Game Night

Friday Jan 29, 2010 - Gamer's Inn
This particular game night at the Gamer's Inn was Robert Bolan's first night sitting down with us. Robert is one of my co-workers who I convinced to come out to join us. In addition, Nathan Winchester and Matt Longieliere and his wife Liz Longieliere were present. We started the night out with a little Ticket to Ride. We simply played the base game, as I realized my 1910 cards were at home. However I did bring my Mayday Deluxe Train set, so we all played with the wooden trains in stead of plastic. Whooooo whooooo! The game chugged along at a steady pace, with the only thing of note was Matt taking tickets early and often. Myself, I ended up connecting San Francisco to LA to New york and Atlanta. I took a couple more tickets, but mostly started throwing out sets of cards to extend the length of my line. When we finally added it all up, I felt like I was in pretty good shape - all my tickets were done (and I had some good ones), I beat out Nathan by a couple of trains for the longest line, but ended up in a tie with Matt. As it turns out, the tiebreaker is number of tickets. It looked like Matt had about half the deck of tickets, so he easily won that tie breaker.
Next up I pulled out Age of Empires III.This is a game I always really enjoy, but don't play half as much as I should. I ended up last in the turn order to start the game and didn't have much in the way of options, so I grabbed a number of specialists and loaded up the discovery section. I also purchased a capital building to give me an extra colonist a turn. In the next round I sent a number of guys to the new world and did a discovery. By this time, Matt had cornered the ships and goods (he had a merchant or captain each turn) and was not letting anyone else in on his action. Liz had a captain in the discovery box each round and thus it looked like she'd be my main competition for discoveries. Nathan didn't seem to settle on a particular strategy and when he committed to making some discoveries, had a run of bad luck losing to the natives three times. Robert also didn't quite settle on a strategy until the end of the game when it was to little too late. I dove head first into sending a bazillion folks over to the new world using the missionaries and the Cathedral (making each missionary worth three colonists). I was a bit worried about Matt and all the goods and ships he had, but his devotion to that as nearly his only victory point engine was his undoing. Robert sent soldiers over to the new world to thin me out, but it wasn't until the last two rounds he was able to start his ethnic cleansing. By that time, I had a good lead in points and enough people that I was able to weather most of his efforts. I was fairly certain that I had screwed myself in round three of the game, so was surprised I won. In the third round I had the chance to buy the capital giving me an immediate $20 - I also had a chance to place a guy to give me two buildings. Instead, I placed my last worker in discoveries and built a different building. What I realized right after I did it was that I needed to go with my original plan so that I'd have the extra cash to purchase a capital right away at the start of the second age. Instead, I headed into round four with $4 (not the $14 I needed). I was so frustrated that I was playing so poorly, but stuck with it and did well enough to win. Sometimes you just need a little stick-with-it-ness. Final scores were: me 87, Matt 72, Liz 71, Nathan 68, Robert 42
We ended the night by playing a little Frank's Zoo. It has been forever since I've played this (I looked it up and it has been nearly three years since I've played this little gem). Everyone else was new to the game, so I went over how the game works and we began. For the entire game, Matt was able to always be in the right place at the right time - not only going out first, but grabbing those stacks of cards loaded with lions and hedgehogs. It took about 4 hands for Matt to win the game and nobody else was even close.

Blah Blah Blah

Hola! Time again for another installment of "Things of No Interest". Now that I've had a chance to play Through the Ages (albeit the neutered version), I noticed that I've played 9 of the top 10 games on the BGG. The lone missing game? #10 - Caylus. I have not played #11 either (Brass), but I just traded Atlantic Star for a copy of Brass. Here's the thing about Caylus - I don't care. I've played Caylus Magna Carta (which is Caylus lite) and it was fine, but not interesting enough that I need to play Caylus. It is just another worker placement game, which is again - ok, but do I really need to play it?
Speaking of trades, I managed to move a bit of the cruft from my collection in the recent math trade - lots of card games, for another core set of A Game of Thrones LCG (despite never getting to play it, I somehow feel compelled to collect the cards and build decks) and Burp. Burp is an interesting looking little dexterity game that should go over well with my wife and kids. Five unplayed (and never will play) card games for one doofy game I'll play with my family? Good trade!
Going back to Through the Ages - one thing we didn't like was the teeny tiny little round wooden bits. I thought that perhaps the game would be better served with some glass bits (and as it turns out, the original used glass). The game comes with something like 190 yellow pieces (which is 48 a person). I'm not ever playing this four players, so I think I can get away with just getting 120ish. Time to hit Hobby Lobby.
Also on the "upgrading" front - I recently grabbed a set of the Mayday Euro Trains from Tanga. I ended up getting 8 colors (if natural is a color). The trains are different shapes (as if that makes them more interesting), but the are lighter and thinner than the ones from Mayfair. That doesn't mean they suck, I'm just pointing out the difference. We'll probably use them for Ticket to Ride. Maybe UP.
At the start of the year, I created a list of games to get rid of. So far so good and my list is down to 13 (14, but technically I've committed to riding myself of one of those already). The urge to own every game has gone away, though I still have a chunk of games I have no urge to get rid of, yet never get played. If my collection burned down in a fire, I probably wouldn't replace a bunch of them. I should probably figure out how to rid myself of them someday. Someday.

Online Games

Had a chance to get in a couple of online games versus Nathan Winchester the other day. We started with a game of GIPF. Nathan managed to beat me pretty easily. Between not paying enough attention and just not seeing the board, I think I took all of four of his pieces before losing. We then moved onto Hive. Here things got more interesting. I (white) started out wanting to hold his queen down so he couldn't move it but I didn't want a repeat of our last game where we were stuck next to each other, so I didn't place my queen right after Nathan (black). Well, Nathan jumped on that and pinned my second piece (spider) down. It was looking a lot like Nathan was going to thrash me again, and I was simply doing everything I could to try and keep him from pinning me. The screen shot is a picture of our game at the critical point. It was Nathan's move, and he should have been two moves from winning, with there being nothing I could do to stop him. And then he goofed. For no reason that we can figure, he placed his beetle in the only spot that could help me. I jumped on that chance to move my spider and consequently, pinned four of his pieces. Suddenly, I went from being dead, to being in the winning position. Nathan tried to pin my pieces down, but he had limited options and I only need a couple of moves to finish the turn around. Nathan doesn't usually make mistakes like that, so I count myself lucky to have stolen this win.

Through the Ages

Well, I saw a post about Through the Ages being on sale a couple weeks ago, so I finally pulled the trigger. This is one of those games that has all the potential to be a hit with me - good word of mouth, good rankings from the BGG community, a following that loved it despite all the early quality issues and a designer that has shown repeated excellence. To top it off, it might as well have been called "Civ The Boardgame" (except that a huge suck ass POS already exists with that name) as it basically recreates the PC game experience. I have held off on acquiring this one for some time, as I wanted to wait for a "good" printing of the game. I've been reluctant to try and trade for it for exactly this reason. Early English versions of the game had numerous printing errors and poor quality components which were corrected both in fix packs and in later printings. However, the cost for the game was still ridiculous ($80) for what was mostly a bunch of cards. However, I was able to pick up the newest edition for $37-ish, so it was time to play. Luckily for me, Nathan Winchester is/was also a Civ addict and was willing to drop in to play it. Got out the game and since it was the middle of the week, we simply played the basic game to get a handle on the mechanics and since we didn't really know how long it'd take. The basic game was perfect - just the right introduction and length. Lot of feel for the game, interesting decisions, but didn't throw too much at us to induce AP. Nathan built himself something of a points engine with a couple of wonders, but never changed/upgraded his government, so didn't try for another building. I went towards a bit more infrastructure and was making lots of food and resources, but my few actions each turn limited what I could do. In the end, I banged out a couple of upgrades to help my score. Nathan had a pretty big lead, but I made up a lot of that in happiness score and strength scores. Ultimately, I came up two points shy of Nathan's 50 points. Today, I read through some of the advanced rules and now I'm really eager to try the advanced or full games. The corruption and happiness pieces are interesting additions to the already fine juggling acts you have to do, and the military cards sound like icing on the cake. I'm sure the next game I play will be really long, but I can also see where once you have a better feeling for it, the game speeds up dramatically.

