Author: matt

Here are some shots of the minis from the Memoir ’44 Eastern Front Expansion. In my opinion, the minis are of higher quality than the base game. The plastic seems sturdier and capable of carrying a higher level of detail.

The expansion also comes with additional badges and medals, bunkers buried in snow, as well as Stalingrad ruins, snowy village, ravine, industrial complex, frozen river, village on a hill, snowy forest hexes, and 4 different kinds of obstacles. The expansion also comes with 8 historical scenarios and a few new rules.

24 T-34 Tanks

42 Soviet Soldiers

6 ZIS-3 Guns

After Sophie got back from her horseback ride in the snow, she cuddled up in a blanket, with her feet next to the woodstove and laid down to teach her cousin Mandy, the game of Hive.

I was blessed during the gift exchance and received the Winter/Desert board for Memoir ’44 and the Eastern Front Expansion. I can’t wait to break it out and play a few of the new scenarios.

The original Tilsit link.

We met at Rich’s house for Analog Game Night – December 2005. Six of us showed up since Keith was off helping his daughter heal up after surgery on her scalp. We missed you Keith and hope Elizabeth has a quick recovery.

We started around 8pm and decided to play Power Grid. This is only the second play for our group and Tim had never played before. The game is listed at 2hrs but our group tends to play rather slowly. We had to spend a fair amount of time refreshing ourselves on the rules and by 10:30 Mat and Paul were needing to leave. We reluctantly shutdown the action one full round into Step 2.

I always hate to shutdown the game abruptly like that since it really messes up your strategy if you were expecting more rounds to play out. I really don’t want to play another truncated game of Power Grid so I’d recommend that we only start it if we’re all committed to finishing it.

Given that people had to leave, we ended up only playing the one game for an abbreviated game night.

Sophie and I played Balloon Cup this evening.

I like the game because, to be honest, Sophie asks specifically for it and I’m up for anything that let’s us spend some quality dad/daughter time together.

The game is easy to learn and consists of each player attempting to fulfill the requirements of 4 ‘hops’ on the table. Each hop, numbered 1 to 4, has cubes of randomly chosen colors on top of it in the amount that matches the number of the hop. On your turn you must lay down a card next to the hop of your choice but you must only lay down cards that match the color of the cubes on the hop. So, if the hop has 2 green, 1 yellow, and 1 red on it, then you must lay down 2 green cards, 1 yellow card, and 1 red card before your side of the hop is considered complete. Once both sides of the hop are complete, the ‘winner’ of the hop gets to keep the cubes.

The winner is determined by the sum of the cards. The hops are two-sided and you win the hop by having the largest or the smallest sum based on the the side of the hop that is exposed. When a hop is won, you discard the cards, take the cubes, flip the hop tile, restock the cubes, and continue playing.

There are five trophy cards set aside (one per color) and it takes different numbers of cubes to ‘buy’ a trophy. When you collect enough cubes you purchase a trophy and the first player to purchase 3 of the 5 is the winner.

We play with Stephen Glenn’s original rule that you cannot play on your opponents side of the hop until you complete your side (which makes flipping the hop after it’s won still worth doing) but we also play with the 3-1 trade rule which states that when you purchase a trophy you can use 3 cubes of a useless color (since the trophy was already purchase) to represent 1 cube of a color that has yet to be purchased. We like this rule so that all of the colored cubes remain worth fighting for throught the entire game. Some argue that this causes cascade wins but we feel that it’s better to end the game sooner rather than it becoming a draw-the-right-card-fest fighting for that last hop with a relevant color.

I taught Sophie El Grande this afternoon. I’d been meaning to teach her something new and she asked to learn a new one so opportunity knocked. Sophie liked the game and was fully able to grasp the mechanics. She said it would take her a little while to know how to play well but that’s certainly understandable. I’m glad to have taken the time to teach her such a great game, especially since I now have an opponent in the house that I can break out the oldies and the goodies on.

El Grande is an area control game. You ‘bid’ for turn order using power cards numbered 1-13. You are not allowed to bid the same as another player. Once all bids have been placed, each player takes their turn in the order of the bids (highest to lowest). The player bidding the lowest starts the next round of bidding.

On your turn, you first move caballeros from your provinces into your court according to the number indicated on your power card. You then decide which action card of the five available you wish to take and you then decide the order of the next two actions:

• Optionally perform the action described by the action card
• Optionally move caballeros from your court onto the board into the regions adjacent to the King’s region (the big black pawn).

When scoring is triggered either by an action card or a specifically designated scoring round, you score the regions based on the number of caballeros present. First, second, and third places are awarded to those that have the first most, second most, and third most caballeros in the region.

The Castillo (the black tower) is also scored as a region with the added benefits that the number of caballeros is hidden and the caballeros move to another region before those regions are scored. If you have the most caballeros in the region designated by your Grande (your large cube) you get two extra points for the region. If you have the most caballeros in the King’s region during scoring you also get two extra points. The King and the Grandes can move during the game due to performing actions.

Sophie and I played the Pointe-du-Hoc scenario of Memoir ’44. I was playing the Allies and Sophie the Axis side. Early on I managed to draw 5 useless cards and was playing with only 1 usable card. Luckily I was able to defeat her from an ever softening left flank but it took quite a while. I was able to win 4 medals to 3. Good job Sophie.

Here are my horrible cards with no units on my right flank.

Before decking out the table for the feast we set up three different track layouts and the four of us had a fun time playing PitchCar.

PitchCar is a dexterity game where you lay out track segments into a ‘loop’ and you flick your ‘car’ around the track. The first player to cross the finish line after three laps is the winner. Your ‘car’ is a disk with the imprint of a race car on one side. If your flick causes your car to flip over your next move must only flip your disk back over. If you happen to flick your car off the track or cause someone else to be bumped off the track you must place your car back from the flicking point and you lose your turn.

We had a fun time laughing at mis-flicks, lucky flicks, and downright whiffs. I just wish the guard rails stayed in their grooves in the tracks a little better. I’d like to glue them in place but they won’t fit back in the box that way.

We held Analog Game Night for November 2005 tonight at my house. We had eight to start with but Keith had to take off early.

We started with two tables with Ken teaching Keith, Rich, and Paul Queen’s Necklace. I think Rich won that but since I wasn’t at the table I have no idea how that went or if the game is any good. Anyone want to comment on that?

While they played that in one room, Mat, Gus, Tim, and I played Himalaya at another table. Tim won that one. I like Himalaya but it does seem a little long. Maybe it’s because it takes a bit with new players to get the zen of it and programming your moves is slow at first. In any event, that was the first time I’d played it with adult opponents and it held my interest. I hope it doesn’t stay out of print.

While we finished up the last few rounds of Himalaya, Ken, Paul, and Rich played Coloretto. I think Rich won that one too.

Gus and Mat took off and I taught Tim the game of Hive and after that we all sat down to the slowest game of Bohnanza I think I’ve ever played. We decided to finish at 11pm since Paul had to go but we didn’t even make it once through the deck (almost though). Boy was that painful. Rich won that but it was only a partial game and I’d have been more than happy to give him the win on a silver platter if it would have been over sooner.

Noah and I had a go at the Arnhem Bridge scenario of Memoir ’44. I played the Axis side and Noah the Allied. His artillary gave me a pounding in the center section while I was concentrating on moving my right flank towards the center to be in a better position to make my assault over the bridge. However, my infantry in the north side of the river proved capable enough to defeat the forces in their respective sections. I never defeated Noah’s artillary but I was able to grab the necessary 5 medals. Noah did play an Air Power card that really took it’s toll on my Elite Tank units to the south of the river.