Whoosh!  The time has flown by, and this blog has been neglected.

I’ve played about 8 million games lately and bought about 2 million new games.  Well.  I’ve been busy with my gaming hobby…

The 10th Game Fandango came and went over Labor Day weekend.  In addition to a lot of games being played, I really enjoyed seeing old friends – some whom I only get to see at this game retreat.  My favorite weekend of the year!  Here is what I played, along with a few pithy comments:

Wabanti – An Edition Perlhuhn game.  Pure abstract.  Quite fun with 2.  I think a 3rd player might be even better.

Pond Hockey – While I still prefer StreetSoccer, this is a fun game.

A Few Acres of Snow – I enjoyed showing this to Rob.  He was impressed.  But this was my fourth play, and I keep finding more to like.  Seems like experience pays off big with this game.

Campaign Manager 2008 – Neat game, but ugh the theme!

World Cup Cricket – It was cute!

Inca Empire – Years later, I have finally played this game.  Quite good too.

Sumo Ham Slam – OMG!!!

Race for the Galaxy – My first play, and I can tell this has a lot of game in the box.  Not so sure its for me, though.

Water Lily – Great light game that is both fast and thinky!

Marakech – Love it!  Dominique Erhardt is becoming one of my favorite designers.

Fast Food Franchise – An old favorite.  But new players never love it anymore.  It’s era has passed by.

Tal der Koenige – The Pyramid game.  Years later, I have finally played this a second time.  Quite enjoyable.  I’m happy to own it.

Sumo Ham Slam – OMG!!! Again!!!

Brass – We finally taught Kyle how to play this game – and that with the rules gone missing!

Civilization (Sid Meier) – This was a disaster.  I needed to have re-read the rules before we got to the table.

6 nimmt! – Light weight silliness for a large group.

Mord im Arosa – My newest Zoch game seems to be a crowd pleaser.  People seem a bit too happy to find me as the murderer.

Golf Profi – I love this game.  I also hate it.

San Juan – A simpler version of Race for the Galaxy that I like a bit.

Can’t Stop – Nice game

Memoir ’44 – This is our annual Operation Overlord battle with 8 players.  I was the Axis commander, and tried to shock and awe the Allies by equipping our side with German headgear.  Sadly we lost in a real tight battle.

Siesta – It’s fun to see some of the locals warming up to this older abstract.

The Stock Car Championship Racing Card Game – Quite fun!

Tikal 2 – I liked it.  It has a theme connection with the original.  But otherwise is a very different game.

Cyrano – Perhaps the highlight of the con.  Poetry writing game!  We wrote doggerel, and howled with laughter.

Bohnanza – A couple of folks don’t like this much.  But many of us have a great time with this game.

Tally Ho – When this game works it is very entertaining.  But sometimes it just doesn’t work.  Fortunately both of these games were close and interesting!

Lancaster – I’m not sure about this one.  Impressive, and my opponents were really enjoying the game.  But I did poorly, and suspect there may not be enough variation in what you can do.

The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game – This is a hoot!  Don’t play with anyone too serious though.

Ave Caesar – Swerving and cutting off your friends in traffic.  What’s not to like?

Call My Bluff – The best dice game around!

Next time I’ll tell you about all the game that the mailman has been bringing!

Over the last week I was able to get in 2 different games of God’s Playground.  This is the Martin Wallace game about the invasions of Poland through its long history.  So in a minor way you might think of comparing it to Britannia – but that would be wrong.  There is no similarity in the play of these two games.

This is not a game I expected to like.  I don’t have any special interest in the history of Poland, and have never read the book the game takes its title from.  And in truth, this game is overly complicated.  The author chose to tie the game mechanics to the unique history of Poland (or so I assume, being ignorant of any details).  So while the rules around the enemies of Poland are largely the same for the Swedes and Russians, every other power has some special rules.  The Cossacks in Lithuania might fight with the Tartars.  The Ottomans will never accept a treaty, and will eventually attempt attack the Hapsburgs.  And the Hapsburgs… they induce so many special rules that I almost wish the author had not bothered.

But despite the heavy chrome, or maybe because of it, I really like this game.  It has a semi-cooperative feel to it.  In a minor way it reminds me of Red Empire, a card game from GDW years ago about the Soviet Union.  In that game players had to cooperate just enough to avoid having the game win.  The situation is different in God’s Playground.  You really can let Poland burn.  There is even a special rule where you can dissolve the parliamentary body (the Sejm), which would make it even harder to defend Poland.  But due to the unique rules around how enemies travel within Poland once they have a foothold, most of the time players will want to control enemy incursions due to enlightened self-interest!

The same day I played God’s Playground, I also tried Dominant Species.  Wow.  I kind of think there is a chance I will like Dominant Species.  But it was like trying to take just a small sip from the end of a fire hose.  There was way too much to process, and with three new players we were quickly aware the experienced player was going to wipe the floor with us.  Which I honestly don’t mind.  But it was clear to me that some of the players were not enjoying the game, which also limits my ability to enjoy a gaming experience.  So I will try again sometime.