Union vs Central

Nathan Winchester stopped by on Saturday night so that we could finally play Union vs Central (a winsome 2-player game). We actually started the night with me teaching him to play Thunderstone. I had just sleeved the majority of the cards and wanted to give it another go. We used the base set of village cards, but randomized the heroes and monsters. With two players, it was a bit different than 5-players - mostly because our decks got fairly large. We also ended up having the Thunderstone as the second to last card in the deck. This meant we faced and killed 28 monsters between the two of us (compared to the say 4 or so I killed the previous night). Still, it isn't bad as a two player, just longer than I expected.
After we sorted out and picked up Thunderstone, it was on to the main event of the night (and early morning) - Union vs Central. Union vs Central is basically a card game about building rail lines. Each player plays the cards in front of them as they build things from their deck of cards (each has the same 90 card deck). Like a lot of CDGs, the cards are used for multiple things. Cards come in multiple types - land (clear, rough, desert, hills, and mountains), land features (rivers and forests), trains, settlements (depots, town, and cities), and events. Also on the cards are the number and types of goods the cards can be used for when producing goods. Finally, you must use a card to lay track - the backs of the cards have a track on them. There are 6 types of goods in the game (iron, coal, wood, food, water, workers) and pretty much everything but certain event types cost you some amount of goods if you want to play the card. On your turn you can do one of 4 actions:

1. Dump your hand for a new hand (useful when you need to cycle through cards trying to find a certain type of card)
2. Produce - you gain the goods listed on a card as well as produce goods on any cards already in play that produce something.
3. Move - pay to move each train you wish to move. This action lets you maneuver your goods from place to place. Each train can move once a turn (if you can pay to move it)
4. Play a card - paying if required.

So the game is pretty straight forward. You need tons of goods because nearly everything costs some amount of goods to build - most things cost at least one of each type of good. Movement costs one coal and one worker and trains can only carry a load of six goods - this is critical, as you typically have to take along a worker and coal lest you strand your train once it finishes moving. So moving goods to the end of your line so that you can extend your track on future turns is basically what you are doing. If you can, you enhance the territory so that you are producing extra goods and making life easier on yourself. Of course, if that's all there was to the game, it'd be boring as hell. Oh no - about 1/3 - 1/2 your cards are SERIOUS "take that!" cards. And when I say SERIOUS, I mean the kind of card that make you want to punch the other player in the jimmies kind of card. Because it is such an arduous task to get the goods you need and move them about, and since train cards are in limited supply in your deck, losing the ability to move your train, or worse - losing your train makes your life pure hell. It also makes the game really long. The "short" game is played to 8 rail. After 4.5 hours of playing, I had 6 rail and Nathan had just finished his 6th (well, he finished his 2nd 6th, since I wiped out the middle of his track in a mudslide about 30 minutes before that). It was 1:30 in the morning, so I called the game a draw as I was dead tired.
So what did I think? There are one or two cards that are flat out unfair (worse than the dreaded Bear Trap in Twilight Struggle). The best way to describe the feeling of playing the game would be like playing Agricola. Your goal is to get through the 14 turns (at which point your farm should be filled out). However, the other players can do things to you, which cause the game to reset 6 turns. So, there would be a flood card that would kill all but two family members, take any goods you had, and destroy all but the first column of stuff on your farm board (BTW - that is no exaggeration on the severity of a couple of cards in UvsC). So, imagine trying to finish Agricola when someone can do that to you every couple of turns. And while it is kind of funny to do, it sucks knowing that is going to happen to you too. There was a one hour stretch where I frustrated Nathan to no end - everytime he moved a train, I killed his goods and left him without the ability to move any train he had. That or I just killed his trains. He had to cycle his entire deck just so he could get back to his train cards. On the flip side of that, I ended up cycling my deck to get the one card that could get rid of the bandits he played on me. The bandits were stealing my goods each turn and I couldn't ever get to a point where I could do anything. Once Nathan got his trains back and was ready to move the 8 billion goods he had stockpiled, I played the war card which destroyed all the goods on both player's boards (I didn't care as the bandits had taken all of mine). Not only did that set him back a bit, it re-stranded all his trains again. And so on and so forth - that's how the game is.
I won't say the game wasn't interesting or fun - it was both of those. However, after 4 hours, we each were only halfway to the goal. Whether we got tired of bashing each other or got focused on our own stuff I don't know, but we both knocked out the next two pieces of track pretty quickly. The economies of the game made it look like the last two track (to get to 8) were going to take a VERY long time to get out. Given the nature of the game and the length of time it takes, I'm doubtful whether or not this will get played more than once a year. A couple of other knocks on the game: it is a Winsome game, so of course the quality is a bit low. The card decks are nothing more than cardstock with black ink printing. You have to wonder how long they would stand up. The edition I got came with a set of 90 micro dice for the goods. If I had tried to play with those, I'd have killed myself or quit playing in 15 minutes. As it was, I had upgraded the dice to 12mm and it was still a bit fiddly. With six types of goods, I'm not sure chips or wood bits would have been any better. We got a lot better with them after 3 hours of practice, but it was a little annoying. I'm not sure I want to keep this one in the collection. I don't play a ton of two player games, and this one is long and vicious. I'm not sure I'd pick this over Twilight Struggle or Hannibal if I was going to play a really long two-player game. I'd have to really be in a patient mood to handle all the crap this game throws at you.

