Things of No Interest

Return to Combat Commander

2012-01-27T22:59:00.001-07:00

Situation Report
St. Jean De Daye, France July 8, 1944
July 7th saw a brief battle in which German forces were forcibliy evicted from their hilltop defenses near the Vire Rivert. The small American force that won the day - elements of the 743d Tank Battalion, including an immobilized M4 Sherman - was then tasked to hold the hills until reinforcements could arrive to relieve them. Sergeant White ordered his infantry to dig in atop the dominant hill as Sgt. Beuhler prepped his shaken tank crew.
It is now just before dawn, July 8, and the dim morning glow is punctuated by a flare igniting over Hill 104. The expected German counterattack has arrived; the US reinforcements have not.

I chose the Allied forces for this match up. Nearly all the weaponry at my disposal was attached to the immobilized tank, which I placed in a valley. Sgt White and his infantry awaited the assault on the hilltop. Reinforcements would come, but slowly with no leaders and terrain covered in wire and mines. Robert's German forces began their advance. A small group coming through the hedges trying to advance to position to take out the tank crew and the remainder of his troops advancing through the cover of buildings to determine their attack plan on the hill. Luck favored the attackers early as the German machine called in air strike after air strike. Fortunately the well armored Sherman kept the troops from any real harm and a fire in one building soon spread to the other, forcing the Germans out of their safe location. The group advancing on the tank made a sneak attack, hoping to best the tank crew and their Sgt in hand-to-hand combat, but the Allied fighters were too good (a stray round from the German artillery finished off any hope of forcing the Americans from their tank). The German command then focused their effort on the group on the hill. Taking advantage of the hedgerows for cover, the Germans began a series of fire attacks at the foxholed group that slowly took their toll. Unfortunately for the Germans, the got desperate and forced and ill-advised rush up the hill to try and take out the American squads. The group was repelled and finished off as time ran out for the Germans.

Ora et Labora

2012-01-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

Matthew and Amelia stopped over Friday night and we got in a couple of new (to me and them) games. First we started off with Rattus. This one is almost like El Grande on speed. There isn't as much control, though there are interesting choices to make. We all felt that it was a bit random, but the game plays so quickly that I don't think it matters a whole lot. Matthew and Amelia started the game bashing on me a bit, so I had to really work at getting back into the game. Amelia had a nice little string of good luck and kept quite a few guys on the board. I was able to whittle Matthew down a bit at the end and we ended up tied for first-loser.

Next up, I got out Ora et Labora. I have no clue what Ora et Labora means. What I do know is - Ora et Labora is the most recent game from Ewe Rosenberg. Ewe is most recently associated with Agricola, Le Havre, and At the Gates of Loyang. I have not had the chance to play Loyang, so I can only compare and contrast Ora to Agricola and Le Havre.Ora is something of a worker placement / engine game (engine game meaning - gather basic resources to build a building that builds more advanced resources which are used to score points or some such). Each player has a plot of land on which to build various buildings and settlement cards. Some of the spaces have to be cleared first (which of course is how you get two of the basic resources) before you can build. Players can also buy expansion plots of land, the trick being that the plots get progressively more expensive more the next plot - for everyone. Each round, players can take one action, then the start player for the round gets a bonus action. Rather than a board that loads goods up after each round (ala Agricola or Le Havre), Ora uses a unique mechanism in the form of a rondel/dial which is advanced each round. As it advances, goods that haven't been gathered recently become more valuable/available. It felt like a unique mechanic (though it is basically the same sort of thing as Agricola and Le Havre) and was interesting twist.
The next thing that stood out was the "food gathering". In Agricola and Le Havre, the first part of each game has a lot of tension as players struggle to find a way to feed their family. Ora somewhat hides this mechanism behind the idea of settlements. Periodically in the game, play stops and each player can build one of the settlement cards they have in their hand (each player has the same choices). The cost of each settlement is paid in food and energy, though some are more expensive than others (and thus worth more points). What this mechanic does is take a lot of the desperation out of the game and made the overall experience more relaxed. The game played in about 3.5 hours for the three of us (with rules for three new players) - so a bit shorter than Le Havre. Of course, none of us knew the cards, so it'll likely get faster with more plays.
That doesn't mean the game is any less "meaty" than the others. There is still a lot of work to be done to get the resources you need to build a set of buildings that have some synergy. However, like Le Havre, if your opponent gets that building you really wanted/needed, you can still use it - you just have to pay them for the privilege. And of course, there are multiple ways to score points and win. This is most obviously demonstrated by the crazy end-scores to our first game. Matthew, Amelia, and I all managed to end with exactly the same score! We all got there by taking quite different routes. Matthew and Amelia were able to place buildings and settlements such that they scored a lot of points at the end of the game. Matthew also had a number of valuable buildings, but wasn't able to create any points in goods due to a lack of resources at the end. Amelia didn't have the expensive buildings that Matthew had, but was able to get a few goods for points at the end. Me? I pushed really hard at the end to create a few high scoring goods that earned me a lot of points on my final turn.
So, did I like Ora et Labora? Yes. If you like Le Havre, you'll very likely enjoy this game. Even with all the options, the choices available each turn are limited enough not to overwhelm players (though we certainly had a couple turns where we couldn't decide between two choices). The game comes with two sides to the cards - Ireland and France, so you can play with either set of different buildings. This feels a bit like the repetitive nature of Le Havre (where only a small set of buildings are unique per game), but I'd guess (given past history) that we'll start seeing expansion cards for this game soon.

2011-12-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome back. Its that time of year - when we look back and review the year and I put up my "Cult of the New List". These are all the games I tried for the first time in 2011. So without further ado, here we go.

	51st State was a game I was introduced to by Matt Longieliere. It is (IIRC) something of an engine building game where the cards have multiple uses. I remember it being neither great nor bad. I would have played it again, but I never had the chance and it wasn't something I felt I needed to acquire.
	Aargh!Tect was something we felt like we had to try out at the Geekway. Late on Friday or Saturday I played this with a group of folks from Union Pacific and it is pretty silly. Its meant to be. The caveman player tries to get the others to arrange a set of blocks in a certain way (as shown on his card) using a made-up caveman language. The caveman gets an inflatable club to hit the builders with to indicate NO! or Good Job! It was good for a late night laugh, but definitely not something that would ever see semi-regular play if I owned it.
	Age of Industry was one I picked up based solely on people I knew liking Brass. I had never played Brass, but decided I really liked what Martin Wallace did with Steam vs Age of Steam, so decided to take a chance when I saw this on the shelf of the local game shop. I'm glad I did as it is really a great game. The fact that it has a double sided board and each side plays fairly differently was a plus. After playing each side once, I immediately bought the expansion maps (Japan was a blast). After a string of somewhat iffy games, I think Martin Wallace hit a groove in the last year or so. Definitely a great game here.
	Alien Frontiers was my present from my Secret Santa this year (hey, it was sent unwrapped). I first saw this at the Geekway but wasn't too moved to seek it out. However, in the last half of this year I went into a dice-game kick and was pleased when I got to play this. Its akin to To Court the King - you roll dice and then adjust them to make a play (or plays). It allows for some cool plays, but the luck factor seems to be more prevalent than in some other dice games. It also drags a bit with four players. Despite all that, I still enjoyed it a lot.
	Artus is the latest in the Alea Medium Box set. I received this one for Christmas from my kids and got a chance to play it right before the end of the year. Fairly original mechanic with the spinning board. Not to deep or heavy, a good shorter game for the end of the night, or a quick starter.
	Ascending Empires was a game that came out of left field. It is a mix between a dexterity game, a space exploration and colonization game, and an engine game. Definitely nothing else like it on the market. Fun enough for a couple of plays, it started to feel very "samey" after the first couple of plays and I traded it away.
	Battles of Westeros was a game I initially resisted. I own BattleLore and wasn't sure I needed another BattleLore (with the Westeros theme). When I finally played it, I realized that this was likely the crowning achievement in the Command and Colors series of games (which interestingly enough, isn't included as part of the series on BGG). The subtle changes to the order system alleviate some of the issues that have persisted in the various incarnations of the game and it feels slightly less complex than C&C:Ancients. They did a really great job with the theme on this one as well and I'd happily play this just about anytime. This one easily replaces BattleLore for me.
	Battleship Galaxies was something I was interested in trying out and luckily for me, my friend Erik brought it over one night. It wasn't terrible, but has almost nothing in common with classic Battleship, except that the game has red and white pegs (which serve a purpose very different than the original). This one is a tactical slugfest from the guys that brought us Heroscape (which is not a bad thing). It was ok, but didn't strike a chord with me either.
	I got to play Battling Tops as part of a late night tourney at the Geekway. This is totally random nonsense, but when you've been staying up late and are a bit punchy, its pretty good fun to shout and cheer your top to victory.
	Before the Wind sounded a lot like a game I'd enjoy, but I didn't really care for it. Its basically one of those collect some stuff to make other stuff to get points kind of game. It wasn't great with three players, it felt like it'd have been better with four, but wasn't interesting enough to warrant a try.
	Blue Moon City is one I've had for a while now, but hadn't tried. This Knizia game is only related to his Blue Moon card game in art. Otherwise, its somewhat standard (though on the better side) of his style games. Multiple ways to score points, but you can't focus on just one nor on all. You need to focus in on just a couple. Its easy to learn and plays fairly quickly and sits right up there with Through the Desert and Samurai as one of his better games (IMHO).
	Carcassonne: The City has been around for a while, but I only just played this one (this month!). I've been playing a lot of Carc with the kids this year (they love it) and I have to say I'm surprised how little I've heard about this version - I think its really one of the better versions of the game. Fans of the series should really get this one - its superb.
	Cargo Noir was a new game from Days of Wonder and on the Play-To-Win table at the Geekway, so we tried it.It was a fun little game - good family fare, but not too light. There is a little bidding and set collection and we all agreed it was ok, but not something we had to get in more plays of by any means.
	Code Omega was something I hadn't heard of before, but it turns out it is basically a puzzle game ala Ubongo. Everyone has a set of sticks with patterns on them and you have to line them up to fit on the outline of the image in such a way that the lines on the sticks also match up. Seriously - its a variant on Ubongo. If you LOVE Ubongo, you'll love this and if you hate Ubongo, don't look here.
	I first hear Cyclades being compared to Chaos in the Old World. This made it appealing. I found it to be ok, but quite a bit longer than I wanted and not as exciting by a long ways. Close finishing games are ok, but not when it doesn't feel like you can do anything exciting to pull away. It felt an awful lot like it was designed to be a photo finish, and that mean that random luck decided the outcome to the game.
	Dominant Species. One of the best games I played last year. Really a clean design and engaging game. Six different species fighting for survival - each with a different game specific advantage. This one is long and brutal (there is sooo much bashing, but its in good fun), but it is really interesting the whole time you are playing.
	Elder Sign aka Arkham Horror lite aka Arkham Horror the Dice Game. For those that wanted Arkham Horror to be shorter and less thematic, here you go. If you want the full-on-in-your-face-Lovecraft-experience, play Arkham. If you like the theme, but can do without being bashed over the head with it for hours at a time, here you go.
	Empire Builder is a crayon rails game. I'm not sure what I expected, but it was a little too long for what I got out of it. It was interesting for a while, then the game turned from logistics to luck of the draw. Too bad.
	Giants wasn't something I'd ever heard of. Matthew brought this one over and after he explained it, I could see where the appeal was. Its about building Moaïs on Easter Island and racing to get them to the most valuable spots. Its fairly standard Euro-fare, better than some, worse than others.
	Glen More was one I kept hearing about, but never seeing. I finally bought a copy site unseen and haven't been a bit disappointed. This is one where the person in last chooses what they want. If they get greedy, the other players will get a lot of turns before they go again. You are trying to build up your Glen to gather more clan chieftens, scotch and special places than the other tribes. Such good Euro-fun!
	I tried Ilium for the first time at the Geekway and was under impressed. This felt like another Knizia-churn. It did very little to stand out from all his other games and wasn't as good as the others eithers.
	Another Play-To-Win game at the Geekway, Innovation is a card based Civ game. Its also a rich-get-richer game, which I hate. Guess how I felt about this game?
	Keythedral is an older game that has been out of print for a while - I picked it up in trade at some point, but finally got to try it out this year. Nathan Winchester and I played it two players and it wasn't bad. It might have been new and special when it first came out, but it is pretty much standard euro-fare now.
	Kreta is another older Euro. This one was never picked up for printing in the US. Also something of standard euro-fare, it isn't anything special, but it does have an online implementation on MaBiWeb, so I wanted to try it out face-to-face to understand the game first. I'll happily play it online now, but will likely trade or sell this off.
	Lancaster was not a game on my radar, but Matthew and Amelia brought it over one night and we played a four-player game of it. It is a euro with something of a bid/outbid mechanism (similar, but not quite the same as Amun-Re). It was surprisingly good and I'd happily play this again.
	Lexio is a game that is really hard to get. The publisher was Korean and after getting a couple printings out, never get any more done. The tiles for the game are nice balkalite tiles (mine is the less desirable WHITE version :( ) essentially replace cards for the game Big Two. I finally was able to obtain a copy and after having played this online solo, got it played face-to-face. It is really a pretty quick game and more something of a filler than anything. Still, a good little family game that will appeal to non-gamers.
	Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel - I had a copy of this and wanted to see what it was all about with a full compliment of gamers. I got my chance at the Geekway as Chester Ogborn wanted to run a full set of scenarios. Unfortunately, the game (and the group of folks) just weren't that exciting. A couple of the guys playing were about as enthusiastic as a 5-year old would be at a knitting show. that aside, the game itself was only so-so and I traded this away right after I got back from the Geekway. It definitely showed its age.
	Nightfall was on the play-to-win table at the Geekway, so a big group of us sat down to learn this. This was easily the worst game I played at the Geekway. It sounded like it would be ok, but that promise never materialized for any of us.
	Ninjato was a game I grabbed on a whim at my FLGS. This is a thematic euro with a little bit of a push your luck element to it. It was clever enough, but I think I need to try it again to decide if I want to keep it or not.
	Powerboats is a racing game (in boats). The courses are randomly setup for each race and there is a fairly good amount of screwage (which of course puts it up there with Ave Caesar and other good race games). I need to get this one to the table more in the next year.
	Princes of the Renaissance is an older Wallace game that is out of print. I got to join Chester Ogborn for his yearly Geekway game of this. They always play this late in the con (late at night) when everyone is a little bit punchy. There are plenty of laughs and random silliness. Of course, none of that has anything to do with the actual game itself, but it definitely flavored my impression of the game. The game itself is classic old-school Wallace in that it wasn't until the game was over that I really got the flow of the game. I really prefer his more recent designs, but will happily play this again.
	Roads and Boats is a Splotter game I've had for a while that I finally got around to playing this year. This is an engine game with lots of stuff going on. Its also classic Splotter - lots and lots of chits and fiddliness. There is a fun game here, but even with everyone basically playing at the same time, it is a bit longer.
	Runebound: The Island of Dread is an expansion set that I picked up since my son really like Runebound. Unfortunately, this isn't a great expansion. It has a new map which is MUCH harder than the original. This expansion is really only for the expert/hardcore Runebound fans.
	Shogun is one I've had in my collection for a long time and hadn't played. I was ready to trade it, but really wanted to try it first. I finally got to play it and have to admit - I shouldn't have waited so long. The game is a pretty good conflict/wargame and the tower is kind of a cool mechanism. Good stuff!
	Stone Age is one of the first games I played at this year's Geekway. I have mostly avoided this one so far because I came to the conclusion that worker placement games are just not really my cup of tea. They all just kind of feel the same to me. This wasn't bad, but nothing special.
	The Resistance is something of a social deduction game ala Werewolf. Part of the group is made up of spies who try to foil the rest of the player's attempt to overthrow the government. The excitement comes in trying to root out the bad guys and all the lying and backstabbing. It is better with a larger group and everyone needs a thick skin, but is a load of fun.
	Tikal II is the followup to the classic original - Tikal. As a fan of the original, I thought I should give this a go (and it was part of the play-to-win table at the Geekway). Sadly, this is nowhere near as good as the original. Skip this one and go play the original.
	Troyes was another spur of the moment choice from the FLGS. This is also one of the most original and clever use of dice in a game I've seen in a while. Each player gets dice based on the placement of their workers on the board and then can use their dice and the other player's (at a cost) to take actions or get more dice for the next round. A good surprise.
	Yomi was one I hadn't heard of until the Geekway. It was pretty simple to learn and yet has some interesting and quick gameplay (especially since it is basically Rock-Paper-Scissors). The full set has 10 decks of cards for dueling and the decks are all pretty balanced. I traded for this right after the Geekway and my son loves this game. A great find!
	Zombie Dice is pretty much a stupid push your luck dice game. That didn't stop Nathan and I from playing this between almost all our games at the Geekway. Most of our head-to-head games took about 2 minutes to resolve (mostly in my favor). not the best game ever, but I have fond memories of this one :).

