SUMMER’S HOTTEST GAMES REVIEWED

WA R H A M M E R : A G E O F S I G M A R | S TA R S H I P S A M U R A I
M A S K S O F N YA R L AT H O T E P | L O W L A N D S | R A I D S + M O R E !
tabletopgaming.co.uk August 2018

PATHFINDER:
SECOND EDITION
The fantasy RPG prepares to enter a
new era – but can it keep up with D&D?

WESTERN
LEGENDS
Saddle up for an unforgettable
ride in the Wild West sandbox

GAMER’S
TRAVEL GUIDE
Everything you need to take
your hobby on holiday

RED ALERT THE MAKING OF

Display until 30/8/18

Richard Borg blasts off his sci-fi

CAPTAIN SONAR
£5.25

successor to Commands & Colors

A deep dive into the party hit
 You’ve studied the footage, connected the dots, and gathered what
meagre evidence you could. You’re close – soon the whole world
will know the truth behind the cryptid. A group of like-minded
cryptozoologists have come together to finally uncover the elusive
creature, but the glory of discovery is too rich to share. Without giving
away some of what you know you will never succeed in locating the
beast, but reveal too much and your name will be long forgotten!

Cryptid is a unique deduction game of honest misdirection in which

players must try to uncover information about their opponent’s clues
while throwing them off the scent of their own. Each player holds one
piece of evidence to help them find the creature, and on their turn they
can try to gain more information from their opponents. Be warned: give
too much away and your opponents might beat you to the mysterious
animal and claim the glory for themselves!

3-5 10+
1
4

30-50
5

MINUTES
PLAYERS AGES PLAY TIME
21
86 6
17
24
1 13
88 8
2
3
6

86 18
6

27 85
26 34

Explorers have been returning from the Amazon with extraordinary

tales – conquistadors withered with age marching through the
rainforest, unidentified beasts stalking expeditions, and an ominous
mountain that is said to be more perilous than the jungle itself! Only
the most reckless adventurers would ignore these warnings, but
even they might find that they need some help.

The Fountain of Youth & Other Adventures brings

four different expansions to The Lost Expedition,
adding new cards to the adventure deck, introducing
companions to assist your party, and revealing a new
trail that offers a range of new gameplay decisions.
Add them individually or combine them to provide new
challenges as you continue your search for El Dorado!

THE LOST
EXPEDITION
EXPANSION!

RINTY
- EAST
WERE B

ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.OSPREYGAMES.CO.UK

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 EDITORIAL

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

CONTRIBUTORS Kit Buss, Sam

Desatoff, John Dodd, Owen Duffy,
Robert Florence, Holly Gramazio,
Sam Illingworth, Richard Jansen-

I
Parkes, Dan Jolin, Joshua King,
Andy Leighton, Phil Robinson, Alex
Sonechkina, Charlie Theel, Paul t’s one of the hottest summers in years – we’re not
Wake, James Wallis, Chad Wilkinson just talking about the weather, but the tabletop, too!
Leading August’s scorching releases is the second
HEAD OF DESIGN & PRODUCTION
Lynn Wright edition of D&D-rivalling fantasy RPG Pathfinder, which
launches into a playtest later this month. Lead designer
DESIGNER Richard Hallam Jason Bulmahn tells us what a decade’s worth of
COVER IMAGE FROM improvements has brought to the game in our exclusive
PATHFINDER: SECOND EDITION interview on page 18.
With the heat comes the inevitable urge to don a cowboy
ADVERTISING
TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CALL
hat and have it be acceptable, so there’s no better time
GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER to roam the world of Western Legends; we explore the
Claire Ingram 01778 391 179
claire.ingram@warnersgroup.co.uk
Now Playing... incredible Wild West sandbox on page 26. If you’d prefer
Lowlands a dip in the seas, maybe cool off afterwards with our dive
KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER into the making of Captain Sonar on page 36.
Cat Gray 01778 395 059 If you’re jetting off on your holidays over the summer,
catherine.gray@warnersgroup.co.uk
make sure to check our Gamer’s Travel Guide on page 45
ADVERTISING DESIGN
AND PRODUCTION
Get in touch to learn how you can take your favourite games (or new
favourites) with you. Then turn to page 58 to ensure your
Nicola Lock 01778 392 420 tabletopgaming.co.uk
nicola.lock@warnersgroup.co.uk
gaming is as eco-friendly as possible, wherever you play.
tabletopmag We’ll have the summer’s biggest releases while they’re
MARKETING still hot ready to play at Tabletop Gaming Live in September
MARKETING BRAND MANAGER tabletopgamingmagazine
– and that’s not all, with tournaments, live seminars,
Nicola Lumb
tabletop_gaming_magazine participation games and more set to turn Alexandra Palace
PUBLISHED BY into the new home of tabletop. Find out the latest on page 6.

Matt
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Claire Ingram
Warners Group Publications PLC
The Maltings, West Street,
Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH Matt Jarvis Editor
01778 391 000 matt.jarvis@warnersgroup.co.uk | @liquidmatt
www.warnersgroup.co.uk

NEWSTRADE DISTRIBUTION Q U I C K S TA R T
Warners Group Publications PLC
01778 391 150 The one thing You want Billy Nothing’s
PRINTING we don’t want the Kid to be better than
This publication is to do is make a the best marshal RPGs for me, but
printed by Warners
01778 395111
fundamentally that ever lived? board games can
The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily
different game. You can do that! still try to approach
those of the publishers. Every care is taken to ensure that
the content of this magazine is accurate, but we assume no those kinds of
sensations.
responsibility for any effect from errors or omissions. While
every care is taken with unsolicited material submitted for
publication, we cannot be responsible for loss or damage.
While every care is taken when accepting advertisements, we Jason Bulmahn says Second Edition Travis R. Chance invites history to Captain Sonar co-creator Yohan
are not responsible for the quality and/or the performance
of goods and/or services advertised in this magazine. The
is still the Pathfinder you love, p18 run wild in Western Legends, p26 Lemonnier dives deep, p35
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) exists to regulate the
content of advertisements. Tel: 020 7429 2222
© Warners Group Publications Plc, 2018

tabletopgaming.co.uk 3
 In this issue
06 AT A GLANCE
Your 30-second guide to the latest in gaming
08 FIRST TURN
Martin Wallace returns to Lords of Creation –
his first game ‘that wasn’t awful’
10 10 OF THE BEST
Trust us on this pick of social deduction games
13 ROLE CALL
14 ALL THE JAHRES
How do you follow Settlers of Catan’s
monumental win? With El Grande, of course
41 THE INDEPENDENT SHELF 88 DUNGEON MASTER’S
Dungeon-crawling with a twist in the finger GUIDE TO ROLEPLAYING
flickin’ fun Catacombs Conquest Knowing when – and where – to draw the line
44 THROUGH THE AGES 91 EVENT REPORT
Marking the demise of Android: Netrunner with
a look at the life of expandable card games 92 CLUB DIRECTORY
45 GAMER’S TRAVEL GUIDE 95 SHOP SPOTLIGHT
Every game you should take on holiday – and
how to get them to fit in your suitcase 98 TABLETOP TIME
48 MY LITTLE SCYTHE MACHINE
Learning the love the
Meet the father and daughter who reinvented
oddities of 1980’s Quirks
the modern strategy classic with a magical touch

17 MY FAVOURITE GAME 51 PLAY IT SMART

Dragoon designer brothers Zach and Jake
Given revisit their gaming childhood
ON THE COVER
18 PATHFINDER:
SECOND EDITION
Lead designer Jason Bulmahn takes the
wraps off the fantasy RPG’s next evolution
26 WESTERN LEGENDS
Travis R. Chance takes us for a ride in
the rootin’-tootin’ Wild West sandbox
32 HAVE YOU PLAYED?
The love letter to collectible card games
that’ll leave you hooked: Millennium Blades
Giving games life using cardboard AI
52 RED ALERT
Wargaming legend Richard Borg heads to
space with his Commands & Colors successor
57 UNEARTHED ARTEFACTS
Looking back on the unforgettable brutality and
realism of conflict explored in This War of Mine
58 PLASTIC FANTASTIC
Can tabletop games give up their deadly
dependence and help save the environment?
63 PLAYED
Your need-to-know guide to the latest releases

35 KICKSTARTING 83 PAINTING
FROM SCRATCH GUIDE
Make the heroic
36 HOW WE MADE investigators of
Taking a deep dive into the creation of Captain Arkham Horror
Sonar, the party game that blew up Battleship Files look the part

18

4 August 2018
 THE GAMES
LOOK OUT FOR EXTRA CONTENT WHEN YOU SEE THESE ICONS Android: Netrunner 44
Arkham Horror Files 83
Art Deck 35
Banquet Royal 73
Black Orchestra 68
Gallery Zoom Panoramic 360˚ Sound Video YouTube
Blue Moon 44
Call of Cthulhu 66
36 83 Captain Sonar 36
The Castles of Burgundy:
The Card Game 45
Catacombs Conquest 41
Dungeons & Dragons 88
El Grande 14
Emperor’s Challenge 17
Endless Pass 72
Genesys 79
Gretchinz! 69
The Grimm Forest 71
Hannibal & Hamilcar 77
HeroQuest 17
Lords of Creation 09

45 26 Lowlands
Lucidity
67
74
Mansions of Madness 83
Marvel Contest of 80
Champions: Battlerealm
Micropolis 76
Millennium Blades 32
Mint Works 45
My Little Scythe 48
Pathfinder 18
Photosynthesis 58
Princess Jing 72
Quirks 98
Raids 70
Red Alert 52
The Resistance 10
Robit Riddle 81
Star Wars: 78
Han Solo Card Game
Starship Samurai 65
Sushi Go! 45
52 A Tale of Pirates 75
This War of Mine 57
Twilight Struggle 58
Warhammer: 64
Age of Sigmar
Warhammer Quest: 51
Silver Tower
Western Legends 26
When In Rome 78
Werewolf 10

tabletopgaming.co.uk 5
 AT A GLANCE
PLAY, LAUGH AND LEARN IN PANELS
AND TALKS AT TABLETOP GAMING LIVE
Painting workshop, roleplaying advice, designer interviews, play sessions and more among live stage line-up
We’re excited to announce our line-up of
fantastic live talks and panels taking place in
Alexandra Palace during September 29th and
30th as part of Tabletop Gaming Live!
» Hear from the creators of Call of Cthulhu as
they unveil the latest news about the RPG
and reveal their personal tips for GMs.
» TV presenter, author and Mind ambassador
Anna Williamson (pictured) joins the team
behind card game Book of Beasties to discuss
how games can be used to tackle mental health.
» Designer and writer James Wallis hosts a
side-splitting panel on comedy in games, with
a panel of very funny folks and lots of laughs!
» Don’t miss the first-ever live Tabletop Gaming
Podcast, with editor Matt Jarvis, special
guests and plenty of entertaining chat.
» The clever-clogs authors of the magazine’s
‘Play It Smart’ bring the column to life with a
special look at what games can teach us.
» After tips on beautifying your miniatures? Visit
our drop-in painting workshop on Saturday
morning to help perfect your technique.
» Be among the first people to try Catan: Global
Warming, an unofficial expansion for Settlers
of Catan, during an intimate play session.
» Join Actualol’s Jon Purkis for a special on-
stage version of his hilarious video series.
» Follow Jackson Pope as he takes us
through the creation of his one-of-a-kind
handcrafted games from scratch.
Those are just a few highlights from a
weekend full of unmissable talks and events
– the full schedule will be announced on
tabletopgaming.co.uk very soon. Admission
to all of the panels and talks is included in the
price of your ticket to Tabletop Gaming Live.
Tabletop Gaming Live takes place in London’s
Alexandra Palace this September 29th and
30th. Tickets are on sale now from just £10,
with family and weekend passes available –
visit The Ticket Factory to get yours today.

Tickets from just £10 | theticketfactory.com

4
KNOW YOUR NUMBERS
1-100
Number-counting co-op card game
2019

The Castles Troyes

of Burgundy and The Mind predecessor The Game co-creator
expands into is getting a makeover from Dinosaur Sébastien

2
digital next Island artist Kwanchai Moriya Dujardin

320,000
year, with an has
app of the Spiel Imhotep: The Duel is a two- revealed
des Jahres player version of the block- his
Recommended building game from Sushi Go! Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra is this first game in four years,
dice-roller on designer Phil Walker-Harding, year’s sequel to the beautiful tile- resource-collecting airship
the way docking this September layer, which has sold a LOT of copies adventure Sun Moon

REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE

• SAVE UP TO 10% PER YEAR

• GUARANTEE YOUR FREE GIFT EVERY MONTH
• DON’T MISS OUT IF THE SHOPS SELL OUT
6 January 2018

IT’S ENNIE-ONE’S GAME
Starfinder and Delta Green lead nominations for 2018’s best RPGs
Nominations for this year’s ENnies
– the annual awards show that
celebrates tabletop roleplaying
games – have been announced.
Leading the way is Pathfinder
sequel Starfinder, which collected
a total of eight nods for Product of
the Year, interior art, supplement,
GOING IN FOR THE KILL
Warhammer 40,000 spin-off Kill Team is returning bigger and better
Kill Team is back!
Originally created as a
Warhammer 40,000 expansion
for featuring tighter-knit missions
and smaller groups of models,
the variant later came out as a
standalone set.
The new Kill Team keeps
all of the things that made it
so much fun in the first place,
focusing on squads of between
five to ten miniatures that can
be customised and led through a
series of standalone missions or a
connected campaign of scenarios,
levelling up and gaining new abilities
along the way.
THE TABLETOP GAMING PODCAST
DOWNLOAD NOW FROM TTGAMI.NG/TTGPODCAST
SUBSCRIBE PRINT OR
D I G I TA L F R O M J U S T
£14.99
tabletopgaming.co.uk/subscribe
For the latest news from the world of gaming visit
tabletopgaming.co.uk/news
setting, monsters, free game,
cartography and accessory.
Hot on its heels is horror hit
Delta Green (pictured) with seven
nominations overall, including one for
Best Game. It’s joined in the hotly-
contested category by the similarly
acclaimed Blades in the Dark,
Zweihänder, Red Markets: A Game
of Economic Horror and Vurt: The
Tabletop Roleplaying Game.
Harlem Unbound, the
groundbreaking examination of
racism in a Lovecraftian 1920s
setting that also earned creator
Chris Spivey a place on this year’s
shortlist for the Diana Jones Award
for Gaming Excellence, continued to
pile up its heap of nominations with
The gameplay has been
polished by the team behind
Warhammer Underworlds:
Shadespire, tightening up Kill
Team’s alternating activation and
expanding the effect of terrain.
New to the game are ‘tactics’, a
mechanic similar to stratagems
in Warhammer 40,000’s eighth
edition that lets players to re-roll
dice, shoot first and gain other
benefits and advantages. The
game has also borrowed
the three-pronged
approach to open,
narrative and
matched play options.
recognition for Best Rules, Best
Setting, Best Writing and Product
of the Year. Cthulhu Confidential,
Torg Eternity and Star Trek
Adventures complete the list of
hopefuls for Best Rules.
For the first time, the
ENnies will hand out a prize
for Best Organised Play, with
D&D Adventurers League
adventure collection Lost Tales
of Myth Drannor, Bleeding Gate:
Amalgamation, End of the Line,
Wreckers and Best Friends
Forever fighting it out to be the
inaugural recipient.
The winners of this year’s ENnie
Awards will be announced on
August 3rd during Gen Con.
A box set and several
expansions are planned for release
later this year alongside new
scenery packs, with the rulebook
available separately for players
who want to use their existing
Warhammer 40,000 models.
84
We asked…
With over half of 2018
having already wooshed
by, what are your favourite
games of the year so far?
You said…
Star Wars: Legion’s kinda
started well, few shit sculpts,
but the game seems orite?
Bobbie Catterall
The Mind. It’s such a simple idea – but
so entertaining with the right group!
Paul Hardy
Ganz Schön Clever. Definitely.
Jamie Yardley
The Chameleon by Big Potato
Games, or Colour Chess by
DogEared, or Retail Magic.
Anna Blackwell
Thoroughly enjoying Dwarven Smithy
– the first game I ever backed on
Kickstarter. The artwork is just shmexy.
Steve Davies
Age of Sigmar: Second Edition.
It’s a much sleeker beast, offers
deeper customisation and the
endless spells make for some very
cinematic gameplay.
Benjamin W. Porter
Ganz Schön Clever here – it’s been
a huge hit in my gaming group.
Stuart Riddock
Magic: The Gathering simply
because of the great cards that
come out so far this year. I found
that the Core 2019 and Dominaria
sets are the best for deckbuilding.
Stephen Shering
Fog of Love. Such a novel game
that I made a point of playing it so
much during the first few months of
this year, and everyone I subjected
it to had a really fun experience. I
fondly remember some of those
relationships, though notably the
more toxic ones stand out.
Simon Brake
Get in touch
tabletopmag
tabletopgamingmagazine
tabletop_gaming_magazine
STUFFED FABLES
PAINTS & TECHNIQUES STITCH
PAINTS YOU WILL NEED: STAGES
Agrax Earthshade Flash Gitz Yellow Screaming Skull Each model is split up into four stages, each Stage 3 is highlighting. This stage involves
Averland Sunset Fulgrim Pink Seraphim Sepia with a list of colours and the corresponding applying a line of your colour along the
Balor Brown Gauss Blaster Green Skavenblight Dinge paint that was used for it. Each stage uses a hard edges and ridges of the area. I would
Blue Horror Genestealer Purple Skrag Brown different technique to achieve a similar effect recommend using a fine brush and adding a
Celestra Grey Karak Stone Slaanesh Grey on each element but with different colours. tiny dash of water to your paints.
Ceramite White Krieg Khaki Temple Guard Blue Stage 1 is basecoating. Base colours are Stage 4 is for final details. This stage
Dawnstone Lugganath Orange Thunderhawk Blue applied using flat colours. This is usually applied involves adding the finishing touches,
Deathclaw Brown Mechanicus Standard Grey Wazdakka Red over several thin coats, to achieve a bold, flat sometimes just small details like the
Dechala Lilac Mephiston Red Xereus Purple colour that is evenly spread. eyes, or adding an extra highlight of
Doombull Brown Mournfang Brown XV-88 Stage 2 is layering. During this stage we increase definition.
Dorn Yellow Pallid Wych Flesh Yriel Yellow apply a flat even coat, generally a lighter If you find yourself unsure of where to apply
Emperor’s Children Pink Horror Zamesi Desert shade, over the basecoat. A thin line of the the highlights or spot highlights, look over the
Evil Suns Scarlet Rhinox Hide base colour is left in all of the recesses to images alongside the guide and compare that
Fenrisian Grey Russ Grey help simulate shadows. stage to the last.
THEADORA BASE COLOURS
XV-88, Karak Stone, Rhinox Hide &
SHADING &
LAYERING
HIGHLIGHTING
Kreig Khaki: Apply a line highlight to
BASECOATING Mournfang Brown: Apply a basecoat to the patches.
Karak Stone, Skrag Brown & Mournfang
the body, arms, head, cape and hat using Brown: Apply a layer over the patchwork. Deathclaw Brown: Apply an edge
Mournfang Brown: Apply a basecoat all over the body. the different colours randomly across highlight to the hat and cloak.
Flash Gitz Yellow: Apply a layer to the pencil
Averland Sunset: Apply a basecoat to the belt. the patches. and an edge highlight to the yellow buttons. Fulgrim Pink: Apply an edge
Xereus Purple: Apply a basecoat to the scarf and the small patch Doombull Brown: Apply a basecoat of the Emperor’s Children: Apply a layer to the eraser. highlight of the eraser.
beside the heart. cape and the sash. Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply a layer to the stitches. Ceramite White: Apply a
XV-88: Apply a basecoat to the scabbard. Averland Sunset: Add a basecoat to Blue Horror: Apply a line highlight to the dot highlight to the top
Dawnstone: Apply a basecoat to the sword. the pencil. blue buttons. edge of the stitches and
Mephiston Red: Apply a basecoat to the heart patch. Karak Stone: Apply a basecoat over Gauss Blaster Green: Apply a line highlight the buttons.
Skavenblight Dinge: Apply a basecoat to the eyes, nose and mouth. the stitches. to the green buttons. Dorn Yellow: Apply an
Karak Stone: Apply a basecoat to the stitches. Temple Guard Blue, Moot Green and Averland Sunset: Mix one part paint with edge highlight to the pencil.
Averland Sunset: Apply a basecoat to around five parts water and, with only a Skavenblight Dinge:
the buttons. small amount on your brush, apply lines to Apply a layer to the end of
Pink Horror: Apply a basecoat to the eraser. some of the lighter patches. the pencil.
PIGGLE
10 RPGs YOU MUST PLAY IN 2018!
LAYERING
Skrag Brown: Apply a layer over the body, making sure
to miss the inner ear.
Genestealer Purple: Apply a layer over the scarf.
PLUS OUR REVIEW OF D
Yriel Yellow: Apply a layer to the belt.
UNGEONS & DRAGONS’
Celestra Grey: Apply a layer to the sword.
Thunderhawk Blue: Apply a highlight to the top left of NE W E XPANSION
both the eyes and the nose.
Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply a layer over the stitches and
add a line highlight to the scabbard.
January 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk
Evil Suns Scarlet: Apply a layer to the heart.
HIGHLIGHTING BASE SHADING & HIGHLIGHTING
Deathclaw Brown: Apply a highlight to the fur of the body. This
should be applied as an edge highlight on any hard edges, like the
COLOURS LAYERING Emperor’s Children: Apply an edge
highlight to all the hard edges,
Pink Horror: Apply a basecoat Emperor’s Children: Apply a
ears and the brow, and a line highlight to the top edges of each across the body, head, arms, legs layer over the pink, applying like the ears, as well as around
body ‘section’ – the body, head and arms. Also, add small sections and rattle. only an edge highlight to the top edge of each section of
of cross-hatching to help simulate the texture of the fabric. These Pallid Wych Flesh: Carefully apply the snout. the model. Add cross-hatching
can be achieved with two or three thin lines horizontally and then the lines around the rattle. Genestealer Purple: Apply a horizontally and vertically to
two or three vertically. Xereus Purple: Apply a basecoat layer to the Shield. simulate the knitted fabric.
FALLOUT: WASTELAND WARFARE |
Dechala Lilac: Apply an edge highlight to the scarf and a layer to the Dechala Lilac: Apply an edge
FINAL DETAILS FINAL DETAILS
BOGUS
to the shield. Dawnstone: Apply a line
tab on the edge of the heart. Mechanicus Standard Grey: highlight to the brows, mouth highlight to the shield.
Dorn Yellow: Apply an edge highlight to the belt. Lugganath Orange: Apply a very fine highlight to the Apply a basecoat to the trotters. and trotters. Celestra Grey: Apply an edge Ceramite White: Apply a dot highlight to the top left of the eye. Apply
Lugganath Orange: Apply an edge highlight to the heart.
Fenrisian Grey: Apply a dot highlight of the top left of the eyes.
Ceramite White: Apply a dot highlight of the top of the stitches and
cross-hatching, leaving a little of the original colour
around the edges.
Ceramite White: Apply a dot highlight to the top left
Skavenblight Dinge: Apply a
basecoat to the eyes, brows
Ceramite White: Apply a layer
to the handle and stripes of
highlight to the trotters, eyes
and brows.
Fenrisian Grey: Apply a dot highlight
a fine highlight to the cross-hatching, leaving a little of the original
colour at the edges. Add two lines down the head for the rattle.
Xereus Purple, Genestealer Purple & Dechala Lilac: Paint the words
BOARD GAMES
and mouth. the rattle.
Do you own
an edge highlight to the sword. of the eye. to the upper left of the eyes. ‘play clay’ onto the shield, building the highlights up from the base colour.
a fake?
July 2018 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
MARTIN WALLACE
The former history teacher and British gaming veteran behind Age of Steam,
London and Brass tells his designer Genesis story with 1993’s Lords of Creation
Interview by Dan Jolin
BACKGROUND
“It took me a little while to find a direction in life. I
went to sixth-form college but didn’t do terribly well.
Started a computer course, then dropped out. Then
ended up working for Games Workshop for a little while
as a minion, the lowest of the low: a shop assistant. It
was a good grounding for learning all sorts of games. I
did a few other jobs, including developing software for
the early Spectrum computer. And then I went back to
college as a mature student to do a degree in history.
Pretty much the only thing I could do with a degree in
history was go and teach. Although, luckily enough, the
other use for a history degree is designing games.”
COMPONENTS
“Lords of Creation wasn’t the first game I designed. I
designed all sorts of different games, but they were all
awful. It was the first game I designed where I played it
with people and they would say, ‘Ooh, yes, I’d like to play
that again.’ So I knew I had something worth publishing.
I’m not exactly sure where the inspiration came from. I
suppose it was this idea of doing a Risk-style game. I think
the key idea was the idea of civilisation-spreading.”
OBJECT
“It was around that time I discovered German-style games,
like some of Reiner Knizia’s early ones. I mean, this was
before Settlers of Catan came out! I suppose I was impressed
by the simplicity of them, the way they were fully formed,
not baggy, with no loose ends – unlike games like Monopoly
August 2018
or Kingmaker, which technically are broken. Even though I
am known for more complicated games, I try and do them
with a relatively simple ruleset: a simple core idea which
It was
you hang everything else off. I mean, at the same time I was
working on more complicated board games than Lords
the
of Creation, it’s just none of those ever reached the point
where they were suitable for publishing.”
first game
SETUP
I designed
“When I first published Lords of Creation I printed it off on
an Apple Mac desktop printer, 50 copies originally, and sold
where I
them by mail order. I didn’t have a colour printer, so when I
needed different-coloured sheets, I’d just print on different-
played it with
coloured paper. I had to stick the sheets down and cut
them out myself, which is why the pieces aren’t hexagonal-
people and
shaped, because they’re really difficult to cut out.” they would
HOW TO PLAY
“You set up a random world by placing terrain tiles on a
say, ‘Ooh, yes,
hex grid. Each player has their set of counters which are
double-sided, with barbarians on one side and civilised
I’d like to play
on the other, and they play a card facedown, then flip it up
to show a terrain type, with a number – that is the number
that
of counters you can place on that terrain type. So you put
your counters on and you can attack other players with a
again.’
simple dice roll. And then at some point you can flip your
counters onto the civilised side, which means they can’t
fight but you score more points for them. Once per turn you
can civilise the group of barbarians adjacent to you – which
may be your own, but may also be another player’s. So you
can protect yourself from being attacked by civilising your
opponents. And you play until the cards run out.”
END OF THE GAME
“We did reprint the game, and went to Essen with a
hundred copies the following year, which was the first
time I went to Essen. We sold them all, which was
good at the time. But even though the game never
really made me any money, it got me attention. It got
reviewed in a German magazine and allowed me to start
making contact with people in the industry there, which
is the invaluable bit, because it led on to other things.”
STRATEGY TIPS
“The advice I’m always giving newbie designers is: think
carefully about the story you’re trying to tell and
try and reflect that in the mechanisms that you
use. Don’t stick mechanisms in there that jar
[or] are at odds with the story you’re trying
to tell. So that’s probably the best advice.
Apart from: ‘Get lots of practice.’”
tabletopgaming.co.uk 9
 1 THE RESISTANCE:
AVALON
Building on the brilliant bluffing of its sci-fi predecessor The
Resistance, Avalon takes a trip to the fantasy world of King
Arthur, facing players off in a heated battle between good and
evil. On one side, Arthur’s servants and Merlin. The other: Mordred
and his minions, who are concealed among the goodies. Some of the
characters have special powers they can use to try and help their side

2
to victory while taking care not to put themselves in danger – such as
Merlin, who knows the evil players but risks being assassinated and losing
the game for the forces of good if they give away too much. Tense, tight
and full of unforgettable reveals and deceptions, Avalon is pure magic. SECRET HITLER
Working out which of your friends are liberals
and which are fascists might feel a bit close
to home in 2018, but Secret Hitler handles its
weighty historical inspiration of pre-World War
II Germany with a biting satirical edge that results in one of the
sharpest cut-throat games around. Each side works to swing
the passing of policies that benefit their party, while electing a
president and chancellor who can wield the power for good or
ill. All the while, one player is Secret Hitler, working behind the
scenes to try and seize complete power. Add in assassinations,
government powers and reptilian fascists for a party experience

10
that’s as outrageously entertaining as it is frighteningly current.

OF THE BEST
SOCIAL DEDUCTION
& DECEPTION GAMES
Honestly, lying to your friends – or sniffing out the lies of
others – is some of the best fun that can be had around a
table. Trust us on these games that are all bluff, zero fluff
Chosen by Matt Jarvis

4
A FAKE
ARTIST
GOES TO
NEW YORK

3
How can so much fun fit in such a

ONE NIGHT
small box? It doesn’t matter – the
important thing is that Fake Artist

ULTIMATE
belongs in every collection, and
you’ll definitely have space. As fast

WEREWOLF
and easy as it is hilarious (on all
counts: very), this pocket-sized prize
involves everyone collectively drawing
Werewolf is a classic, and ONUW gives it the something one line at a time. The
modern updates it needs to feel fresh and fun for years to come. hook is that someone has no idea
Best of all is the ditching of player elimination, so everyone gets to what it is, so they must bluff their way
enjoy every match the whole way through. Everybody also gets a through without giving their fakery
special role with different rules and abilities, so that every player away. But if they are uncovered and
is able to engage with the hunt for the werewolves terrorising the manage to guess the answer, they
villagers. Best of all, this fits into just 10 minutes or so, making it easy win – so everyone else wants to be
to squeeze in between longer games – or just play again and again. careful they don’t draw too well…

10 August 2018
5
COUP
A slick game of poker-faced bluffing,
Coup has a simple and timeless idea
at its heart: what if you don’t actually
have the card you claim to have in front
of you? Instead of numbers and suits,
this time it’s characters with special
skills that can be utilised to gain
coins and ultimately launch a
6 DECEPTION:
MURDER IN
HONG KONG
Deception takes a classic crime-fiction
shocker – the killer is one of the investigators on the case –
and turns it into a constantly entertaining murder-mystery
conundrum. One player gives the group vague clues about the
coup against your opponents, details of the crime, trying to point to the murderer in their midst.
forcing them to lose influence. Everybody has a unique combination of evidence and means of murder in front of them that lead
You don’t have to possess a to some blackly comic setups (how exactly do you murder someone using their underpants?), and
character to use their skill, the search for the truth feels like a proper whodunit mystery without a lot of the face-to-face
but others can accuse you of accusation of more confrontational games. Just watch your back – or should that be backside?
using talents you don’t have,
leading to a reveal and the
person in the right losing one
of their two characters. The
last person with a character
left wins, but matches don’t
drag on too long even with
those eliminations.

7
DRACULA’S FEAST
Not everyone enjoys the pressure of lying to their
friends. This spooky yet adorable game is designed to
be a friendlier take on social deduction, revolving around
monsters asking each other to dance at a function hosted
by the snappily-dressed bloodsucker – depending on
which ghoulie they are, they might prefer not to or be unable to resist a
boogie. Once a player reckons they’ve gathered enough intel, they try to
guess everyone’s identities at once. Nobody gets eliminated and a match
normally finishes in 10 minutes, with little complexity

8
to learn the first time through. It looks great, plays
beautifully and is the ideal side dish to the meatier
bluffing experiences out there to sink your fangs into.
THE CHAMELEON
A cross between the one-word efficiency of Codenames
and the confident blagging of Fake Artist and Spyfall, The
Chameleon is either a code-cracking search to figure
out the answer that everyone else knows that you don’t
– while bluffing your way through the need to give one-
word clues – or a tense analysis of everything that your friends say in an
attempt to point the finger at the faker among you. It’s simple and familiar,
but applies some clever twists in the way that dice are rolled to pick the
solution from a grid of answers (which you can write yourself).

