18Lilliput

18Lilliput gets to the point with admirable speed. It is light on its feet, sharp enough to draw blood, and does not demand that you surrender an entire evening to it. After a Tuesday at work, that is rather a lovely thing: a small train game that leaves a proper smudge of smoke behind it.

The game begins with its starting companies and with the positions players take around them. In the first two-player outing, the green starting company looked as though it had an edge. That is worth noting, but one game is not a court ruling, and certainly not one worth building a timetable around.

The pressure is real without becoming oppressive, and it holds until the final round rather than giving the winner away halfway through. Players watch each other closely, find their options narrowing, and can still make a glorious mess of things through nothing more sophisticated than bad arithmetic.

This is not one for railway devotees alone. It is an unusually honest design: approachable enough for anyone at the table, with enough to chew over afterwards for those who like their games a little smokier. Your collection would be materially improved by having it in it.

Updated session

The later plays were plainly better than that first two-player test: more table noise, a finish that remained open to the end, and the same welcome sense that 18Lilliput ought to come out again. The question around green was neither proved nor dismissed, but the game itself made a much stronger impression.