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Archive for Chief EGG head
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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So didn't get to play many games this weekend but had a couple of excellent sessions.
Fri night we played Fresh Fish. I was the only one who had played before. Fresh fish is a neat little auction game. It seems that Freidemann is one of the few designers that can create games with blind bidding that I enjoy. The games involves trying to win the bids for outlets and build them as close to the manufacturing plant as possible.The yellow tile is the game plant and the green is the outlet store. The little key to the game is that you reserve plots on the board to build. As stuff gets built, plots may be expropriated and become streets. So trying to figure out how to give your opponents long routes and yourself short ones is the challenge. As usual it took a while to figure out how the heck expropriation works again. This is a great game but it takes a few plays to get it straight. It doesn't help that the rules are a mess. I usually have a hard time explaining why a plot should be a street as well. I can see it in my head but it's hard to give concrete reasons sometimes.
Next we played German Railways otherwise forever known as the cup sucketh game since turn order (and really if you even have a turn) is decided by picking tokens from a cup or bag. If you are in last place on the income track you get the most tokens put in the cup and if in first place the fewest. However random draws can lead to unexpected turns or lack of them. Trying to figure out how to set yourself to profit even when you don't have any turns is the the hard part! THe rest of the game is standard train stock game. You either build track or put shares up for auction. When tracks of two companies which haven't connected before meet there is a payout with the connecting company paying double. Each company also has a special power of limitation with varying amounts of track.
We played a 4 player game. Player 1 had the most experience and player 2 had played once before. After the first round I had the orange and blue stock for 12 each. Player 1 had red I think. Player 2 had yellow and and green. Player 4 had Black, Brown and Purple I think. Player 1 quickly bought the second green stock. Player 2 bought orange, I bought yellow and player 4 bought red I think. Green had made it's first rails to Hamburg (Green only pays if it's got rail to both Hamburg and Berlin). Yellow started north and was able to make a connection to green. This worked out well since green didn't pay out and I had a small advantage in income. This was subsequently lost as players 1 and 4 with some common stock had I think they 5 turns in a row? Ouch! Still the coalition of orange and yellow players were able to make some strong moves to catch up money-wise. Red merged with purple. This is where the fierce bidding started. I think I lost out on a second blue to player 1 for a decent price. I think it might have been in the $40ish range. (Cary do your remember?) Next brown and black the late game companies came up for auction with player 4 paying $50 for the brown and I think player 2 took the second black share for about the same price. In the meantime both black and brown started making their moves towards Berlin. Blue was able to connect to orange and brown on the same turn. I didn't want to take the chance of letting brown get the merger with blue in case I missed a turn the next round. Blue also made it to Berlin. Orange snuck in a merger with yellow. Yellow finally reached purple Brown and black lack racked up the cities on the way to Berlin to end the game.
On Saturday was able to get a quick 3 player game of Trajan played. Player 1 was a newbie to the game. I am definitely enjoying this game the more I play it. It does tend to take me a few plays to warm to on Feld's game. I kind of floundered around a bit trying to find which strategy I should go for. I settled on going for the general and troops. Bryon went for shipping again. Sean did a bit if everything which seems to happen most times someone is new to the game. I only managed one extra bonus tile during the game and luckily it met my strategy. I lost by two points. I also had the most little stones in one area on my mancala. I think I had 10 one turn.
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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I recently was encouraging some women to make some additions to this BGG women's Top 10's and Hot 10's and was going to update my own top 10 but I had so many favorites I decided to break it down a bit more. Since I like a variety of different types of games I made my own categories. If you have favs in my categories feel free to post them here, I am always looking for new to me games to try.
