Review: Barrage

Introduction & Overview

And so the Water War begins… The year is 1922. The cannons of the Great War have remained silent for four years; the world is recovering, rising from its ashes powered by the new hydroelectric technology, a legacy of the great Nikola Tesla. A new conflict, fought across the Alpine valleys, is about to begin: will you be able to crush your rivals and build the greatest hydroelectric empire humanity has ever witnessed? Barrage is an epic worker placement strategy game. Up to four players compete over five rounds, planning their actions to build hydroelectric infrastructures on an intricate, cutthroat board. You must place your structures wisely, preventing your opponents from stealing the most precious resource: water. If you control the water, you will be able to produce power and fulfill lucrative contracts. Plan every move carefully and get ready to make bold strategic decisions: this is Barrage!

This is the premise of Barrage, designed by Tommaso Battista (in his debut published design) and Simone Luciani (Grand Austria Hotel, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar). The game was published in 2018 by Cranio Creations following a controversial crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Antonio De Luca handled the art, having previously illustrated games such as Dojo Kun, Sine Tempore, or Lancelot.

The title is published in our country by Maldito Games in a Spanish edition, although it is virtually language-independent (action names and little else). It accommodates 1 to 4 players, with a recommended minimum age of 14 and an approximate playing time of 60 to 120 minutes. The MSRP is €75. For this review, a copy of Cranio Creations’ English edition was used.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 31.8 × 22.9 × 9.4 cm (a rectangular format similar to Fields of Arle: Big Box or A Feast for Odin), we find the following items:

• Main Board (cardboard)
• Management Board (cardboard)
• Patent Office Board (cardboard)
• 7 Executive Officer Tiles (cardboard)
• 20 Basic Technology Tiles (cardboard)
• 15 Advanced Technology Tiles (cardboard)
• Executive Special Technology Tile (cardboard)
• Energy Track Board (cardboard)
• 10 Setup Tiles (cardboard)
• 45 Private Contract Tiles (cardboard)
• 4 Starting Contract Tiles (cardboard)
• 6 National Contract Tiles (cardboard)
• 6 Round Bonus Tiles (cardboard)
• 6 Objective Tiles (cardboard)
• 8 Headstream Tiles (cardboard)
• 3 Neutral Dam Bases (wood)
• 3 Neutral Dam Elevations (wood)
• 30 Water Drops (plastic)
• 58 Hydroelectric Credit Tokens (cardboard):
  • 24 Value 1
  • 20 Value 2
  • 14 Value 5
• 34 Excavators (wood):
  • 24 Value 1
  • 6 Value 3
  • 4 Value 5
• 26 Concrete Mixers (wood):
  • 16 Value 1
  • 6 Value 3
  • 4 Value 5
• 4 Company Boards (cardboard)
• 4 Construction Wheels (cardboard)
• 20 Dam Bases (5 per color) (wood)
• 20 Dam Elevations (5 per color) (wood)
• 20 Conduits (5 per color) (wood)
• 16 Powerhouses (4 per color) (wood)
• 4 Turn Order Markers (1 per color) (wood)
• 4 Energy Markers (1 per color) (wood)
• 4 Victory Point Markers (1 per color) (wood)
• 48 Engineers (12 per color) (wood)
• Rulebook

How to Play

Barrage is set in a dystopian 1920s Alpine landscape in the midst of a hydroelectric revolution, where each player leads a national company competing for water control and energy supremacy. A game spans five rounds, each consisting of five phases. After collecting income produced by built structures and placing new water drops at river headstreams, players alternate turns performing worker placement actions. On their turn, the active player places engineers on an available action space to construct dams, elevations, conduits, or powerhouses (inserting the corresponding technology tile and required machinery into their construction wheel, locking those assets away until a full turn is completed), trigger energy production, control water flow or water storage, acquire machinery or advanced technologies, take contracts, or earn credits. Generating power requires channeling water from an owned or neutral dam through a connected conduit into a personal powerhouse; this advances the player’s energy marker, allows the fulfillment of private or national contracts, and releases the water back into lower river basins. At the end of the round, headstream water cascades downhill into available reservoirs, energy track production is evaluated (awarding credits, victory points to round leaders, and scoring the active bonus tile if the required threshold is reached), and turn order is rearranged in reverse order of energy produced. After round five, players add points for the final objective tile, leftover resources and credits in their personal reserve, and water drops stored behind their dams. The player with the most victory points is declared the winner.

