Reviews

Red Flag Over Paris feels like a clearer step on from Fort Sumter, but my first play did not uncover enough game beneath its cards. I am not writing it off; I would simply like to see what an experienced opponent sees in it.

Tabannusi: Builders of Ur gives familiar euro machinery an unusually clever linkage, yet it never quite achieves the finished poise of Tascini’s strongest designs. At four players, however, it becomes a substantially more compelling proposition.

Corrosion is a factory-building action-programming game that proved far sharper than its lukewarm word of mouth suggested. It keeps the wait between turns low while giving each choice proper bite.

Lizard Wizard takes Racoon Tycoon’s market engine, gives it lizard mages, and tightens the joins. It is still a breezy market game with enough push-your-luck to resist complete control.

SYNDICATE: An Interplanetary Conquest Board Game has ambitious ideas and production values that suggest competence. Then the cards, dice, and imbalance begin taking turns dismantling it.

Origins: First Builders is considerably more pleasant than its reputation suggests, though it never becomes an easy recommendation. It is a lighter dice-placement euro with satisfying building chains and a few unusually sharp strategic edges.

Foundations of Rome is a lavish city-building gateway game which, with its Kickstarter expansions, edges towards light euro territory. It is enormous, expensive, and very difficult not to enjoy looking at.

Seeders from Sereis: Exodus is a weighty, unusual engine builder where building your own machine sits alongside bidding, hostile card powers, and plenty of scope for hard feelings. It stands apart, but it needs a group willing to take the hits and play it often enough to learn its deck.

Hellenica: Story of Greece treats ancient Greece as a loud mythological toybox rather than a history lesson. Get the right large group around it, though, and it delivers brisk conflict, plenty of noise, and remarkably little waiting.

Twilight: 2000 (4th Edition) drops the Forbidden Lands engine into a world already swallowed by war. It is a careful, grounded military RPG with enough tactical pressure to keep everyone at the table alert.

Gaia Project feels like a more settled Terra Mystica: a satisfyingly demanding puzzle, though a rather dry one at the table.

Legacies appears here as the brighter reserve choice for three players when a six-hour campaign was plainly the wrong fit. The account ends before the game itself reaches the table, however.

Rococo: Deluxe Edition is an older euro with plenty of life left in it: light engine building, resource management, and just enough room to deny someone at the right moment. The jewellers make it more accommodating without removing its teeth.

Beyond the Sun has lost none of its pull with repeat plays; a teaching game merely confirmed how readily it brings a new player aboard. The basic corporations are a sound way in, but the advanced boards are now the version I want on the table.

Alubari: A Nice Cup of Tea is effectively Snowdonia in a slimmer, easier-to-set-up package. Its tea economy adds a worthwhile wrinkle, but it gives up much of the variety that makes the original so replayable.

One Card Wonder is an ultra-light civilisation bag-builder about getting your wonder built before everyone else. It has real bite at lower player counts, provided you leave the leaders mini expansion out of the box.

Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar finally came off the shelf, expansion and all, and went straight into our regular rotation. It is the sort of heavy euro that makes a shortage of corn feel personal, then makes you ask for another game.

Agricola (Revised Edition) remains a classic eurogame, even if I still give Caverna the slight personal edge. BGA makes it wonderfully painless to revisit, though its live scoring takes a little suspense out of the finish.

Brian Boru: High King of Ireland gives trick-taking the substance it has been asking for: brisk, tidy, and handsomely made. It does not quite make the trick itself the star, but there is plenty around it to enjoy.

Kemet: Blood and Sand gave me a game that seemed decided before it had properly begun. White magic dominated so comfortably that I saw no reason to go back for a second helping.

Core Worlds: Empires is a heavy worker-placement game with honest 3X ambitions, minus exploration, and several clever links between its systems. It asks for a full three hours and a group willing to carry that weight, then pays them back with almost no downtime and continual conflict.

Khôra: Rise of an Empire is a pleasant, light civilisation race, much closer to a friendly game in weight and length than Iello’s “expert” label suggests. Its trouble is that military development is not merely a route to explore; it looks suspiciously like the route to take.

18Chesapeake is a lighter 18XX without sacrificing the genre’s necessary disasters. A wildly speculative opening with privates and starting companies made that especially clear.

Illumination is an odd, richly themed two-player brain-burner about monks competing over illuminated manuscripts. Its ideas are excellent, but keeping hold of them all can be tiring.