Stone of Remembrance

It has been an interesting spring and summer and has come in steamy hot here in New England. I haven’t sent out a newsletter in a very long time, and the blog has suffered from a lack of updates; lots of things happening offline.

Enough of that – here’s a report of my recent trip to Columbus, Ohio, for Origins 2010. When I was at the Gathering of Friends in April, I asked Jay Tummelson, the president of Rio Grande Games, if there was an opening for a ‘booth monkey’, one of those folks who demo games at the summer conventions. I was delighted when he said that he could use both myself and the co-developer of New England Rails (forthcoming from Rio) at Origins in late June.

On the Job at Rio Grande

Conventions are no mean undertaking. An exhibitor must arrange everything from hotels and travel to tables and chairs, making sure everything is laid out properly on the show floor – it’s an opportunity to meet current (or potential) customers and to give them an impression of your products. By extension, you are giving them an impression of your company. The responsibility for conveying this impression devolves, in part, upon the booth monkeys as well. Wear the logo shirt, become an ambassador.

Never a Fashion faux pas

Greg P. and I, pictured above in our fine Rio Grande logo shirts, had never done a convention together. He’s been a fellow traveler a few times, but we’d never been both on the spot. It’s been more than 20 years since I was in an exhibitor booth at a game convention; it was Greg’s first time. Neither of us had ever worked for Rio Grande before.

Rio Grande produces a lot of games. Many of its offerings are English-language versions of games produced by overseas companies such as Hans im Glück, Amigo or Alea; I joke that Jay has caused gamers to no longer need to speak German anymore. (Indeed, there’s a t-shirt that reads: All the German I need to know I learned on BrettSpielWelt.) Others are original with Rio Grande, such as our game and one of the current rock stars of the hobby game industry, Dominion.

What characterizes a Rio Grande game is nice presentation, good components and elegant game play. The gatekeeper of the Rio Grande logo, Jay Tummelson, is careful and judicious. He chooses games that he feels best represent these style. He also chooses games that he likes. He has quite a few years in the industry, so his opinions have weight. The success and popularity of games with that logo certainly validates them.

So. Back to Origins. We drove from eastern Massachusetts to central Ohio by way of friends in Harrisburg, so we left Tuesday morning and after an intermediate stop arrived in Columbus mid-afternoon on Wednesday, the day before the exhibit hall opened. Outside was beastly hot (and occasionally stormy); inside was cooler – and much louder, even though things weren’t going to get underway until the following day.

Calm. For now.

We were deployed near the entrance to the hall with a dozen tables. Other than Dominion, the games were Rio Grande’s new releases. Here’s a list:

• Albion
• Alea Iacta Est
• Assyria
• Asteroyds
• Cardcassonne
• Egizia
• Havana
• Krysis
• Macao
• Piece o’Cake
• Priests of Ra

Regrettably, Tobago wasn’t available. (That might be my favorite new Rio Grande release.)

Here’s the idea: a dozen games laid out on tables, ready to play. Gamers walk over and say, “I’d really like to learn to play Macao” (or Albion, or Havana, or even Dominion – yes, there were a number of people who hadn’t played it or even heard of it). The staffer’s responsibility is to sit down and teach the game, usually in ones of minutes, and get these folks playing the game. Not play the game; since there were twelve tables and only four or five staffers, it was important to be ready to jump to another table at any time. (I confess to making that mistake once or twice.)

Ones of Minutes

There are a number of pitfalls. First, staffers have to know the games. (We had the rules in advance, and had played a few of them; a few of us knew them all.) Over the course of a few days we became familiar with just about all, but there were times that it was necessary to find someone else to teach a particular game. Second, staffers have only a few minutes to get the players started: no half-hour rules explanations. Third, it’s necessary to quickly set up a game that might have been left partially played. In short: it’s necessary to get going quickly, engage the gamer competently, and know how to get back to the start position. Between 10 and 6, usually with an hour or two gap during the day, lather rinse and repeat.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

We each had our specialities. I wound up doing Assyria, Albion, Havana and Cardcassonne quite a bit, and never quite learned Krysis. We all did Dominion, and I think we all learned at least one game “on the fly”. We arrived early and usually left the exhibit hall footsore and worn out. These are indications that we worked hard and accomplished the task. The booth was busy all day, each day.