Key Concepts

Let us start with the Main Board. It depicts a landscape divided into three descending elevation levels: the mountain section (snowy) across the upper tier, hills (greenish hues) across the middle, and plains (yellowish tones) at the bottom. Across these tiers, there are several basins interconnected by river channels. Each basin features two reservoir sites flanked by designated construction spaces for various structures. You will also notice conduit connections linking certain dam sites to power stations, each marked with a specific production value and color code (green: low value, yellow: medium value, red: high value). Some building spaces feature red borders indicating an additional coin surcharge. Four headstream spaces sit at the top edge of the board, where water enters the system. Lastly, running around the perimeter is a victory point track numbered 0 to 99.

The Headstream Tiles dictate how many water drops gather at the start of each round along the tributaries. These drops flow downstream through riverbeds, stopping whenever they reach dams with enough capacity to hold them.

These Water Drops remain trapped in reservoirs until a player expends them to generate energy. An essential detail is that water always flows naturally along river paths, even after being channeled by other players.

During initial setup, several Neutral Dams are established on the board. This is done using Setup Tiles, drawing one for each elevation tier: only a base in the mountains, a base plus one elevation in the hills, and a base plus two elevations in the plains. Every player can use these neutral dams.

The Energy Track Board records all generated power. It displays a serpentine track numbered from 0 to 30. Specific spaces indicate credit payouts earned at round’s end. Failing to generate power during a round incurs an end-of-round point penalty. The top section holds five round bonus tiles, the right edge holds the end-game objective tile, and the left side determines the turn order based on energy produced.

Generating power allows players to fulfill contracts. Represented by tiles, each contract shows the minimum energy requirement on its left side and the granted rewards on the right. These must be drafted beforehand; players can never hold more than three active, uncompleted contracts in their personal area. There are three contract categories: starting contracts (one per player during setup), standard contracts (split into three difficulty tiers), and national contracts (kept on the common board and completed directly by anyone meeting the requirement).

The core engine is a worker placement mechanism powered by a team of 12 engineers per player. During the main phase of every round, participants take turns occupying action spaces. These spots require between 1 and 3 engineers and, in some cases, an additional coin payment. An occupied action space cannot be used again for the remainder of the round.

Most actions reside on the Management Board. It is partitioned into four functional sections: energy generation, water management (and income), resource acquisition, and contract drafting.

Generating electricity requires building specific structures to harness hydraulic power. A complete network consists of three elements: first, a dam capable of holding water in basins, formed by a dam base and up to two elevation pieces. Second, a powerhouse transforms the flow into electricity. Finally, a conduit must connect that dam (whether owned or neutral) to the player’s powerhouse. Players may also route water through an opponent’s conduit. All available pieces are stored on individual Company Boards, arranged in rows by category and built from left to right. Each building slot displays the material cost required based on quantity or placement. Certain spaces depict bonuses that unlock as soon as the covering piece is built (if multiple bonuses in a row are uncovered, all are triggered). The top edge of the board contains personal action spaces to initiate construction.

Constructing structures requires the corresponding technologies tied to each structural type. These take the form of curved cardboard tiles slotted into the Construction Wheel alongside the required machinery. Both the technology tile and the machinery become trapped within the wheel until it performs a complete 360-degree rotation back to the open slot, at which point the player retrieves all components stored in that sector.

The necessary building resources are Excavators (brown) and Concrete Mixers (gray). Players start with a preset pool of both resources to build the aforementioned structures. Acquiring new machinery throughout the game is critical to expand strategic flexibility.

