Yes, I would like a little cheese with my whine.

by Susan Rozmiarek

Wow, has this been a bad few months for gaming. We missed this month's Meetup group, the first since it started. The previous two have been less than stellar and I didn't want to write about them because all I'd be doing is whining. Other than that, we've hardly had any time for games at all. Okay, so I've changed my mind and I'm going to whine a little now. :-)

Last month, with it just before Halloween, I brought Last Night on Earth to the Meetup in hopes of a fun, spooky game. I set it up on the table in all its glory in order to entice people to the table. And there it sat while I played Shadow Hunters, a fun game but one in which we learned that it doesn't really work with just four players. More people began showing up and despite my asking around, LNoE continued to be ignored while I played Oregon, a pleasant (read boring) game but hardly what I had in mind. So, the night wasn't a bust but it was disappointing. I wish I could find more people willing to loosen up and have fun with some Ameritrash games. At least my family likes them.

The Meetup before that was one of the worst gaming experiences I've ever had. I brought a shiny, new copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth which I'd already played once and enjoyed as a light, family game that plays in about an hour. We get a lot of new people to the Meetup, often new to hobby games as well. This is actually a plus sometimes for me, as it provides a chance to get my "fluff" fix with games like Ticket to Ride. I try to go out of my way to get these newbies involved which I feel is important to keep the group active and growing. Alas, it did not turn out so well this time. This one new person was totally unable to grasp a few of the rules despite me (and eventually the others) trying to explain them over and over again throughout the game until I was blue in the face. The game took us over 2.5 hours to play and I was exhausted and thoroughly frustrated by the time we were finished. Ugh.

So, enough of the negative and now on to the positive: Ed and I are helping out our FLGS, Rogue's Gallery, by doing a demo of Memoir '44 next Sunday afternoon. We pulled it out this past Saturday to reacquaint ourselves with the rules and played the Sword Beach scenario. Why, oh why, don't we get this fabulous game out more often? We had a short but furious skirmish with my Allies falling just before breaking through the left flank. Fun stuff. We later broke out our new copy of Dominion and played a couple of games. Both were with the "big money" set of cards and it was fun trying out a different strategy each time. This game is going to see a lot of play as we both really like it.

We have a big gaming weekend of D&D 4e, Descent, and Memoir '44 planned. So, hopefully the dry spell is over!

Some random stuff:

Math trades on BGG - We haven't convinced ourselves yet that these are worthwhile, but I must say that we did pretty well in the last two. Usually we end up trading down or not trading at all and I'm not sure it's worth the price of shipping to trade one mediocre game for another. Then again, that does allow us to try games that we are curious about but not quite willing to buy to do so. However, we just traded Monastery for the 2nd expansion for Command & Colors: Ancients. Monastery is a game that has some neat stuff in it but it just didn't click with us. C&C: A exp. #2 is something we have been wanting but it is pretty pricey and our gaming budget is very meager these days. Our most recent trade, though, is the one that's got me doing a happy dance. We traded InterUrban, a lackluster Michael Schacht game with typical crappy Winsome components for a shrink-wrapped copy of Touch of Evil. I have been anticipating getting this for a while now, but was saving it for my BGG Secret Santa list.

We got a Hasbro catalog in the mail, presumably because we ordered Heroscape stuff from them recently. Of course, I immediately went to the games section. Their line of selected classic games all done up in pink to appeal to little girls (I guess) has always amused me but I was astounded to see a new pink version of an Ouiji board. I didn't even know they were still around. I thought that was some old new age-y occult fad and it isn't even a game. And pink?!?! Hardly creepy! What ghosts would a little girl want to try to talk to? Both bizarre and amusing.....

To make my thrift store hunting more interesting, I'm now collecting differently themed Monopoly sets for the little pewter tokens which I'm displaying in a curio cabinet with other little miniature things. I keep the dice as well, of course, and toss the rest. This week I scored a Star Wars copy that had all nine tokens in it. Oddly, it was missing the board. Barnes & Nobles currently has a Nintendo version in its stores right now. I'd love to find that in a thrift store some day.

Posted by Susan Rozmiarek at November 11, 2008 10:56 AM