Mayfair News

by Susan Rozmiarek
There is now an English online tutorial for Candamir: The First Settlers as well as several other popular Klaus Teuber games. You can find them here. These “Prof. Easy” tutorials are a great way to learn these games.

In other Mayfair news, it looks as though they have paired with Phalanx Games to provide English editions of Phalanx's games here in the USA. I’ve already played Maharaja, an excellent, tense game by designers Kramer & Kiesling. Looking over the list of about 15 games currently being published by Phalanx, I see several that look very interesting, although a few of them look too wargamey for me. Go West by Leo Colovini looks like a short area control game with a few new twists. Colovini games are often a hit with me. Heart of Africa, FBI and of course, Francis Tresham’s Revolution, have also piqued my interest.

A new house, a new name, a new look

by Ed Rozmiarek
Those of you out there that have been following our main blog probably know we recently moved to a new house. This has started a chain reaction of changes in our life, including our web site. Due to our new location, we felt that we should rename our games page to The Game Ranch. This has a nice double meaning that we find humorous, if a bit silly. I also thought that we needed to update the look of the page. I have just finished the first pass on revamping the graphics and hopefully made all of the changes needed.

Feel free to post a comment or drop me an e-mail to let me know what you think or if you note any problems.

Thursday Night Gaming - July 7, 2005

by Susan Rozmiarek
It was a slow night at Mark’s house, with only Ed, Adam, Mark and me, which made for a very relaxing evening.

 

 

Fredericus

I was pushing to play this one to see if it worked better with more than two players. (See the previous entry for a brief description). The conclusion: well, not really. A few potential problems came up, the biggest being the dreaded Analysis Paralysis. You can plot out your move when it’s not your turn, but chances are, by the time it gets back around to you, the board will have changed and you’ll have to rethink your plans. Fortunately, the game is fairly short. It was too short, according to Ed, but it felt about right to me.

A rather annoying situation happened to Ed. One of the actions you can do is hood your opponents’ falcons. Hooded falcons sit out a turn and are back in play at the end if its owner’s turn. This means that the owner doesn’t have chance to move the falcon away from the card setup that allowed it to be hooded (forest cards at the end of both adjacent rows). Now, it may well be that in most cases, the board will change enough that the falcon will be out of danger, but in this case Ed’s falcon kept getting re-hooded before his next turn. He was not pleased!

I have a few other nagging questions about the game, especially about the randomness of matching Goal Cards to Creature Cards, but I need to play it a few more times before passing judgment. I do enjoy the tactical puzzle that each turn presents.

Results: Adam 21, Susan 20, Ed 16, Mark 11

You can tell Mark is excited to be playing Fredericus.

Hispaniola

This was yet another new trick-taking game for me. Our group just loves them. The weird twist (don’t they all have one?) is that the tricks are tied in to play on a board. The board depicts a pirate ship in each of the card colors as well a chain of islands. The ships each have three spots for pirate tokens. When a player wins a trick, he gets to place one of his tokens on the pirate ship matching the color of the trick. If it is full, he can bump another token to the first island, which can then bump tokens down the chain of islands, as there can only be one token per island. Tokens bumped off the last island go back to the owner. After each round, players get positive points for tokens on ships and negative points for tokens on islands.

The card play has a few little twists as well. Trump is determined at the start of a round by players selecting and simultaneously revealing a card from their hand. The high card is the trump color. If there is a tie for highest, the trump is the second highest. Players set the card they played aside for the next round. We played this incorrectly, taking this card back into our hand. I think the correct rule will make selecting the card much more interesting. Players must follow suit if they can, but the highest card of any color, except if a trump is played, wins the hand. The game also has a strange mechanism, which I didn’t like at all. The player who wins the trick may pass it and any other tricks won to the player on his right or left. At the end of a round, the players with most and second most cards in their pile will score negative points. I thought that this was rather weird and pointless. I couldn’t figure out any strategy to the passing other than making sure you won the last trick in the round so that you could pass your cards and not be stuck with them.

