Monday, March 31, 2008

Exhaustion


No sooner had I posted about Runebound and postie came knocking on the door with an international parcel.

Runebound has arrived...

So far its good, long but good. I have played two games so far, well sort of. The second game is in a "Saved" state in the memory of a digital camera. 4 hours into a 4 player game and we probably have another hour of game time left. Yes kiddies, this game will fill your Sunday afternoons faster than the Malaysian Grand Prix and will have just as much excitement.

Runbound definately deserves the title of Talismans older brother. It's a great game that is hugely expandable, but so far the base game is more than enough. Now I just have to wait for the next meet and make sure that we can put the game back to where it was.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Incomming Shipment



I have a number of games winging or floating there way to me from across the pond. I shouldn't have but I did, the weak $$$$$ makes things so much cheaper and if you have a games mule visiting on business its just got to be done.

First up is Runebound. This is actually comming from an Amazon seller based in New York. I placed the order about 3 weeks ago and its not here yet. Not ideal but they did give a 4-6 week shipping window. They must be waiting for someone to try to beat the rowing across the atlantic record and just chuck it in the boat with a few cans of red bull.
Anyway Runebound looks like a good fantasy game, a bit like Talismans older brother and the amount of expansions makes your head swim and your wallet run to the hills.

Next is Kingsburg I have a feeeling this may be a nomination for the Speil des Jahres this year. Its a dice rolling game that looks pretty interesting. The Spiel guys reviewed it recently and it sound like a fun game.

Shadows over Camelot is next, a co-op game based around Arthur and his round table. This one gets allot of love from Tom and Sam on the dice tower. I like the idea of it and I think my group would enjoy it as well. So it was added to the virtual basket.

Now come two smaller filler games. The first is Zombie Flux, this is popular with Steerpike the kitchen boy so I thought it would e worth giving it a look. To be honest I don't know that much about it other than the game mutates as cards are played. Sounds like fun.
Lastly comes Pickomino, a dice rolling game that is allot of fun. Played it a few times now and not won any games, but I like it and I think the kids will. Lots of dice rilling to see who will end up with the most worms.

Now I have to wait for Roly Mo to return from his business trip laden with boxes........

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Age of Steam




Last Friday was P.O.B at the pub and Mudhoney brought along Age of Steam, a recent addition to his expanding game library.

After an overview of the rules, of which I must admit I went into a trance like state and had to be prodded back to the real world we setup the board and started to play.

The game is all about transporting goods around the map, making money and not going bankrupt. You have to be a good planner in the game as there are allot of factors that come into play.

Although I lost it was a good game, Panzerfaust who was doing as bad as me at the start stole the game and won. Everyone enjoyed it and it was nice to play a meatier game even if I could have done with a coffee at the start.

Looking forward to another game of it and looking out for a copy myself. Although I hear Mayfair are going to republish it later in the year so fingers crossed I will be transporting red cubes to Chigago on my kitchen table my the end of the year.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage


Visited Mudhoney last night to give H:RvC a go. He has had the game for a while now but it's never hit the table. I turned up around 7:30 and the box was opened, Mudhoney had already read the rules and teh geek had provided us with some player aids so the board was quickly set up.

The board is amazing, it looks lovely and gives a good feel for the game and the world in that era. I'm a bit of a map geek anyway, but it's a really nicely put together board.

I took control of Hannibal and his armies while Mudhoney grabbed Rome and her legions. the first round took a bit of time as we were learning as we played but things started of well. hannible moved into France while Rome started marching her armies North.

The next couple of rounds had Hannible get into Northern Italy while another of his armies had to quickly march back to Spain to take out an annoying counter attack by Rome.

A couple more turns in and we had picked up the flow of the game and it was motoring along. Unfortunately by this time things were getting late, I rushed my armies into Rome to see if I could win but Nero and his roman militia were too much for Hannibal and his single elephant. My generals were routed and my forces lost.

Scratch one game but we both now have a great understanding of the game and are looking forward to a rematch. The game is a little daunting at first, but after a couple of rounds it all comes into place and works very well. the components are great, the cards look nice and the counters are good quality. Again the map is the best part of the goober, I would love a nice print of it.

This game is now on my wish list, if the cost was a little less I would pickup a copy now.