Memoirs of a Board Gamer

Last week I was contacted by a fellow BGG member from Alaska polling for people willing to trade a game for his freshly out of shrink copy of A Few Acres of Snow. The BGG software supports you creating a formal, expiring, offer to trade a game from your collection for a game in another user's collection. If accepted, the two parties pay for their own shipping and on the honor system, simply mail the game. Given that it's the honor system you're taking some risk but the software also supports trade ratings and the ability to contact potential parties outside of the trade system. I usually contact the person directly, establish the current state of the game being traded, in my case, for only new or like-new games.

As luck would have it and wanting a copy of A Few Acres of Snow, I shipped off my copy of Container (hadn't seen the light of day in years), and when the copy arrived I tore into it. A Few Acres is a card-driven, two-player, battle game from Martin Wallace. The game pits the French against the British for dominance in northeastern North America during the 1700s. The game uses a deck-building mechanic which is to say, players start with a fixed hand and then amass more cards throughout the game. Many cards serve multiple purposes depending on how they are played and many simply muddy up your deck.

The first printing of Wallace games that come directly from TreeFrog are signed and numbered by Wallace himself and have premium components. I have two other games like this: Tinners' Trail & Steel Driver. Unfortunately, the copy of A Few Acres is a 2nd printing and is not signed or numbered and has lower quality components. The 2nd printing fortresses are simply black discs and I decided, on a whim, to pimp out my copy with homemade bits that resemble the 1st printing fortresses. What you see in the image above is the end result. Below is an image of the bits while being made.

Analog Game Night for February 2012 came and went several weeks ago. I'm striving to be more prompt in my blogging and rather than simply promising myself to do better in the future, I'm flushing my backlog of posts by sitting down and writing a little bit. It's cathartic to chase the monkey off my back so to speak, and it's good practice to attempt to organize my thoughts into semi-coherent sentences.

Seven of us met and after opening up the table, we split into two groups, four playing Alien Frontiers at the far end and three, at the near end, playing Antverpia, a Hamburgum expansion.

It's usually difficult to focus when two games are being taught in close-quarters but being a Hamburgum fan, and having wanted to to play Antverpia for some time, I was able to focus and we got down to making the rondel sing. I can't say much about Alien Frontiers other than it seemed to progress relatively slowly. I'm not sure if there was a lot of analysis paralysis or turn discussion going on but that was the only game that group got to play the entire night. It took hours!

On the other hand, with three, Antverpia moved along nicely. That's one of the nice features about the rondel mechanism that Mac Gerdts is so fond of. There is really so little down time between turns that the experience borders on a sense of speed chess or something. Several times I would quickly move my pawn on the rondel and was almost beside myself waiting for it to get back around to me. The game accelerates throughout especially when you're driving towards some goal that will take you several turns to accomplish and you have the sense that others are working towards the same goal. When you see somebody purchase one of the bells…the race is on!

I think I may like Antverpia over the base game. The rules are stream-lined, boiled down to just what's necessary to retain the essence of the game. I own the expansion but have never played my copy but would gladly play it again. Right now for that matter but, as I look around the family room…nobody is within sight. Maybe I'll crack the shrink on Hawaii and see what the box holds.

Thanks for coming guys; I'm looking forward to next month.

A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting on the couch on a lazy Saturday afternoon contemplating many of life's mysteries. Finding no solutions and coming out of my daydream reality, my eyes focused on my game collection. Spilling from shelves and draping from the top of an armoire, the colorful mass holds protected, a dusty triangular box. A box with gaudy artwork that makes one wonder what was going through the minds of those that decided on the final copy. Pulling myself off the couch, I grabbed a chair from the kitchen and standing upon it, dug my way through the stacks of games, pulled out Tal der Konige and blew the dust from the grail game that so captured my desire.

Ignoring the box art, Tal der Konige is simply beautiful. The chunky, thickly painted cubes, reminiscent of those in Medina, give the game its stark beauty, accentuating the simple iconography. Beyond its artistic beauty, at its core, lies a game of extreme back stabbing and schadenfreude.