And now that the list is complete, we can talk about best and the worst of the list. Let's start with the crap:

Innovation - once you fall behind, you can stop playing. How is this fun?
Runebound: The Island of Dread - not for the faint of heart. Why bother playing Runebound if all players lose halfway through the game?
Mutant Chronicles: Siege of the Citadel - this might have been good back in the day, but there are better choices in this genre now days.
Nightfall - the description promises a good deck-building game. It doesn't deliver.
Tikal II - this would have been just another euro if it didn't have the name Tikal.

The best of the year:

Dominant Species - a bit long, but worth it the whole time. A lot of fun.
Age of Industry - one of the best Wallace games I've played.
Yomi - quite a bit of fun for Rock-Paper-Scissors
Battles of Westeros- best of the C&C family of games with a great theme and great gameplay
Glen More - great combo of mechanics makes for a fun little game.

Descending Deeper into Descent

2011-10-03T14:14:00.003-07:00

Descent is one of those games. I don't know why, but I just like it. It is far from perfect - it is terribly long, it can be unbalanced, it can be fiddly, and there seem to be a dozen little rules that you forget. Despite that, I really like the theme and the game itself. I've even painted about half the monsters and maybe a third of the heroes in my set. Recently, Fantasy Flight Games announced they were going to release Descent 2nd edition in 2012. This could be good or bad. On the one hand, it sounds like it should be a much more streamlined and faster playing game. On the other hand, they are not going to be re-printing any of the original expansions! Well, I'm not sure that I care for that. I was going to wait until the new edition came out to check it out before trying to figure out whether to stick with the older version or to jump ship for the newer one. One recent math trade has changed my mind.
In one very quick trade, I traded for a pair of Hirst molds for building Descent tiles. A friend of mine has a set of these tiles and they are fantastic to play with - they really do add to the game experience. Unpainted and un-assembled sets of the pieces can be purchased on Ebay for about $100, but now I can make my own for quite a bit less than that. I figure if I'm going to dive into this little project, I might as well start looking into the expansions. Unfortunately, it turns out that the prices have really gone up on the expansions. Especially Road to Legend. Road to Legend adds the ability to play Descent as a campaign, thus allowing for hero development and it breaks the game into small scenarios that can be played in under a couple hours rather than five or six. I started putting out offers and I'm happy to report that I was able to get The Well of Darkness in a trade for Cyclades. I'm working on another trade to move my A Game of Thrones LCG stuff for Road to Legend. The other two base expansions I was able to find on Ebay and an online store for good prices (NIS). I may even eventually try to track down the last expansion - The Sea of Blood, but this one is an expansion for Road to Legend, so there isn't a need to track this one down until I can secure RtL. Now, I realize I may never get all of the expansions played, but I don't care. Better to have a game I like and never play than to have a game or two I don't like and never will play.

Games Played Recently

2011-08-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

Summer always seems to catch me lagging behind in my posting. Now that school has started up again for the kids, maybe I'll catch up again on some posting!

So starting with a couple weeks back - Dion Garner stopped by with Greg Perschbacher for a little gaming one night. We started out playing Botswana which is just a re-theme of Quandry by Knizia. Cute theme and same gameplay as before - a good filler. I then taught them Taluva, which is an awesome game, but needs a playing or two before you are seasoned. Having been the only one to play before, I was at a good advantage and won (though Greg was close). Nathan Winchester finally arrived for the big game of the night - Shogun, which neither Nathan nor I had played before. I raced out to a good lead in the first year, but had no allies during the second year and Dion ate my holdings which were too spread out for me to defend. Good game! I should have played this one long before I did.

My next gaming session saw Matthew Frederick, Amelia Boli, and Robert Bolan stopping over for a bit of gaming. Matthew brought Giants, which I had never seen nor heard about. This one is an engine game where players try to gather resources to build Moais. The game looks wonderful with some really nice bits and the game was interesting, though it suffers from a similar issue that a lot of games like this have - getting that one "thing" ahead of other players seems to really be the key to winning. After Giants, we played some Lexio, which is really much faster than I thought. Regardless, its an interesting enough game yet light.

The week after that was over at Rob and Michelle's place. I had just bought a copy of Glen More that I wanted to try out, and Noah Antwiller, Matthew and Amelia were willing to try it too. This was an interesting one that I think needs more playing. The mechanism is a bit of set collection where you score by having more than the poorest player of that item. You pick your production tile on something of a rondel type mechanism and the player at the back of the pack chooses next. I believe Noah won a close game over Matthew. We changed partners and Amelia and I played Notre Dame with Nathan Winchester, Liz Longiliere, and Dan (?). I started out going after the parks to start up the bonus point engine, but ran out of money soon enough and dropped out of the running. We finished the night with one of my all time favorites - Ave Caesar. Nathan, Noah and I were joined by Rob Smolka, Matt Longiliere and Mike Beurlin. The first race saw only Rob and Mike finis, with the rest of us being screwed over a lot. I made my comeback though and won the last two races! Mostly though, I recall a lot of laughing and swearing at each other - which makes this a great game.

The week after that, Robert managed to make his way back over to my place to renew our Combat Commander:Europe rivalry.This one looked like it was going to be all over before it began as I managed to call a first round artillery attack on Robert's American forces, breaking a load of them. I also pinned some of his others down in mines. Then the hand of fate took over and b-slapped us both. someone started a fire and for the first time ever I think we saw breeze after breeze card kick up the blaze until a good third of the middle of the map was on fire. Robert was behind on points by a huge margin and decided he needed to win by surrender before time eliminated him. He managed to eliminate my artillery and then use his to decimate my troops. I couldn't find recover cards, and even when I did, I tended to roll such that all my guys immediately were suppressed. Robert tried over and over to rout my forces, but that didn't work much for him as somehow when Robert rolled, the cards hated him there too. Finally, he made one last desperation artillery strike to try and kill that last unit, knowing his cards would run out and force the end of the game. Alas, it was not to be and I outlasted him. Again, such a great game.

Finally, this week Erik VonBurg came by and joined Robert and I for a game of Ascending Empires. This strange game is a cross between Crokinole and a Euro (set in space). Yes, you flick your pieces around the board to explore planets and make attacks. There is both required dexterity and euro-like planning. I roared out early, then got ganged up on and finished dead last. After the game, Robert took off and Erik taught me to play Battleship Galaxies. This is an interesting combat boardgame that is not much at all like Battleship. In fact it is a bit more like Heroscape in relationship than Battleship. You each form up a fleet and deck of special ability cards and then go at it. Of course there are special spots on the board (glyphs anyone) that give you tactical advantages so you have to charge for those too. I never got a chance to launch some of my ships - they were in the hold of my largest ship when Erik "sunk" it.
Other than the weekly game nights, I've been playing some with the kids this summer. The classic Killer Bunnies always rears its ugly head. The game is actually a little better now that my daughter can read. We've also been playing a lot of Carcassonne. They love playing this and I've been playing a lot of the Android version on my phone as well. I just ordered the stickers to do up the meeples! I also pulled out Ticket to Ride and we play this a little too. Finally, I taught my son to play classic Risk. He of course loved it, so now we can at least move onto Risk 2210 and Risk Godstorm!

Battles of Westeros

2011-07-04T08:55:00.001-07:00

Despite my better judgement, I decided to go ahead and start painting the figs for Battles of Westeros. Knowing the way I am, I chose to start with just the leaders and work from there. I've painted all the leaders from the base game now and they are ready for their dip/ink-wash. I didn't go overboard with the detailing, though some part of me rebelled and at least a couple have more detail than was necessary. I really like the way the Lannisters came out. Kevan was pretty un-interesting, but I spent a bit of time on his shield and the lions I added look really good (though you can't even see his shield in these pictures). These paint choices were mostly inspired by Giles Dorrington's paints. As I just finished re-reading A Game of Thrones, the one thing I wanted to do was make sure of a couple things. First Tywin Lannister had to be more "gilded". Giles kept to the Crimson, but there wasn't enough gold. I gave Tywin a golden cape and most of the horse's armor is gold as well. The second was Marbrand's house coat of arms. Theirs is a burning tree, orange on smoke. The other was Rickard Karstark's which is a white startburst on black. Those needed to be right. George R.R. Martin spent a lot of time detailing out the various coat of arms and house colors in his books. It seemed silly to ignore that for these. The Stark leaders were less interesting to paint even though Robb has his direwolf. I'll probably go back and dry brush a little more of Grey Wind after they are dipped.

Next up will be the armies (assuming I get there). I hope to keep the painting there as simple as possible. These figures are so small, that a splash of color should be more than enough. If I try and "detail" them (I say that because I didn't really detail these) like the leaders, it'll take forever to get through the base armies. I'm looking at the Stark foot soldiers (the guys with the axes) for the first round, but it depends on how the leaders end up looking in the end. If I'm not super happy with the results, I may just leave the leaders as the only painted guys in the set.

Collection Churn

2011-06-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Dominant Species

2011-05-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

Friday night saw my third playing of Dominant Species. We played a five-player game with Matt Longieliere (mammals), Nathan Winchester (amphibians), Robert Bolan (birds), and Morgan Burt (insects) - I was Arachnids. Five players was an interesting change of pace from 4-players. With only 4 actions each, some of the choices each turn felt a bit "required". In fact, the first three turns only saw a handful of Domination(scoring) events. However, once everyone had some space carved out on the board, things got interesting fast. Matt was everywhere on the board using his mammal powers to live everywhere. Morgan and I were carving out different sides of the boards with Nathan and Robert in between. At the end of the game, you could see how close the scores were going to be. Matt had a crazy amount of action on the tundras, but wasn't going to score much in domination nor land. Morgan I were the opposite. I wasn't sure I had enough steam at the end, and even with two scorings in the domination phase and two wanderlust actions, I fell two points short of Morgan and Matt. Matt "walked" away with a mammal victory. A couple observations about why I love this game:

Matt didn't adapt to anything for the first 4-5 rounds. In fact, you wouldn't have thought he was trying. Then he surged and flooded the tundra and held it at the end of the game. This was bolstered by the fact that not many competition actions were happening.
Cards make a lot of difference in the flow of the game. It was a while before we gained an extra action which made the first 4 rounds or so quite different. The other two cards that give you more actions? Last round.
We had blight and catastrophe and the other nasty cards in the first two rounds.
Water was not en vouge - nobody was adapting to it and so it kept hitting regression - a vicious cycle. With the Tundra and other cards, the end board was mostly covered with seeds. This really hurt Nathan (Amphibians). There is such a neat balance between fighting other players off, and carving out the world so you can thrive.
I definitely thing I want to play this by removing 5 cards from the deck. It just makes the game more manageable time-wise and I can't see how it would make the game worse.

Countdown to the Geekway 2011

2011-05-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

Some folks have THE GATHERING. Others have - Essen, Origins, BGG Con, WBC, whatever. I attend the Geekway. The last few years, Nathan Winchester and I have gone and we always have a good time. Besides just the general "sit and play games for days on end" thing, I get to see a number of friends I've made over the years through this hobby. Jay Moore (one of the guys that currently host this event) was actually my BGG Secret Santa the year before my first Geekway. It was nice to get to meet him and since he is an MU fan and I'm a Husker, you'd think we wouldn't have hit it off, but Jay is such a nice guy I forgive him. I also met Chester Ogborn at the Geekway - Chester grew up in Omaha, so he's something of a kindred spirit. I've enjoyed gaming with and chatting with him over the years. Of course, every year I've gone, so have Justin and Jason Easley. These two guys (brothers, not partners) are great and I enjoy just hanging out with them as much as playing games with them. Justin and I have partnered up each year in the Crokinole Tourney as "The Droids Ur Lookin 4". We suck, but laugh the whole time at how bad we are. Last year, I talked a crew of people I knew at Union Pacific into making the trip out from Omaha. They had a good time and are coming back this year (and bringing another couple as well). And then of course there are all the locals I've enjoyed meeting each year - Mike Silbey, Jason Little (though he was only local the first year), Chris Darden, Jeff Hiatt, Justin Heimburger, Timothy Hunt, The Zambos etc etc.
This year, I'm trying something a little different. Every year, I list about 50 games I want to play and I play like two of those. This year, I'm scheduling some longer games in advance to try and actually get stuff in. On the agenda so far? Dominant Species, Mutant Chronicles: Siege of The Citadel, A Game of Thrones, Combat Commander, Crokinole, Princes of the Renaissance and probably a game of Ca$h and Gun$. Two weeks left.

Combat Commander

2011-04-30T11:37:00.001-07:00

In September 1944 the Allies, after successfully landed in Normandie (D-Day), conquered the north of France and Belgium. There were now two opinions about continuation the battle. The Americans wanted to attack Germany over a long and wide front. The English Field Marshall Montgomery wanted to advance right through Holland to the Ijsselmeer and then proceed eastwards into Germany. That way, the German troops in West Holland would be isolated. In addition, the Allies wouldn't have to face the heavily defended Siegfried line. After a lot of discussion, Montgomery was authorised to execute his plan "Operation Market Garden." The plan existed of two parts.

Market: by means of airborne landings of the 1st Corps of the 1st Allied Airborne Army to conquer the most important bridges between Eindhoven and Arnhem.

Garden: The advance of the 2nd English Army of General Dempsey from which the 30st Army Corps had to push from Neerpelt in Belgium through Eindhoven over the conquered bridges to Arnhem.

On September 17, 1944 between 13:00 and 14:00 hours the airborne landings began. The American 101st Airborne Division "Screaming Eagles" landed near Son and Veghel, the American 82nd Airborne Division "All American" near Grave and Nijmegen and the 1st English Airborne Division near Arnhem.

For many reasons, the operation did not proceed as planned. The advance of the army from Belgium was seriously delayed by unexpected resistance and because the bridge over the Wilhelmina channel was blown up by the Germans. The Allies first had to build a Bailey Bridge making the advance of the army 36 hours behind schedule. Poor radio connections prevented good communications, especially near Arnhem. Bad weather conditions delayed the dropping of necessary reinforcements. The presence of two SS divisions at the Veluwe was fatal for the British troops at Arnhem.

