New Games

I haven't bought as many new games recently. Mainly because I have been trying to hold back and the other is I have been buying a few games on the Xbox. Most months its either one or the other.

Well today I have ordered up a few games.

Macao
No Thanks
Franks Zoo
Are you the Traitor?
Cthulhu Dice

Originally I was looking for a couple of card games to take on holiday. I always envision playing a few games while sitting in the sun but it doesn't always happen. My kids are happy to play but its difficult finding games that are portable and playable for them. Last year Uno and Colloretto were both played heavily, Uno I can take or leave while I do enjoy coloretto.
I am hoping that Franks Zoo and No Thanks will hit the spot, and I am tempted to take along Carc. Mainly as we will be 45 minutes away from the real place and a visit is going to happen.

After adding the light games in I tend to look for something for me, Macao was a good price and it sounds like a nice game. The Spiel guys talked about it a few eps back so it was added to the basket. The others were just fillers to bulk up the order.

Hopefully these will be delivered by Monday in time for some testing next week. I am also going to try and dig out a chess set so I can start teaching the kids how to play. Maybe I should start with Checkers!

Player Aids

One of the best resource on BoardGameGeek has to be the abundance of player aid's. As soon as pickup a new game I will always have a shift to look for any player aids that are going to help. Sometimes these player made files are invaluable, the recent player aid for Ghost Stories helped by putting all of the icons and symbols onto a single sheet. These were printed and laminated and have proved invaluable.

So why don't publishers put decent player aids in the box to start with? I recently played Twilight Struggle, one of my favorite games. The player aids that come with it are ok, but no exactly inspiring and certainly don't convey enough information. It was half way through the game before I remembered that coup's in battleground countries reduce the defcon level. Oops!

For me a player aid needs to have all the key points on a single sheet, with maybe a second sheet if cards or buildings need explaining or summarizing. The player aid should be colourful, with different areas marked out, not just a black and white sheet of paper.

Some publishers, you know who they are seem to have a thing about stopping player aids. I understand copyright, but if its something that's going to help get you game played and sold then surely there should be no issue in allowing players to create and share there work. Personally I think great player aids should be incorporated into reprints with the designer acknowledged.

Maybe next time my commrades should have one of these. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/46383/major-sholtos-coolest-ever-guide-to-cold-war-opera

Iconica

Latest game ordered is Iconica. A post of the Geek Dad feed brought the game to my attention and the artwork really stood out. I have ordered a copy of the base game along with some extra cards to save on teh postage.
I must admit it was a bit of an impulse buy, I know very little about the game but the artwork is worth a look. Guys on the geek seem to like it and for the cost its worth a punt. I will be on the lookout for some larger prints of this if it goes well.

Other gaming has been Kids of Carcassonne with the boys. It's a very good version of the game simplified for young ones. Still enough in there to give them something to think about without overloading them with rules.

No other gaming planned for this week, so Yucata will have to sate my appetite for victory points.

Black Ops

Netrunner was played last night and it was great. Just as good as I remembered it and I am now ready to get the rest of my cards out the loft and start sifting through them building decks to play.
I played Corps first and managed to score the win. I was very lucky in that the runner didn't harass me even though I only have a couple of pieces of ice defending my forts. When he did break into my HQ I had 4 agendas in my hand and he missed them all. Systematic layoff allowed me to quickly score an agenda to win the round.
Next up I was the runner and I ran and ran. HQ and R&D were constantly hit and inside jobs allowed me to sneak past the first level of ice. I was knocked back a few times but at the cost of the corp paying up loads of bits to rez his ice. A few lucky runs on R&D and I had 7 points of agendas and it was game over.

A good pair of games that helped bring the rules back from a dormant part of my brain. REady for another.

The evening finished off with more card games. Battleline is a favorite and I won that one due to some lucky card play. We didn't play with the tactics cards, I admit I am not a great fan of them. We also played a game of Jambo, this time playing as African traders. Won that one as well, I had a good evening. Jambo always suprises me, sometimes I dismiss it as its a card game but there is a bit more to it than its "filler" status in my mind.

