Gaming goals - January update

[Skips obligatory excuses for not blogging enough]

So there was a challenge for playing boardgames at Therewillbe.games and although it was silly to expect me to play 10 games 5 times, I thought I should manage to at least once play 10 games that I received/bought over the past few years and were gathering dust on my shelf.

I selected Secret Weapons of the Third Reich, Gothic Invasion, Bioshock Infinite, Mighty Empires, Quarantine, Bemused, Blood Bowl Team Manager expansions, Who's She? (a kickstarter then still to arrive), Mission Red Planet, and U-Boot (another kickstarter yet to arrive). Secret Satan then gifted me 5 Cucumbers, Dairyman, CIA vs KGB and Nyctophobia, which I added to the challenge.


And in that kind of coincidence that isn't really coincidence, I already had a shortlist of painting projects lying around, which I then included into a range of wider gaming goals. So I added a number of miniature games that I wanted to concentrate on playing this year (you'll notice some resemblance with the painting projects):

• a Flames of War 15mm desert campaign with my colleague and his friends
• Dux Brittanniarum AD 789 (Anglo Saxons vs Vikings) at the club
• For Reign or Ruin (15mm fantasy rules) at the club
• Muskets & Tomahawks, French and Indian Wars or American War of Independence at the club
• What a Tanker with friends at home.

In terms of painting I had a few units for my middle war desert Italians for Flames of War that I bought at Crisis last November and wanted to add to my small army while we are still playing.

Late last year I also had bought a bunch of Footsore's nice Anglo Saxon levies to build up proper fyrd units for Dux Brittaniarum. The Gripping Beast Frankish warriors that I have used so far are fine, but not based very practically for Dux.

The Prussians are a small lot that would finish a Fusilier unit that I have sold to a friend participating in the Great Game: Waterloo Replayed charity multiplayer event in Glasgow next June.


The French and Indian War French regulars are to round off my small French force that I could use for Muskets & Tomahawks. And the 40K Harlequins are supposed make a basic team for Necromunda or a similar sci fi skirmish game that I have started on but not finished. These three should not take much time to finish.

Then there's three kickstarters that I supported lately: 7TV: Apocalypse which would combine well with postapocalyptic stuff I already have, the wonderful Killer Rabbits by the same guy who did the brilliant Triumph of Death Pieter Bruegel skeletons (shown above) and Galloping Major's Allies on the Frontier provincials for the French and Indian Wars. All should arrive this year.

And finally there's a bunch of projects that I might take up as I please. Stuff for What a Tanker would expand the possibilities of what I already have (like some 15mm British tanks to face my Italians). Overall way too many plans to actually finish it all.

I also decided to include my larger gaming projects. First the PolderCon convention I help organising, and second elusive idea that I have which would become an eclectic MODOSG (Multiplayer One Day Offline Skirmish Game) blend of Frostgrave and Warhammer Fantasy Battles. But that's still very vague and will take shape in the second half of the year.

And finally there's the ongoing projects of decluttering (or rather, making room).


Results in January:

Painting

I managed to finish my Autoblindas for the Flames of War desert campaign with my colleague and his friends. They have already seen the elephant as well! My Anglo Saxon fyrd for Dux Brittanniarum AD 789 are almost done as well, in time for the next game.

Playing

I've now played Bemused, Who's She? and Mission Red Planet. All three fun games to play in friendly setting. Had interesting conversation on the ladies in Who's She? with my girl so that's doing what it is supposed to. My friends loved the premise of Bemused that to take your adopted virtuoso to eternal fame it is better to get his competitors to succumb to doubt and dread.

So 3/14 after the first month on this track.

Managed two games of Dux on one Saturday at the club, 3 games of What a Tanker and one Italians vs Brits in Flames of War. That's also gotten me some way towards my goals (which I may have set rather unambitiously, forgetting that you sometimes can get multiple games in a day).