Evenings In New England

Each evening we were able to introduce New England Rails to new players. Our game is due for release in the fall; information about it right now is preliminary and general, and I am obliged to keep it that way until it’s actually in production. (Sorry.) I am pleased to say that the reception by new players was enthusiastic and (I trust) enjoyable.

Setting Up.

Two outcomes are important to note. First, this is a game that will be of interest to train gamers. Thus, we might be considered for Puffing Billy competitions sponsored by the Train Gamers’ Association. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one, because it will introduce the game to a wider audience – our best audience. Second, in the three games played at Origins, there were three very different game play outcomes, encouraging us that there was a lot of variation in the experience, making it interesting to replay.

Overall, we were pleased with the results. One of the games had our friends from The Spiel, Stephen Conway and David Coleson. I am still trying to determine what’s going through Stephen’s head in the picture below. By the way, you can subscribe to their Podcast on iTunes or through their web site; I learned Assyria by listening to an episode. And their philanthropy is much to be praised: The Spiel Foundation is a non-profit organization that donates games to children’s hospitals and senior centers.

“You Just Have to Play.”

Stylin’ As the Guest Speaker

On Thursday night I was the guest speaker at Arts & Sciences Lodge, a lodge under dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Ohio. My host was the lodge’s Secretary, Brother Chad Simpson, who is a part of the Grand Lodge staff (I met him in April when I dropped in to Grand Lodge, hoping to meet the Grand Master). As it happened, some time shortly before the Lodge of Table Instruction took place, the lodge’s Master decided to change the dress code from the customary suit (or tuxedo) to business casual.

No one told the guest speaker, as it happens. It was brutally hot outside, and it took me extra time to fight clear of downtown Columbus; when I reached the Old Hickory in Powell and was welcomed by the brethren, I was invited to take off my jacket and tie. Nothing doing. When you represent the M.W. Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, you might as well do it in style.

Do It In Style.

I talked about history and our fraternity, and also talked about A Song In Stone, which continues to be well-received in its new trade paperback edition. (Make the author happy and order one using the convenient link.) I sold a number of books, and turned some of the money received back to the lodge for one of their charitable endeavors.

I also appear in this picture at the head table. The Master of the Lodge is two chairs down.

By the way, this was a Lodge of Table Instruction. For my Masonic brothers: they did very little of the sort of thing we do in Massachusetts. When the toast to visiting brethren was proposed, I was called upon to give the response. We did it the way we do it. You would be proud.

This is an interesting lodge. It is comprised primarily of active Masons who want to enjoy the benefits of the Craft and learn from its teachings together. Asking men who belong to other lodges, have Masonic and other commitments, to join together to build a new lodge is a big thing – and if the rewards were insufficient it would be an imposition. In a time where membership is declining (though, notably, not in Massachusetts), it’s even more extraordinary. A&S has not yet received a charter; they’re “under dispensation”, which only means something to my Masonic friends – it means they have to meet certain criteria to achieve permanence. I’m certain they will.

What Else I Brought Home

In addition to Rio Grande’s fine offerings, I had a chance to walk around the exhibit hall a little and play a few games on my own. I brought home four games as well as some dice and a t-shirt for my daughter (”Fools! I’ll Destroy You All! Ask me how!“)

Founding Fathers

From Jolly Roger Games, Founding Fathers is a new game from Christian Leonard and Jason Michaels, who brought us Twilight Struggle and 1960: The Making of the President. (Christian has a cell phone with a custom shell featuring the 1960 art. I thought it was cool.) I haven’t played this one yet but look forward to it; my daughter’s taking American History in eighth grade this year, so maybe it’ll make an appearance as a teaching tool. It was very popular – the first copies were gone minutes after the exhibit hall opened on Thursday.

Tales Of the Arabian Nights

It was on sale at Origins, and I brought it back for L. We have the original game from West End, but this one is over-the-top better in production quality. It weighs about 40 pounds. Tales is a story-telling game that is part way between a roleplaying and a boardgaming experience.

It’s already got one play. L. and A. both love it.

Settlers of America

“Only Mayfair could marry a rail game and Catan,” Larry Roznai of Mayfair told me a couple of times. Settlers of America is a “Catan Histories” game like the Rome game that came out a few years ago. It should be an interesting marriage.

Duck! Duck! Go!

My good pal Kevin Nunn made sure I went home with a copy of this wacky rubber duck racing game. The most endearing part of the Duck! Duck! Go! experience is the way in which APE Games lets gamers customize their copy by selecting from a large collection of ducks to play with.

