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
  

The List: October 2011

I've made good progress on my games to play list so I thought I would post a quick update.

Games Off The List

• Merlin's Company hit the table during our last game night, and was quite easy to pick up. Shadows Over Camelot is a fairly simple game and the expansion only added a little bit of complexity. I'm fairly confident this will get played again soon as Merlin's Company seems to add good things to the game.
• Lord of the Rings: The Card Game looks very promising. It is a combination of the deck building in Magic: The Gathering, the co-operative game play of Ghost Stories, and a unique quest/adventure system that is very interesting and thematic. I played the first quest scenario in the game (Passage Through Mirkwood) partially with Abby's assistance. At first the game didn't seem to be all that difficult but near the end enemies really started to pile up and we won by a very slim margin. Looking forward to many more plays of this!
• Memoir '44 I played with Mike several weeks ago. We both enjoyed it but I'm not sure if there will be many opportunities for use to play the game as usually there are 5 of us and not 2! We do at the very least need to replay the first scenario on opposite sides one of these days...
• Say Anything we played three weeks ago at game night, and again with the in-laws more recently. It is a solid game, and fun, but I find I'm generally not that interested in party games this light anymore. Time's Up and hidden role games like Werewolf & The Resistance are much more substantial and satisfying in party situations.

Games Never Played

• Shogun [Have yet to read the rules for this one.]
• Battlestar Galactica [Read the rules almost twice through. I really need to play a solo walk through of the game before bringing it to the table, however, as it is quite complicated!]
• Bang! [Read the rules to this and it looks quite simple. We will play it the next time we have 5-7 players.]
  

Games Not Yet Played This Year

• Alhambra
• Carcassonne
• Carcassonne: The Castle
• Metropolys
• Wits & Wagers [Next party situation I'll try to get this to the table.]
• Blokus
• El Grande [Thinking of trying this one out with our 5 player family group.]
  
• Puerto Rico
• Scotland Yard [I feel like this one will work with the Mrs. & the kids.]
  

The List: September 2011

I've been playing lots of games lately and have been thinking about blogging, but somehow that just hasn't translated to actual posts!

Back during my last flurry of blogging (oh, almost a year and a half ago now!) I posted The List of games in my collection that I had yet to play that year. I stopped paying attention to that after a while (wait, that doesn't sound like me, does it?), but I'm certain I never did get them all played. I feel that an updated version of The List is an excellent place to take stock of my collection as well as what games our group has been playing and which ones need to hit the table soon.

Games Never Played

Shogun
Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
Battlestar Galactica
Bang!
Merlin's Company (Expansion for Shadows Over Camelot)

Games Not Yet Played This Year

Alhambra
Memoir '44
Carcassonne
Metropolys
Wits & Wagers
Blokus
El Grande
Puerto Rico
Say Anything
Scotland Yard
Carcassonne: The Castle

It will take some work to get all these games played, not because there are a lot of them, but rather that a good half of them haven't been played for the very good reason that they are an awkward combination of number of players and lack of popularity. Some examples:

• Memoir '44 (2 player only, the Mrs. hates it, maybe too complicated for Abby still, though she's probably my best bet with this one),
• El Grande (best with 5, some of my core group don't like the game),
• Blokus (not that popular with anyone I know, including myself, though I may be able to get one of the kids to play with me),
• Puerto Rico (somewhat heavy, yet quite a ways down the list of heavy games I want to play--for instance, Chaos in the Old World, Agricola, Le Havre, all competing for the same time).

I'm sure I can fit Say Anything and Wits & Wagers into some large group setting soon, the Carcassonne games I'll probably be able to get Abby & Link to play, and Alhambra and Scotland Yard could both be good family games so making those a priority for the four of us to try together should get them out of the way.

I definitely envision getting all the never been played games to the table over the next few months:

• Merlin's Company will get played the next time people are up for Shadows,
• Shogun is best with 5 and I think I'll be able to rope the in-laws into playing it (perhaps this could be said for El Grande as well),
• Bang! could be another hidden role hit, I just need to read up on the rules,
• the only thing delaying Battlestar Galactica is getting the right group together with 4 hours to spend learning it, and
• The Lord of the Rings I see as a game for Abby and I so I'm sure as soon as I learn it she'll be up for playing.

I have no doubt I could get all these games played this year, the only question is whether it is worth it to pursue this goal when it may lead to fewer plays of games I do love already. If I can get half of them played quickly I'll probably decide it's worth a little push to get them all in, but only time will tell.

Next up on Splitting Eights: What games do I actually really want to play right now? Also, When in the world am I going to get my next The Resistance fix?

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
  

Chaos in the Old World

Finally brought Chaos in the Old World to the table Saturday night. Dave, Monica, the Mrs. and I worked through the rules and made it through a couple of rounds before we called it a night. Armed with a better understanding of the rules, we met up again the next night, minus Monica, and played through a full game.

