Reviews

Thebai pairs the rebuilding of the Cadmeia with the threat of seven attackers in a smart, handsomely produced euro. Its stack of mechanisms has real purpose, though the four-player game deserves a reservation.

Rock Hard: 1977 is handsomely produced and reasonably committed to its theme, but beneath the polish sits a bland push-your-luck exercise that leaves chance doing the heavy lifting.

Colonial 1700-1800 is an odd little pocket wargame with real atmosphere, cards marching across cards, and battles that can wreck a plan on one bad roll. There is substance here, provided you can live with its quirks.

Luthier is a lavish euro with a handsome table presence and a satisfyingly busy engine of decisions. Its first play can feel unfair, though, until everyone understands where the real choices begin.

Stress Botics conceals an interesting economic game beneath layers of rules, exceptions, and mechanical clutter. Its hand management deserves attention; nearly everything around it seems determined to punish that attention.

Monkey Palace combines LEGO building with resource gathering in a clever, approachable game for children around 6–12. A few production cards are noticeably too strong, but it delivers exactly the sort of table experience it promises.

Pampero is a luckless renewable-energy economy game with superb information design and scoring goals that genuinely alter its shape. It needs the right setup, though, and a group that will not casually subsidise one another into a ruined game.

Star Wars: Battle of Hoth puts Memoir ’44’s framework in the one setting that makes its abstractions feel entirely right. In its two-box Epic form, it also gives dice less authority and hand management considerably more.

Tianxia is a knottier Tascini euro, pairing worker placement with invaders who will not politely wait for your engine to mature. Early plays are highly encouraging, though a few buildings may be doing rather too much work.

Unconscious Mind is a substantial, beautifully produced game with plenty going on. I simply never found the feeling at its centre.

1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight made for a hard, slightly dated railway introduction with newcomers, yet it still held the table. At three players, it seems to find its strongest reason to exist.

Moon Colony Bloodbath is a silly beer-and-pretzels game with blood, laughs, and a modest little engine ticking underneath. It never pretends to be more substantial than it is.

Storm Raiders is an unusually direct pick-up-and-deliver game from the designer associated with Garphill’s rise. It is fairly brisk, but gives route optimisation enough room to matter.

Galileo Galilei is a brisk, agreeable euro built around an upgradeable rondel and several credible scoring routes. A later session, however, exposed an asymmetric element capable of producing a deeply uncomfortable gap in a game this tight.

Flip 7 is pure push-your-luck with a little take-that seasoning, and it makes no claim to be anything grander. Meet it on its own silly terms and it can become alarmingly hard to put down.

Battle for the Deep: Powered by Axis & Allies puts asymmetric sea-going factions on a cramped map that quickly gives everyone something to fight over. Dice can ruin your day, but when they behave, the brawls have real bite.

Atlantis Exodus is an ambitious, abundant heavy euro from Greek designers, with fresh ideas and end-game scoring worth watching. It needs time, and probably a second play, before it earns a final judgement.

Farms Race: Deluxe Edition starts with the familiar business of spreading out for resources, then hands the table dice, karate and nuclear weapons. It is not asking to be taken seriously; it is asking for a group willing to laugh while it wrecks one another’s plans.

Viscounts of the West Kingdom turns a rondel into something less predictable and, consequently, more compelling. The shifting card supply blunts long-range planning, but it does not blunt the design.

Raising Chicago is a Spiellworx gem that slipped beneath the radar: a pure, luckless auction game whose modified Walrasian market is as disciplined as it is explosive.

7 Empires reduces Gerdts’s Imperial to a gentler proposition, then misplaces much of the reason Imperial mattered. The long game supplies a little pulse; it does not supply a recommendation.

A faithful, substantial Heroes of Might and Magic III adaptation with smart battles and a ruthless appetite for time. It is a good night out, but the box wants the whole evening, and not every scenario earns it equally.

Great Western Trail: El Paso compresses the parent game into a cheaper, portable package, but mostly feels like a reduction. The cattle-card poker is still pleasant; it just has better siblings.

Frozen Frontier is a brisk economic resource-management game in which exploring a new stretch of galaxy means making temporary alliances and fighting hard for control. It has real depth without leaving anyone parked between turns, and enough variety to stay fresh.