A. and I have already played it a couple of times. It’s not what you’d call deep strategy, but it’s thematically excellent and really well-designed.

Other Things

I happened to see a game of Agricola being played in the large gaming area one night. Agricola is a big game, subject to pimping – after all, I gave the nickname to David Fair’s amazing Agricola Reliquary a few years ago. But this one was really amazing. Each player had a full size table for his farm, and the main game itself – Major Improvements, Round cards, and supplies of resources – was held on a set of tables in the center.

Big Time Farming

A few years ago I made the acquaintance of Uwe Eickert at the Gathering. Uwe’s a fan of my writing, not least because I had a character with the same first name. He’s made a big splash with his World War II tactical game series Conflict of Heroes from Academy Games. These fine games were on display in the front of the Mayfair display area, and were drawing a regular crowd. Congratulations to Uwe and Academy for all their successes.

It’s All About Action Points.

Much of what you see at a convention of this sort speaks to emotion: hope, desperation, nostalgia, and in some cases derision. There are all kinds of people trying to sell their game idea, or sell their game, or sell something else to gamers (dice, equipment, even attire and furniture). In a few cases there’s something new and exciting. In many cases, it’s obvious that there is been a severe, even catastrophic, misestimation of what might be of interest. (There were some computer gamers showing off something that looked almost exactly like Rogue. I’m not making this up. On the other hand, there was a very interesting real-time computer game based on Philip of Macedon. I was initially put off, but a patient and very well-versed staffer showed me how much you could do with the game paused, making it far less of a twitch game. I don’t play those things at all – haven’t got the reflexes.)

As for nostalgia – one wall, just about floor to ceiling, was taken up by vendors of used and collectible games. It was the wall of nostalgia. There were things I hadn’t seen for decades, and lots of things that I’d seen altogether too often. The prices seemed surprisingly high, but I think it’s a matter of what the traffic would allow. There were also several vendors with huge tables spread with every collectible card game you can imagine, most of which are long since dead and gone – if Hieronymus Bosch were to paint the CCG purgatory, he could have used this scene as the model.

I had a great, and exhausting, time at Origins and in Columbus, and would gladly go again. But please – not for a little while at least. I’m very glad to be home.

This has been a busy spring. I suppose that’s a good thing in a way: too many projects, too much opportunity; there are talented people who aren’t finding enough to do right now. Still, it means I’m behind on almost everything, including this blog. But even though this is late – by at least a week – I think it’s probably still worth recounting my recent trip to Alan Moon’s 20th Gathering of Friends, recently held in Columbus, Ohio.

The Gathering is a gaming get-together held in a hotel. It runs non-stop for ten days and is invitation-only, and is the source of envy and even lampooning by others; but it’s a great event, a chance to play with people I only get to see once a year, and to see what’s new from Essen and Nürnberg. Speaking German isn’t so much help these days thanks to Rio Grande, but it still helps, as sometimes I’ll see something that doesn’t hit the English-language game sources for several months, or even a prototype that hasn’t made it yet. (In past years, I got to see Dominion before it became a phenomenon, and tried out Uwe Eickert’s excellent WWII combat game Conflict of Heroes when it was in prototype. I also played Pandemic as a prototype a couple of years ago, but I actually haven’t played the finished version yet. So it goes.)

I usually bring a list of what’s new, and try to get in a play of as many such games as I can to see what might be worth buying. Our game collection is already quite big, but you know, nothing succeeds like excess. Usually there’s one game that is a big hit, a surprise small press sleeper, and some solid-but-I-don’t-have-to-buy this ones. This year was no exception, other than the big hit. I played several other games that aren’t listed below, and a few neat prototypes I can’t talk about, but these are the highlights. Hope you enjoy.

Some folks were excited by Eggert’s Castle for All Seasons, which I test-drove last year, but I continue to be unimpressed. There’s nothing I can say to heap further praise on Race for the Galaxy beyond the fact that L. and I have gotten it to the table at least 300 times since we first got it almost a year and a half ago, but I can’t say much about the upcoming expansions – not just #2, due this summer, but the prototype-only #3. I don’t think that it’s jumped the shark yet. (But there’s still time.)

I guess the most well-received new release would have to be Days of Wonder’s Small World, a fantasy retheming and reworking of Phillippe Keyaerts’ Vinci, a civilization building game that lasts an hour instead of eight. We sent our copy packing – it just didn’t get played enough; but Small World was getting enough compliments that I thought I’d try it.

