Publisher Shadowborne Games burst onto the scene in 2022 with their debut hit Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood. The sheer enormity of Oathsworn is impressive to say the least, from both a first-time publisher and first-time head designer Jamie Jolly, although the staff is composed of some industry veterans in both the board game and screenwriting industries,  Behemoth in both size and scope, this game comes complete with optional high-quality miniatures, terrain, and even an ‘armory’ of various weapons that can be physically equipped to the character miniatures via a removable push-fit system. Want your hero to swashbuckle two swords at a time? Just pop out their current arms and replace them with the new blades you picked up last session. The armory system and larger-than-life terrain, while completely superfluous, adds to the experience in a fun way. It’s a “they didn’t have to do that” kind of sentiment that you’ll end up seeing throughout the entirety of the game.

[caption id="attachment_310504" align="alignnone" width="1500"] To flail or chop? Decisions, decisions.[/caption]

Into the Woods

Oathsworn is a large campaign game that effectively boils down to two phases: exploration and combat. In a given ‘chapter,’ the formula is the same. Players start with a narrative-driven exploration, making choices throughout, until finally reaching a…

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Wait…ANOTHER review of a game in the Horrified series? Yes, it’s true, and by now, we know our Horrified stuff around here—check out our reviews of the base game (Horrified: Universal Monsters), Horrified: American Monsters, and Horrified: Greek Monsters for the evidence, as well as an overview of how these games play if you are new to the series.

Horrified: World of Monsters is my first foray into this series, so I unleashed the newest set of monsters—the Yeti, the Sphinx, the zombie Jiangshi, and Cthulhu—on the best and most reliable gamers in my network, my two kids (ages 10 and 8).

Over the course of three plays, I got all four monsters to the table. In reading the rules from the last two games, nothing has really changed with Horrified: World of Monsters—players work together to defeat monsters before those monsters deal enough “terror” to advance the players past the threshold for defeat (deaths by the players, deaths by the villagers and legend non-playable characters, or the monster deck being exhausted when a player needs to draw a new card).

Everything in the game is dictated by running around the map to pick up items (here in one of three colors) that will be used both to advance a monster’s defeat condition, or to defend players…

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Inferno is one of those games that’s difficult to describe. The setting is “hell” or the Divine Comedy version of it. But it’s not really a game that has much to do with anything biblically inflected. If anything, the game is about going to Hell University to get your PhD in moving different colored pieces around. It’s bureaucratic, aesthetically garish, and completely delightful.

Here goes: in the game, you’re a family in Renaissance Florence, and you’re trying to get a primo spot in the hell hierarchy by shepherding souls through a plinko board into the appropriate layer of hell. Each of the circles of hell (excluding the topmost, Limbo) has a track associated with it. At the end of the game, each track can score between 4 and 20 points depending on how populated the circle is. If there aren’t enough souls in the circle, the track is worth fewer points. Additionally, to score, you have to have position on the track(s) and a diploma piece for that track. So, you need to acquire diplomas, move up on the tracks you want to score, and make sure there’s soul pieces in the corresponding circle.

[caption id="attachment_309465" align="alignnone" width="768"] Pictured: Hell as MLM scheme[/caption]

If it sounds bizarre, it’s because it is.…

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Saddle up your horses, grab your guns, and play your poker hands as we review Western Legends

Western Legends is a 2-6 player sandbox game set in the American West with a variable length set in advance by the players. For those not familiar with the term “sandbox,” it’s all about freedom and variety. Imagine all the things you could do in a sandbox: Build a sand castle, bury your feet in the sand, throw some sand in your older brother’s face while he shoves your head into a plastic bucket, etc. 

In Western Legends players have the freedom to head out into the wild, dusty yonder to do pretty much whatever they want to do. Want to be an outlaw? Well then, Annie, get your gun and go rob somebody. Want to be on the side of the law instead and go catch them varmints? Saddle up, sheriff. Maybe you want to live your inner cowboy and herd cattle down the great western trail, or be your best prospector, panning for gold in them thar’ hills. Gamble away your hard-earned bucks at the saloon or entertain yourself at the cabaret. Western Legends lets you do every one of those things and more, all in the pursuit of the all-important Legendary Points.

Once upon a Game in the…

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Despite reviewing board games for nearly 5 years now and having written over 100 reviews, I never reviewed a campaign game. Time is a bit of a luxury for me, and campaign games have the daring proposal to subject me to hours of my time to get the “full experience” these behemoth boxes offer.

