Table of contents for Issue 69 in Tabletop Gaming

NOW PLAYING… Red Cathedral: Contractors This issue we’re going to the moon, back to Anglo-Saxon England, the weird wild west, a completely fan generated world and the home of the modern indie RPG scene without even taking our foot off the gas. But first of all we’re popping in to check out the whimsical world of The Land of Eem, a roleplaying game that’s pitched as ‘The Muppets meets The Lord of The Rings’. It’s entirely as charming as it sounds. Which leads us to our Studio Profile of Exalted Funeral – an example of when you want to order a few copies of a game for your buddies and it gets so out of hand that you’re now running huge Kickstarters. Plus, they might be the nicest people in the…

The balance of luck and skill obsesses us. In many games, the best players are those who put themselves in situations where luck is on their side – where more rolls of the dice or drawn cards are more likely to help them than harm them. But what if you eliminated luck completely? I feel justified in assuming that most readers find that the combination of careful play with the (limited) whims of chance makes for a great night of gaming. Many of the Whist players of yore (and the bridge players of today) felt differently. While the rules of whist eliminate much of the luck of earlier trick-taking games, like getting points for simply having been dealt a face card, how can you really say who is the better…

As a board game mechanism, bidding sits firmly in the Marmite category. Any game with an auction becomes immediately divisive for many groups, with some players simply refusing to play them. So, it is possible for these opposites to reach their hands across the divide and find a common game? Let me – or rather designer Reina Knizia – transport you back a few thousand years to Ancient Egypt. Picture yourself as a major political player trying to expand your fame and influence. Over three epochs you’ll influence powerful Pharaohs, build incredible monuments, collect gold and take advantage of the Nile’s bounty while advancing the knowledge of your civilization. All while avoiding disasters such as droughts, earthquakes and civil unrest. But most importantly of all, you’ll curry favour with the…

“We like to describe it as, tonally, Lord of the Rings meets The Muppets,” says Ben Costa. Costa and James Parks are the writer-designer duo behind the new whimsical roleplaying game, Land of Eem, to be published by Exalted Funeral (p36 for more about them) and currently funding on the new Backerkit platform. “It’s a light-hearted – maybe rules light, it’s hard to determine, as there’s some procedural rules you could use or not – roleplaying game. It takes place on a hex map, which is a big part of the game, that you use to explore the Land of Eem.” The pair are probably best known for their young adult graphic novel series, Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Cube and the recently released Dungeoneer Adventures. The former features a…

Perhaps the most disappointing moment in my board game journey – aside from discovering that, no, the tiles from Azul aren’t edible – came when I learned that playing chess doesn’t make you smarter. Not that I’ve spent much time playing chess – I’m more of a Caverna man myself – but I always thought there was a certain romance in this idea of chess as the ultimate test of intellect. It was as if those sixty-four dark and light squares were a dancefloor on which two brains could meet and engage in a beautiful duel. Not for nothing did Ingmar Bergman choose chess as the central motif for The Seventh Seal, where a knight sits down for a game with Death. The key myth surrounding chess is one of…

How many scoundrels are too many? Ten? One hundred? Corey Konieczka bets that 3001 is probably when it gets just too much, and has settled for only including a total of 3000 combinations of scoundrels for you to recruit in his new high-tech wild west ‘Euro-ish’ game. The story is straightforward, as you’d expect. “A time traveller has come back in time to the wild west, and they’ve brought this future technology with them,” says Konieczka matter-of-factly, “which they’re using to become rich and famous. And in doing this they’ve rubbed some people the wrong way. And for various reasons they’ve annoyed all of these people, and they mysteriously vanish.” “It’s pretty clear they’re dead,” says the designer with a grin, “and now we play the leader of these rival…

If Long Shot: The Dice Game proves anything, it’s that you shouldn’t judge a board game by its theme. This latest title from designer Chris Handy (actually a streamlined roll-and-write-ish remix of his 2009 game Long Shot) takes place in the world of 1930s horse racing, with players betting on and/or buying horses while racing them around its dinky, cartoony track. It’s not a world that’ll be to every player’s taste – especially those of us who question the sport’s treatment of its equine participants, and the social cost of gambling on its outcomes. But even if you wouldn’t go within a mile of Ascot and couldn’t care less about the Grand National, you’d have to try hard not to enjoy this fast-paced, push-your-luck experience. Each player gets their…