To earn points, players are attempting to complete the building of pyramids on locations spread throughout the board. To earn more points, players attempt to build them out of like-colored blocks. Obtaining blocks in sufficient numbers, in the desired colors, at the correct moment is difficult and players may at times earn less points for completing mix-colored pyramids or pyramids with each layer composed of the same colored blocks. But, the pyramids must be completed to earn any points.

Players move one of two overseer and several builder pawns around the board and allocate them to building sites affording them the ability to add cubes. However, depending on their numbers at a site, other players can invade to steal blocks and, at times, wrestle away control of the partially built pyramid. Piles of randomly drawn blocks are auctioned at the beginning of each round and players blind bid on the lots by dividing up a collection of bid tokens to whatever piles they wish to bid on. Some of the bid tokens have nothing on them so players can bluff what they're interested in bidding on.

Players then secretly determine where their overseers will move by programming in their allotted movement on a wipe-off placard. When everybody is done, the movements are revealed and the overseers are moved in turn order. If a player is unable to move where they expected, due to the programmed move of an earlier player, well, they're just out of luck.

Once builders are moved in turn order, players steal blocks, take over pyramids, and place blocks to complete pyramids or push them closer towards completion. Any blocks not placed in the round, are used to construct the big pyramid in the middle of the board and when that pyramid is complete, the game ends. Points are awarded to players who have completed pyramids and the player with the most points wins.

Tal der Könige was my grail game for years. I wanted a copy just to have it in my collection. I'd love to play it with my group but I'm not sure that will happen. We're very much a "cult of the new" kind of group but maybe I'll try harder to get it to the table at some point. That said, I'd never trade or sell it. It's just such a unique and beautifully manufactured game that catches the eye of most anyone that sees it.

One has to reach all the way back to 2007 to find my last cabin-based gaming adventure. I'd made the offer to my gaming group to organize another cabin-con and with six of us we set out this past weekend to spend a few days in the wood-burner cabins at Lake Hope State Park about an hour and a half south east of Columbus.

Check-in was 4pm so I took off a half-day of work and carpooled with two others and arrived right on time. We grabbed the key cards, found the cabin, and started unloading. The weather was supposed to turn bad later that night so we rushed to get all of the games into the cabin before the freezing weather broke, but more on that later.

The three of us got settled in and started a game of Phoenicia and about half way through, the other three had arrived and after settling in, they started downing the chili we'd had warming in the crock pot.

After dinner we grouped up for a six-player game of Modern Art. I'd not played it before so I was glad to finally get this older gem in my played column.

Since one of the guys brought a card table and chairs, we could split up for two three-player games. We pulled out Kingsburg and Ninjato.

We came back together and finished off the night with Incan Gold. I slid into bed around 1:30 and since I was assigned to Saturday's breakfast, I was planning on getting up around 7:30 to put an egg-caserole and cinnamon rolls in the oven so that it would done by the time everyone started getting up. Unfortunately, about 2:30am, the power went out due to the ice-storm and and by morning it was freezing in the cabin. Everything in the kitchen was electric so cooking anything for breakfast was out, and so I started trying to get a fire going in the fire place. The fire place is mostly cosmetic (no damper?!) so it really didn't put out much heat but it was better than nothing.

We ate fruit, nuts, beef jerky, and some other junk food for breakfast and while waiting for the power to come back on, I taught Kingdom Builder to a couple of guys that had not played it before.

At the other table, two guys started going through the rules for Dominate Species and Eclipse. Cabin outings are great times to get epic games to the table but more on that later.

As a group we'd decided to take a stab at Eclipse and if the power didn't come back on by 4pm, we'd pack up and head home considering the outing a big bust. We set up Eclipse and immediately realized that the rules were a bit more complex than the "teacher" thought and it took us a very long time to get the handle turning. As luck would have it though, around 2pm the power came back on and by 3 or so, we'd gone through a few turns, battled, lost, warmed up, and gotten enough of a feel for the game that we packed it up and decided to save it for another day.