Projects

PolderCon is almost upon us (Sunday Feb 3rd) and it's been a real handful. Some last minute drop outs and the long run up (I've been cajoling hosts since September) leave me a bit deflated, but at least I've got my stuff done. Let's hope it all turns out well.

Decluttering

No real movement on shedding another games, books or miniatures, although I've lent out King of Tokyo to a friend who has been playing it with his daughters to great success. So I won't mind if it stays there.

The Master of Secrets Reveals

It's that time of the year again! Somewhere early January, packages start arriving across the world with over aged games and possible other turds sent to complete strangers. Yup, it's Secret Satan and this proud tradition started almost a decade ago at Fortress Ameritrash, now better known as There Will Be Games.

Of course the delays in delivery are all intented by Satan, including days waiting for neighbours to be home at the same time to finally get your hands on the stuff.

And then at last!

At last you hold the diminutive package in your hands and rip it open. Casting caution to the wind in case there might be anthrax in there. It seems not to actually be that bad....

And there's a message...

Well... you spot the fruitcake for me...

Guess these games will be added to my to do list for 2019. 

Milch und Gherkins is a famed game design by a secretive movie/board/computer games reviewer. I never understood that it was actually a composite game made out of two others! The genius had escaped me, but no more!

It will get an outing with friends and family, if only I can get hold off the rules....

I will seek a victim for some Cold War. How appropriate these days!

But my fear of the dark might prevent me from ever playing Nyctophobia. Perhaps some friends can hold my hand during the game, which is apparently played with sunglasses on...


Many thanks again to Satan for hitting me where it hurts!


The package I sent out seems to have arrived as well, but the receiver has not posted his ill gotten gains yet. Dommage!



Have a look at some previous Secret Satan gifts

Some good gaming going on

Ok, so I won a game, but that is not the most important in life. It's gaming with friends and that's been good lately.

The Christmas Offensive with the Friday night game group brought up Imperial Settlers, Conan and Scythe, finished off with some Coup. The Geer's slowly seasoned salmon for lunch.

And then dinner and drinks afterwards. Joyous!  

The end of year trip to the North brought a couple of games of Port Royal, Love Letter and Adel Verplicht (Hoity Toity) with the Died and Van Z. I love Adel Verplicht, it's got everything: especially the interaction between auctions, exhibitions, thieves and detectives.

Early January saw two games of Euphrates & Tigris with The Geer and The Died, in which I sucked. Luckily The Geer's excellent cooking made up for all that.

And apart from the victorious experience, last Friday also saw a return to Westeros, with the Game of Thrones boardgame. I managed to set up an advantageous springboard for success later in the game as the Martells, but was too far off to keep the Starks from clinching a sudden death victory making it all hypothetical.

A curious thing happened to me on Friday

Something happened to me on Friday that I though would never happen. I played a game I never understood and that I dislike.The few times I've played it, I always lost badly, the butt of the jokes. I disliked it so much, that when it was gifted to me, I suspected that my gifter knew of my dislike.

Needless to say, I gave it away again after some time. Unplayed.

But this Friday it turned back on me. As a late night filler, it was dropped on the table and I didn't feel in a position to refuse. So there I went.

And I won!

I made the right moves quite a lot of the time. It even made a ridiculously good round cashing in on Karl Gitter paintings. Then guided the advantage home safely with a nice splash of Christin K. paintings. Both not the painters you often see in art galleries these days.

Not sure if I could repeat this feat. Not sure I like the game more now.

But definitely not the worst start of the year.

Secret Satan has arrived!

Okay, I know, it's a bit late. But great nonetheless!

The idea started a few years back on Fortress Ameritrash, reversing the Secret Santa concept: send people some shitty stuff they'd really hate (and well, okay then, some good stuff as well). 2012 was a blast and 2013 included some intreagueing stuff as well.

