Top 11 games of 2018

We chose our top 10 based on number of hours played, with a minimum of 5 plays per game throughout the year. This year we had a tie for fifth place and a three-way tie for eighth place, creating the need for a top 11. Besides, one more game won't hurt anyone...

The big surprise this year is how few games from last year's top 10 made the list, the biggest shocker being not only that X-Wing did not make it into the top 10, but we didn't play a single game of it in 2018. I chalk this up to us spending a lot more time playing other miniatures games, and also a lack of interest in the recently released X-Wing Second Edition.

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11 (tie). Covert

5 plays, 12.5 hours (average play time 2.5 hours per game)

A lavish game that's relatively simple yet very engaging. I love the cold war spy genre, and Covert evokes that nicely with it's European setting and cards representing spy gadgets like miniature cameras and briefcase tape recorders.

Read the full review.

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10 (tie). Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks

5 plays, 12.5 hours (average play time 2.5 hours per game)

2018 was the year we finally got some decent Doctor Who tabletop games. This one manages to capture the feel of Doctor Who quite well but it does seem a little incomplete, an issue that will hopefully be remedied by the long-delayed expansions that will hopefully see the light of day soon.

Read the full review.

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9 (tie). Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game

5 plays, 12.5 hours (average play time 2.5 hours per game)

At the behest of a friend who wanted to try it, we got this old gem out and actually spent a fair amount of time playing it this year. I still maintain that it is one of the most well-designed trading card games ever published.

Read the full review.

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8. 7TV

5 plays, 13.5 hours (average play time 2.75 hours per game)

We've built up a fairly large collection of miniatures and terrain for this great skirmish game based on British "spy-fi" television of the 1970s such as The Avengers, The Prisoner and Life on Mars. The rules do a good job of providing a framework that allows us to immerse ourselves in the setting, which to me is the whole reason to play games like this.

Read the full review.

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7. Yamataï

5 plays, 14 hours (average play time 2.75 hours per game)

I'd be rich if I could bottle and sell whatever it is that makes Jérémie Fleury's artwork so appealing. Thankfully, with Yamataï it's backed up by a very interesting exploration and resource management game.

Read the full review.

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6 (tie). Clank! In! Space!

6 plays, 14 hours (average play time 2.5 hours per game)

I'm a big fan of deck-building games, but the can tend to get a bit repetitive. This one innovates by adding a board with a movement mechanic, as players attempt to rob an evil despot's space ship before anyone notices.

Read the full review.

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5 (tie). Cthulhu Wars

6 plays, 14 hours (average play time 2.5 hours per game)

Cthulhu Wars is one of only two returning games from last year's top 10 list. Apart from the exceptional miniatures, it really is a compelling Risk-style strategy game.

Read the full review.

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4. Doctor Who: Exterminate!

6 plays, 16.75 hours (average play time 2.75 hours per game)

We were a little lukewarm on this skirmish game when we originally picked it up in 2017, but the growing range of miniatures has rekindled our interest, especially since we can use the same tabletop terrain we've been assembling for 7TV.

Read the full review.

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3. Dinosaur Island

9 plays, 23 hours (average play time 2.5 hours per game)

This was one of my most anticipated games for this year, and I wasn't disappointed. It's a great engine-building game, and the recent expansion makes the game more interesting without making it more complicated.

Read the full review.

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2. Conan

19 plays, 27.5 hours (average play time 1.5 hours per game)

The only other returning game from last year's top 10, Conan dropped one spot but still saw plenty of play in 2018. Part of this was due to an 8-week campaign that I talked one of my roleplaying groups into, but the ability to play this game as an ongoing series is part of what makes it such a great game.

Read the full review.

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1. Mythic Battles: Pantheon

21 plays, 37.5 hours (average play time 1.75 hours per game)

Apart from the great miniatures, gorgeous artwork, and well-designed rules, the nicest thing I can say about this game is that every time we finish a game we want to play again.

Read the full review.

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Honorable Mention

Western Legends

5 plays, 11.5 hours (average play time 2.25 hours per game)

A great open world adventure game set in the wild west. The fact that we played this game four times in the first month we got it tells me that it probably would have placed in the top 10 if we'd had it earlier in the year.

Read the full review.

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Most anticipated game of 2019

Core Space

This game looks simply amazing. A board game/skirmish hybrid similar to Mythic Battles: Pantheon or Conan, with an intriguing semi-cooperative element that puts players in competition with each other for resources, but both at threat from an invading horde of killer robots. And rather than just a flat, printed board, it comes with Battle Systems 3D terrain.

Gods and monsters

In some ways I feel like the publishers of Mythic Battles: Pantheon took advantage of me. The game's Kickstarter campaign launched soon after they had delivered their phenomenal Conan board game, so I was flush with excitement over how great Conan was, and regret that I had only backed the core game and a few small expansions. That, combined with some compelling playthrough videos on Beasts of War and the infectious enthusiasm of their PR man Leo, made diving into this game a no-brainer.

It's a great example of an emerging category of hybrid games combining elements of adventure board games and tactical skirmishers. At its core, MB:P is a battle between two or more players' assembled forces of gods, heroes and monsters from Greek mythology, using movement around a battlefield to gain advantage and dice to score hits on opposing miniatures. However, it borrows two important board game elements to keep things interesting.

One is the use of a printed board to enable area-based movement, eliminating the need for fiddly tape measures. The game comes with several beautifully illustrated boards depicting different environments, with movement spaces clearly marked. Each space includes a symbol identifying what type of terrain it is and how many miniatures can occupy the space. The symbol also doubles as a simple line-of-sight indicator, making it easy to tell whether opposing miniatures can shoot at each other.

