Sekigahara – Tokugawa Rides Out

Every so often you encounter a gaming experience that is so good it makes you re-evaluate your entire relationship to the hobby. Sekigahara- The Unification of Japan by designer Matt Calkins and published by GMT Games, offers one such experience. Adrift and jaded in a sea of blinged-out ‘narrative’ titles, the elegance, immediacy, and […]

Claustrophobia 1643 – A Dense and Breathless Dread

February 1543, and deep in the throes of the reformation sundering Europe, a radical religious sect of Anabaptists seizes the walled Westphalian city of Münster. Christened after their founding prophet, these Melchiorites assign themselves as God’s chosen elect, and set about the foundation and fortification of their communal sanctuary – their promised New Jerusalem. In […]

Dark Venture-The Colour out of Space

One of the greatest advantages that the tabletop gaming hobby has over other prevalent entertainment mediums such as cinema or videogames is that of scale. In a world reigned over and mercilessly throttled by design-by-committee thinking, focus group testing and lowest-common-denominator economy as ambition – the world of chit and card remains a place where […]

Immanentising the Eschaton

It is a particularly human quirk that throughout all of history it seems that every successive generation has been convinced that it is they who stand teetering on the cusp of the Apocalypse – they who have been chosen to bear witness to the fall. Our endless fascination with death and our subconscious lust for […]

Escape the Dark Sector – Half Cocked but Fully Loaded

What a beautiful way to die – as a falling star. Of all the potential settings for horror, surely the darkest expanses of deep space are the most suffocating in their capacity for cold sweat dread. The theme that resonates most chillingly with our primal sense of terror when confronted by the unknown. The place […]

Into the Trees- The Weirding Woods of the Storymaster’s Tales

Weekends at my grandparent’s house were always coloured by the contents of their bookshelf. Amongst the dauntingly fat spines of Leon Uris and Robert Ludlum, the alluring cover art and typography of CS Lewis and the blood and horns pulp of Henry Treece sat the worn hardback spine of a 1960’s omnibus of fairy tales […]

Beneath the Missing Sea – a Tale Best Left Buried

“Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I […]