Robert Bolan came over on Thursday night to play a bit of Combat Commander. I wanted to start trying to get in a playing of each of the WBC Combat Commander Tourney scenarios from 2009. There is a tournament I've signed up for at the Geekway next month, and I'd like to not suck too badly. At any rate, this particular scenario was called A Bridge in Belgium (001) and setup the German forces vs the British forces. The Germans held a bridge in the middle of the map as the defensive force, while the British goal was to capture the two ends of the bridge. There were a couple of other interesting factors - no scoring for exiting off the opposite side of the map and night rules were in effect. I chose the Germans and bunkered myself in, determined not to play as the aggressor, but to simply outlast the Brits. It wasn't going to be easy. The British forces advanced into melee combat and devastated the group holding one side of the bridge. On the other side, the Germans held the high ground. The problem was, the Germans only had a single light machine gun and the distance to the targets at night made it nearly impossible to hit anything. I shot at the British every chance I could, knowing the futility, but needing to chew through cards for both sides. Fortunately for me, time was on my side - in this case, time events and running through our decks but a quick end to the scenario. Much as history played out, the Germans held their ground (and blew up the bridge).

My Top 10

2011-04-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

I covered what I thought about the BGG Top 50 and here is my top 10. The last couple fall into a bucket of games that could round out the top.

1	Samurai	7.405	Far and away my favorite game. This game is so interesting to me. I suppose it is interesting in the way that Chess is interesting to a Grandmaster - there isn't too much information that you can't take it all in, but there is enough going on to make it interesting. The game plays 2-4 players and is subtly different with each number of players. If there is one flaw it is that an inexperienced player gives a huge advantage to the player that follows.
2	Tichu	7.561	This is the king of trick taking / climbing card games. This is really just a standard deck of playing cards + 4 special cards and yet those 4 cards make this a special game. The best partnership game out there.
3	Combat Commander: Europe	7.649	First, I'm not a WWII enthusiast - I don't read everything about it nor know all about it. However, this isn't just a game, it is a method of storytelling and an experience. It is Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers all rolled together. It would be easy to glance at the game and suspect that the scenarios are all similar or that they all play similarly. They do not. It never ceases to amaze me how different every single playing of this game feels. Each army has a different feel because of the card decks and unit combinations. The scenario setup and postures also change things every time. I haven't had a chance to play the random scenarios, but I've read nothing but good things about it. I can see playing this for years and years.
4	Power Grid	8.061	As I mentioned last time, this one has a bit of fiddlyness, but is such a fun playing experience that I've always overlooked it. It combines an auction with resource planning and positioning. I really don't know anyone that thinks its a bad game. It has seen a lot of plays over the years and some players may be burnt out on it a bit, but I'd still play it almost anytime.
5	Steam	7.769	The original - Age of Steam was my favorite game for a long time. I never even wanted to try this game. Once I did, I realized that it was probably the better game. The changes Martin Wallace made were not significant enough to completely change the experience, but really cleaned the game up. The new method for restocking goods makes planning so much more straight forward and the money management is much much better. The game is also quicker by eliminating some of the little things that caused the game to drag on (like building a bazillion little pieces of track).
6	Torres	7.123	There is something really cool about this action-point game. There is a ton of chances for clever play and outsmarting your opponents. I really enjoy the spatial play too - building castles and thinking in multiple dimensions makes this a unique experience. This might be a bit dry for some tastes, but I really like playing this.
7	Carcassonne: The Castle	7.027	There are a lot of Carc variants and expansions, but this one struck a certain chord with me. Maybe it is the "frame" which reigns in the board while still retaining the essential feeling you get from playing a Carc game - building a world. I also love the bonus chips and how you have to manage your scoring tactically to snatch up bonus opportunities. This is a great two-player game.
8	Chaos in the Old World	7.027	Four asymmetric forces duke it out in a dice fest? Well, not entirely. This is a great marriage of Euro and Ameritrash. It is a tactical fun fest and each side plays differently enough to make each game just a little different. The play time on this is limited so it won't overstay its welcome and force someone to sit around for hours on end.
9	Dominant Species	7.592	I hesitated to throw this in hear after only a couple plays, but for a game to play in 5.5 hours and for me to play it week after week and not need a break says something. I just enjoy myself the whole time I'm playing. There is just enough complexity that you feel like you have a lot of control amid the chaos. The game rewards good tactical play, but can swing to someone else just as quickly. I think you can cut off 20% of the playing time by taking out cards and would still get a great experience.
10	Medici, Through the Desert, Antike, Chicago Express, Age of Empires III, Steam Barons, Battles of Westeros, A Game of Thrones, Ave Caesar, El Grande, Java, Ticket to Ride		Too many choices to round out the top 10. Each has some reason for belonging and frankly needs to be played.

Dominant Species

2011-04-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I HAD six tundras, but Matthew is about to remove a
load of my cubes and take the Survival card and points.

Dominant Species hit the table again Friday night. The players? Dion Garner - Birds, Matthew Frederick - Insects, Amelia Boli - Mammals, myself - Arachnids. We discovered two rules we played wrong the first time - turn order starts out in REVERSE food chain order. The second is that ALL VPs that are earned for glaciers, Wanderlust, and the last round Dominance are scored on the Bonus Point scale (ie triangular scoring). This makes the last round of the game much much bigger than we had planned for.
I had started the game as we all did - just trying to carve out our niche. Unfortunately for Dion, Matthew grabbed the Blight card, which removed all the resource markers from one tile (except one). During the extinction phase, Dion lost a whopping 21 species (half his total). This devastated him, though to his credit, he found a lot of points the rest of the game. With Dion having next to no cubes to put on the board, I started pushing the glaciers and taking over the tundra to score survivor points. I managed to grab a huge score about 2/3 through the game and painted a large target on my chest. Matthew used the Catastrophe card to make me pay dearly and took the tundra from me. With a lot of help, we kept Matthew from fully catching me with survival. But the last round... With no more cubes to place, I started methodically placing my actions onto the competition areas - I needed to wipe Matthew off of a lot of place to score decent Dominance. I unloaded 4 attacks (plus my single Animal ability) and switched dominance all over the map. The dominance bonus and my position let me pull away from everyone in the final scoring.
We talked and I think the game might be BETTER if you take 5 cards out of the game (at random). It would not only lop off 45-60 minutes, but it would also add a small amount of mystery to the game (is blight coming?). Still a good game despite its length as it is engaging the whole time. Amelia didn't care for it as much as the rest of us, as their is a good bit of "Diplomacy" involved. Some points are easy to see, but there are so many things you can do to fix positions and score points, that nothing is obvious.

The Top 10 Games of the BGG

2011-04-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

And finally, the Top 10 games of all time (on the BGG)

1	Twilight Struggle (2005)	8.199	This is the King of CDGs. It isn't the first or most original, but it is perfectly executed and as a child of the 70s-80s, the theme is well matched to the game in every respect. This is one that gets better after you've played through the cards a couple times and have a feeling for the flow of the game. A little luck can swing a tight game, but the experience is so good, I never really mind (exception: Bear Trap card).
2	Puerto Rico (2002)	8.185	One of the Kings of modern boardgaming. I wont' gain any friends by saying this, but this one doesn't hold up. Sure, it was original at the time, but the game is flawed. The person after the newbie (or guy that screws up all the time) is going to win. The strategies have all been played out and the game is just understood. Sorry, it just isn't all that fun - even with the expansion.
3	Agricola (2007)	8.182	This game came out of nowhere to dethrone Puerto Rico. As a worker placement/build A to get B to get points game, it is ok. Better if everyone knows the game so it'll move a bit faster, but this one just doesn't scream for me to play it. You have to know what your cards mean and the winner is the one that can interpret their cards and execute the related manipulation the best. Despite this, this game won the 2011 Geek Madness Tourney over Power Grid.
4	Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization (2006)	8.170	I discovered this game last year and fell in love. Then I played it some more - quite a bit lately. I'm over my infatuation with this game. One the one hand, it really feels like playing Civ the computer game in boardgame form. On the other hand, this is a "rich get richer, poor get poorer" game and it is not the least bit fun to be on the losing end. There is no catch up mechanism (I did say rich get richer) and so the first person to bash someone is likely to be the winner. I think most people haven't realized this because it is so long that they likely haven't played it much.
5	Power Grid (2004)	8.061	This is one of my favorite games of all time. Though a bit wonky/fiddly in the phases, the combination of auction and position management is top notch. I'd never suggest someone try and figure this out from the rules, but if you can get someone to show you how to play (not hard), you are in for a wonderful game. Don't believe me - this game has won 4 of the last 6 Geek Madness Tournaments
6	Le Havre (2008)	7.989	Le Havre was the followup to Agricola and there was such excitement that a group of us ordered this from overseas. DHL and Germany decided to lose our package for months and we finally got the game a week or two after the game was released in North America. That coupled with a game that felt a bit mechanical/dry and is a worker placement/get stuff to build more stuff game and I was less thrilled. This is a good game, but one I'm not dying to play.
7	Dominion: Intrigue (2009)	7.967	See #8 below.
8	Dominion (2008)	7.927	Dominion was a revolution in recent gaming with its deck building mechanic. Yep, that's all I can say about this boring boring game. Sorry, it just is not thrilling. It is the same boring thing as you try to build a faster engine than everyone else. Despite the variance in cards and the multitude of expansions, the games all seem the same (yes, boring). **Note, it is not the mechanic, as I LOVE Thunderstone and all it's expansions. Anyone that says I only like to play the soulless Euros is wrong.
9	Brass (2007)	7.906	This Martin Wallace game is supposed to be excellent (though only four-players) game. This one was revised as Age of Industry, which means I'm less inclined to learn this. Martin tends to revise his game and he really gets them right the second go round. That being said, I have played neither of them and would enjoy it.
10	Caylus (2005)	7.883	I have not yet played this game. I have played its little brother - Caylus Magna Carta. I'd be interested in giving this a go, but not with Steve Bauer, who has played this a bazillion times online.

My Thoughts of No Interest on the BGG Top 50 (11-20)

2011-04-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

Getting close to being done. Here are the bottom half of the top twenty.

11	El Grande (1995)	7.840	This is quite possibly one of the best games around. Area control and various powers with something of a bidding mechanism. Really a great 5-player game. This one can cause a little AP (analysis paralysis), but is worth the effort.
12	Race for the Galaxy (2007)	7.832	RFTG is the card version of Puerto Rico, but re-themed in space (seriously, that's how we ended up here). The original design for San Juan was basically RFTG. At any rate, it is a decent (though as far as I'm concerned, far too highly overrated) game. I disliked that luck of the draw can pretty well determine the winner early in the game. There are plenty of strategies, but if you start down one path and never get the cards you need, you are screwed. No way to catch up.
13	Tigris & Euphrates (1997)	7.828	I only ever played this once a while ago. I don't remember it being a bad game, but about half the local group doesn't care for it. I think its one that I'd enjoy if I played it some more.
14	7 Wonders (2010)	7.797	This is a card drafting game where you are trying to build your civ/empire. The beauty of this game is that it is fast/short and interesting. It also plays well from 2-6 players. I nice recent hit.
15	Steam (2009)	7.767	Steam has taken over from Age of Steam (#20). Steam cleaned up the re-stocking phase, introduced a new action phase to replace the auction (though you can still do the auction if you prefer) and offered up a gentler way to manage stock/money. Combined, the systems make the game faster and more streamlined. One of my favorite games.
16	War of the Ring (2004)	7.763	At one time, I had a copy of War of the Ring, but wasn't all that interested in even trying it and traded it away. This is the same "game" as #26, but the original version. Erik has claimed this is a great game - maybe I'll get a chance to try this out someday.
17	Commands & Colors: Ancients (2006)	7.736	Until Battles of Westeros came out, this was probably my favorite of the Command and Colors series. The system "grew up" and was more complicated by just enough. The block system really works here. Minis aren't necessary for enjoyment of this game. A good game with tons of expansions. The only down side is that all the scenarios feel a lot alike, except for the unit distribution.
18	Battlestar Galactica (2008)	7.731	This co-op has a twist - not everyone is on your side. Some of them "have a plan". Though I enjoyed some of the show, I never really wanted to sit down and play this. Probably because I'm not good at deceiving the other players and easily deceived.
19	Paths of Glory (1999)	7.718	This card driven game about WWI doesn't hold as much interest as other periods and has a really really long playing time. If someone I knew had this and really wanted to play, I might indulge, but haven't gone out of the way to try this.
20	Age of Steam (2002)	7.695	For a long time this was my #1 favorite game. I still own it and 15+ expansion maps (including a number of print & play maps). When I first heard about Steam, I figured it was just going to be more of Raiload Tycoon. Then I played it a couple times and realized that as much as I love this game, I liked Steam more. This is a great great game, but Steam has cleaned up a few things that make it more streamlined.

My Thoughts of No Interest on the BGG Top 50 (21-30)

2011-04-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with games 21-30 from the BGG Top 50 and MHO...

21	The Princes of Florence (2000)	7.687	This is some people's favorite in the the Alea Big Box Series. Its an auction game of sorts where you are vying for (IIRC) the "help" of various builders to construct a palazzo. I might be completely wrong - its been years since I've played this. It is ok but I didn't love it enough to drag it out over and over again. Maybe I should...
22	Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage (1996)	7.671	This game was, for a long time, a hard to find and expensive older game originally done by Avalon Hill and one of the first "modern" card-driven games. Not quite a wargame, the mechanics of this one feel similar to Twilight Struggle. I highly recommend this, though it is a bit on the long side. The one thing I don't care for as much is the whole battle card system. It certainly doesn't ruin it, but it doesn't feel quite right to me either.
23	Stone Age (2008)	7.652	Hey look! A worker placement game. This one reads good on paper, but I'm pretty sure I'd play it and then wish I'd played something else instead.
24	Goa (2004)	7.649	Goa was somewhat played out by the local group right before I came along and started playing. I still haven't tried this and nothing I've read about this one makes me push to play it either. It doesn't sound like something I'd dislike, but it doesn't sound like I'd fall in love with it, so no big whoop if I don't.
25	Combat Commander: Europe (2006)	7.647	Readers of my blog already know how much I like this particular series. Combat Commander is as much a game as it is a story engine. It is like playing out episodes of Band of Brothers. I really love how the various armies play out differently and any scenario's flow can quickly change (much like war I'm sure).
26	War of the Ring Collector's Edition (2010)	7.637	At one time, I had a copy of War of the Ring, but wasn't all that interested in even trying it and traded it away. This particular edition isn't different, just glitzy. It looks cool as hell, but that doesn't really make me want to play it.
27	Twilight Imperium (Third Edition) (2005)	7.622	The original longer wargame from FFG. This space fight is a 6+ hour Ameritrash style game that I've never been that interested in playing. I think I got enough of this kind of gaming growing up - we used to play loads of Risk, Axis and Allies, Conquest of the Empire, Fortress America, etc.
28	Pandemic (2008)	7.611	Pandemic is a co-op game where the team is trying to irradicate a number of spreading diseases. The game is fairly fast paced and has a decent amount of tension in a short playing game. One of the better games in the team genre. I think the expansion makes this better, but the game is good by itself.
29	Runewars (2010)	7.606	Yet another longer wargame from FFG. I've read this one is a mish-mash of mechanics and this kind of game isn't ultimately a hit with my local group, so I haven't even seen this one played.
30	Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game (2010)	7.595	I have not tried this newer incarnation of boardgames trying to imitate the computer game of Civ. It sounded a little long and I've been playing a lot of Through the Ages so I'm burnt out enough on this theme/genre currently and don't know that I really want to try this one.

