We've been going "retro" lately and pulling out some of the lunchtime golden oldies from our collection. How do these light-to-middleweight games that play in under an hour hold up now? Fairly well, actually, although that may be nostalgia talking. All four of these games were popular in my group around the year 2000 and 2001, when we were overtaken with the eurogaming craze. They have all come out sporadically since then, but not much (if at all) in recent years.

Today's offering was Rheinlander, a Knizia game from 1999. We were happy when Face2Face Games decided to republish this as we'd never managed to get a copy of the older Hasbro version. It's an area control game in which you play numbered cards to place knights in the corresponding regions along the Rhine River in order to form duchies. The game still holds up well today and I still like it quite a bit. It's very tactical in nature but you can do some planning and hope you get the right cards. Luck dependent to be sure, but the deck will most likely get shuffled a couple of times, making played cards possibly available again. A feature that I really like is that the rules for expanding allow you to use any card in your hand, often giving you something useful to do even if you don't pull the cards you really want.

Manhattan is another game with teeth that can be played in under an hour and proves that Andreas Seyfarth had at least one solid design in him long before Puerto Rico. This is also an area majority game but this time players are competing to own the most floors of individual skyscrapers and the most floors in an entire city. The board depicts several cities, each a 3X3 grid of building locations. Players have sets of building pieces that have differing numbers of floors. Before each round, they get to decide what pieces they are going to build that round. Cards are played to place the pieces, stacking them on the building site. The cards show on which building spot the piece must be placed, but the player gets to choose the city. This game can get pretty tense with a lot of direct head-butting. I can't believe that I once thought that this game was too mean. I rather enjoy it now. I still haven't played with the Godzilla variant.

Samarkand is a Sid Sackson game about traveling through the desert and buying and trading goods at nomad camps and oases. You are trying to collect sets of goods and then sell them at designated locations on the board. Movement is often determined by a dice roll, but you usually have a choice of direction. You'll have to do the action of the spot on which you land and this will require constant hand and money management. That and the route planning involved makes this still a rather fun, light game.

Café International is perhaps the weakest of this bunch. This is a tile-laying game of seating restaurant patrons at tables and scoring points as you do. Apparently, these people all prefer to sit at tables with others of their nationality and in equal numbers of each gender. This is purely a tactical game of drawing tiles and trying to spot your optimal moves. I loved this easy, gentle sort of game back when first discovering German games but it feels a bit lacking now. The art is quite a hoot though, with its stereotyping, and it is a pleasant game in which to socialize over lunch.

Looking over our shelves, we still have quite a number of older games to return to and see if they still have that spark. Hopefully, I'll have some more of these posts soon.

Due to the previously mentioned burnout and springtime demands on my time, this poor blog has been very quiet. It's time to wake it up again, perhaps with smaller postings more in line with my busy lifestyle. (edit: This did not turn out to be a "smaller" posting but I couldn't stop once I started to the detriment of the chores that I should be doing instead. Oh, well)

In News of the Blogosphere, let me say that I'm glad that I'm lazy and don't clean up things like out-of-date subscriptions in my newsreader. If I did, I would have never seen the new post on Chris Farrell's long abandoned blog pointing people to his new one. Chris' critical game reviews are some of the best I've ever read. I don't always agree with him but he often sees a game in a totally different way than I do which makes for very entertaining and thought provoking reading.

My gaming time has also taken a hit lately as well, which I hope to rectify in the coming summer as things quiet down. Hopefully, Ed and I can start attending our old, regular Thursday group again. We have been going to the monthly, local Meetup group which continues to grow quite large and diverse. I am often torn between hand-holding the noobs through their first game of Ticket to Ride or getting up a game of what I really want to be playing with the seasoned gamers. Fortunately, I still adore Ticket to Ride so it's all good. This group is on hiatus through the summer but to fill its place there is now the.....

Settlers of Catan Meetup group. It seems that there is a wave of newbies here being sucked into the vortex of eurogaming through the magic of Settlers and they've organized a dedicated group. Does that game have some invisible aura around it that I just can't see? I'm simply amazed at its gateway powers. I will admit that the card game version is partially responsible for sucking me into the hobby, but by the time I got around to playing the basic game, I'd already cut my teeth on the likes of Euphrat & Tigris, Elfenland, and El Grande and they excited me a lot more. BUT, I do start to realize the magic of Settlers with the addition of new twists and chrome like those in the historical scenarios and major overhauls like in Settlers of the Stone Age. There are still so many that I haven't played yet and I'm hoping that with this group I'll be able to work my way through them. Shoot, I still have the entire Das Buch to explore. We also hope to introduce people to a few other games besides Settlers.

