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.

Hey True Believer!

Well, I finally got to play a little HEROScape true believers. Dr. Doom had put together a nefarious plan to use his mind control powers to take over the world. Together with his Doombot, Hawkeye and the Boomerang (whom he must have taken control of earlier - yeah that's the ticket), they plotted. The mystic energies of the universe lead Thor, God of Thunder and the Silver Surfer to a remote forest location (where there were custom made rocks) for a confrontation with the forces of EEEEvville. Dr. Ashton Von Doom sent Hawkeye to the front and through his amazing skills, managed to wound the Silver Surfer. The Surfer then flew to action and returned fire using his cosmic blast to force Hawkeye to his knees. The Doombot entered the fray, but was initially ineffective in the fight. Thor saw his chance to finish off Hawkeye, but the bowman used his smoke arrows to hide all the agents of Doom from Thor's ranged attacks. The Silver Surfer ended up wounded from later attacks by the Doombot, but was able to finally finish off Hawkeye and then retreated to allow Thor to bash away. Boomerang was able to maneuver across the forest and in short order had actually managed to take down the former herald of Galactus. Seeing his brave companion fall, the God of Thunder went to work, quickly eliminating Boomerang and Doctor Doom's Doombot. Thor then turned his fury to the mastermind of the scheme. However, the tables quickly turned as a nearly defeated Von Doom managed to use his mind control powers to take control of the God of Thunder. A crushing blow to the powers of good! We can't wait to see what adventure is told next!

The Hero in Heroscape

Hmmm. I'm going to need to do a serious comic book Heroscape soon. I've been putting together some customs of Marvel heroes (I have nothing against DC, I just went with Marvel first). I actually decide to use them as rewards for my son. He can pick any four guys at the end of the week if he fills up his reward chart. His first picks were: Doombot, Nightcrawler, Hawkeye and Boomerang. All the figures are from Heroclix. I don't think the sculps are as good as the Marvel Heroscape, but they fit right in. Maybe when my new castle sets get in, I can do a huge bridge 'scape. Here's the list of customs that I have cards for (using GreyOwl's customs). Some are a little random (I got one lot of guys and then a bunch of single $1 guys off ebay), but I was trying to round out some of the heroes (Fantastic Four - done, X-Men - not so much, Avengers - a couple) and some bad guys (my son knows most of the Spider-Man ones, so I got a lot of them). I have a couple of other figures that I need to change the image on the cards to match the figures I have (Electra, Typhoid Mary) and a couple of guys (Arcane, Avalanche, Destiny) that this guy didn't have (I chose to go with one designer of cards to be consistent). This group makes 34 on top of the original 10. Very cool...

• Annihilus
• Asp
• Bishop
• Black Cat
• Boomerang
• Daredevil
• Doctor Octopus
• Doombot
• Dr. Strange
• Gambit
• Green Goblin
• Hawkeye
• Human Torch
• Iceman
• Juggernaut
• Kingpin
• Lizard
• Mandarin
• Mr. Fantastic
• Mysterio
• Mystique
• Nightcrawler
• Professor X
• Rhino
• S.H.I.E.L.D Agents
• Sabertooth
• Sandman
• Shadowcat
• Shocker
• Spider-Girl
• Thing
• Thor
• Titanium Man
• Toad
• Wolverine

The Post Office is not the Only Winner...

I make a lot of game trades and my friend Mike "The Fonz" Garrett likes to point out that the only one coming out ahead is the post office. Obviously I feel ok ditching a game if I won't play it and will get something I will (even if I have to pay shipping). Occasionally a trade works out properly and I can come out ahead (though again, the point of my trading is to come out ahead in the "games I want" category not value). This time I did come out ahead. It started with finding a copy of We the People for around $25. I traded that for a NIS copy of Evo. I've been holding Evo for a bit now, but I received an offer for it the other day. The offer was for Liberté, an out of print Martin Wallace game (maybe someday we'll see the reprint from Valley, but I quit holding my breath waiting for anything from them). So, I'll be out about a total of $50 (including all the shipping) and have an unplayed copy of Liberté. Seems like a good deal to me.

Custom Heroes

Thor, Rhino, Daredevil, Annihilus, Hobgoblin, Wolverine, Sabertooth, Kingpin. These are all Marvel comic characters, and all guys that didn't come in the Marvel Heroscape set. Luckily there is a community out there that has created custom cards for the "others". The cards are easy - the figures aren't terribly hard either though. Heroclix figures are the target, and easy to pick up off eBay (unless I want to do Fin Fang Foom - he's like $80). So I started scouting eBay to pick up sets of guys. This time around I got the above listed group - $11.36 shipped for that group. That's $1.40 each, which isn't great, but I didn't pay more for a ton of guys I'd have to get rid of either. I'll probably work a bit on Spidey villains and allies, the Fantastic Four, and possibly the Avengers. I could go DC too, but for now I'm sticking to Marvel.

