Collection Churn

I've been doing a bit of trading lately trying to move some stuff that I'm not likely going to play for stuff that I've been trying to acquire for a while or that I really wanted. It started with Yomi - I was able to get the Complete First Edition box in trade for Indonesia (which is a fine game, but Nathan Winchester owns it, and he's who I'd play it with anyway). There have been a couple of recent math trades and I moved FITS, Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel, Neue Heimat (I have my copy and one more still), and a load of Age of Steam maps. I picked up Oregon, Tal der Könige, Neuland, Power $truggle, Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg: New Society and Banquet Expansion, Ys, Ys+, and Combat Commander: Battle Pack #2 - Stalingrad. One of the math trades also had a copy of Lexio that didn't trade, but which I was able to followup with the owner and buy off him. Lexio isn't a killer game, but I like it and since there isn't a bunch of paper parts, it is almost ideal for taking on our week long houseboat trip later this summer (there are tons of kids and inevitably lots of water from all the swimming, so a dry spot to play is often a challenge). Those that know me probably know I don't like St. Petersburg much - it was in a bundle, so I'll likely be bundling that PoS with something else in another trade or auction.
This is sort of roundabout logic, but I want to play Neuland to figure out if I should keep Roads and Boats. I'm thinking that the value of R&B (and it's expansion) makes it time to try and get something else for it (like cash).  And apparently I'm on an anti-Splotter kick, because I'm thinking I should sell Bus as well. Right now, the only Splotter game that interests me in trying out is Antiquity (which I believe I can get Mike G or Michelle to teach me anytime).
As for CC: Stalingrad - I've slowly been grabbing all the expansions for this awesome game. I'm not through all the scenarios in the base game yet, but if Robert and I ever get back into the regular playing mode, the expansions will get played soon enough. The third is one of the bigger ones - Normandy. It is next on the list, but is plenty easy to buy still.

Geekway 2011

The Geekway 2011 came and went a week or two ago. I wrote up a Geeklist on the BGG if you want to read all about it. I don't really feel like re-hashing it, so I thought I'd just kind of summarize so random Things of No Interest. First off, Jay, Christ, Jay, and Jeff do a great job with this Con. Over the last 5 years, this has really gotten bigger and nicer without sacrificing the things that are so great about it. I really enjoy seeing and playing games with the folks I've met over the years. The library has plenty of games, and the play-to-win table always has a good selection of games. Speaking of the Play-To-Win table - we didn't. Neither Nathan nor I managed a prize (from the PTW table nor door prizes) for the third or fourth year running. The whole damn group from Omaha managed to win door prizes within the first day or so. We thought he had a good shot at Battles of Westeros since we had 4 of the 10 entries, but no luck. On a side note, the limited number of figures for the game has got me seriously considering painting the set. I resist as much as I can since I'm terrible about finishing once I start this.

New Games
Here are the new games I learned:

• Stone Age - pretty standard worker placement / gather resources to turn into points.
• Yomi - this was the hit of the Geekway for me. It is 10 decks of cards that let you play a souped-up rock-paper-scissors battle. It is fast and a load of fun.
• Zombie Dice - this is a five minute press your luck dice game.
• Ilium - Another middle of the road Knizia. He's done better
• Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel - this is a two-man-squad mini's board game from back in the day. Nothing special here.
• Cargo Noir - this is a nice family game that seems like it plays best with three.
• Tikal II: The Lost Temple - this was pretty disappointing. None of us cared for it. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really fun either.
• Battling Tops - this was a 20 minute diversion run one night. I will admit it was more fun than Beyblade my son plays.
• Nightfall - easily the worst game of the con (until I played Innovation). There seems like there should have been a couple of cool things, but there just were not.
• Code Omega - a puzzle game ala Ubongo, but I don't think it was as good.
• The Resistance - another really good game, this is like Werewolf "lite"
• Aargh!Tect - not sure this is a great game, but it was fun enough dancing around and grunting like a caveman.
• Princes of the Renaissance - I get the same feeling after playing most Martin Wallace games for the first time. Its interesting, but I'd have to play it again to know for sure if I care for it.
• Innovation - its a Civ card game with none of the elegance and speed of 7 Wonders. It also suffers from the same issue the Through the Ages does - the rich get richer and the poor suffer the whole time.

The Trade Table
The Geekway Trade Table runs like this: random person starts and picks a game. Whomever's game is picked gets the next selection and so forth. This year I had 4 entries: Wok Star, Arkham Horror bundle, bundle (Trias, Feurio, Clans), Command And Colors Exp1. The Trias bundle was taken like 3rd, I pulled Wok Star off the table and then took Grind. I pulled the one game because there wasn't a whole lot actually submitted that I wanted. When the C&C:exp got taken, I grabbed Arkham back and a bundle that had Blue Moon City in it and called it a day. I don't know if the recent glut of crap in the game market or what skewed my interest in the submissions, but I just didn't see much I wanted. And though it wasn't part of this trade table, when I got home I traded Indonesia for a complete first edition set of Yomi.