So why on earth am I reviewing this one? The answer is as simple as writing this sentence: I used to play the Monster Hunter video games back in the day. Much like how Nemesis is an unlicensed version of Aliens, Primal: The Awakening is an unlicensed version of Monster Hunter. However, that isn’t the only reason.

Campaign games have always irked me on their design. You see, a game calling itself a "dungeon crawler" or "boss battler," and you think, "That's my jam!" But then you're stuck doing some bean-counting for upgrading a town or playing choose-your-own-adventure in between the good stuff. I'm here to skewer baddies, snatch their loot, beef up my gear, and then go skewer even bigger baddies. I want boss fights to feel like I’m a third monkey rushing towards Noah's Ark because, brother, it is starting to rain.

Taming the Complexity

Fortunately for Primal: The Awakening, the campaign structure is exactly that. Your “prologue” is fighting a creature that…

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Does the third game in the Horrified series, set in ancient Greek mythology live up to the standards set by its older siblings? Check out our review of Horrified: Greek Monsters.

Horrified is a family-weight cooperative game that burst onto the scene back in 2019 to much acclaim, both cementing its place in my collection and establishing design group Prospero Hall as the go-to producers of IP-based games that hold up to gamer scrutiny. In Horrified, players work together to defeat a varied number of movie monsters intent on terrorizing the most unlucky town ever. Horrified: American Monsters, the standalone sequel, swaps out Universal movie monsters for American cryptids. Horrified: Greek Monsters (HGM for short) takes the monster-hunting, town-defending romp to the world of ancient Greek mythology, with such villains as Medusa, Cerberus, the Minotaur, and other mythological entities.

[caption id="attachment_307843" align="aligncenter" width="1500"] What's in the box?[/caption]

Let’s Do That Again

Gameplay for the previous two Horrified games features a pickup and deliver mechanic with the primary variance being the specific conditions required for each monster. (For more on general gameplay, see our review of the original game.)  HGM takes the same approach. If you’ve ever played either the original or American-cryptid based sequel, you will…

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Starmada is a set of rules that allows you to design starships, then (with some miniatures or chits on a hex grid) send them out to reduce other starships to so much space debris. The idea of the game is to be a quick playing, tactical, and universal set of rules for such things. The system for ship design has basic components and myriad add-ons allowing it to simulate just about anything you can think of in a way that ensures that even if you and your friends are simulating different universes, the relative strengths of the ships can be calculated to ensure a fair fight. Want to put a fleet of Star Wars Super Star Destroyers up against a group of Star Trek Borg Cubes or perhaps a few Babylon 5 Vorlon Planet Killers? This game can do that.

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Admiralty—the group of volunteers that Daniel Kast (Majestic XII Games) brought together to take Starmada X rules and use them to create a new edition of Starmada a bit over a decade ago. Daniel and the members of the Admiralty were all people that loved many of the previous editions of the game. We each had our thoughts on where the strongest and weakest areas of…

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Don’t tell my erudite friends but skirmish games, in particular, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, got me back into board gaming (even though I find the entirety of the modern Star Wars franchise unbearably boring). I love pushing miniatures around on a grid of some kind and making them shoot each other.

Now, I do love Star Trek, the show about people solving problems with talking, and I’m happy to say that if you’re looking for a highly approachable two-player skirmish game, Star Trek: Away Missions fits the bill. While the way you win can feel slightly disjointed as a game, it often ends up feeling more in the spirit of a Star Trek set piece, where a character has to perform some jargon-filled objective while dodging phaser fire.

Yellow Alert

Away Missions has you selecting your team from amongst Romulans, Klingons, Borg, and Federation factions. For this review, I had access to the starter kits for each. As I understand it, you can get other collections of minis which add characters you can swap in, more cards to build your decks with, and additional options for objectives.

You have a deck of Support Cards, and a deck of Mission Cards. The former contain various pieces of equipment that you…

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I'm largely unfamiliar with the Aviation Wargame genre of gaming, although not due to lack of interest. As much as I'd love to sink my teeth into something like Star Wars: X-Wing, I'm well-known for going all-in on miniatures games only to find myself lacking someone who would mirror the same investment. Therefore, I was intrigued to see Aerodome: Rising Horizons as a budget substitute for the sprawling miniature experience.

Aerodome: Rising Horizons Overview

The object of the game is aerial supremacy. Take down your opponent by reducing their Hit Points to 0 before they do the same to you.