If you’re not familiar with Oink Games’ output, they have been responsible for an instantly recognisable lineup of little-box games that fight against the constraints of their diminutive size with inventive design twists. Titles like Nine Tiles Panic and Startups combine clean, striking artwork and an offbeat style to create a distinctive house style that often – though not always – results in a memorable experience. Scout is the latest in the range. More than in some previous titles, the theme is more sprinkled over the top than baked into the core mechanics. You have been put in charge of a circus – ‘suddenly’ as the rulebook would have it – but for some reason you have no acts. So I guess technically you’ve inherited some striped tents and…

The life-cycle of a plastic Christmas cracker frog is a sad one. Following a sentence of over eleven months isolation - imprisoned in a dark, flimsy cylinder - their liberation suddenly erupts with a bang as they’re flung across a carcass-strewn table. Presuming they haven’t perished at the bottom of a gravy jug, they’ll spend the next five minutes being eagerly prodded in the sacral region until their knee-jerk explosions of movement render them lost forever. Somehow, it has taken until now to reconfigure the true purpose of these sorry creatures… as novel components of a tabletop dexterity game. Frog Soup is a simple, cooperative game for children and families, utilising oversized yet familiar plastic frogs. As a team, players will be helping their frogs escape from the bubbling threat…

Games often take epic events or whole eras as their themes: a key historic battle, the development of a major city over many years, even the rise of human civilisation over centuries. Cellulose goes in the opposite direction, zooming down to find challenge and drama in the tiniest and most everyday of settings: a plant cell. If you’ve encountered previous titles from Genius Games, like Genotype – where players take the role of monks under the tutelage of Mendel, studying the genetic heritage of peas – you’ll have some idea of what to expect. Genius Games have taken the radical approach of publishing games with an educational slant where the game aspect isn’t just a lazy afterthought. These are mid-to-heavyweight euros with attractive components and a reasonable amount of crunch.…

Usually, I have no interest in being a vole. Or a stoat. Or any woodland creature. And yet, here, my begrudgingly helpful hedgehog has left the forest a better place. Based on Blackwell’s previous solitaire potion-making game Apothecaria, Apawthecaria takes the leap into Brian Tyrell’s world of critters writing prescriptions. Players take the role of an animal whose goal is to heal the ailing of the woodland, usually by collecting roots, flowers and leaves, and then creating a concoction as a treatment. It’s a journaling game that directs players to reflect on their experiences through the woodland (and beyond, there are many biomes), interacting with various creatures and situations as prompted by the book. All of the randomness is dealt with by drawing from a deck of cards, whether that’s…

There are good looking games and then there is Mysthea. Artist Travis Anderson painted a hauntingly stunning world that is both magical and futuristic but also distinctly otherworldly. Thegame’sartworkisat the forefront of every element, ensuring it is showcased to the fullest potential. To give the artwork its space to breathe, the game ties all of its rules and abilities to iconology, which at first can feel a little overwhelming. All abilities are covered in the rulebook and reference sheet, but it can feel a little clumsy to have to check them for every card. Yet the icons are fairly intuitive and easy to remember, requiring players to turn for assistance less and less as the game progresses. Ultimately, a little of initial discomfort is worth the staggering visual feast that…

Who Made This? Rainy Day Games are a collective of indie games designers comprising of Anna Blackwell (DELVE, Apothecaria), Chris Bissette (The Wretched, Treasures of the Troll King), Jack Harrison (Artefact, Orbital), and Matt Sanders (Sealed Library, Have You Heard About The Beast?) D20 COMMANDMENTS And so sayeth the GOD these COMMANDMENTS! And ye, they were a bit weird but we do as we’re told! Roll 3D20 to determine the commandments of this religion. First roll determines if Thou Shalt or Shalt Not, second roll determines the action, and the third roll determines the when. Generate Ten Commandments and you’ll have plenty to springboard your new cult religion. Some of them might seem a little strange but use that as a way to brainstorm ideas about the history of this…

LESS THAN 100 DAYS TO TABLETOP GAMING LIVE 2022 The hit gaming convention run by the teams behind Tabletop Gaming and Miniature Wargames magazines is now less than 100 days away, and there will be 100+ games to play when you get there. The show, running for two days over the weekend of the 17th-18th September 2022, brings together gamers from all across the country – for the first time in Manchester. The show is taking place at Victoria Warehouse, Manchester, in the historic Cotton Sheds, and is sponsored by local hobby titans Steamforged Games, who will be demoing Bardsung and showing off upcoming titles. Fanboy 3, who have been at the heart of the Manchester Gaming scene for years, will be showing off some of the biggest publishers from…