The first meeting of the Settlers group went well. There was a lot of interest but unfortunately, attendance was limited due to the small venue. There were two tables going and Ed and I played a basic game with the group's organizers. They had been trying to play the game with just two and were quite enthused to be playing it for the first time with more. We felt that it would be rude to foist our house rule on our host's first game so we did not play with the Food Stamp Variant. I have said over and over how I refuse to play Settlers without this variant and once again proved that I need to live by my convictions.

After a dismal, resource-scarce game, Ed abandoned Settlers and broke out our copy of Pandemic that we had smuggled in and taught it to our hosts. It went over very well. I joined the other table to play Cities & Knights at the urging of a seasoned Settlers player who insisted that this was the only way to play and that I would never go back. Well, I wouldn't say that, but I did like this expansion quite a bit. Believe it or not, I had never played it despite the fact it has been on our shelves for years. What I liked in particular was the city development and the way it is tied into city resource production. Development cards are now much more a part of the game. I could have done without some of the added bits but on the whole I though they all added more decisions and flavor to the game. I do have one big caveat, though. I had to leave early and we only played about half the game. One of the biggest criticisms I've heard leveled at Cities & Knights is the increased length and I didn't get to experience that to judge for myself.

The organizers have secured a bigger place and the second meeting is next weekend on a day we can actually make it. Will our interest in Settlers hold? Will we be able to introduce them to other games and expand our gaming opportunities? Stay tuned.

I guess I've been experiencing a bit of burnout writing about games. Every time I sit down to write, I feel like a third grader writing an essay. "I like Pandemic because it is a really fun game." It doesn't make for very interesting reading, that's for sure. I need to shake it and get busy on reviews as I've got a pile to do thanks to the prolific Mayfair publishing schedule. I've almost completed a review of Chicago Poker. (It was fun; I liked it. Review done :-)) Actually, it isn't a bad little game but it doesn't really stand out in a crowd. It's sort of a multiplayer Schotten Totten. I've recently played their newest release, Bacchus' Banquet, and kind of liked it as a sort of cousin to Bang! It has a neat central mechanism but I have a niggling concern that one of the assigned hidden victory goals is harder to achieve than the others. Obviously a few more plays are in order.

So far, nothing really excites me from the early reports out of the Gathering of Friends, which is going on right now. The hit of the show seems to be Stone Age but the descriptions just make it sound like a rehash of familiar mechanisms dressed up in a new theme. Yawn. A lot of the excitement seems to be coming from prototypes. From this side of the fence though, it's hard to get excited over a few teasers for games that may or may not be coming out months and months from now.

I continue to find more ways to waste time on the computer. I am now on Twitter (as SusanRoz) and Facebook. I am not sure if this makes me cooler or even more of a nerd. Perhaps I should ask my teenage son who always feels it is his duty to inform me in which direction I am heading. I need to fill out my profile on Facebook but I keep getting distracted looking at all the apps available. It all seems rather silly and yet here I've been, constantly fiddling with it for the past few days. However, let me just say this now - if this leads to a MySpace page complete with tacky wallpaper and an obnoxious soundtrack, just go ahead and shoot me!

Ed added a two-player card game that had flown completely under my radar, quite possibly because of the very boring Cold War theme, to a recent game order. The game is Cold War: CIA vs. KGB and it is published by Fantasy Flight of all companies. It's such an itty bitty little game compared to the monster boxes full of plastic that I've come to expect from them. It's by two designers with no other published games in the BGG database. Note that it has an astonishing 7.1/10 rating with over 400 raters. How the heck did I miss this one?!?

Wow, this game might turn out to be a real gem. We played it tonight for the first time and I can already tell that it's going to keep me awake later thinking about it. It's got lots of things I love - bluffing, pushing-your-luck, hidden role selection and card interactions that make for clever tactical plays. The theme is actually far from boring because you get to play spies and the game really captures the theme with secretive, sneaky play. There's even an assassin and a double agent. Great, great stuff. I can hardly wait to play again.

We also played Quinamid which is sort of an advanced Pentago. It's yet another five-in-a-row placement game but on a four-leveled board with levels of increasing size from top to bottom. The levels can rotate and slide which gives the game a memory element since pieces can get covered and uncovered during the game. I can't believe Ed let me win one of our three games. He is so much better at spatial games than me.

The final game we played was Battleship Express, part of the line of new, little, dice games by Hasbro. Like Risk Express, this one is by Reiner Knizia. It even says so in teensy letters on the back of the packaging and rules which is amazing for a Hasbro game. The game isn't bad, although not as quite as good as Risk Express. Here you are trying to sink your opponent's ships which are lined up in front of him. You target one of the two ships in the front of his line and roll dice to hit by rolling that ship's color. You choose your attack ship from your lineup, each of which have a special ability and different number of attack dice. The twist is that the ship you attack with must be moved to the front of your line, making it vulnerable to attack on your opponent's turn. It had a few tactical decisions to make, but I didn't think it was as good as Risk Express. I still think Monopoly Express is the best of the lot so far. We also got a copy of Clue Express which we will try next.