I missed out on last year's edition and was mighty pissed off with that, so I sprung upon this year's. It seems that intercontinental delivery is a pain around christmas these days, because my package hasn't cleared customs in the US yet. Apparently serious backlogs there due to terrorism scares and new rules.

The packages may not contain soiled underpants (#truestory) but definitely some terrible games.

I'm gonna open these tomorrow. Will have a spring in my step all day today.

Borgia

It's been a long time, but I came back to playing The Prince: The Struggle of the House Borgia (sold as Borgia in the Netherlands) last week. The Italian renaissance has a strong attraction to game designers, it combines economic growth with art and architecture and intellectual growth. Princes of Florence, La Citta, Fresco, Leonardo Da Vinci and Medici are just some examples of games combining these elements. And that is ignoring all the games covering the exploration of the world in the same period.

But there's another side to the renaissance that attracts designers and that's the Machiavellian politics. When you want a game that has conflict and backstabbing as well as the above, the exploits of the condottiere and scheming of the renaissance popes offer a good background.

Not for nothing one of the games that takes this approach is named after the Florentine politician and philosopher. But there's others as well: Martin Wallace's Princes of the Renaissance and Borgia. While Machiavelli is a more detailed version of Diplomacy, the latter two games leave the physical map and use cards and counters to portray the expansion of power.

Borgia is the less complex of the latter two games. It plays in three phases where auctioning resource and action cards and attacking each other's resources make up the player's turns. The attacks can always be made on unprotected resources, ie they are not combined with a city. Otherwise it needs playing a condottiere card. They can be defended by playing condottiere cards as well.

The phase ends when all available cards have been auctioned. Then income is gathered and a papal election held, followed by a point tally. The points come from cities, famous artists and being chosen pope.

What proved interesting is that you can have a fun game threatening other players by attacking unprotected resource cards and then not play a condottiere card, hoping that the other player plays one, effectively wasting it. The downside is that you waste one of your limited actions and get nothing in return.

It became a very close run game in the end, with me losing by 151 to 147 points. I managed to take out a very valuable artist from my rival by stealing the medicine card of him first and then playing my plague card.

But he saved his victory by good defensive pairing of his stronger but less valuable cities to his artists and his weaker but more valuable cities to independent families that increased the defensive value. That meant that my condottiere cards were too weak to take them on and sway the game my way,

A sturdy game, but nothing can change my love for Princes of the Renaissance. Not even the fact that I suck at bidding games.

Return to Das Volk

Played a second game of Wir Sind Das Volk last Friday, this time as the Ossies. The game is quite unforgiving of mistakes on the East German side as it causes a cascade of negative effects at the end of a decade.

Refugees and police state all degrade your economy, then pull the foundations from under your living standard, which in turn degrades your industry. This means you really need to play the East very conservatively, because the cost of having to rebuild again is aggravated by the fact that your maximum is reduced, making you weaker in the long term. And the opportunity cost means that you lose the ability to put pressure on your opponent.

Needless to say, I got my ass kicked again this game. I'm still not 'getting' it.

A first taste of the people

'Wird Sind Das Volk' was the rallying cry of the protests that heralded the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the German Democratic Republic. In 1990 it was amalgamated into the Federal Republic of Germany, until then widely known as Western Germany.

The game by the same name tackles the economic and political struggle between the two Germanies and it does so exceedingly well. Using the card driven mechanisms popularised by Hannibal, Paths of Glory and Twilight Struggle, the game is mostly a struggle between an embattled communist economy and a capitalist powerhouse. Once the contrast between western luxuries and eastern austerity becomes too big, the DDR will collapse in protest.

But there are twists. The West is not without its own problems and protests will erupt there too.

As in a good card driven game, players fret about which card to play and how to use it. Each turn a player picks a card and decides whether to use it for the event or the economic points. The former will pull several levers at once (the inflow of foreign currency to the DDR, international prestige, socialist party cadres, protests, economic boom and bust), and the economic points can be spent on building infrastructure, increasing the standard of living or removing protesters.