Here’s the concept. Instead of creating civilizations, picking attributes, spreading out and then choosing to go “into decline” when there’s nothing left to do, you pick a fantasy race consisting of two attributes, one the race/nation type (Amazons, Dwarves, Sorcerers) and the other a modifier (Flying, Hunted, Annoying – well, maybe not Annoying.) This part is clever: they exist as thick tiles that fit together and are chosen in pairs. There’s a selection mechanism similar to Vinci that lets you pick a combo that’s not immediately on offer. Off you go to conquer the map (there are different ones for each number of players); so many races, so little time. VPs are secret and the game lasts only 10 turns. The graphics for Vinci were ugly; Small World’s are garish, though the production value is great. It was fun and I’d play it again, but don’t think I’d buy it.

Small World: So Many Races, So Little Time

If I were to pick a favorite new game from the Gathering, it would have to be the latest in the cooperative-game genre, Asmodée’s Ghost Stories. This isn’t quite new, but it was my first crack at it. It plays best, perhaps only, with four players, each representing a Taoist monk with color-specific powers, fighting against the forces of a nasty demonic villain who sends legions of nasties toward a village before coming on stage himself at the end of the game. A gaming vet friend at the Gathering was down on it, describing it as “Lather, Rinse, Repeat” – but I got to play with three people who made it enormously fun. We played with the upcoming expansion and won by the skin of our teeth at the very end. There was a 3-D model on display but I didn’t get to try it. This might be a buy, if not for us than for the club. It’s hard, and it’s fun, and it looks like it has enormous replayability.

Ghost Stories: Cooperate or Die. Or Worse.

There was a time when Alea could be counted on to provide a cool new “gamer’s game” every year. Some of them, like Puerto Rico are perennial favorites (and PR would still be #1 on BGG but for those darned kids and their card games). But they’ve turned in some clunkers too. This year’s offering was light almost to the point of irrelevance: Alea Iacta Est, a dice rolling and allocation game. There’s certainly some strategy to it, but like the tile-laying game Maori, I don’t think there was anywhere enough game there to make me want to try again. I suppose that it comes down to being jaded, or refusing to be a part of the Cult of the New, but I don’t expect to bother with either of these. In the case of Alea, which has passed the relevance test a number of times, I confess to being disappointed.

Alea Iacta Est, Maori: Nothing New Here. Move Along.

The same is true of Ystari’s latest offering, Bombay, a resource manipulation and reallocation game. I have quipped about Ystari games in the past that they can all be described as “manipulating colored components into pleasing patterns” – at various levels of complexity; I’ve come to appreciate William Attia’s Caylus and we even own it, though I still think the fun is largely sucked out of it by people who are really good at it (i.e., not me). Our favorite Ystari game has to be Yspahan, which I’m also no good at, but L. likes a lot. The new one, though, left me unimpressed. The little plastic elephants are cute, with baskets to carry resource cubes on their backs, but that’s not enough to compensate for never being able to get back the time I spent playing it. On the other hand, as I told someone at the Gathering, at least it wasn’t very much time.

Bombay: Little Pink Pachyderms, For You and Me.

I played two licensed product games, one Cthulhu-themed (Die Hexer von Salem) and the other based on one of my favorite novels – The Name of the Rose. Neither made me want to go out and buy it. Hexer is a cooperative venture to get all of the nasties out of R’lyeh and close all of the warp gates before everyone goes mad or demons eat everyone’s face; it was difficult and frustrating, which might be true to the theme, but didn’t make it much of a game for me. Rose is a deduction game with two interesting mechanisms: first, you have cards that let you move any of the pieces on the board to increase “suspicion”, but no one knows which piece really represents you; and second, everything takes time, and it’s a Bad Thing to end the round, so you balance cost against effectiveness. But it comes down to a deduction game at the end – who’s the Red monk? Who’s the Blue? It’s like a long, fiddly, drawn out game of Mastermind. So I’ll pass on both.

And then, of course, there’s the big hit cooperative/competitive game – Battlestar Galactica. It’s a very faithful and incredibly nicely produced game about the TV series, in which some (but not all) players are good humans just trying to find a new home after the nasty Cylons blew up their old one. Halfway through the game, more people can turn into toasters; there’s lots of accusation and lots of analysis. Some game groups will do well with this: some will find it less compelling. I assumed it was basically Frackin’ Werewolf; unlike other games of its type, it’s not a cooperative game with a traitor mechanism, it’s a psychological exercise with an admittedly beautifully-executed and thematic game wrapped around it. I played it at 1 AM and wound up accidentally doing the wrong thing, which meant I spent a lot of the game in the brig. But I was, after all, a Toaster. So say we all. I’d probably like to play it again, and might buy it if it turns up on heavy discount at a bookstore as it did last Christmas. It was fun, but I liked Ghost Stories much better.

