Last Light is a 4X game designed by Roy Cannaday and published by Grey Fox Games. The premise is simple: the last sun in the universe is dying, and it’s your job to harvest the most Light. Be the first to collect 20 pieces of Light and you’re the winner.

The Board & Setup

Last Light is likely to be one of the most impressive-looking games you’re going to see for a while. Seeing it on a table at Tantrum Con for the first time, I immediately felt drawn to it. Rotating circles of outer space, small plastic spaceships in three sizes (the game being set up was an upper-tier Kickstarter edition with 3D ships and Resource tokens; my review copy is the standard, cardboard-only release) and the planets.

The marble-like 3D planets, each rising from the board on its own stand and featuring swirls of colors, made me willing to sit down for a teach and a quick few rounds. Had the setup just featured flat cardboard with drawings of planets, I would have kept walking.

[caption id="attachment_332390" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] The standard edition of Last Light, with lollypop-like planets rising off the board.[/caption]

The board itself comes in…

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No upcoming expansion had me more excited than the arrival of Shackleton Base: Below. Within. Above., the first expansion for one of the five best games I played in 2024, Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon.

“Shack Town”, as it is known in my circles, has hit my tables a whole lot since the late summer of 2024, thanks to receiving an advance copy from the team at Sorry We Are French (from overseas, no less, in the Before Tariff Times). The medium-weight Euro is a crowded field, and Shackleton Base stood out because it does a lot of things right, thanks in part to the seven different corporations included in the base game.

Almost any number of extra corporations would spice up the base game for me. I’m not exhausted with any of the base game corporations yet, but the mix can always get sweeter with more set-up options that shake up the meta.

Let’s talk about the new stuff. (For anyone new to Shack Town, you can check out my review of the base game to learn more.) Also, please note: the new stuff barely—and I mean, barely—fits in the base game box, assuming you keep the cute tuckboxes that make setting up the game a cinch.

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Several years ago, my friend Nathan introduced our group to Tyrants of the Underdark, a deck-building game that used Dungeons & Dragons lore for its setting. My initial response was dubious, as often happens with licensed product. The art, which Nathan had warned us about in advance, didn’t help. Dozens of artists are credited on the game, and many of their illustrations are not…good. The hodgepodge of styles did not promise a robust play experience.

Fortunately, first impressions can be wrong. Tyrants of the Underdark is an excellent, taut marriage of deck-building and area-control. It is wonderfully interactive, encouraging players to step on one another’s toes at every turn. The modular deck system, which changes the cards in play from game to game, ensures a good amount of variety. The game is both immediate in its pleasures and rewards deeper exploration.

Tyrants of the Underdark is exactly the kind of game that I would expect to be a cornerstone of The Hobby™. And yet. Despite the quality of its reputation amongst those who’ve played, Tyrants remains somewhat obscure. I can’t even tell if it’s currently in print or not. It is often hard to find. It begs for expansions, but it only has one, which is both long out of print and heinously expensive. For a game that threatens…

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