New advanced technology tiles can be purchased from the Patent Office Board, which provides three action spaces. These tiles are split into three tiers, growing increasingly powerful as the match progresses. Essentially, they allow the construction of basic structures while granting significant discounts or added benefits.

A third managed asset is hydroelectric credits (coins). They are primarily used to pay placement surcharges on marked action spaces. At the end of every round, players receive coin payouts scaled to their total power output.

Starting quantities of credits, excavators, and concrete mixers are determined by each player’s Executive Officer. This character also provides an exclusive ongoing special ability throughout the entire game. The executive tile provides holding slots for these starting resources.

At the close of each round, a Round Bonus Tile is scored, rewarding players with victory points tied to a specific milestone. However, to claim the full reward, a player must have pushed their energy marker to or past the segment where the round bonus tile is placed (which shifts further down the track each round). For every segment a player falls short, four points are deducted from that tile’s payout (though points cannot drop below zero).

Similarly, the end of the match triggers the Final Objective Tile, evaluating overall industrial development on the board. Players are ranked comparatively on how thoroughly they met the condition, scoring tiered victory point rewards based on their standing.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place the main board in the center of the play area.
2. Set up the Patent Office, Management, and Energy Track boards around it.
3. Form a general supply containing all excavators, concrete mixers, water drops, and coins.
4. Shuffle the headstream tiles and place one randomly on each of the four headstream slots at the top of the main board; return the remainder to the box.
5. Shuffle the setup tiles and draw one of each type. Place neutral bases and elevations alongside the indicated water drops according to the drawn tiles, then return the setup tiles to the box.
6. Shuffle the round bonus tiles and position one on each slot of the Energy Track board, boxing the unused one.
7. Shuffle the final objective tiles and place one at the end of the Energy Track board, returning the rest to the box.
8. Sort contract tiles by tier and shuffle each stack individually. Place the green, yellow, and red decks onto their Management Board spots. Reveal 3 purple national contracts on their designated spaces and return the rest to the box; set starting white contracts aside.
9. Sort advanced technology tiles by level, shuffle each deck separately, and position them on the Patent Office Board. Reveal the top three tiles from the level I deck onto their action spaces.
10. Shuffle Company Boards, Executive Officers, and starting contracts, assembling sets equal to the player count. Pair each Company Board with an executive tile, keeping starting contracts separate.
11. Determine a first player at random, who chooses a company board/executive pairing along with a starting contract. Draft choices proceed clockwise.
12. Each player takes all components in their company color: 12 engineers, 4 basic technology tiles, 5 bases, 5 elevations, 5 conduits, 4 powerhouses, one victory point marker (placed on space 10 of the scoring track), one energy marker (placed on space 0 of the energy track), and one turn order marker (placed on the lowest available position according to the player count—in reverse draft order).
13. Players collect the starting machinery and credits indicated on their executive tile from the supply, arranging them in the designated spots on the tile.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Barrage is played over 5 rounds, each divided into 5 phases.

Phase I: Income and Headstreams

Players collect all income showing an exclamation mark on their Company Boards. In each row, the player gains the bonus depicted on the rightmost uncovered space.

Simultaneously, place the quantity of water drops shown on each headstream tile for the upcoming round onto their corresponding spaces.

Phase II: Actions

Starting with the first player and proceeding in turn order, players take turns executing actions. On their turn, a player must assign an engineer crew (1 to 3 engineers depending on the space) to an action spot on the common boards or on their personal board (paying any required coins if the slot has a red border), or pass (skipping all remaining turns for this phase).

The phase concludes once every player has passed.

