Stif

When there is no more room in ****, the dead shall walk the earth… and try to eat your brain, unless you can run away or blast them with a shotgun!

Zombie Dice is a quick to play ‘push your luck’ dice game for, well, any number of players (although I expect more than 4 or 5 would probably be a bit rubbish…). In it, you play a member of the undead horde out for lunch. You want to eat as many brains as you can, chasing down any humans who escape and hoping to avoid catching a shotgun blast to the chest!

Components
The game comes with 13 dice (6 green, 4 yellow, 3 red) and a tub to keep them all in (which can also be used as a dice shaker, if you so wish). Green dice have more brains than shotguns, red dice have more shotguns than brains and yellow are somewhere in the middle.

The quality of these dice is lovely – each are well made, and have brains, footsteps and shotgun blasts embossed on their sides. In short, they roll nicely and look good…not much else to say here!

The dice shaker/tub isn’t quite so nice. It’s just a cardboard tube after all, and the dice do make quite an annoying rattling sound when in it – if you plan to carry the game around with you it’s worth either jamming some cotton wool in there, or getting a wee dice bag to keep the dice in instead.

There’s also a rule sheet…which has the rules on it…

Gameplay
The rules and gameplay of Zombie Dice are incredibly simple – when it’s your turn, you randomly select 3 dice and roll them. Any brains or shotgun blasts rolled are kept and set aside, any footsteps are returned to your hand ready for re-rolling (these represent your victims escaping).

After each roll, you can decide if you want to ‘bank’ any brains you’ve rolled, or if you want to push your luck and keep rolling. If you want to continue, you take any dice which had footsteps and draw additional dice to ensure you have three in your hand – you then roll these.

Then wash, rinse, repeat – simple as that. If at any point you have 3 shotgun blasts it means your victims have got the better of you and your undead self is now all the way dead…so you lose any brains you had collected so far on that turn.

If you decide to stop before this happens, add however many brains you had to your running score and pass the dice to the next player. The game keeps going in this way until one player has reached the target of 13 brains (although once this happens everyone else gets one more roll to see if they can match/beat the score before the game ends and the winner is declared).

Play time
Zombie dice takes about 10 minutes to play, and with a small group it’s great fun. Each turn is over very quickly, so in small groups there’s not too much downtime. Being a quick-fire game it’s usually good for a two or three rounds of play before moving onto something else.

Summary

Zombie Dice is a fun game, that I like to keep in my bag to pull out if I find myself with a short amount of time to fill with friends, and it’s so simple absolutely anyone (well, pretty much…) can pick it up and play it.
I’ve pulled it out for quick plays at game sessions, on train rides and even at work to take a quick break, and it’s always gone down well.

Rating it is difficult – the score I’ve given it is based on it’s cost, simplicity and on the type of game it is…it’s certainly not comparable to a game like Battlestar Galactica, but I still think it’s worth a solid score as I think it’s great value for money (I paid £9.99 for my copy here in the UK) and a great fun wee filler game.

Games move fast and fly by, making this a great game to play either if you find yourself with 20 minutes to spare on a train ride, or whilst another game is being set up for play…and if someone pulls out a copy and you end up not enjoying it, well, it’ll be over in 10 minutes anyway!

Baron Blade and his minions are attempting to destroy Megalopolis using their mobile attack platform! It’s time to join forces with Legacy and the other heroes of the Multiverse to take him down!

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a co-operative card game for 2-5 players, which can be played in 30-45 minutes (although you might just find you want to start another game straight after…)

Gameplay

Each player begins by selecting the character they will play, the villain they’ll be facing and the environment where the battle will take place.

Each hero, villain and environment has their own pre-built deck of cards, all of which are unique to that character/environment, and each hero begins the game with a hand of 4 cards, drawn after they have shuffled their decks.

Game turns work in three stages: the Villain Turn, the Heroes Turn and the Environment Turn.

On the villain turn, any ‘start of turn’ effects shown on all active villain cards are resolved, then a card is played from the top of the deck (this can usually be either a one-off action, a piece of weaponry/equipment or a minion coming into play), then finally any ‘end of turn’ effects are resolved.

The inclusion of effects which take place at either the start or the end of a turn is nice, meaning that some cards start to impact you straight away, and others give you a full turn before you feel their effects – this really keeps you on your toes, as for example a devastating weapon may come into play that you know will decimate you if not destroyed before the start of the villains next turn.