Dave & the Mrs. seemed to think poorly of the amount of luck in the game (because of die rolls as well as card draws), but I feel that the vast quantity of decisions in Chaos in the Old World more than makes up for this. One of the major benefits a board game gains by having luck elements is a need for players to adjust strategy as conditions change unexpectedly. This is certainly a quality I enjoy in games, and after one play I think there is an appropriate amount of luck present. (Though, of course, this opinion is subject to change, and certain other players in the room may strongly disagree!)

There is a lot going on here: players can win either by advancing their own personal victory dials to a certain level, or by achieving a certain threshold on the common victory point track. VPs themselves can be gained both through having a strong military presence in a region (by dominating the area), or by corrupting a region with one's rather weak cultist figures (eventually ruining a region and gaining large numbers of VPs). In Chaos, players must balance their personal victory goals with paying close attention to the other players' goals as to block them from advancing too quickly.

As in El Grande (another area control game), there does seem to be a disadvantage in building a strong early presence in the game, as the other players are very motivated to take down the leader. I felt in this first play I established myself a little too early as the leader and paid for that fact throughout the mid-game. Dave, through some good late-game die rolls and maximizing his victory dial bonuses, ended up the winner, but if one roll during the last turn would have landed differently the game would have gone an additional round and anyone could have been victorious.

I eagerly await our next play of Chaos in the Old World, as it is a deep and intriguing game, both very thematic and seemingly well balanced.

Five & Dime for 1st Quarter 2010

You can tell I've been serious about the board game hobby this year because for the first time I've been tracking my plays on Board Game Geek. The website has my entire collection listed, and each time I play a game I record the play and note anything interesting about the session and the winner and any scores.

One of the best aspects of this record is that I can tell which games I've been playing the most. One common way of tracking games played over the course of time (especially on an annual basis) is a 'five and dime' list that tracks the games one has played at least 10 and at least 5 times. Including face to face game nights, plays online, and head to head games with my daughter, here's my first three months (more or less) this year:

Carcassonne (12 plays)
Dominion (8 plays)
Ghost Stories (8 plays)
Pandemic (8 plays)
Ca$h'n Gun$ (6 plays)
Race for the Galaxy (6 plays)
Agricola (5 plays)
Dixit (5 plays)

That's a pretty good list that encompasses most of my favorite games. Time's Up: Title Recall would be the most glaring omission and that is sitting at 4 plays currently for the year. I do, however, think that something can be said for just those plays I've had during face to face sessions this year. So, stripping away games with the kiddos and those played online we get to this core list:

Ghost Stories (6 plays)
Dominion (6 plays)
Race for the Galaxy (6 plays)
Ca$h'n Gun$ (6 plays)
Agricola (5 plays)

The primary differences here are Carcassonne which I've played exclusively this year with Abby or online, and Pandemic which I almost only play online. This list is in some ways a companion piece to "The List" of unplayed games I wrote about several posts ago. Many of those games are fringe titles that need a specific group or a particular situation to find play time, whereas these on the five & dime list are the core of my collection that see play after play. We shall see how the two lists develop over the course of the next few months...

The List!

For some reason I feel that so long as it is reasonably possible to play through my board game collection over the course of the year I should do so--since I own about 40 games (not counting kids' or mainstream titles like Clue, Life, etc.) this is certainly an attainable goal, albeit one that I'll have to work at a little. I'll break this into two lists, first those games that I have never played, then those that I've played before, just not this year.

Never played:

• Through the Ages
• Chaos in the Old World

Not played this year:

• For Sale
• Alhambra
• Neuroshima Hex!
• Fury of Dracula
• Scotland Yard
• Puerto Rico
• Caylus
• Memoir '44
• Blokus
• Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation
  

Actually, that's not as bad as I had expected--only about a third of my entire collection has yet to hit the table, and the year is still young. The easy ones to get off the list will be the light multi-player games that I'm sure people will not mind trying--For Sale, Alhambra, Blokus, Scotland Yard. Also, I'm sure at least Dave and the Mrs. will be up for playing the heavier Eurogames--Caylus, Puerto Rico, Through the Ages (though I still need to fully learn the rules to this one...) Chaos in the Old World will come off the list as soon as I have a group of 3 or 4 willing to learn a new game, and Fury of Dracula will need one dedicated night and the right group of folks. The toughest ones might be the 2-player games that the Mrs. isn't clamoring to play: Lord of the Rings, Memoir '44, and Neuroshima Hex! I'm sure these games won't be that difficult to get to the table, but with so many other good titles in the mix and a number of group game nights (rather than 2 person sessions), they tend to be afterthoughts.