I’ve been meaning to ask Martin Wallace for an interview for ages: I’ve often thought that he’s one of the more innovative designers working today and I love the manner in which his games retain the basic feel of a Euro whilst usually allowing a very high degree of player interaction. And of course, just like me, he’s British and in the US/German-centric world of board gaming us minorities need to stick together! But what finally gave me the impetus to ask was the fact that Brass turned up very high on my latest game ratings article and it seemed an opportune time to ask him some questions about it. To my great pleasure he agreed to take time out of his busy schedule to field my inane queries. I found the answers frank and quite surprising - I hope you do too.

For this weeks wargame article we've got a treat for you - am interview session with Bowen Simmons, designer of two of the most innovative wargames of recent years: Bonaparte at Marengo and Napoleon's Triumph. He's currently in the process of applying his system to the American Civil War for his next game, Guns of Gettysburg but he agreed to take some time away from the design desk to answer some questions for us.

So I was writing next week's Gameshark column (which is going to be a "Games from the Crypt" installment about TALISMAN) and I had an epiphany. There is one simple mechanic, one singular card, that could save the Eurogame fad from complete extinction while also making even the lamest games suddenly more thrilling.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...the HORRIBLE BLACK VOID.

Over the years, I've played many games where you produce and have to manage resources of one kind or another. These can range from traditional things such as coal and ore or wheat and sheep to money, gems, energy or similar. Different games represent resources differently, so in this article, I want to look at what you might come across when you play a resource management game.

One of my favorite things about board gaming is the math trade. For those who’ve never had the pleasure of participating in one, it’s essentially an enormous board game lottery without nearly as much risk. You list games that you have to trade to other people, and everyone adds theirs to the same list. Then you each put together a list of games from the big list that you would accept for your games, and a computer program puts together trade loops so that people end up with new games for their old ones. If that sounds a little arcane (I didn’t explain it very well), don’t worry. The point is that there’s a real sense of anticipation, almost like a mini version of Christmas. You don’t know what games you’ll get for yours, but you know it’s something you’re excited about.

One of the many positives of this mini explosion (somewhere between a bathtub fart and an firecracker) of "hobby gaming" is that it's created a market for relatively obscure games that were out of print.

If the BGG-Effect hadn't fetishized Die Macher or Hannibal or Blackbeard (with a tip of the tri-corn hat to Johnny Depp, of course), none of those games would be available now.  Before the Boardgamegeek "community" burned me with Caylus (overwhelming hype, complicated bullshit efficiency engine game), someone did a geeklist of common games among people who'd been "Geek of the Week."  One of their common games was Blue Max, an 80s WWI strategy game, so I figured it must be good and straightforward.

This is the second and final part of my “Best from the bottom of the BGG rankings.” The spirit of the list is what are your lowest ranked games on BGG that you rate highly/are personal favorites and would recommend to others.

Well, even though I’ve only been doing bi-weekly columns this year I seem to have hit the dead zone between Christmas and New Year once again, when all good gamers should be playing with their new toys against willing family members so I’m going to try and keep it short. This is also going to be a little more personal than usual, and contain extended passages of unjustified self-pity, so you should probably be thankful for brevity.

Risk – yes, the one with all the dice, the world domination, and Australia – is probably the greatest Ameritrash games ever made. Or rather, I think that the (rather) new version Risk: Balance of Power is, but that is patly because the original game is much, much better than its reputation.

The genre of roll-and-something or something-and-write or whatever else there is these days has really grown in the last few years. To start with, there was a deluge of Yahtzee-style games, but soon the genre added themes and settings to try and draw people in and make them feel like they were exploring a map or fighting monsters. In this article, I want to talk about my experiences with roll-and-write games, as I will call them from here on in for the purpose of simplicity.

I was indulging in some serious spring cleaning over the weekend, including sorting through the contents of my “important stuff” box. In there I found, to my surprise, this tube of polyhedral dice. They’re cool dice: nice design, and I particularly like the way it includes two D10’s in different yet complementary colours, one printed with 0-9 and the other with 00-90 so you never need get confused about those D100 rolls ever again. The tube is also sealed: those dice have never been rolled in anger. Finding them I was torn between pleasure at a rediscovering a small, forgotten nerd treasure and sadness at what they represent.

It’s Sunday. I’ve woken up late, had some breakfast, played some computer games and now I am looking at my week ahead. Wednesday is my regular games night. I sit down to prepare for the next part of the Warhammer Fantasy Role Play (WFRP) campaign we have started having recently picked up the starter set. I find myself looking for almost anything else to do. I don’t want to prepare or run this game. I love WFRP. Actually, I loved WFRP.

The six small card expansions that change the story, plus the class cards.