9 TWO ROOMS
AND A BOOM
If deceiving a handful of friends doesn’t quite get your
rocks off anymore, why not try lying to an entire crowd?
Two Rooms lets dozens of people participate in a hunt for
a dangerous bomber: one team is trying to get the bomber into the same
room as the other team’s president by the end of the game, with hostages 10
tensely exchanged between the rooms between
rounds. Even with a full house, Two Rooms
doesn’t drag on,
SPYFALL 2
The perfect game for anyone who’s ever bluffed their way through
and the advanced an interview, Spyfall is all about coming up with the perfect replies
role cards provide to questions – even when you have no idea what the answers are.
an endless amount Players grill each other about the shared location they all have
of variation and written on their cards, hoping to trip up the one or two spies among
fun ways to shake them who have blank cards and therefore no idea where they are.
up the already Anyone can be accused of being a spy at any point, and the non-spies
entertaining are racing to catch the liars before a spy successfully guesses
standard game. where they are. Although it can be mixed with the original due to
Win or lose, you’ll identical gameplay, this sequel is the better standalone buy thanks to
have a blast. a bigger player count and option to include multiple spies.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 11
Role Call
Find your path to insanity, boldly go where others have
gone before and search for riches in tyrannous lands
Words by John Dodd
SANDY PETERSEN’S
CTHULHU MYTHOS
FOR PATHFINDER
The definitive guide to all things
Lovecraft for the Pathfinder rules
system. This book has a large
bestiary of creatures that have
never been seen in the fantasy
RPG before, plus new rituals, spells
and artefacts. There are additional
types of player character, including
the races of gnorri, zoogs and
ghouls. Of course, as with all things
Cthulhu come the inevitable rules
for when you eventually go insane.
Petersen Games | $40
August 2018
MUTANTS &
MASTERMINDS:
ROGUES GALLERY
A collection of the supervillains for
the superhero RPG. Covers all the
different power levels that might
be needed in the game, from
wannabe villains still knocking
over dime stores to the massive
organisations that threaten entire
continents with their schemes.
Each villain comes with their own
adventure hook, providing more
than a hundred new encounters
for players.
Green Ronin | $35
7TH SEA: LANDS OF
GOLD AND FIRE
The five nations of Ifri are awash
with gold and power, rich pickings
for the adventurer bold enough
to dare everything. This book
contains details of all the five
nations of the new continent, from
the gold of Manden to the dark
secrets of Mbey where a broken
king serves an evil beyond the
understanding of mortals. Plus,
rules for creating and playing
heroes native to Ifri and extra
quirks, advantages and sorceries.
John Wick Presents | $40
GHOST OPS
Ably filling the Tom Clancy-
shaped mould set by Ghost
Recon and Rainbow Six, players
in Ghost Ops take the role
of highly trained operatives
working in places where lesser
mortals would fear to tread.
Combining real-world settings
with modern technology and
a well-researched playbook
taken from the most popular of
espionage novels, this provides
everything needed for those
looking to work in the shadows.
Feral Games | £20
tabletopgaming.co.uk 13
 All the
Jahres
Replaying the winners of the Spiel des Jahres so you don’t have to
Words and photographs by James Wallis

EL GRANDE
I
t’s 1996 and you are the jury of the Spiel You can guess the answer from the pictures
des Jahres, the most important games Year of win: 1996 on this page.
prize in the world. Last year you awarded Designer: Wolfgang Kramer, I said Catan had been the most complex
it to The Settlers of Catan or, more accurately, Richard Ulrich Spiel des Jahres winner to date. El Grande
to Die Siedler von Catan, because the prize Number of players: 2-5 leaves it in the dust. BoardGameGeek rates
only goes to games published in German. Playing time: 60-120 minutes its ‘weight’ at 3.08, almost the same level as
Catan wasn’t a typical winner: the prize Worthy winner? Arguably Snowdonia. That’s still only a medium in BGG
is supposedly for family- Worth playing now? Yes terms, but for Spiel des Jahres fans used to
friendly games and, at Availability: Common in light pleasures, it came as a shock. This is not
the time, Catan was Germany, rare elsewhere a game for having a cheery time with a few
perhaps the most Price: About £85 for the big box friends or relatives; this is a demanding and
complex game to tactical contest. You know the sort of game
have worn the prize to a technically brilliant, tactically where the first time you play you’re really just
Spiel des Jahres complex, grown-up game by one of the great learning how its systems and strategies work?
logo on its box. Now designers of the age, Wolfgang Kramer? Or One of those.
you’re faced with to an audaciously fun dexterity game that El Grande is set in medieval Spain and
a difficult choice. combines F1 racing with the flicky skills of takes place over three centuries – if you’re
Do you give the Subbuteo, Carabande? playing with five people who take time over

14 August 2018

their moves, it can really feel like it. You’re a
grandee, a Spanish noble, and you have nine
turns to manoeuvre your knights – caballeros,
the Spanish word for ‘small wooden cubes’
– into controlling numbers in as many of the
nine regions as possible. However, you can
only put caballeros into regions that are next
to the one where the king is, but not the one
where the king actually is.
Players use action cards to decide the play
order, but the same cards also determine how
many caballeros you add to your pool. Then
players choose one of five face-up action cards
that dictate how many caballeros they can add
from their pool to the regions of the board,
but which give an optional special move,
too. These can add extra pieces, move pieces
around, send opponents’ caballeros back
to the box, score a region early or move the
king to another region, all of which give you
different types of advantage.
El Grande is almost certainly the
game of the year, but not the
right game for the Spiel des Jahres.
Oh yeah, there’s a king. And a castle –
castillo – and they’re both huge, impressive
bits of wood. The king, curiously, is a lot like the
robber in Catan, visually and in terms of what
it does; it moves around the board freezing
particular regions, it controls the allocation of
resources around its position and activating it
means you don’t do much else that turn.
The castillo functions like a region: you can
place caballeros there, but other players can’t
tell how many, and caballeros in the castle
are scored early and then reassigned to the
regions, where they can score again.
Unusually for a Spiel des Jahres winner, or
even for a Eurogame of this vintage, there’s a
fair amount of confrontation. You can mess
directly with other players’ pieces; there’s no
actual war, but it’s a lot more antagonistic than
you might expect.
I’m only scratching the surface of the
mechanics. There are a lot of different systems
Players place cubes into regions adjacent
to their king, controlling their actions – and
blocking rivals – using a selection of cards
going on in El Grande, and they all interlink,
and they’re all clever. Kramer’s previous
Spiel des Jahres winners had tended towards
the simple-and-elegant, but his short-lived
partnership with Richard Ulrich gave him
licence to delve to new depths of complexity.
For all its elegant mechanics this is
still a game from the 1990s, with slightly
amateurish hand-drawn art and maps. It
was the aesthetic of the time; it was just
how a lot of games looked back then. The
influence of Magic and other American
games that sold themselves on fully
painted cards would be felt very soon, but
for modern eyes these games lack visual
appeal. Still, not as bad as Bluff.
The question remains: did El Grande
deserve the Spiel des Jahres? It’s a prize for
the ‘Game of the Year’, and there’s a strong
argument for El Grande being exactly that:
it’s a powerhouse of intelligent game design
and interesting strategy. But there’s more to
the Spiel des Jahres than that: it was and is a
prize for family-friendly intro-level games,
not for big boxes aimed at enthusiasts,
and 1996 was the year where things were
diverging, the runaway success of Catan
having created a new appetite and even a
new market for more strategic titles.
So El Grande is almost certainly the game
of the year, but not the right game for the Spiel
des Jahres. This tension within the award
surfaces in reverse in 2002, where a weaker
family-friendly game (Villa Paletti) triumphed
over a future BoardGameGeek number one
(Puerto Rico), before the jury spun off a
separate award, the Kennerspiel des Jahres, for
hobby-level games in 2011.
El Grande is hard to find in English these
days: used copies are cheap in Germany, but
it’s a game with a lot of text on the cards and
Google Translate is not at its strongest with
Spanish-inflected German. Still, it’s worth
playing if you get a chance; if Catan had never
happened, El Grande could have ended up as
the big one.
Next month: All aboard for paddle-steamer
races with Werner Hodel’s Mississippi Queen
tabletopgaming.co.uk 15
Our favourite games
ZACH & JAKE GIVEN
The designer brothers behind glittering action game
Dragoon and time-travelling bluffer Human Era run us
through their earliest childhood memories of gaming
Zach: I remember leafing through
the instructions and scenarios for The games I
HeroQuest when there was no-one
to play with. The art created a world I want to play
could see, where the minis lived and
battled. And that was the best part of and design
these games: they provided a place you
could temporarily inhabit as well. Battle today, there
Masters and Weapons and Warriors both
took up an entire room, which made it tends to
impossible not to feel fully immersed.
Jake: When I think back on the games be some
elements

J
we played as kids, and the games I want
to play and design today, there tends to
ake: One of the earliest games I remember
falling in love with was Emperor’s
be some elements that really work to draw me in to the
experience, to let me immerse myself in the world of the that really
Challenge. Honestly, I only vaguely
remember the rules, but it involved
game itself. Sometimes it’s the theme, sometimes the
components, other times it’s the art style that create a world work to draw
collecting certain items and returning to
your home base to win. What I remember most vividly
I want to engage with. The gameplay itself – more so
today than when I was eight! – needs to be there as well, me in to the
were the pieces themselves. You played as a sage and
could gain the use of a companion dragon; both were
but a huge part of what that constitutes for me is, “Does this
fit the world in which I’m participating?” Basically, the rules experience.
beautifully-moulded plastic about three inches tall. and mechanics are there as a guideline for how to interact
There were colourful glass jewels, a plastic sceptre with the world and its inhabitants – the other players.
and the overall aesthetics were captivating. Zach: It doesn’t matter to us whether we start with an
Zach: It’s important to provide the context of my inspiration for a mechanic or a vision of a world. What
formative gaming years, because I was more like an matters is that, in the end, the two are as seamless as
annoying, excitable muppet watching my two older possible. That the player feels ‘Oh, that makes sense’
brothers playing these incredible-looking board games when they’re learning the rules.
that I utterly did not comprehend – I was one when Jake: All of these games
Emperor’s Challenge came out. The components for provided a world for us
Emperor’s Challenge were more than toys to me though; to explore and engage
they bore mystical secrets that I wanted to unlock. They with, a world I wanted
had powers in a world I wanted to go to. to be a part of. As
Jake: When I think of other games I grew up with that a designer today,
had a similar impact, the three I keep thinking of are that’s the kind of
HeroQuest, Battle Masters and Weapons and Warriors. experience I want
HeroQuest was one of my first introductions to tabletop to facilitate: theme,
RPGs and the slew of minis it came with were so exciting components, art and
to play with. Turning a corner or opening a room to mechanics all work
then see the GM populate the area with new monsters together to draw the
was just thrilling. It drew me into the experience with players into a world of
the threat of the unknown. Battle Masters literally make-believe, something that
took up the entire floor of our bedroom with the giant gets harder to find as we grow
game mat, and put you right in the action moving your up and face the challenges of
units into battle. And the catapults and cannons in everyday life.
Weapons and Warriors were such a fresh experience,
at least to this 11-year-old: lining up shots, the tension
mounting, hoping the marble you fire will activate the
spring-loaded mechanism that reduces your opponent’s Jake (left) and
ramparts to rubble. Zach (right)

August 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 17

18 August 2018
THE PATH AHEAD
After toppling Dungeons & Dragons from its throne a decade ago,
Pathfinder finds itself faced by the might of Fifth Edition. As it
prepares for its first major revision, can the fantasy RPG keep up?
A
Words by Matt Jarvis
s someone who spent his
formative years in the 1980s
playing Dungeons & Dragons,
Jason Bulmahn could have never
imagined he would himself go
on to become a guiding light into
roleplaying for a new generation
of gamers just two decades later.
“That never gets not weird for me!” he laughs. “It’s
always strange to run into folks who are like, ‘Yeah, I
first played roleplaying games with Pathfinder!’ I’m
like, ‘No, c’mon now...’”
It is Bulmahn who has been at the heart of
Pathfinder since the fantasy RPG first appeared ten
years ago; as director of game design at Paizo, he
was lead designer for Pathfinder’s first edition and
now leads the team working on its upcoming second
incarnation, which launches into a playtest this month
ahead of a planned full release next year.
“It is really exciting how that audience has grown
over the years and how it’s kind of matured,” he says.
“We’ve kind of reached a point now where there are
people who consider themselves old-school Pathfinder
players. They were there in the alpha playtests.”
As its creators and audience have expanded and
evolved, so has Pathfinder itself, rapidly ballooning
from an evolution of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 created
as a reaction to Wizards of the Coast’s restrictive
fourth edition to a roleplaying giant in itself,
with a singular universe – the capacious setting
of Golarion – and gameplay systems that, while
derivative, were distinctive enough to take it beyond
being a simple act of preservation.
The significant modifications Pathfinder layered
on top of D&D (the game was nicknamed ‘D&D 3.75’
during development) converted roleplaying diehards
and newcomers alike. Within two years of the first
edition’s launch in August 2009, Pathfinder had become
the first roleplaying game to outsell D&D since the
seminal title’s release almost four decades prior – a
lead it went on to hold for over three years. Dungeons
& Dragons’ fifth edition retook the crown in 2014,
spurred in part by streamlined gameplay changes and
a free rules taster. Pathfinder has continued to nip
at D&D’s tail since, offsetting its aging systems with
fresh injections of supplements and modules, but has
remained outpaced by the bigger game’s more drastic
iteration. Pathfinder: Second Edition presents the
chance to bring together the RPG’s decade of many
parts into a whole and finally take the leap forward.
“You know, it’s funny; I think the first steps for
Second Edition started the day we sent first edition to
the printer,” Bulmahn says. “Because there’s always
things that you look [at], you’re like: ‘Well, I wish we
tabletopgaming.co.uk 19
 PAT H F I N D E R

so much to it that we really were working with a brand

new entity. So I think we kind of stopped and took
stock of the situation and realised: ‘Hey, if we codify
all of this, if we start kind of from scratch and build the
game to make all of these components work with the
core of the engine, we’ll end up with a much better
experience for everybody involved.’”

STAR CHILD
While Pathfinder’s second edition has existed as a
hypothetical next step for as long as the game has been
around, it wasn’t until more recently that it began
to actually take shape. Specifically, development of
Second Edition started roughly at the same time as
an even more radical reinvention of Pathfinder in
the form of sci-fi sequel Starfinder, which took both
Pathfinder’s gameplay and universe into the far-flung
future last summer.
“I like to talk about them [Second Edition and
Starfinder] being more like siblings,” Bulmahn
suggests. “They both kind of grew up at around the
same time. The new version of Pathfinder just had an
extra year to kind of finish. To be honest, some of the
same people worked on both – I designed the entire
starship combat system [in Starfinder]!”
Alongside completely new considerations for vehicular
combat, character themes and exploration of alien worlds,
Starfinder boasted a polished version of Pathfinder’s
core rules, fine-tuned to both better accommodate its
focus on ranged combat and account for the way that
roleplaying trends had changed over the years.
“There are a number of elements that are similar
[between Second Edition and Starfinder], because we
looked at them and said: ‘This is just a better way to do
this,’” Bulmahn says. “There are other elements that
we looked at for Starfinder and said, ‘We can’t do this

could’ve done more. I wish we could’ve changed this.’

The design of a game is never really done. I think you ABOVE Goblins are now a
eventually come to a point where you just have to kind fully playable race, inviting
of go, ‘Well, it has to go now, so this is as good as we players to take control of
can make it.’ Because you can always work to make a the bloodthirsty creatures
game better. You can always spend more time iterating. for the first time
You can spend more time creating a better ruleset and
testing it and refining it.
“So, for Second Edition, for the Pathfinder playtest,
we really started taking notes almost that first day,
because there was a lot of things about Pathfinder that
we felt we kind of couldn’t change – that it was a bridge
too far. That it was too radical. But over ten years, we’ve
added so much to the game. We’ve created entire rule
systems, we’ve kind of upended the way a lot of things
work and over time it became kind of clear that we
really were pushing into new territory. We really were
creating a game that wasn’t the same. We had added

20 August 2018
 for Starfinder because it’s too far away from the core of
Pathfinder, but we can do it for the Pathfinder playtest.’
Conversely, there are some things that we did to
Starfinder that we said: ‘Y’know, this makes more sense
for a science-fiction game and doesn’t make more
sense for a fantasy game, so we won’t change it for the
other one.’ So they informed each other to some extent
– there are elements of the two of them that are similar,
there are other elements that are drastically different.
Some of that has to do with [the fact] they need to be
different games; Starfinder is a science-fantasy game
and has very different needs than a just pure fantasy
world. That’s kind of it. I think neither one is the parent
of the other, they’re both the children of Pathfinder:
First Edition – they just went in different directions.”
The one thing
we don’t want
to do is make a
fundamentally different
game – we want to
make the best
Pathfinder we can.
More fundamentally, Second Edition was faced with
the question of whether to stay true to its legacy of
being a direct evolution of D&D 3.5 – now 15 years old
and counting – or to break even further away from the
limitations of the venerable ruleset, potentially jeopardising
the very vision that had first cemented its popularity.
“It’s a delicate balance,” admits Bulmahn. “There’s
a lot about 3.5 that harkens all the way back to the
earliest roots of fantasy tabletop roleplaying games.
And there’s a lot of that that we want to keep. Y’know,
the concept of: there is a group of adventurers, they
go on quests, they kill monsters, they get treasure,
they get more powerful. Some of that is at the heart
of the narrative underpinnings that everybody comes
to these games with. Even people who haven’t played
roleplaying games, they’ve played enough video
games that are all based off that that they still come to
it with that expectation. It’s amazing to me how this
ecosystem feeds that sort of gameplay mechanic. So,
for us, we look at that and go: ‘Well, we’re not changing
that.’ Right? If we change that, we’re fundamentally
making a different game. When it comes to a new
version of Pathfinder, the one thing we don’t want to
do is make a fundamentally different game – we want
to make a game that’s better, we want to make the best
Pathfinder we can make. So there are things that we
look at and go: ‘Well, that’s not really critical to the core of
the game experience. That’s a minor thing.’”
In some cases, this doesn’t necessary mean
removing things from the game completely, Bulmahn
quickly adds, but instead taking a kind of ownership
tabletopgaming.co.uk 21
 PAT H F I N D E R
over them: “Making more Pathfinder and, in other
cases, making them more kind of ours or trying
different things.”
He gives the example of Golarion goblins, which
Pathfinder’s first edition established as far more
devious and dangerous (not to mention darkly comic)
than their low-INT sword-fodder cousins in other
RPGs. In Second Edition, players can create a goblin
character for the first time, becoming one of the game’s
playable races – which have been newly redubbed
‘ancestries’ and adjusted to allow players to gain race-
specific feats as they level up, allowing them to fully
explore their character’s cultural heritage.
“So there are things that we look at and go, ‘That
might be a spot where we can innovate, where we
can evolve,’” Bulmahn presses, before admitting:
“Then there are other things that are just legacy kind
of hallmarks that, to be honest, I’m probably too
sentimental to change; Magic Missile is still called
Magic Missile, it still hits automatically.”
CRUNCHY BUT SMOOTH
In the years since Pathfinder’s hefty tome first
slammed onto tables, roleplaying has given rise to
a wave of slim micro-RPGs and one-shots that, in
some cases, have rules that take up little some than a
single side of A4. What they lack in depth or longevity,
these tastes of roleplaying make up for with a friendly
approachability – they can be taught and played by
friends in a single evening with little preparation,
often leading those previously put off by complex
calculations and the pressure of creating a highly
detailed character to discover a craving for meatier
RPGs. Bulmahn says that finding a way to be both
welcoming introduction and long-term fixation was
central to Pathfinder’s latest iteration.
“One of the things that we looked at, especially
with a lot of more modern game designs, is that a lot
of the games are pushing for a bit of a simpler system
expression,” he explains. “But that’s not quite our bread
and butter. I think people come to Pathfinder because
they look at it as a game with a very deep variety of
options. There’s a lot of different ways you can take the
game, you can kind of make whatever you want. But that
variety comes at such a price. There’s so much you have to
learn, there’s so many things you have to kind of navigate.
So, when we started with the new edition, I think one
of our big goals was to find a way to make learning and
understanding the game quite a bit more straightforward,
but still keeping a lot of those options, keeping that
depth that people kind of come to know us from.”
Combat has been completely revisited in Second
Edition, doing away with the sometimes overwhelming
separation of actions into move, standard, immediate
and swift types in favour of a simplified system of three
actions and one reaction each turn.
“If we just made it a simple system of, like, well you
can open up a door, swing a sword or try and disarm
22 August 2018
a trap or something – if we just narrowed that down to
something really, really basic, then I think we would
end up with a system that just had no variety to it;
it would have no depth of strategy,” Bulmahn says.
“But what we’ve tried to do is make sure that all the
characters have different components of their class, of
their ancestry, of their spells, of their magic items, that
give them interesting tactical choices, so that it’s really
easy to say: ‘Hey, you get three actions on your turn.’
That’s not a hard thing to figure out but, when you
dig into your character, your character has a depth of
options as to what you do with those three actions. You
end up with interesting choices, like: do I attack for the
third time or, instead of attacking, do I spend that third
action to raise my shield and increase my defence? So
you end up having to weigh the choices.
“I think very frequently with Pathfinder: First
Edition, there was always a kind of right answer for
most situations. It was like: ‘Oh, that’s clearly the
best thing to do.’ We wanted to step back from that
and make it a little bit more strategic. So where we
simplified in one area, we added meaningful choice
and complexity to another area.
“I’ve taught the new version of this game now to
dozens of players and all of them kind of approach as,
like, ‘Oh, that sounds really simple and easy.’ And then
when they dig into it, they go: ‘Oh, I can do this or that
or this other thing. And, depending on the situation or
the circumstance, one might be better than the other,
but it might not be, so I have to make the right choice
here and live with the consequences.’ That makes for
a much more exciting play experience than just kind
of, like, ‘I run up and keep swinging until he dies.’ So,
yeah, it’s deceptively simple to learn but difficult to
master, which was our goal.”
The new way combat is handled is coupled with a
fresh balancing of class abilities, addressing the gripe
of some players over the relatively restricted skillset of
fighters and other martial characters compared to their
magic-using companions.
“What we tried to do is ensure that spellcasting
characters have their role to play in a fight, and that
role varies depending on what type of character it is,”
Bulmahn says. “The martial characters have a role to
play. Everybody kind of has their thing that they are
supposed to do. We call it ‘niche protection’, and what
we basically tried to do is make sure that the wizard
can’t be a better rogue than the rogue, right? It’s kind of
a two-sided approach.”
Bulmahn gives the specific example of the First Edition
spell Knock, which allowed a magical character to pick a
lock – making the nimble fingers of the rogue redundant.
“That’s no longer the case,” he reassures. “Knock
gives you a bonus on your ability to pick a lock,
but if you don’t have any ability at it, you’re still
pretty terrible at it. It’s almost better for the wizard
to cast Knock on the thing and then let the rogue
pick the lock than it is for the wizard to try and do it
tabletopgaming.co.uk 23
 PAT H F I N D E R
themselves, because it doesn’t just make it so that it
automatically happens.”
On the battlefield, Bulmahn says that spells that
could “automatically win the fight” in First Edition have
been pared back down, while martial characters have
been gifted with a greater ability to control the “flow
and feel” of an encounter by pushing enemies around,
applying negative conditions and use reactions to do
more than just dish out damage.
“Fighters can be very good at scaring folks, they can
be very intimidating in a fight, and they have a number
of abilities that make them even better at doing that if
they decide to build that kind of character,” he explains.
“We kind of make it so that you get to choose how you
want to contribute. And, assuming everyone’s working
together, they’re not all picking the same thing. If the
wizard’s picking a whole bunch of fear things and the
fighter’s picking a whole bunch of fear things they’re
going to overlap quite a bit. But it’s a group game, so
we kind of assume that most people work together.”
All of this means a more approachable, smoother
Pathfinder experience, without taking away from the
game’s signature crunch for those wanting to dig their
24 August 2018
teeth in. Bulmahn emphasises that Second Edition is
A still very much Pathfinder – but with a lighter touch.
game
“If you come to the new version of Pathfinder and
you learn how to make a character, you don’t have
that’s easier
to relearn that process just because you’re making a
cleric instead of a barbarian,” he suggests. “There’s a
for everyone few things you need to pick up, but it’s not an entirely
different class. There is a chassis that a lot of these
to grasp things are built off of. So you kind of learn the process
once and then you can repeat the process and kind of
and explore build entirely different characters. So the goal really is
to make sure that the people who come to our game
makes for a still get the game they expect, but we don’t want new
players to have to jump through quite so many hoops
game that’s to get there.”
The designer reveals that part of the renewed focus
better to on taking the hard work out of Pathfinder has been
inspired by the rise in players broadcasting their
stream. campaigns as online video over the last ten years.
This includes Critical Role, the all-star web series
featuring voice actors that began as a Pathfinder
campaign in private before being converted to D&D:
Fifth Edition as a result of the latter game’s stream-
friendly simplicity.
“I think a lot of the goals overlap in interesting
ways,” Bulmahn says. “Making a game that’s kind of
easier for everyone to grasp and explore makes for a
game that’s better to stream. Creating a game system
that has more narrative kind of gameplay mechanics
that are not only more engaging for the players, but
it’s also far more interesting to watch people do that
on a stream, right?
“We have a number of Actual Play podcasts that
play various parts of Pathfinder and it’s interesting
how their play style influences the way we think
about the game and how kind of everybody thinks
about games. The rise of people watching other
people play tabletop roleplaying games has really
changed some opinions about how some things
should probably work. Giving the GM more agency,
giving the players more control over how the world
affects their characters: things like that kind of make
for a more engaging play experience. Even without
that, though, a lot of that’s our goal anyway, right?
We want everybody to be invested in telling their
story, telling the tale of their adventuring group as
they traverse the dangerous world in search of fame
and glory, so we want them to be engaged on that
anyway. It’s fortuitous, a lot of the goals overlap.”
WORLD IN MOTION
As Pathfinder moves onwards, so too does its setting.
In fact, Golarion has been continually advancing
since Pathfinder’s first Adventure Path, Rise of the
Runelords, debuted in 2007. At the time, the team
decided to lock step with reality, progressing their
fantasy world at the rate of one Golarion year for every
Earth year – but began in the year of 4707, matching

the last two digits of our calendar to make it easily
memorable. Monthly Adventure Path chapters – each
six forming a connected campaign – have kept the
clock running since.
Second Edition leaps the timeline forward by
a couple of hundred years, to 4919, and officially
marks the completion of past storylines in the world,
opening up new room to explore Pathfinder’s world
and inhabitants.
“The thing that we haven’t done up to this point with
that [passage of time] is we have all these Adventure
Paths with these random storylines,” Bulmahn says.
“We haven’t updated the timeline to account for those.
Until now.
“We’ll be advancing the plotline and saying,
‘This is what happened to our world, this is how
the world has changed.’ I don’t think anyone who
is familiar with Golarion is going to come to it and
go: ‘Oh my god, everything is so different, I don’t
recognise anything.’ But a lot of those big storylines
are going to play out and come to fruition. So we’ll
see how it goes.”
He laughs. “There’s a bunch of really exciting
things coming up in the next year, but if I spoil them
people will run out of the office right now and stab
me, so I’m not going to do it.”
FIND THE WAY
Pathfinder’s second edition brings together a
decade’s worth of its creators’ ambitions and
players’ wishes. It’s still taking form: this month’s
playtest is expected to last for around four months,
with Bulmahn and his team working to polish and
tweak the final release in response to feedback
before its 2019 launch.
“After that, it’s off to the races,” he says. “I have
calendars and plans that stretch out with numbers
like 2022 on them, so we’re looking way into the
future about what we want to make for this game
and what exciting directions we think it can take.”
Even so, the designer knows that, just as with the
game’s first edition, this incarnation is both a move
away from the past and a step towards the future for
Pathfinder – with Bulmahn forever chasing the next
improvement, the next story to tell.
“Whenever you create a game like this, part of
the process of making it is more than just setting
down where it is right now, it’s also setting down the
skeleton of where you want to go,” he accepts. “In our
meetings, I say we need to make sure that we build
the design space for ourselves. So we don’t want to
fill in all the holes. We don’t want to plug all the gaps.
We want to leave ourselves room that says, ‘Hey, this
is a really cool new mechanic.’”
While total perfection might remain just out of
reach for its creators, the new Pathfinder will doubtless
inherit its predecessor’s legacy as the revolutionary
introduction to roleplaying for thousands of new
players – as well as continuing to be the definitive
RPG for those who remain enthralled, all these years
later. There’s room for everyone to become part of the
game’s history, and it’s still just beginning.
“We’re excited to move forward and create kind
of a fresh start for a lot of new people to be able to
access the game, but we also want to make sure that
the people who have been with us this whole time
still come to the game and find it to be the game they
know and love,” Bulmahn says.
“Just looking at the way we’ve designed
[ancestries], it leaves all of this room for us to build
more of them in the future for you to use in your
game. Or to expand the ones we have! Before, there
ABOVE Martial characters was no design space there at all, other than just
are able to better control make a new race and then you’re just done with it.
the battlefield The choice was made precisely once. Now it’s kind
of a more living, breathing part of Pathfinder. So
OPPOSITE Combat has those sorts of decisions give us the opportunity to
been streamlined into a build a future for Pathfinder that is kind of robust
system of three actions and rich. Deciding – not to be too cliché – what path
we’re going to take is half the fun.”
tabletopgaming.co.uk 25
26 August 2018
 ONCE
UPON A
TIME IN
THE

Western Legends gives you the chance to step into

the boots of history’s greatest gunslingers and carve
your own legend in its open world. Saddle up and
enjoy the ride of the ultimate Wild West sandbox
Words by Matt Jarvis

tabletopgaming.co.uk 27
 WESTERN LEGENDS
E
ddie Izzard once joked
that if French filmmakers
had put their continental
spin on cowboy movies
instead of the Italian
influence led by Sergio
Leone, the wave of
revolutionary westerns
released in the 1960s wouldn’t have been
‘spaghetti’ but ‘baguetti’.
That horse has long since bolted the stable
onscreen, but board games may be about to
go through their own ‘baguetti’ moment at the
hands of Hervé Lemaître, the French first-time
designer behind the ambitious, visionary
Western Legends.
Despite being Lemaître’s tabletop debut,
Western Legends is a confident, complex
creation: part board game, part RPG, part
historical simulation. Rather than give
players a single strand of the Old West – the
gunfights of Bang!, the cattle-driving of
28 August 2018
LEFT Western Legends
presents a sandbox for
players to explore
BELOW Travis R. Chance
worked with first-time
designer Hervé Lemaître
Great Western Trail, the questionable trading
standards of Snake Oil – Lemaître has sewn
together a tapestry of western life and death
in the form of a sprawling open world that
encompasses everything from gambling and
prospecting to peacekeeping and robbing.
“It’s not like a lot of board games
where, okay, it’s like: ‘I score victory
points by doing this’, ‘I score victory
points just by winning fights’ or ‘I score
victory points by turning in resources’,”
says Kolossal Games president Travis
R. Chance, who took on the task of
publishing Lemaître’s grand design.
“In this game, you have so many
possible options for how you can
convert those decisions into a
potential victory, and in a way
that I don’t feel is as mired and
confusing as people would
expect for what type of game
it is. Because there’s a lot
of sandbox games – there’s some games that
claim to have a ‘sandbox feel’ – but this is very
much: ‘You’ve got three actions, what do you
want to do? Do you wanna rob a bank? Do
you wanna beat up a bandit? Do you wanna
go drive cattle? Do you wanna mine gold?
Do you wanna sell gold? Do you wanna play
poker?’ You can, literally – we have rules for
our own house version of Texas hold ‘em
within the game itself.”
Chance adds that one of the reasons he
was attracted to Western Legends is that,
despite its ambitions to replicate such a huge
range of experiences, Lemaître proved he
had the substance to make his lofty ideas
actually work on the table.
“I am actually quite fond of working
with first-time designers because they’re
really enthusiastic,” says Chance. “They’re
usually very humble, they want to learn
the process and they’re willing to do the
work. I think after the micro-game kind
of boom happened, that, coupled with
crowdfunding, allowed a lot of people who
sort of just had concepts and not really
games to start getting into the industry, and
then they were pitching games to publishers
and then the publisher ended up finishing
the design. I’m very against that; I’m not
interested in looking at concepts, I’m
interested in looking at designs.”
Even
though it’s
a sandbox game
– you have an
incredible matrix
of options –
it’s really
quite simple.
A GAME UNCHAINED
Western Legends thrives on being able to let its
players wander off the beaten track and carve
out a piece of the world in whatever way they
please. To make every route worth exploring,
it sets this innovative level of freedom inside
a familiar overarching structure: the first
player to a set amount of victory points – here
rechristened as ‘legendary points’ – wins.
“The design has a couple of failsafes in it,”
Chance reassures. “When I say failsafes, I
mean more like there’s a little bit of directed
play, but it’s not forced.
“Really what the game to me is about is
action optimisation: how do I take those cards
that I get, or the money that I get, and the
three actions that I have, and how do I turn
that into the most amount of possible points
or set myself up? The game has this really nice
kind of pace to it, where you’re almost always
scoring points on your turn, but you can set
yourself up for really meaningful turns.
“You’re almost always going to use an
action to move, because you interact with
the board a lot, or players. There’s kind of this
constant feeling of being mobile in the game.”
Certain decisions will shift a player’s
standing with the law, earning them renown
as a crime-fighting marshal or notoriety as an
infamous outlaw. Both paths can reap their
own rewards.
“Every character starts asymmetrically
insomuch as they start with a different
advantage,” Chance explains. “So one character
might have more poker cards in their hand, one
character might start with more money, one
character might start with a better weapon, one
character might start with a mule, one character
might start wanted or as a marshal – that’s a
really big crux in the game, that helps you out
of the gate.
“The marshal track is this very simple
Eurogame concept of ‘when I gain marshal
points I move up the track and I get the reward;
I’m rewarded for playing the good guy’. Whereas
there’s the wanted track, which in appearances
looks exactly like the marshal track, but it’s
different insomuch as you have more options as
a wanted player – so I can rob the bank, I can rob
other players. Rustling cattle, which is the polar
opposite version of driving the cattle, is a much
easier path than it is for the marshals who have
to wrangle the cattle and take them down to this
rail station in the middle of the board and then
have to traverse back. So there’s kind of implied
strategies with the moral code of the game.”
There is an exhaustive list of ways for players
to rack up legendary points, each reflected
by unique gameplay – you might roll a die to
prospect for gold one turn, pick up and deliver
cattle tokens the next, and follow that with a
card-battle shootout.
“The game, even though it’s a sandbox game
– you have an incredible matrix of options – it’s
really quite simple,” promises Chance.
“The rulebook is like a very big rulebook, but
it’s one of those where when you sit down and
you teach the game, it’s like a 15-, 20-minute
explanation of all the options. The first round
players will be like, ‘Well, I’m going to move
and then I’ll do this,’ and by the second or third
turn the turns are like maybe two minutes long.
I mean, the game plays incredibly fast. It’s
intuitive, y’know – you always have opportunity
to make really interesting and cool decisions.”
These decisions are guided somewhat by
story cards, a deck of event cards on which
players can fulfil certain conditions and earn
bonus rewards later on – but without locking
their choices to a rail.
“What those do is they are general enough
that there’s lots of ways to satisfy the conditions,”
Chance says. “For example, the ‘get two or
more LP on your turn’ – if I get two or more LP,
what are the ways I can do that? Well, I can duel
another player. That has nothing to do with
being wanted or being a marshal. I’m walking
up to someone and saying, ‘I challenge you to a
duel, if you win, you’re going to get two LP.’ If I’m
wearing a ten-gallon hat and I go play poker, I
can get two LP. If I deliver gold to the bank, two
or more gold nuggets, I can get two LP. If I go
and spend the money I have at the cabaret and
throw a party, if I spend at least $60 I can get
two LP. So, like there, there’s some very different
options in the game that all can be rewarded in
the same exact way without constraining the
players to a narrow decision point.
“There’s all these like really subtle ways
of letting a player get benefits and rewards
without forcing them to be something.”
POKER FACE-OFF
Rather than use a separate deck for each
and every possible action, Western Legends
combines many of its gameplay mechanics
into a single pack of 52 playing cards. Chance
admits the genre cliché.
“There’s always a [western] game that has
poker cards in it in some form,” he confesses.
“So does Western Legends, but the thing that
makes Western Legends different is there’s
more than just, ‘Here’s a deck of poker cards
that do something else.’
“That was part of the initial design. We
obviously over time developed and designed
tabletopgaming.co.uk 29
 WESTERN LEGENDS
some different cards that were better suited for
what the game was becoming throughout the
development process, but from the onset that
was there.
He adds: “I’ll be honest, when I first saw the
game, one of the very first things I said was:
‘Oh yes, there’s a poker deck.’ Then I looked.
The thing is, the game doesn’t live and die on
the poker deck. It’s integral to what you do,
it gives you all these options, it modifies how
things happen, it adds tension to the game, but
you could never play a poker card and still run
around the board and do a lot of things.”
One of the cards’ key uses is to swiftly
resolve duels between players and non-player
characters. Each side places a card facedown
and reveals them simultaneously; the highest
card is the quickest draw. It’s as fast as a gunshot,
with flexing trigger fingers and squinting stares
replaced by eyeing up your opponent’s lacklustre
selection of options – or, in the case of the NPCs,
trying your luck against the suitless fight deck.
“The game is very interactive, so there is
conflict,” Chance says. “It’s not necessarily
hyper– it’s not just conflict. It’s not like Blood
Rage or something, where you’re just crushing
the other person’s dreams and soul on a
repeated basis. If you fight, you’re gonna have
to play the poker cards.
30 August 2018
“You can fight NPCs in the game such as
the bandits, if the sheriff is hunting you and
he moves into your space you’ll fight him, and
if you rob the bank you’ll fight a guard. The
guard doesn’t have a miniature like the sheriff
or the bandits; nevertheless, they all use a
similar mechanism. One thing that I think is
really neat about the game is that if someone
interacts with those NPCs, the player to their
right portrays that character; they make the
decisions for that character.”
Deepening the strategy is the cards’
secondary function as action, bonus or
reaction abilities, able to be triggered at will
to sprint further across the dusty plains before
obtaining a steed or gain the upper hand in a
gunfight – assuming your opponent doesn’t
have their own trick up their sleeve.
“There’s a card called Stick ‘em Up, which
you use to modify fight results – you can lower
another person’s card value,” Chance explains
excitedly. “That creates some interesting
tension: ‘Oh, you’re beating me, I’m going to
lower your card,’ and suddenly they’re like ‘Oh,
guess what? I have one too! I’m going to lower
your card.’ It all comes together in this really
simple way, a simple execution which I think
is really interesting. You blow through cards
really quickly.”
THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY
Western Legends’ central quest for legendary
points is somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy:
players begin the game as any one of a roster
of real-life icons of the West, stepping into
the boots of Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Annie
Oakley, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp and more.
“When Hervé originally showed me the
game, he had half the characters historical and
then his friends were made-up characters in
the game,” Chance recalls. “What I thought was
the historical thing was pretty interesting. I had
actually never made a game that was non-fiction,
as it was. So I was like, ‘Okay, this is interesting
and this gives us some design constraints’, right?”
While players can take the historical figures
in any direction they want, even playing against
reality – “You want Billy the Kid to be the best
marshal that ever lived? You can do that!”
Chance eagerly encourages – their repute helps
to give some direction and grounding to players
who might otherwise feel overwhelmed by
being set loose in the sprawling sandbox.
“It’s really easy to be like, ‘Here’s Fat Jim,
some made-up guy. What does Fat Jim do? I
dunno, whatever, he’s good at gambling,’ versus
Billy the Kid – he’s wanted, when a lot of people
think famous outlaws they think Billy the Kid,
Jesse James, so how can we convey that through
mechanics, through mechanisms? How can we
make him true to life?” Chance says.
“On top of that, there was something that
for me – and not to wax nostalgic here – was
the actual process of doing research on these
people and then making sure that we not only
portrayed them correctly but that we made the
mechanisms match up with who they are. So
even their goal cards are reflective of the types
of exploits they did in their actual life. I wanted
to use the goal cards, the ability that’s on the
character, their starting setup, all to be kind of
a personification through mechanisms of who
they were in actual life. Which I thought was
pretty neat, and I think we did a really fantastic
job of accomplishing that.”
Partially as a result of the time period that it
depicts, the western genre has long been one
mired by the presence of sexism and racism.
It is a troubled legacy that Chance opted to
confront head-on.
“I didn’t want to shy away from those parts
of the western history, which I think a lot
of games do,” he staunchly declares. “They
romanticise the good guys, the bad guys.
“We didn’t go with all of the super obvious
[characters]. We wanted to be inclusive,
so we had a couple Native Americans,
a number of African Americans. To be
completely honest with you, I had no idea
who some of these people were at all; I had
no idea who Isom Dart was, I had no idea
OPPOSITE The miniatures from the game, including real-life historical icons
BELOW Players can gain items that round out their character’s own talents
We took
history
but kind of
had a blank
canvas for the
character to
run around in.
who Stagecoach Mary Fields was. Through
the process of research, we discovered these
people and they were, like, super incredible.
It’s frankly kind of sad they’re not as known
as Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp
and Doc Holliday – everybody knows those,
but who’s Bass Reeves? A lot of people don’t
know who Bass Reeves is, he’s this incredible
man with this incredible story. [He] was
born into slavery and ends up becoming
to this day one of the most successful US
marshals in history, and this guy was given
this massive territory in a time where within
his lifetime he was a slave and then wasn’t
a slave.”
Even with the conscious effort to subvert
the typical shortcomings of westerns, Chance
acknowledges that giving players an open
world to explore with real people introduced
several extra challenges that using fictional
characters would’ve avoided – but insists that
the more difficult option was the right decision.
“It’s a tricky genre to navigate,” he says. “The
first thing when I decided to do this, I said to
Hervé – Hervé is French – he had Sitting Bull
in the game, I was like: ‘I don’t think this is
super respectful, this guy’s known for being a
pacifist and having him run around and kill
people and then play cards and stuff is not
something I think we should do.’
“It’s always easier to just make things up,
right? It’s just easier to say ‘here’s Ragnar the
Barbarian’ or ‘here’s Captain Starface, the
Captain Kirk analogue’. People just eat that
stuff with a spoon without question. A lot of
these people never even met in life. Their lives
were within that century. Some of them were
dead when other people were active. And the
towns that they’re in are completely fictitious.
We did this interesting thing where we took
history but kind of had a blank canvas for
the character to run around in. That was by
design, that was what I wanted to see happen
– I wanted for people to be able to be able to
have these really memorable characters, if they
wanted to they could go do research or maybe
it’s someone they love.”
THE LEGEND CONTINUES
With its sandbox world and careful meshing
of reality and fiction, Western Legends marks a
fresh approach not just to the Wild West, but
to interactive storytelling in games as a whole.
With few limits on their ambitions and the
momentum of a successful Kickstarter behind
them, it’s maybe no surprise its creators already
have the next chapter of their own story in mind.
“It’s very likely that you’ll see, 12 months
from now, another campaign come up for
an expansion that would be a standalone
experience,” Chance suggests. “We’ve
made jokes, of course – ‘‘Eastern Legends’
and, y’know, you could take it and very
easily move it into a different sci-fi or
cyberpunk or something like that. Oh, maybe
it would be cool if you had like a cyberpunk noir
where you’re a detective or something running
around in a futuristic city trying to solve cases.
“But, out of the gate, I feel like Western Legends
is a big game and there’s still opportunity there.
So what I’d like to do is really fully explore what
Western Legends can be before moving onto
another product in a similar kind of design.”
tabletopgaming.co.uk 31
 H AV E Y O U P L AY E D ?
MILLENNIUM BLADES
It’s an ingenious game within a game, a loving celebration of collectible card games
and it even makes paper money fun! Crack a booster, fine-tune your deck and take
your skills to the world championships in this brilliantly ambitious CCG sim
Words by Matt Jarvis