The other board game element MB:P uses is "activation cards" to determine when miniatures can move and attack, and this is where I think this game really shines. At the start of the game players assemble a deck of cards based on the characters they have included in their army, plus some "Art of War" cards that enable different special effects. In order to move a particular miniature, the player must first play that miniature's card from their hand. This forces players to think on their feet, formulating their tactics based on the cards they have available, rather than using the same strategy over and over again.

The default game involves collecting tokens called Omphalos from the board, which add a strategy card to the player's deck once collected. This makes even a basic game more interesting than your standard "rush to the middle and fight" skirmish, since collecting a majority of Omphalos is one of the main ways to win the game. Additionally, the rule book details a wide array of scenario-based games that give different objectives and victory conditions, as well as several multi-game campaigns where the result of one game affects the next.

It's a great rules system, and it's coupled with some gorgeous visual elements. The artwork on the cards and boards is stunning, and the miniatures are just amazing. They're plastic, but they hold an incredible amount of detail, and they are an absolute joy to paint. The manufacturing even involved a method using different types of plastic, with spears and swords made out of a harder material so that they stay straight. Any miniature painter who's had to straighten out a curvy spear on a plastic model will know what I'm talking about.

The only thing I can think of to complain about is that the sheer amount of content can be overwhelming, with close to 200 miniatures and over 80 scenarios to play with. All in all, that's probably not a bad problem to have.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) This game has the surprisingly rare combination of great miniatures coupled with a simple but compelling rules system.

• Mythic Battles: Pantheon official website
• Mythic Battles: Pantheon on BoardGameGeek

It's about time...

Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks is essentially a re-themed Elder Sign, but I think I'm okay with that. Thematically, Elder Sign is a game about tweedy academics solving problems intellectually rather than with brute force, and that is absolutely what a Doctor Who game should be about.

Like Elder Sign, the core gameplay in Time of the Daleks involves rolling dice and matching their symbols in order to complete tasks. Each player plays as a particular Doctor, with assistants and gadgets that allow him to manipulate the roll of the dice in order to get the right combination of symbols. Each successfully completed task moves that player closer to winning the game.

Also like Elder Sign, there is a villain at work, essentially trying to outrace the players and prevent them from winning. In this case it's the Daleks, and their presence is felt in the game in several ways. Failing at a task will generally move the Dalek saucer forward on the scoring track, and of course they win if they beat all the players to the end. Additionally, any failure will also result in a Dalek figure being placed on the board, where they reduce the number of dice the players get to roll. Too many Daleks on the board will also lose the game for the players.

There are a few ways in which Time of the Daleks differs from Elder Sign (enough to keep Reiner Knizia's lawyers at bay, anyway). The dice-rolling tasks that players must accomplish are determined by a combination of two different tiles on the board: a location and a dilemma (usually a villain from the TV series' long history). This makes for a great deal of mix-and-match variety, as Silurians may threaten the planet Karn in one game, and the Time Meddler in another.

Combine that with a randomly shuffled deck of companions, and the game can tell a multitude of what if stories as Leela teams up with Sarah Jane Smith and the 11th Doctor to stop the Cybermen from invading Clara's apartment, or the First Doctor and Nardole foil the Master's Trap at the Bank of Karabraxos.

Another way in which it differs from Elder Sign is that it is only partially co-operative. Players are in competition with each other to get to the end of the score track first, but they all lose if the Daleks get there first. If a player is having a tough time solving a dilemma, he can ask one of the other players for help, which they may be inclined to do if it will slow down the Daleks. Additionally, the assisting player shares in the reward for completing the dilemma. It reminds me a lot of the multi-Doctor stories where they fight and bicker but end up cooperating for the greater good.

If you read the online chatter about this game, the main complaint about it seems to be that the announced expansions for the game have not yet materialized, a year after the game's release. Part of this frustration no doubt comes from the fact that the game was originally intended to feature six Doctors rather than four, and was scaled back in order to get the asking price down. The game's coverage of the world of Doctor Who does feel a little thin here and there -- clearly there is room for a lot more content.

Nevertheless, it's a solidly designed game with some beautifully designed components (The Expanse Board Game could learn a lesson here). Most importantly, it feels like Doctor Who, which is something no other board game in the show's 55 year history has quite managed to do.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) A good game that could be a great one. It captures the feel of Doctor Who, but not quite the depth.

• Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks official website
• Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks on BoardGameGeek

Check out my OnTableTop.com project blog about painting the miniatures that come with this game.

Building a better dinosaur

Dinosaur Island is almost exactly the game I wanted it to be. I really like engine-building games, where the goal is to use the game's options to build up a point-generating mechanism. This game lets you do just that, offering meaningful and thematic choices in the process: do I focus on tons of different dinosaurs, or do I balance them with other attractions like carnival rides and snack shops? Do I play it slow and safe with plenty of security, or do I allow the occasional dinosaur to escape its pen and eat a visitor or two, hoping to mitigate the damage later?

The game structure is complex but not complicated; I find that we rarely need to consult the rules while playing, which to me is a sign of a well-designed game. Each turn is broken up into four phases: in the first, dice are rolled to determine which DNA strands are available for the turn, then players go through a few rounds of worker placement, deciding whether to research new DNA, increase DNA storage so more can be stockpiled, or grab dinosaur "recipes" in order to create animals for their parks.

Next comes a buying phase, where players spend their cash on equipment upgrades, staff specialists, and secondary park attractions such as restaurants and gift shops. After that is the game's main worker placement phase, where players clone new dinosaurs, build larger habitats for them, increase security, and gather investment capital.