Battlestar Galactica: Yep, It’s Frackin’ Werewolf.

Last year I played and enjoyed Martin Wallace’s Brass, a moderately-complex game about rail and canal and industry in Lancashire. This year Wallace offered a simpler, gentler historical game about Cornwall mining – Tinners’ Trail. I’ve recently been reading a fantastic book called The Lunar Men, about eighteenth-century polymaths and scholar-inventors, one of which was James Watt, whose steam engines helped revolutionize Cornwall mining, so I was up on the subject. I don’t know if it helped me play the game, but at least I knew what an adit was. It’s vintage Wallace: there are limited resources, things have costs, there are dice to create randomness, turn order is important, and there are nice historical touches. I won, but only by a few points. One of the most interesting things is that things cost money – at auction or as a means of development – but at the end of each of the game’s four turns, you can use your existing funds to buy victory points, which is the only thing that matters to win the game. Nicely balanced. Don’t know if I’d buy it, but it was fun to play.

Tinners’ Trail: Martin Wallace Goes To Cornwall

For the second year, we had a chance to get eight people together to play an epic battle of Commands & Colors: Ancients. As with last year, it took place during the Friday night “Game Show”, an event I participated in once (and enjoyed not at all, not because it wasn’t well done but because it’s simply not fun for me.) This year featured the same overall commanders – Eric Brosius and Tyler Putnam – and the battle was Cannae, a big honkin’ army of Romans against a big honkin’ army of Carthaginians. Some of last year’s commanders came back to play again, and the Roman center was commanded by none other than the game’s designer Richard Borg, who provided a prototype of the new Epic deck for us to use. I sat to his right, and got to face Doug Hoover’s Carthaginian medium and heavy cavalry. Fortunately, Tyler didn’t have anywhere near enough action cards for his left wing, so a lot of the action was in other parts of the battlefield; by the time the horsemen came down on my position I’d gotten some of my better troops in line and they faced some stiff opposition. Borg, however, turned out to be unable to roll any hits on Jim McCarthy’s Carthaginians (who didn’t have any of those troublemaking elephants this year), and we dropped a tough decision by 12 to 11 banners.

I think this may be the most fun way to play C&C – big battles, three generals and one commander for each side. This is by far my favorite setting for Borg’s clever system; my girls like Memoir ‘44, but that might be just for the tanks. Give me a good old cavalry charge any day.

Commands and Colors: Ancients – 8 Players, Lots of Blocks

Romans, left side of your screen: me, Richard Borg, Joe Rushanan, commander-in-chief Eric Brosius; Carthaginians, Doug Hoover, Jim McCarthy, Peter Card, commander-in-chief Tyler Putnam.

The Saturday night festivities – prize table, awards, announcements – were long and involved; Alan is an impresario, and this is his stage (and his show), and is entitled to some reflection and reflection on what this event has become. There were some very nice videos made by attendees, and while my favorite didn’t win, I did appreciate and enjoy watching them all. This is an interesting community: gamer geeks mostly, very picky about what they like, but patient with newbies and usually willing to sit and play a game for the game’s sake rather than the desire for fierce competition (there’s WBC for that, after all.)

This year’s Gathering produced two very exciting results for me. One is still under discussion, while the other is a done deal. I don’t feel at liberty to discuss either right now, but I’ll have more details soon. (And there’ll be a newsletter soon too. Promise. Really. It’s coming, I can feel it.) I hope to be able to say that the several trips I’ve made to a gaming event are justified by these projects getting completed; my best pal L. has put up with the inconvenience and I can’t thank her enough. We’ll see soon enough.

I have already signed up for next year, and am looking forward to it. Thanks, Alan.

If Euro games hadn’t become quite so easy to get in the United States due to the valiant efforts of Rio Grande Games and a bunch of retailers; and if it wasn’t for the dissemination of info by the Geek, a trip to Europe for us would have been all about scooping up lots and lots of Eurogames to take back home. With a limited amount of luggage space, though, it was hard to take advantage of the amazing selection – and there are lots of games we could have bought that are just as readily available back home. But imagine walking into a department store in the USA and finding a display like the one shown below. It was like being a kid in a candy store.