1 AGRICOLA Are animal meeples meeples too? We think so, but this is one of the tough moral questions posed by this farmyard mogul simulating classic. Starting from humble beginnings players must build up their farmstead and create a future for their family, and their tiny wooden animals. Create pens to contain your flocks and herds – and watch your empire grow. If your fellow farmers don’t get in your way. Agricola is a satisfying example of the ‘block the worker placement space’ game, with the twist of progressively improving spaces over the span of the game. A classic for a reason. 2 ROOT A clash of woodland clans which is most often admired for its asymmetrical play. Each faction has its entirely separate way of playing the game from…

Although it may seem as if solo RPGing was invented as a response to pandemic social isolation, support for solo RPGing came right at the beginning. Gary Gygax created rules for “solo dungeon adventures” in 1975. Back then, the thought was that people would play solo if they couldn’t find a proper group, or perhaps as GM prep--and so it probably was. Yet solo rules continued to appear, in various forms, throughout various early editions of the original role-playing game. There’s much to be said about solo RPG - so much, in fact, that I’ve written an entire book about it (Solo Game Master’s Guide, Modiphius, 2022). Here, I’m going to give a brief overview of what a solo RPG is, and discuss three central mindsets that a solo GM…

Travelling directly east across the Caribbean Sea from Haiti – the focus of last month’s instalment – sees us shortly arriving upon the shores of Jamaica. This tropical, mountainous island was once home to the indigenous Taino people whose culture incorporated games such as the early ceremonial ball game batu, and the intriguing calf-slapping contest of makebari. Less sport focused games were played by children, the most notable being guamajico. Utilising small seeds from algarrobo or guama trees attached to a length of string, players would assemble around a small circle, taking turns to swing their seed upon those of their opponents. Much like the familiar game of conkers, the winner is the player whose seed remains unbroken. Upon the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494, the indigenous population predictably…

Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns is considered one of the pivotal points in graphic novels, a sign that comics could be something for adults to enjoy and treat as ‘art’. His work has also been called bigoted, and can fairly be described as ‘unhinged’ on occasion (The Dark Knight Strikes again, the sequel to the comic on which this game is based, is an example of this). The comic is about Batman returning to fight crime once again, having retired after the death of Robin. But he’s got old, and he’s not faster than the bad guys any longer – meaning Batman simply has to become more brutal. Whereas a younger Batman would leave the garden variety thugs neatly piled up with only a sore head, here he is…

Most dexterity games balance their gameplay so that players with perfect coordination and those who aim for the bullseye but hit the TV screen enjoy the game equally. If you have even a glimmer of hope to successfully land a throw or a flick, that, with a healthy dose of comedy from various component-flying mishaps, is enough to keep trying. Dungeon Fighters went radically the other way. It decided to kill the hope of any player, no matter how good, of ever winning a game. Yet it guarantees that while failing miserably, you will also have the time of your life. In this dexterity dungeon crawler, players will be fighting monsters by throwing dice to bounce them off the table onto the board fashioned like a target. The aim, of…

Any game that includes a pack of paperclips to hold its star components together raises an eyebrow. And so begins our tour of the standard edition of Monuments. Here, players lead an ancient civilization. They must build a landmark to secure a place in the history books, while fighting opponents for land on a hex-covered map of (some of) the world. Monuments follows many civ games by obscuring timelines so the Egyptians, Incas, Greeks and Mayans coexist. Its slight detour is a fleet of modern-day fighter planes – a suspension of belief too far? Each player assumes their home hex along with a set of civ tokens for spreading out and conquering. These manifest via an action-retrieval hand of ten cards (only one card is played per turn, then must…

TUSK! asks us to separate the hunters from the gatherers in the scramble for resources. Here, we’re setting out a board of hexes, some of which have materials and food to collect on them, before slapping a mammoth down in the centre. Players are attempting to gather as much food (presented as cartoony legs of ham) or the materials to improve their chances of a big haul from the hunt. Each round your intrepid tribe chooses whether to commit members to the hunt, add members to the board, or wander off and do something gathering. Expanding your tribe simply means paying the cost and getting additional meeples to work with, and gathering is a case of going places and taking the materials you want. But the hunt is the most…