And the fun part in a card driven game based on the recent past is thinking whether you can remember the historical events on the cards.

I like how some of the cards are a double edged sword, pushing you up one track and down another. Sometimes it's better to pick the card that can harm you if picked by your opponent, sometimes you have the luxury of choosing between several favourable cards. But luckily the best short term option is pretty clear in most cases, preventing too much analysis paralysis.

In my maiden game, last Tuesday, I left a weak spot that was exploited mercilessly by my opponent. Had I immediately understood the gravity of the situation I might have saved it, but I didn't see how. That left me on the back foot that left the DDR able to comfortably weather the storms of the 1980s, even if the Wall did fall.

Scythe

Played a nice game of Scythe last Friday. Despite the nice mechs, this is a eurogame with a possible tendency towards multiplayer solo. I may not sound too enthusiastic but this certainly isn't a bad game. It's just not the kind of game that sets my blood boiling (in the right kind of way).

Yes, this is the heavy big box release that you might remember from Kickstarter. And you've got to hand it to these guys: top notch parts and artwork and apparently produced in reasonable time.

There is a kind of story in there about a fantasy post WWI Eastern Europe with mechs, but who cares about that anyway? Just tell me what multiple paths to victory there are!

Well, you can score each of your 6 victory points by building all your available mechs, building, population etc etc, or score full marks on the happiness or power tracks, or fulfil one of the special conditions on your cards.

And of course, you can score points by winning a mech-battle, but then again, only two. Apparently, combat isn't a strategy in itself. And that's about the only interaction there is.

So it becomes a race who get his 6 points first and the good sign is that that it was pretty close last Friday.

Good chance that this will hit the table again sometime soon, and strategies may become more interactive and aggressive.

Essen 2016

We're a couple of weeks on, but no reason not to briefly glance back at what I learned in Essen this year.

 

It was a relaxed trip for me because I didn't feel I had to buy anything except simple games to play at night. This saved me a panicked last minute chase along the stands of companies that I'd missed. There were some good games and bad, but nothing that stuck out for me.

• Barcelona, The Rose of Fire, a hefty game about the late 19th century development of the city, pitting influential families against each other and homeless poor. I almost bought it but finally left because I hadn't seen the end game.
• The Grizzeld/Les Poilus, very nice cooperative game about survival  on the WWI battlefield (picked up by a friend so I've had a chance to try it again). Sad trivia: the guy who did the artwork was killed in the January 7th attack on the premises of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
• Beer Empire, a development from a previous version. A pretty streamlined eurogame that let's you brew specialist beers (to win prizes) as well as shitty lager in cans that brings in lots of money.
• Fabled Fruit, a very simple game with subdued graphics that I felt was overpriced
• Topoum, a nice tactical game, but overpriced
• London Markets, a pretty standard but pleasant worker placement game.
• Lincoln, an unpublished Martin Wallace design for a strategic game about the American Civil War. It's mostly card play and could use some more play testing. 

In the end I arrived home with: Pax Pamir - Khyber Knives expansion, Treatment, Lord of the P.I.G.S. and Rock, Paper, Wizard.

We played Treatment and Rock, Paper, Wizard at the hotel and restaurant in Essen. And I repeated that feat recently with friends. Treatment is a conventional card game with a nice theme. Rock Paper Wizard is 15 minutes of fun, and a nice cross of Cash 'n' Guns with a pumped up version of Rock Paper Scissors (as the name implies).

I've also managed two games of Lord of the P.I.G.S.. It focuses on the struggle between the conflicting interests of politicians, industrial and financial elites in the economically challenged countries of Southern Europe (ie Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain). The game proves a bit tougher to occassional gamers than I thought, because the turn order isn't intuitive, but I like it.