Today I made my weekly Friday foray into town to catch up with old friends and run my errands. After a boring week of trying to ignore revival attempts of discussions flogging dead horses on BGG*, I'm unplugged from the internet on the day that the real interesting news is announced. Both are from companies that already receive a steady steam of our gaming dollars. Shoot, they probably should have their own categories in our budget software. Anyway, here is the news that you've probably already read about:

Exciting, earth-shattering Good News: Fantasy Flight Games has gotten the rights to most of the old Games Workshop Games.

<beg>Please, please, puh-leeeeeeeese publish a new, gussied-up version Dungeonquest!!!!!!!</beg>

Enough said.

Not unexpected Bad News: Days of Wonder is increasing its prices. I think I read somewhere recently that Rio Grande raised some of their prices as well. Sigh. We all knew this was coming and combined with other companies' price floor policies we are really going to have to get even pickier with our purchases. Oh, well. We have plenty of games to play.

*Ah the first sign of Spring - a Gathering of Friends discussion posted to stir up controversy. Then there is the good, old standby - AT vs. Euros. Do people ever get tired of these topics? Fortunately, neither has spiraled out-of-control. Yet.

Ed and I had planned far in advance to spend Saturday attending games at one of our local stores (Great Hall Games) for the first time. Alas, the weather did not cooperate. The cold and the rain were bad enough, but the possibility of severe thunderstorms and tornados was the deal breaker and deciding factor to stay closer to home. Of course, the dire predictions never materialized, but we spent an enjoyable late afternoon and evening giving our new copy of Through the Ages a go in spite of our failed plans. I had played my first game (a full game) back in January and this was Ed's first ever. I was especially interested in seeing how it played with just two since it is more likely to get played if it is just Ed and I and we can leave it set up to play over more than one evening.

Well, Ed should be happy because he beat me by some outrageous number of points (40?) in his very first game. Not that I had any real clue what I was doing either, as I am still at the point where I am more concerned with keeping my people happy and fed than with figuring out how to actually win the game. In fact, that is one of my main problems - I get so engrossed with short term goals that I forget the long term one. In the beginning, I focused a little too much on getting farms up and going and overshot the amount of food I would need each round. I was scrambling to use up my food to avoid corruption but this meant increasing my population, forcing me to have to also deal quickly with happiness. I did manage to get a jump on Ed on the culture track, but that only lasted until he was able to get Michelangelo and start generating some nice culture bonuses. He quickly started leaving me in the dust on the score track. I was able to get Maximilien Robespierre early in Era II and I used him to upgrade my government to a Republic, giving me a generous seven civil actions each turn. I also got the Architecture technology which enabled me to quickly complete the Kremlin to boost my culture. I actually felt like I was in a pretty good position to start Era III as I was also was cranking out a good amount of iron. With the discount on building from Architecture, I was set to rapidly expand, I thought. Ed would also be losing Michelangelo and his culture output would plummet so maybe I could catch up. The problem was that we were only playing the advanced game and it ended at the end of Era II. So for me, it was all over just as I felt like I was cranking up.

I did like the fact that with the advanced game, several Era III event cards are turned up at the beginning to be resolved at the end of the game. This lets you know in advance what will get bonuses. Too bad I was too distracted during the game to pay much attention to them until it was mostly too late!

Neither one of us built up our military much. Ed got a little ahead of me, but I wasn't worried since I was holding some defensive cards in my hand. What he was able to do with his superior forces though, was win a few territories. Besides the immediately benefits, it also gave him some nice bonuses at the end.

Science was quite a limiting factor for both of us. I think I peaked at around 5 or 6 per turn and Ed's output was even less. There is just so darn much to do in this game!

This seems to be as excellent of a game for two as it is for more. Pacts will not come in to play, of course, and perhaps the military will not play as much of a role but that is fine with me. I like building things up more than tearing them down. I'm now looking forward to trying the full game with two. As long as the components hold up, this game should have a lot of replay value with all the possible card combinations.

You may have come across Universal Head's excellent game rule summaries and player aides on BGG but did you know that they are all in one place on a website, Headless Hollow? I stumbled across the link when I was looking at StarCraft files. I went crazy and have been printing, cutting and laminating all weekend. Too bad I have no interest in applying these skills to a proper woman's hobby, scrapbooking. Some of my friends would be thrilled to find out that I was normal after all. :-)

Anyway, these summaries are great for quick rule refreshers when you decide to actually play a game that isn't new. There are some good player aides as well.