While one of the guys went out for a run (marathoner!) I taught San Marco to the three others and then sat out and chit chatted with another while he fixed lasagna for dinner.

While lasagna was heating up, four of us sat down to a game of Quarriors and by the time we were done, dinner was ready. I don't know if it was the cold night and morning or what but we all seemed to tuck into big slabs of lasagna and bread with abandon.

After cleaning up, we split up with one side of the table playing Castles of Burgundy and the other playing Vanuatu, one of my recent favorites.

We finished the night with a six-player game of Horse Fever, another new title for me. A few of us thought long and hard about playing another light game but knowing we had to fix breakfast, clean up the cabin, and be out by 11am, we probably made the right decision and headed to bed.

I always have a lot of fun doing these cabin-con outings. This group of guys made it very easy to coordinate and everybody pulled their weight on food, cleaning, etc. I'd love to make it a yearly event but I'm not sure my group could swing that. Our ages are diverse ranging from empty-nester, high-school, middle-school, elementary, and new born so successfully organizing and pulling off an event like this is not much short of a miracle. I feel we got lucky that, even with the weather, it worked out well and I had a really great time. Before I knew it, it was time to pack up.

Thanks guys for sharing your weekend with me. Let's do it again soon.

To pack in even more gaming into our holiday time, Lisa and I were lucky enough to get invited over to a neighbor's house for dinner (an awesome lamb stew) and some light gaming. They'd recently purchased 7 Wonders and GUBS so we were primed and ready to help them get them to the table. But first things first…lamb stew and some Malbec!

After dinner, we pulled out GUBS. I'd read through the rules quickly earlier in the day and had a vague idea of what to expect. The game is basically structured chaos. Players draw a card, play multiple cards, and discard down to eight if you manage to get that many. You try to play the GUB cards in front of you and protect them with various Barricade cards but everybody else is playing cards on your GUBs that trap them, lure them away, kill them, etc. There are even cards that make you pass your hand left or right, destroy everybody's unprotected GUBs, etc. You can't expect to win on any real tactical approach as you're at the total mercy of what cards people draw. To make it even more "fun", three cards with the letters "G", "U", and "B" are randomly shuffled in the deck and when the last one comes out the game ends immediately. If you go into it with the right expectation, though, it can be a fun activity.

Next up, I introduced them to Kingdom Builder. I've played enough games now to feel like there are some games that due to no fault of your own, you may get locked into forced plays for much of the game and there is little you can do to work your way out of it. Other games you seem to get that lucky break here and there but when you're locked into playing in non-point earning areas and you can't get any more special tokens…it sucks (sorry Lisa)!

To close, they pulled out 7 Wonders and since they'd played several times before we quickly got down to business. I've played 7 Wonders a dozen or more times and have never gone for the green strategy so I figured, what the heck, so I went for it. As luck would have it, I got a few resources that managed to cover half of my Wonder builds, a 5-coin yellow card which bulked up my coffers a bit, and with the "build a free card each age" as my second Wonder I charge forward on my green strategy paying very close attention to the laddering affect of building cards for free with the right pre-requisites. In the end I pulled out a win by four points but I felt like it could go either way for a long time. I have to chalk it up to luck though as I sent an 8 point blue card to my left opting for another green and it made it all the way back around to me for my free build in the age.

Lisa and I had a great time and, as always, look forward to good food, with good friends, and some good games for dessert.

I held a mini game night at my house yesterday and although it was cut shorter than I'd hoped we did manage to get in a game of San Marco, K2, and Kingdom Builder.

