Many tabletop games enjoy taking inspiration from obscure sources. Not so Pints of Blood, which leaves little room for confusion. Focusing on a group of survivors fending off zombies in a pub, it’s Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead in your hands. With attractive production quality and semi-co-operative gameplay, it’s easy to tempt friends into Pints of Blood, but it can quickly feel repetitive. The result offers plenty of undemanding fun, if a slight lack of intricacy.
With a less obvious influence, but more nuanced – and surprisingly so – is BraveRats, which across just 17 cards presents a brilliantly elegant playing system. Themed loosely around two warring rodent clans, it’s a quickfire game of reading your rival’s intentions in snappy sessions of about five minutes.
The best of the recent releases, however, is first world war combat game The Great War. Military miniature games – those that see model soldiers pushed around a battlefield – can be preposterously complex. The Great War, thanks to some refined design, bucks that trend and delivers an experience that lets players re-enact pivotal real-world engagements. It’s accessible, varied, dramatic and provokes thought around the horror of trench warfare.
