17

CRITICAL ROLE
T H E R P G P H E N O M E N O N ’ S S TA R S TA L K S E A S O N 2

tabletopgaming.co.uk April 2018

THE GREATEST
DESIGNER OF ALL TIME?
GODTEAR | CRITICAL ROLE | HELLBOY

How Wolfgang Kramer

changed everything

HELLBOY
Get fired up for a comic
book game like no other

e t
GODTEA ag sR
. n
Legacy! Miniatures! Whips!

l d m
and DARK SOULS on their
The creators of GUILD BALL
most ambitious game yet

REVIEWS o r
APRIL 2018

S TA R WA R S : L E G I O N | R I S I N G S U N
Display until 29/4/18
£5.25

PAL ACE OF MAD KING LUDWIG

001_Cover MJ.indd 2
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S T U F F E D FA B L E S | G K R : H E AV Y H I T T E R S | C I V I L I Z AT I O N + M O R E

15/03/2018 11:27
 2-6
PLAYERS

20-40
MINUTES
PLAY TIME

Every year the Emperor walks through the Imperial

Gardens to greet the spring, every year he stops
beneath the sakura trees, and every year you try to
paint his picture. This will be your year!

Sakura is a light tactical game of pushing your

luck and pushing your friends. Each player will
simultaneously decide how far to move both their

“
character and the Emperor. The player closest to
“
Jostle to the front of the crowd ready
for your opportunity to shine, or keep
yourself in the background only to
leap forward at the right moment.
the Emperor when the cherry blossoms are reached
will gain a huge amount of prestige, but if you
push too far you risk bumping into the Emperor and
walking away in disgrace.

But beware! The emperor has a mind

of his own.
TIPS FROM CREATOR REINER KNIZIA

It’s the turn of the century, and it’s time to

live large!

Reiner Knizia’s classic auction game returns

in a new edition from Osprey Games!
Players must out-bid one another in an
effort to acquire the social status to

e t
n
surpass their peers, whilst avoiding

.
“
scandals which will ruin their

“
Life offers many temptations and
aspiring to reach the echelons
of high society comes at a price.
reputation. The player who achieves
the highest status without going broke
will be crowned the winner!

ag s
Spend your money wisely, but keep
some reserves for the challenging
days ahead!
3-5
PLAYERS
20
MINUTES
PLAY TIME

ld m
TIPS FROM CREATOR REINER KNIZIA

o r
p002.indd 1
BROWSE OUR FULL RANGE OF GAMES AT WWW.OSPREYGAMES.CO.UK
W 09/03/2018 16:10
 EDITORIAL
EDITOR Matt Jarvis
01778 392 400
matt.jarvis@warnersgroup.co.uk

Welcome
CONTRIBUTORS Sam Desatoff,
John Dodd, Owen Duffy, Holly
Gramazio, Robert Florence, Sam
Illingworth, Richard Jansen-
Parkes, Dan Jolin, Joshua King,
Andy Leighton, Phil Robinson, Alex
Sonechkina, Charlie Theel, Paul

W
Wake, James Wallis, Eric Watson

HEAD OF DESIGN & PRODUCTION

e’re only a handful of months into 2018, but
Lynn Wright it already feels like we’re seeing some strong
contenders for the biggest games of the year.
DESIGNER Richard Hallam
In this issue alone we’ve got reviews of Star Wars: Legion,
COVER IMAGE FROM GODTEAR | Rising Sun, Stuffed Fables, GKR: Heavy Hitters and The
CRITICAL ROLE COSPLAY IMAGE Palace of Mad King Ludwig just for starters – head to the
BY PAMELA JOY
Played section on page 65 to read our thoughts.
ADVERTISING Looking ahead at promising big games, Godtear sounds
TO ADVERTISE PLEASE CALL like it’s shaping up to be something very special, with
GROUP ADVERTISING MANAGER
Claire Ingram 01778 391 179
its blend of legacy elements and miniature wargaming
claire.ingram@warnersgroup.co.uk offering something completely fresh. The creators of Guild
GROUP TELESALES EXECUTIVE
Now Playing... Ball and Dark Souls reveal what to expect on page 18.
Ben Jackson 01778 391 129 Star Wars: Legion If you haven’t already heard of Critical Role, you’re in the
ben.jackson@warnersgroup.co.uk minority – the roleplaying campaign has millions tuning in.
Its stars tell us how the series got its unlikely start and
ADVERTISING DESIGN
what’s planned (or not) for the second season on page 26.
AND PRODUCTION
Nicola Lock 01778 392 420
nicola.lock@warnersgroup.co.uk
Get in touch Speaking of fantastic games, we’re looking for your votes
to decide the Greatest Games of All Time. Point your web
tabletopgaming.co.uk
MARKETING
browser at ttgami.ng/greatestgamesvote and let us
MARKETING BRAND MANAGER tabletopmag know your top ten games by April 13th latest to help your
Nicola Lumb picks make the list. While you’re at it, why not enter our
tabletopgamingmagazine
competition on page 6 to win a pair of tickets to Tabletop
MARKETING ASSISTANT
Katherine Brown 01778 395 092 tabletop_gaming_magazine Gaming Live this September? After all, there’s no better
katherine.brown@warnersgroup.co.uk place to find your next favourite...
PUBLISHED BY
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
Claire Ingram
Warners Group Publications PLC
Matt
Matt Jarvis Editor
The Maltings, West Street, matt.jarvis@warnersgroup.co.uk | @liquidmatt
Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH
01778 391 000
www.warnersgroup.co.uk Q U I C K S TA R T
Ultimately The game Factoring in
NEWSTRADE DISTRIBUTION
Warners Group Publications PLC
01778 391 150 we have a still feels sleep, work
e t
PRINTING game that is
quite sort of
very intimate,
because it is still
and life, there’s
not enough time
s. n
This publication is
printed by Warners
01778 395111
character-heavy. just the eight
of us around even if we ag
to play them all
The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily
those of the publishers. Every care is taken to ensure that
the content of this magazine is accurate, but we assume no
responsibility for any effect from errors or omissions. While
a table.
ld m wanted to.

r
every care is taken with unsolicited material submitted for
Godtear is a miniatures game like The cast of Critical Role reflect on Avid board game collectors take
publication, we cannot be responsible for loss or damage. no other, says Alex Hall, p18 the roleplaying phenomenon, p26 us through their libraries, p44
While every care is taken when accepting advertisements, we
are not responsible for the quality and/or the performance
of goods and/or services advertised in this magazine. The
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) exists to regulate the
o
W
content of advertisements. Tel: 020 7429 2222
tabletopgaming.co.uk 3
© Warners Group Publications Plc, 2018

003_Welcome_v3 MJ.indd 3 13/03/2018 13:19

 In this issue
06 AT A GLANCE
Your 30-second guide to the latest in gaming
08 FIRST TURN
For Corey Konieczka, before Star Wars:
Rebellion came StarCraft: The Board Game
10 10 OF THE BEST
Start your collection with our pick of trading,
collectible and expandable card games
13 ROLE CALL
Catch up with this month’s must-see RPGs
14 ALL THE JAHRES
Get on your bikes and ride! It’s Um Reifenbreite
17 MY FAVOURITE GAME
Former Magic pro and deckbuilder
designer Justin Gary on his Fluxx infatuation
ON THE COVER
18 GODTEAR
Stepping into the arena with the ambitious legacy
miniatures game from the makers of Guild Ball
38 HOW WE MADE 62 TANIA WALKER
From improv comedy to learning to lie: the The animator-turned-artist on bringing a touch
origins of Don Eskridge’s The Resistance of Disney magic to ladies, tigers and Dracula
44 HOARD GAMERS 65 PLAYED
Meet the tabletop fans in pursuit of the Our thoughts on what should – and shouldn’t –
ultimate board game collection find its way to your tabletop this month
47 THE INDEPENDENT SHELF 83 PAINTING GUIDE
IT’S ALL TERROR, ALL ACTION, ALL CAPS Making over the monsters of Mansions of Madness
IN INDIE HORROR SIM FREAKFACE!!!
88 DUNGEON MASTER’S
48 HELLBOY GUIDE TO ROLEPLAYING
The comic-book superhero prepares for a Learn how your characters can embrace the cliché
hell of a good time in his co-op adventure
91 EVENT REPORT
53 THROUGH THE AGES Relaxing at the North’s easy-going show, ChillCon
The global domination of area control games
92 CLUB DIRECTORY
54 WORLD OF INDINES
Meet the tabletop’s answer to the 95 SHOP SPOTLIGHT
shared universes of Marvel and DC
98 TABLETOP TIME MACHINE
57 PLAY IT SMART Back in the fight with ‘70s wargame Campaign
Settling the debate of analogue versus digital

26 CRITICAL ROLE 58 WOLFGANG

Matthew Mercer and Liam O’Brien talk about KRAMER
taking their D&D campaign to millions A true legend of gaming
looks back – and forward
34 HAVE YOU PLAYED?
Heating up the Cold War in Twilight Struggle 61 UNEARTHED
ARTEFACTS
37 KICKSTARTING We head to the far-flung future
FROM SCRATCH to Escape from 100 Million B.C.
Art Deck learns from Kickstarter success stories Wait, what?

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ag
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4 April 2018

004_005_contents_v4 MJ.indd 4
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 THE GAMES
48 38 6 nimmt! 58
Ancestree 71
Art Deck 37
BattleCON 54
Campaign 98
Civilization 72
Cosmogenesis 73
Cowboy Bebop CCG 81
Dracula’s Feast 62
DreadBall 76
Dungeons & Dragons 26
El Grande 53, 58
Empyreal: Spells 54
and Steam
44 Escape from 100 61
Million B.C.
Farlight 80
Fluxx 17, 57
FREAKFACE!!! 47
GKR: Heavy Hitters 69
Godtear 18
A Handful of Stars 78
Heimlich & Co. 58
Hellboy 48
The Lady and 62
the Tiger
Magic: The Gathering 44
Mansions of Madness 83
Meeple Circus 76
Millennium Blades 54
Monopoly 44
Mysterium 57
The One Ring RPG 75
The Palace of Mad 70
King Ludwig

26 Paper Tales
The Resistance
77
38
Rising Sun 67
Risk 53

e t
Seventh Cross
Star Wars: Legion
54
66

n
StarCraft

.
Small World

s
Stuffed Fables
08
53
68

ag
Tails of Equestria
Terraforming Mars 57
Tikal
79

53, 58

ld m Torres
Trail of Cthulhu
58
88
Twilight Struggle 53, 34

o r Welcome to Centerville 74
The White Box 80

004_005_contents_v4 MJ.indd 5
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15/03/2018 11:29
 AT A GLANCE
WIN TICKETS TO TABLETOP GAMING LIVE
Six pairs of day tickets to the UK’s hottest gaming convention up for grabs
Tabletop Gaming Live 2018, our massive of exciting new games to play and talented Even if you’ve already booked your tickets,
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place in London’s Alexandra Palace As well as getting to meet the creators of people to what’s sure to be a weekend
this September 29th and 30th, is fast your favourite games, there will be plenty of packed with fun, laughs, plenty to see and –
approaching – there are now less than six traders stocking thousands of games to pick of course – lots and lots of games?
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sure you don’t miss out on seeing the latest To celebrate the countdown to the first the question: where will Tabletop Gaming
releases from Gen Con and coming up at Tabletop Gaming Live, we’ve got six pairs of Live 2018 be held? If you’ve read this story,
Essen, as well as the biggest games of the day tickets to the show up for grabs – the there’s no excuse not to know!
year, by heading over to Ticket Factory and perfect chance to bring along a partner, Find full terms and conditions on the
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start from just £10 (kids get in free), with
family bundles and weekend passes available,
so you’ll have plenty of cash left to pick up
your gaming wishlist at the show.
The Tabletop Gaming Live line-up is
a gamer’s dream, featuring designers,
artists and studios behind huge games
such as X-Wing, Warhammer, Magic: The
Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, Arkham
Horror, Adventures in Middle-earth, The
Walking Dead: All Out War, Ticket to
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KNOW YOUR NUMBERS

25 10th 40
Sons of Anarchy, Star Trek:
LV-426

Zombicide: Invader,
Ascendancy and Firefly: The the first sci-fi entry in
Game studio Gale Force the co-op series, hits
Nine has announced a co-op Kickstarter this month
game based on Aliens

2 DOS
Blitz Bowl is a compact
Magic: The Gathering’s The first proper
Duelosaur Island is a version of Blood Bowl
latest set Masters 25
includes iconic cards from
the entire quarter-century
two-player follow-up to
Dinosaur Island due
sequel to Uno in
47 years updates
the ubiquitous simple card game with two

e t
out later this year
that takes just 40
minutes to play

n
out later in 2018
history of the card game separate stacks for players to discard onto

g s.
REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE
m a
• SAVE UP TO 10% PER YEAR
• GUARANTEE YOUR FREE GIFT EVERY MONTH
o r ld
• DON’T MISS OUT IF THE SHOPS SELL OUT
6 January 2018

006_007_atAGlance_v4 MJ.indd 6
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KICK-AS
Golden Ace awards name their Games of the Year
The As d’Or awards are France’s answer to the fabled
Spiel des Jahres, so their winners are always worth
paying attention to.
This year’s biggest prize – the ‘Golden Ace’ Game
of the Year – went to Azul, the tile-laying stunner
from Michael Kiesling. Kiesling, of course, is no
stranger to critical acclaim, having claimed the Spiel
des Jahres twice for Tikal and Torres alongside
Wolfgang Kramer. Following closely behind were
nominees Dice Forge, Twin It! and the game with
A NEW PATH
Second edition of fantasy RPG Pathfinder kicks off this summer
A decade after it first shook up the
roleplaying landscape, Pathfinder is
getting a second edition.
The upcoming revision of
the D&D 3.5-based RPG, which
launches into a playtest this August
2nd followed by a full release in
2019, will include several major
updates to gameplay. Among the
biggest is a newly streamlined
action system that gives every
character three actions and one
reaction every round.
The way bonuses and stats
are calculated has also been
For the latest news from the world of gaming visit tabletopgaming.co.uk/news
SUBSCRIBE PRINT OR
D I G I TA L F R O M J U S T
£14.99
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006_007_atAGlance_v4 MJ.indd 7
We asked…
In honour of April Fools’
Day, what’s the game that
makes you laugh the most?
You said…
Cards Against Humanity, in a
arguably the best home advantage, cycling smash hit despicable way.
Flamme Rouge. Matthew Stevens
The expert As d’Or award – the equivalent to
Cyanide & Happiness’ Joking
the Kennerspiel des Jahres – was collected by
Hazard is worth a mention. Many
Jacob Fryxelius’ excellent simulation of survival
awkward laughs, especially when
on the Red Planet, Terraforming Mars. On the
your mother-in-law sits down and
shortlist was a pair of similarly lauded runners-up:
asks what all the fun is about...
cow-herding Euro masterpiece Great Western Trail
@cptnmingo
and Lovecraftian living card game spin-off Arkham
Horror: The Card Game.
I haven’t even had to play
Lastly, the children’s category
Telestrations for it to have me
was topped by the delightful
in tears. Sometimes I laugh just
Outfoxed!, a clue-gathering game
because of how much people
where players try to work out who
nearby are laughing.
took Mrs. Plumpert’s delicious pot
Michael Heron
pie by ruling out suspects using
an evidence scanner. It pipped
Cards Against Humanity can be a
Kullerhexe (also Recommended
giggle, but the one that’s made us
by the Kinderspiel des Jahres)
burst out laughing is Scrawl.
and Boom, Bang, Gold, a frantic
Andrew Barber
timed dexterity game about lobbing
dynamite and grabbing gold. An average game can be made
If you’re wondering what picked up awesome and make me laugh
the As d’Or awards last year, allow hysterically if played with the
us to jog your memory: Unlock! took right people.
the grand prize, joined by the ‘expert’ Carl King
Scythe and kid-friendly Go Cuckoo!
Cards Against Humanity. Become
a Christmas tradition to play with
the in-laws, and they find it as
hilarious as us ‘youngsters’.
Andy Leighton
reworked, with a single proficiency
ranking based on each character’s Kittens in a Blender.
attributes and level replacing the Garett Seebruch
need for multiple different numbers.
What won’t change is the For me, a terrible
world and story, with first-edition Donkey Kong game
scenarios supported even after from the past. This
they stop being created next July. was the ‘Mario’.
The playtest rules will be Chris Beadsmoore
available as a free PDF download
this summer, but are also coming
out as a limited-edition 400-page
book bundled with some maps
Get in touch tabletopmag
and the seven-scenario playtest
adventure Doomsday Dawn.
e t tabletopgamingmagazine
tabletop_gaming_magazine
s. n
g
S TA R T R E K A D V E N T U R E S
PAINTS & TECHNIQUES UNDERSHIRT
PAINTS USED STAGES
Abaddon Black Ceramite White Liberator Gold Slaanesh Grey Since there is a large amount
Agrax Earthshade Dark Reaper Lugganath Orange Sotek Green of variety in the crew of the
Alaitoc Blue Dawnstone Martian Ironearth Steel Legion Drab Enterprise, combined with
Altdorf Guard Blue Doombull Brown Mephiston Red Temple Guard Blue matching uniforms, this guide is
a
Averland Sunset Dorn Yellow Pallid Wych Flesh Warplock Bronze split into general sections covering
Baneblade Brown Drakenhof Nightshade Reikland Fleshshade Wild Rider Red the uniforms and tech, but splitting
Blue Horror Khorne Red Rhinox Hide Zamesi Desert the skin, hair and other details into
Bugman’s Glow Kislev Flesh Runefang Steel different sections. This will allow
Cadian Fleshtone Krieg Khaki Screaming Skull us to cover every element of each
Celestra Grey Leadbelcher Squig Orange crew member, giving you a guide
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a highlight of STAGE 3 Apply a line highlight of
for the full boxset contents.
Steel Legion Drab. Dawnstone, focusing on the hard Celestra Grey, focusing on the
edges and folds. hard edges and raised folds.
MEDICAL JACKET
UNIFORMS
BODYSUIT COMMAND AND HELM
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a layer of Alaitoc STAGE 3 Apply a fine highlight
Altdorf Guard Blue. Blue, leaving the recesses the of Blue Horror to the edges and
base colour. raised folds.
DARK SKIN
SKIN
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a layer of STAGE 3 Add a line highlight of STAGE 4 Apply a dot highlight of
m
Khorne Red. Mephiston Red, leaving the Wild Rider Red, focusing on the Lugganath Orange, focusing on
recesses the basecoat colour. hard edges. the corners.
10 RPGs YOU MUST PLAY IN 2018!
ENGINEERING, SECURITY AND OPERATIONS LIGHT SKIN
PLUS OUR REVIEW OF D
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of
UNGEONS & DRAGONS’
STAGE 1 Add a highlight of Dark Rhinox Hide.
Reaper across the hard edges, corners
and raised folds of the bodysuit. NE W E XPANSION
January 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a wash of STAGE 3 Apply a layer of Averland STAGE 4 Apply a line highlight of STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a layer of Cadian STAGE 3 Apply a highlight of Kislev STAGE 4 Apply a final fine highlight of
Averland Sunset. Reikland Fleshshade. Sunset, leaving the recesses the Krieg Khaki. Bugman’s Glow. Fleshtone, leaving the recesses Flesh, focusing down the centre Pallid Wych Flesh, only adding small
original colour. the base colour. and top of the head. lines and dots over the previous coat.
ld
STAGE 2 Apply a highlight of
SCIENCE AND MEDICAL ANDROID SKIN Doombull Brown, focusing on the
top edges of the features.
FALLOUT: WASTELAND WARFARE |
BOGUS
STAGE 2 Add a dot highlight of STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of
Sotek Green.
STAGE 2 Apply a highlight of
Temple Guard Blue, focusing on
STAGE 3 Apply a line highlight
of Blue Horror, focusing on the
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of
Zamesi Desert.
STAGE 2 Apply a layer of
Screaming Skull, leaving the
STAGE 3 Apply a glaze of Zamesi
Desert over all the skin.
STAGE 4 Apply a final fine highlight of
Dorn Yellow, only adding small lines
STAGE 3 Apply a final fine highlight
of Krieg Khaki.
BOARD GAMES
Slaanesh Grey, focusing on the corners
Do you own
and the top of the raised folds. the hard edges and folds. corners and raised folds. recesses the base colour. and dots over the previous coat.
a fake?
84 February 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 85
STUFFED FABLES | FAKE BOARD
LEARNING
EVOLVED
Games aren’t
just
help you boost fun – they can also
GAMES
your brainpower.
Professors and
students tell us
the cranium-cram about
Darwinian delight ming benefits of
Evolution
FALLOUT
Words by Anna
Blackwell
Wasteland warfare
Nuclear PHWOAR! We go behind the
the action-packed post-apocalyptic scenes of
JANUARY 2018
minis game
STUFFED FABLES | CIVILIZATION:
A NEW DAWN | VENGEANCE |
THE MAKING OF DOMINION | AZUL
STAR SAGA PAINTING TIPS | PHOTOSYNTHESIS | MASSIVE DARKNESS
Display until 29/1/18
HNEFATAFL: THE VIKING BOARD
£5.25
HUNT FOR THE RING | TABLETOP
LIVESTEAMERS | RAXXON | AND GAME
MORE
tabletopgaming.co.uk 44 February 2018
14/03/2018 14:29
 FIRST TURN
COREY
KONIECZKA
The Fantasy Flight brain behind Star Wars: Rebellion
reflects on his first lead designer credit: 2007’s
epic adaptation of Blizzard PC game StarCraft
Interview by Dan Jolin
BACKGROUND
“As far back as I can remember, I made silly little board
games with my brothers, based on whatever we were
playing at the time. But the first serious amateur game
I worked on was shortly after Magic came out, when
some friends and I worked together to make our own
quote-unquote ‘CCG’, drawing on index cards. Once
I’d turned my hobby into a job at Fantasy Flight Games
in 2005, my first few years were a learning process. The
most useful experience was working on the new edition
of Warrior Knights. My boss Christian T. Petersen was so
impressed he said, ‘Hey would you like to take a crack
at designing a StarCraft game?’ I said, ‘Sure. Really!?’ I
loved StarCraft, so I was very excited.”
COMPONENTS
“The biggest influence on StarCraft was the Game of
Thrones board game that Chris had designed. It has a
very similar order system, though he suggested we take
that and have the players stack orders on top of each
other, so you can block what other people are doing.
Also, the idea that each player has a special objective that
can win them the game was inspired very much by the
old Dune game, by the creators of Cosmic Encounter.”
OBJECT
“In our early discussions we asked: ‘Who is this
aimed at? What are we trying to accomplish here?’
We decided we didn’t just want to replicate the
video game. We didn’t want a single map on which
everybody was just building bases and attacking in a
Risk-like way. So the pitch was to zoom out, so instead
8 April 2018
008_firstTurn_v3 MJ.indd 8
If I
of feeling like a single match of StarCraft it felt like the
entire campaign. Of course, we knew it would appeal
were
to fans of StarCraft, but we also wanted it to appeal to
a broader audience as well – the kind of players who
to go back
like other games like Twilight Imperium and whatnot.”
SETUP
and do it
“Blizzard was involved early on. We talked to the design
again, I’d
team that was actually working on StarCraft II at the time.
Then once we had a game design we flew out there and
probably
played it with them and they didn’t really have too much
feedback. They said, ‘It feels like StarCraft. Good job.’”
make a
HOW TO PLAY
game that
“Two to six players each take on the role of one of the
races in StarCraft: the Zerg, the Terrans or the Protoss.
didn’t require
You start on your home planet with a couple of troops
and a base, and the board is made up of a bunch of
a 40-page
different interlocking planets, which players try to
conquer to give them access to new resources so they can
rulebook.
build bigger stuff via technology. By capturing certain
strategically important areas on planets you can get
conquest points, which you accumulate until the player
to reach a certain amount of conquest points wins.”
END OF THE GAME
“It sold great. It was a very well-received game. In terms
of my personal relationship with it as a designer, I feel I’ve
grown and changed a lot. If I were to go back and do it
again, I’d probably find a way to make a game that didn’t
require a 40-page rulebook. It’s a beast to read! There’s a lot
of rules, a lot of exceptions and little things going on. Over
the last few years I’ve tried to move away from
e t
the simulationist type of game design approach
and now prefer to abstract things a bit more.”
s. n
STRATEGY TIPS
“I would suggest that anyone designing their
first game try to keep it simple. [Laughs] It’s
ag
The idea wasn’t to simply
recreate a single StarCraft
better to start small and learn the ropes that
way. I was at FFG for a couple of years just
doing smaller projects before I moved on to
ld m match, but to capture the
feeling of the PC game’s
entire campaign
r
this. Everything you create doesn’t have to
be huge and epic.”
o
W tabletopgaming.co.uk
14/03/2018 14:30
 STEAMFORGED GAMES
®

Guild Ball is a bloody mob football game

of intense action and high stakes!
Complete with everything an aspiring coach needs
to play, Kick Off! is the perfect entry point for the
amazing world of Guild Ball, a bloody mob football
game of intense action and high stakes!
This competitive two player board game
takes between 60 and 90 minutes to play
and is for players ages 14+

Take control of iconic characters from the

video game and fight your way through
hordes of enemies before facing monstrously
powerful bosses! Dark Souls™: The Card Game
is a deck evolution card game; simple to learn,
but with a huge amount of depth.
Bring your friends, and Prepare to Die!

e t
Godtear is an exciting scenario-driven legacy miniatures game
for two players taking less than an hour to play. You’ll assemble
s. n
a warband, chosen from the greatest champions of this Age.
Defeat your rivals in the search for ultimate power in the form
of precious Godtears. Do you have what it takes to claim the ag
power of the Fallen Gods or will you merely be a sorry footnote
in your opponent’s odyssey? Find out in Godtear!

ld m
o r
STEAMFORGED.COM
®

p009.indd 1
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 1 ARKHAM HORROR:
THE CARD GAME
There’s no need to be a horror fan or Lovecraft lover to
appreciate the polished co-op gameplay in this spin-off of the
globetrotting board game, although it will help get you into the

2
tense atmosphere. With tight mechanics and mysteries to uncover,
Arkham Horror: The Card Game isn’t just one of the greatest recent
card games – it’s one of the finest games in years, full stop!
MAGIC: THE
Start your collection: The core set includes the complete Night of the
Zealot campaign, which is best followed by the Dunwich Legacy expansion
(and then its connected Mythos packs, which continue the story).
GATHERING
It’s a classic for a reason. The first collectible card
game is still one of the absolute best around, thanks
to simple but deep mechanics and a highly active
community that is all too happy to introduce newcomers. It looks great,
plays fast and there’s 25 years (and counting) of rich lore and meta to dig
into if you find yourself under its spell.

Start your collection: Duel decks are a great way of jumping right in with
minimal effort, thanks to their ready-to-play balanced pairs of decks –
another option is two separate planeswalker decks. Once you’re ready to
try building your own custom deck, the latest Deckbuilder’s Toolkit is a great

10
instant collection to play around with. Or ask at your local hobby store for a
free learn to play deck, which are designed as simple intros to the game.

OF THE BEST
TRADING, COLLECTIBLE
AND EXPANDABLE
CARD GAMES
Looking for your next gaming obsession? You won’t find much better than
these card games, with hundreds or even thousands of cards to fine-tune
your custom deck. Prepare to surrender your free time – and your wallet!
Chosen by Matt Jarvis

3 A GAME OF
THRONES: THE
CARD GAME
It doesn’t matter if you can tell your Lannister from your
Tyrell – this atmospheric head-to-head battle for the Iron Throne is a thrilling
card game that perfectly captures the scheming feel of the books and TV
4 POKÉMON
TRADING
CARD
GAME
I choose you! Like its video game counterparts,
series, juggling military might and the power of influence. It can be played with
just one other person or with multiple opponents, making it a great choice for
groups of friends who can’t get enough of the fantasy universe.
Pokémon remains agelessly entertaining, bringing
pocket monster battles to life with an approachable
twist on the Magic formula mixed with the games’
e t
Start your collection: Grab the second-
edition core set – you’ll need two
signature rock-paper-scissors elemental combat.
It’s got some of the most recognisable characters
around (Pikachu! Squirtle!) and is generally a bit

s. n
copies if you want to really get into the
competitive side of things (or play
with more people), but one will
serve beginners just fine. Once
cheaper to keep up with than some of its competitors
– it’s not just for kids!

Start your collection: Trainer kits are two-player

ag
you’re ready to take things
further, the deluxe expansions
and a couple of chapter packs

ld m
starter sets that include everything you need to play
with a friend, plus a gentle tutorial. The two decks can
then be combined for a full 60-card deck, or you can

r
from the latest cycle will give pick up a theme deck and improve it with boosters if
you plenty to explore. you have an idea of the type of strategy you enjoy.

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 5
LEGEND OF THE
FIVE RINGS: THE
CARD GAME
The ‘90s collectible card game-turned-living card
game has been given a breath of fresh air by its recent return, opening
up its feudal Japan-inspired world and tense, brutal combat for a
6
ASHES: RISE OF
new wave of players to enjoy. Action centres around the interplay
between each player’s dynasty and conflict
decks, with an engaging mechanic that
THE PHOENIXBORN
Ashes is one of the best-looking games around thanks to some truly
requires players to invest ‘fate’ in cards incredible artwork, but it’s also one of the more inventive CCGs out there.
to keep them on the battlefield – one Dice are used as resources, with players taking main and side actions each
extra turn can decide the outcome of an round before refreshing their hand and pool of resources. The individual
entire match. It’s complex, deep and format gives Ashes a unique feel – and it’s also a little easier to get into,
riveting stuff. with less of a reliance on deckbuilding and a gentler release schedule.

Start your collection: The main box,
which includes enough cards to play
with any one of the seven clans. From
there, move onto the Imperial cycle of
dynasty packs.
Start your collection: The main box packs in two pre-built decks and
dice, with plenty of customisation options. After that, expansion decks
offer up new characters (but you’ll need the dice from the base set), while
the Song of Soaksend and Laws of Lions deluxe expansions go one step
further with new dice, deck boxes, tokens and further gameplay elements.

7
THE LORD OF
THE RINGS: THE
CARD GAME
Another co-op entry in a generally competitive crowd, The
Lord of the Rings: TCG is a fantastic way to explore the world of Middle-
earth outside of Tolkien’s stories with a challenging and atmospheric
8
FINAL FANTASY
adventure. Players use their heroes to play against the story deck,
dealing with encounters as they defeat enemies and uncover new
locations. Although the going can get rough, the immersive theme and
TRADING CARD GAME
Designer by a former Magic pro, FFTCG is more than a simple clone
wealth of quests available means that it’s the ideal reskinned with the popular Japanese RPG series. It adds an interesting
choice for Tolkien obsessives. option to pay for cards by discarding other cards, meaning there’s no need
to wait around to summon powerful spells and monsters, as well as
Start your collection: There’s plenty to get the EX Burst mechanic that offers the chance to benefit from taking
through in the core set (no need to double- damage. It’s an exciting and unique idea that works wonders, especially
up this time), but once you’ve exhausted as matches tend to wrap up quickly.
its scenarios the Shadows of Mirkwood
cycle is the next best thing. After that, Start your collection: If you’re already a Final Fantasy fan, you’ll no doubt
following the packs in the order of want to grab the starter set based on the game you like most. That’s fine.
their release isn’t a bad way to go Otherwise, look into the play style of each deck and go with the one that
– and it’ll keep you occupied for a best fits your interests. You’ll need to pick up two to play with a friend, as
while to come. there are no bundles available.

9 ANDROID:
NETRUNNER
The living card game reboot of Magic: The Gathering
creator Richard Garfield’s tense hacker-versus-
corporation is a game like no other, conjuring a thrilling
race to either breach heavily protected servers (as the runner) or
10
HEARTHSTONE t
complete secret agendas without having your data stolen (as the corp).
The asymmetric setup means there’s plenty of individual strategy to
perfect on either side of the conflict, with a huge level of advanced play
for those that invest in crafting their custom deck. A brilliant blend of e
Yes, yes, we know it’s a digital card game, but that doesn’t stop Hearthstone

n
from being a fantastic entry in the genre with both familiar concepts

.
and fresh ideas. It’s ties to the world of Warcraft are unimportant, as
bluffing, luck and head-to-head tactics, it’s a marvel.

Start your collection: The new Revised Core Set has the latest batch
of tournament-legal cards with revamped artwork. It also means you
won’t need to pick up the Genesis and Spin cycle packs, and can move
a s
they’re quickly hidden behind Hearthstone’s fast and furious card-battling

g
– matches play out in a matter of minutes, and managing your virtual
collection takes mere seconds. It’s also technically the cheapest game on
this list to try out, as the app costs nothing to download.

straight onto the more recent cycles.

If you’re after a more story-driven
mode, the Terminal Directive m
Start your collection: The free-to-play Hearthstone app on iOS, Android
or PC will let you play indefinitely without paying a penny, although

ld
those who find themselves hooked will undoubtedly find

r
expansion has some interesting ideas themselves buying one of the randomised in-app packs of
worth checking out. digital cards.