Available actions include:

• Construction: the player places an appropriate technology tile from their reserve (not already inside the wheel) into the open segment of their construction wheel. Next, they add the required machinery (excavators and concrete mixers) based on the structure’s cost. The corresponding structure piece (the leftmost piece in that structure’s row) is then placed onto a valid, empty site on the main board. If that spot has a red border, the player must pay 3 additional coins to the supply. Any uncovered bonus takes effect immediately (if it is an income icon, it triggers right away, and will trigger again during subsequent income phases). Finally, rotate the wheel clockwise by one sector (if the newly accessible segment holds a technology tile or machinery, they return to the player’s personal supply for future use).
• Turbine Station: actions used to produce energy (some spaces apply modifiers to total output). The following rules apply:
  • To generate power, the player must own a powerhouse connected via a conduit to an owned or neutral dam holding water drops.
  • The player selects any amount of stored water and produces energy equal to the conduit’s value multiplied by the number of drops channeled (which are returned to the general supply). Once used, this water cascades into the basin where the powerhouse is located and continues along that river’s path.
  • Any applicable modifiers (from the action space or personal player board abilities) are applied. Producing at least 1 unit of energy is mandatory to execute a production action; choosing this action when output would be 0 is strictly forbidden.
  • If the player channels water through an opponent’s conduit, they must pay 1 credit per drop used to that owner. Furthermore, the conduit’s owner scores 1 victory point per drop utilized.
  • If the resulting energy output meets or exceeds the threshold of a contract in the player’s hand or an available national contract, they may complete that contract and immediately gain its rewards. Only one contract may be fulfilled per production action, even if the total power produced could cover several.
  • Finally, advance the energy marker along the track by the total power produced.
• Water Management: spaces that place water drops onto headstreams. Certain actions send water flowing down river channels immediately, while others deposit drops that wait until the following phase.
• Bank: provides credits. This is the only unrestricted action space on the boards.
• Workshop: advances the player’s construction wheel a set number of positions clockwise. Any technology tiles and machinery rotating back to the top opening are freed and return to the player’s active pool.
• Machinery Shop: allows players to purchase extra excavators and concrete mixers, placing them into their personal reserve for subsequent turns.
• Contract Office: allows players to draft new contracts from the display. Keep in mind that a player can never hold more than three active contracts, regardless of how many have been completed.
• Patent Office: allows a player to claim an advanced technology tile, making it available in their personal reserve from that moment on.

Phase III: Water Flow

All water drops gathered on headstream tiles flow along their respective river courses. When a water drop enters a basin, it stops if a dam has available capacity to retain it—holding one drop per built piece (base or elevation). If there is no dam, or if the dam is at full capacity, the drop spills over and continues downstream until it is caught or exits the board.

Phase IV: Round Scoring

The round is evaluated. First, determine the energy production rewards: the player with the highest output scores 6 points, and second place scores 2 points. In case of a tie for first place, the combined 8 points (6 plus 2) are split evenly among tied players. If there is a tie for second place, the 2 points are split evenly (rounded down).

Any player who generated zero power during the round loses 3 victory points.

Next, each player collects coins according to the furthest reached space on the energy track showing a coin payout icon.

Evaluate the round bonus tile. To qualify for scoring, a player must have generated at least 6 units of energy. The active tile specifies a condition and a point value awarded for each completion. Players whose energy marker reached or passed the sector containing the bonus tile receive the full payout. Otherwise, deduct 4 points from their potential score for every sector their marker lags behind. A player’s score cannot decrease from this calculation; if the score is lower than the penalty, their scoring marker does not move. After scoring, discard the round bonus tile.

Phase V: End of Round

Lastly, determine the new turn order, which is set in reverse order of energy produced (the player with the least energy goes first, and the highest producer goes last). Tied players reverse their relative positions from the previous round.

A new round can then begin.

Game End

The game ends following the fourth phase of the fifth round (turn order is not reset). Players add the following points to their current score:

• Evaluate the final objective tile, ranking players comparatively by how many times they fulfilled its condition. The first, second, and third players score 15, 10, and 5 victory points respectively. In case of a tie, combine the points for the tied positions and divide them evenly (rounded down).
• Count remaining resources stored on the executive tile (excavators, concrete mixers, and coins). Score 1 victory point for every 5 total items (rounded down).
• Score 1 victory point for every water drop retained in the player’s personal dams.

