Aeon’s End: The New Age - Andrew Lynch

Indie Board & Card Games took their foot off the gas just a little with The New Age, by which I mean it isn’t nearly as punishing as War Eternal. The New Age introduced Aeon’s End’s campaign system, which would become de rigueur for their future releases, and those of us who’ve played Aeon’s End before will know that that’s a mixed blessing. The constant injection of new cards and powers is great, but the writing…well. Nobody plays Aeon’s End for the quality of the writing. You win some and you lose some. If you play Aeon’s End enough, you’ll lose quite a bit, in fact.

Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ - The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ - Would like to play it again

Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.

Kraken Skulls!  - Kevin Brantley

Kraken Skulls! puts 2–5 players at the helm of a pirate ship, chasing the most fame to become the king (or queen!) of the pirates.

Players bounce between a random selection of dice mini-games (via cards) laid out in a circle, mixed with open-water cards that house the dreadful…

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Concerning Formatting

Before we begin, we should discuss formatting. Meeple Mountain’s house style is to italicize the names of games. Arcs, Catan, Kabuto Sumo: Sakura Slam. This is not contentious. They are, after all, titles of authored works, and deserve the grammatical demarcations befitting their status. When it comes to classic, authorless games such as chess and checkers, there is a schism within the church of Meeple Mountain. Some believe they should be capitalized too, but this has (as evidenced just now by my flagrant disregard for the house style) never sat well with me. Chess has no single author. “Chess” is a name, but it is not a title, and the dominant English convention is to neither italicize nor capitalize it.

The same is true of most traditional games, a number of which will be discussed in the article that follows. Cribbage, oh hell, solitaire, koi-koi, and canasta will come up, but they will only be capitalized if they happen to begin a sentence, and they will only be italicized for the purposes of emphasis. This would not be worth explaining if this article did not also cover French Tarot and scopa.

You see the issue.

“French Tarot” is generally capitalized in English in order to separate the card game (French Tarot) from the deck with which that card…

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Windmill Valley: Blooming Sails - Justin Bell

On my way out of my meetings with Board&Dice at last year’s SPIEL Essen 2025, our marketing contact asked if I wanted a copy of the new Windmill Valley expansion, Blooming Sails. I thought the base game was fine, certainly not at the top echelon of Board&Dice’s other, better, more combotastic Euros such as Tiletum, Nucleum, or even recent hits like Reef Project and Tianxia. Still, I love games, and one player from my review group really enjoyed Windmill Valley, so I agreed to bring a copy home.

The expansion addresses what most players I know agree to be the weak link in the base game’s design: the Foreign Trade action, where players would drop a tulip bulb to get two meager bonuses—maybe a tool, a point, maybe another tulip bulb—or take all the bulbs on a card to get a lot of bulbs at once. I’m not a Windmill Valley expert, but it was always the action I would cover with another action tile first because I used Foreign Trade so infrequently. The expansion blows that portion of the game up, using a new side board, new Crate bonuses, and a separate boat token used to…

The post Quick Peaks – Windmill Valley: Blooming Sails, Aeon’s End: War Eternal, Rise of Babel, The Pirate Republic: Africa Gambit, Golem Run appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Presentation is half the battle when it comes to tabletop gaming; I never follow the adage of 'don't judge a book by its cover' because it goes against the grain of any marketing textbook. Through the Hedgerow immediately draws attention thanks to its evocative, pseudo-woodcut artstyle, imparting its promise of rustic fantasy upon prospective readers. Will it stand the test of time like it requires of its characters? Let's find out.

Through the Hedgerow Overview

Information comes flying at you right from the jump when you open up Through the Hedgerow. Flavorful vignettes separate the mechanical rules so that you are constantly reminded of the setting. The game takes place over four Ages, starting with the Dark Ages and ending during WWII. Much of the game is centered around a singular location during one (or more) of these epochs, setting the table for your characters to watch how history and the magical world of Fay shape it.