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 Role Call
This month sees a remastered return for an old favourite, a
trip to the French Revolution and a stay in a haunted hotel
SAVAGE
WORLDS:
HIGH-SPACE
The newest edition of
the popular High-Space
rules for Savage Worlds,
with a particular focus
on cinematic playing over
more grounded games like
Traveller. The universe is a
bright and shiny place, filled
with all the delights that high
technology could bring, but
the characters know better,
and it’s down to them to
investigate the truth.
Storyweaver | $20
April 2018
013_roleCall_v2 MJ.indd 13
CALL OF
CTHULHU:
REIGN OF
TERROR
Containing full details
of Paris at the time of
the French Revolution,
this book has a two-part
scenario and a number
of adventure seeds for
playing in the historical
time period. The material
within can be played solo or
integrated into the existing
campaign for Horror on the
Orient Express.
Chaosium | £25
Words by John Dodd
FROM BEYOND:
DISTRESS CALL
Part one in the
Starfinder-compatible
From Beyond adventure
path. The characters
are sent to investigate
a distress signal from
a mining vessel orbiting
a brown dwarf in a
desolate star system.
The signal was sent
only to the nearest
colony, then went dark.
When the characters
arrive, all is in darkness.
Angry Golem | $8
W tabletopgaming.co.uk
THE STRANGE: RUNEQUEST:
THE HUM GRIFFIN
A new scenario for The MOUNTAIN
Strange, detailing the Grand One of the most
Bavarian Hotel, known to
many as the most haunted
e t
celebrated roleplaying
game setting books of
n
hotel in America and now a all time, re-released
popular tourist attraction for
the ‘Amazing Tesla Science
Engine’. But the engine
has been stolen, and the
.
for RuneQuest Classic
s
after years of being
g
unavailable. Covering
several thousand square
hauntings are becoming
more frequent, as well as
m
other phenomena, such as a a
miles of land and with one
of the most dangerous
wilderness campaigns
ld
low frequency hum that can ever created, this is not
cause madness, and worse… for beginners of any kind.
r
Monte Cook | £5
o
Chaosium | £15
13
13/03/2018 13:35
 All the
Jahres
Replaying the winners of the Spiel des Jahres so you don’t have to
Words and photographs by James Wallis

UM REIFENBREITE
L
et’s recap for a second. The year is 1992,
the Spiel des Jahres has been running
for fourteen years and is, along with the
Origins Awards, the most prestigious gong
for games in the world. It’s seen two winners
by British designers, four with a British
theme, two that are not actually games with a
board and four that are roll-dice-and-move-
piece games.
Make that five.
Um Reifenbreite is the first Dutch winner of
the Spiel des Jahres, and – unless you count
camel racing – it’s still the only one based on a
real sport. In it you control a team of cyclists;
if the board reminds you of 2017’s delightful
Flamme Rouge,, you’re not a million miles off
track. Cycling games tend to cover the same
ground in more or less the same way: hills,
road surfaces, crashes, getting puffed out
and the all-important drafting rules.
Drafting, or riding in another rider’s
slipstream, is at the heart of road
racing, and it’s at the heart of
Um Reifenbreite too – that’s a
good thing because otherwise
the most striking thing
about the game would be
the cover and board.
Pause for a moment
Year of win: 1992
Designer: Rob Bontenbal
Number of players: 2-4
Playing time: 30-90 minutes
Worthy winner? Yes
Worth playing now? Not a must-play,
but definitely worth a try
Availability: Rare in the UK
Price: €15 on ebay.de
there’s more space for the cover, and this
is a great cover. Inside, the board is just as
good – it too is decorated with humorous art
by Jan van Haasteren, the legendary Dutch
cartoonist who still designs many of Jumbo’s
range of jigsaws and also drew the art for the
game pieces. It gives the game a wonderful
coherency of style and tone – if you get bored
you can stare at the illustrations until it’s
your turn.
Once you’ve got your pieces onto the track
– four per team, one team per player – the race
is on. The piece at the front moves first, so the
pieces at the back won’t immediately crash
into the pack. On each piece’s turn you can roll
two dice and move up to that many spaces, or
spend an energy card worth five or six and add
a die to it. But you have to deduct the number
on the space your piece is on, and that
makes corners tricky and hills
properly punishing, because
if a rider rolls a negative
number they have to
dismount for the turn.
It’s the drafting
that makes the
t
difference. If your

e
piece is directly
behind another
and look at those. The
box is an aberration;
it’s the long format

s. ncyclist and they

make a good move,
you can immediately
that was big in the ‘70s
and ‘80s, but by the
‘90s was looking
ag declare that you’re
drafting them, moving
the same number of
decidedly old-
fashioned. Long
boxes are fragile and

ld m spaces without rolling to

stay right behind them
Chains of riders form

r
they’re difficult to store, up, often all the same
but the size means team, just as in actual road

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racing. This is not only elegant game design,
it works really well in play because a lot of
the game’s strategy lies in blocking other
riders’ paths, particularly around corners.
There’s a peloton, riders make breaks; it all
feels like proper racing. It’s a tight, exciting
game experience.
Except... except that it’s fundamentally,
unapologetically, a roll-and-move game. On
most turns you roll two dice and move up to
that many spaces, and that randomness makes
a mockery of any clever tactics or plans you
may have. What’s more, if you roll a seven then
you have to draw an event card, which may
be good or bad. The cards do add variety and
unexpected happenings to the game (saddle
014_015_allTheJahres_v2 MJ.indd 15
sores, anyone?) but a tighter design wouldn’t
need this enforced jollity. On the other hand,
without the bike spanners that a wild roll or
unexpected card throws into the mix, the
game would be much drier.
The cards bring another problem. There
has never been an English-language edition
of Um Reifenbreite, and Google Translate
chokes badly on a mix of cycling jargon and
game mechanics. Auf Achse (the 1987 Spiel
des Jahres winner) presents the same problem
to non-German speakers, but the difference
between that and Um Reifenbreite is that Auf
Achse is not worth bothering to play.
r
The game doesn’t end when one rider
finishes; every one of your team will
o
W tabletopgaming.co.uk
a 
While
short race
can be
over in 15
minutes,
you could
spend
several
evenings
running
a whole
season.
score for their position, so you mustn’t
leave stragglers behind, and a player who
maintains a tight team grouping will beat
someone who abandoned a team member
or two on a punishing hill climb. The board
has multiple possible courses and, while a
short race can be over in 15 minutes, you
could cheerfully spend several evenings
running a whole season of races.
Roll-and-move mechanics were fine
in the ‘90s; not simply an accepted part
of game design but something that
the audience of the time expected and
enjoyed. Tastes have changed and, while
Um Reifenbreite is still fun and engrossing,
t
it’s unquestionably showing its age. Any
e
modern designer could improve it with
a few minutes of thought, but it has its
n
charms and some of its ideas are really
.
smart. If you want a less luck-based cycling
s
game then Flamme Rouge or even 1991’s
ag
Breaking Away will suit your needs but,
even with its failings, Um Reifenbreite is a
tour de force.
ld m
Next month: Did the Spiel des Jahres jury
really give the 1993 award to a variant of
Liar’s Dice? Or is it all a… Bluff?
15
13/03/2018 13:36
 DreadBall is the fast-paced futuristic sports
game set in the galaxy’s most hi-tech
e t
arenas. Choose from the agile Ninth Moon
Tree Sharks or the unstoppable Draconis
s. n
All-Stars robot team before taking to the
pitch and going for glory.
ag
Outwit your rival coach with tactical set
pieces, push your luck with daring plays,
or just smash your opponent to the ground
ld m
with brutal tackles. When the game begins,
anything goes…

www.dreadball.com
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08/03/2018 16:30
 my favourite game
JUSTIN GARY
The Magic: The Gathering pro turned deckbuilder designer
explains why he finds the simplicity of Fluxx inspiring
all side decks and tokens. Judging by
how hooked everyone at the office
is on playing, I think we’ve done
a good job maintaining fun and
strategic depth with even fewer

Fluxx boils
components than Ascension.
While Magic is a brilliant

down the
game because of its ability to
completely transform with

collectible
each new card played, it
is very complex to learn

card game
and teach, with many
rules and corner-case

to its
timing considerations. Fluxx
boils down the collectible

essence.
card game to its essence. The starting
rules fit on one card that sits in the
centre of the table. Each player
starts with a three-card hand,
then draws and plays one card
per turn. Players can change
the rules by simply playing
new cards, including goal

I
’m going to avoid the easy
answer here and exclude
Magic: The Gathering from
my list of favourite games. I started my career in
gaming when I became US national champion
in 1997 and world team champion in 2003 so it will
always have a special place in my heart.
Putting aside the easy answer, I am going to
choose a game that boils down the essence of a
trading card game into a single, elegant package.
That game is Fluxx.
Elegance is that which is pleasingly simple. Elegant
games get a lot of depth and variety of experience from
very few rules and components. Go is a classic example
of a game with very simple rules and enormous
depth. In my original deckbuilding game, Ascension, I
tried to boil down the essence of deckbuilding into a
single centre deck with only a few extra piles of cards
and tokens required to play. Building deep, strategic
cards that dictate how you win. This
is elegance at its finest.
There are countless Fluxx variations
– Zombie Fluxx, Star Fluxx, Stoner
Fluxx, etc. – that keep the elegance
of the original game, but add a themed
twist, referencing humorous tropes
and allowing cards to change the
rules accordingly. Stoner Fluxx
even includes a handy ‘Whose
Turn Is It?’ card to remind you in
case you space out.
Speaking of Stoner Fluxx,
here is a pro tip for aspiring
game designers: always test new
game designs with a group of
stoner friends if you can. They are a
great barometer to see if your game
e t
is too complicated. If you can keep
their focus and attention, you’ve
probably got something

s. n
gameplay with very few components and rules has
always been a passion of mine as a designer. I work
hard to ensure that the game remains simple to learn
pretty fun on your
hands. And if
things get too
ag
with a lot of strategic depth.
I’ve since taken what I learned from nine years of
working on Ascension to build a new deckbuilding
confusing? It
never hurts to
give a friendly

ld m
r
game, Shards of Infinity, that even further reduces the reminder that
number of components required to play by removing “It’s your turn.”

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 TEARING IT UP
After Guild Ball and Dark Souls,
Steamforged’s most ambitious
project yet sees the worlds of
miniatures and board games
collide. Lead developer Alex
Hall reveals why Godtear is the
biggest leap for the studio to

H
date – and what we can expect
Words by Matt Jarvis

ow do you follow a smash-hit

spiritual successor to one of
the most influential sports
miniatures games of all time?
In the case of Steamforged, the
British studio behind Blood
Bowl rival Guild Ball, it’s with a
record-breaking multimillion
crowdfunding campaign for a board game based
on video game series Dark Souls. With a card game
spin-off of Dark Souls and another high-profile video
game adaptation, Resident Evil 2, since tucked under
its belt, the team is now no stranger to tackling grand
projects, but its next undertaking might just be its most
ambitious yet.
It even comes with a grand-sounding title. Godtear.
Lofty enough to be in the tier of gods. Or to make a
deity weep. Or rip them apart, if you ignore the official
pronunciation and stick with the visual wordplay. Puns
e t
.n
don’t come more ostentatious than this.

s
True to its name, the game is aiming high. The
heart of its action is scenario-based arena skirmishes
between two teams of mighty champions and their
submissive followers, who gang together as a single
warband. The teams battle to wipe out their rivals and
ag
claim objectives on a hex-based grid, scoring points
over up to five rounds for ultimate victory. Where
Godtear breaks away from so many objective-driven

l dm
r
skirmish games, though, is in its introduction of one of
the hottest words currently in board games: legacy.

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 GODTEAR
ABOVE Rangosh is one of
the champions available to
play as. He’s... sizeable
OPPOSITE The game’s
early access kit is being
used to help refine its rules
before a full release
20 April 2018
018_025_godtear_v2 MJ.indd 20
That’s right: this isn’t just a miniatures game. It’s a legacy
miniatures game, joining the ranks of much-discussed
board games Gloomhaven, Charterstone, SeaFall, Pandemic
Legacy and more in its use of permanent changes to its
rules, characters and board across multiple plays.
Each Godtear match begins with the selection of a
specific scenario, each with unique rules and gameplay
conditions. As an example, the game’s pre-release early
access kit includes a mode called ‘growth’, where a central
objective area expands at the end of each turn, providing
more hexes that can be captured by a player’s champion
planting a banner and subsequently moving the game’s
score tracker closer to their side. But enemy champions
can crush banners by moving onto their space, moving the
tracker back and creating the dynamic tug-of-war tension at
the heart of the game.
“Something I’ve highlighted as a big issue with a lot
of this-style game: if we have a scenario where there are
objectives directly outside of your deployment zone and we
have just a core rule that followers cannot move on objective
hexes, that means you then have to park a champion who
isn’t allowed to get involved in the action because you need
them parked on there to try and grab you battle points,”
W 14/03/2018 14:32
says lead Godtear developer Alex Hall. “That just seemed
weird to me, whereas having this thing where at the start
of the game they just move forward, throw their banner
down on that objective and banners are very easy to get rid
of – all you need to do is move a champion onto the hex that
a banner is on and it’s removed. As soon as you move onto
the hex that it’s on, it’s gone. So the obvious counterplay to
that is set up someone that’s slightly quicker on that side of
the board when you’re deploying and you just indeed
t
on nipping them up and crunching that banner. So then
e
your opponent has a choice of: do I guard this objective a
bit under the assumption they’re coming up, or do I throw
n
my banner on there, take what I get and keep going?”
.
Ending a round with the token on your side of the board
s
grabs a set amount of points – starting with a single point
g
for the first round and increasing by one until the fourth
a
round, when it begins to decrease in value again. Five points
wins the game completely, so matches are guaranteed to
m
conclude within three to five rounds, and the varying point
values mean that players can use different tactics to try and
ld
pull an early victory or last-minute turnaround out of the bag.
r
“If you want to go with a super early champion build
to try and win the game by turn three every time, that’s
o
 Each champion comes with their own group of
Quite followers, themed around the character’s distinct look and

often
play style. While each champion has to be accompanied by
their specific followers for the moment, unlike Guild Ball’s

a lot of
teams, Godtear’s characters aren’t aligned with a particular
faction – players can draft a unique team from any

miniatures combination of heroes and have them work together. It’s an

ambitious design that Hall admits is tough to balance.

games “That’s something that we’re super proud of with

Guild Ball and something that, when we do erratas and

don’t tend revisions and season updates, we’re trying to make sure
that every character [feels different],” he explains. “It’s

to be that not easier in Guild Ball, but guilds have their identity
and you always need to try and paint within the lines of
character- that identity. You don’t want to make a fisherman that
does a load of damage, because that doesn’t fit what
heavy. We fishermen do. It’s almost harder once you’ve got those
kind of faction-based restrictions, because when anyone
have a can do anything – Godtear’s an entirely faction-less
system, you can put anyone with anyone, so trying to
game that make all of these champions so that they feel different

is quite
and interesting, the more upgrade options you put on
there, the more you’re potentially cutting off options for

sort of
just cool new champions that have different things.
“Something that I know Mat [Hart, Steamforged co-

character- founder and creative director] mentioned at times and

sometimes we agree on, sometimes we disagree on, is it’d

heavy. be cool if at some point down the line we have a dwarf

champion who has some keywords on his card that means
he can benefit any other dwarves. So rather than necessarily
focusing on the animosity side, focusing on the kind of ‘this
race can benefit its own race’. The worry that you come into
then is: does just running the same race become optimal?
And trying to get that fine balance of being able to have

something you can try and do,” says Hall. “If you want to
go for a late-game one where it’s a bunch of slow tanky
guys that slog their way up, then you almost accept
you’re giving up turn one and two. But once it hits turns
three you’re in a really strong position to be able to
win turn three and four. It just adds a really interesting
dynamic into the selection or your warband and the
strategy you want to try and go for to win.”

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

Champions can be mixed and matched between four
classes, whether powerful slayers, tough guardians, area-of-
e t
effect-casting maelstroms or manipulative shapers, opening
up the chance to form a diverse force or specialised unit.
“Currently we’re looking at a maximum of four-versus-

s. n
four in terms of champions, but the main one we’re going
to be testing is three-versus-three, which is my preference
in terms of the size because you have the kind of juggling
ag
act of we don’t want to make it so this game takes up too
much space to play, but we don’t want to make it feel
really confined and small in scale,” Hall reveals. “So I feel

ld m
r
with the size of the hex grid we have to play with, three-
versus-three is where it’s at its strongest.”

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 GODTEAR
it so that we can have the dwarf champion have like an
ABOVE Godtear’s legacy aura that he can place that benefits other models that are
aspects might let players dwarves without making it so that every time you see
permanently upgrade their dwarves, the whole force is dwarves. That balancing
characters’ abilities over act is the one that I’ve found hard; making sure that we
multiple matches can have these interesting interactions without making
players feel like they need to because they’re sub-
optimal if you don’t do it.”
It’s these characters that are at the centre of Godtear,
serving as a focal point of the game’s legacy elements.
When we speak, Hall reveals that the legacy aspects are
still in the early stages of being blended with the core
hex-based combat, but suggests that players may be able
to upgrade their champions’ abilities over the course of
multiple matches.
“Rangosh is a big minotaur with a massive whip – that
whip is used primarily to drag people in, and then his level
one upgrade might be you increase damage to the whip [or]
you add a way of inflicting some sort of condition – we’ve
got things called blights and boons which are your buffs
and debuffs,” he says. “Or maybe it completely flips it on
its head and, rather than you dragging them in, you move
over to them. That could be three examples of the level one
talent you get when you upgrade Rangosh, and you choose
which of those three you want. But the other two you can
never have in that campaign. It may end up being deeper
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than that, but we’re still playing around with it a lot and the
complications come in in terms of looking at the amount
of design space you have to work in. Because the moment
we give Rangosh an option to flip that on its head, so rather
than him dragging people in he goes towards them, then
if we give a character where their thing is that they can
hook someone and drag themselves in, either Rangosh is
treading on their design space or they’re treading on his.”
With gamers spending hours assembling, customising,
painting and playing with models, there is a sense of
attachment to any miniatures game. Godtear plans to
take this personal investment even further, developing
progression as elements in the gameplay.
t
its champions’ place in the universe alongside their
e
“Ultimately we have a game that is quite sort of character-
n
heavy,” Hall explains. “Quite often a lot of miniatures games
.
don’t tend to be that character-heavy. So you look at a game
s
of Warhammer 40,000, for example. You have your army and
g
you may have your force commanders and whatnot, who are
a
named, but they’re still just part of the army. Whereas once
you break it down into a more skirmish-level miniatures
m
game, as we did with Guild Ball, you can add a lot more
character into those models. Once you’ve got characters and
ld
people invested in models, it becomes very interesting once
r
you start looking at ways in which you put across a campaign
that can permanently change what that character can do.
o
 “I really like the idea of doing an organised play pack that’s
like the origin stories of three champions and it comes with
alternate sculpts for those three champions. Say Rangosh is
currently functioning as like a controller/support character
where he focuses a lot on repositioning, perhaps in the
organised play pack where you just come and play the game
for a day, that has some of the more legacy components
to match a really fighty Rangosh that represents what he
was like when he was younger and how he got to where
he is now. So rather than necessarily focusing on the more
tournament side of things, focus on that narrative campaign.”
It won’t only be the characters that forge their own
unique stories. Godtear’s hex map will also be impacted
by the outcome of battles.
“It becomes even more interesting when you start to
look at, like, a campaign map that has different locations
on it that can permanently change based on what’s
happened in a game that someone else has had in that
campaign,” Hall says.
As an example, he suggests a growth match could
end with each player selecting a hex that remains as
permanent terrain for future games. Another option
ties the traits of champions and their connection to the
landscape together, with specific environments gaining
abilities activated by certain races or classes, such as
woods able to be traversed more quickly by elves.
018_025_godtear_v2 MJ.indd 23
“Hopefully you can almost get like an emotional
attachment to the places you’re fighting in as much as the
people you’re fighting with and against,” Hall says. “You don’t
have any elves and you end up fighting someone that does
Hopefully you have elves and you are going on the plains where there’s a
load of this terrain around that the elf player can benefit from.
can get an All of a sudden, you really don’t want to be fighting at the
plains. But I think that’s a really cool thing to play around with
emotional – this idea of the permanence as you’re playing as it develops
your characters and makes them feel more like yours.”
attachment ENTER THE ARENA
to the
places t
Once the champions have deployed to the arena, it’s
e
time to do battle. Each turn is divided into two phases,
beginning with a strategic activation of each side’s
you’re n
entire warband simultaneously before swapping to an
.
alternating format during the following tactical phase.
s
Each activation allows for two different actions,
fighting in.
ag
condensed to movement, calling a banner and using any
of the skills listed on the champion’s card, which is flipped
over between phases for different sets of abilities in each
m
phase. The strategic phase focuses on positioning models
and strengthening them with buffs before the action kicks
ld
off in the tactics phase, meaning that models might be able
r
to move further in the first half of each turn before slowing in
the second if their movement stats are affected, for instance.
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14/03/2018 15:04
 GODTEAR

“Sometimes they’re the same, sometimes they’re

different, sometimes they’re zero,” says Hall. “It entirely
depends on when we want a model to be mobile. It’s
handy for balancing. If I have a ranged damage character,
it’s pretty obvious that the general thing you would do if
you wanted to try and break the game would be have them
quick in the strategy phase and then still have some speed
in the tactics phase, so in the strategy phase they run up
into position and then their activation in the tactics phase
is shoot and run away, so they can literally never be hurt.
“So we have to be aware of that, but it gives us some
cool stuff to do. Using an example of if we were to ever
have a dwarf with a tower shield, he could be quicker
during the strategic phase, which is to show that he’s
lifted his tower shield up and he’s moving up the
battlefield. But then once we get to the tactics phase he’s
only got a movement of one or maybe zero because
he’s planted down and he’s ready to take it. His
armour stat perhaps increases during that phase.
So the stats can change, it depends entirely on the
direction we want for the character. We have to be
kind of considerate of if we were to change
every stat on every side of the card, we’re
literally doubling the amount of stats
you as the player have to try and
remember, which isn’t a great new-
player-friendly experience.”
Hall reveals that Steamforged’s
efforts in making sure Godtear treads
the line between wargame depth
and board game approachability has
required the team to rethink how
they create games.
“A lot of Godtear development-
wise has been a lot more figuring
things out, working out what works
and a lot more prototyping than
we’ve conventionally done,” he
explains. “Very often, just in the
way that a lot of the guys we
have work here and the way
that their brains work, it’s a
lot of writing out rules, writing
out cards, figuring things out
and then playtest it. And try and
get it done as numerically as you
can possible first, to get as close
e t
to balance as you can get. Then
start prototyping and ironing out kinks.
Whereas Godtear’s changed significantly throughout

s. n
the development path and has had a lot more, like,
‘Let’s prototype this out, see how it works, we can write
the rules afterwards.’ But since January it’s been a lot of
ag
get rules written out, get cards designed, then playtest
from what we’ve done once rules are there, see what
works, see what doesn’t – I guess essentially establishing

ld m
r
boundaries, because when the world is your ocean and I
can put whatever I want on a card, life is very easy.”

o
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 This led to the decision to offer an early access
The version of the game to players wanting to be a part of the
development process. Six of the champions, their followers
hope and prototype components were included as part of the £120
set, with fans who picked it up able to discuss their thoughts
with on the game as it evolves and feed back to its creators.
Playtesting ahead of a full release is a common way
Godtear for designers to see how their game fares with those
not intimately involved with its creation, but Hall says
is that you that it’s often seen as an activity reserved for hardcore
gamers or people who eat, sleep and breathe a single
wouldn’t game – a perception he hopes to dispel.
“It’s very important in playtesting that there seems to
have to very often be this common misconception that to playtest
a game you have to be a previous world champion at it,”
terms, terminology and
conventions tend to come
read the he retorts. “That’s so inaccurate, at least for the games we
make, because we want the games to appeal to as many
before you start talking
through rules. Whereas in board games they are generally
entire people as possible. That doesn’t just make sense from
a business standpoint; that’s just as a creative person if
at the back in like a glossary or something along those
lines. That is just a big difference between someone that
rulebook you’ve made something you think’s fun you want that to
appeal to as many people as possible. So we didn’t want
predominantly plays tabletop miniatures games and
someone that prefers to play board games: board games
before to put any limitation on who could or couldn’t purchase
this product because we want all different walks of life to
are aimed more at that ‘get going, you can work the rest
out later’, whereas tabletop [miniatures] games tend to be
playing. be able to give it a go and let us know what they think.” more learn the whole thing and then jump in.”
Hall says that Dark Souls had similarly taken a more
TEAR UP THE RULES miniatures-like approach to dispensing its rules by front-
Hall is well placed to blur the lines between miniatures loading information. The divisive response to the game’s
and board games, having joined Steamforged a few years rulebook helped to further shape Godtear’s easy-to-grasp tone.
ago after becoming one of the top Guild Ball players in “It’s very hard to pick up that game [Dark Souls] and
the country, before working on Dark Souls as a result of play it without reading through the entire rulebook at
his fandom for the video game series. least once,” Hall acknowledges. “The hope with Godtear
Godtear itself began life as a more conventional miniatures is that you wouldn’t have to; you can go through in a
game in the mould of Guild Ball, using a tape measure rather page order and do it as it tells you and have a table set
than a grid of hexes. After the success of Kick Off!, a two-player up and be ready to play a game, start playing and then,
Guild Ball starter set that presented the sports miniatures game if you read something on a card and it says you push
as a more approachable all-in-one box and attracted a fresh someone, at the back in the glossary it will tell you that a
wave of fans from outside of the typical wargaming audience, push means that you move their model away from yours.
Hall says the team went “back to the drawing board”. Rather than defining a push right at the start of the book.”
“I don’t necessarily like to say there’s a massive difference With the game allowing Hall and his team to take a
between board gamers and tabletop gamers, but when it comes different approach to things from the ground up, Godtear
to developing a game there’s a huge difference,” he admits. is shaping up to be a beast like no other, bringing together
Much of this shift in philosophy took hold in Godtear’s Steamforged’s experience in miniatures and board
early rulebook, which was originally based on a template games with the thoughts of its players to form a dynamic,
of the Guild Ball manual – a tome aimed at miniatures evolving and highly ambitious hybrid.
players already fluent in the genre’s concepts. In an effort
to soften the often imposing learning curve, Hall began to
examine the approach of other hex-based games. t
Hall stresses that several elements of the game are still

e
in flux – as we talk he mentions countless ideas, such
as community-driven storylines (with the potential for
LEFT Parts of the terrain
could gain attributes
specific to certain races or
“Just down to the basics of, like, ordering,” he explains.
“So, for example, the setup to play Guild Ball – the part where
it’s like, ‘set out your three-by-three, this is your centre line,’ n
major character deaths decided by players), multiple

.
season packs with new champion rosters and options

s
for making the legacy elements work in an organised
classes, such as this goblin

ABOVE RIGHT Although

and all that sort of stuff – doesn’t come until about 10 pages
in. Which to a board gamer could turn them off immediately
because they just want to get in and start playing. So that’s g
play setting, all of which are yet to be properly tested and

a
might not make it into the game before it launches on
Kickstarter at some undetermined point in the future.

m
the champions aren’t a big change; if you are looking to target more of the board What is absolutely clear, though, is that the team isn’t
restricted to a specific game audience then you’d probably put your setup and afraid of reimagining what a miniatures game can be,

ld
faction, their followers get the bits that actually get you playing in first. and far from short of ideas for breaking the mould.
are pre-determined

r
“A big difference between the Guild Ball and Godtear Forget shooting for the stars – they’re aiming at
one [rulebooks] is the Guild Ball book, all of your defined nothing less than god tier.

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14/03/2018 15:09
 Critical Hit
The world’s biggest Dungeons & Dragons campaign has changed the face of

ag s.
roleplaying forever – and its cast have had an absolute blast along the way.
n e t

ld
turned into a cultural phenomenon and what’s in store for season two m
Critical Role’s Matthew Mercer and Liam O’Brien reveal how a birthday treat

Words by Matt Jarvis | Cosplay photographs by Pamela Joy

o r
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 C
ould you and your friends run your roleplaying
campaign with ten people watching? How
about 100? Or 1,000? What if it was an audience
of hundreds of thousands? Or even millions?
That’s exactly the daunting task faced by the cast of
Critical Role, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign streamed
live every week by Geek & Sundry, the web video network
that’s also the home of Wil Wheaton’s hugely popular
board game series TableTop. Since its all-star D&D show
began, Critical Role has racked up tens of millions of views
on livestreaming site Twitch and video library YouTube,
including a staggering 6.7 million views of its first episode,
Arrival at Kraghammer, which debuted in June 2015.
The game that would grow into a show watched by
millions began like any other roleplaying campaign – a
bunch of friends sat around a table, having fun. In this case,
026_033_criticalRoleFeature_v3 MJ.indd 27
the organiser was Matthew Mercer, a professional voice
actor with credits across video games, TV series and films, ABOVE Matthew Mercer
who put together a one-off simplified scenario for his friend
and fellow voice actor Liam O’Brien’s birthday.
“When we started this campaign in our home game,
e t
(centre) and the rest of the
Critical Role cast: Ashley
Johnson, Laura Bailey,
it was for mostly a bunch of people who I’d never played
before,” Mercer says. “It was supposed to be just a one-shot
for my friend Liam’s birthday, and we invited a bunch of our
s. n
Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray,
Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe
and Travis Willingham
compatriots who had never played before and they all got
immediately hooked, and it turned into a campaign.”
Mercer, O’Brien and their friends – including several
ag
other actors – soon switched to D&D 3.5-based RPG
Pathfinder and continued to play at home for two years,
ld m
before one of the group, BAFTA-winning The Last of Us star
r
Ashley Johnson, mentioned the campaign to Felicia Day,
the cult actor who co-founded Geek & Sundry.
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 CRITICAL ROLE
OPPOSITE Travis
Willingham as Grog
Strongjaw (right) and
Ashley Johnson as Pike
Trickfoot (left)
BELOW Liam O’Brien’s
Vax’ildan (left) and Marisha
Ray’s Keyleth (right)
28 April 2018
026_033_criticalRoleFeature_v3 MJ.indd 28
“Felicia was like, ‘Why don’t you... You guys should do
that on our channel!’” Mercer recalls. “We went, ‘Ohhhh,
I don’t know, playing D&D on the internet seems like a
terrible idea. People will light us on fire.’”
Much of the group’s hesitation was down to a
reluctance to change anything about the campaign
they had been running in private for years.
“It was still our game, we playing for ourselves,”
explains Mercer. “It wasn’t until Twitch became a thing
that it was a scenario where we said, ‘If we can put us
in a room, turn on cameras and not change any of how
we play our game, then we’ll say yes.’ And so, for us,
Twitch and streaming was the capability for us to just
continue to play our game, not trying to change or alter
it for an audience, just do it for ourselves and invite
other people to come and watch if that’s something
they wanted to do.”
Geek & Sundry agreed. The result is a friendly,
genuine series of videos that captures the sparky
creativity of the group in episodes that can last up to five
W 14/03/2018 14:34
hours or more, with the first campaign – following the
Vox Machina party – split across 115 such instalments.
“There are less brunch platters and mimosas for us now,”
O’Brien jokes about taking the campaign to the masses.
“Things were even looser around our home table, although
I think they’re still pretty loose. One of the best parts of
the stream, though, is that live element. The game still feels
very intimate, because it is still just the eight of us around a
table. But the live audience gives things that little electric
current of immediacy. We know once we say something,
either stupid or amazing, it is out there in the ether. It’s part
of what makes theatre so magical. You know that there has
never been a moment quite like the one you’re currently in.”
Mercer, who takes on the role of the dungeon master
throughout the series with the exception of a few special
episodes, says that the cast’s familiarity with appearing
on-screen helped with the leap to the public gaze.
“Because we’re all performers by nature, our home
games weren’t all that different,” he says. “We were all
shouting at each other over the table and getting way
The live
audience
gives things that
electric current
of immediacy.
Once we say
something, it’s
out there in
the ether.
e t
s. n
ag
ld m
o r
 into character and standing and flailing about wildly.
So it didn’t really change the game so much as far as the
presentation of it.”
What has changed significantly, even from Critical
Role’s beginnings, is its production values. The audio
and video quality of the first few episodes – “It’s a little
rough at the beginning,” admits Mercer – has since been
polished by professional lighting, microphones and sets.
As the person pulling the strings behind the world – not to
mention providing dozens of unique voices for any NPCs
encountered – Mercer’s own ability to layer in atmosphere
and weave the group’s story has improved, too.
“I’ve definitely fine-tuned and honed things as I’ve
played and learned, as you do as anyone’s GMing a game
– the more you play, the more you define your techniques
and get better at certain things,” he says.
“I will say, having that big of an audience definitely
teaches you to be much more conscientious with your
world-building. Because it’s one thing to create a story and
a world for your eight friends who are sometimes having
a beer or two and won’t notice your mistakes and won’t
notice your plot holes, it’s another when you have hundreds
of thousands of people on Reddit and social media who are
every week picking apart the minutiae of your storyline.”
CROWD GAME
One of Critical Role’s biggest draws is how much it feels
like watching a Netflix or television series. The talented
party’s impressive vocal talents mean that, even without
much in the way of visual flair, watching or listening
026_033_criticalRoleFeature_v3 MJ.indd 29
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to an episode gets you immediately invested in the
story and its characters. There’s a similarly passionate
following, too, with fans drawing artwork based on the
heroes, discussing story beats and binge-watching older
episodes while waiting for the next chapter.
“It’s perpetually surreal,” Mercer says of the fandom.
“It never stops and only continues to get more and more
and more so. It’s hard not to fall into a trap of continuous
imposter syndrome, ‘cause it doesn’t feel like we deserve
this attention. It’s a phenomenon that even we don’t
understand and we’re humbled by it, but we’re excited
by it, too. Because it’s one thing to have a thing that
people like, it’s another to have a community that’s so
gracious and so happy to engage with each other and us.
It’s special, it’s special. That’s the only way I can say it. I
don’t know what it is, but I like it!”
t
The show’s likeable players and engaging story have even
e
seen it break out of the roleplaying niche and attract a wave
of fans who have never touched a pen-and-paper RPG,
. n
some of whom go on to try out D&D after watching.
“Part of the reason we even started Critical Role was
s
the inevitably difficult conversation in a party or a co-
g
worker scenario where someone asks, ‘What, wait, what is
a
Dungeons & Dragons?’” Mercer enthuses. “And that horrible
moment where you’re like, ‘Well, you know, it’s– You make
m
a character and then it’s like a fantasy, but you can be like
a spellcaster, or you could be like a fighter, and it’s like
ld
there’s a lot of you, and there’s a person who’s a– Y’know?
r
Nevermind.’ I’ve had that scenario happen so much in my
life that I wanted to put something on video that could be
o
29
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 CRITICAL ROLE
something to show people very quickly and be like, ‘Oh, it’s
just friends around a table telling a story, I could do that.’
“So now that we’ve built off that, the community is now
reaching out to people in their circle who they think might
really enjoy this but never had the opportunity to be
exposed to it and be like, ‘Hey, watch this,’ or ‘Hey, come
over on Friday and see if you wanna jump in and give it
a shot.’ I’ve heard story after story of people getting their
co-workers into it, families – you know, those tenuous
teen years between parents and teenagers absolved by
having a family D&D night every week. That to me is the
core of it; it’s bringing people together and sharing a really
amazing experience that you all create together. That’s a
very fulfilling experience and it just builds social skills,
it builds problem-solving skills, team-building. I owe so
much of who I am today to Dungeons & Dragons and
roleplaying games, and it excites me to think that so many
other people are now getting a chance to learn through
that same lens how to better themselves.”
“I think we all continue to prove that it’s a game
everyone can play,” O’Brien agrees. “Hell, I think
tabletop RPGs are games everyone should play. I think
they make us better people. Everyone has a story to tell,
30 April 2018
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and the beauty is, you get to write anything you want.
And anyone with kids? Run a game for them!”
Most friendship groups are unlikely to involve a line-up
of experienced voice actors accustomed to embodying
a character and projecting an alternate personality to a
room of people – even close friends. But while Critical
Role may be an idealised version of roleplaying for some
people, its stars are quick to dispel the idea that it should
be treated as the template for a perfect experience.
“First and foremost, there is no requirement for you to
do voices or to be really into character,” Mercer reassures.
“Especially at the very beginning of a campaign, that’s
e t
something that comes with comfort. Most of the people I’ve
played with most of my life have not been actors, they’ve
all been people that went on to become game designers or
s. n
tech experts. I grew up with the nerd crowd, we were the
computer club in high school. It was those people. So I was
probably the more outgoing of most of my gaming groups
ag
m
growing up, so by no means do you have to be a performer.”
“Don’t stress. Embrace feeling foolish,” O’Brien adds.
ld
“The only goal you really need is having fun with each other,
r
making each other laugh. And don’t wait ‘til you ‘feel ready’.
Or perfect. It’ll never be perfect. But it will be great.”
o
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 For confident players that do want to introduce a little
more theatricality to their games, Mercer suggests that even
basic lessons in improvisation can pay dividends.
“Not only does it help keep you clever and quick, which
is a great thing to have in a lot of roleplaying games, but
it’ll help you feel more comfortable jumping and taking
charge in a challenge – which as we all know when you’re
playing D&D, sometimes you have that moment when
everyone’s like ‘Urr, I don’t– Do you wanna? I don’t know–
I– I’ll g– Oh, okay, you go ahead,’” he says. “Improv helps
you feel more competent in taking the spotlight when
nobody else will and just keep the story moving forward,
so that is a helpful skill set to have.
“If that’s where your comfort level goes and you want
ascribe to be that, then just clearly define your character’s
personality, what their goals are, what their fears are, what
their worries are, and try and add an element to their
backstory that’s a mystery even to you as the player that
the GM can play with. Because that helps you start the
game with a strong idea of what the character’s decision-
making would be based on and over time you’ll feel
more comfortable in those shoes. Once you feel more
comfortable, you’ll generally be more comfortable in
stepping forward and embodying the personality of that
character whether that be a voice or physicality or just a
presence. It doesn’t have to be as big as us. We’re all actors,
026_033_criticalRoleFeature_v3 MJ.indd 31
that’s our skillset, so of course that’s what we’re going to use
OPPOSITE Laura Bailey’s to tell our story, but don’t feel like you have to do that by any
Vex’ahlia (left) hangs means. Some of the best games I’ve ever played have been
out with Johnson’s with non-actors and in hindsight, in memory I don’t recall it
Pike (centre) and Ray’s being any less magical. So please don’t feel that pressure.”
Keyleth (right) Although the quick wits and on-the-spot invention
of its players provides many of Critical Role’s best
BELOW Vax and Vex’ahlia moments, the show’s casual surface is held together by
are siblings as well as hours of work done in the background. As DM, Mercer
companions in the Vox reveals he plans between four and six hours of content
Machina party for each episode, taking between an hour to an hour and
a half of prep for each hour of actual gameplay.
“I have, when I’m preparing like a story arc, I’ll usually
beat out the general arc – what kind of important beats
should happen – and develop the in-between on a more
immediate basis, meaning episode to episode,” he says.
“When we have a session, as we play through that bit of
the arc, I’ll try and prepare in advance where I think they
might go within that session.
“If we’re going into another big story arc it’s going to be
a lot more front-end prep to make sure I know where we’re
going. I’ll beat out the loose locations and events that will
happen, I’ll create a bunch of NPCs that are intrinsic to
the storyline and some that are not that I can just plug in
wherever – they can help kind of give them some direction
– and then prepare some very loose possibilities if they go
e t
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13/03/2018 13:47
 CRITICAL ROLE
completely off the rails, which inevitably they do. That’s the
nature of roleplaying games! As much as you prepare, it’s
never enough. You’re usually pulling stuff out of your ass left
and right, and that’s part of the thrill of GMing.”
Mercer laughs as he recalls plenty of times where
decisions made by the rest of the group had resulted in his
hard work going to waste.
“Plenty of social and combat encounters,” he says,
when asked which of his plans had never come to fruition.
“Y’know, whole possible dungeon-delve scenarios that just
never ever came up where they completely skipped over.
“There would be NPCs – like, for instance, in the final
arc of the last campaign, I’d created a creature that was
going to be a Gollum-esque-type entity, where it was semi-
neutral but it had information on the villain and they could
encounter it and it was going to be one of the only social
encounters in this dungeon they would have, as most of it
was just a climb towards the big bad. So I had described it
by itself, looking kind of pitiful on its own as it’s, like, feasting
on this corpse, and the first thing one of our players did was
throw his daggers at it and kill it in one round. I was like,
‘Alright! Well, moving on...’ He had a name! I showed him
after the campaign, I’m like, ‘He had a name, Liam!’”
A FRESH START
After wrapping up its first season after two years, early 2018
saw Critical Role launch into a brand new campaign, with
32 April 2018
026_033_criticalRoleFeature_v3 MJ.indd 32
a new setting, new story and new characters – which, of
ABOVE The Vox Machina course, means new voices.
party from Critical Role’s O’Brien’s human wizard Caleb Widogast (accompanied
first campaign by his unlikely goblin partner, Nott the Brave, played by Sam
Riegel) replaces his fan-favourite half-elf rouge-paladin
OPPOSITE Critical Role is Vax’ildan from the previous season. He’s joined by Laura
streamed live on Twitch Bailey’s tiefling cleric Jester, Marisha Ray’s human monk
each week, with videos Beauregard, Travis Willingham’s half-orc warlock Fjord,
going up on YouTube Taliesin Jaffe’s tiefling blood hunter Mollymauk and Ashley
afterwards for fans to Johnson as aasimar barbarian Yasha. Where the group’s
watch – and rewatch previous characters had established their backstories,
(Geek & Sundry) relationships and personalities over hundreds of hours to
the delight of fans (as lengthy wiki entries will attest), the
an exciting but intimidating prospect.
t
second season sees the players starting completely afresh –
e
“Dungeons & Dragons has so much range, I’m really just
n
wanting to try out some of those other avenues I haven’t
.
had a chance to explore yet,” O’Brien says. “I was almost
s
magic-free for the entirety of the last campaign, and when
g
I did acquire some, it was fairly light. I’m both nervous and
a
excited to wrap my head around all the ins and out of the
wizardly path. Plus, I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy inhabiting a
m
different headspace than Vax in the last campaign. He was
very rash, headstrong, and uncompromising in the ways
ld
he strove to do right. Which I loved playing. Caleb is not cut
r
from the same cloth, however. Not by a longshot. And every
actor likes to try on different hats.”
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 ROLE
CHANGE
Critical Role is all
about Dungeons &
The group first meets in an inn in the city of Trostenwald
on the continent of Wildemount, a more politically incensed
“To kind of show the microcosm of it, you’ll prepare a
session and be like, ‘This will feel like a good solid four to
Dragons, but what
region than the land of Tal’Dorei explored by the Vox five hours of gameplay, I feel pretty good about this,’ and other roleplaying
Machina party. With the players taking on new roles, the then the players will get through the first page and that games do the cast
different landscape – both literally and metaphorically one session prep will last you three sessions,” he says. enjoy? We asked
– similarly provides their dungeon master with the “Comparatively, I’ve prepared a similar amount of work
opportunity to paint on a blank canvas. and they’ll breeze through it in an hour and then we’re two of its stars
“I’m curious,” says Mercer. “I want this campaign all living in this blank space where I loosely have an idea
Matthew Mercer: D&D
to have a different narrative flavour to it. It’s going to of where we’re going and we’re just making it up as we was my introduction to it
largely depend on what the players want to, what they go along. So it’s hard to gauge a length when the nature [roleplaying]. I grew up a
want to pursue and what threads catch their attention. of the game is to be so amorphous and open. I don’t hardcore Tolkien high fantasy
This continent is designed to be a little more politically really feel there’s a need to ascribe to a specific structure nerd, so it’s definitely my
involved, it has a lot more moral grey I think they may or a specific length, I just kinda wanna see where the preferred place, but I’ve played
well encounter in this campaign versus the previous one story takes us, and when it feels like it naturally has a lot of other RPGs that I
where it was a very clear, like, good versus evil. It was ended then that’ll be the end.” enjoy thoroughly. I’ve played
pretty easy to pick which side you’re on. It may be a little His players are equally clueless about where the a lot of Traveller, I’ve played
Exalted, I’ve played Deadlands,
less easy in this campaign, which I think will be very sprawling tale could go next.
I’ve played the Warhammer
unique for them at the very least. For those players, who “I’ve no clue,” O’Brien says. “And that’s the beauty of it.” Fantasy roleplaying game, I’ve
are used to very much like, ‘Oh, that’s the bad guy, we With Critical Role’s audience only continuing to grow played Diaspora, Paranoia, the
have to fight, let’s go kill it!’ Y’know. So I’m curious to see and its cast’s creativity seemingly endless when it comes old Star Wars RPG. I’ve played
how that plays out.” to bringing their world to life, there’s no end in sight yet a lot of them throughout the
for the story that began as a one-off birthday scenario years but D&D has kind of
REMAINS OF THE PLAY and was propelled into the cultural stratosphere. been my go-to comfort food,
One and a bit seasons in, there are already more “It was kind of an unexpected opportunity that we if you will. For me, I think I just
episodes and hours of Critical Role than many long- didn’t think was going to go anywhere and, thankfully, like telling stories and swords
‘n’ sorcery tales. I just love
running television shows. (By way of comparison, the we were very wrong!” Mercer says.
fantasy races, I love the idea
143 videos counted as part of its ‘Campaign 1’ YouTube “As far as I know, I’m going to keep doing this as long of small individuals becoming
playlist is over twice the number of episodes in total as we want to keep playing together and telling stories. heroic characters in this high
for Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and The Wire, even I’ve been playing roleplaying games for over 20 years and fantasy setting, so D&D is just
without taking into consideration the RPG show’s much I haven’t got sick of it yet. So we’ll see. It’s such a fulfilling a natural fit for me, I guess. As
longer individual runtimes.) creative process to do this with your friends and so I much as I try and pontificate
The Vox Machina campaign ran for more than two don’t– There may come a day where we stop because of about other great systems
and a half years, hinting at a possible length for the life reasons, health reasons, who knows? But for now, I that I’ve really enjoyed as well,
second season, but Mercer admits he has “no idea” how haven’t even looked that far ahead, I’m so focused on the I keep going back to D&D.
Maybe it’s the nostalgia.
long the latest story will last. now and what’s happening with the story now.”
Liam O’Brien: I think my first
encounter with tabletop was
pretty typical. A classmate let
me borrow the D&D red box,
and I instantly fell in love with it.
I spent much of my high school
years playing D&D, Cyberpunk
and RIFTS. That’s when I fell in
love with the fantasy genre.
The most gaming I do

