden affections
for Arthurian deduction game The Resistance: Avalon
T
he only game that I perceive as close to
perfection as possible and that I would play
any time is The Resistance: Avalon – or just
Avalon for short. Avalon is based on The
Resistance, which in turn is somewhat based
on Mafia/Werewolf.
Avalon is a social deduction game for five to ten players.
In contrast to Mafia/Werewolf, no moderator is needed.
Players are assigned secret roles at the beginning of the
game. There are two opposing camps: loyal servants of
Arthur versus the minions of Mordred. For both camps
there are unique roles that give their respective players
a unique feature. One can include no or any number of
special roles. Some special roles make one or the other
camp stronger.
The minions of Mordred know each other and thus
know who is part of the other team. However, each loyal
servant of Arthur knows their own role but not the roles
of the other players – a few special roles do have some
knowledge about that. Players go on up to five missions
and the first team to win three missions has won.
Everyone votes on which players go on a mission; never
do all the players go on a mission. Minions of Mordred
can sabotage missions and make them fail, which earns a
positive score for them. Thus, the loyal servants of Arthur
try to find out whom their teammates are and who is
part of the opposing team so they can vote on teams with
just their own teammates, which guarantees victory. The
June 2018
minions of Mordred, however, pretend to
be loyal servants of Arthur to be included
in missions.
A main feature of the game is that the
minions of Mordred lie and pretend to
cover their identity, whereas loyal servants This
of Arthur mistrust everyone and try to find
clues in other players’ behaviour – be it experience
game-specific behaviour or just words and
gestures – that help them correctly guess is a great
the other players’ secret roles.
What I love so much about Avalon reminder
is that the game can be taught in five
minutes and thus is accessible even that people
for non-gamers, yet offers a deep and
satisfying experience for regular gamers are not
like myself. The game needs minimal
material and is very transportable. perfectly
Finally, the game is a very accurate
model of a part of social interaction: rational.
everyone is lying and being lied to at
times. I have seen friends being deeply
disappointed that they were not able to
spot a close friend’s lies in this game.
Through the game I get to know others
and myself better. When a game ends, there is often a
Picture courtesy of Henk Rolleman
discussion of key situations – this discussion is often
as much fun as the game itself. Even watching other
players playing the game can be very fun. The special
roles add complexity and contribute to the
replayability, and can be used to make
the teams more balanced.
I personally tend to be very
good at the deduction part of the
game, gaining information through
sophisticated deduction of what
other players have done in this or
other situations. My weakest
part is that I often assume
players are acting rationally
in my deduction. Quite
often some player acts
seemingly irrationally, which
causes my deduction to fail
horribly and me to lose. This
experience is a great reminder
to myself that people are not
perfectly rational. Seemingly irrational
behaviour can both be an unfair advantage
and a lot of fun.
The Resistance: Avalon is the perfect game
because it is highly interactive, simple,
deep, fast and intriguing.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 17
 es T ES T

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ou didn e list of the 150
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18 June 2018
150 KINGDOMINO
149 F AT E C O R E
148 SAGRADA
147 FIASCO
146 A FEAST FOR ODIN
145 CHAOS IN THE OLD WORLD EVERYBODY LOVES…
144 ROLEMASTER Antoine Bauza, Corey Konieczka, Matt Leacock
143 SMASH UP Joint most designer credits in Top 150
142 TOKAIDO
141 SANTORINI
140 SPIRIT ISLAND 120 F I R E F LY: T H E G A M E
139 T I G R I S & E U P H R AT E S 119 S E N T I N E L S O F T H E M U LT I V E R S E NEWLY
138 TA K E N O K O 118 K I N G D O M D E AT H : M O N S T E R CROWNED
137 T ZOLK’IN: T HE M AYAN C ALENDAR 117 S TA R WA R S : 2018 games to
136 WEREWOLF/MAFIA I M P E R I A L A S S A U LT make the list
135 ARS MAGICA 116 THE 7TH CONTINENT Rising Sun (#123)
134 CAMEL UP 115 C O LT E X P R E S S Stuffed Fables
133 DINOSAUR ISLAND 114 SHERLOCK HOLMES: (#129)
132 KEMET C O N S U LT I N G D E T E C T I V E
131 MACHI KORO 113 T H E V O YA G E S O F
130 PAT C H W O R K MARCO POLO
129 STUFFED FABLES 112 FORBIDDEN DESERT
128 NECROMUNDA 111 EXPLODING KITTENS
127 CYBERPUNK 2020 110 B AT T L E T E C H
126 L E H AV R E 109 D E S C E N T: J O U R N E Y S
125 MEMOIR ‘44 IN THE DARK
124 D E LTA G R E E N 108 HANABI
123 RISING SUN 107 PAR ANOI A
122 S TA R WA R S : T H E 106 ONE NIGHT
R O L E P L AY I N G G A M E U LT I M AT E W E R E W O L F
121 CHARTERSTONE 105 STONE AGE

LOVECRAFTIEST
1. Call of Cthulhu
2. Mansions of Madness
3. Arkham Horror
4. Eldritch Horror
5. Cthulhu Wars

MAIN Clockwise from top left:

Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards
of the Coast), Pandemic, X-Wing
Miniatures Game, Ticket to
Ride, Exploding Kittens, Arkham
Horror, Through the Ages

Call of Cthulhu artwork courtesy of Chaosium

tabletopgaming.co.uk 19
 WARHAMMER 40,000
BEST OF THE LOT
VS Your favourite entries in
massive series
WARHAMMER FANTASY BATTLE
TICKET TO RIDE… EUROPE
& AGE OF SIGMAR

64% 36%

104 LORD OF THE RINGS: 76 BLOOD BOWL LOVE LETTER… BATMAN

THE CARD GAME 75 PENDRAGON
103 S AVA G E W O R L D S 74 COUP
102 AZUL 73 C I V I L I Z AT I O N
101 ORLÉANS 72 G R E AT W E S T E R N T R A I L
100 APPLES TO APPLES 71 EL GRANDE
99 DIXIT 70 S TA R WA R S : R E B E L L I O N
98 SECRET HITLER 69 UNO FLUXX… STAR FLUXX
97 GALAXY TRUCKER 68 SPACE HULK
96 LEGENDARY DECK 67 T R AV E L L E R
BUILDING GAME 66 ZOMBICIDE
95 TA L I S M A N 65 C AV E R N A :
94 FURY OF DRACULA T H E C AV E FA R M E R S
93 TRIVIAL PURSUIT 64 SHADOWRUN
92 ARKHAM HORROR: 63 CASTLES OF MAD
LEGENDARY… MARVEL
THE CARD GAME KING LUDWIG
91 ELDER SIGN 62 DEAD OF WINTER
61 FIVE TRIBES
60 AXIS & ALLIES
90 F L U X X 59 T. I . M . E S T O R I E S
“Fluxx boils down the collectible card game to its
essence. It is elegance at its finest.” 58 7 WONDERS DUEL
Justin Gary (Ascension, Shards of Infinity)
STAR WARS… X-WING
57 T E R R A M Y S T I C A MINIATURES GAME
89 POKER “Terra Mystica is a comfort game. It’s more than the
88 MAGE KNIGHT sum of its parts; it’s about how it works as a whole.”
87 R O B O R A L LY Martin Wallace (Brass, Age of Steam)
86 THROUGH THE AGES: A NEW
S T O R Y O F C I V I L I Z AT I O N 56 E C L I P S E : N E W D AW N
85 GURPS FOR THE GALAXY
84 RACE FOR THE GALAXY 55 FORBIDDEN ISLAND
83 S TA R R E A L M S 54 SCRABBLE LORD OF THE RINGS…
82 SMALL WORLD 53 CHAMPIONS OF MIDGARD THE CARD GAME
81 WA R O F T H E R I N G 52 PAT H F I N D E R
80 ANDROID: NETRUNNER R O L E P L AY I N G G A M E
79 MYSTERIUM 51 VA M P I R E : T H E M A S Q U E R A D E
78 ROBINSON CRUSOE: 50 B AT T L E S TA R G A L A C T I C A :
ADVENTURES ON THE THE BOARD GAME
CURSED ISLAND 49 PA N DE M I C L E G AC Y:
77 C T H U L H U WA R S SEASON TWO

20 June 2018
48 PUERTO RICO 20 the Arkham Horror Files series. Nothing
47 CONCORDIA WA R H A M M E R quite captures the terror of Cthulhu and
46 GO 40,000 the Ancient Ones like this sprawling co-op
Games Workshop’s adventure, though, as players’ investigators
45 DIPLOMACY seminal sci-fi wargame race to close portals to other dimensions
44 V I T I C U LT U R E trumps its fantasy and defeat the monsters they spew forth
43 WA R H A M M E R predecessor to become before it’s too late.
42 CODENAMES the highest-ranked
miniatures title on our list. With good reason: 16
41 X - W I N G M I N I AT U R E S G A M E MANSIONS
from its absorbing grimdark universe, which
40 HEROQUEST has been expanded by various books, video OF MADNESS
39 SPLENDOR games and even films, to its distinctive Space Joining its
38 A GAME OF THRONES: Marines, Orkz and other races, Warhammer Lovecraftian
THE BOARD GAME 40,000 is a classic in every way. Its latest predecessor is this
edition proved that it’s not stuck in the story-driven mystery
37 THE CASTLES OF BURGUNDY past by making some smart updates to the game, the ultimate
36 LOVE LETTER electrifying dice-chucking gameplay, keeping haunted house simulator. Tense and
35 WA R H A M M E R it the high bar for both miniatures and sci-fi punishing, Mansions doubles down on the
F A N TA S Y R O L E P L AY gaming as a whole, 30-plus years on. horror atmosphere with a roleplaying-like
approach to revealing each one of its
34 TWILIGHT STRUGGLE
19 LORDS OF scenarios, leaving the players continually
33 ELDRITCH HORROR WAT E R D E E P guessing at what could be behind the
32 CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY It might take place in next door. Its app-powered second edition
31 KING OF TOKYO the Forgotten Realms is especially revolutionary, making the
30 SUSHI GO! setting, but Lords of experience completely co-operative and
Waterdeep would be a each tale even more replayable with
29 BLOOD RAGE various different outcomes and events.
truly excellent worker
placement game even Just try to hold on to your sanity.
without its D&D dressing. Players’ powerful
28 C L U E D O secret rulers battle for control of the 15
“I would still consider Cluedo the most perfect of all city, sending their agents out to complete M O N O P O LY
murder, mystery and deduction games. One that has quests and execute their secret plans. Easy The game that
stood the test of time.” to grasp but endlessly replayable, it’s the everyone loves to
Leslie Scott (Jenga) perfect meeting of theme and gameplay. hate manages to
break into the Top
18 15. Say what you
G L O O M H AV E N like, it’s hard to deny
27 C O S M I C E N C O U N T E R The newest game it’s a stone-cold classic – and perhaps
“It’s the execution, not some high concept, that inside the Top 20, the most iconic board game ever made.
makes Cosmic Encounter so great. It’s a triumph Gloomhaven earns its Grumble all you want the next time it
of abstraction and minimalism.” place with a legacy emerges at Christmas, you’ll still find
Jason Thompson (Mangaka, Cartooner) fantasy adventure of yourself getting excited when you land
awe-inspiring scale. on Park Lane or despairing as a row of
Deftly mixing card-driven combat with a hotels leads to bankruptcy.
26 POWER GRID world that feels completely alive thanks to
25 MUNCHKIN hours upon hours of stories and scenarios 14
24 TERRAFORMING MARS to discover, Isaac Childres’ masterpiece is 7 WONDERS
23 AGRICOLA a brilliant construction of refined gameplay Packing the strategy
and hugely ambitious storytelling, inspired and delight of building
22 TWILIGHT IMPERIUM by Eurogames and roleplaying alike. a civilisation over
21 B E T R AYA L AT H O U S E thousands of years
ON THE HILL 17 ARKHAM into a half-hour card
HORROR game, 7 Wonders
The original feels as timeless as its architectural
FAMILY Lovecraftian board inspirations. Players draft cards and reveal
THROWDOWN game, Arkham Horror them together, developing their empire
1. Monopoly was created as a to earn victory points and keep their rival
2. Cluedo spin-off of RPG Call leaders in check with military might. It
3. Scrabble of Cthulhu but quickly might be simple compared to the classics
4. Uno established its universe as a world in its own of the genre, but there’s just as much to
right, giving rise to numerous follow-ups in keep you hooked for generations to come.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 21
 13 RISK
The most iconic
wargame ever created
remains as popular
as ever over 50
years later. From its
sweeping global scale
to the unpredictable
outcomes of its dice-heavy battles, Risk
remains a landmark for those wanting
to simulate all-out war. Sure, some of its
gameplay may feel a bit dated today and
there’s no doubt that matches have a habit
of stretching on for a few more hours than
some may like, but there’s no denying Risk
has earned its place in gaming history.
12 SCYTHE
Set in an alternate
1920s filled with
towering mechs and
other dieselpunk
machines, Jamey
Stegmaier’s strategy
game makes a heck of
an impression before you even lift the lid. It’s
the gameplay that will keep you coming back
time and time again though, powering along
a seriously smooth engine-building game
that goes beyond just scrapping with your
neighbours. With downtime at a minimum
and Scythe keeping up the pace throughout a
brisk couple of hours, it’s impossible not to be
swept up by the modern strategy gem.
11 CHESS
It has a couple of
centuries on nearly all
of the games on this list
(only Go is older), but
chess remains as fresh
as ever. It is the ultimate
strategy game, offering
up a lifetime – and then some – of fascination
and practice for those hooked by the ages-old
showdown of two armies. Whether you just
play casually or know your en passant from
your fianchetto, its simplicity and depth are
yet to be surpassed.
10 DOMINION
The first deckbuilder is
also still the best. The
sense of progression
as you grow a modest
selection of cards to
a refined victory point-
earning library keeps
Dominion forever engrossing, with countless
ways of putting together your custom deck
match after match.
22 June 2018
9 RUNEQUEST fortified town won
Image courtesy of Chaosium
Second only to it the fabled Spiel
Dungeons & Dragons in des Jahres in 2001.
the fantasy roleplaying More importantly,
pantheon, RuneQuest Carcassonne is the
cemented Greg board game that
Stafford’s world of popularised the
Glorantha as one of ubiquitous meeple,
the tabletop’s most imaginative creations thanks to its tiny stars who plonk down on
and introduced innovative mechanics that fields, roads, cities or wherever they darn
would go on to become staples of RPGs please. One of the best introductions to
for decades to come, most significantly in ‘proper’ games thanks to its approachable
other Basic Roleplaying titles. Its unique gameplay, complex strategy and
approach to advancing skills and the charming theme, the massive success
percentile system used to resolve attacks of Klaus-Jürgen Wrede’s creation has
and actions are still as clever today, while been matched by an endless stream of
the expansive Glorantha continues to draw expansions since.
in adventurers looking for an immersive
and vibrant setting. 5 TICKET
TO RIDE
8 PANDEMIC All aboard! Another
Matt Leacock’s enduring gateway
disease-curing smash favourite, Ticket to
hit kickstarted the Ride is the game that
modern age of co- made trains cool. It’s
operative titles with its easy enough to collect
exciting fight against coloured cards and exchange them for
a spreading plague routes of plastic carriages between the
controlled by the game itself. Its legacy major cities of North America (or Europe,
spin-off took Pandemic to even higher or the UK, or just about wherever thanks
heights, but the original foundation is a to the game’s many spin-offs), but the
dazzling creation that still serves as the real challenge is in knowing when to risk
perfect gateway to designer board gaming collecting another destination ticket –
a decade later. the best way of scoring points, but the
easiest way of losing them, too. It’s simply
7 PANDEMIC chuffing brilliant.
L E G AC Y:
SEASON ONE 4 C ATA N
Risk Legacy may Klaus Teuber’s
have done it first, but excellent Eurogame is
there’s no denying that beloved by everyone
Pandemic Legacy is from hardcore gamers
the definitive legacy to Hollywood stars.
game. Building on Pandemic’s rock-solid With its instantly-
core, Legacy finds a gripping narrative in recognisable hexes
the global catastrophe, unfolding its story (and the flimsy frame
– and new gameplay features – across they struggle to stay in), dice-based
12 in-game months. Players’ characters resource production – plus the inevitable
feel realer than ever, and their actions race to occupy the best spots for sheep
have an impact on the world, resulting and brick – and travelling thief, there’s
in potentially irreversible changes to the little wonder it’s become one of the
board – and the future of humankind. It biggest board games of all time.
never gets any easier to tear up cards,
but Pandemic Legacy taught us a
brand new way to play.
13,827 MINUTES
6 CARCASSONNE (OR 9.6 DAYS)
Truly the best reason to How long it would take to play
visit southern France, the entire Top 150 at least once
Carcassonne’s tile-laying Average play time: 106 minutes
gameplay inspired by the historic
#3 CALL OF CTHULHU
Mark Morrison, writer of numerous iconic scenarios for
the horror RPG including Horror on the Orient Express
and Reign of Terror, worships the game you’ll go crazy for
E
VEN LIBRARIANS GET BITTEN BY THE prime thought is not “How can I run a balanced
FORMLESS SPAWN OF TSATHOGGUA encounter?” but “How can I really creep them
The line above appeared as an ad for out?” Combat is always a losing prospect, so the
a strange new horror game in White game never gets bogged down with rules: instead,
Dwarf in July 1984, and has long stayed story, character and atmosphere are everything.
with me as the perfect summary of Call of Cthulhu: Your player character is not an adventurer, they
here was a game in which your character is are an investigator; be careful what you look for,
utterly ordinary, and yet is doomed to be killed by as I guarantee you won’t like the answer.
something you can’t even pronounce. Welcome to The success of Call of Cthulhu is thanks to the
Lovecraft country, population: mad. scholars who made it. While Dave Arneson and
I bought the boxed set on the promise of that Gary Gygax designed Dungeons & Dragons to level
amazing Gene Day cover (haunted house, people characters up, Sandy Petersen gleefully came
in suits, this ain’t Middle-earth any more), and was along in 1981 and designed Call of Cthulhu as
soon obsessed by it. The game played like no other; the game that breaks them down. The only way
the dungeon master became instead the ‘Keeper to defeat the unknowable is to look it in the face,
of Arcane Lore’, with licence to scare the junk food and that will drive you insane. Your destruction
out of the players. Best played by candlelight using is inevitable, but can you save the world first?
every ghost story trick in the book – odd glimpses, Somehow, instead of being frustrating, playing such
jump scares, shocking gore – the Keeper’s fragile heroes is incredibly compelling, because any
30 years later, the
game has lost none of
its power, because when we
play we gather to tell
stories in the dark.
survival is a fleeting victory. The game is built on
the Bronze Age bones of Steve Perrin’s seminal
game RuneQuest, which uses a percentile system
so elegant you really never have to look up a rule.
Master editor Lynn Willis added historical
depth and erudite lore. Like watching early
Doctor Who episodes, to play Call of Cthulhu is
to learn about other times and places, except
this time hiding behind the couch won’t save
you. Anchoring the game in the 1920s cleverly
situates it in an age which is modern enough to
be recognisable, but long enough ago to accept
that the crank handle on your Model T just broke
and your flashlight died and– what the living hell
was that pallid thing at the window just now?
Keith Herber’s seminal work on Arkham, Dunwich
and Innsmouth brought the game right back to the
decaying gambrel roofs of its famously misanthropic
creator H.P. Lovecraft, the out-of-time and out-of-
place gent from Providence whose innate sense of
the weird touches every corner of the game.
The new seventh edition by Mike Mason
and Paul Fricker smooths off a few of those
Tsathogguan edges from 1981, makes combat
even more streamlined, and introduces some
clever new mechanics which improve survivability
but only by just enough to give the players a false
sense of security. That’ll learn ‘em.
30 years later, the game has lost none of its
power, because when we play Call of Cthulhu we
gather to tell stories in the dark. The dark often
wins but that’s half the fun. Now go find a library
and get yourself bit.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 23

#2
Main: Magic: The Gathering (Wizards of the Coast)
Inset: Laura ‘Aranel’ Cranston (Paul Monaghan)
MAGIC:
Cosplayer Laura ‘Aranel’ Cranston recalls her first introduction
to the original collectible card game and considers why its
enchanting universe has cast such a spell on the real world
I
first saw a Magic: The Gathering card
when I was in my second year of university.
I stumbled across some players just
after joining the tabletop gaming society
when Alara Reborn had released. I don’t
remember what format they were playing, and
it didn’t matter. I can say without a single doubt
that it was the art that got me. I didn’t even
care if the game was good – I just wanted to
own all those beautiful cards.
The one that stood out to me then, and has
stayed with me since, was Mayael the Anima. I still
have a Commander deck built around my foil copy
of her that I had to seriously overtrade for at the
time! Jason Chan did a beautiful job, as he has done
with many, many more artworks for Magic, and
it was another card of his that made me take the
next step. You might have heard of it: a four-mana
blue planeswalker called Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
24 June 2018
It promotes such a welcoming
environment for all
players, which is so important.
THE GATHERING
I discovered cosplay around the same
time as I discovered Magic, so of course it
was logical to combine them. It is a walking
version of fan art to me; a way to express
how much I love these vibrant characters,
the multiverse, the stories and the game. I
had just finished reading Agents of Artifice
by Ari Marmell, the first book in the first
book in the A Planeswalker Novel series, so
Jace and Liliana were fresh in my head when
we went to Zendikar for the first time.
I made my Jace costume for a local
event here in the UK and was blown away
by the response. Since then my tally of
Magic costumes is up to seven and will keep
growing! Next is Jhoira from Dominaria,
which I will be taking to Gen Con 2018 to
join in the celebrations of Magic and many
other tabletop games.
Magic has taken me many wonderful
places, from my local conventions where I’ve
demoed the game to GPs where I’ve been an
official cosplayer for Wizards of the Coast.
I’ve met artists whilst wearing the characters
they designed, I’ve made friends all over the
world and I’ve played the game in multiple
countries! It isn’t overdramatic to say that it
changed my life for the better… and my bank
account balance for the worst. I would never
call myself a competitive player, but I dearly
love the game from my casual seat.
I’ve played close to every major trading
card game at some point in my life and the
only one that has stuck with me is Magic. It
promotes such a welcoming environment for
all players, which is so important. There’s a
reason it has survived these 25 years and will
continue to do so! Happy Birthday, Magic.
#1 DUNGEONS
Jason Charles Miller, host of Geek & Sundry roleplaying show Starter Kit,
looks back on the way D&D has impacted his life and explains why
the first RPG remains unsurpassed almost half a century on
T
he lifeblood that is Dungeons &
Dragons has been flowing through
my veins for so long that I don’t even
have to think about it anymore. Don’t
get me wrong: I WANT to think about
it, and I DO think about it – some might say
too much – but like many lifelong players, D&D
has become a filter that I look at the real world
through. Just don’t tell me what you think my
real life intelligence score is, okay?
Growing up in rural Virginia with very few
houses within walking distance, I was kind of
a lonely kid. Luckily, when I was around eight,
a same-aged, like-minded nearby neighbour
loved Dungeons & Dragons. We used to play
it constantly on our long bus rides to and from
school. His adventures always started with,
“You’ve been travelling along for many days. You
come across a...” After he moved away, I was
left with no-one to play with in person for a few
years, so I just started studying the rules and
background of the game. I collected every D&D
book, module, magazine, figure (remember the
old Ral Partha miniatures?) I could find, created
character after character, dungeon after
dungeon, town after town, ready for the day to
play with actual people again – which, luckily,
wouldn’t be too long.
Starting again in fifth grade, around the age
of 11, throughout junior high and high school
I found a core group of friends to play with.
With countless hours of play, I saw everyday
people completely transform into their
fantastic characters with just a few sentences
of backstory. I saw teamwork unlooked
& DRAGONS
for, monsters unheard of and treasures shy people whom I saw completely transform
undreamed of. I saw the game make people his real-life persona thanks in part to D&D – I
think about how the things they did in D&D asked his brother if I could have at least one of
applied to how they approached problems his Dungeons & Dragons books. He gave me a
in the real world. I saw it give shy people the few and, much to my surprise, all of Nathan’s
confidence to transform their real lives. old notes and characters were inside one of
While attending George Mason University, I them. Something someone else might have
had the chance to run my own campaign. Late thrown out or not understood, I can read and
nights in a crowded dormitory while everyone use to remember our adventures together. In
else was going to the basketball game, I was fact, I think I might do that right now.
running friends through the world I created.
The very same world I had started to create
back when I was 10 years old, waiting to find
new people to play with.
I wouldn’t have named my band Godhead
without Dungeons & Dragons! I first discovered
the word inside a D&D module from an issue of
Fantasy Gamer magazine. I still have the issue,
right alongside my old modules like In Search of
the Unknown and White Plume Mountain.
One of the greatest things about Dungeons
& Dragons for me is sharing it with new people.
Watching their eyes widen as they discover
what they are ‘allowed’ to do in the game. “You
mean I can do THAT? All I have to do is roll
WHAT number?” On my show Starter Kit, we
do that every week. How lucky am I? I get to
teach people how to play roleplaying games and
then show that to the rest of the world!
Just to put into perspective how much
D&D means to me, when one of my oldest
friends Nathan suddenly died a few years
ago – one whom I also had been
playing D&D with since the age
of 11, and one of those
Main: Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards of the Coast)
Inset: Jason Charles Miller (Geek & Sundry/Alpha)
I saw everyday people
completely transform into their
fantastic characters with just
a few sentences of backstory.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 25
 After exploring, sailing and raiding the North Sea, Shem Phillips
is headed in a new direction with a follow-up trilogy to his
Viking saga – and, this time, he’s not going alone
G
T
Words by Matt Jarvis

hree, as they say, is a magic
number. The Lord of the Rings.
Back to the Future. The Dark
Knight. The Godfather. Toy Story.
The triple trilogy of Star Wars.
There’s just something about
having three of something that
makes it feel special – more
substantial than two, but without the dilution or
weariness of becoming a longer series. Beginning,
middle, end. Deliberate. Meaningful. Magic.
Of course, just because three often feels deliberate
and planned doesn’t mean it always starts out that
way. That was the case for New Zealand designer
Shem Phillips. A part-time designer for years,
Phillips found modest success in his home country
in 2012 with Plethora, a pick-up-and-deliver game
crowdfunded through New Zealand site PledgeMe.
The following year, Kickstarter began accepting
projects from Australia and New Zealand. Phillips
brought to the platform Shipwrights of the North
Sea, a Viking-themed card game about constructing
a fleet he had created years earlier but shelved as a
result of its ambition. Shipwrights, rather fittingly,
allowed Phillips’ vision to cross the oceans, opening
the game up to interested players around the globe.
It eventually raised more than NZ$73,000 – over ten
times the amount made by Plethora.
Phillips quickly followed Shipwrights with 2015’s
Raiders of the North Sea. Whereas Shipwrights had
been set during the early years of the Viking era,
Raiders took the middle of the age as its background.
While cards still played a central part, Raiders
was more of a worker-placement board game,
with players assembling crews of Norse warriors
and pillaging settlements to gather the greatest
offerings for their chieftain. Widely acclaimed,
Raiders earned Phillips a nomination for last year’s
esteemed Kennerspiel des Jahres ‘Expert Game of
the Year’ award – and the NZ$157,000 it gathered on
Kickstarter didn’t hurt either.
Phillips’ swelling success allowed him to leave his
job as a digital printing factory manager, turning his
attention to his indie studio Garphill Games full-time
in January 2016. The following month, he launched
a crowdfunding campaign for the third and final
chapter in the North Sea trilogy, Explorers of the North
Sea. As distinct from Raiders as that had been from

26 June 2018
GO WEST

tabletopgaming.co.uk 27
 ARCHITECTS OF THE WEST KINGDOM
Shipwrights, Explorers centred on sea captains seeking
out new lands to settle in the last years of the Viking
age, using an action point system and modular board
to simulate the discovery of islands.
The Kickstarter was Phillips’ most successful
yet, gathering an impressive NZ$324,000. More
importantly, the crowdfunding campaign solidified
the loose connection between the games with an
expansion, Runesaga, that allowed the three chapters
to be played as a connected campaign spanning the
entire Viking era from beginning to end. Although the
series had finished as a single unified vision, Phillips
admits that the trilogy hadn’t started that way.
The games tell the story. It
allows players to dig deep into
the world and discover its crazy
characters and locations.
28 June 2018
“It wasn’t ‘til after Shipwrights was released that I
decided to create the North Sea trilogy,” he says. “So
while that trilogy still works well together, I had to
make it up along the way.”
A CHANGE OF COURSE
While Explorers brought the North Sea saga to a close,
the trilogy itself was the beginning of something new.
Earlier this year, Phillips announced a follow-up to the
North Sea series – West Kingdom, a new trio of games
created with a similarly shared setting.
“After finishing the North Sea trilogy, it just made
sense to start a new one,” the designer enthuses.