Strategy Games
1. El Grande
2. The Princes of Florence
3. Web of Power
4. Brass
5. Age of Steam
6. Vanuatu
7. Medici
8. Acquire
9. Reef Encounter
10. Neue Heimat
Abstracts
1. YINSH
2. DVONN
3. TZAAR
4. Floriado
5. Mondriaan 2020
6. Coerceo
7. Chinagold
8. Ta Yü
9. Billabong
10. Kamisado
Misc
1. Ave Caesar
2. Breaking Away
3. FITS
4. Ubongo 3D
5. Code 777
6. Deduce or Die
7. Blox
8. Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War
9. M
10. Ubongo
Card games
1. The Bottle Imp
2. Sticheln
3. Fairy Tale
4. Mü & More
5. New York Central
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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I am not a wargamer at all. Most times mentioning the theme alone is enough to make me wrinkle my nose and head for the nearest box of wooden cubes and individual player mats and I can't understand a single word Grognads writes. I dislike direct conflict in my games for the most part and much prefer to play off on my own little board somewhere building my medieval castles. The only game that has come anywhere near the theme that I have voluntarily played is Twilight Struggle which surprisingly I actually like. So the card driven games are as close to a wargame as I think I'll get. At any rate I've tried a few others with potential cross-over appeal like Battle Cry and Memoir '44, We the People, and more recently A Few Acres of Snow and Sekigahara: Unification of Japan. I tried another one last night 1812: The Invasion of Canada. I saw 1812 had gotten some good buzz and She2 had mentioned it over in the Women's Forum and yes, we do talk about games there on occasion, strange I know
 . So I picked up a copy in a recent math trade.
I have been carrying the game around to the last few game nights and finally had a chance to play. We had 5 players. Robert (Canadians-yellow), Bryon (British Regulars-red) and Grant (NA-green) played against Cary (American Militia-white) and myself (American Regulars-blue). Just a bit about the bits. The map is large and quite nice and the cubes, dice and cards are of standard quality. I started off forging ahead into Amherstburg from Detroit. There were some back and forth tuggles and a few of the pesky green cubes wormed their way south. I made an error not realizing that red and yellow could sneak all the way down to Albany cutting off my muster for a turn. It was a close game and if Cary had drawn his truce card a bit earlier we might have been able to win. So very light and certainly an accessible game to non-wargamers like me. It plays quickly and I'd definitely play it again although with 5 the downtime seems a bit longish especially if you are unlucky in your cube draw.
After this it was back to my comfort zone. I recently picked up Siesta from the BGG marketplace for a good price considering the quality of the components. Cary had taught this to Julie and I some time ago and I liked it quite a bit and had been looking to pick up my own copy. It's an interesting abstract with great wooden bits. It comes with a nice wooden board and a bag chock full of wooden goodies.
The game involves placing roofs and creating shadows by placing suns. The longer the shadow, the more points earned. The fun is trying to figure out how to maximize your move. You can only place 3 tokens down per turn-a sun, a roof or a shadow tile. This is a neat abstract and all the wood just makes it so much better. Highly recommended.
And a bit of Oregon spring
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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Managed to make it to Gamestorm for a couple of days of good gaming.
First up was Ora et Labora with Mary and Sandy. We played the France/wine cards. I am really enjoying OeL still and this was my 6th play. I decided to try and focus on settlements this game and it worked pretty well although I didn't maximize it nearly enough.
Next we pulled out Poseidon's Kingdom. This Was Fragor's release from Essen last fall. It lives up to the cuteness standard of Fragor's games. I think I like Shear Panic and Antics! better from a game stand point. Poseidon's Kingdom is a lighter game, it's still fun though.
I was able to try 2 games I had been wanting to play again since Jennifer was kind enough to be GMing them at Gamestorm, Recicle: Tempos de Crise and Siberia. Both are more light to medium plays. Siberia has an interesting action selection mechanic but it does involve a bit of luck as well in that you draw chits out of the bag and hope for pairs. The luck can be ameliorated by some other mechanisms. Recicle is a mini economic game. I liked them both and would be happy to play either of them again.
Now on to more meatiness. Susan and I made Sandy play Brass with us. Brass is one of our all time favorites. It was a close game down to the end.
Next up more meatiness. 4 player Vanuatu with the role cards. It was a teaching game with one completely new player, Debbie, and Sandy and Susan had each played once before I think. The next day I taught Vanuatu again and played with Mary, and Claudio and Michael were both new to it. Being Winsome Games fans the guys didn't want to play with the "family version roles" and we had to scratch our way through the game. It really makes the money a lot tighter and we were all scrambling for the 1 vatu you could get from the rest spot! The action mechanism is just killer in this game and I love tension in trying to maximize your actions without getting completely shut out. We had some pretty vicious turns. I was pretty sure I had completely messed up in my gamble when I built a in the first turn and hoped for some tourist as a windfall but the 0 tourist and the 1 tourist tile were the next two to come up almost finishing me off. I think this game may be the best of 2011 for me.