Besides all the crafty stuff, Ed and I also played a game, Kingsburg. It worked okay with just two, but there wasn't enough competition on the board even though the rules have you roll and place for two "dummy" players. Since they are automatically placed according to the total they roll, you don't have to consider how they could split their dice up as might a real player nor do they compete on the soldier track. Of course, that made it feel a little less frustrating and it eliminated a lot of the downtime that was present in the five player game that I played. I suspect that it will be best with three or four players. I really like the game. The clever dice mechanism makes it different from our 800 other games which is quite an achievement these days with all the new games being cranked out.

I must agree with the many of the posters on BGG that the component quality of the new edition of Through the Ages is very disappointing. The game ended up being $80 at the local store. It may be worth that price in game play, but the game itself looks like a $30 game. It's setting on a table right now next to StarCraft which has the same retail price and the difference between the two is appalling. Bland art, flimsy cards, and tiny wooden bits - they could have made this so much better. I think our next crafty game project will be making tuckboxes for the cards. The wells in the insert aren't deep enough and I'm afraid to use hair bands as they might damage the cards.

This was quite the productive game day for me. I played a game that has been sitting on our shelves, unplayed by me, for six years. I got to try a game that I've been curious about for over 20 years, and I got to play a game twice that I wanted to review.

Dampfross
This game won the Spiel des Jahres in 1984 while I was in college and long before I knew or cared anything about German game awards. It's been sitting on our shelves unloved for about six years although Ed managed to take it for spin once. Since it involves drawing rails with crayons, I really, really needed to play it. Alas, I was a bit disappointed. It wasn't a bad game by any means. The first part involved everyone drawing their routes on the map and connecting cities. (Hint: ditch the crayons and use plexiglass and dry erase markers). We used a fix that had the start player roll the dice once with the result being everyone's building budget that round. I think the original rules have each player rolling for their own money and thus possibly getting hosed by a bad roll as compared to everyone else. This was the best part of the game. Once most of the cities are connected, this phase is over and the game gets rather odd. Players now race their trains. Two cities are drawn randomly and players race their trains between them by rolling the dice and moving along their routes. You can use other people's tracks but you have to pay them. The first and second place finishers get a payout. This is repeated over and over until all the cities have been in a race. You don't have to participate in each race if you don't want to and you can also join another player and race together. If you do that, you share your tracks and split any payout. While the racing was kind of fun, it dragged on way too long and was so very luck-based compared to the more strategic track building phase. The game was okay and I'd certainly play it again, but I would much rather play an Empire Builder game.

Apparently I'm taking so long to build my track that Mark and David have fallen asleep. Either that or they are blinded by the glare of the plexiglass.

Talisman

Back in college, I wasn't a gamer at all, but I skirted around the fringe due to my great love of fantasy fiction. Several fantasy games made their way into my possession due to their tantalizing theme and art. Most turned out to be duds with Dungeonquest being the only real gem from back then. Poor Talisman was the game that stayed on the store shelves, a victim of my meager student budget. To this day, I've wondered what I've missed. When this latest edition appeared, I was secretly longing to get it even though my gaming peers sneered at it in disgust. I would have gotten it too, but one of those peers was Ed who seemed to think we didn't need to waste our money. I thought I was going to have use some wily, female ways of persuasion to get my way, but new guy John brought it to our game day. So, I got to "try before I buy," a mantra that we've wisely taken up again.

Verdict: It's a fun check-you-brain-at-the-door beer and pretzels game for about an hour. Unfortunately, it drags on for more hours. I loved the art in this new edition although it was a little hard to see. It wove a great story although you had to be willing to accept the very unlucky bad things that happened. You've probably heard about the witch that turns players into a frog. Of course that had to happen to me. Thankfully, I managed to hop around unharmed until the spell wore off. It did come down to an exciting finish with all of us up on the last level. But, with all the other, better fantasy game we have, we really don't need this outdated, clunky one. Even so, little part of me still wants it for the collection. Sshhh. Don't tell Ed.

Jeff Jones and John's son look for a Talisman.

Lascaux
This is a neat set collecting game that is clever and plays quickly. I really, really liked it and would have gladly played it a third time after playing it twice. You can read my review, linked in the previous blog entry, if you want to know more about it. I'm too lazy to repeat again it here.

Paul, David, Lauren, Susan and Ed (taking picture) plays Lascaux.

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

Since webmaster Ed is swamped at work, I haven't had anyone to take my latest reviews and "do them up" all nice and pretty to post here. I'm too lazy to figure it out myself. So for now, they'll only be posted over at BGG.

The recent ones are Lascaux and Kragmortha.

