Two weeks of games. Last week I expected two players, but we got third. Good that I hadn’t prepared with strictly two-player affairs.

• Dominion: Hinterlands. I’m a Dominion fan, so I like the new expansion. Simple as that. It sure is no Alchemy. There are several interesting cards. Fool’s Gold (money; first played on turn is worth 1, from second on they’re worth 4; if someone buys a Province, you can trash Fool’s Gold to gain Gold) was very popular and used to good effect. Very nice set. Enthusiastic.
• Puzzle Strike. More Puzzle Strike. In the first game I was eliminated fairly quickly and had to watch the other guys slug it out for fifteen minutes or so. That was painfully boring. Other than that, the games were pretty good. Suggest.
• Kings of Mithril. At the circus school I went back to Kings of Mithril. This time we played a bit faster and were able to play two games during the hour we had, almost three. At that speed, the game has a good level of decision-making and interesting stuff to the playing-time. This game is better than the sum of its parts, really – it should be less fun than it is. Delightful game. Suggest.
• It’s Alive! started the games yesterday. So far the only thing I’ll say is that this worked rather well with just two players, despite the auction element. Not a bad filler. Suggest.
• Elder Sign. Considering this game is quite contrary to my interests in many ways (it’s FFG ameritrash, a dice game and a co-op, all features I’m not thrilled about), this was surprisingly good. However, this is definitely going to be my last game of Elder Sign with six players. I might consider the iPad version, maybe. Anyway, not my cup of tea, with all the messy rules and too-small graphical details and fairly non-inspiring game play, but I can see how someone can love this game and the stories it tells. Indifferent.
• Kansas Pacific. One of the less-loved Winsomes, despite being designed by David V.H. Peters, the author of my favourite game Samarkand and SNCF. It just isn’t very thrilling. This time we did have companies across the Land Grant line, unlike the last time, yet it was too late in the game, so buying the Land Grant and attempting to go west wasn’t an option. That seems like a fairly essential part of the game, yet it just hasn’t happened in the two games so far, which is kind of boring. In the end, I’d much rather play other Winsome games, so I’m getting rid of this one. My copy is available on BGG for $35 including shipping (edit: sold in minutes!), in case you missed the recent reprint and want to try the game. Indifferent.
• String Railway: Transport. This didn’t go down too well. I suppose people love the original String Railway too much, and judge this version based on that very different game. This is not a fun game, this is a serious puzzler of a pick-up-and-deliver game. I love it, just like I love the original game, and I’d like to explore this one more. Enthusiastic.

I’ve been listening to Trevor Menear’s Some Kind of Sunshine last couple of days. Check it out, I think it’s a wicked good album.

• Puzzle Strike. Three more games. These were the best games so far. I played well, I think, winning two out of three. The games were well-fought and exciting. A tad long at 30 minutes or so each, but they didn’t drag on. I suppose there’s a good game in there. Going to play more today. Suggest.
• Lords of Vegas. My opponents didn’t like this one much, but I enjoy it. Looks like I’ve conveniently forgotten the trade rule every time I’ve played; I’d say it’s not particularly necessary, but I’ll have to remember it the next time to see how it goes. Anyway, I already wrote a review of the game, and a favourable one: I think Lords of Vegas is a pretty solid game with a good theme. Suggest.
• Ascending Empires. First three-player game of this 4X game. I think I like this more than Eclipse… Heh. At least this one plays much faster. Again, the response from my fellow games was less enthusiastic. But I love it, this game just works. Enthusiastic.
• Oregon. Two-player games at the circus school. Upped my rating for this one, it’s just such a fine little game of tactical tile and meeple laying. Simple, yet fun. Ok, looking for the possible locations allowed by your cards is kind of annoying, but that’s minor. Very clever game, all in all. Enthusiastic.

Tomorrow, it’s Puzzle Strike and Dominion. I finally finished my Dominion minibox: Alchemy box filled with cards. There’s Cornucopia and Hinterlands in entirety and the rest is filled with choice cards from other sets. I’d like to play more Dominion, and this should help.