The player with the most victory points wins. In the event of a tie, the player who produced the most energy in the final round is declared the victor.

Variants

• Introductory Game: each player receives a fifth basic technology tile featuring a question mark, which allows the construction of any structure type.
• Solo Mode: uses Automa tiles to integrate automated opponents into the game. These tiles show planned actions on one side and decision-making criteria on the reverse. Players flip tiles and match the front of one tile with the back of the previous one to dictate each Automa action.

Personal Opinion

I occasionally enjoy stirring up debate over the arbitrary labels our hobby embraces, such as national design “Schools” (as though board game designers underwent formal apprenticeships under a grandmaster). The most flagrant example is the “Portuguese School”, which essentially boils down to three designers—two of whom work as a duo (Sentieiro and Soledade on one side, and the brilliant Vital Lacerda on the other). The “Italian School” is a different beast entirely, featuring a tight-knit collective of designers who frequently cross-pollinate, co-designing and blending sensibilities to deliver designs where each author’s touch remains visible.

The year 2018 brought notable titles like Coimbra (read the tocho-review here) or Teotihuacan (read the tocho-review here). None, however, achieved the unanimous critical and audience acclaim enjoyed by Tzolk’in (read the tocho-review here), The Voyages of Marco Polo (read the tocho-review here), or Grand Austria Hotel (read the tocho-review here). Time has cemented those games in the hobby canon; flaws aside, they transcended their release year and still see plenty of table time. Yet back at Essen Spiel 2018, demo tables were already buzzing around what looked like 2019’s frontrunner. Today, the time has come to see if that promise holds true.

Barrage plunges us into a somber, alternate 1920s dieselpunk world gripped by an intense scramble for electric power—specifically hydroelectricity generated by taming mountain runoff. Rival industrial nations fight for prime construction sites along river basins, aiming to generate massive amounts of power, fulfill demanding contracts, and assert industrial supremacy.

Many of you will immediately recognize the aesthetic influence of Scythe (read the tocho-review here). Aside from missing Jakub Rozalski’s brushwork and walking mechs (though some resource tokens look suspiciously mechanized), the game fits neatly into a similar alternate-history mold. Even Nikola Tesla makes an appearance. I will not fault the designers for this choice; in a eurogame, theme primarily serves as a visual hook for the illustrator and an enticing sales pitch. That holds double when the game relies on Kickstarter crowdfunding to see the light of day.

Visual design aside for a moment, let us focus on what truly matters: how does Barrage play? At its core, this is a remarkably orthodox worker placement game: a shared central board with action spaces that players occupy using their pawns (engineers), resolving each action immediately. Spaces require between one and three engineers—demanding variable crew commitments depending on the action’s power—and occasionally charge an additional monetary fee.

In this regard, the game clearly borrows from that design masterclass known as Russian Railroads (read the tocho-review here), sharing the same fundamental mechanical framework: simple, atomic actions (aside from energy production and structure building) alongside variable-cost placement slots. This dynamic makes the round length variable for each participant. If a player burns through heavy actions requiring three engineers, they will sit and watch while their opponents milk smaller, single-worker turns. It is a system I adore for its double layer of management: controlling timing and tempo while pacing your available workforce for future plays.

Through these action spaces, players erect network structures on the map to establish functional power circuits: a dam (with optional elevations), a powerhouse, and an interconnecting conduit. As rounds unfold, water cascades through riverbeds and pools behind dams, enabling power generation. Doing so requires amassing machinery (excavators and concrete mixers) and credits, plus holding the appropriate construction technologies (though players start with the full basic suite needed to build any structure).