e t
outside Critical Role is the
GMing I do for my kids. I run
one to two games a month

n
for them. My son has a game

.
with a few friends, as does his

s
younger sister. I am actually

g
loving running her and her four

a
friends through a sanded-down
version of Curse of Strahd.
I gave her a choice of any

ld m adventure module on the shelf,

and she was adamant that they
slay vampires. It is so damn
fun to see them all thrill at the

o r danger and problem solve their

way out of it.

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14/03/2018 14:36
 H AV E Y O U P L AY E D ?
TWILIGHT STRUGGLE
The Cold War heats up
in this tense head-to-
head battle for global
control that’s become one
of the most celebrated
wargames of all time.
Who knew nuclear peril
could be so much fun?
T
Words by Matt Jarvis
wilight Struggle is a wargame like no
other because the Cold War was a
war like no other. Beginning in the
aftermath of World War II, the nearly
50-year conflict wasn’t fought directly
with guns, tanks and bombs like the terrible
battles of the first half of the 20th century. Instead,
it was a war of subterfuge and psychology, where
for the most part the threat was the idea of using
weapons rather than actually using them – the
locked horns of potential nuclear war between the
opposed US and USSR looming large for decades.
Such a singular conflict could only be recreated
on the tabletop in a similarly unique way. The
squads of miniatures and global movement of
troops that had become a hallmark of wargames
based on the two World Wars just wouldn’t be the
34 April 2018
034_035_haveYouPlayed_v3 MJ.indd 34
right way to accurately portray the mind games
and subsurface tension that pervaded the clashing
ideologies of the East and West.
Released in 2005, Twilight Struggle propelled
its taut action with a tug-of-war card-based
system that saw two players – each representing
one side of the conflict – exerting their political
pressure across the world, attempting to build
their influence to a point where their opponent
was forced to concede. At the centre of the game
was a deck of cards based on real-life events
that presented opportunities for the players to
swing regions to their side, but risked handing
advantages to their rival, forcing the players
to manage their limited options from the
beginning of the war through to its end days.
The game’s intense atmosphere and historical
grounding, combined with its straightforward
to understand but highly strategically complex
gameplay loop, made it an instant classic,
winning multiple awards and dominating the
top of BoardGameGeek’s overall rankings for
six years until it was dethroned by Pandemic
Legacy in early 2016. Today, it remains at the top
of many players’ all-time lists and continues to
influence and inspire various other games.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
If you’re wondering where the name ‘Twilight
Struggle’ comes from, it’s an extract from the
inaugural speech of John F. Kennedy in 1961, made
at the height of the Cold War and the nuclear arms
r
race. Despite being one of the shortest inaugural
speeches by any US president, it remains one of
o
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the best ever delivered. (Trivia: it also contains the
iconic statement, “Ask not what your country can
do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”)
“Now the trumpet summons us again, not as a
call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a
call to battle – though embattled we are – but a call
to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle.”
The title neatly summarises the commitment
of designers Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews
to Twilight Struggle’s historical elements. Each
turn roughly simulates three to five years of the
45-year Cold War, ending in 1989, with its three
decks of cards introducing early-, mid- and
late-war events in line with their occurrence
in reality. For example, Margaret Thatcher
and Chernobyl appear towards the end of the
conflict, while Che Guevara can be played
during the middle of the conflict.
These cards drive the central fight for control
of various regions around the world, each with
t
an influence number for the US and USSR. The
e
numbers can be increased or decreased with card
effects, handing jurisdiction to either side. This is
n
affected by a ‘stability’ value in some areas, which
.
is the minimum difference in influence required
s
to take control of the region. The most important
g
countries are marked as ‘battlegrounds’, conflict
a
in which can impact the overall stability of the
world, tracked using the DEFCON level – the
m
US’ real-life defense readiness condition. If the
DEFCON level (which starts at five) degrades to
ld
DEFCON 1, representing imminent nuclear war,
the current player loses – although, given the
context, it’s not good news for anybody. Luckily,
 LEFT Twilight Struggle simulates the entire Cold War
ABOVE Event cards can benefit your opponent
RIGHT The players fight for global influence
DEFCON deescalates at the end of each round,
but can be manipulated by clever players to
trigger a loss for their opponent.
Controlling a region earns victory points (this
is still a board game, after all). It’s not as simple
as a straight race to earn the highest score,
though. Points are tracked on a scale that swings
between the US and USSR – earning points
moves the tracker in either direction, with zero in
the middle. If one player manages to hit 20 VP or
more, they instantly win. If a match – which can
last for three hours or more – gets all the way to
the end of turn ten, the most VP wins instead.
HOW DO YOU PLAY?
While it features an impressive global map board
and tokens, Twilight Struggle is a card-driven
wargame at heart. Each player begins the game
with a hand of cards and refills at the beginning
of each subsequent turn, usually retaining one
card from the previous round. Turns begin with
the enactment of a ‘headline event’, which forces
players to play an event from their hand to begin
the next series of actions.
Players can choose to use their cards to gain
influence in a region, but the cards can be used
for a multitude of other actions, too. One option is
to declare a coup, which involves rolling a die and
checking it against a region’s stability to potentially
remove their rival’s influence, opening up the area
for their own intrusion. Realignments can similarly
be attempted by both sides rolling a die, with the
losing player suffering a loss of influence equal to
the difference. Playing military actions, such as a
034_035_haveYouPlayed_v3 MJ.indd 35
coup or war event, adds to a nation’s military track,
which must be greater than the current DEFCON
level at the end of a round or risks taking away
victory points – encouraging players to exert their
military presence around the world.
Just as there was decades ago, there is a
second battle occurring in the background
of the conflict – the space race. Players
can invest their cards in progressing their
nation’s technological advancement in
launching rockets, earning rewards such as
victory points for successful advancements.
Not so complicated, right? Where Twilight
Struggle’s true complexity lies is in its timing. This
is because there is a key rule to playing cards that
serves as the main source of tension and decision-
making. Cards can be favourable to the US, USSR
or both. If a card is favourable to the player using
it, they can enact the event on it instead of using it
for another ability. However, either nation can play
cards that are favourable to their rival for influence,
coups, realignments and the space race, but doing
so grants that player the chance to trigger the event
on the card. Giving your opponent an advantage
is unavoidable, so choosing when and what to
give them will ultimately decide the victor.
Also in the deck are scoring cards, which
cannot be used for normal actions (known
as operations) and must be played by their
holder, earning victory points for both players
depending on how many battleground
countries they control at the time.
r
There’s a similar complexity to the China
card, which starts as a card in the USSR player’s
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hand and can be used for operations, but must
then be passed to the opposing player, who
must wait a turn before it becomes available
for use once again. The player with the card in
their hand at the end of the game gains an extra
victory point, but playing the card can help
swing a decisive battle for control.
WHY SHOULD YOU TRY IT?
As well as being a fantastic history lesson due
to its deep-rooted accuracy and wide-reaching
simulation of one of the most studied and
analysed periods of modern times, Twilight
Struggle is a masterclass in tight board game
design and challenging competition.
The basics are easy to pick up – most of the
game comes down to simply picking a card
to play and choosing from the small pool of
ways in which you can use it – but the drastic
effects of choosing when and how to use each
t
card makes learning the game’s deep strategy
e
an endlessly fascinating endeavour. Like every
great competitive game, there’s an element
n
of psychoanalysing your rival and attempting
.
to second-guess their next move, leading to
incredible moments.
s
ag
Twilight Struggle may recount a tale that
has already taken place, but its multifaceted
gameplay and the constant offering of
m
interesting decisions and tense moments mean
that each playthrough also forges a new story
ld
between its two players. It is both history and
history-making – and there’s few games that
deserve their place in history more.
35
14/03/2018 14:37
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 KICKSTARTING
F R O M S C R A T C H
Holly Gramazio turns to creators that have already succeeded
at finding an audience on Kickstarter – and the crowdfunding

W
site itself – to ask for essential advice on perfecting her campaign
hen we first decided to run a Of course, unlike Sensible Object, we aren’t trying to
Put in the Kickstarter for Art Deck, we asked
a few friends for advice and they
raise a hundred thousand pounds, so we probably don’t
have to set our standards quite so high. We can take the
work in gave us airy general suggestions.
“Ooh, have a super fancy deck as a
core lesson of “get ready and focus on a good launch,”
and think about what that means for us.
advance reward.” “A good video is important.”
But as we’ve drawn closer to our proposed launch,
Next we spoke to Jen Carey, whose recent party game
Rampunctious: The Game of Terrible Puns raised around
to get everything’s changed. Now that it seems real, people tell
us incredibly specific things like “remember to put link-
€13,500 – closer to our own scale of ambition. Jen also
emphasised the importance of having people who are
everything tracking on your external ads,” or sometimes they just look
away with an expression of blank dismay, mutter “It’s SO
ready to pledge as soon as the project goes live – friends
and enthusiasts and people who’ve played the game. But
ready, MUCH WORK,” and stare without blinking at a nearby wall.
So what advice comes up over and over? What does
then she talked about how to keep that initial interest
going, and how much of that you can plan in advance.
because everyone want us to know?
We talked to George Buckenham from Sensible Object,
“If you’re making a casual game then Facebook ads
are worth investing in,” she told us – but audiences you
once you a startup whose co-op digital-physical Beasts of Balance
raised £168,000 back in early 2016; its recent expansion
find through Facebook ads might not have backed a
Kickstarter before, so if that’s your audience, it’s really
hit launch did even better. George’s key piece of advice was to put
in 90% of the work in advance. For Sensible Object,
important to talk them carefully through the process of
backing a project and what that means. Jen also talked
there’s no this included sending out review copies a few weeks in
advance, talking to influential people who might support
about tagging all your links so you can tell where backers
are coming from – it’s easy to forget, but knowing from
going back. the game, reminding those people the day before launch,
prepping a list of things to write and tweet and Instagram
the start what’s working can make a big difference.
Just to double-check all this advice, we also had a
about for the first days of the campaign – a carefully quick chat with Luke Crane, Kickstarter’s head of games.
targeted process in service of a strong opening, aimed at Luke answered a couple of UK-specific questions.
an initial 24 hours that would give the project momentum. Listing your reward levels in pounds (rather than
dollars) is something UK makers can be nervous about,
but it really doesn’t make much difference. However, being
able to send out orders from a US address really can be a big
deal – a lot of your possible backers will be based in North
America and could be put off by international shipping.
Luke stressed that tabletop games are a unique

e t
area, and that advice you might see about non-game
Kickstarters isn’t necessarily transferrable. In tabletop
games, there’s a huge interested community who you

n
can talk to about your game; in fact, over half the tabletop

.
games on Kickstarter are successfully funded. But this

s
doesn’t mean it’s easy – “over half succeed” also implies

ag
“almost half fail”, and that sophisticated and active
community may be ready to ask difficult questions if
it looks like you aren’t fully prepared. “Launch when

m
you’re ready,” Luke told us more than once.
The thread running through all this advice was

ld
very, very clear, and a little bit scary: put in the work in

r
advance to get everything ready, because once you hit
launch there’s no going back.

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 HOW WE MADE

THE RESISTANCE
Don Eskridge’s devious social deduction debut was a rich mix of
manipulation, deception and accusation. Nearly a decade on, the
designer discusses the influence of improvised comedy, the controversy
of teaching people how to lie and his playful approach to what comes next
Words by Owen Duffy

O
utside of the realm of politics,
it’s hard to think of anyone
who’s done as well out of
rampant dishonesty as Don
Eskridge. The creator of
hit deception and bluffing games The
Resistance and The Resistance: Avalon, he’s
built his career on the back of sneaky and
sociable releases.
While his early games are considered
classics of the hobby, he’s more recently
founded his own publishing company, Orange
Machine Games, to produce Abandon Planet
and Black Hole Council – both of which also
lean heavily on subterfuge and manipulation.
We spoke to him to hear the story behind
The Resistance’s enduring success, and to find
out why shamelessly lying to your closest
friends can be so much fun.
VIVE LA RÉSISTANCE
Where most game designers trace their path
into the tabletop industry to teenage games of
Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering,
Eskridge’s formative years took a decidedly
different route.
“When I was in high school I got into an
improv comedy group,” he says. “I was kind of
socially awkward, but we were doing this thing
that I thought was fun and cool, and it helped
me open up a lot. We had such a dumb name,
the Comedy Commandos, but it was fun. And
then I did some more in college, and when I
lived in Korea.
“Finding out how much I enjoyed
interacting with other humans in funny,
weird ways certainly played into the love that
I have now of social games, social deduction.
And I would say that the connecting tissue
between all my games is that they’re all about
ways that people communicate with each
other: how that gets weird, how that gets
funky, how they react.”
This interest in social interaction was at the
core of Eskridge’s first and best-known game:
The Resistance. Set in a futuristic dystopian
society, it divides players into two teams: one
a group of revolutionaries fighting to bring
down a despotic empire, the other undercover
agents of the regime, aiming to infiltrate the
rebel ranks and ensure the continued reign of
their totalitarian paymasters.
The game revolves around a central
mystery: while the imperial spies know who
their partners are, the rebel agents have no
idea which of their fellow players are friends
or foes. The result is a whirlwind of betrayal,
accusation and recrimination, with one team
trying to uncover the traitors in their midst
and the other doing their best to deceive and
misdirect them.
Eskridge says the idea for the game came to
him while he was studying in France, where
he encountered another game of bluffing and
secret identities.
“I played Werewolf for the first time in
France,” he says. “It was Les Loups Garou de
Thiercelieux, which was released in the US as
The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow.”

LEFT The
Resistance saw
one or more

t
spies infiltrating a
group of rebels to

e
sabotage missions

n
while avoiding

.
getting caught

ag s
RIGHT Social
deduction
classic Werewolf
partially inspired

ld m The Resistance

o r
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13/03/2018 13:51
 HOW WE MADE T H E R E S I S T A N C E

One of many releases based on the public-

domain game known as Werewolf or Mafia Mafia,,
The Werewolves of Millers Hollow cast players
as citizens of a town plagued by a supernatural
menace. Over a series of rounds, or ‘nights’,
werewolves would kill off townsfolk, only
for the populace to take revenge by
murdering those suspected
of being the source of the
lycanthropic threat. It
was a game of suspicion
and deep-seated paranoia
but, for Eskridge, it had
some flaws.
“I thought it was great, but it had
problems,” he says. “People got kicked
out of the game. There wasn’t any solid ABOVE There’s no player elimination in The Resistance
information about who the bad guys were.
You needed someone who wasn’t playing to OPPOSITE BELOW Players secretly vote on whether missions succeed
be a moderator.
“I felt sure that there was a way around
those things, so I just played around with ‘OK, wow, there’s something here.’ So that was “I put it on BGG as just two pages of rules
various ideas and about a year or so later I the initial lightning bolt, and from there it was that you could play with a deck of cards,
was working as a counsellor at this two-week just a case of working on the numbers. How and people played it,” says Eskridge. “They
camp for high-school kids, and I had an idea: many spies? How many resistance members? started reviewing it, and that’s how Travis
what if instead of accusing and killing people, How many players per mission?” [Worthington, CEO] of Indie Boards & Cards
you had to trust them and give them the With the finer details in place, Eskridge found it. He contacted me and was interested
opportunity to betray you?” was keen to get his game into players’ in publishing it. He made an offer and I
Eskridge’s idea took Werewolf’s core and hands. Rather than pitching his idea to a thought it sounded pretty good.
refined it, removing the element of player publisher, though, he released it for free on “I didn’t really think it would be some
elimination as well as the need for an in-game the website BoardGameGeek. huge career. I knew that there were people
moderator to act as a referee. It saw rebels “I just wanted to get the game out there who made games, but I didn’t know much
embark on a series of missions, with their and get people playing it,” he says. “I still want about it beyond that. But I knew there was a
leaders recruiting different team members for people to play games – that’s my goal, just to get possibility, and it grew from there.
each attempt. Imperial agents could secretly people to have fun. I liked the game, and I didn’t “It was thrilling to see people get their
sabotage a mission, and repeated failures know anything about the publishing world. I hands on the game, and it definitely
would cost the rebels the game. It made it didn’t know how to approach a publisher, I was changed interactions with some people.
critically important for commanders to work just like: ‘Hey, people! Play this!’” When I hung out with some old improv
out who was trustworthy, and who might stab The free game proved popular, though, friends from college, I didn’t even know
them in the back. and it led publisher Indie Boards & Cards to they were into games. But I told them I had
“I tried it with the kids at this camp and approach Eskridge, interested in producing a worked on The Resistance and they were like:
they really liked it,” Eskridge says. “I was like: commercial version. ‘Oh my god!’”

A NEW QUEST

In real life we don’t

get to say a lot e t
With The Resistance receiving such a positive
response, Eskridge soon found himself
looking for ways to expand on the game’s

of the fun things that

simple, streamlined mechanisms.

. n
“It wasn’t long after The Resistance was

s
published that I started having some more

you get to say in The

Resistance: ‘You’re ag
ideas about what to do with it,” he says. “I
think some of those ideas existed already, but
especially when you’re such an early designer,

a spy! You’re a liar!’

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you hesitate to put too much into a
game because you don’t know
whether the base game will

r
be successful. So I had some
ideas already, and then I

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 started playing with the idea of different roles
the characters could have.”
Those new roles would eventually emerge as
The Resistance: Avalon, a more complex take on
the original game’s blueprint that swapped its
cyberpunk setting for the court of King Arthur,
with players becoming loyal servants of the
crown or minions of the evil usurper Mordred.
Along with the change in theme, players
gained a clutch of new identities, complete with
special abilities that subtly altered the game.
The most interesting, though, was Merlin,
who knew players’ true allegiances, but had
to keep his own identity secret to avoid being
assassinated, meaning that he could only
divulge information through vague hints.
“I was designing an expansion, I didn’t
know that Avalon would have its own theme
entirely,” says Eskridge. “So Merlin wasn’t even
Merlin, he was the commander. Percival wasn’t
Percival, he was the bodyguard.
“What I was trying to do was to provide
more opportunities for deception, more logical
layers. So, for example, the bodyguard Percival
knows who Merlin is, so what’s his strategy? It’s
to protect Merlin. So how does Percival do that?
He could claim to be Merlin himself. He could
act like he doesn’t know Merlin at all, that he’s
just an ordinary servant of Arthur. There’s more
than one strategy that a character can use to
achieve his or her goals. So I made different
characters to allow different groups to play with
those different strategies, and just develop their
own metagame to try to mess with each other’s
heads as much as possible.”
LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE
Like The Resistance before it, Avalon met with
an enthusiastic reception. Existing players
038_042_howWeMade_v3 MJ.indd 41
enjoyed the new challenges thrown up by
its roles, while its hint of added complexity
appealed to an audience looking for more than
just a sociable party game. And in the years
following its release, bluffing, deception and
hidden identities remained some of the most
popular recurring elements in game design.
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong took a
similar approach, but added a visual element,
with players struggling to identify a murderer
in their midst using pictorial clue cards. One
Night Revolution used the original Resistance’s
dark future setting, but played out over a
single round with games taking minutes to
complete. Cold War-themed spy game Secrets
injected a dose of anarchy, with players’
roles changing so rapidly and unpredictably
that they couldn’t be sure what side they
themselves were on, let alone anyone else.
Why is there such an enduring demand for
social deduction games? For Eskridge, they’re a
chance for people to interact in ways that aren’t
socially acceptable in day-to-day life.
“I think people just like talking to each other
and messing with each other,” he says. “In real
life we don’t get to say a lot of the fun things
that you get to say in The Resistance: ‘You’re
a spy! You’re a liar!’ Because in life, there are
liars, there are bad guys, and how often do you
get to say that to people’s faces? I’m not saying
you should, but you don’t get to say that very
often. So I think The Resistance and those sorts
of games give a kind of catharsis. It’s a release of
all those things that are really just fun to let out.
“And in life we’re always thinking about why
other people are doing things. There are ways
that we’re very open and talk to each other and
maybe even scream at each other, and then
there are things that are subtle, like maybe
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13/03/2018 13:52
 HOW WE MADE T H E R E S I S T A N C E
Whereas in The Resistance players were just spies or rebels, its follow-up Avalon cast them as specific characters with unique abilities
people being passive-aggressive. We go through
these layers of motivation trying to figure things
out about each other. And in The Resistance and
Resistance-type games, you get to say: ‘He didn’t
fail this mission on purpose, in order to get our
trust, and now he’s playing you in order to get
on this mission, and I’m willing to bet that
he’s not going to fail that one either because
he knows that I’m onto him…’ So it gives us a
chance to talk about those logical layers that
we’re already thinking through in our heads.
“It’s about exploring interactions, both overt
and subtle.”
Of course, there’s also the argument that
there’s something inherently appealing about
being able to lie to your friends and family. But
it’s an idea that Eskridge doesn’t seem entirely
comfortable with.
“Occasionally it gives me pause,” he says,
“because it is kind of true that the game
teaches people how to lie. But I also just have
to think about how it teaches people how to
trust. It really is the full spectrum but, I agree,
it is very fun to lie to your closest friends and
family and betray them in the end.
“It can also set off some strong emotional
reactions. I once saw the wife of a friend of mine
actually toss her glass of wine onto a hardwood
floor. It shattered everywhere and she shouted:
‘Why don’t you trust me!?’”
THE FUTURE’S ORANGE
Now, almost a decade after The Resistance
was first released, Eskridge is designing
and publishing new games under his own
42 April 2018
038_042_howWeMade_v3 MJ.indd 42
banner. In 2016 he founded Orange Machine
Games, a publisher dedicated to “explosively
interactive” games for large groups of players.
Its first release, Abandon Planet, saw players
struggling to escape a world being bombarded
by meteors. Each round saw part of the planet
destroyed, removing critical resources from the
game. It forced players to form partnerships to
escape into the safety of space, leaving others
behind to face their doom.
Eskridge explains that the idea came to him
while he was tinkering with components.
“I was playing around with hexes, basically
Catan hexes,” he says. “I was like: ‘Okay, this
mountain blew up, this is gone. So if it’s gone, it
makes this one more valuable.’
“It’s another element of improv. ‘If this,
then what?’ You had the idea of modular,
exploding, changing terrain, and the idea
of needing to find a partner in order to win
together. And then I added the idea that
you could partner with anybody except the
players to your left and right, so you had
built-in enemies. You have this changing
environment, you have potential allies and
you have known rivals. So I just developed
that, and it became Abandon Planet.”
This process – tinkering, playing, chopping
and changing various elements – is key to
Eskridge’s approach to design.
“It’s kind of clichéd,” he says, “but I’d say
that my design process itself is playful. I’m not
worried about having the perfect idea, because
r
I know there are tons of great ideas. I just
want to grab at something. It could be a totally
o
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original idea, or it could be some interesting
interaction in some other game.
“So there could be an interesting
interaction in Agricola. And I know I’m never
going to make an Agricola. I know that I’m
not interested in pushing around cubes, I
know that I’m not interested in the idea of
multiplayer solitaire. But I might say: ‘Oh, this
is a really cool little bit of Agricola. So how
can I take that and change it and bring it to a
group of four to eight players? What happens
then? How can I change the fundamental
mechanics, and is it neat? Is it fun?’”
More recently, Orange Machine successfully
funded its second release, Black Hole Council,
on Kickstarter. A game of negotiation and
hidden motives, it casts players as corrupt and
venal galactic rulers vying for political influence
while voting to cast planets into a black hole.
“The plan is to do a game for each letter
of the alphabet,” Eskridge says. “So you had
e t
Abandon Planet, Black Hole Council and I
can reveal that the ‘C’ game is currently titled
Crunch. It’s about giant robot mechs fighting
one another on intergalactic TV.
. n
“It’s kind of like rock-paper-scissors, but
s
with more complexity and more context. So
g
you’re in a circle and, for example, you’re
a
going to shoot the player on your left and
dodge the player on your right, or maybe set
m
a trap for them. There are five or six different
actions that I’m working on right now.
ld
“I’m interested in creating a game that’s
accessible for non-gamers, and that’s what
Crunch is going to be.”
 䠀伀䴀䔀 伀䘀 䜀䄀䴀䔀 䴀䄀吀匀
䄀一䐀 䐀䤀䌀䔀 吀刀䄀夀匀

嘀䄀刀䤀伀唀匀 䐀䤀䘀䘀䔀刀䔀一吀 䰀伀吀匀 伀䘀 䘀䰀䄀吀 刀䄀吀䔀

匀䤀娀䔀匀 䴀䄀吀䔀刀䤀䄀䰀匀 䐀䔀匀䤀䜀一匀 䔀唀 匀䠀䤀倀倀䤀一䜀

倀刀䤀一吀ⴀ伀ⴀ䴀䄀吀 ⴀ   夀伀唀刀 䤀䴀䄀䜀䔀 伀一 䴀伀唀匀䔀倀䄀䐀 䴀䄀吀 e t
s. n
ag
l d m
圀圀圀⸀䐀䔀䔀倀䌀唀吀匀吀唀䐀䤀伀⸀䌀伀䴀 o r 䤀一䘀伀䀀䐀䔀䔀倀䌀唀吀匀吀唀䐀䤀伀⸀䌀伀䴀

p043.indd 1
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 HOARD GAMERS
While most of us buy games for the experience, others make it their lifetime’s
work to obtain a complete collection. How far would you go for the ultimate set?
Words by Joshua King

