{"id":6109,"date":"2026-02-27T16:06:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/?p=6109"},"modified":"2026-03-04T16:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T16:39:08","slug":"toy-battle-triumphs-in-2026-as-dor-civolution-collects-expert-game-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/27\/toy-battle-triumphs-in-2026-as-dor-civolution-collects-expert-game-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Toy Battle triumphs in 2026 As d’Or, Civolution collects expert game prize"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

France\u2019s highest-profile board game prize, the\u00a0As d\u2019Or<\/a>, has unveiled Paolo Mori and Alessandro Zucchini’s Toy Battle<\/a> as the winner of its main award for 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family weight, toy-themed wargame fought off competition from\u00a0Flip 7<\/a> and Rebirth<\/a> to scoop this year’s prize, while Stefan Feld design\u00a0Civolution<\/a>\u00a0won out against\u00a0Arcs<\/a> and\u00a0Ants<\/a> to win the expert game award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zenith<\/a>, from Gr\u00e9gory Grard and Mathieu Roussel,\u00a0picked up the intermediate award ahead of First Rat<\/a> and\u00a0Take Time<\/a>, while the children\u2019s category was won by Florian Sirieix design\u00a0Mooki Island<\/a> in a contest with Archeo<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Twisted Spooky Night<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year’s As d’Or saw a significant change to its rules, with organisers requiring entries to name artists on the game boxes for first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Mafayon was the artist for Toy Battle, while Civolution was illustrated by Dennis Lohausen, Zenith by Xavier Gueniffey Durin and Mooki Island by M\u00e9lanie Bardin, also known as Seppyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The award, which traces its history back to 1988, has required entries to show designer names on their game boxes for several years, in addition to requirements for the game to be published in French and available in the French market during the preceding year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A statement from Philippe Mouret and Julia Marcelin, both heads of studio at Toy Battle publisher Asmodee, said “Tonight\u2019s recognition first belongs to the authors and illustrator whose talent and vision brought Toy Battle to life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We also want to thank all the teams involved for their dedication, as well as the Festival\u2019s jury for this distinction. This award is a wonderful acknowledgment of the creativity and vitality of today\u2019s tabletop industry.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French board game website Ludovox\u00a0noted in January that a long-held belief around the As d\u2019Or was that two-player games could not be nominated<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 a premise which crumbled this year with the nomination of three such games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added, \u201cIt also reflects the current trend: playing games as a couple, and smaller-format games are appealing to the public, and publishers are offering more and more of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viking-themed card shedding game\u00a0Odin\u00a0won last year\u2019s As d\u2019Or<\/a>, while city-building eurogame\u00a0<\/a>Kutn\u00e1 Hora<\/a>\u00a0triumphed in the Expert Game category at the 2025 awards, Operation Noisettes won the children\u2019s game prize, and\u00a0Behind<\/a>\u00a0scooped the \u201cIniti\u00e9\u201d award \u2013 which targets regular board game players ready for more challenging mechanisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The As d\u2019Or was launched 38 years ago to highlight the best games available at France\u2019s Festival International des Jeux in Cannes. The award was merged with the Jeu de l\u2019Ann\u00e9e in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 100,000 people attended this year’s FIJ between February 25 and March 1, down on the record 110,000 admissions across the five-day event last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2026 As d’Or Awards<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As d’Or<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Winner: Toy Battle, designed by Alessandro Zucchini and Paolo Mori<\/strong>, published by Repos (Asmodee)<\/strong>
Flip 7, Eric Olsen – Catch Up Games
Rebirth, Reiner Knizia – Lucky Duck Games and Mighty Boards <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As d’Or-Jeu de l’Ann\u00e9e – Enfant \/ Children<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Winner: Mooki Island, Florian Sirieix – Le Scorpion Masqu\u00e9<\/strong>
Archeo, Thomas Favreli\u00e8re, Adrien P\u00e9dron – Gigamic
The Twisted Spooky Night, Wolfgang Dirscherl, Wolfgang Lehmann – Drei Magier Spiele<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As d’Or-Jeu de l’Ann\u00e9e – Initi\u00e9 \/ Intermediate<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Winner: Zenith, Gr\u00e9gory Grard, Mathieu Roussel – PlayPunk<\/strong>
First Rat, Gabriele Ausiello, Virginio Gigli – Pegasus Spiele
Take Time Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothi\u00e8re – Libellud<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As d’Or-Jeu de l’Ann\u00e9e – Expert \/ Expert Game<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The supreme discipline for all strategists and frequent players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winner<\/strong>: Civolution, Stefan Feld<\/strong> –<\/strong> Grail Games, Deep Print Games<\/strong>
Arcs, Cole Wehrle – Leder Games
Ants, Renato Ciervo, Andrea Robbiani – Cranio Creations and Intrafin <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more stories like this direct to your email inbox, click here to sign up for BoardGameWire’s free email newsletter. \n\nAnd if you’ve found our reporting interesting or useful, please consider a paid subscription to help support our journalism!<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zenith\u00a0picked up the intermediate award ahead of First Rat and\u00a0Take Time, while the children\u2019s category was won by\u00a0Mooki Island in a contest with Archeo\u00a0and\u00a0The Twisted Spooky Night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[671,16,6,135,546,85,672,2152,2095,2065],"class_list":["post-6109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-as-dor","tag-award","tag-board-game","tag-board-games","tag-civolution","tag-france","tag-french","tag-mooki-island","tag-toy-battle","tag-zenith"],"blocksy_meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6109"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6113,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6109\/revisions\/6113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}