First Turn

JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL

CENTURIES HAVE PASSED SINCE THE GOLDEN AGE OF PRACTICAL MAGIC

Welcome

Pokémon: you gotta catch ‘em all. We’re making that

At a Glance

JOIN IN WITH RPG AND MINIATURES PARTICIPATION GAMES AND DEMOS AT TABLETOP GAMING LIVE

10 of the Best

Paper and cardboard make the perfect pair: pore over our favourite games inspired or taken directly from the pages of literary classics from Lord of the Rings to Robinson Crusoe

Role Call

From the biggest RPGs out there to the most darling of indie titles, this month’s round-up takes a look at everything going on in the world of roleplaying

All the Jahres

Replaying the winners of the Spiel des Jahres so you don’t have to

My Favourite Game

Et tu, beauté! Half of the designer duo behind Museum and Dominations: Road to Civilization sings the praises of 1990’s hefty Roman political sim The Republic of Rome

Microgame of the Month

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Have You Played?

The mythical fantasy roleplaying game from the co-creator of RuneQuest is a legend in its own right, and continues to define epic adventure decades after its release

The Independent Shelf

We pass verdict on the miniatures game with a big vision brought to life by a small team

Around the World in 80 Plays

Over 4,000 miles northeast of last month’s foray into

Play it Smart

Not all games tell stories, but nearly all games give us stories to tell . From Mice and Mystics to Holding On, we look at unforgettable narrative experiences on the table

Through the Ages

We take a trip around the circular action-selection mechanism that’s put a number of designers in a spin

Unearthed Artefacts

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Tabletop Time Machine

Sorry! is a well-known board game with a board that

Pokémon Trading Card Game

As Detective Pikachu hits cinema screens, master trainers tell us why the Pokémon Trading Card Game remains just as electric after 20 years

Yu-Gi-Oh!

As the monster-battling card game freshens up with Speed Duel, and on the eve of a landmark World Championship in Europe this summer, we get a look inside its UK home

How we made

Leslie Scott’s iconic stack of wooden bricks is a towering achievement of simplicity and tension. But there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to its enduring success

A question of Scale

We take a look at some of the conventions and challenges around making miniatures ‘miniature’

The Hidden Designers

Tabletop graphic designers don’t always get the credit they deserve. We talk to three masters of this underappreciated art to discover just how essential their work is to making board games shine

Secret Unknown Stuff

Alien conspiracy theories, comic books and D&D come together in the weird and wonderful universe of Secret Unknown Stuff

Aftershock

Ticket to Ride creator Alan R. Moon and debut designer Bobby West plan to shake things up – literally – as they rebuild San Francisco and Venice in the wake of an earthquake

The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth

An adventure you won’t go Sauron

Res Arcana

Res for the Galaxy

Victorian Masterminds

Get your moustaches twirling – the world’s not gonna destroy itself

Red Alert: Space Fleet Warfare

Star phwoars

Hellboy: The Board Game

Hell to play

Call of Cthulhu: Shadows Over Stillwater

The Good, the Bad and the Weird

Call to Adventure

Everyone’s got their own story to build

Fuji

If you’d created a co-op game about descending an erupting

Black Mirror: Nosedive

In the acclaimed episode ‘Nosedive’, science-fiction

Corinth

Does the roll-and-write get your goat or get your GOAT?

Warhammer 40,000: Shadowspear

A stab in the dark that misses the mark

Villagers

A top tableau-builder for your tabletop

Museum

It belongs in a– wait, hold on…

Bushido

Five ninja stars out of five

John Carter of Mars RPG

Interplanetary pulp perfection

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar – The Rise & Fall of Anvalor

Falling Flat

Neom

Drafting just enough for the city

The Boldest

And the Beautiful-est

The Great City of Rome

At least it plays in under a day

Spirits of the Forest

According to the flavour text on the back of its box

Galactic Scoundrels

Solo play is a big thing in games right now, but only

Farsight

A battlefield for veterans and rookies alike

Painting guide

Expecto Paint-ronum! Swap your wand for a brush loaded with magic as we make the fearsome foes of the wizarding world spellbinding

Dungeon Master’s Guide to Roleplaying

Not every tabletop adventure has to be an epic. Simple, short and standalone scenarios can be the perfect way to spend a few hours in a world old or new

Event Report

Laurence Baldwin talks to us about the long-running wargaming show

Shop Spotlight

Rae Hurley tells us about the home of gaming goodness in the heart of sunny Cheltenham