Recent shopping includes the Dominion promos Stash and Governor from the BGG store, the Hinterlands expansion and Container, which I finally repurchased. I’m also eyeing Kaivai, but since it’s a 2-3 hour game, I’m not sure it really makes sense to buy it. If the price drops, I’ll spring for it, right now it’s 40 euros plus shipping for the base and expansion, and that’s a bit much.

2012 is off to a flying start. My wife has been incredibly understanding of my board game hobby and I’ve been able to spend more time playing games. Part of that is definitely the kids: they’re older now (my son is 5 and my daughter is 3 in less than two weeks), so taking care of them is easier. Anyway, I’ve been very happy.

Yesterday was crazy good, for example.

• Modern Art. I played my first game of Modern Art ten years ago. The previous game before yesterday was back in 2008… Not the hottest game, but it is fun. Our game yesterday was tense and interesting. I got the windfall from some  over-the-top prices paid, but that wasn’t good enough for more than 3rd place out of four. Suggest.
• SNCF. I’ve decided this game should reach ten plays during 2012. That should not be very tricky, if I just keep carrying it around. I’ll try. It’s just such a good filler. Ok, the setup is a bit of a pain, but the game plays fast and fun. I should also try the German map. The Iberian expansion map was good, if a bit standard, the German map has more changes – but I suppose it also requires experienced players. Enthusiastic.
• Dobble. We had six players and had to wait for a while for someone to arrive. One round of Dobble was the perfect fit. I love this one, and managed to win even with my very slow start. Enthusiastic.
• Die Aufsteiger (Climbers). Another filler, while waiting for someone. This sessions was unlike other before. We dead-ended the tower faster than ever before. It was nothing like the monstrosity we had in this session. Sonja and Ville built a branch, got stuck, then I reached the same level and won the game. Lagging behind for the win! I’m coming to a conclusion with this game: it’s a keeper. Suggest.
• Megastar. We had five players, but not enough time for Clippers. So, we ended up playing this Friedemann Friese card game. It sucks. At least with five players, that is. Players try to adjust a ranking in a way, that the cards they have in hand score as many points as possible in the end. However, in order to boost a type of cards, you must play them away. Clever idea, but unfortunately there’s very little control over what happens in the game, so that makes large part of the game quite meaningless and a small change in timing can have a huge effect. Maybe this works with three players. Indifferent (but not Avoid).
• Clippers. The time-restricted player left and we could now play Clippers. In this old Alan Moon game the players build shipping lines on South Pacific, but don’t control those lines. Instead players have ports and to score you must get as many shipping lines to your ports as possible. There’s lots of interesting tension in this game. Every round you can place a port or get an option tile which lets you build more shipping lines – that’s a tough call to start with. The way the shipping lines run offers lots of potential screwage, too. All in all rather delightful game, and the fact that I got beaten really badly means that I really want to play this again. Suggest.
• Puzzle Strike. Me and three newbies. 45 minutes. Confusion. Not the best game, but they actually liked the game in the end (at least most of them). Why not – Puzzle Strike is an interesting Dominion variant. I’m still not sure if this is a keeper, but at least I’ve been pondering it for 10 games now and will continue… Suggest.

2010 was a good year. Well, 2011 was even better. I played more games than on any year on my records. Quality matters, too, but I can control quality more than I can control quantity and if quantity is good, quality tends to be good as well.

I played lots of games with my son. My daughter, who is soon three, has started to become interested in games. We’ve played our first real games, and spent lots of time playing with games. Her favourites are Blokus, Kids from Catan and Kayanak.

I had to miss couple of cons early in the year, but managed to visit Ropecon and stay overnight at Helcon (or Lautapelaamaan, as it is called now).

I played lots of PBEM 18xx earlier this year. It was fun, but takes a bit too much time. It’s still nice to have that option. All in all I’d say my interest in 18xx has waned a bit. The games just take too much time. There’s a game or two running in every con, yet I had no interest in playing at Helcon, for example. I did play a game of 1865 in Ropecon, and kind of wish I hadn’t.

I’ve added some of my best board game photos taken in 2010.

Good new games (2010-2011)

South African Railroads. A new Winsome game, or actually a remake of an older Veld Railroads, which had the same game under more chrome. I had Veld Railroads, too, but sold it unplayed after SAR was published. This leaner remake has everything I need, I can’t see how adding more stuff would improve the game. It’s rather good as it is, a quite delightful game of small dividends and player-triggered dividend payouts that shorten the game. Players are given plenty of tools to work wonders in this game.

