Reviews

New Corp Order is the reliable quick game: easy to bring back to the table and satisfying without claiming the whole evening. This session stayed unusually civil, but it still did the job.

Core Worlds is an overlooked, substantial deckbuilder with a smooth flow and scoring that feels earned. Galactic Orders is a very worthwhile addition; Revolutions is optional seasoning for groups wanting a little more friction.

Vast: The Crystal Caverns is an asymmetric adventure in which the Knight, Dragon, Goblins, and the Cave itself are pursuing very different games at the same table. The first play teaches balance rather than rules, which is rather more interesting than it sounds.

Iberian Rails is an honest cube rail with an unusually lively approach to funding companies and running auctions, even if its track building carries less of the design. I would happily bring it back for Taiwan and the other character sets.

All Bridges Burning is a remarkably dense COIN game: small on the table, demanding in the decisions it asks for, and serious about its Finnish Civil War setting. It is not a sensible entry point to the series, but it rewards an experienced four-player group handsomely.

Terra Incognita brings some genuinely smart ideas to Civilization: A New Dawn, but it cannot escape the limits of the underlying design. It is an expansion for people who already love the game, not the repair job its critics were waiting for.

Ora et Labora earns its reputation as one of the stronger works in its field: water, production, and an economy with several layers to uncover. Early games feel open; its sharper edge arrives once everyone can see what the others are setting up.

Gray Eminence is a distinctive, carefully made game of global conspiracies, backed by real research and a pleasingly strange sense of theme. Its execution, however, gets tangled in unclear rules and mechanisms that do not always belong together.

Rise to Nobility is a full-bodied, likeable dice-placement euro, and a clear step up from its creators’ Cavern Tavern. The base game can suffer from a runaway leader, but the box also contains credible ways to address it.

Pacific Rails Inc. combines worker placement and track laying with unusual confidence, and does so at a pace and length that feel properly judged. Its map, however, never quite cashes the promise of its central idea.

Struggle of Empires is a deluxe reprint built for a noisy table: auctions, wars, alliances, and the betrayal that makes all of them matter. When everyone leans into it, the scores stay brutal and nobody leaves innocent.

Craftsmen has been punished by its reputation more than it deserves, though that does not make it a lost masterpiece. Beneath an awkward teach sits a coherent, demanding production game; once the friction is gone, so is some of its mystery.

Guild Master is a light dice game with a worthwhile action-selection twist and simultaneous resolution. It is far from essential, but it has a sensible place on a more relaxed game night.

Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy sets a rather intimidating standard for a deluxe reissue, and looks good enough to tempt owners of the fully loaded original. Once the newness wears off, though, it remains a better presentation of a good game with familiar limits.

Undaunted: North Africa brings vehicles to a series I already like a great deal, and its early scenarios suggest there is more to uncover. It has not swept me away yet, but it has certainly kept me at the table.

Scythe is still striking on the table and brisk enough in motion, but beneath that polished surface its tempo feels broken and too many choices lack a convincing reason to exist. Adding almost all the material does not improve the game; it merely enlarges the disappointment.

Robotech: Force of Arms is a quick two-player filler with a pleasingly spare framework and a fatal commitment to symmetry. It works as a way into the series, not as a reason to linger here.

Robotech: Crisis Point is a noticeably steadier second entry, fixing several of the first game's weak spots with a larger 4x4 playing space, restrained asymmetry, and more variety. It cannot challenge the finest quick two-player games, but it is a worthwhile small box for anyone with some affection for Robotech.

Tekhenu: Obelisk of the Sun is a dense dice-placement point salad: thematically adjacent to Teotihuacan, but far more demanding in the optimisation it expects. One play is not enough for a final ruling, though the design has already shown its teeth.

The Cost delivers tight finishes, hard choices, and the pleasing certainty that nobody at the table is there to spare you. Later plays confirm that a clean approach can work, provided you can actually plan it.

Flying Colors is an honest dicefest, even if every attempt to finish it seems to summon some minor catastrophe. Its energy comes from dice and cannon fire, with no need to pretend it is something grander.

Crystal Palace has a genuinely fresh idea at its centre: choosing dice and paying for them. It is worth returning to, though a few rough joins keep it from feeling fully finished.

The first-edition All-Aboard full setup, with its purple companies, makes the complaint about the 2038 companies impossible to dismiss. Even so, Rolling Stock remains an exceptional economic sandbox.

Cosmic Colonies is a tidy space puzzle of cards, resources and tile placement, with enough brain-burn for its brief running time. It does not aim to reinvent anything, but it is a handsome little thing to have on the table.