Memoirs of a Board Gamer

Cabin Con 2012 was the first year to resurrect a cabin getaway of gaming in southern Ohio after a six or seven year hiatus. We had so much fun last year that we decided to get the same six of us back together for another go of it this year. We managed to get a cabin very near the one we had the year before but this one had a different layout that was much better suited to gaming given that one of our members brought a huge table that all six of us could easily play one large game or we could split up and play two games at once. This allowed us to reserve the kitchen table for eating and we could all sit near the fire while we played into the wee hours of the morning.

We had some trouble with getting enough lighting over the long table and we had way too much food but those are very minor problems to have when you've got dozens of games stacked and ready to play and six of you ready to dig in. We did find that as the six of us grow closer as a group that we spent more time chatting and enjoying each other's company talking about work and just life in general but that's kinda what the whole getaway is about. The games provide a nice backdrop and excuse to bring together good friends for a couple of days. The general consensus is that we'd like to try to add a day to the getaway and try to coincide with MLK-day since we all have that off from work anyway. The cabins are relatively inexpensive so adding another day wouldn't pose any sort of financial burden on us.

I know getting a getaway like this organized, getting strong commitments, etc. can be tough for a lot of groups. I know years ago, many in my group were casual gamers and could not see the value in spending time and money to go play games that could have been played for free at somebody's house. I sympathize but with the right group, you really can't beat escaping the trappings of work and family to relax with some time for yourself and your hobby. I can't wait until next year.

Pimping out a game, making special and/or enhanced pieces for specific games isn't rare in the board gaming community. Some gamers spend a surprising amount of time and money making laser-cut replacement pieces, wooden animal "meeples" (animeeples), even hand-painted resin-casts for Settlers, Notre Dame, and others. I'm not one to go all out on pimping out a game but I have done it before.

Back in November when I played Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar for the first time, the relatively plain gears screamed out to be painted. The satellite gears have a great texture and the center gear has minute detail that is lost in the light brown of the plastic.

Within the last month, there have been numerous image uploads of gamers pimping out their gears, providing how-to's, and videos on different techniques and when my copy came I started getting the itch.

Without having done anything like this before, I watched several videos about washes, dry-brushing techniques, and spraying so I headed off to Michaels, bought some acrylic supplies, and set down at the kitchen table to apply my first wash of straight black to all the gears. I kept the paint very thin, especially on the tooth sides so that I wouldn't create teeth that bind when meshed with their companion.

The details of the main gear immediately popped out and after applying silver to everything with a dry-brush technique everything was really looking nice.

I decided to go with yellow and red accent colors and just painted whatever felt right given the extreme detail of the main gear. There's no right or wrong here and I just kept going until I felt about 3/4 done then I felt I should stop. Less is better.

After a second light silver/black dry-brush over the main gear and a light acrylic spray over all the gears, I mounted them and I'm ready to play.

Painting the gears was a fun little project and I'm proud of how it turned out, especially since it was my first time painting something like that. If you've painted your gears or have pimped out a game of your own, I'd like to hear from you.

Brent Povis and I have kept in touch via email after meeting at Origins and I recently ran across an interview with him by MeepleTown. He gave me a little shout out in the interview that I didn't expect. Thanks for the shout out Brent; Lisa and I wish you great success.

I've had the opportunity to play Last Will six times. I was taught the first time, had a refresher the second time, and taught the game the last three times to mostly, if not all, new players, and finally as a two-player against Lisa. And, even after that, I'm forced to admit that I have no idea how to be competitive. Strangely enough, that has me intrigued. It gnaws at me. An itch that compels me to scratch.

Last Will, designed by Vladimír Suchý, pits players against one another in a "Brewster's Millions" style battle of being the most efficient at losing money. Att he beginning of the game, players are given a lump sum of money with the goal of being the first to go broke or to be the player with the least amount of money by the end of the game. However, it's harder than it looks.

Players are allowed to purchase property and to spend money on various items every turn but if you spend money to use the property, it doesn't depreciate in value. Although properties help players shed money quickly during the game, at some point, players will need to shed those properties to go broke.