Next, the heroes each take turns to play (in clockwise order). Each hero turn breaks down to: Play a card, use a power, draw a card (although card effects may increase these actions).

Played hero cards usually take one of two forms: a one time action or a card which gives some kind of continuing effect.

When it comes to using a power, each character has their own innate power to use, or they may be able to gain more options through the cards that they can play.

Finally, it’s the turn of the Environment, and again like the villain turn there are usually start and/or end of turn effects to resolve, with a new card drawn and played in between. The environment can help or hinder both the heroes and villains, and adds a great element to the gameplay, often forcing players to choose whether to deal with issues in the environment (Help! A train’s about to crash into a crowd of people or to keep focusing on the villain and leave the environment to wreak it’s own havoc.

The game continues until either the villain or all of the heroes been reduced to zero hit-points and are therefore defeated. Interestingly, as this is a co-op game even if a hero ‘dies’ they can continue to play along, just taking one of a selection of simple actions (often giving extra moves or support to another hero), on the rationale that the other hero’s are fighting harder to avenge their fallen companion.

Another nice touch is that there’s no ‘decking’ in the game – if you run out of cards you simply re-shuffle your discard pile into a fresh deck.

Components

The cards are a nice quality, and feel like you’ll get a bit of use out of them, and you certainly get a lot of them for your hard earned cash! The core game comes with almost 600 cards, which includes decks for 4 different villains to face, 4 different environments to face-off in and a whopping 10 different heroes to play as!

The ‘Enhanced Edition’ (which is really the only version of the base game that you should consider purchasing) goes one step further though, including around 160 tokens for keeping track of character health and status modifiers (and trust me, you’ll really appreciate having all of these as you play the game – there can be a lot to keep track of!)

One of my favourite inclusions with the enhanced edition though is the good sized box and divider cards – there’s plenty of space to keep all of the base set cards, along with the expansions (and the amazing guys at Greater Than Games also include divider cards for all the cards from both the Rook City and Infernal Relics expansions!) – if you like to keep your cards well organised you’ll be in heaven with this package.

At this point I should also mention the card art, which to be honest I wasn’t too keen on to begin with, however I’ve found has really grown on me. The art style is very comic-book-ish, and goes with the theme well, but – in my mind at least- it looks a little ‘amateurish’. Having said that, it is great that the GtG guys have created all of these characters themselves and put together such a great package in-house.

Play time

A game of SotM usually takes a little over half an hour to play, although this will vary depending on how well your team works together, the villain that you’re facing and the environment where you’re doing battle. It’s not uncommon to want to play again straight away though!

Summary

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a fantastic co-operative game, with great replay value. It is steeped in theme, and half of the fun of playing is getting really submerged in the world of the Multiverse (right down to the in-character smack-talk that is surely mandatory when playing this type of game!).
Unfortunately a few small grumbles prevent me from giving the game a higher score, mainly because of the sheer amount of stat-tracking involved (I honestly don’t know how anyone who bought the original base-set managed to cope without the tracking tokens!)

These frustrations mainly present when playing the more complex characters, and may slowly dissolve as our gaming group gets more used to the game. The game creators do at least provide a handy difficulty rating for each character (moving from easy to difficult although annoyingly in the base set there is no medium rated difficulty villain included.)

Despite these small annoyances though, it’s hard to not have fun with the game, and it’s certainly possible to play several games using the easier characters. As is often the case with theme-heavy games the life you’ll get out of the game is directly proportional to how well you can submerge yourself in the theme, and to be honest, if you’re a comic book fan you’d be crazy not to pop Sentinels on your shopping list.

INCOMING!
It’s June 1944 and the Allied troops pile out of their landing craft and storm the beaches of Normandy, taking heavy fire from the Axis’s vantage points. The Allied goal? The liberation of France, and an end to the Second World War!

Memoir ’44 is a World War 2 themed board game, initially published in 2004 to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings and liberation of France.

Players take the roll of either the Axis or Allied forces and play through a series of scenarios based on real-life historic battles from the latter half of the second world war – each scenario in the rule book provides set-up details and gives an overview of the story surrounding the battle, and aims to mimic the terrain, troop placement and objectives of each army.

Gameplay

The game starts with the selection of a scenario to play. Players determine the side they’ll play as (Axis or Allies) and set up the board as laid out in the rule book (placing forces and terrain as required). In particular players should note any special rules for the Scenario.