Only Pax Pamir Khyber Knives remains to get it cherry popped, but this is a promising score so far so I don't feel the need to pursue a project Spiel 2016. I'll focus on playing some stuff that's been gathering dust on the shelf. In fact I've been clearing out quite a lot of stuff from my shelves, but it needs to leave the house as well ;-)

Kicking Off The Essen 2015 Project

So with Essen 2014 project accomplished, we can turn to the Essen 2015 loot. I kept it down to six games.

The Ice and the Sky as well as 1714: The case of the Catalans were already tried in Essen, while Luchador was proofed in the week following Spiel. You be seeing that review in time.

But enough to do the coming months: my game group is clamouring for Pax Pamir, especially since they have good memories of Pax Porfiriana. It can take up to five players so should hit the table some time.

Migrato and W1815 are both two player games. The former for the kids, so should find a spot on a Monday afternoon. The latter looks like it will first need a try out sometime and then get a few more plays as I rope in other players.

Don't worry about me running out of games to play. First objective is to play my Secret Satan gifts before Christmas. That means Knizia's Beowulf, *and* the Remember Tomorrow RPG. I've got a nice job on my hands!

Essen 2014 Update: mission accomplished

After failing to play all last year's acquisitions before the 2015 edition of Spiel, the opportunity presents itself a week after going to Essen. Coincidence? You decide!

Last Friday's meeting we had 9 people turn up so we decided to split in two groups, which allowed First to Fight to be set up. It proved a good game. 

We approached it at first like a cooperative game, but it soon became clear that although all players are officially all on the Polish side, fighting the Nazis, it's best not to let that interfere with winning the game. And that requires you to obstruct the other players as much as possible, although there is occasionnal room for cooperation.

The basic part of the game is that you need Soldiers to complete Missions to score victory points. Every player gets four mission cards at the start of the game, which will last you until halfway through the war. You get a new mission once you complete one, up to a total of seven. Each mission has a date when it will be resolved and if you have the required amount of soldiers in the right area at that time, you successfully complete the mission and gain the VP.

These soldiers are cards that enter the map, can move around the five main areas and can be trained to increase their effectiveness. They can also be wounded when a mission is resolved, and healed if you have Nurses. But quite a few get killed during the game, so don't get too invested personally in any of them.

The turn is resolves around a number of action cards that can be taken à la Puerto Rico: every player can use the action on the card but the player who chooses it gets an extra benefit. However, an action cannot be chosen again until a player decides to refresh them all.

Every turn, a card is drawn to determine Nazi activity, which allows them to increase their domination in one of the map areas. In that area it will be harder to complete the missions. At the same time the turn marker is advanced by a random number indicated on the card. All the missions which fall within the time span covered by the turn are then resolved. This unpredictability adds considerably to the insecurity of completing your missions.

There's added chrome and side mechanisms that make the game a bit more varied, but the basics work well. It does help to know what missions there are (so you can try to get others involved in the same area at the time). So looking forward to another outing!

Spiel Essen 2015: … And I Played

This year I played more games than before.

• The best playing experience of all was Blood Rage. The game has the variety, screwage and unrelenting direct conflict that makes it a thrilling experience. It allows you to profit from defeat and steal the smiles from the victors. Add the visual appeal of the miniatures and components and this has the potential to become an Ameritrash classic.

• We tried Ships by Martin Wallace and although the game seems to work fine, it really is a development of many other games by his hand. Many mechanisms are familiar, some new and interesting. But in combination with the lack of player interaction, I finally decided against buying it.

• The Foreign King is an good microgame in the 8 Minute Empire school. Good interaction. Interesting theme of industrialisation of Belgium.
• Space Cadets: Away Missions proved an interesting game, with great miniatures. I guess the only thing lacking for me was conflict between the players. There’s so many full coop games, that it gets a bit too much for me.

• At Galeforce 9 we tried the new Homeland, which was quick and an interesting challenge with hidden objectives, but not altogether visually appealing. Then continued onto the Firefly game, which is very much a multiplayer solo pick up and deliver game.