Finally comes the park phase, which is a delicate balancing act of attracting visitors and making sure they all have something to do in the park. Each dinosaur has an excitement value, which determines how many visitors line up outside your park. You gain income from all these visitors, but you only get points for the ones that find something to do in the park, whether it is actually looking at a live dinosaur, or thrilling to carnival rides with amusing names like "Jurassic Whirled."

Some dinosaurs (generally the large, carnivorous ones) are more exciting than others, so if you have a lot of these you will find yourself with more visitors than you have space (which is why you need thrill-rides and gift shops). Additionally, the visitors are drawn randomly out of a bag, which contains a number of "hooligans" who don't pay admission and take up valuable space in your park. And if you don't have enough security, dinosaurs will escape and eat your paying customers, which loses you points.

Event cards provide different global game effects, and the conditions that end the game are drawn randomly as well, so no two games are much alike. Even frequent players are forced to try out different strategies depending on what the global effects and end conditions are, and what resources are available from turn to turn,

You may notice that at the beginning of this review I stated "almost exactly the game I wanted it to be." My only quibble with Dinosaur Island (and it is a minor quibble at that) is the obnoxious graphic design. It's intended to evoke the early 1990s when Jurassic Park was first released, but I find all the pink and yellow just a little bit off-putting. Not enough to stop me from enjoying the game though.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) A terrific game with a lot of meaningful decisions to make, and a ton of replay value. And I guess the graphics aren't that bad...

• Dinosaur Island official website
• Dinosaur Island on BoardGameGeek

A $30 game in a $50 box

It's always especially disappointing to me when a great (or even a merely adequate) game is let down by sub-standard production values. You could argue that it shouldn't matter that much, as long as the playing pieces work your imagination can do the rest, and that may have been true in the '70s and '80s with games like Dune or Aliens that have some great game play but fall short on component quality.

In the current board game renaissance, however, the bar has been significantly raised, so much so that a game that doesn't look good is at best embarrassing, and at worst difficult to find players for. The Expanse Board Game, published by Wizkids and based on the television and book series, is such a game.

The game itself is fairly good. Players control the planetary governments that hover in the background of the TV series, manipulating events in order to control the solar system. The core of the game is a row of action cards which are purchased by players using their victory points, and then used either for their printed game effect, or spent for more general actions such as moving fleets around the board. There are several scoring cards shuffled into various points of the deck, and when one of these comes up, players score points based on the number of planets and moons they control, with ties broken by the strength of a player's fleet.

It's a fairly basic area control game, with two important elements that make it feel like the TV show it's based on. One is that each player has a series of tech cards that are earned at various points throughout the game, which serve to escalate the conflict between the planets; early in the game there is an uneasy truce in which players are not allowed to openly attack each other, but this quickly escalates into open warfare, much as it does over the course of the show.

The other interesting game element is the Rocinante, the misfit ship whose crew are the main characters of the show. In the game, James Holden and his crew change their alliance from turn to turn, with control of them going to whichever player is in last place. I particularly like this touch, as it reflects their shifting alliances and also their tendency throughout the series to support the underdog.

The aforementioned poor components -- mainly muddy images on the cards, a bland board that is sometimes difficult to read, and too-small cardboard counters to represent each player's mighty warships -- stop just short of actually being distracting, and might be acceptable if the game's asking price were a little lower.

On the other hand, maybe that's appropriate for a game that takes place in the Belt, where resources are scarce and everything is more expensive than it should be.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) A decent game that would probably rate higher if either the production quality were better, or the price point were lower.

• The Expanse Board Game official website
• The Expanse Board Game on BoardGameGeek

Delivery drivers of the wasteland

Wasteland Express Delivery Service has a little bit of everything. At its heart it is a pick up and deliver game where each player attempts to be the first one to complete three "priority first class contracts," usually a multi-step process involving several pick ups and deliveries across the board. At the same time, players need to play the cargo market, a supply and demand system that requires them to purchase resources and then sell them on for a profit. This money is then used to buy upgrades for their trucks, in order to be able to play more efficiently.

On top of all that, what would a lawless wasteland be without raiders? The game includes three raider trucks that move around the board and attack the players, or at the very least get in their way, forcing them to take longer routes to get to their destinations. Players move the raider trucks depending on where their own trucks end up after moving, which introduces some additional tactical decisions ("if I move there, I can move that raider out of the way, and/or have it land on my opponent") and also a bit of "take that" player interaction.

Depending on how you decide to use your truck's limited upgrade space, you can even make a viable income out of chasing and attacking the raiders. Each raider truck carries resources which are won when they're defeated, and those resources can then be sold on for cash to use for further upgrades.

The game uses a ton of tokens and cards which make it seem more complicated than it actually is. There is a lot to take in, but the game play flows well, and we have found that once we get going we rarely need to refer to the rule book. And the amazing component trays that come with the game (a rarity these days) do a great job of keeping things organized.

It's a lot like Firefly: the Game, with the pick up and deliver mechanic and the non-player raiders wandering the board, but in some ways I like Wasteland Express better. While Firefly does an excellent job of immersing its players in the world of the TV show, and provides solid game mechanics, it can also fall victim to a "supercrew" situation where a player with the right combination of crew cards is pretty much unbeatable, and that removes a lot of dramatic tension from the game.

Wasteland Express doesn't take place in quite such a well-developed world (although it does a lot with the flavor text on the cards), but it does a better job of retaining the tension: combat with the raiders is always at least a little uncertain, and the cargo market can drop out from under you, suddenly devaluing all that water you were planning on selling for a massive profit.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) A great game that's easy to play but with a good amount of depth, with a fun theme and very well-made components.

• Wasteland Express Delivery Service official website
• Wasteland Express Delivery Service on BoardGameGeek

Follow the clues

When I picked up Deadline, I was hoping for a mystery-solving game somewhere in between 221B Baker Street and Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective.