ABOVE Players can
capture their rivals’ workers
BELOW The nobles are
trying to impress their king
by constructing buildings
Although the West Kingdom games will all be set in
the same place, they will follow Shipwrights, Raiders
and Explorers’ habit of reinventing their theme with
each new instalment.
“All the games will be Euro in style,” Phillips
confirms. “They will be a similar weight and
similar experience from what we’ve seen in the
North Sea series. However, they will all be unique
games mechanically.”
The first chapter, Architects of the West Kingdom,
takes place during the latter years of the Carolingian
Empire in the mid-ninth century. Much like
Shipwrights, the focus is on building: this time,
though, players are keeping their feet dry and their
hands clean, controlling nobles who must hire
apprentices, collect resources and manage their
workforce to construct landmarks in honour of their
ruler’s new kingdom.
“The West Kingdom was formed when the Frankish
Kingdom split apart after years of civil war,” Phillips
explains. “The West eventually developed into what we
know today as France. So the gameplay of Architects is
all about developing the newly established domain in
the West.”
The timeframe places the West Kingdom alongside
its northern predecessor. Phillips teases the
opportunity for the two historical series to cross over.
“The game is set in the same medieval time period
as the North Sea games,” he says. “Who knows,
perhaps the Vikings will even make an appearance at
some point?”
Although the North Sea and West Kingdom titles’
gameplay place them in the realm of Eurogames,
often considered to have a drier sense of atmosphere
and theme than their more unpredictable
counterparts, Phillips is keen to further develop the
sense of historical storytelling his impromptu Norse
chronicle began.
“Creating a series allows me to build an IP that I can
explore various aspects of thematically, without ever
needing write a novel or comic,” he says. “The games
tell the story. It allows players to dig deep into the
world and discover its crazy characters and locations.
From a marketing point of view, it gives the games a
longer shelf life, because the first game still sell well
when the third game is released.”
With one completed series already under his belt and
the confidence to produce two more games set in the
West Kingdom, Phillips promises even more ambitious
efforts to tie it all together the second time around.
“Going into these games, knowing it will be a trilogy
provides a great amount of planning looking forward,”
he says. “I am able to add things into early games that
foreshadow things to come. It’s a lot of fun!”
BUILD ME UP
Architects of the West Kingdom will look familiar to
fans of the North Sea trilogy, thanks to the striking
cartoony visuals of returning illustrator Mihajlo
Dimitrievski and its matching resource tokens. Even
for those not already accustomed to the North Sea
signature style, the game at first glance sticks close
to the typical worker-placement form. Look a little
closer, though, and it’s clear that Architects is subtly
breaking the mould.
“At its core, it’s a worker-placement game of
gathering resources and constructing buildings,”
Phillips details. “However, there are a few new features.
The first is that, unlike most worker-placements, you
start the game with 20 workers. Each turn you will
be placing one of these onto the board and taking an
action. As you place workers into the same location,
over a number of turns, the rewards you receive will
increase. For example, one worker at the quarry will
get one stone. Two workers will get two stone. Three
will get three and so on.”
tabletopgaming.co.uk 29
 ARCHITECTS OF THE WEST KINGDOM

To counterbalance the ability of players to NOT ALONE

Each generate increasing amounts of resources, Phillips designed the North Sea trilogy solo, but a

player
Architects also features a capture mechanic. That’s change of direction presents the opportunity for other
right: if you find yourself irritated by a rival player’s new ideas. For Architects, Phillips was joined as co-

tracks their
worker, you can simply utilise the age-old tactic of designer by newcomer Sam Macdonald.
bribery and extortion. “It made the process a lot easier,” Phillips says.

virtue during
“After a while, players will start getting greedy “We are very good friends. We actually played in
with their workers at the quarry,” Phillips suggests. a band together for five years before this. So we

the game. “Therefore another player might decide to stop them.

“For a few silver, players can capture a group of
already knew we worked well together, especially
in a creative sense.”

This leads workers from one location. These workers are kept on
the capturing player’s board until they decide to send
Phillips adds that his habit of approaching
each game with a completely different style of

to a lot of them to prison for a sweet reward. The good news for
the player that had their workers captured is that they
gameplay means that “Sam won’t necessarily
work on all the games in the series, but that’s
interesting can easily free them from prison, without any cost to
them. This is the primary way workers are returned to
not to say he won’t either”.
Macdonald was responsible for Architects’
decisions. players’ boards.”
If that sounds a little morally questionable, you’d be
automated solo mode, which Phillips praises as
“act[ing] more like a real opponent”.
You want right. Luckily, one of Architects’ most intriguing features
is a virtue track, used to judge players’ level of dirty
“They place and capture workers, visit the black
market, construct the cathedral, et cetera,” he
to steal the dealing across the course of each match. Too many continues. “This makes for a much more engaging and

10 silver
underhanded tactics and they might find themselves tense experience.”
at a disadvantage. But nice people finish last, too, so The solo variant has inspired a similar solitaire

from the tax

playing it too safe can be its own shortcoming. system for Raiders of the North Sea, which Macdonald
“Each player will track their virtue during the game,” is developing retroactively as an upcoming optional

stand, but it
Phillips explains. “As they rise and fall, they main expansion for the Viking game.
lose access to some areas of the board – too evil to “Recently I have come to realise that if you can

will cost you construct the cathedral, or too good to visit the black
market. At the game’s end, players could potentially
include a solo option in the box, you should,” Phillips
admits. “Sometimes development time is tight and

two virtue. gain or lose points based on their final position on the
virtue track. This leads to a lot of interesting decisions
in the game. You want to steal the 10 silver from the
tax stand, but it will cost you two virtue. Or maybe you
want some marble from the black market, but that will
also cause you to drop in virtue.”
this is not possible, but I will always try to achieve
this if I can.”
RULE OF THREE
Looking back on the North Sea trilogy, it seems fitting
that Phillips focused his tabletop Vikings on exploring

30 June 2018
 uncharted waters and encountering new lands. After
Hiring apprentices is all, he was setting off on his own voyage of discovery
crucial to gathering the – one that allowed him to carve out a piece of the
resources needed to thrive tabletop landscape for himself.
Given that, it’s only right that the West Kingdom
should begin with players building on an already
discovered land, just as Phillips already has the solid
foundations of the North Sea series under his feet
and plans to take his creation to even higher heights.
He confirms his ambitions to bring together the West
Kingdom games in a single campaign-like experience,
just as he achieved with North Sea.
“I will definitely be working towards something like
Runesaga for the West Kingdom trilogy,” he says.
The North Sea trilogy was the result of a designer
discovering as he went, reacting to the growing
popularity of his creations. West Kingdom already
suggests a more deliberate approach, one that hints
at an even greater vision: having raided the North
and with plans to build up his empire in the West…
can we expect South and East trilogies in the future
from Phillips?
“That is the big question!” the designer replies
playfully. “I think I’ll just let people speculate over that
for a little while longer.”
It may just be starting its own journey, but the West
Kingdom may well become the second chapter in a
much bigger story.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 31
 H AV E Y O U P L AY E D ?
AXIS & ALLIES
As exciting as it is enormous, the WWII sim has
become a strategy classic since it debuted over
30 years ago. Grab your dice and prepare for war
F
Words by Matt Jarvis
rom the outside, historical games
can sometimes seem a bit dry.
While some people find nothing
more engrossing than a 15-hour
recreation of an ancient battle
down to the direction the wind was blowing
and what colour socks Napoleon had on,
others would rather eat a history book than
simulate every last exhaustive detail. On the
other hand, there’s a uniquely exciting draw
to the idea that you’re reliving real events,
rewriting the past with dice rolls and proving
yourself a more competent general than
history’s finest.
Axis & Allies is one of the most purely
enjoyable historical games ever made
precisely because it refuses to get bogged
down in the nitty-gritty or do away with
realism altogether. Created by Larry Harris
Jr. in 1981, the game’s early tagline was “A
Game of High Adventure”. That told you
everything you needed to know: this wasn’t
a stuffy wargame laden with rules. It was
32 June 2018
an exciting, cinematic experience that
nevertheless did justice to its serious subject
matter. More Saving Private Ryan than The
World at War.
More than three decades and a dozen
variations on, Axis & Allies is still just as
entertaining to play today, attracting both
wargame buffs and genre newcomers to its
simplified recreation of World War II.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
The original Axis & Allies began its simulation
of World War II in 1942, with players taking
control of the opposing sides partway
through the conflict. More than two players
could play, dividing up the nations that
comprised the Axis and Allied sides – this
was initially just Germany and Japan against
the Soviet Union, the US and the UK, but the
2008 50th Anniversary Edition introduced
Italy as a third Axis power (expanding the
player count to six) and China as another
Ally, controlled by the US.
Later revisions of the first edition and
subsequent spin-offs adjusted the start point
of the game to be earlier or later in the war,
with several titles in the series focusing on
specific theatres of war in contrast to the
flagship game’s global perspective.
Each side of the conflict is trying to take
control of critical territories, capturing enough
regions to force their enemies to concede defeat.
To do so, they must muster the military strength
of their respective countries, purchasing new
units and commanding them around the map
board to push back rival troops.
Unlike many wargames, Axis & Allies
features a streamlined simulation of the
wartime economy, using universal Industry
Production Certificates – IPCs – to represent
the resources of each nation that can be
used to buy extra forces or, depending on the
edition, research advanced technology by
rolling dice. Capturing territories increases
this production – in earlier editions of the
game, the Axis side could also win by holding
a big enough economic advantage, but this
was later dropped in favour of needing to seize
specific victory cities.
HOW DO YOU PLAY?
Axis & Allies’ rules vary depending on which
edition of the game you’re playing – and, with
a lot of different versions, there’s no shortage
of gameplay variants out there.
The basics remain the same, though,
following in the Risk school of moving troops
around a world map broken into majority

territories and rolling enough dice to jam
a tank’s treads to resolve combat. What
makes Axis & Allies a more complex (and,
some might say, superior) experience to Risk
is that each type of unit has unique rules
that present the chance for greater tactical
strategy, instead of relying solely on bigger
numbers and/or good luck.
It’s these units that serve as the focus of
most of Axis & Allies’ rules variations between
editions, but they generally stick to the same
roles in battles. Infantry are weak and slow, but
cheap, and can be boosted (in every edition
except the original A&A)) by the presence of
artillery. Tanks are stronger and faster, and also
have the ability to ‘blitz’ through territories,
allowing them to cross distances quicker to
engage with the enemy. In the skies, fighters
are nimble and strong, with bombers able
to cause damage to buildings to cripple
the opposition’s production – in the first
edition, this was represented by directly
taking away IPCs from their target, while
later editions allowed them to damage the
industrial complexes that produce units. The sea
is especially busy, with submarines, transport
ships, destroyers, cruisers, battleships and
aircraft carriers each having unique advantages
and disadvantages. The stealth of submarines,
able to surface and fire first at units, is especially
useful, while cruisers and
battleships can assist land units
by bombarding the shore.
Each unit has a unique
attack and defence rating
that symbolises its ability during a battle,
as well as the die rolls required to dish out
damage in either situation. Units exchange fire
simultaneously, meaning that even units that
are destroyed can contribute to whittling away
enemy forces before they’re removed from
the board. Battles continue until one side is
defeated or the attacker retreats, which means
you can suffer mutual destruction – or a single
infantry can triumphantly take down a fleet of
tanks, if you’re lucky enough.
Players hire units at the beginning of a
turn, but they don’t appear until the end of
the round and are sometimes limited by the
industrial complexes owned by that side,
making forward planning crucial. Units that
are participating in combat move and resolve
battles first, followed by non-combat moves.
So it goes, with troops sweeping across
the globe in pursuit of the key victory cities
needed to win, doing battle and receiving
reinforcements until one side is victorious.
The rules may not be too complicated –
especially compared to other wargames – but
it’s a tense struggle that can last for hours of
back-and-forth tussles, desperate attempts to
outwit the enemy and exciting moments.
WHY SHOULD YOU TRY IT?
Axis & Allies is one of the greatest wargames
ever made because it balances simple rules
with enough depth to avoid feeling as dated
and repetitious as more rudimentary dice-
rolling strategy games like Risk.
The theme is obviously a big draw, and Axis
& Allies captures the grand scale of World War
II in enough detail to make it exciting and
immersive without becoming weighed down
by complete realism. It may not be the most
MAIN Axis & Allies was originally set from 1942 onwards
BELOW The 50th Anniversary Edition doesn’t skimp on scale
accurate simulation of World War II out there,
but anyone can enjoy the sprawling picture of
history it paints across the table.
For our money, the best version to pick
up is the 50th Anniversary Edition, which is
the best Axis & Allies has ever been when it
comes to both gameplay and presentation –
although it will cost you. There are enough
rule tweaks and refinements to offer plenty
of depth, and the unique miniatures for each
nation and enormous board give the game
the true scale it deserves. If you’re looking
for an ever grander experience, individual
standalone games Pacific 1940 and Europe
1940 can be combined to play a truly
overwhelming global variant with all nine
major nations and additional units – it might
be a little too much for some, though.
Although it works brilliantly with two
people, Axis & Allies makes for an involving
team game as bigger groups divide up the
individual nations of either side – it’s very easy
to fall into the theme for an entire day (or two)
with the right group of people.
There are plans to put a weirder spin on
the game’s historical setting, too, with the
announcement of the upcoming Axis & Allies
& Zombies set to bring the walking dead to the
real-life time period. A long-awaited digital
version for mobile and PC is also confirmed to
be in the works, with a release date slated for
sometime in the next 12 months.
Decades after it first brought World War II
vividly to life, Axis & Allies continues to be a
truly epic way to experience one of history’s
most fascinating periods. It’s a game that you
can learn in minutes, but that will keep you
playing for years. Just make sure you choose
your Allies wisely.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 33
 KICKSTARTING
F R O M S C R A T C H
As Holly Gramazio presses the button to finally make Art
Deck’s crowdfunding campaign live, she looks back on the
O
months of decisions – big and small – that now add up
kay. So.
Sooner After months of working on Art Deck
whenever we could find the time – and
or later letting it fall by the wayside when things
got busy – it’s finally time.
you just We’ve talked about a lot of Kickstarters to a lot of
people, and one of the things we’ve learned is that
have to there’s always something more you can do. You can
run a few extra playtests, build up your mailing list with
hit go, and a couple more names. You can take better pictures. You
can dither about whether you need another reward
cross your level. (“For £100,000, we’ll make a custom deck just
for you, and run a private game... in space!”) You can
fingers. sit down and plot deeply implausible stretch goals.
(“When we hit £12 million, all backers will receive a
new expansion, designed in collaboration with the
ghost of Salvador Dali.”)
And it’s not that all that extra planning wouldn’t
help. But if you’ve thought about your game a lot,
and playtested it, and done your budgets, and
triple-checked your shipping costs, and designed
your cards, and made your video, and started telling
people about your Kickstarter, and you still think it’s a
good idea – sooner or later you just have to hit go, and
cross your fingers.
June 2018
We’re finally at that point. It’s time for us to commit
to the hundreds of different tiny decisions we’ve been
accumulating over the last six months. It’s time to put
all of that information we’ve been gathering into our
Kickstarter page, and then press the big button to set
it all live.
We’ve picked a launch date: May 30th. We’ve
started talking about that date in public, to make
sure we don’t let it slip any further. And we’ve made
a big list of everything we have left to do before that
launch date. There are tiny details, like naming the
reward levels. There are big important things too,
like that question about risks and challenges that
comes at the end of every Kickstarter project. That’s
the strangest question of all to fill out; it requires
a perfect mixture of pessimism – coming up with
all the possible issues – and optimism, because of
course all these problems are only relevant if the
Kickstarter succeeds.
It’s a lot of stuff left to do! It was a bit of a shock to
go to realise just how much we have left to do, despite
our months of planning – to realise that thinking
about a decision for weeks, and even making that
decision, isn’t the same as following through on it.
Choosing someone to make a film, and agreeing a cost
with them, isn’t the same as sitting down in a well-lit
room and cheerily explaining game rules to a camera.
Saying, “Oh, oh, we can call the fun expansion PARTY,
and the educational one ARTY!” isn’t the same as
explaining why those expansions exist and how they
change the play experience.
Once we’d written everything down, it was
tempting to go back to the planning stage – to
spend another couple of months thinking and
working away when time allowed, and then see
where we were.
But it was only because we’d decided to commit
to a launch that we found all those gaps and could
start to fill them. There was never going to be a magic
moment when we realised our project was 100%
ready; it was always going to be a matter of choosing
a date, and then using that date as the impetus to get
us to finish pulling everything together.
So: May 30th. A Wednesday, in line with all the
advice about launching mid-week.
Fingers crossed, then.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 35
 HOW WE MADE

TIGRIS &
EUPHRATES
Streamlined and strategic, the civilisation sensation
launched designer Reiner Knizia into tabletop
stardom two decades ago. As a spiritual successor
prepares to continue the story this year, its creator
looks back on the game that changed his life
Words by Owen Duffy

36 June 2018
W
ith more than 600
published games to
his name, German
designer Reiner Knizia
is one of the most
prolific creators in the analogue gaming
industry. His massively diverse output
includes the Spiel des Jahres-winning Keltis,
Egyptian-themed auction game Ra and nail-
bitingly tense co-op Lord of the Rings.
While Knizia’s design portfolio is extensive,
one release in particular has won lasting
acclaim. Tigris & Euphrates is a tile-laying
game of ancient empires. For more than 20
years its blend of simple rules and thoughtful
strategy has brought players to the table time
and time again, and now it’s set to spawn a
spiritual successor in the form of Yellow &
Yangtze – a follow-up that transports players to
the birth of imperial China.
We spoke to Knizia to uncover the story
behind the game, and find out why it’s
enjoyed such enduring success.
A MOMENT IN HISTORY
In 1997, Reiner Knizia found himself at a
crossroads. He’d been interested in game
design since his childhood, and several of
his games had been picked up by publishers.
His releases included well-received titles like
Modern Art, Medici and High Society, and he’d
earned a reputation for slick, elegant designs
that offered players plenty of tactical decisions
to chew over.
But while his work had garnered praise
from fans and critics, games had remained
a sideline to his successful career in the
finance industry.
“I was a director of a big mortgage
company,” he says, “and I eventually realised
that I needed to do one thing or the other. In
the end I decided to follow my heart and go
with the games.
“It was less a career decision and more a
question of what I wanted to do with the one
life I had.”
He needed a successful release to mark his
transition to full-time game design, and for

Players create their character from a number of traits –

some known to their partner, some not – that can go on
to influence their decisions during Fog of Love’s various
situational dilemmas and relationship-defining events

tabletopgaming.co.uk 37
 HOW WE MADE T I G R I S & E U P H R A T E S
Only players’ lowest
score across the four
domains counts at the
end, forcing them to keep
their values balanced
inspiration he turned to one of his greatest
interests: ancient history.
He began work on a game exploring some
of the earliest developments of human
civilisation in ancient Mesopotamia – the area
largely taken up by modern-day Iraq. The
two great rivers flowing through the region,
the Tigris and the Euphrates, had provided
stretches of fertile land suitable for farming,
and over the centuries cities and empires had
risen and fallen in a tide of war, trade, faith,
famine and intrigue. It seemed like the perfect
material for a game.
“I’m always fascinated by themes,” Knizia
says. “I remember that I did a lot of research
and reading about these Mesopotamian
ages. I got a very rich background story, and I
essentially forced myself to learn that before I
started actually designing the game.
“This was more than 20 years ago and, yes,
the internet was somewhat there, but I relied
for research on books. I have a big, big library
of history books, but some of the most useful
sources I used were actually children’s books.
“The level of complexity and depth of story
you can bring across in a game is not more
38 June 2018
complex than a children’s book. If you read
an in-depth history book, there’s so much
detail there. But a game isn’t about reading
lots of pages, a game is about playing. You
need to communicate on a simple but
precise level what it’s about, essentially like a
children’s book.”
He attempted to translate the historical
feel and flavour of these early civilisations to
a set of game mechanisms. But where many
prior designers had relied on complex rules
and piles of cards, chips and tokens to convey
an epic, century-spanning theme, Knizia’s
approach was far more streamlined.
His design saw players laying down tiles to
steadily grow their kingdoms, with different
colours representing various aspects of their
nascent cultures: farms, temples, markets
and settlements. Over time, opponents would
spread their influence across the map. But
conflicts arose when rival cultures collided, and
empires would wax and wane in a succession of
expansions and clashes – a process Knizia says
replicated the real-life history of the region.
“Essentially my big impression was that
the kingdoms weren’t very stable,” he says.
“They grew and they fell apart again, but
it was always influenced by strong nobles,
powerful families, and often they were
spread across various cities where they had
marriage connections.”
Mesopotamian cultures weren’t
homogeneous, self-contained units, he
realised; they were an intricate lattice of
factions, each with their own powerful
figures. He incorporated these into the game
in the shape of tokens representing leaders
of different groups, which players used to
establish their standing in each of their
society’s four domains.
“These leaders influence what happens,”
says Knizia, “but through conflict the
kingdoms fall apart. There are external wars
and internal conflicts, revolutions and coups.
“That concept came up early and it worked
very nicely. It captured what the overall
political structure looked like, but also the
idea of these influential families who were
trying to further their own interests.
“Some people say that’s a relatively abstract
approach, because I don’t have decks of event
cards and so on, but it’s more about the feeling
and my emotions. I want to play exactly as
the period was. The kingdom is growing,
it’s unstable, I’m trying to secure my power
position, and that’s mainly how it felt to me.”
Conflict was a core element of the
game but, again, Knizia aimed to
resolve clashes between kingdoms as
simply as possible. Wherever players
laid tiles that caused their kingdoms
to join together, they compared the
strength of their leaders, determined
by the number of tiles they were
connected to on the map. Then they’d boost
their strength by adding additional tiles from
their hand, with the loser forced to retreat,
removing their leader from the board.
The approach meant that combat was quick
and simple to resolve. But Knizia says it also
reflected the consequences of conflict for
warring powers.
“You can’t have a calculable conflict
like chess where players can say: ‘Okay, if
I do these two or three moves then I can
capture this piece,’” he explains. “There has
to be uncertainty. You have to build up your
strength, or pretend that you’re strong when in
reality you aren’t.
“And, of course, it costs you. If you commit
resources to one war then you’re weaker for
the next one, and the next person comes
along and says: ‘Okay, you’ve just been
weakened and now I’ll
take advantage.’
“It’s like real life. You need to pick your
fights very carefully.”
In a devious twist, players could even
engineer collisions between other opponents,
forcing them into unintended conflicts and
then swooping in to capitalise on their losses.
“That was the intrigue element,” Knizia
explains. “You’re trying to manage the power
base, and if you manage to get two of your
opponents set up against each other then that
can be a very big advantage.
“On many levels it expresses the politics,
the way you ruled a country at that time. I
don’t think that the world has really changed
all that much since.”
ACHIEVING BALANCE
Expansionism and warfare might have been
key parts of the game, but Tigris & Euphrates
also emphasised the need for long-term
development. By arranging matching tiles in
careful configurations, players could construct
monuments – three-dimensional building
tokens representing the grandeur of their
ascendant empires, and netting them a steady
supply of victory points on every turn.
“I wanted to provide a bigger achievement
for players to go after,” Knizia says. “You can’t
build a monument in one turn; you need
to have a strategic plan, and you can only
do it if you’re reasonably at peace. You’re
not fighting off other people, and you can
concentrate on building.
The level of
complexity
and depth of
story you can
bring across in a
game is not more
complex than
a children’s
book.
“But it’s also about envy. You have an
element that is very powerful and very
productive, and if the other players let you
continue then you will get richer and richer
and run away with the game, so they’re now
under pressure to do something. It puts
another focus into the middle and the end of
the game. It adds an element of urgency to the
gameplay. You always have to see how many
points the opponent’s scoring.”
The game’s scoring system was perhaps
its greatest strength. Players scored points
for each of the different factions in their
empire, but at the end of the game only the
lowest of their four totals counted towards
victory. It forced players to develop all aspects
of their society, and it also provided a way
for opponents to attempt to constrain an
emerging leader.
“If you can keep your opponent down
in one colour, you’ll be fine,” Knizia says,
“because what’s the use of having the biggest
army if you can’t feed it?
“The scoring system came relatively
early in the design, because that was a very
fundamental part of the game. I think a lot
about scoring systems early in the design
process, because how you allow people to
score drives the game and guides the players.
Depending on how I design the scoring
system, people will behave differently.
“It needs to feel kind of authentic. If I said:
‘It doesn’t matter how you get points, just
add them up at the end of the game,’ then you
would simply focus on one strength and run
away with that. Without the scoring system I
don’t think the game would work anything like
as well as it does.”
BACK TO BASICS
The game’s elements came together to create a
seamless experience. Individually, none of its
mechanisms were particularly complicated,
but they combined to create a series of tricky
tactical decisions.
“That is exactly what I’m aiming for,” says
Knizia. “I always say there are two types of
designers. One type is the storyteller. They
create a lot of redundancy, a lot of detail, a lot
cards, a lot of text, and they try to derive the
game from this mass of different elements.
“I’m the other side. I’m more like a scientist.
I try to reduce the world into a few basic, clear
principles. It’s not simplistic, though. The
depth comes from how well you understand
these principles and how you apply them in
competition with your opponent. You give the
opponents enough freedom in the game so
tabletopgaming.co.uk 39
 HOW WE MADE T I G R I S & E U P H R A T E S
Players can build monuments to earn a steady
income of victory points, but it’s hard to do if
they’re too busy fighting with their neighbours
that they can play differently. The experience
is not just the gameplay, it’s the other players
who are involved. That’s what creates a
personality in a game.”
The approach proved successful: Tigris &
Euphrates won the Deutscher Spielepreis,
as well as picking up a Spiel des Jahres
nomination. In the years since its release it’s
remained perennially popular, with many fans
calling it Knizia’s greatest design.
“I didn’t expect that it would have this kind
of longevity,” Knizia admits. “I was working
from a different perspective at that time. I was
trying to make nice games which I liked to
play, and I hoped other people liked to play.
This was more than 20 years ago, I wasn’t
thinking about what developed afterwards. I
was just trying to do single games that were as
good as I could make them.”
Today, though, Knizia is one of the most
recognisable names in the hobby and, while
his own work takes up a lot of his time, he
keeps a keen eye on newly emerging games.
“When I play games by other designers I’m
more trying to understand them,” he says.
“I’m trying to see new trends in the industry,
to see what they do, what they contribute,
what new elements they have, what I feel
when I play them.
40 June 2018
“I enjoy the condensed games more; I don’t
want too many rules, I just want to play. But it’s
really not relevant whether I like a game – it’s
not even relevant whether I like my games! It’s
about whether it’s something that other people
want to play. And the challenge is to stay
relevant and go with the times, because games
are a mirror of our time, and times change.
“For example, I ignored deckbuilding games
for a long time, and then I did my own with El
Dorado. But I only did it because I thought I
could contribute something new. I don’t just
want to follow other people’s designs. But
equally, you can’t just sit there and say: ‘I’ve
done this for 20 years and I will continue doing
what I’ve done for another 20 years.’”
CHANGING FLOW
While spotting new directions in gaming is
important to Knizia, he admits that it’s far
from an exact science.
“In a way I think it’s almost a random
process where things go,” he says. “Something
is successful, and people move in that
direction. If you think of Trivial Pursuit or
Mastermind, they inspired all these brain
games and the Rubik’s Cube. After Who Wants
to be a Millionaire? you suddenly saw a lot of
quiz games. Or there is a really marvellous
idea like deckbuilding, or suddenly you see a
lot of legacy games. You have one front-runner
who does a very excellent game, Pandemic,
and then suddenly there’s a lot of hype.
“I thought deckbuilding games were too
difficult for the general public,
but it’s turned out differently;
I’m usually wrong! I thought
Richard Garfield’s game Magic: The
Gathering was hopeless, far too
complicated. I mean, how wrong
can you be?
“Trying to forecast anything is
futile. I think you need to just look
at what’s successful and look at a
single game and ask: ‘Why does this
work?’ And sometimes you just
don’t know.”
Today, Knizia sees the explosion
of electronic games – particularly
on smartphones and tablets – as a
major influence on designers.
“You have this little screen with no
way to really communicate rules,” he says.
“How can you bring fascination – how can you
bring exciting, immersive play – into such a
little environment? These insights influence
other games. There’s subconscious influence
going on, and of course more money is
coming into the world of games, so more
people started getting into game design; more
brains and therefore more creativity.”
While he looks to the future, Knizia is also
revisiting the legacy of Tigris & Euphrates.
His upcoming release Yellow & Yangtze takes
the tile-laying formula to a new setting,
with players becoming the heads of warring
dynasties in ancient China. While fans will
find some familiar elements in the game, its
designer stresses that it’s much more than a
straightforward rehash.
“If I do a new game it’s not just that I change
the board and change the colour of the tiles,”
he says. “It’s a completely independent game.
It’s in a different culture.
“In China power didn’t come from religion,
it came from the administration. So where in
Mesopotamia the gods gave the leaders power
and entitlement, here it’s the emperor. So
immediately all the different elements in the
game have different roles.
“If you look into the basic principles, the
basic patterns are the same, but the feeling
is very different. I think after 20 years of the
original classic game, having a new one to sit
next to it – not to replace it but to add some
new challenges – will bring a lot of enjoyment
to players.”
 the independent shelf
BEMUSED
It’s not often you have the chance to become the muse for a virtuoso,
but this weird and wonderful card game lets you do just that
Words and pictures by Charlie Theel