Game Night

Friday Jan. 15, 2010 - Gamer's Inn
The day started with the ending of an online game of Tikal between Nathan Winchester, Chester Ogborn and myself. Tikal is one that I haven't played in a while and it showed. Chester and I both missed a play one round and "gave" Nathan a very easy 9-temple early in the game. We were playing with the random draws and Chester seemed to get a large majority of the artifact tiles which I think helped him seal the game up. In the second to last scoring, he was scoring at least 15 more points from just the artifacts than I was.
The actual game night started out with me seeing and purchasing a game that had just caught my attention a couple of days ago - Thunderstone. Thunderstone is best described as a dungeon crawl / fantasy themed Dominion. Now I liked Dominion, but not nearly as much as other folks. It felt very much the same each time I played despite the various combinations of cards. In fact, the cards just seemed to make a game longer or slower rather than fresh and new. I have not tried any of the Dominion expansions, but neither did I ever want to. Thunderstone caught my eye and after reading about it and seeing the video review, I was intrigued. Much like Dominion, you build a deck from a common pool of cards. However, you build the card deck to fight the monsters coming up out of the dungeon. There are always three monsters (at different depths) coming out and if your hand allows you to beat one of the monsters, you can fight it and gain XPs (which are currency for upgrading your Heroes) and the monster card which then gives you cash and in some cases a bonus ability (like more attack). You also score VPs from the monster cards - at least they are often useful, unlike Dominion where the VP cards just clog your deck. The monster decks are randomly chosen, as are the hero decks. Then an additional 8 village card types (equipment and such) are chosen. I unwrapped the game and Steve Bauer, James Smyth, Noah Antwiller and Matt Cullinan (yes, it plays 5-players in the base set) joined me to try it out. The rules are pretty straight forward (especially since all of us except James have played Dominion) and we got down to the basics pretty quickly. If you hate Dominion, you will likely hate Thunderstone. I prefer it given the theme and slightly more interesting play. The game ends when you burn through the monster deck - you place a Thunderstone card in the bottom third of the monster deck which signals the end game. This means the more players there are, the faster you will get through the monsters. Noah wacked a large number of the early monsters, but Steve hit upon the right combination with his deck and ended up winning by about 6 points.
After we cleaned that up, Steve and Noah explained Hermagor to us. This was one that kept showing up in the AZ Gamer's top 3 ratings, which meant I needed to try it - so much so that I used it as the "base game" in a purchase I made with an online shop to qualify for a couple other discounted purchases. So what is Hermagor? There are two parts to the game: a somewhat complex auction/bidding round followed by a marker-placement-type round. While it isn't a bad game, it reminded me a lot of Thurn and Taxis. I'm a little surprised that this has such exceedingly high marks from the local group. Again, not a bad game, but I guess I had much higher expectations going in.
Nathan Winchester and Matt Longiliere stopped in and Steve and Matt C took off. Brendan Coffee also decided to join us, so Noah pulled out his copy of the Ave Caesar reprint. We ended up playing 4 races because apparently we couldn't get enough of screwing with each other - I swear a couple of fights were going to break out. What was readily apparent to Noah and I was the fact that this new version sucks. It is waaaaay too easy to finish. In fact, in a 6 person game, we never had someone run out of points. What fun is that. Well, it still is a laugh to clog up the track and make folks run to the outside, but there was no tension. I'll stick to Q-Jet thank you.

Battleball

Sunday Jan. 9, 2010
Ashton wanted to play something and suggested Battleball, which we hadn't tried in a while. He has been watching football a little this last fall, and asked about throwing the ball. I took a look at the rules and turns out that throwing the ball is pretty simple, so we decided to include that in the rules. I had a good run of luck with the dice and managed a total knockout of three of Ashton's men in the first half of the game which led to my scoring two easy touchdowns. He was a bit sad, but he didn't really play poorly - it was just one of those days for the poor guy. It is too bad this game is out of print. It is a good bit of fun for a simple roll and move football game.

Game Night

Friday Jan. 8, 2010 - Gamer's Inn
This evening started out with Nathan Winchester and I grabbing a bit of Indian for diner before heading to the Inn. There were not a lot of folks when we arrived, but shortly after that there were 5 of us, so Noah Antwiller pulled out Power Grid and one of the new maps. Two of the guys hadn't played before, so Noah started to explain. While he was in the midst of that, we had two more folks show up. Matthew and Amelia were also supposed to be arriving shortly, so Nathan and I bowed out of the Power Grid game and settled down to play Hive. Things were going fairly well, until we discovered that the game was going to be a draw. The last piece played would end up with us both being surrounded. I suppose it is fitting we played to a draw and now I wonder - if you can't play the queen first, and playing it second (as we both did) results in an easy tie condition, what do you play for the first couple of pieces? I still enjoy this simple and yet intriguing game.
We finished and were then joined by James Smyth and Doug Oppedahl. I pulled out Khronos for us as I wanted to try this again and Nathan had wanted to try this. I explained the rules (very poorly - besides being tired, I just confused a lot of things). The game was entertaining, but by the sixth (of seven) rounds, we realized how muddled I had done the rules. We forged ahead (playing wrong) and we all want to revisit the game, next time playing it correctly. I'm not even sure who won the game - Nathan or James. I still enjoy the concept of this game and really want to play again. Also, despite playing it incorrectly, the game played pretty quickly with four players - faster than I thought it would.
We finished about the same time as the Power Grid game wrapped up, so Noah and his brother Miles Antwiller joined Nathan and I to play Chaos in the Old World. Nathan played Khorne and had no trouble at all beating us up round after round. Despite our best efforts to block him with our Chaos cards, his were highly effective and he won easily with a dial victory. Miles played Slaanesh and must have been tired, because he kept missing Noah and I's hints about how to kick ass (if he had scored more threat, he might have kept Khorne in check. I was Tzeentch again, but couldn't get anything going as everyone seemed to make a point of bashing my cultists. Noah was Nurgle, but couldn't come close to matching Khorne's threat tokens each round.

Samurai on MaBiWeb

I fired up a game of Samurai on MaBiWeb (as it seems I do at the start of each year). Eventually joining me were Chester Ogborn, Mike Garrett, and Mike Gingold - all skilled opponents. I ended up being first and with my initial hand went for Kyoto (the double area just West of Edo, the triple). I played fairly aggressively and started winning a good amount and variety of pieces. As the game wound down, I had the lead in hats and other pieces. Chester held the lead with Rice and the Buddhas being fairly evenly distributed (in fact we all finished with three of them). Unfortunately, the game came down to the very end of the board and neither Chester nor I could end the game on our own. The end game came down to Mike Garrett, who could win one of two pieces - a hat or a buddha. If he takes the hat piece, he and I tie for majority (ie nobody has a hat majority) and Chester wins as the only player with a majority. If he takes the buddha, Chester and I tie with one majority each and I win by virtue of more other pieces taken (6-4). So, Mike was put into the unfortunate position of kingmaker. He took the buddha and gave me the official victory. Despite that, I think this was more of a tie. Had we played face to face, Mike's choice would have felt less kingmaker-like (or I think we could have agreed to call it a tie).