Dobble. Probably better known as Spot It! Lovely pattern-recognition game. May be difficult to get on table, as these kinds of games are polarizing, but I like it a lot.

Puzzle Strike. I’m intrigued by this game. It’s supposed to be the Better Dominion, but I’m not seeing that yet. Then again, I did play nine games and I’m still not sure what to think about this game. Looks like I need to play more. This may end up a keeper or in the trade pile, I’ll try to make up my mind until Ropecon next summer, but it sure is an interesting game and worth trying if you’re interested in deck-builders.

Rattus. Maybe a bit of a flash in a pan? We quickly played five games of this in May, then afterwards I only played this once. Still, it’s a fun game of bashing the other players. The Pied Piper expansion is fairly important, I think, as it gives the game a lot more variety, which is good.

Pantheon. Bernd Brunnhofer is a very reliable designer, who has done three very good games. Pantheon is the most recent, and a very good game. Good dose of luck, but also timing, strategy and opportunity. Mechanically the game is very solid and well-executed. This is something I’d like to explore further in 2012.

1865: Sardinia. The one face-to-face 18xx game I played this year. I also played a PBEM game. Not bad, not at all, lots of good ideas in this one. Might be interesting to try with just two players.

Ascending Empires. The idea here seemed crazy enough to be interesting: a 4X flicking game. First, though, the game didn’t fit on the tables of our regular meeting place (that has been fixed now by a change of venue) and then the first game took two hours… Well, the second game took just 60 minutes or so, which is much better. This game offers lots of promise, too bad the rules are a bit too vague for my tastes.

Eclipse. It’s been great fun to watch how successful Eclipse has been. It’s come a long way in a year or so, from November 2010 when I first played the prototype to now when the game is in BGG Top 100 and I have my own copy. It’s a very good game and overall one of the highlights in 2011.

Jishaku. I’m not sure what to think of this one. Not much of a game, but plays in couple of minutes and I did play it more than ten times, so it can’t be garbage. Not a keeper, but a fun filler with a nice gimmick.

Good older games I haven’t played before

Lamarckian poker. I finally took the effort to learn the rules to this classic. It was well worth it, as this is a great little filler. Very simple, uses standard playing cards, easy to teach if people know the Poker hands, and plays fast. It rarely takes more than five minutes to go through a pack. This is something everybody should know, just in case.

Stone Age. Another Brunnhofer game. This is my favourite worker placement game now. The dice work well here, you can take risks or play it safe. There’s several valid approaches to the game and the starvation strategy is an interesting twist to try. All in all very well done. I’ve left my copy at my mom’s place, because they love the game and I mostly play it with them, so I’ve been mostly playing this with experienced players — always a good idea.

Lords of Vegas. An interesting game with a theme of gambling and property development and game mechanics to match. In the long run this may be too luck-heavy, but as it is, I’m rather interested in the game right now.

Oregon. I had completely dismissed Oregon as a boring family game when it was published. I played it, and it turns out it’s a pretty good game! Family game, yes, but the game plays fast, 30-45 minutes, and has quite enough strategy and tactics in a simple, easy-to-teach package. All in all rather lovely game.

Cavum. Just one play, but it was very promising.

Children’s games

These are the children’s games we played most, in the order from most popular to least popular. All games mentioned here were played at least five times. There were over 30 games that didn’t reach five games and didn’t make it to the list.

Kids of Carcassonne. Nooa doesn’t fancy this, I said last year. This year we got over 50 plays out of this! Based on first half of the year, I was expecting reaching hundred plays, but the enthusiasm waned a bit. I remember a day when we played ten games in a row, at approximately three minutes per game. Fun. Nooa also likes the adult Carcassonne and I think we might be moving on from Kids of Carcassonne, but it has been a good ride and I definitely recommend this game.

Geistertreppe. Didn’t make the list last year, now 30 plays. Roll-and-move doesn’t get much better than this. Very entertaining little game, and plays fast. A bit poor with just two players, but we still enjoyed it a lot. This is a classic game for kids (the sequel, Geisterwäldchen, less so).