This is probably a clever game, if I had only been able to make the connection between what I needed to do on the board to how I was playing my hand. My timing felt way off, with a couple of my pirates ending up on islands at the end of the first round. They stayed there, to be bumped off and returned to my supply early in the next round, and I was able to get a few in ships for a decent number of points. However, the following rounds found too many once again on islands. I think I was also stuck with a pile of tricks every round for a penalty. Both the board and that trick-passing thing was an annoying distraction to me. Still, I was intrigued and what to play again in the hopes that something will click in my brain.

Results: Ed 34, Mark 26, Adam/Susan 18

The Hispaniola board.

Geschenkt

We played two games of this fast and fun filler. I absolutely tanked in both games. I never could get the cards that I needed in order to “bridge” my sets to get fewer negative points. Ah, well. I still enjoyed it. This game is an excellent closer for an evening.

Results: Game #1: Mark, -29, Ed -36, Adam -45, Susan -48 Game #2: Ed -29, Adam -33, Mark -48, Susan -50

Finishing the night off with a couple quick games of Geschenkt.

For more pictures from this gaming session and others, see our Gaming Picture Gallery.

July Fourth Family Gaming

by Susan Rozmiarek
Lately our older (12) son Kevin has been bugging us to play games. He's even been joining the adults for a game or two with our regular gaming group. I'm trying not to push him any with the hope that this trend continues.

 

Starfarers of Catan

Kevin has been after us for awhile to play one of his favorites, Starfarers of Catan, but being a longer game we haven't had time until now. I sure do love how this game looks when it is all set up. The big mother ships are way cool, even if they do break easily when you try to attach boosters. We now just set our boosters off to the side. I've heard that you can get some sort of fix from Mayfair, but I've never tried. I'd feel kind of guilty, since we didn't pay for the game, but rather picked it up (used?) off a prize table. The game is a great variation of Settlers of Catan, with a space exploration theme that really works well.

One thing about a Settlers game; you might as well just throw all rules of probability out the door. Placing your colonies on those highly desirable "6" and "8" spots just guarantees that they will never get rolled. In this game the magic number was "9" and of course I didn't have any colonies on those spots. I always lagged just a few victory points back while Kevin and Ed competed for the lead. Ed pursued a mostly trading strategy and got some nice trading deals in place that gave him extra resources. Kevin loaded up his ship with cannons and went out in pursuit of pirates. Both he and Ed got a number of fame rings. As for me, I had the distinction of being the fastest ship, with lots of boosters, and zoomed around the solar system plunking down colonies. I even had a sweet trading deal where I could trade a trade good for the resource of my choice. Still, it wasn't enough to catch Ed and Kevin. Ed put down a final colony to narrowly win over Kevin.

Final Score: Ed 15, Kevin 13, Susan 10

Kevin studies his dad's Starfarers of Catan turn.

Federicus

Ed and I got a chance to play this new game coming soon from Mayfair and DaVinci games. It comes in a small box with a small board, some wooden tokens and cards. The board represents a castle keep under siege by mythological creatures. The players use falcons (the wooden tokens) to capture these beasts as well as betting on where the captures will take place. Yes, it's yet another strange theme by the folks at DaVinci! Cards depicting the creatures and types of land are placed randomly in rows around the keep. Players have a limited number of action points to spend on moving their hawks and the cards around to try and get them in a position to make a capture. There's a little more to it than that, and I hope to have a review of it up eventually. It's very tactical and puzzle-like. I rather liked it, but I expect it will be better with more than two players.

This isn't an actual picture of our game, but rather a mock-up for the review:

Fredericus up close.