There are several common boards and one personal board used in the game but at its heart, Last Will is a hand management card game. Players take turns planning their moves for the turn which not only establish turn order but also the number of cards they'll be able to draw, the number of actions they'll be able to take, and the number of "errand boys"/workers they'll be allowed to place. As one might expect, the more actions and cards a player is allowed to place/take, the later in the turn order the player will go.

Each turn, new cards are placed face up in an area of the board where workers can be placed to take them. The earlier you go in the turn order, the more likely you'll be able to take the card. Other places on the board allow players to manipulate the price of real-estate either up or down depending on whether one is buying or selling property (buy high & sell low!), take personal board extension, draw a card, etc.

After all players take the actions afforded by their placed workers, all players spend the actions they secured for the turn, buying properties, spending money afforded by different cards, and eventually getting down to a strict hand limit.

The better players are at locating cards that work well together, the faster they'll shed money each round. All of the times I've played, I've tended to become distracted by the power of all of the cards. There's really not a bad one in the bunch and when I see them flipped up on the central board I tend to always want to obtain cards that will pay off at some point in the future. My spending engine is late to the party and I wind up hitting my stride a turn or two too late.

I really like the game and I'm itching to play again. However, I have found that the barrier to entry is pretty high given the number of rules and the sometimes confusing iconography. I've taught the game to gamers and non-gamers and they've been able to pick it up without issue but it just takes time to get through all the rules and various mechanics. There usually seems to be some stuggle with how many actions it takes to do things and what each kind of card does.

Even though I currently play rather poorly, I still really enjoy playing and teaching the game. I have a lot to learn to get better at teaching it. But until then, I just need to play it to scratch that itch.

I always look forward to the Great Lakes Games (GLG) convention and this year was no exception. I shared a ride with a friend in my game group and after packing up the night before (there's a library of attendee supplied games) we hoped in the car and made the 3 hour trip to Indiana. After a quick lunch, check in, and registration we were quickly hooked up with a game of Hawaii.

Hawaii was announced in 2011 but didn't seem to have much staying power with the cult of the new and quickly faded away. However, it's a great game and still retains a high rank on BGG. I've not played the game extensively but I can't imagine turning down a game. It's a bit fiddly at the end of each round replacing the price tokens and setting up for the next round but get past that, and you've got a lot of fun.

I approached GLG differently this year. This is my 4th year and I usually tried to play as many games as possible. Minimize downtime, short breaks for food, staying up late every night and ending a quivering mass of brain-drained goo. As I get older, I just don't have the staying power I used to. My ability to absorb new games late at night (especially after a beer or two) after a few late nights is dismal. I decided to pull back on the reins of my game playing aggressiveness and decided to just let them come as they did. Less stress and more fun. That's not to say I didn't stay up too late (more on that later) but I didn't feel the need to push so hard and in the end I enjoyed myself more.

Having met up with lots of the same faces helps immensely. I've had the opportunity to meet up with the same rabid game players for 4 years now and it's like an extended family reunion. I missed a lot of regular faces but had the opportunity to share games with some new ones too.

After Hawaii, we took a little break, really got settled into the hotel, had a quick bite to eat for dinner and then jumped in on a table of Snowdonia that was just beginning to start.

Snowdonia is a new game, just out at Essen. The game features worker placement mechanics for taking actions that clear land, gather resources from the production areas, and to convert them to rails to build track & stations and surrounding buildings. I really enjoyed the game. It was the only game of the convention that I played twice. Although I was new to the game, I taught it to another group of four new players the following night without issue. Easy to learn, easy to teach, and has depth. Nice job.

The Snowdonia group broke up and another attendee just arriving wanted to get in on a game so we pulled out Last Will to get him warmed up. A game that features players trying to be the first player to lose all of the money they were given at the beginning of the game and ending with zero assets can't be bad. Never has trying to lose all of you money so fun. The cards and iconography are a bit hard to follow but at least they're consistent. Once it settles in, you'll enjoy yourself.

We finished out the night playing a game of Rattus as a light night ender. Rattus is one of those sleeper hits that many people have not played but those that have know there's a good game in the box. I have both expansions and have no regrets for obtaining those. A new dice-game version came out recently and I'd be interested in trying that but I didn't see a copy at GLG. Maybe next year.