32 August 2018
A
nyone who’s ever been entranced
by the foil-tearing ecstasy of
collecting Magic: The Gathering,
Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh! or any one of
the many collectible card games
out there will tell you that it’s a deep hole to fall
into. The relentless release cycle, endless hunt
for rares in randomised packs and constantly
shifting metagame required to keep up in the
competitive scene means that money and time
quickly vanishes in a blur of constantly building
your collection and then ensuring that your
hundreds or thousands of cards are properly
sleeved, sorted and stored. Often, playing the
game becomes secondary to living the game.
Millennium Blades gets it. D. Brad Talton’s
magnum opus is as ridiculously ambitious
as it is unbelievably in-tune with the feel of
being a CCG fan. It’s not just a game; it’s a
game about games, and the people that play
them. Millennium Blades is a card game that
simulates not just the act of playing card games,
but the collecting, sorting, selling, trading and
community of card games, too.
While it simulates collectible
card games, importantly,
Millennium Blades is not
a CCG. Well, the Millennium
Blades we play isn’t a CCG,
despite sharing its name with
the fictional CCG that rules
its anime-inspired in-game
universe. The box comes with
a ready-made collection of
hundreds of cards split into sets
that parody and pay homage to
the classics of the genre, as well as
various other bits of pop culture,
and are mixed in a seemingly
limitless number of combinations
before each match.
And yet, Millennium Blades
starts in a way that will be familiar
to anyone who has found themselves teetering
on the edge of the CCG cliff-edge, starting down
into the void with a core set under their arm. Each
player begins with a modest starter deck, and
must build it up into a carefully-crafted collection
by acquiring new cards. Get ready to fall in headfirst.
HOW DO YOU PLAY?
Although Millennium Blades does feature simple
tournaments in which the cards are played
and their actions are executed, sending players
eventually spiralling from region competitions
up to the world stage by earning ranking points,
they’re not the focus of the game. The heart of
Millennium Blades is a real-time rush to buy the
right cards and trade away those you no longer
need, purchasing cards from a central store,
selling them through the aftermarket or
bartering with other players – an act
that can earn you valuable ‘friendship’
as well as decent cards.
This all takes place in a 20-minute
timed round broken into three sections.
Players complete a matching set to cash in as
a ‘collection’, while also working to create the
perfect deck by following the metagame (which
shifts, forcing them to readjust) and store cards in
their binder for later use. It’s intense and there’s
little room for error, but the ticking
clock means that someone will
inevitably make a mistake –
learning to think on your feet
(or bums, as the game can take
several hours to finish) is
part of the challenge,
and part of the fun.
Millennium Blades
knows that it’s all for fun,
too. It’s why its cards
poke fun at the games
its players and creators
adore; it’s why the
collection and building phase is a
manic panic instead of a slow, pensive
act of perfectionism; and it’s why the game’s
currency is delightfully tactile paper money.
Not just your bog standard Monopoly notes,
either – the rulebook encourages you to bind wads
of the bills together when you first open the box,
letting players slap down fat stacks of cash in
exchange for the most valuable cards on the
market. It’s as silly and satisfying as it sounds.
WHY SHOULD YOU PLAY IT?
Millennium Blades manages to be just as
captivating as the collectible classics it takes as
its inspiration, with the benefit of being able to
experience the whole gamut of CCG obsession in
just a couple of hours – and for a one-off price.
Its commitment to simulating the world of
CCGs is more than just a gimmick, too; there’s a
wealth of detail and depth in its excellently realised
gameplay, with the healthy stock of cards and array
of different gameplay variants in the rulebook
providing an overwhelming amount to explore and
master for those who find it their latest fixation.
Few games do as good a job of making you realise
why games have the power to keep us entertained
and engrossed for hours, months and years.
Millennium Blades is a perfect example of a game
made for people who love games by people who
clearly love games, a fitting tribute to this wonderful
hobby wrapped up in a seriously smart package.
When it even manages to get paper money right,
you know it’s doing something special.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 33
Cthulhu ah nog, ahor ymg' h' mggoka'ai?

Mind-bending cosmic
horror sounds will envelop
your gaming table in an
atmosphere of unease,
suspense and dread with
Call of Cthulhu’s first
official soundtrack from the
award-winning Syrinscape
app. Install Syrinscape
today and play the
legendary Call of Cthulhu
RPG like never before!

Cthulhu is Coming, Can You Hear Him?

syrinscape.com/CallofCthulhu
 KICKSTARTING
Their first crowdfunding campaign successfully finished,
Holly Gramazio reveals five big things the Art Deck team
W
learnt: from nailing stretch goals to grabbing attention
ell. We’ve finished our Kickstarter.
90% of After months and months
of (admittedly intermittent)
what planning, and four weeks
of repeatedly refreshing our
matters Kickstarter page, it’s over.
And we’re just delighted with how it went. We hit
is the our target in two days, which meant we could relax just
a little bit for the rest of the month; and then steady
stuff pledges with a last-minute surge took us to £19,000, a
lot more than our initial ask of £7,000.
you’ve Of course, there were dispiriting moments: a regular
light scatter of people cancelling their pledges, the
already traditional mid-campaign lull where a week or two
went by without our numbers budging much. But
done. overall, we’re so happy that we get to make Art Deck
for real, that we hit our target so quickly, that so many
people want to get hold of our game.
That said, though: here are the Top Five Things We’d
Definitely Do Differently Next Time.
1. We’d be better-prepared with potential stretch goals.
We weren’t quite expecting to hit our target so quickly –
which, you know, I definitely don’t want to complain, but
the speed of the first couple of days meant that, although
we had stretch goals in mind, we didn’t have them
written out and perfectly costed up in advance.
2. We spent a lot of time both before and during the
Kickstarter sending out press releases – and not one of
them led to any coverage. Not within the board games
August 2018
FROM S CR AT CH
world, not within the arts and crafts world, not within
the world of wholesome family fun. When people did
ask us to come on a podcast or reach out to find out
more about the game, it was always because they’d
encountered it some other way: Twitter, Facebook, an
event, even this column. I probably wouldn’t send out
a press release next time unless I was working on a
game with a particularly newsworthy angle.
3. We’d run the game at even more events. We
reached a load of possible players at UK Games Expo,
but the smaller events were important too. Sure, events
can be exhausting, or you can find yourself sitting for
hours in an almost-empty basement while nobody
plays, but, when they work, live events are amazing for
spreading the word about your game, especially for
something like Art Deck where you can play a round in
ten minutes or understand the game in one.
4. We’d aim to get hold of our final prototypes
earlier. We really wanted to be live during UK
Games Expo, and to run early enough that we could
confidently promise delivery by Christmas, but that
meant there wasn’t enough time between getting hold
of our final prototypes to send out advance review
copies or find board game events in the months
preceding the launch.
Of course, we knew that getting the game into the
hands of actual reviewers would be really helpful if
we could manage it – but we thought if we sent out
press releases a couple of weeks in advance and
offered review copies, someone might
take us up on it. Nope! So if we did it
again, we’d make sure to have a longer
lead-in time with final prototypes in
hand, and we’d seek out way more
reviewers at events in advance.
5. Finally, we’d go to the pub on launch
night. Just to have a sit. Sure, Kickstarters
are stressful while they’re happening
– but 90% of what matters is the stuff
you’ve already done, the work you’ve put
in in advance. Once you’ve pressed that
launch button, there’s only so much you
can do to affect the campaign’s outcome.
So you might as well take an evening out,
have a sit and a chat, and close your eyes
in the sun.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 35
 HOW WE MADE

CAPTAIN
SONAR
Roberto Fraga and Yohan Lemonnier took
the tension of Battleship and transformed it
into a direct hit of exhilaration in their team
party game. Prepare for the deepest of dives
Words by Owen Duffy

36 August 2018

Captain Sonar was partly inspired
by co-creator Roberto Fraga’s own
time at sea as part of the French
navy and coast guard
R
eleased in 2016, Captain Sonar
is a tense and frantic game
of submarine warfare that
casts players as rival teams of
mariners hunting one another
through the ocean’s depths. Inspired by films
like The Hunt for Red October, it’s a captivating
battle of co-ordination, risk and cunning.
We spoke to its creators to discover the story
behind this breathtakingly original game of naval
warfare, and how the experience of real-life
military service inspired its innovative design.
RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP
Captain Sonar is the product of a partnership
between designers Roberto Fraga and Yohan
Lemonnier, both of whom discovered games
at an early age. While they’ve become known
as board game creators, they first encountered
the tabletop hobby through other means.
“I started playing roleplaying games at the
age of 11,” says Lemonnier. “I haven’t stopped
playing since, and now I’m 45.
“Over the years I’ve played Stormbringer,
Call of Cthulhu, a bit of AD&D, Vampire: The
Masquerade, Star Wars d6. The main attraction
has always been the fact that you could open a
dimensional door in your bedroom and cross
through it with friends to travel in imaginary
lands. It’s been an incredible tool to discover
myself and to learn how to interact with
others. In my opinion, it’s such a powerful
tool to bond with others that it should be
mandatory in schools.”
Fraga, on the other hand, first got into
gaming through tabletop battle games.
“I started to create my first science-fiction
wargames when I was 14,” he says, “and I’ve
just never stopped creating games. Obviously
I love to play them as well, but I’m more of a
game designer than a player. My parents only
really played some traditional Spanish card
games when I was growing up, so I was alone
in my passion.”
Both men eventually discovered modern
board games; for Lemonnier, the experience
was particularly memorable.
“I rediscovered board games in the year
2000 with a few friends during New Year’s Eve,”
he recalls. “We were in Alsace, in France, near
the German border. Our car broke down, so
we were trapped at our friends’ house playing
Kahuna and Ticket to Ride with fan-made
translated rules.
“It was like a new beginning for me. I
discovered that there were other ways to play.
Kahuna was an excellent two-player game,
and I still play Ticket to Ride for the sensation
of building tension over the course of the
game. That’s something I also enjoyed about
Splendor. I really enjoyed Claustrophobia,
a two-player dungeon-crawling adventure
game. Emotionally it felt almost like some of
my RPGs, when the destiny of your character
depended on a roll of a die. I discovered so
many other games, too many to list them all.
“When I moved from Paris to Brittany I
started a game group, and that gave me the
opportunity to try to create a few games
based on ideas that I’d had over the years. I
think when you play RPGs, particularly when
you’re a dungeon master or game master,
it’s a natural move to start making your own
world and scenarios, and designing games
was the next step from that. I started to show
my creations to publishers, and I had my
first game released with CMON in 2015: The
World of Smog: On Her Majesty’s Service.”
For his part, Fraga’s design career
stretches back to the year 2000, and his
credits include the madcap family game
Dancing Eggs and 2015 Kennerspiel des
Jahres winner Spinderella. Along the way
he also worked as an officer in the French
navy and as the captain of a coast guard boat
– eventually, his twin careers at sea and in
gaming were destined to meet.
UP PERISCOPE
At first glance, Captain Sonar looks a little
like the mass-market Battleship. Players sit
poring over square-grid maps, attempting
to locate and destroy their opponents’ sub.
A giant screen runs the length of the table,
obscuring the opposing team’s position. But
that’s where the similarity ends; Captain Sonar
incorporates a host of innovative elements that
make it a far more nuanced and tactical game.
Players launch drones to help pinpoint their
enemies’ location. They make repairs to critical
systems to keep their vessels operational. They
periodically surface for air, briefly giving away
their position before diving and escaping to
safer locales. They use mines and torpedoes
to blast their rivals to a watery grave.
Each player finds themselves in a different
role with their own set of responsibilities
– captain, engineer, first mate or radio
operator – and co-operating effectively in
the heat of battle is key to claiming victory.
But the most striking thing about the game
is that both teams attempt to balance all of
these tasks at the same time; rather than
taking turns to manoeuvre, evade and attack,
each team carries out actions as fast as they
can issue and execute their orders.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 37
 HOW WE MADE C A P T A I N S O N A R
It’s a recipe for chaos and miscommunication,
and a brilliant representation of the clamour
and confusion of combat at sea. So it’s
surprising to find that the designers originally
had a different theme in mind.
“We wanted a game of communication,
and our first idea was about two SWAT teams
fighting in a warehouse,” Lemonnier reveals.
“We had players sitting on either side of the
table separated by a screen, as in Captain
Sonar, with their commanding officers
standing on the side giving them orders.
“That game didn’t work, but the idea was
there. We wanted people to talk to their
38 August 2018
The crews track their course –
and the suspected position of their
enemy – using laminated maps
teammates, and it had to be intense; they had
to be under pressure. But we found that while
the officers were having fun, the soldiers on
both sides of the screen weren’t.”
To remedy the situation, the designers
turned to Fraga’s experience at sea. He says
his service in the navy and coast guard had
provided a source of inspiration for the game.
“Everything I have done in my life has
helped me create games,” he says. “When I
was radio operator on board of an aircraft
carrier, I was working on the best part: the
bridge, where all the decisions are taken. We
did an exercise where we were trying to fight
the enemy Orange Force, which represented
the Russian fleet. There were 16 people
simultaneously on the bridge shouting orders,
and a part of the inspiration comes from that.”
Fraga adds that his naval career
even influenced the game’s physical
components. One member of each team
is responsible for listening in on the other
team’s communications, trying to glean
any information that could give away their
location. To help with their deductions, they
use a see-through plastic sheet layered over
the game’s map – a process lifted directly from
real-world naval operations.
“The idea of the radio operator in Captain
Sonar comes directly from the bridge,” he
explains. “Back in 1981 we had old radars with
the rotating beam on the screen, showing
the adversary’s radar echoes. Sometimes the
captain would ask us to calculate the routes
of enemy ships, and we used transparent
screens and special pens to chart their vectors.
So you can easily see where the idea for the
transparent surfaces in the game comes from.”
In other respects, though, the pair deliberately
attempted to avoid emulating life at sea.
“We studied the chain of command aboard
a ship,” Lemonnier says. “We also watched a
lot of movies, like The Hunt For Red October.
We wanted to respect the idea of a chain of
command but, at the same time, we didn’t
want one player to take the lead. Players had
to be equals.
“We designed the roles so that people with
different personalities could play together:
the one who speaks loudly, the silent and
focused player, the shy player. The first mate,
for example, is often described as the least
interesting, but nothing could be more wrong.
We designed it to be adaptable. It’s perfect for
a shy player, or someone who doesn’t know
the game and still wants to play with a veteran
crew. But you can also fully play your role if
you want. The first mate is allowed to trigger
the detection systems, and they are also the
channel of communication of the whole crew,
to help the captain take decisions.”
Designing players’ roles and balancing
their responsibilities was a painstaking
process, he adds.
“The whole process took three years: six
months to validate the core mechanic of
the captain and the radio operator, six more
months to balance that with the first mate,
and two whole fracking years to stabilise the
engineer! At first we had sheets and markers
for everyone, except for the engineer. They
had very special gameplay based on dice and
cards. But at some point it became obvious
Lemonnier says. “Once the engineer’s role was
stabilised, we were pretty sure we had what
we wanted and we didn’t make very many
modifications after that.
“That said, we were still surprised to see
that players took liberties with the game and
home-ruled it to meet their needs. And that’s
great. It proves that the game can handle some
tweaks without losing its power.”
French publisher Matagot brought the
game to players in 2016, and it met with
a positive response from fans and critics,
winning praise for its originality and tense,
competitive atmosphere.
“Prior to its release, some publishers told
us that they would buy it and play it once
published, but that they would never take the
risk of publishing it themselves,” Lemonnier says.
“It was too original and different to fit in
any category. But the good reviews are the
proof that there’s room for everything, even
for an unusual game like Captain Sonar.
We are always thrilled and grateful to hear
people say: ‘Hey guys, we had a fantastic
time playing your game, it gave us crazy
sensations.’ That was always our goal, and we
are proud and grateful to Matagot, who dared
launched that torpedo with us.”

The real-time element is the heart

that we had to unify everything, and it’s been
a long road.”

of the game. It adds a sense of

Perfecting the game’s different roles was
one challenge, but another was ensuring that

emergency, it brings tension, stress,

the its real-time mechanisms flowed smoothly
and didn’t disintegrate into a chaotic mess as

and it’s the main element that

both teams planned, communicated and made
their moves at the same time. For Lemonnier,

creates the experience.

though, the effort was easily worthwhile.
“The real-time element is the heart of the
game,” he says. “It adds a sense of emergency,
it brings tension, stress, and it’s the main
element that creates the experience.
“At first, we wanted a fully real-time game. Captain Sonar designers
But the triggering of the systems like weapons Roberto Fraga (left) and
and drones was too messy, so we switched to Yohan Lemonnier (right)
a ‘pause’ mode for those moments. Whenever
a team uses one of those elements, the action
stops for a moment until they resolve it. That
created a very pleasant sinusoidal curve of
sensations during the game, periods of calm
in the middle of the tempest. So what we
considered a problem at first turned out to be
a very important part in the tempo and the
overall feeling of the game.”
The designers also included a turn-based
variant. Initially intended as a tutorial mode
for new players, it met with a positive response
from some people who preferred it to the
more stressful main game.
“Playing turn-by-turn is more strategic, but
gives less sensations,” Lemonnier says. “Real-
time is more chaotic, but the emotions are
stronger. People can pick their favourite.”

SINK OR SWIM
With their design almost complete, Fraga and
Lemonnier ran through their final playtesting
sessions before releasing it to the world.
“We tested a lot both with newcomers to
the game and with veterans to ensure that
both audiences would enjoy the experience,”

tabletopgaming.co.uk 39
 HOW WE MADE C A P T A I N S O N A R
The designers’ greatest sense of achievement,
though, comes from the emotional response
their game has sparked in players.
“There’s nothing better than RPGs for me,
but board games can still try to approach those
kinds of sensations; the impression that you are
immersed in a universe, that your are almost
living the adventure ‘for real,’” Lemonnier says.
“It was the cornerstone of the project
for both of us. We wanted players to forget
about their problems at work, their taxes and
everything like that while playing the game.
It had to be tense, hectic. We wanted players
to be tired after a game or two. And by setting
the game on a submarine, you’re putting them
into a very a claustrophobic universe.
“It’s a game of cat and mouse, also a
deduction game, a puzzle-ish game. The tempo
and the rhythm are central to the experience.
A good crew knows when to wait, and when
to rush. And the moments of calm put an
emphasis on the moments of excitement. We
40 August 2018
tried to balance it like a movie, with moments
of silent tension and moments of shouting and
difficult decisions. It forces people to talk, plan
and even argue with each other, just like in the
films we take some of our inspiration from.”
Lemonnier attributes much of that thematic
success to his design partnership with Fraga.
He argues that working together resulted in
a better game than either creator might have
come up with alone.
“We clearly ended up with a better game,”
he says. “During the initial brainstorming, we
threw in everything we had in mind. Then we
made choices together: what needed to be
kept in the game? Countermeasures? Three-
dimensional simulation with subs at different
depths? After that, it was a back-and-forth
process. Meetings every month to validate the
development, testing sessions in Saint-Malo
and in Paimpol.
“Roberto is a perfect partner in design. My
wife and I are junior game designers, and he
is kind of our ‘father in gaming.’ He’s always
open to suggestions, and if he says ‘no’ to
something, 90% of the time there is a good
reason. Working with him is very stimulating
and fruitful.”
Fraga echoes the sentiment.
“It’s not so common for me to work with a
partner because I’m really very difficult,” he
laughs. “But finally I think I have found the
perfect one.
“Last week I was at the Captain Sonar
tournament at the Paris Est Ludique game
festival. The finalists played using the Arctic
map, and it was a really great game. After
the awards ceremony I asked the winning
team to tell me the story of their victory,
and they explained it to me as if they were
telling me about a great movie they had just
seen at the cinema. They told me it was a
great experience, and that was the objective
in designing the game: for players to live
incredible experiences.”
Players each have a
unique role to play
in their team, from
captain to engineer
 the independent shelf
CATACOMBS CONQUEST
Armed with a handful of cards and some other new tricks, this compact
introduction to the dexterity dungeon-crawler is finger flickin’ good
I
n 2010 dexterity game-cum-dungeon
crawl Catacombs was a big deal. It was
a small press release from a group of
fellows under the banner of publisher
Elzra. The design’s primary achievement
was proving that flicking could be more
than just flicking. The game coupled the
comfortable dungeon-crawl format with
an easygoing mechanism of caroming
your piece across the board. It was
nothing short of brilliant.
Fast forward to 2018: Catacombs is on
its third edition and has spawned multiple
spin-offs. Catacombs Conquest is the
latest in the line of these dungeon-flicking
offshoots. While the original design was
an expected one-versus-many setup, this
new child is a straight-up head-to-head
bout. It’s more of a direct brawl and less of
a carefully fought war of attrition.
The design feels like a miniatures
skirmish game. A player or two take a
faction and field a couple of heroes against
opponents doing the same. Activations
bounce back and forth between sides as
Conquest adds a new hand-management
element that adds an extra layer of
strategy and timing to flicking discs
around the board
Words and photographs by Charlie Theel
well as heroes, with everyone getting a single
go each round. That to-and-fro dynamic gives
a strong weight to the tension in positioning,
as you need to carefully weigh your placement
to limit possible approach vectors.
There’s also a fantastic new element of
hand management. In previous iterations of
this system your character had a set of moves
you could perform that were static. Here, you
draw manoeuvres from a deck and play these
cards for one-off power shots. This provides
variety and drama at the cost of asymmetric
characterisation. It ultimately proves effective
at establishing a distinct and satisfying play
style, as the decisions regarding timing and
hand management are crucial to success.
The other shiny new mechanism is
dynamic terrain. After completing your
move, you may then flick one of the large
crystal obstruction discs on the map. This
allows for all kinds of quirky tactical plays,
such as trying to isolate yourself or possibly
obstruct your opponent and pin them in the
corner. The knowledge of which character
is activating next will inform your approach
and capitalising on this phase of the
game requires skill and decisiveness. This
appears a subtle change overall, but it
adds a tremendous amount of personality
and manages to push this design farther
away from the scope of its peers.
Your first impression of Catacombs
Conquest is likely of a heavily pared-down
version of its antecedent, its claws and
tendrils cut away to provide a decent
enough 15-minute slice of a larger tapestry
of design. While this is inherently true, it
minimises some of the clever alterations
and twists found within. This is not merely
a product to satisfy a diminished play
time or wider customer base; rather, it’s
a piece of tabletop design that manages a
surprising stroke of novelty.
While Conquest will not supplant the
glory of the full Catacombs experience, it’s
a very solid and interesting dexterity game
that has little competition in its carved-out
space. It’s one of those games that easily
leaps off the shelf and never manages to
accrue much dust.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 41
THE LONDON SHOW YOU

SEE IT, BUY IT, PLAY IT AT...

29–30th September 2018

Alexandra Palace

BUY YOUR TICKETS

CAN’T AFFORD TO MISS
THE HUGE PARTICIPATION
HALL

PANOR AM A ROOM
THE WEST HALL
PLACE OPEN GAMES AND
TO BUY! GAMING DEMO AREA
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G R E AT

Choose from a huge Try loads of different

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card games and • Starfinder
with friends
accessories from: • Pathfinder
THE

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 THROUGH THE AGES
EXPANDABLE CARD GAMES
You know exactly what you’re getting with these offspring of CCGs – that’s the point.
From Blue Moon to Android: Netrunner, here’s why ECGs have only continued to grow
Words by Sam Desatoff
I
n June, Fantasy Flight announced the end of
Android: Netrunner, its highly successful and
popular living card game. The announcement
took the Netrunner community by surprise,
and has spawned several groups dedicated to
keeping the game alive. There even exists an
online petition – signed by nearly 600 people
as of this writing – imploring Fantasy Flight to
cease Netrunner’s discontinuation. A fandom this
enthusiastic did not crop up overnight, and neither
did the popularity of the living card game series.
In fact, there is an entire legacy of card games to
which Netrunner owes its success.
The term ‘living card game’ is sometimes
used to describe many properties across many
publishers, but it’s actually a trademarked phrase
owned by Fantasy Flight, and thus the only
true LCGs are designed and published by the
studio. Conceptually, however, ‘customisable’ or
‘expandable’ card games have been around before
Fantasy Flight picked up its trademark.
Having originated in the early 2000s, the
concept of the expandable card game is a
fairly recent relative to its older sibling, the
collectible card game. Unlike games like Magic:
The Gathering and Pokémon, ECGs forgo the
randomness found in booster packs. Instead,
new cards are released in pre-determined packs
so that players know exactly what they’re getting.
2004’s Blue Moon by Reiner Knizia is generally
accepted as being the first example of an
expandable card game. It was published by
Kosmos and, fittingly, Fantasy Flight. The base
game includes two decks representing two factions
at war in the titular world, while several other
2004 2005
44 August 2018
factions became available in the following years.
In total, nine expansions were released between
2004 and 2007; in 2015, Fantasy Flight collected
everything into one box for Blue Moon Legends.
In 2005, The History Channel teamed up with
publisher TriKing to release Anachronism, a
customisable card game that pits historical figures
from throughout history against one another. After
an initial base release containing cards for Greek,
Roman, Norse and Japanese factions, Anachronism
eventually grew to include a number of cultures.
Anachronism is somewhat unique in the card game
space in that each ‘deck’ only contains a handful of
cards that are laid out facedown before a match and
revealed slowly over the course of the game.
In 2008, Fantasy Flight released the first LCG
proper. Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game is a thematic
struggle for two players set in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu
Mythos. Each player builds a deck out of cards
from the game’s eight factions and then competes
for control of the game’s story cards. Fantasy Flight
supported Call of Cthulhu: TCG for seven years –
the game also served as a test bed for distribution
and marketing strategies for future LCGs.
Those strategies were implemented in A Game
of Thrones: The Card Game. The original version
released in 2002 was a collectible card game,
complete with waves of new cards called ‘blocks’
that included random booster packs released at
regular intervals. In 2007, it was announced that
Fantasy Flight would be converting A Game of
Thrones to its new line of living card games. In 2015
the A Game of Thrones LCG was relaunched with a
second edition that allowed Fantasy Flight a clean
slate without the CCG baggage.
2008
In 2009, Plaid Hat Games threw its (plaid) hat
into the ECG ring in the form of Summoner Wars,
a card game that added miniatures-like movement
to the mix. Typical fantasy factions like elves and
goblins are present, and many new factions were
released as fixed expansion decks through 2016.
Plaid Hat followed up Summoner Wars in 2015
with Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn and again in
2018 with Crystal Clans.
In 2016, Fantasy Flight expanded on the co-
operative format of its 2011 Lord of the Rings LCG
with Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Set in the
same universe as Call of Cthulhu: TCG, Arkham
Horror: TCG sees players working together in
scenario-based adventures. The game has been
massively popular and Fantasy Flight continues to
support it with new scenarios.
Fantasy Flight’s most recent LCG is 2017’s
Legend of the Five Rings, a reimagining of the CCG
from 1995. Here, players take on the role of clans
fighting for dominance in the fantasy world of
Rokugan. Although it’s a fairly recent release, there
exists an already thriving tournament scene, with
many fans of the original game making the leap
across to its reincarnation.
There has been an abundance of expandable
card games over the years but, for all their
differences, one thing remains constant: flexibility
to build the decks you want. Much like that core
conceit, the expandable card game genre has
morphed and changed to account for any taste.
Netrunner may be ending this October, but it is
sure to be replaced by something new. After all,
they’re called living card games for a reason.
2012 2015
A GAMER’S
TRAVEL
GUIDE
Jetting off on your summer
holidays soon? Chuck that
airport book in the sea
and bring your favourite
tabletop home comforts
along for the trip
Words by Chad Wilkinson
Main illustration by Kit Buss

tabletopgaming.co.uk 45
 G A M I N G O N H O L I D AY
I
was packing for a trip to Turkey last
summer, and took advantage of a key
equation; more sun means less clothing,
equals more board games. Unfortunately,
Great Western Trail proved to be a stubborn
adversary to my rucksack’s ageing zip and so,
undefeated, I looked to my collection of small-
box games. Like an obscure retheming of
Patchwork, I jammed these trusty party games
and streamlined, barebones fillers into the
gaps of my luggage and anticipated the quiet
satisfaction of seeing the X-ray image of my
accomplishment upon reaching the airport’s
luggage scanners.
It needn’t have been such a struggle.
In truth, you could be sent on an Arctic
expedition, bags stuffed with survival gear, and
still squeeze Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms under
your hat.
But size isn’t everything. After all, one of the
most important aspects of travel is meeting
new people.
It can be hard introducing strangers to
the world of board games. You may have
even made the mistake of plonking down
Caverna in front of a group, only to see
them promptly vacate the table, leaving you
pondering Uwe Rosenberg’s unique talent
Packing lists
ON THE PL ANE
 Tides of Madness
 Mint Works
 BY THE POOL
 Ultra
Tiny Epic
Kingdoms
 Timeline
 The Castles of
Burgundy: The
Dice Game
46 August 2018
for providing enough components to feed
the world’s termites. Fortunately, there’s
a wealth of options for games promising
satisfying depth within small, portable, less
intimidating packages. But there are a few
other factors to consider if you want to travel
light and not scare away that nice couple you
met by the pool.
GRAB THEIR ATTENTION
Choose games with eye-catching design.
Artwork in games is getting better and better,
with so many talented artists creating a variety
of styles catering to all tastes. You may love the
beautifully detailed boards of Michael Menzel,
but when trying to entice others it can be good
to stick to bright, bold colours, and simple but
quirky design. Games like Sushi Go! or Game
of Thrones: Hand of the King illustrate this
simplicity nicely.
Busy art on boards and cards may at first
impress people used to the flat and simple art
design used on games like Monopoly but, to
your average non-gamer, it could also suggest
complexity. Fortunately, there seems to be a
recent trend in games featuring minimalist
art styles. Slick images on plain backgrounds
can really pop, and suggest elegance and
simplicity. This is certainly the case in Justin
Blaske’s sleek and stylish worker-placement
game Mint Works. Of course, the game may be
deceivingly tactical, but your guests can find
that out for themselves.
Although, if you’re really set on showing
off great artwork but in a small package, the
Timeline series of games could be perfect
for you, combining hundreds of unique
illustrations with simple, addictive gameplay.
GO EASY ON THE TEXT
Similarly, choose games with minimal
text. Lots of people love to read on holiday,
but they read books. Showering a stranger
with walls of cryptic text from ten separate
decks of cards is likely not their preferred
means of literary escapism. Instead, use
games with simple key words, numbers or
even just symbolism, such as Kingdomino,
Dobble or Arboretum.
Your guidance and familiarity with the game
combined with easy-to-follow iconography or
text should be enough to keep things running
smoothly. Furthermore, a game with little
to no language dependency is ideal when
travelling to places where the people you meet
may not share your own language.
 Get Bit
 Spot It! Splash
 Uno: H2O to Go
 Hive Pocket

 Zombie Dice
PACK SMALL AND LIGHT
Stick to abstract games or light, humorous
themes. Perhaps you want to demonstrate
that tabletop gaming isn’t all about high
fantasy, epic sci-fi or wheat, wood and stone.
In that case, maybe try Elevenses. Elevenses
defies predictable tropes and instead offers
players the chance to host an elaborate tea
party. The art is clean but evocative and the
light theme means it should be accessible to
anyone. Alternatively, if you’re feeling a bit
more ridiculous, why not challenge some
strangers to navigate a cape-wearing rhino up
a tall building? Enter Rhino Hero. An easy-to-
teach dexterity game with a ludicrous theme
guaranteed to draw interest.
Bear in mind that not all small games
are made equal. A casual glance at the
unassuming box for Stefan Feld’s The
Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game could
hint at a sleek, scaled down version of its
older sibling, perhaps perfect for playing
on the train. But looks can be deceiving;
whilst capturing the essence of The Castles
of Burgundy excellently with just a deck of
cards, The Card Game demands a decent
amount of table space, arguably even more
than the original.
SAVE SPACE, USE DECK BOXES
On the opposite end of the spectrum, games
like Machi Koro and Splendor have notoriously
large boxes considering their contents. If
you don’t consider transporting your games
in something other than their own boxes a
blasphemy, perhaps invest in some cheap
deck boxes – or make your own. Both titles
are great gateway games, and their portability
should be recognised.
Similarly, if you’re a fan of Carcassonne,
consider purchasing the Princess & the Dragon
expansion. Not only is this a great addition to
the game with an adorable dragon meeple, but
its compact box can quite comfortably fit the
base game and a few extra expansions. Leave
the score tracking board and settle for one of
the several scoring apps or just pen and paper,
and you have an excellent and accessible
game perfect for chucking in your backpack.
Another bonus to using alternate means
of storage such as deck boxes is the added
protection. The sturdy but flexible material of
your average plastic deck box will keep your
precious cardstock safe from stray spills or
splashes from the bar or the pool, and you
could even go one step further by sleeving
your cards.
IN THE BAR
 Skull
 Love Letter
 Rhino Hero
 Sushi Go!

