End of a Good Weeks Gaming

The wife came back from Washington today, she has been away for a week shopping, eating and visiting some seminars on network marketing. Sounds more like a jolly to me.

Anyway, while she was away I made an effort to get in some good gaming and I would like to that everyone that visited over the week to save me from power rangers and a life of the Disney channel.

We kicked off on Wednesday when Dobbie and Croppertarty came over for Settlers of Cata, Ticket to Ride Europe, Pickamino and Zooloretto. A great evening of gaming.

Mudhoney and his American Paratroopers was Thursday, a great game of Combat Commander Europe wher I got slaughtere trying to take hill 30.

Friday was AT-43 brought over by Panzerfaust. A nice sci-fi miniatures game. A few games of this was the first time played by either of us. Minis are great and Panzer has made some excellent landscape tiles. Pics to follow.

Saturday saw Panzerfaust, Croppertart and Frank over for a BBQ and games. I was expecting a few more faces but more food for us. Catan hit the table again followed by Kingsburg. Good games, especially Kingsburg where I lost out to Frank by 1 point.

Now back to a once a week gaming session, Dungeon Twister anyone?

Catan

Settlers of Catan has had a resurgence! One of the original "Euro" games has been played twice in one week, a never before seen happening.
I don't know why, the first time on Wednesday it was to introduce Dobbie to the game in his ongoing initialtion to all things euro. We played a good game and although I really could do with some English cards the game went along pretty smoothly. We used the example setup to create the Island of Catan to make life easier for the noob. I managed to secure a victory with a road rush towards the end of the game.

Teh second time was last night, Panzerfaust was over along with a couple of mates and he hasn't played the game. It's been on his "want to play" list for a while so we setup the game again and started off. This time is played very differntly. The thief was moved around the board allot more restricting wheat supplies then hampering the logging actions of two players. It was a close run game with all 4 of us reaching 8 points. I managed to win by playing the third knight.

I had forgotten how good Catan is as had a couple of the other players so I expect its going to be seen again soon.

Unplayed Games

We all have a pile of games that were bought on the spur of the moment or because they were in a bargain bin somewhere. They tend to sit on the shelf, opened punched but unplayed. I don't think I have any game that I have yet to open up and have a look at but sometimes these games sit for too long on the shelf. Newer brothers visit and instantly hit the table while they languish at the bottom of the shelf or wedged in between others.

My list of unplayed games are as follows

• Brass
• Perikles
• Lucca Citta
• Bohnanza
• Bang
• Shadows over Camelot (it's new so doesn't really count)
• Arkham Horror : Curse of the Dark Pharaoh

Do any of these games really deserve to be on this list?

Monopoly!

It was my eldest's fifth birthday yesterday and amongst all of the Power Rangers, Ben 10 and hot wheels toys there was a copy of Junior Monopoly.
I failed in board gaming fatherhood and didn't buy him any propper games, instead went for the Hot Wheels option. Scaletrix would probably have been cooler but I am saving that for Christmas.

Now the buyer of Monopoly is a friend of my wifes, and I am not sure why she chose Junior Monopoly. Maybe she has heard of our gaming sessions or maybe it was just a lucky/unlucky purchase. Either way I am unsure what to do. Yes its a board game, but its Monopoly!

I think I will just wait and see if the kids are interested in it and take it from there.

Iliade

Tuesday and Wednesday I was working in Warwick and rather than spend a night by myself in the Hotel I went to visit JohnnyB a fellow gamer from the IGUK forums.

We played a few games, Iliade was first. I have had a copy of this for over a year now but never managed to get it on the table. After a quick run through of the rules we started it off. It's an OK game, you take it in turns to either place or use a previously placed card. The aim being to be the one with the largest army. Different cards can take out other cards, in a rock/paper/scissors kind of fashion.
It plays quickly and once you get to know what cards do what its pretty simple. The difficult part is choosing which card to place and when to use them.
I lost big time so I need to give this another go.

Second game was Race for the Galaxy, I had played this last Friday at P.O.B so knew the rules. Didn't help me win but at least I knew what I should have been doing. I can only describe it as San Juan on Steroids, its a good game and one I would like to add to my collection. I think the price is a bit high for a deck of cards, but its a strong game.

Last up was High Society, a bidding card game that didn't really appeal to me. Yes I lost, again but I just found the game a bit flat really.

Thanks for the games JohnnyB it was good to see you again, until next time.

Speil On

Runebound, the final encounter

Our mamouth 4 player Runebound game finally came to an end on Sunday eveneing. It took about another 2 hours of play so in total this 4 player game ran for 6 hours.

Sid James finally got the balls to tackle some red encounters and after realising that maybe they weren't that bad was on a roll. 3 dead dragon lords later and he had won the game.

Overall I quite like Runebound, its a nice monster bash game that moves along. It takes a while to play but if you start rolling the dice ready for your move you can speed the game along.

I am going to hold off the expansions for now, until the base game has been played a few more times then I will see.

P.O.B. meet tonight and I have Kingsburg in the bag, should be a good evening of gaming. I hear Container is comming along so quite interested in that.

Kingsburg

Kingsburg is on it's way to me as you would know if you are keeping up with the posts. I liked the idea of the game and the way it uses dice. Very few of my games use dice, the don't seem to be the in thing but that seems to be changing.

To get up to speed with Kingsburg I found the rules on the geek and gave them a read. This is where I realized that the game wasn't exactly what I was thinking. Still, it sounded pretty good and a games a game isn't it. Well maybe not monopoly but still...

Anyway, I found a link to a java version of the game. It's been created by a guy called Thomas Arnold, and all kudos to the guy. It's great! I have played a few games now and not won any, but I know know how the game works and what I have read makes sense. I am now looking forward to receiving the game proper so I can roll those dice for real.

I wish more game manufacturers would release a free online version of there game, the one for Battle for Hill 218 helped me learn the game and was enough for me to buy it. I can understand why they won't but they sure are handy when your fellow gamer are away.