Lascaux has a shot at overtaking R-Eco as my current favorite filler. It gets a big thumbs-up from me. If I ever see Kragmortha being pulled out again, I'm going to run and hide.

I'm usually thrilled when my son's soccer practice gets canceled because it means I get an unexpected free night at home. However, I'm not too pleased with tonight's cancellation. Our FLGS called and our copies of Through the Ages and Rails of Europe are in. Yes, the "price floor" (or whatever it's called) scheme is working with us. Without the online discount, we decided to give our local store the business. With all the talk about TtA being sold out, I was wondering if they had managed to secure us a copy. The store is right by the soccer fields but a 25 minute drive from our house. Rats. Maybe tomorrow. People are sure in an uproar about some component goofs over on BGG, though. I was almost hoping we'd have to wait until the next, and hopefully fixed, printing to get a copy. I also hope that I survive the shock of handing over that much cash for a card game.

Speaking of buying games, Boulder Games is Pure Evil. They keep throwing up daily "lost leaders" on their front page. We usually buy online from our friends at Game Surplus but Kingsburg for less than $30 was too hard to resist. Plus, they had just gotten in some more Runebound crack, The Island of Dread expansion. We also got Race for the Galaxy and Felix: The Cat in the Sack. That last one is pure speculation as neither of us has tried it. It looks kinda cute.

And finally, we built up some credit at another FLGS by being frequent shoppers if you call being frequent making ten purchases over a four year period. They average every ten purchases and give you that in store credit. It's very nice that they do this but the store is pretty far away so we don't get down there often. I used the credit to buy Last Night on Earth which happens to be sold out everywhere online. So, I was very happy to get it and continue my descent into the dark side of Ameritrash. This game will be fun to play with the family.

Good grief. As you can see from every one of these purchases, our shopping habits are way too easily manipulated!

I have another gaming resolution to add for this year. I'm going to try to have at least five nickels and one dime when I tally my games played at the end of the year for Mark Jackson's "Five & Dime" data. This year I only had one nickel - To Court the King. Pathetic. I don't count online games and I did have several at four plays so maybe I shouldn't feel so badly. Still, I get sucked in too easily to my group's "Cult of the New." There are so many good, forgotten older games that get pushed aside for the new and shiny ones. A few weeks ago, Ed, Mark and I played Attika and I really, really enjoyed it just as I always have. Maybe I will try to make that game my first nickel of the year.

Speaking of resolutions, Ed and I broke out the two-player games last night and I got two off my unplayed list:

Lightning: Midway

This was a huge disappointment. I liked the D-Day game in the series but this one bombed with me (pun intended). I played the U.S. and Ed played Japan. The goal of the game is to defeat the other side's four objectives. This is done by attacking an objective with force cards. The defender also defends with their forces and whoever has the highest total value wins the battle. Each player also gets to play several types of action cards to boost their forces. Each side commits their forces and then play goes back and forth playing action cards until both sides pass. The Japanese side has superior forces and the U.S. side has stronger actions. The problem is the fact that there can only be one type of a given action on the table at a time. So, if you play a leader card to boost your forces, your opponent has to discard his leader card if he has one. Since I depended on these action cards to beat Ed's forces, I felt that I needed to fill my hand with them before attacking. This also gave Ed time to fill his as well. Then, when I attacked, we'd go back and forth playing out the action cards in our hand with him usually able to boot mine off the table. I just didn't see a way to beat his initial forces. I ended up just conceding after he destroyed one of my objectives. The game was going way too long and I didn't see how I was going to win.

This game gets a lot of high ratings. Did we just miss something? We both went over the rules and FAQ and I think we played the game correctly. I did see several comments online by other people having difficulty playing the U.S. but there weren't any satisfactory answers.

Rat Hot
This game is by a favorite designer of mine, Michael Schacht, and was originally published as a free download online. It's a simple tile placement game with rectangular planks, each depicting a mix of three goods, rats or blanks. You draw two tiles on your turn and try to place them such that you form groups of goods in your color. Tiles can be stacked on top of each other as long as gaps are not left underneath. You score as you go along, getting points as you place the tiles but your opponent also gets points if your placements form groups of his goods. The game ends when all the tiles are placed and there is a final scoring of all groups currently displayed. The tension in the game comes from the fact that if there are ever three of your rats showing at the end of your turn, the game ends immediately and you lose. This is a nice, easy game that is perfect for playing while watching TV. (We were watching mindless TV - The World's Biggest Loser from this past week).

As I write this, the 1st annual G.I.T.H.O.T. gaming convention is winding down in Round Rock, Texas. One of our local gaming friends, John Gravitt, organized it as a sort of 40th birthday present to himself. Kudos to him for coming up with a unique way to celebrate his birthday and letting 60+ gamers share in the fun. We are hoping that his 41st birthday is important enough to do this again next year!

