Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead.

Peter reviews The Presence, a ghostly game from Purple Lantern Games.

Ghosts! I love ghost stories. But for some reason the world of boardgaming continues to churn out ‘spooky’ ghost games for children, ignoring the rich history of ghost stories. Until now! The Presence is an atmospheric game of apparitions and haunting from Swedish publisher Purple Lantern Games. Let me tell you all about it – and also answer the question, do I believe in ghosts?

Don’t forget to download my rules & reference for the game. It’s also available on my app, Tabletop Codex.

I am Saint Exmin of the Valkyrie. It’s been a very enjoyable fight.

Conquer the cosmos with your Arcs rules summary!

Arcs is one of the very rare games on this website that I don’t own and haven’t played. And unfortunately I haven’t played the other very popular game by this designer and artist team, Root, either! Too many games, too little time, especially when it comes to games that play best with more than 2 players and improve with repeated and committed play.

So I’ll content myself with lifting a paragraph from Boardgamegeek: Arcs is a sharp, tactical space opera game set in a dark yet silly universe. Players represent officials from a distant, decaying and neglectful Empire who are now free to vie for dominance whether through battle, gathering scarce resources or diplomatic intrigue. Ready yourself for dramatic twists and turns as you launch into this galactic struggle.

Due to my unfamiliarity with the game, I’ve kept this to just a rules summary, and there’s no mention of the Blighted Reach campaign expansion. I hope you find it useful nonetheless!

My heart is not cold. It’s broken.

Peter has some strong opinions about the new Necromunda: Skirmish boxed set!

Necromunda is a game that’s dear to my heart, having played and enjoyed it since the first boxed set way back in 1995. So I’ve had mixed feelings about the direction Games Workshop has pushed it in since the re-release (Necromunda: Underhive) back in 2017. That boxed set wasn’t very exciting and missed the mark by presenting the game in a 2D form, but subsequent sets (Dark Uprising, Ash Wastes), while extremely expensive, at least featured a good amount of terrain, which is what this game is all about.

Since then it’s been hardcover book after hardcover book – a new one every time a new model was released, it seemed,, and I get the feeling that the folks at GW just don’t know what to to with Necromunda (or, I should say, how to monetise it effectively). This new set underscores that impression. There’s been a little bit of rules cleanup, but not enough to upset anyone. We’re back to the 2D format that doesn’t really give a good impression of the game at all, with a stingy single sprue of pipes for cover. And worst of all, the model count per gang has dropped from 10 to 8, for no reason whatsever.

At first I was pleased to hear that all the gang stats would be released in 2 subsequent books (though I wish they’d all been squeezed into one) – but now we discover there’s a series of softcover ‘journals’, one for each gang, coming down the pipe. Is this just a whole lot of recycling? An attempt to get fans of the game to buy the same stuff all over again with just a few tweaks? Only time will tell. Personally, I wish GW had been brave enough to do something new with the game – but I guess that’s a risk they’re not willing to take.

Check out my video for all my thoughts on the new release!

The visions are clear now. I see possible futures, all at once.

Ride the sandworms with your Dune: Imperium – Uprising rules and reference!

There’s been a steady flow of expansions to the original Dune: Imperium since its release in 2020, and this deck building/worker placement game set in Frank Herbert’s Dune universe has stood the test of time. It’s a game that I find myself constantly going back to, as it hits that sweet spot – not too complex, but enough decision-making to make it interesting and enough theme to keep it engaging.

There was a lot of confusion, however, when this stand-alone ‘expansion’, Dune: Imperium: Uprising, was released. Was it a replacement for the old game? Which was better? How did all the expansions now work with both versions of the game? It took a while for the dust to settle, and it’s still rather confusing, but basically this is the same game, but with some significant changes that give it a new feel and open up new strategies. The cards and boards have been altered, but most significantly we have the addition of sandworms (and the shield wall that keeps them out of some conflicts until it is breached), and spies that allow more flexibility with the selection of board spaces.

It’s still basically the same game we know and love, but it has a more climactic and cinematic feel, and while I’m not yet ready to say it’s better, I’ve really enjoyed it so far (after putting off buying a copy for several years).

However, there is a lot of fiddly mucking about when it comes to using all the expansions, especially with the addition of Bloodlines, which has some different components and rules depending on whether you’re using the original game or Uprising. So I decided to take on the challenge of reworking my original game summary, and creating a brand new one for Uprising; each of which don’t refer to the other game. This way you have summaries and reference sheets that refer only to the game you’re playing, and make set up and play much, much easier than decoding the many rulebooks. Enjoy!