The Candy Store

That was the main wall. There were four smaller aisles, and a big display of best selling games, including Settlers, Keltis (the Spiel des Jahres), and other titles that Eurogamers would recognize. We took advantage of a sale – lots of things were marked down: sometimes as much as 40% or 50%. Our collection is already fairly big – so we settled on the following:

• Siedler von Catan – Deutschland: a fixed board with twelve beautifully-sculpted famous buildings from various places in Germany; hadn’t seen it in the States.
• Alhambra: a non-first-edition copy, at about half price, with currency in green color (to replace the dark brown of the first edition we have. They had the enormous box with the base game and the first four expansions, but that would have been too much to carry and was big and bulky.)
• Volle Wolle: A Zoch small box game that L. and A. really like and that I’d somehow overlooked;
• Sushizock im Gocklewok: The new Zoch tile-and-dice game that belongs to the Hickhack and Heckmeck family, something I’d actually been looking for; and
• Siedler von Catan: das Würfelspiel: the Settlers dice game, which certainly isn’t Settlers, but for 5 Euros on sale it was hard to pass up.

A friend was also able to deliver me three copies of the EnBW edition of Funkenschlag (Power Grid), with the Baden-Württemburg special map. One is for our collection, one is for MVGA, our game club, and one is – for trade or sale. (Drop me an email if you’re interested.)

It’s reassuring also to have one’s impression of a game reinforced. I acquired a copy of Elasund, a Settlers building game, gave it a few plays, and sent it away because I was fairly unimpressed by it. Turns out they can’t give it away at Kaufhof in Köln, and that they bought a whole pile of them. 10 Euros will barely get you a beer and a sausage in Germany (though they’ll be a good beer and sausage, to be sure.)

I’d Rather Have the Beer and Sausage.

We only poked our heads into a couple of actual game stores, one in Holland and a few in Germany, and mostly saw the array of Carcassonne and Settlers games: didn’t see a copy of Power Grid, Puerto Rico or Agricola anywhere.

Logistical problems with my web host have postponed this report a few days – I had planned to make some comments on what I played and enjoyed at this year’s Gathering while I was there – but better late than never.

New Games

This was not the most exciting year for new games at the Gathering. Two of the three most popular games were ones I am either completely a fan of (Race for the Galaxy) or have played and have on order (Agricola). The third, the so-called Game X, still qualifies as a prototype; there has been a little written about it, and I’ll make a few comments below – but past those three, the most excitement was for a game that, for me, just wasn’t that exciting.

I played several prototypes, including the new Race expansion (which was very, very cool), and saw several others being played. The new business game from Friedemann Friese was my favorite one, but I don’t know when it might turn up. We also got in a play of New England Rails, the game I’ve had on the back burner with my friend Greg P. for more than twenty years . . . this could be the year.

I also got to play the China map for Power Grid, which was really interesting; and saw – but didn’t play – the Korea one (two different resource markets). There’s also a Baden-Württemburg special edition, which I’ll be trying to pick up.

The year has been hectic enough that I didn’t even bring my usual checklist of games to try (my favorite activity at the Gathering.) So my new plays were down. Still, here are the highlights.

Agricola

Quite the phenomenon. A game about farming. My only play was at UG XIV, where there were two experts talking metagame strategy the whole time. To my pleasant surprise, with fellow newbies in smaller groups (two or three), the game was quite enjoyable. I’ve ordered a copy from Z-Man, and look forward to seeing it on the table soon.

Airships

Also called Giganten der Luft. Another game I wanted to like. You acquire cards for your display by rolling colored dice. The white ones (1,1,2,2,3,3) are the lowest numbers, then the red ones (2,3,3,4,4,5) and then the black ones (4,4,6,6,8,8). Some cards are zeppelins, worth VPs; the others are guys, or machine parts, or technology or whatever. You get a benefit by acquiring a card, each of which has a target number and a dice combination to get it. Sometimes the benefit is other dice; sometimes VPs; sometimes a plus on dice rolls.

Some tactical decisions appear to be able to lead you toward more capability, while others defeat your ability to do other things. For instance, the only way to get a black die is to acquire a card that gives you one – but it may replace a card that gave you more red dice. There’s the urge to do something on your turn with little long-term planning (the appearance of things on the board helps encourage urgency). As a result, I think the game can become a long and painful stalemate. It’s a game I wanted to like but just didn’t. Pass.