Players have an array of Gentries to choose from when building their character: the headless, turnip-wearing Buggeber Fay, scarecrow-adjacent Flayboglin Fay, Light-driven Heathen Clerks, champions of the Light known as Hodkins, the Mortal Motley entertainers, bird-faced Ouzels, humanoid spiders called Tomnoddins, Mortal children protected through innocence known as Waifs, or Warlockes, Mortal wizards who internally struggle with their magic.

Through the Hedgerow Roleplaying Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Mechanics are the engine of board game design. While many are straightforward and use limited or similar ideas to support the gameplay, more and more modern games are fusing together seemingly disparate mechanics in an attempt to create something fresh. In some instances, these mechanics wind up fitting together perfectly (the good), in others, the concept looks interesting but the execution just falls flat (the bad), and sometimes, it can feel like jamming two incorrect puzzle pieces into each other (the ugly). Today, K. David Ladage and Joseph Buszek each look at three games trying to mix it up, with varying results.

K. David Ladage

The Good—7 Wonders Duel (with both expansions)

Set Collection + Tug of War + Sudden Death + Once-per-game Powers + etc. = Awesome!

The first article in this series was The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - Two Player Adaptations. I said that a good example of such an adaptation was 7 Wonders Duel. I was confident in my choice as I am in good company: my colleague, Justin Bell, agrees. I pointed out that one of the things that makes this game so amazing is the understanding that, with the shift from three plus players to just two, the game…

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Many of us who have been gaming for a while love to spread the joy of our hobby to others. We're not shy about inviting others to our game nights or trying to start up new groups in town. Many times, though, we're met with, "Nah, I'm not interested. I'd rather stay in and watch Netflix."

But then comes the day when someone says, "Yeah, I'd like that," and the person actually shows up at your gathering. You haven't dragged them to your gathering; they've come willingly. They've expressed interest! They are a Potential New Gamer (PNG). Your job now is to not scare them off by giving them a subpar experience. How do you boost the chances that they'll stick with the hobby and maybe become a permanent member of your group?

While everyone responds differently to social situations, there are some things about game gatherings that can be instant turn-offs for potential new gamers. Here are ten things that might frustrate and/or offend your fledgling gamers and tips on how to avoid them.

1. Sexist, racist, anti-LGBTQ, political, religious, or other alienating language or appearances. 

Gaming has come a long way since I started way back in the 1980's. Back then, a woman practically had to accept being offended…

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Here’s a quick recap of Chapters One, Two, and Three:

Someone introduced me to Magic. Someone taught me how to play the wrong way. I sucked. Someone taught me the right rules and how to build a deck. I got good. I went broke. I got out. Then, Commander arrived. I got inspired by a Commander deck my wife bought me for Christmas and decided to build a deck of my own. I identified a potential commander amongst my plethora of cards. I made a few suppositions about what types of cards I might need in my deck. I realized the state of my card collection was in total disarray. So, I decided to get organized, and I did.

With my organizational woes out of the way, I can finally turn my attention to actually creating my deck.

But first, some ground rules.

Magic, as I’ve stated in previous articles in this series, is an absurdly expensive hobby. My intention with this deck is to only use whatever I already have at hand. I feel that, over the course of three decades, I have donated enough to the Magic coffers that I never want to spend another cent on this game ever again. That’s why I’m excited to build this deck. With access to over 8,000…

The post Let’s Build a Magic Deck – Chapter Four: And We’re Off appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Like many people, my first game of Warhammer 40,000 (40K) was played at a local game store. It wasn’t particularly organized. Armies weren’t optimized, rules were misunderstood or misremembered, and “take-backs” were given freely and without hesitation. The atmosphere was relaxed, social, and forgiving.

Games stretched on for hours and were rarely uninterrupted. Curious onlookers stopped by to watch or chat, breaks were taken for food and drinks, and plenty of conversation had nothing to do with the game itself. Most games didn’t even finish, and no one cared. Those hours were filled with laughter, questionable decisions, and learning. That casual environment is where I fell in love with Warhammer and the hobby as a whole.