While not quite as simple as Clue, Baker Street spends too much of a player's turn on uninspired game mechanics: roll to move, then read the clue for the location you find yourself in (if you're not stuck in the game's too-long spaces between locations), which is frequently a misleading word-puzzle that has no relation to the story being told. Consulting Detective, on the other hand, offers a much more intense, story-rich experience, but is extremely light on game mechanics, so much so that playing it feels more like a collective Choose Your Own Adventure than a board game.

Deadline is indeed somewhere in between the two, but in this case that didn't turn out to be nearly as interesting as I'd hoped.

The game features 12 separate cases, with clues provided via a sealed pack of cards, one for each case. Each case starts with a few clues revealed, and each clue card depicts a series of icons, 1930s gumshoe staples such as a pack of cigarettes, a glass of whiskey, a bundle of money, and so on.

Players play cooperatively, each with their own hand of cards drawn from a common deck of lead and plot twist cards. Leads, which compose the majority of the deck, feature the same icons in various combinations. Game play involves players taking turns playing down cards in an effort to match all the icons shown on the clue they're working on: once they do, the clue card is turned over, revealing information which may or may not point to the mystery's solution, and also indicating new clue cards which may be added to those available to be worked on.

The catch (and there's always a catch) is that new leads can only be played by overlapping the symbols at the bottom of the cards, and players aren't allowed to talk specifically about the cards they have in their hands, so you can't stop a player from overlapping a particular icon, even if you have a better play in your hand. Once a player can't play any more lead cards, they have to play a plot twist if they have one, which is usually a negative effect. Too many failures mean that clues start getting removed from the case. Play continues until the clues run out.

The first card played can be any card, but the second must have at least one overlapping icon. Blanks are wild and can cover or be covered by any icon.

This next card can be played on either end of the chain, overlapping the hat on the left or the cigarette and the gun on the right, depending on what icons the players need to solve the current clue.

This card isn't playable to the chain at all, since it isn't possible to match all three symbols, or play on either end of the chain.

It's a weird game system that doesn't really feel connected to the story, and isn't particularly interesting or satisfying on its own. Plus, you still have to interpret the clues correctly in order to solve the mystery, which frequently comes down to the players' best guess. And the cases (at least the ones we've played so far) aren't very compelling stories either.

In short, Deadline's game mechanics don't really mesh with the storylines at all, you end up with the worst parts of Baker Street and Consulting Detective:  a mystery that the players have to solve using as few clues as possible, and a largely unrelated and uninteresting symbol-matching card game.

Rating: 2 (out of 5) Not a terrible game by any means, just not a very interesting or compelling one.

• Deadline official website
• Deadline on BoardGameGeek

1/12/2023 Note: on a much later reviewing I've noticed that in the final example above, the card in question could actually be played to the right end of the chain (the cigarette pack icon). Still a mediocre game though...

Brilliant

Sol: Last Days of a Star is a rather ingenious resource management game set in outer space. Players take control of a fleet of ships attempting to siphon off enough energy from a dying sun to allow their colony ship to escape a doomed solar system.

The game has some really interesting mechanics involving movement, positioning, and generating and spending resources. Your main ship is moving slowly around the outer edge of the board. You have to launch smaller ships and position them in particular ways in order to build the other structures that you will need to generate energy, which then allows you to build more of those smaller ships, and also accumulate momentum, the points that will determine the game's winner.

All the while, the game is counting down by way of a deck of cards that are drawn. What you build and where you build it determines how many cards you draw at the end of your turn, so each player's actions will make the game end come faster or more slowly. Additionally, cards drawn can give you different powers and abilities to use.

It's a simple, elegant game with a lot of significant decisions to make, and very little random chance. The countdown mechanic creates some tension and urgency, while also making sure the game doesn't take too long to play and providing lot of variation between games thanks to the different special abilities the cards give you. It is a terrific game.

But that's not why I bought it.

I bought this game because it is absolutely gorgeous to look at. The graphic design isn't just top-notch, it is stunning, and incredibly well balanced. The design accommodates the game play perfectly, and at no point does it look like one had to compromise for the other. Everything about the look of this game is exceptional. Seriously, graphic design students should study it as a piece of exceptional design.

Imagine my relief when it turned out to be an excellent game too.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) An incredible game design, both visually and mechanically.

• Sol: Last Days of a Star official website
• Sol: Last Days of a Star on BoardGameGeek

Doctor Who on TV isn't really about combat, but...

Daleks vs Sontarans, a clash yet to be seen on TV

Before 2006, most Doctor Who fans of a certain type probably wondered who would come out on top in a clash between the show's two highest profile recurring villains, the Daleks and the Cybermen. Despite appearing in the classic series regularly over it's 26-year run, the Doctor's two most formidable opponents never met, and the show's approach to continuity was very compartmentalized: Dalek stories would often refer to previous Dalek stories, but there wasn't really any sense of a larger, coherent universe. The only classic TV story that featured both the Daleks and the Cybermen was 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors, but they're never seen on screen together.

All that changed in 2006 with the new series episode Army of Ghosts, in which the Daleks and the Cybermen finally met. Doctor Who: Exterminate! from Warlord Games allows players to recreate that clash on the tabletop with "epic scale" 38mm miniatures.

A skirmish game may seem like an odd choice for the Doctor Who license, since the Doctor tends to avoid violence and try to think his way out of problems, which is no doubt why the game emphasizes clashes between the more militant villains of the series such as the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Sontarans. However, the game's scenarios do each include a sidebar with suggestions for how to involve the Doctor and his companions in the game, giving them objective-based goals to achieve while trying to avoid getting shot at by Daleks.