I would be remiss if I made a Family Gaming weblog entry without mentioning Attacktix. The male members of this household are quite enamored with these "toys" right now, and many galactic battles have been fought out in our living room during the past few weeks, especially when the boys had friends sleep over. I haven't played the game myself, but I've become quite popular by bringing home a booster pack or two whenever I visit Target. It does look like a fun little miniatures game that is simple enough for even young children to play. It certainly is more realistic than most. Instead of rolling dice to attack and hit, the figures shoot guns or swing light sabers to actually knock over another figure for a kill.

Attacktix figures ready for battle.

The Game Ranch Roundup for July 2, 2005

by Susan Rozmiarek
First off, I guess I need to explain how we came up with the name, The Game Ranch, for our new house. Yes, it’s a very silly, cheesy name, but it fits. We live in Texas and I just love to play up the “cowboy” image. We moved to a rural neighborhood of homes on a bit of acreage, in a city called Liberty Hill. We have 4.3 acres ourselves, kind of a little “ranchette.” The name of our neighborhood is Sundance Ranch and our street is Palomino Place. Doesn’t this just scream “hokey Texas stereotype?” So, I just had to pick a cheesy name for this game blog. “The Game Ranch” has a double meaning as well. While our house is stuffed with games of the board variety, the outdoors is filled with game of the wildlife variety. We see deer every day. I think they outnumber the people here. There are numerous rabbits and, although I haven’t seen any myself, there are wild turkeys as well. This is in addition to all the exotic pets that people seem to like keeping around here. A miniature donkey and a llama live behind us. So, The Game Ranch just seems to fit. I hope to add equally hokey fonts and graphics to this page when I get the time.

Anyhow, to take this back to the topic at hand, Ed and I decided to host a little games day here to test the waters now that we’ve gotten a little more settled in. We picked July 4th weekend because it’s when we had the time, but knowing full well that many of the regulars would not be able to attend. We almost had to cancel due to a lack of response. Much to our surprise, the RSVPs started rolling in at an alarming rate at the last minute. We didn’t think so many would be willing to drive out this far (it’s really not *that* far) and we started to have new people come out of the woodwork. We topped out at a total of 13 adults and 3 children, as one couple couldn’t make it. Five of these attendees had never been to one of our game days/nights. Three of these we had only met for the first time last week at Mike’s house and one we had never met in person. I’m relieved to say that they are all very nice and a pleasure to game with. It takes guts to go to a perfect stranger’s house and play games and I hope they found us as friendly as we found them to be. Now, on to the games played!

Around the World in 80 Days

First up for me was this Spiele des Jahres contender. I’d played it once and really enjoyed it, despite having gotten a few rules wrong. We’d messed up the rules for the inspector, penalizing people before they had a chance to move away. We played with the bonus chips face down, instead of face up and I think we scored players whose journey went over 80 days incorrectly. This time we got everything right, I think, and it only improved the game.

Rhonda came out of the gate at a blazing speed and remained ahead of the pack for most of the game. I tried to hold back and fight Adam and Mark for the last-to-a-location bonus chips, but I finally gave up. I was able to collect some great cards and gain some ground, eventually catching up to Rhonda and competing with her for the first-to-get-to-a-location bonus chips. Rhonda chose the action that gave her a coin often and always had plenty of money to re-roll or buy cards. I usually selected the best card available, but a few times I grabbed the starting player special action, regardless of the card there, so I could choose the best possible card the next round. Adam used the inspector in quite a clever way, placing him ahead of Rhonda and me, slowing us down or forcing us to take a penalty. By collecting some nice doubles, I was able to zoom in to London first in under 80 days. Poor Mark was the most efficient traveler, but was unable to complete the race in time and so came in last

Results: Susan 72, Adam 76, Rhonda 84, John 94, Mark 58 (didn’t finish)

I really like this game, although it is rather light. It falls into the same category as Ticket to Ride and Amazonas for me. The fact that it plays in under an hour and is easy to teach to newbies ensures that it will always be easy to get to the table.

