Robot Viking

At a late night event at Gen Con, I was lucky enough to playtest a couple of still unfinished titles, both of which ended up being excruciatingly fun to my sleep-addled brain. First up was Shirak Agresta’s Horseshoes, Hand Grenades and Atomic Bombs. This 20-30 minute title pitted a handful of players each representing Cold [...]

WoTC’s big push at this years Gen Con was a return to Neverwinter, the venerable northern city that’s been a major crossover location for decades. Most of our readers probably remember Neverwinter Nights, the Bioware game from 2002 — but there was an even older title with the same name that AOL ran as one [...]

Another rousing round of Conquest of Nerath last night exposed a few more areas where house rules might improve game balance.

Spectral Rails by Z-Man Games is a railroad game in which the players send their ghost trains around the old west in search of souls. Instead of building the tracks ahead of you to travel on, your trains leave a spectral wake that other players can ride, but blocks your own train. It’s an interesting [...]

The true story, slightly abridged, of my long weekend at Origins.

After a full, four-person playtest of Conquest of Nerath, we can confirm one thing about the initial review: it’s awesome and ridiculously fun. We did spot one potential balance issue that you might want to consider homeruling, however.

Last year, Wizards of the Coast dove into the high-end board game market with the massive Ravenloft box. The second in the series, Wrath of Ashardalon, continues and expands the fun with tight rules and a metric ton of odds and ends that will keep you replaying it for years.

The is the first part of a new semi-regular series here on Robot Viking focused on games you can play when there’s no one else around. Some games work well solitaire with special rules or modifications, but lots of games are designed for solo play. Star Wars: Battle for Endor is one of those.

It is very rare for a game to scale well enough that it’s just as enjoyable played solitaire as it is with five friends. It’s also rare for a game to capture it’s theme perfectly, with the mechanics reinforcing the story. A game that does both? Space Hulk: Death Angel is one of the very [...]

There are a lot of ways to store your dice — bags, boxes…well, ok, two ways. But this one trumps them all, a handmade Cthulhu dice bag in eldritch black and Dagonian green.

The Star Wars gaming license has been floating in limbo since Wizards of the Coast dropped it earlier this year. It was purchased this week by a mystery game company that has yet to make any kind of official announcement, but educated guesswork has many game industry observers thinking Fantasy Flight Games is the big [...]

The latest sensation sweeping the young adult best-seller lists is Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. This is no twee, sparkly tripe, though. Wizkids’ Training Days game lets you step into the roles of post-apocalyptic teens prepping for their day in a one-on-one death arena.

This week, Avalon Hill releases the second part of their epic reworking of the classic World War II high-level strategy game Axis & Allies.

A revitalized Wizkids was at Gen Con last week showing off some new and upcoming games. Drawing the most attention were a pair of prototypes for two very different, very interesting Star Trek games planned for 2011 release.