Reviews

Popular Front remains a hard, bruising six-player experience, one that brings history, politics, and everyone’s personalities to the surface. The base game alone is enough to explain its reputation.

Millennium Blades brought back the slightly nervous pleasure of old competitive card-game days. It did not land for everyone, but most of the table found a very good version of that feeling again.

The Hellas map gives Terraforming Mars a welcome change of scenery. For me, though, the tabletop version is still the better way to play because it keeps every opponent’s plans where you can see them.

Raccoon Tycoon takes a simple economic premise and gives it teeth with auctions and smart set collection. It is a light gateway game that gets the table watching one another’s money with proper suspicion.

Franchise is a lean area-influence game about spreading corporate networks across America, with brisk play and plenty of friction. A return visit also settled the question of whether it has staying power.

Trade on the Tigris is a pleasant, lighter trading game that still held up on a second outing. A few strategies are beginning to look suspiciously stronger than the rest, though.

Tulip Bubble remains a group favourite after many plays: hard, volatile, and at its best when everyone at the table is watching everyone else. A later game also showed how brutally the deck can tilt the whole affair.

Talon is quick and tidy on the table, but a one-off battle has little reason to exist. The campaign game is where the system finds its teeth.

Mage Wars Arena: Battlegrounds Domination is not merely a way to add more people to the table. With three mages and a scenario in play, it makes the arena broader, nastier, and far more strategically alive.

Inca Empire is an older, modest route builder with a useful place at the table: a brisk, tight Euro fix. Its simplicity is not an absence of design, but the frame for decisions that matter.

Cavum is a tight network-builder that turns empty hexes into a demolition site. Blowing up another player's tunnel feels remarkably like good table manners.

In AuZtralia, the late twist can turn the hunters into the main course with almost no warning.

Ground Floor (Second Edition) is a substantial euro that earns its high price by being unusually good at five players. It is not a casual closer, but it was a very satisfying night at the table.

Magnificent Flying Machines is straight beer-and-pretzels fare: loud laughs, petty attacks, and plenty of Take That. Its scoring has a mind of its own, though, so it makes more sense as a second-hand purchase.

Winner's Circle is not much to look at, but it is an unusually good party game once the racing starts: laughter, needling, and just enough trackside foolishness.

The Estates is a pure auction game with a closed money supply, a shifting balance of power, and genuine late reversals. The design has real promise, but five players expose a substantial scaling problem.

1066, Tears to Many Mothers: The Battle of Hastings is a light card-driven battle game with historical flavour, a brisk pace, and a healthy dependence on the draw. It will not make you feel like a grand commander, but it can deliver several satisfying clashes in an evening.

18Lilliput is a light railway game with enough bite to linger after the table is cleared. An early two-player concern about the green starting company remains only a concern; later plays made the stronger case for the game.

Cataclysm: A Second World War begins not with gunfire, but with flags, glances, and great powers eyeing neutral countries like the last slice of pizza. Germany has the wheel at the start.

Symphony No.9 feels like Tulip Bubble’s sensible next step: more of a eurogame, but no more complicated than it needs to be. It is a compact bidding game that makes its decisions matter.

Master of the Galaxy has a genuinely fresh central idea and insists that players fight over the win, but its rulebook and a few clumsy production choices make it far more fiddly than it needs to be. As it stands, it feels like a game waiting for a serious revision.

Blackout: Hong Kong is a dry, German-style sandbox euro with no interest in easing you into its world. Beneath that brisk welcome sits a small gem for players who want the machinery first.

Pocket Imperium is a lean 3.5X king-of-the-hill filler whose action selection turns your neighbours into the important part of every decision. At two players, much of that bite goes missing.

Stellar Leap is a light space game with handsome table presence and more to reveal after the first play. Its smooth pace rewards a group that comes back for another orbit.