Y
ou can’t teach special. virtuosi, or even remove them entirely.
Designer Jim Felli and his Players start asking for favours and
publishing house Devious momentary alliances seep into the
Weasel Games just have it. messy proceedings. Insults are cast
Felli’s designs tend to be witty and and emotion prevails above logic.
obtuse, bucking conventional wisdom There’s a great deal of subtle tension
and doing things his own way. While constantly brimming at the edge of
everyone else is throwing their game this pot. The game’s on a countdown
up on Kickstarter and trying to get of sorts as it ends immediately once
you to buy in on their dream, Devious there are less than two sane virtuosi
Weasel is pushing titles straight to remaining in the group – yes, zero is a
market and flying under the radar. possibility. Since there is only a single
This is an attempt to adjust those winner at the end of this dread play,
settings and highlight these oddities. there’s a great deal of manipulation
Bemused is Felli’s third release. occurring to tear down those in the
It follows upon the heels of the lead and level the playing field.
abstracted fantasy adventure Supporting this gnarled deliberation
Shadows of Malice, and the quirky is the conjoined force of those who
cannibalistic gauntlet that’s Zimby have perished. Those on the wrong side
Mojo. This newest title is a small card of living gain strength as more virtuosi
game that’s social, duplicitous and, get buried. This forms a delicate
most importantly, unique. spiderweb, as you need to tear others
You take on the role of a muse down while being careful not to push
competing over 20 minutes with too hard and too fast.
several of your friends. You’re All of these social machinations
attempting to influence the game are triggering, people are throwing
state and elevate your human negative points on each other
virtuoso to fame and recognition. and half the table is cursing your
This is accomplished by layering name – then the entire thing ends
doubts and dread on your quicker than an episode of Rick
opponents until they’ve been killed and Morty. This achievement
or driven insane; “refreshingly – tying a strong element of
weird” is a great summation. social strife to simple take-that
Stripped down, Bemused is card play – comes together
a simple card game of placing so beautifully and in such a
negative point values on puzzling way. It’s one of the
opponents. Enough cards get few designs that boasts brevity
layered upon the enemy poet or and contemplation in such a
musician and they’re driven mad. compelling mixture.
The cards themselves map to
specific characters and limit your
options on whom may strike.
Virtuosi can be driven insane and
Taken at face value that sounds
then eventually killed by doubt and
kind of dull – and, well, it is. The
dread, turning them into fantasma that
magic happens when you introduce
continue to haunt their living rivals –
social manoeuvring and all its wily
and can even go on to win
nuances. Unique special abilities
allow you to move cards between

tabletopgaming.co.uk 41
 PRESS
PLAY
Musicians and gamers are
letting the tabletop sing with
custom soundtracks and
sound effects. Here’s why
you should tune in
Words by Joshua King

42 June 2018
V
ideo games do it. Television and movies
too. They even have an Oscar for it.
So why are official soundtracks not a
serious part of the tabletop industry?
Many gamers use atmospheric music
to accompany their games – medieval
harpsichords for Carcassonne or Howard
Shore’s inimitable Lord of the Rings score for
any of the many Tolkien-themed titles – but
few developers weave in a soundtrack when
designing a new game.
Some have – notably the immersive Japanese
journey game Tokaido, which commissioned an
official score for a collector’s edition – yet by and
large soundtracks are a DIY element for tabletop
gamers. As a result, many thematic music
websites and playlists have sprung up and are a
well-used tool for gamers.
For a hobby that has increasingly focused
on immersion in theme, why have developers
ignored a device that is so relied upon by
Hollywood and Silicon Valley?
NOISE OF FEAR
Perhaps the most natural crossover comes in
the horror genre. Composers and musicians have
the power to send shivers down the spines of
the audience. Would Hitchcock’s infamous shower
scene in Psycho have been so effective without
the slashed strings of Bernard Herrmann? It is
not surprising, then, that horror games lend
themselves to being scored.
Gothic horror and fantasy duo Midnight
Syndicate have produced atmospheric music
for films, roleplaying games and even haunted
houses. The pair – composers Edward Douglas
and Gavin Goszka – have established a
reputation as the house band of Halloween. In
2003 they produced the first and only official
Dungeons & Dragons soundtrack album at the
behest of Wizards of the Coast. They also scored
apocalyptic survival game Zombies!!!.
“Think of how important music is to a movie,”
Douglas says. “It, often subconsciously, directs
us how to feel at a certain point. Having the
appropriate atmosphere gets gamers in the mood.
“It enhances what’s going on in the game and
stimulates the imagination. Even when you’re
not actively involved in something that is going
on in the game, you hear the music and you’re
still in the world.”
Douglas says one of the biggest challenges in
scoring games is to not distract players, likening
the task to writing for the big screen.
“You do have to find the right music. Music
that sets the background and is appropriately-
themed without being too distracting. This takes
a bit of planning but is well worth the payoff. That’s
why I favour instrumental music: it can more easily
sit in the background, just like a movie score.”
As well as producing the flagship music for
Dungeons & Dragons, Midnight Syndicate have
also contributed to other roleplaying games
including Call of Cthulhu and Vampire.
“The most memorable board game and
roleplaying game experiences I’ve had have
always involved music,” Douglas adds.
TRIP TRACKS
Developers who include music in their games
do so to enrich the playing experience. In
horror and roleplaying games, sound can be
used to build suspense.
But sound can also be used to evoke place.
Hearing a forgotten song on the radio can
transport us back to the holiday abroad when
we first heard it. Music has also been used to
trigger strong memories in dementia suffers.
Music is not
the first thing
players think about
when they’re buying
a game. I think
it should be.
ABOVE Tokaido soundtrack composer Eric Los
MAIN Syrinscape’s Catan soundboard
It is unsurprising then that Funforge, the
studio behind the beautifully evocative journey
game Tokaido, decided to release an official
soundtrack with its deluxe edition. In the game,
players travel along Japan’s famous Eastern Sea
Road between Kyoto and Tokyo. Along the way
the players – like the real historical travelers who
preceded them – are encouraged to experience
the sights and sounds of the coast by discovering
panoramic views and eating local cuisine.
The game built a strong reputation off the
back of its artwork and unhurried, philosophical
gameplay. When the publisher launched a
crowdfunded campaign for a collector’s edition,
a soundtrack was high on the agenda. It fell to
French composer Eric Los to weave music into
Tokaido’s already rich tapestry.
“I was contacted by Funforge very early,
before the launch of their crowdfunding
campaign on Kickstarter,” Los says. “Philippe
Nouhra, Funforge’s founder and CEO, is an
old friend.”
Los and Nouhra had previously worked
together at CRYO, a French video game studio,
and Los says his friend had always nurtured a
passion for music.
“Today, as a publisher, his approach to
board games is both that of a true gamer and
enlightened music lover. Thinking that it was
essential to accompany Tokaido’s playing
sessions with sound and musical atmosphere, he
immediately thought of me. I accepted with joy.”
Fans of the game have praised Los’s
addition, which he hopes allows a “deeper
immersion” in an already rich and exciting
game. So why are official tabletop soundtracks
so few and far between?
“Producing a board game obviously has
a cost,” Los says. “Creating a dedicated
soundtrack increases the production envelope
which can make publishers cautious, I guess.
“Funforge did it with Tokaido because
their philosophy is partly inspired by the
world of movies and video games. The game
is visually very beautiful, its background is
rich and captivating, its gameplay almost
contemplative. All it needed was sound.”
Los believes Funforge was able to bring
him onboard because it already had a
bestseller on its hands before it even began
work on the collector’s edition – the demand
already existed. But he says that not every
player has music in their minds when they
shop for new titles.
“Music is not the first thing they think
about when they’re buying a game,” he says.
“I think it should be. I play RPGs as a game
master and it’s a real pleasure for me and my
tabletopgaming.co.uk 43
 BOARD GAME SOUNDTRACKS
players to play good music. The sessions can
take on a cinematic aspect.”
Los hopes other publishers follow the lead
of Funforge and give serious consideration to
using official music to create “great moments”.
HEARING HAVEN
If publishers are not investing in soundtracks
because board games have such narrow profit
margins, the creative burden has instead fallen
on players. Nicholas Cueto has produced music
for films and documentaries featured on the
BBC and Smithsonian websites. In his free time
he is a passionate board gamer.
The son of a virtuoso violinist and a
professional singer, Cueto recently realised
there is a way from him to combine his love of
tabletop gaming and musical composition. He
is working on an orchestral score for the mighty
dungeon crawler Gloomhaven – one of the most
highly-regarded titles in recent tabletop history.
“I was inspired to do this because of the
amazing experience I had with the game,”
Cueto says. “The world, the cardplay – coming
from old school print-and-play tabletop games,
I really miss being able to just write some stuff
down on a character sheet and crawl through
a dungeon.
44 June 2018
Horror and fantasy composers Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka, better
known as Midnight Syndicate, have created atmospheric official soundtracks
for board and roleplaying games including Dungeons & Dragons and Zombies!!!
“I realised that when I play board games I like
to play music along with it, but oftentimes I’d
have a hard time finding music that fitted the
game I was playing.”
Instead, Cueto decided to solve the problem
himself and put his professional skills to use
scoring Gloomhaven. The Unofficial Gloomhaven
Soundtrack is available on Cueto’s Soundcloud
page and features tracks with titles like ‘The
Road’, ‘On the Water’ and ‘The Mountain’.
“The positive feedback from the community
has really been a blessing to me,” he says.
Although Cueto has found success with his DIY
model of scoring games, he says there is no reason
to be gloomy about the future of tabletop tracks.
“I’d probably have to say that it’s just a
matter of time. There’s definitely been a push
by companies to bridge the immersion gap
between board and video games recently.
“I think that gap will definitely continue to
shrink as the industry continues to grow and
innovate. And, as a film composer who plays board
games, I am uniquely positioned to see that
board games and tabletop games can definitely
benefit from music and closer that gap.”
Cueto hopes the gaming community
continues to embrace the significance of music
and invests in soundtracks for their collections.
“There are marketing opportunities,” he
adds. “People already love playing their
games, so why not make the experience even
better with music?”
ON REPEAT
One of the most significant barriers to the
burgeoning music is time – or the lack thereof.
Fan-made scores are hugely time-consuming
to produce.
Unlike television or movies, board games
– despite what those little stopwatch icons on
the boxes may suggest – do not have a standard
running time. Games last as long as they last,
and lengthy campaign titles like Gloomhaven
demand to be played over and over again.
Very few of us will watch the latest
blockbuster and then return home and listen to
the entire soundtrack a dozen times over. That’s
not the same with tabletop games. How then do
musicians plan a score that is long enough to
accommodate slow play and enjoyable enough
to listen on repeat?
One option is to produce atmospheric
sounds rather than orchestral movements.
Benjamin Loomes, CEO and creative director
of Syrinscape, set about solving this very problem.
Founded ten years ago, Loomes considers his
app the “audio solution” for tabletop games that
he, as a games master, had been looking for:
“Having worked my whole life as a composer,
singer and pianist, I always found it strange
that music and sounds were missing from my
tabletop games.
“I started using music CDs and computer game
soundtracks and things like that to create a bit
of ambiance for my players, and they loved it.
“Pretty quickly I was making 15-minute
recordings complete with environmental sound
design and they were pretty cool.
“But the problem with this,” Loomes adds, “was
that they started getting repetitive very quickly
– especially in roleplaying games where you can
stay in a single location for one or two hours.
“By the ninth time you hear the same
distinctive bird call, or the market vendor
shouting his prices in exactly the same order
every time, you start to notice those patterns.”
 Loomes recognised that just like in movies,
tabletop sounds could subliminally affect the
emotional state of the audience. Music would
give powerful ‘emotional cues’.
To tackle the problem of tiresome repetition
Loomes made longer and longer recordings, but
it was a cumbersome fix.
“So I thought, surely a computer is good at this
sort of thing – at randomly playing a sound from
a pool and then randomly choosing another
sample. The computer is doing a whole lot of
simultaneous tasks, together and independently.”
This shift mirrored how many video game
titles keep their own soundtracks fresh. In open-
world video games – the digital equivalent of
roleplaying titles like Dungeons & Dragons and
Call of Cthulhu – programmers embed triggers
that change the sounds players would hear.
Entering an inn triggers different music than
exploring an abandoned castle.
Loomes continues: “I wrote a really simple
version of Syrinscape in Python and that
worked pretty well. Suddenly I could supply
Syrinscape with a collection of samples
and it produced an every-changing sound
environment with no repeats.
“What’s more, I could turn elements off and
on, make them louder and softer and more or
less frequent.”
He shared the programme online in 2008 and
it was hugely popular.
“People wanted it on their iPad or Android
and all sorts of other devices.”
About five years ago Syrinscape released a
full-blown professional version of the app that
Syrinscape lets
players customise
their own audio
effects while
playing games
Loomes describes as a “super-powered” version
of the original. Now gamers can create sets of SOUND
samples themselves, control when and where they
appear, and apply the Doppler effect and reverb.
“You can even keep the Wilhelm scream close
EFFECTS
to hand in case of a character death – because YO UTU B E
important things are important,” he laughs. Many of us already use the
“There are hundreds of locations and world’s biggest video sharing
monsters in Syrinscape, but one of my favourites site to listen to music, and it
is the Red Dragon Battle. Let’s say the players is a haven for DIY tabletop
enter a sweet village, everything is happy and soundtracks. Try searching
peaceful, everybody going about their daily for your favourite games.
business. Syrinscape can give you that sound
environment with a single click. The birds chirp, SPOTIFY
the wind softly whistles, an occasional cart goes This subscription radio
by or a hawker calls out. Nothing could possibly player – available on both
go wrong. But with one more click, the Red PC and mobile – is an easy
Dragon attacks. Epic music, screams, warning way for players to find and
bells, the terrible roar of an angry dragon.” share playlists of sound
Loomes knows that music is more effects and themes.
commonplace among roleplayers but has
already created sounds for tabletop titles SOUNDCLOUD
including Catan and Boss Monster. Another DIY option, but content
He adds: “These are exciting times in tabletop is more likely to be produced
gaming and the future sounds great to us.” by professional musicians like
The chomping strings of the Jaws theme still Nick Cueto. Unfortunately, the
inspire terror in swimmers today. Every fan site is harder to search.
can hum the galloping theme to HBO’s Game
of Thrones. Video games like Resident Evil and SY RI N SCA PE
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night take pride Benjamin Loomes’ brainchild
in their scores. is one of the most in-depth
While tabletop gaming has a long way to go to apps available and one of the
catch these blockbusters, the tempo of change is few designed with gamers
increasing and, before long, gamers will be singing specifically in mind. Unlike
the praises of their favourite soundtracks. playlists on other sites, the
audio effects morph as your
game progresses.
A SOFT MURMUR
In essence a relaxation
app, this website and
downloadable program
is a very slimmed-down
alternative to apps such as
Syrinscape. Only a handful of
sounds are available but it is
quick and easy to use.
OFFICIAL
SCORES
Of course, there is already a
clutch of official soundtracks
available – from those with
the tabletop in mind like
Tokaido and Zombies!!! to
thematic movie scores like
Lord of the Rings – available
to buy digitally or on disc.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 45
THROUGH THE AGES
ROUTE BUILDING
Hop on board as we head off on a journey of journeys, from early
train games to modern successors that – literally – go off the rails
Words by Sam Desatoff
F
or many, 2004’s Ticket to Ride was
an introduction to designer games, a
route into the modern tabletop hobby.
Understandably so: the simple ruleset
and accessible theme create a solid point of
reference for new players as they begin to explore
what experiences games can offer. It’s no surprise
then that Alan R. Moon’s masterpiece has sold
millions of copies and can be found on the
shelves of big-box retailers around the world. It
has also spawned myriad spin-offs and special
editions creating a veritable smash hit, an empire
resting on one simple concept: route building.
The premise of route-building games is
almost universal: connect points on a map to
build the most efficient network possible. In
Ticket to Ride route building is the only way to
gain victory points, but the mechanic’s history
implies that Moon’s game is the result of
decades of evolution and iteration.
In 1974, designer Francis Tresham produced
1829, a game about developing railroad
companies in Britain that involved managing
stock prices and running trains to generate
revenue for shareholders. The route-building
element was secondary to stock management,
but 1829’s influence can be felt in Ticket to Ride
and nearly every other network-building game to
date. In fact, 1829 was so important that it helped
spawn the 18xx subgenre, a style of games with a
massive following.
In 1982, Mayfair released Empire Builder, a train
game that focuses on the economical aspect of
route building. Players deliver goods from city to
1974
June 2018
city and earn income that can be used to upgrade
their trains to carry more goods and so on. The
most unique aspect of Empire Builder is the map:
billed as a ‘crayon rails’ game, players physically
draw their train’s routes on the board using
washable crayon or dry-erase marker. This lends
a very tactile feeling to the game and makes your
network feel surprisingly personal.
Before designing Ticket to Ride, Moon found
success in 1990’s Airlines, a game about growing
airplane companies in order to make their stocks
profitable. Players can buy stocks in the companies
they think will do well and cash them out when
they receive their payouts. It borrowed elements
from the 18xx genre, but simplified them into a
less intimidating format. In many ways, Airlines
paved the way for Ticket to Ride’s success, and
was so beloved by Moon himself that it was
reimplemented in 2011 as Airlines Europe.
The Settlers of Catan (now simply titled Catan)
helped kick off the board game renaissance in 1995
and includes an element of route building in the
form of roads. The mainstream appeal of Catan
may have had an impact on the growth of the route
building genre, but likely it was more broad than
simply one gameplay mechanic.
The train theme really kicked into high gear in
2002 when Age of Steam was released. Designer
Martin Wallace took the track-laying mechanic
from the 18xx games and Empire Builder, added
an auction element, and moulded it into an
engine-building economic powerhouse of a
game. Age of Steam sees players building track
in order to ship goods from one city to another.
1982 2002
Deliveries increase your income, and efficient
track planning is necessary to maximise your
profits. Age of Steam has given rise to many
spin-offs and reiterations, including Railroad
Tycoon, Railways of the World and Steam, all
of which have made Wallace synonymous with
route building.
Route building is not limited to train tracks,
as 2004’s Power Grid proves. Here, players
own a series of power plants that require savvy
auctioning chops to run. The route building
element comes in the form of a requirement that
all of your power plants must be adjacent, forming
one large network.
Wallace returned to the route building scene
in 2007 with the release of the heavy, brain-
burning Brass, a game about entrepreneurs set
during the industrial revolution in Lancashire,
England. Considered Wallace’s magnum opus,
Brass tasks players with earning points via their
canal and rail network while managing their
cotton-producing industry. While there is a lot
happening on any given turn of Brass, route
building is the primary method of earning
victory points.
It’s been a long journey for the route- and
network-building genre of games, but it has
grown from humble beginnings to include a huge
number of themes, complexities and playstyles.
Designers continue to innovate with contemporary
titles like Via Nebula, Clans of Caledonia, Terra
Mystica and more, and there’s no telling where
they’ll go from here. Whatever the destination, the
route is sure to be entertaining and worthwhile.
2004 2011
tabletopgaming.co.uk 47
 FIREBALL ISLAND
REMAKING A CLASSIC
After lying dormant
for decades, the ‘80s
childhood favourite is
bursting back into life with
an explosive new edition.
Get ready for the hottest
release of the year
Words by Eric Watson
48 June 2018
T
abletop gamers are often seduced
by the ‘Cult of the New’. Each year is
seemingly the Best Year Yet for board
games, and the industry has remained
in an exciting, transformative place for over a
decade. But old games shouldn’t be left behind.
Just as video games see frequent HD remakes
and reboots, Restoration Games is here to
modernise classic board games from the past,
including its latest project, Fireball Island: The
Curse of Vul-Kar.
Fireball Island was originally designed by
Bruce Lund and Chuck Kennedy, and published
by Milton Bradley in 1986. It was a standard
roll-and-move kids’ game with a unique three-
dimensional board featuring an angry volcano,
and orange marbles that acted as his vengeful
fireballs. Players were tasked with collecting
treasure as they made their way around the
island while launching fireballs at each other.
“Far and away Fireball Island was the
number one request for us to tackle next,” says
J.R. Honeycutt, who is known as the ‘tinker-
in-chief’ at Restoration. Honeycutt joined
the team last year as a contract co-designer
alongside president Justin D. Jacobson and chief
restoration officer Rob Daviau, known for his
legacy restylings of Risk, Pandemic and Betrayal
at House on the Hill. Honeycutt’s background as
a game designer and marketer includes Tesla vs.
Edison, Millennium Blades and Daviau’s SeaFall.
Restoration’s website includes a prominent
submission box where anyone can type in a fondly
-remembered game and hit the submit button.
 “We’ve had thousands of responses,” says
Honeycutt, “Something like 20,000 responses, and
Fireball Island was about 20% of that. It’s a cool,
fun game and there’s nothing like it in our hobby
right now. It presents an interesting challenge for
the team and we’re all very excited for it.”
Despite the fond memories and nostalgia
for many adult gamers, the original game
hasn’t been in print for nearly three decades.
Securing the licence for old out-of-print games
can prove challenging. Thankfully, Jacobson is
a lawyer by trade.
“He’s had a lot of success securing the rights
to these games,” says Honeycutt.
The team discovered at least one nice
advantage with the licence: a single company,
Longshore Limited, held the rights to
manufacture and print Fireball Island in the EU,
US, Canada and Australia, which are normally
held by at least two separate companies. With
the rights secured, it was time to tinker.
ISLAND MAKEOVER
The Restoration team didn’t want to simply
reprint the old game; the company’s goals are to
update, improve and modernise classic games
for modern board game audiences.
“All credit goes to Rob,” says Honeycutt. “He
nailed the design from day one. In the original
game you had very little control over where you
moved, while the marbles were predictable. He
wanted to flip that dynamic: give players a lot
of control over their characters and leave the
uncertainty to where the marbles would go.”
To achieve this new design,
they eliminated the roll-and-move dice,
replacing movement with a deck of cards.
Players always have two cards in their hand
to choose from. Each card provides a certain
amount of movement along with some abilities,
such as not having to stop on rickety bridges,
flicking a precariously placed ember marble on
a ledge or rotating the imposing head of Vul-Kar.
Players also acquire cards from a second
souvenir deck, which provides crazier abilities
like warping around the map.
“It’s still fun and chaotic, but with a lot more
player agency than the original,” says Honeycutt.
The board itself has also been heavily
modified and updated. It’s physically
impressive, taking up a similar footprint as
tabletopgaming.co.uk 49
 FIREBALL ISLAND
large map games like Ticket to Ride, but with
the height advantage of a three-dimensional,
mountainous island. Honeycutt mentions the
Fireball Island box will be about the same size
as Gloomhaven, though not nearly as heavy.
Instead of a single track that winds around
the island, the board has expanded into several
different non-linear paths to allow for a myriad of
decisions and choices about where to go, which
treasures to collect and which areas to avoid.
“Opening it up to that level of player agency has
really turned it into the kind of game hobby gamers
will enjoy,” says Honeycutt. “I’ve heard the feedback
over and over again that they didn’t think the game
would be this good, but they love it because they
have player agency and they’re making interesting
choices. I’ve seen hardcore hobbyists and game
designers instantly fall in love with this game.”
Restoration doesn’t want to lose the fun moments
of random chaos that helped make Fireball Island
such a memorable classic. That’s where the marbles
come in. The new and improved Vul-Kar has three
different ‘mouths’ – tracks that the marbles can
tumble down. While players can rotate the head to
several different tracks, no-one is sure which track
the marbles will take or where they’ll end up.
“A marble that rolls down the same path
five times may do five different things,” says
Honeycutt. “There’s a lot of fun tension
in seeing what the marbles will do.”
VUL-KAR ON THE ROAD
The excitement of watching marbles
narrowly miss explorers makes Fireball
Island an engaging spectator game, and
helped fuel the success of Honeycutt’s
unique 30-day game tour around the
eastern half of the United States.
50 June 2018
“When we launched our Kickstarter campaign
we had no reviews or previews because we didn’t
have anything to send out,” he says.
Restoration has only the one hand-painted
prototype of Fireball Island: The Curse of
Vul-Kar, which it debuted at the PAX East
convention in early April, a mere 48 hours after
launching the game’s crowdfunding campaign.
“I suggested to the team that I grab a car and
drive this thing around the US and Canada,” says
Honeycutt. “We all scratched our heads and
thought: ‘Surely this was a bad idea?’ Turns out
it’s a pretty cool idea. We’ve gotten a wonderful
response from fans and it’s been great for
marketing. People are driving from hours away
to see the game. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
While Honeycutt loves promoting and
teaching the game to new people, he also sees
the tour as a form of beta testing.
“PAX East helped us cut the rulebook in half,”
he says. “We got 20 playthroughs in two days,
and that was enough to know right away which
elements to change. If there’s a single design
element I enjoy, it’s figuring out what is fun,
drawing that out of the game and cutting away
the things we don’t need.”
For example, players had to
originally stop when entering a
space with a snapshot, which are
photo-ops scattered around
the island that provide
victory point cards.
“What we found is that
the game was ending too
early,” says Honeycutt.
“We tried extending the
game but that didn’t fix
the problem. Instead we
changed it so you didn’t have to stop on those
spaces. The game length felt good again, and people
could run around and do more stuff on their turn.
“As a designer and a fan, if we do 200 playtests
in four weeks and the game doesn’t change at all,
that’s a problem. In our case this road trip featured
a very good game that we are very happy with,
and we continue to develop it and make it better.”
HOT TOPIC
By the time the Fireball Island Kickstarter
campaign concluded, it had gathered over £2
million from more than 23,000 eager backers.
“Those are obliterating high numbers for a
campaign that’s not The 7th Continent or one of
the big CMON games,” says Honeycutt. “I have
significant experience working with Kickstarter
projects and I expected this kind of response.
We were very well prepared for this campaign.”
Restoration is already developing expansions
as part of the Kickstarter campaign. Each adds
new components and expanded rules, letting
players decide how complex they want their island
exploration to be without sacrificing accessibility.
The most impressive is the Wreck of the Crimson
Cutlass, which adds an entirely separate mini-board
featuring a shipwreck and its own perilous tumbling
marbles. Over 60% of backers pledged over twice
as much as the base game to receive all of the
expansions – and Restoration has teased more for
the future, barring any Vul-Kar-related catastrophes.
“We love working on Fireball Island,” says
Honeycutt. “The fans love it, and it’s been a joy
to be a part of this team. I can’t imagine not
coming back to make more cool things. It’s not
going to replace Terra Mystica in someone’s
collection, but for people who just want to
have fun it’s really appreciated.”
The Fireball Island board (this is
the prototype) will fill your table
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Something old, something new: are the returns of nostalgic series and game styles
something to be celebrated – or is our connection to the past holding gaming back?
terror. It is, the Oxford English Dictionary tells
us, a “sentimental longing for or regretful
memory of the past”. But there’s more to it
than this. Noting the Greek roots of the word
(notos meaning “return home” and algia
meaning “longing”), Harvard professor and
scholar Svetlana Boym defined nostalgia as
“a longing for a home that no longer exists or
has never existed” and, more pointedly, as
“a romance with one’s own fantasy.” In other
words, we may well be pining for a past that
never really existed.
The cover of Escape the Dark Castle is a
case in point. Alex Crispin’s black and white
Illingworth
Doctors Paul Wake and Sam
illustration recalls the well-known Citadel
Long associated with childhood, perhaps tabletop
games are particularly suited – or vulnerable – to this
kind of desire. Analogue in an increasingly-digital
world, they offer the promise (if not always the
reality) of bringing friends back together and demand
the significant investment of time just when time
is becoming an increasingly scarce commodity.
Of course, underneath all of this is a thinly-veiled,
and equally nostalgic, valorisation of social
groups, a privileging of face-to-face interaction, a
desire to live life outside of digital media, and a sense
that ‘making time’ for these things is a worthy pursuit.
So is this a good or a bad thing? Likely both at
once. There’s a real risk that nostalgia might stifle
creativity by crowding out new ideas, encourage