• If you are hooked on Mad Max, you can’t ignore Waste Knights. The game makes no effort to hide its inspiration. Scenarios and quests make it a kind of adventure game. You want to like it, but there doesn’t seem to be a thread holding it all together.

• Better in the post apocalyptic genre is Raid & Trade which is exactly that. Your character runs around the board ransacking houses for resources to either turn into useful artefacts or trade with others for resources you need. I think there is a lot more interaction possible than we had, and I think it is better when you go after each other.
• La Glace et le Ciel (The Ice and the Sky) looks good, but showed some hickups on forst play. Need to try again soon

• 1714: The Case of the Catalans. Five allied nations face the combined might of France and the Spanish Empire. Don't let the old skool hexagon board fool you: this card driven game is good. Designed by a sick mind, as we have observed first hand. You will learn more about this game when we play it again.

And again it showed what a difference it makes to have good people explain the game with enthusiasm. The guy who taught us Blood Rage and the designer of 1714 both went out of their way to get us going. Likewise the guys at Galeforce 9 and Badger's Nest. It really helps to sell a game. Again the East Asian publishers seemed to fail in this respect. It may not be entirely fair to judge them on lack of language skills, but you only get one shot to sell a game. It's a tragedy if you miss because you can explain it well enough.

Spiel Essen 2015: I came, I saw...

This year's visit to Spiel was the most relaxed and pleasant in years. I hadn't prepared much, I didn't tweet and I didn't feel the need nor urge to play reporter. This meant that I chose my own path rather than to check out what might be hot. My list of games that might prove interesting was even slightly shorter than before. It may also have helped that we went home after the second day which saved us a lot of fuss in buying and preparing games for the second night and third day. 

Tomorrow I'll go into the stuff we played, but let's kick off with the stuff I only saw. Very much first impressions!

• Peeked at Shakespeare, but it looked like any Ystari solo puzzle. Nippon looked good, but also felt more like a puzzle, although I am open to be convinced otherwise.
• Bloody Inn and Scythe looked promising, but I didn’t get round to trying it or having it explained.
• I got Euro Crisis explained to me and it really sounds like a good game with the appropriate level of cynicism. As an international bank your goal in the game is to buy up as many national assets (the Akropolis of course!) as possible.
• I didn’t see Churchill of Triumph & Tragedy played, but they look like a lot of work to get in to.
• Waterloo: Enemy Mistakes came across like yet another tactical hex & counter game about the battle, with a hefty price tag attached. On the other hand W1815 provides the essentials in a 15 minute game with a refreshing new approach.
• Lembitu is a cooperative challenge, but the fact that it was advertised on the strength that the wife of the designer was so good at it because she is a mathematician put me off.
• Celestia is beautiful, but I already had my fix of kids games by the time I saw it
• Had a quick look at Haspelknecht, which seems fine.
• Sapiens has some interesting ideas, but the design seems to suggest it’s a kids game. I don’t think that’s the target audience.
• Bad Medicine is a party game which is more about smooth talking. But the fact that you are a marketer for a major medicine corporation gets you in the right mood.
• I think I would like Raptor, but too bad it’s two players only
• Fabulous Beasts was being demoed and looked okay, but I felt the addition of a tablet didn’t fulfil its potential.
• I was looking forward to the Age of Conan expansion, hoping that it would somehow breathe new life into the game. It was not available for demoing, but it seems to include a number of new miniatures, which were on display

It also dawned on me this time why East Asian designers are unable to conquer the European market on their own. We played a couple of turns of the disappointing Generalship, which remained stuck in abstractions and a generic game board without much added value.

And I would have been happy to buy Tank Hunter on a hunch if vital rules text on some cards hadn’t been in Japanese. To add a sheet of white stickers, which ruin the visual design, is not a solution.

