Catching Up

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)

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)

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!:

1. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5758/monopoly-pokemon - My son and I play a lot of Pokemon the card game
2. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24000/monopoly-nintendo - Love nintendo and the wii
3. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6958/monopoly-justice-league-of-america - I wish DC had kept the animated series going. It was so good.
4. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36663/monopoly-chronicles-of-narnia-collectors - The Chronic-what-cles of Narnia..
5. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24142/monopoly-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer - Tis the season after all
6. 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.
7. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3020/monopoly-looney-tunes - Hillbilly Hare is probably my all time favorite
8. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11950/monopoly-marvel-comics - The new Avengers series on Disney is pretty good.
9. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1298/monopoly-star-wars - The original is one of my three favorite movies.
10. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/684/monopoly-the-card-game - Really?
11. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13608/monopoly-the-card-game-deluxe-edition - Really really?
12. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/54803/my-first-monopoly - Hopefully your last one too
13. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3759/make-your-own-opoly - No thank you.
14. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/32759/mormon-opoly - For Robert
15. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29997/union-pacific-opoly - I used to work for UP and yes, I own this.
16. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28830/monopoly-berkshire-hathaway-diamond - I own this too (still in the shrink!)
17. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24764/monopoly-the-mega-edition - Monopoly really doesn't need a supersize me option
18. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1931/anti-monopoly - This is more like it
19. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1420/monopoly-express - best option?

From Chester Ogborn:
1 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28357/monopoly-scotland
2 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25620/monopoly-glasgow
3 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30630/monopoly-harley-davidson-legendary-bikes
4 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42542/monopoly-seinfeld-collectors-edition
5 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30652/monopoly-utah
6 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/46781/monopoly-g-i-joe-collectors-edition
7 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/47315/monopoly-transformers-ii
8 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34882/monopoly-shrek-collectors
9 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33549/monopoly-horse-lovers
10 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/62803/monopoly-cleveland-edition
11 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/35929/monopoly-st-louis-cardinals-world-series
12 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28352/monopoly-university-of-newcastle-upon-tyne
13 - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21361/monopoly-u-s-space-program

From Justin Easley:

1. Monopoly: Star Wars
2. Monopoly: Pokemon
3. Monopoly: The Simpsons
4. Monopoly: Star Trek The Next Generation
5. Monopoly: London
6. Monopoly: Nintendo
7. Monopoly: Canadian Edition
8. Monopoly: Puerto Rico
9. Monopoly: NHL
10. Monopoly: Family Guy
11. Monopoly: NASCAR
12. Monopoly: Japan
13. Monopoly: Wales-Cymru
14. Monopoly: Bournemouth & Poole Edition
15. Monopoly: Indiana Jones
16. 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

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

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

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

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

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

Medal count after 8 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PBEM Olympics - Amun-Re Game 4

And it is finally official. Our last game of Amun-Re is done and I finally won a gold - thanks in large part to Chester, it was a clean win, not a tie. The game looked for a long time like it might end up with Nathan and I tied for first and Chester and Justin tied for second (in the overall standings). At the end of the game, Chester made a few moves and pushed Nathan down in the money and forced him down the points to last. Final scores: Justin: 47, Charles: 42, Chester: 41, Nathan: 40. Justin played his best game of this but still finished last in the standings and picks the next game of the series - he picked Reef Encounter. I was surprised to pull out the win here - this is not a game I'm great at. I think for the most part, I had really good card draws for the majority of the time and it made the most difference.

Game Night

Friday May 21, 2010 - Rob Smolka's House
I headed over to Rob's for a bit of gaming, hoping even to teach and play a little Combat Commander. That didn't end up happening, but I got to try a whole lot of new games this night. We started out playing Take It Higher. Joining Rob and I were Noah Antwiller, Bobby Warren and Jeff Claussen. Rob was the only one to have played this version (I believe Bobby being the only other person to play any version of this series) so he explained the 50,000 ways in which one can score in this game. Basically, like in the other Take It... games, everyone places the same hex with different color lines going through it. The goal being to complete lines of the same color to score the points for the line x the number of tiles in the line. Unlike the others, the center is either silver or gold. If you complete a row of gold, you get X number of gold points (10pts) for each. If you do the same for silver, you get silver (9pts). You can also play a rocket for the color line you just completed. Each player has a line of rocketes - the more you complete, the bigger your possible bonus is. I say possible, because you only get the bonus for the lowest rocket space you open up. So if you clear all the rockets at the end of the line, but never the first one, you score no bonus. So each time you go to place a tile, you are frozen with a bazillion options. Other games have worse AP by far, but there is just a lot to consider each time here - maybe a little too much for this kind of game. Didn't stop me from winning though. Final scores were: Jeff 308, Rob 494, Bobby 438, Charles 507, Noah 0 (he wiped his board and didn't count).

We continued down the train to newsville by riding the Orient Express. Noah has been bringing this for a couple weeks now, trying to get us to play it and we finally caved and indulged him. Us being Matthew Frederick, Amelia Boli, Rob and I. This is an older murder mystery / whodunit kind of game where there are clues available to everyone. On your turn, you roll and move to different parts of the train to gain knowledge. Then you roll a die and on a 1 or 6, ONLY YOU get the clue, otherwise everyone gets it.  So basically, everyone is trying to solve a logic puzzle but some people gain clues others don't. Rob guessed early (he wasn't enjoying the game at all) and Noah and I guess a couple turns later. We were both correct and "won". This was ok, but really just random luck helps players win.
After our murder mystery, we broke into Rob's Animal House Liar's Dice set and made a lot of noise. The fraternity players were: Gary Passmore (Robert Hoover), Bobby (Bluto), Noah (Pinto), Matthew (Boon), me (Otter), and Matt Cullinan (Flounder). Making plenty of noise, we knocked out Bluto then Boon. Then Pinto fell and I was out shortly after. Flounder and Otter went head to head, but Flounder had the dice and won.

We finished the night out playing a game of Diamonds Club. Bobby, Matt C, Rob and I played, with me being the sole newbie to the game. This is your standard "collect a bunch of one thing to buy a bunch of other things" game. The interesting portion of the game is in trying to collect the stuff. There are a couple of paths to victory, but it helps to play it once to see any of it - yeah, I finished way in the back. Scores were me 43, Bobby and Rob 58, Matt 59. Rob professes not to care for this type of game, but likes this one. It was ok, but not something I need to own. It is a lighter engine game, but an engine game none the less.

PBEM Olympic Standings

Medal count after 4 events
Player	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Nathan	1	1	2
Justin	2	0	1
Charles	0	2	1
Chester	1	1	0

PBEM Olympics - UR Game Over

Hmmm, apparently I haven't been keeping up on posting the BEATINGS Nathan has been giving us in UR. Suffice to say, Nathan swept the event. I'm not sure if Justin ever did read the rules or just kind of played it by feel. Regardless, Justin threw this game off a bit and likely helped make Nathan's life that much easier. The final tally was Nathan - Gold, Chester - Silver, Me - Bronze.


So, none of us had played this game before this. And what do I think now? I gave it a 6. It has some cool ideas, but it has issues. The players all need to be on pretty even footing. Much like PR, a weak player will really swing things to one player. Once you gain momentum in this game, its hard to take away. The games are too short to recover. Also, turn order seems to be pretty advantageous. I was last in 3 of the 4 games (and third in the other) and it meant picking starting position last on the board - not good. Nathan of course was first or second in each game. I built a copy of this game and played it two player with Nathan - I liked that a little better, but at the end it drags a little with two. I'd be willing to try this again with some house rules, but online? Probably not unless I was teaching it or really bored.

PBEM Olympics - Amun-Re Game 3

Our third game of Amun-Re was the closest yet. Justin seemed to have a wad of cash until the last round, when he went all in for his last chunk of land. Unfortunately for him the payoff was last place. Chester wound up beating all of us. I made the most points in the first round, but was so cash poor the whole game that I had pretty much zero chance in the second half of the game to do anything. Final scores:  Chester: 46, Nathan: 40, Charles: 37, Justin: 33. We head into the final round pretty wide open for the medals (except for Justin). I pretty much need to place in first or second to win a gold. Last place would give me a bronze and a third gives me no worse than a tie for silver. Time to get my game face on.

PBEM Olympics - Fearsome Floors Game 3

The third game of Fearsome Floors was more of the same - I sucked and got killed a lot while Justin and Nathan used my people as human shields/sacrifices. Chester was able to get out a guy before me and thus conquered me for third place making it so that I am thus far shut out of the point standings. The good news? I get to pick the next game. The bad? I'd have to win the next game while Chester finishes last in order to glimpse a tie for bronze.Given my amazing record thus far, I don't think that is going to happen. And again - for those keeping track, Daniel Karp didn't die - I got him out just before the game ended.

Games Played Recently

Friday 14, 2010 - Game night ended up at Rob Smolka's new place this week. I brought over a couple of games that I knew he and Michelle (whom I still have yet to meet) didn't have that I was hoping to play. Nathan Winchester and I headed over around 6:00ish and were the first to arrive. Figuring it wouldn't be long before folks started showing, I pulled out Samarkand: Routes to Riches for the three of us to try. For the record, having ten families differentiated by colors is probably not the best game to pull out when players have color issues like Rob does. He figured it out, but there really is not much else that helps you tell the families apart (unlike say the new printings of Ticket to Ride). At any rate, as soon as I got done explaining, Noah Antwiller showed up, so I explained it to him and we were off and running. As expected, Noah drew really well and did really well. I drew cards all over the map, which would have been ok if the players controlling the families had ever gone and taken the goods I had. Final scores were: Nathan 53, Rob 53, me 57, Noah 70. 

After that, a number of folks had arrived, so we broke into two groups. I pulled out Steam Barons which I knew Noah and Nathan would play. Somehow we conned Matt Cullinan into playing with us and off we went. We played the US side of the map (which forces players to start on the Eastern side and work West). Nathan started a company and ended up investing heavily in it in the mid-game. His choice to go with one company rather than diversify hurt his standing quite a bit, and by the end of the game his diversification was too little too late. Noah had chosen a good set of routes for his companies and I left him alone in one of his companies one turn too many since my company was doing well, but not as well as his. Scores were pretty close with me at 109, Nathan 78, Matt 101, Noah 111. I'm now on the fence with this one. I really enjoy stock games and I like the familiar AoS/Steam mechanics for building and moving goods. However, this game is all about the timing - make a mistake and you are probably done (much like Age of Steam). The unforgiveness of the game isn't what I dislike - its the length. A three-hour game with no margin for error can drag on a bit. Even AoS - which I love - sometimes gets to be like this for me, which is why I've been leaning towards Steam a bit when given the choice. This is still a good game, but you have to be ready for a longer ride.

Next up was Oregon - something new to me. Matt chose this one and noted that it only had one flaw - the board was static. Well, after playing, I'd have to say that's not the only thing wrong with the game. So the deal here is: there is a board divided into a grid. Players have a couple cards in their hand that allow them to place in a couple of the 25? 36? areas of the board. Each grid area has 6 spaces that allow for different buildings to be placed (they must match the correct geography), or a meeple. Placing meeples scores you points and occasionally additional benefits. Occasionally, if you can get a building by your meeples, you'll score those points too. So what is wrong with this game? The same thing that's wrong with Samarkand and Amun-Re. If you get good cards, you are likely going to win. Matt and Noah both had bad draws and Nathan and I benefited greatly every time they played, because we had the right cards to do so. This isn't a bad game, but I'm not sure why Matt thinks its all that great. The final scores were me 72, Nathan 72, Matt 61, Noah 66. Tie to Nathan
It was getting late, but Nathan and I finished the night playing a little 2-player game of UR. I had built a set from some wood tiles I had and using dice rather than cubes (which works well, but is hard to track your totals). The game was a bit back and forth for a while and in the end, Nathan had two choices and chose the wrong one and took the wrong tile into his hand. I beat him 44-40.

Over the weekend, my son asked to learn a couple of new games. Not sure if he'd get it or not, I taught him Thunderstone. I set up a random assortment of cards and explained the game. For the most part each turn I asked him the same thing: how much attack do you have? If he had enough attack, I let him know what he could kill, otherwise I let him shop freely, making no suggestions on what to buy. On occasion, he'd get greedy and buy something instead of taking the kill, but for the most part did the right thing. Which of course showed one of the flaws to the game - if the cards come up right, you will do well. Ashton's choices of things to buy made a lot of sense, and his deck was doing well. For me? I'd get tons of attack, but no light, then in the next hand, I'd get three flaming swords and two torches, but not a hero. I was constantly short of being able to attack the monsters and its showed in the final scores. Where Ashton had 70 to my 59. The game went on a bit long (the Thunderstone was the LAST card) and I think Ashton was a bit bored at the end, but he didn't quit.

I also taught Ashton how to play Nexus Ops. This was the first time he'd played a war-ish game that was Heroscape, so the entire experience was new. He did pretty well - trying to work on his secret objectives and easily figuring out the purchasing. What he didn't realize was that HE HAD ALL THE MINES. My early explorations only turned up rock striders, which let me get a load of cards via the Monolith, but I had no cash. Ashton had three dragons on the board before I could slow him down. This was the first time I played two players and I'll say this - you have a lot more money. I met a lot of goals and picked off his guys that were alone and beat him 10-7 (we only played to 10). He wants to play this one again for sure.

Combat Commander - Cold Front

Staritsa, Russia, December 30, 1941 - When winter hit Eastern Europe with its full fury in late 1941, the German 26th Infantry was just one of many Axis Divisions halted more by the extreme weather than the stubborn Russian defense.
In the final weeks of 1941, the 31st Soviet Army - part of the Kalinin Front under General Yushkevich - received a large influx of Siberian troops. Clad in quilted jackets and fur hats and inured to the cold, they led many small-unit actions up and down the frozen front. One such attack took place near Staritsa, Northwest of Moscow, as the German troops of Infanty Regiment 18 were fighting to stay warm in their trenches.
Robert Bolan came over to renew our Combat Commander:Europe series. He chose to continue into the scenarios and scenarios #5 - Cold Front - presented a small troop of Germans trying to outlast the cold-hardened Russians. Robert chose to play the attackers (Russian) and setup first. The map setup such that I chose to try and force Robert to come at me from two major choke points: through a marsh or over a bridge. I setup my heavy machine gun in a trench near the bridge to chew up any troops he sent that way. The other troops were positioned with a light machine gun to handle the marsh. Robert started the game throwing some Russians at the marsh, which was slow going, but mostly ok due to my limited ability to really take a bite out of his troops. I couldn't get my heavy machine gun to bear down and kill anyone either. We quickly discovered that these Russian troops were much tougher than earlier scenarios. Unfortunately for Robert, when they matched up head to head with an overwhelming force, the Germans prevailed.
After I eliminated a couple of squads and a leader, Robert changed tactics and ran a load of troops for my unprotected back line. Points in this scenario were doubled for exits, and Robert was looking to erase the lead I had. With time disappearing, I too moved troops towards the back line (since I had eliminated the resistance on that side of the map already). We both got our troops out safely which meant the score didn't change. What did happen was I got reinforcements - three times! I brought in artillery, a leader, and a rifle squad. We both brought in our escaped troops for reinforcements as time ticked towards the inevitable - an easy win for me. I held nearly 22 points in advantage while Robert had another series of bad roles. But fate would play her hand against me. Robert "rolled the dice" and went melee against my heavy machine guns and we tied! He eliminated my big advantage. I had my reinforcement troops again marching to Robert's side of the map, but at the last minute, swung them around and into a building to chew up his rear forces. Unfortunately for me, Robert had more advance orders and achieved what was unthinkable only moments before - a surrender victory. Reducing my army to the end of my surrender track, I was forced to congratulate Robert on a stunning victory.