T
Miniatures logo, and the castle on the cover lazy design, and fetishise the past at the expense
Steve Jackson’s 1983 Fighting Fantasy book The of the present. On the flipside, there’s a potential
hat there’s been something of a Citadel of Chaos. In turn, those images recall to encourage new (old) gamers by appealing to
nostalgic turn in tabletop gaming is Neuschwanstein, the castle that supposedly their memories of games past; there’s a certain
hard to miss. Recent years have seen provided Albie Fiore with the inspiration for merit in challenging the constant fashion for the
the return of classic franchises such Citadel Miniature’s – er – citadel. What’s more, newest thing, and an opportunity to reflect on
as Thunderbirds and Ghostbusters, that castle, built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in where we are now by revisiting and reimagining
alongside re-releases of titles long consigned the 19th century and fantastic in all senses of the our individual and collective histories.
(fairly or not) to gaming’s storage cabinets – word, was itself the product of a nostalgic fantasy,
games such as Restoration Games’ Stop Thief! designed, as Ludwig wrote to the composer
and Fireball Island (which funded on Kickstarter Richard Wagner, “in the authentic style of the old Paul Wake and Sam Illingworth are
in under an hour). We’ve also seen wargamers German knights”. Nostalgia, it seems, has a long Manchester Metropolitan University
academics and co-directors of the
returning to past rulesets, homages to the history of chasing the imagined past.
Games Research Network
aesthetics of the recent past in miniature ranges Crispin’s illustrations pay homage to the
like Diego Serrate’s Greenskin Wars, and the illustrations of artists such as Russ Nicholson,
emergence of print histories such as Jonathan Ian Miller and Wayne England, whose work
Green’s YOU are the Hero! and Ian Livingstone brought Games Workshop’s worlds to life. In this,
and Steve Jackson’s forthcoming Dice Men, about the game’s black and white aesthetic makes a
the origins of Games Workshop. Tabletop games double appeal to the player, evoking not only the
– and their players – it seems, have reached an game’s own fantasy setting, but also memories
age where a turn to the past is both desired and, of fantasy worlds past. The attempt to create “a
at the risk of sounding cynical, lucrative. stylish look evocative of retro classics” in Dark
Where is this interest in nostalgia taking us? Castle clearly worked, but why does it hold such
To the past or to somewhere else entirely? And appeal? There is perhaps a clue in the game’s
what exactly are we remembering? The answer, if title – the desire to escape the contemporary
there is one, might lie in our understanding of the moment, to return to a prelapsarian time, is a
nature of nostalgia itself. The word comes from key element of nostalgic longing.
the realm of 17th-century medicine, a time when
nostalgia was considered a curable disease, its
Escape the Dark Castle recalls Fighting Fantasy classics
treatments including opium, leeches, pain and

June 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 51

 SAVIOUR OF
THE UNIVERSE
The Savage World of Flash Gordon brings the legendary space
adventurer crashing into roleplaying. Writer Scott Woodard
runs us through the approaching pulp sci-fi ah-ahhhhhhh-PG
Words by Matt Jarvis | Illustrations by Bien Flores, Chris Bivins, Aaron Riley
T
he story of Flash Gordon is the story
of every roleplaying game ever told. In
Alex Raymond’s original 1930s comics,
a normal – swoony good looks and Yale
diploma aside – human being sets off to a strange
and wonderful world accompanied by his
friends, ready to battle evil and have countless
adventures week after week.
It seems odd, then, that only one major
roleplaying game based on the iconic series has
ever been made. Published by Fantasy Games
Unlimited in 1977 – the same year as the better-
remembered Traveller – Lin Carter and Scott
Bizar’s Flash Gordon & the Warriors of Mongo
was one of the very first sci-fi RPGs, hitting the
tabletop hot on the heels of the groundbreaking
Metamorphosis Alpha, released the previous year
and considered to be the original sci-fi RPG.
In fact, most roleplayers are more likely to
have come into contact with Flash Gordon
through its brief mention in another, just
slightly more famous roleplaying game than its
own complete adaptation.
“Flash Gordon owes about as much to its
swords and sorcery roots as it does its science-
fiction roots,” explains Scott Woodard. “Its
pedigree can be traced directly to things like
the ‘Barsoom’ and ‘Venus’ stories of Edgar
Rice Burroughs, and it’s no surprise that Gary
Gygax – co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons,
of course – included the work of Burroughs in
his ‘inspirational reading’ list in the original
Dungeon Master’s Guide.”
Woodard is the writer of The Savage World of
Flash Gordon, an RPG based on the entire Flash
Gordon canon that hopes to finally give the king
of the impossible his due. Unlike Flash’s last
RPG outing, which predated the cult Queen-
scored movie, Woodard has drawn equally from
Raymond’s original comics and everything that
followed in the eight-plus decades since.
52 June 2018
“There’s no denying that the 1980 film is the
first thing that comes to mind to many, if not
most, when you say the name Flash Gordon,
and that’s perfectly fine with me!” he says. “In
fact, there are plenty of things that link the game
to that film, including the same iconic logo, our
poster map of War Rocket Ajax, and the fantastic
and personal foreword to the core rulebook
penned by Flash himself, Sam J. Jones!
“Beyond that, once you expose yourself to the
vast amounts of material that predated that movie
– this includes the radio, film, and TV serials – you
quickly realise that what the filmmakers gave us
in 1980 is surprisingly faithful to that material!
“While I focused most of my attention on the
original newspaper comic strips by Alex Raymond,
Don Moore and Austin Briggs, published between
1934 and 1948, I also watched all the film serials
starring Buster Crabbe, I listened to the radio
plays, I watched the TV series from the 1950s, I
read the novels from the 1970s and I watched
all of the episodes of the Filmation animated
series. From all those sources and even a few
others – some of which might surprise you – I took
copious notes and then worked hard to find ways
to make elements from all of them work together.”
FLASH FORWARD
The end result is a game that presents the entire
universe of Flash Gordon as a sandbox for players
to explore and use to tell their own Flash stories.
Woodard eagerly claims that any of Flash’s previous
outings, from the pages of comics to his on-screen
incarnations, can be fully recreated using the
ruleset – with some necessary caveats.
“There were some things in the original
strips that I chose not to include, like
certain racial stereotypes and other
somewhat unpleasant things
that were very much the
unfortunate products
of their time,” he explains. “For example, in
1934, Flash and the gang meet up with a race of
‘brown dwarfs’. For obvious reasons – especially
based upon the way they were depicted on those
original pages – I felt it best to avoid that name
and opted, instead, to refer to them as ‘mountain
dwarfs’. This in turn inspired me to come up
with a variety of other dwarf races including
Frigian ice dwarfs, Arborian forest dwarfs and
the red ember dwarfs of Flame World. There
were a few other things that I decided to alter for
21st-century sensibilities, but in all cases, I think
the results actually work better for the game and
offer more options for the players and GMs.”
In other cases, Woodard encountered situations
where 80 years of dozens of different creators
putting their own writing, illustration and lore
into Flash Gordon had required fans to knit the
connected universe together themselves.
“Filling in gaps and repairing glaring
continuity issues was actually great fun,”
he says. “Forging the backstories
of kingdoms and popular
characters, finding ways to
make various species work
as playable races, and
designing religions, laws, and new technologies
were all possible, and I had fun doing it.
“The innocence and apparent lack of logic in
the original comic strips also gave me a lot of
leeway in designing things. When the original strips
presented a cave system with inverted gravity and
blamed the effect on a super-dense meteorite, or
had our heroes visiting Birdland and interacting
with a royal advisor in the form of a talking parrot
named Talky, everyone just accepted it as an
example of the otherworldliness of Mongo.”
This loose, pulpy approach means that The Savage
World of Flash Gordon manages to feel like a very
different kind of sci-fi RPG compared to its modern,
simulationist successors, bringing its comic-strip
style and sense (or lack of) along for the ride.
“Flash Gordon is a setting where the laws
of physics and our understanding of science
and technology are effectively ignored in favor
of an embracing of the impossible,” Woodard
enthuses. “While there are rocket ships, robots
and rayguns, it’s more ‘magic’ that drives
these things than complex circuitry or
sophisticated programming. In other
words, those who are comfortable
with the concepts of spellcasting
and enchanted items found in most
fantasy RPGs, will have no trouble
embracing the way the world works.”

SAVAGELY FUN
While all roleplaying games offer some
degree of freedom to their players, Flash
Gordon’s letting go from the tethers of
reality required a more open and
flexible system than most.

The Savage World of Flash

Gordon is based on the entire
universe, from comics to movies

tabletopgaming.co.uk 53
 FLASH GORDON RPG
“A quick read of some
original Flash Gordon
strips and you’ll find raygun
battles, sword fights, fisticuffs,
chases, leaping, tumbling, flying
and other outrageous feats of
derring-do,” Woodard says. “All of
these things can easily be adjudicated
using the Savage Worlds system.”
A generic roleplaying system that
made its debut more than a decade
ago and has gone on to power dozens of games,
Savage Worlds is known for its fast gameplay
that refuses to get bogged down in excessive
detail – the perfect fit for Flash. To play The
Savage World of Flash Gordon, players
will need to combine the book with the
core Savage Worlds rules, which runs
through the unique way the system
tackles roleplaying.
“From its inception, Savage Worlds
was designed as an engine for playing
pulp adventures in which heroes can
perform larger-than-life actions using an
intuitive, streamlined system,” Woodard says.
“Unlike some other popular RPGs, where the
extent of a player’s turn is often reduced to ‘roll
to hit’, Savage Worlds encourages the players
to do outlandish things on their actions à
la ‘I want to leap from the balcony, grab the
chandelier, swing over the table, and drop onto the
bandit!’ A request to do something like that from a
Savage Worlds player is not only encouraged and
celebrated: it is easily resolved through the ruleset.”
The Savage World of Flash Gordon is more than
a lore guide for Savage Worlds players, though.
The tome introduces specific gameplay changes
inspired by the distinctive feel of the universe.
These include combining climbing, swimming
and throwing into the single ‘athletics’ skill – handy
for those wanting to create their own stocky polo
player – and replacing lockpicking with the more
generalised talent of
thievery, opening
the door
for sneaky
54 June 2018
characters to perform sleight of hand and disable
traps. To bring Flash’s galaxy of dancers, actors and
singers as seen in the comics better to life, characters
can now also have the skill of performance.
“There are other new rules and options as
well, including some new creative combat
options for those getting raises on their tricks
and tests of wills, fast healing for wild cards, and
a fun planetary romance setting rule that helps
emulate the sudden and complicated romantic
relationships so common in the classic comic
strips and serials,” Woodard adds.
The single biggest addition is the ‘cliffhanger’,
a cinematic way of getting out of a sticky situation
that the group of players can choose to activate by
flipping a token. This then allows them to come
The innocence and lack of logic in
the original comic strips gave me
a lot of leeway in designing things.
up with a solution as a group, forcing the GM to
explain their escape or having the players choose
one of six preset cliffhanger cards that offer up
ways for the story to go with some extra benefits for
the players. These often lead to further escapades,
as the group might be captured, suffer hazardous
effects or end up facing an even bigger threat.
Cliffhangers have a chance to refill players’
bennies, Savage Worlds
Worlds’ fate-twisting tokens that
can be earned in other ways and spent to reroll
duff dice results, reduce damage and generally
avoid the action coming to an unsatisfying stop.
The Savage World of Flash Gordon builds on
the ability to play with destiny by introducing
conviction tokens, a special kind of benny that
adds to a result rather than rerolling, making
heroic acts easier to pull off at the right moment.
Although inspired by the particular tone
of Flash Gordon,
Gordon, Woodard reveals that the
gameplay tweaks also hint at the future of
the wider Savage Worlds system.
“Since The Savage World of Flash Gordon
returns to the pulp roots that originally
inspired the creation of Savage Worlds,
the timing of the setting’s development
was ideal in that the next edition of
Savage Worlds – what is tentatively
‘Savage
being referred to in-house as ‘Savage
Worlds Black’
Black’ – is on the horizon and
thus we were able to tease some of
the new rules that have been kicking
around for a few years now,” he says.
“From day one, the Savage Worlds ruleset
was tagged as being ‘Fast! Furious! Fun!’ When I
first started writing Flash Gordon,, I altered that
phrase – at least in my own documents – to
read: ‘FLASH! Furious! Fun!’”
GORDON’S ALIVE!?
While the 1930s gave rise to dozens
of influential creators and
characters that remain just
as well-known today,
from King Kong, The
Addams Family
and Mickey
Mouse to Batman and Superman – both of whom
were influenced by Flash Gordon – few survive that
have quite the same sense of pulp adventure and
campy tone as the sci-fi hero. It’s hard to imagine
the Batman of today using shark repellant spray
and punching baddies to POW! and BAM! signs.
“The central characters found in Flash
Gordon are relatable and timeless archetypes,”
Woodard suggests as to why the series has
survived obscurity. “Flash is ‘Joe America’, Dale
is a strong, independent woman, Dr. Zarkov is
the good guy scientist who may be more wizard
than chemist and Ming the Merciless is the
iconic, moustache-twirling baddie. You’ll find
similar characters in most adventure stories,
including, of course, Star Wars.”
Star Wars creator
George Lucas was actually
one of the directors linked
to the big-screen adaptation
of Flash Gordon in the 1970s, and
went on to write his own sci-fi saga after
struggling to land the rights. After passing
through hands of other big-name directors
including The Man Who Fell to Earth visionary
Nicholas Roeg and spaghetti western auteur
Sergio Leone, the film was later helmed by Mike
Hodges and penned by Batman writer Lorenzo
Semple Jr., adding to its eccentric style.
“Both properties exhibit a number of
similarities – and if Star Wars can continue, so
too can Flash Gordon,
Gordon ” Woodard insists.
Woodard says while he was “encouraged
to avoid adapting too many things directly
from the film”, The Savage World of Flash
Gordon still features several nods to
the iconic movie, and he had free rein
to make the tabletop adaptation of the
entire series a new step for the franchise
as well as a look back into its past.
“Over the decades, every version
of Flash Gordon has been slightly
different than the previous while retaining
iconic elements like Flash, Ming, the
Hawkmen, Arboria, et cetera,” he says.
“While most presentations of that material
have focused on individual stories
and characters, the RPG needed
to make all those elements
work together within 192 pages,
but there were no organisations
standing over me, telling me what I
could and could not do with the licence.
Woodard adds that he was even surprised
by how well the universe lent itself to a
roleplaying setting as he went about weaving
decades of Flash Gordon together.
“One perfect example of that was when I
tried to figure out some way to bring Klytus, the
black-robed, gold-masked aid to Ming in the 1980
movie, into the game,” he recalls. “I wanted to have
psionics in Flash Gordon from early on, as mind
powers were certainly common in old comics and
serials and some psionic elements did eventually
appear in the later Flash Gordon dailies.
“Klytus seemed to be a good candidate for psionics
based on things he did in the film. His concealed
visage, his strange rejuvenation chamber and his
rather disgusting demise at Flash’s hands all inspired
the concept of psionic decay for those blessed with
psionic abilities in the game. It also led to explaining
the symbol on Klytus’ robes as representing the
Ministry of Psionics, placing Klytus in the School of
Telepathy, and accepting General Kala as yet another
telepath based on her own black clothing, matching
symbols, and even her name, spelled with a ‘K.’”
MORE THAN A FLASH
Woodard has future plans to keep expanding his
Flash universe outside the world of Mongo.
“There are other things I would love to add to
the line including an Earth sourcebook, since the
version of Earth in the strips and in the serials is
rather different from our own, as well as a planetary
sourcebook to take Flash and co. out beyond Mongo,”
he says. “I do have notes for a possible ‘moons of
Mongo’ supplement, as well, as Lunita and Exila
were added to the canon in the late 1940s and it
would be fun to get players off-world on occasion.
“While the primary setting of the Flash Gordon
stories is the planet Mongo, and this is what we focus
on in the RPG, the possibilities for adventure are
seemingly endless. Even the original comic strips
took Flash and co. back to Earth and eventually off
to other stars in the daily comic strips of the 1950s.”
It’s taken a while for Flash to return to
roleplaying but, this time, it seems the savior of the
universe is finally receiving a hero’s welcome.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 55
 «Fulfiller of God’s judgment, a vessel of wrath
to be emptied upon the souls of the unrighteous.»
- Robert E. Howard, Red Shadows (1928)

Based upon the stories by Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan),

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SOLOMON KANE ® and © Robert E Howard Properties LLC

Players take the part of the invisible powers of good and light
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Join us on : SolomonKaneBoardgame
 There’s no mistaking the cartoons for them. I convinced them to send me to
Gen Con to do a story. I was covering gaming again
hilarious, lively cartoons and fell right back in love with it. I was buying
games even though I had nobody to play with! I
of John Kovalic. In his met a couple of people who were publishing
magazines, started talking to some of the folks at
own words, the illustrator Steve Jackson Games just to say hi and, frankly,
as a way to get review copies of games.
explains how the unlikely About ’94, I did an editorial cartoon about
inspirations of OJ the OJ Simpson trial. One of OJ’s lawyers had
said there’s a conspiracy to get OJ. Being a Steve
Simpson, the Jackson Games gamer, I did this big complex
cartoon about conspiracy theories and I threw
Illuminati and in the Bavarian Illuminati. Maybe ten people in
Madison might’ve gotten that, but I didn’t really
Watchmen care – I was just having fun. I did a little dancing
pyramid and faxed it to Steve Jackson Games
made his art saying, “Hey guys, I thought you might find this
an icon enjoyable.” About two weeks later I got a phone
call from them saying, “Steve loved the cartoon.
Words and illustrations Two things: one, he pointed out there’s a typo in it.
more important to us than the equivalent quality
would be now. It would be delightful to have
another Black Lotus!
I heard that Steve Jackson Games were doing
their own trading card game, Illuminati: New
World Order. I just called Steve up out of the blue
and was just like, “Hey, you’re doing this game, do
you need any more cards drawn?” Fortunately for
me, the game was past deadline and he’s like, “Yes,
yes! Here! Can you draw in the style of Watchmen?”
I was like, “Of course I can draw in a style like
Watchmen!” As soon as I hung up the phone I went
to figure out what the heck Watchmen was and
bought the graphic novel. Enjoyed it thoroughly,
obviously. It’s a style I could really not draw. It’s an
extraordinarily different style from mine! But I had
20 cards, so I kept doing them until I got them right.
If you go through an old Illuminati deck. I think
there’s still a couple of cards in the current iteration
of the game which are mine. I had a lot of cards
sent back for re-dos, which was actually very good

MUNCH
by John Kovalic And two, would you like to cartoon for us?” They practice. It was very good experience for working
as told to Matt Jarvis had me doing this feature called Murphy’s Rules in the gaming industry and as a freelance artist in

I
’ve been roleplaying pretty much since the
ground floor. I started as a kid in the late ‘70s. I
went to school in Somerset and a bunch of
kids were into miniatures, historical miniature
gaming – which back then, at that age, meant
Airfix. From there I discovered wargames at a
model store in Bristol and somehow found out
that there’s a game store in London called Games
Workshop. This is before Games Workshop
became Games Workshop; it was just a regular old
gaming store doing a lot of imports. I found a little
white box called Dungeons & Dragons. The White
Box was my introduction to roleplaying. So, pretty
much at an early age, I was doing roleplaying,
board gaming, card gaming: everything.
I kind of fell out of gaming a little bit in college,
when I’d gone over to the States. I had to transfer
from colleges because I spent too much time
gaming at my first college, Queen Mary University
of London, studying astrophysics, which meant
mostly playing Traveller, Air War and things like
that. Then I started writing for a newspaper in
my hometown of Madison and doing editorial
and that was a huge blast. In part because one of
my cartooning heroes had done it before; his
name is Ben Sargent, he was the editorial
cartoonist in Austin, Texas and his work
was magnificent. It still is. And so that was
just mindblowing: “Yes, yes, I would like to
cartoon for you!”
I got back into gaming, a regular gaming
group again. Magic: The Gathering had burst on
the scene about that point. I had been buying
cards for my then-girlfriend, now my wife. But
I didn’t want her to fear gamers. It was a very
different scene 20 years ago; there was very much a
stigma about gaming that’s pretty much vanished
at this point. So I’d buy a Magic deck for me, I’d buy
a Magic deck for her. I’d buy a booster deck for me,
booster deck for her. She got all the good cards!
She literally got the Beta Black Lotus. She ended
up selling her Black Lotus to pay for her wedding
dress, which was a pretty cool gaming story. This
would’ve been ‘96, so it was a good sum – it’s a lot
more now! But I look back and I can justify it;
those days that quantity of money was much

58 June 2018
general. Being able to work and send stuff back and
take criticism is hugely important. I:NWO came
out and it did really well. It was one of the first really
good collectible card games after there was a whole
raft of Magic imitators. When our copies of the
game came in, my wife and I were just there ripping
open the packs sorting them out, finding the 20 I
did. Luckily, many of them were commons, so I
had a lot of cards to give out to friends and things.
Somebody else in Madison saw that I was one of
the illustrators of this game, and got in touch. They
were forming a gaming company and needed
an illustrator. This gaming company eventually
became Out of the Box Publishing. We formed
the company to produce a delightful game, a
chess variant called Bosworth.. You do not form
a company to produce a
chess variant! It’s a nice
chess variant – a very, very
good chess variant – but
you just don’t do that. That’s not
INK
wise business practice. We did
not know that.
The very first convention we took the game to,
Origins ‘97 possibly, a guy walks up to the booth
and asks us if we want to see this game he’s come
up with. This game was called Apples and Oranges,
and it was this big game with lots of bells and
whistles and different things that were going on.
We started playing this game, and this one little
part of the game had a section where you had
your cards, somebody plays a green card and you
lay down your red card. At that moment, Mark
said: “Wait a second, this is the game.” Literally
took up the rest of the board, moved it to another
table and we just spent hours playing this game
with the very first 50 to 100 cards. We’d never seen
anything like this before. I don’t believe there had
ever been a game with a judge mechanic before.
The entire drive back to Madison we just could
not stop talking about this game. So we bought it
immediately and that was Apples to Apples
Apples.
Roughly the same time, about a year after I:NWO,
I:NWO
Steve Jackson calls up and says, “I’ve got this
game called Chez GeekGeek,, do you want to illustrate
that?” It’s like, “Sure! Yes, yes, Steve Jackson
Games, I would like to.” Chez Geek did really
well and was a lot of fun. Maybe a year, maybe less
than a year, Steve calls up again and says, “Hey, I’ve
got this game called Munchkin that I wrote.” That’s
when my head exploded. It’s like, “Oh my gosh,
I’m the sole illustrator of a game Steve Jackson has
created.” My inner fanboy really went kablooey at
that moment. So, yeah, that was the start. It was
amazing, it was ridiculous. I had a backup plan; I had
an economics degree. Luckily I never needed it.
I’ve drawn – I think – over 5,500 Munchkin cards
and I try to make each one better. I would love one day
to go back and redraw the original Munchkins. Steve
does not want me to; he says, “Those cards are iconic.”
No, they’re just badly drawn! At the time people liked
them and people still seem to like them. There are
worse things to be known for, frankly. It’s a privilege to
be able to make something that brings some joy into
people’s lives.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 59
 g wa nt s to m ak e th e sim pl e act of rolling a die
Game designer Corey Youn p? Re inventing the dice tower
m em be r. Hi s fir st ste
an experience to re

C
her Lumpkin
Words and photographs by Jos
orey Young has spent a lot of time
thinking about dice.
“d8s clot. They lock into each
other in a way that no other dice
seem to,” Young tells me as he
drops a healthy handful of eight-sided dice
into a metre-tall dice tower.
“There are all kinds of things I found out
about the physics of dice while I was in the
process of building these. A d4 will stop on any
surface anywhere that is less than a 35-degree
angle. It will just park. A d4’s centre of gravity
just makes it want to sit still.”
Young should know a fair amount about
gravity, having previously designed the board
game Gravwell. In the sci-fi card game, players
use an alternate dimension’s constantly shifting
gravity to try and coast their spaceships to victory.
Gravwell was honoured as the 2014 Mensa Select
winner for its unique Newtonian gameplay.
This new line of modular dice tumblers –
Young prefers ‘tumblers’ to ‘towers’ for his
creations – is something different from other
such devices, which have been around in
one form or another since at least the fourth
century, when they were used by Romans to
play dice games. First off, the face of the box is
clear, so you can watch your dice fall.
“Most every other dice tower is just a closed
box,” Young says. “Why not open it up so we
can see what’s going on in there?”
These dice tumblers are designed to look
incredible, with thoughtfulness of design
integrated at every turn.
“I wanted it to be an attractive piece of
furniture,” Young says. “Something that earns
its space in your game room or on the table.”