G.I.T.H.O.T. is patterned after the many invitational game conventions but is open to the public like BGG.con. Its focus is on open gaming, but there were also a few tournaments - Wits & Wagers, Poker, and Tichu. Besides those events, there was also a drawing for door prizes and a flea market where attendees could bring games to sell. Many attendees brought games from their collections for everyone to play and we had a wide selection to choose from that included many of the newer games. Yes, we even had copies of Agricola and Through the Ages. Surprisingly, I saw each get played only once. (Alas, I played neither.)

The generosity of Great Hall Games and Time Well Spent provided some excellent games for door prizes and North Star Games provided four copies of Wits& Wagers for the winning team of the W&W tournament. Thank you sponsors!

Ed and I had a great time. The gaming space was very comfortable and not too crowded. John's wife, Gina, provided us all with a variety of snacks and drinks all weekend. We got to meet a lot of area gamers that we didn't know and there were a few out-of-towners as well.

So on to the games I played:

Race for the Galaxy

I got to play this twice. Friday night was my very first playing. Marty and Mark did an excellent job describing the icons, but I still played the game in kind of a fog. By the end though, I had at least a pretty good idea of the flow of the game, but I hadn't seen enough of the cards to anticipate what I could get. My score was embarrassing - 16 points. Ed, in third place, scored twice as many!

The next day, I played my second game and I rocked! I started with a military planet and that strategy seemed a little easier to me. I got down a few more cheap military planets as well as a card that gave me a big one-time bonus to conquer another military planet. I fished through the deck and found a big one that also produced a good that I was able to sell for 5 cards. I continued to fish for more military planets and also snagged a card that gave me a hefty bonus for all those planets. I think that card ended up being worth twelve points! In the end, I tied for first with 39 points. We had to leave, or I would've wanted to play again immediately. I must have this game!

Icon overload!

Chang Cheng

I was worried that this would be Just Another Area Majority Game but it had a few neat twists. Players are placing wall segments to build the Great Wall of China. The wall is divided into regions and players get points for having the majority of wall segments in a region. After the wall is built, Mongol hordes attack from regions on the other side, giving negative points to the majority leader in a Mongol region. The neat bit is that you don't know how many points this will be (unless you've played a particular action card that allows you to peek) and the Mongol regions are slightly shifted along the wall which means that they overlap but don't quite match up to the positive scoring regions. This makes for some tricky placement decisions. I liked it.

Building the Great Wall of China in Chang Cheng.

Vegas Showdown

This game is excellent for coaxing the non/casual gamer deeper into the hobby. It has a lot of mechanisms found in heavier eurogames - auctions, tile placement, money management, multiple ways to score, and a building tree - but all in light, easy-to-digest versions. Plus, it's got a grownup theme. What it lacks is quality components and good art.

Thank goodness Vegas Showdown plays better than it looks.

Galaxy Trucker

You scramble to assemble a ship with parts tiles and then you race through space and watch your creation get blown up bit by bit from meteor hits and nasty pirate attacks. If you are lucky, you pick up some cargo along the way and stay intact to finish the race. I had a lot of fun with the puzzle of assembling my ships and the races were a hoot. If it didn't have such a high price tag, I'd be trying to find a copy. Hopefully, a domestic company will pick this one up. Pretty please?

Ed (taking picture), Tim and I build fragile spaceships in Galaxy Trucker.

Wits & Wagers

The Wit's & Wagers tournament was a nice, rowdy break on Saturday afternoon. Teams of four competed to win four new copies of the game, generously donated by Dominic Crapuchettes of North Star Games. He also provided seven new questions that aren't in the box. Our team didn't do so well, but we did have fun. There are a few changes to the new edition that I really like. You start out with just two bidding tokens that you can never lose. You can bet as many chips as you want on any question and aren't required to go "all in" on the last one.

We had a blast in the Wits & Wagers tournament. The questions were hard!

Hamburgum

Wow, this is one gorgeous game when it's all set up. It uses the rondel mechanism of Antike and Imperial, but this time it is to produce and sell goods and to build buildings, churches and ships in Hamburg. The most interesting bit is to be efficient with your laps around the rondel and time your actions well. Like Antike (I haven't played Imperial yet) turns are short and sweet and you are impatient for it to come around to you again because you already know exactly what you want to do. On the negative side, even though the board is double-sided with different maps, I'm a little concerned with replayability. There is no luck in the game and optimal strategies may become obvious.