I made plans on Thursday night to play Merkator with someone who could teach it the following morning. Merkator was not a disappointment by any means. Although the game is "just" a straightforward pickup and deliver game with some twists, I enjoyed the laddering contract aspects and the "tag along" nature of the travel pawn to help fulfill your own contracts when others do activities that benefit you. I'm currently in the running to "win" an auction for a used copy and I'm hoping I come out on top.

I sat in on an out of the box teaching of The Great Zimbabwe. The game started out well but it started to drag immensely about two-thirds in. There was a lot of AP problems and a lot of down time while players tried to figure out if they had the necessary resources and options to end the game. In the end we finally realized we'd ignore a rule that makes it much easier to keep the game going at an acceptable pace. I'd play it again but doubt I'll pick up a copy.

Next up was Aquileia, a 2011 release I'd never heard of or played. After a quick trip through the rules we got up and running in a five-player game that moved right along. Although it is a worker placement game (there are *many* on the market) it had some fresh ideas with arena battles, horse racing, and building construction. I was pleasantly surprised and would gladly play again.

I got in a quick play of Scripts and Scribes: The Dice Game and was also pleasantly surprised. The card game is very streamlined and although I like it, it just doesn't see the table. The dice game reinvents the situational decisions in a dice-driven framework. It's fun but not something I would necessarily run out and buy.

Next up we pulled out The Sheepdogs of Pendleton Hill and were greeted with some of the biggest wooden bits I've ever seen. The goal is to fill up pens with sufficient numbers of sheep and to drive them up a hill to a waiting & matching shepherd. However, you want to get as far up the hill as possible before meeting your shepherd to score the most points. Players use cards to perform actions but many of the cards require the players to perform an action that doesn't involve their own pieces. This activity injects an overt screw-you/take-that nature to the game that you wouldn't expect from the artwork on the cards. Light AND nasty. I'll not be playing it again but I don't regret the time learning it since it was so short.

Next I taught Trajan to three new players. Trajan is a really good game from one of my favorite designers, Stefan Feld. The game is a lot of mini-games rolled together with an awesome Mancala-rondel. Very nicely done Mr. Feld. I brought a copy of Trajan to the prize table and it went very early giving me a chance at some nice games, but more on that later. It's expensive but well worth the money and the learning curve.

After a few light cards games, and a replay of Snowdonia I headed up to my room around 2am for some much needed sleep. In the morning I taught and played Turn the Tide with four. Turn the Tide is so simple yet provides large numbers of groans and moans. Almost everyone I've taught it to remark how good such a simple game is. Try it out if you haven't. For light warm up or down, or just family fun, it's hard to beat.

I taught Walnut Grove to two new players and wow, I knew the game could be brutal but was amazed at how difficult it was for one of the players to do much of anything useful or productive. There's something wrong with a game in which it appears you've played as optimally as possible and you still failed to reach a score close to others. The game is supposed to represent living through the harsh conditions of the early west but that seemed a bit too harsh.

Next up, I was taught Santa Cruz, a clever discovery game where players select heterogeneous hands of cards and use them to explore and discover treasures on several islands depicted on the board. After discovering all of the treasure values on the roads, rivers, and ports of the island, players get the opportunity to play the game again with potentially a hand of cards used by another player for the first half of the game. However, in the second half you already know the values of the treasures and it's and all out rush to grab up the good ones before others get there. Nice change of pace. Well done.

I'd been wanting to try Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar since the images of those wonderful gears started showing up on BGG. I was hoping I'd be able to give it a go at GLG and finally got my chance on Saturday evening. I'd read the rules and we started to walk through the setup when we got someone who had already played to give us a quick run through. We got going and had very few questions throughout the game. There are numerous ways to earn points through "tech track" adjustments, building monuments and buildings, temple adjustments, etc. At times my brain felt numb trying to figure out what a good move was. The mechanics were easy but unlike most games where I get a hint of how the mechanics can be used to drive towards points, I didn't quite get it. I knew I was going to have a tough time "feeding my people" so I focussed on making that easy but totally got side-tracked optimizing that while missing opportunities to drive for more victory points.