GIVING LIFE TO DICE

So far, The Broken Token – the accessories firm
best known for its wooden game box inserts –
has released five different modules that can be
combined in any way the user fancies. There’s
‘Bones’, a skeleton for dice to fall through,
bouncing through the ribcage as they go.
‘Stairs’, which is a double helix of staircases for
dice to descend. And, this author’s personal
favorite, ‘Shame’, which includes a cage for you
to lock a naughty die in so that it has to watch
its mates having all the fun.

60 June 2018

The five modular designs can be used alone, or
“We personify our dice,” says Young. “We get
mad at them and put them in time out.”
The tumblers are designed to be mounted
in a gaming room. Young says: “For my home
system, I’m going to have four of this one, two
of these, two of these, and then a base.”
Those wondering how far such a simple
concept as a dice tower can be pushed
have good reason. Most people have a
limited budget with which to fund their
gaming endeavours. Who’s going to
buy these things for almost £15 a pop,
plus the cost of a base and a loader?
“Let me just say one thing that I
guess I don’t say very often: I don’t
own a dice tower,” Young admits. “If
we’re just talking about a regular dice
tower, it’s not something I’ve felt that
I needed. It’s so much faster to pick
up the dice and just roll.”
But Young’s invention isn’t for
those regular old dice rolls.
“What I’m talking about is changing the
narrative about the dice tower,” he says excitedly.
“You don’t use the dice tumblers for every roll.
What if your dice tower was impressive enough
that you had to decide if a roll is tower-worthy?
What are we doing? We’re adding time. We’re
adding drama. Drawing out that dramatic
moment. This is the roll that’s going to save your
character, right? This is the roll that’s going to win
combined into a single customised tower
the game or lose it. You tell everybody, ‘Okay,
go to the tumbler!’ That’s what I wanted to get, is
to be a part of that story. Yes, 90% of the time or
more you are just rolling onto the tray. But once
in a while you have to go large.”
Young says he’s aware that other companies
are already making attractive, high-end dice
What I’m talking
about is changing
the narrative about
the dice tower.
towers. That’s not the audience he hopes to
capture with his invention.
“This fits into The Broken Token’s model in
terms of manufacturing,” he says. “They don’t
come pre-assembled. Just like their inserts.
Putting them together scratches that ‘Lego’ itch.”
Another thing that sets Young’s modular
dice tumblers apart is that they are
endlessly customisable.
“You want to paint yours? Knock yourself
out. You want to stain it so that it matches
the rest of the furniture in the room? Go ahead.
You want five of the same module? Cool! Off
you go. One of each? You can do that, too.”
TO DIE FOR
Though there are only five different designs
available right now, Young says that this
is just the beginning. Though he can’t get
into specifics, he tells us that he’s currently
working on several new modules that will be
available soon.
“We’re trying to come up different
thematic things,” he reveals. “We know we
hear from the Cthulhu crowd. Some of them
we’re looking at will be game-specific. It
comes from an interesting design space.”
Some of Young’s ideas include making the
dice roll a more complete sensory experience.
“I’m intrigued by the sound the dice are
making as they are going down,”
he says. “I’d like to have some
metal parts in there. Maybe some
chimes to make dice sound more
interesting on the way down. Or
little tiny tambourines so that the
dice just hit a few of them. I want to
add an auditory component to the
full experience.”
After the initial success of
Gravwell, Young says he was
Gravwell
worried about his next great
game design idea.
“Unlike other industries, ideas get
shut down all the time. You come up
with a new idea, and it’s like: ‘No. That’s not
the way we do things.’”
The designer says that wasn’t the case
when it came to his latest venture.
“There’s a different attitude. The Broken
Token’s default mode is, ‘Sure, that sounds
cool. Let’s try it.’”
And for that, Corey Young says he
is grateful.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 61
space fLeet battles
by Richard Borg

www.pscgames.co.uk

Durhamʻs Premier
Board Game Shop

COMING
SOON ON

Visit us online at:

www.meeplegames.uk
 64 CRYSTAL CLANS 72 THE MANHATTAN PROJECT 2:
MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
65 LORDS OF HELLAS
73 PIONEER DAYS
66 RISE TO NOBILITY
75 FANTASY AGE COMPANION
67 FEUDUM
75 STARTUPS
68 PETRICHOR
76 HIGH SOCIETY (2018 EDITION)
PLAYED 69 GET THE MACGUFFIN
77 MUSE
69 STAR TREK ADVENTURES:
COMMAND DIVISION 78 DARK.NET
SOURCEBOOK
79 RAILWAYS OF NIPPON
70 BLOOD RED SKIES:
BATTLE OF BRITAIN 80 STAR TREK ADVENTURES: BETA
QUADRANT SOURCEBOOK
71 PENNY PAPERS
ADVENTURES 81 BLACK SOULS

64

67 70 77

June 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 63

 P L AY E D
CRYSTAL CLANS
Can the sparkling card game keep its shine?
Designer: Colby Dauch, J. Arthur Ellis, Andrea Mezzotero | Artist: Martin Abel
H
ow best to use the time given
to you. That’s the philosophy at
the heart of most competitive
tabletop games: with some exceptions,
everyone is handed the same fixed
allowances of actions, turns and rounds,
and the winner is the person that best
optimises their pool of options in the
same amount of time as everyone else.
Player interaction, asymmetric setups
and luck can have a sway, but everyone
otherwise is generally given the same
chance by the game.
Crystal Clans is different. Here, it’s not
the game that decides how much time
and opportunity to hand you, but your
opponent – and vice-versa. At the centre
of its board-based battle for control of
three crystal zones is a dynamic initiative
system that oscillates back and forth from
player to player. If you choose to perform
more expensive options – summoning
additional powerful creatures or claiming
one of the four crystal needed to win,
for instance – it hands your opponent
more ‘free’ actions on their own turn. It’s
tightly executed, and the momentum
feels smooth; you’ll soon find yourself
optimising actions to squeeze as much
out of your turn as possible, while
avoiding pushing the gem-like token too
far onto the opposite side of the board.
This flexibility provides lots of room
to play around with the six balanced but
distinctive factions included in the core
64 June 2018
CE
ED
IT
O R'S C H OI
box. With a simple card-driven combat
system and straightforward movement
and ability rules, Crystal Clans’ depth
is found in mastering the unique skills
of these decks, from the fast Blood clan
to the Flower clan, which can swing
clashes by putting enemies to sleep.
Squads max out at three units a side,
WHAT’S IN each of which have three basic traits –
THE BOX? attack, defence and move – so the action
◗ Game board feels as fast and fluid as possible, never
◗ Initiative token slowing down with excessive combat
◗ Six clan decks (27
resolution or rule-checking. Learning
cards per deck)
the clans’ different boons also deepens
◗ Six clan reference cards
◗ Two player what initially seems like a shallow tug
reference cards of war over the central crystal: expect
◗ 15 crystal cards your first couple of games to feel a little
one-note in places, but later matches to
spread out further across the board.
The relatively light gameplay is
buoyed by a fetching art style featuring
bright fantasy visuals and charming
cartoonish characters. The board has
plenty of personality – the discard
pile is a graveyard, the draw zone a
training school – and the undead,
floral, dwarven, magical and whatnot
specialisms of the clans are depicted
with just enough distinction to make
them feel different but of the same
world. The pleasing visuals are matched
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… SUMMONER WARS
If you like controlling a board with cards, Crystal Clans offers a tight two-player
showdown and some innovative ideas wrapped up in a beautiful fantasy world.
30-60m 2 14+ £37
by smart graphic design – cards that are
stacked overlap to keep the stats needed
during battle visible along the top edge,
while the bottom lip is used separately
during battle to add effects and other
buffs using the game’s rock-paper-
scissors-style combat. While squads can
be rearranged when they activate, only
the visible ability of the top card applies
– making it important to order squads
carefully, as they can often wipe each
other out without giving lower units the
chance to use their skills.
The core gameplay and six factions
present in Crystal Clans’ core box give
the base game more than enough to
stand on for the moment, but it feels
like the game’s true longevity will
depend on future expansions. There’s
no custom deck construction available,
for example – the six decks are simply
shuffled and reused in whole for each
match. That will be enough for those
after a light, fun two-player game that’s
ready to roll in a matter of seconds, but
even the six distinct clans might wear
thin over time for those looking for a
more serious competitive experience to
invest in. There’s certainly room in the
over-large box for more decks – although
an inlay better suited to keeping the
cards organised would’ve been nice to
include. (Our tip: flip the cardboard and
use the two outside channels instead of
the single central valley.)
Still, what’s here is a very promising
start. It looks fantastic, plays beautifully
and toes the line between accessibility
and depth with ease. What remains to
be seen now is whether that promise
holds up in the long term.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Crystal Clans plays fast and light, and
offers plenty to dig into in its core box
for casual players thanks to a generous
offering of factions. Competitive players
may not be as hooked for as long, but
this could prove to be the foundation of
something special.
LORDS OF HELLAS
Freaky Greeks battle for supremacy in
a sci-fi-embellished ancient world
Designer: Adam Kwapinski | Artist: Patryk Jedraszek, Ewa Labak
I
t’s fair to say Homer knew how to
spin a good yarn. And who would
argue that the legends of ancient
Greece, from the Labours of Heracles
to the Quest for the Golden Fleece,
don’t require much embellishment?
Yet a straightforward Greek-mythic
theme wasn’t enough for Polish
designer Adam Kwapinski (Heroes,
InBetween) or his Awaken Realms
developer Marcin Swierkot. For some
mystifying reason, they’ve decided
that what their table-smothering
area-control title Lords of Hellas really
needed was a rigorous sci-fi workover.
Here, myth-plucked player
characters like Achilles, Helen and
Perseus stomp around a stylised map
of Greece while sporting neon-tinged,
superhero-esque outfits and power
armour. The minis of the monumental
gods and monsters (which are, we
admit, of extremely high production
value) come festooned with
cybernetic gadgetry. And we’re told
in the background that said gods
(namely Zeus, Athena and Hermes in
this base set) are actually “mysterious
and technologically advanced
beings” who “arrived in this world”
to arm the heroes “with advanced
60-90m 1-4 14+ £110
weapons of terrible power”. Yet there fun-to-execute monster hunts WHAT’S IN
is nothing whatsoever in any of Hellas’ offering one of a few alternative THE BOX?
mechanisms or card descriptions routes to victory. So, while the game ◗ Two-sided map board
that convinces you this vague sci-fi will typically end when a player ◗ Four hero boards
◗ Four army boards
skinning is relevant to the gameplay. controls two lands (three in a two-
◗ Four coloured
It feels like a last-minute graft-on, as if player game), it can also conclude plastic rings
Kwapinski were told: “Blood Rage with either when three monsters have ◗ Four help trays
Greeks ain’t enough of a USP. Fix it.” been slain by a single hero (via the ◗ Seven monster trays
While this doesn’t directly impair collection of specific combat card ◗ Persian invasion tray
the play experience, it is a baffling sets), or when five temples are ◗ Events deck
distraction. The resulting design has controlled. Or, if you’re not playing (23 cards)
both a faint air of naffness (particularly it with two, it can end when a player ◗ Monster attack
if you remember watching the very fully builds a monument – neatly deck (18 cards)
◗ Artefact deck
silly Ulysses 31 cartoon series as a represented by three massive five-
(20 cards)
kid), as well as an unwelcome, leery part miniatures which are gradually ◗ Combat cards
adolescent-boy feel to its bosom- and satisfyingly assembled through deck (30 cards)
thrusting female figurines. the game – and maintains control of ◗ Blessing deck
The good news is that beneath its region for three turns in a row. (36 cards)
the uneasy cheesy surface lies a Along the way you’ll go on quests ◗ Temple deck
solid conquest game – one which (though this is the least engaging and (five cards)
owes much to Eric M. Lang’s most skippable element), and earn ◗ Four help cards
aforementioned Norsepocalypse title. magical – sorry, ‘hi-tech’ – artefacts ◗ Monument
activation card
Leader and troop (or hoplite) figures and blessings that will offer a valuable
◗ Monster die
jostle for supremacy on a map divided edge. A solo ‘Persian Invasion’ ◗ Four hero miniatures
into lands and regions, combat is mode is also included (300 with ◗ Three five-piece
based on the revealing of potentially lasers, anyone?), but sadly proves monument miniatures
tricksy cards, and there are some too overcomplicated and exception- ◗ 60 Hoplites (15
whopping monster minis. ridden to truly thrill. per player)
However, here the creatures Lords of Hellas is not spectacular, ◗ 16 priests (four
are to be battled by the heroes then, but will satisfy anyone who likes per player)
rather than deployed as allies, with a big, beefy, strategy game, and who ◗ Seven monster
miniatures
doesn’t mind digesting lots of chewy
◗ 60 control tokens
rules. Or the fact that in this weirdy (15 per player)
mythology, boss-god Zeus waves ◗ 12 attribute tokens
a big electro-whip rather than (three per player)
simply hurling lightning bolts. ◗ Nine quest tokens
DAN JOLIN ◗ Eight temple tokens
(with plastic stands)
◗ Oracle of Delphi token
WE SAY (with plastic stand)
A hefty area-control game whose ◗ 24 used action
impressive minis are undermined tokens (six per player)
by an odd and superfluous theme, ◗ Five glory tokens
by which ancient Greek mythology ◗ 15 monster
is turned into silly sci-fi. wound cubes
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
BLOOD RAGE
Awaken Realms is clearly going
for the same crowd as Cool
Mini or Not’s modern classic,
although Lang’s game is neater,
quicker and far more elegant.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 65
 P L AY E D
RISE TO NOBILITY
Join this Macedonian dice-placement
race for a place on the Stone Council
Designer: Ivana Krstevska, Vojkan Krstevska, Toni Toshevski, Maja Matovska | Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski
E
nough is enough. I have had it
with optimistic play times on
boxes. Scythe claims a bizarrely
specific 115 minutes but kept us at
the table ‘til after midnight, and Rise
to Nobility suggests "25 minutes per
player". This is a game with ten rounds,
and in each round the player has four
or five turns, placing a die and doing a
bunch of resulting actions – apparently
in under 30 seconds. I play Snap slower.
Apart from that, what is there to
say? Blah blah Kickstarter blah blah
dice placement blah blah sequel to
2016’s Cavern Tavern. Stop me if all this
sounds a bit familiar. Two things lift
Rise to Nobility above the usual: firstly,
it crowdfunded a healthy £272,000,
which means its box is stuffed with lid-
distending stretch goals, and, secondly,
it’s Macedonian.
There aren’t many games from
Macedonia – apart from Cavern Tavern,
which was a crowd-pleasing game of
working in a fantasy pub, serving drinks
and badmouthing fellow employees.
Rise to Nobility is also dice-placement
and set in the same world, but with
more strategy and depth than its
sibling, and this time you’re working to
become the clerk of the Stone Council
66 June 2018
WHAT’S IN that governs the Five Realms. To do this
THE BOX? you need to build a village.
◗ Main board The game has a three-act structure,
◗ Six player boards like a good screenplay only without
◗ Score board much emergent story. In the early game
◗ 30 dice
you’re recruiting and housing refugees.
◗ 84 meeples
◗ 120 wooden cubes
In the mid-game you’ll put them to work
◗ 42 wooden houses as apprentices at the six guilds, earning
◗ 20 wooden markers goods, enlarging the guilds and building
◗ 13 character cards your wealth and prestige. In the final act
◗ 48 settlers cards you’re using that to petition the council
◗ 16 event cards to– well, to give you victory points. Along
◗ 15 solo objective cards the way you’ll gain and lose reputation,
◗ Five setup cards and rise in nobility.
◗ Six reference cards
It’s a dice-placement game at heart, so
◗ 18 ship tiles
◗ 48 building tiles
player interaction is mostly about blocking
◗ 30 Stone Council tiles the others by being first to locations and
◗ 48 coins resources, and therefore there’s more
◗ 20 modifier tokens of that as the player count increases.
◗ Chancery But the game has different setups
expansion board and amounts of available resources
◗ Cloth bag depending on the number of players,
which is nice and balances things well.
There are elegant and clever mechanics
here. There are also a lot of fiddly
mechanics, easy to forget or overlook. The
whole thing ought to pull together into a
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… KINGSBURG
If you like dice-placement then Rise to Nobility echoes many of this
heavy-hitter’s themes, but with more fantasy and fewer armies.
25m (pp) 1-6 14+ £55
story of a nation’s economic and political
growth, but that never comes off.
Where Rise to Nobility works, it works
brilliantly. A couple of the mechanical
flourishes (the way reputation affects
the dice, the dice-placement rules,
the trading ships) are really lovely. But
it can drag towards the end, and any
game that has a page labelled ‘easily
overlooked rules’ needed another round
of development and refinement.
The designers have promised updates
and additional modes on their website.
If you don’t mind waiting, and don’t
mind spending many of your allegedly
30-second turns having other players
remind you of a rule you’d forgotten,
then the Five Realms is an intriguing
place to spend an evening.
JAMES WALLIS
WE SAY
It’s a satisfying worker-placement
game, although it’s far from
streamlined and never becomes more
than the sum of its parts. But the parts
are great.
FEUDUM
A feast of fantasy fun that’s a little hard to digest
Designer: Mark Swanson | Artist: Justin Schultz
F
orget the whimsical, Adventure
Timey vibe given off by Feudum’s
cover artwork, panoramic map and
Jim Henson-like creatures: this is a game
doing a lot of heavy lifting beneath its
light dressing, like pulling the head off a
Big Bird costume to find The Rock inside.
It is, essentially, a complex medieval
sandbox simulation set in a fantasy
world. Each turn, players choose four
of 11 action cards and execute them
one at a time, in whatever order they
want. Like its looks, it seems simple on
the surface, but the cards quickly give
way to a staggering number of options.
At the centre of the action are six
guilds, Feudum’s lifeblood. Players earn
status with each guild depending on
their actions on the map and deploying
their three pawns that are, if you like,
enrolled rather than rolled: you might
choose one to be a monk to please the
religious faction of the land, or nominate
another to be a farmer, satisfying
the rural contingent. Any player can
trade with a guild freely, but the most
venerated player (guild master) and
second-in-command (journeyman)
can perform more advanced actions
that ‘push’ and ‘pull’ resources between
adjacent guilds, creating a lifelike flow
of goods and services – so the farmers’
harvest can become goods for sale from
the merchants, which can then be used
by the alchemists to help invent water
80-180m 2-5 12+ £73
and air vehicles. Meanwhile, guild of things it’s possible to do make for an
members take a cut of any shillings often overwhelming number of rules to
traded with their respective factions, remember and execute, which aren’t
with a portion also crossing the board always recapped as well as they could
to be held as charity until that too can be by the flavour-over-function visuals
be swept up by guild members. The and reference materials, which too
numerous interlocking systems can often lack reminders of the small but WHAT’S IN
be fiddly and a lot to keep up with important steps linked to each event. THE BOX?
at first, but once they click it all feels The game’s lack of obvious direction and ◗ Game board
astonishingly natural and just makes semi-randomised way of advancing each ◗ 55 action cards
◗ 16 Royal Writ cards
sense in the world that creator Mark epoch also means it can stretch on, with
◗ 15 pawns
Swanson has created. having to operate the machinery taking ◗ 20 player discs/reeves
The open nature of Feudum presents precedence over the joy of being able to ◗ 100 influence markers
plenty of opportunity for entertaining watch it in motion. Which is a shame, as ◗ 24 region/
hijinks. Players can throw their rivals a when it does tick along without grinding landscape tiles
feast to get them drunk and temporarily to a halt, it’s an astonishing experience. ◗ Nine vessel tiles
borrow their mastery of a guild, for Feudum doesn’t quite sink ◗ 44 location discs
instance, while wine can also be used completely under the weight of its ◗ 17 king’s seal/
instead of food to keep pawns going ambitions, but its impressive portrayal rosary beads
◗ 12 archery targets
on the board – but they’ll be worse in of a believable world – behemoths
◗ Epoch marker
battles while sustained by little more than and sea serpents aside – stumbles in ◗ Starting player marker
alcohol. If you purchase a vehicle, you can its execution. There’s enough here for ◗ 50 silver and
abandon it once you’re back on land – but those who invest the significant time gold shillings
that means that a rival might come along and effort needed to enjoy for years to ◗ Progress die
and pinch it for a ride. Players can exert come – we just wish it was a little easier ◗ Five player pouches
their influence over locations to become to fall completely into its world. ◗ 30 saltpeter goods
the ruler, or a serf if there’s already a ruler MATT JARVIS ◗ 30 sulfur goods
in place, and benefit from the land, but ◗ 30 iron goods
◗ 30 wood goods
can also choose to bribe their way to the WE SAY ◗ 50 food goods
top and displace the current ruler. Or ◗ Haversack
Feudum’s complex world is an amazing
you could always starve the people to ◗ Two monsters
creation that’s a delight to explore and
instantly – but dishonourably – deal play around in – once you manage to (behemoth,
with a rival subject or serf. get to grips with its fiddlier aspects. If sea serpent)
Feudum’s greatest strength is its only it was as easy and fun to play as it ◗ 15 reference cards
biggest challenge, too. The sheer range is to watch. (English, French
and German)
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
TRICKERION:
LEGENDS OF
ILLUSION
Two action-selection
games with very
different themes,
but they both cast a
certain spell.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 67
 P L AY E D
PETRICHOR
Will you be the raining champion in this game of clouds?
Designer: David Chircop | Artist: Daniela Attard, Sami Laakso
T
he power of component-feel
is something we shouldn’t
underestimate. Whether it’s dice
bouncing around inside your cupped
palms, plonking a wooden meeple on
a map or nudging a tile neatly next to
another, there’s an irreplaceable joy
to getting (literally) hands-on with a
game. Board gaming is an inherently
tactile activity – which is precisely why
digital versions will never supersede
their analogue progenitors, right? So
it’s surprising to find a digital card
game designer behind a game with
some of the most satisfying tabletop
palpability we’ve experienced in
ages. Even more surprising when you
consider it’s a game themed around
something utterly intangible.
Having worked on Gwent, the
free-to-play digital card game spun off
from the Witcher series, Warsaw-based
David Chircop has now released the
gorgeously-named Petrichor (meaning
the spirit-lifting smell of freshly rained-
upon earth), in which players gently
68 June 2018
ED
IT
O R'S C H OI
compete as clouds trying to nourish a
randomly-arranged selection of crops
(coffee, cotton, wheat, etc.) to score the
most points.
If that sounds a bit airy and
insubstantial, don’t be mistaken.
Combining card set-collection, action
management, worker-placement (or,
rather, cloud-placement) elements and
a bit of bidding, there is a lot going on
in Petrichor. So much so, it takes a few
playthroughs to really get to grips with
its manifold mechanisms.
Each turn, a player discards from a
hand of weather cards both to perform
an action (frost, to put a new cloud
on a crop tile; sun, to add two water
drops to a cloud; wind, to move clouds
around; rain, to shift droplets from
clouds to crop tiles) and vote for two
weather effects that will manifest at the
round’s end. If sun wins the vote, for
example, every player gets to double
their water droplets in a chosen cloud,
possibly turning it into a thundercloud
(with four or more droplets), or
20-80m 1-4 14+ £53
causing it to burst when it hits eight
droplets, emptying its H2O payload on
the points-yielding crop below.
This is where the game’s superb
‘component-feel’ comes in. There
is something truly satisfying about
plonking its translucent glass droplet
tokens into the cardboard cloud trays…
CE
then tipping them from the tray onto
a tile, with a tinkle that does bring to
mind the sound of rainfall. With a crisp
graphic design by Sami Laakso and
vivid watercolour illustrations by Daniel
Attard, it’s a looker of a game, too, sure
to impress any friends you lay it out for.
The only caveat is that some visual
devices aren’t as intuitive as they
might be. Players only score at harvest
time for developed crops, with the
points awarded according to a ranking
system for the number of droplets
each player has on tiles (not in clouds);
WHAT’S IN one that’s shown on every tile, but
THE BOX? isn’t instinctively decipherable. And
◗ Double-sided
game board harvests only happen when the three
◗ 16 crop tiles harvest dice show the relevant symbol.
◗ 40 weather cards These can only be turned by sacrificing
(10 each of frost, your weather-effect bid to turn the face
sun, wind, rain) of a die (which also earns you bonus
◗ Nine southern wind victory points) – a mechanism that
cards (for solo mode) takes a little while to absorb.
◗ Four player aid cards
Despite this, and a rulebook which is
◗ 60 water drop
replete with exceptions, once you settle
tokens (20 for
each player colour) into the game it develops a pleasing,
◗ 56 vote markers (14 quick-paced flow. And, of course,
for each player colour) rewards all its participants with its
◗ Three harvest dice wonderful physical design. Rain hasn’t
◗ Normal die (for been this fun since Gene Kelly splashed
solo mode) around in a Californian puddle.
◗ 12 cloud trays DAN JOLIN
◗ First Player marker
◗ Round marker
◗ 12 wheat tokens
WE SAY
◗ 12 thundercloud tokens An impressively visualised abstract
◗ 16 growing tokens game that uses its physical components
◗ Four +50/+100 to maximum effect. Don’t just talk about
victory point tokens the weather; play the weather.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
A simple, seemingly gentle nature-
based theme which contains more
strategic depth than you’d at first
expect, the tree-based Photosynthesis
feels appropriately close to Petrichor.
GET THE MACGUFFIN
Designer: Andrew Looney | Artist: Alex Bradley 15-20m 2-11 8+ £10

A
ndrew Looney has created
many notable games in his
career but he’ll always be
known, for better or worse, as the man
who invented Fluxx. Get the MacGuffin,
his latest, won’t do anything to change
that reputation: it’s another fast, light
game of changing roles and updating
rules. It’s more elegant than its older
sibling – and, at just 23 cards, a good
deal slimmer – but unquestionably in
the same ballpark.
There are two types of oversized cards
in the Get the MacGuffin box: actions and
objects. On your turn you must play an
action from your hand, place an object
in front of you, use an object already in
play, or discard an object you can’t use.
One of those objects is the MacGuffin,
which is usually the last card on the table
and therefore the winning card, because
if you have no cards you’re out. A 'last
MacGuffin standing' game, if you will.
The cards are fun. Some have an
espionage/secret agent vibe, with spies,
assassins, thieves and interrogators,
but the tone is spoilt by the presence of
hippies, shrugmasters and a mini-game
of rock-paper-scissors. Cards change
hands, hands change hands, the cards
are gathered up and redealt, someone
plays the crown to become the monarch,
someone assassinates the monarch, and
it’s finished in under ten minutes.
There are tactics here, but there are
also cards that undermine any tactical
play. The deck is tightly structured
– but for fun and social play, not
strategy. That’s clearly the game’s target
audience. It worked for Fluxx, and it
should do the same for MacGuffin.
JAMES WALLIS