The Last Night on Earth

I had to get my Ameritrash fix and was only too happy to try out a new game about zombies. For some reason I thought that this game had a lot of negative buzz but after looking the game's page on BGG, I think that I had caught snippets of another "fanboy" vs. "anti-shill" skirmish. It actually has garnered pretty decent ratings and I'd have to agree with most of them. For a game of its type, it's pretty darn fun. One person controls the zombies and everyone else is a "hero." Each side has their own deck of cards from which to draw. The hero deck had various items, weapons and events. You get to draw a card if you choose to search on your turn rather than move. Movement and combat rely on dice throws, but there is some strategy on how and when to use cards and formulating a plan with your fellow players. The game comes with a variable board and different scenarios. In the one we played, the heroes had to collect 3 weapons and first aid kit and hole up in the diner. We actually won although things looked grim for a while. This was game was a great closer for the day. It was fast and fun. Do I need to replace our copy of Zombies! and expansions with this? At least after one play, LNoE is definitely superior. I like the cooperative play between heroes a lot.

Jim's zombies almost get to feast on the brains of Dennis, Joe and Susan in Last Night on Earth.

Traders of Genoa

Early Sunday afternoon, we arrived at the game room and I immediately sat down to this game of wheeling and dealing. It has been on my unplayed list for years and even though I'm not a huge fan of negotiation games, I've always wanted to give it a try. It is an Alea game after all. A few local gamers had recently discovered this game and it is enjoying a little popularity. I had tried to read the rules recently but they were pretty confusing. It was nice to have somebody teach them instead. We played a few things incorrectly but given those rules, I'm not surprised.

And lo and behold - I actually enjoyed this game a lot, even with all the trading. It did take a little too long to play. The problem is that there is so much negotiating, even on other players' turns that you never get any downtime to rest. How's that for a different problem? A game without enough downtime! I actually had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do after the game got going and since money is hidden, the trading is not as cutthroat as it could be. I'm looking forward to trying it again with all the correct rules although it worked perfectly fine with our unintentional variants.

We weren't able to stay for Sunday night but I that was fine with me. I got to play plenty of games and I liked everything that I played. John did a fabulous job setting this up and I really can't thank him enough! I hope he does it again next year.

Don't you just love that little "rush or "high" that you get when the UPS guy drops off a box of games on your doorstop? I guess this is what drives a shopping addiction for some people.

Yesterday's box of gaming goodness contained more wow!ness than usual buried in the pile of annoying styrofoam peanuts that I managed to spill all over the floor unpacking it.

First up were several new Wings of War minis, including the popular and hard-to-get Red Baron. This is Ed's addiction. I like the game but don't feel the need to shell out for minis. That's okay though; I just file purchases like this in the back of my mind to use to my advantage later.

Next, I pulled out the new Air Pack for Memoir '44. It comes in a nice box of the same dimensions as the base game except not nearly as deep. Inside is a fancy plastic insert with a lid and places for the cards, planes, stands and everything. Bit of overkill, there. I had trouble figuring out how to open the dang thing. (Hint: it's taped shut, stupid) There are eight little painted planes. Cute. I'd have been more impressed if I hadn't just fondled the much larger and detailed WoW minis, but these are still nice. There's a big, colorful book of scenarios. Mmmm. Smell the new paper and ink. A few sheets of terrain and obstacles to punch out and some cards complete the expansion. Most of the cards appear to be summaries of the various rules in the game which can be pulled out and used as needed like in Battlelore. This alone makes the expansion worth getting.

Zooloretto was the next game out with its big, content panda face looking at me. This is a game that I enjoy but am not crazy about. However, it's great with newbies and continues our collection of Spiel des Jahres winners.

And lastly, at the bottom, was the big monster, StarCraft. Good grief, this one is heavy. It had to be lugged to the larger dining room table for a closer look. Surrounded by our eager kids, the coffin lid was removed to reveal piles of colorful, plastic figures (alas, a few broken from their stands), stacks of tiles to be punched and oodles of cards. I grabbed the thick rulebook and confirmed my worse fears. This game is chock full of space geekiness to be endured and we are going have to slog through 48 pages of rules before we can play it. Ah, well. This was the price for Ed and me getting away for a weekend by ourselves. Yes, this game was a bribe for our disappointed son who wanted to go to Lone Star Fest just to try it. He'd seen it at BGG.con. We figured that the savings from not having to feed his voracious appetite at restaurants at the con would more than cover the cost of this game. We weren't planning on getting it yet, but a fabulous sale price at Boulder triggered this whole order. We'll see how I like it. I'm not crazy about space themes.

Tonight we are going to GITHOT. Session report with pictures to follow. (Hee, hee. Sorry to disappoint, but it's not what it sounds like!)

Well, I had time to write a long post today so here we go.