John, Mark, Rhonda, Susan and Adam, start off with Around the World in 80 Days.

Amazonas

I was determined to play this today, as I needed to get one more playing of the game in order to write a review of it. I also hadn’t played it yet with the rules clarification from Mayfair for the Native Tokens. So, when Rhonda and Lauren expressed interest in playing, I immediately jumped on the chance. This was a good test of the game too, as both Rhonda and Lauren are casual gamers, the type of players that I think are a good target for a game like Amazonas.

I was the starting player, and immediately chose the very desirable Rosaria as my starting location. Rhonda and Lauren chose nearby Morena and Atalapo. This was good, because it ensured that no one player would be alone in that area and able to quickly snatch up all the low cost locations that are concentrated there. I’d seen that happen in other games where players weren’t aware of the potential for this to happen. I did feel kind of bad though, because I’d played the game several times and had a strong advantage. I was more familiar with the event deck and was able to remember what hadn’t come up yet. I also better understood how to plan my card-playing strategy based on what specimens I hoped to acquire in the near future and what events might possibly come up to affect my strategy. Thus, I was able to take and keep a strong lead. Nonetheless, both Rhonda and Lauren played well and said they really enjoyed the game.

Results: Susan 14, Rhonda/Lauren 10

Susan teaches Rhonda and Lauren Amazonas.

Caribbean

This game got some positive buzz and was pretty cheap, so we included it in a game order when it came out. Ed got to play it and absolutely detested the game. He refused to play it again and immediately suggested we unload it on a prize table as soon as we got the opportunity. Now, he is not fond of the simultaneous action selection mechanism and I am. Plus, it got some positive comments from a few of the other players in his game, so I didn’t listen to him. Well, for a change, I wish I had. Yuck.

The game has six pirate ships that are sailing on the board, a map of the Caribbean islands. Players are trying to sail the ships to various ports, pick up treasure and sail it to one of their own ports. Each player has seven bidding tiles numbered from -1 to five. Each round, they secretly assign one to each ship and save the seventh for a tiebreaker. One by one, all the players’ tiles for each ship are revealed. The player who bid the highest for that ship gets to move it that number of spaces minus a space for each -1 tile played. After the ship is moved, the tiles for the next ship are revealed, and the same thing happens. Ships can steal tiles or trade tiles from other ships as they move by. I guess this allows for some clever moves, but it also makes it harder to plan as well. There were always several ships that were possible choices of more than one player, so it seemed just a guessing game as to which one people would choose. And if you guessed poorly, you might find yourself watching the entire round and doing nothing. This happened to me at least once and was very frustrating. The game was just too chaotic and not much fun. I doubt we will be keeping this one much longer.

Results: Mark 41, Francesca 28, Susan 18, Peter 14

Caribbean, the game may not be very good, but the pieces are neat.

The Gothic Game

I was both surprised and pleased when Mark suggested that we play this. I love the game, but only really figured I could convince people to play it on Halloween. It’s got several things going against it. It’s a roll-and-move elimination game with a busy, gaudy board that will make you want to tear your eyes out, and it has a set of rules with as many holes as a golf course. Despite all this, the game is simply a HOOT to play. I consider it a party game. It handles up to eight players, takes very little brain effort, and generates constant laughs. I love writing up session reports for it. They practically write themselves. The game can drag sometimes, but this time the length was perfect, at least for the players who survived for a bit!

The eight of us timidly entered the Westgate and headed for the South Courtyard. We got off to a slow start because I remembered a movement rule incorrectly, but we figured it out after a few rounds of play. I started the game off slowly, encountering a monk who offered me a chalice of mulled wine. This put me to sleep for two turns. I never have been able to hold my liquor. Upon wakening, I started making my way toward the Trophy Room via the battlements to hopefully pick up a weapon. It was slow going for me as I often had to double back to avoid the crumbling stone that would send me into the moat. This was not a bad thing, however, because I was avoiding the rest of players and the castle, unlike the others.