STAR TREK ADVENTURES: COMMAND

DIVISION SOURCEBOOK
Designer: Modiphius team | Artist: Various 120 13+ £25

W
hile every Star Trek fan
has their own favourite
characters and roles, there’s
no denying that most of us have fondly
daydreamed about sitting in that fancy
seat and taking charge of a starship.
This slim sourcebook for Star Trek
Adventures helps players to realise those
dreams, though they may soon find that
there’s more to being in charge than just
yelling orders.
There’s no denying that the
Command Division Sourcebook is
an odd proposition. After all, the
very nature of the game means that
each group will only have one or two
characters in the division at any one
time, which raises the question of what
this book is for, exactly?
Well, let’s start by going over what
is isn’t for. This is most certainly not
a book that’s simply stuffed with new
options and powers for command
division players. While there are a
handful of new talents on offer, they’re
far from the focus.
Instead, much of the book is based
around creating interesting scenarios
and challenges that centre on the
captain and other leaders. This ranges
from setting up guidelines on court
martials all the way to setting up rules
for large-scale fleet battles and, while
these may send one or two characters to
the forefront of the action, it also leaves
plenty of room for others to contribute
and get stuck in themselves.
There’s a lot of information crammed
into the supplement, and almost every
page contains one or two titbits that
could spark off an exciting mission
or an entire campaign. A section on
potential storylines doesn’t go into a
huge amount of depth, but instead
suggests ways to send players off on a
diplomatic mission, or even setting up
an internal conflict with Starfleet’s own
internal security.
Similarly, the more rule-focused parts
of the book aren’t particularly dense but
contain just enough to provide ideas and
give players a handful of new options.
The GM gets systems for managing
social conflicts and an assortment of
NPCs, while players get some new ships
to check out and a list of medals and
other honours that they can qualify for.
The Command Division Sourcebook
isn’t utterly vital to playing Star Trek
Adventures but is well worth picking up
if you’re looking for new ideas, options
or just an entertaining read.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES

tabletopgaming.co.uk 69
 P L AY E D
BLOOD RED SKIES: BATTLE OF BRITAIN
Plane brilliance
Designer: Andy Chambers | Artist: Warlord Games team
E
ver since I was a kid, I’ve loved
the sound of Spitfires. There’s
something about the throaty,
mechanical rumble of Britain’s most
iconic aeroplane that I just find infinitely
pleasing to listen to. It’s a simple
pleasure. If Blood Red Skies had a noise,
it would be the sound of a Spitfire.
This is an aerial combat game that,
like the noise of an engine, just feels
good. The starter set includes six
Spitfires and an equal number of their
opposing German Messerschmitts
that are deployed on a battlefield and
duke it out; the included scenarios
offer up a variety of objectives, from
simple reconnaissance to escorting
bigger bombers, but a basic win comes
from shooting down enough planes or
otherwise earning victory point-like
‘boom chits’ that represent one side’s
dominance over the other. These chits
can be netted by simply landing a hit
without causing damage, helping to
avoid the dice-driven combat growing
stale and frustrating; standard matches
wrap up in well under an hour, and feel
as breathless as the historical dogfights
they portray.
Propelling this sense of speed is
Blood Red Skies’ masterstroke. Its
diddly plastic planes – which come
unpainted, unlike X-Wing and Wings
of Glory, but cost a fraction of the
70 June 2018
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 12 coloured plastic
fighter aircraft
◗ 12 clear plastic
advantage flying bases
◗ 10 combat dice
◗ 12 pilot skill level discs
◗ 45 cards
◗ 38 markers
◗ Movement template
◗ Range finder
◗ Navigation caliper
◗ Six clouds/air defence
balloons clusters
◗ Three Blenheim
IV/Dornier Do17
Z2 bombers
◗ Two quick
reference sheets
price – are mounted on bases that
tilt back and forth to signify three
levels of ‘advantage’. Advantage can
be decreased voluntarily to perform
advanced actions and doubles as hit
points (disadvantaged planes can
be shot down), injecting a sense of
risk-reward to outmanoeuvring enemy
pilots or diving to cross the skies
quicker. Abstracting altitude, position,
damage levels and more into a single
visual cue is a brilliant touch, making
the slick ruleset effortless to execute and
every battle look cinematic – closing in
on a plane with its nose already pointed
at the floor is an exciting moment,
especially when combined with the
simple but effective rules for tailing.
The snappy gameplay loop of
shoot-move-action is deepened by the
action deck, a customisable set of extra
abilities and events that complements
each player’s selection of planes.
(The packed-in expansion adds more
customisation with ace pilots.) Cards
can be selected both based on the
planes used and the time period of
the scenario, balancing variety and
historical realism in a way that stops
the accessible core feeling shallow or
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… WINGS OF GLORY
With less of a commitment to simulation, Blood Red Skies offers
a smart and streamlined alternative to historical dogfighting.
45m 2 12+ £40
throwaway. Blood Red Skies is far from
a simulation game, but there’s a clear
reverence for the reality of World War
II aerial combat throughout.
That said, this streamlining comes
at a cost. Some of the rules feel
under-explained, with enough room
for players to need to fill the gaps
themselves. With a bit of tightening
up, Blood Red Skies could be a strong
contender for an involving tournament
and spectator game – at the moment,
it’s just a little too loose for anything but
casual play. That’s not helped by the
components in the box, which include a
measuring tool that’s too often awkward
and inaccurate, especially when the
models get tight. Similarly, the decision
to make the bases circular feels like a
deliberate decision to distinguish it from
the rectangular bases of X-Wing and
Wings of Glory, but has the side effect
of making the quartered firing arcs less
clear without corners to measure from.
They also make removing the pilot skill
discs harder without risking damage to
the cardboard tokens – not exactly an
indicator of a game built to last.
But you know what? None of that
really mattered a smidge while I was
actually playing Blood Red Skies,
because I was just having such a fun time
watching my squadrons zip through
clouds, around anti-air defences and
unleash bursts of machine-gun fire on
enemy pilots who would similarly dance
around, whizzing between the tips of
wings to try and zero in. With a little fine-
tuning, this could be a game that takes
miniatures aerial combat to new heights.
For now, it’s just a really good time.
Like I said, simple pleasures.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
It’ll take a little bit of tweaking to get to
a tournament level, but if you’re looking
for a wickedly quick and exciting aerial
combat game to play at home, Blood
Red Skies will lift you off the ground
with its seriously slick gameplay.

PENNY PAPERS ADVENTURES
Have dice, will travel in this roll-and-write adventure
Designer: Henri Kermarrec | Artist: Géraud Soulié
A
set of three roll-and-write
puzzle games, Penny Papers
Adventures puts players in the
shoes of an intrepid explorer delving
into undiscovered corners of the
world, armed only with a pencil.
The games share the same
mechanical underpinning. In each
round, players roll a set of three dice,
using the results to guide Penny
around a grid-patterned map – one
for each player. You’ll be able to
use results from individual dice,
or combine them to make bigger
numbers, writing them on your map
to mark off areas as Penny visits them.
Each game comes with its own ways
to score points, though. The simplest,
The Temple of Apikhabou, rewards
players for making continuous chains
of numbers across the map, or for
creating adjacent groups of matching
values. Skull Island, on the other
hand, is a little more complicated,
granting you points for creating
intersecting points between matching
numbers – a bit like a kind of reverse
sudoku, where you’re actively trying
to place multiples the same digit on
the same lines.
Then there’s Valley of Wiraqocha,
the toughest of the lot. It sees
players exploring a South American
landscape, forming different groups of
numbers to represent jungles, towns,
mountain ranges and pyramids built
WHAT’S IN by ancient civilisations. You’ll also be
THE BOX? able to build huts and mines, boosting
◗ 100 double-sided your score by placing them next to
adventure sheets
certain types of newly-discovered
◗ Three custom dice
terrain. It’s by far the most complex
instalment in the series – the most
likely to please seasoned gamers, and
to intimidate newer ones.
As you might expect in a game
with an adventurous theme, you’ll
face dangers on your travels. Unlucky
dice rolls see players running into
vengeful mummies, venomous
snakes and treacherous conditions.
When that happens you’ll swap
your sheet with an opponent, with
everyone choosing a spot on their
rival’s map to place a hazard. It
means you’ll be able to block off vital
spaces, disrupting other players’
carefully laid plans, and stops Penny
Papers falling into the antisocial trap
of 'multiplayer solitaire'.
Despite this nod to player
interaction, though, at its heart the
series is a competitive puzzle with
more of an emphasis on optimising
your own game than interfering with
your opponents’. It’s also possible
to play it solo, although it does
introduce one major annoyance.
In multiplayer games, everyone’s
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… QUADROPOLIS
Like the town-building board game, Penny Papers Adventures challenges
you to use a steadily diminishing space to maximise your score.
CE
ED
IT
O R'S C H OI
15-25m 1-100 7+ to 9+ £15 (ea)
working with the same pool of dice.
No matter how poorly you roll, the
challenge is to work with what you’ve
got, using the dice at your disposal
more efficiently and cleverly than
your rivals. When you’re playing
alone, your only goal is to rack up the
highest possible score, and a run of
unlucky rolls can make it impossible
– a frustrating situation that leads to
a temptation to scrunch up your map
and throw it in the bin.
There’s a lot to like about these
small, quick, cerebral games, though.
If you’re a fan of brainy puzzles,
they’re definitely worthy of your
attention and, with three levels of
complexity to choose from, you’ll be
able to progress through them as you
become a grizzled, veteran explorer.
OWEN DUFFY
WE SAY
The Penny Papers Adventures series
takes a simple roll-and-write premise and
tweaks it to deliver a varied and distinct
set of challenges. It packs the same
kind of brainy punch as an addictive
smartphone puzzle, although in solo
mode it can result in some frustrating
games where you find yourself at the
mercy of unco-operative dice.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 71
 P L AY E D
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT 2:
MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
A very different kind of superpower
Designer: Brandon Tibbetts | Artist: James Colmer, Clay Gardner
W
orryingly prescient for a
game released in 2018,
The Manhattan Project 2:
Minutes to Midnight fully delivers on
the nail-biting tension and cut-with-
a-knife atmosphere of the threat of
nuclear war.
Whereas the original Manhattan
Project focused on the building of
nuclear bombs (excellent spin-off
Energy Empire looked at the use
of atomic power as fuel), here the
actual construction of nukes is less
important than how those weapons
of mass destruction are deployed. You
can earn victory points by exploding
nukes at your own test sites – which
permanently puts those spaces on
your player board out of action,
making it a risk-reward approach – or
holding them at ICBM silos, but to
truly establish yourself as a global
superpower you’ll eventually need to
play the perilous game of deploying
your weapons in enemy territory via
submarines and bombers.
This is where Minutes to Midnight
stands apart as a rich and complex
strategy game. A streamlined worker-
placement core throbs at the heart
of every action: you place workers
down to block opponents from using
those spaces, executing actions
when they’re retrieved later on. It’s
72 June 2018
an impeccably-crafted loop driven
by brilliantly clear graphic design,
but it would be far from unique
without the thematic gameplay twists
that designer Brandon Tibbetts has
layered on top.
There’s an element of bluffing and
social deduction in sending your
nuclear subs to patrol enemy waters:
cards are kept facedown and can be
padded out with decoys, making it
harder for that player to sweep the
pile and clear out the real threat.
Fighting for control of third nations,
meanwhile, is like a tug-of-war
between the pull of workers promoted
to politicians, with the most dominant
player able to store some of their
nukes overseas for bonus VP as long
as they retain their influence over the
region. Similarly, the most valuable
bomber planes must be deployed in
enemy airspace, but can be driven off
by squadrons of fighters.
The constant need to interact with
your rival superpowers in order to
build up the biggest nuclear arsenal
you can keeps the atmosphere as
(playfully) hostile as a game about
the Cold War nuclear arms race
deserves. Speaking of which, the
ability to send spies to use enemy
buildings (or simply stop them
using them unless they use their
2h 2-5 13+ £60
own spies for counterespionage) WHAT’S IN
makes for an excellently atmospheric THE BOX?
boiling-down of the era’s widespread ◗ Worker
infiltration, as well as a delightfully assignment board
◗ Building market board
intimidating way for players to
◗ Technology board
interact outside of their own
◗ Round marker
board. For an even more thematic ◗ Four scoring
experience, the optional nations event markers
cards offer up unique abilities. ◗ End game
The breadth of strategic options event marker
can make the game feel a bit mind- ◗ Four scoring event
boggling at first. Luckily, it’s given information cards
structure by the scoring system, which ◗ 20 decoy cards
◗ 10 nation cards
scores in four different categories –
◗ 63 building tiles
subs, ICBMs, third world nations and
◗ 15 fighter
bombers – at fixed points in the game’s squadron tiles
adjustable length, although the order ◗ 20 level 1/2
of the milestones is randomised. bomber tiles
This helps turn what could have ◗ 50 nuke discs
been a messy buffet of routes ◗ Five five-nuke counters
to victory into a still-filling but ◗ Five 50-point tokens
digestible five-course meal, as ◗ 70 one-dollar coins
◗ 10 five-dollar coins
players rush to empty their seas
◗ Five player boards
ahead of a sub scoring round, deal
◗ 75 worker tiles
with troublesome bombers before (labourers, spies,
they earn rivals VP and generally generals, politicians)
bulk up their ABM defense to ◗ 40 sub cards
benefit from opponents’ deployed ◗ 25 coloured discs
nukes. The blown-out scale of ◗ 40 level 3/4
Minutes to Midnight can still make bomber tiles
it feel a bit prone to overwhelming ◗ 25 technology tokens
◗ Five worker limit tokens
players and sagging with
overanalysis at points, but you’re
unlikely to regret any of the time TRY THIS
you spend in its alternate history. IF YOU
Minutes to Midnight is a shining LIKED… THE
example of how tight, conventional MANHATTAN
gameplay can be wedded with PROJECT
immersive, interactive elements to Minutes to Midnight
is a much denser
create an experience that you’ll want
and more complex
to sink into. Sure, it can seem like a successor than the
lot to take in at points – but shouldn’t original, but continues
nuclear peril feel that way? to excel at delivering
MATT JARVIS a deep and rich
strategy experience.
WE SAY
Minutes to Midnight does justice to the
historical period it depicts by creating
an atmosphere between players
that’s tense as hell. It’s backed up by
excellent gameplay and a depth that’s
impressively immense without being
completely overwhelming.

PIONEER DAYS
Hitch your wagon to this
clever dice-drafter
Designer: Matthew Dunstan, Chris Marling | Artist: Sergi Marcet
I
t is hard to be a pioneer in the Wild
West. The path along the Oregon Trail
is perilous: the storms damage your
wagons, the famine kills your cattle and
raiders steal all your money. Yet, with
careful planning and bit of luck, you
make it to the next town, sell your goods,
gain favours – and the next day set off on
the dusty road once more.
In Pioneer Days, players draft dice
to perform actions, such as purchasing
resources – medicine, wood, gold
– hiring townsfolk – all with unique
abilities and end-game scoring bonuses
– or getting equipment. Every single
item has a potential to earn victory
points at the end of the game, and it is
up to the player to pick a strategy that
will best suit their play style. Pioneer
Days in an incredibly flexible game and,
despite what it may look like initially,
not at all based on luck.
While players will roll dice before
picking one up, there isn’t a binary
choice of action that follows drafting.
Each dice space has three options:
gain money, get a resource or recruit
45-75m 2-4 14+ £55
WHAT’S IN townsfolk. Furthermore, players can
THE BOX? spend coins to change the value of the
◗ Start Player token dice to something else they would prefer
◗ Two draw bags to do that round. Therefore, the act of
◗ 36 gold tokens rolling acts more as a restriction than a
◗ 25 dice
hard ‘no’ to the action you want to take.
◗ Two game boards
◗ Four score markers
While the choices are in abundance,
◗ Four disaster markers and figuring out what to take and
◗ 20 wagon cards which dice to leave for your opponents
◗ 60 townsfolk cards is all part of mastering Pioneer Days’
◗ 22 town cards gameplay, there is another twist. There
◗ Cattle tokens is always one extra dice left on the
◗ Medicine tokens board and it determines which disaster
◗ Wood tokens track will progress one step further
◗ Silver tokens
before, eventually, triggering.
◗ Damage tokens
◗ Favours tokens
In a really clever way, the game
connects disasters to resource
management and, by extension, to its
point-gaining engine. A player may
need to sell wood in town to gain
victory points; however, they know that
on the next round, if no-one picks up
the blue dice, storms will trigger and
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…ELYSIUM
Another game co-designed by Matthew Dunstan, Elysium and Pioneer Days
are both are variants of drafting and resource management.
damage their wagons. The only way
to avoid damage from the storm is to
spend wood. So, do they risk it and sell
the wood? Or do they save it instead for
a very rainy day? To make this decision
even tougher, a player might have
townsfolk that give them one victory
point for each wood at the end of the
game. Suddenly, collecting wood could
become more profitable than selling
it. Add the fact that storage space in
wagons can run out and that other
players might trigger disasters because
it will damage you more than them,
and there is a lot to think about!
While this might seem overwhelming
initially, Pioneer Days does a really good
job of giving players enough time to
prepare. Every town favour condition is
available at the beginning of the game’s
week, meaning that players have five
rounds to collect relevant resources.
The progress of various disasters is
available for everyone to see. Dice
that have previously been used are
displayed, making it easier to predict
which colours will come out of the bag
next and, consequently, which disaster
is likely to trigger first. The game
never throws you a curve ball, always
providing an advance warning of things
to come – whether you are prepared or
not is down to you.
There is really only one nit-picky
complaint that can be thrown at Pioneer
Days: its scoring board. While it is
designed to fit a Wild West theme, its
snaking route with dashes and missing
numbers is hard to follow. The wagon-
shaped tokens don’t fit very well on
the score track and come in different
shades of brown, making it hard to
remember which player they belong to.
In Pioneer Days, the die you leave
behind is just as important as the
one you take. This is a game of many
decisions and, sometimes, tough
choices, but it also allows players to
plan ahead and be prepared for any
disaster that comes their way.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Pioneer Days is a thoughtful and
charming dice-drafter that values
players’ decisions and strategies
above the thrill of the unexpected.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 73
Hall 5
Stand
B20
 P L AY E D

FANTASY AGE COMPANION

Designer: Jack Norris, Chris Pramas, Steve Kenson, Jon Leitheusser, Malcolm Sheppard 129 13+ £20

J
ust as the base game had
almost exactly what you would
expect from a sword-and-
sorcery RPG – for better and for
worse – the Fantasy AGE Companion
is stuffed with new options and rules
that are a little predictable but no less
welcome for it.
Much of the focus is on adding
characters and ideas that aren’t
embedded in the heart of the fantasy
genre quite as firmly as elves and
wizards, but nevertheless crop up often
enough to be recognisable tropes.
For example, the new races on offer
all fall into the slightly contradictory
category of typical non-typical heroes.
This means there are rules for playing
as humanoid dragons, the clockwork-
or steam-powered constructs known
as Oreans, and a whole array of bestial
humanoids based on everything from
bears to frogs.
The new talents and specialisations
are also designed to allow characters
to branch out of the typical Tolkien-
esque mould with rogues that
specialise in breaking heads with
nunchaku and kicks that would put
Bruce Lee to shame, and warriors
that ditched their longswords in
favour of a couple of revolvers. There
are also some more unusual options,
such as dedicated diplomats that may
be able to solve problems without
resorting to their weapons.
While the first half of the book
is focused on options for players,
the rest is firmly aimed towards
GMs. These range from guidelines
for creating new NPCs to rules for
chase scenes and mass battles.
Again, nothing in there is going
to be particularly surprising, but
nonetheless it rounds out the ruleset
and provides more options without
becoming overwhelming.
If there’s a criticism to
the book it’s that it doesn’t
really bring much to the
table that you can’t find in
a dozen other games. There
are a few neat ideas here and
there – such as the arcane
tattoos of the ‘Marked’
specialisation – but it can still
feel a little flavourless, even
for a generic system. Also, if
you’ve been buying all of the
AGE books released so far
then you probably already
own a decent chunk of the
content of offer in the Companion.
Still, the book is densely packed
with ways to expand your campaign
and is well worth picking up if
your group is already interested in
Fantasy AGE.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES

STARTUPS
Designer: Jun Sasaki | Artist: Kentaro ‘ANI’ Fujimoto 20m 3-7 10+ £15

I
n most cultures people follow
creators and artists, not labels
and publishers. In games it’s often
the companies that have fans, and
boutique Japanese publisher
Oink is high among them.
The elegance and economy
of its designs have built a
strong following, packing
beautiful components and
clever gameplay into
boxes not much larger
than a deck of cards.
Startups is a
redesign of an earlier
Oink game, Rights.
It’s now about stock-
trading, trying to control
six companies by having
the most shares in them,
but with twists. Each
company has a different
number of shares, from
Giraffe Beer (five) to
Elephant Mars Travel (ten).
If you have the most declared
shares in a business, you cannot buy
any more. At the end the majority
shareholder gets paid by the other
shareholders. So you want to control a
company, or have nothing to do with it.
Play is simple and fast: you draw
a card from the deck or the face-up
market, and then play one in front of
you or back to the market. It doesn’t
sound like much. But one of the traits
of a good Oink game is the way each
run-through reveals new ways to think
about how to play. Startups comes on
like a filler, but it demands so many
replays it may fill the evening.
I wasn’t taken with Rights, but the
little rules changes and graphical
overhaul make Startups a better game:
lighter in tone, more approachable,
more filled with the indefinable
effervescence that makes people froth
about Oink’s output. The company’s
reputation is built on big games in little
boxes, and while Startups lacks the
mad originality of Deep Sea Adventure
or A Fake Artist Goes to New York, it’s a
lovely addition nevertheless.
JAMES WALLIS

June 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 75

 P L AY E D

HIGH SOCIETY (2018 EDITION)

Shut up and take our money – but not all of it
Designer: Reiner Knizia | Artist: Medusa Dollmaker 20m 3-5 10+ £15

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ 55 money cards
◗ 16 oversized
status cards

O WE SAY
riginally released in 1995,
Reiner Knizia’s High Society
is often overshadowed by
the trilogy formed by the German
designer’s other auction games of
the decade: Modern Art, Medici and
Ra. This year’s revamped edition
gives the game a rightful chance
to be rediscovered. Firstly because
its latest makeover, led by Medusa
Dollmaker’s Art Nouveau-inspired
illustrations, is absolutely gorgeous
and, secondly, because High Society is
just a ridiculous amount of fun.
High Society starts out with a light
but amusing theme. Players are
turn-of-the-century French socialites
that must maintain their status by –
what else? – splashing their cash as
publicly as they can, without living
life a little too large. Knizia’s coup de
maître is that no matter their score,
the person with the least money
at the end of the game is cast out
of society, making it impossible
for them to win. It’s a simple twist
that introduces a riotous amount of
mind games and bid-baiting to each
auction for one of the game’s status
cards, as players lay down increasing
numbers of money cards until they
pass, reclaiming their cards, or are the
last person left – whether they want
to be or not. The cards come in fixed
denominations from 1(000) to 25(000)
francs, requiring players to think
carefully about what they lay down to
increase their bid to avoid diminishing
their options for future rounds. The
last-minute elimination and tricky
cardplay makes for some excellent
surprises when it comes to crowning a
winner – matches that are won or lost
by a single digit are among the best
reveals gaming has to offer.
The second twist arrives with
the disgrace cards, which flip the
bidding on its head as the first person
to pass is shunned with a negative
effect or modifier to their score. In
these inverted rounds, all the money
on the table is claimed by the bank
once the card is taken, neatly forcing
players into awkward situations where
they’re forced to weigh up the cost
of dodging – or biting – the bullet.
High Society isn’t a complicated game
by any measure, but the variation
between rounds and the balancing act
required to score high without ending
up penniless leaves plenty of room for
playful (or not so playful) nastiness
and the need to shift tactics on the fly.
You can’t bide your time waiting to
scoop up the last run of cards to the
chagrin of your opponents, either.
Four of the cards – including three
valuable times-two multipliers and
a score-halving disgrace card – have
coloured backgrounds. When the last
Packed with clever
is drawn, the game ends immediately.
gameplay twists,
The flexible length and unpredictable beautiful art and
finish make the strategy a bit more plenty of potential
chaotic to manage than with the for friends to screw
fixed length of other auction games, each other over,
but cleverly forces everyone to be High Society might
completely involved in every round not be the most
of bidding – several of our games saw groundbreaking
neither of the two highest status cards auction game ever
created – but it
even make it out of the deck, sealing
might be one of the
the fate of overly-patient players. most out-and-out
All of this would be impressive entertaining entries
enough in a longer game, yet in the packed genre.
High Society crams it into a fast
and furious 20 minutes (or fewer,
depending on the draws), with an
equally modest set of components TRY THIS IF
and rules. What it lacks in terms of YOU LIKED…
ambition and scale compared to FOR SALE
Knizia’s more noteworthy auction Prefer clambering
games, High Society overcomes up the rungs of
aristocracy to
with a much quicker filler length,
trading property,
complex simplicity and purely but still don’t have
entertaining design backed up by more than 20
its designer’s trademark twists on minutes to spare?
the formula. Those looking for a High Society’s the
strict, serious auction experience are game for you.
probably better off investing their
cash elsewhere. For anyone after 20
minutes of laughter, mischief and fun,
you can bet on High Society.
MATT JARVIS