Dominant Species

2011-04-09T08:48:00.001-07:00

Dominant Species got played. Dion Garner, Matthew Frederick, and Robert Bolan came over to try this out with me and none of us were disappointed. Dion was the reptiles, Matthew - amphibians, Robert - arachnids, and I was the lowly insects. Rules for the game are pretty straightforward and I was able to cover the rules in about 20 minutes. The first round was about what you'd expect from four players that hadn't seen the game and weren't sure what the flow would be like at all. For myself, I didn't want to run out of cubes later in the game, so I didn't plan to expand like a crazy man. I wanted to diversify my insects to survive on more than just grass-type lands, and chose to grab a sun element. Stupidly though, I chose to speciate (that's a word, I swear) from a spot on the board where I'd be sending my insects to immediate extinction (speciation is where you get to place your animals out into the world as a way to grow your influence). Given I had little to no adaptability for those areas the first turn, I scaled back my approach immediately. By the end of the second turn, I wasn't sure that was a great plan as I had one creature on about 4-5 spots and things looked poor for me. I had 1 point and while Dion wasn't far ahead of me, Matthew was way out in front and Robert was doing ok. I turned things around mid-game position wise, but was still WAY back in the points. Matthew still had a commanding points lead, though it looked like the glaciers were going to slow him down shortly (thanks to Robert). Dion made a few smart moves and appeared to be in a position to shoot ahead. At one point he caught Matthew. Unfortunately for him, we realized the glaciers had killed a few resources on the board and after adjusting the populations with some extinction, Dion's bonus points for Survival on tundra were dramatically reduced. At this point, I had clawed my way back in and though I was still behind, I liked my position heading into what looked like the last couple turns. Unfortunately for me, Dion used migration (and the fact that he ruled the food chain - ie tie breaker) to basically take away 80% of my major scoring. When we got to the last turn, the scores had tightened up considerably and it looked like it might be anyone's game but mine. Robert was doing well and I figured he might be the serious threat - I used the Glacier action to knock a lot of his population and his big scoring tile out of the picture. During the last round, the domination cards had a couple of seriously good powers for the last round. I took an early scoring opportunity to clear out a lot of cubes from the board. I took the Biomass card, which let me eliminate species on tiles where there where more species than resource tokens. This let me regain control on the places Dion had invaded as well as knock Matthew out of contention on a lot of places. As we started tallying final scoring, things were looking good for me as I was scoring a lot of points. Dion however had managed to get the Hibernation card, which allowed him to retrieve 5 species from out of the game and place them anywhere on the board AND then ignore extinction for them for one round. Dion essentially stole a sea tile from Robert and won the game.
My initial impressions on this game are good. Each species is unique enough to make things different without being quite as different as say the sides in Chaos in the Old World. The rules are not all that hard, but understanding the flow of the game is where things become really interesting. And while we each saw mistakes being made by the other players, there is also enough going on that there is usually a lot of "correct moves". That makes it engaging nearly the whole time you are playing. This isn't a game for people that don't like conflict - the whole game is one bash each other fight for survival. The biggest knock on the game is that the game is long. We ended up at about 70 min a player, in part due to this being the first game for all of us and rules and partially due to my slowing down the middle of the game to help my wife with our son who wasn't feeling well. With a couple of players knowing the game, I'd guess this is about 45 minutes a player (60 if you are Nathan Winchester). I've read that people think the cards are overpowered. It is true that they are not equal - you just have to play your turns keeping in mind the things that are going to occur at the end of the round - in other words, the cards are very manageable. I'm actually looking forward to how much tighter the game becomes with 5 or 6 players and I'm looking forward to playing again.

My Thoughts of No Interest on the BGG Top 50 (31-40)

2011-04-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with more games and MHO...

31	Shogun (2006)	7.592	I've played neither this nor Wallenstein. Yes, I own a copy and yes it is unopened. One of these days...
32	Die Macher (Valley Games Edition) (2006)	7.574	I've only played this once. I really enjoyed the experience, but I have to admit, it really sucked all the brain energy I had out of me. After 7 rounds, I was ready for the game to be done. A really good game, but you have to be ready for this (mentally and physically, but mostly mentally).
33	Railroad Tycoon (2005)	7.573	My affinity for Age of Steam kept me away from the watered down version of the game. After playing the streamlined version in Steam, I've had even less reason to need to try this game.
34	Imperial (2006)	7.571	I've had this one in my collection forever and still haven't learned to play it. I understand it to be a decent stock type roundel game, so I'm not sure why it hasn't seen any play.
35	Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery (2007)	7.568	AoEIII sits somewhere in the bottom half of my Top 10. I really like this game and the various ways you can approach the game. There is a good amount of tactical play and player interactions. My only quibble is the randomness of the exploration tiles / cards - they can really swing the game away from you.
36	Ra (1999)	7.567	Ra is an excellent auction game / push your luck game. I don't know that this one has great legs and though easy enough to pick up for beginners (with a play mat) it is decent enough for gamers as a lighter end of the night kind of game.
37	Tichu (1991)	7.566	Though not a trick taking game (technically it is a "climbing game"), this is one of my favorite games - not just favorite card games. Partnership trick taking games are a load of fun and this is one of those games I'll rarely if ever pass up playing.
38	Dominant Species (2011)	7.563	This one is new to me - as in I'll play it for the first time tomorrow night. Though it is a "worker placement" game, it doesn't quite fit the mold of Le Havre, Agricola, or Fresco (to name a few) because instead of placing workers to gather resources or to convert resources into other resources, you are vying to dominate the earth as the species that adapted to the environment better than your fellow players. I don't know what that means, but I will soon.
39	Crokinole (1867)	7.558	My loving wife got me a Hilinski board for my birthday a few years back. This is a great dexterity/flicking game of skill that is a riot with four people playing in teams. I really hope my kids learn to love this as much as I have and fight over their Dad's board when I'm long gone :)
40	Here I Stand (2006)	7.557	I really like card driven games (CDG) and here is one that plays 6 players (and two with a special deck). There is a group that plays this at the Geekway and it seems to be a great event. The problem is - it is crazy long. I've also read that the end game can be ruined by luck of the draw determining the winner.

My Thoughts of No Interest on the BGG Top 50 (41-50)

2011-04-06T23:14:00.000-07:00

Just some random thoughts about the games ranked in the top 50 of the BGG...

Rank		BGG Rating	My Take
41	Chaos in the Old World (2009)	7.548	I really enjoy this asymetrical Euro-trash game. The four sides play rather differently and the game really isn't long enough to dislike, even when you are getting killed. FFG did a great job and this ended up being a game that came out of left field and became an instant hit with me.
42	Go (-2200)	7.547	I am not good at this game. I've played through various tutorials, but still wouldn't feel comfortable playing without a computer telling me if I'm playing it wrong. I can see where this is an amazing abstract, but I just haven't grok'd it yet.
43	Small World (2009)	7.527	I am a fan of the original - Vinci. Sorry, not a fan of this remake. The art is SOO garish that I can't hardly look at the board. I've peeked at games in progress, and I can't tell what's going on. This game isn't that complicated - it should be really easy to glance at the board and assess your situation.
44	1960: The Making of the President (2007)	7.522	Steve Bauer was the "guy with the most recorded plays" for this one a year or so ago. His remarks about how this is an also-ran compared to Twilight Struggle (one of my favorites) took out any enthusiasm for wanting to even try this one. I don't play TS enough, why would I want to play the lesser version? Its not like it is any shorter.
45	Dungeon Lords (2009)	7.506	I have a number of friends that are fans. So why do I refuse to try this? I think it is because I really don't enjoy worker placement games ala Agricola. They are ok, but I'm not going out of my way to play them anymore. This one always seems to run really long to top things off, so I have avoided it.
46	Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! Russia 1941-1942 (2008)	7.504	Truth be told, I'd probably like this one. I tried to trade for it for a while. I've finally decided that I have Combat Commander and I'm not sure I need another squad level WWII game. What itch could this game scratch that CC doesn't? I'd be willing to play it, but don't need to own it right now.
47	Endeavor (2009)	7.490	JAE - Just another Euro. People said it was a decent little Euro game that borrowed a few mechanics from other games. And it got played a lot right after it came out. I haven't seen it since. I'd like to try it, but won't cry if I never play it.
48	Advanced Squad Leader (1985)	7.475	Um, no. I've heard the stories about the crazy-ass rules and charts and the rules and frankly it sounds like too much work. Again, what itch does this scratch that Combat Commander doesn't (and what does it do better than CC AND do it simpler)? I'm not inclined to even look twice in this direction.
49	Hansa Teutonica (2009)	7.470	I know nothing about this game. Nothing. Guess what? I didn't even go look when I wrote that. Unless told I HAVE to play this game, I probably won't play unless that's my choice for the night. I just don't care.
50	Memoir '44 (2004)	7.464	Ah Memoir. Jason Maxwell and I played through the entire base set and the first expansion set (all through VASSAL). I enjoyed the quick little battles (I think the games ended up running about 9-11 turns each). However, the game got a little stale and all started to feel "samey". I finally traded it away after BattleLore came out. Now that I have Battles of Westeros, I think Memoir is my LEAST favorite of the whole Command and Colors set of games. Having said that, playing this game in Overlord fashion is a riot.

Ravenloft with my Son

2011-04-02T19:42:00.001-07:00

After playing Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game yesterday, I still wanted to play this some more, so I talked my son into joining me for a bit of game. Since this was his first game, I went ahead and played the cleric so I could try and keep us alive while I gave my son the fighter so he could bash everything. Unfortunately for us, we had similar issues as the gang had last night - namely a trap or two took us out. At one point, Ashton got frustrated with the die and went and found a different one so that we could get a die that didn't "stink". It was sad but true. We ended up dying one tile short of the one we needed to win the game.

A Whole Lot of Losing (Unless You Are Matt)

2011-04-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

Erik Von Burg and Nathan Winchester stopped by Friday night for a bit of gaming. We started the night playing a little Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game. I enjoy this little co-op game with its dungeon romp theme and light gameplay and I'm glad Erik suggested it. Of course, we started off on the wrong foot as Erik's dwarf cleric started getting hammered on (no pun intended). We settled down and started kicking butt and exploring, but we eventually grouped our guys together to try and take advantage of the cleric's healing powers and some room traps got the better of us. Ah well - now I need to try and get my son interested in this again so we can play through some of it.

We finished picking up and Nathan got a call that Matt Longieliere was on his way over. We thought he'd be a short while, so I pulled out the game of titanic battles and high stakes - Colossal Arena. It has been years since I've played this, but I'll have to admit I'm glad I've kept this one. This is a fun little gambling game with a cool theme - mythological creatures battling it out! We went through the rules for Nathan and then Matt arrived, so we simply dealt him in and re-explained the rules. Matt started the game betting on the Amazons and secretly betting on them as well. We revealed this, and yet the rest of us spent our time killing each other's baddies off and it was pretty obvious Matt was going to win. Unfortunately, we ran out of cards in the last round before we could rid ourselves of Matt's crew and he walked away with an easy win.

We finished the night playing Ra. Unlike last weekend, I made some pretty poor choices. I went for monuments and some civs, but in the last round I didn't get a civ and was really far behind the others in points. The game ended with drawing Ra's and most of us were really off from Matt, who had scored huge draws with his good suns. So Matt walked away from the night as the only winner. The rest of us were winless for the evening. Ah well.

Got Me Some ASS

2011-03-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

I like racing games. I especially enjoy the ones where you get to screw someone by cutting them off (Ave Caesar, Powerboats, etc). So after I played Top Race for the first time, I knew I'd eventually add this to the collection. Not only is it a fun 6-player game with plenty of screwage, there is betting at multiple points in each race to add to the fun. Now of course, the version I played was the ASS edition. The name alone meant I'd have to acquire this particular version (the game has been redone in other versions as well as reprinted, just never as an ASS edition). I mean come on, the money says ASS on it (sue me, I have the brain of an 11 year old). So, I finally made a trade for this. The best part is - I'm trading a game I picked up at a garage sale for $1.25. Kick Ass.

That's Enough Ages For A While

2011-03-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

Robert Bolan, Matthew Frederick, Nathan Winchester and I finished up another game of Through the Ages (online). After so many games, I wanted to see if the expansion set of wonders and leaders they offer changed the game. They do, but not enough. I've dropped my rating quite a bit on this one. As fun and interesting as this one is, it is just too brutal. There is already so much rich-get-richer that it is nearly impossible to slow down or stop someone when they get ahead. Couple that with the fact that if you get slapped once, everyone is likely to join in on stomping you into submission. With no chance to catch up and a strong likelihood of being beaten if you fall off the pack and you have a really long game that starts becoming less and less interesting. I really liked this game, but the more I understand it the less I want to play it. This last game, I felt I had made a mistake in the first couple of turns that was going to cost me (I took a stupid wonder). I ended up trying to focus a bit on military, which helped me to get to second place, but I wasn't even close to Nathan who killed us all again. In order to even be competitive in this game, I had to bash on Matthew at least twice and then on Robert at the end of the game.

$20 Poorly Spent

2011-03-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

Now, one could argue that any money is well spent if it means getting your child's attention for a couple hours. That being said, this particular $20 probably could have been better spent. I picked up the Island of Dread Runebound expansion last year and this was the first chance that Ashton and I had to play it. Basically, this expansion changes the game with a new board, new set of encounter cards and new endgame. There are also a set of heroes and a few item cards that can be used interchangeably with the main game. For the most part, you use the items, allies, etc deck from the base (and/or expansions you have) in conjunction with this expansion. Thematically, this isn't a terrible expansion (though the number of cards makes it very likely you'd be bored with it with a couple of plays). But, beyond the theme and such, this expansion has some issues. First off, it is much harder than the original. There are very few * spots that refill adventure spots. With just my son and I playing, it took us almost no time at all to get to the point where we had killed all the easy encounters and were stuck on the starting island. The choices were: fight the next harder stuff (very iffy), or travel by sea to another spot (also iffy as the sea encounters looked as hard as the medium stuff for sure). Once you break into the second level of encounters, you sort of skip a step (there are no 3rd level encounters). I guess for this game, they made the 4th level the 3rd, but the cards didn't seem to match this - they were hard as the end game ones in the base game. To top that off, to beat the end bad guy, you have to "find" the Island of Dread (easy-ish), and then beat a possible gauntlet of bad guys. If you survive long enough, you might get a shot at the Arch Villian (who is a reject from Arkham Horror), who first tries to make your allies encounters you have to beat first. After a couple hours, we gave up and both conceded defeat. Even with all the special items, my son said - "I'll never beat that guy". I'd be willing to play again, but only if we refilled EVERY spot on the board. As the expansion stands, one death (and the corresponding loss that accompanies it) makes it nearly unplayable and definitely less fun.

The Return of Mike B (aka - Game Night).