Power generation acts as the heartbeat of the game, with every strategic decision revolving around it. Completing contracts that mandate minimum thresholds of power generation in a single blast is critical to winning, echoing the core incentive loop of The Voyages of Marco Polo. Players must continually acquire contracts—capped at three active tiles compared to Marco Polo’s two—and fulfill them to reap rewards. Introductory contracts supply raw resources, mid-tier contracts offer substantial operational perks, and top-tier contracts even grant free structure builds on the map.

Speaking of construction, we must address the star component (and chief lightning rod) of Barrage: the construction wheel. This mechanical contraption evokes Tzolk’in in the way it locks away game assets across several operational cycles before letting you use them again. Here, your workers are not trapped; your scarce, painstakingly acquired machinery is. Every time you build a structure, the technology tile and the machinery spent are swallowed up inside this wheel of agony. The rub? Unlike the Mayan calendar gears, these wheels do not turn automatically. Players must supply the momentum themselves, either by constructing new buildings (each build rotates the wheel one notch) or by spending workers on action spaces dedicated to cranking the mechanism.

This mechanism, while somewhat artificial, works brilliantly, injecting a delicious degree of tension and friction into the design. Spending engineers just to turn a cardboard wheel feels slightly frustrating, as if you are wasting actions, but chain-building non-stop is impossible because two structures will drain your entire machinery supply. Resources arrive at a trickle. That is precisely why fulfilling contracts is essential; their rewards represent the fastest shortcut to replenishing your industrial reserves.

The central map is where Barrage truly shines, forcing players into cutthroat, knife-between-the-teeth turf wars over building spaces. Once a structure is erected, that site is locked for the remainder of the game. This demands meticulous long-term planning from turn zero. During setup, you must analyze the layout: positioning of neutral dams (vital for jumpstarting early rounds), headstream values (revealing exactly how much water will emerge each round), and the initial placements of your opponents.

Having two dam construction sites per basin is a brilliant touch, with the upstream spot charging an extra placement fee. In early rounds, players rarely have the funds to seize those premium upstream spots. Later in the game, once reserves grow, you will frequently sever an opponent’s entire generation line by dropping a dam directly upstream from theirs.

Equally compelling—and remarkably thematic—is that water is never removed from the board when used; instead, it shoots through conduits into lower basins, continuing its downhill journey. Board development becomes a magnificent tactical battle of positioning, piggybacking, and hijacking other players’ infrastructure. If a rival builds a powerhouse, you know they intend to generate power, meaning the basin directly below will soon see increased flow. You can also build the connecting conduit yourself, securing a steady stream of “free” victory points whenever they channel water through your infrastructure.

Remember: energy production is everything. Falling behind on power generation means falling out of contention. Beyond contracts, two major incentives demand your attention. First, the round leader bonus: 6 points for first place and 2 points for second place across five rounds totaling up to 30 points. Securing the lion’s share of those points provides an enormous advantage.

The second incentive lies in the round bonus and final objective tiles. Clearly inspired by Terra Mystica (read the tocho-review here), round bonuses set targeted milestones based on your infrastructure and completed contracts. If a player pushes their energy output far enough along the track, they score the bonus at full value. This injects tactical pivots into the overarching strategy, making paths that worked in one game sub-optimal in the next. My main gripe here is variety: across five rounds, the game provides only six round bonus tiles. I understand the design limits regarding trackable board elements, but greater variety would have been welcome.

Terra Mystica’s DNA also surfaces in the asymmetric company boards, where uncovering structure spaces gradually unlocks persistent bonuses and improved income.

Much like in the quintessential terraforming eurogame, round bonuses serve as secondary objectives; chasing them blindly is foolish because they require multiple prerequisites alongside high power generation. The sensible play is to build your core network while opportunistically grabbing bonus points when an evaluated category aligns with your growth. The final objective tile functions similarly, though its scope spans the entire game and only scores at the end, shaping broad strategy rather than round-to-round tactics. Do not ignore it: the final objective offers substantial points that easily decide close matches.