The game itself uses a simple symbol-based dice mechanic to determine if attacks are successful, with each player also given a hand of "battle cards" that can be used to supplement the dice results. Common miniatures game elements such as range, obstacles and cover are addressed by adjusting the number of dice rolled for attack or defense. Rather than requiring players to keep track of damage to individual miniatures, the game uses a system of different statuses: figures are either fully operational, shocked (temporarily incapacitated) or exterminated on a particularly good roll of the damage dice. It makes losing figures in battle a bit unpredictable, which I think is okay for a game like this where the emphasis is on narrative rather than cold tactics.

One game mechanic I have mixed feelings about is the concept of being "under fire." If a figure is successfully fired upon (even if it doesn't take any damage), that figure is given an "under fire" token, which means it can't return fire on its turn, and has to roll to remove the token at the end of the turn. This can sometimes result in multiple turns where a player can't really do much with their figures, which can be a little frustrating. It also gives characters whose special abilities allow them to ignore "under fire" tokens (such as the Daleks) a huge advantage.

To add additional flavor, the game includes an "Adventure Card" deck with various events and equipment from the show that players can use. We've found that giving the Cyberleader a samurai sword is a particularly winning combination.

Most miniatures game rules systems are really just an excuse to sell the figures, and that's where this game really shines. Right out of the box you get 12 Daleks and 12 Cybermen, requiring some assembly but cast in gold and silver so you can get to playing without taking the time to paint them (although you will probably want to eventually).

A selection of additional figures: an Ice Warrior, a Judoon, a Silent, and a Zygon

The supplemental figures cover a wide range of both the classic and the new TV series, and they are of exceptional quality. The slightly larger scale allows for a lot more detail, and an apparently rigorous approvals process results in miniatures that are very true to their TV counterparts, and a joy to paint.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) Great miniatures with a reasonably good rules set to go with them.

• Doctor Who: Exterminate! official website
• Doctor Who: Exterminate! on BoardGameGeek
• Doctor Who: Exterminate! Facebook group (very active)

Check out my OnTableTop.com project blog about painting the Sontaran miniaures for this game.

Thrilling days of yesteryear

Perhaps appropriately, Cowboys: Way of the Gun is a game out of time. It was first published in 2007, but it has the look and feel of a game from the early 1980s, right down to the "bookshelf format" game box and a design sensibility that definitely favors function over form. It reminds me a lot of the 1989 Aliens board game, which is an excellent game design let down by weak production values.

Mechanically, Cowboys is a very well-designed small scale skirmish game that avoids a lot of the convoluted rules that seem to plague most games of this type. It plays on a grid for easy movement, and has simple game mechanics for establishing range and line of sight. Since it is played on pre-printed boards, the rules for moving and shooting through terrain are also very straightforward. It's a very fast-paced game, with the average scenario taking around 30 minutes to play.

"Move and shoot" games can get stale easily, and like several others such as 7TV and Alien vs. Predator: the Hunt Begins, this one uses a deck of event cards to give players a way to introduce some tactical decisions and unpredictability to the game. This game's event deck also functions as a standard poker deck, which allows it to be used as a random number generator for things like initiative. It might have been interesting to take this a step further and replace the dice with card draws to determine whether or not an attack is successful.

The real meat of the game is in its scenario book, which details 26 simple game setups that recreate famous gunfights both historical and fictional, from the shootout at the OK Corral to the three way standoff at the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The scenarios in the book escalate slowly, starting with one-on-one "shootout at high noon" games before eventually moving on to more complex setups with victory conditions beyond simply killing all of the other side's cowboys.

Unfortunately the game falls seriously flat on its outdated production values. It uses cardboard standups and tokens in lieu of miniatures, which in itself wouldn't be a problem, but the artwork on the game pieces is very bland. The same holds true for the game's various boards depicting sections of wilderness or classic western buildings like saloons and banks, which is a pity because they are otherwise of pretty high quality, printed on nice sturdy cardboard.

"The fight's commenced! Get to fightin' or get away!"

That said, the game's simple rules make for some cinematic action that inspires the imagination. In one game, I had to have Wild Bill Hickok run into a general store to reload his weapon, then come crashing through the store's window into the street to get a shot at his opponent. In another, recreating the famous gunfight at the OK Corral, I was stuck with one character (Ike Clanton) who didn't have a weapon, so I had him run around getting in the way of my opponent's line of sight, much like the "get to fighting or get away" scene from the 1992 Tombstone movie.

It shouldn't be too difficult to find some gunfighter miniatures (in fact, I have tons of them) and maybe even find some western town maps with better artwork, which is all it would take to make this a truly great game.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) The biggest problem with this game's weak production value is that it's a hard sell to get others to play, especially if they're not particularly interested in the historical west.

• Cowboys: Way of the Gun official website
• Cowboys: Way of the Gun on BoardGameGeek

The ants go marching

March of the Ants is not a game that would ordinarily catch my attention, but a good friend of mine did the artwork for the Minions of the Meadow expansion, which prompted me to back the Kickstarter for the expansion and pick up a copy of the base game. Well, that, and the giant centi-meeple...

Nepotism aside, the game is pretty good. It features elements of resource management and area control, with a tile-based board that unfolds gradually as the game progresses. Each player works to expand their colony of ants outward to collect resources while avoiding (or fighting off) the dreaded centipedes. Player turns involve a lot of meaningful decisions and the game gets going right away, avoiding a lot of the slow build-up that is common to resource management games.

The mighty centimeeple...

Cards are played for various effects, but mainly to evolve your particular species of ant by improving its head, thorax and abdomen, which gives you additional in-game abilities and results in an often bizarre Frankenstein-like mix of different ant parts.