But the dichotomy strikes me.  God’s Playground could honestly be described as overloaded with chrome.  Dominant Species is clearly a bigger, wider, deeper sort of game.  Is it simply my experience with GP that allows it to rise in my estimation, where my first impression of DS was a bit more shaky?

Recently I’ve been playing the online implementation of Memoir ’44.  And I gotta say that I’m enjoying it!  Despite our annual game of Memoir ’44 over Labor Day weekend, I have generally spent much more effort collecting this game set rather than playing it.

So it is nice to actually get to play some of these scenarios.  The implementation is very good, and the people I’ve had as opponents have ranged from friendly to polite.  I suspect I will keep playing this for a while.  If you decide to check it out I have the clever user name of  ”kevin_whitmore”.  Look me up and we’ll have a match!

Tuesday night Chester brought B&O back for another play at the game club.  I was pleased to get into the game, as I had missed it the other time he brought it.  I then proceeded to make a bone-headed first play.  So entirely stupid that I basically threw the game away.  I tried to be a good sport and just played to improve my position.  Which I did, but still finished a distant 5th in our game.  I’d be interested in trying again, but I sensed enthusiasm for this game has waned quickly.

In other news, I enjoyed my 10 minute game of Meander on Tuesday night.  I owned Meander back in 2001 thru 2004, but eventually removed it from my collection.  Seven years later I realized I missed it, so I now own it again.  I intend to hang on to it from now on.  It’s a remarkable game, for its chunky pieces, and that you end the game with a gravity test!  Check it out on BGG if you’ve never seen this one.

Chester and Alex came over today for a game of 18NEB, an 18xx game set in Nebraska.  As I have written before, 18xx games currently command the top spot in my gaming preferences these days.  But these games tend to be long, too long for a typical weeknight game session.  So I look forward to these occasional weekend sessions.

Chester and I had played 18NEB earlier this year with a visitor from out-of-state.  While I had won that game, I did not kid myself.  I had no strong recollection of being especially creative in that victory.  Indeed, Chester told me today he felt he had screwed the other player late in the game, which handed me that victory.

One nice feature of 18NEB is that is a compact 18xx game.  Generally speaking I seem to have some of the bigger and longer titles in the series.  We had holiday celebrations to conduct later in the day, so a shorter game of 18NEB fit our needs nicely.

Another feature of 18NEB is the brutal use of tokens.  I was the first to do this, but certainly not the last.  In this game small villages upgrade into single slot green cities.  I was operating the Misouri Pacific, which was stuffed away in a corner of the board.  To break out, I jumped on a small town stop of the Union Pacific’s route, upgrading it to green, and placing a token to ensure I had some additional liberties.  But this also meant I bisected the UP’s route, which I am sure did not please Alex.

The game has room for stock shenanigans, although we saw little of that.  The incremental capitalization of the railroads means everyone can easily launch a company.  I chose to launch 2 right from the start.  (I’m not sure that was the best decision, though.)  Despite the 2D stock market, I still found myself feeling this was much more of a route-planning game.  I like that aspect of the game.  With the more 1825-like tile upgrades for small towns, I feel there is a lot of room for creativity in the board-play.

I look forward to playing this nice title again!

I played Liberté for the first time back in 2004.  I didn’t much care for it, and I never got back to it.  I traded my copy away, and pursued other games.  As it happened, Liberté went out of print, but the author, Martin Wallace, began to build quite the oeuvre of games noted for their flavorsome themes, integrated mechanics and deep strategic replay values.  Liberté began to take on the status of a “grail game”.  (A game many people wanted but could not afford or find.)

Simultaneously I had developed an esteem for the games of Martin Wallace.  And with the passage of time, I realized my tastes in games had significantly shifted from where I was in 2004 when I had last tried Liberté.  So earlier this year, I was able to trade for a copy of this game.  As it turns out I ended up getting a first edition, which pleased me.  Apparently a second edition had come out, suddenly making this game no longer quite so valuable.  Whatever the circumstance, I was happy to get the Warfrog edition, as their spartan graphic style appeals to me.

So we played this game last week.  We struggled a bit to absorb the rules, but as is so often the case, we found the play of the game easier than expected.  Not surprisingly we did muff a couple of rules, but the game was largely played as intended, and if we play again I think we can correct our understanding of the rules going forward.

My original assessment was the game was a sea of color, and too much to process.  There are three faction colors and up to 6 player colors.  In our game we had just 4 players, which cut back on the amount to process.  For whatever reason, this time I was able to read the board much more easily.  So my chief complaint from before was not bothering me so much.  And thus I felt I was able to better assess what the game was trying to do.