Oh, and one more thing – I’ve also reworked my original Dune: Imperium rules & reference, adding a new icon reference sheet and the original set-specific rules from Bloodlines!

I remember fighting the Romans at Masada.

Peter explains how to play Grimcoven, then tells you what he thinks of it!

At last, my Grimcoven review is here! Before I got a copy, I heard a lot about the difficulty of this new boss battler from Awaken Realms and assumed I’d find it very frustrating, but instead I’m very pleasantly surprised by all the choices it gives me. If you’re ready to make the commitment, this game is ready to deliver. So let’s dive into it as I explain how it plays, and my opinion of it!

Don’t forget to download my rules & reference (and of course it’s also on Tabletop Codex), and good luck!

Don’t move. The beast is fierce. But if we show no fear, we might escape.

A new edition of Conquest: First Blood means a new rules and reference!

I really haven’t been playing enough Conquest for a while now – not because it isn’t good, but it’s a bit of a big ‘lifestyle’ game that demands a lot of time investment (like Age of Sigmar or Warhammer 40,000) and so many other games clamour for my attention. But I was very pleased to see Para Bellum release a completely revamped 2nd edition ruleset for the skirmish version of their game, which is called First Blood. It’s a much easier proposition to get a couple of warbands on the table for a battle than the big rank and flank armies of Conquest: Last Argument of Kings. And whereas before First Blood was really just a cut-down version of its big brother, this new edition feels more like a game in its own right.

I redid my rules and reference from scratch for this new edition. If you get a chance to play, let me know what you think of the game!

You’re a formidable opponent, Lady Penelope!

More new regiment boxes for Armoured Clash – Check them out!

Now you’ve seen the new Commonwealth and Crown heavy regiment boxes, allow me to show you two more, this time for the Enlightened and Union factions. Both small boxes contain some very tasty new units to beef up your armies. Enjoy!

It doesn’t matter how hard you try or how brave you are.

New releases for Armoured Clash – plus a solo adventure book!

As you all know by now Warcradle is a great supporter of the Esoteric Order, and I’m very happy to feature their products, because I think their games are excellent and they really care about them. Now that they’ve finished releasing big boxes for each of the 8 factions for Armoured Clash, they’re filling out the army choices with a series of smaller regiment boxes with a focus on heavier units. In this video I tell you about the new boxes for the Crown and Commonwealth factions. Also, out of left field they released a Choose-Your-Own -Adventure-style paperback set in the Dystopian Age called VALIANT. Check out all this new stuff in the video!

It’s invigorating. It’s like… taking a shower in light.

Peter reviews Lands of Evershade by Awaken Realms!

You’ve printed out and laminated the rules & reference PDF, you’ve got the rules summary in your Tabletop Codex app, and now here’s the video rules overview and review of Lands of Evershade. Never let it be said that The Esoteric Order of Gamers isn’t a full service agency! Check out the video and let me know what you think of this epic new RPG-slash-board game from Awaken Realms.

Icarus, how close is this to full brightness?

Get out of the sun with your Lands of Evershade rules and reference!

Awaken Realms have been creating story-driven adventure games for a while now, but they’ve gone almost full RPG with their newest game, Lands of Evershade. And considering the huge success of their campaign, this RPG/board game hybrid with modular adventures is just what the punters have been looking for.

Yes, the adventures are, as always, elaborate Choose Your Own Adventure branching paragraphs (is there any other way to control the rhythm of a story in RPG-like boardgames, I wonder?), but Awaken have reached a new a level of elegance here. Their games tend to be very rules-heavy, with an emphasis on following complex turn structures that can sometimes feel a bit like ticking off items on a spreadsheet (I’m looking at you ISS Vanguard). Which can work fine because they do demand a level of deep involvement and commitment unlike most casual games, and are often weighted towards playing solo as a result. But Lands of Evershade takes things to a smarter level by combining a simple skill check dice mechanic with detailed player-created characters, and then only layering on bits of complexity for the particular scenario set-piece your characters are involved in.

They’ve also hit that sweet spot, in my opinion, that makes the game something you want to keep taking off the shelf – it’s a campaign, but each full adventure demands a manageable commitment of time and is broken into bite-sized chunks of an evening’s play each. And the tactical combat system is just complex enough to be interesting, without getting bogged down in fiddly rules for things like line of sight, range, and too many special rules.