 Cockroach Pok
er
Sleeving is common practice for gamers
hoping to diminish the gradual wear and tear
of their favourite games. In the holiday setting
though, sleeves add that little extra protection
when gaming poolside. Now, I still wouldn’t
recommend a game of Sushi Go! perched
precariously on a lilo, but your cards will be
much safer from soggy hands and splashes.
If you really feel the need to experience a
bit of aquatic gaming then you could source
out copies of Uno: H2O to Go or Spot It!
Splash Both games feature waterproof plastic
cards designed for use by the pool – or even
in it! Spot It! also comes with a waterproof
drawstring bag, ideal for hanging around your
wrist or tying to your swimwear as you dive
down for some deep-sea Dobble.
HAPPY TRAVELS
So next time you’re on your travels, be it just
to see family or somewhere further afield,
remember to pack wisely. Finding space in the
smallest of luggage allowances shouldn’t be a
problem but finding fellow board gamers other
than your travel companions can be. Stick to
accessible, eye-catching and interesting games
and you’ll have a trip to remember – and possibly
recruit some new gamer friends along the way.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 47
 SMALL WONDER
After falling in love with Scythe, Hoby Chou and his five-year-old daughter
Vienna made a family-friendly version of the strategy smash hit, set in the
world of My Little Pony, to play at home. What happened next was magical
Words by Matt Jarvis

I
n June 2016, Hoby Chou became the
first person in Canada to collect Scythe’s
Kickstarted Collector’s Edition. “In hindsight
that may have been a North American first,”
he suggests cheerily.
He took Jamey Stegmaier’s mech-battling
masterpiece home, teaching it to his young
daughter, Vienna, who quickly got to grips with
the tight strategy game.
“Early the following year, my daughter – who
was only still five at the time – became proficient
enough with Scythe to actually outplay me during
one of her turns,” Hoby recalls. “My heart stopped,
being filled with shock and pride altogether. Many
of you know this is the biggest turning point a
gamer parent can experience, and it opened my
eyes to what kids are truly capable of.”
Having inherited what her father describes
as his “love affair” with Scythe, Vienna tried to
introduce her new favourite game to her friends.
“They’d naturally understand the rules and
have a great time right?” Hoby says. “Not so
much. We didn’t get past the rules before they
reached for Connect Four.
“Naturally, Vienna felt a little disheartened
and began to question the appropriateness of
gaming for kids, and especially girls.”
Unable to share the experience with her friends,
Vienna continued to play with her father, utterly
enraptured by Scythe. One day, she was playing
with her My Little Pony toys when Hoby heard her
using the language of the game: “move”, “build”,
“enlist”. The father-daughter pair had a revelation.
“This got us started with some early
brainstorming about what a My Little Pony
game could look like,” Hoby says. “We walked
over to my computer to draft some ideas and
we fell in love with the idea of reimagining
Scythe together. We just kept going until we
reached our first-ever prototype.”
CUTS LIKE A SCYTHE
Hoby and Vienna’s deconstruction began with
Scythe’s player boards, the main stage for the
game’s refined action-selection gameplay. Hoby
studied playthroughs, gradually identifying
which parts of the game players enjoyed and
which, as the designer says, “they felt hostage to”.
“This was an attempt to evaluate how
streamlined they were and whether a younger
or casual gamer could appreciate their value,”
he explains. “When you strip it down to its core,
it’s easy to love Scythe’s simple and beautiful
elegance. We wanted players to appreciate
this best part of the game even quicker and
more easily by removing, replacing and often
consolidating non-core steps and mechanics.”
My Little Scythe, as the mash-up was dubbed,
preserved the original’s use of resources spent
directly from boards, as well as its dynamic flow
of choosing alternating actions each round.
Other echoes of Scythe remained, too – albeit in a
friendlier form befitting its bright and joyful world,
a universe and rainbow colour palette away from
the alt-history dieselpunk 1920s of Stegmaier’s
setting. The crunching metal of mech-on-mech

48 August 2018
combat became pie fights with magic spells, while
players sought friendship instead of popularity.
A smaller world and the two characters of each
kingdom – embodying elements of the workers,
characters and mechs of Scythe – brought the
game’s length down to under an hour.
“Besides some of the obvious differences
in the miniatures and map, one of the most
important differences is pace,” Hoby says. “In
Scythe there is a meticulous build-up as you
construct your engine and eventually expand
beyond your starting area. There is not much
direct interaction between players early in the
game, and sometimes even throughout the
rest of the game. In My Little Scythe, you get
into interactive situations almost immediately
and must make quick decisions to achieve four
trophies as quickly and as efficiently as possible.”
Even with the dramatic trimmings, the first
redesign remained too complex, skewing toward
children aged around 10. Hoby and Vienna
continued to condense, aiming for a Scythe that
was suitable for children half that age.
“As our prototypes evolved, we often found
that certain things weren’t a good fit for where
the game was heading,” Hoby says. “One of the
designs that we dropped from early testing was
Scythe’s produce action; we studied the steps and
turns required to produce something and felt that
it was a little too long for our players’ liking so
instead we came up with something completely
different. Production of resources was replaced
with a discovery mechanic – seek, which almost
plays out as its own metagame. We were delighted
to discover that the playtesters loved it.”
After months of work, Hoby and Vienna released
My Little Scythe online as a free print-and-play
design in June 2017. Its smartly-streamlined
gameplay and enchanting theme quickly sent it
viral, attracting the attention of over 10,000 people.
FROM PNP TO PUBLISHED
One of the many to express their admiration of
the project was Stegmaier himself, who said he
was “incredibly impressed” by the pair’s work.
“Due to my utmost respect for Jamey’s work
and his dedication to his fans, this project
really rested on how Jamey reacted to the PnP,”
Hoby says. “Had he been unsupportive or
even agnostic, we likely wouldn’t have gone
this far. Instead he has always been classy and
supportive, even while busy with Charterstone.”
The designer wrote to Hoby and asked to try a
prototype, collecting it in person at Gen Con 50.
“Not long afterwards I received a photo of
Jamey and Alan Stone [co-founder of Stonemaier
Games] playing the game saying how much they
loved it. I was ecstatic,” Hoby says, joking: “The
bottle of Canadian maple syrup I included may
have helped win them over, too.”
Stegmaier offered to give the homemade
makeover a full release, going so far as to discuss
the rights to use My Little Pony’s
Pony world of Equestria
It’s easy to love Scythe’s
simple and beautiful elegance.
We wanted players to appreciate
this best part of the game
even quicker and more easily.
MAIN Vienna’s
friends found the
original Scythe too
complex to enjoy
LEFT Vienna and
Hoby Chou with
the fully published
My Little Scythe
with Hasbro, but was told “they weren’t interested”.
The game relocated to the Kingdom of Pomme,
a fantasy land filled with animal inhabitants, but
otherwise stuck closely to the Chous’ vision.
“A lot has changed since the original PnP, but we
did not add anything new unless it was demonstrated
an improvement to the gaming experience,” Hoby
says. “Overall the game’s strategic depth has
increased, making the game a lot more satisfying
while maintaining its accessibility. In addition to the
new seek mechanic, managing friendship is even
more important now and options for movement
and deliveries are even more intriguing with the
addition of portals to the map. We’ve also added
personality cards and action upgrades to make
every play unique with just a touch of asymmetry.”
My Little Scythe’s release this summer doesn’t
mark the end of Hoby and Vienna’s desire to
champion games that bridge the gap between
generations – when we speak, Hoby mentions that
he and Vienna have been playing Splendor, Azul
and Mechs vs Minions together. Their remarkable
creation isn’t just the Happily Ever After of their
father-daughter love affair with Scythe – it’s the
first page of an entirely new love affair altogether.
“In the future I would love to turn adventure
and dungeon-crawling games on their head,”
Hoby says. “I think there is ample opportunity
here to really disrupt this genre.
“There is so much to love about this hobby and
I strive to make it more accessible for all sorts of
gamers – and gamers-to-be – without sacrificing
the challenge and interesting decisions that
make hobby gaming unique.”
tabletopgaming.co.uk 49
m2+y
y2+z3
c
cc 180
∏r 2
Play it smart
It’s alive! Some games create artificial intelligence out of little more than cards,
cardboard and clever rules. Take a peek at the inner workings of the cy-board
Sam Illi ngw orth
Doctors Paul Wake and
“A
nalogue AI” is a term, along
with “paper AI”, that crops
up from time to time in
discussions of tabletop games denizens of the Summoner’s lair. In this, the game
– particularly those offering
co-op and solo play – and one that invites
further investigation. Artificial intelligence –
surely that’s to do with digital stuff, right?
So, what is AI? According to the Engineering
and Physical Science Research Council: “Artificial
Intelligence technologies aim to reproduce or
surpass abilities (in computational systems)
that would require ‘intelligence’ if humans
were to perform them. These include: learning
and adaptation; sensory understanding and
interaction; reasoning and planning; optimisation
of procedures and parameters; autonomy;
creativity; and extracting knowledge and
predictions from large, diverse digital data.”
While discussions of AI do tend towards
the digital, there is nothing in this
definition that specifically excludes
analogue technologies; ‘computational
systems’ does not mean computers in
the most popular sense of the word
and certainly there are aspects of this
definition that might prove useful to those of
us seeking to discuss (or design) tabletop games.
August 2018
√z
a+b
The connection of AI and tabletop games is
long established, dating back to Alan Turing’s
work on chess in the early 1950s – a time
when computers themselves were analogue.
Recent milestones in this history include Garry
Kasparov’s famous defeat at the hands of IBM’s
Deep Blue in 1997, IBM Watson’s $1 million
win on the TV quiz show Jeopardy! in 2011 and
Google’s AlphaGo beating a Chinese grand
master at the ancient board game Go in 2017.
To consider the role and potential of paper AI,
let’s look briefly at Games Workshop’s dungeon-
crawler Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower,
a game that can be played both solo and
co-operatively and which provides its players
with an adversary, the Gaunt Summoner, that
is entirely “controlled” by the game’s ruleset. The
twisting pathways of the Silver Tower are randomly
generated by an exploration deck, with players
instructed to roll on a series of tables to generate the
enjoys the kinds of benefits associated with the
procedurally-generated spaces of video games;
namely, extracting large amounts of content from
a relatively small deck of cards (file size) and
the creation of a fairly random (and therefore
replayable) environment.
Alongside this, the game’s adversaries act
according to race-specific ‘behaviour tables’, with
players executing those actions on the game
board. For example, a group of Tzaangors (beaky
devil-birds) might “Challenge the Mighty” – an
(a) 2
+
6 (b)
Y
P
La
Ga
Am
Es
action that sees them move towards, and then
attack, the least wounded hero if they are within
range. As such, there is a clear program to execute:
1. Identify least wounded hero (LWH). Go to 2.
2. Is LWH within reach? If yes, go to 3. If no, go to 4.
3. Move towards LWH. Attack LWH. End turn.
4. Identify second least wounded hero. Go to 5.
5. Is SLWH within reach? If yes go to 6. If no, go to 7.
6. Move towards SLWH. Attack SLWH. End turn.
7. Identify third least wounded hero… (etc.)
Pre-programmed instructions such as these might
be represented graphically as branching behaviour
trees. Behaviour trees, relatively simple in Silver
Tower, can rapidly become complex, effectively
tasking the player with running subprograms, and
better mimicking the learning that is often associated
with AI. This increased complexity can be seen
in legacy and campaign games such as SeaFall
and Gloomhaven – although, ironically, in ripping
up cards, opening cardboard chests and affixing
stickers to a gameboard, it is perhaps the role of
the human that becomes more apparent.
In managing the subprograms and behaviour
trees of games, we are both players of games
and what Sebastian Deterding has described as
“game executors”. Afforded the chance to see the
algorithms we execute we are truly able to play
the game, making in-game decisions based on
a granular understanding of the impact of each
and every action. This, perhaps, is one of the most
powerful affordances of analogue AI – our exposure
to the underlying rules of the games we play.
Paul Wake and Sam
Illingworth are Manchester
Metropolitan University
academics and co-directors of
the Games Research Network
Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower’s
enemies demonstrate analogue AI
tabletopgaming.co.uk 51
 COLOURS IN SPACE
I
Richard Borg has taken t seems a tad ironic that a man who shares
his last name with one of the most iconic
his wargaming series from and enduringly memorable alien races
in popular culture has only come into
ancient history to modern contact with science-fiction a handful of
times during his lengthy career.
conflict, but Commands & And yet, outside of a few fleeting diversions
into the depths of space – and occasionally
Colors is about to embark to fantasy worlds another universe away –
on its greatest leap yet Richard Borg has primarily kept his feet firmly
planted on Earth, preferring to travel vast
Words by Matt Jarvis distances in time.
His journey to mine the rich vein of
history has taken the designer from the dawn
of military history through the American
Revolution and Napoleonic Wars to both
World Wars of the 20th century. While the
combatants, their armaments and the fields
on which they fight and perish have changed,
they remain linked by the thread of Borg’s
streamlined approach to wargaming as the
Commands & Colors series.
52 August 2018
Debuting in Battle Cry, Borg’s 2000 recreation
of the American Civil War, the Commands &
Colors system cut back on the complexity of
conventional wargames. At its heart was a deck
of command cards divided into ‘sections’ and
‘tactics’ that effectively generated a fog of war,
dictating in which areas of the hex map players
could order their troops and any special
abilities available to them. Combat was swiftly
resolved with a handful of custom battle dice,
meaning that any one of the game’s various
historical scenarios could be completed in
under an hour. Battle Cry’s innovative design
earned Borg a nomination at the prestigious
Charles S. Roberts Awards – he would later be
inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010 for his
contribution to the wargaming hobby.
Jumping forward to World War II in
2004’s acclaimed Memoir ’44, then centuries
backward to simulate battles from 3000 BC
through to the Middle Ages in the ambitiously
expansive Commands & Colors: Ancients
two years later, Borg collided history with
fantasy in 2006’s BattleLore, an imaginative
retelling of the Hundred Years’ War where
French and English troops fought alongside
goblins, dwarves, giant spiders and elemental
beings. The mash-up showed that Commands
& Colors could be more than an accessible
window into history, but it was a promise that
wouldn’t be explored further for over a decade
– the next trio of instalments in the series took
the resolutely true-to-life settings of feudal
Japan, the Napoleonic Wars and World War I
as their inspiration.
It is different
and yet, at the
same time, players
will recognise
many game
elements.
STAR WAR Great War or any of the games with Commands
Enter Red Alert
Alert, the next Commands & & Colors in their title,” Borg says. “It is different
Colors chapter, which punches the series and yet, at the same time, players will recognise
up to warp speed. Set in the distant future, many game elements.
it’s the most dramatic departure yet from “I guess if I had to compare Red Alert to
the historical roots of the wargame saga; another one of my games as far as how the
there’s not even a battlefield. game flows and game complexity, it would be
“By design Red Alert: Memoir ’44.”
Space Fleet Warfare The vast abyss of space, dotted only by
does not have the shining hulls of interplanetary cruisers,
the same feel as is a galaxy away – literally – from the hoof-
playing Battle Cry, and heel-churned mud of ground warfare,
Memoir ’44, The tactical advantages offered by terrain, and
often close-quarters combat recreated by
the previous games. Still, Borg believed that
the existing Commands & Colors framework
could be ably reshaped to suit the sci-fi
setting, rather than requiring him to create a
new system from scratch.
“Funny thing is that the title of the
prototype game as I originally submitted
was Battle & Debris: Space Fleet Warfare,”
he recalls. “The guys at [publisher] PSC
and their playtest group kept calling
it Red Alert and the name stuck. The
actual game’s full title is Red Alert:
Space Fleet Warfare.”
tabletopgaming.co.uk 53
 RED ALERT
RIGHT Players can
customise their fleet
before a battle
BELOW Some of the cards
that drive Red Alert’s
tactical conflicts
PROBE LEFT WING
AMBUSH
2 26
Play this card after opponent declares a close
quarters combat, but before the dice are rolled.
Your defending unit will battle first with
1 additional die. If the attacking unit is not
eliminated or forced to retire, it may then combat
as originally ordered. Your unit may not battle
back against this unit’s attack.
“Actually, before we really even got serious
about looking at venturing into space, I
already had a large file full of notes and
thoughts of what a space fleet battle game
should encompass. Adding these thoughts
to the proven guidelines of what makes a
Commands & Colors game fun and successful
just seemed like a logical starting point:
the rules need to be logical and not overly
complex, players should not be burdened
with a lot of minor details, players should
enjoy battling their opponent not the rules,
a scenario should set up and play to a
conclusion in about an hour.
“One other major reason for using the
basics of the Commands & Colors system
COLORS SPECTRUM
54 August 2018
TASK FORCE
1 of the Commands & Colors system,” Borg
FLAGSHIP X1
BATTLESHIP X1
2 18
CRUISER X2
22
DESTROYER X2
20
Issue 1 order to 2 units
FIGHTER X3 12
on the Left Wing.
+2 points support
98
is that if a player has experienced another
Commands & Colors game, he or she is
already about 60% familiar with the game’s
mechanics. A player with this experience that
is first coming to Red Alert just has to pick up
the new features of the game and, in this case,
the new features of space fleet warfare.”
In this way, Borg gradually built on the tried
and tested chassis of his wargame, maintaining
the iconic dice-driven battle resolution
and command deck, albeit now filled with
flagships, battleships, destroyers, fighters
and cruisers in the place of archers, cavalry
and infantry. Players would manoeuvre their
fleet around the starfield, earning the points
required for victory with every unit destroyed.
2000
Battle Cry
2004
Memoir ’44
“We attempted to follow in the footsteps of
success and not mess with any of the basics
insists. “The play of command cards drives
the game action and creates a ‘fog of war’,
while the battle dice resolve combat quickly
and efficiently.
“The fun and design challenge was therefore
to add to these basics and give Red Alert
players the opportunity and feeling that they
are in command of a fleet of starships.”
To do so, Borg introduced a new deck of
combat cards created to capture the unique
ballet of space battles, which players could
execute by spending star tokens, and ‘red
alert’ tokens to heighten the sci-fi action’s
drama. These non-fatal crises could have
come straight of Star Trek or Star Wars:
shields going down, engineering problems,
collateral damage.
“The action on a combat card may hinder
the opposition forces, enhance a player’s
units, or instantly change the course of
a battle,” Borg explains. “Players will be
challenged to maintain their star token
reserves to power their combat cards at a
key moment and through the entire course
of a battle.
“The battles showcased in Red Alert
focus on the deployment of rival starship
fleets and important space features that are
encountered in scale with the game system.
A deck of combat cards will add an element
of suspense.”
2006
Commands &
2006
BattleLore
Colors: Ancients
SPACE TO PLAY
While the far-flung future lacks the historical
grounding of the other Commands & Colors
games, Red Alert still sticks closely to the
series’ reliance on scenarios. Instead of
telling it as it happened, Red Alert lets
players tell it as they want it to happen,
allowing them to customise their fleet and
deploy their units with a greater degree of
freedom than the textbook-true rigidity of its
historical predecessors. Borg says that the
game’s sense of scale – helped by the dozens
of ship models in the box – is something
rarely seen on the tabletop.
“The main feature that sets it apart from
other titles is that Red Alert is a true fleet
action battle game,” he says. “There are 90-
plus spaceship miniatures in the core game
and the scope of all of its scenarios feature
mass fleet action.
“Although not unique, but certainly
something new for one of my designs, is the
assortment of task force cards player can
choose and the player’s ability to augment and
customise their fleets with the purchase of a
number of support vessels before each battle.”
Red Alert’s more versatile gameplay and
limitless setting suggests a game completely
unbound from historical and realistic ties for
the better, but Borg admits that even space
comes with its own confines.
“Although at its surface a sci-fi space
game would seem to be more open and that
anything would go, in reality, however, this
2010 2012
Commands & Colors: Samurai Battles
Napoleonics
is not actually the case; because we all have
been exposed to facts and fictional space
ventures, there are some notions that cannot
be overridden or put out of mind,” he says.
“This fact was very evident during our
playtest sessions. Basically, the guys during
our playtesting were using the miniature ships
and building their fleets from iconic movies,
TV shows and other space games like Star
Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Flash Gordon,
Star Frontiers, Battlefleet Gothic, Silent Death,
Firestorm Armada, etc. In one memorable
session, an entire fleet of different-size
Star Destroyers, representing different unit
classes, took on an opposing fleet from Star
Frontiers. Red Alert in reality does not bare
any resemblance to any of these, but the game
certainly was influenced by all of the above
and more.”
STAR FLEET COMMANDS
The warping of Borg’s magnum opus to
the solar system of tabletop sci-fi is one
small step for players, but a giant leap for
its creator, now assured that his underlying
foundation is strong enough to support
such a radical change.
“The Commands & Colors system did
indeed debut with Battle Cry, but many of
the historical titles were all being developed
around the same time as Battle Cry,” Borg
says. “It just has taken many years for
companies to share and believe in the game
system, as much as the guys that have been
2015
The Great War
helping me playtest and develop all the
different versions through two decades.”
Although he remains tightlipped on whether
the Commands & Colors galaxy will be filled
with any other space-set instalments in the
future, Borg reveals that Red Alert will continue
to seek out new corners of the universe, with a
number of escalation pack expansions already
designed and ready to take Red Alert’s starter
box even further, as well two additional fleets
of ships waiting to be launched.
“Because the Red Alert core game has
so many variables, including a variety of
task force cards to choose from, the ability
for a player to purchase a force of unique
support vessels and control of where units
are deployed during setup, there is an almost
endless amount of replay value with just the
core game,” he insists. “However, our group
was always pushing for more and more, so
even with all these unique opportunities and
endless hours of entertainment in the core
game, there is still more to come!”
As for Commands & Colors, it’s clear that
exploring the distant past, far-flung future,
and battlefields on Earth and beyond hasn’t
left Borg short of fresh shades to apply to his
next canvas.
“I am a very lucky guy to have a great group
of guys in the Orlando area that are willing
to take time to share in my dreams and make
them a reality,” Borg says. “It has been fun
to see how the system has grown and I look
forward to its future.”
2017 2018
Commands & Colors Tricorne: Commands &
The American Revolution Colors: Medieval
tabletopgaming.co.uk 55
 䠀伀䴀䔀 伀䘀 䜀䄀䴀䔀 䴀䄀吀匀
䄀一䐀 䐀䤀䌀䔀 吀刀䄀夀匀

嘀䄀刀䤀伀唀匀 䐀䤀䘀䘀䔀刀䔀一吀 䰀伀吀匀 伀䘀 䘀䰀䄀吀 刀䄀吀䔀

匀䤀娀䔀匀 䴀䄀吀䔀刀䤀䄀䰀匀 䐀䔀匀䤀䜀一匀 䔀唀 匀䠀䤀倀倀䤀一䜀

倀刀䤀一吀ⴀ伀ⴀ䴀䄀吀 ⴀ   夀伀唀刀 䤀䴀䄀䜀䔀 伀一 䴀伀唀匀䔀倀䄀䐀 䴀䄀吀

圀圀圀⸀䐀䔀䔀倀䌀唀吀匀吀唀䐀䤀伀⸀䌀伀䴀 䤀一䘀伀䀀䐀䔀䔀倀䌀唀吀匀吀唀䐀䤀伀⸀䌀伀䴀
 <UNEARTHED ARTEFACTS>://
THIS WAR OF MINE
++YEAR 3126++INCOMING TRANSMISSION++
found sector a43: pastime x17 – board game
– “this_war_of_mine”
Message intercepted by Robert Florence
T
he war is over, and the
research continues.
During the hostilities, as we
retrieved and incinerated the
corpses of the Gast Walkers, we had the
opportunity to search through many
locations that were previously unavailable
to us. We found a great many Late Oil
Humanity games, and I will be introducing
you to them in the months and years ahead.
This transmission, my first in a few years,
will cover a game called “This War of Mine”.
What better way to resume our studies after
this brutal period than with a game that
attempts to explain the punishing effects of
war? Here is a game that puts its player, or
players, in control of the destiny of a group of
survivors in a city under siege. Perhaps it is
a game that might illuminate us to the plight
of the many units stranded in those cities
overwhelmed by the Gast Walkers’ uprising.
Late Oil Humanity never did experience
a true period of peace. When the human
August 2018
race walked this planet, war was always being
waged somewhere. Any peace was an illusion.
A human might live and die in a nation
without ever experiencing warfare, but their
governing body would be engaged in hostility
regardless – selling arms and influencing
outcomes. Blood was on every human hand.
“This War of Mine” seems to be designed
to wake those sleeping humans up. There are
decisions to be made and dice to be rolled, but
this is not an experience built for fun or pleasure.
The survivors whose lives you try to influence
are tumbling into despair, and the struggle to
save them from starvation, depression and
addiction is its own tiny, terrible war.
The game runs according to a strict day/
night cycle. In day, the survivors can carry out
actions in the shell of a house they are hiding
in; rubble can be cleared, equipment can be
built, rooms can be searched. These actions
are limited, and every choice made becomes
crucial to survival. Good fortune is necessary
too. As we now understand, after the fall of
Terdum 3, war is chaos – there will be times
when the universe must shine on us if we are
to survive at all.
In night, the characters must rest. They
simply must. But they simply can’t. Someone
must guard the door in case of intruders.
Someone must embark on a scavenger
hunt. The game takes the player, and the
game’s characters, on an exploration of its
unforgiving world. The player works through
a deck of cards, handling obstacles and
enemies, trying to remain silent.
Awful events occur. When instructed,
the player must open a book – “The Book of
Scripts” – and find encounters that challenge
the player’s moral code. Children are left to
die. Beggars are shot dead. Women beg for
mercy. The characters’ misery increases, and
the misery of the player increases alongside
them. When the characters return home,
their personal issues kick in. Their mood
drops further. They are exhausted, stricken
with illness, distraught. The following day,
the player might try to turn things around
for the characters, but it is hugely difficult
because now the characters can do less. They
are losing their fight.
This War of Mine is a remarkable board
game. It is a game in name only. It is more like
an art piece – an experimental, experiential
thing. My research team played it in the hope
that it would be somewhat therapeutic after
the disasters of the past few years. But it was
the opposite. It is a cursed game, shrouded
in death. It is the violent teacher, holding a
cardboard knife to your throat.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 57
 GAMING’S FATAL ATTRACTION
As environmental concerns and eco-friendly alternatives continue to grow, do players
need a sea change in attitude when it comes to the ubiquitous and versatile material?
Words by Joshua King

Y
ou watch albatrosses unwittingly
RIGHT Some of the feed plastic to their starving chicks.
examples of plastic A hawksbill turtle struggles tangled
used in different in a plastic sack. Most distressingly
games, including of all, you are stunned by footage of a pilot
cellophane wrap whale clinging to her dead calf as you learn the
and miniatures gentle giant may have been poisoned by its own
mother’s contaminated milk.
OPPOSITE This vision of our oceans comes not from
Photosynthesis’ box some apocalyptic board game but rather reality,
and components as seen on our television screens. The BBC’s
– including its Blue Planet II, narrated by David Attenborough,
3D trees – are was a wake-up call to a nation captivated by the
manufactured from beauty and fragility of our waters.
recycled cardboard The series was the most watched on British
television last year and prompted a rapid shift
in consumer attitudes towards plastic and its
environmental impact. Elsewhere, the government
has banned microbeads from soaps and cleansers
and is targeting single-use plastics with new
legislation. The 5p plastic bag tax has changed
the way many people transport their groceries.
But while Attenborough warns that humanity
holds the “fate of the planet in its hands”, is the
tabletop industry – which relies so heavily on
plastic – doing its part?

