Which 12 games for 2014?

Okay, if I want to play 12 of my games in this coming year, I had better prepare a shortlist. I will give you a choice from my most recent acquisitions in 2012 and 2013: 

From Essen

Concept

Sigismundus Augustus

(I already played Strajk at the Christmas Offensive 2013, and Rats in the Walls at Essen)

Signum Mortis (Essen 2012)

From Secret Satan

The World Cup Card Game

Ascalion (aka Borderlands, got in 2012)

Mission Red Planet (got in 2012)

Collision

Mag Blast

Scarab Lords

Isle of dr Necreaux

Red November

Lord of the Rings card game (not the CCG)

(I already played Pass the Pigs on New Year’s Eve with the kids. Success.)

Other acquisitions

Warriors & Traders

Mice & Mystics

City of Remnants

Love Letters

Pathfinder card game

and some games on Waterloo or Napoleonic wars

Beyond Waterloo
1815: The Waterloo Campaign
Dresden 20
Napoleonic Wars (GMT)
Wellington (GMT)

Most of these are light games, but others require serious study, so they might not make it in the end.

Which one do you guys think I should try first?

Off to Essen 2013

The day before Essen. We have a drop out for medical reasons but a promising replacement. It will be a little bit weird this year, with probably a couple of games back home on Saturday.

Check me out on twitter @jurdj the coming days as I play stuff and post images.

It's been some time since I set up my watch list for Essen 2013, but I've been watching the updates and there's some good stuff out there for the Ameritrash minded.

The 10 games that I look forward to most are:

Ace Detective. Richard Launius + 'noir storytelling card game that rewards imagination'


Corto. I love the Corto Maltese comics, so I'm certainly going to check this one out. The fact that Seb Pauchon is involved is a good sign!



Coup. The buzz is good, and some new editions are on the way.


Duel of Ages. The new edition has been very favourably reviewed by two Mikes! see for Mike 1 and Mike 2.

The Mushroom Eaters. A game by Nate Hayden (of Cave Evil and After Pablo fame) is bound to be special. I'm interested in the action path mechanic and of course the highly original theme

Pathfinder. See Michael Barnes' rave review


The Rats in the Walls. Henning Poehl´s fun games, great artwork and the Lovecraft setting might just be awesome.

Sigismundus Augustus: Dei gratia rex Poloniae. The theme of the game appeals, but it's quite heavy and worker placement, not a stand up conflict game. There's a favourable review at Little Metal Dog

A study in Emerald. Gaiman + Wallace + Lovecraft. It's almost to good to be true. Either elation or deep disappointment

Veto by Kuznia Gier. Polish 17th century history, political infighting an intrigue! However, the company is going through a rough patch and is unlikely to attend the show. I'll check anyway.



On the Essen 2012 front, I managed to get a game of the Lupin III expansion set in as evidenced by my review. But I will give myself a pass for Signum Mortis, which was late in delivery anyhow. That is also a good warning for me to trim down the loot to the absolute necessary this year and forget about games that I don't have the time for to learn.

Of course, time is a matter of priorities.

Essen 2013 watch out list inaugurated

I´ve put up my list of games to watch out for in Essen at boardgamegeek.com.

Serious gaming: playing King of Tokyo in bed

I have started with Pete Ruth's excellent report on GenCon and will add games from Eric Martin's preview list later.  I'm also adding opinions and reviews from some people who've played the games in the run up to Essen, so you might want to check back once in a while. Your suggestions are also more than welcome!

I will be tweeting from the show as @jurdj on the Thursday and Friday and post a few pics if time allows. And Saturday on the way home we will play a few of the games we bought. In the run up and afterwards I will also post here at Rear Guard Action.

Oh no! Essen is just 2 months away!

Summer is done, time to think about Essen. But I'm not psyched yet. I have not picked up any buzz around an Essen release. It seems some good stuff was shown at GenCon. See the extensive but great report from Superfly Circus.

Phil Ecklund explaining the rules to Pax Porfiriana at Essen 2012

I'm interested in the Mice & Mystics expansion. The Wreck Age minis look good, but I'm at least going to wait till it's affordable. The Pathfinder coop RPG sounds great. And then there's the Firefly game (although I never saw the show), the Blackwater Gulch western shoot out miniatures and Bioshock: Infinite, yes a boardgame of the videogame.