Adam got trussed up by an overzealous cook and sent to the Kitchen. He spent some time wandering between there and the Bedroom. Tim and Francesca took their chances in the Den, where Tim had the misfortune of encountering an Insatiable Leech. This nasty thing sucked stamina from him every turn. He then gambled with the devil and lost, and was near death. A fast-moving snake finished him off and he had the honor of being the first victim of the deadly castle.

Meanwhile, Peter was caught standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had sewage from the lavatory dumped on his head. He started making his way across the castle to the Torture Chamber with the rest of us trying to avoid his foul stench. Ed, in the meanwhile, was also on his way to the Chamber to use a bottle of elixir that was given to him by The Witch. When he was near the chamber, he encountered a limping Peter, who had had his leg sawn off by Inquisitioners. It must have made him pretty crabby, because he foisted a Poisonous Spider onto Ed, killing him instantly!

While all this was going on, I encountered Francesca outside of the den, where she was recovering from being bitten by a Sleepy Asp. Using my psychic Power of Adjacency, I sent her plummeting to her death through the Oubliette. As she was suffering her awful fate, Mark was on his way to the Torture Chamber where he too, encountered Peter stumbling along. This time it was Peter who met his death at the hands of a fellow player when Mark handed him a decaying Hand in a Box. Mark then went on to the Chamber where he was tortured on The Rack and then finished off in The Iron Maiden.

This just left two players struggling to survive – Adam and me. As I left the Trophy Room, an Abyssinian Skewer in hand, I stepped on crumbling masonry and was dumped into the poisonous moat. I crawled out on my next turn, only to find myself in Dracula’s Vault! His bite doomed me to six turns as a vampire, wandering the halls of the castle looking for victims. With my new vampire powers of moving through the dark corridors quickly, I was able to chase down Adam outside the Servant’s Bedroom and kill him for the win.

Tim, Susan, Adam, Mark, Francesca, Peter and Ed try to survive the longest in The Gothic Game.

Susan the vampire drains the life force from Adam, thus winning The Gothic Game.

Bohnanza

With time for one more game and six players free to play, we chose Bohnanza after my son Kevin suggested it. Betty hadn’t played it before, and this game is a must try for any fan of German-style games. We all got into the spirit of bean farming and the trading was fierce and brutal. In the end, Kevin proved to be the best farmer, with Betty in second. We old-timers got beaten by a kid and a newbie! As always, the game was fun. This one is definitely now a classic.

Results: Kevin 14, Betty 12, Susan 11, Mary/Francesca 9, Peter 7

The first game day at The Game Ranch was a rousing success and we hope to have many more. Hopefully, all the “townies” didn’t find the drive out here to the country to be all that bad. I must admit, I was a bit nervous playing host to such a crowd with so many new people, but it turned out great. I hope everyone had a good time and will come back again.

Other games played: Funkenschlag, St. Petersburg, Victory & Honor, Carabande, Australia, Viva Pamplona!, Coloretto, Alhambra

Francesca takes her Carabande turn as Kevin just wishes his dad would stop taking pictures.

After clearing off the Carabande setup, Jeff, Peter, Betty, Francesca and Ed try out Australia.

New guy John takes on Adam and Mark in Funkenschlag.

Ed, Adam, Tim and Mark finish the night off with Victory & Honor.

For more pictures from this gaming session and others, see our Gaming Picture Gallery.

Toys R Us Surprise

by Susan Rozmiarek
Okay, so there I was yesterday at the local Toys R Us in Cedar Park, Texas, to look at…um… trampolines. I was certainly NOT there looking for the new HeroScape boosters. I swear. Anyway, as I was looking at this….er… trampoline, I happened to glance over at the games section and what did my roving eyes behold? Carcassonne! I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming. Perhaps someday we will see the “buy one get one free” Rio Grande game sale!