The expansion adds several small modules to the game which can be mixed and matched depending on how much more complex players want the game to be. It includes aphids which players can herd to generate more food, parasites which add a bit more "take that" style player interaction, and predators that can be used to further antagonize your opponents, but at the risk of giving them more points if they manage to defeat them.

The game also includes a solo/co-op variant, which increasingly seems to be a must for Kickstarter games.

The graphic design leans towards readability over aesthetics (which is a welcome change from a lot of games from less experienced publishers), and the components are solid and of high quality, with nice bright colors that make everything easy to see and understand.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) The game mechanics and structure are extremely solid, but the theme leaves me a little cold, otherwise I would probably play this game more often.

• March of the Ants official website
• March of the Ants on BoardGameGeek

The hunt begins...for a better set of rules

Alien vs Predator: the Hunt Begins by Prodos Games began life as a very troubled Kickstarter campaign, followed by a high-priced retail boxed set, and despite being a massive fan of the Alien and Predator franchises, this kept me from showing much interest in the game. However, the release of a much more reasonably priced second edition, combined with my interest in the emerging category of skirmish/board game hybrids such as Conan and Mythic Battles, prompted me to take another look.

The components are, for the most part, very high quality. The miniatures look great, and the game's three factions are cast in different colors so you can start playing right away without struggling to tell who is who. The interlocking tiles that make up the board are quite nice too, with artwork that evokes the industrial look of the first two Alien films. The cards and counters leave a bit to be desired, but more on that later.

I wish I could say that the game lives up to the quality of its components, but unfortunately it is marred by convoluted rules, as well as some ill-considered graphic design that makes the rules, cards and tokens very difficult to read.

The basic structure of the game isn't bad at all. The board is constructed from the tiles based on the scenario being played, and as I already mentioned, it all looks great on the table. Players take control of either a large group of Aliens, a small group of human Marines, or 1-2 Predators, and from there it's a pretty straightforward move-and-shoot tactical game. However, the rules governing the moving and shooting are very obtuse and difficult to follow, with tons of modifiers and exceptions to keep track of.

One feature of the rules that seems like an interesting idea in theory is the use of what the game calls "ping" tokens. The idea is that at the start of the game, players don't know anything about their opponent's forces, so figures are represented by face-down tokens until the move into view of another player's team, at which time the token is revealed and replaced with a miniature. This semi-hidden movement seems quite thematic, evoking the tension-filled motion tracker scenes in the Alien films, but in practice it means that you're playing a fair amount of the game with flat cardboard disks instead of awesome-looking miniatures.

The stat cards for the figures are another problem, with very small white-on-black text that is impossible to read, and a system of symbols that is too involved to memorize, prompting constant referral to the rule book just to translate what's on your card.

A game element  that I do quite like is the addition of a deck of strategy cards for each player, themed for each faction. Cards such as Cloaking Field for the Predators, Covering Fire for the marines, and Acid Blood Splash for the Aliens allow players to introduce unpredictable elements into the game. There is also a deck of environmental cards that are drawn at the end of each round, creating effects that all players must work around. 7TV does something similar with its Gadget and Countdown decks.

Ultimately, I am a narrative gamer: what I want out of a miniatures game is a conduit into whatever world the game takes place in. The rules are there to provide a structure for that, and then get out of the way. The complicated rules system for AVP: The Hunt Begins seems aimed at tournament-level play, where being able to manipulate the rules to your advantage is more important than enjoying the theme and setting.

The miniatures and tiles are so good, though, that I'm really interested in finding another rules system I can use them for. There's a fan-created set of cards for 7TV detailing the Aliens, Predators and Marines, and a thread on BoardGameGeek dedicated to expanding the rules for the excellent Aliens board game published by Leading Edge Games in 1989. I've even thought of adapting the Aliens Predator CCG to include miniatures and more tactical movement.

Rating: 2 (out of 5) I'm reluctant to give this game a rating at all since the tactile components are so out of line with the game itself, but ultimately it fails to deliver a satisfying game experience.

• Aliens vs. Predator: the Hunt Begins official website
• Aliens vs. Predator: the Hunt Begins (Second Edition) on BoardGameGeek

Viking roundup, part 5

Shipwrights of the North Sea is easily the most cutthroat entry in the North Sea series of games, which is strange because you would think a game about building ships would be less confrontational than one about claiming territory (Explorers) or raiding settlements (Raiders).

It's a card drafting game like 7 Wonders, a format that has a bit of a "screw your neighbor" element built into it. The goal of the game is to build ships, for which you need resources and specific workers. You get those by drafting - starting with a hand of cards, keeping one, and passing the rest to the next player.

The artisan cards are particularly difficult to get in the right combinations, and it's easy for your opponents to see what you need and try not to let you have it. That's only somewhat effective in a card drafting game, but there are also several plays available in the game that let you steal or discard other players' workers, preventing them from building the ships they need to win the game.

Once you start building a ship (you can have two in play at a time) you're stuck with it until you get the resources needed to build it, and there's only one card that you can play to abandon a ship if you're just not getting the cards you need to build it. This leads to frequent turns where a player can't do anything significant, which is frustrating and (to me, anyway) a sign of a poor game design.

It's disappointing because the other games in the series are very enjoyable, and this one looks just as good, with great artwork and components.

Rating: 2 (out of 5) The weakest entry in the otherwise excellent North Sea series.

• Shipwrights of the North Sea official website
• Shipwrights of the North Sea on BoardGameGeek

A xenomorph by any other name

Stop me if this sounds familiar: in the cold, isolated blackness of deep space, a freighter crew wakes up from suspended animation for find that their ship is crawling with bug-like monstrosities bent on their destruction...

