Nach unserer Preview können wir nun antlich einen Blick in das Grundregelwerk werfen. Einen Blick in den Krieg zwischen Ameisen und Asseln, auf die versklavten Bienen und die vielfältigen Lebensräume. Wir betrachten Würfelpools, Robustheitsproben, Berufe und die Launen der Königin. Und vieles ist lediglich eine Frage der Haltung.
Dieser Beitrag wurde von Gastautor*in geschrieben
UK-based Osprey Games has let go of its entire board and card game development team and cancelled its booth at the upcoming Spiel Essen game fair, five months after parent company Bloomsbury began searching for a buyer for the operation.
Osprey revealed in May that multinational book giant Bloomsbury had made the “difficult decision” to sell the board and card game segment as part of a wider “strategic refocusing” on book publishing, which would see Osprey concentrate on its wargame and RPG lines.
Two sources with knowledge of the matter told BoardGameWire at the time that Bloomsbury hoped to find a buyer willing take on the existing board and card game team in addition to its catalogue, which includes acclaimed titles such as the Undaunted and Imperium lines.
But a Bloomsbury spokesperson has now confirmed to BoardGameWire that “all our colleagues who exclusively worked on creating and manufacturing our board and card games have now left the company”.
Multiple sources spoken to by BoardGameWire said those exits were in the form of redundancies at the end of September, although the company declined to say exactly how many staff were affected.
The departures mean Bloomsbury is now seeking a buyer solely for the board and card game catalogue, rather than the department as a whole – but questions remain over exactly how the rights to its portfolio of games could be sold on to a new owner.
BoardGameWire understands that some Osprey designer contracts include restrictions governing the transfer of publishing rights to third parties, which could complicate the sale efforts – with some agreements seeming to limit transfers to buyers acquiring all or substantially all of the imprint’s titles.
Asked about that situation by BoardGameWire, a Bloomsbury spokesperson said, “The contractual arrangements relating to Osprey Games are confidential, so we’re not able to share details of specific terms or comment on potential outcomes.
“We appreciate that these questions are important to designers and other partners, and we’ll share further information with those directly involved as soon as we’re able to.”
The spokesperson also confirmed that Osprey has multiple unreleased board and card game projects under contract at “various stages of development”, but did not say whether those titles would be published by Osprey or transferred to another buyer.
They said, “As with our published games, we will share information about the future of those projects with the relevant designers as soon as we are able to.”
Osprey’s existing games remain “well stocked”, the spokesperson said, adding that the company had no current plans for reprints “but will continue to review the situation as we move forwards”.
They said, “We remain committed to supporting our fantastic range of board and card games with sales, marketing and licensing efforts and each of our games remains available to purchase.
“Our upcoming games, Undaunted 2200: Revolution from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin, and Upland & Prairie from Peer Sylvester will be released as planned this month.
“We are, as ever, incredibly grateful to our brilliant in-house team, to our wonderful designers and illustrators, and to everyone who has supported Osprey Games over the years.”
Osprey Games was launched in 2015 as part of Bloomsbury arm Osprey Publishing, which had a decades-long history of creating military and historical information and reference books before beginning to publish wargaming rulebooks in 2008.
The gaming arm’s early successes included Peer Sylvester’s The King is Dead and The Lost Expedition, as well as popular titles such as Hal Duncan and Ruth Veevers’ design Cryptid and the second edition of Martin Wallace’s London.
Those releases were followed by the high-profile success of the Undaunted series of deckbuilding wargames from David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin and the Imperium games from Nigel Buckle and Dávid Turczi.
Osprey also gained a reputation for taking chances on a range of titles with intriguing mechanisms and designs, such as Sylvester’s area control and trick-taking hybrid Brian Boru, highly asymmetric area control title Crescent Moon, card-based strategic wargame Battalion: War of the Ancients and small-box, quick-playing conflict title General Orders: World War II.
The publisher has continued releasing games in the wake of the sale process announcement, including Threaded, Flip Pick Towers and Rattlesnake earlier this year and CRAB RAGE! last month.
Bloomsbury has not specified a timetable for completing the sale, with the spokesperson telling BoardGameWire that conversations were “ongoing”.
They added, “I’m sure you’ll appreciate that this is a very complex situation, and the timelines are based around confidential conversations. We will provide updates when we can do so.”
Osprey parent Bloomsbury, which has a stock market valuation of more than £500m, announced in April that it was “streamlining its structure for further growth” – which included a reorganisation of the company’s editorial divisions and the loss of about 55 jobs. No mention of Osprey was made in the restructuring announcement.
Bloomsbury has seen its profits almost double in the last five financial years, and confirmed at its July annual meeting that it expects annual revenue of more than £350m and was on track for record adjusted pre-tax profits of £49.9m, according to Publishers Weekly.