I need to play again and was surprised at how short it was. The look of the game gives the appearance that it's going to be a long brain-burner but instead, it's over in only 90 minutes. Great amount of game packed in those gears. I need to get a copy and play it again.

The final game of Saturday night/Sunday morning was Myrmes. I shouldn't have started it but looking forward to an opportunity to try it coupled with an offer to fill the 4th and final spot at the table I couldn't resist. A few minutes into the rules I knew I was screwed. I just couldn't focus and by the time the game started my brain went to mush, burning rubber smell and all :-) I was exhausted and played poorly. I should have gone to bed. However, I had retained enough of my faculties to see that there is a game in there and I think I'd probably like it. I'd gladly play it again when I have all of my mental capacities.

The final game of the convention was VivaJava. Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, VivaJava features a coffee theme where players attempt to construct craft-brews of coffee by collecting beans of various colors and periodically cooperating to produce blends of colored beans and pushing them into market. The blends take on a poker-like ranking (black beans are better than white beans) so a "flush" black bean blend would beat a "three of a kind" containing a lower-ranked color of bean. The higher ranked blends earn higher praise points from the customers. However, over time all blends lose popularity with customers and fall from their perches or are pushed out but hot new blends coming from researchers working hard in the lab.

The game features a nifty forced but temporary cooperation between 2 or 3 players to produce the blend by pulling beans from their bags of beans collected over time. You won't have enough beans to create a new blend every round and you'll need to optimize your time during your non-blend turns to work in your research lab upgrading special abilities that help make stronger blends easier. I was completely blown away by the game. The fact that it plays best with 5-8 players, you can hardly go wrong with picking up a copy.

Every year, GLG holds a prize table drawing where each person brings one or more games as a donation (one should be in shrink) and then each attendee gets a crack at choosing a game. When you pick one, the person that brought it gets to go next, etc. until everyone has selected a game. Then they go back through the list in exact reverse order. Any left over games after going through twice are taken by randomly drawn attendees. The second time through, I managed to walk away with a copy of Last Will and a copy of The Swarm so I'm very happy with the result.

So, what are my must buys from GLG? I'd have to say Snowdonia, Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar, and VivaJava. I'm on the bubble with Santa Cruz. I liked it but the jury is still out if I'd want to own it. Dave Vander Ark does a great job with GLG and this year was no exception. I'm already looking forward to next year. I'm home now, exhausted but energized.

Ah…dusty game day. Well, mostly just a game day that granted the opportunity to play some old titles as well as a new one. When I sent out the offer to host a game day to my analog game group, I didn't get a rousing response. People have very busy schedules this time of year and it's just hard to get a quorum together. After shifting around the date a bit, I did manage to get two to commit and with three, we really had a lot of fun. Three is a great number for board gaming. You can really churn through the games quickly with little downtime on your turn. It helps to, that these guys are smart, quick learners, good listeners, quickly players (not a lot of analysis paralysis), and just enjoyable to be around for the day.

The original request started with a list of dusty games that I hadn't played in years (or ever) so I pulled out Java, Tinners' Trail, Carolus Magnus, Hansa Teutonica, and Inca Empire. However, I'd recently received a copy of Trajan and couldn't resist throwing that one on the table as well. As it turned out, we got through five games in ten hours with a couple of breaks for snacks, drinks, and pizza.

First up was Hansa Teutonica. I first played HT at Great Lakes Games in 2009, hot off the presses from its Essen release. I played it again at Origins in 2010 but since then, nothing. There are a lot of rules to get through and I hope I didn't make it too confusing. I pride myself on teaching a game well, a skill worth mastering in my opinion. Neither Jason nor Nevin had played before so we got through the sometimes confusing rules of the desk and the latin text (!) and got going. I advanced quickly on extra actions and clearing other parts of my desk and was a bit of a run-away but that's not unexpected for a first game against new players. Hansa Teutonica has a lot non-intuitive strategies that first time you play and I'd welcome another play soon. Hansa Teutonica is a pure, cube-pushing, Eurogame. They've wrapped a theme on top of an otherwise abstract game but I still like it.