As stock market games go, 1920 Wall Street sits in an awkward middle ground. If the theme is unappealing to you, nothing in the game will make it more attractive. Although the game’s look and artwork are perfectly serviceable, it lacks the charm of Startups or the sly humour of Racoon Tycoon. Yet if you are an experienced investor, looking to test your savvy with a share manipulation game, you may find 1920 Wall Street’s gameplay on a lighter side. Moving around a rondel made from stock cards, players purchase shares of various goods or manipulate their worth on an adjacent market board. The stocks are only worth points at the end of the game if players managed to draft a minimum number of cards required for each specific good.…

When hunting for vintage classics there‘s really only two options: eBay or charity shops. Typically, this translates to either possessing deep pockets or considerable luck - although a keen eye is also an invaluable tool for the latter. But, for those not fooled by the fragile veil of nostalgia, Restoration Games offers an easier alternative. Following on from the successful rejigs of Fireball Island and Dark Tower, Restoration Games set their sights on overhauling the 1990 fantasy classic The Key to the Kingdom. This family-friendly adventure game will thrust players into a whimsical world of childlike wonder, as they take on the roles of unlikely heroes competing to put an end to the fearsome Demon King. By travelling the lands in search of adventure, players will gradually assemble the titular key…

The term ‘elegant’ gets thrown around a lot in board games. Often it’s a synonym for ‘this rule or component saved us some headaches’ but every now and then a game arrives where every aspect of its design delivers perfectly on its intent. Gutenberg is one such elegantly made Eurogame. Players are leaders in the printing press industry which took the 15th century by storm, seeking fame and fortune by sourcing new orders whilst gathering the necessary supplies and knowledge to complete them. Firstly, this game’s physical design and production is some of the best I’ve ever seen. The game proudly advertises itself as “without plastic” and it absolutely means it. Begone tiny bags for every little component, for here are fantastic cardboard chests ready to be filled with cards,…

Power Failure is a quirky fusion of two genres: a resource management card game, and a dexterity game. Before we get into the sordid business of whether the combo works or not, this sort of experimentation is always laudable – from the bizarre shove-a-ha’penny-meets-stock-exchange experience of Safranito to the programmable actions in a 3D miniatures skirmish of Colt Express, old flavours are often granted new life when set alongside each other. Here, we have a dash of Power Grid stirred into a highball glass of Jenga. Each turn, you’re going to grab a card from a tableau that features various types of power plants, specific resources like uranium, or one-off event cards that give you bonuses. Then you’re going to play a card from your hand. Finally, you may…

Betrayal is one of the juicier options when it comes to board game themes, and there are few world events so linked with the idea as the assassination of Julius Caesar. For those of you who haven’t watched a Shakespearian tragedy recently, this is the story of an emperor being murdered by a cloud of conspirators, on a day known as The Ides of March. In Latin that translates to “IDVS MARTII”; the name of this compact card game from 2Tomatoes Games. IDVS MARTII is a hidden role game for 5-8 players, where each person has to decide whether to be Loyal, Traitors or Merchants – the latter being solely concerned with the most financially beneficial option. Over a number of turns, spread over two rounds, they secretly select cards,…

The great thing about board games, is often portability. All we need is space to play, a table and chairs if you’re feeling fancy, and some fellow gamers for the perfect time. Where you place that table though might change – do you play at home, at a local game store, or somewhere entirely different? We asked you your thoughts. You said… St Albans Board Games Club – friendly people wide selection of games played from High Frontier to Tokyo Highway in its tenth year with over 500 members many of who have become my friends. Matthew West Finchley Games Club Cole Leadon Anywhere where we have good players, the coffee is hot and the cake is scrumptious. Jeff Stokes Anywhere we can sit around a table and snack! Thomas…

SCARLET HEROES Scarlet Heroes by Kevin Crawford (2014). This versatile RPG, designed to support classic sword and sorcery adventuring with a lone hero (with or without a GM), contains a meaty section on solo gaming. In one book, you’ll find all the rules for playing the game, creating a world in the Red Tide setting, managing magic and monsters, as well as numerous oracles for solo play. These include random tables for urban, wilderness, and dungeon adventures. “Adventure tag” tables let you easily flesh out stories with enemies, friends, complications, and objects. If you’ve never done solo RPG before, this book is your best bet for one-stop shopping for everything you need. As an added benefit, most of the oracles and random tables in the book’s last section can be…

