New to Me – June 2026

June wasn’t as big of a month for new to me games, which makes sense because even the convention I attended only had two.

Bottoscons tend to have us play older games for the most part, though not always.

Combine that with, as I mentioned last week, a missing Sunday game day and us not really playing new games at lunch at work, and I only ended up with four new to me games in June, as opposed to something like eleven in May.

However, I was able to keep the Cult of the New to Me happy, because only one of them was relatively new!

I try my best as a cult leader to make them happy.

Revolts are not pretty, at least for the deposed cult leaders.

So, without further ado (all of my ado fell of a derailed traing going into Paris anyway), let’s begin!

(You can click on a picture to blow it up)

Empire Builder: Europe (2025 – Mayfair Games) – 1 play

Designer: None listed

Artists: Jacoby O’Connor, David Oram

Players: 1-6

Empire Builder: Europe is a train game with a waxy twist (and no stock stuff).

Yes, you build your routes by drawing on the map in crayon!

Empire Builder is a very old game, but I played it for the first time at Bottoscon Spring 2025, and it was fine.

I did it as a favour, but I ended up enjoying it, even though it’s really not my kind of game.

My friend had backed the most recent edition, which takes place in Europe, and wanted to get it played.

We were at a convention, with friends who I very rarely play with (if ever), so it was a no-brainer.

That, and I thought we were playing Paladins of the West Kingdom when I headed off to the bathroom.

(I know I keep mentioning that, but I just find that so funny…sorry, Brendan).

The European edition of the game streamlines some things and also has some really cool upgraded features.

I don’t know (or remember) enough about the original to really name them, but I do know that it certainly felt that way when I played it.

It still has the “move your train along your route and then you can spend up to $20 million to build track and lay down your route” process.

It still has the disasters that can pop up and really ruin your day.

I want to run the train company that stops in Florence and says “I only need one of that, but give me two in case I have a derailment and lose one.”

The route cards are similar and tell you exactly where you need to go to pick up the stuff and then where to deliver it.

(One improvement is those cool little screens so you can indicate to yourself which routes you’re looking at rather than constantly picking the card up and saying “which one did I want again?”)

I did a much better job not getting isolated this time around, where I had to go a massively roundabout route because I didn’t make a track straight through the map, and I actually came in second!

I had the “6 out of 7” major cities connected requirement but ended with $155 million when the game ended, Brendan getting $208 million.

Well played, sir.

The game took 5 hours, but I’m not sure if that’s because of how laid back we played, the fact that we had 5 players, all of us relatively new to the game, convention distractions because Brendan was helping to run the thing, or maybe all of the above.

I don’t think it’s supposed to take that long, though.

Still, it was 5 hours of laughter and camaraderie, so how can you say no to that?

Tribes of the Wind (2022 – La Boîte de Jeu) – 1 play

Designer: Joachim Thôme

Artist: Vincent Dutrait

Players: 2-5

Another Bottoscon play, this game was interesting because of the tile-laying, card-playing mechanic for it.

The world has gone to shit, like it usually does, and players represent tribes who are trying to reestablish civilization after the apocalypse (whatever brand of apocalypse it was, which isn’t stated unless it’s in the rulebook).

Each player has a board where they are going to be buying and placing tiles.

However, you can’t actually flip and use the tiles until you have moved enough of your Wind Riders onto them. You then spend the Wind Riders to flip it and you will be able to put out one of your five villages (putting out your fifth village is one of the endgame conditions).

What makes the game neat is the card play, where there are different colours which will take different kinds of actions, from gaining and using water to moving your Wind Riders, or to remove pollution from your board.

Because that’s another thing you have to do.

Each of the cards has a condition for being able to play it, or possibly two conditions: one to play it and one to have it be stronger, and this is usually (but not always) related to your neighbouring opponents.

For example, the card on the right above has you look at the number of fire cards you have in your hand (the type of card is on the back, so that information is not secret) compared to your neighbours.

If you have fewer than one neighbour, you can spend 5 water to take a tile from the display and add it to your board.

If you have fewer fire cards than either neighbour, you only need to spend 4 water, and you can get rid of a pollution on your board.

Pollution is bad and you will start with a fair amount of it.

It does prevent you from placing a forest token on that space, so you do need to clean it up some.

You will also gain points at the end of the game if you are virtually pollution-free, which is a nice bonus!

Instead of playing a card, you can discard 3 cards (especially if they’re crap) to put a temple out onto any space on your board.

You get the effect next to the temple (the purple buildings above, with the four temple effects on the left side) and you will get points if you get 3 or 4 temples out.

Each time you build a village, you can gain a village card for either an immediate effect or an endgame scoring goal.

These are your primary ways of scoring.

The game ends when somebody builds their fifth village, after the round is completed and then one more round.

I enjoyed this one a lot. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but I did like the card play and how dependent it is on your neighbours.

New Frontiers (2018 – Rio Grande Games) – 1 play

Designer: Thomas Lehmann

Artists: Martin Hoffmann, Wei-Hwa Huang, Claus Stephan

Players: 2-5

It seems that there is no end to the variations of Race for the Galaxy.