Democracy, one of the few kickstarters present at Essen 2012
made its funding goal and seems to get published soon

What I fear is that this year Essen will  have more kickstarter/indiegogo stands, and fewer games in real development. That would change the atmosphere of the show. Anyway, not having a huge to-do list might actually make me more relaxed, even more so in the week after the show.

Of course, I'm on my honour to play every game I bought last year at least once and although I've managed Slavika and Kolejka once, and King of Tokyo and Gauntlet of Fools half a dozen times, Camp Roskilde has not been played since Essen. It leaves me with two games to play in the next two months:

Signum Mortis: now complete

and the

Expansion for Lupin the 3rd

The trouble in both cases is that I need to invest in reading the rules.

Last year I went full on with this list of interests at boardgamegeek. I followed up that list with a bunch of blog posts before and after the show.

Oh no... not another game!

Given that I am short of time I am thinking of not spending so much time this year on Essen reporting and of not committing myself to an Essen 2013 project (either by not buying games, or not forcing myself to actually play them. In which case: why bother buying them?). This all depends on big plans for writing books.

Late Arrival: Signum Mortis

Finally received the missing parts of Signum Mortis: Gangs of Rome, designed by Hajo Peters (who also did the Saladin monster game). The game deals with the proscription of Roman dictator Sulla against the supporters of his enemy Marius in 82 BC.

Goodies!

The players are all leaders of one of the gangs of Rome, 'helping' Sulla in rounding up his opponents and claiming the rewards. But when peace comes, you'd better be on good terms with Sulla, so he won't sacrifice you to save his reputation.

This is the kind of awesome theme I'm looking for. Rough, mean, cutthroat and exciting history. No sucking up to the king!

In fact I left Essen last October with only a box, a board and a bag of dice. All the rest arrived this week: introduction to the rules, basic rules, advanced rules, a bag full of counters and chits, a dvd, player aids and some more cardboard. Which at the end neatly fitted into the box. Amazing.

I was supposed to receive all this in February, but it got delayed a bit and I think designer Hajo Peters is rather tired of self producing by now. Like Saladin this is a work of love but it must bleed time. It all looks pretty good. 

Should try it out when I get back, but first: Age of Renaissance. A sentimental journey

New Boardgames Loot and Old Boardgames Loot

So last Saturday I bought a few games at the convention, a good way to support it (traders need to make trades to return). A good thing was that the prics were relatively low compared to the FLGS.

The new games are Risk: Legacy , Mice & Mystics, City of Remnants and Beyond Waterloo. The first is a birthday present for a great lover of Risk. I think he will enjoy having a special personalised copy of his own. M&M and CoR are both by Plaid Hat Games and have gotten very favourable reviews. It's a small company I like to see successful. The last one explores all the counterfactuals of the 1815 campaign on the battlefield, economically and diplomatically. I just needed to buy it and try it.

Me buying a couple of new games felt like a good point to evaluate where I'm standing on the Essen 2012 front. I guess a sudden twang of guilt. But it's also the half way point.

So let's see what I bought at Essen and what I've played so far:
Slavika: played at Murphy's Heroes (aka The Club)
Camp Roskilde: not played since Essen
Kolejka: played a few weeks ago. Fun. Should write a first impression
Gauntlet of Fools: played a few times with the kids but not with grown ups so I haven't tested the real fun part of the rules. Should write a first impression 
King of Tokyo: Played a few times
Signum Mortis: not complete yet but should be soon. One for the summer then.
Expansion for Lupin the 3rd: not played yet. Should kick myself

So I should prepare a session of games like Slavika, Gauntlet, King of Tokyo and Camp Roskilde. They're fast, easy and fun. I have plans to play Kolejka again with the family. And Lupin really needs to get played!

Exploring Nautilus, Thunderstone and Slavika

On Saturday we played a couple of newly acquired games at Murphy's Heroes. Tom had brought Nautilus and Thunderstone, while I added King of Tokyo and Slavika to the programme.

The underwater base expands, submarines scan the sea bottom for treasure

We spent quite some time at Nautilus, a eurogame with little conflict where the players expand an underwater base. From there they explore the surrounding sea in submarines for the lost treasures of Atlantis.

By adding new labs to the base and staffing them with scientists you can improve your searching capabilities and ability to retrieve treasures. You can even make more money out of finds and increase the number and the speed of subs. In the end these little advantages proved decisive as I was able to score bonus points by being able to ignore the less valuable treasures.