Each player then draws their starting cards from the deck and places them in front of them in their card holders – these cards contain commands which as the general, players can give to their forces on the ground.

A final very important point prior to the actual game commencing is to read out the scenario description from the rule book – giving the real-life details of the game you’re about to play and it’s significance

Turns take place in 5 basic sections:
1. The current player selects a command card to play from their hand.
2. The player confirms which of their units will be receiving the order.
3. The player moves any of the ordered units he wishes to move.
4. The player attacks with any of the ordered units he wishes to attack with (which still have this option after moving!)
5. The player draws a new command card, and places it in his hand ready for the next turn.

Command cards will either allow a certain amount of units to be ordered (often along the lines of ‘Order all units on the left flank’, or ‘Order up to 3 units’), or they will be tactical cards, which have some kind of special effect (such as allowing the player to initiate an aerial bombardment or heal their units etc.)

Each unit type has it’s own rules for movement and attacking. For example infantry can move one hex and attack, or they can move two hexes without the ability to attack.

When attacking, the proximity of the enemy forces affects how likely you are to hit them – generally more dice are rolled the closer you are to the enemy. Units are made up of groups of miniatures (4 for infantry, three for tanks etc), so each successful hit wipes out one miniature of the unit. The dice also make hits on infantry more likely than hits on tanks etc (reflecting the relative strengths of the units). The dice faces are made up of pictures for infantry (hit against infantry), tanks (hits against tanks), grenades (a hit against any type) and flags.

If the dice rolls show up flags, the unit under attack is force to retreat back towards their side of the board by the amount of flags rolled – thus symbolising their forces being pushed back (retreats are always resolved after all hits and misses have been resolved.)

If a player knocks out an entire unit, then they take one of the pieces and add it to their score to symbolise a victory point.

Additionally, in some scenarios victory points can also be scored by meeting historical objectives (such as securing a bridge etc).

The game continues until one player has reached the pre-determined amount of victory points. At this point, as the game can be balanced towards either the Axis or Allies due to being based on historic events, it’s often a good plan to swap sides and replay the scenario – the winner is then the player who gained the most victory points in total over both plays.

These game mechanics are wonderfully simple, yet make for a fantastic game which has an excellent balance of strategy and luck.

Components

Memoir ’44 is produced by Days of Wonder, so the components are of the high quality you’d expect from the publisher. The cards are of a nice quality, the game board is lovely (and double sided, allowing for both beach and inland battles), additional hex tiles (to add buildings and forests etc) are printed on good quality, thick card and the miniatures themselves, whilst not of the kind of quality of a dedicated miniatures game are great for a board game.
The models come in two colours (green for the Allies, grey for the Axis), and are individual for each side…they’re very nice, and quite like a higher quality version of the little green army men that I’m sure many of us played with as children.

Play time
A typical two player game of Memoir ’44 takes 30-45 minutes (plus ten minutes or so for game set-up). As mentioned however, as the scenarios are based on historic battles they can at times slightly favour one side over the other (i.e. in a battle that the Allies won outright in real life, that side may have a slight advantage going into the scenario).

For this reason, when I play with friends we’ll play the scenario twice, swapping sides on the second play – so in general I’d set aside one and a half to two hours for a game – the time does certainly seem to fly by though, and I’ve never felt the game was dragging on (even when I’ve clearly been in a losing position, just waiting for the inevitable victory of my opponent!)

(I have to say I’ve never played the ‘Overlord’ variant (the 4 player game, which makes use of 2 copies of the game…although I believe some scenarios actually allow 8 players to play over 3 boards!…so can’t comment on how long a game of that would take, however I’d assume it would take at least twice as long).

Summary

Memoir ’44 is a fantastic game, and while it certainly contains an element of luck it doesn’t feel too unbalanced in this direction, and there’s plenty of space for strategy. The gameplay mechanics are also wonderfully simple, making it very easy to quickly pick up the game and get playing.

The historic scenarios are fantastic, not only giving the game a real sense of history, but also encouraging players to learn more about the background to the game (an aim expressed by the publisher on the official website).

The game itself has plenty of scenarios to play through in the rule book, and due to the randomness added by the command cards deck this provides excellent replay value. Also, addition to various expansions available the games longevity can be increased with the purchase of campaign books, which provide further historically accurate scenarios to play.

Overall, Memoir is a game that I’d heartily recommend to players who like games with a nice balance of strategy and luck, and a passing interest in history (although even if you don’t have this you might find you develop one as you play!)