Games 2010

Well, 2010 got started when I invited a few friends over to get in a couple of games on the second. To start the new year I suggested we play Die Macher the "Daddy" of German board games (the first game in the BGG database). Joining me were Nathan Winchester, Amelia Boli and Matthew Frederick. Nathan arrived first and Matthew sent me a note that he and Amelia were running late, so Nathan and I pulled out GIPF. I have only played this little abstract game once previously against Nathan and apparently we played the simple rules. This time, we played the normal rules (which it appears just adds the double pieces to the simple game). Though I seemed to position myself well a couple of times, Nathan smoked me in short order.
Once Matthew and Amelia arrived, we setup Die Macher and Matthew started going through the rules. Having been through them now, I can see that the rules themselves aren't terribly complicated - there are just a lot of moving parts and steps to be taken each round. About halfway through the explanation I needed to see a turn being played and wanted to just jump in. We started the game and about halfway through the first election we all decided it would be a sample round and we'd reset the game to play. This was the best thing we could have done - if you have never played before, it is probably the easiest thing you can do to learn the game. In fact, if I had to teach this, I'd just setup the game and start playing, explaining the process and the possible impacts and choices you have. However, this is a deep game and just grasping the mechanics isn't enough - it is hard to understand the impact of each choice until you feel the flow of the entire game. We started slowly (with the rules and playing a whole turn for example), had some dinner and it ended up being most of the day before we finished our full 7 election game. Matthew and Nathan won the first election (something in the low-mid-twenties) and we over paid them for their victory. I was a bit surprised at how big an advantage that was (it was big seeing as how they earned much more money than they should have) and set my sights on the next election which was in the 50s and right before the biggest possible area (80). I reasoned I needed to win big to capitalize and position for the 80 in the third round. I did well and helped myself recover, but Matthew and Nathan ended up winning the 80 together. Amelia caught back up in the 5th election and I played really poorly in the 6th. I targeted the last election to keep everyone else from killing me in the National Issue bonus points, but nobody was going to catch Matthew. He won by close to 100 points. I was behind Amelia by 3 pts and Nathan was behind us by around 15-20. This was a fascinating game (which is hard to understand - "you liked a game about trying to win German Elections?") that is deep and each move impacts your game. Though it is a euro-game (lots of wooden bits and mechanics out the wazoo) the theme is not tacked on by any means. Everything feels like you are running an election campaign and it is really interesting. Unfortunately, it is also really long and not easy to teach. The Valley Games edition I have has an option for playing a 5 round (rather than 7 round) game, which I'd guess could be played in about 3 hours with players that knew the game. The full game probably runs 4-5 with 4 players. Definitely 5 hours with 5 players (unless everyone plays fast as hell, which I don't). Also, though the game is great, Valley made some bad choices in the art when they re-printed the game and it was hard to tell a couple of the cards apart (especially in the light I have in my dinning room). Those gripes aside, I'd like to play again, but I have doubts whether this will see me playing it again this year. Possibly.
We finished pretty late, but had time for something else so I pulled out my Treehouse pieces so we could try a game I've been wanting to play - Undercut. Undercut is a pure auction game where you bid your pieces (5 colors in three sizes) for more pieces. Each round, there are sets of pieces (each set being a randomly chosen small, medium, and large piece) and each player bids on one of the sets. Bids that are LOWER than other bids will win. The trick is - after you get pieces, if you have matching sets (same color one of each size - a tree, three of the same size and color - a triplet, or four of the same size different color - a quad), you must turn them in and score points. You don't want points and the values of the sets go up as each set is turned in. The game hinges on deciding when you can take pieces and when you can force someone else into taking something they don't want (just like any good auction game). The fact that the bidding is in reverse (lower is better) makes things interesting. It took us about half the game to grok, but it was really pretty fun (and short). Nathan managed to hang for the win while we all screwed each other (Matthew screwed himself).
On Monday, I managed to get a couple games in (sort of). I finished a game of In The Year of The Dragon online (MaBiWeb) with Chester Ogborn and Mike Garrett. Mike started the game going after the double dragon strategy. I went for the double dragon in the second round, but wanted to get the builder and some houses/levels going. Chester loaded up on the scholars and scored something like 9 points on them more than a couple times. I somehow managed 5 houses and 4 monks which gave me a huge number of bonus points at the end of game. Mike and Chester were close, but Chester finished by having to lose ALL of his people and he hadn't built up enough points to win before that. We were talking about the game a bit as we played (we had started this to see if I could get in a 5th playing before the end of last year) and I've decided to drop my rating on the game. I just don't enjoy it and there doesn't really seem to be a ton of different approaches to the game. After a dozen playings, I don't really care to play it much anymore - even online. I'd much rather play Notre Dame.
I also got to play a game of Pokémon with my son. This was my most played game last year and it is still quick fun. He started with no cards at all last year and now has close to a dozen decks which allows us a good amount of choices. I suspect this will quickly end up as the most played game of 2010 for me as well.

Another Back

Trying again. I went with a font that made the HASEGAWA a little easier to see (though lets face it, it'll be hard to see regardless - the labels are only going to be 1" in diameter. The image background is a bit cleaner and the dragon head sits higher in the frame, thus is is easier to make out above the numbers. I changed the denomination of the yellow chip to 500 instead of 2. Mike Garrett (aka the Fonz) suggested that the 500 might be more useful. I think he's right.

Return of the Chips

Yep, I got bored and went back to trying to figure out the chip designs. Here is what I came up with for the backs. It isn't the same artist, just a black and white Japanese dragon with "Hasegawa" encircling the image. I'm showing the original front designs I came up with too. I've decided not to put numbers on the fronts at all. Not sure I'm going to go with these or not, but after nearly two years of this, I should probably come up with some design for these things.

Things of No Interest

Checking the stupid old five and dime list. Seven games are at 4 (nothing near ten to even try for) plays and need another go round before the year is out. Chaos in the Old World, Chicago Express, Hive, In the Year of the Dragon, Stratego: Legends, Taluva, Tichu. Now, I'll knock Stratego off tomorrow with my son (which will make 4 of 5 five and dimes thanks to my kids).

Best of 2009

So for me, the Best Game of 2009 isn't limited to only games that came out in 2009, but rather the best new game from my Cult of the New 2009 list. This year I have a number of games that could make the cut: Pokémon Trading Card Game, Hive, Steam Barons, Combat Commander:Europe, Confucius, and Chaos in the Old World were all games I enjoyed an awful lot. Interestingly all of these games seem to have a very different feel, which makes it hard to choose one. It's like trying to say whether you like ice cream, chicken fried steak, or sushi better. Me? I love em all and they are different so you aren't comparing things of equal "value".
Steam Barons is a really excellent variant to Steam. Its complexity really strikes a chord with me, and I really enjoy stock manipulation games. I'm not sure how much anyone else in the group will want to play it, but I'll be trying to push this to the table again soon.
Combat Commander:Europe is exactly what I think a WWII game should be like. To me, this captures the feeling/flavor of the WWII combat on a small scale. The decisions are interesting and I really like way the cards drive everything. The game is so engrossing, you forget about the fact that you are playing with chits. I know some guys that dislike the amount of randomness and chaos, but I think it likely captures the true flavor of the combat. It is also just feels clean. Everything is driven with the cards and you don't have the crazy complexity of something like ASL. I really want to play this a little more often.
Hive isn't a game I talk about much or think about, but when I start playing it, I'm totally engrossed. It is both complex and simple at the same time. It is really a fun game. I wonder if this could be played by 4 players using multiple sets? I also like that the expansion piece is interesting but isn't required to make the game better. There needs to be a travel edition of this game!
Pokemon wouldn't normally be something you'd think of as that great a game and maybe I'm just swept up by my son's enthusiasm for all things Pokemon. Maybe it just satisfies my craving for a CCG / deck building game with its variation and yet simplicity. Whatever it is, this was my most played game this year. That doesn't mean it should be the game of the year, but it is one indicator that I enjoyed playing it.
Confucius was a game I had barely read anything about before playing. All I knew was that it had some system for giving gifts to other players that obligated them to you. There is more to it than that of course. This is at its heart a worker placement game, but the players have a higher level of interaction than most of the other worker placement games I've tried recently. There also seems to be multiple ways to score points and block other players. Really an interesting game.
Chaos in the Old World was another game I had not heard a single thing about until Mike Gingold emailed me to ask me what I had heard. Not having heard anything, I did some reading and discovered that this was a new FF game based on the Warhammer universe (which didn't mean a thing to me). What caught my eye was a set of unique mechanics and four asymmetrical forces. Initial reports seemed to make it sound as if one side or another was easier, but after playing this a few times it seems to be very well balanced. There is a good amount of randomness to parts of the game that can suddenly make one faction stronger or weaker and there is dice to resolve combat, but for the amount of complexity and options here, the game is quite fast to play. Not only is it fast, but its entertaining. The last one is why I've settled on Chaos in the Old World for my Game of the Year 2009. The game entertains me and I still want to play it. It isn't a brain burner that has me replying my turns and wondering what I should have done on my third turn differently. Rather it has a couple of - "that was awesome" moments each game. Like when you get a single die and roll multiple 6s (six is a hit plus another roll) and wax a stronger force. Or use your cards to completely neuter another player's forces. From a game I had never heard of to my favorite game of the year!

Cult of the New 2009

Here we go, the annual listing of the new games I played in 2009 and some brief thoughts. I played 60 new games this year. Most of them I owned to start, though not all. I currently own 45 of these - that's up from last year as I have made a late effort this year to play a lot of my unplayed games. Only 5 of these are expansions to existing games. I present these in no particular order. the games I currently own are marked with an asterisk.