THE PRICE OF A BOX

Unlike many retail products, board games and
their plastic pieces are rarely single-use. In fact,
many people keep their copies for a lifetime. But
tabletop games are not immune to the excessive

58 August 2018
packaging that plagues other industries; boxes are
wrapped in cellophane, individual components
packed into one-use polythene bags.
Every gamer knows the joy of unboxing a
new title comes with a hefty amount of waste.
The fashion for legacy games that evolve as
they are played brings with it extra rubbish,
and as plastic miniatures become increasingly
intricate so does the plastic trimming used to
create and package them.
Fiona Nicholls, Greenpeace UK’s
ocean plastics campaigner, reveals
that a “truck-worth of plastic” enters
the ocean every 60 seconds.
“There isn’t time to waste,”
she urges. “We’ve produced a There is an urgent
whopping 8.3 billion metric tonnes
of plastic since the 1950s and plastic need to do something.
production is set to quadruple by
2050. There is an urgent need to do
something about it.”
Greenpeace UK is campaigning for a
reduction in unnecessary plastics, such as the
wrapping given to fruit and vegetables. The
average plastic bag, for instance, has a useable
life of just 12 minutes.
“Last year Sir David Attenborough came
into our living rooms and shone a huge, great,
unmissable spotlight on the issue,” Nicholls
continues. “Scenes of animals feeling the
impact of plastic pollution made this something
government and business couldn’t ignore.”
New research has revealed microplastic
pollution on beaches could be affecting the
sex of baby turtles while they develop in their
eggs. A recent study found microplastics
present in 100% of wild mussels from locations
around the UK coast.
“Plastic is everywhere,” Nicholls says. “Whilst
it’s almost impossible to avoid there is loads
you can do to be a champion for reusable
Plastic production is set
to quadruple by 2050.
alternatives and reduce throwaway plastic. But
we also need businesses and retailers to cut
down on the plastic they’re producing.”
TREE-RIFFIC
More than a decade ago Californian accountant
Beth Terry set out to ditch plastic from her life
altogether. The My Plastic-Free Life blog which
grew out of the project and subsequent smash-hit
book Plastic-Free were some of the first outlets
for people to reconsider their shopping habits.
Terry still offers advice on her blog to others
looking to make a change. Her tip? If you cannot
find the eco-friendly games you want, “buy
secondhand”. You avoid plastic pollution but
publishers avoid profit.
Last year, Blue Orange Games released the
beautifully abstract environmental strategy title
Photosynthesis. Shortlisted for a host of industry
awards, the game was praised for its deceptively
simple mechanics and elegant three-
dimensional forest pieces.
The arboreal theme that met with such
acclaim reflected another design decision
– the board, pieces and box inserts were
made using recycled cardboard.
“Blue Orange’s baseline is ‘hot
games, cool planet’,” says the publisher’s
Céline Casel. “We include in that social
and environment issues. All through
the year we do our best to reduce our
environmental impact. Obviously
Photosynthesis’ theme naturally led us to have
environmentally-friendly components.
“It would have been contradictory to have
plastic in the boxes. Nature is the mechanic of the
game, so we decided to use recycled cardboard.”
The firm – which also published last year’s Spiel
des Jahres winner Kingdomino – recently signed
a commitment to plant two trees in Ecuador’s
Amazonian rainforest for every one tree used in
production. The result? Blue Orange will plant
almost 2,400 trees this year.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 59
 E C O - F R I E N D LY G A M I N G
Casel tells me: “We really often see plastic trays
in board games and one easy possibility is to
change it for cardboard. Using less plastic pushes
us to find solutions, to choose materials carefully
and think about other ways to complete a project.
“Besides being bad for the environment, plastic
doesn’t have the same quality as other materials.
Open a box and see how it feels to discover
wooden pieces, cardboard tokens or even metal.”
A NEW PERSPECTIVE
Tabletop games attract innovation from all corners.
The majority of new publishers are spearheaded
not by business-minded entrepreneurs but
passionate game designers. Monetary gain is rarely
a driving factor behind launching the latest title.
As a result, costly ethical design decisions can
be make-or-break for first-timers. Often it is a
choice between the cheapest materials available
or not going to market at all. Unfortunately, many
publishers – big and small – have found that plastic
remains the cheapest option.
Mark Pearson runs the London Board Games
Company, the studio behind The Football Game.
A small family team, the Pearsons turned – as so
many new designers do – to crowdfunding to back
their game.
Pearson says: “There are things in the
manufacturing process that we don’t have control
of – for instance, the plastic gloss that’s added to
our boxes. It’s up to the manufacturers to find cost-
effective solutions rather than something we have
direct control of.
If there’s a trade-off of
doing the right thing or
making a profit, guess
which one is chosen.
“In The Football Game, it was more of a practical
decision. We didn’t use one-use bags; we chose
cardboard boxes for pieces and cards. That is a
cost-effective alternative we chose which also
reduces plastic.”
Pearson predicts that as consumers generally
become more aware of the environmental impact
of games, designers and manufacturers will
cotton on and improve their process.
“I think it could help a crowdfunded
campaign stand out,” he says. “If we launched
a new game I would certainly look at it. On
60 August 2018
Kickstarter you get trendy badges for things
like ‘Ships to Australia’. These affect people’s
decision to back and play games. Perhaps not
‘plastic-free’ but ‘plastic-conscious’ could be a
badge that would prove popular.”
The Football Game is advertised as colourblind-
friendly. It’s an increasingly common example
of a small decision that makes a product more
accessible and therefore more marketable. Pearson
views ‘plastic-conscious’ in the same mould.
“It would be a selling point; it could get a
game recognised on BoardGameGeek’s lists of
environmentally-friendly games, for instance. But
it’s a barrier for small publishers – as a first-time
publisher we were far more financially restricted
about who and where the manufacturers were.
“That’s not to say that a small publisher can’t
advertise that they’ve been as environmentally-
conscious as they could have been, though.”
BIG MINI PROBLEM
One of the biggest challenges facing gamers
that want to reduce their environmental
impact is the seemingly unstoppable
popularity of plastic miniatures. As games grow
in scope and scale, designers are increasingly
including a greater number of intricate plastic Like many wargames, Twilight Struggle uses
figures. Entire production companies for minis cardboard counters (Scott Mansfield)
accompanying RPG systems have emerged
and the inclusion of miniatures is a popular
crowdfunding stretch goal of Mexico. The environmental impact has been
While few gamers are tossing their minis out in described as immeasurable.
the same manner as the cellophane that protects Those who defend the use of plastic in games
the boxes, the production have highlighted that the production of cardboard
of plastic in the first uses significantly more energy than the production
place has a terrible
environmental cost.
of plastic. Whilst true, this ignores the broader
dangers, as well as the fact that the environmental
To put it in context,
plastics amount to
impact of cardboard ceases as soon as it hits the
shelves; it is recyclable, biodegradable and does
8% of the world’s oil
production. That’s
not trap and kill marine life.
If the solution to weaning the tabletop industry
the same as the entire
aviation industry. And
off plastic is finding a suitable alternative then
perhaps we need not look any further than
plastic production is set cardboard – a material already at the heart of the
to explode exponentially hobby. Photosynthesis utilises cardboard inserts
over the next 30 years. rather than plastic. The Football Game did away
The extraction of oil from the ground and seabed with baggies it replaced with small boxes.
has been linked to air pollution, acid rain and One of the most acclaimed studios in the world
human cancer, as well as disrupting animal has never given in to the allure of petroleum
migratory patterns. products. GMT Games, the publisher behind
That says nothing of the most visually Dominant Species, Labyrinth: War on Terror and
immediate of all the dangers: oil spills. When critical juggernaut Twilight Struggle, revels in the
the Exxon Valdez tanker collided with Prince use of hundreds of cardboard counters.
William Sound’s Bligh Reef in 1989 it poured Co-founder and game designer Gene Billingsley
nearly 11 million US gallons of oil into the Pacific, says: “I wish I could say that we are particularly
killing between 100,000 and 250,000 seabirds. groundbreaking or forward-thinking in our
The Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 leaked a approach to counters. I think the truth is that we
staggering 210 million US gallons into the Gulf just grew up in a corner of the gaming industry
– wargaming – that pretty much used cardboard
counters and hex grids from the beginning.
“So, at first, we didn’t really know any other way.”
As GMT’s game line has broadened, Billingsley
and his team have added new components.
“We’ve found that larger, thicker, well-illustrated
cardboard playing pieces are well accepted by
gamers in lieu of plastic pieces.
“When a stand-up piece is required, we
tend to use wooden blocks with stickers rather
than plastic.”
GMT’s success with cardboard is a ray of hope
for the industry – particularly for the wargaming
genre in which plastic minis are so popular.
IN YOUR HANDS
Perhaps the biggest drive in shifting attitudes must
come from gamers. With designers, publishers
and manufacturers operating on such fine profit
margins, a change in demand can prompt a
change in production.
James Davis and his wife Sheila hold an
astounding 14,000 games in their collection –
one of the largest in the world. The Colorado
couple’s storeroom charts the history of modern
tabletop gaming.
“We are both environmentally conscious,”
James says. “So it is strange that I’ve never thought
about this subject before. That leads me to believe
that it isn’t on the mind of most other gamers – I
definitely welcome the debate.
“In general most games over the years have not
gotten worse with creating waste. The packaging
has been fairly standard: shrink-wrapped cards,
cellophane over the boxes. In fact, recently I’ve
seen publishers include ziplock bags for the
components. That eliminates a good portion of
waste because they can be reused.”
James suggests even publishers who focus
on cardboard tokens can do more to reduce the
excess waste that is thrown out once chits are
punched through the sheets.
“I do think companies should do more, but I
also realise they are running a business,” he adds.
“And if there’s a trade-off of doing the right thing or
making a profit, guess which one is chosen.
“But if a way can be found to use greener
materials and create less waste without raising
prices too much then I think gamers should start to
push the game companies to comply.”
Sadly the Davis’ attitude is not universal
among the tabletop community. For a group
that generally prides itself on forward-thinking
attitudes I was astounded by the negative
reaction I received during my research into eco-
friendly options.
At the beginning of this journey I asked a
simple question online: are there any eco-
friendly publishers? I expected a conversation
– not a backlash.
I was variously accused of “virtue signalling” –
seemingly showing off my high morals – as well as
asking a “silly” or “counterproductive” question
and wasting everyone’s time when there are bigger
problems in the world. Moderators actually had to
step in to quell the row.
By 2050 it is estimated that the total weight of
plastic in our oceans will overtake the weight of all
fish. There are already 500 times more pieces of
microplastic in the sea than stars in our galaxy. We
are faced with a crisis – whether the entire tabletop
community is ready to accept it or not.
Producers like Blue Orange are making a
change and putting the environment higher up
their list of priorities. Smaller studios like the
London Board Games Company hope to seize the
initiative and use the appeal of plastic-conscious
products to win the backing of gamers. Others, like
GMT, have shown that plastic alternatives do not
just work but excel.
A failure to adapt to changing consumer
demands is not just a threat to the environment
but to the tabletop industry itself. The mantra
‘reuse, repurpose, recycle’ encourages people to
eliminate waste from their lives. If gamers move
away from buying new plastic-heavy games in a
bid to be eco-friendly the alternatives are to buy
secondhand, swap or pay to play at club nights and
board game cafés.
The ultimate result is that small publishers
will fold and big companies may be faced with
thinning their product lines to only the most
popular titles.
If the tabletop industry wants to win this
particular game it will require a sea change in
behaviour from all gamers. For once, the attitudes
of a community which claims to represent
progressive thinking is being left behind by society
as a whole, floundering in an ocean of plastic.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 61
Turn your tabletop into a real battlefield!
Ready to play, painted and assembled
terrain and battle mats.

We ship worldwide. Purchases can be made in GBP, USD or EUR at www.gamemat.eu

PLAYED
64

66 69 76

64 WARHAMMER: AGE OF 74 LUCIDITY: SIX-SIDED

SIGMAR – SOUL WARS
65 STARSHIP SAMURAI
66 MASKS OF NYARLATHOTEP
67 LOWLANDS
68 BLACK ORCHESTRA
69 GRETCHINZ!
70 RAIDS
71 THE GRIMM FOREST
72 PRINCESS JING
72 ENDLESS PASS: A VIKING SAGA
73 BANQUET ROYAL
NIGHTMARES
75 A TALE OF PIRATES
76 MICROPOLIS
77 HANNIBAL & HAMILCAR
78 WHEN IN ROME
78 STAR WARS: HAN
SOLO CARD GAME
79 GENESYS: REALMS
OF TERRINOTH
80 MARVEL CONTEST OF
CHAMPIONS: BATTLEREALM
81 ROBIT RIDDLE: STORYBOOK
ADVENTURES

August 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 63

 P L AY E D
WARHAMMER: AGE OF
SIGMAR – SOUL WARS
Nagash and Sigmar clash as the fantasy
miniatures classic enters a new era
Designer: Games Workshop team | Artist: Games Workshop team
I
n 2015 Warhammer’s Old World came
to an end. It was a huge shock to many
of us who cut our gnarled teeth in
Marienburg or Kislev. Games Workshop
reimagined its house fantasy setting and
Age of Sigmar was unleashed, eventually
garnering much acclaim. More change is
coming. Age of Sigmar 2.0 is here and the
Old World seems like a distant dream.
The new edition has arrived
courtesy of the glorious Soul Wars
boxed set. Mimicking the absolutely
deluxe form of Warhammer 40,000’s
recent Dark Imperium, this release is
a beauty. The presentation is akin to
fine dining as Games Workshop clearly
looks to compete with the direction its
crowdfunded competitors have taken.
Make no mistake – this feels every bit
as opulent as what we’ve seen with
Kingdom Death: Monster and its ilk.
The most significant surprise is that
every included miniature is push-fit. As
evidenced by recent Shadespire output,
there is nary a loss in quality despite
64 August 2018
ED
IT
40-120m
angling towards accessibility. Among
the plastic models are the familiar
Stormcast Eternals taking on an entirely
new set of foes in Nagash’s terrifying
Nighthaunts. These wonderful sculpts
feature floating spectres and fiendish
horrors with a suite of dynamic poses.
Stepping in parallel with the
progression of miniature quality is the
momentum behind the Age of Sigmar
ruleset. Since its inception this has
been a system angled towards fast
play and colourful drama. The second
edition has included a small amount of
additional complexity as it looks to align
more closely to its sci-fi sibling. It has not
completely forgotten its vow to velocity
and tension, but the primary criticism
one could levy at this new era is the
subtle nudge towards a more heavy
and encompassing experience.
One notable change is the
introduction of Warhammer 40,000’s
command point mechanism. You can
now use a resource pool to trigger special
WHAT’S IN abilities, but in this case they are tied
THE BOX? to heroes and commanders instead of
◗ 52 push-fit force structure. The biggest benefit of
miniatures this system is that it incentivises dramatic
◗ Getting Started booklet
play while reinforcing setting elements.
◗ 320-page hardback
This is slick and handled well overall.
core book
◗ 32-page Battle of A more significant shift is the overhaul
Glymmsforge booklet of magic. Magic forms the single unique
◗ 13 warscroll personality element that separates
unit cards fantasy from science-fiction in the world
◗ 12 dice of wargaming, and it’s appropriate that
◗ Range ruler it takes centre stage. The most radical
◗ Decal transfer sheet move is found in the new Malign Sorcery
expansion box. This thing is magnificent.
Players are now able to enact endless
spells that persist on the battlefield.
These magical effects stomp around
and lay waste to the endless souls taking
up arms; however, they can also be
commanded by the opponent. Control
is fleeting with these external elements
and there is nothing quite as beautiful
CE
O R'S C H OI
as a wall of flame or plague devouring
its previous master. It’s even better
when those supernatural elements are
represented by a gorgeous miniature.
This focus on awe-inspiring moments
of chaos highlights the fact that Age of
Sigmar is still focused on its roots of
spectacle. New modes of play offering
narrative or competitive vectors allow
players to tailor this exhibition to
their particular tastes. Those desiring
a stronger story or setting element will
2 12+ £95 eat up the customised rules for the eight
Mortal Realms. Battlefields possess
unique atmosphere and environs for
your warriors to break their backs upon.
You can take to the sky and engage
in bouts entirely focused on aerial
combat. You can even engage in different
campaign structures focused on growth
and evolution. There’s a world to explore
and Sigmar will take you by the hand.
Soul Wars as a product is fantastic. It
TRY THIS IF offers a bevy of exceptional miniatures
YOU LIKED… and delivers the new era of the strongest
WARHAMMER fantasy system currently available. This
40,000: DARK neatly-tied package is outstanding and
IMPERIUM a treat for veterans and fans alike. If the
The rulesets are
Age of Sigmar was not upon us before, it
now more unified
than ever and certainly is now.
this offers a nice CHARLIE THEEL
departure from your
sci-fi eternal war. WE SAY
A fantastic boxed set delivers the
next evolution in Warhammer’s
signature fantasy line. It digs its hook
deep with elegant packaging and a
slick new ruleset, offering new vistas
to war over and souls to claim.
STARSHIP SAMURAI
A strategy game that will mecha you smile
Designer: Isaac Vega | Artist: Gunship Revolution
I
f you haven’t already guessed by
the name, Starship Samurai is
a game that’s not trying to hide
much. It has starships and it has
samurai: here, massive sword-wielding
mecha represented by miniatures
that absolutely capture the glee of
watching and playing with Gundam
and Transformers. Its dependable
gameplay, too, offers up few big
surprises – but it’s still easy to be won
over by the results of its reliable blend
if you don’t expect a game about robots
in space to be the most mindblowing
thing you’ve ever played.
The mecha may be the stars of the
show, but it’s the planets they are
fighting over that set the stage for
Starship Samurai’s action. A deck
of location cards presents a fresh
spread of worlds to try and rule each
round, racking up ‘honour’ (read:
victory points) for claiming a card,
with the added spice of extra points
for collecting a set of different planet
types (quite uninspiringly denoted
by different amounts of pips, rather
than actual categories) by the end of
the game.
The pool of player actions is small:
move units, draw cards, gain wealth or
influence one of the lesser clans. The
narrow selection is given a welcome
depth by the order tokens placed
to execute each command, which
determine the relative strength of the
action, from one to four. Orders can be
repeated, but the importance of timing
remains critical – do you warp your
fleet to a planet immediately and try to
hold off multiple rounds of attacks, or
instead bide your time and utilise card
powers, risking the limited number of
unit spaces in each location filling up
WHAT’S IN in the meantime? The tight territories
THE BOX? and bonuses gained for dominating a
◗ Alliance board location at the beginning of your turn
◗ Four location boards encourage aggressive play – destroyed
◗ Four player boards
units reappear the following round
◗ 48 action cards
◗ 16 unit cards
and losing fleets remain where they
◗ 16 location cards are, making even a loss a potentially
◗ Eight samurai effective way to claim the location next
mech figures time around.
◗ 32 fighter Battles are as fast and fierce as the
ship figures single-stroke slash of a samurai sword.
◗ Four carrier It’s a numbers game: the most power
ship figures wins. The samurai mechs’ abilities and
◗ 44 wealth tokens
one battle card potentially played on
◗ First Player token
◗ Four player
either side of the clash can suddenly
score markers swing things, making the simultaneous
◗ 16 order markers reveal of cards an entertainingly decisive
◗ Eight clan markers moment. With two unique mechs – plus
identical universal fighter and carrier
ships – attached to each faction, the
asymmetry is enough to invite decent
variety without weighing the light feeling
of the area-control competition down.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… RISING SUN
Starship Samurai swaps mythical creatures for giant robots, and
condenses some of the feeling of Epic Lang’s epic battle for control
of feudal Japan into a shorter and faster experience.
60-90m 2-4 14+ £55
Behind the spectacle of mechs
scrapping for planetary control and
taking down fleets of spaceships
is a background battle for political
domination, represented by the
lesser clans that can be influenced
on the game’s central board. Pulling
the tokens up your faction’s branch
in reward for further victory points
– or pushing them down and out of
your rivals’ control – makes Starship
Samurai more than a game of just
throwing big armies at each other in
head-to-head fights, encouraging a
more diverse scoring approach. The
political back-and-forth is hardly
deep, but it’s just enough to stretch
the edges of the gameplay and keep
things engaging and constantly
shifting for the hour or so each
playthrough takes.
Starship Samurai’s gameplay
can edge towards feeling a little
inconsequential compared to the
more substantial strategy experiences
out there – most notably Eric Lang’s
crowdpleasing ‘dudes on a map’
games, such as Rising Sun – but its
breakneck speed, comfortable rules
and undeniably stylish theme make
spending a couple of hours in its
universe an enjoyable ride all the
same. There’s more than enough
interesting gameplay here to justify the
eye-catching visuals, becoming a game
that favours pure fun and spectacle
over complexity, but without being
completely surface. It turns out that
smashing giant robots against each
other in space is a pretty good time –
who would’ve thought it?
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
What Starship Samurai lacks in
originality and depth, it makes up
for with a killer theme and gameplay
that’s as solid as it is quick. It’s a
crowdpleaser, through and through.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 65
 WE SAY
There’s a reason why
so many doomed
CE
ED

IT
O R'S C H OI
investigators have
thrown themselves
into Masks of
Nyarlathotep over
the past 30 years,

MASKS OF NYARLATHOTEP
and this update is the
ideal way for modern
players to see what
all the fuss is about.
Go mad for the classic campaign all over again
Designer: Larry DiTillio, Mike Mason, Paul Fricker, Lynne Hardy, Scott Dorward, Lynn Willis 665 13+ £99

W
ith its wide array of frothing
cultists, ancient ruins and
apocalyptic drama, Masks
of Nyarlathotep has helped to define
the tone and feel of Call of Cthulhu
for almost three decades. Thanks to
this highly polished update, it looks
set to keep chewing through hapless
investigators years to come.
‘Update’ may not be quite the right
word for what this is, however. Make no
mistake: this is something far beyond
the comparatively minor changes that
have come with the new editions rolled
out on a regular basis since the 1984
original. Despite this, it’s certainly still
the same campaign that has consigned
so many parties to gibbering madness,
which begins with a bizarre murder in
a New York hotel and ends with a battle
for the sake of reality as we know it.
Most of the changes are subtle and
carefully considered, with a bit of
historical detail added here and tighter
phrasing there, but the team handling the
new version weren’t afraid to make major
alterations where they felt it was needed.
Where the traditional opening threw
the party into the deep end with the
vague hope they’d be able to swim, this
fresh take on Masks kicks off with a new
prologue chapter set in the highlands
of Peru. It’s a modest, self-contained
adventure that should last for a couple of
sessions and serves as a mini-campaign
of sorts, introducing the characters to the
game and allowing them to get to know
Jackson Elias – an NPC whose gory death
triggers the main campaign.
This sets the tone for many of the other
changes in the new book, which aim to
smooth out some of the rockier areas of
the original; as well as giving the players
a guaranteed motivation to uncover the
secrets behind Elias’ murder, a real effort
has been made to eliminate or downplay
some of the more uncomfortable racial
stereotypes that pervaded earlier editions.
In this same vein, the team behind
the book took the decision to tone down
the lethality of the campaign by a notch
or two. While this may seem like heresy
to dyed-in-the wool Masks fans, it’s fair
to say that the classic version tended
towards the psychotic in places. The
tweaks introduced manage to preserve
the looming sense of danger that is an
iconic aspect of the campaign – and,
indeed, Call of Cthuhlu as a whole –
while avoiding the risk of having players
cycle through a long list of investigators
with increasingly tenuous connections
to the overall story.
Alongside this, plenty of effort has
been made to simplify campaigns using
systems other than the basic Call of
Cthulhu. The text is stuffed with sidebars
explaining how the adventures can be
adapted for the swashbuckling antics of
the Pulp Cthulhu system, cutting down
on the legwork needed by GMs.
Admittedly, that still doesn’t make
running Masks a simple endeavour, no
matter which system you’re using. The TRY THIS IF
book weighs in at well over 600 pages, YOU LIKED…
and if there are any downsides to the
TALES FROM
THE LOOP: OUR
campaign they lie in the amount it FRIENDS THE
demands from the GM; there are dozens MACHINES
of plot threads and weaving trails of & OTHER
clues and contacts running throughout MYSTERIES
the book, as well as a thick stack of The wide-eyed
handouts that need to be printed off or excitement of Tales
sent out to the group in advance. couldn’t be further
Indeed, the players themselves from the dark and
dangerous world of
will also need to be on their toes if
Lovecraftian horror
they want to have a good time with shown in Masks,
Masks. The campaign is based around but both share a
investigations and problem-solving love of uncovering
rather than rolling dice and blasting mysteries and a
away at enemies – if your group is free-form approach
more inclined towards scoring loot to investigation.
and racking up kills than interviewing
contacts and tailing suspects, this may
not be the wisest of investments.
If you have a year or so to devote to
a single campaign, as well as a group
of friends you can trust to treat it with
a little respect, Masks of Nyarlathotep
won’t disappoint. Just maybe try not
to get too attached to the first set of
characters you roll up.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES

66 August 2018

LOWLANDS
Wave goodbye to your typical Eurogame
Designer: Claudia Partenheimer, Ralf Partenheimer | Artist: Andrea Boekhoff
E
urogames and agriculture.
They go together like a pig and
mud, like cattle and cud, and
like, well, two sheep during Agricola’s
breeding phase. At first glance,
Lowlands appears to be cut from the
same well-worn, soil-splattered cloth
as its pastoral ilk; there are boards
on which you’ll arrange pastures and
their grazing inhabitants, workers
you’ll place for maximum point-
harvesting efficiency, basic resources
for you to collect and invest in
action- or point-boosting buildings.
Raise your eyes from the idyllic green
fields of your farm, though, and you’ll
spot the swirling foam-tipped waves
that lap against the top of the game’s
central board, eroding and rearranging
the foundations that lay underneath
the seemingly untouched appearance.
These waves represent, literally
and figuratively, the sea change at
the centre of Lowlands. The water
threatens the sheep farms of the
players, spurring them to invest their
resources and time in building a dike
to hold back the rising flood. Both
the sea and the dike holding it back
are represented by wooden pieces
that are stacked on top of each other
as the water and barrier rise; it’s a
simple trick, but one that makes for
a stunningly visual spectacle across
the board.
It’s not quite as simple as working
together to do what Canute could not,
however. You’re still trying to ensure
your sheep farm prospers ahead of
your rivals’ – something that pouring
all your resources and workers’ time
into building a dike makes difficult.
Ignore the dike, though, and your
co-operative neighbours will be
rewarded at your expense. If the dike
breaks, you might even find your flock
washed away, which is as devastating
as it sounds.
Lowlands’ shifting value marker
carefully balances its collaborative
and competitive gameplay, both
reflecting the changing value of sheep
in the community and inviting players
to help just as much as they need
to – and no more. This ‘just enough’
mantra is reinforced by the mandatory
requirement to ask another player to
freely contribute to building the dike
after you do, making the act of waiting
to see how long you can leave it before
the water starts lapping at your toes
and you’re forced to spend your own
action a master class in passive-
aggressive collaboration.
Outside of its crowning semi-
co-op subversion, Lowlands is a
far more familiar affair with which
fans of Uwe Rosenberg will feel
especially at home; in fact, Lowlands’
P L AY E D
50-100m 2-4 14+ £65
rulebook proudly proclaims that
Rosenberg himself contributed to its
development, with a stamp signifying
its place in the ‘Uwe Rosenberg
Collection’ and the designer’s
personal recommendation. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, the action away from
the excitement of the rising tide
feels distinctly less groundbreaking,
not wandering far from the fields
that Rosenberg himself has tilled.
WHAT’S IN The management of workers and
THE BOX? labourers to create pastures and
◗ Main board expand your farm will likely feel like
◗ Two sheep second nature to seasoned Agricola
market boards fans, who may find that the focus on
◗ Three resource markers
the coastline leaves the land a little
◗ 85 sheep
◗ Six three-sheep tokens too shallow to properly dig into.
◗ 12 flood cards Lowlands often feels like the rising
◗ 66 resource cards sea that courses along its board.
◗ First Player marker Rather than completely washing
◗ Phase marker away the familiar and starting
◗ 64 fences anew, its pure originality is kept
◗ 36 flood pieces at bay by recognisable gameplay
◗ 13 dike segments
that is reshaped just enough by
◗ Five progress tokens
the fresh blend of collaborative
◗ Value marker
◗ 30 dike breach tokens and competitive to feel unique. Its
◗ Scorepad gameplay flows as effortlessly as
◗ Four farmer +2 tokens waves lapping back and forth, and
◗ 53 coins its impeccable integration of the
◗ Sticker sheet new and old makes it an extremely
◗ 16 facility tiles enjoyable and comfortable experience
◗ 30 building tiles to recommend. But, at the same time,
◗ Four farmyard boards
it feels like we’re just seeing the edge
◗ Four income boards
of an entire ocean of creativity and
◗ Four reference sheets
◗ Four dike point markers innovation just beyond the barrier –
◗ 12 farmers and part of us would like to see what
◗ 16 building markers would come flooding in if it broke.
◗ Eight labourers MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
A familiar theme and gameplay
hide a highly original twist on the
classic agricultural Eurogame.
There’s no doubt Lowlands is
immaculately designed and a
joy to play – we just wish it went
even further with its innovation
when the results are this good.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
AGRICOLA
When a Eurogame is recommended
by Rosenberg himself, you know
you’re in for something special.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 67
 P L AY E D
BLACK ORCHESTRA
How do you think we should be killing Mr. Hitler?
Designer: Philip duBarry | Artist: Dann May, Cody Jones, Lucas Soriano
N
ow we know how Tom Cruise
must have felt when his agent
first called him to offer the lead
role in 2008 thriller Valkyrie: “You want
me to play… a Nazi?” For that is the first
thought that must cross anyone’s mind
when asked to play American designer
Philip duBarry’s Black Orchestra. Like
Cruise in the movie based on the exact
same historical events, this ‘30s/‘40s-set
co-op casts its participants as senior
members of the Third Reich – including
Cruise’s character, Wehrmacht Colonel
Claus von Stauffenberg.
It’s a prickly prospect, especially when
presented by components which don’t
exactly flinch from their subject matter,
being decorated with swastikas and
other Nazi regalia. Still, the offending
iconography is largely incorporated as
sensitively as possible and this is, after all,
history. Well, mostly. The game’s original
title, Hitler Must Die, tells you all you need
to know about its big, counter-factual twist.
Whether you’re playing Stauffenberg
or one of the eight other real-life
68 August 2018
60-90m 1-5 14+ £60
WHAT’S IN once you’re ‘motivated’. Plus, you
THE BOX? must keep both your suspicion level
◗ Game board and Hitler’s military support as low
◗ 10 custom dice
as possible. Because, when the time
◗ Five player pawns
comes to pull off a plot, the latter sets
◗ 13 tracking cubes
◗ 12 plot cards the target for a crucial dice roll – the
◗ 84 event cards higher the tougher – while suspicion
◗ 54 conspirator cards increases the chance of failure
◗ 24 interrogation cards through discovery.
◗ Five deputy tokens It all snaps together smoothly,
◗ Hitler token offering an intense, well-paced and
◗ 24 item tiles engrossing co-op experience in which
◗ Three difficulty tiles
every player must constantly keep
◗ Nine conspirator sheets
their eye on the ultimate objective,
judging the best time to go for it and
roll those dice. There are no short-
term mini-obstacles to surpass here;
it’s all about offing that hated dictator.
The historical context is, for the
most part, incorporated well, with
event cards (drawn at the end of each
player’s turn) depicting real historical
incidents. However, there are some
awkward moments. One card’s
photograph of real persecuted Jewish
families can’t but feel inappropriate,
while it’s discomfiting that each
gradual revelation of Hitler’s horrific
conspirators (all men) who formed Final Solution rewards the players with
the titular cabal, your aim here is motivation – a good thing in game
to hatch a plot to kill the Führer: by terms – even if it makes mechanical
derailing his train, perhaps, or sniping sense. Finally, an invitation to post
him, or poison-gassing him. a pic of a victory card boasting “We
The primary mechanism is action killed Hitler!” on social media feels
management, with a baseline of only a tad tin-eared, trivialising what is
three actions per turn (though risking otherwise largely a smart experience.
a ‘conspire’ dice roll could grant you One that provides an interesting,
more) and a long but intuitive menu thrilling – and timely – immersion in
of options. You must move your one of history’s darkest periods.
pawns around Germany – and later, DAN JOLIN
as the game works through its seven
event-deck phases, Nazi-occupied WE SAY
Europe – uncovering and picking up A superbly calibrated and thematically
items at locations, drawing from the evocative co-op treat which suffers
conspirator deck in search of plots only from the occasional tonal blip.
(which require certain configurations
of items to increase your potential plot
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
dice pool) and handy bonus-ability PANDEMIC
cards for your dossier. Though it seems too obvious
All the while, you must increase to compare any co-op to Matt
your character’s motivation, as you Leacock’s game-changer, Black
can’t attempt an assassination until Orchestra earns it thanks to a
you’re ‘committed’ or ‘reckless’, and savvy matching of thrilling theme
your special ability is only unlocked and spot-on mechanisms.
GRETCHINZ!
Fast cars and big guns in this madcap
Warhammer 40,000 racer
Designers: Roberto Fraga, Johan Lemonnier | Artist: Albert Monteys 30m 2-4 8+ £27

A
s anyone who grew up playing
Warhammer 40,000 knows,
life isn’t easy for the Gretchin.
The smaller, weaker cousins of the
marauding Orks, these diminutive
creatures usually find themselves
stuck with the most demeaning
and dangerous jobs in the 41st
millennium. Whether it’s operating
unreliable weapons or making
suicidal assaults on Space Marine
strongholds, they’re the ultimate
expendable troops.
This new game in the 40,000
universe looks beyond the battlefield,
though, handing players control
of rickety, rocket-fuelled racing
buggies. Designed by the creators of
the brilliant submarine combat sim
Captain Sonar, it pits players against
one another in a contest of speed and
cunning that feels like an ultra-violent
tabletop take on Mario Kart.
The game gleefully embraces chaos,
and its anarchic spirit makes itself
known from your very first turn. Each
round sees you and your opponents
simultaneously rolling handfuls
of dice to determine the actions
available for you to take: manoeuvring
your vehicle, firing your oversized
cannons or performing some cunning
tricks to gain an edge over your
competition. You can re-roll your
dice as many times as you like, but as facing away from you, visible only
soon as one player is happy with their to your opponents. Whenever you
results, they give an intimidating Ork attempt to attack a competitor, you’ll
war cry (“Waaaaaagh!”) signalling choose two cards from your hand and WHAT’S IN
that everyone has to stop, making the turn them over to discover whether THE BOX?
best use of whatever dice they have at you’ve successfully damaged their ◗ Four three-
their disposal. buggy. It means your rivals need to dimensional
With the frantic dice-chucking out keep a stone-cold poker face to avoid racing buggies
◗ 95 terrain/
of the way, you’ll enact your results giving you any hints as to what’s in
attack cards
on a racetrack built from randomly- your hand, and it makes for some
◗ 15 crater cards
drawn terrain cards. Different types of stomach-churning moments as you ◗ Seven player panels
terrain trigger different effects when launch an attack only for your weapons ◗ Four buggy counters
you drive onto them and, with new to spectacularly backfire. ◗ 12 flame counters
cards constantly added to the course, Unfortunately though, this also ◗ 12 dice
it’s impossible to anticipate the leads to the game’s major weak
dangers you’ll face, compounding the point. Accumulate enough damage,
general sense of unpredictability. and you’ll skip your next turn while WE SAY
If you can’t match your rivals’ speed, you perform some impromptu
you’ll also have the perfectly sporting repairs. It’s deeply unsatisfying Gretchinz! combines
frantic dice-chucking,
option of blowing up their karts with sitting out of a round while your
an unpredictable
your vehicle-mounted machine guns, opponents race ahead. environment and risky
and it’s here that Gretchinz! reveals There’s also the fact that taking card-based combat;
one of its cleverest elements. Its the lead in the race automatically if you can grab at the
terrain cards are double-sided, with makes you the prime target for fleeting moments
their reverse face showing symbols your opponents’ aggression, and of control amid the
representing you’ll quickly find yourself under chaos, though, you
hits, misses and a concentrated barrage as your can pull yourself
catastrophic fellow players attempt to halt ahead of your rivals.
It’s silly, competitive
explosions. your progress. It feels a bit like
fun – it’s just a
You’ll hold bullying and, while it might be shame that it suffers
a handful of appropriate to the source material, from miss-a-turn
them, Hanabi- it undeniably sours the game’s mechanisms and a
style, with the frenetic sense of fun. tendency towards
combat side OWEN DUFFY leader-bashing.

TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
GORKAMORKA
If you have fond
memories of the
speed-obsessed
miniatures battle
game, Gretchinz!
might be for you.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 69
 P L AY E D

RAIDS
The longboats that rocked
Designer: Brett J. Gilbert, Matthew Dunstan | Artist: Biboun 40m 2-4 10+ £35

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ World board
◗ Four longship boards
◗ Four longship markers
◗ 40 wooden
Viking pawns
◗ 20 metal coins
◗ Nine harbour tiles
◗ 64 voyage tiles
CE
ED

IT
O R'S C H OI

I WE SAY
f popular culture’s taught us
anything, it’s that Vikings get
everywhere. And also, that they
really love a good, bloody bit of
conquest. So it’s proven on the
tabletop, where it’s starting to feel like
every other new game released has a
Viking theme (see also: Endless Pass,
on page 72). Not that that should be
a turn-off. Not only is it a flexible and
fun milieu, it’s also one that easily fits
a limitless variety of mechanisms – far
beyond games which involve, well, a
bloody bit of conquest.
Here, then, Elysium designer
duo Brett J. Gilbert and Matthew
Dunstan focus on the Norse seafarers’
predilection for voyaging: charging
about in their longboats, trading,
raiding and fighting dragons and giant
squid. (Disclaimer: this game may not
be entirely historically accurate.)
On the surface – and what a crisply
gorgeous surface it is, thanks to artist
Biboun (Chimere, Dice Forge) – it
looks like a race game, with a track
circling around a ‘world’ of fjords
and islands, punctuated by locations
where randomly-placed tiles offer
different rewards: goods, runes, coins
(made of actual metal!), etc. But,
even though the first of the game’s
four rounds does indeed reward
the swiftest lap, it’s by no means as
straightforward as that.
In a Tokaido-ish twist, players take
their turn only when they are the last
longboat on the track – and whenever
they do so, they must remove all the
tiles between them and the next closest
player. In other words, they must catch
up before they can proceed, stopping
them from hogging all the turns. Even
so, racing ahead to the end – you can
lap the world in a single go, if you
want – is rarely an advisable tactic, as
it means you’ll miss out on things to
fill up your longboat (represented by a
player board which only has space for
seven tiles at a time), and spend ages
waiting for your next go.
The trick is to always be looking at
the board as a whole, taking in the
placement of the tiles you feel you
most need and aiming for those –
without making it too obvious to the
other players what you’re chasing, as
players can challenge each other for
a track placement through dice/card-
free attrition-driven combat (which
is why it’s never smart to have too few
Vikings on your longboat).
The aim, naturally, is to earn
the most glory points, and you can
An enduringly
bag those in several different ways.
enjoyable title which
Collecting sets of runes, for example; should satisfy
or picking up a port tile which enables everyone from
you to cash in goods; or gathering gateway gamers
Mjöllnirs, which each give points to tabletop vets.
according to the number of little Including those
Hägars you have on your longboat at who aren’t into
the game’s end. Defeating monsters horned helmets.
also earns bonus points; if you don’t
sacrifice a Viking to dodge round
them and leave them for someone
TRY THIS IF
else to deal with, you simply kill it by YOU LIKED…
throwing out as many of your crew JAMAICA
as the creature has strength points, With its colourful
reducing that by one for each weapon board and nautical
you have on board. Furthermore, each theme, Raids is
round the victory conditions change, definitely one for
earning you points for different those who dug the
achievements like having the most pirate-racing game –
even though there’s
goods or sail tiles at the journey’s end.
no action cards or
There is a saga’s worth of variety dice, and it’s not
within this compactly-constructed really about racing.
game, which is only mildly marred
by an inferior two-player mode
that requires a neutral, placement-
blocking ‘ghost ship’. That aside, it’s a
true joy to play. Even if you’re not, for
some crazy reason, into Vikings.
DAN JOLIN

70 August 2018

THE GRIMM FOREST
If you go down to the woods today,
you’re sure of a big… box
Designer: Tim Eisner | Artist: Mr. Cuddington
T
he Grimm Forest is a simple
worker-placement game set
in the world of fairytales,
specifically the world of The Three Little
Pigs. The original pigs have grown old
and idle, so when the king institutes
an aggressive building programme it
is their younger relatives who answer
the call – that’s you. Having learned
nothing from your uncles and aunts,
you must gather straw, wood and bricks
to build houses all over the kingdom’s
pastoral idyll; the first to three wins.
I have to declare an interest: I designed
a fairly well-known game about fairytales.
That doesn’t make me biased, but it does
mean I’ve spent a lot of time thinking
40-60m
about this subject. Fairytales and folklore
are an amazingly flexible and robust
setting for a game; the characters and
situations are recognisable and you can
mix and match them. But you can shovel
in too many, and without some sense of
purpose the whole thing can fall flat.
The box for The Grimm Forest is
anything but flat. This is one of the
best-presented games I’ve ever seen.
The minis are large and expressive,
from pigs to giants and big bad wolves.
The artwork is gorgeous, there are
components for everything and I’ve
never felt the need to praise box inserts
before. It’s a lovely package; I wish I
could say the same about the gameplay.
WHAT’S IN On each turn you simultaneously
THE BOX? reveal the location from which you’re
◗ Four player boards going to gather straw, wood or bricks, as
◗ Four gather locations well as an optional fable card that can
◗ 45 house sections
introduce new conditions, bonuses and
◗ Four pig miniatures
◗ Six monster miniatures
penalties, depending on where everyone
◗ 75 resource tokens is gathering. Then there’s a buying phase,
◗ 56 fable cards where you get fable cards and purchase
◗ 25 friend cards building parts (floors, walls and roofs,
◗ 20 other cards in that order), followed by a building
◗ Three first phase. If you build a wall you get a
builder tokens friend card: someone from the realms
◗ Starting player token of fairytales to grant you extra powers.
◗ Die
The fables and friends bring the
complexity and fun to the game. Fables
tend to be single-use, friends are more
powerful and stick around but you can
only have one in play at a time – and new
ones automatically bump old ones, so
you can’t hang on to a strong companion
for too long. The art is beautiful, the
mood is well judged and they bring a
bit of magic to the game board.
First player with three finished
houses wins, and that’s the game. It’s
not sophisticated or long, it’s hard to not
do well and luck plays a large part. The
core of the game is choosing where to
gather resources and predicting where
others will choose – it’s a mechanic that’s
familiar and not terribly interesting.
The Grimm Forest doesn’t do
anything with its storytelling elements.
You’re building empty houses for
a greedy king, and the one who
builds the most wins. That’s not very
fable-ish. The game uses the tropes of
folklore, beautifully illustrated, to tell
a story of commercial exploitation. It
feels like you’re a Shrek villain.
The trouble with The Grimm Forest
is that it’s a £25 game in a £50 package.
2-4 10+ £48 The lovely components don’t add much;
you don’t need a huge troll mini if it’s
only going to be on the board for a few
seconds. This is a beautiful masterclass
in presentation. It’s a shame that there
isn’t more gameplay to it.
JAMES WALLIS
WE SAY
Lovely art and minis can’t disguise
thin, repetitive gameplay. The box
says it’s for ages 14-plus, but this
may be one just for the kids.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
FAIRY TALE
Another game based on handfuls
of archetypes from fables, with
simultaneous reveals and good art.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 71
 P L AY E D
PRINCESS JING
Designer: Roberto Fraga | Artist: Naïade
A
fter reinventing Battleship as
the brilliantly tense team party
game Captain Sonar, Roberto
Fraga’s latest puts a similarly innovative
spin on another classic: military
bluffing showdown Stratego.
Fraga’s inventive
touch this time is
introducing
real mirrors
to a maze-
like grid of
screens, which hide
a princess attempting to
cross the board to reunite
with her lover and a maid
easily mistaken for the princess
with too brief a glance.
The extreme brevity of rules means
the strategy is pure, keeping players’
minds focused on tracking their
opponents’ past moves and analysing
ENDLESS PASS:
A VIKING SAGA
Designer: Núria Casellas | Artist: Craig Petersen
T
his debut title from Spanish
designer Núria Casellas takes a
familiar theme (Vikings! Glory!
Valhalla!) and gives it a fresh spin in the
shape of a small but perfectly-formed
card game. It’s so good, it’s almost
hard to recommend it as a game night
warm-up; after a few rounds your
group will likely want to stick with it
right through to the wee hours.
The setting is deceptively
straightforward: each player is a
Viking, tasked with running a gauntlet
infested by Midgard Serpent-spawned,
xenomorph-ish nasties known as the
Endless, hoping to win the most glory in
combat. Each turn, you draw as many
cards from the pass deck as your speed
stat allows (three in the basic version
of the game), keeping any goodies you
might find and contending with the
onslaught of the Endless using your small
but easily refreshable hand of action
cards (again, three in the basic game).
You could kill them with attack
cards (or an offensive item like Greek
72 August 2018
where the princess could be – a correct
guess sends her back to the edge of
the board. There’s a good amount of
opportunity to confuse and mislead by
swapping empty screens, carefully
positioning mirror holders
and guiding rival characters
away from your
princess’ route.
But the
game also
has a looseness
that undermines
its pleasing back-
to-basics scheming. The
mirrors can easily be exploited
– accidentally or otherwise – to keep
tabs on several spaces at once, and the
height of the characters hidden behind
can lead to game-ruining glimpses
or fingertip brushes. Even when care
is taken, the game’s simplicity and
30m 2-6 14+ £20
Fire, or a rare Storm Hammer) to
earn glory, or evade or defend them,
which sends them skittering clockwise
around the table for the next player
to deal with. On top of that, you can
also just straight-out attack your
opponents in the hope of stealing
health or glory – perhaps lobbing a
Greek Fire and praying they don’t play
a defend, which would bounce it right
back to you and make it literally blow
up in your face.
While it’s possible to win via the
ever-dreaded player elimination as
the last Viking standing, this rarely
occurs because the constant back-
and-forth, luck-pressing take-thatting
is so well implemented, everyone
should lock straight into the tactics.
So much so that we recommend
diving straight in with the advanced
rules, where each player can choose
a character with varied speed and
action stats and its own unique
special ability. This adds more flavour
to each play and will make you want
25m 2 8+ £37
occasional slack means its brain-
burning never heats up as much as
you’d like.
Two different ways of playing
are detailed in the rules, although
one essentially serves as a tutorial
of the basic gameplay and is a little
barebones alone – the second ‘expert’
variant, in which each player must
track down two animals in the maze
to identify which of three lovers they
need to meet, has far more staying
power and interesting decisions to
mull over.
With three-dimensional screens,
real mirrors and sumptuous colours,
Princess Jing will turn heads, but won’t
necessarily send sparks coursing
through the grey matter inside. It’s a
game that’s easy to admire, harder to
fall in love with.
MATT JARVIS
to keep going just to try them all out.
In addition, we’d also advise shuffling
the nasty Nine into the pass deck:
spiky boss monsters who each have a
different card or ability immunity. The
tougher it gets, the more fun it is.
Endless Pass is quite simply a
small-box triumph, one which
showers Casellas in glory and makes
us eager to see what she comes up
with next.
DAN JOLIN
BANQUET ROYAL
A visual feast that leaves you hungry
Designer: Alain Rivollet | Artist: Vincent Joubert
I
f Banquet Royal teaches us
anything, it’s that royals, even
if imaginary, eat simple foods:
burgers, salads, fruit and – to bring
some fancy into the equation –
trifles. However, what they lack
in originality when it comes to
choosing dishes, they make up for
with quantity and presentation.
Although players are cooks in the
game, rushing to fulfil the orders of
capricious royals, the only time the
game itself makes players work is
right at the start, when all the dishes
need to be popped out of cardboard
and assembled together. This effort
pays off as the dishes start populating
the game board, creating a beautiful
colourful three-dimensional forest
and filling the entire spread by the
end of the game. Look a little closer,
though, and it isn’t hard to see where
the artwork came off the cardboard
through popping or pieces are just a
little bit too wobbly.
20m 2-4 7+ £23
Once all the pieces have been
assembled, Banquet Royal never
overstays its welcome or feels
arduous to play. Unfortunately, it
is also a dish that lacks that certain
special sauce and contains some out-
of-place ingredients.
Throughout the game, players place
different dishes on trays to create
an alignment of three foods that
WHAT’S IN correspond to menu cards dealt at the
THE BOX? beginning. Completing a card rewards
◗ Double-sided board
◗ 36 menu cards
players with points; there are different
◗ 40 3D dishes levels of difficulty of cards to spice
◗ Eight 3D torques things up.
◗ Eight 3D cloches The beginning of the game is
◗ 10 royal order tokens especially treacherous, as players try
◗ Four reminder tokens to place dishes on the board without
◗ Two reward tokens setting up the next player for scoring
a card – especially hard to do in a
four-player game. Following that
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… AZUL
Unlike Banquet Royal, Azul is incredibly pretty and has exciting, challenging
gameplay. However, both may attract lovers of pattern-making games.
it becomes pretty easy to score a
card per turn until the very end
of the game, when the free spaces
become limited. Sometimes there
is nothing else to do but attempt to
block your opponent, as there are
no opportunities to score yourself,
or thoughtlessly place any dish on
the board to bring the game closer
to an end.
There is another action players can
do that feels at odds with the rest of
the game. Random dish tokens are
redistributed on certain trays and
hidden under the cloches. (The
fact that tokens slot neatly with
the cloches is a nice touch.) At the
beginning of the game, players are
given a chance to memorise which
dishes are under which cloches and
later attempt to guess for a
bonus victory point. This
mechanic feels like it is
from a completely different
game and, frankly, Banquet
Royal may have benefited from
more rules that fit better with
the core concept of building an
alignment of particular dishes.
One of them, for example, could be
to allow players to score multiple
cards on their turn, raising the
stakes and making the gameplay
more challenging and competitive.
Although there is a dedicated
‘gourmet’ mode in Banquet Royal
for more experienced players, it
feels inessential.
The royals may end up satisfied
with their feast but, as players, it
is hard to leave the table feeling
comfortably full. There is a certain joy
in simplicity and straightforwardness
of the gameplay that only lasts 20
minutes, but it also lacks a challenge.
Scoring feels a little too easy and
effortless, and the repetitiveness of
going through the same motions each
turn takes the fun out of it.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
The colourful vibrancy of Banquet
Royal’s components and design
unfortunately does not translate
into its gameplay, the main virtue
of which is its shortness.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 73
 P L AY E D

LUCIDITY: SIX-SIDED NIGHTMARES

Will the dice-roller give you bad dreams, or send you to sleep?
Designer: Shannon Kelly | Artist: William Webb 20-30m 1-4 14+ £30

D
ream-themed games have
become an entire subgenre
in the last few years, from
the haunted whodunit of Mysterium
to dreamy dungeon-cruncher The
Shared Dream and the blindfolded
surrealism of When I Dream. Lucidity
is the latest addition to the club: an
Australian-designed, Kickstarter-
funded, dice-based tiptoe between
dream and nightmare through a
Morpheustic netherworld of… dice.
Lots of dice.
In Lucidity you are a lucid
dreamer travelling into the realm
of nightmares to draw power from
them. At least, that’s the theory. In
practice, you’ll be drawing dice from
a bag, rolling them and putting them
on the relevant spaces on your player
mat, depending on what you rolled.
You’re hoping for power symbols
to add to your stash, because 15 of
them wins you the game. Too many
exhaust symbols will lose you power,
too many hunts will knock you out of
the game and each shadow you roll
triggers an effect based on the colour
of that die. Mostly they’re bad, and
if you collect too many shadows of a
particular colour then you’ll turn into
a nightmare.
It turns out being a nightmare is not
as interesting as 1990s comic books
made it look. Becoming one doesn’t
prevent you from winning the game;
in fact, it gives you extra actions if
other players roll shadow symbols of
your colour, but otherwise limits your
actual choices and ability to do things.
Lucidity is a simple push-your-luck
dice game, bolstered by having lots
of dice to push. Each turn you choose
how many to roll and, once you’ve
done that and put them on your sheet,
you can roll more or pass. Beyond
that, it’s about lining up the dice on
your mat until one of the lines is full.
While rolling handfuls of dice is
always fun, the dice themselves are a
bit small and lacking in heft. If you’re
creating a game that’s mostly about
rolling dice then the dice should be
nice to roll.
The game’s graphics are
atmospheric and intriguing, the rules
presented well and easily understood,
but, despite that, Lucidity never
fulfills the promise of its theme. It
doesn’t feel like exploring a realm
of dark visions and nightmares, or
taking increasing risks to draw their
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
power. There’s no tension or sense of ◗ 80 acrylic dice
journeying into danger. ◗ Nine cards
The mechanics hold together ◗ Four player mats
but aren’t engaging; that – plus the ◗ Four glass markers
chance of being knocked out early ◗ Bag
– suggests that, despite some nice
ideas, this is a design that needed
more time in playtest. There’s a little
player interaction, particularly once
the nightmares arrive, but if you’re
looking for tactics or interesting WE SAY
decisions, dream on.
JAMES WALLIS Most dream-themed
games dwell on
evoking the imagery
and stories of night
visions. The only
symbology you’ll find in
Lucidity are the ones
printed on the dice.

TRY THIS IF
YOU LIKED…
ESCAPE THE
DARK CASTLE
If you like dice-
based games that
hark back to an
earlier age, with
an old-school feel
to the mechanics,
heavy reliance on
randomness and
light on tactics, this
is a good fit.

74 August 2018

A TALE OF PIRATES
Riding high on seas and sandtimers
Designer: Harding Granerud, Skjold Pedersen, Tascini | Artist: Audia
M
y goodness, that ship. If you
want a good idea of how A
Tale of Pirates feels to play,
just take a look at its magnificent
3D centrepiece, a lofty crow’s nest
towering above a cardboard hull as it
rides the waves of your imagination.
Listen: you can even hear the water
sloshing against the planks and seagulls
calling overhead. Oh, wait, that’s the
soundtrack of the companion app.
Even so, you’ll find yourself yarrr-ing
commands at your shipmates as your
sandtimer crew hop between their
responsibilities on the deck. For pirates,
they’re a patient lot – or maybe lazy
bilge rats – waiting half a minute before
loading the cannons, adjusting the
sails, scanning the horizon or adjusting
the ship’s course to a new sector of
the compass it floats upon. Even with
a skeleton crew, there’s enough time
to grab a quick breather and discuss
your next move as you watch the
grains tick away – enough time to be
strategic instead of chaotic, although
the constant countdown and ability
to ramp up the difficulty in-app never
quite turns your voyage into a cruise.
CE
ED
IT
O R'S C H OI
30m 2-4 8+ £45
Sea legs come quickly, settling
comfortably into the rise-and-fall
rhythm of dropping timers into the
deck’s generous holes (sometimes
a little too generous, requiring
drunkenly-slanted sailors to be
WHAT’S IN pulled back to their feet or the
THE BOX? fragile crow’s nest to be hastily
◗ 3D ship reconstructed after catching a timer’s
◗ Six sea sectors edge), watching them drain away
◗ Four sandtimers
and then getting the exciting splash
◗ Three corks
◗ Die
of rolling the attack die, unplugging
◗ 14 damage tokens a damaged section or revealing one
◗ Four cannonballs of the event cards that wait to be
◗ 10 chapter envelopes explored around the compass’ edge.
◗ Five life points Just as you feel you’ve conquered
the waves, you sail smoothly into
the next chapter of the game’s ten-
part campaign, the sense of fresh
discovery and anticipation warming
you like rum. Along the way, your
ship – Ellen, the generous – bears
the record of your journey, the vessel
adapting to the ever-changing waters
it navigates.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… KITCHEN RUSH
Pirates excels in visuals and production where Kitchen Rush lacked polish, but
it’s also a slower, less chaotic rush – and you’ll need the app.
All the while, the app has you
wondering how much more fearsome
Blackbeard would have been with an
iPad, given how intuitive and well-
presented A Tale of Pirates’ digital peg
leg – on which it has no choice but to
stand – is. Each new arrival in the deck
is explained concisely, never costing
valuable seconds to check when
the sand is flowing. The recorded
high scores and star ratings invite
multiple playthroughs of the story,
too – a reassuring inclusion, given
its relatively brief length. The filling
selection of features and options is
topped with a polished visual style,
completing the game’s visual lushness
on and off the table.
Squawk! The app’s own timer,
drizzling virtual sand like vinaigrette
on top of this marvellous concoction
of real-time strategy and immersive
staging, begins to run low. The ship
unleashes a barrage of cannon
fire – its last, for now – and sends a
circling brigantine to the depths. The
sailor at the helm tries to spin the
ship to reveal the final unexplored
sector, but the lookout was too busy
watching for hull-cracking rocks
and the sails were hoisted high to
power through a passage, sacrificing
manoeuvrability for speed. You
hope that no ships appear from the
unknown distance, a guaranteed
cannon strike in their sights.
A Tale of Pirates is a vague,
forgettable name for a game
brimming with such memorable
character, but its ambiguity gestures at
something bigger. This isn’t so much
a tale of pirates as it is a tale of friends
around a table, a tale of last-minute
wins or unlucky losses, a tale of right
calls and wrong decisions, a tale of
hilarity and good times. Whatever tale
you make it, it’s one you won’t forget
in a hurry.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
A Tale of Pirates skims swiftly along on
outstanding presentation, fantastic app
integration and gameplay that’ll keep
you excited for every new adventure.
With times like these out on the seas,
you’ll never want to dock again.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 75
 P L AY E D
MICROPOLIS
Run-of-the-anthill
Designer: Bruno Cathala, Charles Chevallier | Artist: Camille Chaussy
B
runo Cathala, creator of many
notable board games including
Kingdomino, 7 Wonders Duel
and Imaginarium, has teamed up
once again with his Kanagawa and
Abyss co-designer Charles Chevallier
for a tile-drafting game about building
an anthill called Micropolis.
Micropolis effortlessly nails the
balance between offering easy,
approachable gameplay and multiple
strategic paths to victory. It is a
perfect gateway game, where tabletop
newcomers will not struggle with
understanding the rules while veteran
players will still find enough to sink
their teeth into. While this makes
Micropolis a really enjoyable game
it also lacks in originality, making it
hard to compete on the same level as
games in the same wheelhouse, such
as Majesty: For the Realm.
Majesty and Micropolis share very
similar DNA and, unfortunately for
76 August 2018
30m 2-6 8+ £25
WHAT’S IN the latter, this does not work in its
THE BOX? favour. In both games, all players
◗ 61 anthill tiles start with identical bases and then
◗ Six foundation tiles proceed to draft cards or tiles – in
◗ 45 soldiers
case of Micropolis, to trigger abilities
◗ Red army token
and earn victory points. The drafting
◗ Two architect tokens
◗ Scoring pad also works in a similar manner, with
the first card in the line-up being free
to pick up but, in order to gain cards
further down the line, players are
required to leave meeples or red ants
on the preceding cards. While powers,
activated by specialist ants, work well
in Micropolis and are nicely integrated
with the theme, special abilities are
just more varied and fun in Majesty.
Having said that, Micropolis still
has some, if not completely unique,
interesting mechanics that help to
give it its own character. The anthill
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… MAJESTY: FOR THE REALM
If you enjoy quick-flowing, strategic drafting games, Micropolis will tick a
lot of the same boxes as the kingdom-building delight.
is composed of tiles that create a
complete circle around the central
base core. There is a certain spatial
awareness that is required of players
to figure out which tiles to connect
together to build tunnels with ants.
The scoring in part is dependent on
how all tunnels are connected and
what ants or fruit are located within it.
The artwork, like the theme,
is adorable and the game has a
lot of details that make it really
aesthetically pleasing. The little ant
miniatures, in themselves quite
detailed, fit perfectly into a chunky
central base, around which all the
tiles align perfectly. When the whole
anthill is complete, it looks really
nice on the table. The game box has
been specifically designed to fit all
of the components perfectly, making
setup and pack-up seamless.
What really soured my impression
of otherwise a very good game was a
little note inside the rulebook about
the decision to use male pronouns
only. Unfortunately, while this is
hardly unusual, if there is enough
space in the rulebook to add a note
that attempts to justify the choice,
then there is definitely enough
space in there to use ‘him/her’ or
‘their’ instead. Let’s finally let go of
the false pretences that exclusively
male pronouns are used for clarity
– particularly laughable when the
rulebook contains typos.
Micropolis, unfortunately, suffers
from coming out in an incredibly
busy board game market. While it is
a really enjoyable game, with sound
mechanics that work perfectly well
together and even its components
have clearly been designed with
care and attention to detail, its
unoriginality makes it easy to forget
and allows other, similar games to
outshine it. Ultimately, it’s more of a
drone than a queen.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Micropolis is a perfect gateway
game that, despite its many virtues,
falls just short of impressing.
However, its attention to component
design can only be applauded.
HANNIBAL & HAMILCAR
The wargaming classic returns bigger – but is it better?
Designer: Simonitch, Andruszkiewicz | Artist: Jędrzejewski, Kaczmarczyk, Szymanski, Słaby
I
f there’s a beauty to historical warfare
– the fascination of reliving the taut
strategising of virtuosic commanders
across a sweeping battlefield – it’s to be
found in Hannibal, Mark Simonitch’s
1996 historical recreation of the clashes
between Rome and Carthage.
This, a 20th anniversary edition
that packs in a revised and expanded
version of that original game – plus a
new mechanically similar but more
naval-focused prequel, Hamilcar
– is a fittingly gorgeous tribute to
Simonitch’s politically-led simulation,
with handsome artwork and the
option to use plastic miniatures in
the place of the cardboard tokens
representing the generals of each
side. (Though, it has to be said, we still
prefer the tokens for clarity.)
The design remains just as beautiful.
The action is built around an engrossing
card-driven system that would go on to
influence the mighty Twilight Struggle
a decade later, offering a similarly
accessible but head-scratchingly
strategic back-and-forth of using
cards either to trigger events or as
generic points with which armies can
be commanded around the map. This
simplicity becomes the foundation
for layer after layer of historical
atmosphere that effectively captures
the Roman domination of the seas, for
example, or the hardy attrition of winter
that gradually saps troop numbers –
most of which only require a die roll
and relatively quick table consultation.
The decisions and consequences may
often be weighty, but the gameplay that
supports them is rarely so.
The focus here is firstly on immersion,
as the staggeringly asymmetric setup
for some of the historically faithful
scenarios attests. Each is a slow burn
of carefully manoeuvring forces,
claiming regions to widen your political
influence and avoiding conflict until
necessary, inviting you to breathe in
the Mediterranean air of the era.
When battles do occur – the ability
to intercept nearby enemy troops and
dodge approaching armies provides
welcome tactical freedom – they are
60m+ 2 14+ £96
WHAT’S IN THE BOX? fast and brutal. What appears a simple The wall-of-text player aids help
◗ Double-sided board numbers game at first (players draw up somewhat to cut the chaff, but despite
(Hannibal one side, to 20 cards and match their attackers’ their visual density still manage to miss
Hamilcar the other)
plays until they can’t, and lose) gives way out certain details, meaning you’ll have to
◗ Two player aid charts
◗ Reference map/2007
to a more carefully considered strategic return to the books at points until you
edition tables edge, with the option to deliberately memorise every last specificity.
◗ 14 plastic Roman concede battles to minimise losses and You wouldn’t believe it from the
general figures regroup. It’s an effective way to make you rulebooks, but Hannibal & Hamilcar’s
◗ 10 plastic Carthaginian feel like a general at the head of an army, gameplay in motion actually skews
general figures and it works a treat. towards the more approachable end
◗ 65 classic Hannibal Unfortunately, the joy of Hannibal of the wargaming scale – it’s a crying
strategy cards & Hamilcar’s central gameplay and shame that the exhausting drag of such
◗ 10 additional Hannibal
ambiance is smothered by the game’s fundamentals means players may very
strategy cards
◗ 17 multi-use
terrible trio of rulebooks. Ostensibly well miss the chance to experience
strategy cards designed to make learning the game an otherwise brilliantly devised and
◗ 19 Hamilcar easier for complete newcomers lavishly presented historical epic. Instead,
strategy cards unfamiliar with the original, the you’ll feel like you’ve already spent
◗ 48 land battle cards tutorial-like ‘Playbook’ serves only to years fighting your way across Europe
◗ 18 naval tactics cards convolute and confuse during a series before the game even begins.
◗ 28 Roman of poorly-explained scenarios – the first MATT JARVIS
general cards three of which are single-player only,
◗ 15 Carthaginian
general cards
requiring both players to either play them WE SAY
◗ 110 political
separately or one person to passively
A design that continues to impress
control markers watch before playing for real. The main decades on returns in a beautiful new
◗ 66 combat units rulebook helps clear some things up, but set but, if you’re looking to enjoy Hannibal
◗ 23 general markers overwhelms with subclauses, lacklustre for the first time (or the first time in a
◗ 10 walled city markers referencing and the need to search for while), be prepared to suffer through the
◗ Five large walled further clarification in multiple instances. painful approach to learning the basics.
city markers
◗ 11 tribe markers
◗ Five siege markers
◗ Four siege
train markers
◗ 10 Roman
ships counters
◗ 10 Carthaginian
ships counters
◗ Naval supremacy marker
◗ Corvus marker
◗ Proconsul marker
◗ Dictator marker
◗ Turn/truce marker
◗ 15 supply markers
◗ Archimedes
engines marker
◗ Citadel marker
◗ Forgotten tactics marker
◗ Six-sided classic die
◗ Six-sided naval die
◗ Two six-sided
siege dice
◗ Two six-sided
retreat dice
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… TWILIGHT STRUGGLE
Both card-driven wargames are wonderfully evocative of
the vastly different eras they depict, with relatively simple
gameplay giving way to complex and engrossing decisions.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 77
 P L AY E D

WHEN IN ROME
Designer: George Buckenham, Alex Fleetwood | Artist: Steve Bachmayer 30-120m 2-8 13+ £25

When In Rome is the first in the Voice
Originals series of games designed
to be played with the assistance of
Amazon’s smart speaker AI Alexa, who
here serves as quizmaster during a
globehopping travel trivia game.
There is a physical board and pieces
to track the teams’ current locations
and the ‘friends’ they’ve made by
correctly answering questions, as
well as upgrade cards activated by
speaking certain commands (which
opt for using amusing triggers such as
“Fetch the flamethrower” rather than
the dull keywords you might expect),
cities and go beyond worn-out clichés;
we eagerly soaked up knowledge
about local foodstuffs in Mumbai and
myths in Hong Kong. Each answer is
given a good amount of explanation
– and wrong guesses are met with
friendly, natural jabs. Though Alexa can
occasionally be a little too over-wordy,
she is easily hurried along with the right
phrase – a single playthrough never
feels exhaustingly drawn-out.
When In Rome is a promising next step
for the idea of tech on the tabletop, but it’s
better approached as a passing curio than
a game to be captivated by. Unlike Beasts

A
but they're largely unnecessary: Alexa of Balance, which remained rooted in the
fter so effectively making the gives detailed tips on where each team physical experience, the components and
case for iPads at the table can fly next, meaning you could easily gameplay here feel overshadowed by their
with its charming tablet- do away with the physical layout, as digital counterpart. That said, the virtual
connected stacking game Beasts of attractive and well-produced as it is. experience is top-notch – when Alexa
Balance, UK studio Sensible Object It is Alexa who shines here, with lively shows a little more love to the analogue
has turned its attention to inviting and genuinely entertaining writing that side of things, we won’t hesitate to
another piece of home tech to join in belies her robotic nature. Questions invite her back to our game night.
with the fun and games. are read by real-life inhabitants of the MATT JARVIS

STAR WARS: HAN SOLO most valuable prize, the Millennium

CARD GAME
Falcon. These all have different values
and are also drawn at random, meaning
that a decent hand can mean very little
if you happen to claim a naff top prize
Designer: Hasbro team | Artist: Hasbro team 15-30m 2-4 10+ £20 that round anyway. Oh, and if you do get

F
rom its uninspiring name to the
heavily photoshopped artwork
featuring the Hollywood stars of its
source material, the Han Solo Card Game
is a game that oozes the word ‘tie-in’
from every one of its cardboard pores.
But being based on a popular movie and
being a good game aren’t necessarily
independent of each other, especially
nowadays, so: is it actually any good?
The Han Solo Card Game is very
loosely inspired by the fictional
gambling game of sabaac played in the
Star Wars universe (this is far from a
one-for-one recreation). In essence, it’s
a variant of blackjack where the target
is zero instead of 21 and cards can be
positive or negative numbers – the main
decision is whether to draw extra cards
(and potentially discard one of those
you hold) or stay.
That would be fine, if bland, by itself.
To try and make it feel like more of an
exciting taste of a galaxy far, far away, the
Han Solo Card Game throws in a dice
roll at the end of each of three rounds,
with the dice featuring random vaguely
alienish symbols. Because it’s Star Wars,
obviously. Two matching results means
everyone replaces their current hand
with an equal number of freshly-drawn
cards. At random. This even happens
before the final reveal and scoring,
essentially undermining any semblance
of strategy. It’s luck on top of luck.
The winners claim tokens featuring
a selection of Star Wars miscellanea:
ships, stormtrooper helmets and the
the Falcon, someone can steal it off you
with the right set of prizes. More luck.
On the positive side, it at least moves
quickly and, if everyone knows what
they’re in for, can distract for a few
minutes. Don’t expect to easily take it
with you, though: the box is ridiculously
inflated (in every regard) for a small
deck of extremely thin cards, two dice
and some cardboard strips.
If you’re desperate for a prop for your
Star Wars-themed game night (though the
whopping logo on the back of the cards
breaks the immersion somewhat) or have
to own literally every piece of memorabilia
going, the Han Solo Card Game might
find a place in your home. For everyone
else, buy a standard pack of cards (and two
dice, if you really want to play this variant,
though it’s not recommended) and spend
the rest of the money on another trip to
the cinema to remember how Star Wars
should be experienced.
MATT JARVIS