2011-03-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

Friday night was game night at Rob and Michelle's place with a nice surprise - Mike Bauerlein. Mike used to own a FLGS that we'd play at every Friday night in Mesa. Mike had moved to Missouri and he's moving back and so he and his father and daughter came by to join in the fun. I arrived ahead of the crowd, followed closely by Noah Antwiller. The two of us team up against Rob and Michelle in a team game of Ingenious to start the night off. I think this game plays best with four in teams and offers interesting gameplay in a relatively short period of time. It also mitigates some of the luck. We called the game near the end as Noah and I had done a decent job of cutting off Rob and Michelle so they couldn't score their lowest color.
Mike and his family arrived as did Matt Cullinan, so after the greetings, we pulled out Ra. Mike joined Rob, Noah, Matt and I for one of the classics. I don't seem to always do very well in this push-your-luck game, but in the first round I was willing to bid on a number of groups that put me at 5 Pharaohs - scoring me a guaranteed 5 pts each round. I spent the rest of game grabbing little bits of points and avoiding taking any loss of points. Rob spent most of the game pulling Ra tiles and hoping not to "Ra" out before getting something decent at the end of each round. In the end, I had the high score! Unfortunately for me, so did Mike. When we compared total suns (the tie breaker), of course we had the same score, so we settled for tie.

By the time we wrapped up, another load of folks had arrived - Nathan Winchester, Niecy Westmoreland, and Matt and Liz Longieliere. With a bigger group of folks, we broke into three games. I sat down with Liz, Rob, Niecy, Nathan and Mike for a game of Top Race (ASS edition).This is a great little screw-with-everyone race game (not unlike Ave Caesar, except with betting). Unlike the first time I played this game, I managed not to lose money on any of the races. In fact, I played ok. However, Rob ran away with the last two races and betting. I think I beat Nathan though, so it wasn't a total loss.

The three "Matts" were still in the middle of their Agricola game, so Amelia, Liz and I pulled out GemBlo. I had only played this once a number of years ago, but this is essentially a Blokus variant that plays 6 players. It was still fun with just the three of us, though it took us a little while to figure out what part of the board to use for three players. I threw most of my big and difficult pieces out early (playing for blocks as much as I could) and that helped me finish with only 7 stones worth of points and a win. The three of us then finished the night with a three player game of Alhambra. I was never in a position to get any purple buildings and my giant wall didn't seem to help me much. Amelia scored a ton of purple points the whole game and won by about 15 or 20 points.

The Cost of Boxing up Combat Commander (and more)

2011-03-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

I've received a few questions so to answer them all:

$12 - This is the box I used from Staples - it is really sturdy. I got clear with a "smoke" lid. Don't buy a cheap box.
$42 ($7 each) - I bought bead boxes like the picture. They have these at every Walmart I've been to (or had - I had to go to three to find the 9 I bought).
$18 - Ultra Pro Clear card protectors. I went with the clear ones to show off the different backs to the cards. I've never played the game without them, so none of the cards show any wear.
$4 - Counter Clipping Jig by Jesse
$2 - 200 count cardboard boxes
$30 - Litko markers and smoke and blaze markers.

Now, that makes the cost around $108 for the parts that aren't the game. Dang. It doesn't seem that much when you buy it in small chunks. I had a few folks ask me if this solution will hold CC:E + CC:Med + CC:Pacific. The answer is - nope. This should hold CC:E + CC:Med + expansions (Paratroopers, Stalingrad, Normandy, Resistance!, and the stuff from C3i), but if you put 9 of the bead boxes in the box, there is no room for the cards. That's ok by me - Pacific is really its own game as opposed to all of the others which are really a set. FYI- the Pacific box top sits up about 1cm with three bead boxes stacked on the maps and rules.

Boxing Up Combat Commander

2011-03-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

The goal: figure out a solution for storing Combat Commander: Europe and Combat Commander: Mediterranean. The problem: CC:Med takes up as much space as the original game, but isn't a standalone either - it is a full on expansion.
After a little bit of internal debate, I finally decided that whatever solution I settled on for putting things together was going to take space. I had originally settled on a solution that had each faction basically in a small Plano box and the cards bagged. All of which sat on the maps and rules etc in their own boxes. Not terrible, but it meant having to always haul out two boxes and sifting through everything to find the things you wanted/needed for a game. It also didn't lend itself as a solution when you started adding in the small expansions and scenarios from C3i. The best solution I had seen on BGG was one guy (Chick Lewis) that used a file case to load all his stuff. I started here and looked at a number of different storage solutions for the chits before finally settling on some bead boxes. These boxes are clear, fairly flat, and hold 24 individual cases with clear screw tops. The chits fit well in them and are easy to find and get out - it is also easy to pull out certain ones (like the suppression markers, smoke, wire, etc) and have them sit off to the side without taking up much space. I got six of them and fit everything in with room to spare. Not sure the expansions have lots of chits, but if they do, I have space for them. With the cards, I decided to use a couple of the deck boxes I have floating around. Each holds three of the sleeved decks (perfect!) and the two boxes easily fit in the case. There is also sufficient room in the case for a couple of hanging folders for the maps, rules, reference cards, and scenario books. The box I purchased (Staples) also has a flip up lid on top with some spaces where I have put all my little plastic bits. So, this takes up a bit of room, but the system works really well. Robert and I pulled all our pieces out from this setup the other day to play and it was pretty smooth overall.

Rush to Contact

2011-03-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

Outskirts of Hitdorf, Germany - April 6, 1945. After crossing the Rhine, leading elements of Company A, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Regiment found themselves met by elements of the 62nd Volksgrenadier Division on the road to Hitdorf. Both side reported contact and immediately called for reinforcements.
Robert Bolan came over to resume our battles in Combat Commander:Europe after a 5-6 month layoff. He had lost the last time we played and chose to play as the Allied/American forces this time around. The scenario laid out with minimal units for the Americans and Germans. I had luckily drawn my secret objective as the spot closest to me and least likely to be ever taken by my opponent, so I setup my group near the house on the hill and hoped to maybe pick of any approaching Americans before reinforcements arrived. Robert quickly used what he had to basically over-run the other objectives and was well positioned when it was reinforcement time. The Germans arrived quickly and all at once and I setup to lay seige to the American's position in the central part of the map. I used another group on the far East side of the map to race off the map for points and as reinforcements when Robert would get his next batch of men (the Americans trickled in over three or so time spots). For a couple turns, I used my men in high-ground areas and machine gun teams to try and repel the Americans. Robert was giving the West side of the map a wide bearth (no cover near the road to approach my machine gun) and so I chose to try and race more units off the map. However, Robert stopped them dead in their tracks and eliminated them shortly after. My other units were not seeing much success either and Robert kicked their ass with two rounds of devastating order cards. He was able to call in artillery on my mass of machine gunners assaulting his houses and then through a series of the most lucky events, I lost recover cards in consecutive rounds, keeping me from regrouping. Without the ability to fight back, he demolished the Germans and forced a surrender victory. I played this one poorly (should have forced Robert to assault my positions) and Robert had all the karma. Next round is my pick. We'll have to see what happens.

El Grande

2011-03-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

This month at the work gaming night, I introduced my fellow gamer/co-workers to El Grande. We had exactly five - Robert Bolan, Ana Lopez, Danielle Reader-Jolley, Deborah Allwes and myself. I went over the game and there were a few confused stares. Probably partial due to a number of co-workers being a bit fatigued. Despite that, once we started everyone seemed to really like the game. I myself enjoy this one a lot - though I've only played it three times (once with expansions). I think this one seems hard to get to the table due to it seeming to be really best with five players. I could see it being ok with four, but not as good. At any rate - I started out with an early lead which I managed to hold onto the entire game. Not that everyone didn't make some moves at the end of the game. In the last round, everyone managed to knock me out of first place in every place I was going to score in - with the stupid Castillo. Luckily in the last round, there was a "score first place only" in every region action that accounted me a good sum of points which let me hold out. Ana managed to be within a few points - she was in second most of game. Danielle kind of mis-understood the scoring and didn't score well in the first scoring, but made up ground in the last two to finish in the middle of the pack. Robert and Deborah were fighting to avoid last, but Deborah managed to eck out two more points than Robert.

Through the Ages

2011-03-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

And yet another game of Through the Ages in the bag. I apparently learned something from the last beating I took at the hands of Steve Bauer. This online game was played with Robert Bolan, Nathan Winchester, and Matthew Frederick. The game started with my taking Homer - he's nice for some early points which is probably the amount I won this game by. The difference for me this game was two things: one, I NEVER got a mine upgrade. That's right, I played the whole game never having more than three bronze workers. I never even saw a mine upgrade card - the jerks I was playing with snatched them up as fast as they appeared on the board. This forced me to pay more attention to what I was taking and to play more efficiently than normal. It worked. The turning point for me was probably near the end of the first third of the game when I passed taking a swordsman technology. Saving my science points for knights and saving myself the cost of buying (and expending) swordsman helped immensely. As the game neared its end, I looked to have a pretty comfortable lead. Right up until Robert declared war on Nathan. Nathan DESTROYED Robert and garnered a reward of 21 culture points. Suddenly I wasn't sure I could hold him off. I grabbed Gandhi to earn points and built items solely gearing myself to generating as many last round points as I could. After the dust settled, I had managed to finally knock off Nathan from his undefeated streak. Nathan's "super science" strategy has been defeated (and not by uber military). Some interesting things to note:

Never upgraded my mine, nor had more than 3 bronze workers.
Never disbanded anything
Didn't build the Transcontinental RR (built a late Ocean Liner Service)
Didn't change governments until late in the game - switched to Republic
Never had more than 2 military actions

I'm not sure how much more of this game I have in me. It plays awfully tight and seems a little unforgiving when everyone knows the cards and pacing of the game. That kind of non-flexibility is ok in games that are shorter, but this game is pretty long to be that unforgiving. The other thing that is bothersome is that this is a rich get richer game. Fall behind and you are screwed. I still like the game, but its just about to fall out of my top 10 after nearly 10 plays.

Return to Lipki

2011-03-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

I have returned to Lipki, Russia. The year is 1941 and I'm in charge of a German recon mission. On the other side? Erik Von Burg and the Russian army - out on a search and destroy mission. And this is why I play Combat Commander. Because it draws you into the story. But unlike some games that are all story and little game, there is plenty of game here. This was the first time Erik had played Combat Commander, so I went back to the beginning. Heck, it had been 5 months since I last played, so I had to go back and review the rules before Erik came over so I could remember everything. The game started slowly for Erik as he made a small mistake and had to regroup his forces in order keep his troops in command range of his leader. He made up for this by quickly taking out a small squad of Germans he ran into in the forest. I was forced to huddle in some buildings and try to hold out against Erik. I killed a couple of his squads, but it became a firefight across the road - with his side having a slight advantage with two medium machine guns. I contemplated moving a unit around to the west and then north to score some points for moving them off the board, but Erik managed to draw the Time! card over and over. He finally went through his deck and suddenly the game was over. When we revealed the objectives I managed to edge him out for the win.

Random thoughts on storing Combat Commander

2011-03-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

Now that I have Combat Commander: Mediterranean, I've been considering the options for storage. Each of the Europe (base) game and Med fit in their own boxes using the Plano containers (pictured) I have now. Three of these (20 spaces each) and the card decks fit into the boxes with the lids either flush or just barely lifted. The problem is - CC:Med is not really a separate game - it is an expansion (and in some ways "completes" the base game). I could of course just use GMT counter trays, but six or seven of these will fill a box and require the cards and maps in another box. The other issue I have with the counter trays is that I'm not sure the lids won't just pop off and dump chits everywhere. I'd also really like to have all of the materials in one container. A lot of the published scenarios and tourney scenarios require both Europe and Med. Then of course there are the expansions :

These will add to the bulk of maps as well as add counters. At this point it almost looks like I need a tackle bag solution like I use for Command and Colors: Ancients. The problem with this is that the Plano boxes are too big for the little chits. While there are lots of chits, they aren't so plentiful that I need the kind of space that the C&C:Ancients blocks require.
This morning, I was over at Walmart looking at their tackle selection trying to figure out if I wanted to just use a tackle box and what might work. Then I wandered over to their craft section and there I found bead boxes. These smaller boxes are fairly flat and have 24 containers inside them (thus I'd need 5 to meet the current storage need and maybe a 6th for expansions. These aren't too bad for size (I'd still need some other solution for toting everything around, but the clear plastic should work pretty decently). The small containers have screw tops to keep the chits in. I'm kind of leaning this way if I can figure out a solution for keeping these and the cards and all of the maps and booklets together.

Gaming With Nathan

2011-03-10T23:28:00.000-07:00

Nathan Winchester and I haven't played anything face to face in a while - its been busy for us lately. He just got back to town after being in Washington for training for his new job and he wanted to game. He stopped by after work and we had a little dinner and then played some games. We started the night with a couple quick games of Hive - including the new ladybug. Ladybug was interesting though not really a factor. I lost the first game stupidly and then we pushed in the second.
Next up, we pulled out Caylus Magna Carta. This one is short and sweet and still interesting. This game, our setup had no food card and we didn't pay attention to build one right away. Nor did either of us build a gold and thus our game went by pretty quickly. I amassed a good amount of cash and then managed to get the card down that lets you buy the castle stones and purchased my way to a victory as quickly as I could. Of course, the last time we played we forgot an important rule - the player who collects the most building stones each round is rewarded with a gold resource marker. Well, we forgot AGAIN. That might have made a bit of a difference.

We ended the night playing Louis XIV. I haven't played this in years, but obtained a copy in a trade a while back. This isn't a bad little area control game. It is interesting game (though the two-player version is slightly odd). I'm still not too keen on the end game scoring thing with the coat of arms, but it doesn't make the game bad. Nathan did manage to score a single point more than I did for a win despite my winning a number of CoA bonuses. I'd like to play this with three people (four was rough IIRC).

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

2011-03-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night was game night at Rob and Michelle's place. Matthew Frederick had indicated wanting to play Through the Ages face-to-face, the two of us sat down with Steve Bauer and Robert Bolan for a marathon game of TtA. We knew this would be a long game with four players and we were not wrong. Unfortunately, Steve has played often enough to know how to kick all our asses. And kick he did. Robert and I probably should have conceded about two hours before the end of the game (at least two hours). We learned a lot about the game (that had previously been essentially hidden from us by the online system we use for PBEM games. Of course, having more knowledge of the game hasn't made me any better of a player. Today we finished another online game and Nathan is now a stupid 6-0 in this game. I'm really on the fence with this one ATM. I like the game, but I just don't seem to grok it. I'm torn between wanting to figure it out and not wanting to play it anymore. I'll likely keep playing online and for sure I will not play it again F2F with four players (in fact, I won't play this with 2 online or F2F). Not sure how many more beatings I have left in me though.

That Didn't Take Long

2011-03-08T16:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I found a copy of Battles of Westeros on an auction - unpunched for $40 (plus shipping). I'm not all that glad I get to glue the set, but at least I have nobody to complain at if it isn't done correctly.

So now the real question is - what / how do I get rid of some things in my collection to make room for the incoming stuff? As I look around my collection I realize it might be time to sell off a few things. Indonesia, Bus, Keythedral pop out immediately as games I should sell. I'm on the fence about keeping C&C:Ancients. I like the game, but I'm not sure I need it. Worse case, I need to get rid of my copy of Exp #1. I should probably trade or sell off Battlelore as well.
On another note - anyone have a suggestion for how to store the Combat Commander series? I'd just keep them each in their own big box, except that Europe and Med are really one giant game. I'd rather not have to lug both boxes around if I can figure something better out.

New Games

2011-03-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that fell in love with Battles of Westeros, it was not among those that I chose to recently order when my friend Dion Garner asked if I wanted to get in on his order. First on the list of things to get was Thunderstone: Doomgate Legion. For whatever reason, I had dragged my feet on getting this one. I finally pulled the trigger. I also finally got around to updating the online Thunderstone Randomizer I've been writing. I got Doomgate Legion encorporated (before I got the box). I also had to order a ton of new sleeves for the game. Well, it turns out that Thunderstone: Dragonspire came out this past week - I missed getting it into the order with Dion, so I just bought a copy (along with 400 more card sleeves) from the Game Depot. I have the game (and all expansions) sleeved now and I'm working on incorporating this latest expansion into the generator. I have to do the village and Thunderstone cards and maybe work in a couple of tweaks and I'll finally be caught up. Sadly, the fully sleeved game doesn't fit in any one box. The expansion boxes are fantastic for holding sleeved cards and AEG did a great job in printing dividers for all the cards - but even with leaving out all of the random game generating cards and a stack of disease cards, the game still took up the entirety of the Dragonspire box and half of one expansion box. I'm guessing the next expansion will easily fit in, but it'd be REALLY nice if they could figure out a jumbo box or something.

The second game I had in Dion's order was Combat Commander: Mediterranean. I now have the three big boxes in the series and will start gathering the smaller expansions as well. I mentioned to Robert Bolan that I heard that someone was thinking about running a CC tourney at the Geekway and he said we need to resume our weekly games. We really do. This is such a good series and we both enjoy it a lot. I forgot all about buying more sleeves for this one. I'll have to get on that. I'll also have to run my butt over to Walmart for a few more small Plano containers for the new chits. I'm starting to think I need to just swap out everything in my CC:Ancients/Battlelore bag and keep all the Combat Commander stuff in it. I'm not real sure I want to do that, but it might be an option.
The last little bit I got in Dion's order was the Ladybug expansion for Hive. I had no clue what this truly added to the game (and I didn't care in the least). Hive is a no-brainer for me and so was this. Turns out the Ladybug moves exactly two times ON other tiles, then once off. Sounds interesting.

Finally - the last of my splurges was because of Dion, but not in the same order. When I picked up my games, he told me about Labyrinth: The War on Terror. I had heard NOTHING about this. No excitement, no reviews, nada. So what is it? On the surface, it looks a lot like a "modern" Twilight Struggle with the US versus the Terrorists. It is a CDG and Dion indicated that it was like Twilight Struggle in that the more he plays it, the better it has become. Twilight Struggle is really an excellent game that has held up really well for me. Nathan Winchester and I have always managed a couple of games of it while traveling to and from the Geekway. I looked at the box at Dion's and decided to get this by the time I got back to my place. I don't know if this will replace Twilight Struggle on our trip this year. I have a travel version of Twilight Struggle we play that is easy to do in places like an airplane. I'll likely bring Labyrinth along (unless the Geekway guys get a copy out there) to play regardless.

Thunderstone Randomizer Updated

2011-02-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to updating my online Thunderstone Randomizer. I added the Doomgate Legion expansion cards as well as the promos from the Promo Pack (I had already included the Clan Promo and the Death Sentinel Promo in the previous release). I like the way it has turned out so far, though I'm less happy with the code backing the web page. Too many moving parts and validation pieces make it a pain to update and each new set that gets added makes the testing for combinations / correctness a huge pain in the butt (permutations are a pain to test).

With Dragonspire hitting the shelves, I'll probably update this again soon while the little nuances are still fresh in my head. Then I'll go check and see what the other apps are offering and what suggestions / features people have asked for. I need to figure out the Google API for databases so I can add a feature to save card sets after you generate them (that way if you find a really good combination, you can replay it). I suppose I'll have to figure out some logic for making a "smart" deck builder (for the wimpy people out there that have to have items and heroes that directly match up to the monster cards).

Friday Night Gaming

2011-02-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

This weeks gaming started off with my introducing In the Year of the Dragon to Nathan Winchester and Robert Bolan. Though it is ok, this game wore itself out on me really quickly - possibly because of the double dragon strategy. At any rate, I wanted to teach Robert and Nathan so we could add yet another game to our online repertoire. I started and took the double dragon (and ended up losing). Nathan took a double dragon in the second round. I tried to hold him off with a load of dragon ladies mid game, but his houses were beating me and in the end, he had too many people in his service.
Erik Von Burg came over as we finished up our game and mentioned that he hadn't played Thunderstone, so I pulled it out for the four of us. We randomized everything in the base set and Wrath of the Elements. We ended up with three fighter types and a thief type in the hero pile. In the monster pile? Pain Elementals, Undead Doom and Spirit, and Death Traps. The village wasn't terribly interesting except for the trainer - everyone but me was grabbing them and burning through their militias for XP. The hero piles all disappeared pretty quickly. I had managed a couple of early kills, but got stuck a little in the middle. Nathan had come on strong, but a rash of traps killed of a number of his hard earned heroes. I started grabbing ambrosia each turn just for the pure VPs and when we added it up, I had indeed bested Nathan. Of course, Erik managed to best me - by one point. And of course, having played sparked my need to dig back into the code we started working on for randomizing the decks. I just need to update the village list and I'll have incorporated the Doomgate Legion and promos. We'll see if I ever get around to Dragonspire...

We finished the night by having Erik teach us Powerboats (which I picked up on Erik's recommendation). This is a fun little race game with some odd three sided dice. I pushed my luck a few too many times - however I managed to finish all the races, unlike Erik who blow up in the third race. Since dice were involved, Nathan didn't win this one - Robert did.

Catching Up

2011-02-22T22:50:00.001-07:00

Theme good! Game - so so

Well, crap. My last post was Smell the Glove? Well, ok then - away we go. Robert Bolan came by at the end of January for a bit of gaming. We started out playing a couple of games of Hive. I really enjoy Hive because it is short and yet tense and interesting. Robert and I managed to split games before Erik Von Burg stopped by and we setup Arkham Horror. We played and managed to win, but in trying to convince Robert that there is a decent game here I think I just managed to convince myself that there is too much stuff around an ok game. I like the theme, but it seems to be a lot of work for what is roughly the same payoff as Pandemic. We all kind of wished the end had come about 30-45 minutes sooner. Oh well.

Try and guess what this game is about

A week later was gaming at Rob and Michelle's place. I finally got to play Before the Wind. This is a little card game where you are trying to collect sets of cards (goods) in order to meet the requirements/wants of the ships (which earns you points). You are trying to balance collecting the goods and earning money to buy goods and space in your warehouse with what your fellow players are doing. We only had three players (Rob, Amelia and I) and I think this one would be better with four players. Having said that, even with four, I think this one isn't anything special. After Before the Wind, Erik arrived and so Amelia and I played a game of Empire Builder. I had managed to acquire a copy of the new edition for something like $22, so I had brought it along to get it played. This was my first playing of any crayon rail game. I'll have to say that it was also just ok. Though it has been a while, I'd have to say I think I like Dampfros better (which isn't a true part of the crayon rail games). The components of the newest edition are way better than the older ones, but the game was a bit longer than it needed to be.

2006 Spiel?

In the world of online/PBEM gaming, Nathan Winchester, Robert and I have managed a few games. We started with a game of St. Petersburg which I pretty well ran away with. We then moved on to Thurn and Taxis. I had only played Thurn once before, so had to refresh myself on the rules. The interface to the game at Yucata.de is really really well done and made it much easier. Unfortunately, I suck at this game. Nathan has managed to win both games we've played online and I have managed to be last both times. I'm getting a better feel for the game, but I can't figure out why it won the Spiel. It doesn't seem to be anywhere near the class of game like Ticket to Ride. Maybe it was just the other craptacular choice in 2006, but I'm not sure I'd have even suggested this one. Vegas Showdown and Ingenious are both FAR better games than this. Thurn is good, but not Spiel-good.

Is AoS on its last legs with me?

Anyway. Last week was my monthly manager meeting at my office. We have one manager that flies in and likes to play games and another from Tucson we've coerced into joining us. This month, I introduced them to Steam. The manager from Tucson (Deborah) may have been in a bit over her head, but she picked it up as the game went along. The other players were Robert and the out of town manager - Danielle. Danielle is pretty sharp and also picked a starting spot away from the rest of us. Having played quite a bit of AoS and Steam, I had a distinct advantage over three newbies and easily won this one. I hope the next time it will be closer as this is a game that is very satisfying to win against good opponents. I've also decided that I prefer this to AoS. the goods market and urbanization are much cleaner in Steam. I don't even mind that there isn't an auction. I'd be willing to play the auction version, but it doesn't hold the same tension since you can take money whenever you need it. After Steam, Deborah had to drive home, so Robert and I taught Danielle Thurn and Taxis so we could try and suck her into our PBEM habit. Danielle won and I (continuing my reverse dominance of Thurn) was last.

New favorite in the C&C series

And the last game of this round up is the Battles of Westeros. Erik and I both had this past Monday off for President's Day and so he came over so we could try out BoW. BoW is the latest in the line of Command and Colors based games and I have to say is now easily my favorite. I didn't read the rules - Erik did and based on that I'll go with - not good. I printed out the Universal Head summary and I think having that (and having played every other game in the system) helped. Erik was the Stark side and I took the Lannister as we played the first scenario. It came down to the last round and I was not able to capture both of the hexes that the scenario required. Basically this game is more of the same from the C&C series - hexes, order a unit, move and roll some dice to combat. The trick is - the ordering mechanism is different. You roll the dice to start each round and that determines some of the unit types you can move. You also get a certain number of cards for each round you can use them as well in conjunction with any leaders you have on the board. The end result felt LESS luck driven than the previous C&C games (where you can have a hand of LEFT cards when you need RIGHT or MIDDLE cards). Not only that, but you may have the ability to rally (reset any army to accept orders again that round) your troops, which can make your play much more tactical and less "well, these are the cards I have". The box says it is a Battlelore game, but it is WAY better (and without the stupid magic cards). Heck, they might have just as well said it is a Battle Cry or Memoir 44 game. The dice are different. The ordering is different. It really is as different as it is similar to the other C&C offerings. One of the things I really liked was the theme. It did a good job of integrating the Westeros mythos without having just paid lip service to the theme, nor having shoehorned it. It is just a good fit. This is now a must have for me and I'd happily trade off my BL stuff when I get this.

Gaming with the Work Crew (AKA Smell the Glove)

2011-01-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

This past week was our company Kick-off meeting. My employer flies everyone into town for a couple days of meetings and activities. A group of us pulled together a bit of time on Thursday night for some gaming and we started off with Telestrations - which is easily my favorite party game. We had our usual laughs (like the drawing of Italy that was backwards and thus looked like a sock yet was still "recognized" as Italy).
After a good number of belly laughs, a few people left and I pulled out Medici. I was the only person to have played before and joining me were - Steve Wicklund, Danielle Reader-Jolley, Robert Bolan, Deborah Allwes, and Bruno Bernard. I slow-played the first round to simply conserve cash. I was not quite prepared for Deborah's willingness to throw goods away left and right though. In the third round of the game, I had only four goods on my ship and with only three tiles in the bag. Robert was drawing and needed two tiles. He choose to be greedy and take two tiles out - hoping for the golden 10. He didn't draw it though, and I got the 10 which made my ship the top ship in the last round and scored me enough points for the win. Whew!
After our Medici adventure, we found a couple of other company folks and played another quick game of Telestrations to get in a few more laughs.

Through the Ages (for 2)

2011-01-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

Nathan Winchester, Robert Bolan and I finished another couple of games of Through the Ages. Except, it was more accurately, I finished two player games with each of them. Nathan basically raped me the whole game being a bully with his military forces. I tried going the "more advanced" route with Robert, but that didn't help in the end. This is such a good game, but it really becomes mediocre with only two players. I think I'll stick to three player (possibly four).

Finishing a Few Descent Figs

2011-01-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

With a three day weekend and some free time, I broke out the paints and Descent figs for some finishing. These skeletons were done, but needed to be "dipped". They look much better than my pictures convey. I tried a mahogany brown and I really like the effect.

For these manticores, I used the black (ie - Tudor). The one thing I did see with the brown was that it really shaded the guys "brown". the Tudor tends to darken but not really muddy the colors. For the giants and skeletons, the brown worked well, but I will not use it for the dragon or demons.

The giants are sooooo much cooler than these pictures show. They are really amazing looking. One thing I did was spend too much time on them. I dry brushed their hair a bit, but you can't tell in the least (the blue pants guy had MUCH lighter hair). The other thing I realized is that I need to use much much more bright colors. The orange pants for the one giant looked retarded before the dip and they look great now.

Of course, I just got done dipping all of these figures, so they are still shiny. After they've had a few days to dry, I'll cover the bases in black and give them all a spray with the flat clear cote spray.

Still left: regular skeletons, dragons, demons, ogres, and of course, all the heroes.

Through the Ages (again)

2011-01-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

Nathan Winchester, Robert Bolan and I finished another game of Through the Ages. I am getting a little better at the pacing, though I still didn't win. I had a lead through the game, but knew it wouldn't be enough at the end - it wasn't. Nathan killed me in points at the end of the game I was back of him by 36 points. Robert stagnated in the last third of the game, which didn't help slow Nathan down. I imagine we'll be playing this one quite a bit more.

Battleball

2011-01-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

With some recent nice weather, some of the boys in the neighborhood have broken out the footballs. along with the upsurge in football interest, my son dragged out Battleball for us to play. He chose the Iron Wolves and I had the Black Harts. We played four games and with the same end result each time - a victory for the Black Harts. The first game I showed Ashton a few tricks with throwing the ball around. After that, nothing was working for the poor guy. I was able to roll under his rolls and crush his guys again and again. I haven't seen rolls that bad since Robert and I played Combat Commander! Still a great little quick game.

Friday Game Night

2011-01-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

This week, Nathan Winchester and I planned to head over to Rob Smolka and Michelle Zentis' house for a bit of Friday night gaming. The two of us arrived about the same time as Jeff Claussen and the group decided to start with a shorter game while we waited for Matthew Frederick and Ameli Boli. Our choice was Through the Desert - a game I enjoy a lot, but don't tend to play very well. This night was different as I managed to weave in-between folks while Michelle and Nathan used all the purple camels. I ended up able to take a pretty good amount of 3-pt tokens and hit a lot of the oasis which, at the end of the game saw me ahead by 9-10 points! The game was over incredibly quickly which was probably to my advantage. If we had gone on much longer, I'm guessing that Michelle would have block anything I could have done to score points.

Matthew and Amelia arrived and had brought 7 Wonders along. This is a hot new game for me - I enjoy the pace and length of this little card drafting / civ game. Rob suggested we all play since it supports 7 players and Nathan was the only new player, so we quickly went over the rules for him. I didn't really start with great choices of materials, but I was able to start getting science (green) cards, so I grabbed those and spent the next few rounds collecting the cards that built off those for free. I somehow managed to get three triplets of science buildings and one other to score 25 points in science. That and a little more military than the players next to me at the end of the game pushed me into the second win of the night!

My streak would come to the end though as I pulled out Cyclades for the first time. This is a little war-euro-game I've had for a while that I've really wanted to play. Erik Von Burg had arrived at Rob and Michelle and joined Matthew and Nathan and I. Don't let the descriptions fool you, this is a well themed EURO-game. There are dice for combat, but the amount of randomness is pretty low, really the game is about the auction for turn order and the ability to do something on that turn. The auction is ala Amun-Re, where you bid on an item and if outbid, you must bid on something else. It took us a few turns (and lots of mistakes in tactics) to get into the flow of the game and then it went pretty well. At the end, Nathan and Matthew both needed to win the Neptune auction to win while I needed to have Ares and go before either of them to win. At the cost of all my money, I was able to hold of Nathan for one turn, but the next turn Nathan was loaded with cash and could win with either of two powers and he won. Unfortunately, we all kind of felt that the end game was a bit flawed - the random ordering of the powers and the fact that the one you needed might not be there didn't feel quite right. The game wasn't bad, but wasn't great (like Chaos in the Old World) either.