Villa Paletti. A hit last year, a bigger hit this year. The tower-building game is a classic, and this is more interesting than basic Jenga (which we also played).

Gulo Gulo. Last year’s number one hit game took a bit of a dive. Iain says this isn’t as good as people say… I still think it’s a very good game, but yeah. My daughter has shown some interest for this, though.

Click Clack. This is starting to feel a bit childish, then again I just played this for the first time with my daughter. So, there’s life for this game still.

Kraken-Alarm. Rather entertaining little memory game, with a really cool swinging wrecking ball that is used to capsize a boat. It’s a gimmick, but it’s a fun gimmick and the game works. Well, it can be a bit stale at times, but we still played more than ten games.

Forbidden Island. My son liked this one enough so we played about ten games. Well, I played and he gave some suggestions. Co-ops can be good with kids. I’m rather bored of the game myself, though.

Maskenball der Käfer. Simple co-op game. Pretty good for three-year-olds. My son (five) has asked for this occasionally, haven’t yet tried this with my daughter.

Settlers of Catan Junior. This continues to be popular.

Mouse Carousel. When did we play eleven games of this? Probably didn’t take many sessions. Not a bad memory game, actually.

Kayanak. Popular, though tends to encourage creative play as the rules are not pleasant to the kids. My son doesn’t like the dictatorship of the dice. My daughter loves to play with this game, too. Punching holes in paper and fishing for metal balls is just great fun…

Das magische Labyrinth. Still reasonably popular, and I enjoyed the game even more once we forgot the dice and just moved three steps each turn.

Kids from Catan. There’s hardly any game in the box, but the components are cool and my three-year-old daughter likes the game. What’s more to ask? I also paid the princely sum of four euros for the game. I’ll probably get rid of the game once the kids grow out of it, but so far I’m going to enjoy it with my daughter.

Das kleine Gespenst. Fun little memory game.

Mysteries of Peking. This is actually a fairly awful game, but I have fond memories of it from my childhood and my son loves it. We play it almost every time we’re at the inlaws (it’s my wife’s old copy).

Dawn Under. I’ve sold mine long time ago, but I borrowed my mother’s copy. We’ve played couple of games, not a bad game at all.

Schildkrötenrennen. I’d like to play more, but this is still a bit demanding for my son. Keeping his colour a secret, for example, is still a bit of a challenge.

Animal upon Animal – Balancing Bridge. The original didn’t make it to the list and this new version only barely. Not my son’s favourite games at the moment. I keep suggesting the original every now and then, but with little success.

Games I’ve kept on enjoying

String Railway. Still an excellent filler. Fortunately I’ve been able to avoid the most analytical players, as those sort of ruin the game. It’s just not precise enough for very exact play. You have to relax a bit. I also have the Transport sequel, which I’ve only played once, but it seems very promising too.

Nile DeLuxor. Nile was good, one of the hits in 2010, and the new DeLuxor version improves it. There’s a decent box, actually usable cards and more cards to improve the game with larger player counts. Nile is very good with two or three players and decent with four and six. Rather entertaining little filler.

Carcassonne. This old classic made a bit of a comeback, thanks to the excellent iPad Carcassonne. I’ve played it quite a bit, both against AIs and humans, and I’ve found that Carcassonne is actually a rather excellent game. It’s really well done and fun to play.

Innovation. Playing Innovation is tricky, but I still managed eight games, mostly two-player games with Hannu (who is just about the only person in my game group who likes the game).

SNCF. This got eight plays, not bad, but could be better, as it is a rather excellent little game. Now better known as Paris Connection, this is a rather elegant game of railroads and shares, but unfortunately nobody else seems to be as thrilled by it as I am. I need to push it a bit more as a filler; it stands a good chance, because the game is very player count flexible.

Samarkand. I still like it a lot. No sight of the expansion so far, but to be honest, I think I’m better off without it.

Bunte Runde. I finally got myself a copy of this charming little game. This could go under children’s games, but I also played this with adults. I think this is a lovely little abstract.

The not-so-good, the disappointing and the plain bad

The Enigma of Leonardo. This was pretty dreadful.