78 August 2018
GENESYS: REALMS
OF TERRINOTH
Solid, generic fantasy for a solid, generic system
Designer: Tim Cox, Tim Huckelbery, Katrina Ostrander | Artist: Various
O
ne of the selling points of
the Genesys system was that
it allowed you to play in any
weird and wonderful world you
desired. While it may seem as though
a setting book like Realms of Terrinoth
would limit this freedom, the new
options, rules and ideas it offers just
expand the GM’s toolbox.
Make no mistake, Terrinoth – home
to several existing Fantasy Flight
games – isn’t exactly the most exciting
or original setting out there. It’s a
world of fire-breathing dragons, noble
heroes and scheming wizards that will
feel instantly familiar to anyone who’s
dabbled in D&D or sunk a few months
into World of Warcraft, with no shock
twist or unique gimmick pushing us
out of our comfort zones.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The generic nature of the world
means that you can bend the ruleset
to fit your wild and wacky campaign
about sky-pirates, subterranean spider-
warriors or immortal champions and
still make use of almost everything
in the book. At the same time, if you
want to run something a little more
conventional, there are plenty of story
threads and fantastical locations already
set out for you to play around with.
A vital part of playing in a fantasy
world is creating your own noble heroes
and heroines, and most of the new
mechanics introduced in Realms of
Terrinoth offer new options to characters.
261
These include the chance to play as orcs,
elves and even catfolk, plus a whole set of
setting-appropriate careers – the rough
equivalent of classes – that replace those
found in the core rulebook. One welcome
addition, when compared to many other
games, is that not all the careers on offer
are combat-focused, so a scholar or
diplomat can offer just as much to the
party as a warrior or mage.
Beyond this, the new options continue
the trend of easy customisability found
in the basic version of Genesys. Within
the space of only a dozen or so pages you
can find rules for modifying weapons
and armour, brewing alchemical potions
and working with magical runes, while
another section lays out the benefits
that a wand fashioned from bone will
offer over one carved from willow.
None of these minor rule updates
or options are particularly deep or
complicated, but they provide so
many little ways to tweak how a
character feels and plays. With a little
imagination, the correct combination
of talents, skills and equipment can
allow players to create virtually any
kind of adventurer they can imagine.
This broad-but-not-too-deep trend
continues with the array of stat blocks
included for new allies and enemies
alike. These are grouped up according to
region, with the desert-based assassins
appearing alongside djinn while elven
archers sit with evil fae. While this doesn’t
always make it easy to find the specific
creature you’re looking for in the heat of
an encounter, it works well for throwing
things together on the fly based upon the
adventure your party is embroiled in.
The difficulty of navigating the book
may in fact be its greatest flaw, as much
of the vital information you would need
13+ £38 to consult on a regular basis is all kept
in one chapter right in the middle of its
260-something pages. This isn’t anything
that can’t be solved with a bookmark or
a well-placed thumb, but it is perhaps
a sign that Realms of Terrinoth is
absolutely stuffed with lore and history.
For some people this will be a
wonderful excuse to sit down and
plough through the background of this
competently-crafted fantasy world, but
for the rest of us the sheer quantity of
lore on offer is a little bit overwhelming.
Perhaps that’s an unfair criticism of a
setting book, where the world it sets out
is one of the selling points, but it’s hard
to see what too many gaming groups
will be able to get from the details of
Eleanor II’s role in the Great Goblin
Uprising of 997, for example.
If you’ve ever wanted to play around
in the world of Runebound, Runewars
or the recent Legacy of Dragonholt, this
should be an instant purchase. However,
even if you don’t have any existing
connection to the world of Terrinoth and
are looking for an alternative to the big
boys of the heroic fantasy market, you
could do much worse than picking this
up alongside a copy of Genesys.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
LEGACY OF DRAGONHOLT
Realms of Terrnioth is set in the same
world as the RPG-lite, and allows the
party to head out on a near-infinite
range of adventures rather than just
those prescribed by the book.
tabletopgaming.co.uk 79
 P L AY E D
MARVEL CONTEST OF
CHAMPIONS: BATTLEREALM
More Fantastic Flop than Fantastic Four
Designer: Carmen Bellaire
O
ne of the best things about the
analogue gaming hobby is the
number of great releases based
on pop-culture hits. Whether you’re
a fan of Star Wars, Firefly or Game
of Thrones, you’ll find a huge array
of games that let you dive into your
favourite movies and TV shows. And,
while video games might suffer from
an abundance of cynical licensed cash-
ins, tabletop game creators generally
treat their source material with more
respect. Designers go to extraordinary
lengths to capture the spirit and
atmosphere of beloved fictional
universes in cardboard and plastic.
That’s what makes Marvel Contest
of Champions: Battlerealm such an
unutterable disappointment.
Based on the acclaimed mobile
app (nope, me neither), this dice-
chucking game of superhero combat
promises to throw some of the
mightiest characters in comics against
one another in a battle of strength,
cunning and tactics. In reality, it’s a
rip-off of King of Tokyo.
Those might seem like strong
words, especially when game design
80 August 2018
WHAT’S IN relies so heavily on designers building
THE BOX? and riffing on games that have come
◗ 13 character boards before. But stop me when this starts
◗ 14 cardboard feeling too close for comfort: you
character standees and your friends each take control
◗ Six custom dice
of a character in a multiplayer
◗ 40 location cards
scrap for supremacy. You’ll each
◗ 52 special
power cards choose a cardboard standee and a
◗ Six player corresponding player board with a
reference cards spinning life counter, and you’ll win
by being the last monst– erm, hero left
standing, or by amassing a set number
of victory points. On each turn you’ll
roll a handful of black custom dice,
with different symbols letting you
inflict damage on your opponents or
reclaim some of your own lost health.
You’ll re-roll unwanted results up to
three times along the way.
To be fair, Battlerealm adds some
new ideas to the mix. The trouble is
that they’re all bad ones.
Rather than gaining new powers
over the course of the game, you’ll
start out with special abilities that
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… KING OF TOKYO
But only if you’re some sort of masochist. If you prefer your dice-battling
with a light tactical marinade, go for King of New York instead.
30-45m 2-6 12+ £39
kinda-sorta represent your character.
But many seem thematically out of
place. Take Black Panther’s ‘King of
Wakanda’ power, which lets him add a
combat symbol to his dice roll. I’m not
sure how that’s meant to represent the
burden of status and responsibility so
deftly explored in the original comics.
Then there are the times when
player abilities seem at odds with
the core premise of the game. You’re
supposed to be jumping through
different locations across the Marvel
universe, positioning your heroes in
places where they’ll have an edge over
their rivals and exploiting different
environments to your advantage. So
why is there a player power which
eliminates almost all locations from
the game, reducing it to a boring dice-
rolling contest?
And then there’s the jewel in
the crown, the Crystal Prison – a
location you’ll be confined to
whenever you have a particularly
unlucky result on your dice rolls.
While incarcerated, you won’t be
able to damage your rivals or be on
the receiving end of their attacks.
You’re out of the game until you
manage to escape. Do not pass Go,
do not collect £200.
With artwork based on its
smartphone predecessor, there isn’t
even a nice comic-book aesthetic to
distract from the misery.
OWEN DUFFY
WE SAY
Marvel Contest of Champions:
Battlerealm falls flat on multiple
levels. Its gameplay is painfully
derivative. Its variable player
powers often feel unconnected
to the characters they purport to
represent. Its artwork has none of
the punch and flair of superhero
comics. The cherry on the cake? It
even comes with a Monopoly-style
‘Go to Jail’ mechanism. Excelsi-urgh!
 WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Three storybooks
◗ Six character cards
◗ Four location cards

ROBIT RIDDLE:
◗ 18 Encounter cards
◗ 45 story cue cards
◗ 30 initial cue cards

STORYBOOK ADVENTURES ◗ 15 story tokens

◗ Five encounter dice
◗ Story die
A mechanical tale with a human heart ◗ Bookmark
◗ Three ending trackers
Designer: Kevin Craine | Artist: John Ariosa 5-45m 1-6 8+ £42 ◗ Six player aids

W
ith the popularity of
Westworld and Blade Runner
2049, dark, complex tales of
robots and androids are returning to the
centre of the current cultural zeitgeist.
Robit Riddle is not that kind of story. It
has possibly one of the sweetest premises
in sci-fi: robots going on an adventure to
solve a mystery of their lost pets, robits.
A mixture between choose-your-own-
adventure and roleplaying game, Robit
Riddle is a gateway into both genres, but
it won’t sustain players for very long. This
is mainly because it tries to do quite a lot,
but must make some sacrifices to fit itself
into the boundaries it creates.
Players begin by choosing a character
and sharing their backstory with the
group. Then, the leader would choose
one of the three storybooks and begin
reading. Occasionally, there will be
straightforward choices to make, such as
which location to go to next. There are
also decisions that require players to roll
dice to progress. If they fail to gain the
desired number of successful outcomes,
it then introduces a mechanic that
bridges into the basics of storytelling.
Every player has a number of story
cue cards, and can gain more throughout
the duration of the game. Integrating
these cues into the current setup of
the story earns a success but costs a
little gear token. If they run out, players
can’t use stories as means to succeed
during an encounter. The stories can
be as simple or as complex and layered
as the players decide but, beyond
allowing them to progress further in an
already predetermined narrative, they
contribute very little overall. This feels
especially oversimplified compared to
games such as Stuffed Fables, which
managed to integrate player agency
within the story itself.
The comparison to Stuffed Fables
immediately brings to mind how
intelligently that game uses its dice,
mixing luck elements with tactics.
This is something Robit Riddle avoids
completely. Although players can
choose which skill to use in order to
have the most chance of success, the
resolution is still tied to the luck of the
roll. This simpler approach would make
sense if Robit Riddle were aiming for a
younger audience than Stuffed Fables,
yet they both suggest suitability for
children aged around eight and up.
Robit Riddle attempts to integrate
a multiplayer experience into one
storybook. The only real player co-
operation comes when attempting to
pass an encounter through story cues.
Otherwise, the storybook occasionally
gets handed from one player to another,
where the reader makes all the story
choices. Therefore, it simply feels like
waiting for your chance to read with very
little participation. This is especially a
shame since two-player choose-your-
own-adventures are hardly a novelty; the
Fighting Fantasy gamebook Clash of the
Princes managed to integrate two-player
gameplay that was consistent with the
spirit of the books, whereas Robit Riddle
settles for a simple pass-and-play.
Undeniably Robit Riddle creates an
intriguing universe. The biggest joy
of the game is meeting its secondary
characters, like Eek Energy, Jingle Jabber
and Ohm Oomph, learning more about
them and finding out what makes them TRY THIS IF
tick. This is supported by gorgeous
YOU LIKED…
CLASH OF THE
artwork, which in itself tells stories. PRINCES
Every character is unique and, through Fans of Fighting
their art, players can begin to discover if Fantasy or any
they are good or bad, hints about their other choose-your-
backstory and where they live. own-adventure
Beautiful and incredibly sweet, Robit gamebooks will
Riddle: Storybook Adventures aspires instantly recognise
to be a first stepping-stone towards the structure
of Robit Riddle.
interactive storytelling. It definitely takes
However, the latter
some steps in that direction, even if it may feel slightly
ends up trying to do too much at the same disappointing if
time. If nothing else, you’ll stick around played after the
long enough to see those adorable robot classics of the genre.
pets reunited with their owners.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
Not exactly an RPG or choose-your-own
adventure but something in-between,
Robit Riddle’s story will soften every
steel heart. That said, those who
would like to play it in a bigger group
may be disappointed by the awkward
integration of the multiplayer experience.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 81
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STAGES
Since there is a large amount
of variety in the crew of the
Enterprise, combined with
matching uniforms, this guide is
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STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a wash of STAGE 3 Apply a layer of Averland STAGE 4 Apply a line highlight of STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a layer of Cadian STAGE 3 Apply a highlight of Kislev STAGE 4 Apply a final fine highlight of
Averland Sunset. Reikland Fleshshade. Sunset, leaving the recesses the Krieg Khaki. Bugman’s Glow. Fleshtone, leaving the recesses Flesh, focusing down the centre Pallid Wych Flesh, only adding small
original colour. the base colour. and top of the head. lines and dots over the previous coat.

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RELEASES BEFORE
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84 February 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 85

20 of 132 pages P L AY E D

ANYONE ELSE
BATTLE FOR ROKUGAN
Legend of the Five Rings expands with
an excellent
area control spin-off. Or are we just
Designer: Molly Glover, Tom Jolly |
bluffing?
Artist: Mathias Kollros, Francesca
Baerald, Nele Diel, ShenFei
90m 2-5 14+ £40
safeguarding it from future attacks
but potentially sacrificing a tactical
advantage during future battles.
Taking over an entire territory
can grant a huge advantage, as each
collection of lands unlocks a single-use
power for the controlling player to use.
The abilities feel fittingly formidable
ED

IT
CE

O R' I and satisfying to execute, but are only

S CHO held onto as long as that player has total
control – meaning waiting to use them
to
their full advantage can be very risky.
Each player also starts with a very
limited supply of scouts and shugenja
that let them spy on some of their
opponents’ tokens, plus a secret

SUBSCRIBE PRINT OR
objective that’s revealed during end-

H
ot on the heels of its recent living
card game revival, Legend of the
Five Rings’ next major franchise
instalment is Battle for Rokugan – a
taut
area control board game that stands
alone as a truly fantastic experience.
If you’re already a fan of Legend of the
Five Rings, you’ll find rough sketches
game scoring for a potential last twist
WHAT’S IN crucially, when – you put your tokens
in the final standings. Funnily enough
THE BOX? down becomes a tense standoff and
for a spin-off to a living card game, the
◗ Game board cardplay is kept to a bare minimum,
◗ 22 territory cards
clash of wits between players. Could
leaving the focus on the placement of
◗ 10 initiative cards the token attacking your province be
a tokens, but the small number, restricted
◗ Seven daimyō screens powerful army needing to be fought
off use and great power of the cards means
◗ 12 secret with ample defence? Or could it simply
that every one lands with a huge impact.
objective cards be a distraction to draw your forces
The combination of straightforward

LEARNI
of the seven competing clans’ broad ◗ First player card away from a surprise attack elsewhere
◗ 189 combat tokens basics, the chance for deceptive mind
during the final placement? You’ll need

strategies in their slightly asymmetrical
special abilities and pools of combat
tokens used for wresting control of
◗ Five shugenja cards
◗ 10 scout cards
◗ 210 control tokens
EVOLVENG
games, and just a smidge of luck and
to constantly guess and second-guess
asymmetry works an absolute charm:
your rivals, especially as every player
Battle for Rokugan is 90 or so minutes
always has a blank bluffing token hidden

D
the map’s various provinces – and the ◗ Four honour of exhilarating Oh My God!-ness,
victory-sealing honour that comes bonus tokens with the rest of their ‘hand’ behind

DIGITAL FROM JUST

air-punching triumph and head-in-
with them. It’s just enough to root the ◗ Four defence their screen, presenting a constant
hands regret (with laughter) as traps
conflict in a wider world that feels more bonus tokens opportunity to mislead and deceive. Games
are sprung, plans go astray and bigaren’t just fun –
◗ Shrine token It’s a tight, thrilling experience that they can also
believable and vibrant, without throwing
◗ Harbour token
moments pop off in every help you
round. boost your brainpowe
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Learning the ropes is easy, with especially explosive during the fifth benefits of
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combat largely coming down to a earth tokens
and final round, as players unleash WE SAY Words by Anna
Evolution
straight battle of numbers – attack with ◗ Round track token
a last-ditch effort to take over entire There’s no need to already be a Legend
Blackwell

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64 February 2018

44 February 2018

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ARKHAM HORROR
FILES INVESTIGATORS
Whether exploring the haunted rooms of Mansions of Madness or confronting
the global threat of Eldritch Horror, give these heroes some colour in a dark world
Words and photographs by Andy Leighton
PAINTS & TECHNIQUES
O
nce again we return to the Lovecraftian
world of Arkham Horror Files – but
PAINTS YOU ZENITHAL STAGES
instead of the lurking monsters we’ve WILL NEED: HIGHLIGHTING Each character is split up into four
stages, each with a list of colours
covered in past, this time we’ll be looking at Abaddon Black Zenithal highlighting at its core is a much
and the corresponding paint that was
how to paint up the intrepid investigators Agrax Earthshade more complicated process than what I
used for it. Each stage uses a different
Aliatoc Blue am going to show you in this guide. I will
confronting the nightmares. Averland Sunset show a basic version that helps apply
technique to achieve a similar effect on
each element but with different colours.
The miniatures we’ve used in this guide are Biel-tan Green a simplified version of highlighting. This
Blue Horror begins at the basecoating stage, whilst
included in the Mansions of Madness: Second Cadian Fleshtone
Stage 1 is base colours. Base colours
preparing the model for the later stages.
Edition box, but represent some of the many are applied using a mix of glazes and
Ceramite White
flat colours. On some investigators
recurring investigators of the connected Arkham Dark Reaper Begin by
this stage asks you to apply a thinned-
Dawnstone basecoating
Horror Files universe who also pop up in Arkham down coat – this is achieved with a mix
Doombull Brown the
of one part paint to three parts water.
Horror and Eldritch Horror, meaning they can Dorn Yellow miniature
Drakenhof Nightshade black. This
be used freely in those board games once you’ve Druchii Violet is easiest
Stage 2 is applying shading and
layering. In this stage we use various
given them a makeover. Fenrisian Grey with a black
washes and glazes to add an element
Karak Stone spray paint.
Like the monsters before them, the Mansions Kislev Flesh
of shading to the models – where this
characters don’t really wow out the box, feeling is not required we add a layer over the
Lamenters Yellow
previous applications, only leaving the
fairly generic and lacking definition. Still, they are Mechanicus Standard Grey Once the
recesses showing the original colour.
Mephiston Red black is dry,
great for painting, allowing a little colour and some Nuln Oil apply a light
Stage 3 is highlighting. This stage
careful highlights to add what the sculpt lacks. Pallid Wych Flesh spray of
involves applying a line of your colour
Rhinox Hide white from
Much like the monsters guide, I wanted to Russ Grey the top
along the hard edges and ridges of
the area. I would recommend using a
approach the models in a slightly different Steel Legion Drab around the
fine brush and adding a tiny dash of
Sycorax Bronze model.
fashion in order to enhance the gothic, spooky Temple Guard Blue
water to your paints.
This will
element integral to the games’ setting. I chose to Ulthuan Grey create a
If you find yourself unsure of where to
continue this with the characters to help tie the Wazdakka Red light element of highlighting and shading
apply the highlights or spot highlights,
Xereus Purple straight off the bat, that will either
whole set together and further reinforce the dark look over the images alongside the guide
XV-88 provide shading and highlighting in later
and compare that stage to the last.
atmosphere of the game. Yriel Yellow stages or a guide as to where they
Zandri Dust should be applied.

August 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 83

 A R K H A M H O R R O R F I L E S I N V E S T I G AT O R S

PRESTON RITA
FAIRMONT YOUNG
BASE COLOURS BASE COLOURS
Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a thin
layer to the skin. Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a thin
XV-88: Apply a thin layer to the suit. layer to the skin.
Rhinox Hide: Apply a thin layer to Abaddon Black: Apply a thin layer
the hair, cane and shoes. to the hair.
Ulthuan Grey: Apply a thin layer to
the dress, socks and shoes.

SHADING & SHADING &

LAYERING LAYERING
Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a
wash to the underside of the skin very light wash to the bottom of
and a light coat to the shirt and tie. the skirt, shoes and socks, and
Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the lower underside of the sleeves. Also, apply
half of each section of the suit. a wash to the underside of the skin.

HIGHLIGHTING HIGHLIGHTING
Kislev Flesh: Apply several thin Kislev Flesh: Apply several thin
layers over the skin, focusing on layers over the skin, focusing on
the upper half. the top half.
XV-88: Apply a highlight to the hair Ceramite White: Apply several
and cane. thin layers to the dress, shoes and
Ulthuan Grey: Apply a highlight of socks, building to a white highlight.
the shirt and tie. Aliatoc Blue: Apply in lines to the
Karak Stone: Apply a highlight to socks and dress.
the suit. Dark Reaper: Apply a highlight to
the hair.

84 August 2018
AGATHA MINH
CRANE THI PHAN
BASE COLOURS BASE COLOURS
Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a thin Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a thin
layer to the skin. layer to the skin.
Doombull Brown: Apply a thin layer Abaddon Black: Apply a thin layer
to the suit and shoes. to the hair and shoes.
Ulthuan Grey: Apply a thin layer to Temple Guard Blue: Apply a thin
the hair and lab coat. layer to the dress, avoiding the
Sycorax Bronze: Apply a layer to collar and belt.
the pendant and buttons. Averland Sunset: Apply a thin layer
to the books.

SHADING & SHADING &

LAYERING LAYERING
Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a
very light wash to the bottom of wash to the underside of the skin
the lab coat and underside of the and the lower half of each section
sleeves. Also, apply a wash to the of the dress.
underside of the skin and hair. Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the book.
Druchii Violet: Apply a wash to the
lower half of each section of the
suit and the shoes.
Biel-tan Green: Apply a wash to
the medallion.

HIGHLIGHTING HIGHLIGHTING
Kislev Flesh: Apply several thin Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply several
layers over the skin, focusing on thin layers over the skin, focusing
the top half. on the top half.
Ceramite White: Apply several Blue Horror: Apply a highlight to
thin layers to the lab coat and hair, the dress.
building to a white highlight. Ceramite White: Apply a highlight
Wazdakka Red: Apply a highlight to to the collar, belt and glasses.
the suit and shoes. Dorn Yellow: Apply an edge
highlight to the book.
Dawnstone: Apply a line highlight to
the hair and shoes.

tabletopgaming.co.uk 85
 A R K H A M H O R R O R F I L E S I N V E S T I G AT O R S

FATHER CARSON
MATEO SINCLAIR
BASE COLOURS BASE COLOURS
Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a thin Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a thin
layer to the skin. layer to the skin.
Abaddon Black: Apply a thin layer Abaddon Black: Apply a thin layer
over the robes, shoes and hair. to the upper body of the suit and
Once dry, add a further thin layer the shoes.
to the bottom half of the robes Mechanicus Standard Grey: Apply
and sleeves. a thin layer to the trousers.
Mephiston Red: Apply a thin layer Sycorax Bronze: Apply a layer to
to the sash. the buttons.
Sycorax Bronze: Apply a layer to Ulthuan Grey: Apply a thin layer to
the cross. the hair, shirt and tie.

SHADING & SHADING &

LAYERING LAYERING
Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply
wash to the underside of the skin. a wash to the underside of the
Druchii Violet: Apply a wash to skin and the shaded areas of the
the bottom half and recesses of trousers, shirt, tie and hair.
the sash.
Biel-tan Green: Apply a wash to
the cross.

HIGHLIGHTING HIGHLIGHTING
Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply several Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply several
thin layers over the skin, focusing thin layers over the skin, focusing
on the top half. on the top half.
Wazdakka Red: Apply a highlight Russ Grey: Apply a highlight to the
to the sash. jacket and shoes.
Russ Grey: Apply a highlight to the Ceramite White: Apply a highlight
robes and hair. to the shirt, tie and hair.
Ceramite White: Apply a coat to Fenrisian Grey: Apply a light
the dog collar. highlight to the trousers.

86 August 2018
WENDY WILLIAM
ADAMS YORICK
BASE COLOURS BASE COLOURS
Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a thin Cadian Fleshtone: Apply a thin
layer to the skin. layer to the skin.
Doombull Brown: Apply a thin layer Steel Legion Drab: Apply a layer to
to the hair. the upper-body clothes.
Abaddon Black: Apply a thin layer Dark Reaper: Apply a thin layer to
to the neck scarf and shoes. the trousers, shovel head, buttons
Sycorax Bronze: Apply a layer to and belt buckle.
the candlestick and amulet. Doombull Brown: Apply a thin
Xereus Purple: Apply a thin layer to layer to the boots, hair, shirt and
the waistcoat and skirt. shovel handle.
Karak Stone: Apply a thin layer to the Karak Stone: Apply a thin layer to
candle, shoulders, apron and hem. the skull.
Dawnstone: Apply a thin layer to
the sleeves.

SHADING & SHADING &

LAYERING LAYERING
Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a
wash to the underside of the skin. wash to the underside of the skin.
Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the areas Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the lower
furthest from the candle, creating a half of each section of the jacket,
circle around the candle unwashed. shirt, trousers, shovel and hair.
Biel-tan Green: Apply a wash to the Agrax Earthshade: Apply a wash to
amulet and candlestick. the lower half of the skull.

HIGHLIGHTING HIGHLIGHTING
Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply several Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply several
thin layers over the skin, focusing thin layers over the skin, focusing
on the half closest to the candle. on the top half.
Also apply a highlight to the arm Russ Grey: Apply a highlight to the
closest to the candle, and the top trousers and shovel head.
left of the apron. Karak Stone: Apply a highlight to
Wazdakka Red: Apply a highlight the jacket and skull.
to the half of the hair closest to Zandri Dust: Apply a highlight to
the candle. the hair, handle and shirt.
Yriel Yellow: Apply a highlight to the
top of the candle.
Lamenters Yellow: Apply
lightly over the ‘circle’ around EYES
the candle, building in intensity Abaddon Black: Paint ovals over
towards the flame. the eyes.
Ceramite White: Paint another
oval within the first, leaving a
faint outline.
Abaddon Black: Add a small dot to
the top centre of the eye.

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

SETTING BOUNDARIES
Endless imagination often means that little is off-limits in the worlds of
roleplaying games. Still, there are certain subjects that require careful
handling if you want your group to enjoy every moment at the table
Words by Richard Jansen-Parkes

O
ne of the most impressive
things about tabletop RPGs
is the ease with which
players become utterly
invested in characters
conjured up from raw imagination and
half-remembered fantasy novels.
Usually this is a blessing – getting a friend
or family member to shed a tear over a
fallen ally is often the proudest moment of a
GM’s career – but, if handled poorly, it can
amplify the consequences of bad decisions
and moments of poor taste. Watching a film
or reading a book with upsetting content
and themes can be horrible, but at least you
aren’t having to actively participate in it.
This is something that our group had to
navigate carefully when the player behind
the party’s sorceress idly wondered if there
might be any long-term consequences
to the week she’d spent relaxing with her
boyfriend, a captain in the Queen’s Guard
who’d been elevated from nameless NPC
cannon-fodder to stalwart ally after a series
of spectacular combat rolls. It was late in
the night and we were in a cheerful sort
of mood, so, without really thinking of the
implications for the campaign, I had them
roll for it.
Whatever mysterious force that guide
dice rolls seems to have a strange sense of
humour about these things, so naturally
the tiny chunk of plastic bounced off a wine
glass and came down as a 20.
And just like that, Criella the Sorceress
was pregnant.

88 August 2018
Tales from the Loop protects Once the wave of immature giggling had
its young characters from died down, we realised that we’d accidentally
serious harm and death introduced a new story thread to the game
– one that had the potential to be deeply
upsetting if we handled it clumsily.
Characters dying off or being badly injured
in combat was an important part of the game,
but none of us were comfortable with those
stakes extending to an unborn child.
So, as a group, we agreed that we’d find a
reason for Criella to split off from the rest of
the group for a while – not because she was
any less effective at her role, but because plot
armour doesn’t mesh very well with the rules
of the game – and work out what her player
wanted to do a few months down the line.
Most importantly, we agreed that any
medical drama or danger surrounding the
pregnancy was off-limits. There weren’t
going to be any edgy twists or sudden shock
revelations that pressed back on the borders of
what was acceptable.
We were here to have fun, after all.
TOO DARK FOR A DARK WORLD
In some ways, the decision to force the world
to bend to the will of the group in order to
avoid something we would find upsetting can
seem a little out of place, or even hypocritical.
After all, when you take a step back and
think about it, most of the RPGs we play are
stuffed to the gills with all kind of horrors
and darkness; it’s rare that most adventurers
manage to wander between dungeons
without being obliged to hack a wandering
ogre into bloody lumps, while evil cults
sacrificing innocents seem to be lurking in
every other basement.
So why are some kinds of depravity staples
of the hobby while others are kept under lock
and key? Why do we clap and cheer when the
bounty hunter rolls a critical hit and blasts the
imperial commander’s head clean off, but shy
away from more mundane horrors?
Perhaps the biggest factor is that, for
the most part, we as players remain safely
insulated by the more conventional kinds of
nastiness going down in the game world.
While RPG combat can be bloody, it’s
usually the same kind of fantastical fare we
munch popcorn to in the cinema: an exciting
clash of foes that has – for the vast majority of
us – as much relation to our day-to-day lives as
the magic spells our wizards cast. As horrible
as the chaos-worshipping nutters we confront
may be, they aren’t exactly the kind of thing
we need to worry about in real life. Hopefully.
This means that their evil excites and unsettles
us, but doesn’t upset us.
Other kinds of horror… well, they strike a
little closer to home.
TRIGGER WARNING
From sexual violence to stereotyped
portrayals of mental illness, there’s a
lengthy list of topics that can make the
folks gathered around the table feel
uncomfortable and unwelcome. Some
of these might be obvious while others
may not be so readily apparent but,
unless there’s a very, very good reason for
including them, most of the time these are
probably best left on the cutting room floor.
Of course, what is and isn’t appropriate
can’t always be set in stone and can vary
with both the group and the system they’re
playing. Games like Tails of Equestria
probably have an even longer list of things to
avoid than most conventional games. Heck,
if you’re running the wonderful Tales from
the Loop according to the rules, the children
you play as aren’t even able to be seriously
hurt, let alone killed.
On the other side of the coin there
are intentionally dark and disturbing
titles like Vampire: The Masquerade and
Lamentations of the Flame Princess, where
genuine, unapologetic evil is a core part of
the experience.
Even then, of course, there is a difference
between pushing the boundaries of what’s
acceptable and driving players away from
the table, especially if people aren’t made
completely aware of the kind of games they
are before sitting down to play.
HAPPY & SAFE
No doubt, there are plenty of people out
there who don’t really agree with me. For
some folks, placing limits on what kind of
subject matter can come up at the table is
babying your players at best – and edging
close to censorship at worst.
Likewise, I’m sure that there are plenty
of stories out there about the time an arc
packed with overt racism turned into a great
real-world discussion, or where a question of
whether the heroes should slay the children
of their monstrous foes led to incredible
character development.
If you only take away one thing from this
piece, however, let it be that introducing
controversial topics to a game isn’t
something to be done casually or on a whim.
There’s room for having characters make
tough decisions, and for placing them in
difficult situations where there isn’t a clear
division between right and wrong, but not
for making the players themselves feel so
uncomfortable that the game becomes
something to endure rather than enjoy. After
all: if we aren’t enjoying ourselves, why are
we playing?
tabletopgaming.co.uk 89

EVENT REPORT
BORDON GAMESFEST
Pastor and player Dominic Clarke talks us through the
inaugural Hampshire event and its plans for years to come
Interview by Matt Jarvis
This year’s Gamesfest is the first! Why did
you decide to start a convention?
First and foremost, I am a lifelong tabletop and
RPG enthusiast. My mates and I have been
meeting up monthly to play games and I have
always dreamed of establishing a proper club and
running a really exciting event like Gamesfest.
My overall ambition is just to promote this type of
gaming as a hobby, because I love it.
I work in the community – I’m actually the
pastor of a local church – and so am always
looking for events and activities that bring
people together in a positive way. Tabletop
gaming is a great way to do that, and so it is
really important to us that we put the event on
and offer free entry to everyone.
 
What were you surprised by as you planned
the event?
The real challenge is knowing how many
people are going to show up! We have a really
excellent but contained space at the Phoenix
Theatre and Arts Centre and are taking over the
whole building with games going on in several
different rooms.
Bringing everything together is a challenge but
lots of fun. The best bit about organising the event
is how helpful and keen everyone is.
 
What makes Bordon the right place to hold
a gaming meet-up like Gamesfest?
Bordon is currently the site of one of the
biggest urban regeneration projects in the UK
at the moment. It is a really exciting place with
new people, especially families, moving in.
There are lots of exciting things going on and
Gamesfest will complement it all nicely.
August 2018
Bordon is also home to two big companies
in the board gaming world, GamesQuest and
Asmodee, and both are supporting the event fully.
The Phoenix Theatre also describes itself as
“Hampshire’s friendliest venue”. We have good
connections across the south of England and
are not far from London.
What’s unique about Gamesfest versus
other gaming get-togethers?
Gamesfest’s focus is definitely going to be
about introducing people to new games, or
even introducing them to board gaming itself
as a hobby. It is also a totally family-friendly
event. That’s not to say that we won’t welcome
seasoned gamers – we are planning to keep
one room aside for the more complicated
‘hardcore’ gamers, and are hoping to offer an
after-hours gaming session at the end of the
day for real pros.
Our venue is homely, comfortable and very
friendly, and in the auditorium we are going
to be able to put on some of the more visual
and interactive games that people can enjoy
watching, like When I Dream.
 