After playing San Marco at Great Lakes Games this past November, I looked for a trade on BGG and scored one for a copy of The Downfall of Pompeii that I'd gotten in an earlier trade. Primed and ready to play my copy, the three of us sat down and after a quick rules refresher we got started. San Marco is, at its core, an area majority game. You're trying to get cubes into different areas of the board in numbers sufficient to get first or second place (simply majority) when the area scores. However, the interesting aspect of the game is the mechanism that allows you to place cubes, build bridges between areas, manipulate cubes in the regions, and score them. A player draws a number of cards, some good/some bad, and divides them into three piles. Other players choose a pile and the player who split the cards gets the last remaining pile. As players choose a pile they take the actions the cards afford.

In the end, you want to maximize the number of cubes on the board diversified in as many areas as possible in sufficient numbers to score points for first or second place. It's a relatively simple game but there can be some down-time while players allocate the cards into piles and while players choose a pile and take their turn. However, it's a fun game and has a nasty cut-throat angle to it which, depending on your opponents, can be fun if not taken personally.

Next up on the table was K2. We slipped on the polar fleece, grabbed an extra lung, and set out trying not to die on the mountain. Each player holds a matching deck of shuffled cards and choosing three from 6 drawn cards, tries to move their two hikers up the mountain paying the up/down movement costs and protecting them from the negative effects of altitude and bad weather (negative "lung" points). There's a bit of a push your luck aspect to the game (should you for one step higher in hopes of drawing enough lung point cards to save yourself) and enough randomness in the cards to make it a fun romp rather than a strategy game. I took the risk and went for the summit and paid a high price with the death of one of my climbers drawing all movement cards and no lung cards. Later in the evening, I had a moment of silence for my little wooden friend.

Last up was Kingdom Builder. Two of us had played several times and although we like to play new games, we didn't have a lot of time and we wanted to introduce it to our third. I felt behind the 8-ball the whole game not really able to go anywhere but where I was forced to go based on adjacency. I only managed to get two special tokens by game end and came in a distant third. Ah, c'est la vie. The nice thing is that the game is short and you can quickly turn it around for another shot at the winner's circle.

My wife just took a call from a neighbor inviting us over for some games tonight so look for another session report soon.

Lisa and I played our first game of Luna last night. It was Lisa's first time playing and my first full game having only played a few rounds at Origins this past summer. Lisa's not one to go through the rules of a new game if I don't know them pretty well, but she's been a real trooper these last few days offering to slog through them with me. It's been great having someone to share exploring the fun packed in the box.

We laid the game out on the table and got down to business and by the time we got to the description of the actions she was starting to get glassy-eyed. She persevered and we finally got under way and thankfully, our brains didn't explode finishing it. I have to say, that first game was a brain burner. Deciding what action to take and how to order them can be painful. Sometimes it's obvious what you're going to do with some of your "guys" but other times, it's really hard to know what's best. At one point I moved the Apostate a few islands near the end of my turn and Lisa got penalized 5 points. She wasn't expecting that move out of me and she was a good enough sport to not make me sleep on the couch last night :-)

I like the game but I think I'd have to be in the right mood for it. It feels like another play or two would make it much easier to organize your thoughts decreasing play time. Unfortunately, getting to that point would be difficult in the amount of time I have in my life to play games. Lisa said she'd play it again but wouldn't jump to play it if it's been very long since she played it last. I think she felt pretty burned out mentally after that first play that it cut into the fun for her.

The day before, I ripped the shrink off Louis XIV. I haven't played the game in about 5 years and I've owned a copy for several years (CABS Math Trade) and even tried to give the copy away at the last Great Lakes Games but as luck would have it, I took my copy back on the second round of drawing figuring, what the heck, it's a good game, I might as well take it for a spin again for old times sake.

For such a simple game, the rules are a bit of a mess. Lisa and I struggled trying to keep the scoring rules for the Louis XIV "tile" in our head but we kept forgetting how to work out the ties in the different situations. In the end, I think we got it right but it took us a bit longer than I'd hoped. We learn slowly as a team but we did it and I think it's safe to say Lisa had a good time, as did I. It's a keeper and I'm glad I didn't give it away.

