Reviews

Copycat is an overlooked deck- and engine-builder that has all the parts it needs: smooth, cheerful, and satisfying when your little machine starts to work.

1870: Railroading Across the Trans Mississippi delivered the particular kind of railway game in which the stock market is hostile, the map is hostile, and your friends are doing their best to improve matters.

M.U.L.E. The Board Game is a solid light economic game that keeps luck in its place and gives players room to make proper decisions. Then the pirates arrive and make it personal.

Tramways first struck me as a miserable experience; repeated plays have made it look like a demanding game of turn order and disciplined drafting instead. It is unforgiving by design, and much better for it.

Urban Sprawl has an AP reputation for a reason, but a table willing to live with its pace can get a satisfyingly full game out of it.

Among Nobles is not reinventing anything, but at three players it delivers a tight, pleasing hour that can come down to the final marriage.

Hegemonic is a heavy, combative game for six that rewards long-term planning while happily exhausting a table with analysis and retaliation. Give it time and clear heads, and its pressure can be thoroughly worthwhile.

Indonesia is a merciless, almost perfectly clean economic mind game: luck stays out of the way, while the players cheerfully ruin one another's plans. At five it is still excellent, though the seasons move quickly enough that the meal feels a little less substantial.

The Gallerist is, for me, Vital’s most cohesive design. Better still, it need not consume the entire afternoon people expect it to.

Saloon Tycoon is a brisk, light saloon-building game with more beneath the hat brim than it first lets on. It makes an excellent appetiser, then quietly asks for another play.

Ponzi Scheme is a handsome, deceptively simple investment game with enough venom to make success feel personal. Later plays temper the first rush of hostility, without making it any less worth owning.

Cavern Tavern borrows from Kingsburg and Lords of Waterdeep without surpassing either, but it has enough bite to justify its own place at the table. Its rules are needlessly hard work; the player interaction is not.

Star Wars: Rebellion delivered another epic contest, with the Empire bearing down and the Rebellion surviving by the finest margins. It is a large, slow game, and entirely worth the room it demands.

New Angeles makes a rough first impression, and its rulebooks do not make that first contact any smoother. Our opening game collapsed early, but it left me wanting another go rather than an excuse to pack it away.

Carson City: Big Box came back to the table with horses and an aggressively combative character mix, and promptly reminded us why it made such a strong first impression. Nobody was allowed a quiet little corner of the West.

Kansas Pacific is a short, simple Cube Rail game that makes another play sound perfectly reasonable. Its map and colour choices, unfortunately, make getting there harder than it ought to be.

Mystic Vale gives deckbuilding a genuinely different physical form by layering transparent upgrades onto cards. The central idea is fresh; the base game is rather less so.

An honest retheme of That's My Fish!, with Varys clearing Westeros of people while players close routes in each other’s faces. At three it has room to bite; at four it is over before anyone can hold a grudge.

The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire does not pretend to be a heavy game, but it keeps the table involved and the session moving. At around 70 minutes, it felt like money well spent.

Wealth of Nations: War Clouds remains a merciless economic game, where no gain is private and every advantage gives somebody else a reason to come for you. With an experienced group, it gets harsher — and, in spite of the complaints, better.

Terraforming Mars still rewards an approach that does not look like the obvious route to victory: a serious discount-and-card engine can outrun a far more visible map presence.

Cry Havoc promises asymmetric factions and spectacular conflict, but this three-player outing made balance feel more like a polite suggestion.

Great Western Trail turns point salad into a smooth, well-paced race for the things everyone suddenly needs. It is not an area-control brawl; it is a brisk game of getting there first.

Empires: Galactic Rebellion promises a leaner, improved Age of Empires with a Star Wars-inspired coat of paint. It has a modest niche as light area control for six, but it has discarded far too much of what made its predecessor worth playing.