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 W
hen $20,000 of Magic:
The Gathering cards
were stolen from Cassius
Marsh’s car, he was
distraught. Not because of
the cost – the multimillionaire NFL star could
afford to replace them – but because he loved
his collection.
Tabletop gamers of every ilk will have a
collection on some scale, from battered boxes
of Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride to whole
shelves of titles to play. As a gamer’s love of the
hobby grows so, naturally, does their collection.
But while creaking cupboards of boxes and
boards are just a byproduct of actually playing
for most gamers, for a small group of people
the love of the hobby comes in the collecting.
These are the collectors who gather limited
editions, hunt every last trading card or amass
as many titles as they can get their hands on.
Colorado couple Sheila and James Davis
hold an astounding 14,000 games on their
shelves. It is one of the largest
Collecting is
collections in the world.
When the pair first met they had
like any other
a ‘small’ collection of a few dozen
games. Now – 20 years on – their
hobby; you do it
almost inconceivable inventory fills
their cavernous basement.
because it is fun.
James says: “It’s like any other
hobby; you do it because it is fun. Also,
Sheila has the collecting gene. Her
entire family collects things – although
they’re smart and collect small objects
instead of boxes of cardboard.
“After we married, Sheila kept collecting
while I am most interested in playing. It’s a
perfect marriage.”
The Davises used to carefully organise their
archive but stopped when it lost its lustre and
became a chore. Instead they estimate the
sum total of their games currently stands at
14,000, including RPG manuals, expansions
and card games.
“In other words, we don’t have 14,000 full-
size game boxes,” James says.
They have a small number of titles set
aside which have never been opened – either
because they are too valuable or too rare. But,
unlike many collectors, the Davises view their
prized possessions as games to be played.
James says: “That’s one of the best benefits
of collecting games over knick-knacks – you
can invite some friends over, open a game box
and enjoy each other’s company.
“Of course that’s after spending a half
hour deciding which of the games to play,”
he laughs.
044_046_hoardGamers_v3 MJ.indd 45
“It’s not going to be possible to play
them all. Keep in mind that many games
– wargames for example – are dozens of
hours long. A single RPG campaign could
take months.
“Factoring in sleep, work and life, there’s
not enough time to play them all even if we
wanted to.”
The Davises say they keep a tight rein on
their spending when it comes to the tabletop.
The collection has grown steadily over two
decades with titles picked up cheaply at thrift
stores and game convention auctions.
“That’s a very long time,” James says.
“Also, we rarely sell games so over 20 years
it accumulates.
“It is fun to find a gem occasionally. But
that’s really never been the impetus for
the collection.”
If there were to be a holy grail for the
couple, it would be a “super rare” game such
as 3M’s Thinking Man’s Basketball. For most
other gamers, however, the Davis basement
holds more than enough treasures to last a
lifetime. (Fittingly, the collection is guarded by
two Killer Rabbits of Caerbannog from Monty
Python and the Holy Grail.)
UNDER CONTROL
My own collection of games numbers only in
the dozens, and yet I have trouble keeping track
of them. So how do serious collectors manage?
To keep their treasure troves in order Sheila,
James and others have turned to the nerve
centre of the tabletop hobby: BoardGameGeek.
The website is a definitive database of
more than 80,000 games and allows users
to catalogue their own collections while
browsing those of other gamers.
BoardGameGeek co-founder Scott Alden
himself boasts an impressive 2,551-game
cache. He is pleased users can track their own
collections on his site.
“It helps you avoid buying the same game
multiple times,” Alden says.
r
The database awards users bronze, silver
and gold medals for logging a collection
o
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of 100, 250 or 500 games. The awards are
visible to everyone who visits the site and
transforms gathering a large collection into
a badge of honour.
But people are not amassing hundreds of
boxes and thousands of meeples simply to
accumulate internet points. Collecting can be
a passion, an obsession and a calling.
Alden says: “I collect games because I see
each one as a unique piece of art. I also collect
based on the feelings I have when I play them.
“I will look at my shelf and remember the
good times I had playing the game – even if I
never get around to playing that game again.”
THE MONOPOLY GUY
A collection of staggering size does not
need to span thousands of titles, however.
What if it included just one game? Well,
Neil Scallan has the monopoly on that kind
of collection – literally.
Scallan – who appropriately works in
logistics – holds the world record for
most Monopoly boards owned. It is the
purest form of collecting: seeking out
every iteration of a single product.
He has sets from around
the world including brand and
city special editions. When the
Guinness Book of Records visited
his collection to confirm the record
they discovered Scallan also owns
around 1,000 duplicates.
Many of those duplicates are now on display
in a museum in Belgium, the remainder safely
sealed in their wrappers at a storage facility.
Scallan values his collection at over £200,000
– nearly enough to buy a real house on Old
Kent Road.
Scallan says, “Once the boxes open, they lose
their value. If they fell over, the money and the
houses would go everywhere and it would be a
nightmare. They’d be a nightmare to store.”
Driven by collecting, Scallan says he
t
“doesn’t mind” playing but grew weary of
e
everybody playing with different rules.
“It’s the hunt I like. Maybe they’re the new
n
antiques. Most days I’m hunting down new
.
games online. Even if you find them it can be
s
impossible to buy them. So many countries
g
are doing them now – they’re pumping them
a
out and postage is so high.”
A community of collectors has grown up
m
around Monopoly who share a friendly rivalry
about acquiring strange and unusual editions
ld
of the often-maligned game. Scallan has even
found himself in an international bidding war
with some of his friends.
45
13/03/2018 13:59
 BOARD GAME COLLECTORS
“Our Holy Grail set is the Millionth Edition,”
Scallan says. “There were only 100 made and
they were divided around the world so there
are so few available.
“I bid for one on eBay. I was winning and
decided to make a stupid £250 bid on it because
it was so rare. Then, would you believe it, in
the last seconds someone outbid me.
“I was fuming but it turned out it was a
friend of mine in South America.”
CARDBOARD COMMODITY
Collecting in the 21st century has become a
luxury hobby in itself as disposable incomes
are limited. On online auction sites, prices of
collectible titles are actually falling as people
look to offload them for whatever cash they
can get.
Buyers in the UK have also been struck
by the country’s turbulent place in the
international market. Uncertainty surrounding
Brexit increased Scallan’s shipping costs from
the continent by as much as 40%.
At the same time, manufacturers are actively
designing sets for collectors – more and more
special editions of existing games are popping
up on crowdfunding site Kickstarter.
The zeal with which some collectors hunt
down games is impressive and difficult to
comprehend. It means investing time and
money – sometimes in colossal sums – for
items collectors do not so much want as need.
Scallan says: “There are some sets we don’t
46 April 2018
044_046_hoardGamers_v3 MJ.indd 46
like. One Direction – we as collectors, do we
want a One Direction set? Niall Horan might
be upset at that. We get it because we collect
but we don’t really want to buy it.
“My games are stacked in safe storage. The
room I have is huge, but I need it for my 2,000
sets and a further 250 duplicates I store there.
The rest are on display in Belgium.
“I spend over £200 a month just to pay for
storage. That’s dead money. A lot of people
think it’s mad. The Sun newspaper branded it
‘Monotony’. But when I show people, they start
to get interested.”
Scallan was recently presented with his
2,000th edition by Mr. Monopoly himself on top
of Sydney Harbour Bridge. To avoid dropping
pieces onto traffic below, the organisers
emptied everything out of the box and clipped
it on to their hands for the presentation.
With sets as varied as Heinz and
McDonald’s Brazil already in his collection,
Scallan remains eager for more.
“Coca Cola has made nine sets but I’d love
an Irn Bru set from Scotland. I wonder if they
could do that?”
Whichever set does come next, he promises
to keep collecting.
ALWAYS BE COLLECTING
As Scallan’s collection shows, the makers
of Monopoly have successfully franchised
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the product to thousands of companies and
tourist sites around the world. It is a business
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With more than 2,000 copies (as well
as some duplicates), Neil Scallan holds
the Guinness World Record for owning
more sets of Monopoly than anyone
else, ranging from a One Direction
edition to spin-offs inspired by Heinz and
McDonald’s Brazil
model that makes the game eminently
collectible.
The developers of smash hit titles
like Pandemic and Ticket to Ride have
followed suit, releasing reworked
editions of the game set in different
locations and time periods.
Catan has just had a Game of Thrones
rebrand. And, of course, developers
are always prepared to release the
obligatory Lovecraftian Cthuhlu
edition.
Other manufacturers have taken
it a step further, creating games
that are played with collectible
pieces such as trading cards or
miniatures. Warhammer and Warhammer
40,000 allow collectors to buy and paint –
transforming them into their own works
of art.
Wizards of the Coast has released
thousands of unique Magic cards over
the years – as of 2016 more than 20 billion
had been printed – and there is an active
secondary market.
Cards are traded online like stocks
and shares, their price rising and falling
with changing competitive playing
styles. The famously scarce Black Lotus
card – which is available online today for
as much as $13,000 (£9,300) – is perhaps
the shining example of a tabletop game
piece as a collectable.
So while many if not most tabletop
enthusiasts revel in the joy of cracking open
t
a new box and getting to grips with the rules,
e
there are others who love nothing more than
preserving their packaging.
n
These collectors have taken the
.
satisfaction of buying a new title to its most
s
extreme. In a way, their shelves are an
the hobby.
g
indispensable vacuum-packed history of
a
Cassius Marsh may never see his lost
m
Magic cards again but he has not lost the
love of the game – last year he competed in
ld
the Las Vegas Grand Prix tournament.
Now he’s got a lifetime to build a
collection all over again.
 the independent shelf
FREAKFACE!!!
The follow-up to cult horror hit Psycho Raiders is a brutal race for
survival in a twisted world. Forget about a fair fight and start running
Words and pictures by Charlie Theel

S
ometimes you just have to march FREAKFACE!!! is not concerned with FREAKFACE!!! has a more complicated
to the irregular beat of your own fair. This is a horror simulation that wants landscape with tent walls, trees, tracks for
drum. Arthouse design studio to invoke atmosphere and terror. The fact the constantly moving love carts, a maze of
Emperors of Eternal Evil does that it accomplishes this with such meagre mirror walls and a host of other obscurities.
just that. Lead by the inimitable Nate components is absolutely astounding. The Charm and a completely unique
Hayden, this group comes across as a catch is that you need a group willing to buy- experience can certainly cover for a few
band of metalheads who took a wrong in to this artistic direction. Players need to blemishes. The trick here is finding an
turn and ended up designing small-press be committed to embarking on this ghastly open-minded and enthusiastic group of
board games. Their discography includes narrative and willing to explore concepts individuals who will dive into the depravity
the now-classic Cave Evil, a phenomenal normally outside those traditionally labelled of the carnival of horrors. Those who
underground battle of necromancers as ‘fun’. commit will be rewarded with batty tales
where you dig tunnels and harvest gore, Making matters more difficult is the game’s of throwing a jar of spiders at a stitched
and Psycho Raiders, a magazine-packaged penchant for fighting you at times. The map is together mass of body parts while Lucinda
horror jaunt fit for Halloween gaming. very muddled and it’s challenging to discern nearly escapes before being run down by a
FREAKFACE!!! is the much-anticipated the location of walls and other terrain. This carny atop a steel horse. That insanity is as
follow-up to Psycho Raiders. Transporting is more egregious than Psycho Raiders as sweet and horrific as it gets.
us back 40 years, this slasher has players
taking on the role of a group of terrified
teens or their horrific pursuers – a
bloodthirsty carnival freak show.
This is a title that’s all about atmosphere.
It’s packaged in a magazine which offers
a low-fi underground aesthetic fit for the
zines of yesteryear. There’s this taboo feel
as the material is peppered with crude
comics, advertisements and even a bizarre
centrefold. It proudly exclaims that anyone
below the age of 18 is not permitted to play.
It’s a wild ride that you won’t soon forget.
Once you’ve cut out the sheet of cards
and photocopied the diminutive character
sheets, you’re ready to rock. The crude
components and chilling artwork set the
mood for the oncoming slaughter. The teens
start in the middle of the huge tent, stuck in
a mirror maze and surrounded by hostiles.
The gun sounds and the carnage begins.
All you need to do is make it off the map
e t
edge. It’s a twisted sprint through the maze,
beyond the track containing a huge piston
robot, and past several of the die-o-rama

s. n
displays. The catch is there will be a diverse
cast of mutants, showmen and brutes
hunting you down. Direct combat is ill-
All players need to do to
win is make it off the edge
ag
advised as the carnies are much stronger
and more capable than your feeble youth.
They’ll cut you down and eat you alive, and

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of the board to survival –
harder than it sounds

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it’s simply not fair.

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13/03/2018 14:54
 RAISING HELL
Nazi-punching, devilishly funny and wonderfully weird, Hellboy is the superhero
that the tabletop – and the rest of the world – needs right now. James M. Hewitt
offers a peek at what his upcoming co-op comic-book adventure has in store
Words by Matt Jarvis
A
nung Un Rama is a half-demon
detective of the supernatural
summoned from Hell to Earth in the
early 17th century, but he’s perhaps
never felt more relatable than in 2018. Maybe
it’s because Hellboy – as he’s better known – has
a burning hatred for Nazis and equally heated
passion for punching them with his indestructible
Right Hand of Doom, a pastime seemingly on
the rise. Or is it possibly because his ironic sense
of humour gels perfectly with a world of non-
stop memes and in-jokes? It could simply be
that it increasingly feels like the world’s greatest
paranormal investigator is needed to just make
sense of the last 12 or so months.
It’s something that writer and artist Mike
Mignola probably didn’t see coming when he
created the series in the early ‘90s, drawing on a
mixture of pulp adventures, supernatural horror
and detective stories to craft darkly twisted tales.
25 years, dozens of books, two blockbuster films
directed by Guillermo del Toro and an upcoming
big screen reboot later, Hellboy doesn’t quite
stand alongside Batman, Superman or Iron Man
in the pantheon of modern superheroes. Instead,
he’s become a comic-book figure of a different
kind altogether, symbolising a more distinctive
and downright stranger ilk.
It’s this singular tone that James M. Hewitt
insists is at the heart of his upcoming co-op board
game based on Hellboy, which is set to heat up
crowdfunding site Kickstarter in late April.
“One of the things we were keen to do from the
start was make sure that we’re definitely sticking to
the comic vibe rather than the movie,” Hewitt says.
Monsters are jumping out of
the shadows and you’re fighting
them, but really the focus is on
the investigation.
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“Don’t get me wrong: I love the Hellboy movies, but
they’re very much a different slant on things. The
Hellboy comics, for anyone that’s not read them,
they’re kind of dark, twisted fairytale detective
stories at their core.
“The stories tend to kind of have weird twists
and turns, it’s not quite as action-packed as the
films went. That is kind of what we’re looking at
with the game.”
A different kind of superhero requires a
different kind of board game. Whereas other
comic-book efforts, such as the recent Batman:
Gotham City Chronicles, often focus on their
stars’ prowess at taking down baddies in direct
combat, Hewitt describes his approach to
Hellboy as more akin to Lovecraftian narrative-
driven adventure game Mansions of Madness.
Players control Hellboy and other members
of the Bureau for Paranormal Research
and Defense as they investigate a variety of
mysterious happenings – typically, the designer
adds, “tied to ancient gods, cults, frog monsters,
fairytales, spooky things”.
“For me, generally, whenever I write a game,
I really want to capture the feel of whatever the
story is,” he explains. “Especially something like
this which is very thematic and narrative-heavy.
So it was a case of going back, reading through
the Hellboy comics, finding out what the crux of
it is, what you can turn into a game there.”
The inclination for exploration and mystery-
solving over punching first and asking questions
later doesn’t mean that Hellboy never gets a
chance to show off his superhuman strength,
mind you.
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“Monsters are jumping out of the shadows
and you’re fighting them and that, but really
the focus is on the investigation,” Hewitt
reassures. “The game all builds up to a big
final confrontation, because that’s generally
the way the Hellboy stories go: it all ends up
in a massive punch-up against some huge
demonic alien entity thing. So that’s kind of
what we wanted to capture. The shape of a
game, if you like, is you’ll have a section where
you’re walking around the board investigating
for clues, looking for things. Strange things
are going on and eventually it will all escalate
rather rapidly into a big final confrontation.”
DEVIL IN THE DETAILS
Hellboy’s commitment to weaving an
interesting story for its players also means
breaking with another trend. The game will
be fully co-op, forgoing an asymmetrical
competitive mode as seen in the one-versus-
many setups of games such as Gotham City
Chronicles and the original Mansions of
Madness’ dungeon master-like keeper.
“One of the things with Hellboy is the bad
guys are very often otherworldly, inscrutable,
unknowable horrors, and it seems weird to
have them played by a human player, y’know?”
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 HELLBOY
Players control Hellboy and B.P.R.D. agents as they
investigate mysteries and battle the forces of evil
Hewitt justifies. “So it was this idea of you’re
playing narratively, and the B.P.R.D. are very
much a cohesive unit; there are elements of
internal conflict that come up through the comics,
but overall they are a cool, awesome, cohesive
team that work together against the bad guys. We
just kind of wanted to get that across, keep it nice
and simple.
“That thematic idea of mystery and discovery
plays into the game because you don’t
necessarily know what this big confrontation at
the end is going to be. So letting all of the players
experience that mystery and intrigue at the same
time is quite cool. I’ve always had a thing with
one-versus-all-type games: your Descents, your
Imperial Assaults, your Star Sagas. I like them,
but I always end up being the one player by
myself because I’m the one that knows the rules
the best. I often find that I end up tempering
my enjoyment to make sure everyone else has
a good time. It’s games master syndrome, I
suppose. As a designer I like the idea of games
where you haven’t got one person standing by
themselves. I’m not saying it’s always a bad thing
– there are a lot of games that do it very well –
but this is a chance to do something different.”
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Instead of a human opponent or companion
app replacement, a la Mansions of Madness’
second edition, Hellboy’s antagonistic forces are
driven by a deck of cards referred to as the ‘Deck of
Doom’ – a nod to Hellboy’s stone fist. The deck is
made up of a mixture of universal events alongside
cards related to the specific villain or location of
each scenario that aim to make each playthrough
feel like a single unified story leading up to the
finale rather than a series of unconnected incidents
– “a Chekhov’s Gun thing,” Hewitt suggests.
“Rather than being a bunch of random stuff that
just happens for no reason, it’s all going to be tied
into the particular confrontation you’re building
towards at the end,” he details. “When you come to
play a game you’ll determine either randomly or by
player choice which confrontation you’re going for,
so which of the bad guys it’ll be that you’re facing off
against – it could be Rasputin, who’s one of the big
bad guys [or] Hecate, who’s another one. There’ll be
a bunch of confrontation cards for that character.
You’ll pick one and it’ll be kept secret until you hit
it, but you’ll know that’s who you’re facing. That
will seed additional cards into the Deck of Doom;
r
for example, into the exploration cards which tell
you what’s in each room you come across.”
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The nefarious plans of Hellboy’s biggest bads
are given a further sense of urgency and tension
by a mission clock that ticks away from turn to
turn as the players explore and prepare to tackle
the villain, immediately triggering the final
confrontation if it hits 12.
“A lot of the stories in Hellboy have this feel of
a race against time, so there’s some kind of big
evil thing happening; there’s the big ritual and
they’re racing to stop it or whatever it might be,” be,”
Hewitt says. “We’ve codified that with an actual
mission clock, which is a component on the
board where time ticks by and every turn that
might progress along.”
The Deck of Doom can be customised between
games, offering a new way of experiencing new
combinations of monsters, locations and
events each time that Hewitt hopes will
keep the stories fresh for a while to come.
“It becomes quite a modular thing,
so rather than there being a list of
six cases you play through, it
becomes sort of remixable,” he
enthuses. “But it will all feel
cohesive with an ongoing story built throughout
because of the way the decks are built.”
This replayability extends to the bosses
included in the game, which can be
vanquished in a number of different ways. A
villain you need to simply kill in one mission
might need to be buried by destroying the
pillars in a room in another. Comparing the
experience to the levels of a video game, Hewitt
suddenly bursts out with an example that, it’s
fair to say, we weren’t expecting to hear.
“It’s a bit like in Sonic the Hedgehog: you face
Doctor Robotnik several times but every time
he’s doing something different,” he laughs.
HELL TO PAY
Hewitt is no stranger to handling characters
with heft in a universe with decades of history.
Before forming his own independent studio,
Needy Cat Games, last summer, he worked
Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and Blood
t
at Games Workshop, helping to expand the
e
Bowl universes with both updated editions and
original board game spin-offs.
s. n
“It’s interesting, because one thing with Hellboy
is there is this big broad universe,” he considers.
g
“Even though there’s a load of detail, huge
a
swathes of it are kind of unmapped. Whereas
you look at something like Warhammer 40,000 –
m
which has been going for 30 years and had tens
of thousands, probably, of pages of text written
ld
about it between novels, expansions and whatever
else – you can feel very much like you’re working
within a very established framework.”
 While Hellboy presents more creative a mountain of comics, but it’s lovely
freedom, Hewitt doesn’t have carte blanche. For because there is so much in them that
one, his game obviously needs to include its title will lend itself really nicely to gameplay.
character – and translating supernatural abilities “It was quite an interesting challenge, but
to gameplay comes with its own challenges. I really enjoyed building a game just from the
“One thing that is interesting in adapting a ground up around the idea of these comics. It
comic book which is about one central main was a real chance to look at every mechanic
character, because Hellboy is the story: because and go: ‘Right, does that fit? Is that the kind of
one person will probably be playing Hellboy, thing that belongs in this game? Is that just in
you have to make sure they don’t feel like there because it’s an obvious choice?’ So
they’re way ahead of everyone else in terms of hopefully what people will find is, when
what they can do,” Hewitt explains. they play it, it will really feel
To solve the problem of having players squabble like Hellboy.”
over who gets to be the star of the show, Hewitt
has ensured that all of the B.P.R.D. agents
have an individually engaging play style, with
contrasting but complementary mechanics that
hold their own against Hellboy’s pure strength.
“So if you want to be Hellboy, you’ll be very
punchy, you’ll be very resilient, but you might
not have some of the cool stuff,” he continues.
“For example, Liz Sherman, who’s one of the
members of the team, is pyrokinetic and she’s
like playing a mini-game where she’s trying to
balance the utility of her firepower; she doesn’t
want to overload and risk harming herself
and others around her. So the characters all
have these unique mechanics that play in.
That comes from trying to make a comic
about one protagonist and a supporting
cast, turning that into a game that four
people can play at the same time.”
If Hellboy’s Kickstarter is a success
a number of expansions are
already planned, including
an adaptation of the Hellboy
in Mexico storyline – a series of tales
set over a five-month “drunken weekend” in
the 1950s. With the game based exclusively on
the comics – the project was actually started
before next year’s cinematic reboot had been
announced – there are no plans to tie into the
upcoming film, but Mignola’s original universe
leaves no shortage of adventures to be had.
“I’d read the Hellboy comics years and years and
years ago when I was a student,” Hewitt recollects.
“Since then, there have been so much more. The
e t
universe has expanded massively. It’s
interesting though, because Mike Mignola’s
kept a really close eye on it, so it’s all very

s. n
cohesive, it all has a lot of internal logic and
it does make sense. When you first read the
Hellboy comics, it’s a bit baffling, it’s like: ‘What
ag
the hell is going on?’ But as you go through it, it
really starts making a lot of sense. So for me it was
a case of going back over something I’d enjoyed

ld m
r
quite a long time ago, rediscovering it and digging
into it in more detail. I’m still ploughing through

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 THROUGH THE AGES
AREA CONTROL
Claiming global domination has been a mainstay of tabletop strategy for decades,
but taking over the world has come in many forms, from Risk to Small World
Words by Sam Desatoff
I
n 1959, Parker Brothers published Risk: The
Game of Global Domination. As that subtitle
might imply, Risk is all about control –
control over the game’s six continents, each
of which are divided into a number of territories.
The goal of the game is to control every territory
on the board, which is why Risk has a reputation
of being a long and drawn-out experience, a
reputation exacerbated by the fact that combat
is determined by the luck of dice rolls.
For all its frustrations and faults, Risk was
a pioneer in the board gaming landscape.
The concept of area control has since gone
on to become a genre of tabletop game with a
growing number of entries that each put their
own spin on a decades-old mechanic. Today,
there are hundreds – if not thousands – of
area control games, but they each owe their
existence to a legacy of important precursors.
Before we dive too far into this list, I want
to acknowledge that there is a bit of a debate
concerning the genre and its name. ‘Area control’
and ‘area influence’ are sometimes considered
different genres, with ‘control’ referring to games
where only one player can occupy a space at a
time, unlike in ‘influence’ games where multiple
players can be in a space at once. This list is
largely going to ignore the difference between
‘control’ and ‘influence,’ as arguing semantics
would simply limit the breadth of fantastic
games that deserve recognition.
1959
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In 1995, Hans im Glück published El Grande,
a game that sees players wrestling for influence
in medieval Spain. Each region is worth varying
amounts of points, and the player with the most
influence in a region will score the most points.
There’s also the castillo, a separate region to
which players can secretly add influence. To this
day, El Grande is considered one of the best area
control games thanks to its easy-to-learn rules,
and the fact that it plays for a fixed number of
rounds means sessions rarely feel long-winded.
The Spiel des Jahres, Germany’s coveted
Game of the Year award, recognises innovation
in game design, and in 1996 that honour went
to El Grande. In 1999 another area control game
took home the prize: Michael Kiesling and
Wolfgang Kramer’s Tikal. In Tikal, players take
on the role of archaeologists who are uncovering
temple ruins deep in the jungle. The game uses
an action point system; each player is allocated
ten points per turn and can use them to uncover
temples, build new camps and explore more of
the jungle. The point system provides greater
flexibility than other games of the time, but it
can also result in some serious analysis paralysis,
which can cause sessions to drag a bit.
2005 saw the release of Twilight Struggle, a
pillar of the area control genre. A game built
for two players, Twilight Struggle sees players
on opposite sides of the American-Soviet Cold
War when the two countries were teetering on
1995
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the edge of nuclear conflict. Players use their
hand of event cards to exert influence over
countries all over the world, influence that is
reflected in the game’s unique victory point
track. Both sides share one victory point track
that represents the fierce tug-of-war that the
US and Soviets were engaged in throughout
the conflict, and the heavy use of historical
events makes Twilight Struggle surprisingly
educational. The game was so revered that it
even sat atop the BoardGameGeek rankings
for quite a while.
For many, 2009’s Small World has become the
definitive area control game, and it’s not hard to
see why. Featuring a stable of colourful fantasy
races with unique powers, Small World is equal
parts accessible and strategic. The premise is
simple: you earn one point for each region you
control at the end of your turn. Each race has a
different ability and is paired randomly with a
power so that each game is unique.
Today, there are a number of prominent
designers working within area control. Eric
M. Lang, for example, has put his stamp on
the genre with games like Chaos in the Old
World, Blood Rage and Rising Sun, and recent
hits such as Ethnos and Inis prove that there
is still a lot of unexplored territory within area
control. But for all the innovation and iteration
the genre has seen, it owes its existence to a
1959 game of global domination.
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 Inside the
World of Indines
Marvel and DC aren’t the only ambitious shared
universes out there. D. Brad Talton Jr. takes us on a tour
of the fantasy home of Level 99’s games
Words by Eric Watson

S
A WHOLE NEW WORLD
hared universes have been
tearing up the box office for the
last decade, but it’s not exactly a
“I originally created the World of Indines for a
homemade roleplaying game back in college,”
combining standard moves with their

e t
characters’ signature styles to unleash combos
and stuns. The game wasn’t initially designed
popular avenue for board game
publishers to explore. American
indie designer Level 99 Games has carved a
says Talton in an interview over Skype.
“Some of the characters were actually player
characters played by my friends. Hikaru and
as an Indines title.

. n
“I originally wanted to license a bunch of

s
different universes for BattleCON, the same way
successful niche in the last few years thanks
in large part to its World of Indines, an anime-
inspired fantasy world designed and nurtured
Khadath – the two characters on the cover
of BattleCON: War of Indines – were player
characters in our campaign.”
ag
we’re doing Exceed right now,” Talton explains.
“But this was my first game. I wasn’t able to get a
licence from, say, [Street Fighter studio] Capcom.”
by the studio’s president D. Brad Talton Jr.
The latest game in the Indines universe,
Empyreal: Spells and Steam, recently hit
BattleCON was Level 99’s first published
board game. It’s designed to implement the
strategic timing and positioning of 2D fighting
m
Talton turned to his own fantasy world. The
World of Indines has since become the face of

ld
BattleCON through four major releases, as well

r
Kickstarter, with a release planned for later video games like Street Fighter. Players choose as appearing in several other big- and small-
this year. from a large roster of diverse characters, box games.

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 Competitive fighting games require knowing
how to excel with, and counter, every character,
making the World of Indines a perfect fit.
“The characters are the key focus and the
world forms a backdrop for them to play out
stories and interact,” says Talton. “It’s very
much an anime/manga-inspired universe. It’s
a world where anyone can change the world
with enough heart and planning and vision for
the future.”

CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER

Level 99 goes beyond surface-level character
design by providing detailed backstories and
lore for each character. Talton has an internal
lore book, though “not all of my information is
accurate; even my own view of the world and
lore is evolving constantly”. Its latest release in
the universe, Trials of Indines, features several
paragraphs for each character, explaining the
motivations and connections between its ten
new fighters.
It helps to have an established world when
designing new characters. After four BattleCON
releases, there are over 60 characters to battle with.
“When making a new BattleCON character,
we think about a new mechanic or gameplay
we want to introduce,” says Talton. For the
Fate of Indines character Thessala Three, he
had an idea for a fighter with their own tech
tree that unlocked over the course of a match.
“What kind of theme would work with that?
What if she was this T-1000-type robot that
could change form and evolve? We put that
into a character and figure out a way to justify it
within the world. It’s a complex world and a lot
of fun to write for.”
Sometimes it’s the story that
becomes the first seed in a
character’s development.
“Other cases we have
a character that we’ve
mentioned in the lore
and we want
them to be
playable
in the game,”
Talton says. “For them
the storyline came first
and we find gameplay to
match. Those are the
The World of Indines series includes plenty of fighting games, but has also experimented
with other genres – such as railway management in upcoming instalment Empyreal
to design as sometimes they’re not really made
for combat. In general we think of the needs
of the game and find a character – or make a
character – to fill those needs.”
Each Indines game features ongoing plots
and events that advance chronologically. War
of Indines introduced the world and initial
characters, while Argent: The Consortium
centred around the fate and control of magic.
Devastation of Indines featured a massive war
between demons, gods and aliens. The
current ongoing trilogy of mini BattleCON
games follows yet another storyline,
this time focusing on a dark mirror
underworld called the Underlands.
Despite all these events, Indines
remains a character-focused
world, and much of
the appeal is seeing
how these characters
change over the years.
“This is a living universe, and
characters can evolve over multiple
games; they may be a fighter in
working for the industrialisation of the world with
Empyreal,” Talton says. “I really like shared
universes, I like transmedia stuff where you see the
same character show up in different places and
they have the same mechanics and gameplay.”
For example, Runika Zenanen is an artificer
who first appears in BattleCON: Devastation of
Indines. She’s also a playable character in the
dexterity game Disc Duelers
Duelers, where players can
simulate her large golem hand by placing their
literal hand on the playing field. She’s going to
show up again in Empyreal as an owner of one of
the train companies, using her tech-savvy powers
to produce more mana than her competitors.
“You get the idea that this is a tech-focused,
builder character with a magic-battery motif,”
Talton says. “Same character, used in different
ways in different games.”
Using the World of Indines in other games
also brings in fans that might nor normally
look twice at certain genres. BattleCON is a
t
one-on-one card and board fighting game.

e
Disc Duelers is a disc-flipping dexterity game.
Argent is a worker-placement Eurogame, and
toughest characters BattleCON, a teacher in Argent
BattleCON Argent, and

n
Empyreal will be a railway management game.