When starting a new game of Aerodome: Rising Horizons, you need to select the Stadium that you'll be fighting in. It's called a Stadium as opposed to a Battleground or Location because you're playing as pilots of aircraft across time and dimensions. At least, that's what I was able to glean from the 'Story so Far' section of the rulebook that really just outlined the various factions battling in the game.

Each player hops into the proverbial cockpit of a fighter, assuming the role of a prodigious pilot like Alice Drummond or Van Vertigo. The pilot determines which types of cards—and how many of each—can be combined to make your Maneuver Hand. Think of the Maneuver Hand as…

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At last year’s SPIEL event in Essen, Germany, I had the chance to try The Warp, a game I followed during its crowdfunding campaign because I was intrigued by its approach to the 4X genre of spacefaring adventure games (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate). The campaign, which ended in late 2020, gave me the sense that there would be a real chance at being blown off the map, so the “eXterminate” portion of the 4X mechanic here looked real…and many games in this category do not really follow through on that promise.

I’ve now played The Warp in both three-player and four-player arrangements, and after these plays and a promising demo back in Germany, I know that The Warp does a lot of things well, particularly in the way objective scoring takes place. While it falls a tier below the best 4X and 4X-adjacent games I have played, such as Voidfall, Scythe, Circadians: Chaos Order and Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy, I think The Warp delivers on many fronts.

The real challenge? Finding it, especially if you live in North America.

“Do You Want to Follow?”

The Warp is a relatively rules-light, 1-4 player area control and hand management experience that can be…

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What’s That Sound?

As you slowly regain consciousness, you become aware of a red glow enveloping you. You begin to recollect things. You're on a ship. You're part of a crew. You were in hibernation. But that sound is deafening. Is that the alarm?

As you step out of your stasis pod into the hibernatorium, you become even more aware of your surroundings. You're now sure that's the alarm. The red emergency lights bathing everything in crimson are a definite tell. Your crew mates are also emerging from their pods. But, wait. Is that?

One of your crew mates has been removed from their pod, and their body lies cold, lifeless, and mangled on the metal floor. Your mind is suffering from short-term amnesia from the deep sleep, so when one of your crew suggests that you all should investigate, this comes with some pangs of anxiety. You're not even sure you remember these hallways.

The engine room and bridge are simple enough, since one is always in the back, and the other is always in the front. But the locations of the rest of the rooms are fuzzy right now. Everyone else is already going their separate ways, so you pick a dark hallway and move forward.

It was a short trip before you reached the armory. While…

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The game of Weirdwood Manor begins with a narrative explaining the situation. Lady Weirdwood rules over a magical mansion that stands as the nexus between the mortal realm and the lands of the fae. It is her job (along with her wardens—that would be the players) to keep the forces of evil at bay. However, something has gone wrong and some evil from the Fae Realm has breached the manor and has come to wreak havoc.

The setup is quite interesting. Everything within the game, from the way the manor works to the interesting abilities of the various characters you can play to how the secondary characters (called companions) operate… all serve this theme admirably.

What follows is a look at how the game is set-up and played. If you want to skip this, continue on to my thoughts below. Otherwise, click on the link and check out how the game functions!

[mks_toggle title="Check out the rules to Weirdwood Manor" state="close "]

Setup

Setup is relatively straight forward, even though it is a lot of steps.

First there is the main board setup:

• Assemble the two halves of the manor.
• Place the outer-ring rooms into their ring in a random order.
• Assemble and place the Day Corridor and place it just inside the outer-ring rooms with Day 1…

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What is Kingdom Death: Monster?

Kingdom Death: Monster is, more than any other board game I’ve played, difficult to describe. Designed by Adam Poots and published by his miniatures company, Kingdom Death, this game is better described by what it’s not. Kingdom Death: Monster is not a role-playing game, but has some role-playing elements. It isn’t a dungeon crawl, but has some dungeon crawl elements. It’s not a boss battler, but has boss battling elements.

I could keep going, but you get the idea. Kingdom Death: Monster is a little bit of so many things, that it’s sort of a Frankenstein’s Monster. In the game, you’ll be making decisions that affect your character, the group as a whole, and future story events. You’ll be managing resources, crafting and upgrading, fighting, managing your inventory, rolling dice, having random encounters, gathering loot, and much, much more

So what is Kingdom Death: Monster? Let’s dive in and have a bit of a look. DISCLAIMER: This is a campaign-style game. There are some minor spoilers, and some content in this game is definitely for a mature audience. While I’m trying to not mention specifics or get too in depth, just the nature of this game alone makes it difficult to keep everything that follows spoiler free and rated PG, but I’ll do my…

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