Luthier

Luthier arrives on the table like a small period production. It is beautifully made, its classical-music setting has real presence, and the whole thing looks determined to make an evening of itself. The eye does have to put in a shift, mind: there are colours, icons and little bits everywhere, enough to make a Tuesday-after-work game feel like a persuasive argument for reading glasses.

At heart, it combines a race, tableau building, area majority and resource management. For such a busy-looking design, the play is remarkably smooth, and its decisions have that lovely, slightly anxious quality of trying to fit one more worthwhile task into a diary that was already full.

Players lean on one another through the race and the majority contests: you watch who is advancing, who wants the same space, and when your own objectives are worth defending. But the asymmetric artisans and end-game scoring cards can put too much weight on the opening choices; without a sense of the full landscape, you may spend several hours as the poor relation in a game that was tilting before it had properly begun.

That was my problem on the first play. The imbalance, alongside the limited control over end-game scoring, left me cold. I can forgive that in a short game; here, the decision-making has a little of Trickerion's stimulating pressure, and it needs to feel as though your efforts are standing on fair ground.

Updated session

The second play changed the picture properly. Once we understood what the characters and objectives could offer, choices became deliberate and the contest for first was a fair one, decided by a narrow margin. The concern about luck has not vanished entirely, but Luthier proved much better once the table knew how to read it; among its fellow lavish euros, it outplays Seti, Planta Nubo and Thebai, and is quietly excellent for anyone who can stomach the price.