I’ve only completed the starter adventure, Into the Whitewell, and just started on the advanced adventure, but so far I’m really enjoying this relatively light and fun fantasy game, and I’m very much looking forward to continuing my adventures in this interesting world. The game definitely rests on the quality of its modular adventures, so here’s hoping the high bar set by the introductory one is maintained.

The rules are in the main easy to remember, but here’s my summary, along with a reference sheet that handily replaces the multiple reference cards in the game with one small sheet. The summary is of course also in my app, Tabletop Codex).

I do not traffic in colloquialisms.

Peter paints and reviews a box full of tabletop terrain for Mantic’s Kings of War!

If you’re new to fantasy tabletop miniatures games, you might be daunted by the prospect of assembling a tabletop’s worth of appropriate terrain. Mantic have you covered twith this new Kings of War Fantasy Battlefield Set however! I’ve painted up the whole set and share my thoughts on it in this video. Enjoy!

By the way, don’t forget to download my rules & reference for Kings of War – you’ll find it in Tabletop Codex too!

My hands are filthy with the blood of UNSC marines.

Peter unboxes some cool new stuff for Halo: Flashpoint – the Noble Team expansion and the Reach Deluxe Gaming Mat!

More Halo: Flashpoint stuff! And I’m very happy to see a larger map area and some changes to the spawning rules in this new expansion. Let’s check out the new Spartan Noble Team models and the double-sized battle mat.

By the way, don’t forget to download my rules & reference!

You are a vault dweller, but if you’re going to survive, you need to start acting like a surface dweller.

Peter unboxes all the extra stuff you can get to expand your games of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Board Game!

I’ve been hoping for some time now to get my hands on this extra stuff for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Board Game, and the wonderful people at Awaken Realms were kind enough to send me the goodies I didn’t get the first time around. So here’s an unboxing of the miniatures packs, terrain pack, stretch goals and expansions for this excellent game of survival in the irradiated Zone!

By the way, don’t forget to download my rules & reference (and of course it’s also on Tabletop Codex)!

A silver stake? A crucifix? What, did you think we haven’t tried everything before?

Another big unboxing! Peter checks out everything for Grimcoven, the new boss battler from Awaken Realms!

Before I say anything more, yes, someone did point out to me I pronounced ‘Grimcoven’ incorrectly throughout this entire video, and I’m deeply ashamed about it. We all make mistakes! But anyway, there’s a lot of exciting stuff to check out here, in my first video about this challenging new game from Awaken.

Grimcoven is a gorgeous looking game with enough boss battling goodness to last you many years, so let‘s get into it!

Don’t forget to download my rules & reference (and of course it’s also on Tabletop Codex), and good luck!

There’s something down here, it’s carnivorous.

Don your black leather and grab your Grimcoven rules and reference!

Awaken Realms are now a decade old as of this writing, and their astonishing success and huge creative output has not only made them one of the best publishers in the business, but the flag bearers for huge, over-the-top productions absolutely drenched in theme and atmosphere. A gaming style I’ve had a soft spot for since I bought my first big box Games Workshop games back in the late 80s.

Grimcoven continues the tradition of wonderful excess, but there are some interesting things here that break the mould a little and tell us that the company isn’t just resting on its laurels. First, it’s a boss battler in which you play one-off games – no overarching campaign here (though you can add a little bit of character development with the Personal Stories expansion). Next, there’s something about this game system that, as I was playing, made me think of that much-used word ‘elegant’ – and I can assure you that’s not a word I use often when it comes to Awaken Realms. Unlike their usual style of dense, many-step phases that you can never remember without a reference sheet close to hand, Grimcoven actually flows smoothly and cleverly from step to step (and where it does get a bit complicated, nice little standees remind you of the sequence of steps).

I’m very happy to see Awaken step back from the long campaigns which demand a commitment of months (and often seem end up in solo play mode as a result), and move more into one-off games and more manageable campaign structures (see Lands of Evershade). Not all of us want to leave a game set up for months, or wish to devote that much extended gaming time to a single game.