Gaming

Man, it has been busy summer - and we just started. I would have had this posted sooner, but the BGG was down again, so no links or pics were available. First off, last Thursday was a three-way Heroscape match. Erik VonBurg and Nathan Winchester came over and we ended up playing Bridge to the Forgotten Forest: Fall of the Dumutef Bridge. Erik had to hold the bridge against the combined might of Nathan and I. Armies drafted were - Charles: Minions and werewolves, Nathan: Sacred Band and Heroes to match, Erik: Dumutef Guards, Raelin, rats, Valkries, snipers and elven archers. Of course, Erik got reinforcements a couple of times during the game. This one was weird in that nobody drafted a ranged guy - a fact that we all missed until we started playing. Erik took advantage of that by getting some snipers later in the game, but my Minions were able to make a good push to keep Erik off the bridge. The team battle was fun and I got to see a few new combos. All I really see is the need to add more duplicates (more on that later).
Friday night was game night at the Gamer's Inn. The night started slowly and the first group of folks to arrive included Jerry George. Of course, I was in no hurry to sit down to a game with him, and I was waiting for Matthew and Amelia to get in a game of Confucius. After a while though, I got a note from Matthew that they'd be a little late, so I got talked into a game of Go West! with Dion Garner, Ray Morgan and Jerry. I had never played Go West! before and it was neither terrible, nor special. I kidded Dion that the last player (me) was screwed, because I was in WAY last place after a couple of guys scored the board. However, I shot out to a good sized lead and then held out the rest of the game. The trick was really to simply take the first and last territories and control them for scoring. Everyone moved the wagons off the last spot to keep me from scoring them (thus taking them out of the game).
Matthew Frederick and Amelia Boli had arrived as we finished up and they played a quick game of Balloon Cup while they waited. After everyone was done, I setup Confucius and we were joined by Dan Brugman. I have a hard time describing Confucius - it is a worker placement game with a unique little negotiation tool built in through the means of obligating other players to you through the use of gifts. There are a very limited amount of points to be earned in the game, so it has a nice tense feeling to it - I spend most of the game feeling like I either need another action, or that I'm an action behind everyone else and just following them. This game was especially bad, as I screwed up my first turn and then spent the rest of the games counting the number of actions I was wasting. The only thing keeping me in the game was that I appeared to be the only person using the student for the majority of the game (Amelia stepped in to steal it a couple times). Matthew won a close game with 21 points, Dan at 20, myself at 18, and Amelia with 7 points. I think we didn't do the bribery quite right (I don't think you can bribe and official that is un-secured by another player), but I'm pretty sure this only hosed me. The rules aren't entirely clear - I think I need to re-read through them. Regardless, this is a really fun game and might make my top 10 here after another playing or two.
After Confucius, Matthew and Amelia settled on playing a three-player game of Le Havre. I've been playing this a bit on the computer (as the short, solo version) and have found it to be a bit mechanical. Playing face to face (in a full game) is much better - shocking I know. This one is still a bit more mechanical than Agricola, but a good game none the less. This was only my second sit down playing of the game, but I was determined to get a ship (or two) as early as I could to avoid drowning in debt for food. This paid off really well for me (especially since Amelia took all the cattle). Though I felt pretty behind most of the game, it was apparent in the last 3-4 rounds that I had a decent shot. I was able to load up on coal and turn it into coke and then ship it and the cattle I had for really good money in the last round. There is a lesson there - if you build up the energy reserve and have enough ships, you only need to ship once, not lots of times. I admit I had a secret reservation about playing, but I did enjoy it and even got a win. Charles: 175, Amelia: 129, Matthew: 142.
On Saturday, I finished my first game in the online In The Year of the Dragon tournament. This was one of those games where everything that could go right, did go right. I was first player (I'll be interested to see how many first player wins there are) and took the dragon scroll x2. I never looked back. Of course, I'm not doing as well in any of my other games. I think I still prefer Notre Dame over ItYotD by a little bit. Saturday night, Erik came by for a quick game of Heroscape. We played Mirming's Lair, which is a two-player scenario where the first player to kill the dragon and get home with his heart wins the game. Both of us selected teams (rather than draft) and I got screwed. I pulled out a vampire and Major Q9 team. Erik pulled out a Blastitron / Gladitron + Deathwalker team. His soulborgs were immune to my most powerful ability. With very little in the way of power to combat Erik, my troops took their beating in short order. I didn't have the troops to contain him and he was able to get two attack glyphs and high ground that let his Blastitrons tear me up. It was a good army and has me thinking about how to best take it apart.