There were eight of us this week so two tables of four was the order of the day. My group began with Rialto, the second Stefan Feld release of 2013. And what a great game it was. Not as complex as Bora Bora but with lots of delightful little decisions and in a much shorter timeframe. The game is, at its heart, an area control game set in Venice, but with several other ways of advancing your cause. Turn order can be very important as can having money to utilise the buildings you acquire along the way. But then, you can also influence the value of each region in Venice by building bridges and gondolas. Excellent stuff.

Our game saw Nige combining his buildings to good effect but unfortunately at the loss of presence in regions. It was pretty uncertain who was going to win but I managed to steer up the values of the regions where I had best presence and this enabled me to secure a narrow victory. Rialto may be my favourite game of this year so far - it certainly hits the sweet spot for me in terms of medium-weight complexity and speed of play.