The most promising was the medieval zombie game by the very friendly guys from Hong Kong, which was a whole lot of fuss in the wrong areas. There is no lack of talent and interesting takes on interesting themes, that much is clear, but so far only western editions of East Asian games have been successful.

Essen 2014 Roundup - Marchia Orientalis

With Essen nearing and the Essen 2014 list still not complete, in August I managed to slip in a game of Marchia Orientalis, or the Ostmark as the Germans would say these days. The Ostmark was on of the eastern border provinces of the medieval German empire, won at great cost from the Slav population. At Essen I bought the game based on the theme and the low price, considering that even if I didn’t know beforehand what the game would be like, at least I wouldn’t suffer much.

And while this not a bad game, it is also not very good. The low production values that result from the low price aren’t really a problem. The problem is that this game reuses mechanisms from other games, without adding anything interesting. There’s tile laying, with limitations on connecting tiles for which there are then some exceptions. There’s a central market, and some competition for different tiles, but in the end the amount of interaction is low. Worst of all is of course that it has nothing to do with the border struggles Middle Ages. The theme is just stuck on a bunch of mechanisms.

I’ll spare you the details of the rules. Suffice to say that there is an interesting puzzle in there which Gerard managed to maximize. I felt sorry a bit for Rob who had decided straight away that this was game was not worth his time. His plan to sabotage the game was foiled and the variable game ending drove the game to the extreme. But then again, I occasionally sacrifice myself in similar circumstances because others seem to enjoy a game.

The evening was not lost, however. Before and after Marchia Orientalis we played Port Royal, a simple card game that let’s you gamble on drawing a pirate ship type twice. On your turn you keep drawing cards from the deck until that event occurs, or you choose to stop yourself. You can then pick one of the cards and sell it for money or buy it for its special option. The whole game hinges on balancing your need for money, your long term strategy and opportunism. Surprisingly deep for 100+ cards and nothing else. And partially because of the gambling element, a lot of fun too. Recommended.

Anyway, Essen 2015 is on the doorstep and still one more to go. Problem is, it’s a four player game and we didn't have four players on any occasion in the last months. A luxury! So if that’s the reason why I won’t fulfill Essen 2014, well…

Essen 2014 roundup - 15 Dias

Well, only a few days left before Essen. As in the last few years, I'm trying to play all the games I bought at Essen before the next issue. A few of these games we managed to play right after the show (Lost Legacy: Starship, Unicum and Auge um Auge. We also had fun with Mat Goceng, Lost Legacy: Flying Garden and Verone.

In July I managed to play 15 Dias. We had six players (it needs an even number from 2 to 8). The game takes the power struggle between the Lerma and Olivares clans on the death of Spanish king Philip III as its starting point. It is quite a complex game for the number of cards involved, and it has a pretty steep learning curve.

The good thing is that it pits two teams (families) against each other, but that players also score individually. So there is an incentive not to use your best cards in the interest of the team.

It also makes both families decide on which type of power they want to contest the other family: through church, bureaucratic or court offices. Hopefully the choice you make is your strongest and your opponents' weakest, but you can't count on it. The third option is then used to decide the contest between individual players. Those good cards you would have liked to spend on your own advancement might therefore be necessary to support the family.

It was a good night that also included Mat Goceng, Love Letter and 8 Minute Empires.

Secret Satan Has Arrived!

Look what I found under the Christmas Tree today!

With not a little trepidation I removed the paper cover, revealing the dread...

NOOOOOH... not Beowulf! I was haunted by the Curse of the Returning Game! I gave it away a few years back, because.. because... well, because KNIZIA, you know?

Clearly, Satan knows.

Well... at least the rules were included. Not very Secret Satan 2014, but I count my blessings.

Hoping against hope that Satan was pulling a trick on me and just storing a box load of goodness inside, I delved further into Pandora's box...