• Pokémon Trading Card Game* - This was a game I got for my son as a reward system. It started out with two full pre-made decks. Worked out pretty well as he loves the game and the cards and pretty much anything Pokemon. I was later able to pick up a steal of cards (900 or so) for $50 from craigslist. I built a ton of decks and my son now has 10-12 decks. We play this a lot and I'm still surprised at how good a game is here. This TCG gets good marks from me because of the good variety and the ease with which you can build a new and interesting deck. There is a good variety to the cards, but it has become pretty obvious that newer cards have ramped up the power, making a lot of the older cards duds. That isn't terribly surprising given the evolution of the game over time, but you can easily tell why CCGs are money sinks.
  
• The aMAZEing Labyrinth*- Another "Labyrinth" game, this is a bit simpler than its Master Labyrinth cousin. Still a bit complicated for a 5-6 year old. Otherwise, if you like puzzle games, this one is fine.
  
• Cluzzle*- this party game was entertaining enough. I suck ass at making things with playdoh though. As with all party games - you need the right crowd at the right time.
  
• Mechanisburgo- This was a game I really wanted after I had read about it. It sounded super - lots of good euro mechanics and dripping with theme. Of course the real issue was in the icons. A bit much made for overload in trying to take it all in. After about an hour, it wasn't terrible, but our one and only play was also hampered by the fact that each rules question we had took forever to try and find the clarification. And a couple of times, there was a reference to something and we weren't sure what was being talked about. The real kicker for all of us though was the randomness. There was too much of it, especially at the end of the game with the super winning conditions that randomly show up. I liked this game, but it felt like it needed some serious house rules to be worth playing again. I traded my copy away.
  
• Power Grid - Power Plant Deck 2*- finally got to try this and I wasn't that impressed. I guess if you always played with it, it'd be ok. Otherwise, the changes in fuel consumption make for a different game than you are used to. With a lot of fuel-hungry plants, the cheap fuel plants are a huge advantage.
  
• Smarty Party!- a trivia game where the goal is to know just a bit more than everyone else. You don't have to know all the answers, just the ones the other players don't. The categories are all over the map: sports, movies, tv, McDonald's menu items etc. This one is pretty fun if everyone is equally skilled at trivia, otherwise one or two people can kind of be out of the fun (true of most trivia games I think).
  
• Time's Up! Title Recall!- I got to play both the original and this variant for the first time this year. This is a a great game that is good at parties as well as when the group gets big enough with the regular gamers. I think I like the title recall version a little more than the other.
  
• DVONN*- I really liked this game from the GIPF series. I kicked ass the first time I played it and was smoked the second. Fairly different feeling from the others. Good filler - it seemed to be quicker than the others in the series.
  
• Gem Dealer- um this game sucked. It is the dumber version of Knizia's own Ivanhoe card game. Ivanhoe is ok. This game was not and mostly the winner was whomever got lucky in the draw of the cards.
  
• Mexica*- Surprisingly, I hadn't yet tried this one from the Mask Trilogy. Played it two-player with Nathan and found a decent game here. I have NEVER seen this played at a game night, which surprised me a bit - this was a fun game.
  
• Pokémon Master Trainer*- I found this at a thrift store and was surprised to get it home and find it 100% complete. It is actually not a bad game for a roll and move deal. Like most Pokemon games, you try and collect a bunch of Pokemon so you can battle it out. This one lets you upgrade Pokemon, so trading with others (or stealing them from others) is likely needed if you want to win. A bit longer than I'm willing to play normally, but it does a good job keeping with the theme - and there are worse games out there.
  
• Senji*- We only got to try this once, and I mis-played a pretty important rule. We have not tried again for whatever reason. I should drag this out to a game night soon.
  
• Hive*- One of the great new abstracts I learned this year (and there were a lot of them). I really enjoy this one. I never feel like I'm playing very well, yet still feel like I do ok when the games are over. With or without the mosquito, this is just a good game.
  
• Kinder Bunnies: Their First Adventure*- I think I actually like this better than Killer Bunnies. It is faster, more limited, and though random, it doesn't feel as random as Killer Bunnies.
  
• Age of Steam Expansion - Secret Blueprints of Steam Plans 1&2*- I thought this expansion to AoS was alright. It takes away a bit of the direct conflict. The problem for me was that it was super inconvenient for everyone to hide their maps. I don't know - nothing special here I guess. I'd play it again if someone really wanted to try the maps, but I have other maps I'd rather try first.
  
• 2 de Mayo- an interesting two player game with "pre-declared moves". You write down your moves and then execute them (or not). Something of a cat or mouse game. I was probably a bit too tired when I tried this to appreciate it.
  
• Age Of Conan- Fantasy Flight had a really good year with Euro-Ameritrash games. This one was a good mix and a nice thematic romp. A bit longer than it needed to be, though not terribly so. I only had a chance to play it once, but I'd play it again if it was offered. Not quite good enough to shell out for, I'd trade for it if I had anything left to trade.
  
• Bombay- this game sounded ok, looks great and is short. Except that by the time we got done playing nobody was all that impressed. Then someone pointed out that we had the exact same scores we would have had if we had done nothing but passed every round. Blech.
  
• Confucius*- a really fun worker placement game that has a couple of unique mechanisms. This was a total surprise for me. I'm not sure what I expected, but I loved it immediately. The gift system is really cool and this needs to hit the table some more.
  
• The End of the Triumvariate*- Finally tried this three player game out and I think I'd have to say it is my three-player game of choice. Most three-player games suffer from letting one person kick ass when the other two enter into any kind of conflict. This game steps around that well and is really well balanced. An odd number to try and get played much, but like San Marcos, the right game when you do have three players.
  
• Ninja vs Ninja- Nathan and I tried this out while waiting to play Planet Steam. It is a goofy little two player game that was short and fun, though a bit luck driven.
  
• Planet Steam- I got to play this monster at the Geekway 2009. It is a heck of a good game and it looks great. It also comes in a monster box and cost around $125. Though it was good and I'd happily play it, there are other games in monster boxes that cost $125+ I'd rather try first (yes, I'm talking to you Antiquity). Though I'm serious - I'd like to play this again Chester!
  
• Qwirkle Cubes*- Ok, I admit it, the original Qwirkle has better gameplay. That being said, I liked the production of the cubes better than the original. The gameplay isn't that much different and the QC takes up less room so I have stuck with this version.
  
• Roll Through the Ages: Bronze Age- I was not all that enthralled with this one. I don't know why. Maybe because the dice sucked (our copy was really hard to see the images). Maybe because the game just isn't that interesting. I'd rather play Airships or To Court a King any day.
  
• Chung Toi*- This is sort of Tic Tac Toe, except that after you hit a stalemate, you can start moving your pieces to try and win. Nothing special, but it looks coolish...
  
• Combat Commander: Europe*- This was one of the best games I was taught all year and after playing I immediately purchased a copy. And there it sits on my shelf. Of all the games I have, this one deserves to see more playtime. I have way too many two-player games. My son needs to get older sooner.
  
• Hamsterolle*- This isn't a bad dexterity game. It isn't all that special either. I need to try Villa Piletti still, but I suspect that the whole concept of stacking/dexterity games is more fun to me than the actual games because I seem to rarely be entertained. Sac Noir might be the only one that I played that was really entertaining.
  
• Ido*- This is a very pretty looking abstract game that has a fairly unique mechanic as well as a HUGE footprint. The game itself is ok, but not exceptional. It might get to see the table occassionally, except that I need a truck to take it anywhere. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but it definitely doesn't just fit in the bag.
  
