Covenant

Covenant arrives looking as though somebody refused to leave a single cubic inch of the box unused: cards, tokens, dice, hexes, acrylic bits, buildings, columns and doors. The reclaim-the-kingdom-from-the-orcs story is standard dwarf-fantasy material, but the sheer spread of it has a pleasing excess; it makes a Tuesday after work feel a little less like one.

At heart, it is a generous tableau builder. You build out your own side of the game and put dwarf workers to use, while those workers level up as the game moves along. That growing sense of capability leaves a welcome trace of Caverna, without Covenant claiming to have invented a new species of wheel.

Its complexity is orderly rather than chaotic: the tracks and victory routes share a recognisable logic of costs and returns. So, despite the stew of components, the game remains fairly approachable and does not outstay its welcome. The rulebook is the weak point: large and comprehensive, yet arranged in a way that muddies more than it clarifies; after I misread the colours on the hexes twice, the table was entitled to its complaints.

It is not the prettiest thing ever printed — the illustration is no O’Toole — but that scarcely damages the point. Covenant is a good medium-weight Euro, about a 7.5 out of 10: far from singular in a crowded field, but full enough and balanced enough to be quietly excellent company.