If this sounds like a familiar science fiction franchise that starts with the letter "A," you're half right. Argo is a tile-laying game in which players race to be the first to evacuate their crew of astronauts while leaving their opponents to be food for the vicious alien invaders. Sort of.

Game play involves placing tiles to add to the maze of rooms and corridors that all future space stations will no doubt be, and moving your figures around in such a way that you get your pieces to the escape pods and your opponents do not. There are several game elements that make this more interesting than it sounds.

Most tiles can only accommodate one or two player figures, so if you move your piece onto a tile, you bump someone else off, and if this puts them on an overcrowded tile, its piece moves as well, often creating a chain reaction that can allow you to put your pieces in the best positions and your opponents in the worst.

Additionally, many tiles have special abilities that can be activated to make figures move faster, trade places, return to the board after being removed, and so on. The object is to move your pieces to the escape pod tiles and launch them, but each pod can only hold two figures, and the pods are worth more points the longer you wait before evacuating.

Most importantly, some tiles call for an alien creature figure to be added to the board. At the start of each player's turn, that player can move one of the aliens, and if it lands on a player's figure (or if a figure moves onto a tile containing an alien), that piece is removed, and the player who moved the alien earns a point for any figure (other than his or her own) that is devoured.

The catch is that the aliens earn points of their own based on how many astronauts they devour, and if they finish the game with more points than the winning player, then no one wins. The aliens earn more points for devoured pieces than the players do, so the game becomes a bit of a balancing act - you can't let the aliens eat too many of your opponent's pieces.

Each player piece has a unique ability - marines can kill aliens, explorers can move faster, robots can move past aliens without being attacked, and so on. It gives you quite a bit to think about, and the shuffled tiles are the only random element in the game so it's almost all strategy and tactics.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) A little too simple to be something that we'll play a lot, but it's a solid mid-weight game with a great theme that doesn't feel painted on.

• Argo official website
• Argo on BoardGameGeek

Viking roundup, part 4

Setting a series of games in the same world is a great marketing tool for games publishers. If done well, it allows them to present a consistently branded series and encourages gamers to at least take a look all the games in the series, when normally they might not notice three separate games with little or nothing in common.

A more cynical view would be that this marketing strategy is at best a way to re-use artwork across multiple games, and at worst, trick consumers into buying games they might not normally be interested in. I'm happy to say that this was not the case with Explorers of the North Sea, part of designer Shem Phillips' North Sea trilogy of games.

Obviously the look of the game is very similar to Raiders of the North Sea, but that's not a problem at all - both games feature superb graphic design and illustration. The games are thematically linked, but feature different stages in the life-cycle of the viking culture. Where Raiders is about preparing and executing raids on settlements, Explorers covers setting off into the unknown, establishing outposts, and bringing back livestock, with raiding being a relatively small part of the game and only one of may paths to victory.

The game board is composed of tiles that are placed one by one over the course of the game, forming waterways and islands of various sizes. Each tile features elements in support of one of the game's various ways to earn points: livestock to be brought back to the starting tile, non-player ships to be attacked, settlements to raid, and empty space to build outposts on. Placing tiles involves a fair amount of strategy all on its own: you can create small islands that are easy to control and navigate around, or large ones with space for multiple outposts that earn a lot of points at the end of the game.

Direct player interaction is fairly minimal, which might frustrate players who like a lot of interaction but is great for those who prefer less confrontational games. Each player starts the game with a leader character with a unique way to get extra points, which helps guide your strategy and makes the game a race to see who can best take advantage of their leader's ability by the time the game ends.

Explorers isn't quite as interesting as Raiders, but it's still pretty fun and quite a bit simpler. That, combined with its less competitive nature makes it a great game for new gamers, while still having enough going on to keep more experienced players interested.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) A great addition to the North Sea series and a good gateway game to get new people interested in board games.

• Explorers of the North Sea official website
• Explorers of the North Sea on BoardGameGeek

Weirder western tales

I love westerns, and as such I have a huge weakness for games in that genre, of which there are surprisingly few. While I prefer a straight-up historical western, I'm willing to settle for weird westerns with fantastical elements added, and that more-or-less describes the theme of Grimslingers.

Grimslingers is really two games in one: a fairly simple combat game about dueling sorcerers, and a much more engaging cooperative adventure game in which players work through a storyline that introduces them to the world of the game, fighting weird monsters and gaining spells and items along the way.

The dueling game is really just a combat system and not particularly interesting on its own -- the cooperative game is where Grimslingers really shines. Players start out with a hand full of basic spells and a few items, moving around on a small map to gather more powerful spells and better pieces of equipment, gain experience that allows them to play more effectively, and unfold the events of the (admittedly very linear) story.

It's still essentially a combat deck-building card game, and a somewhat clunky one at that, but it does have a few interesting innovations. Principle among them is that players don't have a randomized deck. Instead, they have a maximum hand size (which increases as they gain experience) and a "stash" that they can freely look through and take cards from at certain points during the game. Once used cards are put into either a discard pile or a deactivated pile, and can only be recovered by spending energy points, the game's main currency for playing cards.

Additional cards are earned by defeating monsters and also at certain points in the storyline, which makes it a little different from the usual "play cards to buy more cards" mechanics that most deck-building games employ.

Despite these innovations, the game play is a bit clunky. Having two different discard piles with slightly different rules governing them is needlessly fiddly, and too much of the game rides on random dice rolls or draws from a separate deck of numbered cards. In a recent game we played, we made it three quarters of the way through the game, only to be defeated by a random event card and some bad number card draws.

But all that aside, the real point of the game is as a framework to hang the setting on, and a wonderful setting it is. The world of Grimslingers is a perfectly balanced mix of western, post-apocalypse, science fiction, and fantasy, with a surprising amount of humor thrown in, and supported by some truly spectacular artwork. The game is clunky, but not so clunky that it distracts from the world it takes place in.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) Game play alone would probably be a 2, but the setting is so vibrant and original that it more than makes up for it.