It’s a world where

s.
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the world with a vision ag
for the future.
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 WORLD OF INDINES
“A lot of players who normally wouldn’t
touch a genre will give it a try because they
recognise the characters and the world,” Talton
says. “They want to see what their favourite
character is up to now. Now they’re the
chancellor of a magic university! It’s a lot of fun.
Or with Empyreal – it’s a railway game but you
can play as Runika. People get excited, even if
they’re not excited for that particular genre.”
ACROSS THE UNIVERSES
Despite the flexibility and brand recognition,
Level 99 doesn’t use the World of Indines for
every game release. In 2016 the studio launched
Exceed, another fighting game, this time using a
more randomised system of card drawing.
“Exceed was actually BattleCON 2 for a long
time,” said Talton. “We were going to revise
the system and reboot the whole series. We
decided it wouldn’t be wise to do that so we
created a standalone game.”
For Exceed’s fighters Level 99 turned to
Jasco Games, another indie game publisher.
“One time, [Jasco president] Jason
Hawronsky was driving through Albuquerque
and said, ‘Hey you’re that guy that makes
fighting board games, we should hang out,’”
Talton recalls. “We did, and he told me all
about the Universal Fighting System card
game, and I said we should work together. We
had an instant rapport.”
The two companies ended up trading
character licences between their two fighting
56 April 2018
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games. “They traded us Red Horizon for
Exceed, and we gave them World of Indines
for UFS,” Talton says. “It’s neat to see your
characters come out in another game like
that.” The two companies would collaborate
again for Mega Man Pixel Tactics, using Jasco’s
Mega Man licence and Level 99’s successful
Pixel Tactics series.
Level 99 most recently worked with Penny
Arcade for the recently released Automata
Noir, combining Penny Arcade’s 1930s
android comic with its own Noir: Deductive
Mystery Game.
“I talked to [Penny Arcade co-founder]
Jerry Holkins on Twitter and he was like, ‘I
love your games,’ and I was like, ‘I love your
comics!’” says Talton. “We got together at
PAX South one year and chatted. I showed
them all our games and they were really
impressed with Noir. I suggested we could
use their crime noir series, Automata. So we
did! We also brought Carl into Exceed as a
bonus fighter.”
Talton enjoys working with licences,
particularly other board game companies.
Several of Level 99’s series, such as Exceed and
Pixel Tactics, are easily malleable to include
other licences and franchises.
“If we can get seven images of character art
we can put them into Exceed,” says Talton. “For
Pixel Tactics we just have to draw pixel art, and
r
it’s easy to figure out what mechanics work for
the game.”
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World of Indines games often share
characters and events; for example,
Runika Zenanen first appears in
Devastation of Indines but also pops
up in dexterity game Disc Duelers
and Empyreal
SEVENTH HEAVEN
Occasionally, Level 99 produces something
completely new, as was the case with its
massive CCG-simulator Millennium Blades,
and the second season of Exceed.
“Millennium Blades was such a specific
game it needed its own theme to work,” said
Talton. “We decided the World of Indines is a
property within the world of Millenium Blades.
So, for example, they watch Indines TV shows
or purchase Indines comic books. There are
fun Easter eggs that connect these worlds.”
The upcoming second season of Exceed
will feature Seventh Cross, an all-new world
designed by Talton.
“I wanted to do something that was a little
more genre specific to horror, and more of an
older audience,” says Talton. “For World of
Indines we make it available for both kids and
adults to play. But I wanted to do something
that would appeal more directly to that
Bloodborne, Dark Souls crowd.”
The world of Seventh Cross will feature
more mature art and storytelling, with a gothic
horror theme that evokes Castlevania and
Lovecraft. The marquee Seventh Cross game,
Seventh Cross: Hunters of the Church, will be a
big-box adventure game.
“It’s a big miniatures game, about the size of
Gloomhaven,” explains Talton. “I’ve been working
on it for about two years and really excited about it.”
Level 99 plans to launch the Kickstarter
campaign for Seventh Cross later this year.
As an indie company, Kickstarter is pretty
much a requirement for the large game releases
that Level 99 likes to produce, but it’s also an
t
effective way to engage with fans over the years.
e
“For me personally, I really like interacting with
the fans, getting ideas for the games, especially with
n
our creative tiers where fans can name a character
.
or put something in the box,” Talton enthuses.
s
The World of Indines has created a shared
g
world not just for Level 99, but also for fans to
a
engage with and return to, year after year.
“I still recognise names from our first
m
Kickstarter projects who have come back for
everything we’ve done since, through tough
ld
times and great times. Our fans know we’re
going to pull through for them, and always
have in games past.”
m2+y
y2+z3
c
cc 180
∏r 2
Play it smart
What’s in a game? Our doctors consider what allows the
tabletop to stand apart from its digital counterparts
and Sam Illingw orth
Doctors Paul Wake
T
his month finds us part way through
a project that uses tabletop games
to promote public engagement
with STEM (Science Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics)
subjects. It’s a project that has involved us thinking in mind. Where we’ve introduced games that
through the benefits of using tabletop games in
communicating complex ideas, and, more often
than we’d expected, articulating the ways in which
these benefits differ from those of their digital
counterparts. It turns out that when you say ‘game’,
people tend to start thinking about video games.
So, what makes tabletop games different (feel free
to think ‘better’) than video games?
Most obviously tabletop games – the clue’s
in the title – are played around a table. The
implications of this are huge, and they are to do
with cost. However expensive tabletop games
might seem to some, when it comes to investment
in space and resource they’re a total bargain.
There’s also something to be said for the
embodied experience on offer. While video
games, and more obviously virtual reality
experiences, use high-quality sound and graphics
to draw players into the game environment,
tabletop games make the dual location of play – in
both the game world and the real world – very
clear. That the card, wood and plastic components
057_playItSmart_v2 MJ.indd 57
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a+b
of tabletop games can’t offer the fantastical
sensory immersion of triple-A videogames
is, we argue, one of their strengths. Of course
tabletop games can be immersive, be it
through puzzle-solving or imaginative activity,
but the experience remains firmly located
in the material world. In other words, social
interaction and an awareness of play as an
activity remain at the fore.
It’s this social side of tabletop games that
we’ve found most valuable in our work.
While video gaming is by no means a solitary
activity, its networks are more often than
not virtual. (Nintendo’s Wii console being
a notable exception.) In playing tabletop
games, we see the immediate reactions
of fellow players, read their body language and
can comment (in all manner of ways) on their
decisions. For our purposes, the metagame is a
vital part of the gaming experience and some of
the games we’ve been using, such as Pandemic
and Fluxx, are clearly designed with the metagame
aren’t so heavily invested in the meta, such as
Terraforming Mars, we’ve found that encouraging
gamers to play in teams helps to increase the
opportunities for meaningful social interactions.
As team games of Terraforming Mars suggest,
tabletop games are easily adapted by players, even
during the process of play. While players of video
games can and will experience games in ways that
might surprise the game’s designers (speedruns
being an obvious example), without access to the
game’s underlying code these experiences
will remain within the parameters of the game
as designed. By way of contrast,
tabletop games often
include design elements
that encourage adaptation
Mysterium’s ’s silent ghost
player feels drastically
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(cardboard-coding being a widely-held skillset).
Small World, for example, provides blank cards
that encourage players to modify the game to their
aesthetic tastes and playing styles: Tree-Hugging
Beholders, anyone?
None of this is to say that video games can’t be
social, adaptable or tactile. But they certainly offer
different experiences. This becomes abundantly
clear when tabletop games are translated into
digital media. Take Asmodee Digital’s adaption
of Mysterium for example: while mechanically it
remains almost identical to the original tabletop
version, receiving clues from an ‘unseen’ ghost
(either an AI or another player somewhere else
in the world), rather than having the ghost ‘in
the room’, so to speak, alters things dramatically.
That said, researchers at Carnegie Mellon
University are busy harnessing “‘mind-reading’
technology to decode complex thoughts” – so
perhaps the next update of the Mysterium app
will be something truly astonishing…
Taken together, these things suggest that
the ways in which gamers interact with
tabletop games, and with other players, differ
dramatically from the experience of playing
video games. Perhaps most importantly, they
create a shared space in which complex topics
can be discussed and debated, and it is this
capacity to create dialogue that makes them such
a productive means of public engagement.
Paul Wake and Sam Illingworth are
Manchester Metropolitan University
academics and co-directors of the
Games Research Network
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 THE FIRST
TABLET OP
CE LEBRITY He popularised the meeple, revolutionised the way we
score games, pioneered countless mechanics from
area control to action points and has won the fabled
Spiel des Jahres award more times than anyone else.
Meet Wolfgang Kramer, a true living legend of gaming
Words by Matt Jarvis

W
hen we talk about ‘designer
board games’, there’s sure to be
the same names that inevitably
pop up. Rosenberg, Leacock,
Teuber, Lang, Knizia. A name that might not be top
of the list for many modern players, especially here
the first widely available title to popularise both
meeples (although they wouldn’t be called that
until Carcassonne was released nearly twenty years
later) and a scoring track around the edge of the
board – the latter even became known in Germany
as Kramerleiste (‘Kramer bar’) in honour of
than Hemlich & Co., Kramer’s back-to-back
wins marked the first time the Spiel des Jahres
had been won by the same person. By 2001,
t
Kramer would have claimed the Spiel des Jahres

e
five times – an unbroken record to this day.

in the UK, is Wolfgang Kramer. Yet, the German

designer has perhaps done more than almost
anyone else to shape gaming as we know it.
its designer. Kramer had actually invented the
scoring track as part of a promotional game
released in 1982 called Das Große Unternehmen
PROLIFIC PARTNERS

. n
Kramer’s success allowed him to become

s
Germany’s first full-time games designer in 1989,
Kramer first started designing games in the
mid-1970s, crafting abstract titles before layering
in theme from the beginning of the ‘80s: “I liked it
Erdgas (‘The Large Companies of Natural Gas’),
but Heimlich & Co. established it as a fixture in
board games for decades to come. g
with his eminence fuelled by his wide-ranging

a
oeuvre and prolific output, spanning from light
card games to the hybrid computer-board game
much more to work with a theme,” he says today.
Among these games was Heimlich & Co., a game
about moving spies around a board with a hidden-
Heimlich & Co. would go on to receive the
1986 Spiel des Jahres, the prestigious German
Game of the Year prize that Kramer collected for
m
forerunners of today’s app-driven titles.
“I tried to design at least one game for each

ld
genre,” he reveals.

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role element. Simple as it seemed, the game was a second time the following year for Auf Achse. Initially working on projects by himself, then
revolutionary upon release in 1984, becoming While the game itself was less groundbreaking with the help of his wife and friends, Kramer

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When games have the same
reputation as books we
have reached our aim.
eventually began to collaborate with fellow
designers, most notably Michael Kiesling and
Richard Ulrich.
“When I design games with a partner the
designing is more alive and more interesting,”
Kramer says. “But it doesn’t change my design
method; I like it to discuss mechanisms and
variants. Two persons see more, have more ideas
and test more. But I have to share the royalties.”
It was with Ulrich that Kramer created El
Grande, the influential 1996 area control title
that would go on to inspire the gameplay of
countless other Eurogames. It was one of two Spiel
des Jahres winners from the pair – the other being
2000’s The Princes of Florence – but it is El Grande
that Kramer singles out as his favourite creation.
“It has several new and original mechanisms
and I like the mix of strategy, tactic and luck,”
he explains.
A few years later, Kramer and Kiesling
designed the so-called ‘mask trilogy’, beginning
with 1999’s Tikal and continuing with Java and
Mexica, which pioneered the concept of players
spending a pool of points on a choice of actions.
Tikal and the following year’s Torres,, also created
with Kiesling and considered a heavy influence
on the ‘mask’ games, added another two Spiel
des Jahres awards to Kramer’s mantelpiece.
Despite the legacy of his more complex games,
Kramer’s most successful release is 6 nimmt!, a
simple game about laying down numbered cards
in ascending order that can be played with big
groups. The game has sold more than three million
copies since its release in 1994, and continues to
shift a further 200,000 boxes each year.
“Since about seven years [ago] we have had
two game markets: one for gamers and one for
the other people which play seldom and which
are inexperienced,” Kramer says. “The market
for gamers is a small market. The market for
inexperienced people is a big market. I try to
design games which are suitable for both markets.
These games are seldom and very difficult to
design. Two of those games are Catan and
Carcassonne. Until now I succeeded only once
in designing such a game: 6 nimmt!”
THE PAST REBORN
Kramer continues to put out his own designs every
year, but his older games have also been revitalised
058_059_wolfgangKramer_v2 MJ.indd 59
for a modern audience. This includes Kramer’s
debut, Tempo, an abstract racing card game
released in 1974 that was rebranded multiple times
throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Its latest reiteration is
last year’s Downforce, a reimagining co-designed
by legacy innovator Rob Daviau to which the
original designer contributed special abilities.
“I like the idea to restore good, old games,”
Kramer says. “I would like to revive Asara and The
Palaces of Carrara. I would change the mechanisms
in the direction of a game for players. I also would
like to publish Big Boss once more as a family game.”
Kramer’s impact on the modern state of
tabletop gaming is undeniable. Yet, while he is
celebrated by in-the-know gamers, his name
isn’t nearly as widely recognised as many of the
present-day designers for whom he blazed a
trail. It was creative forces such as Kramer who
helped establish players’ awareness of a designer
as a form of author, decades before credits would
become commonplace on the front of game boxes.
“I think books are much more acknowledged
than games,” he observes. “Therefore the reputation
of games could be better and we all can do our
best to improve this reputation. We have achieved
ABOVE Tikal kicked off Kramer and Kiesling’s ‘mask
trilogy’ and earned the pair a Spiel des Jahres win
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a lot since the ‘70s; much more mediums report
now about games, but when we have the same
reputation as books we have reached our aim.”
ALWAYS SEARCHING
As analogue gaming continues to flourish,
propelled by systems and concepts that wouldn’t
exist without Kramer’s groundbreaking work, the
veteran designer continues to consider the next
major step innovation on the tabletop could take.
“I think the combination between the card/
board games and computer games will be a strong
genre in the future; in this genre also belongs the
combination card/board games with the internet
and mobile phones,” he predicts. “In the future it is
not necessary to read rulebooks. You learn the rules
by playing. I also think that it is possible in the far
future to design games with artificial intelligence. “
Today, in his seventies, Kramer still shows little
sign of exhausting his creativity and enthusiasm.
When we speak, he is working on “a complex game
for gamers, a 3D family game and two other family
games”, with a new 6 nimmt! spin-off and board game
also in the works ahead of the game’s upcoming
25th anniversary next year. He may already be
one of the most important figures in gaming
history, but there’s no plan to fade into the past.
“My wish and my aim is to get the Spiel des
Jahres award once more,” he reveals. “Another
wish is to find a totally new genre for games.
“I search all the time for great ideas for
new games. You see, I am still busy and I am a
searcher ‘til the end of my life.”
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 LIONS, TIGERS AND
A former animator is bringing a touch of Disney magic to card games.
Tania Walker talks monsters, ladies and why every drawing counts
F
or many artists, a job at Disney would be
their ‘happily ever after’. For Tania Walker,
it was just her ‘Once upon a time…’
After stints at animation studios –
where she worked on a Coco Pops advert and
the sequel to George of the Jungle – the Australian
illustrator joined Walt Disney’s Sydney studio
in the mid-noughties as an assistant animator,
racking up credits on films such as The Lion King 3
and Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers.
Part of her role was to work as an ‘inbetweener’, the
industry term for artists that produce the drawings
that go between the key poses drawn by lead
animators, giving the impression of movement
and action.
“The principles of what makes a good drawing
are the same from job to job – everything else is
different,” Walker says. “At Disney I worked in
pencil on paper, colour wasn’t a factor and I had
to meet a quota of roughly 60 drawings per week.
In a studio environment like that, each person is
like a single component in a much larger machine:
you do one thing over and over again, and you do
it extremely well. That applies to all animation jobs,
but at Disney they had it down to a science.”
Following her stint at Disney, Walker decided to
focus on illustration and spent a decade working
on everything from advertising to toy and novelty
design. Eventually, she would come into contact
62 April 2018
062_063_jellybean_v3 MJ.indd 62
DRACULA
Words by Matt Jarvis
with local fledgling tabletop studio Jellybean
Games. It was an opportunity she jumped at.
“In my other jobs I definitely had the scope to
use many other skills, including a lot of graphic
design over the years, but I had less freedom and
self-determination than I do now,” she says today,
nearly two years after she first came on board as
art director.
“Working with a small tabletop company,
I get to wear many hats: art direction,
illustration, graphic design, writing and editing,
using rendering software, and being part of
discussions about game mechanics. I’m still
constantly learning new skills, and every day I’m
grateful for the sheer variety of art/design work I
did over the decade before this – even the jobs that
were pure drudgery – because almost all of it has
come in handy here.”
VISUAL FEAST
Walker’s artistic flair would be unleashed
on Jellybean’s second project, snappy social
deduction game Dracula’s Feast. Designed by
Jellybean founder Peter C. Hayward as a friendlier
alternative to games such as Werewolf, the card
game featured striking reimaginings of figures
from classic horror literature, including a zombie,
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Captain Bluebeard, Van Helsing and the titular
bloodsucker himself. The art, too, was draped in
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its gothic inspirations – a stark contrast to Walker’s
previous work.
“Dracula’s Feast drove me bonkers,” Walker
admits. “Peter asked me to use the art of Edward
Gorey as a touchstone for this project, as it’s
rarely seen in tabletop games, and it suited the
subject matter. Gorey was all about ghouls,
monsters, and the possibility of being eaten by
the aforementioned. His work is also very much
traditional ink-on-paper, with extremely detailed
textures, patterns and hatching. At one point I was
seeing cross-hatching in my dreams.
“It was time-consuming both to create that
work, and to learn how to create it – I had to
stretch artistically to nail down the vibe of his
t
style digitally. The outcome really pops out on a
e
games shelf, which was our hope. In hindsight
it would have been safer and quicker to go with
n
a more mainstream digital-painterly look, but
.
I’m glad we took a risk on this style – as a nimble
s
indie company, we’re in a great position to try
g
something new, and with the growing size of
a
the tabletop market it’s becoming increasingly
important to make games that don’t just blend into
m
every other digital-painterly offering on the shelves
around them.”
ld
The style worked a treat, helping Dracula’s
Feast to draw almost $90,000 from the veins of
Kickstarter backers. After proving Walker worthy of
 a challenge beyond her comfort zone, Jellybean’s
next project would return to the Disney alumna’s
strengths, but she was far from complacent.
“With every project our art goals are: it
mustn’t be too similar to the current board game
mainstream; it must be visually appealing; it
must be clear. And of course the art must always
serve the mechanics. You’d be amazed how much
freedom those few rules allow,” Walker says.
“I spend a week or more at the start of each
new project thinking, sketching, looking at various
art styles and gathering visual ‘touchstones’,
and between those inspiration pieces and my
own artistic foibles, strengths and limitations,
something new emerges. After that, I develop one
card through to completion and, if we’re all happy
with it, the first card then becomes my touchstone
for the rest. In Dracula’s Feast, it was the Dracula
card – I went on to become much better at the
style after that, so I wish I could go back and redo
that one.”
CAT LADIES
Hayward had recently read Frank R. Stockton’s
The Lady, or the Tiger? after hearing a They Might
Be Giants song based on the short story, and
thought it would make for an easy theme to use
in a prototype. When he mentioned the concept
to Walker, she convinced him to stick with the
idea of citizens accused by a semi-barbaric king
choosing between two doors to decide their
fate – behind one a lady whom the accused must
marry, the other a hungry tiger not in the mood
for matrimony.
“Very occasionally, a project comes along that
falls neatly into the centre of every Venn diagram
I have as an illustrator,” Walker says. “This was
one of those. Ordinarily I have to research and
seek inspiration for a project but, historically, I’ve
loved drawing cats of all stripes – ha! – and my
other favourite subject matter is gorgeous ladies
– because all ladies are gorgeous – so when Peter
floated the initial theme of this project, I leaped on
No amount of great
mechanics matter a
jot unless someone
picks up that box.
MAIN The art style of Dracula’s Feast was inspired by gothic
illustrator Edward Gorey
TOP The Lady and the Tiger is a collection of small games
LEFT Tania Walker is a former Disney animator
062_063_jellybean_v3 MJ.indd 63
the chance to draw commercially all the things I
love drawing personally.”
Despite the evocative theme, The Lady and the
Tiger is more a system than a single game based
on the story, although one of the five modes
included, Doors, does indeed involve two players
trying to find ladies behind doors. The other
modes, ranging from single-player puzzles to
bluffing games for bigger groups, make use of the
set’s minimalist design, containing just red and
blue cards with either a lady or tiger on each, plus
two half-and-half special cards.
“Being limited to a palette of red or blue made it
a breeze to keep the card types distinct, and those
divides – lady/tiger and red/blue – are the heart
of the mechanics of the games included,” Walker
says. “Having such straightforward dichotomies
to work with made my job easy. On top of that, for
this project I was able to work in my own ‘baseline’
style, insofar as I have one. It’s vaguely Disney-
esque, a mainstream style that has been honed by
better artists than me over decades for maximum
clarity and appeal. So it was both highly effective,
and smack in the middle of my comfort zone.
“I’m also big on diversity – as a woman in the
tabletop industry I’m quite the startling minority,
by the numbers, and I think more representation
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of diverse people in games is one way we can work
on drawing others into the hobby, people who
might not have been the traditional target market
in the past. In every game I make, and most
freelance projects prior to my time in gaming,
when I was able to get away with it, I’ve aimed for
gender parity and diversity. So here in front of me
was the opportunity, not just to achieve parity,
but to illustrate an all-female group of characters.
Brilliant! I set out to include women of all different
backgrounds, ages and shapes. I only wish the
game had required more of them, because I didn’t
get a chance to touch on half the variety I’d have
liked. Alas, for every woman in the game I had to
draw a tiger, and I was scraping the bottom of the
‘tiger ideas’ barrel by the end. Sorry tigers. I’m not
saying you all look alike, but...”
STRAIGHT FROM THE ART
Walker is yet to reveal what she will turn her pen
to next (Jellybean’s latest project, Show & Tile, is
an abstract puzzle game without illustrations),
but it’s sure to gather another swell of interest. In
a year and a half, her distinctive style and dazzling
artwork has helped the small studio and its games
stand apart from an increasingly busy crowd
– and allow the former inbetweener to colour
outside the lines.
“What I love most about this job is that, far more
than in animation or advertising, each individual
illustration matters,” Walker says. “These are
illustrations that will be seen again and again as
t
people play the game, so they have to hold up to
e
scrutiny. And for new players, each piece of art has
to do everything possible to reinforce the function
s. n
of the card in the player’s hand. All those pieces
of art also have to work in conjunction with each
other as sets, or suits, and as a whole as well. The
g
box art is also vitally important; it’s what compels
a
someone to take the game off the store’s shelf in
the first place. No amount of great mechanics or
ld m
clever copy matter a jot unless someone picks up
that box. So I get to mentally zoom in and think
about art on an intensely micro, piece-by-piece
level, and also zoom out and think about it on a
broadly conceptual level. It’s never boring.”
63
13/03/2018 15:07
 P resented by the South London
Warlords, Salute 2018 is the biggest,
independent, one-day wargaming and
gaming event in the UK. Once again,
we have a huge number of traders
from the UK and around the world
attending the show at ExCel London
as well as plenty of demonstration
and participation games to enjoy. We
will also, of course, be running our
renowned painting competition. Every
year, we aim to provide a fantastic
showcase, whether you are thinking of
starting this great hobby or are already
a ‘veteran’ wargamer/gamer.

SALUTE is held at
ExCel London, which Tickets
is very easy to get to. £10.00 via eticket or £20.00 (cash
Here is a simplified
transport link map. only) at the door.
Under 16s FREE with a paying
adult.
Again this year there will be
several ‘golden ticket’ prizes.
Tickets are now on sale from our
Facebook page and website:
www.salute.co.uk
NB: there is no bring and buy at
Salute 2018.

SATURDAY, 14TH APRIL e t

DOORS OPEN 10.00-17.00 s. n
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PLAYED
66

67
66 STAR WARS: LEGION
67 RISING SUN
68 STUFFED FABLES
69 GKR: HEAVY HITTERS
68 70
75 THE ONE RING RPG:
OATHS OF THE RIDDERMARK
76 MEEPLE CIRCUS |
DREADBALL: SECOND EDITION
77 PAPER TALES

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70 THE PALACE OF
MAD KING LUDWIG
78 A HANDFUL OF STARS

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79 MY LITTLE PONY: TAILS OF
71 ANCESTREE
72 CIVILIZATION (2018 EDITION)
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EQUESTRIA: THE OFFICIAL
MOVIE SOURCEBOOK

73 COSMOGENESIS

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80 FARLIGHT | THE WHITE BOX
81 COWBOY BEBOP CCG:
74 WELCOME TO CENTERVILLE

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 P L AY E D
STAR WARS: LEGION
Adrenaline-pumping tactical
battles in a galaxy far, far away
Designer: Alex Davy | Artist: Various
J
ust when you thought Fantasy
Flight couldn’t possibly squeeze
any more blood out of its Star
Wars licence, the company strikes
back with another release set in a
galaxy far, far away.
Star Wars: Legion is a miniatures
battle game pitting Rebel fighters
against the forces of the Galactic
Empire. While FFG’s existing
wargames X-Wing and Star Wars:
Armada have both focused on
spaceship combat, this new
addition aims to recreate the series’
adrenaline-fuelled ground battles,
with players taking command of
infantry squads, vehicles and iconic
characters from the original films.
It’s the publisher’s closest attempt
yet at a competitor to Warhammer
40,000 – easily the dominant miniatures
game in the industry – and at first
glance the two share some similarities.
You’ll need to assemble and paint your
plastic troops, and you'll configure
armies using a points-based system,
with powerful units costing more than
lowly grunts. But play a few turns, and
66 April 2018
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 66
CE
ED
IT
O R'S C H OI
90-120m 2 14+ £80
Legion quickly proves to be quite a
different proposition.
As well as choosing squads to field,
you’ll assemble a hand of command
cards before you play. These have
some dramatic effects on the game.
They determine who gets the first
chance to activate their army, but also
the number of units you’re able to
WHAT’S IN issue commands tokens to on every
THE BOX? round. While you’re able to activate
◗ 33 plastic miniatures commanded units at a time of your
◗ Eight plastic barricades choice, squads without a token act in
◗ 15 dice a random order.
◗ Three movement tools
◗ Range ruler
It simulates the chaos of the
battlefield, and means there are times
◗ Eight unit cards
where you’ll have to respond to a
◗ 35 upgrade cards
situation with the troops available to
◗ 14 command cards
◗ 12 battle cards
◗ Round counter
◗ 107 assorted tokens
you rather than the ones you’d prefer
to use. You’ll constantly have to ask
yourself whether it’s more important
to maintain control over your forces,
or to claim the advantage of acting
before your opponent.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… WARHAMMER 40,000
This is Fantasy Flight’s most direct stab at a Warhammer 40,000 competitor
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to date, and it’s a slick, accomplished and highly thematic alternative.
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Just as intriguingly, though, some
cards come with additional effects,
adding an almost CCG-like element
to the game. Choosing command
cards that mesh well with your troops
and your strategies feels almost
like crafting a well-honed deck in
Magic: The Gathering and, as future
expansions add more units and
commanders, you can expect an
ever-increasing range of options to
experiment with.
What really makes Legion shine,
though, is its respect for its source
material. It brilliantly translates the
atmosphere of the movies to the
tabletop, emphasising the main
characters over anonymous troopers.
While the likes of Darth Vader and Luke
Skywalker might seem ridiculously
overpowered, it means they’re involved
in some of the most dramatic moments
of the game, with Luke swatting aside
laser blasts with his lightsaber and
Vader stalking menacingly across
the battlefield before laying waste to
entire units in close quarters.
That’s equally true for vehicles
like nippy speeder bikes and giant
walkers, which howl, screech
and stomp their way across the
battlefield, resulting in a wonderfully
cinematic feel. While there’s plenty
of scope for customisation and
nitty-gritty tactical decisions, this is
also a game that generates tension,
drama and a constant succession of
memorable moments. The result will
appeal equally to casual players and
hardcore tournament grinders.
It might be bad news for your
bank account but, if you’re looking
to immerse yourself in the conflict
between the Jedi and the Sith, this is
the game you’re looking for.
OWEN DUFFY
t
WE SAY
e
Star Wars: Legion mixes fast-flowing
n
action with an engaging tactical
g s.
challenge, and it’s a brilliantly faithful
recreation of the movies’ battle
scenes. Getting into it will sap your
time and empty your wallet but, for
m
Hoth or Endor. a
fans of the franchise, it’s as close as
you’ll ever get to scrapping it out on
ld
 RISING SUN
Is the follow-up to Blood Rage a worthy successor?
Designer: Eric M. Lang | Artist: Adrian Smith
R
ising Sun is a game that will
make you go ‘wow’. From
its table-filling main map,
illustrated with eye-watering beauty
by artist Adrian Smith, and towering
monster ‘miniatures’ that feel suitably
awing to the straightforward yet
limitlessly complex area-control
gameplay at its centre and, yes, even
the more than $4 million it gathered
from tens of thousands of backers on
Kickstarter last year, it’s hard not to be
bowled over by just how impressive
Eric Lang’s latest showpiece feels.
That’s perhaps unsurprising given
that Rising Sun is the offspring of the
designer's equally epic (and revered)
spiritual successor Blood Rage and
gloriously brutal classic Diplomacy,
pitting players against each other
in a cut-throat battle to rule feudal
Japan by deploying their troops across
the lands and attracting the aid of
legendary monsters and god-like
kami. (This is by no means a game
for those after historical realism or
cultural accuracy.)
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 67
CE
ED
IT
O R'S C H OI
Driving the action is a tight set of
political mandates that are played one
at a time each turn, granting a bonus
to the active player (and their ally)
and a lesser version of the same move
to everyone else, à la games such
as Twilight Imperium. The balance
of having direct control over your
limited selection while adapting to
the other players’ decisions makes for
a deep but easy to understand loop,
as choosing when to move your units
into a particular region or even betray
an allied clan to gain extra power
becomes vital.
Ah, yes, betrayal. Forming
partnerships is baked into Rising Sun,
as each round kicks off with a tea
ceremony where clans can offer gifts
(or bribes) and pledge their friendship
to another faction, slotting together
two tiles to mark the bond. Having
an ally can be extremely beneficial
in order to gain extra bonuses during
the political phase and avoid costly
battles, but alliances are never
permanent, ending at the close of
each round. This natural fluidity of
alliances means that turning on your
former partner to gain an extra couple
of troops never feels like something
that could result in a flipped table,
making it fun rather than infuriating.
After kami have been worshipped,
troops positioned and alliances
broken, war breaks out in a random
selection of territories, with the need
to constantly keep troops on the move
to claim the most points resulting in a
90-120m 3-5 13+ £100
more dynamic competition than some WHAT’S IN
area control setups prone to turtling. THE BOX?
Battles are resolved with a hidden ◗ Five clan screens
bidding system between players that ◗ Game board
◗ Seven shrine tiles
makes each clash a showdown of
◗ 10 political
bluffing and prediction as they assign mandate tiles
coins to hire ronin, take hostages or ◗ 21 core season cards
even commit seppuku, which means ◗ Five political/war tiles
an army faced with defeat can still ◗ 24 war
grab victory points and honour – an province tokens
ever-shifting ranking of the clans that ◗ 15 teapot
crucially breaks ties – before they’re season cards
wiped out. A small but significant ◗ 15 horseman
season cards
rule is that the winner of a fight must
◗ 15 archway
pay their invested coins to the losers, season cards
which helps with future conflicts and ◗ Five alliance tokens
acts as a very tidy balancing system. ◗ 20 stronghold tokens
This, combined with the ever-present ◗ 20 ronin tokens
chance to team up with another clan ◗ Eight war
trailing in the points tally for mutual number tokens
benefit, means that Rising Sun never ◗ 65 plastic coins
develops a runaway leader problem or ◗ 10 clan markers
◗ 10 bonsai clan figures
the feeling that all is lost, right up until
◗ 10 koi clan figures
the final scoring. ◗ 10 dragonfly
Rising Sun may not have done its clan figures
history homework, but it aces the ◗ 10 lotus clan figures
overall exam with an intoxicating ◗ 10 turtle clan figures
propensity for finely-tuned strategy ◗ Eight monster figures
and scheming that is never anything ◗ Five huge
less than flat-out entertaining. It’s a monster bases
beaut to look at, a delight to play and ◗ 15 large
monster bases
filled with moments that will have
◗ 15 shinto bases
you playing ‘til the sun goes down ◗ Five daimyo bases
– and then comes back up again. In
short: wow.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
Eric Lang has done it again with an
impeccable area control game that is
as stunning to play as it is to look at.
The betrayals are entertaining rather
than enraging, the strategy as rich as it
e t
is clear, and the fun non-stop. This Sun
shines very bright indeed.
s. n
a
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
BATTLE FOR ROKUGAN g
ld m
Avoiding the obvious Blood Rage
nod, Rising Sun makes for a
flashier – if less svelte – double
feature with the fantastic Legend
r
of the Five Rings spin-off.
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 P L AY E D

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Storybook
◗ Sideboard
◗ Six Stuffy figures
◗ 17 minion figures
◗ 35 dice
◗ Dice bag
◗ 15 buttons
◗ Six character cards
◗ 40 discovery cards
◗ 29 lost cards
◗ 10 sleep cards
◗ 47 item cards
◗ 12 minion cards
◗ Seven environment
cards
◗ 34 status cards
◗ Four reference cards
◗ 32 stuffing tokens
◗ 16 heart tokens
◗ Four objective tokens
◗ Four lost tokens

CE
ED
IT ◗ Bookmark token
O R'S C H OI ◗ Red Wagon token
◗ Train token

STUFFED FABLES
◗ Door token

Hard times for soft toys in a dungeon-

crawler with a fluffy difference
Designer: Jerry Hawthorne | Artist: Kristen Pauline, Regis Demy 60-90m 2-4 7+ £65

A
fter just one play of Stuffed
Fables, you’ll understand exactly
how much an inspiration
Pixar’s Inside Out was on designer
Jerry Hawthorne. A movie in which a
girl’s personified emotions struggling
to guide their young charge, it echoes
strongly in Hawthorne’s gamified,
seven-chapter bedtime story about a
squad of soft toys journeying through a
junk-strewn dreamscape to protect their
toddler owner from nightmares. But, as
Theodora (think of a Care Bear who stabs
things), Flops (a lapine Legolas), Lumpy
(shy elephant with a huge mallet) and
Stitch (wise old ragdoll thing) contend
with a lost security blanket, or bed-
wet-inducing running taps, or a stolen
It all makes for engaging, imaginative
and entertaining storytelling – with the
caveat that the writing style can be cloying
(it pitches young) with some grammatical
lurches between past and present
tenses and second- and third-person. It
makes for a fabulous game experience,
too, not least via an ingenious
innovation by which the thick, ring-
bound storybook is the board, enabling
you to move the appealingly rendered
minis around the vivid illustrations
as your characters are drawn through
Hawthorne’s branching narratives.
With each of the seven stories
forming a larger arc, and coming with
their own ‘discovery’ deck that adds
equipment and foe cards to the main
Whatever you face, co-operation is WE SAY
paramount and the game is best enjoyed
with all four characters whatever the Under the cute, fluffy,
player count. While the rules are simple, family-friendly exterior
with no stats and only a few abilities beats the heart of a
relatively challenging,
per character, combat can be tough, so
elegantly designed
players need to be generous with their co-op adventure.
assets – be they health (represented
by wads of stuffing), items (easily
shareable) or action-determining dice.
Ah yes, the dice. There are a lot TRY THIS IF
of them. Hawthorne loves his little YOU LIKED…
plastic cubes of randomness, so there MICE &
is a fair chance that, no matter how
MYSTICS
Same designer,
conservatively or considerately you same attention to
play, your story will come to an abrupt,
frustrating halt thanks to a few low rolls.
However, such frustration is thankfully t
narrative, same

e
cutesy spin on the
dungeon-bash, same
milk-tooth, you’ll sense other influential
connections. Neil Gaiman’s comic-book
series The Sandman (specifically the
decks, there’s a gentle legacy feel to
Stuffed Fables – though it is intended
to be easily resettable and replayable.
mitigated by the sheer elegance of
Hawthorne’s colour-coded dice system,
whereby five are drawn blind from a bag

s. n
emphasis on dice-
rolling… They are
different games, but
story A Game of You) also took dream-
animated soft toys and placed them in
a perilous situation. Then, interestingly,
But this is far more than a dungeon
crawl. As with Hawthorne’s Mice &
Mystics, the story ensures variety
at the start of each player’s turn, with
each colour determining specific actions.
It’s gameplay touches like this, as much
ag
will be loved by the
same people.

there’s Christopher Nolan’s Inception, in

the way that a real-world stimulus (say,
a flooding bathroom) will manifest in
with each page-turn, so you won’t
just be moving and skirmishing, but
attempting such other adventuresome
m
as Hawthorne’s storytelling thrust, which
will keep you – and any little ones you

ld
may find snooping around your games

r
the subconscious environment (like a tasks as racing for a train or dodging cupboard – coming back for more.
raging river). bowling balls in a vast canyon. DAN JOLIN

o
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 GKR: HEAVY HITTERS
Rowdy robots mech a good impression
Designer: Matt Hyra | Artist: Leri Greer, Christian Pearce, Paul Tobin 1-2h 1-4 12+ £150

their squad around and unleashing

their firepower, dictated by the cards
in their hand and available energy,
which can be overcharged by willing
taking damage for extra actions.
Taking cover and popping off shots
between buildings plays a big part in
the strategy, but resolving attacks is
mercifully fast and simple as an attack
roll to hit is countered by a defence
roll to reduce damage.
As all players’ weapons are revealed
simultaneously and resolved in order
of speed, the exchanging of blows
feels exciting and dynamic, with room
to land fast strikes or bide your time
for a heavier blow. Taking damage
means losing cards from your deck
or hand, a neat method of simulating
the failing systems of a robot as well as

I
f you call your game ‘Giant Killer
Robots’, you’d best deliver on that
promise. Luckily, GKR: Heavy
Hitters lands its blows like… well, like
a giant killer robot.
Heavy Hitters is the debut game
from Weta Workshop, the Oscar-
winning movie effects studio behind
Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Blade
Runner 2049 and various other
visually stunning flicks – and it
shows. The towering mech figures
(which come ready-decorated) stomp
between 3D skyscrapers, which can
be brought crumbling down to plastic
piles of debris when tagged with
enough advertising boards to please
each team’s sponsors – presumably
demolition is a good PR move, as four
such destructions wins the game. The
ability cards pop with comic-book
artwork, complete with WHOOSH
and KABLAM ‘sound’ effects, and
during setup, plus a pilot with unique
talents. The light deckbuilding
that fuels the gameplay provides
enough diversity to feel you’re really
customising your robot’s distinctive
fighting style, without making the
options feel overwhelming or eat up
time before jumping into the action –
WHAT’S IN Netrunner or Magic this ain’t. Players’
THE BOX? individual decks are then expanded
◗ Double-sided board
during the fight with sponsor
◗ 10 buildings (base,
cards gained by tagging buildings,
building and cap)
◗ Double-sided presenting the chance to hack
achievements board (and counter-hack) opponents and
◗ 12 upgrade tiles generally cause havoc – and opening
◗ Four reference cards the floor for more nuanced paths to
◗ Four Heavy victory outside of the Rock ‘Em Sock
Hitter dashboards ‘Em school of last-robot-standing.
◗ Four energy Despite its stars’ clunky frames,
tracking tokens
Heavy Hitters’ action has a graceful
◗ 12 hit point trackers
◗ 33 sponsor cards
◗ Glory Hound token
◗ Two black attack dice
flow. Players call in support units
– smaller machines (though still
classified as giant and killer) that
being a satisfying way of seeing how
much health your rivals have left as
the piles on their player board shift.
It also makes for some interesting
tactical options, as the game ends
after a single elimination regardless of
player count, so keeping an opponent
wounded but alive is often a better
choice than turning their mech into a
smoking pile of scrap.
Heavy Hitters starts with a simple
idea: big, awesome-looking mechs
blasting the crap out of each other. It
certainly has that in buckets, yet what’s
so pleasantly surprising is how fleshed
out and engaging its basic foundation
becomes thanks to the ample layers
of world-building, gameplay strategy
and style on top. We may have a new
champion of the arena.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY

e t
It looks great, flows beautifully and has
the vibrant faction colours stand out
against the grey terrain, making the
action easy to track at a glance.
◗ Eight white
defense dice
◗ 32 pilot cards
provide the ability to repair, attack,
provide line of sight for missiles
to curve around buildings and lay

s. n
far more depth than you might expect
from a game about mechs fighting it
out in a ruined city. Giant Killer Robots,
The production goes a long way to
helping Heavy Hitters stand apart in
the wearied arena-battle genre, but its
◗ 32 pilot tokens
◗ Four Heavy
Hitter figures
◗ 12 support unit
down extra tags – before moving massively good time.

