New reviews posted: Ostia and Family Business

by Susan Rozmiarek
I've posted a few new reviews:

The first one is Ostia: The Harbor of Rome. Check it out here.

The second one is the latest edition of Family Business. Check it out here.

The Rules “Gathering” Effect

by Ed Rozmiarek
I got to finally play Mykerinos last night. Well, something that kind of looked like Mykerinos. Our game last night suffered from what could be called the “Gathering Effect” for game rules. You know, the problem when the rules were originally taught by someone who has not read the rules before hand. So the first game play was suspect and now, the second and third generation of the rules by word of mouth have not cleaned things up. And to make matters worse, no one has bothered to go back and reread the rules to see if they have been playing right.

Mark taught the rules to the game last night after being taught the game a week or two ago. He did do well in that he did fix one major rules problem from the first game he played. However as it turns out, several rules errors were continued, which in looking back, probably broke the game balance horribly. The rule that Mark fixed was that the several parcels of land are all considered adjacent. Therefore your excavation can expand beyond one set of tiles to another. I can’t see how they played the first game without being able to expand.

As for the broken rules, what did we play wrong?

1. Scoring, the biggie. We played that each room next to a patron that you controlled added to that patron’s value, not just the single highest. So, Mark and Susan were are to get several patron cards that were scored as 12 points a piece, not the maximum of 5. Oops. This, of course, caused a huge swing in scoring for them. This had the secondary effect of reducing the value of sets of patrons.
2. Extending an excavation: We did not know about the rule that when extending an excavation, the second cube must be placed next to the first cube played that turn. A subtle difference than just expanding an excavation by two cubes, but one that would have affected the game play.
3. The Lady Violet power. We played that the Lady Violet’s power of getting an additional cube was your entire turn. In reality, you can use her to get an extra cube and you can still play cubes to the excavation areas. This was not a major issue, but it does have some drastic timing implications compared to how we played.
4. Lastly, I misunderstood Lord Lemon’s power related to playing on pyramids. I thought that you could only play one cube to expand an excavation when using his power. If fact, you can still expand by two, it’s just that one of the cubes may be on a pyramid.

So all told, I was pretty cool on Mykerinos after last night and I was wondering about some of the early positive reports I had heard on the game. In fact, Susan and I had almost decided to scratch it from our “Buy” list. Now today, after getting all of the rules clarifications, I have to completely write off last night’s game and restart the evaluation process for Mykerinos. Just goes to show that when you think a game might be “broken”, you better double check the rules to make sure you were playing the game right.

Candyland Art

by Susan Rozmiarek
Somebody posted this link on BoardgameGeek. You have to click on each picture to fully appreciate it. Just don't break your jaw when it hits the floor. Wow! I wonder how hard it would be to do a few Carcassonne tiles or something of a similar size? That's probably even beyond my meager craft skills.

Mike Siggins Returns!

by Susan Rozmiarek
I was just discovering The Hobby as Mike Siggins was ducking out for an extended vacation. Fortunately, he left behind a wealth of commentary and reviews online to feed my then newly found love of German games. Now he’s back to entertain and inform yet again in a new column at the Funagain website. As a sporadic blogger and reviewer myself, I am humbled by such a talented writer. Mr. Siggins is not afraid to voice strong opinions, both negative and positive. He does so with humor and honesty and one can always appreciate his views, even if one doesn’t always agree with him. It’s thrilling to have him back!

Memorial Day Gaming 2006

by Susan Rozmiarek
Once again it was time for our annual Memorial Day gaming. Seventeen gamers gathered at The Game Ranch for the traditional day-long orgy of food and games. I’d like to give a big thanks to everyone that brought food and drinks as we had a fabulous selection. Despite being a bit short of hamburgers, I doubt anyone went hungry! Since I had to take time out for food prep and eating, I didn’t get to play as many games as I normally do but the quality more than made up for the quantity.

Family Business

This game has been around for a long time in an older edition, but it had never caught my interest. Who needs another game about gangsters when we already have Don Pepe? Still, any excuse to speak in funny accents works for me and it turns out that Family Business is nice little “beer and pretzels” game. It’s short, it’s mean, and it’s practically devoid of strategy which basically just amounts to playing cards that you’ve drawn at the best possible time. Did I mention that it’s mean? The game is all about taking contracts out on your fellow players’ gang members. This puts them on a hit list where they then get sequentially eliminated when a mob war starts. Yes, it’s an elimination game as well. If your entire gang gets rubbed out you’re done. It was an excellent way to start a game day as it got some metagaming grudges going early. Nothing like putting somebody “up against the wall” to foster warm fuzzy feelings! We played with the new edition. My biggest complaint was the fact that we had to keep referring to our reference cards (downloaded from BGG) to remember what all the different cards do. It would have been nice if some of this information had been on the actual cards. I was surprised that I enjoyed this game as much as I did since there really isn’t much to it.

Susan teaches Family Business.

Fury of Dracula

I think I’m slowly being assimilated by Fantasy Flight Games. All their gaudy, fiddly, dice-rolling, bit-heavy recent releases dripping with theme, theme and more theme have been more temptation than I can bear. I guess it’s the backlash from playing too many elegant Euros and a longing to return to the fantasy and horror interests of my younger years. Lately I’ve been longing for a game that tells a good story and Fury of Dracula did not disappoint. This is Scotland Yard, a game I like, on a heavy dose of steroids. Ed and I had done our homework the week before, having laid the game out and gone through the rules. Despite the fiddliness and little exceptions here and there, they are pretty easy once you get into the game. It only took us about two hours to play not counting the rules explanation. This sort of cooperative game should go over well with my kids so I’m hoping to play it with them next.

Mark did a pretty good job summary of our game on his blog so I’m going to be lazy and not repeat it. Suffice it to say that we hunters learned several lessons and I got even more tips afterwards on the BGG forums. Dracula will not give us the slip so easily next time!

Van Helsing plots her move during Fury of Dracula.

Ark

Despite the adorable art, our group’s opinion of this game seems to drop a bit with each playing. There are just so many placement rules that it’s impossible to remember them all even after playing the game a few times. I actually like the puzzle of legally placing animals in the ark, but it feels totally disconnected from the majorities part of the game. I think that I’d enjoy the game more if it were simply a race to get rid of cards. Still, I like the game enough to play it as is, but I don’t think it will ever be a favorite. Those animals though - so cute!

Thurn und Taxis

Well, I can’t completely stay away from those elegant Eurogames. Ed and I had already fumbled through a few games of Thurn und Taxis on BSW which was enough to know we liked it. It falls into that low middleweight category of games that I enjoy so well. The only reason we don’t own a copy yet ourselves is because we are waiting for the upcoming Rio Grande edition. It was nice to push the real bits around instead of a computer mouse. This game involves some route planning that reminds me of one of my favorites, Elfenland. It’s up for the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award in Germany and I think it has a good shot at winning. (I’m terribly irritated though, that the superior game, Hacienda, wasn’t nominated.)

Thurn und Taxis, later in the game.

It was nice break today to play a few “experience” games purely for fun. I’d like to mix a few more of these in with the Euros that I normally play. I’ve gotten a little burnt out on those recently and slinging a few dice is the perfect remedy.

Here are some of the other games that got played today:

The three M's (Mark, Mike, Marty) and Ed play Die Dolmengötter. Hopefully with the right rules.

Marty teaches Neuland.

Traci, Sid, Marty and Adam play Das Zepter von Zavandor.

Mike, Mark, Paul and Matt playing Mauerbauer.

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