After dinner a little bit of a light closer with a 4 player Dominant Species game with Mary, Sandy, and Susan. Another close game with Sandy coming in second place for her first play.
Finished off our stay at Gamestorm with Trajan. I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of this game after 4 plays. My mancala still seems to stall out right at the end game costing me the game. I think I need a mancala repair kit.
Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:33 am
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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So finally got to play some games this weekend. Started off with some 2 player games. We played several games of Kulami, which is recent abstract from last Essen. Kulami is a combination area majority/ connection game with a modular board made of wooden tiles of various sizes. the board can be set up randomly with no more than 10 spaces at the widest points. Players take turns placing marbles of their color on the board in the row or column where the previous marble was placed but not on the same tile or the previous tile played on. If no marbles can be placed, or players have used all the marbles the game is over. Scoring the basic game involves giving the tiles to the player with the most marbles on each tile. Tied tiles are discarded. You score the number of spaces on each size tile x the number of tiles you have of that size. The advanced scoring you may also score largest orthogonally connected area and add to the tile score and you may also add in chains of 5 or more marbles in a straight line or any combo of the above scoring.
So Kulami plays very quickly and I liked the advanced scoring with the chains as they were more difficult to complete. The game is easy to teach and I don't see any first player advantage. The modular board adds nice variety.
Also tried Exxit which was new to me. Exitt comes in a nice size box and the pieces are made of thick foam. It's a bit different from a lot of the other abstracts I've been playing recently in that the goal is grow the board and score the most points on hex tiles of your color. Your largest connected area scores 2 pts per tile all other areas 1 pt. The rules are a bit confusing as on your turn you are forced to "dance" or move your tokens if you are as tall as or taller than a stack of the opponent's color, but exactly when this is forced or not was the difficulty. If you move your stack off the board and it is next to 2 hexes you may place a tile if you can't dance so it trying to set your self up without setting up your opponent was the trick.
Farlander has the nicest looking tiles that make up the board. It's another abstract that plays quickly. The games has 2 phases. Placing your tokens on the board and then conquering neighboring territories. It's trickier that it sounds. You take turns placing tokens on the board one at a time in an empty area or where you already have a token up to a max of 5. When all the tokens are placed the conquering starts. If a players bordering areas have more tokens then the attacked area they may move in at least one token to 5 tokens and they remove the opponent's tokens from the board. This continues until no more conquering attacks are possible. Winner has the most territories at the end of the game.
Floriado is one of my favorites. Another fast abstract that makes you think a bit. Basically you place the flower tiles down i a 5x8 grid and start your meeples on a grid. You may take any flower you land on provided it is less than the number of flowers of the previous tile of that color that you took. You move your meeple left, right or forward but not backwards. You can't land on an empty space and the game is over when no more tiles can be taken. Tiles of like flower colors are scored and the more you have of the color the more points you get. My winning flowers.
My dad got me a game(!) for my birthday. I'm glad I got a chance to try it out although next time I'm playing in the dark! Khet 2.0 is a cute little game of bouncing a light beam around the board with mirrors. It's kind of neat and nice of my dad to take note my hobby.
So next up we played a few 3 player games. First up I wanted to try Takenoko. This game has my win for best bits recently. The little panda is sooooo cute and a big impetus for my purchase. The bamboo pieces are also very nicely done. Basically you draw objective cards and try to meet them. There are 3 types of cards, tile placement, growing bamboo an eating it. The game is over when someone reaches at least 9 objectives. Some people may not like the luck involved as sometimes you draw an objective that is complete already and you only need to score. Seems like this should be a family game but there is a lot to remember n each turn so I guess I'd call it more of a light weight game. It was fun with 3. Played again the next day with 4 and still ok but the downtime in 4 is not so good and it's a touch more chaotic.
We also played Terra Nova. I have played this nice little area majority abstract 2 player before but this was my first go with 3. You take turns placing all your meeples. Then you must move at least one meeple and may place a border stone or possibly 2 stones. The stones define the area and if you have the most meeples in an area when it is enclosed you score the points. Played pretty nicely 3 and I'd definitely recommend it if you like this sort of thing. Plays fast too.
Next was RED. RED is a strictly 3 player abstract. Each player is a color red, white or black and takes turns placing a tile from a common pool. Your score is determined by the number of colored dots in your largest group x the number of frames of your color in your largest group. Simple enough but as you stare at the booard, your mind starts getting a bit confused with all the dots and colors. My first play was very fun and I'm looking forward to trying it again.