76 June 2018
MUSE
Struggle to be understood while gesticulating wildly
Designer: Jordan Sorenson | Artists: Andre Garcia, Apolline Etienne, Kristen Plescow
A
t this point it’s probably
safe to say that 'working
things out based on
infuriatingly vague clues' is one of
the best-established concepts in
gaming. Between Dixit, Mysterium,
Codenames, Concept and this year's
Decrypto, there are plenty of options
for anyone looking for a dose of
light, brainy, sociable deduction.
That hasn’t stopped designers
coming up with their own takes on
the formula, though, and this latest
offering throws an intriguing new
element into the mix.
In essence, Muse plays a lot like
a team-based variant of Dixit. Each
round sees you and your partners
draw a set of six cards, each showing
a different piece of whimsical,
ambiguous or just plain odd artwork:
goats performing ballet, cats fighting
over a poker game, a U-boat periscope
emerging from beneath a field of
cabbages. You’ll choose one card
from your selection and pass it to
a member of the opposing team,
who then has to describe it to their
partners, allowing them to accurately
identify your selection from the full
set of six.
What makes things interesting
is that they’ll have some tough
restrictions on exactly how they
can convey information to their
teammates. Alongside a picture card,
you’ll pass them an ‘inspiration’ card
dictating exactly how they’re allowed
to communicate. These range from
the straightforward (“Say a word with
exactly six letters”) to the outlandish
(“Strike a pose using any part of your
body”) and add some extra elements
for both teams to consider.
If you’re choosing the cards, you’ll
look for impossible combinations
of artwork and inspirations, or
similarities between pictures that
could trip your opponents as they
attempt to make their guesses.
If you’re on the other side of the
equation, you’ll have to do some
30m 2-12 10+ £24
creative thinking to convey your
meaning; at times it feels like trying to
explain the theory of relativity through
the medium of interpretive dance.
This leads to some triumphant
moments when you manage to point
your team in the right direction in
spite of seemingly overwhelming
odds. But while it has its high
points, the game also suffers from
a pronounced tendency towards
overanalysis. Picking cards to
hand to your rivals makes for some WHAT’S IN
involved discussions between
THE BOX?
◗ 84 masterpiece cards
teammates. Collectively attempting ◗ 30 inspiration cards
to decipher clues fosters speculation
and disagreements. Although it’s
entertaining for the people involved,
it means that at any point in the
game at least one team will be left
with nothing to do but twiddle their
thumbs and check their Twitter feeds.
Muse would become far more
compelling simply by including a
sand timer in its box. The added
time pressure would introduce
a welcome spike of tension and
eliminate the stultifying, one-sided
deliberation that causes its pace
to drag. Fortunately, that’s easy
enough to house-rule with the aid
of someone’s smartphone, but it’s
a little bewildering that its creators
didn’t think to incorporate it into the
game themselves.
OWEN DUFFY
WE SAY
Muse will appeal to fans of games like
Mysterium and Codenames Pictures,
and it generates some real head-
scratching moments as you try to
decipher your teammates’ cryptic
clues. But it has some big issues with
its pace, and mechanically it’s not a
million miles removed from the likes
of Dixit. If you already own any similar
games, there’s no compelling reason to
run out and buy this one as well.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
MYSTERIUM
It’s a simpler proposition in a smaller
box, and it comes with some positively
jaw-dropping artwork.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 77
 P L AY E D
DARK.NET
Catan, meet cyberpunk
Designer: Richard Yaner | Artist: Aaron Boyd, Scott Hartman
I
n the middle of my first playthrough
of Dark.net, while hacking
networks, boosting signals and
infecting rivals’ systems with viruses,
I got a strong feeling of déjà vu: I was
playing a cyberpunk Catan.
Players gain resources when rolling a
number corresponding to a particular
area. These resources, in turn, can be
used to purchase and place tokens that
generate points. Rolling a seven will
trigger an attack on every player in the
game. Sounds familiar?
The comparison to Catan is not to
the detriment of Dark.net, especially
since the latter makes some
significant upgrades to improve on
the classic formula. Catan, for all its
praise, is a game that is overly reliant
on luck. Except for the choices at
the beginning of the game, where
players decide which locations to
occupy on the map, the rest of game
is beholden to the fate of each roll.
Dark.net’s designer, Richard Yaner,
was clearly aware of the frustration
that can cause, and most of the
game’s differing mechanics attempt
to address it.
The first one of note is the board.
While all players begin with a
similar tile, throughout the game
they can purchase extensions of
their choice and position them in
the configuration they see fit. Tiles
78 June 2018
45m 2-4
with numbers that are statistically
more likely to be rolled are more
expensive to buy than tiles with a
number less likely to come up. This is
an early opportunity for the player to
consider the economy of the game by
trying to balance the number of tiles
with the worth of resources they are
likely to generate.
While in Catan players can trade
with each other, Dark.net creates a
constantly shifting market through
its fences, the four big bosses.
Players can buy and sell resources
from fences, and through this
action alter the price of goods. The
more resources a fence has, the
cheaper they are to buy and the
less valuable they are to sell. With
fewer resources, the inverse is true.
There are also other events during
the game, such as retaliation and
response cards, that can affect the
exchange value but, importantly, all
these actions are player-triggered.
For example, a player may want to
purchase a green extension for their
network, but in doing so they are also
likely to trigger the retaliation phase
for the corresponding green ‘mother’
boss. This in turn will completely wipe
that fence’s resources – if the next player
has a good supply of green tokens, they
can sell them for an exuberant price,
gaining a lot of credits.
Most actions throughout the
game have a similar cascading effect
on the overall economy, making
some decisions deliciously tough.
As most actions have a push-your-
luck element to them, there is an
encouragement by the game to
go for the most desirable gain and
potentially suffer the consequences
– or not.
Unfortunately, the downside
of this system is that it is slow to
start. While there are eight actions
available, at the beginning of the
game players will primarily be using
only two of them – selling resources
and buying extensions – until they
get their economy engine going. As
resource gain is still luck-dependent,
for some players the engine might
develop much slower than for others.
Those who do get ahead become almost
impossible to catch up with, especially
in a two-player game. Dark.net provides
14+ £42 some aid to mitigate this issue
through its virus infection mechanic,
WHAT’S IN but this is only most effective in a full
THE BOX? game of four players.
◗ Four starting networks A technology-laden future and
◗ 12 network boosters
hacking make up the thick coat
◗ 12 virus tokens
of paint over the clever economy
◗ 16 informant meeples
◗ Four player aids building game that is Dark.net. This
◗ 20 contract tokens game makes some intelligent choices
◗ City board about adapting and reworking the
◗ Four retaliation dice existing formula of Catan, making
◗ Two transmission dice it more strategic and celebrating
◗ Attack dice player choices through an evolving
◗ 24 trace tokens game economy. While Dark.net does
◗ 100 information cubes
not succeed at everything it tries to
◗ 24 destruction tokens
achieve, I, for one, will now always
◗ 16 response cards
◗ Eight credit choose it ahead of Catan.
marker cubes ALEX SONECHKINA
◗ 40 network extensions
◗ Four 50-credit markers
WE SAY
Dark.net’s thematically complex virtual
network of hackers and informants
has translated into an equally layered
and adaptable game of building
an economy engine, where all player
decisions produce a ripple effect on
the gameplay.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
CATAN
Catan is always a good starting
point for newcomers into the hobby,
however, players who like to have
more control over their decisions
and gameplay will enjoy Dark.net.
RAILWAYS OF NIPPON
Number one with a bullet train
Designer: Glenn Drover, Hisashi Hayashi, Martin Wallace | Artist: Various 120m 2-4 14+ £65

B
oth the latest expansion to and
a standalone sequel to Railways
of the World, Railways of Nippon
is a fantastic leaping-on point for the
venerated train game.
The gameplay here is a refinement
rather than a reinvention of what’s come
before. The Railways of the World system
strikes a perfect balance between the
crowd-pleasing Ticket to Ride and harder-
core series such as Age of Steam and
18xx, indulging in the simple pleasure
of completing routes by placing hex
track tiles while layering in slightly more
complex budget management and goods
delivery requirements, without tipping
over into full-on stock trading simulation.
Starting penniless, players must
obtain enough bonds to get their rail
network rolling – but every bond will
be repaid as interest for the rest of the
game and costs victory points during
final scoring, so keeping your growth
sustainable is a must. Delivering goods
cubes between locations will increase
your income and score points, but
you’ll eventually need to invest in
improving your train engines to deliver
further or even urbanise cities to ensure
there’s demand for what you can offer.
Meanwhile, each player’s baron card
has a hidden objective that could swing
the game for them at the end, from
amassing the most money to hooking
up with enough of the right cities. That
might sound like a lot – and it is, in a
way – yet it all runs along the rails so
smoothly you’ll be surprised when
there's no squealing brakes during
player turns.
Like past entries in the series, Nippon’s
old-fashioned visuals favour utility over
beauty. The terrain icons – new for this
game – make identifying the open, water
and mountain hexes that cost different
amounts much faster; it can still be hard
to track the location-specific abilities of
certain railroad operations cards once
the board is smothered in tiles, but
everything is otherwise clear and well-
designed, with Hisashi Hayashi’s layout
of Japan making for an exciting landmass
to race across.
If you’re already a Railways of the
World fan, there’s no need to pick up this
standalone box, as the unique content
can be found as a separate expansion. The
empty city markers, train upgrades and
paper dollars themselves are untouched
from the US-set base game, lending a
peculiar air of thematic inconsistency
as John Bull locomotives chug their way
between Tokyo and Kyoto, while buffalo
skulls hang on ‘Keep Out’ signs. It’s a bit
of a shame, but the upside is that this
makes Nippon an excellent intro for
newcomers to the series, as the revised
rulebook serves as a compendium for
all the variants and expansions currently WE SAY
out there, meaning you’ll only need the If you don’t already own
maps and cards to grow your collection if Railways of the World
you’re hooked on the gameplay – which or want to play with a
you will be. At £20 cheaper than the bigger group, Railways
core Railways of the World box it’s also a of Nippon should be
cost-friendlier way to get involved, but the the train game in your
smaller set reduces the player count by collection. Smooth,
approachable gameplay
two – if you’ll ever be looking to play with
hides a rich depth
five or six people in the future, picking that’s impossible to say
up the original and getting Nippon as an no to another game of.
expansion instead is a no-brainer.
For those wanting to experience one of
the very best train games out there for the
first time with a smaller group, Railways
of Nippon should be irresistible. The
Railways of the World engine continues
to drive the series ahead of the route-
building crowd, and this friendly, hugely
fun set proves it’s on the right track to
find an even wider appreciation.
MATT JARVIS

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ 168 track tiles
◗ 42 operations cards
◗ 10 baron cards
◗ 100 plastic trains
CE
ED

IT
O R'S C H OI TRY THIS IF
◗ Stack of paper money
◗ 36 bond certificates YOU LIKED…
◗ 20 empty city markers TICKET TO
◗ 12 new city tiles RIDE
◗ 125 goods cubes Railways of Nippon
◗ Cloth bag is an excellent step
◗ Score track board up in complexity
◗ Four player from the biggest
reference cards train game out
◗ 16 train placards there, without
◗ Wooden First making things too
Player marker complicated.
◗ Four scoring discs

tabletopgaming.co.uk 79
 P L AY E D
STAR TREK ADVENTURES:
BETA QUADRANT SOURCEBOOK
Boldly go, but only if you really want to
Designer: Modiphius team | Artist: Various
Y WE SAY
ou would think it’d be impossible
to sum up a full quarter of the
galaxy in a single book, but the
Beta Quadrant Sourcebook makes an
impressive attempt at doing so. However,
while it’s a wonderfully well put-together
piece of work, it probably shouldn’t be at
the top of your shopping list.
At its heart, the book is a guide to playing
in Star Trek’s Beta Quadrant, home to
iconic races including the warlike Klingons,
stoic Vulcans and devious Romulans.
More than half of its pages are devoted to
background information about the various
worlds and cultures living in the vast region
of space, interspersed with samples of in-
universe messages, reports and notes.
80 June 2018
Every page is stuffed full of interesting
information – apparently Klingons are
big fans of ice hockey and Moby Dick –
that’s been pieced together with obvious
love and respect for the source material.
Even if you weren’t planning to run
the game at all, the book makes for an
enjoyable read that could even surprise
a few hardcore Star Trek fans.
However, this dedication to the
background lore does place the Beta
Quadrant Sourcebook in a rather
strange position when it comes to a
target audience. If the idea of reading
up on Klingon wedding ceremonies
really appeals to you then you probably
know most of the lore already. Even
127 13+ £25
if you aren’t a diehard fan of the show
and are truly on the hunt for lore, you
could probably get everything you need If you can spare
the cash this is a
by spending a couple hours browsing
great book filled with
Star Trek wiki pages. The information fascinating Trek lore.
wouldn’t be as well presented or But if you can’t, you
written, and you’ll miss out on a probably won’t miss it.
handful of original creations unique
to the RPG, but you would have saved
yourself a handful of cash.
With that in mind, there’s a lot riding
on the second section of the book – the
new rules and options.
Again, while these are all nice
additions to the game, there is very
little that most GMs would view as
vital to running a campaign. There are
profiles for a few of the rarer ships and
enemies that could crop up, but most
of the truly iconic foes already appear
in the core rulebook and leave the
section feeling a little sparse.
The list of new species for players
to take on their trip through the stars
is impressively long, but they aren’t
exactly the iconic faces you think of
when you picture Star Trek. Other than
the Klingons, the most well-known
species on offer is probably the Bolians
or Benzites, and if you can picture
what they look like without having
to pull out your phone then you’re
probably far beyond the point where
you need a sourcebook to fill you in on
TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
the galaxy. STAR TREK:
The very final part of the book is THE NEXT
devoted to sketching out campaign GENERATION
seeds in the Shackleton Expanse and, TECHNICAL
while this is handy, it’s far from a MANUAL
comprehensive setting guide. If you love the lore
Now, none of these issues take away of the Star Trek
from the fact that the Beta Quadrant universe, this book
may well be right up
Sourcebook is a solid supplement.
your alley.
If you’ve already committed to
picking up the full range of Star Trek
Adventure books or simply want a
nicely presented tome of lore, it will
stand you in good stead. But if you’re
working on a budget, it’s hard to
recommend it over other supplements
and releases for the game.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES

BLACK SOULS
Prepare to be annoyed
Designer: Dominic Michael H. | Artist: Len Peralta
K
een-eyed fans of From
Software’s Dark Souls video
game series and its tabletop
spin-offs will be quick to identify the
real-world inspiration for Black Souls,
a board game about a design studio
unimaginatively named Designer Inc.
that has created the toughest video
game ever made. All of that sounds a
bit on the nose – and that is, of course,
the point. However, those hoping for
a humorous commentary on the Dark
Souls franchise or on game design as a
whole can look elsewhere. Except for
the name, some in-game terminology
and a very loose premise, Black Souls
has nothing to do with the Dark Souls
games, in gameplay or in spirit.
A cynic might suggest that the
whole reason for the game’s name
and references being so obvious is
to attract some of the success of the
series that has recently gained a wider
following among tabletop gamers with
Dark Souls: The Board Game and the
recent Dark Souls: The Card Game.
The clear attempt to indulge Dark
Souls fans would not be so irritating if
Black Souls was a good game. Here we
come to the most upsetting part about
Black Souls: it might have been a
decent board game if it was designed
with more care and attention to detail
– and even that’s putting it mildly.
The rulebook is filled with dense
paragraphs and has page backgrounds
made stylistic to a fault, leaving the text
45-60m 1-6 10+ £58
WHAT’S IN hard to read – something not helped
THE BOX? by multiple typos. If that's possible to
◗ Six design boards overlook, then the glaring mistakes in
◗ 26 cave assets the game’s components are not.
◗ 26 dungeon assets It seems that, at some point, Black
◗ 26 outdoor assets
Souls went through a last-minute
◗ 54 bid cards
◗ AI difficulty tracker
redesign and some of the components
◗ Six UAT scoreboards were not updated to suit. Throughout
◗ Six meeples the game, players can pick up new
◗ 120 cubes party members, represented in-game
◗ 20 shrine tokens with wooden cubes of four colours:
◗ 20 tavern tokens blue, red, white and black. In order
◗ Two turn order cards to determine exactly what type of
◗ Six hack cards fighters to recruit, the top card of the
◗ 12 party cards
party deck is turned over, showing
◗ 20 glitch tokens
◗ Die
the colour of the cube and their
◗ Two colourblind tokens quantity. Except that cards have blue,
◗ Draw bag red, grey and green colours. While
◗ Six well of white indeed may be confused for grey
illusions tokens due to printing qualities, green is not
◗ Six haunted black. Following a bit of investigative
house tokens work, it actually turned out that grey
◗ Six altar of on the card corresponds to black
power tokens
cubes, while green on the cards
◗ Six reference cards
corresponds to white cubes. Asking
“So what colour is green again?” got
old very quickly. After crossing that
hurdle, game boards that warped
immediately and tiles with sloppy
print work and non-aligned pictures
served only to further annoy.
As for the gameplay, Black Souls
is divided into two parts: the design
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… BOSS MONSTER
If you want to play a board game with a video game spirit and dungeon
levels full of monsters, maybe you should still stick to Boss Monster.
phase and the game phase. During
the former, through a series of blind
bidding, tile drafting and placement,
players create a dungeon level. Bid
cards determine the player order and
provide bonus actions, out of which
only two or three cards are really
useful. The tiles come with varying
difficulties – bosses being the most
difficult – which signify how many
party members will be killed off when
entering that part of the level. Except
the correlation between the printed
difficulty and number of fighters
being killed is inconsistent and does
more to confuse than help. The tiles
do not provide enough variety, and
there is rarely a desperate need to get
a particular tile first.
The game phase, completely
unexpectedly, is breath of fresh air.
In this section, players actually take
their party through the dungeon
level they have spent the 12 previous
rounds creating. The aim is to kill
as many party members as possible
– that’s supposed to signify the
toughness of the level – while still
having a few of them alive after the
last room to qualify for bonus scoring.
Here, finally, the game becomes
strategically exciting, with players
deciding which party members to
sacrifice and which to keep for future
battles. If you happen to die in the
last dungeon, you only have yourself
to blame: you built it! There is a
satisfaction in finally experiencing
what you have spent the majority of
the game creating. It really is a shame
that the game phase is a relatively
small part of Black Souls’ gameplay.
Black Souls, a board game about
designing a Souls-like video game
level, is in a dire need of a day one
patch. While the tile-drafting section
is far from flawless, the game phase
demonstrates the true potential of what
this game could have been. It is truly
sad that the promise was buried under
the amateurish level of presentation.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
For a game about designing a video
game, Black Souls should take a careful,
attentive look at its own design first.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 81
STAR
WARS:
LEGION
After taking on the Empire last
month, we continue to make the
Star Wars miniatures game live up
to its cinematic vision with our tips
on perfecting the Rebel Alliance
Words and photographs by Andy Leighton

W
e return to the Star Wars universe once again,
this time to paint the noble freedom fighters of
the Rebel Alliance for Star Wars: Legion.
The Rebel models are much the same as the Empire
troops – although, since they lack the rigid, hard-
lined armour of the stormtroopers, there aren’t any
of the mould line issues found there. The Rebels only
required a light clean before they were ready for the brush.
Construction was nice and simple, minus a few fiddly bits on the
AT-RT legs, with all of the connection points matching up well.
All except the Duros trooper. Everything I have built so far
has a very sizable gap in the arms that required filling.
The sculpts are, once again, wonderful. The small
details, like the helmets and blasters on the
troopers, give them that iconic Star Wars look.
The vehicles are perfect and look exactly like
their movie counterparts, which you would
expect from Fantasy Flight, the publisher
that has produced so many accurate Star
Wars spaceship models.
I have to admit I had a bit more difficulty
tackling this guide than I did the Empire,
but in a good way. The Rebels offer much
more freedom in how they are painted
but also offer more reason to link them to a
suitably thematic base. I ended up selecting
the scheme as an opposite to the Empire, going
from lush forests to a fairly barren desert. You’ll
notice a lot of similar colours used in each stage to
help blend the overall theme into one by keeping the
tones consistent across the models. The base was included
in this, to amplify the idea that the Rebels are camouflaged.

June 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 83

 S TA R WA R S : L E G I O N

PAINTS USED
Abaddon Black Ceramite White Karak Stone Russ Grey Thunderhawk Blue
Agrax Earthshade Dark Reaper Kislev Flesh Screaming Skull XV-88
Blue Horror Dawnstone Mephiston Red Skrag Brown Zamesi Desert
Cadian Fleshtone Deathclaw Brown Mournfang Brown Tallarn Sand
Caledor Sky Eshin Grey Pallid Wych Flesh Temple Guard Blue
Celestra Grey Incubi Darkness Rhinox Hide Thousand Sons Blue

REBEL TROOPERS

BASE COLOURS SHADING HIGHLIGHTING FINAL DETAILS

XV-88: Apply several coats until you have
a strong, flat colour on the bulk of the
fatigues to start the midtone brown.
Mournfang Brown: Apply a basecoat to
the helmet rim and select areas of clothing
to begin the dark brown.
Karak Stone: Apply a basecoat to
undershirts and small areas of clothing to
begin the light brown.
Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a basecoat to
the skin.
Incubi Darkness: Apply a basecoat to the
boots, straps and backpacks.
Abaddon Black: Apply a basecoat to
the blasters.
Agrax Earthshade: Apply a coat over the
entire model.
Tallarn Sand: Apply a layer over the midtone
brown areas of the fatigues, leaving only the
recesses the original colour.
Screaming Skull: Apply a layer over the
light brown areas, leaving only the recesses
the original colour.
Kislev Flesh: Apply a highlight to the skin,
focusing toward the centre of the face.
Skrag Brown: Apply a highlight to the dark
brown areas of the fatigues, focusing on the
raised edges and ridges.
Dark Reaper: Apply a line highlight to the
straps, boots and backpacks
Dawnstone & Doombull Brown: Apply a
line highlight of Dawnstone to the blasters.
Apply a basecoat of either Dawnstone or
Doombull Brown to the facial hair.
Karak Stone: Apply a line highlight to the
midtone brown, focusing only on the hard
edges and ridges.
Russ Grey: Apply a line highlight to the
boots, straps and backpacks, leaving a little
of the previous coat showing at the edges.
Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply a line highlight to
both the light browns and the skin.
Deathclaw Brown: Apply an edge highlight
to the dark brown areas.
Abaddon Black & Ceramite White: Begin
the eyes by painting an oval of Abaddon
Black. Follow this with a slightly smaller oval of
Ceramite White in the centre. Finally, add a
small dot of Abaddon Black for the pupil.
Celestra Grey & Deathclaw Brown: Apply
a spot highlight to the blasters. Apply a spot
highlight to the beards depending on the
base colour.

84 June 2018
DUROS

STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3 STEP 4

Thousand Sons Blue: Apply a basecoat Agrax Earthshade: Apply a wash over Dark Reaper: Apply a layer over the head, Temple Guard Blue: Apply a line highlight, focusing
to the head. the head. leaving the recesses the original colour. on the centre of the face and the top edges.
Mephiston Red: Apply a layer over the eyes.

AT-RT & T-47 AIRSPEEDER HULLS

The pilot of the AT-RT was painted separately from the actual vehicle. They were painted in the same manner as the rest of the Rebel troopers.
Both the T-47 and the AT-RT were painted in the same manner. While this guide is great for them, it should also work just as well for any future Rebel vehicles.

BASE COLOURS SHADING & LAYERING HIGHLIGHTING

XV-88: Apply a basecoat over the entire vehicle.
Mournfang Brown: Apply a basecoat to select areas
of the hulls, such as the cockpit on the T-47.
Incubi Darkness: Apply a basecoat to the
mechanical areas of the model, such as the
engines and grills on the T-47.
Tallarn Sand: Apply a fairly heavy drybrush
across the lighter areas of the armour.
Skrag Brown: Apply a drybrush over the dark
brown areas.
Dark Reaper: Apply a drybrush over the
dark areas.
Karak Stone: Apply a light drybrush to the lighter areas of the hull, focusing on the front/
top and the hard edges. Once complete, appy an edge highlight to the front/top edges.
Deathclaw Brown: Apply a light drybrush to the darker brown areas, focusing on the hard edges
and towards the top of the model. Once complete, apply an edge highlight to the front/top edges.
Russ Grey: Apply a light drybrush to the darker areas. Once complete, apply an edge
highlight to the front/top edges.

T-47 COCKPIT GLASS

A perfect method to painting any glass and windows, this method was also used for the goggles on the troopers.

STAGE 1 STAGE 2 STAGE 3 STAGE 4

Incubi Darkness: Apply a basecoat over Caledor Sky: Apply a layer from the bottom Temple Guard Blue: Using the same Blue Horror: Apply a fine line to the
the glass. of the windows fading to around halfway up. method as the last stage, apply a layer bottom of the window, as well as dashes to
Apply with only a tiny, thinned amount on the over the bottom quarter of the windows. the top corner to represent reflections.
brush and work up over several layers.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 85
 S TA R WA R S : L E G I O N

UNIT MARKINGS
STE NC I LS , MAS KS
A N D M A S K I N G TA P E
The unit markings and Rebel symbols on the vehicles were created
using a standard roll of masking tape and some stencils/paint masks.

STEP 1 STEP 2
Use your masking tape to block off the Use sponge stippling to add the colour
area where you want the marking. you want. For these Rebels I used
Thunderhawk Blue.

WEATHERING
A great finishing touch to any army is to add some touches of weathering to help tie them into
their surroundings and the basing you have chosen to use. I wanted the Rebels in particular to
have old, battered-looking vehicles that don’t see enough maintenance, let alone a new lick of
paint. This was applied after the unit markings to ensure the damage was also applied over them.

STEP 3 STEP 4
Add a drybrush of a lighter colour – I used Remove all of the masking tape and apply
Lothern Blue – to the front or top of the the stencil to the model where you would
blocked-off area. like the Rebel emblem.

STEP 5 STEP 6 SPONGE STIPPLING

Lightly brush on the emblem paint – I used
Pallid Wych Flesh.
Once dry, peel off the stencil to reveal the
finished symbol.
Stippling with a sponge can be used to create a great chipped paint effect. All you need is a
small piece of sponge. Just make sure it’s okay to rip it up, as you want a rough and random
edge on it. Using a rough edge of the sponge apply a small amount of Eshin Grey and dab
some off on a bit of tissue, then dab randomly across the hull. I focused towards edges,
corners and the front of the hull, as these areas are the most likely to see wear and tear.

86 June 2018
DESERT BASING
In stark contrast to the forest moon bases I tackled in last month’s issue, I chose a desert base theme for these rebels. I once again picked up a
Basecraft basing kit for the job. Packed with a variety of sand and rocks, the kit is great for creating a multitude of differing desert environments.

P R E P A R AT I O N
Begin the bases by masking the flight stands, where appropriate. Your normal, bog standard masking tape will do, you just need a
couple of small pieces to mask the stand. This will ensure that they stay clear once the priming and painting process is complete.

STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3

Use superglue to attach some of the Use PVA to cover the rest of the base with Make a mix of one part PVA and five parts
larger stones in the course buff gravel in fine sand. water and apply liberally over the base.
clusters on the base. Once dry, this will help ‘seal’ the base,
making it much harder for any of the

P A I N T I N G & D E TA I L I N G
basing materials to be knocked loose.

STEP 1 STEP 2 STEP 3 STEP 4

XV-88: Apply several coats over the base Zamesi Desert: Apply a heavy drybrush Screaming Skull: Apply a light drybrush Incubi Darkness: Apply a basecoat to
until you have a strong, flat colour. over the base. over the base. the rocks.