Cryptic Explorers has been through a lot. It took three crowdfunding campaigns and several years for Tempest Tome Games to birth this black monstrosity, but it’s been worth the effort. This one versus many dungeon crawler is inventive, wild, and tense in all the best of ways. The setup here appears familiar at first glance, but that’s not the case. One player takes on the role of a malevolent Goddess, selecting one of several entities to repel an elite team of invaders and protect their hellish dwelling. They command monsters of various strengths and capabilities, each unique to the asymmetric Goddess chosen. They enact power and dramatic effect through a deck of tailored cards, again specific to the being selected. Playstyles and strategies vary, offering many vectors to take up…

WITCHBURNER A ‘social investigation adventure’ that sets up the players as a team of witch hunters who have been hired to work out who the witch is in a small mountain village. Weird stuff keeps happening, and there’s a lot of interpersonal strife to explore between the various peoples of the village. The book contains something like 30 NPCs for the GM to use towards the resolution of the story, and even a day-by-day events table to really ramp up the pressure. The game plays out a little bit like Blood on the Clocktower, if it was an RPG, or like a Free League cinematic scenario for Alien, if there wasn’t going to be any acidic blood. An incredible adventure for groups who love thorny moral problems, and for GMs…

Is a balloon more like a horse than it is like French toast? This is the sort of question you’ll have to grapple with in French Toast, a party game for 2-10+ players. Following a common party game template; one player is given a word on a card and must help other people guess the word they’ve been given. The catch? They may only repeat the guesses of their teammates back to them. With each guess made, the clue giver must consider if the guess is closer to the word than the previous guess. If it is, they repeat the new guess, if it isn’t they repeat the previous guess back. All games begin with the guessers asking if the word is French toast. From there you have 30 seconds…

A game that might be happiest on the shelves of IKEA, Espresso Doppio is one of the few games I am aware of that comes with its own crockery. Yes, inside this box are three sets of espresso cups and saucers in inoffensive white, brown and black. Yes, they’re real. Yes, you could drink your coffee out of them if you wanted to – even while playing the game itself. Should you? Probably not. Aside from the cups and saucers are three similarly coloured plastic spoons, some points cards and coffee bean tokens to count up your points. Each round involves you trying to create one of your goal cards in front of you by carefully, moving and swapping around items in the five slots in front of you. You…

Since its original release in 1997, Looney Labs’ Fluxx has been adapted countless times across a multitude of themes and intellectual properties. This latest iteration though harks back to its simple origins whilst presenting some twists to the formula. For those unfamiliar, Fluxx is a card game about change. And I mean this in the most literal sense. Indeed, Fluxx – in all its forms – has never been about any deeper educational, political, or emotional examinations of change, instead choosing to embody the word in a purely mechanical sense. Each game begins with players taking turns to draw and play one card and no definitive win condition. Over time, new rules will arise along with an ever-changing lineup of goal cards, each one depicting the required pair of Keeper…

I love the experience of engine building in a game. You start with painfully limited options, each action feeling frustratingly weak. Slowly, piece-by-piece, you place successive elements which feed off each other, to grant more resources and bonus actions. Finally, it culminates into a dizzying chain reaction of competitive construction. Lunar Base, from Estonia’s Plepic Games, condenses this mechanic down into a lightning fast game of competitive strategy. The setting of Lunar Base is - to no one’s surprise - the moon. You play rival corporations, greedily expanding your modular empires across the surface, racing to hit goals of wealth, population or scientific endeavour. New modules link together through coloured orbs, each representing a different goal, but also the cost of placing modules. For example, a Telescope requires 4 red…

This light set-collection/route-claiming title from Pandasaurus Games puts players on the precarious slopes of the recently reopened Skull Canyon Ski Resort. Over three days, two to four skiers will be competing to net the most points by tackling the mountain’s various runs, and gaining fame for doing so with style. In the evenings, players will relax in the village and make vital preparations for next day’s competition. Come sundown on the third day, a victor will be declared based on their scored runs, collected gear, fame, and majorities held on the three tiers of slopes. With just two actions out of the available three being chosen each turn, Skull Canyon Ski Fest’s pace matches its adrenaline pumping theme well. Whether they are catching a lift up the mountain, drawing…