Among my group of friends, armies were built around what people enjoyed playing or painting, not what was considered optimal. Some of us played to win, but nothing was on the line. The outcome mattered far less than the experience and the stories the games created.

Fast forward several years, and I found myself stepping into a very different environment - competitive Warhammer 40,000. Instead of a local store table, I was now under bright convention lights, surrounded by rows of identical tables laid out with carefully planned, symmetrical terrain. Don’t get me wrong, this environment is still incredibly enjoyable. The people are welcoming…

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One of the best discoveries I made last year in my town was a silent book club. It seems like an oxymoron, but for us introverts it's an easy, low stakes way to meet new people without being overwhelmed.

The premise is this: everyone brings a book to read to the event. (Unlike a regular book club, this is a book of your choosing. Not everyone is reading the same book.) Most events follow a similar structure: Thirty minutes of chit-chat at the beginning, an hour or so of silent reading, and then some more chit-chat at the end. The chit-chat can be structured so that each person talks a little about the book they've chosen, or it can just be a discussion of "whatever." Some people don't even stay for the after-chat, preferring to just read and go. Events are held at restaurants or bars. Others are held in libraries, bookstores, or private homes.

The biggest positive I hear over and over about the silent book club is that, in a busy world, the meetings provide a guaranteed chance to slow down and get some reading done. Meeting new people in a real-life, low-stress environment is a close second.

After loving my local silent book club, a light bulb went off in my head. Why wouldn't the same thing…

The post How (and Why) to Start a Silent Board Gaming Club appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

TantrumCon 2026 took place on February 5-8 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The event was held at a downtown Marriott hotel, making use of its cavernous main hall and many side rooms. Two of our contributors, Tom Franklin and Will Hare, attended and have this report for you.

Tom Franklin

Having done craft shows for 16 years, the first night, Thursday evening, felt less like the end of a rousing first day and more like a pre-setup time. It reminded me of weekend shows that allowed vendors to set up their booths the night before the show starts so they’ll be fully ready when the doors open to the public the next day.

A few groups of 3-4 people played games in the Learn to Play room. Through body language and positioning, I got the impression these people came to the convention already knowing one another.

By Friday, vendors had set up and were teaching their games to an interested public. The biggest and best display I saw was from AllPlay Games. There, I spoke with Danique from AllPlay, learning about some of their latest games. Later, I returned to their booth where Damian played several of their small card games with me, including Slambo!, 3 Witches, and French Toast. For a volunteer, he did a great…

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Meeple Mountain’s founder, Andy Matthews, spent some time last fall with Harris Hill Products, Inc., the team behind the new gaming device Board. After Andy finished the demo, he reached out to me because I do a lot of gaming-as-a-family nights at the Bell household with my wife and two kids, ages 12 and 9.

I looked at the brief Board commercial on the company’s home page, and while the video was certainly splashy, I initially did not want to wade into the waters here. “My only question,” I started in a note to Andy, “revolves around the games…the games don’t necessarily look like board games so much as video games.” Don’t get me wrong—I play video games every week, sometimes every day. But the Board looked like an oversized iPad that used physical components to manipulate the screen, in a similar fashion to Beasts of Balance.

I’m a tabletop games reviewer, not a video game reviewer, so I wanted to make sure everyone knew who they were asking about doing a review here. Still, I knew the kids would get a kick out of trying Board, so I volunteered to give this a go. About a month later, the Board showed up in a box so loud that the company’s logo was splashed across the front: “BOARD”,…

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Here’s a quick recap of Let's Build a Magic Deck - Parts One and Two:

Someone introduced me to Magic. Someone taught me how to play the wrong way. I sucked. Someone taught me the right rules and how to build a deck. I got good. I went broke. I got out. Then, Commander arrived. I got inspired by a Commander deck my wife bought me for Christmas and decided to build a deck of my own. I identified a potential commander amongst my plethora of cards. I made a few suppositions about what types of cards I might need in my deck. I realized the state of my card collection was in total disarray. So, I decided to get organized.