• Grimslingers official website
• Grimslingers on BoardGameGeek

Viking roundup, part 3

We picked up Hnefatafl (the Viking Game) at the British Museum in London, and as such it's more of a souvenir of our trip than a game we plan to play regularly. That said, it is actually a pretty engaging game, sort of an asymmetrical version of chess with fewer rules and (in my opinion) slightly more interesting strategy.

The defending player gets 12 pieces plus a king. These pieces start in the center of the board, and the goal is for the king to reach one of the corner squares. Meanwhile, the attacking player gets 24 pieces that start along the 4 edges of the board. Any piece other than the king can be captured by sandwiching it between two opposing pieces, or between a piece and a corner space; the king can only be taken if he's closed in on all 4 sides.

Our experience playing the game is that it's substantially weighted in favor of the attacker, but still pretty challenging for both sides. It's possible for the attacker to effectively block the corner squares, but it's also pretty difficult for him to keep his blockers in place, since he also needs to use his pieces to chase the king around the board and (hopefully) capture him.

The attack and defense game play isn't particularly viking themed, but Hnefatafl is purported to be a game that was actually played in Scandinavia during the viking era. If nothing else, it can clearly be seen being played on the History Channel's excellent Vikings TV show.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) We don't spend that much time playing abstract strategy games, but this one is more interesting than a lot of them.

• Hnefatafl on BoardGameGeek

Battlefield classic

Even though I probably only played Stratego once or twice as a child, I've always had a weird fascination with it, and I've spent several years hunting down the collector's wooden box edition that Milton Bradley put out in 2002. For years it seemed to be the only one that wasn't readily available, but I did eventually find one at my friendly local game shop (Guardian Games in Portland, Oregon), which carries a substantial selection of used games.

Now, having played the game a few times as an adult with a wealth of gaming experience, I still find it weirdly fascinating.

For those who aren't familiar with the game, Stratego gives each player an assortment of pieces of different ranks, ranging from humble scouts to the powerful Marshall, plus a handful of bombs, a devious Spy, and one flag. The goal of the game is to capture your opponent's flag. Pieces are arranged on the board with blank faces towards the opponent, so he doesn't know which pieces are where until he starts sending his own pieces out. When a piece enters the same square as another piece, the one with the lower rank is eliminated, with a few exceptions: a bomb will eliminate any piece (along with itself) unless that piece is a Miner, and a Spy will eliminate an opposing Marshall (the highest ranked piece) if it is the attacker. Bombs and Flags can't move, and Scouts are the only pieces that can move more than one square at a time.

At least half of the game's strategy is in the setup, figuring out where to place your various pieces at the start of the game. Will you put all your Scouts at the front and run them at the opponent's front line right away? Or will you fill your front row with bombs to take out your opponent's first attackers? Or maybe it will be better to surround your flag with bombs, but what if that's what your opponent is expecting you to do, and he manages to clear the way for his Miners to easily defuse your bombs?

The rest of the game is a series of decisions involving what pieces to sacrifice in order to learn which pieces your opponent has where, and a struggle to remember the position of those pieces once revealed. It's a bit of a guessing game, but it's really more about choosing what pieces to send into enemy territory and when, and where to position your flag so that it remains protected.

Rating: 3 (out of 5) Stratego doesn't quite have the timeless elegance of chess, but nevertheless it's an engaging game that's a classic for good reason.

• Stratego on BoardGameGeek

Viking roundup, part 2

Continuing our look at the weirdly large number of viking games we've acquired recently.

Champions of Midgard is a viking themed worker placement game, which means we can't help but compare it to Raiders of the North Sea, especially since we picked up both games within a few months of each other. Apart from the obvious similarities, however, the two games couldn't be more different.

For the most part, Champions is a more traditional worker placement game. Each player gets a set number of workers, which they use to compete over common spaces on the board. Spaces are a mixture of resource gathering and opportunities to fight monsters such as trolls, giants, draughr, and dragons, which is the primary way to score victory points. Players use their workers to recruit warriors (represented by dice) and supplies which are needed to travel to far off monster-infested lands.

An interesting wrinkle on the "use resources to fulfill quests" theme is blame, a currency in the game that subtracts from a player's score. One of the spaces on the board is the Troll, and the player who successfully fights the Troll each round gets to give a blame token to another player, and get rid of one of his own if he has one. If no one fights the Troll, every player gets a blame token. Blame tokens are worth negative points at the end of the game in a somewhat exponential manner: one blame is -1 point, 2 is -3 points, 3 is -6, 4 is -10, and so on, so managing blame becomes a critical part of the game's strategy.

Warriors are represented by dice which are rolled to combat monsters. The different types of warriors are not necessarily better or worse than each other; sword- and spearmen provide some defense, allowing you to play it safe, while axemen tend to do more damage but provide no defense, meaning that more of your warriors will be killed in combat.

There's a fair amount of variety as far as what you can choose to focus on in the game, and this is guided to some extend by Destiny cards, which grant extra points at the end of the game for accomplishing goals such as having killed the most of a particular type of monster, or having the most gold or food left over at the end of the game.

It's a little more involved than Raiders of the North Sea, and a lot more fantastical, to the point that I think it has more in common with Lords of Waterdeep than any of the more historical viking games like the North Sea series. It is definitely sufficiently different that we play both games fairly often, sometimes even in the same weekend.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) A good mix of worker placement and dice rolling, with a fun theme and some neat twists you won't find in other games of this type.

• Champions of Midgard official website
• Champions of Midgard on BoardGameGeek