This evening, Lisa and I were again, slogging through the disaster of a rule book for the game Lancaster. The English is obviously translated (e.g. "face open cards", "the options are 3", …) and you must consult an additional components/setup sheet included in the rules to understand what to do with one of the critical components (extension boards). These boards are only mentioned once in the rules during scoring but not described any where else. What a mess.

I sort of see how the game will play out after struggling and I'm still keen on playing but wow, surprising.

Christmas is always a great time for gaming in the Marquand house and this year has not disappointed. Lisa got me copies of Lancaster and also Kingdom Builder which I've played numerous times but wasn't fortunate enough, until now, to own a copy. I have to plug Game Surplus and Thor's customer service again. Kingdom Builder arrived with a bit of a crushed box corner (very minor). Lisa emailed Thor to just let him know in case he wanted to pack things better, talk to his shipper, etc. She wasn't expecting anything from him but he said he'd ship out a new one and return postage for the damaged one or he just refund some of her money. She counter-offered to just get free shipping on another game and in turn made it a win/win situation. I got another game (Lancaster) and Thor got another sale and a very happy pair of customers. Thanks!

I've got an extended game day set up with the two most hard-core players in my group tomorrow and I'll be blogging about that over the next couple of days. More gaming…man I love Christmas!

My Christmas vacation is just starting but so far, I've managed to get in games of The Castles of Burgundy, Aquädukt, No Thanks!, and Dixit.

Lisa and I played The Castles of Burgundy (see image above) and I was surprised at how well it played with just the two of us. We both played on the "1" boards so the game was a little easier on us but I'd be up for venturing out on some of the alternate boards in subsequent games.

The game is played over five rounds in five phases and a turn consists of simply rolling two dice and taking actions that the numbers on the dice afford. However, the possibilities of what tiles you can purchase, where you can place them, what you can buy, what to ship, what goods to sell and when, which territories to complete and in what round, the list goes on and on. Sometimes it's obvious what to do but in others, you have to make some painful decisions.

It does run long, Lisa and I played for much longer than the stated box time but that's not uncommon for us, especially for a new game (this was Lisa's first time). I'd like to try it with three but I really enjoyed it with two and look forward to it again. I'm not sure whether Lisa found it "fun" enough for the effort she felt she had to put into making decisions. She felt like I was crushing her but the final scores were closer than she thought they'd be. If you can find a copy, pick one up.

Lisa and I host a board game night for friends and interested spouses. We've been gathering on the third Saturday of every month since February, 2009 and I'll be the first to admit, I've been careless about blogging about it. We've had as many as 10 or 11 and as few as four but we always have fun.

This past weekend, we gathered 5 and started the evening with China, a Michael Schacht design from 2005. For a period of time it was out of print but it looks like it's available again on various online sites. I'm not on online gamer but, if I'm not mistaken, Michael has had some recent success rejuvenating interest in the game by providing alternate maps for the online community.

The nice thing about the game is its accessibility. Anybody capable of listening to about 5-10 minutes of rules and examples should easily be able to pick up the game. The icing on the cake is that the game only takes about 45 minutes so if you don't understand your first game, you can quickly turn the game around and play another.

It's been several years since I've played but I have no excuse. The game is a classic and deserves to be out on the table more.

After China, we paused to chat, eat some food, pull the cork on a bottle of wine, crack open a couple bottles of beer, and then set our minds to a game of 7 Wonders. We'd all played at one time or another but I gave a quick run through of the rules again and we got started. 7 Wonders is so dirt simple but it takes a bit of explaining to get through all of the rules. To new gamers, that first game will feel a bit daunting but by the second game, you'll have trouble understanding why it felt complicated. Like China, the game is over in about 30-45 minutes (even with 7 players) so you can easily play two games back to back.

Which is, in fact, what we did. I rarely play the same game back to back but 7 Wonders was a great choice and everybody had a great time. I'm looking forward to next month's gathering and promise to do better at blogging about it.