Well, definitely Beowulf, then. Sigh. But hey, look at that! At least it seemed like there was something to compensate for the hatefulness that is Knizia.

Oh yes! There's a Lupin III comic: Satan knows I love that game! And then there's the Remember Tomorrow near future RPG! Satan knows I love near future RPG! And knows that Remember Tomorrow is the title of the episode of Jonathan Meade's show that I love. Satan is, it bears repeating, a man of wealth and taste. Obviously I haven't been all good this year

But there was also a reminder of the fact that I've been a good guy. Some computer games, showing that Satan knows I never play computer games unless I'm in between jobs or retired. Full Throttle, The Thing, The Unwhispered Word... well, I guess I'll have to be more of an asshole next year.

30 Seconds From Mars to Tokyo

Well, more like 8 minutes. And even that is understating it.

Last Friday we first started with Mission Red Planet, a Secret Satan gift that I had on my wish list to play for a year. We were a bit slow in getting to grips with the rules, but finally did alright.

Mission Red Planet is effectively an area control game. Although the player action mechanic copied from Machiavelli/Citadels works well, we felt that this game is more subtle and doesn't give you the satisfaction of pulling off a good on one your opponents like you can in Citadels.

We will bring it back to the table sometime, but it might turn out a bit scripted once you know the game better. I can see the Explorer getting used en masse in the 5th and 10th turns, with the Recruiter in the 6th.

Then it was on to 8 Minute Empire that is really liked by us all. Jeroen got a good introductory game.

Finally we played two games of King of Tokyo. My first game was really bad, not doing any damage before getting killed myself. In the second I managed to stay out of Tokyo for most of the time while acquiring a card that allowed me to recuperate faster. It meant that when I went I went into Tokyo in good health, I won.

The Mechanics of Violence

Interesting outcome. New research links aggression after video games to the mechanisms rather than violent content. So it´s the designers fault?

Could this also be true for analogue games? Are wargamers happier after a bout of crisp Black Powder and aggravated after a spell of Barkerese?

Do people feel less aggressive after playing an 'elegant' Knizia design and driven to rage by the disorganised, misspelled and obtuse collection of half sentences that the publisher of Luna Llena calls the rulebook?

I wouldn't be surprised.

Mice, Mystics and Empires

Spurred on by my lack of progress on the boardgaming resolutions for 2014, I spent part of last week reading the rules for 8 Minute Empire and Mice & Mystics. And Friday that made me the master of ceremonies for the evening.

And an enjoyable evening it was: we managed two pairs of empire building at each end of the introductory scenario of the cheese fest.

8 Minute Empire manages to get a lot a bang from its very few rules. Every turn you can pick one of six cards on display, with the order determining the cost of each card. Free for the first card, three coins for the 6th. At the bottom of the card you find the action you are allowed to take. This mostly means placing a varying amount of blocks on the board, or moving them. But occasionally there is the opportunity to build a city or to remove a block of an opponent.

At the top is the symbol of a good. Building sets of goods gains you victory points, but of course some goods score easier than others. Apart from the goods, there are points to be gained from having the most blocks in areas on the map. With 7 to 9 turns (depending on the number of players) you have to chose wisely.

A highly tactical game. With a variable map and deck of cards, there is a enough replayability. Due to the minimalist design it has been compared to Love Letters.

Mice & Mystics is an entirely different beast. A sort of dungeon crawler, but due to the fairy tale setting and wonderful art work and miniatures one that immediate grasps your empathy.  There is quite a bit of information to take in before the game: a reasonable amount of rules, but also some scenario specific information.

I hadn´t had enough time to fully master the rules before playing and although I took on the role of dungeon master (not prescribed in the rules, but a useful variant, I think) there was a misunderstanding with the rules which meant that the players felt the were unduly pushed towards the end. If we had played correctly, they would have had more time.

This game is definitely coming back to the table sometime. I think the setting and scenario´s have the potential to make this a returning favourite.