• Le Havre*- this should have been on last year's list, except that DHL somehow lost our shipment in German customs or something. By the time we got our order, we could have just waited and got it through Funagain or whomever. At any rate, the game is interesting. I'm not sure if it is more or less interesting than Agricola, but it is in the same vein for sure. At any rate - good not great and long enough that I usually would rather play something else.
  
• Steel Driver- due to the economy I chose not to pre-order/pre-pay for the Wallace Treefrog sets this year. After trying Steel Driver, I saw where this wasn't a bad stock game and ended up getting a copy. I ended up trading it away in a math trade later though. While slightly different, it scratches the exact same itch for me as Chicago Express - and I like CE better. That meant I wasn't going to ever bother bringing Steel Driver out, so I traded it off. So anyway - good game, but not better than CE.
  
• Die Weinhändler- Bobby brought this out one night. It is a set collection game that is semi-interesting and a little luck driven. Short enough that you don't care either way.
  
• Star Wars: Epic Duels*- I got this in a trade. This is a much sought after game that is out of print. I'll be honest here - I have no clue why after I played it. Yeah, its ok. Its Star Wars and you can play fights between different characters from the movies. Each person/group has different play styles and such, but its basically a quick (very quick) squad (three person squad) level "duel". Big whoop. My son likes it and its fast, so I've held onto it, but I really don't get what the fuss is all about.
  
• Go West- Dion pulled this out and I have to admit, it isn't a bad little game. Quick and with a enough interesting choices (kind of press your luck). Not something I needed to add to my collection of games, but I'd play it again.
  
• Runebound*- One of my son's favorite new games I've taught him this year. This really seems to be best with two players. It is just too long with three people. I'd want to kill myself with more. With two going at a good clip, this one is a fun little romp. It is a bit luck filled, but the cards have interesting flavor and there are tons of expansions to keep things new.
  
• Cow Tipping- I finally got to try Matthew Frederick's new game. It was super close to getting published and then bam! It didn't. Too bad - I liked it. I imagine it will eventually see the light of day - there is a lot of crap that is terrible that gets published every year, this should eventually see the light of day (because it is not crap).
  
• Caylus Magna Carta*- I still have not played Caylus, but Nathan and I tried this out two player and it was pretty fun. Not too long either. If this scratches the same itch as Caylus, I'm not sure I need to play the longer more complicated version.
  
• Doom: The Boardame*- I've kept this because it has always sounded like a good two-player game with a similar system to Descent, but in a faster play time. Tried it out with my son and it went ok. He needs another year or two before he'll really enjoy it, but he did like it. So did I.
  
• Flaschenteufel*- Ah the tricky tricky bottle imp. I didn't really get it, but unlike other trick taking games I didn't quite get (Control Nut), I want to play this again.
  
• Power Grid - Korea/China*- I tried China, but not Korea. Does that mean this should be on the list again next year? China was a good alternative, but we played with six and I really just don't like PG with six.
  
• Tales of the Arabian Nights*- this was a pure impulse buy and I have to admit I enjoyed the game a lot. There was the occasional gaff in the book, but not that big a deal I don't think. There was the occasional oddity - you can basically react any way you want, there is no penalty nor bonus for "staying in character" or anything and some of the status changes can really slow you down and or crop up pretty randomly. Despite that, it is what it is - a multiplayer choose your own adventure. Its more about the social stories then about gaming.
  
• Timber Tom*- Here is a game that is really nicely done. The board and bits are great and the game looks really cool. Sadly, the game is just slightly lacking. I'm not sure what it needs, but its just missing something. I think the problem is that there is just enough randomness to determine the outcome of what is otherwise a decent little game.
  
• Stratego Legends*- Here is a game that got killed by trying to re-imagine a classic game a bit too much. This version is better than the original, but I'm sure when it came out it got mauled for being a "collectible" (think CCG) style game. Truth is, they shouldn't have tried to even go that direction with this.
  
• Airships*- hey everyone, its Yahtzee! with a theme and stuff. No, its more and different. How about - Its To Court the King with a theme about building blimps...
  
• Medieval Merchant* - Here is a game I've had for a long time that is rated well, yet I've never seen played (until the night I brought it out). It isn't a bad game and I can't really compare it with much else. Yet at the same time, it doesn't have a totally unique feel that makes me want to bring it out a lot either.
  
• Mr. Jack*- Dion taught me this quick little two-player deduction game. I think it is a really clever game, though I don't have any clue how you win this sucker as Jack.
  
• Thurn and Taxis*- I got this years ago from Tanga (with an expansion). Despite the Spiel de Jahres and such, I hadn't seen this played before but finally got Bobby to teach me. And back on the shelf it went. It is actually not a bad little game, but it wasn't compelling enough to keep coming out while I still have so many other unplayed games.
  
• A Castle For All Seasons- I missed the hype on this game and was surprised to see a newer game that I had never heard of. After playing it, I found it an interesting game with an odd currency system that is the heart of the game. I'd play this again, but it feels like enough other games that I don't care if I own it (yet).
  
• Chaos in the Old World*- one of my favorite new games this year. It is fast, and interesting. A really good combination of euro and ameritrash. My only real complaint is the fragile cultist pieces just don't quite match the normal FF quality.
  
• Chicago Express: Narrow Gauge & Erie Railroad Company*- this expansion would be a total rip off if I didn't love this game. You know what? It still is a total rip off. You could play this game 20 times and not need any kind of expansion or variant. $30 for a couple of wooden bits? Seriously? Don't get me wrong, the expansions are nice little variants, but - come on!
  
• Dampfross*- I knew what I was getting when I bought this and I knew what I was getting into when I first started playing this. What I wasn't expecting was the length of the game (long). Nor was I expecting to enjoy the game as much as I did. Although the game was a bit long, it really wasn't bad. BTW, this game would never even get considered as a Spiel choice these days.
  
• GIPF*- This might be the best of the whole GIPF series. Nuff said.
  
• Munchkin Quest*- A tongue in cheek dungeon crawl. It really isn't a bad little game. It has some take that kind of stuff, so I can certainly see where a 4 player game could be a bit long. But, as a two player game, it was kinda fun. It might be grand as a three. Who knows, it could be good for 4. Or it could be too long.
  
• Why Did the Chicken?*- Ok, this is one of those games that is conceptually great, but you really have to have a funny group of people to play with.
  
• Atlantic Star*- Everyone says that Showmanager is the better version. I admit, the theme of Atlantic Star was lost on me. Since there was essentially no theme, this turned into a marginally interesting set collection game.
  
• Oasis*- I was surprised that this Tanga game was actually not bad. I'm told it really should only be played with five players. That's fine, it was light, but with a few interesting choices.
  
• Steam*- as an AoS fan, I really didn't expect to care for the changes offered here. Surprise! A couple of them are ok. It definitely takes the edge off a difficult and tense game and turns it into a slightly complex, but more mass-appeal euro. The new production mechanism is a huge leg up on the crappy original. The other changes make for a less tense, but faster playing game. My preference will be for AoS, but this is a good alternative.
  
• Magna Grecia*- I wasn't sure what to expect. This is a connection game that I didn't quite grok. The rules are pretty straight forward, but for whatever reason I seemed to not grasp this one out the gate. It isn't a bad game, but I can see why it has been lost in the shuffle of games since it came out.
  
• Khronos*- this is a clever game. I can't think of anything else like it. The rules seem a bit odd at first, but if you step back from it for a minute, they make perfect sense when you think of it in terms of time travel (which is probably why some people won't like it). I liked it and want to play it some more. There is a bit of randomness in the draw of the cards, but that could be toned down pretty easily with a change to the drawing rules.
  