The stage is set, the battle lines are drawn…and you are in command!

…and a small group of investigators are gathering in Arkham, Massachusetts to solve the mysteries and attempt to stop the ancient one awakening and ending the world. Some are searching for adventure, others knowledge…some are just in the wrong place at the wrong time…

Arkham Horror is a table devouringly huge game based on the classic works of HP Lovecraft, where each player takes on the role of a different investigator – each with their own individual strengths, weaknesses and special abilities – taking on the quest to prevent the awakening of an ‘ancient one’.

Gameplay

Each turn players go through the following four stages:

Upkeep – such as collecting money, updating stats etc.

Movement – Moving to a new place on the board, or moving through the ‘other world’.

Encounters – Where you either battle monsters or activate an encounter at the location you’re on – this is where most of the action takes place as you attempt to gain clues and resources.

Mythos – At the end of every turn a new mythos card is drawn and has to be resolved. In general, these are there to really mess with your day as new monsters turn up, portals to other worlds appear or ongoing effects batter the adventurers. This is also the point where the ancient ones ‘doom track’ may increase, bringing them closer to awakening.

Encounters and Mythos often result in the players having to pass skill checks, which take the form of dice rolls (there will be a lot of dice rolling in the game!) The number of dice rolled can be modified by both the player stats themselves (which can be adjusted in the upkeep phase to an extent) and the items the player holds. Dice can also be re-rolled by using clue tokens or other items, so whilst there is a random element to the game it’s not totally overwhelming in its randomness.

There are several win conditions, the main one being the prevention of the ancient ones awakening by sealing a pre-determined number of other worldly portals (which changes depending on the number of characters in play) – if this fails and the ancient one manages to awaken then an all out battle ensues to try to defeat it before it can end the world (but whilst these battles are epic, they can also be incredibly hard if your team aren’t well tooled up in advance…and in most cases the awakening itself will decimate your team!)

If at any time a player runs out of health or goes insane they can simply discard items/money to restart – or if they are devoured their character is discarded from the game and they can restart as a new investigator. This can be frustrating late in the game, but it’s certainly better than having to sit out the last two hours of the game as your friends play on!

The range of encounters and mythos is huge, and the game comes with a large number of investigators and a choice of several different ancient ones, each with its own doom track and scenario, and each representing a different level of difficulty. This means that straight out of the box the replayability of this game is huge.

Components

As with almost everything Fantasy Flight produce the components are lovely!

The board is HUGE, the cards are of an excellent quality with great artwork and there are tokens provided for almost everything you could think of: Monsters – check; money – check; Counters to keep track of resources – check…the sheer volume of tokens and cards that come with this game is almost overwhelming.

The only downside of the huge board and all of the lovely components is the sheer amount of space this game takes up. How big is your gaming table? Really? Ok, you’ll need to get another one…seriously, this game in play is MASSIVE. It’s probably not the biggest board game every made, but I’m sure it’s a contender, certainly to the extent that it’s worth considering if you have enough space to play the game before making a purchase. (I’d definitely recommend having a look online for some photos/videos of the game in play to get an idea of how big it is)

The game comes in a nice big box with plenty of space for everything, but it’s definitely work getting your hands on several small zip-lock bags to keep things organised to aid set up.
When we play we also tend to organise the monsters and other various tokens in several small bowls, ready to be picked when required.

Play time

Due to the size of the game set-up time can be significant – worth setting aside a good 15 – 20 minutes at least before starting to play.

Gameplay wise, Arkham Horror is a long game, but certainly not the longest I’ve played. Depending on how many people are playing, the ancient one you’ve chosen to face and the experience of the players a game can last anywhere from three to six hour in my experience. Just the right amount of time for an in-depth game if you ask me!

Summary

Arkham Horror is an awesome game, however there are definitely some things to consider before purchasing it – not least the consideration of how much table space you actually have.

The game supports up to 8 players, and whilst I’m sure such a game could be epic, it could also be easily ruined if one player wasn’t really into the game – as the game is steeped in theme it’s easy to get immersed in it, but bear in mind it’s not for everyone.

The game itself is fairly complex, but not overly so, and definitely lends itself best to those who really enjoy the theme and can get into it (as mentioned its most fun when you’re all absorbed in the theme and making up your own parts of the story as you go.)

As a co-operative game, it’s also entirely possible to play with just one or two players, although each would need to play multiple characters to really stand a chance against the game – one of the best games I’ve played to date was just myself and a friend spending an afternoon playing 2 characters each.

