New releases..... Meah

There seems to have been a bit of a drought in new releases so far this year. Marring a few reprints there has been nothing that I have really been looking forward to.

I am hoping that the year 2009 won't be known as a bit of a dud and I am sure that there will be lots of good stuff released around convention time, but so far its been a bit lacking.

Age of Steam 4th edition looks ok and I need to have a good train game in my collection, but with Steam being released in the next couple of weeks I am holding off.

Space Alert looks good, but the price has put me right off. Although I may be tempted after a game. It sounds like a good co-op game and the CD sounds like fun. Although it could be a bit gimmicky.

Small world was one I was going to buy, but after a couple of games I will hold off. Its a good game, but maybe I was expecting something with a bit to it. Not to say I wouldn't say no to a copy, its just there are other games that I would prefer to play.

There are a couple of expansions that I will definitely part my hard earned cash for. Pandemic's expansion is a must, what I have read about it looks really good, and playing with a traitor or 5 players will certainly add to the game.

More Dominion cards can't be bad, but I am worried about the cost. Do we really need another set of victory and money cards? I can understand why they are doing it, they want it to be playable without the base set, but does that make it an expansion?

Lastly the expansion for Kingsburg will finally be released this year. Kingsburg is a great game and one I overlook. Having a number of small expansions in one box is a good idea as you can bring them in slowly to expand and change the game.

So, I am back to playing some older games. Princes of Florence and Brass have been played recently and they are both good solid games. I am hankering after Powergrid and Agricola again and this weeks POB should see them hit the table on Friday.

There are rumors that a copy of Dune may find its way to POB on Friday, now that should be fun.

I'm a villager!

Friday was an impromptu gathering at Mudhoney for some game time. It was a pretty good turnout with 9 of us eager to play some new games.
We split into a couple of groups with 5 playing Snow Tails. It's a game where players are each racing a team of huskies over a snow and ice covered course. I never played it but it looked like good fun.

I took the others off to teach them how to play Ubongo. Its a puzzle game that I have mentioned earlier and it went down really well. IT played fast enough for us to get two games in with me winning the first and Hannah winning the second. Four players was a lot more hectic than my previous 2 player goes. Scrabbling for gems after solving the puzzle was a lot more tricky.

As the others were still mushing there huskies we needed something else to play. Pandemic was to hand so the four of us attempted to save the world, but failed. The outbreaks just game to fast at the end of the game with black and blue cubes multiplying across Europe at an astonishing rate. We managed to get 3 cures but not the last one. A good game but you can't always win them.

By now everyone had finished playing and as there was a decent enough number of players Werewolf was suggested. I quite like Werewolf, in fact it was shown to me the first time I met up with the POB crowd. My comment of "I'm not a Villager" always bring a laugh. I wasn't a villager but the seer. My ineptitude at the game had my strung up by the villagers then but times have changed.
We played 4 games of Werewolf and the furry killers managed to win 3 of them. I was the seer in the last game and immediately told the rest of the players who I was and who a villager was in the first day. I knew I was setting myself up to die but I really wanted the villagers to win for a change. I didn't die that night as the werewolves wanted to sow some seeds of doubt into the mix but on the second night I was pushing daisies. Too late for our silver phobic friends they were outed that day.

All in, a good night gaming with a variety of games being played.

Indigo growing F1 drivers

Wednesday night saw Dobbie and Moley over for a few hours gaming. I had planned to teach them Puerto Rico, my new favorite game. I had missed Puerto when it was realease and it just sort of fell by the wayside.

After explaining the rules the game started and the others picked up the rules and the way the game plays quite quickly. The colonist supply started to drain very quickly due to lots of building large process buildings. Dobbie setup a good trade route with repeated use of the captain role. Moley managed a fair bit of trading but was slow to apply manpower to his wharf and harbour.
I went for a mixed building and shipping plan. Just enough shipping to get a few points but built a couple of the larger VP buildings.
end score was me on 42, Dobbie 40 and Moley on 30. A good game.

Next up was Pandemic, another new game for Dobbie. The initial spread of virus's was harsh. Black was very concentrated along with red. Outbreaks were rife for the first quarter of the game but we managed to cure blue and eradicate it. By then Moley the medic had calmed down Black and we were making good work against Red. Cures for Red and black came next. Yellow had been ignored up until now and was started to spread. All hands to the deck and a bit of card trading and a cure was in site. We finally won the game with 6 outbreaks, a good session with a few tense bits and it felt like we had worked hard to win the game.

Finally Formula D hit the table, basic rules on the Monaco track. Two cars each and lots of dice rolling to be done. Moley initially stormed into the lead while the middle pack kept together. Dobbie and Moley both had a trailing car but half way through the game Dobbies had caught up with the middle pack. By now we realised that pushing your car through a corner for WP damage was not the end of the world so the last third of the track saw some crazy dice rolling and damage. Unfortunately it was all a bit too much for Moleys trailing car and he crashed on the second to last corner. It was all down to first place and a just high enough dice roll from me clinched the win.

All in a good evening of gaming, plus a copy of Dominion to open. But more on that later.