The post Osprey Games lets entire board and card game development team go, cancels Essen booth first appeared on .
Imperium: Horizonte führt die bekannte Imperium-Reihe fort und bleibt dabei dem Grundprinzip der Serie treu. Verschiedene Zivilisationen entwickeln sich über den Verlauf einer Partie weiter und spielen sich durch ihre individuellen Kartendecks jeweils unterschiedlich. Wer bereits Imperium: Klassik oder Imperium:
The post Imperium: Horizonte first appeared on Spiele-Akademie.de.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!
Oh man, oh man, it’s time that we ask you (yes, you) to tell us (yes, us) what your favourite games are, because for one time a year, it doesn’t matter what we think about games, but you better be ready to tell us what you think about games. A lot of you did, so here it is, the listener top 20! Before we ask you to do all the work, we talk about Emberheart, Gods & Mortals, and Feya’s Swamp.
If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.
If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!
Timecodes:
01:30 – Emberheart
14:11 – Gods & Mortals
23:46 – Feya’s Swamp
33:38 – Listener Top 20
37:14 – A Feast for Odin
37:55 – Agricola
38:32 – Terraforming Mars
39:17 – Guards of Atlantis II
40:09 – Concordia
42:05 – Tigris & Euphrates
43:16 – Blood on the Clocktower
44:00 – El Grande
44:47 – The Castles of Burgundy
46:12 – Inis
47:38 – Race for the Galaxy
48:06 – Arcs
49:08 – Ark Nova
49:30 – Root
50:06 – Innovation
51:11 – Spirit Island
52:05 – Ra
52:51 – Brass: Birmingham
53:26 – Dune: Imperium
54:04 – Hansa Teutonica
Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.
If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.
If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!
Timecodes:
01:30 – Emberheart
14:11 – Gods & Mortals
23:46 – Feya’s Swamp
33:38 – Listener Top 20
37:14 – A Feast for Odin
37:55 – Agricola
38:32 – Terraforming Mars
39:17 – Guards of Atlantis II
40:09 – Concordia
42:05 – Tigris & Euphrates
43:16 – Blood on the Clocktower
44:00 – El Grande
44:47 – The Castles of Burgundy
46:12 – Inis
47:38 – Race for the Galaxy
48:06 – Arcs
49:08 – Ark Nova
49:30 – Root
50:06 – Innovation
51:11 – Spirit Island
52:05 – Ra
52:51 – Brass: Birmingham
53:26 – Dune: Imperium
54:04 – Hansa Teutonica
Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.
The post BGB Podcast #358 – Our Listeners’ Top 20 Board Games of All-Time 2026 appeared first on Board Game Barrage.
Sometimes once is enough, you know? Doesn’t mean it was bad, but it might just be that you can have too much of a good thing. We’re talking about board games that we’d recommend everyone play once, but only once. Before we hit and run, we talk about Kaivai, East India Companies, and Vantage.
If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.
If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!
Timecodes:
01:44 – Kaivai
10:58 – Feya’s Swamp
13:15 – East India Companies
21:31 – Vantage
39:41 – Games to play only once
41:22 – War of the Ring: Second Edition
41:47 – Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition
43:44 – Sidereal Confluence
44:08 – Blood on the Clocktower
44:19 – Two Rooms and a Boom
45:19 – Mister Diamond
45:40 – Hearts of AttrAction
46:51 – Catan
49:21 – Sanctum
49:37 – Deal with the Devil
50:08 – Nemesis
Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.
The post BGB Podcast #339 – One and Done appeared first on Board Game Barrage.
It’s time again to turn the tables and get your take, to feel out the collective tastes of you, the listeners of the show. It’s the annual Listener Top 20! You’ve been sending in all of your lists (thank you!), I’ve been compiling all of the data (you’re welcome!) – and here it is, in a convenient list format. Before we ask the audience, we talk about Flip 7, Hot Streak, and Kolejka.
If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.
If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!
Timecodes:
02:37 – Flip 7
10:40 – Hot Streak
19:47 – Kolejka
27:42 – Listener Top 20
29:05 – Agricola
29:55 – Gloomhaven
31:26 – Guards of Atlantis II
32:20 – Blood on the Clocktower
33:20 – Arcs
34:40 – Tigris & Euphrates
35:21 – Terraforming Mars
35:54 – Marvel Champions: The Card Game
36:42 – Inis
37:24 – Innovation
38:13 – Race for the Galaxy
39:02 – Root
40:04 – Concordia
41:00 – The Castles of Burgundy
41:41 – Ark Nova
42:03 – Dune: Imperium
43:19 – Ra
43:35 – Brass: Birmingham
45:11 – Spirit Island
46:27 – Hansa Teutonica
Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.
The post BGB Podcast #337 – Our Listeners’ Top 20 Board Games of All-Time 2025 appeared first on Board Game Barrage.
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