The List: November 2011

Four more games off the list...

Games Off The List

• Bang! Played this with the in-laws while Emily and Jon were visiting. A hidden role game somewhat akin to Werewolf and The Resistance but less free-form as players must play cards to accomplish their goals in the game. Somewhat promising after two plays but I do have some doubts.
  
• Alhambra Played this light Euro with the Mrs. recently. In the past she has had her way with me in this one but we reversed roles this time and I dominated the game. Still not crazy about Alhambra, but I'd be willing to play it again in the right circumstances.
  
• Metropolys The Mrs. and I played this one with Emily and Jon, and it went over fairly well, I believe, with all participants. We played the introductory game since I was teaching new players, and it is certainly better in its full format. Metropolys has an interesting auction mechanic that sets it apart from anything else in my collection and I do enjoy it quite a bit, though it is hard for it to see the table since Stone Age and Ticket to Ride fill a similar niche and are very popular.
  
• Scotland Yard Played this one with the in-laws. Mike took on the role of Mr. X and did have a chance to pull out the victory, but us detectives closed the gap and tracked him down. He could have played his hand more aggressively early and almost certainly shook us at that point, but he played it a little risky hoping to give himself a major advantage later in the game. We enjoyed our session and do intend to try it again with a different Mr. X.
  

Two months ago, when I first started following The List this year, it was 16 titles long. This translates to four games per month through the end of 2011, a pace that I've managed to match thus far. Many of the eight remaining games, however, are fairly heavy, and two of them (Shogun & Battlestar Galactica) I've never played before and will be difficult to learn and get played. I'm confident, though, with a bit of a push we should be able to fit all of these games in before January. Perhaps an all-night New Year's Eve gameathon to wrap it all up could be arranged?


Games Never Played

• Shogun
• Battlestar Galactica

Games Not Played This Year

• Carcassonne
• Carcassonne: the Castle
• Blokus
• Puerto Rico
• El Grande
• Wits & Wagers
  

Three More Games Off The List

Besides Chaos in the Old World that we got to the table just over a week ago, I've played a couple more of the games on my list.

Dave and I have played several games of Neuroshima Hex! over the last few days, with Dave undefeated thus far. The game can be frustrating because as you draw your army tiles often you don't get a good mix of units and action tiles or attacking units and modules. When you draw two of your five battle tiles in the same turn no good can come of it! There are lots of tactical decisions to be made in this one, but certainly poor draws can really take you out of a game.

Dave read about a variant where you separate the unit tiles and action tiles, then shuffle each pile and choose how many from each deck to draw from during the game. This would avoid much of the imbalanced part of the game and greatly increase the chances of drawing generally useful hands.

The Mrs. and I played a game of Alhambra this afternoon. Alhambra is a fairly quick-playing light strategy game for 2-6 players. It did win the Spiel des Jahres in 2003, and the Mrs. enjoys it, but it's never quite clicked for me. Half of the game is acquiring currency cards and using them to buy tiles, and the other half arranging those tiles in a way to build your own personal Alhambra. By purchasing and placing a majority of different types of tiles you score VPs that will eventually lead to victory (or not so much as was the case for me today!) After losing to the Mrs. today and to Dave a number of times recently, I'm starting to think that I have simply lost the ability to win at board games!

The (Updated!) List:

• Through the Ages -- I'm slowly working through the rules for this one and taking notes to boot. Eventually we'll get this one to the table, but it's taking quite some time to digest the rules, and since there are three increasingly complicated ways to play leading up to the full game (and I'm only learning the simple game currently), this is a process that might take a while.
• For Sale
• Fury of Dracula
• Scotland Yard
• Puerto Rico
• Caylus
• Blokus
• Memoir '44
• Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation