Age of Steam vs Steam

After my session report from Friday night, Mike Garrett (aka The Fonz) said, "I'm trying to understand why you like AoS better. Steam seems to be superior from your description." Fair enough. Except that it isn't. But before I explain why, I want to point out that we played the BASIC rules for our game of Steam. The standard game has an auction for the actions / turn order. This is important, because the first reason that the original Age of Steam is superior to Steam is the auction / turn order mechanic. I like auction games, and the auction in AoS gives the game a lot of its tension. The players that manipulate the auction well typically do well. If you mis-manage the auction (spending for an action that nobody else was going to take, paying too much for early turn order, etc), you will lose the game. That's all there is to it. Ok you say, but you can play the auction in the regular Steam rules. Yes, that is true, but the other thing about AoS that has been lost is the shares. In AoS, the shares haunt you the entire game. You do not want to take out money before you need it, because you'll pay for it the rest of the game. Combined with the auction mechanic, there is a lot of tension in deciding if you should take that extra share. The Steam share mechanic allows you to get money at any time and you have the ability to pay it back almost immediately. I understand why they did it and it works out ok, but it makes the game much more soft and forgiving. Sorry, but I like AoS for its utter brutality. I don't need a dumbed down version so my wife will play this with me. She'd hate either version and I wouldn't enjoy trying to play either of them with her anyway. Now, that is not to say that I wouldn't play Steam again - I'm 100% sure I will. It does some things really well - like the good production and population of goods on Urbanization (almost to the point that Urbanization is retardedly overpowered now). I like the split point and income tracks, but the missing shares takes a lot of bite out of the game. And Steam isn't perfect. Haters like to point out that it bothers them that they have to run a circular route to make 5 or 6 hops when they can make a short run that is closer but makes less money for them - this hasn't changed at all. And I hate to admit it, but I really think I prefer the track counting in AoS to the simplified connection counting In Steam. On the flip side, I appreciate that Steam is much more manageable time wise. So there you have it - it isn't that Steam is superior (except for the production thing). I liked it and it did some things well. Some people could see those changes as making the game better than AoS, but I see it as watering down the original to make it more palatable for the general gaming populace. I'd still rather play the original. If there was only 90 minutes left in the night, I'd be happy to play Steam and scratch that itch. Given the right group of players though, I'd be more inclined to play the superior original.

Game Night

Friday Nov. 6,2009 - Gamer's Inn
Headed over to the Inn to meet up with Mike Gingold, Bobby Warren and the regulars. Noah Antwiller got there about the same time and the four of us sat down to start the night with a game of Tichu. Bobby and I roared out to the lead with a couple good hands and some terrible ones for Mike. We then missed two Tichu calls and Mike and Noah were running away with the game. It finally looked grim as they needed only 15 points for a win while we were still at 510. However, Bobby and I then went Tichu 1-2 and pulled ourselves up to competitive. The last hand saw us manage to grab 90 points, but we couldn't go 1-2 for the win and came up short.
After that, we had six of us (Matthew Frederick and Amelia Boli showed up) so we played a quick game of Liar's Dice. Noah was out first on the second call of the game and a couple turns later, it was my turn. Mike and Matthew made it to the end and Matthew finished with the win.
Next up for the night was a four player game of Steam using the basic rule set. Mike, Matthew, Noah, and I sat down to the German side of the board. Having not have played Steam before, I wanted to see how the basic rules changed the game. Essentially, Steam varies from Age of Steam by a couple things. For one, you take 'shares' out at the point you need money - you do this by moving your marker back one spot for each $5 you need. This one thing makes the game a little less stressful, but also speeds things up a lot. Second, when you move a good, you must either score on the income track or score victory points. This is normally not a tough decision, but near the end of the game, you have to balance out your spending or you can give up critical points. In the basic game like we played, you pick an action, and that determines the turn order for the next round. The "better" actions also cost money in addition to pushing you to the end of the turn order next round. Finally, the best change is the goods. Rather than random, there are sets of three goods in piles. When you choose the goods action or urbanization, you pick which goods pile you want. This is the best change of all of them and adds back a nice piece of strategy from a simplified version of AoS. Overall, it was good and faster than AoS. I'd rate this pretty high and I though I like AoS better still, I'd definitely chose this for a quicker AoS fix. I even managed to win this one. Charles:55, Noah: 50, Matthew: 48, Mike: 40-something.
We ended the night trying a three player game of Chaos in the Old World. Three player definitely changes the dynamic a little and I have to say that a second playing shows how fast this game can be. Mike, Matthew, and I finished in a little over an hour including explanation of the rules to Matthew. I was Slanesh, which meant I was trying to lay corruption in areas where there were noble markers or hero tokens. I was nailing huge sections, while keeping Matthew's Khorne forces from killing me. I ran the dial around very quickly and won. I think for three players, the game would be better without Khorne, as I was able to easily limit Matthew's ability to kill anyone.

Misc Things of No Interest

Yes sir - time for another pointless posting. Let us start with - Dice Towers. Once upon a time, I built a couple of these out of foam board. I traded one away and gave another to The Fonz for his birthday. Well, I never rebuilt nor replaced mine. So the other day I'm poking around the BGG and happen to catch a thread from someone who has created his own cardboard dice tower. He offered to send out a some to the first few posters who agreed to throw up a review. I received this over the weekend, but haven't had a chance to put it together yet. There is actually a youtube video of him putting it together and while a little complicated, its also pretty slick. I'll be putting this together soon. I think I'll also make another foam tower so I have something of a baseline to compare the two. I'm hoping to play Chaos in the Old World again this weekend, so we'll get to put it through its paces.
Apparently I'm in denial. I refuse to become a Magic Whore, yet I cannot resist the siren call of other CCGs. I actually kind of like the Pokemon TCG (they call it a TRADING card game not a COLLECTIBLE - whatever). I think what made it really fun was when I lucked into a HUGE lot of cards at a very good price. I took the cards and built about a dozen decks for my son and I to play with. We don't really mess with the decks, but having lots to choose from is a good time and the decks I built do pretty decently against the commercial decks (though I have yet to build one that can compete with the championship ones). At any rate, I saw an auction this last week and threw in a bid for the Call of Cthulu LCG. This is another FFG CCG turned LCG. FFG decided to take their card games and package a base game and then sell chapter packs (set of 40 or so card that come out monthly with known cards) rather than blind 10 card boosters or whatever. Being a fan of A Game of Thrones, I'm pretty well all in on that one already, but I really believe it plays better with four than 2, so it hasn't seen much action. Call of Cthulu is a two player game, so depending on the complexity and maturity level of the theme, I may be playing this soon with my son. I really like the appeal of having built base sets.
On a side note, I see where FFG is going to release investigator figures for Arkham Horror. They are going to sell in packs of two or three and be fully painted. This would be really cool, except that there are 49 investigators with all the expansions. At two to a box, that is at least 25 boxes you'd have to get to get em all. I believe the retail is going to be like $15 (so maybe $11 online). Are you kidding? That's almost as bad as my paying $20 for Chicago Express: Narrow Gauge & Erie Railroad Company (it was worth it).
I'm really close to pulling the trigger and ordering stickers for my poker chips. I still can't decide if I want to leave the denominations off the front art. They'll look cleaner and I'm starting to lean this way, but I still kind of want the denomination on both sides of the chips. Bah - I'll probably end up dragging my feet on this one for another couple months.
Essen 2009 has wrapped up and I can say I payed very little attention this year. If there was a big deal this year, I missed it. Last year was about the Agricola follow-up Le Havre and The Splotter game Duck Dealer. Planet Steam and Fits and a bunch of other games. I have so many unplayed games still that it is probably a good thing this year seemed quiet. I can very quickly come up with a bunch of games that I still need try and a bunch more that need to be played more - just from my collection. And a ton more I don't even own. Now, having said that, I would still like to be able to go to Essen someday. Someday

Chaos in The Old World

Chaos in the Old World is a new game from FFG. Mike Gingold had pinged me about this game out of the blue one day - I had never heard of it before. After reading up on it, I decided it was to be included in the next game order. The game is set in the Warhammer universe (and since I'm not a Warhammer player, it made very little difference to me at all). Basically, each player takes the role of one of four gods of the Warhammer universe trying to subvert the world (whatever world that might be). Each of these evil gods has a different take on things - Khorne is all about combat (this player does better by winning fights), Nurgle is the god of disease (this player does well corrupting certain areas of the board), Tzeentch is the magic god (this player does well corrupting areas where there are magic), and Slanesh is the god of pain (this player does well by corrupting areas where there are certain markers). Each player gets a handful of plastic pieces representing three types of units: cultists, warriors, and the greater Daemon. The cultists are typically non-combat units that corrupt the world. The warriors fight the battles, and the greater Daemon is a beast for fighting. Each round the players (always in the same order) have a set number of points they can spend either playing cards (which cost from 0-3 pts) or bringing pieces into play for their cost. Once you've spent all your points, you are done until the next phase of the game. In the second phase, you have combat in areas where two factions have combat units. This part is mostly a straightforward dice affair. Then after that is the corruption phase. During this phase, a number of different things happen. Factions can corrupt the area based on the number of cultists they have and the number of total pieces and cards played can earn a player points. If too much corruption occurs, the area becomes ruined, which earns players points for their corruption efforts, but makes the area un-scorable thereafter. Then there is a bit of clean up for the next round and a quick check of the victory conditions.
It is all pretty straight forward, except that each faction has different strengths. Khorne's ability make his units better at combat, but they cost a bit more. His cards cost a bit more, but allow him to kill people much much more easily. Tzeentch's units are pretty weak, but cheap and his magic cards are often cheap or free and he gets a lot of them to play. This faction tries to take advantage of the other players after they are done setting up for the round. Nurgle and Slanesh each have their strengths as well, which means that each player has to play tactically to keep the others from over playing their strengths while trying to really do well. The game also has a number of limiting factors that keep the game from being all that long. Yes, there is a bit of randomness and dice determine the combat. If you don't like Ameritrash type games, just stay away. Otherwise, this one is a pretty good offering from FFG. Nicely done boards and bits wrapped around a decently fun game.

Game Night

Friday Oct 16, 2009 - Gamer's Inn and Llarry and Steph Amrose's
Something of a strange night logistically... The night started out over at Nielsen's Custard. Nathan Winchester and I met there for a bit to eat and played a game of Hive. I really like this game and won due in part to Nathan pointing out a sure loser play about halfway through the game. I play this strictly by feel - having not played enough to try an put together a strategy when I start. It is just a good abstract. I'm really thankful that Nathan seems to enjoy abstracts as well.
We headed over to the Gamer's Inn to hook up with Matthew and Amelia and Matt Longieliere after we finished up at Nielsen's. When we got there, nobody was in site, so I pulled out GIPF and Nathan explained it to me. This abstract is the father of the GIPF Series and one of the few I hadn't tried before this night. It is very much a good game and I think might be my new favorite of the series. I can't wait to see what the potentials (GIPF Project Set 1, GIPF Project Set 2, and/or GIPF Project Set 3) add to the game. This was fairly easy to pick up and was able to sneak out a win.
I had made plans with Mike Gingold to meet up at Llarry and Steph Amrose's place in Tempe, so I headed over that after a few minutes of chit chat with everyone. I was pretty much the last arrival so the group split up for games. I sat down to play Notre Dame with Steph Amrose, Bobby Warren and Dan Reilly. It has been a little while since I've played this, but I've enjoyed it each time. I never really got an engine going the way I wanted to while watching Bobby score a lot of points with his park. Surprisingly though, Steph was the winner by a point over Bobby: Steph-55, Bobby-54, Dan-26, me-43.
The other group wasn't done yet, so Steph suggested A Castle For All Seasons - one I had never heard of. As they setup and explained the game, my first two impressions were: "great art and bits" and "I have no chance of winning this first play". This is easily one of the best looking Rio Grande games I've seen - a gorgeous double sided board, lots of cardboard markers for the buildings, lots of different shaped wood bits, cards - the whole nine yards. The game is pretty straight forward - action selections somewhat similar to Race for the Galaxy (though each action is only done by whomever played the card), and building gathering tight resources to "buy" VPs and such. That is an over simplification of course. Despite the really nice wood bits, I think I'd have appreciated cardboard tokens for the goods. you see, each good has a value depending on its type: 1, 2, 4, 5, wild (which can be any of the others). To buy a building, you must pay using at least three different good types and with EXACT change. It is not intuitive to try and figure out the costs just looking at your goods and referencing the value card. To make it worse, no building is "odd" costing, so getting the right number can be a pain. Overlooking that - the mechanics and speed of the game make this fairly interesting and I'm surprised I have missed this one last year. the final scores were Bobby-57, Steph-46, Dan-45, me-26 (yeah, I sucked bad).
After getting my butt handed to me in A Castle For All Seasons, I pulled out Chaos in the Old World. Mike joined us as he and Bobby switched places. I ended up with Khorne and went over the rules. Overall, the game is very straight forward and really a good Ameritrash game. Each faction is unique and really must approach the game differently. After three turns I zeroed in on exactly what I needed to do - fight a lot. I didn't need to win, just kill people all over the board. This started to really pay off, though it looked like I may have started too late. Mike made a huge swing of points in the late-mid game and I thought he might hit 50 points and end the game before I could end the game with a dial victory. He came up just short and it was actually Dan who came out of nowhere to challenge for the win. Luckily, my victory condition (dials) was the first victory check and I just won the game. I look forward to another round of this too. Our initial game was a bit long due to setup and rules, but I can see this being a fairly decent 90 minute game.

Misc. Gaming

After being taught the Mr. Jack, I actually acquired it in the math trade the following week. Nathan Winchester was over one night (for a work related briefing) and we had time to get a couple of games in - each as Jack. I started as Jack and it was 4-5 turns later than I was exposed. I made one stupid move, but I'm not sure there was much I could do otherwise. Nathan did a bit better than I did, but he too was found out. We both agreed it is harder than hell to win as Jack. There is an online implementation that I think Nathan and I need to try out.
A couple of nights later was our monthly dinner group (pizza night) and after dinner, I pulled out Why Did the Chicken?. This game lets everyone try and come up with clever answers to randomly put together phrases or questions. Though the group is clever and has a good time, only about half the folks were coming up with decent answers. While there were a couple of good laughs, probably not enough to see that one again here. Oh well.
Later that weekend, I got to try out another new game - this time with my son. The game was Munchkin Quest. What had interested me about this game was a review on the BGG (that and I could get the game from Boards and Bits with all the bonus materials thrown in for free). Basically, it is a dungeon crawl/romp/loot-whore-free-for-all with the Munchkin brand of humor. I have not played any Munchkin games due to the reputation that proceeds them. For me Munchkin humor means something along the lines of Dork Tower - a whimsical satire of D&D. The game was a slight bit much for my 6-year old son, but only a hair. I had to explain his best choices a lot, but he enjoyed it enough to keep asking for it since we've played. It has a bit of randomness and a good amount of "take that!" built in, but overall it is not a bad game. The expansion lets 5 or 6 play, which has to be WAY to much. There is a small amount to do or pay attention to when it is not your turn (and turns are generally fast), but I can't see that this would be fun for long with 5 let alone 6. For two players, it is very tough and then very easy. Still entertaining though.

Game Night

Friday Oct. 2, 2009 - Gamer's Inn
This was an interesting evening. The Gamer's Inn was having some crazy large Magic thingy, so we had been "relegated" to another location! The owner of the store is supposed to have the area next door, but doesn't yet, so the building owners let him have use of another empty store area nearby - this is where we ended up for the evening. The cool part being, we had this nice big quite area without the boisterous Magic crowd. We also ended up having a large turnout of folks, so it worked out well. The evening started out for me playing my new ding and dent copy of Metropolys. Join me were Nathan Winchester, Amelia Boli and newcomer Doug Oppedahl. This smart little game has one major flaw I think - since it is pretty easy to figure out what people are going to try and score, it sucks if you get the hardest secret goal - the tri-area fountain bonus. Doug actually ran away with the game: Doug-49, Nathan-19, Amelia-18, Charles-36.
As there were so many people out this evening (and more had come), Amelia left us and was "replaced" by Matt Longieliere. I finally picked up Dampfross for us to give a go at. We played with the rule that everyone used the same roll for the initial build to keep things even despite none of us ever having played before. The first part (building track) went fairly quickly and we got to the racing right away. Interestingly, Matt and I were heavily favored by the dice gods in the early races and often it was just the two of us racing around. Nathan was especially in a hole early as his outlier tracks were never on the routes. I had a fairly decent network, but not always the fastest/shortest routes. We played all the way through and despite the amount of time we spent playing the game (I want to say it was nearing 3 hours) I was actually entertained for the vast majority of the game. This is definitely not an all the time game - maybe once or twice a year kind of thing, but it was fun and we could have easily ended early by lowering the amount for the win. I won here at $225 - the other scores were Doug-179, Nathan-189, Matt-144.
Amelia came back over to our table and Doug called it a night, so I pulled out Chicago Express and the expansions. I really like this game and was interested to see how different the expansions make it. The Narrow Gauge gives you blocking tokens which become available when towns are built into. The Erie is a single share company that comes online in the middle of the game. Though both are interesting, I doubt I'd play them together again. The Erie just isn't as interesting with the additional ease with which other players can just screw you. At any rate, the game started with a stall as Nathan tried to figure out what I was going to start bidding for the red company. We were opposite each other for a change, and I believe Nathan won the share for $14. He immediately felt screwed (anyone ever win red and not?). I went for yellow. On my second action, I used a Narrow Gauge train to force Nathan into a more expensive route - he retaliated in a move that won me the game. He cut off yellow - effectively making it worthless to anyone that wasn't already invested. I was the sole holder of that stock. Since it had no value to anyone else, all the future shares put up were other companies. Basically, I collected full value from the start of the game for my company while everyone else was getting split value. A few turns later, Nathan realized he had to buy a yellow share to keep me from expanding my lead away from him, but I was able to end the game before he could make up what he needed. Final tally: Matt-42, Nathan-57, Amelia-29, Charles-60

Order Up!

Driven by a desire for a certain game to play on Saturday night with my Dinner Group, I placed an order this week for some games (cause it would be silly to order just one little game). First up is Munchkin Quest. This is supposed to be a fairly decent little dungeon crawl with the Munchkin brand of humor. This could be a bit chaotic, but that's ok - the target audience is my son. The next game in the order came out of nowhere to spark my interest. Mike Gingold asked me about Chaos in the Old World. I had no clue what this was, and assumed from the WARHAMMER on it that it was some sort of minis skirmish game. Wrong. It's a euro from Fantasy Flight. I read a bit and watched a Scotish video review and decided I needed to add this bit of ghoulish gaming goodness to my collection. Thanks a lot Mike. I threw in a few Runebound decks to give my son at Christmas time. Oh yeah, and I ordered a party game - Why Did the Chicken?.

Game Night

(Slowly but surely getting caught up here) Friday, Sept 25, 2009 - Gamer's Inn.
We started out this Friday night with my new copy of Martin Wallace's Steel Driver. This feels something like a cross between Chicago Express and I'm not sure what. There are five rounds of bidding for a company stock. Each turn the stock price starts at zero and you earn only whatever value you can eak out that round using your investment to "capitalize" that company (or companies if you can get your hands on more than one share that round). After 5 rounds, there is a final company payout to each shareholder. The value of the company being determined by picking up goods connected to the various company's track and getting the most sets of different goods. Overall, it is a shorter investment game with a couple subtleties (and a bit more fidliness than needed). This evening the game had Greg Chandra (new), Dan Brugman, Noah Antwiller, me, Steve Bauer, and Greg Perschbacher. In the second round, I elected to get shut out and went into the third round with the ability to get anything I wanted (I got two shares). This was not the way to go and it took me out of the game. Not to say it isn't a valid strategy, because the eventual winner (Greg C) did the same later in the game. Greg Chandra took 4 of 5 shares in one company to made a killing with it. Final scores: Greg C-1050, Steve-800, Greg P-550, Noah-900, me-770, Dan-?.
After that brutal mess, we farted around figuring out what to play and I got Bobby Warren to pull out Pandemic with the On the Brink! expansion for Noah, Greg C and I to try. As the Archivist, Epidemiologist, Scientist, and Researcher, we beat the game! It helped that we didn't have the first bad card for a number of turns.
I've been trying to get a number of my un-played games played recently, so after saving the world, I pulled out Thurn and Taxis and asked Bobby to explain. I've had this 2006 Spiel winner for a couple years now and just finally tore the shrink off it. I found it an interesting play and actually a bit deeper than I thought it was going to be. Though it isn't heavy nor anything crazy special, it was interesting and I'd certainly play it again if asked (especially with the un-opened copy of the expansion I have on my shelf ;) ). Noah had one gamble/mistake that cost him a lot and we all finished well behind Bobby. Final scores: Me-19, Noah-16, Greg-20, Bobby-27.
Greg wandered off to try something else or go home, so we were joined by newcomer James Smyth for a game of Taluva. This is underplayed in my collection and one of my favorites. This was the first shot I've had at playing it with four and was good as expected. I got too aggressive near the end and setup Noah for the win on the last tile.
Dion Garner then came over to our table for a game of Smarty Party! I don't remember what his other choice was, but Dion is terrible at trivia games (seriously terrible). This game seemed to go very quickly and Bobby took the win.
Bobby took off, so Noah, Dion, and I finished the night playing Wyatt Earp. It has been a while since I last played, so I needed to hear the rules refresher and off we went. The first round was nothing special, but I scored a bazillion points in the second round. Dion and Noah caught me though near the end. I was finally able to win, beating Noah and Dion by $1000 - a very close game.

Game Night

Friday Sept. 18, 2009 - Gamer's Inn
I started off this gaming night with Dion Garner and I declining to join in a game of Battlestar Galactica. Though I want to try this out, I just wasn't in the mood for this sort of deal this evening. Dion had a couple different games available and pulled out Mr. Jack for the two of us to try out. I knew this was a two player deduction game, but nothing else other than it got good word of mouth. I was surprised to find a game that was pretty fun and I recently traded for this. Dion played Mr. Jack and I was actually able to figure out the truth of the matter in about 4 turns, which was just about when Matthew and Amelia showed up.
Next up was another new game to me - Medieval Merchant. I've had this for a while, but hadn't gotten it out before. Matthew Frederick and Steve Bauer went through the rules for everyone (myself, Amelia Boli and Richard Aronson) and we got started. This was one of Jason Sato's favorite games and I can see why. It is hard to describe the game - it is something of a push your luck, area control (but not quite), investment (but not quite) euro. I sucked at it of course, not optimally using my special power token early enough. Final scores were: Charles-33, Amelia-32, Richard-40, Matthew-42, Steve-43
Since the 19th (the next day) was Talk Like a Pirate Day, I had brought along Pirate's Cove. Richard left for home, so Steve, Matthew, Amelia and I set about to plunder the seas. The two times I've played this, I have gotten just killed - either I pick the same as someone else, or the Dread Pirate Roberts (or in this case Blackbeard) follows me around beating the crap out of me. This night was a good example and I started with three moves to the same island as Steve and Blackbeard. I somehow managed to shake Blackbeard and he then managed to hit Matthew something like 4 times in a row as he tried to bury his treasure. It was pretty funny really (mostly because it wasn't me for a change). We ended the night with scores of Matthew-16, Charles-17, Amelia-18, Steve-26.

Tunnel Add-On For Carcassonne

If anyone cares, you can get a small expansion in Spielbox magazine for Carcassonne. I'm not sure it is worth the price, but there you go (be warned, this is a German magazine and the content is in German). We need a magazine like this in America - there are always great expansion contents inside. C3i is great like this, but I don't tend to play that type of game much.

Publisher Hans im Glück and spielbox have co-produced the new Carcassonne add-on “Tunnel” which will be a supplement in the upcoming issue of spielbox. It consists of a cardboard sheet with 4 tiles and 2 types of chips in 6 colours.

Secure your copy early (as a reminder: the “Katharer” add-on has been sold out for a long time and the demand is still high!). Please use our new web shop for your order. You can find a banner to the shop on our start page. Here is the direct link: http://www.nostheide.de/webshop/xtcommerce/index.php?language=en .

Subscribers receive the add-on in their subscription copy as usual.

With kind regards as always
Yours Barbara Nostheide
spielbox

Trades of No Interest

Apparently any imbalances in the gaming "Force" have been restored. 3 for 3 in this last math trade. I managed to trade off: Dixie - Bull Run (unplayed, two-player card game), Wits & Wagers (un-fun group "trivia" game), and Tier auf Tier + Goodnight Moon game (two kids games). In exchange I'm getting: Mr. Jack, Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation: Deluxe Edition, and a mini digital camera for my kids. Mr. Jack was surprisingly fun, so I was happy to start adding it to my math trade lists. My wife will hate it, but I imagine it'll be good for my kids as they get a bit older. My son loves Stratego Legends (it is his number 2 game!), so he should like LotR:The Confrontation - I've been eying the Deluxe edition for a while now. The kids had outgrown Goodnight Moon game and I have a load of dexterity games, so Tier auf Tier was no real loss to me. They have wanted their own camera for a long time though, so this little camera should be fun for them. I'm also working on an order or two for some games. I really want to try Munchkin Quest (which I've read is actually a decent little dungeon crawl with Munchkin humor tacked on). I think I may finally spring for Metropolys, which I enjoyed a lot, but is kinda pricy retail. I think I'm finally breaking down to get CE and the expansion too. I have the original Winsome version of the Erie expansion - maybe I'll geekgold auction the sucker :). What else? A Game of Thrones LCG: Kings of the Sea is out (it adds the 5th house - Pyke). Yep, I've played like twice and yet I feel the need to have the whole set. More realistically, I may get a few Runebound expansions, as my son says this is his favorite game.

Musings of No Interest

I think I felt a disturbance in the force. I realized that I haven't purchased a new game, nor traded for a game in quite a while. Oddly, I haven't felt driven to run out and get something new either. Have I reach some sort of equilibrium? I still have stuff I'd rid myself of in Math Trades, but I'm not overly concerned about getting rid of them either. I have plenty of project things I'd like to get done, but probably won't anytime soon. I do believe I've really knocked out a lot of my unplayed games this year. I even like a few of them. Still have a load of them to try though - Steam, Khronos, Medieval Merchant, Bus, Die Macher, Thebes, Scepter of Zavandor, Magna Grecia, and Imperial to name a few (oh there are more to be sure). I've also managed to get in a few older games that I haven't seen hit the table in a while (like the rcent playing of El Grande). I look around my game room and see a number of games sitting there that I'm sure my son could handle now, but I'm also starting to get greedy and wonder when he'll start grasping basic tactics and not just the mechanics of the games. I realize that my daughter asked me to play a game with her too tonight (Blink) and we didn't get to it. I have to make sure to play with her when she asks. One gamer is fun and two would be great, but mostly a guy needs time with his baby girl - especially time that doesn't involve sitting there and talking about shoes (seriously, she is 4 and can talk about shoes forever if you let her). Don't get me wrong, we can do whatever interests her, but she is pretty perceptive and knows I'm about to fall asleep when she starts talking about the skeetchers she wants. Geez, I just found another 5 games I need to play. Time to cut this commentary short...

Ashton's Favorite Games

I asked my son Ashton about his 10 favorite games. We listed all his games that he knows how to play and then picked his 10 favorites. Just to be sure I checked the list against the remaining games and this is what we ended up with. I was a bit surprised with Jungle Speed and Amazing Labyrinth, but the rest sound about right. These are in no particular order. I asked for his reasoning for liking each game.

1. Heroscape - because you can chose the amount of characters for the amount of points you have. And you can like move and fight.
   
2. Stratego Legends - because you move and fight and go diagonal, but not on water spaces
   
3. Sorry Sliders - because you can slide your piece and wherever your piece goes you get points
   
4. Star Wars - Epic Duels - because you move and fight and attack people
   
5. Pokemon - because you have evolution people and do strong attacks
   
6. Runebound - because you can roll dice and see where you can go and fight different things
   
7. Ticket to Ride - because you get tickets and whoever has the most cars out on the field wins
   
8. Zooloretto - because you buy things
9. Jungle Speed - because if you have the same thing you have to grab the thing before the other opponents gets it
   
10. Amazing Labyrinth - because you move and get stuff and whoever has all the things on their cards wins

Interesting... Games not making the cut that I thought might: Micro Mutants, Battleball, Kinder Bunnies, Ubongo, Ghost Party and Booby-Trap.

Runebound with My Son

My son asked to play Runebound the other night. He got it out and set it all up, picking a character (largely at random) and waiting for me to come play. I sat down, and he dove right in. Now, he just turned six and has played this (not to completion) once, yet he remembers nearly all the rules and a lot of the encounter cards. I've played 3-4 times, and I still can't remember all the rules, nor do I remember any of the encounters. We've been playing for two nights now and are nearing the end of the game. When he earned enough experience to get a heart, I warned him that he couldn't do the green encounters anymore then - he told me he didn't care and they were too easy anyway. He then promptly trounced a blue and red encounter. We aren't done with the game, but probably will be in another night. I don't know if he'll want to play again or not, but I suspect he will. One of the interesting and rewarding things about playing games with my son (and any child) is the discovery. That euphoric feeling of playing something new and cool. Not just the game, but the whole experience is new to him. Not to be jaded about my game collection or hobby, but my collection in a lot of ways is a lot of games that have similar experiences. I've worked to have a fairly good spread of games - dexterity, party, card games, light games, heavy games, thematic and abstract. Classic and newer classics. Yet whenever I play a game, I usually have that - "oh yeah, this game is a little like XYZ" moment. When I play or teach my son a game, he doesn't have that yet. He still has that sense of wonder that comes with a new game. The kind of excitement that makes a player want to keep playing a game over and over. He isn't jaded. He doesn't know that there are 100 cards and that only 1 of them is cool and that you will probably only get to see 10 of them a game and we'll have to play another 30 hours of the same game if we ever want to see that one cool card again. Nope. For my son, all he knows is that he played this one game and something soooooooo cool happened once that we have to play again. For him, that kind of effort is worth the payoff - because it isn't effort. Nope, its simply doing something cool and fun. So rather than thinking about how I'd rather be playing Combat Commander, I enjoy the experience. We read the flavor text on the cards. He digs the excitement of a scary encounter. He is jealous that I got a quest that will net me some coin just for walking to a nearby city. He loves that he had enough cash to buy a really bad-ass weapon (though he doesn't know that it is awesome until he tromps his next encounter with no effort at all). It isn't a game for him, it is a cool story that he gets to control. And you know what? That's what this game is supposed to be.

Journeys In The Dark

Dear Dungeon Diary,
Today a new group of hero/fools ventured forth into my domain. Andira Runehand (Nathan Winchester), Silhouette (Niece Westmoreland), Mordrog (Matthew Frederick), and Battlemage Jaes (Ameli Boli) dared to wander the home of Narthak. Despite their newness to this whole adventuring thing, the group made quick work of those denizens that called the halls of Narthak home. My own powers were weakened by Silhouette who's skills limited my ability to gather power (threat). Coupled with my inability to actually find monsters to spawn, and the group often was able to impose their will on those poor creatures within Narthak's home. I only managed to extract a VERY small amount of revenge when I was able to take control of Andira Runehand and use their power to create a huge fireball. Watching them all burn for a couple turns was quite entertaining and eventually allowed me to smite Andira. The others were quite a bit more trouble though. I certainly hope that should the group decide to continue their questing that they prepare to despair! The shall surely find the Brothers Durnog to be a significantly more challenging time.
-- Overlord

Ok, so we played some Descent. Since everyone was new, we played the intro scenario, to which we found the heroes much too powerful. Almost all my spawn cards were near the bottom of my deck, and since I was short on gaining threat, I had a harder time doing much to slow them all down. Matthew's tank was wasting everything and at the end, Niece long range attack was devastatingly powerful. Everyone seemed to enjoy the romp, so hopefully we'll play again - I'd really like to be able to play something other than the first scenario for a change. I even made custom dice for the occasion. One thing that has always been a pain is sharing dice. The FF dice are $7+shipping for another set. I was able to get a load of old Yahtzee junior dice on ebay for $5. A couple coats of paint and some time with paint shop pro and I was able to create labels. They turned out pretty decent I think.

Game Night

Friday August 28, 2009 Well, if you teach a game enough, you are bound to win it at some point. Such was the case with the first game of the evening - Chicago Express (or Wabash Cannonball as we technically played my version of the game). This evening I taught the game to Steve Bauer and Greg Perschbacher. Nathan Winchester and Noah Antwiller filled out the game (each has played before). I went into the game with no plan at all and ended up being the only player without a share to start. Lucky me, Noah sat to my right and began the game. Unfortunately for him, I stole the next share of red for $10, which was more than anyone else had left (we started at $24 each). Of course, that left me with enough cash ($14) to take any other share I wanted in any other company. Nobody left felt like null capitalization, so I got my second share of red immediately. Noah and I easily kept red from getting killed by anyone else, and it felt obvious that I was going to be able to win this game pretty easily. I pushed the game to its conclusion after about 4 rounds and won. Steve immediately saw that the opening bids had been much too high and I hope we get to play this again soon.
Next up for the evening was the old classic El Grande. The five of us sat down for this and added a couple of the expansions since I brought the Decentennial edition. I made the mistake of roaring out to an early lead after the first round and got a beat down from everyone after that. My only hope was an event card from one of the expansion stacks, which never materialized. Of course, I finished about as far back as one could. Noah and Steve appeared to be in good position for the end run, and Steve pushed ahead for what I believe was his first El Grande win.
Erik VonBurg had come in while we were playing El Grande, and when we were through, he and Nathan and I sat down to play a game of Torres. Nathan pointed out that I had taught him a rule incorrectly. He said that unused tower pieces rolled over all the time - phase to phase and round to round. I was sure that wasn't the case, but the rules indicated otherwise. Looking it up later, I discovered that the rule had changed. Honestly, I'm not sure why. The game was better when you felt like you had to use the tower pieces before you lost them. I got just enough of my good cards and was able to feed off both Nathan and Erik's castles for the win.

I Knew It!

So last night I'm playing Torres (session report coming) and Nathan Winchester tells me I'm doing it wrong - that the tower pieces roll over from phase to phase and round to round. I tell him, no they don't - that'd be retarded and makes no sense. Lo and behold, the rules support exactly what he said. But I'm POSITIVE that was not how Jason Sato taught me the game. And I'm right - apparently Kramer changed the rules. Which is dumb. It is a dumb rule change. Part of the game was always the decision over using points for moving and/or creating knights which not only used action points, but wasted some of your tower pieces. Now there is no waste. After about two rounds, you should have enough tower pieces to always place as many as you want in any round - which is full on retarded.

Something of No Interest

Fantasy Flight games now does premium card sleeves in multiple Euro game sizes. They have been doing standard CCG sleeves for a while, but lately there has been a market for smaller sleeves - eurogame sized sleeves. Currently there are two producers: Mayday Games and Fantasy Flight. Both are producing 59x92MM sleeves. Mayday originally came out with their version of the penny sleeves in this size (penny = thin and cheap) which pleased the Dominion crowd to no end. I was among those that purchased 500 of them (actually, I purchased 1000) for Dominion. Then I traded Dominion and the other 500 away. Why? I decided I didn't really need to own Dominion and I also decided that I didn't care for the super thin sleeves. I waited until Mayday offered a premium version of their sleeve (125% thicker) and bought a couple hundred. Since I saw some of the FF ones at the store, I grabbed some of them today to compare the two. So here is what I'm seeing:

• Both about the same thickness - they feel about same.
• The FF ones are larger. Not by a large amount, but very slightly wider and longer. Noticeably longer once you put a card in.
• The FF ones are clearer. Having said that, once I put cards in both sleeves, I didn't notice the difference, nor did I notice one being easier to read than the other.

So, which should you pick? Based on the above, the Mayday Games sleeves. Slightly less long and wide means easier shuffling. But here is one more reason to buy the Mayday games sleeves. A pack of 50 from Mayday is $0.13 cheaper than the ones from Fantasy Flight. Not a big deal, but if you want to sleeve the 1000 cards for Dominion and its expansion you save $2-3 (yeah, another 50 sleeves!). Both are available from the producer as well as through Boards and Bits (which seems to have the best price).

I Own It and I Played It

yep, I own Stratego: Legends. I even own the expansions Celestial Vengeance and Qa'ans Resurgence. I actually even played this game the other day. So what is it? Stratego is a classic board game circa 1947. Two players have a set of pieces with numbers (representing an army), some bombs and a flag. The idea is to capture the flag of the other player. The trick being, you can't see the value of the other guy's pieces until you attack with one of yours. If your number is lower, you win and their piece comes off the board. Find their flag and win. Run into a bomb and lose your piece. There are pieces that can beat bombs, but they are weak. The weakest piece on the board can only beat the toughest piece. So each player would set up their board to try and get the other guy to run into bombs or good pieces while trying to sniff out the other side's flag. Lots of bluffing in the setup and movement. I learned this game as a child - my grandparents had this one in the closet and I got to play it a bunch whenever we visited, so it had fond memories for me. When I first got into board games as a hobby, I discovered that there were a lot of new games and re-makes of older games (we are not talking about re-themes of Monopoly here - stay with me people). I discovered that Hasbro/Avalon Hill had created a new version of Stratego called Stratego: Legends. This version had a board with terrain that affected the game and came as tiles so the layout could be different. The pieces were also new. Not only did it have a fantasy theme, there were unique powers to go with the raw numeric strengths of the unit. How cool. And, I found out that there were expansion sets of pieces. So here was a game I remember loving with a whole set of changes that sounded awesome. I got a copy and tracked down the expansions. And then it sat on my shelf. For close to five and a half years they have sat on my shelf. But, I now have a son who loves to play games. And while I'd love to teach him to play Combat Commander: Europe or something equally cool, I realize that there has to be a certain progression of learning games (think along the lines of JOSHUA from Wargames) - you start with the easier ones and learn basic tactics and strategies rather than being overwhelmed. At any rate, I didn't feel like playing another game of Pokemon or dragging out the Heroscape stuff (though I do love me some of the comic guys for Heroscape) so I offered to teach Ashton a new game. He always loves seeing new games come out and rarely isn't interested. Well, I pulled this out, which he recognized as Stratego (which he had apparently "played" at school), but also knew this was different than the one he played. I explained the rules (which he grasped pretty quickly - it isn't a hard rule set) and we started to play.
So the first thing of note - this is not your parent's Stratego (or my grandparent's). As I mentioned, each side is a unique set of pieces with unique powers that allow them to break rules or behave differently depending on the terrain or who is next to them and so on. The bombs are replaced with spells that both act like a bomb (destroy the piece attacking) as well as the potential to change the rules (ever so slightly) of the game. Some pieces can fly (jump across the board) or move on the diagonal. Others can sacrifice themselves to return a different piece that died to the board. Also of note, the numbering system reversed itself at some point (which I think happened to the original game somewhere in the 70s or 80s). Lastly, you don't setup the pieces. You randomly lay them out. So is this a better game? The purist in me says no. The gamer in me says yes. You see, the purist in me is upset at what this game does to my childhood memories and what it does to the classic cat and mouse game. There is no tension in this version. The gamer in me likes the flavor of this game and the fact that games last about 10 minutes - that's right 10 minutes. Tops. Now, I could certainly see where a couple of really serious players could get some AP and sit there trying to maximize their plays and pieces, but there is too much chaos for that. Your best piece (10) could die - so what? No big deal if you have another piece that can bring him back. Losing it isn't the big swing you thought it was. Also, pieces can move diagonally, so the old "surround your flag with bombs" play doesn't really work. In fact, the setup is random, so you couldn't if you wanted to. So, this is actually an ok game for what it is. Where it fails, is what it tried to be. Collectible. Apparently, they tried to make it so that people would buy booster armies with random pieces to try and get people to collect the whole set of pieces. Having played it, I can say, "Who cares?" It isn't like a CCG where you can really build your army/deck and customize it - yes, you could customize it, but it wouldn't really matter that much. I'm sure it'll get some more play - my son enjoys the surprise element that comes with attacking an unknown piece and the joy when I attack his magic pieces and lose a good piece. In the end, it is the quick version of a classic - maybe it is perfect for those of us in the video game era of quick plays with lots of flash. I have lots of other games waiting for him when he's ready for something meaty (CC:E anyone?)

Heroscape News

Yeah, like I don't have enough Heroscape stuff already... Heroscapers.com has a couple of interesting things to report. Namely, a new master set is coming out. The new master set has "D&D theme attached to it. There will be an official campaign in the set as well as some new rules and new glyphs." Sweet. Heroscape already has a load of dragons, elves, knights, goblins, etc but it'll be cool to see some units based on D&D monsters too. Additionally, they are going to be releasing some of the previously exclusive figures. It looks like the Elite Onyx Vipers, Nerak from Gencon 2006, and Sir Hawthorne from Gencon 2007 will be made available as well as some re-paints of older figures as new units. Of course, combined with the 70 superheroes my son has (or will have in the next week) it'll just add up to more stuff I neither have room for nor have played. I can't wait :)

Space Hulk is Being Reprinted

Well, nobody thought it would happen, but GW is reprinting Space Hulk. The question is - should I care? It is a pretty good chunk of change ($99) for a game with some minis (unpainted), cardboard tiles and dice. Offhand, it sounds a lot like Doom: The Boardgame (which can be found much much cheaper). A lot of folks say this is the better game, but is it $60 better (or $100 if I already own Doom)? Doom is one against many (each player controls a single marine) where in Space Hulk the marine player controls a squad. Doom has a variety of foe type, while Space Hulk is all about one type. There is a GW place not too far from my house, maybe I'll get a chance to check it out, but I'm not sure I'm ready to dump the money on this one yet. If that's the case, then why did I bother posting this like some kind of fan-boy? If they reprint this, maybe there is hope yet for a reprint of Warhammer Quest.

Game Night

My friend Amelia Boli had something of a long day down in Tucson and after she finally got back in town, she and Matthew Frederick stopped by for a bit of late night gaming. We had discussed playing Agricola since it hadn't gotten played recently due to Le Havre being the game of choice so I pulled this out for us to play. We did a quick draft of I deck only items and occupations and got started. Matthew managed to expand his home very early and had his family growing rapidly. I managed to get a food engine in place only after a couple of harvests and didn't get an expanded family until WAY too late in the game. With his extra family members, the outcome was decided pretty early in the game and Matthew had no trouble whooping Amelia and I. At this point, I can't say that I prefer Agricola or Le Havre over the other. Both are similar feeling, but different. If I only had one of the two, I wouldn't be terribly disappointed that I didn't have the other.
We felt like we had another game in us, so Matthew taught us Yspahan. This Ystari game is one I have wanted to try for a while now (plus there is a single player computer version available). Basically, its is a tactical luck management game - the options each player has on a turn are based on the roll of a number of dice. The first player gets first pick and then the next player gets to choose from the remaining actions and so forth, then the turns rotate. After 7 rounds, the board is scored then cleared and you repeat twice more. In the end, luck is certainly a factor, but this is pretty short and was enjoyable enough (though I probably took too long deciding my actions). Matthew's first roll of the game netted him a load of camels which he bankrolled into a couple of buildings which gave him an early advantage. After the second round, we had zero chance of catching him. In fact, I scored only enough in the last round to tie his second round score.

Catching Up (part II)

So what if this post has a different title? The night was July 24th and I headed over to the Gamer's Inn for a bit of gaming. I started the night with a game of Excape with Matt Cullinan and Noah Antwiller. Good starter for the night while we waited for others to show up. I started out well, but rolled into crap and Noah outlasted us for the win. Next I pulled out the Flaschenteufel (Bottle Imp) for the three of us. This is supposed to be an excellent three player trick taking game. It may be, but it was a bit confusing the first go round. We all kind of played in a daze. I'm not sure I can even explain it, but basically there is a bottle that you don't want to end up with. Get it and you score negative. The bottle comes to you if you play a low card - lower than the current bottle "price". The trick is to ditch your low cards under someone elses, but to do so means giving someone else points. I need to try it again I think. Luckily we had some arrivals and we called it after one hand - my brain was tired. Next up, we played a very long game of Power Grid. Not only did we play the China map, we played it with 6-players. Noah, Matt and I were joined by Amelia Boli, Matthew Frederick and (new to me) Jeff Stafford. Despite being brain dead, I played a good game until the very last round, when I attempted to raise the bidding on Amelia and got stuck buying a plant that cost me the ability to get the 14th city I needed to be in it at the end. Jeff snuck in a tie-breaker win by $1.
Next up - a little play testing of Cow Tipping by Matthew Frederick. This one should be published this year or next, but there is still a little development work going on, so we tried out some variants to see how they played out. I won't go into them and since this was the first I ever played of the game, I can't say how it compares to the game's previous rule set. It was light and fun and we played it straight up and in partnerships.
The last game of the night was one that I had just picked up from the Game Depot that afternoon on impulse - Tales of the Arabian Nights. I only knew that it was a storytelling game and was astonished by the pure weight of the box. When you open the box, you find a nice set of game bits and the source of the weight - the story book. The game is literally a choose your own adventure "game" (man I loved those as a kid). Set in the Arabian Nights fictional accounts, you journey around the world on adventures gaining "points" towards your secret goals. As you move around the board, you have adventures that are influenced by a bit of randomness and your choice on how you play the story out. My story had me starting out on the wrong foot and I was being PURSUED by Brigands for quite a while. I also went insane, was super envious of everyone, injured, blessed and so forth. For all my stories, I was getting nowhere in the game. IIRC, Noah was able to win sometime in the early morning. So what do I think? I think the game does a great job of telling stories and immersing you in the setting. As a GAME, its pretty simple and luck filled. As an experience, it is well done and fun. Not one I'd pull out all the time, but one I enjoyed and plan to play a bit more.

The Long Awaited Return - part I

Blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah! WTF?! It has been since like July 7th? Where you been? Ok, I've been busy. Let us see if I can catch up on some session reports (assuming I can remember and my notes make any sense at all). First we have to set the Wayback Machine to June 19th. That particular Friday evening, I headed over to Erik Von Burg's for some early gaming while his wife went out for diner. We chose to play a little Runebound since it was only the two of us, and I figured it was a game I wouldn't normally get to play. Erik is a big fan, so that helps. We played the normal game (skipping any of the expansions Erik has). Erik ran into trouble right off the bat and died 2-3 times while I cruised around. I eventually got myself overpowered and on my second red encounter, killed the Dragon King and won the game. We headed over to the Gamer's Inn after that and snuck in a game of Tichu against Rob Smolka and Steve Bauer. Erik and I never seem to have any luck when we partner for this and this night wasn't an exception. We lost 1095-550. I'm pretty sure the match wasn't even that close. Erik took off and I wasn't sure if I was going to stick around or call it for the night, but Steve had brought along Space Alert AND a CD player, so I figured I'd at least try it out. Besides Steve and I, we were joined by Gary Passmore, Noah Antwiller, and Dan Brugman. This game is basically a pre-programmed co-op game (robo rally meets pandemic). The mission briefing comes as a timed audio track during which things are announced and the players scramble to lock down what they will do and when. Then when the allotted time is up, you play it all out and wonder how things could get so screwed up. We played the training mission (and won) to get the gist of the game. Then we set out to handle the Advanced Mission #3. We also won this, though there were a couple times we all thought that wasn't going to happen. Space Alert was dripping in theme and fun, though it isn't one that I need to play very often - I apparently am take it or leave it when it comes to programed move games.
Between then and July, I played a bit of Heroscape (always with Marvel Heroes and Marvel Customs), Epic Duels, Killer Bunnies (and Kinder Bunnies), Pokemon, Blokus and Doom with my son and/or the rest of my family. I did one session report on a Heroscape game already. For the most part though, I'll probably not detail out those. Suffice to say, my son has been earning new custom heroes as weekly rewards and he has a ton of guys now. I'm not sure I'm keeping up with my inventory. He still has another 21 heroes to earn and he's also getting another dozen or so Batman customs here in a couple of weeks for his birthday. As fun as Heroscape is, to me the comic book guys raise it to another level of entertainment. I'd be done with Epic Duels except for two things - Star Wars and 15 minute play time. It is sooooooo simple I can't believe it is so highly sought after. As far as Pokemon goes, I can't say enough good things. I managed to get a steal-of-a-deal on some cards off craigslist and have built 8 or so decks out of the cards and swapped some cards into existing decks my son and I had. Really, this is a beaut of a game. Deck building is ridiculously easy and the game plays out quickly and without fuss, but the variety of cards keeps it just interesting enough. I truly understand the allure of CCGs and have to force myself to avoid running out to buy retail boosters. The best part is we just have fun playing it.
Jumping forward to July 10th we find ourselves at the Gamer's Inn for another Friday night game night. This evening I brought along Timber Tom to try out. Steve Bauer and I were joined by Dan Brugman and a new player whose name escapes me. Timber Tom is basically a puzzle/race game played out on a 3D game board with some of the most overproduced pieces. It scratches the same itch for me as Ice Flow (another over produced race/puzzle game). It isn't a bad game by any means, but it just misses the mark somehow. I think it needs a minor variant to really make it a great game (I just don't know what that is yet). I managed to beat out Steve for the win by one turn, but I'm sure it was because I got a "wild" card that let me have a crazy turn of extra space movement and basically clearing all the obstacles from my path. After that was over, Matthew Frederick and Amelia Boli and I sat down to play Runebound (which they expressed interest in trying out). It took us a while to get going as I was explaining both Runebound and Confucius to another table of players. Eventually, we settled in and ran around the board. Amelia had a TERRIBLE streak of bad rolls (she was channeling her inner Rob Smolka) and died like a half dozen times. I think we eventually got to a point where Matthew and Ameila both conceded the game to me (I was the closest to winning and they had very little chance to improve their lot). It is amazing how much longer the game becomes with three players. Definitely a fun game, but its a bit of a reach past two-players. When we wrapped up Runebound and Confucius we all jumped into a 9 player game of Time's Up!. We broke into three player teams (I only remember Matthew, Amelia and I together and winning) and had a pretty good time. There are always a number of funny moments playing this game and this was true for this game too. Like Noah giving the clue - "The capital of Texas" and following that with, "No, the other one" after his team said Austin. Steve and Erik were on one team and got the card "Bill Belichick" all three rounds. The first time, Steve had no clue and Erik knew it as one of his original cards. After that, a shrug from Steve nailed that card in 0.5 seconds for the second and third rounds. Love this game.
Moving on - a while ago I got Caylus Magna Carta in a math trade. I had never played it, but heard comments that it was the faster brother to Caylus (much like San Juan and Puerto Rico). This appealed to me more than learning Caylus, but it had sat on my shelf until July, 17th. On that evening, Nathan Winchester popped in to pick up some games that had finally shipped to us from Boards and Bits and we managed to sneak in a game. The rules seemed straight forward enough (though of course we promptly forgot one rule). I enjoyed it and would like to play it again with 3-4 people as I imagine it plays a bit differently. Nathan pulled out the win 30-26 before heading home.

Whatcha Doin? This and that...

Summer is busy! Work, and 4 day a week swim lessons for the kids has kept me busy. That and taking advantage of my pool on the weekends, but I digress. Hey! Remember me? Um, yeah - cause you are me. Not likely to forget that. Why are you blathering on instead of writing a weeks old session report you still owe us? Owe who? Whatever. Cause I feel like blathering. Anyway...
Ystari games announced a set of expansions called... The Ystari Box (clever!). At any rate, this has expansions for: Caylus Magna Carta, Amyitis, Yspahan, Sylla, Metropolys, and Rio Grande announced it would include Mykerinos: The Nile as well. Sweet! Sweet? You dumbass, you only own two of those (Mykerinos and Caylus Magna Carta). Yeah, but I want Metropolys and I've heard Amyitis, Yspahan and Sylla are decent games. So? You still haven't tried any of them except for Metropolys - in fact, you haven't even played CMC (or the real Caylus). So? Never having played a game has never stopped me from buying! Less picking on me and more blathering!!
I finally got my copy of Timber Tom yesterday. For those that have heard this is a nice looking game and drooled over the pictures, all I can say is - the pictures offer no justice to what you get. I agree with the blathering idiot - it is pretty impressive. And I don't just mean that the 3D board is awesome (it is), but everything is top notch. The box is really sturdy (and surprisingly light despite its size). The cover art is impressive. The interior is the first time I have seen an insert that was perfect (ok, it might be a bit large). The insert is cut foam so there is an exact place for all the components. Player mats? These are the kind that one would normally make to "pimp out" a game - they are foamboard with cutouts for all of a players pieces. This is really a top notch game presentation. I hope the game is decent. I'd be really sad if this was a "Front Porch Classics" type game. Front Porch Classics? Like the three you own and display in your collection? Shut it!
Speaking of Cult of the New - I just can't seem to get enough Heroscape. Erik and I pitched in on an order and I finally got a couple of the Ticalla Jungle sets. I also got one each of the wave 9 set. I'll eventually want to get more I'm sure, but for now I'll need to see what these guys can do. This to go along with the two new castle sets I got. And the 4 boxes of Minions and Drones I found at Walmart. I thought you were all into the HEROscape thing. Give up on that already? Nope, not at all. But, I did get a pretty good sized collection of them. I have 34 more Marvel heroes and villains (on top of the 10 that come in the official Marvel set) and a common squad (S.H.I.E.L.D Agents). That includes the entire Fantastic Four, a rouges gallery of Spider-Man villains, some X-Men, etc. You have all the X-Men? Um, no. Avengers? No. Brotherhood of Mutants? Sigh - no. Magneto? No. Geez, really? You don't even have Magneto? What about The Masters of Evil? Well, you did say Spidey-Villians, so you must have the Sinister Six then... Well... Oh come on! Don't start in on me! There are a number of incarnations of the six and well, I just don't have Kraven or the Vulture yet. And now Ashton is asking about Batman guys, so DC is coming soon. What about Carnage? Ok, so all these guys are Heroclix guys - Carnage is a rare or some crap and sells for like $15 - a bit much for one retarded guy. Ashton is not getting Carnage.
Speaking of Ashton. Besides Heroscape, I got to teach him Doom the other day. Teach? I think he took YOU to school! Well, yeah that's true. I've read over and over that the marines get the short end of the stick, so I was going easy on him. I gave him extra armor and didn't attack him unless I was adjacent. I explained that he won if he found the red key and got to the exit. I told him I won if I fragged him 6 times. 6 is apparently a lot to him, so he didn't mind at all getting killed. It also helped that his abilities let him cancel three of my cards and let him walk through my bad guys. I killed him like three times, which I think just helped "jump" him towards the exit faster.
I also taught him Zooloretto. He doesn't understand the concepts fully yet, but he gets the basic mechanics well enough. Despite snagging males and females of all the species I had, I still only managed a point more than he had because I forgot to fill out my 10pt area.
I'm starting to realize that he can grasp the rules to games. I could teach him another dozen games pretty easily, but he hasn't developed enough to understand anything besides some very basic strategies (so in many ways it is like playing with Jerry, except that Ashton is 5, so I can forgive him - Jerry is just annoying). Recently we've played Epic Duels (which is so retardedly simple I'm not sure why there is such a big following - really, it is a basic game and skirmishes are 10 minute affairs), Runebound, Mutant Chronicles - there are a dozen more that are easily in his grasp I'm sure. You just said that. Yeah, I'm getting tired now. Time to end the blathering.