• Sunken City*- another Tanga game I finally played this year. This is a race game. It isn't anything spectacular nor does it suck. It just is. Too bad, since it looks really cool while you are playing it.
  
• Steam Barons*- I wasn't sure what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting a variant of Steel Driver based on Steam system (since both are Wallace). Instead, this was a COMPLEX stock game. Steve Bauer said it felt like 18xx-lite. I liked it a lot, but this is not for people that can't tolerate AP. To do well, you have to be able to get a handle on what all the companies can do - what two goods are each company going to move and how far EACH TURN. Now, we are pretty sure that we didn't do anywhere near as well as we could have since we took a fairly "AoS" approach to our playing. I look forward to more playings next year.
  

Reviewing 2008 (yes 2008)

As it is nearing the end of the year, I thought I'd take a quick look back at what I had listed for my 2008 Game of the Year and my Cult of the New list. Last year I went with Indonesia as my game of the year. A pretty decent game, but looking back at my list of games I have to note that I've decided I like Chicago Express much more. What does that mean? Nothing, I'm just saying that I've played Chicago Express lot more than Indonesia. This year's forthcoming Cult of the New list has 60 games so far, so it may take a little while to write it up. You may think you know my game of the year, but I have 3-4 contenders bouncing around right now. Stay tuned.

Blah blah blah

Random things that have passed through my head recently (about gaming):

• My son asked to play Heroscape. I kinda want to play, but the desire to set it all up and have to put it away later is much much lower.
• Cult of the New count so far this year is around 60 games thus far.
• I played Sunken City with my son sometime or other, but I have apparently lost that play. I went back and added a play on some random date in Oct. I wonder how many other plays I've forgotten to add
  
• Forgot to add Khronos and Magna Grecia from Friday night...
• The new Steam expansion sounds pretty cool - new maps and a stock variant to the game. And yet... When I find something I like, I don't feel like looking for something new. That's why it took me forever to even try Steam. I like Age of Steam, so why would I need to try something else - I KNOW it won't be as good (and while I liked parts of Steam, I still like AoS better). I like Chicago Express, so why would I need another stock game? And yet, I'm intrigued. I'd like to know if I can scratch both the AoS and CE itch at the same time.
• I got a set of dice off ebay - something of an upgrade for the micro dice that came with Union vs Central. I have nearly enough for a second set. I need to play this game and see if it is worthy of a card upgrade.
• I ordered my BGG Secret Santa gift like a week ago from a Canadian company (since my target is in Canada) and they had shipped the gift out in like an hour. Awesome. The gift was wrapped (at least it was supposed to be) and included a small note about how Santa lives in the warm weather, not the cold North. I sent A Castle For All Seasons. I was able to get the Winter promo cards from Rio Grande for $4. I'll send those out with a card when I get them from Jay. That is about the extent of the clue giving and so forth I'm up for :)
• I got my Secret Santa gift this last week. Two really - a game and a card game. I peeked under the wrapper to see what the game was (so I could update my wishlist appropriately and so I can figure out trades and such up through Christmas). I didn't "unwrap" it though - it sits under our tree ATM. I didn't look at the card game. I was guessing it might be Gubs, but the box is more "double deck" sized (ala Tichu or something). Gubs was the only card game on my list, so either they re-packaged it, or I truly have a surprise.
  

Game Night

Friday Nov. 27, 2009 - My house. I hadn't intended to play games this Friday night, as my wife was going out and I was watching the kids. However, I got a call that Matthew Frederick and Amelia Boli were in Mesa, so they stopped by for a little gaming. We started out the night with Khronos, which Amelia had played a few years ago, but was new to Matthew and I. I've had this one for a while now, but hadn't got it to the table yet. Though the rules make sense for the most part, the concept is somewhat fourth dimensional and can take a little bit to wrap your head around. It is quite an interesting game with a unique theme - essentially, you control a pair of time travelers that can move between three eras (might, faith, and reason). There are three types of buildings which can be built and depending on where, when and what size they are when built, can effect a "ripple" through time - thus changing the face of other boards. In once sense, this is an area control game played on three boards. Of course, the time effects keep it from being that simple. I found it to be pretty interesting, though a little bad luck (and poor planning) kept me from doing better at the end of the game. I do like that the way you can change the buildings by doing something in the age of might or faith and it allows for some tricky planning. Though I understand the game, I might have a harder time teaching it. I'd like to give this another go though. I was actually thinking that an online implementation of this would be super, as it would make things easier to see - it was sometimes harder to "see" what your changes might do. Also, three seemed a good number for this game. It is supposed to play five players, but I could see the downtime being an issue as there is almost nothing to do when it is not your turn (though it is still interesting see the boards all evolve. Amelia won with 29pts, Matthew and I were close to each other with him having 22 and I had 21.
After Khronos, we decided on another "new" game in Magna Grecia. This was another game I've had sitting on my shelves for quite a while. This game is about building a network of roads, cities, and markets. Each round a tile indicates what actions a player may take, and the order that they will take them in. In this way, the players should fairly, though randomly, have the same number of firsts and lasts in the turn order and everyone is allowed the same amount of actions. You build up a network and try to make yours the "most important" by connecting to other places. You can piggyback on other players' places, but typically this costs you more than it does for them so you won't make as much. It was an interesting game, but it probably plays better with four players than three. In our game, Matthew and I were in early competition with each other and it somewhat left Amelia alone until later in the game - at which point she was able to take a lot of points from Matthew. I finished a distant third at 26 points to Matthew's 37 and Amelia's 42.
Despite my rather poor showing, this was a fun evening and I got to play a couple new games. I'd definitely like to play Khronos again. Though probably not part of the "regular" rotation, it's unique mechanics call for at least an occasional chance to hit the table.

