Reviews

On my first encounter with El Grande, the grandfather of area control, I found an old game that still flows beautifully and delivers honest thrills. Its age shows in a few places, but the overall impression remains clearly positive.

La Stanza was an instant blind buy for me because of its designers, but it ended up being a disappointing, overly random experience. Short and quick, yes; a good game, no.

Snowdonia: Deluxe Master Set is a quick, old-school euro with incredible scenario variety and replayability. The deluxe edition makes it feel like an excellent purchase for anyone who wants to keep coming back to it.

Town Builder: Coevorden is a simple, comfortable game in the vein of Villagers, with excellent production and a relaxed flow. It does nothing startling, but it is consistently pleasant as a filler.

An east-west Cube Rails game that wants to feel more serious and heavier, but for me ends up merely dry and fiddly. I would pick Baltimore & Ohio without a second thought.

Wingspan is a light, quick game that fits easily onto the table, but it never gives me enough reason to take it terribly seriously. The European birds bring clever ideas, along with more disorder than I want.

A very interesting Broker variant that also stands firmly as a limited-information stock-manipulation game in its own right. Its QE-like elimination at the end gives it a finale that raises the tension.

An unusual, thematic worker-placement game for anyone with a soft spot for newspapers and groups that appreciate its journalistic theme. Despite its rough edges, it is very enjoyable and seems to have been treated unfairly by its reputation.

Key Market (Second Edition) is a tight eco-euro that largely earns the buzz surrounding the original. It runs for roughly two full hours, but fills them with painful market decisions and choices that matter.

Aeronautica Imperialis: Wings of Vengeance initially looks like another chaotic GW dicefest, but beneath the buckets of dice lies a demanding dogfight of positioning and timing. It needs careful list building, because the imbalance of certain aircraft can undermine all that tension.

I was eagerly expecting a light civ-area-control game from GMT. Instead, my first encounter was so disappointing that I can find no reason to give it a second look.

Trajan sat on my shelf for far too long, until a first exploratory play reminded me how unfair it is to let such an impressive game gather dust. It charmed me, and I can already see several returns to it in the new season.

Barrage initially won me over as a heavy, brain-burning worker-placement game full of malice on the map. On a second encounter, though, its asymmetric combos and rigid action spaces made it feel more like an expensive ordeal than a pleasure.

East Indiaman sat on my shelf for over a year, mainly because its manual does not make the first encounter easy. With a little persistence, though, it turned into a tight, quick game that deserves another try—this time with four players.

Impulse struck me as an excellent game: clever, chaotic, and enjoyably panic-inducing. It is not for everyone, nor is it something you learn in a breath, but I had a great time with it.

Chicago 1875: City of the Big Shoulders is a small economic monster that initially looked suspiciously uneven, but revealed much better balance on its second play. It is ruthless about mistakes and, for me, a must-buy for fans of economic games.

I did not know much about Towers of Am'harb, but seeing Moideas is enough to get it onto my table without much hesitation. Thankfully, it continues the publisher's very good track record.

Shadow Rivals first pulled me in as another impulsive Moideas purchase, and only afterward did I start discovering the game itself. Beneath its utterly bizarre wrapping, I found a more strategic version of Smash Up that I liked quite a bit.

Black Angel won me over in the end, but it needed someone else's patience with the rulebook and, above all, the right player count. At three it revealed itself as a solid, demanding engine builder; at four it had not left me with the same impression.

On my third play, Colonial Twilight remained every bit as tense as I remembered, even though my opponent’s lack of experience made the match somewhat one-sided. As serious two-player GMT games go, I recommend it without hesitation.

After more than ten games, including three with the 2010+ card pool, I clearly prefer the base Labyrinth. Awakening changes the game substantially, but its tokens can swing it far too easily.

A decent economic negotiation/auction game that does not reach Splotter’s best work, but does not disappoint either. Its mechanisms take centre stage, while the endgame is not its most exciting feature.

QE is a very easy economic party game that does not pretend to be deep. It creates laughs and tension around the table, and I think it deserves a place in every collection.

Doors and Corners initially looks like a sham of an expansion, but its five small additions fix the base game where it hurt and raise it dramatically.