The game is difficult, sometimes frustratingly so, but I’m not sure I’d say it felt unfair – whilst there is a LOT of dice rolling, there are also several options to modify the result or re-roll, and being based on Lovecraft it feels right that the game seems overwhelming to the players.

I love this game, but appreciate its not for everyone, but if you enjoy the theme, want an epic co-operative game and aren’t afraid of a tough challenge (and perhaps a few losses!) then I’d definitely recommend taking a trip to Arkham…just be aware you may not return with your health or sanity!

As one of a handful of new settlers on this newly colonised island, your goal is to build and expand, using your resources to become the dominant individual on the island.

Like many others who have written reviews of this great game, Catan was what I consider to be my first ‘real’ introduction to the wonderful world of board gaming, so it felt right that it should also be one of the first reviews I posted on the site!

Let’s take a quick run through how the game works…

Gameplay

The game kicks off with the players randomly creating the board (although quick start options are provided for first time plays, and a cheaper cut-down version of the game also exists which doesn’t include the modular board). This results in a random placement of different resource-generating hexes, each with different numbers on them.

Each player then takes turn placing a first town and road, before then building a second town and road (the placement of these first settlements can be crucial for the players strategy as the game goes on…)

After collecting starting resources, the game then starts…

Each turn two dice are rolled, with whatever number comes up generating resources on each of the tiles with that number on them – if a player has a building (town or city) attached to that tile, they gain resource of that type (Brick, Granite, Wool, Grain and Wood).
On their turn, a player can use any resources they hold to build (for example a road can be built using 1x brick and 1 x wood resource) if they are short on a particular resource they can barter with other players to gain what they need.

Players build roads out of their villages to allow them to expand and build more villages, which can eventually be upgraded to cities. Players score victory points for villages and cities built, as well as being able to gain additional points for having the longest road or largest army.

Gameplay continues until one player reaches 10 victory points.

Whilst this is incredibly simple, it makes for a very enjoyable game, the bartering element is particularly good, and adds an element of tactics to the game as some players gain dominance over particular resources.

Components
As mentioned, there appear to be different versions of Catan out there, but the components in the ‘full’ version are excellent.
The board pieces are very well made and go together nicely – without much worry of it slipping apart as you play – the cards are all of a good quality, and the little wooden pieces that make up the roads, towns and cities are just lovely.

Play time
A typical game of Catan takes about 30-60 minutes, although it’s worth bearing in mind that you’ll probably want to play it again straight after!

Summary
Catan is a classic ‘Eurogame’ – it’s simple enough that almost anyone can pick the game up in a few minutes, but has a wonderful play mechanic that makes it possible to play with a wide range of strategies whilst also being just random enough to keep things interesting.

The modular nature of the board also makes the game infinitely re-playable – the board is different every time you play so no two games are the same.

This game is surely the definition of a ‘gateway game’ – that much should be clear from the number of users who, like myself, were dragged into the world of board games after playing this! For this reason alone a copy of Catan should sit on every gamers shelf, even if only to be brought out to play when non-gamer friends visit (although I’d be amazed if that was the only time it came down from the shelf!)

The second Cylon war is over. Humanity has lost, and now it’s only hope for survival is a small fleet of ships carrying all that remains of the human population, lead by the aging Battlestar Galactica.

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game is based on the first season of the 2004 re-imagining of the classic 70’s TV show, where the surviving human fleet desperately tries to escape their Cylon pursuers on their way to the planet Kobol – the legendary planet where humanity began (and a waypoint on their longer journey to find the fabled 13th colony, Earth).

Players each play a character from the show, each with their own special abilities, and must work together to survive Cylon attacks and the perils of deep space…but there’s a twist! The Cylon’s have evolved and can now take human form – making them almost indistinguishable from any normal person.

Good use is made of this premise to add an excellent bluffing and strategy element to the game, as at any time up to 3 Cylon’s (depending on the number of players and stage of the game) may be working against the human players, with their only aim being to destroy Galactica and end human life forever!

Gameplay
The game starts with each player choosing a character, performing their set-up (positioning their player marker on the board, drawing cards etc) and drawing their loyalty card – which determines whether they truly are human, or a cylon in disguise! (At this point its usually wise to invoke a house rule for viewing your loyalty card for 60 seconds, as the Cylon ones often have special powers on them, so staring at them can give the game away!)