Not a game I´ll be asking to play again.

The heroes of Slavika

After that it was on to Slavika, in which the heroes of each clan take on a range of monsters from Slavic mythology. Apart from overcoming the monsters, the challenge is in dividing the spoils.

That was easier said than done because there are limits to where you can put your heroes and monsters and because the situation changed constantly. The winner was the one best able to profit from these opportunities.

This looks to be a decent but not entirely special eurogame with a reasonable level of interaction but not direct conflict. There were more rule questions than I had expected and we couldn´t solve all of them quickly.

The unique selling point for this game is that it's beautifully illustrated with a cast of relatively unknown mythological characters. I´d like to give this one a few more goes.

The runner´s up kill pile in Thunderstone. The winner scored 19 points

There was some time left for a game of Thunderstone, a deckbuilder in which you either enter a dungeon to kill monsters or spend time in the village preparing for these expeditions.

Like all deckbuilders, the challenge is to balance between the size of your drawing deck and the quality of the cards. In the end two of us had spend to much preparing and were surprised by the end of the game, without having killed enough monsters.

Considering that this was one of the first evolutions on Dominion it is not a bad attempt to cash in on the popularity of the former, but I don't see this one keeping the attention of players for very long. But the range of cards will probably give you enough opportunity to try out differing strategies. Happy to play again.

Things are heating up in downtown Tokyo

We had started the day with three very bloody and quick games of King of Tokyo. You already know I'm quite taken to this game.

I tried to just go for maximum damage and this proved effective in frustrating the build up of strong cards with the other players. It proved tit for tat and all games were decided by last monster standing rather than victory points. Maybe this was part of the three player setting.

This was a good start to the Essen 2012 challenge, with Slavika receiving it's baptism, and King of Tokyo's first play after Spiel.

Essen 2012 Project kick off

The loot

So, now to finish the Essen stuff, because you guys must be fed up after 2 weeks.
The only thing left is to inaugurate the Essen 2012 project, that is to play this year's acquisitions before next edition of Spiel.

The objects are, as above: Slavika, Camp Roskilde, Kolejka, Gauntlet of Fools, King of Tokyo, Signum Mortis and the expansion for Lupin the 3rd.

I won't be counting the plays at Spiel, and the two games of Gauntlet with the kids this week. That's confidence for you.

The trickiest one will probably be Signum Mortis. Let's hope the other half of the game does in fact arrive in February.

And if I don't succeed, Erwin has established that I can only play Pokemon TCG at next Spiel and I will to promote it. That should be a nice incentive.

Well, that's Essen 2012 done. Tomorrow we'll resume normal service.

Spiel 2012 - Games played unintended and unfound

 Third and final post in my game by game account of Spiel 2012 

Games I did play without planning to

This is what Castles looks like after some time

Castles
Starting off at the wrong foot. Simple tile laying game with complicated tiles. Boring, even as euros go. Don't buy!

Monterey Jack holds his extra dice for an emergency

Elder Sign
Not entirely new, but worth playing anyway. Very tense game, going into an end fight with Nyarlathotep just as we were one elder sign short. We had enough sanity and rerolls left to deal with the ancient one and survive (well.... most of us)

My fledgling faction of merchant, knave and scholar, restricted to the poor peoples´ quarters and the canals

Dominare
Dominare is one of a range of new games by AEG set in the city of Tempest, remarkably resembling Venice in its great age. It is a pretty sophisticated power game, much more so than we expected. More to it than meets the eye! We were actually disappointed to be asked to make room for another group of players after three rounds. Luckily Andries got his wallet out so we can have the full experience on our next game night.

The leader cards in World Conquerors can be used as generals, generals or as event cards for their effect

World Conquerors
Quick world conquering game in the vein of History of the World, but with even more focus on the leaders.

City of Horror artwork fits well with theme, but gameplay is about moving around, not killing zombies

City of Horror
As the bandwagon of zombie games is filling up like an Indian local train, this is one of less convincing ones. The characters may be fun, some cards as well, but no feel at all of a zombie infestation. Avoid!

Red player has a terrible last turn

Aztlan
This is an abstract wargame with flat out euro mechanics and direct conflict. Not bad, but too abstract for me

Here some swag cards that develop your deck

Eaten by Zombies
An interesting deckbuilder where you try to keep the chasing zombie pack behind you or fight them off. Or at least longer than the other players.