Grimcoven is packed with content – there are 6 unique hunters, and each of the 6 ‘big bad’ Griefbounds have 5 scenarios of increasing difficulty (plus combinations of elite enemies and minions), plus expansions give you 2 more hunters and 2 more Griefbounds. Then, if the hunters get corrupted enough, they unlock ‘Pretenders’ – semi-Griefbounds that you can also hunt. The game plays out on modular hexagonal tiles with various terrain setups, and special cards give the terrain even more personality. The dice allocation system that powers the hunters’ actions is nothing revolutionary, but it works smoothly and efficiently here, without all the dice modifier jiggery-pokery that slowed down ISS Vanguard.

And you want the system to be smooth, because this game does not go easy on you, and you have to fully concentrate on your tactics to beat your Griefbound of choice. The game demands careful cooperation between players for success, so this is one of the most engaging cooperative combat experiences I’ve had. Also, as your hunters collect lament (the power currency of the game), you can customise your suite of abilities and gain more dice as you simultaneously become more corrupted, which gives the game a lot of forward momentum. While the difficulty can be frustrating at times, there’s a great sense of wanting to come back and try again if you lose, and there are enough interesting choices to keep you planning what you’ll try next time.

I’m highly impressed by Grimcoven so far, but I have a few more games to play yet before my full review. In the meantime, download my rules & reference (also available on Tabletop Codex) and check out my full ‘boss pledge’ unboxing video, released tomorrow!

I gave my word. I made a covenant.

Peter unboxes the top pledge of Lands of Evershade, the new hybrid RPG/board game from Awaken Realms!

I’ve been very lucky to be the recipient of the generosity of Awaken Realms lately, who have sent me some amazing stuff to cover on the channel. Recently ten years in the business, the company is going from strength to strength, churning out some really great games with absolutely peak production values.

Case in point – the PRG-meets-board game Lands of Evershade, which not only looks gorgeous, but has been receiving rave reviews. And the design isn’t just about pretty pictures and extravagant bits; they’re some very clever component design here, especially in the character board designs and cases that preserve your character from session to session. Check it all out in this comprehensive unboxing video!

Stayed tuned for more folks – a rules & reference is of course in th works, and they’ll be a video review a bit later down the pipe!

Were we gods we’d breach these walls to the Eastern Ocean.

Peter and Andy get a fully painted Kings of War 4th Edition starter set on the table to try out the new game!

Mantic Games, though still a relatively small wargaming company, has been very busy lately churning out games and miniatures, most notably their Halo: Flashpoint system. But they’ve also found the time to release a new edition of their old rank and flank fantasy battles rules: Kings of War.

I received the new starter set Claws in the Sand at the start of this year and immediately got to painting it up, but it’s taken me a little while to finally get the game to the table. Please enjoy Andy and I putting the starter set through its paces, and having a lot of fun and laughs as we do so!

I’m just a man who’s good at what he does. Killing.

Control Solid Snake with your Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game rules and reference!

Popular game publisher CMON has been having a rough time of it post-tariff-idiocy period, forced to sell of their most profitable IPs and stop new campaigns, but to their credit they really did seem to hunker down and concentrate on getting promised crowdfunded games out to backers while slowly rebuilding the company. I think I’m even getting my Dune: Arrakis expansions soon, finally.

Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game is one of their underrated gems. I played the original computer game way, way back when, but these stealth and action mechanics are so solid, and feel so good, they could have been attached to any similar theme. The bonus for Metal Gear Solid fans is that the scenarios follow the first game’s beats so closely, which supplies a fun nostalgia hit. And like a video game, the scenarios introduce rules and new situations as you go, so you’re not overloaded from the start.

This game is nicely produced, plays smoothly (despite a long-winded and badly organised rulebook), and just works. Stealth mechanics are hard to get right sometimes, especially when you add patrolling guards and security cameras into the mix, but MGS nails it. In between there are some fun boss battling segments that use a deck of custom behaviours to give the antagonists personality. Apparently the crowd-funded version came with a comic book which fleshed out the scenarios, and it is missed here, but you can easily live without the bonus big walker miniature.

In the end, I’d trade one really solid, fun, well-designed game like this for shed-load of useless Zombicide and Marvel-themed plastic crack, but that’s just me. Definitely recommended!

I’ll rest easier when I know they’ve reached shore

Peter checks out the packed new starter set for Dystopian Wars – Dominion of the Dragon!

Warcradle keeps hitting it out of the park with their releases and they’ve followed up the recent complete revamp of the Dystopian Wars rules with a brand new starter set packed with goodies – everything you need for two players to start playing this exceptional game of steampunk naval combat. Let’s check it out!