I've always liked Tinners' Trail. Although mostly a math-based, economic game, common in many Wallace-designed games, I find that the theme and the historical setting mesh so well with the game that the rules are relatively easy to remember. We got off to quick start mining copper and tin, pumping water out of the mines, and trying to make money in the highly volatile ore industry of 19th century Cornwall. For the most part, the game works pretty well but the external investment action "chart" where you concert money to victory points seems odd. I like that investing earlier has a better pay off but it seems that investing larger chunks of money should have a better pay off than smaller.

Next up, a totally new game to all of us, Trajan. I'm a complete fan of Stefan Feld designed games. Most of his games I'm familiar with feature some negative aspect that occurs every turn or group of turns that you can use resources, actions, and time to prevent or reduce the impact of or choose to ignore with hopes of making up the loss by using those resources, actions, and time for other purposes. Trajan features a mechanism where each round (there are 16), a demand tile flips up and on every fourth round, instead of flipping up a new demand tile, a "season" ends and you are charged with paying for the demands of the people by giving up items you've collected during the course of the season. If you can't meet the demands you lose points.

I'd read through the rules several times and I usually play a sample round or two to get my head wrapped around the rules but I'd not even punched the game yet so it took us a while to get going. There are a lot of bits in this game but it's a keeper.

Trajan features a central board filled with lots of cardboard and different areas to score points. Your job is to gather tokens, take actions in one or more areas of the board, and vie for votes in the Senate to gain access to additional end game bonus tiles. To accomplish all of this, each player manages a personal player board containing a Mancala-style mechanism but organized in Mac Gerdts-ish rondel. On your turn, you pick up all of the colored "stones" in one of the rondel cups and dropping one in each cup as you continue clockwise around, you eventually place the last stone in a cup and take the action associated with the target/final cup. Rounds are based on time component that equates to how many stones you pick up from the starting cup. The more stones you move on your turn, the faster the round will be over because you've spent more time taking the action. Trajan is a bit of a solitaire experience but there are some areas on the board featuring some direct conflict. But that rondel is pure joy trying to figure out how best to set up what you need to accomplish.

We took a little break, ordered a pizza and decided to break out Carolus Magnus while we waited for my daughter to bring back the pizza on her way home from work. Carolus Magnus is an abstract game with the thinnest veneer of theme pasted on. Players push cubes around the islands and onto their player board in an attempt to gain control of the islands. In addition, players try to gain control of adjacent islands to trigger them to collapse into larger more powerful territories. Jason did a great job of setting up a final move that there was no way to thwart for the win. Carolus Magnus is one of my favorite games for three but the design is definitely showing its age. I still like to play and won't turn down a game but there are a lot of games I like more.

We pulled out Trajan again for our final game of the night. We don't normally play the same game two times in the same night so this was a welcome pleasure. This game took about half the time of the first coming in at about an hour and fifteen minutes which is faster than the box even states (about 30 minutes per player) so we really burned through it quickly. Set up is a bit of a pain due to the large number of cardboard tokens but since all three of us knew what to do we all did our part to get up and running quickly.

Of course, after the game we had to decompress discussing how all of us were so close to doing better if X or Y had happened, or how our plans for Z fell through because of some move or the failure to accomplish some goal. Whenever that happens, you know you've got a winner on the table. You can tell when people are ready for another game when they're thinking about how they would have played differently. That's what I like most about gaming, how it gets into your mind, exercising muscles you didn't know you had, burning new pathways of thinking and problem solving. And, you get to spend time with great friends. Thanks guys, I had a blast.

I periodically host a game day outside the standing one or two game days a month and in the past we've usually picked titles from whatever people brought and from my collection (currently just north of 250 games). This time, however, I decided to bone up on some old titles and take the first two or three responders in hopes of being able to play some dusty games I haven't played in years choosing those with sweet spots with the right number of players.

As it happened, many of the regulars were busy this weekend but I did manage to find two that are coming for a day (and night) of gaming for three. I've boned up on the titles in the image above; all are from my dusty games category. I'd need to hold several game days to get through all of my dusty titles but these are the ones we're going to choose from. Now, I freely admit that one title, Trajan, is not dusty. In fact, it's just out of shrink but two of us are really chomping at the bit to play it so that one is going to slip in. Just missing the cut were Wallenstein, Rails of Europe, La Citta, and American Rails.