ag
gameplay holds up its end of the deal,
too. Players load out with a custom
selection of weapons (one primary,
figures (combat,
repair, recon)
◗ 12 support unit cards

ld m
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… GIGA-ROBO!
If you like your mechs (or mecha) stylish and your
strategy thinky but smooth, Heavy Hitters can

r
two secondary), manoeuvres, ◗ 236 faction cards
reactions and more that they select ◗ 80 holo-board tags more than hold its own in a crowded arena.

o
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 P L AY E D

WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
THE PALACE OF ◗ Three-piece
garden board

MAD KING LUDWIG ◗ Four blueprints boards

◗ 160 player markers
(in four colours)
You’re gonna need a bigger moat… ◗ 300 swan tokens (in
five colours)
Designer: Ted Alspach | Artist: Stephanie Gustaffson 75m 2-4 13+ £45 ◗ 15 secret swan

T
hat Ludwig II of Bavaria, eh?
First, he goes and gets all his
royal architects competitively
building bizarre castles around his
19th-century kingdom. Now he’s got
them all together and charged them
with constructing one single, massive
palace, even though they’re still
scrabbling for his favour. No wonder
he’s (a) stuck with opulent abodes
where bedrooms strangely lead straight
into broom closets and balconies, and
(b) bankrupted the country. Mad.
If you’re one of those gamers who’s
already familiar with the crazy tile-
laying fun of Ted Alspach’s Castles of
Mad King Ludwig then the American
designer’s latest Euro-style release
will feel reassuringly familiar. But,
despite what you may have heard, this
is no reimplementation. While many
elements are the same – room names,
the point-scoring favours mechanic,
by contrast, is sleeker, faster-paced
and more directly competitive, with
greater potential for have-at-thee
tactics; you can easily arrange a room
placement to mess up an opponent’s
completion bonus (achieved by
linking all a room’s entrances with
others) by slamming a brick wall
down into a doorway, for instance.
Not that it ever gets nasty. With
each room entrance marked by a
coloured swan (Ludwig loved swans),
any colour-matching upon placement
rewards both the new room’s owner
and the owners of existing adjacent
rooms with a token of that colour
– useful to have, as sets of tokens
reward points at the game’s end,
and can be used as room, upgrade
and favour-purchasing currency
throughout the game. In this way,
there’s often a benefit granted to ease
the pain of any take-thatiness.
tokens (in five colours)
limiting placement options and ◗ 10 stair tiles
bringing about game-end when the ◗ 15 hallway tiles
two ends of the moat meet. ◗ 15 activity room tiles
Like the weirdo, tabletop- ◗ 14 downstairs
room tiles
smothering edifice itself, there are
◗ 12 food room tiles
a few small niggles. The non-tile ◗ 16 living room tiles
components are small and fiddly – the ◗ 12 sleeping room tiles
player markers especially. One sneeze ◗ 12 utility room tiles
or errant sleeve-sweep could easily ◗ 32 favour tiles
ruin play. Then there’s the scoring. ◗ 94 moat tiles
Unlike in Castles it’s all saved up to the ◗ Scorepad
end, and is so complex and intense
Alspach even suggests in the rulebook
that someone “relatively good at
addition” act as scorekeeper. It rather
leeches a little drama out of the TRY THIS IF
game’s climax, waiting around while YOU LIKED…
someone fusses over the maths. CASTLES OF
But, like we say: small niggles. It MAD KING
is, by and large (with emphasis on LUDWIG
Well, of course.
the large) a magnificent game, and
a must-play for all fans of tile-laying.
And, if you really pushed us, we’d t
What were you

e
expecting? If you
already have Castles
room-completion bonuses and the
bemusing fact that you can only build
ground floors and basements – it’s
There are other superb touches,
too; the way you can nudge unplaced
rooms into upgrade slots along your
commit to saying it’s a better game
than Castles. Even if that might sound
like madness.

s. n
on your shelf, it
would be rude not
to find space for
very much a case of same theme,
different game.
Castles is a relatively gentle engine-
blueprints board’s serrated edge, for
example. And, above all, the fact that,
after the first of five room-tile stacks
DAN JOLIN

WE SAY
ag
Palace, too.

builder, with each player mostly

absorbed in constructing their own
little points-yielding structure, only
is depleted, the moat starts surging
in around the play area’s edges (via
tiles placed by the current, room-
m
Less a reimplementation than a refined
sequel to Castles of Mad King Ludwig,

ld
this is a gloriously fun, pleasantly

r
really interacting across the table via completing player), gaining speed competitive tile-laying beauty. If you
the game’s bidding system. Palace, as the game progresses, increasingly come, you must build it.

o
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 ANCESTREE
Discover your roots in this drafting game of long-lost ancestors
Designer: Eric M. Lang | Artists: Larry Elmore, Adelheid Zimmerman 20m 2-6 8+ £26

A
family-friendly tile-drafting WHAT’S IN them to create beautiful mosaics. The board game I can think of that’s ever let
game from prolific designer THE BOX? criminally underrated Kerala adds me build a bisexual, polyamorous triad.
Eric Lang, Ancestree casts you ◗ 110 ancestor tokens a spatial puzzle, with tiles laid down But mechanically, it occupies a similar
and your opponents as researchers ◗ 96 dynasty tokens by wandering elephants. And 2015 space to a lot of other releases, and it
digging through historical archives ◗ 110 gold tokens city-builder Between Two Cities brings doesn’t do anything radical that sets
◗ Six score boards
to piece together your family trees. a co-operative twist, with players it clearly ahead of the pack. If you’ve
Over the course of three quick-playing teaming up with neighbours to draft already found a drafting game you love,
rounds you’ll choose ancestors from building tiles to add to their steadily you probably don’t need this one as
random selections of tiles, slotting growing towns. well. If you’re looking for one to add to
them into a growing web of parents, Considered solely on its own merits, your collection, it’s worth considering,
siblings and cousins in an effort to Ancestree is fun, fast-paced and lightly but it’s just one of several options
prove that your genealogy is more thoughtful. It also scores points for its which are at least as enticing.
prestigious than your rivals’. liberal view of relationships: it’s the only OWEN DUFFY
That turns out to be trickier than
you might think. Each tile has a set of
possible links that allow it to connect
with others. Some join together to form
parent-child relationships, while others
can combine to represent marriages. If
you’re not careful, it’s possible to close
down possible connections, leaving
yourself with family members you’re
not able to place and ending up at a
serious disadvantage.
Avoiding painting yourself into
these kinds of genetic corners is a
challenge, but it’s not the only one
you’ll face. Each round sees you
score points for establishing chains of
descendents with a shared heritage
- African, Asian, European, Middle-
Eastern or South-American. It means
you’ll have to keep a close eye on
your opponents, avoiding getting into
competition over the same kinds of
tiles and ruthlessly snatching the ones
they need to maximise their scores.
It makes Ancestree a game of two
distinct halves – drafting and building
– but they fit together seamlessly, and
together offer a succession of interesting
decisions compressed into a brisk
20-minute playing time. As an added WE SAY
e t
bonus, it also keeps the complexity to a
level that won’t scare off non-gamers.
If you’re in the market for this kind

s. n
Ancestree is a fun, fast-playing drafting
game, but those aren’t exactly in short

g
supply, and it’s competing for space on
of 'draft things and do something with your shelf with the likes of Kerala and
them' game, though, you’re not short
of alternatives. There’s 2017 Spiel des
Jahres winner Kingdomino, which sees
players drafting territory tiles and
m a
Kingdomino. If you don’t already own
something similar, though, it’s light,
quick and easy to teach.

ld
piecing them together to build thriving TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… SUSHI GO!
If you enjoyed Sushi Go!’s fast-playing simplicity, but you’re ready for something

r
kingdoms. Or Azul, which challenges
you to draft coloured tiles, then use with a touch more depth, Ancestree could be just what you’re looking for.

o
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 P L AY E D
CIVILIZATION (2018 EDITION)
The original empire-builder returns,
but is it stuck in an age gone by?
Designer: Francis Tresham | Artist: Various
W
hether you’ve played
Civilization before or your
brain automatically adds
‘Sid Meier's’ before the word, the return
of the original empire-building classic
in a long-awaited new edition is a
reason to celebrate.
Despite its intimidating play length –
the six to eight hours suggested can be
shortened by simply playing to the end
of an earlier epoch in the game’s central
timeline, or using some of the simplified
variants included in the manual –
Civilization is beautifully pure as a
design. The dozen or so different phases
that make up each round seem excessive
at first glance, but do an excellent job of
keeping each step easy to handle, as they
largely consist of a single action, many
of which whizz by with little player input
beyond shifting tokens around.
Combat couldn’t be easier to
understand – remove tokens one at a
time until only one faction remains – and
the minimalist set of components, where
faction tokens double as population
markers and currency depending on
which side of the player mat they’re
kept, leads to a straightforward yet
brilliantly effective simulation of the cost
of maintaining an empire. (Run out of
population tokens due to taxation and
your people will revolt, so managing your
growth is crucial.) It may run long, but
you’ll never mind yourself bogged down
72 April 2018
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 72
6-8h 2-7 12+ £40
in admin – every moment leaves time to
consider what your next tactical move
will be, rather than how to actually do it.
While expanding across the map and
settling cities is important, the heart
of the game is in its trading phases.
Settlements gather resources, which can
WHAT’S IN be exchanged between players, but also
THE BOX? hidden in the decks are calamities, which
◗ Game board inflict devastating disasters upon the
◗ 392 round empire holding them later in the round –
population tokens making them vital to offload. The real fun
◗ 84 square
of this arrives via a blind trading system
city tokens
◗ 28 ship tokens
that means players only declare one card
◗ 72 civilisation cards in the offering of at least three and the
◗ 74 trade and total point value of the cards, so there’s
calamity cards plenty of room to bargain, lie and
◗ Seven player mats deceive to forge prosperous alliances or
desperately try to save your civilisation
from ruin. The real-world negotiation
and social haggling is akin to fellow
streamlined classic Diplomacy, but
the daggers never sink quite as deep,
even as your cities are levelled by an
earthquake or civil war erupts. (Dodging
a disaster by successfully fobbing it
off on someone else, of course, is both
hilarious and endlessly satisfying.)
All of this builds to Civilization’s
crowning feature: the tech tree that
players must clamber up to progress
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION: THE BOARD GAME
r
There's still plenty for fans of Civ's descendants to appreciate in the original.
o
W 13/03/2018 15:14
through the ages and win. Resources
are traded for advancements in
cultural knowledge, from agriculture to
metalworking, which then unlock more
abilities and the chance to more easily
access other skills. Compared to its
many modern successors, Civilization’s
tech tree is pruned back and basic,
but the strategic diversity and sense of
progression it offers still remains first-rate
almost four decades on.
Despite the updated cover art, this
is less a complete overhaul than a
sprucing up. There’s no change to the
rules beyond a slight streamlining of
how they are explained (the preserved
terse, succinct tone is amusing, although
the untouched use of exclusively male
pronouns is a shame), and the board
and pieces retain their distinctive ‘80s
garishness with clashing shades of green,
orange and pink. The trade cards are
slightly more picturesque than their plain
block-colour originals, but it’s otherwise
pretty much Civilization as it was then,
now. In some ways, it’s nice to see such a
classic preserved as a historical curiosity
for first-timers and affordable reprint for
genre fans, but at times you can’t help but
wonder what a deeper visual reimagining
might have produced. (Having the
calamities’ effects summarised on the
cards without needing to consult the
rulebook and doing away with the plain
backs of mats and cards would’ve been
nice, for example.)
Even as it is, though, Civilization
hasn’t lost an ounce of the tight gameplay
and knack for sparking conversation
among friends that made it just as
engaging to play in 1980 as today. It’s
purely strategic, purely presented and
purely fun. Considering that, you can see
why they barely changed a thing.
MATT JARVIS
WE SAY
t
There’s little effort to modernise the
e
dated-in-parts look of Civilization in this
s. n
new edition, yet there’s no need to fix
what isn’t broken when it comes to
its gameplay. The rules are tight, the
g
strategy engrossing and the trading
thoroughly entertaining. With the
a
classic easy to pick up once again,
there’s no excuse not to experience
m
this truly excellent piece of history.
ld

COSMOGENESIS
Creating a universe gets fiddly
Designer: Yves Tourigny | Artist: Tim Barton
C
osmogenesis is a worker
placement and drafting hybrid,
where players create their own
stellar systems by colliding asteroids
and comets with gas giants and
planets. Luckily, scienti�ic knowledge
is not a pre-requirement for the game.
It attempts, by its own account, to
(semi-)faithfully re�lect the scienti�ic
processes of the universe, without
overtaxing players with complex
physics and biology – and, to some
extent, it succeeds in doing so.
While it is incredibly thematic
throughout and the creation of planets
is absolutely Cosmogenesis’s signature
mechanic, it also provides the biggest
hindrance to the game. There are
small rule changes depending on
the type of collisions, which affect
the outcome in very particular ways,
making understanding them its own
challenge. You can give gas giants rings,
make planets bigger in size, create
moons, atmosphere and even life in
a single round, and all have different
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 73
60m
requirements and pre-requisites.
There is a player aide that outlines the
actions possible each turn but, while
it shows the ‘dos’, it also ignores the
‘don’ts’, which, in reality, are more
important. Add to that special ability
tokens, a separate mechanic for
evolving life and various point giving
cards, with their own set of symbols
and rules, and now you are truly lost
in space.
When you �inally get your head around
the minutia, Cosmogenesis becomes really
�luid and adaptable, and can ultimately
be quite fun. Players begin by choosing
one item from the space market to add
to their system, and then can spend
an optional action to change objects to
better �it with their given objectives.
Rinse and repeat, until you run out of
tokens for six rounds. Cosmogenesis, as
it turns out, is a very straightforward
game, hiding under the layer of too many
types of collisions and transformations.
Throughout the game, players will
earn the most points by completing sets
WHAT’S IN of planetary and stellar objectives.
THE BOX? The former affects the planets and
◗ 55 terrestrial the moons orbiting them, asking for
bodies tokens a very specific set of conditions to be
◗ 15 gas giant tokens
met. For example, planets have to be
◗ 10 exotic
objects tokens of the correct size, with or without
◗ 35 asteroid tokens an atmosphere, orbited by moons
◗ 25 comet tokens of equally specific dimensions.
◗ 25 planetary Satisfying the requirements of
objectives planetary objectives is the main
◗ 19 stellar objectives drive of the game. They show players
◗ Central board exactly what they need to build to
◗ Four personal boards earn points – otherwise they are, quite
◗ Four expansion
literally, creating objects in a vacuum.
modules
◗ 30 grey
Stellar objectives offset this slightly by
circular counters giving points for the whole the system,
◗ 16 player tokens and they are more generic and easier
◗ First player token to achieve.
◗ Scorepad However, new objectives appear
◗ Cloth bag every round, making it hard to pre-
◗ Player aids plan for them, and it is all too easy
to waste a turn doing something
that won’t earn any points by the
end of the game. This becomes
especially prominent in the last
round, where players have to pick
up a planetary objective that might
be impossible to complete in time
for the game’s end. This means
the last round usually becomes a
scram for anything that will earn
some last-minute points, leaving
the game to finish on a unsatisfying
2-4 10+ £41 low note.
Despite all the explosive
collisions, Cosmogenesis is missing a
spark. It has such a fascinating planet
creation mechanic, equally fitting with
the theme, yet small missteps in the
gameplay keep it from being a game
that you immediately want to play
again. It is entertaining and enjoyable,
but it pales in comparison to too many
other board games that in principle do
the same thing but better – even if they
can’t create life.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
e t
A game with a great potential
s. n
that unfortunately falls a little flat.
Cosmogenesis' fascinating stellar creation
mechanic gets lost under the weight of
ag
muddled options and pre-requisites.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
ld m
PULSAR 2849
Cosmogenesis creates stars
systems instead of pulsars, but does
equally well at immersing players
r
into the depths of the universe.
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 P L AY E D
WELCOME TO CENTERVILLE
Building a small town, six dice at a time
Designer: Chad Jensen | Artist: Chechu Nieto
I
had a hard time getting Welcome
to Centerville to the table. Perhaps
it was the fact I described it to my
players as SimCity meets King of
Tokyo, and then when my players
were excited I had to explain it was the
dice mechanic from King of Tokyo, not
the monsters, and they lost interest.
Perhaps it was the box. “Welcome to
Centerville,” it declares, “is a relatively
light dice-based game for 2-4 players.
It abstractly models the growth and
management of a small city – perhaps
not unlike the one you’re in right now,”
and if that doesn’t get your blood
pumping then this may not be the game
for you. Plus the main figure on the
cover looks like Felicia Day, which may
be a sales point but not necessarily for
the people who’ll enjoy this game.
Perhaps it was the board and
the rulebook, neither of which are
designed to aid clarity. After a friend
and I each took two runs at trying to
understand the mechanics, we finally
realised that the player aids do a better
job of explaining the flow of gameplay
than the full rules. In most games the
player reference is a single card, right?
74 April 2018
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 74
20m(pp) 2-4 14+ £50
In Welcome to Centerville it’s a full your lowest of those two will be your WHAT’S IN
sheet of letter-sized card. Double- final score. THE BOX?
sided. “Relatively light”, my arse. Time passes unpredictably, so ◗ Board
It was tempting to write a you’re never quite sure when the ◗ Four player aids
◗ 128 wood cubes
relatively snide review, but we game’s three scoring rounds will
◗ Eight wood discs
persevered and I’m glad we did. hit – or the disasters which lurk ◗ Cloth bag
There’s a lot of meat on Centerville’s within the draw bag. Balancing all ◗ Sheet of die-cut tiles
bones, and it’s tasty stuff, with these factors every turn is a brain- ◗ Sheet of stickers
plenty of clever systems, complex filling exercise. ◗ Wood cylinder
decisions and battles for areas and However, this is a £50 game,
resources to get your teeth into. containing a board, one sheet
It is, as my gaming companion of counters, some wooden TRY THIS IF
pointed out after we’d been whipped cubes, six dice and a bag. This is YOU LIKED…
by the bot-player, basically a game of absolutely not fifty quid’s worth of
URBAN
SPRAWL
trying to maximise five or six different components. But fifty quid’s worth Chad Jensen’s
scoring tracks, some of which are of gameplay, that’s another matter. previous game of
interconnected. It is not light and it If your players are the sort who’d town planning has
is not elegant – Chad Jensen is best be up for abstractly modelling its ardent fans, and
known as a wargame designer – but the growth and management of this is a natural
its systems reward exploration. a small city, perhaps not unlike companion to that,
Each turn you’re spending the the one you’re in right now, then only with more dice.
rolls of the six custom dice to get Centerville could keep them
best advantage in building out cheerful for months.
four quarters of the city and a JAMES WALLIS
central park, recruit top graduates,
control six political offices, build a WE SAY
green belt and gentrify. You’re also
It's not for everyone, and not easy to
jockeying for status, and trying to
understand at first, but for the right
score on wealth and prestige – and group this is town-planning catnip.
e t
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THE ONE RING RPG: OATHS
OF THE RIDDERMARK
Life and death in the saddle
Designer: Cubicle 7 team | Artist: Various
I
f you’ve read through or watched
the Lord of the Rings, there are
probably a few things you already
associate with the Kingdom of Rohan;
chiefly horses, excellent hair and huge
piles of dead orcs. While there’s no
shortage of any of those in Oaths of the
Riddermark’s half-dozen adventures,
you may be a little surprised at all the
politics and courtly intrigue that need
to be navigated in the lands of the
horse-lords.
The slim book is designed to
work with Cubicle 7’s The One
Ring Roleplaying Game, though
the company says that a version
for its Adventures in Middle-Earth
sibling game is in the works, and
falls somewhere between a simple
series of themed adventures and a
full-blown campaign. This puts it in
a good spot for players and GMs that
want to get their hands on something
with a bit more substance than
random questing, but can’t quite
commit to a game that could take
several long months or even years to
reach its climax.
Indeed, the individual adventures
are distinct enough from one
another that a gaming group could
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 75
2+ £25
easily dip in and out as they please,
playing through one or two before
moving on entirely.
If you run right through all of them
one after the other, however, you’ll find
that the story smoothly builds up in
scope and danger, starting with a hunt
for a horse-eating monster and ending
with a battle that could decide the fate
of the kingdom. This is undoubtedly
the best way to use the book, allowing
the GM to weave recurring characters
in and out as they please.
Much of these characters will
be based around the major thread
running through the adventure,
which sees the party working for
King Thengal (the father of Theoden
from The Lord of the Rings) as he
attempts to bully two rival lords of
Rohan into ending a vicious feud
before the forces of darkness rise.
The adventure in which this arc
is introduced, Red Days Rising, is
based around arranging a marriage
between two childhood friends now
divided between the families, and
ld m
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… A SONG OF ICE & FIRE ROLEPLAYING
If you love classic low-magic fantasy with a focus on politics and intrigue, but
r
are less keen on the nasty bits, Oaths could be your ideal campaign.
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acts as a great example of Oaths of the
Riddermark’s major themes.
While the heroes will get to hack up
a few bandits on their way to securing
the wedding, if they charge into every
situation with the aim of battering it
into submission they’re going to run
into hot water pretty quickly. Actually
succeeding on all their goals needs
more than a little diplomacy and
discussion, all of which opens up easy
paths for roleplaying.
All this talking and negotiating
does mean that the GM needs to be
on point and have a good grasp of the
entire adventure before settling down
for a session, but the writing is usually
snappy enough that the information
on hand isn’t too overwhelming.
Keeping track of all the names can
be a bit of a chore, but most hardcore
Tolkien fans should already be pros
when it comes to separating their
Erkenbrands from their Éogars.
While the story is well-plotted and
has the potential to give successful
parties some truly fantastic moments –
without wishing to spoil anything, the
climax definitely rewards them earlier
good deeds – the framing device for
virtually every adventure requires at
least a bit of railroading. Though it’s
entirely possible for the GM to allow
the adventurers to explore Rohan
in-between each major plot point,
eventually they’re going to have to end
up meeting with the king once more.
The main plot is compelling enough
that isn’t going to be a problem for
most groups, but if the main appeal of
the Lord of the Rings for your players
were the bits where orcs got diced
up by Viggo Mortensen, they’re
probably going to struggle to enjoy
Oaths of the Riddermark.
If, however, you’re playing with
the kind of group that loves careful
t
diplomacy, courtly intrigue and thinking
e
their way out of a problem when stabbing
it won’t work, it might be the book to
n
keep your sessions going for a couple
.
of thoroughly enjoyable months.
s
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
WE SAY
ag
A series of well-crafted adventures with
an emphasis on both brains and brawn.
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 P L AY E D
MEEPLE CIRCUS
Designer: Cédric Millet | Artist: Angelina Costamagna, Mathieu Leyssenne, Sabrina Tobal
R
oll up! Roll up! Witness one of the
most stupendously entertaining
uses of meeples you’ll ever see!
WATCH as the miniscule acrobats
assemble into a teetering tower of
precarious placement and brilliant
balance! GASP as wooden animals,
planks, clowns and more come tumbling
down at the last second! LAUGH as your
friends desperately try to appease their
audience with daring arrangements!
Meeple Circus is a delightfully fun
dexterity challenge with a lot of heart. It’s
an idea so simple and brilliant we can’t
DREADBALL: SECOND EDITION
Designer: Jake Thornton | Artist: Various
I
f Blood Bowl is the fantasy American
football of miniatures sports games,
DreadBall could be considered its sci-
fi basketball – a shorter, faster-moving
alternative with a distinctly different flow
of play that will appeal to those after a
particular type of tabletop experience.
This, its second edition, can be a
very fun game. But it’ll take you a bit
of work to get there. The rules, though
straightforward once you’ve decoded
them, are initially confusing to learn
(tip: skip the ironically unhelpful
tutorial booklet and go straight to the
main rulebook) and the rapid pace of
play, one of DreadBall’s best elements,
is often slowed by the miniatures
representing each side’s strikers, jacks
and guards, as unpainted they’re just
not visually distinct enough to make
things easy to identify – especially
when areas of the pitch get crowded.
The pitch itself may be a little bland
76 April 2018
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 76
believe it’s never been done like this before:
each round, players stack a selection
of performer meeples into particular
arrangements, hoping to achieve a
random selection of public demands to
earn points on the clap-o-meter.
There’s a small element of planning
first, as players take it in turns to hire
various performers – each of which has
a unique way to score points that must
also be taken into account, the best being
the expert acrobats that score based on
how high in the tower they can perch. In
the second of three rounds, these turn
into individual guest stars, each complete
with a distinct meeple that comes with its
own benefits and challenges, whether it’s
the long shoes of the upside-down clown
or the Bertie Bassett-like top hat of the
headstand-fond ringleader.
The already amusing task of getting
diddly wooden pieces to balance on top
of each other is given the right level of
pressure and amusement by the required
background music (from a web browser or
mobile app), which gives a very precise two
minutes and four seconds for all players to
– a Blockbusters grid of neon hexes
on plain black – but it’s at least easy to
read at a glance.
Fortunately, when it all clicks, it
does so with a bang. Turns are fast and
furious as players slam enemies out
of the way, grab the ball and go for a
shot on goal, either sinking a safe yet
low-scoring closer or going for a riskier
long-distance attempt for extra glory
and the chance to swing the match.
Chaining together the specialisms
of each unit type – fast, heavy and
all-rounder – to get the ball across the
pitch and into the goal in a turn or two
is as fluid and rewarding as it should
be, helped by a deck of event cards that
present plenty of opportunities for one-
off abilities and memorable moments
to spring up. The deck doubles as a way
of moving around a referee, with a new
r
foul system presenting more options to
undermine and outplay your opponent.
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45m 2-5 8+ £36
create their spectacle. (There's a selection
to stop one tune driving you mad.)
The final act steps things up in a way
that might divide opinion, introducing
meta challenges for extra points that
must be performed one at a time as the
rest of the players watch, from building
your tower one-handed to drumming
as you place the final piece (other
tasks take the music into account). The
points awarded for each task seem to
be strangely distributed, rewarding
easier objectives above much tougher
tests, and the rigid nature of the public
demands means that boring but efficient
constructions can outscore adventurous
arrangements, which can be a bit
deflating, especially as the objectives
change little over a single playthrough.
It’s not one for people with wobbly
tables (things are unstable as they are) or
a hatred of circus music. If you’re just up
for a laugh and don’t mind seeing your
hard work come tumbling down, though,
get yourself a ticket to one of the silliest
spectacles in town.
MATT JARVIS
90m 2+ 14+ £60
Like any sport, DreadBall will
reward those that put in the time
with plenty of depth and hours of
entertainment. Separately, its parts
aren’t always as great as they could be;
together, they can be brilliant.
MATT JARVIS
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PAPER TALES
Sheet Fighter
Designer: Masato Uesugi | Artist: Christine Alcouffe
I
f you ever found yourself taking
a long, deep breath preparing
to explain to new players how
science cards work in 7 Wonders, you
will find Paper Tales immediately
appealing. It is 7 Wonders-lite,
subtracting a good chunk of
playtime, complicated point
calculations and focusing on just one
of its core ideas – fighting.
Paper Tales still follows the
familiar staples of card-drafting
games; players begin with a hand of
five unit cards, choose one and pass
the rest along. The same strategic
concerns are also present: a push
and pull between taking the best
card for yourself or denying your
opponents a useful card, although
it might not fit as well with your
own layout.
However, while in most games
of this type and length the game
swiftly proceeds to the next round
after the cards are revealed, in Paper
Tales there is still a lot to do. Drafting
cards is just the tip of the iceberg,
followed by fighting, collecting
coins, building and aging units,
each action filled with its own set of
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 77
30m 2-5 12+ £30
decisions equally as important as
the initial pick.
Fighting in Paper Tales, while
absolutely the core of the game, is
surprisingly non-confrontational.
Players gain points depending on
the numbers of wars they win that
round, but there are no penalties
for losing. Therefore, it never feels
aggressive or targeted, and there is
WHAT’S IN no pressure in choosing units with
THE BOX? predominantly attack-focused skills
◗ Score track every round just to keep up. You can
◗ Wooden time token concentrate on drafting units that
◗ 40 gold tokens produce resources or victory points
◗ 30 age tokens one round, knowing there will be
◗ Five player aides
◗ Five wooden
score tokens
◗ 81 unit cards
no repercussions to the card engine
itself and you can always catch up
on the point track next turn.
◗ 25 building cards As with any game where cards have
unique abilities, knowing roughly
what is available in the deck is an
advantage. There is a certain level of
luck with each draw, as all the unit
cards are shuffled together and drawn
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… 7 WONDERS
While comparisons to 7 Wonders are obvious, Paper Tales has its own
distinct character, which gets more noticeable as the game progresses.
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randomly, which makes creating
an engine a little bit of a gamble. In
general, there is a good overlap of
powers, so it is quite easy to make
one unit’s ability chain off another for
added bonuses. Paper Tales has an
interesting mechanic of aging cards,
making them viable generally for a
maximum of two rounds before they
have to be replaced. This encourages
players to switch and adapt to new
strategies and also prevents one
player staying overpowered.
Money is a very precious resource
in Paper Tales. Some units cost
nothing to deploy, but better, more
powerful cards are expensive. Players
can also play building cards that
provide permanent resources and
bonuses; while the first does not
require payment in coins, future ones
get progressively more expensive.
As Paper Tales lasts only four rounds,
building later in the game becomes
almost counter-productive, as the
permanent effects do not provide
enough of a return and the coin
could be better spent on more
powerful units.
The land of kings, knights,
manticores and krakens takes on
a beautiful, modernised look on
the Paper Tales box and is equally
stunning on the cards, retaining the
fantastical feel, while not looking
dated. The theme is more window
dressing than an integral part of the
game, but still fits comfortably within
the palette of character abilities and
the mechanics of the game.
For a game with a relatively small
playtime, Paper Tales manages to
subtly fit a good depth of strategy
behind streamlined, simple
mechanics. It brings in just enough
complexity to keep matches tense
and interesting, but its rules and
convoluted or overtaxing.
ALEX SONECHKINA t
scoring mechanics never feel
e
WE SAY
s. n
Elegantly simple, Paper Tales is still
g
strategic and competitive, and, for
a
a game about fighting, you won’t be
aggrieved by anyone around the table.
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 P L AY E D

Andari
1 1

1 1
Rapid Reaction Force Arcturi Advanced Cybernetics
1 1 1

1 1

Aggroloids
Rapid Reaction Force
Super Dreadnoughts
Star Bomb
Combat Uninhabitable
Free action
Aggroloids
Cost:
Add four to your
Combat Strength, Draw two cards from
then draw a card. your deck. 1
Habitable

A HANDFUL OF STARS
A thrilling but flawed crescendo to a
distinguished deckbuilding trilogy
Designer: Martin Wallace | Artist: Odysseas Stamoglou 90-120m 2-4 13+ £55

T
he final instalment in a series
of deckbuilding wargames by
designer Martin Wallace, A
Handful of Stars caps off a trilogy
that includes the historical A Few
Acres of Snow and fantasy-themed
Mythotopia. This latest release takes
the series to a new and grander scale,
casting players as the leaders of alien
civilisations vying to colonise worlds
and brutalise their opponents in
savage space battles.
That premise is par-for-the-course
for science-fiction empire-builders,
and it’s not the only similarity the
game shares with others in the genre.
You’ll play as one of a selection of
factions, each with its own strengths.
But while this is all well-trodden
ground for space games, the real
appeal of A Handful of Stars is its
deckbuilding mechanical core.
You’ll start the game with a deck
of cards representing different
resources, which you’ll spend to build
WHAT’S IN
THE BOX?
◗ Game board
◗ Four player boards
◗ 84 fleet markers
◗ 24 star base counters
◗ 48 colony discs
◗ Four home
world counters
◗ 64 outpost cubes
◗ 12 starting cards
◗ 38 system tokens
◗ 18 alien counters
◗ 18 development
counters
◗ Four wormhole
counters
◗ Three game markers
◗ 16 black hole discs
◗ 36 system cards
◗ Seven race
identity cards
◗ 21 race ability cards
◗ 41 technology cards
ones. It seems counterintuitive
– surely claiming new territory is
always good? – but it actually fits
nicely into the game’s theme. Like the
Roman Empire, a faction that swells
its borders can become bloated and
tricky to rule. As an added bonus, it
also makes it hard for one player to
break out as a runaway leader.
There’s plenty more to like about A
Handful of Stars: the way its scattered
black holes block routes between
worlds, forcing players into one
another’s paths; the ongoing analysis of
threats, watching where your opponents
are shoring up their defences or
building strong fleets; the simple but
tense card-based combat system that
ensures even the strongest attacks
are never free of risk; and the array of
strategies offered by technology cards,
which can fundamentally transform
your tactics. (In one game I managed to
turn the Culturemoogs, a race of muesli-
eating spacefaring arts graduates, into
With two, this political, psychological
layer evaporates, and it can lead
to a Cold War scenario, with two
superpowers locked in a stalemate that
runs out of interesting decisions about
two-thirds of the way through the game.
Then there’s the production quality.
While there’s some wonderfully evocative
artwork, other aspects of the game’s
presentation are decidedly lacklustre.
In particular, the tokens representing
your ships and star bases have a
disappointingly generic clipart look.
Mechanically and strategically,
though, there’s a lot here to chew on.
Encouragingly, Wallace has licensed his
deckbuilding system to Fantasy Flight,
known for its high production values.
Can we hope for a future version set
in the Star Wars or Twilight Imperium
universes? If so, let’s hope it’s packed
with gorgeous plastic spaceships.
OWEN DUFFY

WE SAY
e t
spacecraft, dispatch them to distant
worlds or colonise new planets. As
you play you’ll add new cards to your
unstoppable combat monsters.)
In some respects, though, the game
falls short. With three or four players,

s. n
It comes with some disappointing
cardboard components, and it loses

g
some of its shine in two-player games,
deck, gaining one for each new world there’s plenty of scope for conflict, but with three or more players A
you conquer.
Expansionism has drawbacks,
though. Some of the cards you’ll
gain by colonising planets aren’t
with opponents forming temporary
alliances, ganging up on one another
and stabbing each other in the back.

m a
Handful of Stars is a great strategic
challenge – a fitting conclusion to
Wallace’s deckbuilding trilogy.

ld
particularly useful, serving only TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… A FEW ACRES OF SNOW
With more players, more factions and more variety in its setup, A

r
to clog up your deck and stop you
drawing more powerful or versatile Handful of Stars blasts its predecessor’s deckbuilding core into orbit.