Game Night

Friday Nov. 13, 2009 - Gamer's Inn. I must be getting old. It used to be that I'd want to hit the game night as early as possible to get in as many games as I could. Now I'm satisfied with getting in a couple of new games, or a decent old favorite. This particular Friday started with Nathan Winchester and I grabbing some Indian food. That has nothing to do with gaming other than I wanted a decent dinner more than I wanted to go play something dumb. At any rate, once we got to the Gamer's Inn, there were a number of folks playing games, and one table where someone had setup Android and was waiting for folks to join her. That didn't hold much interest for us, so we sat down and Matthew Frederick, Matt Cullinan and Amelia Boli joined us. Since we had five and I'd heard that was the ideal number for Oasis, I pulled that out and Matthew and Matt explained the game. The game is pretty straight forward and along the lines of Ticket to Ride in terms of difficulty (not surprising as it is an Alan Moon game). Like TtR, there is a decent amount of subtle depth to the game, which meant of course that I was not going to come close to winning. Matt was the first to place his camels, and since I was the second person to do so, I chose to cut him off. Amelia and Matthew then followed suit and cut me off, which was the beginning of the end for me. As is also typical in games where everyone bashes me - Nathan quietly did his thing and ended up killing us by a wide margin.
After Oasis, Nathan bailed to join Dion Garner in some game that nobody had played or read the rules for before. And though I like playing with Dion, I do not enjoy trying to learn new games that he is explaining/reading the rules to - especially a new Wallace game. So, Noah Antwiller sat down in Nathan's place and we agreed to play Atlantic Star. Atlantic Star is a card game where you are picking cards to try and make 4 different "sets". There is a limit to the cards you can hold before you must turn in a set, and sets that are all the correct color earn a bonus. And of course, your sets are competing with the other player's sets - the higher valued sets of each color score more points. We screwed up early on and didn't take out the first couple of sets turned in, which I don't think had an overall effect on the game - it definitely helped me out by a factor of NONE. This was my first playing of this and it showed. Matthew was the only player behind me - because he screwed himself up thinking one of the routes had an 'F' component (when it did not), and he had to screw his longest route. I ended up with exactly half of Amelia's points when we totaled it all up and she was declared the winner. This is actually a bit lighter and is probably a good gateway game. If there was one universal complaint about the game, it was the theme. Everyone else at the table has played Showmanager before (Atlantic Star is the remake). Everyone also agrees that the Showmanager theme is vastly superior to the "making cruise ship routes" theme of Atlantic Star. I didn't really care, but I can certainly see where the Showmanager theme would be much more interesting, as I hardly noticed or thought about the theme here at all.
After our cruise lines game was finished, I pulled out Chaos in the Old World. I really wanted to give 4-players another go. Matthew, Noah, and I were joined by Greg Perschbacher. I explained the game in about 10 minutes and off we went. Matthew and I both chose to play factions we hadn't before and so Greg was Khorne, Noah was Slaanesh, Matthew was Nurgle, and I was Tzeentch. About halfway through the game I realized a couple of things. Tzeentch starts slow and the hits harder towards the end of the game with loads and loads of point - evidenced by the zero points I had through half the game. I was very near corrupting three zones, which would have scored an enormous number of points for me. Nurgle is an early game faction - they need to score early and often before their zones get corrupted. Khorne is Khorne - they need to hit everyone. Period. Slaanesh needs to avoid everyone. Noah managed to keep Khorn off his back and was making a killing on the dial. After he had double dial'd a couple of times, we ganged up on him to slow him down, but he finished the game off around the 5th turn with another double dial move that none of us could match. I really enjoy this tactical game. Despite the fact that the Old World cards can really turn the game in favor (or out of favor) for a faction really quickly, the game plays so quickly that it doesn't bother me at all. Our playing was a whopping 75 minutes including setup and rules explanation. I've found playing three different factions to be fun and didn't dislike any of the ones I've tried. I'd happily play any faction in a future playing.
After Noah whipped up on us, we finished the night with a quick game of No Thanks! I took a couple of low cards and teens early on, then got lucky and connected almost all the teens together. This was enough for me to pull out a win. Overall a good night, playing two more of my games I hadn't tried before and playing two other quick yet satisfying games.

Random Game Thoughts

Random gaming thoughts while I wait on builds and stuff.

• I can't decide if I want to play At the Gates of Loyang. I've heard that is is better than Agricola and Le Havre. I've heard it has way too much downtime and AP. I'm pretty cyclical in my playings - I'll get out of playing heavy and long AP games, then get bored of fluffy games and go back. My recently played slate is fairly non-heavy (Chaos in the Old World, Atlantic Star, Oasis, http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/215, easy version of Steam, A Castle For All Seasons, Notre Dame), so maybe I'm just in a "lighter" cycle ATM. Right now, a brain burner would be ok, but sitting around waiting does not.
  
• Since I published my "unplayed" list at the end of September, I have played 7 of the 73. Not bad in under two months (really only 4 game nights). There were also three other new games (and one new expansion) that I've tried that weren't on that list.
  
• Still on the radar: Khronos, Imperial, Shogun keep calling. And Senji. And Union vs Central.
  
• I've now played Chaos in the Old World three times (once at each of my last three gaming sessions). This is a little rare for me to be able to get a game out and get it played each session. It is nice though - I'm plenty happy to report I like this game a lot and have found that other than the first game, this game is really pretty quick. This last 4-player game I was in really finished in about an hour after we explained the game. It is interesting - each faction not only plays differently, but is paced differently. Slanesh and Khorne have a steady feel to them. Tzeentch starts slow, but can really come on when the areas get corrupted. Nurgle needs to jump out of the gate early before the populous areas disappear from the board. The only problem I have with the game is that the Old World cards can really tip the game. Everyone has to understand this and really work together to bash the player that has an advantage. In our last game, there were no heroes on the board to slow down Slanesh and that player had two turns of awesomeness, which was too many. Other than that, this is good fun in a short amount of time.
• I lied - I have one other complaint. In three games, at least two of the cultists have had their standards broken off. Cool looking - yes, but the flimsy little things were never going to last. That's obvious. Why did they bother with that design?
• Mayfair is releasing an "upgrade" set of locomotives for Steam - for $25 ($20 at an online retailer). That's about $0.14 for each little wooden train (which is not terrible). While I'm happy with the disks, I know that the market for upgrade bits has taken off a little (as evidenced by Agricola). Now, I'm all for the little bits upgrades, but really - $25?

Where to Roll the Dice

Ok, a little while back, I saw a post on the BGG about a free dice tower. I sent off a reply and was one of the lucky ones, so I'm finally getting around to talking about the tower in full. First off, the point of a dice tower is two-fold. First the thing should "roll" the dice such that it would be impossible for someone to cheat. Secondly, it should keep the dice confined so that they aren't flying off the table or across the board and disturbing the pieces. Beyond that, a dice tower is really just for show. So, how well does the cardboard "Dice Turret" work? It works well. The cardboard is sufficiently thick and scored such that folding and assembling the thing is pretty easy. The instructions are a bit hard to follow at first, but the designer put together a youtube video that shows how easy the thing is to assemble and it really was. It handles a load of dice well and keeps everything in play (though I didn't drop a D4 nor a D20). All in all it works well. Should you get one? They cost $10.99 including shipping. If you don't have a dice tower and play games with dice, this is a good choice. It's white cardboard, so you can decorate it however you like. Measurements are: Tower - 8 1/2" H x 3 5/8" W x 3 5/8" D, Tray - 9" x 4 1/4". Basically, not too big and not too small.
If you don't want one of these, what other options do you have? Well, you can just get a dice tray. I have one of those too - a tray from Deluxe Yahtzee that I picked up at Goodwill. This works fine for keeping the dice in place, but isn't as cool as a tower (and technically would allow a "dice handler" to cheat - not really a concern for me). If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I've made a couple towers from foam core. I liked these - they are pretty easy to make and sound pretty decent. I went out and bought a sheet of foam core to see how much cost and effort it would be to make one again. The tower I made was large: Tower - 10" H x 4.25" W x 4" D, Tray - 10.24" L x 4.25" W. Though my dimensions aren't much bigger, the size difference is a lot. The sides are taller too, which I found to actually be a disadvantage - its harder to see the dice. Cost-wise, my tower cost about the same or slightly more (foam board, felt pad, toothpicks, texture paint) and it took me much longer to put together since I had to measure everything, cut it out, poke holes, etc. Is mine "nicer"? Sure, but again, there is a level of effort that a lot of people just don't have in them. Also, the design of my foam tower is such that it doesn't come apart. A lot of towers come off the tray and rest in it, making it easier to tote around.
There are a couple of other commercially available towers that I know of. Blue Panther has a couple of wooden ones you can get. The under $10 one has almost no tray to speak of - I think I'd skip this one. Their other is about $13 wooden guy measuring 7.75" high by 3.75" wide by 3.75. I'm not clear if you have to assemble this one or not, but the price doesn't include shipping (unless you are buying $150 worth of games from B&B). I might order one of these to see what it is like. Chessex still makes a clear plastic dice tower for around $15+. I've seen this one and while it certainly works, I didn't care for the way it looked (it looked cheesy - please forgive the slight pun). It was also dinky. There are some expensive custom ones you could go for - wood, legos, etc. I'm not going to get into those at the moment. Anyway, for the Dice Turret, if you are interested, you can find them for sale on the BGG. They sound nice, work well and are really pretty quick and easy to put together.