Excape. Knizia game, but very frustrating.

Roope-setä Liikemiespeli. The worst business game of the year.

Days of Steam. This was one of the worst disappointments. Well, I knew this might not be the hottest game, but still… it fell incredibly flat. The game has some real problems and it is pretty much unplayable until fixed. Too bad, I liked parts of it quite a bit.

Chunky Fighters. Kind of interesting, but eventually very tedious.

Fives and dimes

Longest list ever? Maybe. Dimes:

• Kids of Carcassonne (57)
• Geistertreppe (32)
• Villa Paletti (18)
• Dominion (17)
• Lamarckian Poker (16)
• String Railway (14)
• Gulo Gulo (13)
• Haselnussbande (13)
• Jishaku (13)
• Forbidden Island (12)
• 7 Wonders (12)
• Mouse Carousel (11)
• Nile DeLuxor (11)
• Kraken-Alarm (11)
• Dobble (10)
• Carneval (10)

Fives:

• Settlers of Catan Junior (9)
• Stone Age (9)
• Puzzle Strike (9)
• Carcassonne (9)
• Innovation (8)
• SNCF (8)
• Bunte Runde (8)
• Kayanak (8)
• Kids from Catan (7)
• Samarkand (7)
• Dawn Under (7)
• Das kleine Gespenst (7)
• Das magische Labyrinth (7)
• Battle Line (6)
• Schildkrötenrennen (6)
• Terra Evolution (6)
• The Mysteries of Peking (6)
• Rattus (6)
• Repello (5)
• Principato (5)
• Jälkipeli (5)
• The Resistance (5)
• Geschenkt (5)
• Animal upon Animal – Balancing Bridge (5)

Year metric

• Battle Line (10/11)
• Attika (9/9)
• Age of Steam (9/9
• San Juan (8/8)
• Ta Yü (8/9)
• Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation (8/10)
• Ingenious * (7/8)
• Gang of Four (7/9)
• Tarock (5/5)

First number is the years I’ve played the game, second is the number of years since the first time I played. So, I first played Age of Steam eight years ago and have played it every year since that. With Battle Line I’ve missed a year. I didn’t play games marked with an asterisk this year.

H-index

My H-index for this year is 11. All-time H-index is 26, two up from last year.

We played Eclipse yesterday. Our regular location had some strange holiday opening hours, and we had to do a quick relocate. Fortunately the nearest bar had large enough tables (just barely) for a five-player game of Eclipse – that’s not obvious, as the game is quite demanding when it comes to table space.

I had Planta, the plant species that spreads out fast, but which is a bit weak. I started next to the military superpower Orion Hegemony, but I was able to explore the border and manage the wormholes so they couldn’t attack me. On the other side I was next to the Mechanema.

I won the game. Apparently, that’s fairly easy with Planta. It didn’t look like I would win, but the Orion Hegemony was attacked on the last turn by their allies the Terrans, making them lose the Galactic Center. Well, I would’ve won even if the Hegemony had held the center, but that was still a bit of a shift in the balance of power. Too bad the Terrans pretty much bankrupted their empire with that attack, which should’ve happened at least two turns earlier.

Meanwhile in my corner, I fought a little with the Mechanema, who took two hexes from my empire. I could bear that loss, though. In the final round I sent my cruiser on a suicide mission in order to score some final reputation, as I had one reputation spot empty. Mechanema got provoked, and attacked my home world with a single dreadnought. Fortunately I had two starbases and one interceptor there, with bunch of plasma missiles, and I was able to fend off the attack. Those two battles scored me five points, thus sealing my victory.

It was a fun game. We took slightly over three hours, which means we made it in less than 40 minutes per player. Considering the game’s supposed to run 30 minutes per player, the length was very tolerable. The time flew, and the game was full of good banter and thematic narrative.

After Eclipse we lost couple of players, so we played a three-player game of Eminent Domain. That didn’t go down quite as well as Eclipse. It’s a bit overwhelming for new players, I agree, and takes a while to take in all the stuff in the game. The iconology, whily decent, is pretty heavy and there are lots of significant but very small icons.

This session was clearly better than the first one in Lautapelaamaan 2011. That was just colonize and not much more, here we started doing other stuff right away: research, even produce and trade. Warfare was also more popular. All in all a well-rounded game. The game felt a lot better.