Finally worked up to 4 players and we played Hawaii. A nice little Euro. Lots of different ways to earn points in the game so nice to see different strategies do well.
We also played Takenoko as mentioned above.
We played Montage a 4 player partnership word game. Montage was recently reprinted after being a grail game for many years. It certainly meets it's reputation as one of the best of all word games.
We also played Kingdom Builder.
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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So I never thought I'd have games that were so heavy I'd be reluctant to drag them to game days, but I've managed to collect a few. Most have a lot of wood and look great. In no particular order:
Autoscooter is a nice simulation of bumper-cars. Plays 8 quite nicely with simultaneous action selection. The original edition comes with a huge wooden board and nice wooden cars
Scoozie, I blame on Joe H. He's always mentioning some interesting sounding game in the most offhand manner that means I must check it out. A nice 2 player abstraction of football I really need to try and pull out some more
ConHex is a straight abstract. It's a connection game and comes in this gorgeous wooden edition.
Gute Nachbarn still gives me nightmares from remembering carrying it around the Messe after I traded for it. A good multi-player abstract the board could double as a very nice butcher's block.
Solitaire for Two, ok this one isn't really that heavy, but's its one of the nicest looking wooden games around. A solo game based on Klondike. The "cards" are these nice thick wooden tiles.
Chinagold is a fun and easy 2 player abstract that is one of my favorites I had to have one of the hand-painted wooden boards.
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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Had a great weekend with an annual trip up to Belknap Hotsprings. It's about an hour from where I live and we usually rent a cabin and enjoy games, hot springs and eating good food (it pays to have foodies in your game group!
 )
So we actually had 8 for most of the weekend with one non gamer but I think they still had fun and even played some games with us. To make the nongaming part of the weekend even better it snowed-
Sitting in the hot springs while it's snowing is the best.
On to the games!
We warmed up with Money!, one of Knizia's classic set collecting card games. Still holds up well as a nice filler. I was crushed if I remember correctly and like in RL didn't collect enough money 
I also taught Mondriaan 2020 another great filler in the tile placement category. It saw a few plays over the weekend.
Next we broke up into a couple of groups and I played Stone Age. Still fun to pull out the dice and hope for the best. I didn't even have to eat any wood in this game!
The next day saw a lot of games played. I had picked up a copy of Farlander recently in the Jack Vasel Foundation fundraiser and was interested in trying it. We played a couple of three player games and I can see why it's suggested for 2 players since with 3 the player who is left alone the most or not ganged up against will win. Still these were interesting learning games. The board tiles are beautiful and I'm interested in trying it with 2. It's an nice abstract where you spend the first half of the game setting up your position on the board and the last half trying to take off your opponents markers.
I also got to try Gute Nachbarn which I picked up in a trade last fall. Nachbarn is also an abstract with an interesting twist to scoring. You randomly place colored stones on the board and then take turns removing them. Players score 10 points for 4 specially colored stones and the other stones are worth the square of the number of stones collected in each color. The cool twist is that you play counter clockwise and you add your left hand neighbor's score to your for the final tally.
Then we played a 4 player game of Lancaster. I think it's best with 5, but 4 is ok too. I still haven't had a chance to try the new laws out but they look interesting.
Also got in Web of Power with one of the alternate maps. Still my favorite area majority game for three.
Played a 3 player game of Ora et Labora with one new player. Played on the Ireland side for the first time. Interestingly no one went into making beer or whiskey so it was only available by some of the special buildings. I'm still really enjoying this one.
I also managed to get in Twilight Struggle. I rarely get to play this one so it was a treat. Neither of us have played more than a few games. I played the US and was managing to hang on because of an early Europe scoring. I pretty much gave up on the oil rich Middle East and the battle for Asia went back and forth several times. In the midgame I was again fortunate and controlled the scoring for Africa and the Americas and took a fairly insurmountable lead for the late war.
So 3 player Robber Barons isn't that interesting. The board is way to big and there was not enough competition at all. Still a fun little game if played with 5 or so. Basically it's a connection game of cities in the US, so the rules are easy and it doesn't take too long to play.