STEP 5 STEP 6 STEP 7

Russ Grey: Apply a light drybrush to Fenrisian Grey: Apply a line highlight to Yriel Yellow: Mix with three parts water and
the rocks. the rocks. carefully apply within the firing arc indentations.
Rhinox Hide: Apply a flat coat around the rim of the base.
Arid Tufts: Apply some tufts to the base. I added a wee spot
of superglue to help secure them.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 87
 T H E D U N G E O N M A S T E R ’ S G U I D E T O R O L E P L AY I N G

STRANGERS
& DANGERS
Taking your roleplaying outside of a regular group of friends to
a store or convention can be a daunting but valuable experience.
Here’s why you should consider adventuring into the unknown…
Words by Richard Jansen-Parkes | Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast

88 June 2018
I
have long since ceased to be surprised
by the weird and wonderful feats that
can be achieved through a combination
of lucky rolls and teamwork, but even
now and then I can still be reduced to a
long moment of gape-mouthed shock.
One of the most recent times I found myself
in this state was during an already rather
silly adventure where the party had come
to the aid of an elven wizard who had found
himself transformed into a sheep. His vengeful
apprentice – the cause of the transformation –
was hunting the woolly wizard and had offered
a generous reward for his return.
I should have been tipped off to expect
something weird was in the works when the
party’s rogue offhandedly asked roughly how
much a normal sheep would cost. The alarm bells
started properly ringing when they started adding
up the gold and silver clattering about their well-
stocked purses, and someone broke out a
Sorting disputes
notepad to help with the maths.
And so it was that when the adventurers
out can be tricky
approached the magical tower that had
once belonged to their fluffy client, they
but can help you to
were accompanied by a herd of damn
near 30 sheep, all contentedly bleating
sharpen your DMing
and baah-ing under the supervision of the
animal-loving druid. As they travelled, the
skills in the long run.
warlock experimented with her powers
to change her appearance and added
an array of gormless peasants to her
repertoire, while the bard sorted out a
dozen changes of clothing.
The rogue, who had masterminded much
of the plan, was taking bets on how many
visits from stubborn sheep-toting farmers the
wizard’s former apprentice could handle before
going completely bananas. The consensus was
somewhere around 20.
In the end, I think it took around a dozen
arguments with the many-formed warlock, who
always insisted that her sheep was definitely
the one he was after, for the apprentice to
storm off without bothering to go through the
elaborate locking and warding process that
protected the tower. After that, things got a little
more traditionally-focused on stabbing and
smashing, but the clever plan still allowed the
party to skip a vast array of traps and dangers.
The most impressive thing about it
all, however, was that the complex and
interconnected scheme – a scheme that relied
on every party member working to a common
goal – wasn’t pulled off by a group of friends
that had gamed alongside one another for years.
In fact, most of them had never even laid
eyes upon one another before they sat down at
the table in the hotel conference room, having
been thrown together by the strange tides and
currents of the convention booking system.
IN STORES NEAR YOU
For several years, my approach to tabletop gaming
was the same as my approach to debating politics
and religion – it was something to be enjoyed with
friends and family, behind closed doors.
As groups drifted and campaigns wavered,
however, I found myself with an RPG itch I
couldn’t quite scratch, so I took a rather anxious
and hesitant plunge into gaming groups at a
local store. Wednesday night was open for the
D&D Adventurers League, which seemed like the
simplest thing to get into, so I made my way into
town, armed with far too many dice, a couple of
rulebooks and a throbbing sense of anxiety.
And I had a great evening. My halfling barbarian
got to ride on the back of a half-orc and, for the
most part, people were friendly and welcoming.
As time passed I naturally ended up behind
the screen, and that was the point when I realised
how much difference there can be when it comes
to running for your friends at home, and for a
group of near-strangers in public.
One of the biggest was the sudden realisation
of time constraints. The sessions I ran in stores
lasted two or three hours, while conventions
stretched to four, but no matter how long they
were it was vital that things actually be wrapped
up when the clock struck time.
At home I could stretch the length of session
by half an hour here or there and, with the
consent of the group, a particularly vital or
exciting session could spill over long past the
usual time for packing things up. That doesn’t
work when there’s a shop that need to be shut
up, or when the table you’re using is booked for
another session that afternoon.
More than simply ending on time, the session
also needed a satisfying conclusion. Stopping
outside the dragon’s lair and promising a
conclusion next time doesn’t really work when
that could mean a year from now, or never.
As jarring as it was to begin with, this actually
began to bleed back into my regular sessions with
friends and influence them for the better. It taught
me to always try and send the players home on a
high (or a sufficiently dramatic low), rather than
just letting it peter out around 11 o’clock.
GROUP DYNAMICS
There is more to running games in public than
simply watching the clock, of course. One of
the biggest differences from playing games with
a group of friends is, simply, that the people
you’re playing with aren’t friends.
This is important because tabletop RPGs can
be a pretty intense experience. A truly wonderful
session is often one where emotions ride high and
the players are truly involved and invested in their
characters, and when the group isn’t all operating
on the same wavelength things can get messy.
The vast majority of group conflicts and
confusion I’ve encountered are caused by
minor things that can be smoothed over – such
as a player coming from a home group that
uses a house rule that they didn’t realise wasn’t
universal. The biggest of these is the difference
in expectations, where one player is after a
simple dungeon-crawl while another wants to
throw themselves into political intrigue.
Sorting these disputes out can be tricky
but, as with the pacing and timekeeping,
it can actually help you to sharpen your
DMing skills in the long run.
What’s a little harder are those
moments when entrenched views that
still blight our hobby now and then come
scuttling out into the open in the form
of sexist behaviour, homophobic jokes
and the like. These uncomfortable little
blips are honestly only that – small spikes
of nastiness in a broad field of fun and
friendliness – but they can understandably
be hard to deal with, especially if you’re a
naturally conflict-averse kind of person.
I wish there was some simple and
straightforward way to deal with people being
jerks, but if there was then the world would be
a much more pleasant place. The best advice
that I have is to ensure that the venue where
you play and run games has an anti-harassment
policy in place, if only to cut down on the
arguing when you toss someone out.
THE PUBLIC GOOD
While those last two paragraphs might have left
a sour taste, it’s worth remembering that they
form only a tiny part of the experience. For the
most part, I’ve loved playing and running games
at conventions and stores.
For many people it’s the best way to get in a
regular game, while for others it’s an excuse to
get out and hang round with like-minded folks
for a couple hours a week or to practise your
GMing skills on the unsuspecting public.
If nothing else, there really is no feeling like
having a group of strangers come together and
put together a plan worthy of the A-Team, even if it
does mean having to figure out how many sheep
a typical farmer might be willing to part with...
tabletopgaming.co.uk 89
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EVENT REPORT
AMBUSH!
Two years on from opening his own gaming store,
Nathan Long is taking his hobby to the next level by
holding his first wargaming event. He tells us more
Interview by Matt Jarvis
Why did you decide to start Ambush!?
As a relative newcomer to the wargaming show
scene, I found it very hard to get a foothold in some
of the more established shows and saw there was
an opening for a new show in the north of England
in the middle of the summer, as many northern
shows tend to be at the edges of the calendar.
It all started out of a conversation with one of
my friends discussing how amazing it would be to
organise our own show. I thought it would be really
cool to organise something that would be accessible
to all smaller, newer, amazingly-talented traders who
maybe lose out on getting into the bigger shows
but whose miniatures and products are awesome.
 
What makes Ambush! different from other events?
I decided that, since many shows are full of traders
with not so much emphasis on people trying out
new games and participation games always seem
to be out of the way of the main arena, it would be
great to organise a show primarily aimed at gamers
who wanted to come and play for the weekend with
camping on site, entertainment and traders on hand.
Ambush! is a gaming show organised by a
gamer, so people can come along, have fun, play
games and learn about new gaming systems they
may not have had a chance to try.
 
What kind of games are you expecting people
to play?
Warhammer 40,000, Bolt Action, Blood Bowl,
Shadespire, X-Wing, D&D, Guild Ball, Magic: The
Gathering and more. So, really, a wide variety of
board games, card games, RPG and wargames.
 
What else will be happening during the weekend?
We have a local Band, Novahound, playing on
Saturday night, with a bar and camping available.
June 2018
We have two Bolt Action tournaments
– one on Saturday and one on Sunday – a
Warhammer 40,000 tournament and a Magic:
The Gathering preliminary Pro Tour qualifier
with more being added to the agenda. The
Yorkshire Renegades from Market Weighton
are also hosting a tabletop sale.
 
What is the local gaming community like
around Driffield?
Vibrant! There are at least eight wargames
clubs within a 30 mile radius of Driffield, many
boasting significant membership, and we hope
to attract many of these gamers to the show
and introduce them to some of the homegrown
talent from local manufacturers.
 
Do you plan to hold a second show next year?
My wife may kill me if I say yes, but Ambush! is
going to be a smash with everyone attending
talking about it for the rest of the year, meaning
we will certainly be looking at continuing for
years to come, making Ambush! a bigger, better
event with more new and exciting companies
bringing their innovative games to the masses.
What would you like to bring to the show in
the future?
We want to give preferential treatment to small
companies who want to get their games in front
of new audiences and, like we did, struggle
to get into some of the larger show areas,
giving the northern gaming community an
opportunity to see a new and wider spectrum
of games, miniatures and products available.
We want Ambush! to be the best it can be, so
we’re working hard to bring even more content
to the weekend.
UPCOMING EVENTS
UK GAMES EXPO
Friday June 1st to Sunday 3rd
NEC and Hilton Hotels, Birmingham
The UK’s biggest games convention is back
for another year, with a packed main hall and
tournaments and live events a plenty.
ukgamesexpo.co.uk
Q-CON XXV
Friday June 22nd to Sunday 24th
Queen’s Students’ Union, Belfast
Now in its 25th year, the culture con includes
anime and cosplay alongside its tabletop and
video gaming offerings.
q-con.org.uk
3XP
Friday June 22nd to Sunday 24th
Sutton Village Hall, Sutton
Focused on RPGs Pathfinder and Starfinder,
3XP is open to roleplayers old and new and
includes plenty of adventuring, a raffle and
food from the Dragon Drop café.
warhorn.net/events/3xp-summer-2018
RAIDERS OF THE
GAME CUPBOARD
Saturday June 23rd
Waterside Community Centre,
Burton-on-Trent
A regular day-long get-together with a
wide variety of games, including roleplaying
sessions, and a family-friendly feel.
raidersofthegamecupboard.co.uk
SUMMER STABCON
Friday July 6th to Sunday 8th
Britannia Hotel, Stockport
The long-running bi-annual event is focused
on adult gamers, with a bar set up specifically
for attendees.
stabcon.org.uk
LONGCON
Saturday July 7th to Sunday 8th
Garrison Hotel, Sheffield
Breaking with the session-based gaming of
other cons, this roleplaying show puts no
restriction on game lengths.
thedodd.com/longcon-home
PAIZOCON UK
Friday July 20th to Sunday 22nd
Aston, Birmingham
Part of the Pathfinder Society and attended
by fans both local and from around the globe.
paizocon.co.uk
MANORCON
Friday July 20th to Monday 23rd
Stamford Court, University of Leicester
Now in its third decade of running, this
popular show includes classic and modern
games and a secondhand games sale.
manorcon.org.uk
CONTINUUM
Friday July 20th to Monday 23rd
Leicester University Halls of Residence, Oadby
A broad spectrum of games and welcoming
atmosphere make this a show worth visiting.
continuumconvention.co.uk
tabletopgaming.co.uk 91
 CLUB DIRECTORY

ABERDEENSHIRE ROLL WITH IT! THE DICE AND DAGGER EAST SUSSEX GREATER MANCHESTER HEMEL HEMPSTEAD
ABERDEEN WARGAMES CLUB Huntingdon, PE29 3TF GAMING CLUB 1066 WARGAMING CLUB TABLETOP MANCHESTER WARGAMING CLUB
Aberdeen, AB15 4YQ Bude, EX23 9BL St. Leonards-on- Cheadle Hulme, M15 4ST Hemel Hempstead, HP1 1LD
THE CHATTERIS WARLORDS Sea, TN38 8BL
OLDMELDRUM GAMES CLUB WEDNESDAY NIGHT GAMING GWENT HERTFORD BEER & BOARDGAMES
WARGAMES GROUP Chatteris, PE16 6NA Redruth, TR15 3QY EASTBOURNE ELEMENTAL GWENT REAVERS TABLETOP Hertford, SG14 1HH
Inverurie, AB51 0AA Eastbourne, BN21 3XQ GAMING CLUB
THE GAMES TABLE COUNTY TYRONE Abertillery, NP13 3DJ HITCHIN HERETICS
ANGUS Cambridge, CB24 4RP OMAGH WARGAMES CLUB FAMOUS COLLECTABLES Hitchin, SG5 1XL
KIRRIEMUIR Omagh, BT78 1HL Bexhill-on-Sea, TN40 1DU GWYNEDD
WARGAMES CLUB CARMARTHENSHIRE CONWY WARGAMES CLUB NORTH HERTFORDSHIRE
Kirriemuir, DD8 4HN CARMARTHEN OLD GUARD DERBYSHIRE UCKFIELD TABLETOP GAMERS Llandudno, LL30 3LB WARGAMES CLUB
Carmarthen, SA31 3AD CONSORTIUM GAMES Uckfield, TN22 5DT Hitchin, SG5 1XL
AYRSHIRE CLUB @GHQ HAMPSHIRE
NORTH AYRSHIRE TOWY VALLEY TYRANTS (TVT) Chesterfield, S40 1JW EAST YORKSHIRE ARBBL NORTH LONDON
WARGAMES CLUB Carmarthen, SA31 2JE WOLDS WARGAMERS Andover, SP10 1DQ WARGAMES CLUB
Irvine, KA12 0BA DERBY ON BOARD GAMES Driffield, YO25 6SS Waltham Cross, EN8 9AJ
CHESHIRE Derby, DE1 1QH BLACK HOLE WARGAMERS
BEDFORDSHIRE ALTRINCHAM ESSEX Petersfield, GU32 3HS POTTERS BAR GAMES CLUB
BASEMENT GAMING CLUB WARGAMING CLUB GROWN UP’S GAMES NIGHT BASILDON WARBOYZ Potters Bar, EN6 5BT
Luton, LU3 3AN Altrincham, WA14 4PG Matlock, DE4 3FQ Basildon, SS16 4NW CHINEHAM BOARD GAMERS
Basingstoke, RG24 8LT ST. ALBANS BOARD GAME CLUB
BEDFORD BOARD GAMING CHEADLE BOARD ROOM DERBYSHIRE COLCHESTER WARGAMES St. Albans, AL3 5PE
Bedford, MK40 2SX Cheadle, SK8 1DW SUNDAY NIGHT BOARD GAMING ASSOCIATION DARK WORLDS
AT THE OLD KINGS HEAD BELPER Colchester, CO3 5RH GAMING SOCIETY THOR’S HAMMER GAMING CLUB
BOARD GAMES IN BEDFORD CHESHIRE GAMERS Belper, DE56 1NP Fareham, PO15 6TL Borehamwood, WD6 5PR
Bedford, MK41 0TU Crewe, CW1 2DF ESSEX WARRIORS
DEVON Chelmsford, CM1 3DU FARNBOROUGH TRING WARGAMES CLUB
LEIGHTON BUZZARD CONGLETON AND DISTRICT BARNSTAPLE SLAYERS WARGAME SOCIETY Tring, HP23 6BA
GAMING CLUB LIGHT BOARD GAMES GROUP GAMING CLUB GBCON QUARTERLY Farnborough, GU14 7LE
Leighton Buzzard, LU7 1ES Congleton, CW12 1AH Barnstaple, EX32 8LS GAMING DAY WARLORDS WARGAMING
Loughton, IG10 4LF FIRESTORM CARDS OPEN ST. ALBANS
SAXON GAMES & CRAFTS ELEMENT GAMES NORTH CULLOMPTON BOARD GAMING NIGHT St. Albans, AL3 4DJ
Bedford, MK40 4FU WEST GAMING CENTRE GAMES GROUP LOUGHTON STRIKE FORCE Basingstoke, RG24 8FB
Stockport, SK2 6PT Cullompton, EX15 1JX Loughton, IG10 1LH WATFORD WARGAMES CLUB
BERKSHIRE FORDINGBRIDGE Watford, WD17 4PN
BROAD STREET GAMERS GUARDIANS OF THE GAMES DARK STAR GAMING SOUTHEND-ON-SEA GAMING CLUB
Wokingham, RG40 3AQ (TABLETOP GROUP) Plymouth, PL4 0AL ROLEPLAYING SOCIETY Fordingbridge, SP6 1AS WELWYN WARGAMERS
Macclesfield, SK11 6UB Southend-on-Sea, SS1 1BD Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6PS
NEWBURY & READING EAST DEVON TABLETOP GARY DONALDSON
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION MUG AND GAME & RPG GROUP THE HORNCHURCH Waterlooville, PO8 8RG ISLE OF MAN
Newbury, RG14 2RA Congleton, CW12 1PG Honiton, EX14 1HR WARGAMES CLUB KB TABLETOP GAMING
Romford, RM3 9LB PORTSMOUTH ON BOARD - ISLE OF MAN
NEWBURY & READING POYNTON BOARD GAME DAY EXMOUTH IMPERIAL Portsmouth, PO1 1PT Isle of Man, IM4 4LA
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION Stockport, SK12 1RB WARGAMES CLUB THE OVERLORDS
Newbury, RG1 4PS Exmouth, EX8 4SW Dagenham, RM8 2HQ RINGWOOD ASSOCIATION KENT
VARIABLE MAGERS OF WARGAMERS ALL AROUND THE BOARD
THATCHAM TABLETOPS Stockport, SK4 3BS GAME NIGHT @ CARPE THE PHOENIX GAMES CLUB Ringwood, BH24 1DW Westgate-on-Sea, CT8 8RE
Reading, RG7 6QH Plymouth, PL4 8EU London, E13 0AD
WARRINGTON BOARD SOLENT WARGAMERS CLUB ASHFORD (KENT)
WARFIELD BOARD GAMERS GAMES CLUB NEO TIVERTON GAMING CLUB FIFE Portsmouth, PO1 1PT BOARDGAMES CLUB
Bracknell, RG42 2DD Warrington, WA1 2SX Tiverton, EX16 5JJ DUNFERMLINE WARGAMING Ashford, TN24 9AJ
AND ROLEPLAYING SOUTHAMPTON SLUGGAZ
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION WINSFORD WARHAWKS PLYMOUTH ASSOCIATION FELLOWSHIP Southampton, SO17 2JZ BEXLEY REAPERS
OF READING WARGAMING CLUB OF WARGAMERS Dunfermline, KY12 7DS WARGAMING CLUB
Wokingham, RG41 5DU Winsford, CW7 4AT Plymouth, PL3 5TB THE SOUTHAMPTON GUILD Bexley, DA5 1AA
EAST NEUK TABLETOP GAMES OF ROLEPLAYERS
BIRMINGHAM CLEVELAND TORQUAY BOARD GAME CLUB Anstruther, KY10 3DJ Southampton, SO14 0LH CANTERBURY CRUSADERS
BIRMINGHAM WARGAMES HARTLEPOOL Torquay, TQ2 7AD Canterbury, CT1 1RT
AND BOARDGAMES CLUB WARGAMES SOCIETY KIRKCALDY MEEPLE CLUB THE THIRD COALITION
AKA DRAGOON’S DEN Hartlepool, TS24 7DH DORSET Kirkcaldy, KY2 6LF WARGAMES CLUB GRAVESHAM WARGAMING
Birmingham, B13 9EA SOUTHBOURNE TABLETOP New Milton, BH25 5BT AND TABLETOP GAMING CLUB
REDCAR IRONBEARDS & BOARDGAMERS FLINTSHIRE Gravesend, DA11 9EU
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Redcar, TS10 1RH Bournemouth, BH6 3AA DEESIDE DEFENDERS WATERLOO TABLE
MILTON KEYNES Chester, CH4 0DR TOP GAMERS GREENWICH & BLACKHEATH
WARGAMES SOCIETY CO ANTRIM WESSEX WYVERNS Waterlooville, PO8 8RG BOARD GAMES AND BEER CLUB
Milton Keynes, MK11 1JQ DRAGONSLAYERS WARGAMES CLUB FGC FLINTSHIRE London, SE3 7JQ
Belfast, BT7 1NN Ferndown, BH22 9AN GAMING CLUB WESSEX WARGAMES
NEWPORT PAGNELL Mold, CH7 6SZ WINCHESTER MAIDSTONE
BOARD GAMES CLUB QUB DRAGONSLAYERS WEYMOUTH LEVELLERS CLUB Winchester, SO22 4QB WARGAMES SOCIETY
Newport Pagnell, MK16 8AN Belfast, BT7 1NN Weymouth, DT4 0AR GLASGOW Maidstone, ME17 4AW
ANTONINE BOARD GAMERS WESSEX WYVERNS
WYCOMBE WARBAND CO CORK WORLDS AWAY Glasgow, G64 4EN GAMING CLUB MEDWAY AREA BOARDGAMERS
Beaconsfield, HP9 1LG BRETHREN WARGAMING CLUB Bournemouth, BH2 5RQ Ringwood, BH24 2NP Maidstone, ME14 1ED
West Cork, T23 F577 GLASGOW GAMES ROOM
CAITHNESS DUMFRIESSHIRE Glasgow, G20 7QE HEREFORDSHIRE MERRYCHEST CAFE
NORTHERN KNIGHTS CO DURHAM ANNAN GAMING CLUB DICE AND DECKS GAMING CLUB
WARGAMES DARLINGTON`S Annan, DG12 6EF UNPLUGGED GAMES CLUB Ross-on-Wye, HR9 5HR Dartford, DA2 8AH
Thurso, KW14 8HN DOGS OF WAR Glasgow, G41 3AB
Darlington, DL3 7LX THE FIVE ARCHES HEREFORDSHIRE BOARDGAMERS MILTON HUNDRED
CAMBRIDGESHIRE GAMING CLUB GLOUCESTERSHIRE Hereford, HR4 9EA WARGAMES CLUB
2D6 LODGE DURHAM RAIDERS Dumfries, DG1 3JR GLOUCESTERSHIRE Sittingbourne, ME10 4BX
Cambridge, CB1 8NN Croxdale, DH6 5HJ GAMES BUNKER HERTFORDSHIRE
DUNBARTONSHIRE Cheltenham, GL51 4XA BISHOP’S STORTFORD TABLETOP SEVENOAKS & TONBRIDGE
FENLAND RPG CLUB GAMERS@HART DUMBARTON WARGAMES CLUB Bishop’s Stortford, CM23 3BQ ASSOCIATION OF
Ely, CB7 5NG Hartlepool, TS26 9DE Dumbarton, G82 1QQ IWARPUK GAMERS (STAG)
Gloucester, GL2 9EB BLACK WOLF WARGAMES CLUB Sevenoaks, TN15 9HA
NEWMARKET KNIGHTS CO LONDONDERRY DURHAM Hitchin, SG5 1XL
GAMES CLUB THE SIEGE BUNKER DWG LINCOMBE BARN TUNBRIDGE WELLS
Ely, CB7 5HS Londonderry, BT48 7JL Durham, DH1 1QG WARGAMES SOCIETY CALAMITY COMICS HATFIELD WARGAMES SOCIETY
Bristol, BS16 2RW Hatfield, AL10 0JJ Tunbridge Wells, TN3 0PR
PETERBOROUGH CORNWALL DYFED
WARGAMES CLUB SMIPHEES GAMES CLUB WELSH WEYR GAMING GROUP PORK CHOP GAMING FINCHLEY GAMES CLUB WHITSTABLETOP
Peterborough, PE1 1NA Callington, PL17 7AN Ammanford, SA18 1DX Cheltenham, GL50 3HA London, N12 7JE Whitstable, CT5 1DA

92 June 2018
LANARKSHIRE GRANTHAM FRIENDLY GAMERS NORTHAMPTONSHIRE WESTON WARGAMERS CLUB HAMPTON COURT GAMES CLUB WEST YORKSHIRE
CARLUKE WARGAMES CLUB Grantham, NG31 6LJ BATTLEFIELD HOBBIES Weston-super-Mare, East Molesey, KT8 0BT BOARD IN THE VILLAGE
Carluke, ML8 5JQ Daventry, NN11 8RB BS23 1NF Bradford, BD14 6RE
GRIMSBY WARGAMES SOCIETY KINGSTON GAMES GROUP
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Shelves heaving
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that kept us playing
all year round
and ask designers
their favourite for
picks of 2017
Sam Illingworth, Words by
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Dan Jolin, Alex Jansen-Parkes, Matt Jarvis,
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26 December 2017

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SHOP SPOTLIGHT
LEISURE GAMES
Mike Berry reveals how the North London store
– and gaming as a whole – has changed since his
father opened it more than three decades ago
Interview by Matt Jarvis
When did Leisure Games first open its doors?
My father, Tony, opened the shop in August 1985.
He originally wanted to open a sports shop but was
struggling to find a suitable location when a good
friend of his who owned Tally Ho! Games in North
Finchley told him he was closing the shop to focus
on importing and distribution of, among others,
Avalon Hill and FASA games, and that he should
consider opening a games shop. Before long the
whole family had converted to being keen gamers,
and Leisure Games opened!
How’s the shop changed in the 30-odd years since?
Soon after we opened it became apparent that
there was a big demand for us to supply games
by mail order and that quickly grew to become a
major part of the business, with us sending games
all over the world. We were even able, literally, to
‘sell sand to the Arabs’, when we received an order
from Kuwait which included a tub of sand which
was sold as modelling terrain!
We were one of the first games shops to open a
website; I don’t remember when, but it was before
online shopping. We used to list everything we had
on the site, like an online catalogue, and manually
adjust it as things went in and out of stock.
People love to talk about
their hobby, and a games
store is the perfect place.
June 2018
More recently the emphasis has shifted back to
the physical store, as we have learned that a brick-
and-mortar store cannot compete online – so we
aim to give customers a good reason to visit us. We
permanently now have five large gaming tables
available and a good library of demo copies of
games so people are welcome to sit down and try
out some games in-store.
What makes for a successful hobby store – and
why is that different to any other stype of shop?
For a hobby store to succeed these days you need
to offer something that makes people want to come
into the store. We offer tables where people can sit
and play some games, or we can give them some
demos of games we think they will enjoy. There is
usually something going on, especially at weekends.
A lot of people come to stores because they
want to actually see what they are buying and,
even better, to talk to someone to get advice and
suggestions. This is extremely important, and it
also makes the job of working in a games store so
much fun. People love to talk about their hobby,
and a games store is the perfect place for that.
Leisure Games is a little different to most games
and hobby stores because of the huge range of
games we stock. Our shelves are literally crammed
full of games, and we don’t think you will find a
wider range of games on the shelves of any other
shop in the UK.
You mention a lot goes on – such as what?
We run lots of trading and living card game events,
from casual meet-ups to organised tournaments
for games such as Magic: The Gathering, Netrunner,
Game of Thrones, Cardfight!! Vanguard and Final
Fantasy TCG. We also sponsor regular HeroClix
events, which are held at another location.
We participate in worldwide events such as
International Tabletop Day and Free RPG Day.
Both these events are always very popular. We also
host signings and meet the designer-type events
from time to time.
You’re based in London, which is one of the hubs
for both hobby stores and board game cafes. How
do you feel about the capital’s current gaming
scene and how it’s evolved in recent years?
The gaming scene around North London has
always been strong. We have always believed that
a hobby store should form the basis of a gaming
community, and we have always had a very close
relationship with the Finchley Games Club.
We have always worked hard at converting
people to the great hobby of gaming and, after
spending so many years convincing people to
broaden their horizons from Monopoly and
Scrabble, it is incredibly satisfying nowadays the
number of families which come in having already
played Ticket to Ride or Pandemic and wanting
more! Gaming is certainly becoming a bit more
mainstream these days, which is very nice to see.
What games have been proving popular in 2018?
Big sellers this year in board games have been
Gloomhaven, Azul, Sagrada, Star Wars: Legion,
Century: Spice Road, Hive and Codenames. In
roleplaying, the big sellers at the moment are
Blades in the Dark – our overall best seller – Burning
Wheel, Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars.
What upcoming releases are you looking
forward to?
That’s a difficult question, with so much great stuff
coming out! Fireball Island, Scum and Villainy
RPG and the Terraforming Mars expansion Prelude
all look very exciting.
What’s next for Leisure Games?
This year we want to work hard to encourage more
family-orientated gaming in-store. We aim to run
a series of family fun days, which have proved very
popular in the past, and more events in conjunction
with local schools, churches, et cetera.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 95
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 12
1 11
2

10
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3

8
4

5 7
6

CLUEDO

B
oard game collectors like acquiring first
editions; they’re older, often the rarest,
and keep the original design and rules.
Subsequent editions have modifications
to fix a broken rule or to update some
mechanic that didn’t work. Finding first editions isn’t
usually difficult, but with the game Cluedo a little detective
work is required and it’s not as easy as you may think.
Cluedo, also known as Clue in other regions, is the
most famous of all murder-mystery games. It is currently
produced by Hasbro but was originally published by
Waddingtons who bought the game’s patent from the
designer, Anthony Pratt, in 1947. He originally simply
called the game Murder, as it was based on the live-
action murder-mystery games popular at the time.
Anthony’s wife, Elva, designed the artwork for the game.
The game’s release was delayed and it wasn’t
actually available until 1949. This was due to post-
war Britain being short on resources of just about
every type. The Second World War had left British
manufacturing in a poor state and, for many years,
Waddingtons and all other board game manufacturers
made austerity editions of their board games.
These editions had no metal parts and sometimes
used cardboard spinners instead of dice. Cluedo was
expected to be a success but, with resources tight, a
small first print run was planned. The game was so
incredibly popular straight away that the first print
run was very short-lived. As a result, very slight design
changes were necessary as the company struggled
to find more of the original materials. So while there
are many first editions still around, not all of them are Finally, there are the weapons; the candlestick,
Phil Robinson is a game
from the original first print run. dagger and spanner from the first print run were
historian and the founder
There are several clues to identify which edition a brittle and easily broken, so in later first editions they of the Museum of Gaming,
Cluedo set is. To begin with, all print runs of the first were made of a different metal. The candlestick in the an organisation that
editions have a red fingerprint on the box label, the first print run was long and had four distinct sections, explores and documents
board label and the backs of all the cards. This colour however this was shortened to just three main sections Words Phil Robinson
the history of gaming
separation was deemed too costly in subsequent in later editions to give it extra strength. These brittle through its collections,
editions. If it has a black fingerprint or no fingerprint components led to pieces from later sets being exhibitions and research.
it’s not a first edition. Next is the box itself: the first substituted when something broke or went missing.
print run used a true black backing for both the board Finding a first edition, first print run is not so easy and
and the box but, as materials ran low, subsequent they are often incorrectly advertised online. If you
print runs of the first edition used a much lighter have or find a complete original first print run then
backing material. you’re very lucky.

98 June 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk

I N J U LY ’ S I S S U E O N S AL E M AY 3 0 T H

25
YEARS OF
MAGIC:
THE GATHERING
Designers, artists and fans look
back on a quarter-century of the
world’s biggest card game

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