Three role cards of the green faction

Bloodbound
Think Werewolves with two opposing sides, and all vampires instead of humans and werewolves. The deduction game is now focussed on killing the enemy player with the highest rank, which isn´t easy. Social and interactive game: pretty good fun. The game is still in preproduction stage, but might be around early next year.

The Infinite City is sprawling

Infinite City
They were selling this at AEG for €3 apiece. A simple tile laying game. Nothing special.

The monsters slowly converge on the main city

Legends of Andor

I had been skeptical of this attempt by a major German company to move into fantasy adventure questing territory. It is definitely aimed at taking players by the hand in the first scenario, and the characters are generic: magician, dwarf, elf, fighter. I haven't seen enough of the game to see what really drives the story forward, but it is certainly not an outright failure. Time will tell.

Not at the show or couldn't find

Orkhorde
Didn't make it to Essen

Teutons
Weren´t where I expected them

Dixit 3
Sold out, but this will come to local shops soon enough

Pix
Not at the Asmodee-Gameworks booth. Could probably have found somewhere else it if I´d looked harder.


The Pioneer Card Game: Chapter resourcesThere was a lot of stuff at the supposed stand, but nobody could tell me anything about the game.

Amundsen: Kappløpet til Sydpolen
Not as Roll to the South Pole either.

Risk Legacy
I want to give this to a friend of mine who is a bit of a fan and has played it a lot. No English version left, but German versions available.


If you haven´t already, go and see my post on the games I only looked at

Spiel 2012 - Games played as intended or ignored

Second post in my game by game account of Spiel 2012

Games I played as intended

Five heroes and their weapons

Gauntlet of Fools
The boasting is really just a bidding mechanism, but I think it is a cool way to get the kids to gaming. Bought. 

Moogre not hitting much, bloobs all round, the army moves in

Moongha Invaders: Mad Scientists and Atomic Monsters Attack the Earth!
This is a game that seems to work, although it is not that cool that everybody has the same monster. Difficult to say whether it is better than Monsters Menace America. Maybe with the new artwork in the Kickstarter. 

The blue hero almost deciding the game there. Almost.

Metro 2033
Played and enjoyed. See my more extensive first impressions. Very good value for money!

The King doing what he does best

King of Tokyo: Power Up!
Played the basic game a few times and enjoyed it a lot. Bit of a hit with all four of us. Bought. Expansion a bit overpriced maybe.

Metalheads not attracting the cool chicks just yet

Camp Roskilde
The game is really simple, but works. The components are good quality but that probably doesn't fully justify the price tag (even including the dice game) if you don't like going to festivals yourself. Bought.

Games I didn't look at

Smash Up
Couldn´t be bothered in the end

Rome & Carthage
Couldn´t be bothered in the end

War of the Ring: Lords of Middle Earth
This is an expansion to WOTR 2nd edition, which I don't have (nor covet).

Ruthenia
Didn´t get round to it

The Convoy
It´s two player. Unlikely to get played

Winter
Didn´t dare to get it after bing bummed out on 51st State  
 
Evolution: Time to Fly
Since I don´t own the basic game and the owner wasn´t interested


If you haven´t already, go and see my post on the games I only looked at

Spiel 2012 - Games I looked at

Here's my game by game report on Spiel 2012. So I had these lists with games I thought might be interesting. Those that followed my tweets will know that there were a few hickups, but I did get a look at most of the games.

Let's start out with the games I only had time to look at. Tomorrow we'll look at games I played but that were not on my list and the games that didn't make it to the show, or I couldn't find otherwise. And after that we look at the games I played that were on my list and a few games that I decided not to spend precious time on for whatever reason.

Games I only had time to look at

Mister Ecklund explaining the rules to Pax Porfiriana

Pax Porfiriana
I had been afraid that this would be a monster game, but it seems manageable. Lots of historical feel to it. Rob bought this one

Existenz new basic game contents

Existenz
Existenz has been changed from a ccg to a lcg plus boardgame, now in one basic game.

 Exodus: this is a tech tree, plus home planet

Exodus
Game by the makers of Warriors & Traders, marketed as Twilight Imperium Light 

Not as much as Clash of Cultures, but still enough bits in Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island 
I'm a bit worn out with coops, although this one might be a better one in the genre. 