Airships. Didn’t work for me.

Brass

A Martin Wallace game, Brass is an economic development game set in the north of England. Brass is money; there are cotton mills and coal mines, steel mills and ports; canals and railroads. Making these things pay off earn you spots on the income track, plus victory points. As is usual with a Wallace game, income is related to, but not exactly the same as, the amount of money you actually get at the end of the turn.

My impression is that this isn’t quite the level of Age of Steam. Still, five intense players could probably make this quite a vicious game. It just won’t last as long as the other, so if you’re screwed you don’t have to suffer for quite as many turns. I liked playing it; we’ll get it at our club, but I don’t expect to buy a copy for our game collection.

Brass. Could be vicious.

Game X

I can’t say too much about it – but while I found it interesting I didn’t quite find it compelling. I just don’t know; you’ll have to judge for yourself.

Jamaica

A light, entertaining race game with a few interesting twists. You’re going around the island of Jamaica, but instead of rolling dice to move or acquire, one person rolls and places two dice on the “left” and “right” spots on the center display. Each player has a set of cards with two benefits, one at each end, and three to choose from each turn. The left side benefit goes with the left die, the right side with the right. Players with ships in the same space get to fight, winner taking stuff from the loser. The benefits include food (needed when landing on certain spaces), gold (same), cannons (for fighting opponents). There are random treasures. Not extremely strategic, but quick and fun.

Race for the . . . island.

Lascaux

A sort of blind bidding game related to Geschenkt. Cards are dealt out showing symbols in two different colors and a cave painting of a particular animal. Each player secretly chooses a color, then bids Geschenkt-style, placing out a counter or dropping out and taking them all. Each withdrawing player’s token is placed, still face down, in a stack until only one player remains, who displays the color and takes all cards showing that color. The next one (second-to-last out) reveals and takes cards (if any), and so forth. It’s possible to come in second and get nothing, or go out first and get cards. At the end of the game, each animal is evaluated, and the player with the most of that animal gets one point per card. Everyone gets one point per six stones.

A clever, potentially vicious game with skill and luck elements. It makes your head hurt. I don’t know if I’d buy it or not, but it was at least something different.

Cave Animals. Collect the Whole Set.

League of Six

A little game from the Czech guys that brought us Through the Ages (which I finally got a chance to play and very much enjoyed). The other one, Jantaris, I didn’t get to play – but was advised to skip. In the first half of each turn players represent merchants, picking one of six cities to do business – but they can be bought off so they go somewhere else, where they can buy off the guy who’s sitting there, and so forth, until everyone has someplace. Then each city has a hexagonal marker with two to five arrows that can be positioned to point to various resources which are then doled out. Two of the resources – guards, used to buy off other players, and horses, used to determine turn order – don’t have any further purpose, but the others are colored cubes that then get placed on a second board, where they score victory points. Rinse and repeat.

The comment that most qualified as “damning with faint praise” was that the game should be titled “League of One, Played Six Times.” That’s at least close to the truth. It’s probably two initial turns that are somewhat different, followed by four turns that are more of the same. I wanted to like this one better but I just don’t. Pass.

League of One, Six Times.

Risk: Black Ops

The promotional, hype-in-a-black-box version of Risk. The intention was to show that times are changing and Hasbro is changing with them. No one wants to spend all night playing Risk anymore; of course, anyone who spent all night playing Risk soon realized that it doesn’t take all night, just enough of the night for someone to do what we used to call at college “the world tour”.

In my mind Risk is Risk, and History of the World is History of the World, and Civilization is Civilization (except, of course, when it’s Advanced Civilization). Risk is about conquering the world, damn it, and constraining it to specific objectives so that the game doesn’t take all damn night doesn’t make the game better. It just makes it shorter, and something I care even less about. Pass.

Risk is Risk, even in black.

Stone Age

Everyone’s favorite, seemingly. What is it? A pawn placement resource management game. It was most often compared to Pillars of the Earth, which it somewhat resembles – each turn you place your meeples on the board and make stuff, then you fulfill things that give you points.

To make resources requires dice rolllng, but you can acquire tools (stone axes) to give you plusses on the rolls; you can increase the efficiency with which you make food (freeing up meeples for other tasks); and you can use meeples to make more meeples. And so forth.