Ed and I got a rare treat over the holidays. We escaped for a weekend without kids to attend Lone Star Fest, a small (57 people), private gaming convention in Houston. This crowd of gamers seemed to more of a serious nature, with longer, meatier games being the norm although some fluff was floating around as well.

I totally fried my brain on Saturday playing:

Neuland

There's nothing like learning a new game with a steep learning curve first thing in the morning after staying up too late the night before. This game always sounded like my type of game but the scarcity and high price had always kept me away. It's to be republished this year so I wanted to give a go.

Verdict- I liked it, even as I struggled to learn it. It's one of those efficiency races with a building tree like Roads & Boats. There's a lot of competition with a small board and the fact that anything built or produced is up for grabs by everyone. People claim that it scratches the Roads & Boats itch but in a much shorter time. Heresy! The only thing that scratches that itch is Roads & Boats, which is a much more detailed simulation and very close to total gaming nirvana. But, there was a lot to like in Neuland and we definitely now plan to purchase the new edition. The guy seemingly in last place made a spectacular gain at the end for the win which was exciting.

After fortifying myself with lunch, it was time for:

Through the Ages

This was the hard-to-get game that was generating more buzz than a hive of bees before it got shoved off its pedestal by Agricola. Since I had the time, it was the perfect chance to finally try it and see if it's worth the whopping price of the new edition coming out soon.

Verdict - Well, it took about 7 hours so that wasn't good. Ouch! With a newbie (me) and a semi-newbie, it took a bit to get through the rules and some of the turns. We played the full, advanced, super-duper version of the game so there was a lot to figure out. Mark and Marty had to take a break to play in the Texas 42 tournament and that took some time as well. I have to admit, I was happily absorbed the whole game with feeding my people, making them happy with cultural advancement and making scientific progress. About halfway through the game, I realized that revving up the victory point engine was the actual goal and with the help of William Shakespeare and some libraries and theaters, I did just that. This was all a very enjoyable process. So far, so good.

My aggravation with the game was with the military aspect. I took care of it nicely in the beginning of the game. Joan of Arc was my leader and with some temples for bonus strength and the fact that she gave me VP's whenever anyone messed with me pretty much meant everyone left me alone. Alas, she got booted when the Era I leaders had to go. My military strength plummeted. Since I had some nice libraries, William Shakespeare was a juicy leader to pluck out of the lineup. After snagging a few theaters, I was quickly up to generating a hefty 18 or 20 points per turn. This is where it all started to unravel. I was getting a huge lead on everyone so Marty and Mark started pounding me with wars. I didn't have time to build my military back up and was pummeled from a huge lead all the way down to a last place finish. I guess I learned my lesson! I had no idea how punishing those war cards could be to my final score. Now I know. I realize the war aspect is thematic and probably needed for game balance but it seemed like one thing too many to have to worry about. Still, what an engrossing and clever game! I can see why many are singing its praises.

Now the question is whether we should fork over $70 and buy it when it comes out. Ed is totally not into long games right now, especially if they require heavy concentration the whole time. The smackdown part would have totally ruined the game for him if he had been in my place. So, I'm undecided at this point as there may be better games to spend our gaming budget on that we both enjoy. I always think if I let a great game go by I'll forever lose a chance to own it, but these days even if it doesn't get republished there is a continuous stream of other games coming out to take its place.

A Happy New Year to everyone! January is, of course, a time to make resolutions and map a plan for the coming year. I did pretty well with achieving last year's resolutions as far as gaming goes. I knocked quite a few games off my unplayed list and we reorganized our games with the help of IKEA.

My only real gaming resolutions are to continue to go after my unplayed list with dogged determination and to catch up on writing reviews of games that I've received for that purpose. Oh, and there's one more. I'd like to be a little more active on online forums as well as take the time to make comments on other blogs. I feel like I've kind of dropped out over the past year.

Here is part of our game collection on the new "Billy" IKEA shelves on a balcony overlooking our living room. The rest are on a wall of shelves in the living room and a downstairs hall closet. You can also see part of a big Heroscape setup built by our son Shea.

As far as this blog goes, I will probably be experimenting a bit. I often don't feel like I have the time to compose a post because I tend to write way too much once I get started. I'm also always struggling with trying to make my writing read as "professional" as possible which takes me even more time as my scientific education and subsequent career did not do much to develop writing skills. So, I might try writing shorter posts of a more chatty nature although I still will be doing occasional full reviews of games. Instead of trying to write a comprehensive game day report, I might just write about the game I found most interesting. This will mean that I post more but the quantity may be at the expense of quality. However, I do hope to try and develop a skill that other writers do much better than me - that of distilling their thoughts on a game into just a few lines. I've been trying already to start doing this in the past few months of posting. We'll see how it goes.