However, it’s starting to seem that while the game is interesting, it’s also so overwhelming for new players that it’s not going to have a long life. It would require more play than it’s likely to get. Too bad, as I like the game.

Playing catch-up… I started working on the year review, but I have to get these out first. Since the previous post, I’ve had one game session with adults (last week I had to skip because of Christmas) and have played several interesting games with my son.

• Preußische Ostbahn. I noticed there was almost two years from my last match of this gem. I’ve rated it a perfect 10, so I suppose I should play it, too? We had three players, all experienced, and used both expansions. It was a crazy game, with tons of money, more than ever before (this was actually also the first time with 100% correct rules, so maybe that explains). Lots of fun, this is one entertaining game. Hannu showed his prowess by winning the game while taking least turns. That’s how you roll in this game. The new German Railways edition is highly recommended. Enthusiastic, and this time it won’t take two years before the next game.
• Lancaster. Second game, and this one too with experienced players. Swift game, just 65 minutes, but I think I’ve had enough. Lancaster is not a bad game, Hannu for one loves it (though he’s won it, with wide margins, almost every time he has played it), but not my cup of tea. I don’t like the “I’ll take this castle, oops no you take it from me, well I’ll just grab it back by spending more squires” mechanic. So wasteful. I’ll play, but I won’t suggest this and will most of the time play something else, if possible. Indifferent.
• Es war einmal… (Once upon a time) is a story-telling game for kids. The players tell a common story. Each turn somebody gets a card and they must add it to the story, reciting the whole thing from the beginning. If you make a mistake — miss something, mix the order of things — you can’t add the card and have to discard it. Cards are points in the end. Simple game, yet rather entertaining, and quite educational too: it’ll teach the young ones to concentrate, to tell stories, to come up with creative twists in the story. It looks very nice, too. It’s language-free except for the rules, so if you have kids (say, five years or up or so), do yourself a favour and grab a copy. Suggest+.
• Voll in Fahrt. Apparently there’s something funny about the name of this game in English… This Amigo game is a rather funny roll-and-move, where players have a team of four train engines and they have to get at least three engines to the end of the track. It’s a railroad switchboard and parts of the board change places every turn. Engines can push each other and fall off the tracks. There’s plenty of chaos and much hilarity. With two players, play two colours each to maximise collisions and trouble. Very entertaining and looks neat, too. Suggest.

My numbers this year are nothing short of amazing, by the way. This has been the best year in gaming ever. Over 170 distinct games, almost 100 new games, almost 700 plays… Amazing. On average, I’ve been playing games every other day, and playing a new game every other day as well. Crazy.

This week, we’re finally playing Eclipse. Eclipse, as you might know, has finally broken into BoardGameGeek top 100, ranking at 83 at the moment. It’ll reach much higher. It has potential to go to top 10 or top 5, the only question is how many ratings a game needs to have to breach those lofty heights. Eclipse does have an average rating like few other games, and the crazy thing is that with the hundreds of new ratings the game has received recently thanks to the wider distribution, the average has still gone up, not down.

Two weeks passed again. Time flies. Stuff I’ve played recently (as reported on the Google+ page, which is worth following if you ask me), rated using the Avoid, Indifferent, Suggest, Enthusiastic scale described by Brian:

• Dobble. Also known as Spot It!, this is a ridiculously entertaining card game. The round cards have bunch of icons and the trick is that each pair of two cards contains exactly one shared icon. There are five different games included, all which revolve around recognizing the shared icon. Either you try to collect cards or get rid of them. Simple, really easy to teach, tremendously entertaining. This one gets high marks from me. The game comes in a small tin that’s perfect for carrying along anywhere. Rating: Enthusiastic.
• Pantheon. The latest from Bernd Brunnhofer. He has a really good track record and Pantheon doesn’t fail. The game’s very good. The game’s a bit complex and hard to explain briefly, but it’s basically about tribes expanding around the Mediterranean. However, the tribes are played one at a time by all players. The goal is to collect demigods and place pillars that score points. You can also collect gods to get useful powers like extra resources. Looks like this game has a decent dose of luck, lots of possibilities and plenty of excitement. Very good, like Stone Age before. Rating: Suggest+.
• Kissenschlacht. Fun little dexterity game for kids. Try to toss small pillows to the game box using a simple catapult. Controlling the shots is tricky, so it’s a fairly lucky game, but if you allow the kids to shoot from short distance, it’s not hard and the game is quickly over. Rating: Suggest, but will drop down to Indifferent eventually.
• Ubongo 3D. I hadn’t tried this one before. So yeah, it’s a bit difficult. The four-piece puzzles can be very, very hard, actually. I tried to solve one, just to see how well that two minutes works out. Ten minutes later or so I had to check the guide to see if the puzzle can actually be solved. I’ve owned all the other Ubongos, but have since got rid of them. I’m afraid this will meet the same faith, especially as the box is so huge, but I just might keep it — it’s certainly the most interesting game in the series. Rating: Suggest-.
• Kings of Mithril. My relationship with Mindwarrior Games started badly with Atlantic Triangle and I wasn’t terribly impressed by Odin’s Table either, but I was surprised at how much I like Kings of Mithril. It’s a simple game of tile-laying and die-rolling, there’s plenty of luck and sometimes fairly little control, but it’s also quite quick (45 minutes or so) and just fun to play. Rating: Suggest.
• Monte Cristo. This is the game with marble action track, where the player whose marble is on the bottom of the track gets to be the active player. The marble is then moved on top of another track. Clever, but it doesn’t rescue the game. Monte Cristo is a ho-hum euro game, where players try to get area majorities and try to have the right sacks at the right time. Nobody liked the game. Rating: Indifferent-.
• Blood Bowl: Team Manager. Ooh, Ameritrash! In this case it means “annoying, chaotic tug of war”. I dislike tug of war, and thus the game doesn’t work for me. I might be interested trying this with just two players; that way it might work. Our four-player game took 90 minutes, which is way too much for a game this unpredictable and frustration. Rating: Indifferent-.
• The City. Here’s a game that was pretty much exactly as I hoped it would be. Fast and fun game in the San Juan family. The game plays really fast and has just enough decisions to make it worth the time and the effort. Lovely. This one I must have, and I’m really hoping I’ll find one in the BGG Secret Santa box I have waiting for me. If I don’t, I know I’ll be buying one. Rating: Suggest+, maybe even Enthusiastic.

This week’s game was Lancaster, ordered from Germany back in September, now finally here. Took a while, but hey, it’s a Queen game. At least it wasn’t as badly delayed as German Railways or, ahem, the Samarkand expansion…

Hannu bought the game, mostly because it’s by Matthias Cramer, the designer of Glen More, and because the game got a good review from Spielbox and got tagged as a game Hannu would like. Well, he got that right.

Lancaster is set in 15th century England, where Henry V of Lancaster hopes to unite the country and beat the French. Players use their knights to gain power in the country.

There are five rounds. On each round, players first place their knights. They can be put in three places: castles, France or personal castle. Each place offers different rewards. In the castles of the countryside, they can be ousted by stronger knights and supported by squires. This is a game of timing and commitment. Get in early and maybe nobody will come to oust you. Go in late, and you have to spend squires to push the weaklings from your path.

In France, wars are fought. Going in nets you a reward from the king. Being in France scores victory points, possibly twice. Winning the war means more victory points, losing the war means losing the knight or paying money to bail him out.

Rewards from the countryside come in two forms. Either you can get a nobleman from the castle to support you, which means potentially lots of points in the end, or you can a bonus, like a new knight, upgrading an old knight or something like that. Pay enough money, and you can have both rewards.

After all knights are played, it’s time to vote. There are always three laws and three new laws to replace them. Players have one vote each, and one vote for each nobleman at their court. Once the three laws are set, they are run through, giving players points and other benefits if they match the conditions set in laws.

Then collect rewards, then fight in France, then it’s new round with a clean board. There are five rounds, after which the players with the biggest army of knights and the biggest castle get bonuses and everybody gets points for the noblemen in their court.

(In the photo above, notice the iPad. Hannu hadn’t printed out the English rules. He just had them in his iPad, and so did I. Aren’t we modern!)