Through the Ages

2011-01-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite new games from last year was Through the Ages (of course the game wasn't new last year, just new to me). I had only played two player games of it though, and I wanted to try this one with three players. After teaching it to Robert Bolan, we agreed that we needed to try it with three (Nathan Winchester being the intended third of course). As luck would have it, I remembered finding an online implementation of the game at Boardgaming-online.com. Though there were a few things we discovered we had missed or played slightly off, it really isn't a bad PBEM implementation. There are a couple of times when you have no action but to pass (for example - in bidding) and you still have to "take your turn", but that's a small complaint I think. I started with Homer as my leader and was scoring a good number of points and thus started with the early lead. Also due to my more militant take on things, I received a number of colonies through the game. However, I stagnated in the mid-game and haven't played enough to grasp the pacing of the game well enough to recover. Nathan came on strong in the mid-game and crushed Robert and I at the end.

Torres

2011-01-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

Nathan Winchester had suggested that we try Torres online. Since my friend Robert Bolan hadn't learned this one yet, I offered to teach him while we were watching a football game. I don't know that I had ever played this two player but the goal was to try and teach Robert all the nasty tricks that Nathan would try to use. I showed him how I was going to put the game out of reach after the first turn by building a sprawling castle that prevented his biggest one from growing. Then I started climbing. Robert figured out placing two levels next to my climbing stack to prevent my advancing, but a card allowing me to place under my knight remedied that situation and made the score that much worse for Robert. We played quickly and while the game wasn't that close, I was again reminded how good a game this one is.

Oregon

2011-01-13T14:48:00.000-07:00

Robert Bolan and I fired up a couple of games of two-player Oregon on yucata.de recently. This of course after introducing the game to Robert in a 3-player game with Nathan Winchester. In our three player game, Nathan kicked our butt by getting a good number of the same areas for the first 7 turns or so and managed to place nearly all his people in groups! After easily beating us, Robert and I tried a couple games as two-player. I wanted to see if the luck was mitigated head-to-head and we each ended up winning a game. As a two-player game though, it was about as luck filled as Ballon Cup - which is to say: VERY. As a three or four player game, this one is ok, but not great. It seems a little too complex for a family game, and too luck filled to appeal to the euro-game crowd.

Power Grid

2011-01-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

I have a confession. I almost lost a game of Power Grid against newbs. Some people I work with got together for a little bit of gaming the other night. Danielle Reader-Jolley, Tim Baker, Robert Bolan and I all sat down to play some PG. Robert has played once before and the game was new to Tim and Danielle. We played the US map with the standard deck of power plants. The game started out normally and Robert decided to slow play his hand by staying back of everyone a couple cities - that didn't work out so well for him. Luckily for him, EVERYTIME he chose to get out of an auction he got a really good plant at cost. Danielle ended up with some "green" plants and cheap fuel plants and spent the game hoarding money while Tim and I plodded along. As we hit the third step of the game and I realized I had no chance to beat Danielle, I did the only thing I could - I guessed that we'd have another turn, and I didn't buy into every city I could afford. My hope was to get cheaper fuel in the last turn and have enough cash to power as many cities as Danielle (though I was sure if it was a tie, I'd lose to cash). In the last round, Danielle made the mistake that cost her the game - she didn't buy a new plant and could only power 17 cities. I had to get a new plant and had the ability to power 18. Only Robert was before me in claiming cities, and he couldn't keep me from grabbing cities until I had 18 of them. As the only player who could power 18, I won.

New Look

2011-01-08T15:16:00.001-07:00

That was surprisingly easy and annoying at the same time. I applied a new template and played with the colors a little bit until I found something I liked. I played with the CSS a little to try and get the corners rounded on the posts and side items. Looks good in Firefox, but not IE - too bad. ~~I'll probably spend a little time and see if I can't do something with the page banner, which I think is a bit too tall and looks fuzzy.~~ Banner updated. Welcome to Things of No Interest 2011

Thunderstone

2011-01-03T20:58:00.001-07:00

Ashton and I busted out Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements and did a little gaming. Our mix included Golems, Pain Elementals and the Horde. We had a mix of heroes: Seleurian Wizards, Outland Warriors, Chalice Questers and Amazons. We also had a good mix of weapons and spells making the Amazons the least effective and desired hero. We had Goodberries, the Feast, and Ambrosia as well, so the Outlanders were the obvious choice - even though I forgot and didn't notice the VPs on those cards. My son was going for the big bangs and had a good number of wizards and magic missiles and fireballs. Though he ended up with an Outland Khan in his deck, my deck was far faster at bashing baddies and in the end I was killing anything I wanted at will. Even though I beat Ashton, the best part was how quickly he picked the game up even though it had been over 6 months since learning to play it.

New Year, Same Story

2011-01-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

My son and I played in the last city championship of the season for Pokemon down in Tucson over the weekend.We did - poorly. Poor Ashton went 1-3, with his only win from a bye in the action. He was pretty even-keeled about it, so I was glad to see him handle it without dampening his enthusiasm for the game. As for me, I also went 1-3. My single win was almost pure luck, as my opponent had 4 chances to knock me out, but ended up on the wrong side of a coin flip each time while I held out. Next up? The next set of pre-release events are the end of January.

Excuses, A-Holes, and End-of-the-Year Lists

2010-12-31T12:49:00.000-07:00

That's right, its about that time - my end of the year lists! I don't know - this year was a little weird. Started out ok, then got busy at work and gaming just wasn't catching my eye. I've hit the saturation point of games (both from a "played that" kind of feel and purely out of space. I did discover a few new gems this year and my son and I have been playing a lot of Pokemon too. And not only did my plays drop off, but my writing did as well. Just too much work. Blech.

At any rate, this wasn't a terrible year for gaming. There was the Geekway 2010, the online Olympics and I introduced another co-worker to gaming. So lets start with all the "Cult of the New" games:

Die Macher - finally got to play this and I wasn't disappointed, but it was exhausting.
Undercut - Really unique bidding game using Treehous pieces. I like it.
Hermagor - This is a favorite of the AZ Gamers I play with, but it just doesn't do it for me.
Thunderstone - I like this at least twice as much as Dominion. It isn't the best game ever, but it is fun to me. I wrote a randomizer and web page to generate the cards to use...
Union vs Central - Another SUPER long game. This one is a two player logistics game that was fun, but there is so much effort to do anything, and about 1/3 of the actions you can take are "take that!!!" on your opponent. Seriously like a 10 hour two player game of back and forth.
Through the Ages - This is another I finally got to play and love. It is Civ in boardgame form. So good.
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation - This is how Stratego should be. Fast, lots of bluffing and fun.
Bus - Cool at first, I apparently just didn't grok it and ended up lukewarm. The online interface doesn't allow you to make a mis-click. That doesn't help.
Fits - This is the slow boring version of Tetris. I love Tetris - this is meh.
UR - I should have loved this, but in our online Olympics, I was too frustrated with the randomness. That and Justin not reading the rules and giving Nathan wins every game.
Infinite City - This is a tile laying "take that" game. it was ok, but felt pretty random.
Neue Heimat - The best auction game EVER. This is a nasty game and I loved it.
Campaign Manager 2008 - This should have been a cool little card drafting game but it fell flat for me. The theme was cool at first, until you realize both sides cards are the same, just different flavor text.
Samarkand: Road to Riches - Surprising me this year was this beauty. It is quick and feels a little like Chicago Express. There is a bit of randomness that can take away control, but it plays so quickly you won't care.
Castle Panic - I hated this game. I played with people I like, but this just sucked.
Ra: The Dice Game - Boring. What can you say about a generic dice game that has a tacked on theme from a game with a tacked on theme?
Kingsburg - I do like this game, but only with the expansion. Dice games aren't my favorite, but they can be fun. Besides, other than Twilight Struggle, it was the only game I could beat Nathan at during the Geekway.
Dread Pirate - dumb dumb dumb. I didn't hate this like Castle Panic, but there wasn't much point in playing it either.
Oregon - I liked this one. Its a clever little tile game with interesting tactical choices.
Bisikle - This is similar to Pitchcar, except that you "flick" a little yellow ball with ball bearings. It allows you some control (much like a cue ball in pool) to do some interesting things. The track is plastic and interlocking, which makes for a naturally smooth surface.
Diamond's Club - This one didn't excite me - its a gather A to make B to score points kind of thing.
Orient Express - Noah brought this old game out. It is a who dunit mystery which was spoiled by luck - if you get lucky, you get more clues, which of course means you can solve the mystery first.
Take It Higher! - I enjoyed this one a lot. It is a puzzle game where everyone is placing the same piece to score multiple ways. This particular version has a bunch of extra things to think about, so it might be "too much of a good thing".
Thebes - I was surprised to like this one as much as I did. Very random, but fun little planning game and of course, it works well as a family game.
Claustrophobia - Another surprise. I had never heard of it, but saw it at the Geekway and got it for my son. This is a cool game - not quite a dungeon crawl, but close. Mechanics are pretty easy and cool with the dice. Well done two-player game.
Reef Encounter - I should like this game, but this is one where it really feels like randomness spoils a good abstract game.
Telestrations - Might be as good or better party game than Say Anything!
Gonzaga - This one was a bit different. You place different sized plastic pieces on the board - sort of "claiming territory". It is a bit of set collection via the claimed areas. Interesting and not bad.
Finito! - I don't remember much except this is short and I thought it was easy.
IGOR! The Monster Making Game - Total random filler. Cute, but not much here.
Top Race - I really like race games. Especially when you can screw other players. This was fun.
Fresco - Another gather A to make B to score points game. Meh.
D&D: Castle Ravenloft Boardgame - I'm a sucker for dungeon crawls. This is D&D for dummies and that's ok with me. I'm not into the whole role playing thing, I just want to bash stuff. It is a co-op, which is cool too.
Axis & Allies: D-Day - speaking of "for dummies", this is the A&A version for dummies. Its a quick intro style game for Axis and Allies, but there isn't a ton of replayability here. At least I finally played one of my Axis and Allies games.
Lost Cities: The Boardgame - a lot like the card game, but for four players and with a few twists to keep it from being the same each round.
7 Wonders - I hadn't heard of this before, but it is a quick civ game based on card drafting. It was good enough to play twice in a row (a rarity for our group).

So, I'm not picking just one favorite from that group this year. I really really liked Neue Hiemat, Through the Ages, and Samarkand. They are all good games. For the bottom three: Castle Panic, Ra: The Dice Game, and Campaign Manager 2008 - BARF.

Next: Nickles and Dimes. These are the games played at least 5 or 10 times this year:
DIMES

	Balloon Cup
	Samurai
	Pokémon Trading Card Game
	Combat Commander: Europe UNO (yeah, played this a bazzillion times this summer).

NICKLES

	Reef Encounter
	Hive
	Thunderstone
	Through the Desert
	Samarkand: Routes to Riches
	Amun-Re
	UR
	Tikal

I think that Ballon Cup ended up as my most played game - it was easy to teach and play with Robert throughout the year. We hate it now. Sadly, Samurai and a lot of other Knizia games left the PBEM world this year. It's too bad as Samurai remains one of my all time favorite games. A lot of the nickles were due to the PBEM Olympics, but as I also discovered, I wasn't a big fan of a lot of them. Ok, that's it for 2010 - hopefully I'll be around more next year!

Gaming With My Son

2010-12-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weekends I was able to get a bit of gaming in with my son. First off we pulled out Runebound last weekend. This is one of his favorites and honestly one that we can get through pretty quickly for the two of us. I was ahead for a bit, then he got a potion that was worth essentially three levels of experience! I had to race to get ahead and managed to find and kill three red bad guys a turn before Ashton had a shot at his third red bad guy. A very close win. I still have a whole expansion we haven't even touched yet. He still seems to enjoy this one a lot so it'll probably come out some more too.

This last week finally settled down long enough for me to teach Ashton Star Wars - The Queen's Gambit. This old AH/Hasbro game is simple enough that Ashton quickly grasped the game, and yet interesting enough to actually want to play it once in a while. I played the good guys, while Ashton took on the role of the Trade Federation. I started out with Anakin ripping though the star fighters, but Ashton stymied him at the end with a stack of 10 cards which I never whittled down. On the Gungan battle field, I was able to more than hold my own. Unfortuantely, Ashton went ballistic with Darth Maul and it wasn't long before I had no Jedi and lost my real queen. The Captain and fake queen made a break for the throne room, but the droid army put a quick end to the uprising.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T10:21:00.001-07:00

Secret Santa left me a few gifts. There were a number of "coal" items (Lord of the Rings Top Trumps card game anyone? - it is basically War) and of course a game. Before that, I'll point out that I also received a book - Wayne Cordeiro's The Divine Mentor - a book about growing one's faith. I nice gesture that brings a little more to the whole Secret Santa than just buying a game for another random person.

As far as the game goes, I received Sisimizi - this is one of those random games I stumbled across on the geek (I honestly don't remember what geeklist I found this one on). It is essentially an abstract and fairly rare (at least in the US). When I opened the box, it took a minute to recognize the game - it isn't one I would have expected.

So to my SS - thank you and I hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas.

As to whom my SS is - I still have no clue :)

58 Monopoly Versions

2010-11-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Ah the things you can do during a build cycle...

At the behest of TWERP-5 I now present to you : 58 versions of Monopoly (brought to you by the members of the Online Olympics team:
From ME!:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5758/monopoly-pokemon - My son and I play a lot of Pokemon the card game
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24000/monopoly-nintendo - Love nintendo and the wii
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6958/monopoly-justice-league-of-america - I wish DC had kept the animated series going. It was so good.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36663/monopoly-chronicles-of-narnia-collectors - The Chronic-what-cles of Narnia..
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24142/monopoly-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer - Tis the season after all
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5339/monopoly-junior - Wrote this as a java program in college. Guess what? Whomever goes first has a distinct advantage.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3020/monopoly-looney-tunes - Hillbilly Hare is probably my all time favorite
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11950/monopoly-marvel-comics - The new Avengers series on Disney is pretty good.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1298/monopoly-star-wars - The original is one of my three favorite movies.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/684/monopoly-the-card-game - Really?
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13608/monopoly-the-card-game-deluxe-edition - Really really?
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/54803/my-first-monopoly - Hopefully your last one too
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3759/make-your-own-opoly - No thank you.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/32759/mormon-opoly - For Robert
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29997/union-pacific-opoly - I used to work for UP and yes, I own this.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28830/monopoly-berkshire-hathaway-diamond - I own this too (still in the shrink!)
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24764/monopoly-the-mega-edition - Monopoly really doesn't need a supersize me option
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1931/anti-monopoly - This is more like it
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1420/monopoly-express - best option?

Monopoly: Star Wars
Monopoly: Pokemon
Monopoly: The Simpsons
Monopoly: Star Trek The Next Generation
Monopoly: London
Monopoly: Nintendo
Monopoly: Canadian Edition
Monopoly: Puerto Rico
Monopoly: NHL
Monopoly: Family Guy
Monopoly: NASCAR
Monopoly: Japan
Monopoly: Wales-Cymru
Monopoly: Bournemouth & Poole Edition
Monopoly: Indiana Jones
Monopoly: Dale Earnhardt

Nathan Winchester contributes:
Starting with the worst version I can imagine:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7594/net-opoly

And then the best:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/20306/brew-opoly

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70653/monopoly-nintendo-collectors-edition

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of properties. Indeed.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10673/monopoly-america-special-edition

And, since I'm a hippie:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9725/monopoly-national-parks-edition

Wait, what? Why does this exist?