The biggest supporters of the game proclaimed their desire to replace Pillars on their shelf. Not me. It was not unpleasant. Played it once, did all right in it. But I wouldn’t make shelf space for it and I still like Pillars. Pass.

Ticket to Ride Card Game

I forgot to include this in the original posting. I did get in one play of the card game based on the board game that’s driven by cards; it’s described as “portable Ticket to Ride” – no board, no plastic trains. That’s all true, but it’s also true that this is a different game that only superficially resembles the award-winning Franchise o’Alan.

A different game . . . but oddly familiar.

The game has tickets and train cards, just like the board game. You’re dealt tickets and have to keep some, and during the game you can take more. Each (see picture above) has one or more colored dots – to fulfill the ticket you’ll need train cards of that type. So you play cards to your “railyard” (piles in front of you) – either one of each of three different colors, or as many as desired of one color. Prior to taking a turn action, you may remove one of each pile to the face-down stack you’ll use to fulfill your tickets.

The competitive aspect is that you can’t lay down any cards in your railyard unless the count of a given stack exceeds the currently-displayed count of the same color in front of anyone else. Thus, if someone has two green trains out, you’ll need to display three (and they have to discard their two, and frown menacingly.) The other major change is that cards in the face-down stack can’t be examined. Only when the deck is exhausted once (for midgame scoring) and the second time (for final scoring) do you turn up the face-down cards and try to match them with the tickets you have. A bit of a memory game there.

Your turn consists of the usual TTR activities – take displayed cards, take tickets (you can keep 0 tickets if you want) – and laying down train cards in the railyard. It plays fast, gives bonuses at the end for connecting to big cities, and requires keeping track (at least minimally) of what you’ve played into the stack. But my impression was that there was some validity to simply playing whatever you could, whenever you could, and feeding as much as possible into the face-down stack (regardless of color, though obviously you try the best you can if your tickets run more in a certain color.) There’s otherwise too much going on. When I played, I kept a mental count of the number of actual cards I’d need to fulfill my tickets (counted up the spots on the tickets), tried to stash locomotives whenever possible, and kept an eye out for the two or three colors I needed most. I won by about 30, but your (and my) mileage will vary. Liked it. We’ll buy it, though it’s even lighter than the very light original game.

Tribun

Probably my favorite game of the Gathering, at least of the published games. I played it three times, once with the expansion, still in development. My second play was with the designer, Karl-Heinz Schmiel, whose English was limited – so I spoke a lot of German with him, more reassurance that I can still do that.

This is a game of placement as well, set in Republican Rome. Players represent a noble family; the figures are placed at various locations on the board to acquire cards from one of seven factions (Patricians, Plebieans, Gladiators, etc.), or to take over one of those factions by displaying a set of two or more cards in that suit. All card acquisition is resolved, then takeovers, then each faction grants bonuses to the player who currently controls it. There are several different combinations of victory conditions, making for longer or shorter games.

There doesn’t appear to be any particular imbalance in the game. No one can “run away” with a victory, though obviously a lot depends on the way the cards fall; everyone knows what categories need to be fulfilled (faction markers, legions, money, laurels, the “tribune” marker, the “blessing of the gods” – two flavors: temporary and eternal). Get too greedy and delenda est; show your weakness and Et tu, brute. You get the idea. I’ll buy this one: it’s very good.

Et tu, Brute, as needed.

Other Stuff

The Gathering features things like the Photo Safari, the Puzzle Hunt, the Game Show, the Expedition to Play Basketball (someone always gets hurt: we’re not getting younger), and lots and lots of Tichu – a psycho version of Whist. (Stephen and David can tell you all about it. Once was enough for me.)

I usually wind up just playing more games so as to avoid all of these things. This year’s avoidance gave me a chance to play Frank Branham’s wonderful space battle game, which was great fun; to organize an 8-player, 2-board Epic Commands & Colors: Ancients game; and to attend the Sunday night dinner at Hunan House, where I got to sit with (and drink with) Friedemann Friese. Until you share a flaming volcano with the Green-Haired Mad Genius, you haven’t lived.

SchadenFriede. The man sure can drink.

Here are a few other pictures.

Zama. Tyler Putnam, Roman General, signals victory.

Curt Carpenter (left), Eric Brosius (right) and I going Through the Ages.

Billabong, a kangaroo race game. Ted Alspach’s true face.

I’ve already signed up for next year, so I’m looking forward to a more exciting game lineup. It’s a few weeks after my guest appearance at DortCon so I may even bring some of the new stuff with me.