Loads of stuff in Clash of Cultures

Clash of Cultures
This has a bit of a buzz and it looks pretty good, but I didn't get a chance to try. Z-Man has moved into a bigger hall by the way, so they seem to have made it to the mainstream (or think they have a good chance getting there)




Winter Tales
This game looks beautiful, but I couldn´t figure out what the storytelling element would be, or how it would affect the game. Didn´t get a chance to play, so must wait

Oh no... INVASION!!!
So deterministic that I couldn't see what meaningful choices players have. Mediocre artwork, but it fits the theme

A Hooyah mission card and rulebook

 
Hooyah: Navy Seals Card Game
Looked very euro. Not the feel of a special operation

The countdown clock is at the top of the table

Countdown: Special Ops
Only a prototype version was played at the booth and it looked very euro. Not the feel of a special operation

The picture doesn't do justice to the artwork

Mythic Battles
Looked great, but it really is a two player game and as such I didn't think it would get much play

Nice arabic artwork

Alnashid
Worker placement in the medieval Middle East. Gain resources to trade to gain the Sultan's favour

TF22
Had a quick look, but decided that tactical combat board wargaming wasn't going to played. 

Oh man... those sculpts

Kemet
Looked the beautiful components, browsed the rulebook but couldn't get a spot to try and moved on. I'll probably buy this at some point.

Autokrator
Very quick look in passing. Looked a lot like Ruthenia (sse blow), but my friends told me it had a quirky combat mechanism and I sped on.

Vlad, Prince of Wallachia: abstract board, but AT mindset. Conquer the castle or kill your opponents

I Am Vlad: Prince Of Wallachia
I guess I'm mostly put off by the chess like board and a fear that this game could be long. 

Iron Sky: The Board Game
I played the demo last year at Essen and this wasn't very convincing so I threw a quick glance in passing but didn't try. 

Looks great, but not enough game in there to justify €30

1984: Animal Farm
The theme is brilliant of course, and the artwork does a good job of reinforcing it but there isn't much in mechanics and a lot of negotiation in the game

Even the box breathes theme

Kolejka
I'm so happy with the theme that I needed little effort to be converted. The game artwork is spot-on and there's a lot of love in the production, including an introduction to shopping in Communist Poland. Bought

The monsters

Slavika
At the reasonable price bought untried, but it looks like it will do nicely. Artwork is very good and Polish mythology is an added boon. Bought

Board for the Stonehenge scenario

Lupin the Third: The Expansion #1
Bought it straight away. Two new scenario boards plus equipment and lots of new character cards.

Samurai Sword
Didn't look very good or feel very different from Bang! How often did I play Bang!? Maybe start with that first then.

Divided Republic
Went to the booth twice, but found the game abandoned on both occassions. Found out the price and then decided not to bother. Looks sort of ok though 

Yup, Hajo Peters is making only a hundred

Signum Mortis. Gangs of Rome
This is me taking a leap into the dark as I bought half a game on my memory of how it was explained last year. But to head a gang during Sulla´s proscriptions and try to rob and murder as many senators as possible before the situation settles is just hugely attractive. Counters and rules to follow by February.

Nice components, including a block of match reports

Helvetia Cup
A pretty fantasy football game probably alike Bloodbowl. Nice minis but I have no clue on the rules.

The Democracy demo

Democracy: Majority Rules
This looks like a very interesting model of modern politics including bureaucrats, voters and the justice system among others influencing the lawmakers. Every player also has a political philosophy: change, conservatism, regulation or liberty and centrist. It is running on Kickstarter until November 6th. Seemed like a complex game and it might try to do too much at the expense of a game. So check the rules before you commit!

Examples of event cards

Lyssan
I had a pretty thorough explanation of this game which made me feel bad for not buying it, also because I think it is a decent game with a few interesting tweaks (like debt cards becoming dead weight in your hand). The components were pretty good too. It is a conquest game with castles, priests, spies, knights and nobles as units. The rules are pretty simple but the event cards add the spice.

Great poses

Freebooters Fate Cultist faction miniatures
I passed by the Freebooters Miniatures stand to say hello on behalf of the Frontline Gamer, and they gladly showed me their new miniatures.

Good sculpts, but see above

The Wolsung steam punk miniature skirmish game
I liked the Wolsung setting straight when I encountered the Wolsung boardgame, itself totally missing the point because the machines you build don´t get to fight. So to hear there´s a miniature game made me jump an inch. They are pretty good sculpts, but not cheap.The artwork awesome as always.