To usher in 2017 as a year of good fortune, we’re trying all sorts of superstitions. Paul wrote “FLUXX” on a bit of wood and threw it in a river, while Matt and Quinns have chosen a classic for their first review. Troyes is a beloved 2010 game that’s enjoying a well-deserved restocking this month. But last year we were spoiled for choice when it came to lightweight eurogames! Will Troyes triumph over Orléans, Concordia and Istanbul? Thanks for your patience, everybody. It feels great to be back.

This week, Paul’s gone all viking on us, getting so, so enthusiastic about A Feast for Odin with this very in-depth review of a truly enormous game. Then again, wouldn’t you be at least a little bit excited? This is one of the biggest boxes we’ve seen in some time and, with hundreds of cardboard components, scores of wooden pieces and even a moose as a first player token, we really can’t blame him. Can it deliver joy and happiness proportional to its tremendous size? And how does it compare to its ancestors, other games by the same designer such as Agricola, Caverna and Patchwork? And why does Paul think Patchwork has a French accent? It’s been a strange week.

My goodness! After we were a little dismissive at Gen Con last year, it turns out that Arkham Horror is the best card game to come out of Fantasy Flight since Netrunner. Pour yourself a glass of interdimensional phlegm, ensure you’re sitting uncomfortably, and let Matt and Quinns tell you why in this spoiler-free review. If you’re the sort of devil-may-care investigator who doesn’t care about forbidden secrets, don’t forget that you can watch Matt and Quinns play the whole first scenario in this video. Though actually, in hindsight we’ve now realised that it’s a tutorial mission and actually comparatively simple. You should know that far greater twists and terrors await in the full game!

Things turn very bad indeed when Paul goes outdoors in an attempt to review the Kickstarter megahit Scythe. What does he make of this tremendously successful title, with its giant mechs, slaving peasants and very helpful bear? Can it live up to its tremendous reputation? And what happens to us when we die? That’s nothing to do with the video. Just asking. Have a lovely weekend!

A mere thirty-six years after the release of the amazing Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, the board game industry has leapt into action! This month sees the release of the West End Adventures standalone expansion, and… we’re not reviewing it. That’s because this month we’re also getting a new English-language edition of Watson & Holmes, and that’s EVEN MORE EXCITING. This game takes the original, superlative co-op experience that is Consulting Detective and makes it… competitive. Is this a work of evil genius to rival Moriarty? Or simply an error in deductive reasoning? Let’s find out. Have a great weekend, everybody.

Who among us can claim that they didn’t once dream of growing up to be a master of bicycles? Those debonair doctors of velocity. The zeal on wheels. I have good news, friends. It turns out that in the game of Flamme Rouge (French for “Red Flam”) you can become a cycleman for no less than 30 to 45 minutes at a time. Clearly we had to give it the full review treatment, and you know what? It turns out that this game is an absolute delight. Have a fantastic weekend, everybody!

It looks like Watson & Holmes isn’t the only game that wants to offer something different from Consulting Detective! Introducing Mythos Tales, a game of solving occult mysteries where if you’re not careful, you might become a victim yourself. Will Paul Dean crack the case of whether Mythos Tales is a worthy consumer product, or will this be his final review? We wish him luck.

Hoo baby! The profoundly beefy 2016 game of Great Western Trail is finally back in stock the world over. We’ve had ample time to test its systems, prodding its many rules from every conceivable angle, and today want to tell you that it lives up to the hype. And thank goodness for that! When was the last time your evenings contained a dose of cowboy magic? It was too long, wasn’t it?

BOLD TRAVELLER! Dare you enter the land of Ethnos? There live creatures the likes of which you cannot imagine. Trolls! Orcs! And what’s that, hiding over there in that bush? Why, it’s a wizard, laying a wizard egg. It is spring here, after all. Alright, so the “land” of Ethnos is a bit rubbish. But this is a new game from Paolo Mori, who gifted us with Libertalia in 2013 and Dogs of War the year after that. Surely he has earned a moment of your time? Sit a while, traveller, and listen to Matt and Quinns rave about his latest design.

Money! Money makes the world go round. Money also makes factories, fleets and armies that around that world and bash each other to bits, at least that’s according to Imperial 2030! But is it really all about war? Just because it looks like Risk and even smells like Risk, that doesn’t mean you should make risky assumptions. Paul has been learning the ever-twisting dance of the supercapitalist, twirling his way in and out of continental conflicts just as long as it’s profitable. In between buying various generous chunks of the globe, he’s discovered that war is only sometimes good for your bank balance.

Everybody, it’s the most wonderful time of the year! We of course refer to the Annual Summer Goodtime Tile-Based Reinerstravaganza, and this year the star of the show is the new Windrider edition of Reiner’s 1997 classic, Tigris & Euphrates. Don’t know who Reiner is? Don’t like tigers? Allergic to tiles? Well frankly, that’s just not good enough. This box is a bulwark against boredom, a titan of the table, and the new edition deserves just a little more love.

