Reviews

Clank!: Catacombs is a light, breezy deck builder with a proper board on the table and plenty happening on it. For anyone who has not already had their fill of the series, it seems to me like the best place to start.

Captain's Sea is a respectable Age of Sail duelling game from Legion Wargames: more abstract than Wooden Ships & Iron Men, yet nautical enough to evoke Master & Commander. It has more depth than Flying Colors' duelling rules, but it is chiefly for genre veterans already tired of those rules.

Scarface 1920 is a lavish Kickstarter production with excellent quality, a convincing gangster sandbox, and plenty of Ameritrash nastiness hiding beneath Euro layers. It is not a permanent-rotation game, but with three players and the right variant it can be a great time.

Returning Mage Wars Arena to the table after a long break was one of the month’s nicest moments. Even if its broken cards and combinations can be frustrating, I remain very fond of it.

Hegemony is the game that has occupied us most lately, and our second game with swapped roles confirmed that, once everyone knows what they are doing, it can produce a genuinely close contest. Its card draw can still be more random than I would like, though.

I bought Looney Tunes Mayhem only because I was looking for something that might catch my successor’s interest. In the end, it is an expensive display piece with lovely pre-painted miniatures and a game that never seems to have decided what it wants to be.

Excavation Earth is an underrated action-programming and market-manipulation game with enough depth to reward repeat plays. It does not always build to the climax I want, but it remains an honest, demanding experience.

Cape May is a nicely produced, light game for relaxed groups: Birds vs the Bogeyman, with developers and birdwatchers sharing the same bench. It is cohesive and well balanced, but not distinctive enough for our group to ask for it again.

Aeroplanes: Aviation Ascendant may be the weakest entry in its trilogy, but it remains an unfairly overlooked and very pleasant aviation game. It also works well with five players, and is worth digging out from a forgotten shelf.

Sabika is a tight, burny euro that moved very quickly from “doesn’t pass procurement” to a guilty-pleasure purchase the next day. It is an honest multi-rondel game with cohesion, logic, and enough weight to stand beside the year’s strong medium-heavy euro releases.

The Deluxe Nova Collection is the lavish, finally delivered excuse to bring Star Realms back to the table. Its delay was unjustifiable, but as an object and as a light card game, it delivers a very good time.

Europa Universalis: The Price of Power is a heavy, ambitious historical game that, to my surprise, seems to have earned its weight through an exceptionally considered ruleset. It is not for a first encounter or a rushed group, but it promises the feel of a monster game in far less time.

Starship Captains is a light gateway worker-placement game with a good initial idea that somehow makes its journey remarkably lifeless. The crew queue promises something, but the rest of the game never follows it into hyperspeed.

The King’s Dilemma became my group’s current obsession: an unforgettable legacy story full of dilemmas, negotiations, and trash talk. As a game, though, the further we go, the more skeptical I become of its mechanisms—especially of how its sessions end.

The Silver River remains an honest, generous euro that rewards players who are not afraid to make it a little tougher. When interaction starts early, the game immediately finds a better pace.

Stationfall has an exceptionally clever system of secret identities and character influence, but it demands real effort before it lets you enjoy it. Its rules and exceptions are a hurdle not every group will be equally willing to clear.

Mosaic: A Story of Civilization arrived as an impressive, carefully produced object, albeit with an infuriatingly needless excess of cardboard. On the table, it is a fair light-medium civilization game that demands attention to opponents, but it is not an essential purchase even for fans of the genre.

Rolling Heights feels like an experiment that escaped the lab without ever going through quality control. It could have been a respectable Suburbia-style bag-building clone; instead, it left me annoyed, defeated, and with a headache.

Immortality is a very solid expansion for Dune: Imperium: it pairs beautifully with Ix and changes the game enough to feel like a true expansion rather than merely extra content.

Angel Fury ultimately won me over as a substantial, plastic-heavy battle game for a relaxed hour of slaughter. It is not a game to take too seriously, but it does make sure to work properly at every player count.

Mage Noir initially feels like a very familiar 1990s CCG, but its mana system contains a genuinely interesting idea. Unfortunately, its basic decks and presentation did not hold my attention for as long as I wanted.

An honest, small old-school Pfister card game that somehow packs a surprising amount of play into its box. It works nicely as a family push-your-luck game, though its simplicity shows more with experienced players.

Crossing Oceans is a smoother, easier-to-follow version of Transatlantic, with Gerdts’s familiar love of the rondel intact. It is the sort of comfortable game I will put on the table without a second thought.

Kill Team v2 gave me quick, honest skirmish violence and plenty of laughs, with balance that initially looked carefully handled. Then the new balance sheet arrived to remind me that Games Workshop can still write army lists as though it has lost touch with its own game.