Up on the docket are clockwise from the top left, Hansa Teutonica, Java, Carolus Magnus, Trajan, Tinners' Trail, and Inca Empire. Thoughts?

Six of us gathered for our August meeting with the informal plan of splitting up for some shorter games but in the end we pulled out Dominant Species...the full game. I'd brought DS:The Card Game but we opted for the full glory of the board game.

We trudged through a rule refresher and by the second turn I'd realized I'd forgotten a lot from my first play and felt that it was going to be a long haul given that I don't think my brain was ready to engage at the level necessary to be competitive. There are so many things going on in the game, and it's difficult to choose wisely for your measly three action pawns (when playing with six). The chaos of the first few cards completely wiped out one player and dealt severe damage to my species.

Clinging on for dear life through the mid-game I found myself fighting many land battles and you know what they say about starting a land war in Asia.... The first few rounds were flush with cow heads leaving the monkey-man strongly positioned for a tundra take over. By game end, very few water or grass tokens were on the board and I ended a distant 4th.

If that doesn't sound too bad, you've got to understand just how distant we ALL were behind the monkey man. I've I'm not mistaken he'd lapped us TWICE. Yes, you read that correctly, twice! Nobody could weaken his position on the tundra tiles and in retrospect we should have launched a group effort at dethroning him but we were all too interested in keeping our own little weakling species alive.

I play poorly but I must admit, I still really like the game. I recently picked up a third printing (still in shrink sitting right next to me) and I don't regret that. The game takes a significant portion of your evening to play (with six it took us four + hours but we play very slowly) so expect to set aside some time to play.

Whew! It's been a long time since I posted. There's been a lot of non-gaming going on in the Marquand household including a short, but much needed, vacation.

Lisa and I got in another game of Kingdom Builder and I think for both of us now, it's become a game where you engage the auto-pilot and just let it run. I've played the game approximately 20-25 times and even with the Nomads expansion it's starting to wear thin. It's not that I don't like it anymore (I'm still willing to play) but that I feel I've explored it to the best of my ability and willingness to expend any more effort.

We are still getting some good mileage out of Samarkand: Routes to Riches. We played it with five at a recent gathering and it was a lot of fun. It plays very easily and almost on autopilot but there are still some nice decisions to make and rarely do you feel totally locked into a losing position.

I blew the dust off of Ticket to Ride 1910 and we played three games back to back. Ticket to Ride is still a great game in person and even on the iOS platform. If you haven't ever played it, or are thinking of getting your first family game you can't do much better than Ticket to Ride.

We didn't have much time for gaming on a Saturday afternoon so I grabbed Metro and the two of us snaked the lines throughout the board trying to score points. It's a bit of a mechanical game with a lot of just taking your lumps given the tile(s) you've drawn but it's an okay activity to pass the time.

We conned Noah into playing a game of Medina with us one night and after a somewhat painful game of analysis paralysis we made it through it. If you can keep the pace up the game moves along nicely but if it bogs down, you're in for some mind numbing downtime.

I pulled out Ingenious and after three back to back games and another three the following day, I think you can say it still holds some interest in Lisa's eyes. She even played a game or two solo which I'm not sure she's ever done.

We played a quick couple of games of FITS. The game is basically plastic Tetris with some alternative scoring rules for what you manage to cover and not cover on your "board" over the course of several rounds. We usually don't really keep score but just play a round, announce scores, grumble about silly plays or bad tile draws, and then start the next round without a score. It's a fun activity that allows some wind down time for light conversation.

We also slipped in a couple of games of Alhambra. We'd never played with two but it works relatively well. There is a dummy third player that grabs tiles blindly each round and in our games, that player was VERY strong in several high scoring tiles making Lisa and I fight for the lower scoring dregs.

I traded a copy of Alea Iacta Est for a copy of Airships and after a couple of plays I'm happy with the trade. It's not something I'd necessarily grab to play over lots of other games in my collection but I certainly felt I got the better game in the trade.