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 MY LITTLE PONY: TAILS OF EQUESTRIA:
THE OFFICIAL MOVIE SOURCEBOOK
A roleplaying expansion worth ponying up for
Designer: River Horse team | Artist: Various
T WE SAY
here are many things in this
weird and wonderful world of
ours that simply don’t make
any sense, like dark matter, classic
D&D grappling rules and the fact they
cast Sean Connery as a Spaniard in
Highlander, despite much of the film
taking place in Scotland. To this list
we can now add the fact that an RPG
supplement tied in to a My Little Pony
film is actually pretty darn good.
If we’re being fair, though, once the
sheer weirdness of that statement has
washed over us, it really shouldn’t
be particularly surprising. After all,
River Horse’s base Tails of Equestria
proved itself a nifty little RPG when
last we looked at it, providing a sleek
framework that was simple enough
for children to grasp alongside solid
mechanics that adults could have un-
ironic fun with it too.
The Official Movie Sourcebook takes
the game and expands it in about
every way possible, with the film’s
own journey beyond that safe borders
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 79
of Equestria serving as an excuse for
adding on a whole raft of options for
both GMs and players alike. While
you may not feel the need to use
it all depending on how your own
adventures pan out, the amount of
new content on hand is impressive
when you consider that the whole
thing clocks in at less than 100 pages.
Within that, you get everything
from simple faction and reputation
mechanics to rules for playing as a
smooth-talking cat or a buccaneering
parrot. If this was a different RPG
aimed at a different audience the lack
of in-depth character customisation
could come across as shallow, but in
the context of Tails of Equestria it feels
simple and user-friendly instead.
A handful of the new player options
might be confusing to children or
even older RPG novices – such as
the ‘rogue’ talent, which involves
downgrading or upgrading dice in
return for future benefits – but they
aren’t likely to create any problems
1+ £20
that can’t be solved with the help of a
patient GM. Indeed, the book throws
out just enough information that you If you’re already
could easily run a game that uses enjoying your time
elements of My Little Pony: The Movie in Equestria and are
without actually having watched it (or, looking for room
to expand, you owe
alternatively, for those who napped
it to yourself to
through most of it while taking pick up The Official
children to the cinema). Movie Sourcebook.
Honestly the only part of the
book that falls flat in places is the
introductory adventure, The Beasts
of Black Skull Island. That has much
more to do with the layout rather
than the actual writing, however, with
the long, unbroken sections of text
making it hard to keep track of what’s
happening as you run players through
it at the table.
That’s a minor complaint though,
and pales in comparison to the rest
of the book; though this might just
be the bright colours and gentle
fonts speaking, The Official Movie
Sourcebook is packed with an air of
real joy that’s hard to ignore.
From cover to cover, it gives the
distinct impression that it knows
full well how silly it’s being, and just
doesn’t care. It’s playing Snap and
giggling with its friends while the
more serious RPG books exchange
barbs across the poker table.
If you can read through almost TRY THIS IF
100 pages of pirate airships, feline YOU LIKED…
smugglers and a cartoony version of
XANATHAR’S
GUIDE TO
the classic mimic monster without EVERYTHING
feeling a foolish grin worming its way If you liked the D&D
onto your face, this probably isn’t for expansion but thought
you – but, then again, neither is Tails
of Equestria as a whole.
If you’re planning to run
e t
it would be improved
if it was about ponies
conquering evil
a game for either some
My Little Pony-obsessed
children or a handful
. n
through the power
of friendship, you’re
s
in luck.
of adults with a
willingness to get
silly, however,
ag
m
The Official Move
Sourcebook provides
ld
a whole heap of fun new ways
r
to play.
RICHARD JANSENPARKES
o
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14/03/2018 16:18
 P L AY E D

FARLIGHT
Designer: Nicky Sibicky | Artists: Dann May, Zheng Fang 45m 2-5 14+ £28

F
arlight is a Kickstarted piece of
science-fiction shipbuilding,
set on the eponymous station
on the edge of explored space. In
high-concept terms it’s somewhere
between Terraforming Mars and
Galaxy Trucker
Trucker, only much lighter
than the former and less funny than
the latter.
It’s played in three-stage turns:
all players blind-bid for ship pieces,
resources and actions, then build
their new bits onto their ships, and
finally try to complete missions
for big victory points. The blind
bidding is a clever mechanic with
opportunities for bluff and strategy.
It lies at the heart of the game,
but largely because the other two
stages aren’t as interesting as they
ought to be.
Your ship is both an exploration
vessel for completing missions and
a simple engine for generating more
resources each turn, in a way that
reminded me of Splendor by way of
Pipe Mania. Nothing bad will happen
to it, beyond realising you’ve built a
gravity generator where you should
have left space for a primary core.
You complete missions by having
enough resources (including crew,
who are worryingly expendable),
until one of the climactic (highest-
value) missions is completed or the
game runs out of parts. The missions
ought to drive the game but they’re
dry and don’t link to create a
sense of purpose. In Terraforming
Mars you feel like you’re affecting
a planet. In Farlight you’re just
collecting victory points.
This is a bright, shiny, good-
looking version of the future with
interesting mechanics, but without
enough scarcity, tension or danger to
make it a real challenge. It’d be a tidy
sci-fi ship-builder if Galaxy Trucker
didn’t exist.
JAMES WALLIS

THE WHITE BOX

Designer: Jeremy Holcomb ∞ 1 10+ £25

T
he White Box is, according to its
lid, a ‘game design workshop in
a box’. It’s a boxful of assorted
bits that you can use to make games,
and a book, The White Box Essays,
that will instruct you in the mysteries
of designing, testing and even selling
your first game.
Inside you’ll find 36 meeples, 150
small and six large cubes in various
colours, 12 dice, 110 tokens and three
sheets of card counters, some blank
and some pre-printed. It’s a useful
mix but not diverse, and missing
some key components. In the many
of credits on BoardGameGeek,
but there’s a big hole in its middle.
It’ll tell you how to crowdfund a
game, how to pitch to publishers,
how to design a box, and there’s
a whole chapter on networking
at conventions, but there’s no
breakdown of the actual process of
concepting, designing and refining a
game. It dances around the subject
but never gets to grips with it.
Fundamentally the best way to
e t
learn how to make games is by making
games. The White Box is a good toolkit
for novice game designers, but it’s not

s. n
game design workshops I’ve run over
the last decade almost nobody ever
uses large cubes, but we get through
a good instruction manual.
JAMES WALLIS

ag
hundreds of blank cards each session.
There are no cards in the box.
The White Box Essays is well-
Full disclosure: Atlas Games
publishes Once Upon a Time,
which this review's author

ld m
r
written, and Jeremy Holcomb has
James Wallis co-designed.
chops as a designer with three pages

o
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COWBOY BEBOP CCG:
SPIKE VS VICIOUS
Anime card battles with added corgis
Designer: Jasco Games | Artist: Jasco Games, Toshihiro Kawamoto
B
efore Firefly, there was Cowboy
Bebop, an anime series of space
cowboys, bounty hunters,
hackers and genetically-engineered
Pembroke Welsh Corgis. Due to its
popularity, the late '90s show was
then developed into manga, a video
game, a film and now a collectible
card game based on UFS (Universal
Fighting System).
For those unfamiliar with UFS, it
already unites several themed decks,
including Street Fighter and Mega
Man, encouraging its players to settle
the eternal question: which one of the
famous fighters would win in a fight?
As in any collectible game,
hunting for rare cards and building
your own decks is a significant
part of the game’s appeal.
Tournaments also play a big part in
UFS and, as with similar systems
of Magic: The Gathering and Dice
Masters, competitors play at a
different level than casual fans.
This is a game of high skill where
knowing all the cards intricately,
understanding how abilities feed off
each other to create more powerful
attacks and being able to assemble
decks targeted to a certain type of
play is directly related to increasing
your chances of winning.
065_081_played_v3 MJ.indd 81
30m 2 17+ £24
Consequently, UFS is not
particularly newcomer-friendly. While
the general motions you take through
a round are not complex, there are a
lot of minute terminologies and card
effects that feel overwhelming.
What helps the game is that its logic
of play can be explained through a
very basic understanding of how one
would behave in a physical fight. For
WHAT’S IN example, moves get progressively
THE BOX? harder to perform each round because
◗ 84 cards the more punching and kicking you
◗ Two playing mats do, the more tired you get. Blocking
attacks comes with its own set of
incremental rules that, once again,
can be easily imagined. For example,
an attack aimed to the middle can be
only partially blocked at high level –
imagine covering your upper torso
and head with your hands, while
someone is aiming in the middle
of your body with a kick. You could
probably move fast enough to shield
some of the damage but not all of it.
Cowboy Bebop CCG: Spike vs. Vicious is
a great starting point for those wanting to
try out the system, especially if you have
minimal knowledge of fighting games.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED… MARVEL DICE MASTERS
Despite the Ultimate Fighting System not having any dice, these two
r
systems have plenty in common when it comes to gameplay and complexity.
o
W tabletopgaming.co.uk
Spike and Vicious were respectively
the main protagonist and antagonist
in the series and the decks reflect that,
making them well-matched sparring
partners. There are a lot of little nods
to the anime in card abilities that fans
will definitely appreciate, like Spike’s
‘Habitual Smoker’ card, that through
its effects humorously scolds the main
hero’s bad habit.
Spike is a master of martial
arts and always aware of his
surroundings, using anything that
can give him an advantage. The deck
reflects that by having a good variety
of cards with abilities that can adapt
to any situation. Vicious' deck,
on the other hand, relies on his
significant starting health advantage
to deal more powerful blows.
Sacrificing a bit of his own health,
he is able to hit the opponent for a
bigger number of damage points.
Therefore, players who enjoy more
brutal, tank-like play will fit well
with Vicious’ deck, while those who
like sneaky, rogue-like gameplay will
agree more with Spike.
While the Cowboy Bebop CCG set
is a new box, it is also an addition to
an already existing fighting system
and has to confine to an already
established set of mechanical
parameters and game rules. Unless
you are a serious competitive player,
the small incremental changes to
the card powers and types will mean
very little. Essentially, whether it is
worth learning UFS depends on the
appeal of the theme and, luckily, the
way the decks play and especially
how they look, using beautiful stills
from an already extremely good-
looking anime, is very reflective of the
Bebop universe.
Once you slog your way through the
rules, UFS can offer highly strategic
t
and intriguing gameplay, even if
e
you never intend to play it at the
competitive level.
ALEX SONECHKINA
WE SAY
s. n
ag
Cowboy Bebop CCG is a really great
addition to the UFS. The cards look
fantastic and there are plenty of little
nods for the fans of the anime series.
ld m
81
14/03/2018 15:22
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S TA R T R E K A D V E N T U R E S

TO READ
UNDERSHIRT

PAINTS USED STAGES

Abaddon Black Ceramite White Liberator Gold Slaanesh Grey Since there is a large amount
Agrax Earthshade Dark Reaper Lugganath Orange Sotek Green of variety in the crew of the
Alaitoc Blue Dawnstone Martian Ironearth Steel Legion Drab Enterprise, combined with
Altdorf Guard Blue Doombull Brown Mephiston Red Temple Guard Blue matching uniforms, this guide is
Averland Sunset Dorn Yellow Pallid Wych Flesh Warplock Bronze split into general sections covering
Baneblade Brown Drakenhof Nightshade Reikland Fleshshade Wild Rider Red the uniforms and tech, but splitting
Blue Horror Khorne Red Rhinox Hide Zamesi Desert the skin, hair and other details into
Bugman’s Glow Kislev Flesh Runefang Steel different sections. This will allow
Cadian Fleshtone Krieg Khaki Screaming Skull us to cover every element of each
Celestra Grey Leadbelcher Squig Orange crew member, giving you a guide
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a highlight of STAGE 3 Apply a line highlight of
for the full boxset contents.
Steel Legion Drab. Dawnstone, focusing on the hard Celestra Grey, focusing on the
edges and folds. hard edges and raised folds.

MEDICAL JACKET

UNIFORMS
BODYSUIT COMMAND AND HELM

STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a layer of Alaitoc STAGE 3 Apply a fine highlight
Altdorf Guard Blue. Blue, leaving the recesses the of Blue Horror to the edges and
base colour. raised folds.
DARK SKIN

SKIN
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a layer of STAGE 3 Add a line highlight of STAGE 4 Apply a dot highlight of
Khorne Red. Mephiston Red, leaving the Wild Rider Red, focusing on the Lugganath Orange, focusing on
recesses the basecoat colour. hard edges. the corners.

ENGINEERING, SECURITY AND OPERATIONS LIGHT SKIN

STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of

STAGE 1 Add a highlight of Dark Rhinox Hide.
Reaper across the hard edges, corners
and raised folds of the bodysuit.

W O R L D - B E ATI N G I N T E RV I E W S WITH
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a wash of STAGE 3 Apply a layer of Averland STAGE 4 Apply a line highlight of STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a layer of Cadian STAGE 3 Apply a highlight of Kislev STAGE 4 Apply a final fine highlight of
Averland Sunset. Reikland Fleshshade. Sunset, leaving the recesses the Krieg Khaki. Bugman’s Glow. Fleshtone, leaving the recesses Flesh, focusing down the centre Pallid Wych Flesh, only adding small
original colour. the base colour. and top of the head. lines and dots over the previous coat.

STAGE 2 Apply a highlight of

SCIENCE AND MEDICAL ANDROID SKIN Doombull Brown, focusing on the
top edges of the features.

T O P D ES I G N E R S AB O U T TH E B I G G ES T
STAGE 2 Add a dot highlight of
Slaanesh Grey, focusing on the corners
and the top of the raised folds.
t
STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a highlight of STAGE 3 Apply a line highlight STAGE 1 Apply a basecoat of STAGE 2 Apply a layer of STAGE 3 Apply a glaze of Zamesi STAGE 4 Apply a final fine highlight of STAGE 3 Apply a final fine highlight
Sotek Green. Temple Guard Blue, focusing on of Blue Horror, focusing on the Zamesi Desert. Screaming Skull, leaving the Desert over all the skin. Dorn Yellow, only adding small lines of Krieg Khaki.
the hard edges and folds. corners and raised folds. recesses the base colour. and dots over the previous coat.

84 February 2018 tabletopgaming.co.uk 85

e
20 of 132 pages P L AY E D

U P C O M I N G GA M ES , W I T H U N PA R A L L E L E D BATTLE FOR ROKUGAN

Legend of the Five Rings expands with
area control spin-off. Or are we just
an excellent
bluffing?

n
Designer: Molly Glover, Tom Jolly |
Artist: Mathias Kollros, Francesca
Baerald, Nele Diel, ShenFei
90m 2-5 14+ £40

B E H I N D -T H E - S C E N ES AC C ES S
safeguarding it from future attacks
but potentially sacrificing a tactical
advantage during future battles.

.
Taking over an entire territory
can grant a huge advantage, as each
collection of lands unlocks a single-use
power for the controlling player to use.
The abilities feel fittingly formidable
ED

IT
CE

O R' I and satisfying to execute, but are only

S CHO held onto as long as that player has total
control – meaning waiting to use them
to
their full advantage can be very risky.

s
Each player also starts with a very
limited supply of scouts and shugenja
that let them spy on some of their
opponents’ tokens, plus a secret
objective that’s revealed during end-

SUBSCRIBE PRINT OR
ot on the heels of its recent living
card game revival, Legend of the
Five Rings’ next major franchise
instalment is Battle for Rokugan – a
game scoring for a potential last twist
WHAT’S IN crucially, when – you put your tokens
in the final standings. Funnily enough
THE BOX? down becomes a tense standoff and
for a spin-off to a living card game, the
◗ Game board cardplay is kept to a bare minimum,
◗ 22 territory cards
clash of wits between players. Could
leaving the focus on the placement of

g
taut
area control board game that stands
alone as a truly fantastic experience.
If you’re already a fan of Legend of the
Five Rings, you’ll find rough sketches
the token attacking your province be
◗ 10 initiative cards a tokens, but the small number, restricted
◗ Seven daimyō screens powerful army needing to be fought
off use and great power of the cards means
◗ 12 secret with ample defence? Or could it simply
that every one lands with a huge impact.
objective cards be a distraction to draw your forces
The combination of straightforward

LEARN
of the seven competing clans’ broad ◗ First player card away from a surprise attack elsewhere
◗ 189 combat tokens basics, the chance for deceptive mind
during the final placement? You’ll need

strategies in their slightly asymmetrical
special abilities and pools of combat
tokens used for wresting control of
◗ Five shugenja cards
◗ 10 scout cards
◗ 210 control tokens
EVOLVEING
games, and just a smidge of luck and
to constantly guess and second-guess
asymmetry works an absolute charm:
your rivals, especially as every player
Battle for Rokugan is 90 or so minutes
always has a blank bluffing token hidden

the map’s various provinces – and the
victory-sealing honour that comes
D
◗ Four honour of exhilarating Oh My God!-ness,
bonus tokens with the rest of their ‘hand’ behind
air-punching triumph and head-in-
their screen, presenting a constant

a
with them. It’s just enough to root the ◗ Four defence hands regret (with laughter) as traps
Games

DIGITAL FROM JUST

conflict in a wider world that feels more bonus tokens opportunity to mislead and deceive.
are sprung, plans go astray and bigaren’t just fun –
◗ Shrine token It’s a tight, thrilling experience that they can also
believable and vibrant, without throwing
◗ Harbour token
moments pop off in every help you
round. boost your brainpower.
off the careful gameplay balance or keeps up the pressure throughout its Professors
◗ Battlefield token That’s no bluff. and students
leaving total newcomers feeling lost. very reasonable running time and gets the cranium-cra tell us about
◗ 15 peace tokens MATT JARVIS
Learning the ropes is easy, with especially explosive during the fifth mming
benefits of
◗ 15 scorched Darwinian delight
combat largely coming down to a earth tokens
and final round, as players unleash WE SAY Words by Anna
Evolution
straight battle of numbers – attack with ◗ Round track token
a last-ditch effort to take over entire There’s no need to already be a Legend
Blackwell

more strength than your opponent has territories or block their rivals’ control. of the Five Rings fan to enjoy Battle
defence, and you’ll claim that province. Particularly brutal are the rare raid for Rokugan as a brilliant game of
Each type of combat token has slightly tokens, which completely decimate planning, deception and strategy. The
different rules – armies must attack an area for the rest of the game easy-to-grasp gameplay means the

£14.99
over land, naval tokens operate only and remove all combat and control riveting showdowns between players
tokens, while the equally uncommon get to shine, while the tight play time
along coasts, the rarer shinobi can strike
diplomacy tokens permanently forbid and differences between the clans and
anywhere and so on – and is placed territory powers leave plenty of reasons
facedown to signify its intent, before all combat in – or out – of a region,
to come back time and time again.
all players’ tokens are revealed and
resolved simultaneously. TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED…
GAME OF THRONES: THE BOARD
This is where Battle for Rokugan’s GAME
Want a game that lets you conquer
real joy comes into play, as where – and, the world as you trick and outwit your

m
friends? Battle for Rokugan lets you
do it all in under a couple of hours.

64 February 2018

Prices displayed are all

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44 February 2018

ld
Ends 31 December 2018.
*Promo and cover gifts only
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o
p082.indd 1
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 MANSIONS
OF MADNESS
The dark world of the
Lovecraftian adventure game
becomes even more terrifying
with a splash of colour. From
the horrifying Deep Ones to
the even weirder denizens of
the Arkham Horror universe,
follow our tips to ensure your
monsters look magnificent
Words and photographs by Andy Leighton
April 2018
083_087_paintingGuide_v2 MJ.indd 83
T
his month we’re taking a trip to
the Arkham Horror Files universe,
home of Arkham Horror, Eldritch
Horror and Mansions of Madness.
Based upon the works of H. P. Lovecraft,
Mansions of Madness features a great
selection of Cthulhu-esque gribblies and
investigators trying to uncover the dark
truth of various stories and mysteries.
While the models’ quality leaves a
lot to be desired, being of lesser quality
than more recent games, their designs
o r
W tabletopgaming.co.uk
do justice to the source material and can
look great with a lick of paint. Luckily we’ll
be focusing on doing just that with all the
monsters out of the core second edition box.
For this guide I wanted to approach
the models in a slightly different fashion
in order to enhance the gothic, spooky
element integral to the game’s setting –
the majority of the models are kept fairly
dark and muted in tone, with only the true
monsters coming to life with a touch more
vibrancy in their colour.
e t
s. n
ag
ld m
83
13/03/2018 15:17
 MANSIONS OF MADNESS

PAINTS & TECHNIQUES

PAINTS USED ZENITHAL HIGHLIGHTING STAGES
Abaddon Black Mournfang Brown Zenithal highlighting at its core is a much more complicated process Each creature is split up into four stages, each with a list
Baneblade Brown Nuln Oil than what I am going to show you in this guide. I will show a basic version of colours and the corresponding paint that was used
Biel-Tan Green Nurgling Green that helps apply a simplified version of highlighting. This begins at the for it. Each stage uses a different technique to achieve a
Blue Horror Pallid Wych Flesh basecoating stage, whilst preparing the model for the later stages. similar effect on each element but with different colours.
Ceramite White Rakarth Flesh
Dark Reaper Rhinox Hide Begin by basecoating the miniature black. Stage 1 is base colours. Base colours are applied using
Dawnstone Screamer Pink This is easiest with a black spray paint. a mix of glazes and flat colours. On some monsters this
Death World Forest Slaanesh Grey stage asks you to apply a thinned-down coat – this is
Dechala Lilac Sotek Green achieved with a mix of one part paint to three parts water.
Drakenhof Nightshade Squig Orange Stage 2 is applying shading and layering. In this stage
Druchii Violet Sybarite Green we use various washes and glazes to add an element of
Evil Sunz Scarlet Sycorax Bronze shading to the models, but where this is not required
Incubi Darkness Tau Light Ochre we add layers over the previous paint, only leaving the
Kabalite Green Thunderhawk Blue recesses showing the original colour.
Karak Stone Ulthuan Grey Stage 3 is highlighting. This stage involves applying a line
Khorne Red Wazdakka Red Once the black is dry, apply a light spray of of colour along the hard edges and ridges of the area. I
Krieg Khaki Yriel Yellow white from the top around the model. This would recommend using a fine brush and adding a tiny
Moot Green will create a light element of highlighting and dash of water to your paints.
shading straight off the bat that will either If you find yourself unsure of where to apply the
provide shading and highlighting in later highlights or spot highlights, look over the images
stages or a guide as to where they should alongside the guide and compare that stage to the last.
be applied.

STAR SPAWN
BASE SHADING &
COLOURS LAYERING
Kabalite Green: Apply Nuln Oil: Apply a wash
a thinned-down coat to the recesses and
over the entire model. undersides previously
Around three parts coated with Naggaroth
water to one part paint. Night in the last stage.
Drakenhof Nightshade: Tau Light Ochre: Add a layer
Apply to the underside of over the eyes.
the limbs, body, face and Nurgling Green: Add a thin
wings to add layer to the face
some shading. tentacles, starting
Squig Orange:
Apply a layer
at the tips to
about halfway in
BASE COLOURS
Sotek Green: Apply a thinned-down coat over the
over the eyes. towards the face. entire model.
Screamer Pink: Apply a thin coat to the webs
between the fingers, spines of the fins and down
the chest and neck.
Khorne Red: Apply a basecoat over the eyes.

HIGHLIGHTING
Sybarite Green: Apply an edge highlight to the

e t
flesh, focusing on the topmost parts of the
model and hard edges.
Yriel Yellow: Apply a layer to the centre of
the eyes.

s. n
SHADING & LAYERING
ag
Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a wash to the recesses

ld m
and undersides of the limbs and tail, but not the body.
Wazdakka Red: Apply a layer over the fins, webs
and eyes.
Karak Stone: Apply a layer to the teeth and claws.
Ulthuan Grey: Add a light drybrush to the chest.

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 HUNTING HORROR
BASE COLOURS
Naggaroth Night: Apply a thinned-down coat
over the entire model.
Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a wash over the
entire model.
Khorne Red: Apply a basecoat over the eyes.
Screamer Pink: Apply a coat over the tongue.
Baneblade Brown: Apply a coat over the teeth.

SHADING & LAYERING

Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the
underside of the body and wings. HIGHLIGHTING
Wazdakka Red: Add a layer to the eyes. Slaanesh Grey: Apply a light drybrush to the upper parts of the body and wings.
Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply a highlight to the teeth.
Evil Sunz Scarlet: Add a small dot to the centre of the eyes.

DEEP ONE SHADING & LAYERING

Ulthuan Grey: Add a highlight across the whole
miniature. Focus this towards the top of the model.

BASE COLOURS
Biel-Tan Green: Apply a light wash over
the entire model.
Drakenhof Nightshade: Once the
previous colour is dry, apply a further
wash, focusing on the shadows and
darker areas of the model.

e t
s. n
HIGHLIGHTING
Slaanesh Grey: Apply a line highlight to the skin.
HIGHLIGHTING
Ceramite White: Add a final spot
ag
m
Dechala Lilac: Apply an edge highlight to the webs highlight above the previous highlights.
and spines. Ceramite White & Druchii Violet: Apply

ldGHOST
Pallid Wych Flesh: Apply a spot highlight to the tips of the a layer of white over the eyes, extending
teeth and claws. out a little where they meet the face.
Evil Suns Scarlet: Add a small dot to the centre of the eyes. Then apply a heavy wash of Druchii.

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13/03/2018 15:20
 MANSIONS OF MADNESS

CULTIST
BASE COLOURS
Incubi Darkness: Apply a thin coat to the robes.
Rakarth Flesh: Apply a thin coat to the skin.
Sycorax Bronze: Apply a coat to the staff, pendant
and hood horns.
Mournfang Brown: Apply a coat to the
pendant string.
Rhinox Hide: Apply a coat to the hair.

SHADING & LAYERING HIGHLIGHTING

Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the undersides Pallid Wych Flesh: Add a highlight to the skin.
and lower half of the robes. Ceramite White & Abaddon Black: Paint the eyes first with a base of
Biel-tan Green: Apply a wash to Abaddon Black in an oval shape. This is followed by a very slightly smaller
the staff. oval of Ceramite White and finished with a dot of Abaddon Black towards
Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a the top centre.
wash over the bottom half of the Thunderhawk Blue: Apply a light drybrush to the top of each section of the robes.
face and arms. Karak Stone: Apply a highlight to the pendant string and the hair.
Moot Green: Apply a layer to the centre of the staff.

RIOT
BASE COLOURS
Rhinox Hide: Apply a thinned coat to
trousers, shoes, hats and handles.
Dark Reaper: Apply a thin coat over
shirts and trousers.
Karak Stone: Apply a thin coat to
the shirts.
Incubi Darkness: Apply a thin coat
to the weapon heads, shoes
and hats.
Rakarth Flesh: Apply a thin
coat to the skin.

e t
SHADING &
s. n
HIGHLIGHTING
Skull White & Biel-tan Green: Apply an oval of white over the eyes, then apply a wash of Biel-tan.
LAYERING
Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to
the undersides and lower
half of the clothes,
ag
m
Pallid Wych Flesh: Add a highlight to the skin. Also add a line highlight to the uppermost parts of weapons and hair.
the shirts. Drakenhof

ld
Blue Horror: Add a line highlight to the upper parts of the blue trousers and shirts. Nightshade:
Karak Stone: Apply a line highlight to the brown trousers and hats, as well as the weapon handles. Apply a wash
over the skin.

r
Dawnstone: Apply a layer to the weapon head.

o
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 CHILD OF
DAGON
BASE COLOURS HIGHLIGHTING
Thunderhawk Blue: Apply a thin coat to
the skin. Pallid Wych Flesh: Add a highlight to the
Rhinox Hide: Add a thin coat to the handle. skin and the upper parts of the robe.
Baneblade Brown: Apply a thin coat to Blue Horror: Apply and edge highlight of
the clothing. the mantle and hat.
Dark Reaper: Apply a thin coat to the Ceramite White & Abaddon Black: Paint
weapon head. the eyes first with a base of Abaddon
Black in an oval shape. This is followed by
a very slightly smaller oval of Ceramite
White and finished with a dot of Abaddon

SHADING & Black towards the top centre.

Karak Stone: Apply a light highlight to the
LAYERING top of the staff.
Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the
undersides and lower half of
the clothes.
Biel-tan Green: Apply a wash SHADING &
to the undersides and
recesses of the skin.
LAYERING
Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the undersides
and lower half of the robes, hat and mantle.
Drakenhof Nightshade: Apply a wash over
the bottom half of the face and arms.

BASE COLOURS
Rhinox Hide: Apply a thinned coat to the staff.
Karak Stone: Apply a thin coat over the robes.
Incubi Darkness: Apply a thin coat to the mantle and the hat.
Rakarth Flesh: Apply a thin coat to the skin.
Sycorax Bronze: Apply a coat to the head of the staff and
front of the hat.

PRIEST OF
HIGHLIGHTING
Ceramite White & Abaddon Black: Paint the eyes first with a base of Abaddon Black
in an oval shape. This is followed by a very slightly smaller oval of Ceramite White and

DAGON
finished with a dot of Abaddon Black towards the top centre.
Karak Stone: Apply a thin coat to the clothes and the weapon handle.
Ulthuan Grey: Apply a thin coat to highlight the skin. Also add some small dots in the
darker areas to create a fish-scale pattern.
Dawnstone: Apply a layer to the weapon head.

DEEP ONE HYBRID

e t
s. n
BASE COLOURS
Rhinox Hide: Apply a thinned coat to
SHADING &
LAYERING
HIGHLIGHTING
Pallid Wych Flesh: Add a highlight to the skin.
ag
trousers, shoes, hat and club.
Dark Reaper: Apply a thin coat over
the jumper.
Death World Forest: Apply a thin coat
Nuln Oil: Apply a wash to the recesses
and lower half of the jumper, trousers,
hat and club.
Karak Stone: Apply a layer over

ld m
Ceramite White & Abaddon Black: Paint the eyes first with a base of Abaddon
Black in an oval shape. This is followed by a very slightly smaller oval of Ceramite
White and finished with a dot of Abaddon Black towards the top centre.
Karak Stone: Apply a line highlight to the trousers, hat and club.

r
over the skin. the skin. Blue Horror: Apply a light drybrush to the upper areas of the jumper.

o
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W tabletopgaming.co.uk 87

13/03/2018 15:21
 T H E D U N G E O N M A S T E R ’ S G U I D E T O R O L E P L AY I N G

ON THE
SHOULDERS et
OF GIANTS ags.n
Don’t be afraid of embracing the cliché – borrowing from your

ld m
favourite books, films and games can be an easy way of creating
a fun character that you can then put your own personal spin on
Words by Richard Jansen-Parkes

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You can overcome
cliché by crossing
over genres – why not
insert a The Godfather-
style gangster into a
horror or sci-fi setting?
L
et me tell you a little bit about
Johnny ‘Three Shoes’ Mazetti.
He’s what you would get if you
took every mafia cliché out there,
all the way from the singalong
speakeasies of Bugsy Malone to the shallow
graves of The Sopranos, and melted them
down into a single fedora-wearing, tommy-
gun-toting wiseguy.
Sure, his work may have recently shifted
from bootlegging hooch to ridding Brooklyn
of eldritch horrors beyond the realm of
understanding but, while that does add a bit
of a twist to the old formula, it doesn’t change
the fact that there really isn’t an original bone
in his six-foot, dark-haired, strong-jawed,
thoroughly generic body. He’s a trope that
walks like a man; a bucket of stereotypes
and references blended into a fine paste and
poured into a mid-range pinstripe suit.
And that’s why he works so damn well.
Because I got dozens of talented writers and
actors to do all the hard parts of creating a
character for me.
088_089_dMGuideToRPGs_v2 MJ.indd 89
BORROWING BRILLIANCE
On the subject of clichés, there’s an old one
that goes “good artists copy; great artists steal,”
and this applies just as much to GMs and
roleplayers as much as it did to Picasso.
After all, the vast majority of RPGs out there
are set within fairly well-defined genres –
fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc. – all of which contain
vast amounts of existing work. You could easily
spend a lifetime exploring the worlds sketched
out in tens of thousands of novels, games,
comic books and movies, most of which are
filled to the brim with ideas just waiting for you
to pluck out and use for your own needs.
You could certainly argue that this makes it
tough to come up with a truly unique spin, but
I prefer to simply embrace the possibilities it
presents. Such as Johnny.
For example, one piece of advice I always give
to new players who are struggling to get into
their character, regardless of which game we’re
planning to try out, is to throw their concerns
about originality out of the nearest window and
borrow cool ideas from anywhere they can.
That’s not to say that there can be a lot of
creative joy and incredible storytelling that
comes from playing a nuanced, realistic hero
with a complex web of motivations and fears, of
course, but personal experience has taught me
that you can also have great fun as an arrogant,
willowy elf or a gruff dwarf with a little too much
fondness for ale and gold (in that order). Neither
character is going to be particularly original, but
there’s a good reason why the old tropes have
been so successful – they’re entertaining and
provide an easy slab of character traits for people
to weave their creativity around.
This isn’t just something that should be
limited to newer roleplayers either. I’ve been
playing for years and will happily admit to
embracing the cliché and shamelessly ripping
off pop culture whenever I can.
In fact, if you look at the settings I’ve put
together for my own campaigns you can
practically see indicators of my tastes and
current obsessions running right through
the middle, like tree rings of questionable
creativity. The floating islands were definitely
cribbed from Laputa, the lightning-powered
sky-pirates are probably ripped straight out of
Stardust, while the tiny mushroom sidekick is
a horrifying mash-up between Guardians of
the Galaxy’s Groot and Super Mario’s Toad.
This kind of thing doesn’t just come into play
when you’re creating entire worlds or stories
from scratch, of course. Any time you’re running
r
a game you’re being creative; adding your own
twist to what’s written in the module if nothing
o
W tabletopgaming.co.uk
else. Even when you’re describing a simple fight
scene, few things convey someone’s character
quite as well as taking a page out of a certain
blonde elf’s playbook and surfing a shield down
a flight of stairs mid-battle.
It’s worth noting, however, that the difference
between ‘copy’ and ‘steal’ isn’t just there for the
sake of an easy joke. As it suggests, while there’s
nothing particularly wrong with transplanting
people, places and ideas from existing media
over to your game, you can truly make them your
own. And one of the best ways to do that is to
simply add a little twist to what’s already there.
DO THE TWIST AGAIN
To drag things back to Johnny, the major
points that keep him from being a simple copy
are twofold. First of all, he’s not a direct rip of
any character in particular; there’s a little Al
Pacino in there, sure, but there’s also a smidge
of Ray Liotta and a whole load of bit-part
characters from a dozen crime dramas.
Just as important as that, perhaps, is the fact
that his inspiration doesn’t quite match up
with the setting. Johnny’s rough approximation
of the “make him an offer he can’t refuse”
speech from The Godfather would feel more
than a little derivative if the group was playing
a straight game of cops and robbers, but when
he’s spouting gangster clichés to betentacled
Deep Ones in Trail of Cthulhu he stands out just
as surely as a wannabe-superhero would in a
fantasy world, or a samurai aboard a starship.
There are dozens of ways to add a personal
flourish, as both a GM and as a player, to the
characters, locations and events you pilfer. For
example, if you did decide to create that grumpy,
boozy dwarf, you can add an easy little quirk by
making them afraid of the dark, unable to grow
a beard or any one of a dozen other little factors
that subvert your players’ expectations.
In many ways, this is what lies at the heart of
most really memorable stories – at least when
you’re operating within existing genres – and
wonderful ideas open up before you.
t
once you learn to embrace it entire realms of
e
You want a cool, intimidating villain? Try
n
starting with Darth Vader and then add a few
.
flourishes (like enough levels in wizard to put force
s
lightning to shame). Need an interesting antagonist
g
that may well end up allying with the party?
a
Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride was pretty
good at that, but rather than a sword-wielding
m
Spaniard he could be an expert star-pilot.
And if you’re desperate for a useful NPC to
ld
mess with your Lovecraftian investigators in
1920s New York? Well, you could always give
Johnny ‘Three Shoes’ a call...
89
14/03/2018 14:50
 e t
s. n
ag
ld m
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EVENT REPORT
CHILLCON
Steve Snow reveals what makes the Sheffield show
the North’s easiest-going meet-up and plans for a
second convention in Derby later this year
Interview by Matt Jarvis
What’s new for ChillCon 2018?
We have more traders than last year, which
is a good start. We’ve also made a conscious
effort to give visitors more to do other
than just browse and shop. We’ve sourced
more and better quality participation
and demo games, and we have a board
game library and plenty of free tables on
which people can play. We’ve also got
a fantastic Smiffy’s Smoke Shack and a
medieval tavern, so people can enjoy some
hot food and a cool drink whilst they chill
out and play some games.
 
