Reviews

Cascadia is the sort of AEG family game that wins you over immediately: handsome, clear, and full of small decisions that matter. It is 2021’s Point Salad with wildlife, landscapes, and scoring that stays fresh.

Captains of the Gulf is a decent fishing game with a clever way of replenishing the sea, held back by a dry, restrictive rondel and a rulebook that deserts you at the awkward bits. I would happily play it a few times; I would not build a shrine to it.

Imperium: Legends is beautifully produced and clearly built around ambitious asymmetry, but my first two plays mostly showed how much depends on the civilisations in the game and the players behind them.

GWAR vs. Time! is a small treat for GWAR fans who want swords, blood and noise on the table. It is plainly built in Ascension’s shadow, but the theme wears that fact remarkably well.

Let's Waltz! is the long-awaited, generously modular expansion for Grand Austria Hotel, and it feels woven into the original rather than laid on top of it. By giving players more room to recover through the dancers, it makes an already beloved game easier to live with at a full table.

For What Remains: Out of the Basement is a clean solo or head-to-head skirmish game with straightforward rules, proper fighting, and an activation system that keeps the tension in the right place. The line is not cheap, but this box makes a much stronger case for itself than I expected.

Star Trek: Conflick in the Neutral Zone tries to wrap a space carrom game in rules and Star Trek dressing. It cannot even manage the modest achievement of being a laugh.

Monasterium looks more forbidding than it is: the teach takes a little while, then the structure settles into place. It is a clean tableau builder with meaningful choices and none of the headache its rules initially suggest.

Cradle of Civilization revisits Avalon Hill’s History of the World with a new map, new civilisations, plenty of dice, and a selection phase that lets players make trouble for one another. It is no revolution, but get five or more willing people around it and it can be properly lively.

The Battle of Armageddon: Deluxe Edition is a six-sided apocalypse full of nuclear strikes, the Antichrist, and counters vanishing in spectacular fashion. Its problem is that the chaos can remove a player from the game long before the battle is over.

War and Peace: Game of the Napoleonic Wars is enormous, but it has the good sense not to throw you straight into the abyss. Its introductory scenarios make a first encounter with this monster feel manageable.

Nemesis: Aftermath & Void Seeders shifts the horror aboard the USS Nemesis from teeth in the corridor to panic in the mind. I still prefer the base game’s classic aliens, but this ship remains very hard to leave behind.

Fire in the Lake put me off the first time, then won me over completely when I returned through the right scenario. It is a dense, violent, demanding COIN game that pays back experience at the table.

Shards of Infinity takes the familiar deck-building loop and gives it sharper elbows, satisfying combos, and a race that keeps everyone watching the table. Luck is part of the deal, but it is put to very good use.

Reykholt is a brisk, bare-bones Uwe Rosenberg worker-placement game of vegetables, tourists, and special cards that are either inert or excessive. It survives one play; it struggles to make a case for more.

Raccoon Tycoon: The Fat Cat Expansion makes an already light economic game look more deluxe, without addressing its weak spots. Some added buildings simply give the existing balance problems more room to breathe.

Nemesis is a lavish production whose real strength is not its systems but the stories it leaves behind at the table. With the right group and the right mood, its ship becomes a stage for panic, betrayal, and the sort of debrief that deserves another beer.

The Waylanders has a decent, quick skirmish game buried beneath a rulebook that seems determined to evict you before the first round. It is for committed genre fans, and only at a sensible price.

Inca Empire: The Card Game packs the road-and-city building of its larger namesake into an honest, light card game. It asks for more planning than its size suggests, then pays that attention back with replayable, satisfying little decisions.

Keyper has a clever worker-placement core built around shared opportunities, but it buries that strength under a draining rulebook and a disappointingly flat scoring finish.

Tiny Towns is a neat, clever city-builder that works for children learning shapes and colours, then quietly turns everyone else into a nuisance with a cube in hand.

Project Nisei’s System Gateway was enough to bring Android: Netrunner back to the table, and six games promptly reminded me why I still rate it above every other CCG/LCG. Even when you know the decks too well, its pulse is still there.

Gùgōng is a card-drafting worker-placement Euro built around a clever, luck-free action system that demands proper thought. It works unusually well at five, though its restrained drama and runaway-leader issue keep it short of the top tier.

Cooper Island is a punishing optimisation solitaire dressed for company, and it has not yielded its best lines to us yet. That resistance is very much part of its appeal.