To that end, the first thing I did was to hop onto Amazon to pick up a few trading card storage boxes. Examining the myriad plastic baggies full of cards that were in my bin of cards, I gauged that I had around 2,000 loose cards that needed a home. After looking over multiple options, I finally settled upon these storage boxes.

I liked these because they looked rugged and durable. Plus, they’re reasonably priced. 800 cards per box seemed like it should be sufficient. I…

The post Let’s Build a Magic Deck – Part Three: Breaking Eggs appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Mission: Red Planet - Andrew Lynch

The trick with Mission Red Planet, an area control game that comfortably sits 4-6 players and takes about 60-90 minutes, is to not take it too seriously. The good news there is that the game helps with that. You can’t take any of this too seriously. This isn’t El Grande. There’s no illusion of grand strategy. Mission Red Planet is a goofy, swingy, occasionally violent area control game in which a little too much is left up to chance. On the bright side, that makes it zippy. Nobody gets too bogged down in their decisions. The downside is that you can’t get particularly invested in your decisions either.

I like the minis, and I like the art. The docks for the space ships are both delightful and practical, the ideal combination. If I have a group of 6 who need to scratch an area control itch, I’m more than happy to bring Mission Red Planet back out onto the table. But that doesn’t happen too often.

Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ - The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★☆☆ - Wouldn’t suggest it, but would happily play it

Read more articles from Andrew Lynch.

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The post Quick Peaks – Mission: Red Planet, Tiny Towns, Mindbug x King of Tokyo, The Old King’s Crown, Beasty Bar appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Here’s a quick recap of Let’s Build A Magic Deck - Part One:

Someone introduced me to Magic. Someone taught me how to play the wrong way. I sucked. Someone taught me the right rules and how to build a deck. I got good. I went broke. I got out. Then Commander arrived.

I suppose now is a good time to talk about Commander: what it is and what it means for me.

Part Two: What A Mess

Where I Extoll the Virtues of the Commander Format

As mentioned in the previous entry in this series, a standard Magic deck is composed of 60 cards—consisting of cards from very specific blocks—with no more than four copies of a single card in the deck. Each player begins a game with 20 hit points, and the players win by reducing their opponents’ health to 0. There’s nothing wrong with this mode of play. It’s the way I played Magic for decades. But, it’s costly since entire sets of cards are constantly being rotated out, and new sets are being rotated in. This means you have to constantly buy more cards if you want to compete.

The Commander format changes a lot of things. Firstly, in Commander, your deck is composed of 100 unique cards (minus basic lands, which you can…

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The guys in my Wednesday gaming group started a push to play more of the old, dust-covered games at the bottom and backs of our respective game closet shelves. The premise was simple: let’s try to remember why we keep all these old games when all we ever play now are the newest, shiniest things in shrink.

Right on the spot, the Dusty Euro Series was born, and I’ve enlisted multiple game groups to help me lead the charge on covering older games.

In order to share some of these experiences, I’ll be writing a piece from time to time about a game that is at least 10 years old that we haven’t already reviewed here at Meeple Mountain. In that way, these articles are not reviews. These pieces will not include a detailed rules explanation or a broad introduction to each game. All you get is what you need: my brief thoughts on what I think about each game right now, based on one or two fresh plays.

The Downfall of Pompeii: What Is It?

The Downfall of Pompeii is a tricky one to categorize. Broken into two halves, it begins as a hand management game as players use a small…

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This past Christmas, my wife bought me a pre-constructed Magic: the Gathering Commander deck, which is set in the Doctor Who universe. Doctor Who appears within Magic: the Gathering as a part of an initiative called ‘Universes Beyond’. This series, based on various IPs, features other settings such as Lord of the Rings, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and Fallout (to name a few).