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28374/inflatable-monopoly

Make fun of my shirt all you want, there are monopolies for it:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11862/gay-monopoly

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/20917/monopoly-boy-scouts-of-america

Hometown pride?:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19195/monopoly-green-bay-packers

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34676/wisconsinopoly

Who doesn't love dinosaurs!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15325/dino-opoly

And of course, I fully expect everyone to use these:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29997/union-pacific-opoly

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71999/omaha-opoly

ATTN: TWERP-5

2010-11-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

I apologize for lack of updates, I've been working a ton of overtime at work and then on top of that, my home computer has died, so I've been working on fixing that as well...

Tis the Season

2010-11-16T20:10:00.001-07:00

Its the annual Secret Santa on the BGG. Oddly enough for me, about every other year I get someone who is willing to put some effort into taunting me with clues and such to try and figure them out. This is such a year. This year has started with this (after berating me for adding a Dora game picture in 2005):

"However, in spite of my initial misgivings, I am willing to allow you to argue your case for this blight from your past being an errant keystroke, childhood relapse or spasmodic convulsion rather than an intentional image posting. You may prove your deserved "Nice List" status by starting a new Geeklist thread at boardgamegeek.com entitled “247 People Who Deserve LCR In Their Stocking”. This Geeklist should involve a discussion/listing of amusing, non-offensive, fictional/semi-fictional individuals who deserve a lump of LCR-shaped coal in their stocking for Christmas. I will help you start your list by offering the first submission: Larry Fine’s (The Three Stooges) barber. You may both submit your own suggestions (as many as you like) and receive comments from others listing their selections (as many as care to post). However, you must amass of list of at least 247 names. That’s TWO FORTY-SEVEN, Charles – that’s important…247."

So I started the geeklist - http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/61039/247-people-who-deserve-lcr-in-their-stocking - at least its something to do.

A Ranger in Ravenloft

2010-09-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

I managed another QUICK game of Dungeons and Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game. I again played a solo game, this time trying out the Ranger character. I'm not sure this particular one is a great one solo. The basic setup gives the ranger a basic "do 1 damage to an adjacent monster" ability and lots of the monsters have only 1 hit, so this is a good thing, but the lack of AC and HP means I got killed really really quickly - like 5 tiles quickly. I was up to like 11 XP, but the wraiths and flaming skeletons were too much. Each HP surge was only 4 HP and I didn't have enough space to maneuver away from the dangers. Ah well.

Castle Ravenloft

2010-09-06T11:22:00.000-07:00

Castle Ravenloft was once a Dungeons and Dragons adventure game. Ravenloft eventually proved popular enough to spawn its own campaign setting - inspired by gothic horror classics such as the Mummy, Dracula, The Wolfman, Frankenstein, etc. Wizards of the Coast has returned to this setting in a new line of board games with the appropriately (if not obvious titled) - Dungeons and Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game. Wizards is obviously looking to tap into a new market and perhaps pull in some new players to the Dungeons and Dragons gaming scene. I don't know anything about that. I do know that this is a light fun romp with rules that are in line with Heroscape or Claustrophobia. So what is Castle Ravenloft? It is a cooperative dungeon crawl for 1-5 players. Each player takes a different class and the group picks and adventure to from the book to play. Each has their own goal for winning. Typically, losing means getting killed a couple time. On a player's turn, they can move and fight, fight then move, or move twice. If you end at the edge of the board you draw a new tile from the stack of tiles that will make up the game area. When you place the tile, monsters may or may not appear. After a player moves, that player then also executes the monster's turn. monster cards explain clearly what needs to be done and whom to attack. There are other cards for treasure and for encounters and traps that can hinder or help the players. All in all, the game is pretty well scripted so that players aren't flipping through books or looking things up on 12 different tables of numbers to figure things out.
I've played the game twice now - one solo to get an understanding of the mechanics. The solo game had me trying to find my way out before Strahd (the master vampire of Castle Ravenloft) awoke and killed me. I ran around as quickly as I could looking for the exit. Strahd awoke and chased me around quite a bit. I managed to finally find the exit and escape with 1 hit left before I would have lost. The second game was with my son and we were trying to find a chapel with a special artifact. Unfortunately, we found a lot of wraiths who kicked our butt. We finally found the chapel, but had died twice already and were easy targets for the two monsters we found inside the chapel.
So, what do I think? Its fun. It doesn't outstay its welcome. Games are about an hour, which makes this one instantly appealing over something like Descent. Does this mean I should throw Descent away? No. This is different. In fact, it almost feels like Claustrophobia for 1-5 players. Combat is super straightforward and in fact, the exploration piece doesn't really give you an option for which way to lay a tile - you always point the printed arrow towards the area that you are exploring from. There isn't the same feel of gaining treasure like in other dungeon crawls and experience and leveling is a limited deal, but you don't have the overhead of other dungeon games either. The tile mechanism is neat, but the tiles are pretty generic and the maps tend to look just like the last one. The minis that come with the game are ok - they are basically unpainted versions of the D&D:Minis that have been out for a while. One of the hero models is new, but the rest have been seen (that doesn't make them bad). The tiles are nice and there are lots of cards (though the cards aren't the thickest, so I'm not sure how they'll hold up to lots of playing). Wizards of the Coast already has another boxed set coming out which is supposed to be compatible (ie, new monsters and heroes that can be used with either set). I'm not sure how many scenarios you can put together - there can only be so many variations on run through catacombs for some reason or another, but this isn't a bad game so I can see getting both if one gets played enough.

Game Night

2010-09-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

Friday Sept 3, 2010 - Rob and Michelle's place.
I got to Rob and Michelle's place a bit on the early side this week (as did Nathan Winchester, Matt and Liz Longieliere). We started the night out playing a game of Ra with Rob. Ra is one of the classics that I'll play just about anytime. There is a good mix of push your luck and knowing when to bid that makes this one great. For this game, Matt pulled down a couple early stacks of monuments and later in the game pulled down more it kept him safely in the lead for an easy win. Nathan managed to beat me, but only because Liz pulled me down to lowest Pharaohs, costing me two points.
Steve Bauer had arrived and we've been trying to get in a game of Samurai, so I pulled it down for us. Matt Cullinan and Matthew Frederick rounded out the game. Unlike my last game (4-player tie) this one wasn't close. Matt took advantage of Matthew nearly every round, and Steve abused me at every turn. I played ok, but didn't see any of my 4-tiles until my last three draws. Matt won easily with two majorities.

Everyone split up again, and this time, Liz joined Matt, Matthew and I for a game of Thebes. This is a game that has grown on me. Despite the randomness of the digging, it is an entertaining game for what is clearly a family game. The mechanics are well done and mesh well with the theme. I was able to get a few books of general knowledge early on, and then grabbed a lot of purple. Matt had a load of orange, and so I sucked it up and headed south to dig. I grabbed a couple of oranges before Matt decimated the pile, but pulled in a ton of purple stuff. Then I raced for some yellow and managed a dig before the end of the year, allowing me to essentially double up digging at yellow. Matthew was having a hell of a time - everywhere he planned to go, we managed to get there right before him and dig the hell out of the place. His saving grace was that he was collecting a ton of congress cards. Unfortunately, he was always in position to get them and we weren't. Matthews bonus points from the congresses saved his hide and he won the game.
I finished the night playing a game of Samarkand with Dion Garner, Rob, and Steve. This is a fun little game whose major shortcoming is that the setup is almost as long as the game. This game felt amazingly fast - Dion, Rob and Steve all played on the East side of the map and left me to my demise. With no help, I think I only landed a couple of card. This game does have a similar feel to Chicago Express in that you have to "play the players" - Rob ended the game very quickly as he had a number of points coming in matching cards.

PBEM Olympic Standings

2010-08-30T16:31:00.000-07:00


Medal count after 7 events
Player	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Nathan	2	3	3
Justin	3	2	1
Chester	2	1	3
Charles	1	3	1

Finishing the Reef Encounter series with a gold has pushed Nathan back to the clear leader of the pack. I failed to medal (again). I hadn't played RE before this year, but I have played 7 games recently and I decided I don't care much for this game. The ideas aren't bad, but there is very little chance for truly clever play, which means that luck plays too dramatic a role in determining the winner. In our last game, both of the first two players were able to get a cube and THREE matching reef tiles. Unsurprisingly, the two of them were close at the end, but the other two scores were WAY back of their scores. Well, on to the next game...

PBEM Olympic Standings

2010-08-17T08:09:00.000-07:00


Medal count after 7 events
Player	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Nathan	1	3	3
Justin	3	1	1
Chester	2	1	2
Charles	1	3	1

Tikal was the last event finished and went down to the last game. Things went perfectly for Nathan and he was able to create a tie for last and avoid being shut out of a medal. Interestingly, if you award points for the medals, Justin and Nathan are tied at 12 and Chester and I are tied at 10 - Nathan of course is leading the medal count. Nathan did get to choose the next game and has gone with Tigris and Euphrates.

Combat Commander - #8 Breakout Dance

2010-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

This blog isn't the only that has been on hiatus this summer. So has Robert Bolan and I's regular games of Combat Commander: Europe. We finally resumed on Monday. Picking up where we left off, we Robert chose to move forward to the next scenario and choose to play the Allies.

Situation Report: Velikiye-Luki, Russia, Jan. 1943 - As the Kalinin Front - led by several Soviet Shock (but not awe) Armies - drove westward they were able to completely encircle the German 277th Infantry Regiment at Velikye-Luki. Outside relife for this surrounded force was not to be had, however, so orders were given for its units to effect a breakout.

So, Robert setup his Russians and perched his medium machine gun on a hilltop (this was our first scenario with elevated terrain). His only goal? - keep me from getting off the map. My only goal? Get off the map. This scenario also saw us fighting at night, which made the fire orders much less effective. We spent a number of turns just discarding, trying to find the cards we needed. Then I made a run for it and was able to get almost all my units off the map. I had one leader, one squad, and the German hero grouped up in a fox hole. The time event happened and I brought reinforcements back to the map and started moving them down the other side of the map (away from where Robert had been massing troops to keep my set from moving). Things were very grim looking for Robert as I raced my troops across the mostly empty map. When I finally had to move my men past Robert's lone outpost, he advanced on me to go melee. We both had ambush cards (in fact, I had three in my hand) and we were down to whatever fate our cards held for us. Unfortunately for Robert, his fate deck held an event - the dreaded Prisoners of War. This event causes you to remove one of your broken units from the map that are adjacent to an enemy. Robert's only choice was the broken unit involved in the melee. This happened to me as well one time, but twice to Robert during his last ditch efforts to stop me. Having failed, I easily moved all my men off the board at the same time for victory.

Sorry I've Been Gone

2010-08-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are - two months since my last post. It has been a busy hectic summer and I have just not felt like posting a thing lately. The thing is - I like posting. There is a certain therapeutic-ness (that's not really the word I'm looking for) to the whole blogging about nothing that I enjoy. So...

I've played some games this summer. Some new, some old. The PBEM Olympics have continued, but we had a couple good sized breaks in the action with vacations. I've either hit a slump, or I just suck - been getting killed lately.

I've made a few trades and bought a few games. Nothing really stands out. Gonzaga was pretty cool. Fresco has been getting a lot of word of mouth, but I didn't see anything special to get excited over. The simple game is ridiculously simple, and the advance game didn't excite me that much - there was clearly a single strong way to play it.

I took some games along on my family vacation this summer. We spent the better part of a week on a houseboat. Of course, with a boatload of kids from ages 4-11, Uno was the big hit. Kinder Bunnies and Qwirkle Cubes were also hits. To Court The King got some play and I taught Wyatt Earp to the adults (one of the non-gamer adults wanted to know where he could buy it as he really liked it). I remain convinced that there are loads of adults that would enjoy a lot of the games that are out there, but until someone can break through the mass market barrier, they just won't make it. The thing with Wyatt Earp - the guy that liked it a lot complained he was lost as I explained it (having likely not played anything like it), but he picked it right up after a couple draws.

Anyways, I need to get a few updates to the Olympics up and a session report from last week. Hopefully we'll be back to normal soon.

PBEM Olympic Standings

2010-06-03T11:29:00.001-07:00


Medal count after 6 events
Player	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Nathan	1	3	2
Justin	3	0	1
Charles	1	2	1
Chester	1	1	2

PBEM Olympics - Fearsome Floors Game 4

2010-06-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

The last game of Fearsome Floors was no different for me than any of the previous games. I got a grand total of ONE person out the door while Justin, Chester and Nathan somehow got out easily. Chester won the last game, but couldn't change the fact that the best he was finishing was third. Justin finished second and wins yet another Gold. I got completely shut out in this series - yep, last place in every single game. I apparently just don't get it. I've never been a big FF fan anyway, but this cemented it for me. I'd play this face to face with a larger group as a distraction, but I doubt I'll play it again online anytime soon. As the loser, I went ahead and picked Through the Desert as our next event. I kicked around a couple of games, but decided we'd better play TtD before it disappeared off the internet (also, since I got a refresher game last week, the play is fresh in my head).

PBEM Olympic Standings

2010-06-02T11:28:00.000-07:00


Medal count after 5 events
Player	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Nathan	1	2	2
Charles	1	2	1
Justin	2	0	1
Chester	1	1	1

Things of No Interest

Return to Combat Commander

Ora et Labora

Descending Deeper into Descent

Games Played Recently

Battles of Westeros

Collection Churn

Geekway 2011

Dominant Species

Countdown to the Geekway 2011

Combat Commander

My Top 10

Dominant Species

The Top 10 Games of the BGG

My Thoughts of No Interest on the BGG Top 50 (11-20)

My Thoughts of No Interest on the BGG Top 50 (21-30)

Dominant Species

My Thoughts of No Interest on the BGG Top 50 (31-40)

My Thoughts of No Interest on the BGG Top 50 (41-50)

Ravenloft with my Son

A Whole Lot of Losing (Unless You Are Matt)

Got Me Some ASS

That's Enough Ages For A While

$20 Poorly Spent

The Return of Mike B (aka - Game Night).

The Cost of Boxing up Combat Commander (and more)

Boxing Up Combat Commander

Rush to Contact

El Grande

Through the Ages

Return to Lipki

Random thoughts on storing Combat Commander

Gaming With Nathan

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

That Didn't Take Long

New Games

Thunderstone Randomizer Updated

Friday Night Gaming

Catching Up

Gaming with the Work Crew (AKA Smell the Glove)

Through the Ages (for 2)

Finishing a Few Descent Figs

Through the Ages (again)

Battleball

Friday Game Night

Through the Ages

Torres

Oregon

Power Grid

New Look

Thunderstone

New Year, Same Story

Excuses, A-Holes, and End-of-the-Year Lists

Gaming With My Son

Merry Christmas

58 Monopoly Versions

ATTN: TWERP-5

Tis the Season

A Ranger in Ravenloft

Castle Ravenloft

Game Night

PBEM Olympic Standings

Medal count after 7 events

Player

Gold

Silver

Bronze

PBEM Olympic Standings

Medal count after 7 events

Player

Gold

Silver

Bronze

Combat Commander - #8 Breakout Dance

Sorry I've Been Gone

PBEM Olympic Standings

Medal count after 6 events

Player

Gold

Silver