Paul has been hankering to try Ryan Laukat’s Near and Far for over a year now, but being a Kickstarter release, all the world’s copies only went out to backers, right? Wrong! Hearing that this game of epic adventure and dangerous expeditions was now out in the wild, you can bet that Paul unwrapped his copy faster than you can say “You can have a dog in your party.” He’s been journeying high and low ever since. So what does he think?

What’s the new hidden role game that’s got SU&SD buzzing? That’s full of laughs and surprises whether you play it with 4 players, all the way to 8? That has the single nicest components that Quinns has EVER TOUCHED? We couldn’t possibly say. Those are Secrets, you see. Please note that Secrets isn’t out yet, and arrives in shops in August. If you’re interested, we recommend contacting your friendly local game shop and asking to place a pre-order.

For many board gamers, Matt Damon wasn’t the biggest imaginary thing to happen on Mars in 2016. That honour belongs to Terraforming Mars, a game so popular that the publishers have already announced four expansions! But what will we make of this smash hit? As Matt Damon said so aptly last year, “Wrap your face flaps around this! Mine’s a lumpy one.”

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Even if we’d tried, if we’d deployed all the forces at our command, we’d never have been able to keep Paul away from reviewing Bärenpark. It’s a tile-laying game and it features bears. The best we can do is hope he doesn’t overdose on pure pleasure. That said, Paul is a consummate professional and it’ll take more than a boxful of bruins to win him over. Can Bärenpark deliver or, at heart, is it just too simple?

OH MY GOODNESS! It’s time for a fantastically exciting box. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet is a game of surviving as the very first colonists on the Solar Satsuma, and keeping your wits about you as your home crumbles like a dunked biscuit. It’s also the sequel to 2012 release Robinson Crusoe, which Quinns didn’t get on with very well. What’s changed in five years? A lot, we can tell you.

In the words of Tom Jones, “What’s new pussycat?” We’re so glad you asked, Tom! It’s a video of Shut Up & Sit Down and special guest Mark Hulmes playing The Metagame in honour of our Kickstarter for Metagame: The Game: The Games Expansion: Game Away. It’s hard to express exactly how good The Metagame is in words alone, so we decided that we’d make an actual play video that proves, once and for all, that this game is not messing around.

Hot dog! At the time of writing The Voyages of Marco Polo is ranked as BoardGameGeek’s 39th best game ever. Our team has now comprehensively tested, teased and tutted over every aspect of its complicated machinery to bring you what we think. That said, our viewers should note that as Englishmen, we still have no bloody idea about that American folk game where someone yells “Marco!” and someone else yells “Polo!”, and we’re not Googling it on principal.

This week’s video is a playthrough of the outrageously silly and frustrating Meeple Circus -a game so hot and squeaky-fresh that it isn’t actually available yet. Sorry. (If you want to read more, Paul recently tried and enjoyed it at SHUX). But if you’ll just put that goat and plank down for a moment – look at who we’ve got with us in this flipping video? Assembling an incredible sort of UK board game supergroup/cabal, this video features guest appearances from Jon Purkis (aka Actualol) as well as Efka and Elaine! (No Pun Included). For the inititated, we’d love to point you towards Jon’s song about Pandemic Legacy, and NoPunIncluded’s review of Great Western Trail – if only for the shocking revelation that cows are no longer required for fresh milk.

A mere 700 days later and IT’S HERE! Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 is the sequel to our game of 2015, Pandemic Legacy, and it’s even more ambitious than the first game. Not only is this box heavier and more expensive, it tells a far more complicated story. But what do we think? Has the lightning of genius smote this particular property once again? Or does Season 2 feel like a difficult second album? If we were you, we’d take a deep breath, click play and find out.

At last. A full six years after we rugby-tackled one of the most glorious and gargantuan board games ever made, we once again take on Twilight Imperium. Sleeker and shinier than ever, just how does the refined fourth edition compare with its previous incarnation? Look no further, for we offer you the definitive review of this epic space opera. And yes, we really do mean definitive. After Matt and Paul prodded the game so much at Fantasy Flight’s headquarters for Matt’s in-depth documentary, Quinns took on the brave (some would say Herculean) task of looking at this new edition both as a standalone game, but also alongside its predecessor, which is now widely discounted. Which one deserves your money?

The holiday season is upon us and Paul has discovered a very special gift has come his way! But does it really suit? Azul is an abstract game, nothing like the sort of thing he usually enjoys, so was this a present poorly chosen? Has someone made a terrible mistake? Are the holidays ruined? There’s only one way to find out! Sit back, get comfortable and enjoy our special, seasonal, candlelit review.

Sentient trebuchets rejoice! With just hours to go until the end of the board gaming year, we’ve snuck in our review of 2017’s biggest game. The fantasy hack-and-slash epic that is Gloomhaven weighs in at a preposterous 22lbs, it takes hundreds of hours to finish, and it raised more than four million dollars on Kickstarter. It will be enjoying a global retail release just next month, but should you buy it? Let’s take a look.