It was an unexpected, but welcome, gift to say the least. I haven’t played Magic: the Gathering in years (I’ve never played the Commander format), but I do love me some Doctor Who. So, I wasted no time tearing into it to check out the cards, and I have to say: I’m in love. From the artwork to the card mechanics to the flair text, the theme oozes from every card. It’s exactly what you’d want from a Doctor Who themed Magic: the Gathering set.

As I sat there reading the cards and trying to understand how the deck worked, I felt something long dormant began reawakening in me: the desire to play. And, as I sat there reading over the cards, it became apparent to me that I’ve been out of the game for far too long. Unfamiliar keywords, command zones, color identities… my eyes crossed trying to parse everything. Magic is an ever-evolving game and…

The post Let’s Build a Magic Deck – Part One: Getting Started appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

The Hanging Gardens - Justin Bell

Last year, I played The Hanging Gardens and covered it in our Dusty Euro series of articles. A card-splaying gem from 2008, The Hanging Gardens was a fun time at the table and reminded me a lot of the game Honshu. In this way, both games require players to lay small cards on top of other cards to satisfy scoring conditions in a very snappy 30-minute format.

I picked up a review copy of the 2025 version of The Hanging Gardens during my trip to SPIEL Essen 2025, and immediately noticed that the game format had changed. Now, players must complete a 12-card pyramid of garden cards that include scoring options for various elements, such as visitors, animals, irrigation cards (which must be placed in a certain pattern to satisfy a private milestone card), and various adornments to empty garden cards. There are public objectives along with a mechanic that requires players to choose from different card markets (in three columns) to draft the right cards.

The new version of The Hanging Gardens is pretty ordinary. In fact, this new version feels very much like what an industry friend likes to say about the modern state of the hobby: “new games are…

The post Quick Peaks – The Hanging Gardens, Hits & Outs, SETI: Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence, CODO Berlin 63, Bohnanza appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

While our Diamond Climber Awards are on hiatus, we still want to make sure we, as a team, talk about our favorite games of 2025. These are the games that stand out, stand up, and won’t stand aside. Maybe it’s a light card game, or maybe it’s an hours-long space odyssey, the games on this list are our collective favorites that we played in 2025. Please join our team as we celebrate the best that board gaming has to offer.

Tom Franklin

Ingenius 3D

Thanks to my friend W. Eric Martin. I borrowed his copy of Ingenious 3D at the end of 2024 and forced it on all of my gaming friends in January 2025, from North Carolina to Maryland.

If you’ve played Reiner Knizia’s original Ingenious, you know how good the game is. Now, condense the board into a much smaller hexagonal shape and allow players to randomize the colors in the corners. The pieces are thicker, with a bar on the underside, across your pieces two hexes. This means you can only play on top of two adjoining pieces, and not completely cover a single piece.

Play starts on the first level of the board, but you can place a tile atop two other tiles at any…

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I was first introduced to the design sensibilities of Pete McPherson after playing Tiny Towns, a pattern-matching game about building structures for woodland creatures. Because I enjoyed Tiny Towns so much I also reviewed his game Wormholes (a route building and resource collection game set in outer space), and Fit to Print (a realtime tile laying game in which you’re building the front page of a small town newspaper). We’ve also interviewed Pete twice (Feb 2019 and Jan 2022).

So when Pickpocket Games told me about an upcoming Pete McPherson title called Lodge, I reached out and requested a review copy without any knowledge of the game other than the cover (which is gorgeous). And now that I’ve played it several times, I realize that it fits right into Pete’s catalog like it was born there.

Take a walk in the snow with me to the front door of Lodge.

“With luck, it might even snow for us.”

In Lodge, players run competing ski lodges, set high in the mountains. Over the course of the game, players add rooms and amenities to their lodges, then entice guests to stay in those rooms. Ah, but the guests are picky, and as guests do, have their…

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