It’s an interesting game. The box says it takes 60 minutes. It first seemed impossible, as the first rounds took a long time. However, then the game got a lot faster and in the end we finished our five-player game (three newbies, two players with one-game experience) in 80 minutes. So, the 60 minutes is certainly manageable with experienced players.

This is a Queen game, so production values are great. The game looks gorgeous and everything’s functional. The knight tokens are wooden blocks of varying heights, and the heights are correct: a 2 knight is the size of two 1 knights stacked together and so on.

In our game, I thought I’d try making my castle automatic. In your castle, it’s possible to get stuff like new squires, gold and promote those squires to knights (one knight is apparently made by combining three squires together). Each of those actions requires a knight to activate it, but knights come in short supply — each player has just two to start with. You can get castle extensions, which make the actions happen every round. So, I wanted a fully automatic castle and ended up with a castle that produces one knight and one money each round, without any action from my part.

I fought in France, with better and worse luck. I did manage quite well, too. Hannu ran away with the game, scoring something like 80 points. I was second with ~45 and the rest of the boys were all clustered within five points around ~32 or so.

Nice game. It didn’t leave me with a burning desire to play it again, but I could, I could — and I know Hannu wants to play more, so I suppose I will. With experienced players, this should go a bit faster, so if we can get from box opening to box closed in 75 minutes or so, it’ll be just fine.

My rating for Lancaster is 7: good, but not great.

I got a bunch of review copies from Tactic. They are probably the biggest board game publisher in Finland and as far as I know a fairly big in European level as well — certainly bigger than many of the hobby publishers we cherish, like Hans im Glück.

Their games are fairly mass-market, with occasional interesting titles from a gamer’s point of view.

• Rrrats! is a push-your-luck game, designed by Reiner Knizia (not the first Knizia title from Tactic). Nice bits: large wooden chunks of cheese. Gameplay less nice… The game has three variants, first of which is pure lottery with no decisions to make. The other versions add a standard push-your-luck element to the game. Roll for cheese, but if you roll blanks, you’ll lose everything collected on the current turn. I’m surprised if it took Knizia more than ten minutes to design this game. The one unusual element is that one of the symbols on the dice lets you steal a piece of cheese from another player.
• Jishaku is a game where you put magnetic hematite stones on a foam board. If the magnets click together, you must take them in your hand. First one to lose all stones wins. It first appeared there’s very little game beyond the initial wow factor of the magnets, but once you get a bit creative, this turns out to be a decent game. Nothing earth-shaking, no, but considering the game looks wicked cool, can be taught in two sentences and plays in about five minutes, it’s actually not a bad filler.
• Abalone is a classic abstract from 1987, now available in Finland in a new edition. I’ve been passively avoiding Abalone, as I’ve had a vague feeling that it’s not a very good game. Turns out it is — it’s not a great game and not a game I particularly like, but as an abstract game, it’s fine. I just found it a bit dull, as it’s so defensive. Starting with the Belgian Daisy setup did help a bit. If I didn’t have the Gipf games to compare to, I would probably like Abalone more.
• Offboard is a new game from the makers of Abalone. It’s very similar to Abalone, but tries to fix what’s wrong in the first game. Now instead of pushing any six balls of the board, you need to collect six points by pushing the balls to scoring areas worth 1, 2, or 3 points. Each scoring area can only be used once, which is a nice touch. The game still feels like Abalone, but perhaps a bit more dynamic. Then again, it loses some of the elegance of Abalone.

I’ve got lots of board game geeks in my Google+ circles. I’ve been posting board game notes there, mostly quick thoughts of what I’ve played. Those notes appear much faster and more reliably than what I post here.

I’ve run into a limitation with Google+: I don’t mind sharing those notes in public, yet I want to keep them in a board game circle. Now, finally there’s a solution, which I learnt from Matthew Gray: I’ve started a public page for this blog. From now on, I’ll post my board game notes on G+ to that page, which everybody can follow. It’ll be my publicly followable board game circle!

So, I’m not going to dump this blog and I’ll keep on blogging here, but if you want more, go follow the blog on Google+ (Google+ is full of interesting board game folks anyway, in case you don’t already have a profile).

Mikko’s Gameblog on G+