Cylon’s can either attempt to sabotage skill checks, or can reveal themselves to gain additional powers.

Each players turn (whilst they are either human, or unrevealed as a cylon) takes place over 6 stages:
1. Draw skill cards (as defined by their character)
2. Move (to different board locations)
3. Action – this can be either activating a character action, using a board location, piloting a ship, using special cards (in the case of the president character) or revealing themselves as a Cylon if they hold a ‘You are a Cylon’ loyalty card.
4. Draw and resolve a Crisis card (all players partake in most crisis resolutions).
5. Resolve Cylon fleet activity if marked on the Crisis card (i.e. launching ships from Cylon basestars and moving cylon raiders to either attack ships in space or to land boarding parties aboard Galactica.
6. Resolve the FTL jump track if marked on the Crisis card – jumping the human fleet a certain distance is the human’s win condition, so increasing the FTL drives preparation track is essential!

The Crisis resolution is the core of the game, and in most cases this is where all players interact in ‘skill checks’. If a skill check crisis occurs then each character can play as many cards face down into a pile as they like to attempt to match the win condition – for example, a skill check might ask for a total score of 10, and be coloured yellow and purple (different skill types have different colours such as Tactics being purple, Politics being yellow etc). Only colours which match those requested on the skill check count as positive, all other colours are negative to the score.

In addition to all the players being able to play cards, two random cards are played into each skill check from the ‘destiny deck’ – this allows any potential Cylon sabotage activity to be masked…or at least not too obvious!

At the beginning of the game it’s possible that there are no Cylon’s in play, however at the half way point a second draw of loyalty cards occurs meaning that in the latter half of the game there are definitely forces working against the humans! In larger games there is also a ‘sleeper agent’, who becomes a Cylon in the second half if the human’s resources are all above a certain level – this provides an interesting meta-game, where it can actually be sensible for the human players to purposefully lose some resources to make the later game easier… although it isn’t always easy to convince other players of this without receiving accusations of being a “frakkin’ toaster!”

This really just scratches the surface of this great game, and doesn’t really touch on the space combat or roles of special characters like the president and admiral…

Components

As usual the quality of the components provided by Fantasy Flight is top-notch: the board is solid and the cards are all excellent (although the skill cards are a little on the small side).

The game also comes with several ship miniatures, which whilst not on par with dedicated miniatures games are still nicer than using wee tokens for the space combat element of the game (other ships, such as the rest of the colonial fleet are represented by tokens which have values printed on their underside.)

It’s a shame the Cylon basestars don’t have their own models, instead represented by large ‘tokens’, however I believe two are contained within the Pegasus expansion (which expands the game into the events depicted in the second TV series…)

Play time

BSG is a big complex game, so be prepared to lose an afternoon or evening to it, especially on the first few plays as it’s likely you’ll be double checking the rules as you go along. My first play (with a full group of 6) took us about 5-6 hours, although subsequent plays tend to be closer to 3 hours long now that we’re accustomed to the rules.

Whilst the long playtime may put some people off, the game does always keep all players engaged, and the time flies by as alliances are made to attempt to root out and beat the hidden Cylons!

Summary

Battlestar Galactica is a favourite with my regular gaming friends. It can be tough going, but the co-operative nature of the game along with the constant threat of a hidden Cylon sabotaging your actions makes for a tense and exciting game.

So far, every game we’ve had has also been a very close call, with the humans either just managing to eek a win, or the Cylon’s managing to destroy the humans moments from their final FTL jump. The tension throughout the game is excellent, which has left us craving more every time we’ve played it – there is a lot of replayability in this, and there are lots of strategy options to employ for both human and cyclon players (whichever you end up being!)

I first picked it up as a fan of the show, however knowledge of the show isn’t a pre-requisite. Gamers who enjoy a bit of strategy, working together and (of course) stabbing others in the back will all enjoy it. Even some of my harder to please gaming friends often ask to pull this out for a game.

It’s not for everyone though – those that get upset easily might want to give it a miss, as it’s not uncommon to be accused of being a Cylon then locked in a cell (only for your accuser to turn out to be the real toaster!), and it certainly does need a good investment of time to play through – especially for the first few games.

It also certainly shouldn’t be played without first having a good read of the rules (and I’d suggest watching a quick gameplay video or two in advance as well, as it can be quite complex to begin with).

Overall though, since buying the game 3-4 years ago this remains one of my favourite board games.