So from Alexander the great to Crash Everret, Inventive fixer all in one night.

Hidden Agenda

I'm a sucker for cyberpunk, give me Snowcrash or Neuromancer to read and I'm a happy man. When I heard about Netrunner back in the 90's it was as if they had made a game for me. I was heavily into Magic at the time and a Cyberpunk based CCG filled with hackers against corp was music to me ears. I remember taking a trip to London on launch day and grabbing starter decks and boosters then reading the rules on the train back home.
The game was brilliant, it fitted the world very well and the rules were simple and elegant. Needless to say it was played again and again. Boosters were bought and around singles were swapped using new technology called email and newsgroups. I even travelled to play in some sealed tournaments organised by newsgroups. My £20 a month pipex account was well used then.
The first expansion came out out, Proteus and I travelled to Brighton to pick up a box of boosters. I have never bought a box of boosters before or since, I was that enthralled with the game.

Then the news of it being dropped hit. Why! its such a great game, but the market was being saturated with CCG's. I was buying Xfiles, Mech Warrior, Star Wars, L5R and others but none came close to using Black Dahlia on that ice infested run.

I haven't played Netrunner for a few years now. It occasionally hit the table after a bit of nostalgic banter and this Wednesday sees it rise again from the ashes. Decks have been sorted, rules have been read. Hopefully Wednesday will involve some good games, that said the fact that Netrunner is going to be played means there will.

Wu-Bob!

Ghost stories was played on Wednesday night and after a false start (read every haunter and tormentor, not ones on your board, yikes!) things went well. I am very pleased with the look and feel of the game, the artwork is really nice. The plastic ghosts are good and there is enough bits to make a good game without needing hundreds of baggies to keep things organised.

Needless to say we lost. We managed to get about half way through the ghost deck before we forgot to use out yin-yang tokens to flip back some villager tiles. A noobie mistake but we were busy trying to fend off hoards of ghost. The ghosts did seem to appear think and fast and boards were being over run quickly. Mainly due to the black curse die bringing in more spooks.

I also found that we didn't use the villager tiles as much as I though. Probably because we are not really up to speed with what they do. We also missed opportunities with our special powers. I was yellow and didn't use my enfeeblement ability the first few turns as I forgot about it.

I am going to give it a solo try over the weekend, more to get the rules down. I hope to get a bit further through the deck.

Afterwards we played Stone Age, one of my favorite games. Things progressed well with Gornad choosing the action I wanted pretty much every time. Mudhoney struggled but it was his first time and it was getting late. I managed to win the game by a sizable margin. Mainly due to holding lots of cards. They always seem to be the game winner for me.

A good nights gaming, but I always leave wanting to play more games.

Who you gonna call?

It's nearly the end of February and things have been busy. If I haven't been delving into virtualization at work I have been running with an aim of completing a 10 mile run at the end of the year.
This hasn't left a huge amount of time for gaming, and even less for typing up what's been going on but some gaming has been had.

POB has met up again, last week and it seemed to be a night of the classics. Settlers and Tigris were played. I even managed to scrape a win in Tigris. It's a game that only just "clicked" and made sense. I was lucky in that 2 of the 4 players hadn't played the game before. I can sympathise with them as its a complex game and one that you have to think about.
Other games played were Stone Age, Poo, Pirates and a prototype card game designed by a newcomer.

Other gaming has seen Dominion: Seaside hit the table and I really enjoyed this one. I am desperate to give it another play as I have only used 10 of the new cards. The delayed action mechanic is nice, having a trail of caravans supplying you with cards is very handy.

New purchase of the month is Ghost Stories. I have had my eye on this for a while but the price has put me off. I finally managed to scoop up a copy on an auction. This looks great and hopefully its going to get played tonight. I hear it's hard, but I hope its enjoyable enough to want repeat plays. Nothing worse than playing a game only to find nobody else liked it.

A game that has caught my eye is the new Fantasy Flight war game set on Westros. I am a big fan of the GRRMartin books and FFG always puts a lot of effort into there games. The fact that it uses Battlelore as a system, or part system is interesting. The only downside I can see is the cost. Games just seem to be getting more expensive these day.