You claim to be “the North’s most chilled out
convention” . Why is this the case?
We’ve made a real effort to give visitors more
to play and do – and the room to do it all in – so
we’re expecting guests to stay longer, chill out
with a few games and a beer, and really take
their time to enjoy the show and the demo
games. There’ll be no need to rush around
the stands, spend your budget and then leave
straight away.  As for why we decided to do a second
Other than games, what else is going on?
As it’s Easter weekend we’re doing a
Easter hunt for any children that our
attendees may bring, with some really
nice baskets of treats and chocolate
hidden around the show.
We have some competitions, and our
new Gamer Card. It’s little like a loyalty
card; we give one to every visitor, and they
receive a silver sticker on their card for
every demo and participation game they
play, and a gold sticker for every £10 they
spend on a stand. Gold stickers give the
April 2018
091_eventReport_v2 MJ.indd 91
visitor entry to a cash prize draw, and silver
stickers gain the visitor tickets for the raffle.
What’s the local tabletop scene like around you?
It’s pretty strong in Yorkshire. There’s
a really good Kings of War scene with the
likes of Beers of War and King of the North.
There are loads of really good FLGS as
well, with places like Patriot Games and
Travelling Man holding weekly tabletop
evenings and tournaments for the likes
of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, X-Wing
and Warmachine. Not only that, but all the
major cities have decent clubs; Leeds alone
has two really good ones!
You’re launching an event in Derby this
September. How will it compare to the
Sheffield ChillCon, and why did you decide to
host a second show there?
We’re using the same approach and format
to the Derby show as the ChillCon Sheffield
show as it’s one we feel comfortable with.
show, well, it was pretty spur of the
moment. We looked at what was available
in the Derby area and we decided it was
lacking a local – and credible – show.
What’s the plan for next year – and beyond?
Next year we are looking to solidify the
Sheffield and Derby shows and refine them
as necessary; our entire team is pretty new to
this running shows lark, and we’re learning
as we go along.
Beyond that, we have plans for at least
one more show, but need to see how Derby
pans out before we rush ahead with those.
o
W tabletopgaming.co.uk
UPCOMING EVENTS
STABCON SOUTH
Friday March 30th to Sunday April 1st
Jury’s Inn, Southampton
With its longest runtime yet – a massive 60
hours – this well-stocked southern show is
welcoming to those who arrive empty-handed
but looking for something to play.
stabconsouth.com
DEVACON II
Saturday April 7th
Crowne Plaza, Chester
Featuring a day of roleplaying games, from
Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu
to Pathfinder and Chivalry & Sorcery, but
with plenty of space for board games too,
Chester’s convention returns for a second
year. Doors open at 10am and close at 11pm.
facebook.com/groups/DevaCon
CONPULSION
Friday April 13th to Sunday 15th
Teviot Row House Student Union, Edinburgh
Scotland’s premier games convention
returns to the student union at the Teviot
halls for another weekend featuring all sorts
of tabletop experiences. With a strong
social element, the convention has a small
trade hall and a good games schedule with a
strong LARP element to it.
conpulsion.org
UNCON
Saturday April 21st to Sunday 22nd
St George’s School, Broadstairs
The third Unconventional Convention is a
friendly show hosted by a team willing to help
newcomers learn games without the need to
read a rulebook. There are plenty of British
designers and studios in attendance, too.
facebook.com/events/172571260006899
CON-TROLL
Saturday April 28th
Dorchester Corn Exchange, Dorchester
A single-day convention devoted to roleplaying
at the Dorchester Corn Exchange, with
regular favourites such as Dungeons &
Dragons, Call of Cthulhu and World of
Darkness sure to make an appearance.
There’s no trade hall available, but there is a
Friday night social event for those in the area.
Tickets are £12, with a discount for kids.
havedice.org.uk/controll
NORTH STAR
e t
Garrison Hotel, Sheffield
s. n
Saturday April 28th to Sunday 29th
The latest of the conventions at the ever-
ag
popular Garrison Hotel, North Star is a
science-fiction-themed convention that runs
the entire weekend. With a small trade
contingent and deliveries available from local
ld m
store Patriot Games, as well as five gaming
slots, it promises to be an excellent addition
to the Garrison weekends.
r
northstarcon.org.uk
91
13/03/2018 15:26
 CLUB DIRECTORY

ABERDEENSHIRE ROLL WITH IT! WEDNESDAY NIGHT GAMING FAMOUS COLLECTABLES GWENT HITCHIN HERETICS
ABERDEEN WARGAMES CLUB Huntingdon, PE29 3TF Redruth, TR15 3QY Bexhill-on-Sea, GWENT REAVERS TABLETOP Hitchin, SG5 1XL
Aberdeen, AB15 4YQ TN40 1DU GAMING CLUB
THE CHATTERIS WARLORDS COUNTY TYRONE Abertillery, NP13 3DJ NORTH HERTFORDSHIRE
OLDMELDRUM GAMES CLUB OMAGH WARGAMES CLUB UCKFIELD TABLETOP GAMERS WARGAMES CLUB
WARGAMES GROUP Chatteris, PE16 6NA Omagh, BT78 1HL Uckfield, TN22 5DT GWYNEDD Hitchin, SG5 1XL
Inverurie, AB51 0AA CONWY WARGAMES CLUB
THE GAMES TABLE DERBYSHIRE EAST YORKSHIRE Llandudno, LL30 3LB NORTH LONDON
ANGUS Cambridge, CB24 4RP CONSORTIUM GAMES WOLDS WARGAMERS WARGAMES CLUB
KIRRIEMUIR WARGAMES CLUB CLUB @GHQ Driffield, YO25 6SS HAMPSHIRE Waltham Cross, EN8 9AJ
Kirriemuir, DD8 4HN CARMARTHENSHIRE Chesterfield, S40 1JW ARBBL
CARMARTHEN OLD GUARD ESSEX Andover, SP10 1DQ POTTERS BAR GAMES CLUB
AYRSHIRE Carmarthen, SA31 3AD DERBY ON BOARD GAMES BASILDON WARBOYZ Potters Bar, EN6 5BT
NORTH AYRSHIRE Derby, DE1 1QH Basildon, SS16 4NW BLACK HOLE WARGAMERS
WARGAMES CLUB TOWY VALLEY Petersfield, GU32 3HS ST. ALBANS BOARD GAME CLUB
Irvine, KA12 0BA TYRANTS (TVT) SUNDAY NIGHT BOARD GAMING COLCHESTER WARGAMES St. Albans, AL3 5PE
Carmarthen, SA31 2JE AT THE OLD KINGS HEAD BELPER ASSOCIATION CHINEHAM BOARD GAMERS
BEDFORDSHIRE Belper, DE56 1NP Colchester, CO3 5RH Basingstoke, RG24 8LT THOR’S HAMMER
BASEMENT GAMING CLUB CHESHIRE GAMING CLUB
Luton, LU3 3AN ALTRINCHAM DEVON ESSEX WARRIORS DARK WORLDS GAMING SOCIETY Borehamwood, WD6 5PR
WARGAMING CLUB BARNSTAPLE SLAYERS Chelmsford, CM1 3DU Fareham, PO15 6TL
BEDFORD BOARD GAMING Altrincham, WA14 4PG GAMING CLUB TRING WARGAMES CLUB
Bedford, MK40 2SX Barnstaple, EX32 8LS GBCON QUARTERLY FIRESTORM CARDS Tring, HP23 6BA
CHESHIRE GAMERS GAMING DAY OPEN GAMING NIGHT
BOARD GAMES IN BEDFORD Crewe, CW1 2DF CULLOMPTON BOARD Loughton, IG10 4LF Basingstoke, RG24 8FB WARLORDS WARGAMING
Bedford, MK41 0TU GAMES GROUP ST. ALBANS
CONGLETON AND DISTRICT Cullompton, EX15 1JX LOUGHTON STRIKE FORCE FORDINGBRIDGE GAMING CLUB St. Albans, AL3 4DJ
LEIGHTON BUZZARD LIGHT BOARD GAMES GROUP Loughton, IG10 1LH Fordingbridge, SP6 1AS
GAMING CLUB Congleton, CW12 1AH DARK STAR GAMING WATFORD WARGAMES CLUB
Leighton Buzzard, LU7 1ES Plymouth, PL4 0AL SOUTHEND-ON-SEA GARY DONALDSON Watford, WD17 4PN
ELEMENT GAMES NORTH ROLEPLAYING SOCIETY Waterlooville, PO8 8RG
SAXON GAMES & CRAFTS WEST GAMING CENTRE EAST DEVON TABLETOP Southend-on-Sea, SS1 1BD WELWYN WARGAMERS
Bedford, MK40 4FU Stockport, SK2 6PT & RPG GROUP PORTSMOUTH ON BOARD Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6PS
Honiton, EX14 1HR THE HORNCHURCH Portsmouth, PO1 1PT
BERKSHIRE GUARDIANS OF THE GAMES WARGAMES CLUB ISLE OF MAN
BROAD STREET GAMERS (TABLETOP GROUP) EXMOUTH IMPERIAL Romford, RM3 9LB RINGWOOD ASSOCIATION KB TABLETOP GAMING
Wokingham, RG40 3AQ Macclesfield, SK11 6UB WARGAMES CLUB OF WARGAMERS - ISLE OF MAN
Exmouth, EX8 4SW THE OVERLORDS Ringwood, BH24 1DW Isle of Man, IM4 4LA
NEWBURY & READING MUG AND GAME Dagenham RM8 2HQ
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION Congleton, CW12 1PG GAME NIGHT @ CARPE SOLENT WARGAMERS CLUB KENT
Newbury, RG14 2RA Plymouth, PL4 8EU THE PHOENIX GAMES CLUB Portsmouth, PO1 1PT ALL AROUND THE BOARD
POYNTON BOARD GAME DAY London, E13 0AD Westgate-on-Sea, CT8 8RE
NEWBURY & READING Stockport, SK12 1RB NEO TIVERTON GAMING CLUB SOUTHAMPTON SLUGGAZ
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION Tiverton, EX16 5JJ FIFE Southampton, SO17 2JZ ASHFORD (KENT)
Newbury, RG1 4PS VARIABLE MAGERS DUNFERMLINE WARGAMING BOARDGAMES CLUB
Stockport, SK4 3BS PLYMOUTH ASSOCIATION AND ROLEPLAYING FELLOWSHIP THE SOUTHAMPTON GUILD Ashford, TN24 9AJ
WARFIELD BOARD GAMERS OF WARGAMERS Dunfermline, KY12 7DS OF ROLEPLAYERS
Bracknell, RG42 2DD WARRINGTON BOARD Plymouth, PL3 5TB Southampton, SO14 0LH BEXLEY REAPERS
GAMES CLUB EAST NEUK TABLETOP GAMES WARGAMING CLUB
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION Warrington, WA1 2SX TORQUAY BOARD GAME CLUB Anstruther, KY10 3DJ THE THIRD COALITION Bexley, DA5 1AA
OF READING Torquay, TQ2 7AD WARGAMES CLUB
Wokingham, RG41 5DU WINSFORD WARHAWKS KIRKCALDY MEEPLE CLUB New Milton, BH25 5BT CANTERBURY CRUSADERS
WARGAMING CLUB DORSET Kirkcaldy, KY2 6LF Canterbury, CT1 1RT
BIRMINGHAM Winsford, CW7 4AT SOUTHBOURNE TABLETOP WATERLOO TABLE TOP GAMERS
BIRMINGHAM WARGAMES & BOARDGAMERS FLINTSHIRE Waterlooville, PO8 8RG GRAVESHAM WARGAMING
AND BOARDGAMES CLUB CLEVELAND Bournemouth, BH6 3AA DEESIDE DEFENDERS AND TABLETOP GAMING CLUB
AKA DRAGOON’S DEN REDCAR IRONBEARDS Chester, CH4 0DR WESSEX WARGAMES Gravesend, DA11 9EU
Birmingham, B13 9EA Redcar, TS10 1RH WESSEX WYVERNS WINCHESTER
WARGAMES CLUB FGC FLINTSHIRE Winchester, SO22 4QB GREENWICH & BLACKHEATH
BRISTOL CO ANTRIM Ferndown, BH22 9AN GAMING CLUB BOARD GAMES AND BEER CLUB
HALL OF HEROES GAMING CLUB DRAGONSLAYERS Mold, CH7 6SZ WESSEX WYVERNS London, SE3 7JQ
Bristol, BS16 1NU Belfast, BT7 1NN WORLDS AWAY GAMING CLUB
Bournemouth, BH2 5RQ GLASGOW Ringwood, BH24 2NP MAIDSTONE WARGAMES SOCIETY
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE QUB DRAGONSLAYERS ANTONINE BOARD GAMERS Maidstone, ME17 4AW
MILTON KEYNES Belfast, BT7 1NN DUMFRIESSHIRE Glasgow, G64 4EN HEREFORDSHIRE
WARGAMES SOCIETY ANNAN GAMING CLUB DICE AND DECKS MEDWAY AREA BOARDGAMERS
Milton Keynes, MK11 1JQ CO CORK Annan, DG12 6EF GLASGOW GAMES ROOM Ross-on-Wye, HR9 5HR Maidstone, ME14 1ED
BRETHREN WARGAMING CLUB Glasgow, G20 7QE
NEWPORT PAGNELL West Cork, T23 F577 THE FIVE ARCHES GAMING CLUB HEREFORDSHIRE BOARDGAMERS MERRYCHEST CAFE
BOARD GAMES CLUB Dumfries, DG1 3JR UNPLUGGED GAMES CLUB Hereford, HR4 9EA GAMING CLUB
Newport Pagnell, MK16 8AN

WYCOMBE WARBAND
Beaconsfield, HP9 1LG
CO DURHAM
DARLINGTON’S DOGS OF WAR
Darlington, DL3 7LX
DUNBARTONSHIRE
DUMBARTON
WARGAMES CLUB
Glasgow, G41 3AB

GLOUCESTERSHIRE
GLOUCESTERSHIRE
HERTFORDSHIRE
BISHOP’S STORTFORD TABLETOP
Bishop’s Stortford, CM23 3BQ

e t
Dartford, DA2 8AH

MILTON HUNDRED
WARGAMES CLUB

CAITHNESS
NORTHERN KNIGHTS
WARGAMES
DURHAM RAIDERS
Croxdale, DH6 5HJ

GAMERS@HART
Dumbarton, G82 1QQ

DURHAM
DWG
GAMES BUNKER
Cheltenham, GL51 4XA

IWARPUK
BLACK WOLF WARGAMES CLUB
Hitchin, SG5 1XL

. n
Sittingbourne, ME10 4BX

SEVENOAKS & TONBRIDGE

s
ASSOCIATION OF

g
Thurso, KW14 8HN Hartlepool, TS26 9DE Durham, DH1 1QG Gloucester, GL2 9EB CALAMITY COMICS HATFIELD GAMERS (STAG)
Hatfield, AL10 0JJ Sevenoaks, TN15 9HA

a
CAMBRIDGESHIRE CO LONDONDERRY DYFED LINCOMBE BARN
2D6 LODGE THE SIEGE BUNKER WELSH WEYR GAMING GROUP WARGAMES SOCIETY FINCHLEY GAMES CLUB TUNBRIDGE WELLS
Cambridge, CB1 8NN Londonderry, BT48 7JL Ammanford, SA18 1DX Bristol, BS16 2RW London, N12 7JE WARGAMES SOCIETY

m
Tunbridge Wells, TN3 0PR
NEWMARKET KNIGHTS CORNWALL EAST SUSSEX PORK CHOP GAMING HEMEL HEMPSTEAD
GAMES CLUB SMIPHEES GAMES CLUB 1066 WARGAMING CLUB Cheltenham, GL50 3HA WARGAMING CLUB WHITSTABLETOP

ld
Ely, CB7 5HS Callington, PL17 7AN St. Leonards-on-Sea, Hemel Hempstead, HP1 1LD Whitstable, CT5 1DA
TN38 8BL GREATER MANCHESTER

r
PETERBOROUGH THE DICE AND DAGGER TABLETOP MANCHESTER HERTFORD BEER LANARKSHIRE
WARGAMES CLUB GAMING CLUB EASTBOURNE ELEMENTAL Cheadle Hulme, & BOARDGAMES LANARKSHIRE GAMERS

o
Peterborough, PE1 1NA Bude, EX23 9BL Eastbourne, BN21 3XQ M15 4ST Hertford, SG14 1HH Motherwell, ML1 1BS

92 April 2018

92_93_clubDirectory_v2 MJ.indd 92
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 ML2 GAMERS LOUTH STRATEGY
Hamilton, ML3 6BU GAMES CLUB
Louth, LN11 8DB
LANCASHIRE
BLACK TOWER WARGAMING LONDON
Blackpool, FY4 4ND CROSS GAMING CLUB
London, SE1 1DX
BURNLEY BOARD GAMERS
Burnley, BB10 3LF SELWG
London, SE6 2TS
BURNLEY WARGAMES CLUB
Burnley, BB10 3EU TANELORN WAR
GAMING CLUB
DECKS & DICE London, E11 3DB
Manchester, M25 1AY
THE ROLE PLAY HAVEN
DICED TEA (STRATFORD)
Oldham, OL1 2DB London, E15 2HU
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Manchester, M1 7HL (LEWISHAM)
London, SE13 6LH
ELWA: EAST LANCASHIRE
WARGAMES ASSOCIATION MERSEYSIDE
Blackburn, BB6 7DD FORGEMASTERS GAMING CLUB
Wirral, CH63 6HD
FAN BOY THREE
BOARDGAME NIGHT LIVERPOOL LION
Manchester, M1 1EL BOARDGAMERS
Liverpool, L3 9NS
HARLEQUINS BLACKPOOL
Blackpool, FY1 3QA SOUTHPORT BOARD
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HOUSE LANCASTER Southport, PR8 1NH
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ROLEPLAYING GAMES (B.O.R.G.)
PRESTON’S GAMERS GUILD St. Helens, WA10 5BF
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MID GLAMORGAN
SALFORD AND MANCHESTER CASTLE GAMERS BRIDGEND
GAMING HAVEN Bridgend, CF35 6AU
Salford, M8 0TW
MIDDLESEX
THE HUNGRY DRAGON BATTLEUX WARGAMES CLUB
GAMES NIGHT Uxbridge, UB10 0RY
Manchester, M21 0AE
DICE CLUB
THE LIVERPOOL WARGAMES Uxbridge, UB10 0RY
ASSOCIATION (LWA)
Liverpool, L1 6HB HESTON AND
EALING WARGAMERS
THURSDAY SCYTHE London, W13 9SS
BOARD GAMERS
Liverpool, L3 8HE TABLETOP TUESDAYS
London, N16 8BX
LEICESTERSHIRE
CHARNWOOD ROLE THE GAMES CLUB
PLAYERS GAMING CLUB London, NW1 2JU
Loughborough, LE12 8DT
MIDLOTHIAN
LEICESTER ALL SCARS EDINBURGH LEAGUE
Leicester, LE1 3JR OF GAMERS
Edinburgh, EH7 5EA
LEICESTER PHAT KATZ
Leicester, LE3 0QY SOUTH EAST SCOTLAND
WARGAMES CLUB
SECTION 31 Edinburgh, EH7 4EW
Leicester, LE1 1PA
NORFOLK
SONS OF SIMON
DE MONTFORT
Loughborough, LE12 8TX
AFTERMATH GAMING CLUB
Norwich, NR3 4HX
KINGS LYNN RPG &
THE LEICESTER WARGAMES
AND FANTASY GROUP
Leicester, LE3 0QU
WARGAMES CLUB
King’s Lynn, PE30 4DN
NORWICH BOARD GAMERS
LINCOLNSHIRE Norwich, NR2 4AL
BOSTON TABLETOP GAMERS
Boston, PE21 6QQ TAS GAMING CLUB
GRANTHAM FRIENDLY GAMERS
King’s Lynn, PE34 4SJ
NORTH YORKSHIRE
Grantham, NG31 6LJ
YORK GARRISON
GRIMSBY WARGAMES SOCIETY WARGAMING CLUB
Grimsby, DN32 9HT York, YO32 4AQ
LINCOLN BOARD NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
GAME GROUP BATTLEFIELD HOBBIES
Lincoln, LN1 3BJ Daventry, NN11 8RB
92_93_clubDirectory_v2 MJ.indd 93
PHOENIX GAMING CLUB WSM BOARD GAMING CLUB
Rushden, NN10 9YE Weston-super-Mare, BS22 8PD
THE BRACKLEY & SOUTH YORKSHIRE
DISTRICT GAMERS BROTHERHOOD OF THE DICE
Brackley, NN13 6LF Barnsley, S75 1JR
THE PIT GAMING CLUB STEEL CITY WARGAMING
Wellingborough, NN9 5TU Sheffield, S13 7LL
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE ZONE OUT GAMES CLUB
K.I.A GAMES CLUB Doncaster, DN1 2PX
Nottingham, NG17 8LA
STAFFORDSHIRE
NOTTINGHAM BOARD & CHASE WARGAMES CLUB
WARGAMES CLUB Burntwood, WS7 0JL
Nottingham, NG2 1NB
LICHFIELD GAMERS AND RPG
THE CLUB WITH NO NAME Lichfield, WS13 6EB
Nottingham, NG2 1NB
STAFFORDSHIRE
WAR & PEACE GAMES CLUB WARGAMING GUILD
Nottingham, NG10 5BD Stone, ST15 8TG
WILDSIDE GAMING TAMWORTH GAMES CLUB
Newark, NG24 1ER Tamworth, B79 7DJ
OXFORDSHIRE TAMWORTH LIBERATORS
ABINGDON WARGAMES CLUB GAMING CLUB
Abingdon, OX14 5AG Tamworth, B77 3AE
AMBROSDEN GAMING CLUB THE VINE INN GAMERS
Bicester, OX25 2LZ Rugeley, WS15 2AT
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Bicester, OX26 3HA Stafford, ST16 1BG
NORTH OXFORDSHIRE STIRLINGSHIRE
WARGAMING CLUB FALKIRK DISTRICT
Banbury, OX16 9AF WARGAMES CLUB
Grangemouth, FK3 8QR
OXFORD GAMING CLUB
Oxford, OX2 7DP SUFFOLK
BURY ST. EDMUNDS
OXFORD ON BOARD BOARD GAMING GROUP
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BIG ORBIT GAMES SHREWSBURY HAVERHILL WAR GAMES CLUB
Shrewsbury, SY1 1PH Haverhill, CB9 9JE
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GAMES @THE BIRD IPSWICH COUNTY LIBRARY
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Telford, TF1 1LU Stowmarket, IP14 4SH
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WARGAMES CLUB
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London, SW18 2PT
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THE FROME BOARD
GAMES CLUB REIGATE WARGAMES GROUP
Frome, BA11 1PU Reigate, RH2 0NA
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ASSOCIATION
Taunton, TA1 3JG
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WARGAMING @ RADSTOCK
Radstock, BA3 4BD STAY ON TARGET
Woking, GU21 5BG
WESTON WARGAMERS CLUB
Weston-super-Mare, SURREY GIRL GAMERS
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BS23 1NF Woking, GU21 4AL
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SWIGGERS OTLEY BOARD GAMERS
London, SE1 2TF Otley, LS21 2AU
THE SOUTH LONDON WARLORDS WILTSHIRE
London, SE21 7BT BOSCOMBE DOWN &
AMESBURY WARGAMES CLUB
THE WOKING WEIRD BOYZ Salisbury, SP4 7LN
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Chessington, KT9 1PF Chippenham, SN15 3WL
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Brighton, BN1 1UB Devizes, SN10 5AD
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AFTERNOON PLAY Salisbury, SP1 3TA
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Coventry, CV6 4FE REDDITCH WARGAMING SOCIETY
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NUNEATON ALTERNATIVE Worcester, WR1 2DP
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Nuneaton, CV10 8LJ WYRE FOREST GAMERS
Kidderminster, DY10 1RP
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Coventry, CV3 5GT
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WEST MIDLANDS York, YO24 1AQ
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AND BOARDGAMES CLUB HEADINGLEY GAMES CLUB
AKA DRAGOON’S DEN Leeds, LS6 3HN
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PLAY MORE GAMES! Holmfirth, HD9 7HP
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WEST SUSSEX Hull, HU1 3HG
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GAMING ASSOCIATION LEEDS GAMING
Bognor Regis, PO21 5EU Leeds, LS1 3DL
BOGNOR REGIS MILITARY LEEDS NIGHT OWLS
MODELLING AND Leeds, LS6 1LJ
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Bognor Regis, PO21 5SB SHEFFIELD AND ROTHERHAM
WARGAMES CLUB
CRAWLEY GAMING CLUB Sheffield, S2 2TP
Crawley, RH10 5DF
SHEFFIELD BOARD GAMES
DUNGEON CRAWL-EY Sheffield, S3 7HG
GAMES CLUB
Crawley, RH11 7QG SHEFFIELD WARGAMES SOCIETY
MID SUSSEX
MEEPLES
Burgess Hill, RH15 8DX
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Sheffield, S8 0PS
SOUTH DOWNS
SIEGEBREAKERS
Pulborough, RH20 4DR
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LIST YOUR
CLUB FOR FREE
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WEST YORKSHIRE
AND SEE FULL
a
BOARD IN THE VILLAGE
Bradford, BD14 6RE CLUB DETAILS
ONLINE
tabletopgaming.co AT
GAMING CLUB BRADFORD
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Bradford, BD1 2DX .uk/clubs
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HALIFAX BOARD GAMERS
Halifax, HX1 1SJ
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KEIGHLEY TABLETOP COMBAT
Keighley, BD20 6EB
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13/03/2018 15:27
 Take your positions at the
iconic Alexandra Palace
LESS THAN
SIX MONTHS
TO GO!
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FOR A CHANCE TO
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SHOP SPOTLIGHT
STRONGHOLD
GAMES
Ray Reaney reveals how
his childhood friendship
(and rivalry) with David
Bradburn led them to
open the Hull store
Interview by Matt Jarvis
You only opened in late 2016. How’s your first
year and a bit been?
Well, honestly, it’s been fantastic. I must admit
at first we were a little concerned about how
many people would be interested in our store,
in fact we imagined a very difficult situation
where we would have to struggle for four or five
years to build a bigger gaming community, and
to gain those loyal and regular customers that a
games shop needs to survive. However I’m happy
to report that on our opening day the store was
totally packed with gamers wanting to check out
their new games store, and from there we have only
grown in popularity!
I’d say one of the keys to our success was quickly
reaching out to the local gaming clubs that were
already established in the local area, many of
which we now call friends. In some respects it
might be hard to open a gaming store in a new city,
but if you reach out to the gamers and clubs that
are already there and show them you are willing
to help and support their clubs then you quickly
become part of the community.
Why did you decide to open a gaming store?
Me and my business partner met over 25 years ago
in Games Workshop Sheffield and, aged around 11
years old at the time, it’s fair to say we hated each
April 2018
095_shopSpotlight_v3 MJ.indd 95
other. On many occasions as children we would
face each other over the battlefield playing games
such as Warhammer 40,000, Blood Bowl and
Space Hulk, and most of the time he would win
seeing me nickname him ‘Clown Shoes’ due to his
massive oversized feet and ego.
However, over the many years of gaming we
became the best of friends until 20 years later I was
the best man at his wedding. Then a few years later
I was sat in my living room watching a film when
a knock came to my front door and in stepped my
friend, the same friend I had met 25 years before in
Games Workshop, and looking me in the eyes he
simply said “Do you want to open a games shop?”
You could say the rest is history seeing us embark
on yet another great adventure.
 
What sort of gaming events do you hold?
We run a wide range of regular gaming events
and, in today’s environment, it’s vital that a
games store provides a place for people to play
games. I have been in some games shops that are
basically just filled with stock and have no space
for gaming which obviously makes building a
store community much more difficult.
Generally we run a variety of events for
games such as Magic: The Gathering, X-Wing,
Warhammer 40,000, Guild Ball and Malifaux, and
even have regular board games nights and other
dedicated events. I’d also say having a separate
room for roleplaying games has really helped the
community, in fact as it stands we have five or six
different groups who use our room on a regular
basis, roleplaying groups that probably would have
never met without our store offering that service.
What is the local gaming scene like in Hull?
r
I have to admit we were shocked to find the
gaming scene in Hull is really good, that for a fairly
o
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small city Hull has a variety of gaming stores, comic
book shops, and even a board games café.
Perhaps more exciting is our own charitable
efforts which we have decided to call the ‘School
Gaming Clubs’, as each year Stronghold has
decided to help one local school to set up a
gaming club. In early 2018 Stronghold Games
donated £3,374 worth of gaming equipment to the
Boulevard Academy in Hull, meaning hundreds of
children aged around 12 to 16 years old now have
one of the best school gaming clubs in the city.
Hopefully if Stronghold can help create more
school gaming clubs over the coming years then it
will secure the future of gaming in Hull for many
years to come. Who knows: in another 25 years it
might be the children we help today opening their
own games store or designing new British games. 
What are your plans for the next year?
We have a lot planned. Firstly, we would like to
extend our store onto the first floor, which will
open up an entire new floor of gaming space for
our customers and allow us to run bigger events.
Plus, the space we save downstairs means we
can stock even more goodies and increase our
product range by a substantial amount.
 Secondly, we would like to work more with
the Hull’s Angels gaming club and gather even
bigger donations and prizes towards their yearly
charity events. It’s fair to say the folks at Hull’s
Angels have worked really hard to support local
charities and the gaming community of Hull, so
the least we can do is offer them our friendship
and support wherever possible.
 Finally, we would love to continue our
programme of creating school gaming clubs which
we believe is a fantastic cause that not only helps
provide a great hobby for young people, but that
will also help to secure the gaming hobby for years
to come. Taking into account that gaming is such
a fun and creative hobby that promotes core skills
such as reading, writing, maths, socialisation,
timekeeping, teamwork and various other skills, it
always surprises us that more schools don’t have
gaming clubs.
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13/03/2018 15:28
SHOP DIRECTORY
stʼs
We
u th st !
So rge op
The la el sh
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mo

30 Roneo Corner, Hornchurch Essex, RM12 4TN

• Tel: 01708 475051 • Email: tolehavenuk@aol.com www.fromemodelcentre.com
All your wargaming needs available through us! E: sales@frome-model-centre.com
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 12
1 11
2

10
9
3

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4

5 7
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CAMPAIGN

T
here was a great boom in the production
and playing of board games in the 1960s
and ‘70s. Electronic gaming hadn’t quite
taken hold yet and board gamers had
plenty of choice. Waddingtons produced
a vast number of games for the casual family games
market but it also produced a few more strategic titles.
Campaign was a game that stands out as a mainstream
strategy-based wargame.
Campaign offered a game for two to four players with
campaigns based, quite tentatively, on the Napoleonic
Wars. The game included a booklet on the history of
Napoleon, which was both educational and possibly
an attempt to help theme the game as there was
little else to connect it. The game was almost entirely
strategy-based, with just a hint of luck provided by
rolling two six-sided dice to determine movement. The
movement didn’t make that much difference if you had
your strategy carefully planned, though.
As a wargame, Campaign was easy to learn but with
no line of sight or terrain rules it left you wanting more.
Today it would probably include a set of advanced
rules and expansion packs to keep players interested
for longer. The board does have some terrain markers
including water, rivers, trees and mountains, indicating
that advanced or at least house rules may have been
intended. This is a good idea as the default rules were
just movement and capture-type rules meaning that
the game played a little too much like chess rather than
a wargame.
There were updated versions released but the rules
remained the same. The main change seems to be a
rather unnecessary update to the game’s artwork. The
only used if there were three
players. The divisions on the original board are subtle
but very bold on the updated version.
e t
original box art simply showed three military drums
but each drum was decorated with a battle scene,
making for fairly striking box art that later versions
Campaign stands up as a great, fun to play strategy
game that can be appreciated as a family board game
or a very early introductory wargame. Serious gamers

s. n
didn’t achieve.
The board’s artwork was also nicer in the original
version: a grid system with a few features, such as the
would want more but it is a product of its time and
served as an accessible introduction to wargaming –
albeit being a bit too formulaic. That doesn’t stop it
Words

ag
Phil Robinson
Phil Robinson is a game
historian and the founder
of the Museum of Gaming,
an organisation that
unused terrain, picked out which made it look more
exciting than it was. The board was split into six areas
representing different countries: France, Spain, Italy,
m
being fun to play or stop you from using some creative
strategy. It was mass-produced and isn’t particularly

ld
rare but, as with all games of that age, it can be
explores and documents
the history of gaming
through its collections,

r
Prussia, Russia and Austria. Italy was always neutral difficult to find one in mint condition as the game was
exhibitions and research.
and up for grabs by any player, while Prussia was engaging enough to warrant extensive play.

o
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098_tabletopTimeMachine_v2 MJ.indd 98
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13/03/2018 15:31
 I N M AY ’ S I S S U E ON S AL E AP RIL 30 T H

A SONG OF ICE & FIRE

TA B L E T O P M I N I AT U R E S G A M E
The world of Game of Thrones goes to war! Prepare to see
Westeros as you’ve never done before in the action-packed
adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s sprawling fantasy series

ECLIPSE: SECOND DAWN

FOR THE GALAXY
The sci-fi masterpiece returns bigger and
better than ever. Creator Touko Tahkokallio
reveals what’s new for the universe
STAR WARS:

FORBIDDEN LANDS
LEGION
PAINTING TIPS e t
The team behind Tales from the Loop are
reimagining classic fantasy with their next off with advice on
s. n
Our multi-part guide kicks

unmissable RPG – we’ve got an early look! making your

a
Imperial armyg
incredible
THE RISE OF QUEENSDALE
Inside the ambitious legacy Eurogame
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UK GAMES EXPO PREVIEW
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Your essential guide to this year’s Birmingham convention

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