My sense is that you are trying to ride a surfboard.  You want to be the chief backer of whichever political party is going to lead the government.  If that seems impossible, then you want to be the second honcho of the ruling party, or the head honcho of the opposition.  Seeing which party is likely to be on top means you have to assess the board.  Stacks of faction blocks topped with player markers quickly fill the board, creating a swath of color to decipher.  I would totally understand if a player declared they would not care to do this.

But I actually enjoyed myself a fair bit with this game, and hope to play again relatively soon to cement my understanding of how to play.

Just five of us at the Bistro tonight.  We opted to play Planet Steam, which was great, because we had not played this since last fall.  We had one new player, so once again we did not use the Expert rules.  This is a long-standing goal of ours.  But the game is demanding enough just to learn, so we would not consider foisting these rules on a new or inexperienced player.

I have previously tried to avoid Planet Steam with a full complement of 5 players.  But tonight I did not mind the extra chaos and the reduced number of turns.  In general, I think there is more control with fewer players, and  4 still seems like the sweet spot.  Since I had not played with 5 in a very long time, I needed to be reminded what the extra role available was.  As it turned out, I never got him.  The IDF agent, I think?  Anyway he allows you to select a free resource, even if they are otherwise unavailable; or he allows for a free space ship upgrade.  He was a popular choice each round.

Chester walked away with the victory, with me a small gap back in second.  I had a great time playing this game, and it still remains at the top of my estimation.  I currently rate three games as a “10″.  Planet Steam and El Grande are my very favorite evening-length strategy games.  1830 is my other 10, if a longer game.

Despite Planet Steam being a favorite, I have never sought out the various expansion cards for the game.  They might be fine, but they seem to be the sort of expansion that change the way the game plays, and I am not too keen to do that to this nicely constructed game.

Tuesday night was full of gamers – 12 of them in all – about as big a turnout I’ve seen in months.  We broke into 3 different tables, 4 players per table.

I played New Orleans Big Band, at the intrigued request of one of the ladies.  The game was fun.  I didn’t really rate it highly, just giving it an ‘OK’, but we enjoyed playing together, and the theme was very enjoyable.  In game we are all promoters trying to put together a band.  We scour the French Quarter (of New Orleans) searching for musicians.  As you find them you put them behind your screen.  Unfortunately there are several event cards, which are rather capricious.  We willfully ignored the “lose a turn” effects, feeling they did nothing to promote the fun.  Nevertheless, one of the players got hammered by the event cards, while another waltzed through with no dire effects.  After the game, I threw away one of the cards, a musician Black Kathy, who basically loses the game for you if you get her.

So while we had fun, and the game played quickly there were the problems I mention above, and there was very little of the game actually on the board.  In truth, it could have been a cardgame.  So the game critic in me dinged the game, while at the same time I found myself enjoying the experience.

I then asked if folks would be willing to play Tonga Bonga, as I felt it was ideal for the tastes of one of the ladies playing.  After a bit of shuffling we found our foursome and proceeded to sail the isles of Tonga Bonga.  I find this game endearing for its lighthearted presentation.  But it really does offer a nice game for the gamer.  Do you post high wages to attract better movement dice?  Do you become miserly, to avoid spending too much money, and hope other players are forced to give you movement for free?  I tried a bit of both, and squeaked out a close victory.  At 45-60 minutes, I find this game delivers enough game in a brisk way to keep me engaged.

Finally, with a couple of people departing, we ended up with a table of 6 players, and an hour left.  I proposed Der Fliegende Teppich, or The Flying Carpet.  This proved brisk, fun and popular.

A nice night of gaming!

I returned from a business trip, (oddly from a symposium scheduled over the Memorial Day weekend), just in time to host game Tuesday night.  As it happened, I played with three new(ish) players.  One had played with us just a time or two before, and a while ago at that.  The other two players were coming over for the first time.

I mentioned in my previous post that I like to match the games to be played with the interests and proclivities of the players at the table.  We stumbled around trying to figure out what might be a good fit, as we didn’t have any history together.  I ultimately offered Moongha Invaders, as I thought it might be a decent bridge between strategy and fun.  I think folks had some fun with the game.  Moongha is a funny game.  There really is some game to play – but the theme is rich, and it is entirely possible to play to just have fun, not really worrying about whether you are winning.  I think the rich theme disguises the game underneath.  Even so, while I like Moongha, it is just a fun occasional game for me.

With three new players, I wanted to mix things up, and find out what sort of games people like.  So I proffered Siesta, a damn good but highly abstract game.  One thing I really like about Siesta is the thoughtful play, the room for observation and brilliant moves.  Best yet, it comfortably plays in less than 1 hour.  Siesta seemed to earn a better reception than Moongha.

We still had time, so with a bit of time left we decided to play Saint Petersburg.  This is a classic Eurogame, and I don’t have too much left to say about it.  Saint Pete is an easy game to teach, and reasonably straightforward to learn.  Saint Pete was the best received game of them all for our table tonight.

A fun evening of gaming and three new players who were well met.  I hope to see them again across the game table!