Will the event be all about board games, or do you
have plans for RPGs and miniatures, too?
This year we are going to focus more on board
and card games of all types. I really hope that
Gamesfest will become an annual event and
that we will also be able to launch a games
club off the back of it too. So, future events
can always branch out into RPGs. I would
personally love that, having spent an awful lot
of the 1980s playing Dungeons & Dragons, Call
of Cthulhu and Star Trek RPGs!
UPCOMING EVENTS
GRAND TRIBUNAL
Friday August 17th to Sunday 19th
Gas Green Community Centre, Cheltenham
roleplaying, freeform and boardgame
convention dedicated to the games and
settings of Atlas games, such as Ars Magica,
Unknown Armies, Over the Edge and Rune.
Features some freeform LARP, plus a large
Ars Magica game suitable for everyone.
grandtribunal.org
GAMESCON
Saturday September 1st
Emsworth Community Centre, Emsworth
A new convention for board gamers and roleplayers.
gamescon.co.uk
TABLETOP SCOTLAND
September Saturday 1st to Sunday 2nd
Dewars Centre, Perth
Held in the heart of Scotland and open to
all forms of gaming. Roleplayers can enjoy a
Dungeons & Dragons Epic Adventure.
tabletopscotland.co.uk
HEREWARD WARGAMES SHOW
Sunday September 2nd
The Cresset, Peterborough
Back for a third year, this wargaming
show features a good mix of traders, plus
tournaments and participation games.
hereward-wargames.co.uk
CONCRETE COW
Sunday September 15th
The Old Bath House, Milton Keynes
The Milton Keynes RPG Club returns for its
regular one-day event open to any RPG.
mk-rpg.org.uk/Concrete_Cow
GNOMECON
Friday September 21th to Sunday 23rd
Holiday Inn Bolton Centre, Bolton
All in the name of charity, this north-west
show includes a large bring-and-buy and raffle.
gnomeboardgamers.com/upcoming-events
THE OWLBEAR AND THE
WIZARD’S STAFF
Saturday September 22nd
The Band Factory, Leamington Spa
A one-day roleplaying event offering sessions
morning and afternoon, with a lunch break
and pub trip at the end of the day.
bit.ly/2zm7cSe
RAIDERS OF THE GAME CUPBOARD
Saturday September 22nd
Waterside Community Centre, Burton upon Trent
A friendly day event that’s open to every one
and every type of game, from RPGs to minis.
raidersofthegamecupboard.co.uk
TABLETOP GAMING LIVE
Saturday September 29th to Sunday 30th
Alexandra Palace, London
Play the latest from the creators of your
favourite games in London’s beautiful
Alexandra Palace! Featuring the latest from
Gen Con and early looks at Essen releases,
spanning board games, miniatures, RPGs and
more. Plus participation games, tournaments
and seminars – it’s an unmissable weekend!
ttgami.ng/ttglive18
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-Sea, TN38 8BL Cheadle Hulme, M15 4ST Hemel Hempstead, HP1 1LD
THE CHATTERIS WARLORDS
OLDMELDRUM WARGAMES GROUP GAMES CLUB WEDNESDAY NIGHT GAMING EASTBOURNE ELEMENTAL GWENT HERTFORD BEER & BOARDGAMES
Inverurie, AB51 0AA Chatteris, PE16 6NA Redruth, TR15 3QY Eastbourne, BN21 3XQ GWENT REAVERS TABLETOP Hertford, SG14 1HH
GAMING CLUB
ANGUS THE GAMES TABLE COUNTY TYRONE FAMOUS COLLECTABLES Abertillery, NP13 3DJ HITCHIN HERETICS
KIRRIEMUIR WARGAMES CLUB Cambridge, CB24 4RP OMAGH WARGAMES CLUB Bexhill-on-Sea, TN40 1DU Hitchin, SG5 1XL
Kirriemuir, DD8 4HN Omagh, BT78 1HL GWYNEDD
CARMARTHENSHIRE UCKFIELD TABLETOP GAMERS CONWY WARGAMES CLUB NORTH HERTFORDSHIRE
AYRSHIRE CARMARTHEN OLD GUARD DERBYSHIRE Uckfield, TN22 5DT Llandudno, LL30 3LB WARGAMES CLUB
NORTH AYRSHIRE Carmarthen, SA31 3AD CONSORTIUM GAMES Hitchin, SG5 1XL
WARGAMES CLUB CLUB @GHQ EAST YORKSHIRE HAMPSHIRE
Irvine, KA12 0BA TOWY VALLEY TYRANTS (TVT) Chesterfield, S40 1JW WOLDS WARGAMERS ARBBL NORTH LONDON WARGAMES CLUB
Carmarthen, SA31 2JE Driffield, YO25 6SS Andover, SP10 1DQ Waltham Cross, EN8 9AJ
BEDFORDSHIRE DERBY ON BOARD GAMES
BASEMENT GAMING CLUB CHESHIRE Derby, DE1 1QH ESSEX BLACK HOLE WARGAMERS POTTERS BAR GAMES CLUB
Luton, LU3 3AN ALTRINCHAM BASILDON WARBOYZ Petersfield, GU32 3HS Potters Bar, EN6 5BT
WARGAMING CLUB GROWN UP’S GAMES NIGHT Basildon, SS16 4NW
BEDFORD BOARD GAMING Altrincham, WA14 4PG Matlock, DE4 3FQ CHINEHAM BOARD GAMERS ST. ALBANS BOARD GAME CLUB
Bedford, MK40 2SX COLCHESTER WARGAMES Basingstoke, RG24 8LT St. Albans, AL3 5PE
CHEADLE BOARD ROOM SUNDAY NIGHT BOARD GAMING ASSOCIATION
BEDFORD GLADIATORS Cheadle, SK8 1DW AT THE OLD KINGS HEAD BELPER Colchester, CO3 5RH DARK WORLDS THOR’S HAMMER GAMING CLUB
Bedford, MK41 7TW Belper, DE56 1NP GAMING SOCIETY Borehamwood, WD6 5PR
CHESHIRE GAMERS ESSEX WARRIORS Fareham, PO15 6TL
BOARD GAMES IN BEDFORD Crewe, CW1 4NJ DEVON Chelmsford, CM1 3DU TRING WARGAMES CLUB
Bedford, MK41 0TU BARNSTAPLE SLAYERS FARNBOROUGH Tring, HP23 6BA
CONGLETON AND DISTRICT GAMING CLUB GBCON QUARTERLY WARGAME SOCIETY
LEIGHTON BUZZARD LIGHT BOARD GAMES GROUP Barnstaple, EX32 8LS GAMING DAY Farnborough, GU14 7LE WARLORDS WARGAMING
GAMING CLUB Congleton, CW12 1AH Loughton, IG10 4LF ST. ALBANS
Leighton Buzzard, LU7 1ES CULLOMPTON BOARD FIRESTORM CARDS OPEN St. Albans, AL3 4DJ
ELEMENT GAMES NORTH GAMES GROUP LOUGHTON STRIKE FORCE GAMING NIGHT
SAXON GAMES & CRAFTS WEST GAMING CENTRE Cullompton, EX15 1JX Loughton, IG10 1LH Basingstoke, RG24 8FB WATFORD WARGAMES CLUB
Bedford, MK40 4FU Stockport, SK2 6PT Watford, WD17 4PN
DARK STAR GAMING SOUTHEND-ON-SEA FORDINGBRIDGE GAMING CLUB
BERKSHIRE GUARDIANS OF THE GAMES Plymouth, PL4 0AL ROLEPLAYING SOCIETY Fordingbridge, SP6 1AS WELWYN WARGAMERS
BROAD STREET GAMERS (TABLETOP GROUP) Southend-on-Sea, SS1 1BD Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6PS
Wokingham, RG40 3AQ Macclesfield, SK11 6UB EAST DEVON TABLETOP GARY DONALDSON
& RPG GROUP THE HORNCHURCH Waterlooville, PO8 8RG INVERNESS-SHIRE
NEWBURY & READING MUG AND GAME Honiton, EX14 1HR WARGAMES CLUB INVERNESS TABLETOP GAMERS
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION Congleton, CW12 1PG Romford, RM3 9LB PORTSMOUTH ON BOARD Inverness, IV1 1LU
Newbury, RG14 2RA EXMOUTH IMPERIAL Portsmouth, PO1 1PT
POYNTON BOARD GAME DAY WARGAMES CLUB THE OVERLORDS ISLE OF MAN
NEWBURY & READING Stockport, SK12 1RB Exmouth, EX8 4SW Dagenham, RM8 2HQ RINGWOOD ASSOCIATION KB TABLETOP GAMING
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION OF WARGAMERS - ISLE OF MAN
Newbury, RG1 4PS VARIABLE MAGERS GAME NIGHT @ CARPE THE PHOENIX GAMES CLUB Ringwood, BH24 1DW Isle of Man, IM4 4LA
Stockport, SK4 3BS Plymouth, PL4 8EU London, E13 0AD
THATCHAM TABLETOPS SOLENT WARGAMERS CLUB KENT
Reading, RG7 6QH WARRINGTON BOARD NEO TIVERTON GAMING CLUB FIFE Portsmouth, PO1 1PT ALL AROUND THE BOARD
GAMES CLUB Tiverton, EX16 5JJ DUNFERMLINE WARGAMING Westgate-on-Sea, CT8 8RE
WARFIELD BOARD GAMERS Warrington, WA1 2SX AND ROLEPLAYING FELLOWSHIP SOUTHAMPTON SLUGGAZ
Bracknell, RG42 2DD PLYMOUTH ASSOCIATION Dunfermline, KY12 7DS Southampton, SO17 2JZ ASHFORD (KENT)
WINSFORD WARHAWKS OF WARGAMERS BOARDGAMES CLUB
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION WARGAMING CLUB Plymouth, PL3 5TB EAST NEUK TABLETOP GAMES THE SOUTHAMPTON GUILD Ashford, TN24 9AJ
OF READING Winsford, CW7 4AT Anstruther, KY10 3DJ OF ROLEPLAYERS
Wokingham, RG41 5DU TORQUAY BOARD GAME CLUB Southampton, SO14 0LH BEXLEY REAPERS
CLEVELAND Torquay, TQ2 7AD KIRKCALDY MEEPLE CLUB WARGAMING CLUB
BIRMINGHAM HARTLEPOOL Kirkcaldy, KY2 6LF THE THIRD COALITION Bexley, DA5 1AA
BIRMINGHAM WARGAMES WARGAMES SOCIETY DORSET WARGAMES CLUB
AND BOARDGAMES CLUB Hartlepool, TS24 7DH SOUTHBOURNE TABLETOP FLINTSHIRE New Milton, BH25 5BT CANTERBURY CRUSADERS
AKA DRAGOON’S DEN & BOARDGAMERS DEESIDE DEFENDERS Canterbury, CT1 1RT
Birmingham, B13 9EA REDCAR IRONBEARDS Bournemouth, BH6 3AA Chester, CH4 0DR WATERLOO TABLE TOP GAMERS
Redcar, TS10 1RH Waterlooville, PO8 8RG GRAVESHAM WARGAMING
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE WESSEX WYVERNS FGC FLINTSHIRE GAMING CLUB AND TABLETOP GAMING CLUB
MILTON KEYNES CO ANTRIM WARGAMES CLUB Mold, CH7 6SZ WESSEX WARGAMES Gravesend, DA11 9EU
WARGAMES SOCIETY DRAGONSLAYERS Ferndown, BH22 9AN WINCHESTER
Milton Keynes, MK11 1JQ Belfast, BT7 1NN GLASGOW Winchester, SO22 4QB GREENWICH & BLACKHEATH
WEYMOUTH LEVELLERS CLUB ANTONINE BOARD GAMERS BOARD GAMES AND BEER CLUB
NEWPORT PAGNELL QUB DRAGONSLAYERS Weymouth, DT4 0AR Glasgow, G64 4EN WESSEX WYVERNS London, SE3 7JQ
BOARD GAMES CLUB Belfast, BT7 1NN GAMING CLUB
Newport Pagnell, MK16 8AN WORLDS AWAY GLASGOW GAMES ROOM Ringwood, BH24 2NP MAIDSTONE WARGAMES SOCIETY
CO CORK Bournemouth, BH2 5RQ Glasgow, G20 7QE Maidstone, ME17 4AW
WYCOMBE WARBAND BRETHREN WARGAMING CLUB HEREFORDSHIRE
Beaconsfield, HP9 1LG West Cork, T23 F577 DUMFRIESSHIRE UNPLUGGED GAMES CLUB DICE AND DECKS MEDWAY AREA BOARDGAMERS
ANNAN GAMING CLUB Glasgow, G41 3AB Ross-on-Wye, HR9 5HR Maidstone, ME14 1ED
CAITHNESS CO DURHAM Annan, DG12 6EF
NORTHERN KNIGHTS WARGAMES DARLINGTON’S GLOUCESTERSHIRE HEREFORDSHIRE MERRYCHEST CAFE GAMING CLUB
Thurso, KW14 8HN DOGS OF WAR THE FIVE ARCHES GAMING CLUB GLOUCESTERSHIRE BOARDGAMERS Dartford, DA2 8AH
Darlington, DL3 7LX Dumfries, DG1 3JR GAMES BUNKER Hereford, HR4 9EA
CAMBRIDGESHIRE Cheltenham, GL51 4XA MILTON HUNDRED
2D6 LODGE DURHAM RAIDERS DUNBARTONSHIRE HERTFORDSHIRE WARGAMES CLUB
Cambridge, CB1 8NN Croxdale, DH6 5HJ DUMBARTON IWARPUK BISHOP’S STORTFORD TABLETOP Sittingbourne, ME10 4BX
WARGAMES CLUB Gloucester, GL2 9EB Bishop’s Stortford, CM23 3BQ
FENLAND RPG CLUB GAMERS@HART Dumbarton, G82 1QQ SEVENOAKS & TONBRIDGE
Ely, CB7 5NG Hartlepool, TS26 9DE LECHLADE BOARD GAMES CLUB BLACK WOLF ASSOCIATION OF GAMERS (STAG)
DURHAM Lechlade, GL7 3HA WARGAMES CLUB Sevenoaks, TN15 9HA
NEWMARKET KNIGHTS CO LONDONDERRY DWG Hitchin, SG5 1XL
GAMES CLUB THE SIEGE BUNKER Durham, DH1 1QG LINCOMBE BARN TUNBRIDGE WELLS
Ely, CB7 5HS Londonderry, BT48 7JL WARGAMES SOCIETY CALAMITY COMICS HATFIELD WARGAMES SOCIETY
DYFED Bristol, BS16 2RW Hatfield, AL10 0JJ Tunbridge Wells, TN3 0PR
PETERBOROUGH CORNWALL WELSH WEYR
WARGAMES CLUB SMIPHEES GAMES CLUB 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 August 2018

LANARKSHIRE
CARLUKE WARGAMES CLUB
Carluke, ML8 5JQ
LANARKSHIRE GAMERS
Motherwell, ML1 1BS
ML2 GAMERS
Hamilton, ML3 6BU
LANCASHIRE
BLACK TOWER WARGAMING
Blackpool, FY4 4ND
BOLTON GNOME’S
Bolton, BL1 5QD
BURNLEY BOARD GAMERS
Burnley, BB10 3LF
BURNLEY WARGAMES CLUB
Burnley, BB10 3EU
DECKS & DICE
Manchester, M25 1AY
DICED TEA
Oldham, OL1 2DB
DUNGEONS & FLAGONS
Manchester, M1 7HL
ELWA: EAST LANCASHIRE
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION
Blackburn, BB6 7DD
FAN BOY THREE BOARDGAME NIGHT
Manchester, M1 1EL
GECKO GAMES CLUB
Accrington, BB5 3QW
HARLEQUINS BLACKPOOL
Blackpool, FY1 3QA
HOUSE LANCASTER
GAMING GROUP
Lancaster, LA1 1EE
PRESTON’S GAMERS GUILD
Preston, PR1 7DP
SALFORD AND MANCHESTER
GAMING HAVEN
Salford, M8 0TW
THE HUNGRY DRAGON
GAMES NIGHT
Manchester, M21 0AE
THE LIVERPOOL WARGAMES
ASSOCIATION (LWA)
Liverpool, L1 6HB
THURSDAY SCYTHE BOARD GAMERS
Liverpool, L3 8HE
LEICESTERSHIRE
CHARNWOOD ROLE
PLAYERS GAMING CLUB
Loughborough, LE12 8DT
LEICESTER ALL SCARS
Leicester, LE1 3JR
LEICESTER PHAT KATZ
Leicester, LE3 0QY
SECTION 31
Leicester, LE1 1PA
SONS OF SIMON DE MONTFORT
Loughborough, LE12 8TX
THE LEICESTER WARGAMES
AND FANTASY GROUP
Leicester, LE3 0QU
LINCOLNSHIRE
BOSTON TABLETOP GAMERS
Boston, PE21 6QQ
GRANTHAM FRIENDLY GAMERS
Grantham, NG31 6LJ
GRIMSBY WARGAMES SOCIETY
Grimsby, DN32 9HT
LINCOLN BOARD GAME GROUP
Lincoln, LN1 3BJ
LOUTH STRATEGY GAMES CLUB
Louth, LN11 8DB
LONDON
CROSS GAMING CLUB
London, SE1 1DX
SELWG
London, SE6 2TS
TANELORN WAR GAMING CLUB
London, E11 3DB
THE ROLE PLAY HAVEN (STRATFORD)
London, E15 2HU
THE ROLE PLAY HAVEN (LEWISHAM)
London, SE13 6LH
MERSEYSIDE
FORGEMASTERS GAMING CLUB
Wirral, CH63 6HD
LIVERPOOL LION BOARDGAMERS
Liverpool, L3 9NS
MUTANT DICE GAMES
GAMING GROUP
St. Helens, WA9 4TR
SOUTHPORT BOARD GAMES GROUP
Southport, PR8 1NH
ST. HELENS BOARDGAMES,
ROLEPLAYING GAMES (B.O.R.G.)
St. Helens, WA10 5BF
MID GLAMORGAN
CAERPHILLY BOARD GAMERS
Caerphilly, CF83 1AP
CASTLE GAMERS BRIDGEND
Bridgend, CF35 6AU
MIDDLESEX
BATTLEUX WARGAMES CLUB
Uxbridge, UB10 0RY
DICE CLUB
Uxbridge, UB10 0RY
HESTON AND EALING WARGAMERS
London, W13 9SS
TABLETOP TUESDAYS
London, N16 8BX
THE GAMES CLUB
London, NW1 2JU
MIDLOTHIAN
EDINBURGH LEAGUE OF GAMERS
Edinburgh, EH7 5EA
SOUTH EAST SCOTLAND
WARGAMES CLUB
Edinburgh, EH7 4EW
NORFOLK
AFTERMATH GAMING CLUB
Norwich, NR3 4HX
KINGS LYNN RPG &
WARGAMES CLUB
King’s Lynn, PE30 4DN
NORWICH BOARD GAMERS
Norwich, NR2 4AL
TAS GAMING CLUB
King’s Lynn, PE34 4SJ
NORTH YORKSHIRE
SCARBOROUGH GAMES SOCIETY
Scarborough, YO12 7BY
YORK GARRISON WARGAMING CLUB
York, YO32 4AQ
List your club for free and see full club details
tabletopgaming.co.uk/clubs
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE WESTON WARGAMERS CLUB
BATTLEFIELD HOBBIES Weston-super-Mare,
Daventry, NN11 8RB BS23 1NF
DESBOROUGH ROLEPLAYING WSM BOARD GAMING CLUB
AND WARGAMES CLUB Weston-super-Mare,
Kettering, NN14 2NQ BS22 8PD
PHOENIX GAMING CLUB SOUTH HUMBERSIDE
Rushden, NN10 9YE SCUNTHORPE TABLETOP
GAMERS
THE BRACKLEY & Scunthorpe, DN16 1DQ
DISTRICT GAMERS
Brackley, NN13 6LF SOUTH YORKSHIRE
BROTHERHOOD OF THE DICE
THE PIT GAMING CLUB Barnsley, S75 1JR
Wellingborough, NN9 5TU
ROTHERHAM WARGAMES CLUB
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Rotherham, S60 1JE
K.I.A GAMES CLUB
Nottingham, NG17 8LA ROTHERHAM WARGAMES
SOCIETY
NOTTINGHAM BOARD & Rotherham, S60 1JE
WARGAMES CLUB
Nottingham, NG2 1NB STEEL CITY WARGAMING
Sheffield, S13 7LL
THE CLUB WITH NO NAME
Nottingham, NG2 1NB ZONE OUT GAMES CLUB
Doncaster, DN1 2PX
WAR & PEACE GAMES CLUB
Nottingham, NG10 5BD STAFFORDSHIRE
ALL ABOARD GAMING CLUB
WILDSIDE GAMING Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 1JB
Newark, NG24 1ER
CHASE WARGAMES CLUB
OXFORDSHIRE Burntwood, WS7 0JL
ABINGDON WARGAMES CLUB
Abingdon, OX14 5AG LICHFIELD GAMERS AND RPG
Lichfield, WS13 6EB
AMBROSDEN GAMING CLUB
Bicester, OX25 2LZ STAFFORDSHIRE
WARGAMING GUILD
BICESTER BOARD GAMERS Stone, ST15 8TG
Bicester, OX26 3HA
TAMWORTH GAMES CLUB
NORTH OXFORDSHIRE Tamworth, B79 7DJ
WARGAMING CLUB
Banbury, OX16 9AF TAMWORTH LIBERATORS
GAMING CLUB
OXFORD GAMING CLUB Tamworth, B77 3AE
Oxford, OX2 7DP
THE VINE INN GAMERS
OXFORD ON BOARD Rugeley, WS15 2AT
Oxford, OX4 1EA
TRITEX GAMES
OXFORD OUTRIDERS Stafford, ST16 1BG
Oxford, OX1 4AG
STIRLINGSHIRE
SHROPSHIRE FALKIRK DISTRICT
BIG ORBIT GAMES SHREWSBURY WARGAMES CLUB
Shrewsbury, SY1 1PH Grangemouth, FK3 8QR
E-COLLECTICA GAMES STIRLING WARGAMERS
Shrewsbury, SY1 2DT Stirling, FK8 1QJ
GAMES @THE BIRD SUFFOLK
Shrewsbury, SY1 2DT BURY ST. EDMUNDS
BOARD GAMING GROUP
STAGS TELFORD Bury St. Edmunds, IP30 9LH
WARGAMING SOCIETY
Telford, TF1 1LU HAVERHILL AREA BOARD
GAME GROUP
TELFORD BOARDGAMERS CLUB Haverhill, CB9 8AU
Telford, TF1 2BW
HAVERHILL WAR GAMES CLUB
SOMERSET Haverhill, CB9 9JE
BATH GAMING GROUP
Bath, BA2 6AA IPSWICH BOARD GAMERS
Ipswich, IP3 0FS
MID SOMERSET
WARGAMES CLUB IPSWICH COUNTY LIBRARY
Wells, BA5 2PU BOARD GAMES LIBRARY
Ipswich, IP1 3DE
PIGMAR WARGAMING CLUB
Bath, BA1 6AB MID SUFFOLK GAMING CLUB
Stowmarket, IP14 4SH
THE FROME BOARD GAMES CLUB
Frome, BA11 1PU WHITE EAGLES
WARGAMES CLUB
TRINITY WARGAMING CLUB Ipswich, IP2 0RG
Taunton, TA1 3JG
SURREY
WARGAMING @ RADSTOCK CROSS GAMING CLUB
Radstock, BA3 4BD London, SE1 7RW
CROYDON BOARD GAMERS DUNGEON CRAWL-EY
Croydon, CR0 1DP GAMES CLUB
Crawley, RH11 7QG
EAGLE GAMING CLUB
London, SW18 2PT MID SUSSEX MEEPLES
Burgess Hill, RH15 8DX
HAMPTON COURT GAMES CLUB
East Molesey, KT8 0BT SOUTH DOWNS SIEGEBREAKERS
Pulborough, RH20 4DR
KINGSTON GAMES GROUP
Kingston upon Thames, WEST YORKSHIRE
KT2 6LN BOARD IN THE VILLAGE
Bradford, BD14 6RE
REIGATE WARGAMES GROUP
Reigate, RH2 0NA GAMING CLUB BRADFORD
Bradford, BD1 2DX
STAINES WARGAMES
ASSOCIATION HALIFAX BOARD GAMERS
Egham, TW20 0QT Halifax, HX1 1SJ
STAY ON TARGET KEIGHLEY TABLETOP COMBAT
Woking, GU21 5BG Keighley, BD20 6EB
SURREY GIRL GAMERS OTLEY BOARD GAMERS
Woking, GU21 4AL Otley, LS21 2AU
SUTTON GAMES CLUB WILTSHIRE
Sutton, SM1 1DT BOSCOMBE DOWN &
AMESBURY WARGAMES CLUB
SWIGGERS Salisbury, SP4 7LN
London, SE1 2TF
CHIPPENHAM BOARD
THE SOUTH LONDON WARLORDS GAMES CLUB
London, SE21 7BT Chippenham, SN15 3WL
THE WOKING WEIRD BOYZ DEVIZES & DISTRICT
Woking, GU22 7TA WARGAMES GROUP
Devizes, SN10 5AD
TOLWORTH 1ST FOUNDING
Chessington, KT9 1PF WEDNESDAY KNIGHT GAMERS
Salisbury, SP1 3TA
SUSSEX
BRIGHTON WARLORDS WORCESTERSHIRE
Brighton, BN1 1UB BROMSGROVE BOARD GAMERS
Bromsgrove, B60 2DZ
WARWICKSHIRE
AFTERNOON PLAY PERSHORE GAMING
Birmingham, B15 1AY Pershore, WR10 1EQ
BOARD GAME CAFE POSTAL ORDER GEEK MEET
SUMMERFIELD Worcester, WR1 1DN
Birmingham, B16 0EZ
REDDITCH WARGAMING SOCIETY
BRAVO ONE GAMING Redditch, B97 5YE
Birmingham, B1 1QP
WORCESTER BOARD
DREAMDEALERS GAMING CLUB GAMERS (WOBOG)
Coventry, CV6 4FE Worcester, WR1 2DP
GRANGE LIVE GAMING WYRE FOREST GAMERS
Birmingham, B1 1QP Kidderminster, DY10 1RP
NUNEATON ALTERNATIVE YORKSHIRE
GAMES ASSOCIATION AIREBOROUGH
Nuneaton, CV10 8LJ COMMUNITY GAMERS
Leeds, LS19 6AS
OCTOBER WARGAMES
ASSOCIATION BEYOND MONOPOLY
Birmingham, B16 8SY York, YO24 1AQ
SCIMITAR WARGAMES GROUP HEADINGLEY GAMES CLUB
Coventry, CV3 5GT Leeds, LS6 3HN
WEST MIDLANDS HOLMFIRTH GAMING CENTRE
BIRMINGHAM WARGAMES Holmfirth, HD9 7HP
AND BOARDGAMES CLUB
AKA DRAGOON’S DEN HULL’S ANGELS
Birmingham, B13 9EA Hull, HU1 3HG
PLAY MORE GAMES! LEEDS GAMING
Solihull, B90 3GG Leeds, LS1 3DL
WEST SUSSEX LEEDS NIGHT OWLS
BOGNOR REGIS GAMING Leeds, LS6 1LJ
ASSOCIATION
Bognor Regis, PO21 5EU SHEFFIELD AND ROTHERHAM
WARGAMES CLUB
BOGNOR REGIS MILITARY Sheffield, S2 2TP
MODELLING AND
WARGAMING SOCIETY SHEFFIELD BOARD GAMES
Bognor Regis, PO21 5SB Sheffield, S3 7HG
CRAWLEY GAMING CLUB SHEFFIELD WARGAMES SOCIETY
Crawley, RH10 5DF Sheffield, S8 0PS
tabletopgaming.co.uk 93
 Hereward
A New Hope
IV
Peterborough’s own wargames show,
now in its fourth year!

Sponsored by

The Cresset,
Bretton Centre,
Peterborough,
PE3 8DX

Sunday 2nd September 2018

10am-4pm

Admission £3 in advance/£5 on door

www.hereward-wargames.co.uk

Participation games!
Traders including: Mantic, Sarissa, Col. Bills, Lesley’s Bits Box, PE2
Collectables and many more!

Tournaments including:

SHOP SPOTLIGHT
READY STEADY ROLL
What began as a pop-up gaming café has turned
into a fully-fledged hub for local gamers, as the
Bedford store’s Darrell Cannon explains
Interview by Matt Jarvis
Ready Steady Roll started as a pop-up café and
monthly event before becoming a fully-fledged
shop. Why was opening a fixed store the right
next step and how did it change things for you?
Opening a brick-and-mortar store was always a
dream of ours since starting Ready Steady Roll.
Running the pop-up board game café was great fun
and allowed us to meet loads of fellow gamers and
get others into the hobby, but they were intense!
Having our own shop allows us much greater
freedom and a better foundation to build upon
rather than using a public venue each month.
Having a permanent location has changed
everything; we are open more, have increased
our game selection – I no longer need to transport
them around all the time! – and have a much nicer
environment to play games and eat cake in.
As well as being a shop, you’re also a café. How
did that change the way that you offered board
games for folks to play?
At first it was a worry, combining food, drink and
board games, but, for the most part, most people
are really respectful and do their best to keep them
apart. We’ve had a few spillages, especially on our
Bring Your Own Booze nights, but they are quickly
cleaned up with minimal damage.
The one game that causes the most trouble is
Jungle Speed, so I always make sure to remove any
breakables/spillables when I recommend it – we
learnt the hard, broken-glass way!
Do you have a favourite combo of board game,
drink and snack?
Our homemade cakes are where we shine, so
I would say a slice of our salted caramel and
August 2018
spiced apple cake and a camomile tea followed
by a ruthless, cut-throat game of Survive:
Escape from Atlantis!
How has Ready Steady Roll changed since it
first opened?
Loads! What started as a personal addiction to
board games grew into a monthly event, which
then grew into working with schools and other
local businesses and then the opportunity for our
own permanent location came up in a beautiful
location so we jumped at the chance. It’s been a
steady growth which has allowed us to expand
on a shoestring budget, we are still constantly
upgrading our board game café – it feels like an
engine-building board game sometimes!
You host game workshops for local schools.
Why is this so important to you?
Having three children myself, I knew that board
games can be amazing educational tools, genuinely
combining fun and loads of skills like maths,
strategic thinking and even things like empathy.
Schools have asked us to do maths
workshops, wellbeing clubs and take part in art
and culture weeks, and they have all been loads
of fun! It can be a hard sell to some schools
though – many can only imagine us coming in
and playing endless games of Monopoly rather
than the plethora of great games available.
Do you run any other events for gamers in
the area?
We host ‘Bring Your Own Booze’ game nights, for an
affordable night of games with friends – and we even
did a Valentine’s event which went down a storm!
At Christmas time we did a ‘Make Your Own
Game’ workshop, where – with permission – we
recreated Shadows in the Forest, which involves
3D trees and a tealight candle that was played in
the dark with a Christmas spin. Recently we did
a stargazing and games evening which was a lot
of fun, even if it was a bit cloudy! We are always
thinking of new events and hope to do lots more.
Which games have been proving most
popular with your customers recently?
We always offer recommendations and explain the
rules if people want us to – which most do! – so we
have a lot of influence on what our customers play,
especially those who haven’t played many games
before. For newcomers, I always recommend a
quick game of Dobble to get everyone warmed up
and to show them that games don’t have to be long
and monotonous! Almost everyone loves Dobble!
Some popular games that spring to mind
include Incan Gold – which is slowly getting
replaced with Troll & Dragon – Splendor and
Potion Explosion. Loopin’ Louie is also insanely
popular – it’s so much more fun that it has any
right to be!
What are you excited for during the rest of 2018?
I’m excited about further expanding our games
library, increasing the stock in our shop and
looking towards running more event and
tournaments in the near future. I’m also very
excited about Christmas! Even though it’s very
premature, I love Christmas and last Christmas
we had only just opened so it was all a bit mad.
Looking forward to a Christmas in our café now
that we are settled down and can really make
the most of spreading the Christmas spirit!
What’s next for Ready Steady Roll?
We hope to keep on improving our board game
café as best we can based on feedback from
customers and ‘unlocking’ new features for our
customers. I would personally love to create
our very own board game as, like most board
gamers, I have a million ideas in my head – but
now I have a captive audience to test them on!
tabletopgaming.co.uk 95
Durhamʻs Premier We
stʼs
tu h st !
So rge op
The la el sh

Board Game Shop

d
mo

www.fromemodelcentre.com
E: sales@frome-model-centre.com

Independent, family run

model shop. Years of
experience and the most
diverse model collection all
under one roof!
Next day mail
service available

Visit us online at:

on all in stock
products!
www.meeplegames.uk
5% discount on any orders placed
• T: 01373 465295 • F: 01373 451468
in August! Use Code TTG21 at checkout 1-2 Catherine Street, Frome, Somerset, BA11 1DA

30 Roneo Corner, Hornchurch Essex, RM12 4TN

• Tel: 01708 475051 • Email: tolehavenuk@aol.com
All your wargaming needs available through us!
GW, Flames of War, Malifaux, X-Wing, Warmachine/
Hordes, Warlord Games, Army Painter, Vallejo, KR
Multicase, Battlefoam, Mantic Games, Magic: The
Gathering, Frostgrave, 4 Ground, Knight’s Models,
Scribor, Guild Ball, Bushido, Board Games & Living
Card Games, Chessex Dice, Perry Miniatures,
Micro Art Studio’s, Quality Neodymium Magnets,
Airbrushes, Tools, Scenery, Resin bases plus many
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Mail order available • Free demos • Gaming club

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ONLINE

SHOP DIRECTORY
GUERNSEY

A new and exciting centre for many different types of

www.gamerznexus.com gaming in Guernsey. Come and discover for yourself
what’s in store and join in many events and activities!
Check out our SINGLES for Star Wars Destiny, Stockists of Board, Card, Computer, RPG & Video Games.
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Unit 5, The Albany, St. Peter Port, Guernsey, GY1 1AE
We also offer a great selection of brand new Board Games, Card Games, Tel: 01481 712240 Facebook: Facebook.com/JustGamesGsy
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FIREBALL ISLAND REMAKE | REVIEWS OF CRYSTAL CLANS & MORE

THE MAKING OF TIGRIS & EUPHRATES | JOHN KOVALIC INTERVIEW
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QUIRKS

I
f you ever played the 2008 computer game Spore
and thought it would make a great board game
then this one is definitely for you. Quirks is a
game released in 1980 by Eon Products – perhaps
more famous for its debut, Cosmic Encounter,
but also responsible for producing Hoax, Ruins and
Borderlands. It experimented briefly with digital
games as Eon Software Inc. by producing Lords
of Conquest in 1986, a game loosely based on the
Borderlands board game.
Quirks is a game in which players create new
organisms by combining several collected traits;
becoming the dominant species is the aim of
the game. The tagline for Quirks is “The game of
unnatural selection!”, which sums it up well. You
select different traits and the outcomes are often
fairly unnatural-looking. The plants and animals
created are often quite amusing and the artwork
brings even the most unlikely combinations
together. The artwork for Quirks is fantastic –
right from the start the box design is striking and
colourful. The content’s artwork is also nice and
bright, with trait cards being well-drawn and
carefully planned to form connected species.
The game itself has some interesting play and
the aim is to have the dominant quirk in all three
categories: plant, herbivore and carnivore. To
start, players are dealt a random but complete
quirk in each category. Each turn, a set of fate
cards or a d6 is used to select a choice between
three fates: plant, herbivore or carnivore. If the fate random, but the strategic elements keep you playing
matches your dominant quirk then you can mutate and advancing your skills.
this quirk, otherwise you can mutate a lower quirk in A nice touch is that Quirks comes with four
the hope of becoming dominant. To gain supremacy different sets of rules. One aimed at children aged
you will have to fight the currently dominant quirk. If seven to 11, called ‘Quirklings’, which is simple but
you lose then your quirk becomes extinct; harsh, but entertaining due to the unusual animals created.
that’s life! This is the basis of the game but, each turn, Then a normal set, an advanced set and a solo ruleset Words Phil Robinson
Phil Robinson is a game
the climate also changes. which provides an interesting puzzle game. There historian and the founder
A climate tracker is progressed by each player on were also expansion packs released that contained of the Museum of Gaming,
their turn and you can also choose to move this faster, extra trait cards in all categories. It’s a game that an organisation that
or slower, depending on the cards you have – this grows on you as you play and was very likely the explores and documents
can be used to your advantage or to bring down your inspiration for Spore – so if that’s your cup of tea, or the history of gaming
through its collections,
opponent. This adds an element of strategy. There is a you just like the idea of playing an evolution-based
exhibitions and research.
lot of luck involved in Quirks as the drawing of traits is game, you should give Quirks a try.

98 August 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk

IN SEPTEMBER’S ISSUE O N S AL E AUG US T 3 1 S T

X-WING 2.0
The Force awakens in the second edition of the Star Wars
miniatures game. Its creators reveal how they plan to
stay on target with brand new gameplay – and an app!

SHOW HOLDING ON
PREVIEW Discovering the serious and tragic story
behind The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr

Everything you need to know
about London’s hottest
new convention
PRINT + PLAY
How you can make your own board
games at home for (almost) nothing
ABOUT TURN
Go beyond the back-and-forth with a look at how
designers are reinventing the way we take turns

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