Combining these systems yields a design that weaves borrowed ideas into a compelling, tight experience, standing tall among the strongest eurogames of its release window. It pairs classic worker placement tension with aggressive board blocking and brutal resource management. The wheels feel thematic: constructing heavy infrastructure takes time, during which your machinery remains tied up on-site.

This game is tailor-made for players who crave punishing, brain-burning eurogames that keep everyone on edge. While mechanically straightforward, it features enough interlocking rules that teaching and grasping the game flow requires real focus. It sits squarely in the medium-heavy category, leaning noticeably toward the heavy end.

Where are the drawbacks? The primary grievance is that Cranio pulled a classic Queen Games maneuver. As noted earlier, Barrage originated as a Kickstarter project, and its first expansion launched alongside the core campaign. Isn’t that suspect? Expansions are usually designed after a game proves successful, incorporating unused ideas or patching balance quirks reported by the community. Here, the expansion feels like content carved out from the base game. Tellingly, the expansion’s action board lines up seamlessly with the base management board once the patent office is aligned. It introduces a fifth structure type and a fresh mechanism that round out the core game, supplying sorely needed variability.

Had the publisher waited a sensible period before launching an expansion, I would be far more forgiving. Instead, echoing Scythe’s release strategy, we received a pruned base game that practically demands buying the expansion. Without it, Barrage‘s variability remains somewhat limited: just six round bonus tiles, a handful of executive officers, and random contracts as the primary source of asymmetry. The base game is not broken on its own, but the expansion unlocks its true potential, matching the replayability found in Grand Austria Hotel or The Voyages of Marco Polo. It also doubles the executive officer pool, opening up diverse strategic combinations. It is a frustrating editorial decision from Cranio, even if comprehensible from a business standpoint.

Regarding player scaling, while the game functions at any count, it is best experienced at four players. With a full table, the tension over board space turns vicious. Opponents will deliberately drop structures purely to disrupt your routes, particularly in the endgame. At two players, the board feels open and the claustrophobic crunch dissipates. Fortunately, action spaces scale down appropriately by locking out slots at lower player counts—an adjustment sorely missed in The Voyages of Marco Polo, where two-player matches lost considerable bite due to unadjusted boards.

Now to the elephant in the room: production quality. Backers expected deluxe treatment given the campaign pricing tiers. Instead, the final product delivered substandard cardboard typical of budget Cranio or Horrible Games releases: thin, overly flexible punchboards that tear during unpunching and absorb humidity. This porosity caused massive issues with the dual-layer construction wheels, which frequently arrived heavily warped and barely functional. The wooden pieces, while cleanly cut, are comically small; the single-value excavators and concrete mixers are microscopic. While this was likely done to fit resources inside the wheel notches, handling them remains frustratingly fiddly for anyone without tiny fingers. The plastic water drops are the ultimate culprit: they look striking, but their flat bottoms suction onto the board, forcing players to awkwardly slide them across the cardboard rather than picking them up cleanly. On the bright side, the unique wooden structures and player meeples are large and distinct for each faction. The rulebook is logically organized, though certain minor rules—like the introductory variant—are tucked away where they are easily missed, leading many groups to accidentally play with the wild technology tile.

As for the artwork, Antonio De Luca’s work shows clear effort, boasting a gorgeous box cover. On the table, however, the visual presentation falls flat. The bleak, 1920s dieselpunk palette does not quite mesh with traditional eurogame clarity, leaving the final table presence somewhat underwhelming.

And let’s wrap this up. Barrage is a demanding worker placement eurogame that delivers an uncommon degree of direct board interaction. Its construction wheel stands out as a clever thematic device, locking away technology and machinery to mirror real-world build times. It weaves celebrated mechanisms from modern classics into one of 2019’s strongest designs. Its biggest flaw stems from its crowdfunding execution, where content was carved out for a day-one expansion that holds the key to true replayability. Add in questionable component quality and fiddly tokens, and this otherwise brilliant design drops a notch. For all these reasons, I rate it a…