Here is a game that does almost everything right. It has a gorgeous table presence with vibrant Japanese artwork. It has a deeply satisfying central mechanism that is unlike anything else in the hobby. It has tremendous replayability through a modular board. It is designed by one of Japan’s most talented designers. It sits at #156 on BGG, rated 7.79 by nearly 14,000 people, with a strategy game rank of #116. ...
Everyone knows the “dudes on a map” genre. You plonk miniatures on territories, build armies, and smash your neighbours until someone controls enough stuff to win. Blood Rage does it. Kemet does it. Risk has been doing it since your grandparents were young. Inis does something different. It puts warriors on a map, gives you every tool to fight - and then makes winning through combat almost impossible. This is the area control game that rewards the diplomat, the reader of the room, the player who knows when not to act. And it’s been quietly sitting at a 7.8 rating on BGG with 23,000 ratings while its louder cousins steal all the attention. ...
There’s a particular kind of euro game that doesn’t want you to feel clever. It doesn’t hand you a satisfying engine that hums along, spitting out resources while you lean back and admire your tableau. Instead, it grabs you by the collar every single turn and says: “Choose. And know that whatever you pick, you’re giving something up.” Merv: The Heart of the Silk Road is that game. Designed by Fabio Lopiano and illustrated by the ever-brilliant Ian O’Toole, this 2020 release from Osprey Games has quietly become one of the most respected mid-weight euros among people who’ve actually played it - while remaining almost completely invisible to the broader hobby. ...
Uwe Rosenberg has a name-recognition problem - and it’s the exact opposite of what you’d expect. Everyone knows Agricola. Everyone’s heard of Caverna and A Feast for Odin. His big, sprawling, feed-your-family-or-suffer epics dominate “best euro” lists and BGG rankings. But hiding in their enormous shadows is a game that does almost everything better in half the time and a fraction of the table space. That game is Nusfjord, and it might be the single most underappreciated worker placement game of the last decade. ...
Let me describe a board game to you. It is set in medieval Germany. You are a trader. You place cubes on a map. The box art looks like something you might find in a business textbook from 1997. The colour palette peaks at “muted brown” and descends from there. The name is virtually unpronounceable. Every single thing about this game’s exterior is designed, seemingly on purpose, to make you walk past it. ...
There are cooperative games that give you a puzzle. Then there are cooperative games that make you feel like your tiny tribe is one bad decision away from chewing bark and burying Steve behind the cave. Paleo is firmly in the second camp, and that is exactly why it deserves more love. This article is about what Paleo actually does at the table, why its survival tension works so well, why it gets overlooked, and who it suits best. If your group likes co-ops with actual tension instead of polite optimisation, this one has teeth. ...
Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile Is Still One of the Boldest Games You Can Buy Some games are fun for a night. Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile is fun to remember. This is the rare design where the end of one session actually matters next time, not because you’re trapped in a legacy campaign, but because the world itself keeps the scars. The usurper who stole power. The weird card that warped the economy for three sessions. The moment your friend swore loyalty as a Citizen and then absolutely did not mean it. I love games that create table stories. Oath turns those stories into infrastructure. ...
The Pitch: Why Troyes Deserves Your Attention Look, if you’ve been diving into the shimmering waters of board gaming for some time now, you know how easy it is for gems to slip through the cracks. Troyes is one such overlooked masterpiece. This medieval-themed dice placement game is not just another Euro to put on the shelf next to your copy of Agricola. It’s an intricate dance of strategy, luck mitigation, and deep tactical decisions that rewards the brainiacs who dare to engage with it. It’s a hidden gem that’s remained under the radar, but I’m here to tell you why it deserves a spotlight. ...