In this case, New Frontiers is the boardgame version of that one, with some similar mechanics but you’re not using cards, which means you need actual money instead.

Each player has a starting planet and player board where they will be collecting the developments they buy as well as the planets they colonize.

It has a similar action selection mechanism as its original game, where players choose an action tile and they get a bit of a bonus while everybody can do the action (if able).

So you can explore to gain more prospective planets, buy a development for your board, colonize a planet that you’ve explored, or maybe produce or trade/consume already-produced goods on your planets.

There are also a couple of new ones, including Send Diplomatic Envoys.

The turn sequence each round is based on a set order, but players can change that order by taking this one (or a different tile, which just moves you up one space rather than putting you at the top).

This can be handy if you really want to make sure you (for example) Produce before somebody else takes Trade/Consume.

Or if you want to make sure you get early choices of planets/developments to acquire.

Developments are placed onto your board and will usually give you good effects in other phases, or discounts, or if you get a high-cost one, endgame points.

Settling planets not only requires money (or military if it’s a military planet), but it also requires settlers.

Doing the Settle action will either get you two settlers or, if you have enough money and settlers, will let you flip over one of your explored planets.

If you chose the Settle action, you automatically get one settler even before that.

As with the original game, the endgame is triggered in multiple ways.

Perhaps the victory point pool is depleted?

Or somebody has filled all but two spaces on their development board?

Or somebody has settled all but two of their explored planets?

I played this for the first time asynchronously on Boardgame Arena and I couldn’t really figure out what I was doing.

Playing it on the table and having it taught to me, this is actually a pretty good board game version of the card game.

If you want something fast, this isn’t it. The card game will definitely fill that for you.

But as an interesting twist on the original?

I liked it.

Lancaster (2011 – Queen Games) – 1 play

Designer: Matthias Cramer

Artists: Martin Hoffmann, Claus Stephan

Players: 2-5

Finally, we get to a worker placement game that Tartan actually likes.

You know that’s a recommendation, as he really doesn’t like worker placement games at all.

In Lancaster, players are English nobles under King Henry V, who is trying to unify England and conquer the French.

You of course want to get the most influence and prestige with this young king.

Players have their own board where they will be placing income tiles out along with the knights (workers) that you will be sending out to do various tasks for you.

As an action, you can place a knight into one of your castle spots to get that income at the end of the round, but ideally you want to be placing the income tiles so you don’t have to do that and you will just get it automatically.

On your turn, you’re going to be placing a knight on a city action space to try and gain that space for the round and get its end of round bonus.

Your knights have certain power, but you can add squires to that to increase it.

Power is important because somebody, on their turn, can place a knight and squires of higher power to kick you out of that town.

Your knight goes back to your board and the squires go away in shame.

You can also send your knight off to fight France, because there are a number of different wars to fight.

Only three players can send their knights to a specific war (3 spaces next to each one), but you can send multiple knights if you wish (on different turns, of course).

At the end of the round, those participating in the war will get points for first, second, and third highest, if the total strength is above the total required to win the war.

If not, then the highest will get the 2nd place points, the 2nd highest will get the 3rd place points, and no points for the last one.

That war will also continue if it’s in the top row, sliding down to the bottom.

And you don’t get your knights back at the end of the turn.

So it’s good to win the war!

Also, going to war will let you gain some cool resources or improvements.

Once everybody has placed all of their knights, new laws are considered.

These laws will trigger at the end of the voting phase, giving points (or an ability) to some, all, or maybe even none of the players.

The laws on the bottom are the ones up to vote.

Each player gets one vote, but they will also be earning voting cubes during the game (based on the number of lords they have) and you can add one or more cubes to make your vote stronger.

The laws on top are current.

If a new law is voted in, the leftmost top law will be discarded.

Good to do if an opponent will really benefit from that one.

Then all of the city spaces will have their actions performed by whoever’s knight is in there.

You can either get the benefit (above, you get two gold and two squires) or you get the Lord (you can only have one copy of each lord).

Or you can spend 3 gold to do both.

Finally, there is income and the wars are decided.

Play goes over four rounds and then some endgame points are awarded.

Whoever has the most wins!

I really did like how your knights (workers) can be improved, but only so much.

You only have one Level 3 knight and one Level 4 one, for example.

I found myself unable to get enough knights out and ready to place, so my actions were harder to do.

I used a lot of squires! And also had fewer options.

The war bits are neat, with them locking up your knights if you don’t finish them the first time.

Also, if you don’t finish the war the second time, all knights there are gone for good unless you buy them back (one gold per strength point, so can be expensive!).

I don’t know if this would be anywhere my top tier games, but I definitely enjoyed this one and I wouldn’t mind playing it again to see if I can understand the best way to play it better.

Also, while it plays 2-5 players, it’s really best at 4 or 5, mainly because of how tight the board can get.

It just seems like it would that much more fun.

There you have it!

Only four new to me games this month, but they were all quite good.

What new to you games did you play in June?

Let me know in the comments.