Also got in a 3 player game of Gipsy King. I play this abstract 2 player almost exclusively so it was fun to play with 3 for a change. Gipsy King is area majority and connection game.
We finished up the night with Telestrations and lots of good laughs.
Chain Reaction is an old Sid Sackson classic that was suggested on one of my old geeklists. Our resident DIY brought the necessary components and we gave it a go. It's a 2 player abstract played on grid where you score by chaining your movement with up to 5 moves across to your opponent's goal. Of course there are a few little twists to it. For example your opponent can essentially move one of your pieces on the board and they can also determine which piece you move first on your next turn! Very challenging and I can't wait to try it again.
Tried the short teaching game of Rolling Stock. Interesting economic card game that feels akin to the 18XX or other heavy stock manipulation games. I would try it again but not something I'll make for myself. A bit too long and dry for me. I suspect, in a full game.
Wiz-War Another old classic hit the table with 3 players. The other two wizards went after each other leaving me in relative peace to sneak up and steal some treasure from the Grey Wizard. After that the grey and pink wizard started after me. Luckily the grey wizard also happened to be carrying the pink wizard's treasure and I had the grey's treasure when he came after me. I was able to swap treasures ad run away! They sent a big monster but I was able to suck all it's life out healing myself in the process. I was then slowed by a giant jello cube and a dust storm so had to make my way home through the long maze. I just managed to absorb a spell cast by an magic cat and make it home with my treasure proving I was the best blue wizard ever!
We also played PAX a new little set collecting game from Essen. It's not bad and has some interesting semi cooperative and individual winning conditions.
Mü & More also got played. Haven't played this one in several years and still a favorite trick taking game. Still very good for 5.
Next up, those weakling wizards thought they'd challenge my wizardly skills at the Magic Hill. I quickly advanced to the second level by finding the secret passage and increasing my spells with the magic stones. Naturally I was able to defeat all challenges and make my way to the top of the hill!
Finally finished the night off with Trajan. I really like the mancala mechanism and I'm sloowwly getting better at manipulating it but still came in a distant second. Still a tad dry and low interaction but terribly challenging.
All in all a great weekend and kind of a warm up to EGG.
Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:32 am
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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In reviewing the games I remembered to record this year I sadly have no dime plays unless I count games online as well. I played 328 different games F2F.
Dimes:
Brass
Floriado
Mondriaan 2020 aka Comino
Web of Power / China
Gipsy King
Kamisado
Chinagold
Richelieu
Territories
Nickels: all F2F plays
Age of Steam plus various expansions (9)
Age of Industry plus various expansions (9)
Calypso (8)
Fairy Tale (6)
Prolix (6)
Dominant Species (5)
Hippos & Crocodiles (5)
Pantheon(5)
Uluru (5)
And my conclusion is that I need more time to play games!
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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My Best of 2011 (Originally posted in a modified form at http://opinionatedgamers.com/)
Well 2011 is over so I thought I'd contribute my version of the Best of 2011. I remembered to record at least 321 different games played this past year (I don't record my online games just F2F games). So without further ado here we go!
Best new "screw you game" - Vanuatu, this game rocks in making a player’s turn miserable either by the game or your opponents forcing you to do a null action but you feel, oh so smug, when a turn works perfectly. One of the most challenging Euros to come out recently.
Best use of dice this year - The Castles of Burgundy (also game most likely to force me to buy some reading glasses), one of the few games where you actually don't want to roll doubles too often.
Best art - Drum Roll, I love the theme and the brightly colored artwork really captures the circus flavor. Not much in the way of new mechanisms, the game still pleases like your favorite comfort food.
Best caricature of a deck building game - Master Merchant, no shuffling required! Clever hand building game that doesn't outstay its welcome.
Best filler - Mondriaan 2020, nice quick 2-player tile placement.
Best game I've only played once but really, really want to play again - Ora et Labora, may very well replace Agricola and Le Havre for me.
Best abstracts - Coerceo, easy to play and nice looking, reminiscent of GIPF Project games, Shibumi for its versatility.
Best 5 player game - Lancaster, love the interaction in a 5 player game. All the mechanisms fit well together.
Best card game - Tournay, I have to admit I wasn't that impressed my first few plays, but the game has changed my mind. I like the drafting and card interaction.
Best chaotic, random, super silly game I'm not embarrassed to admit I like game - Kalimambo, it has a rhinoceros and elephant poo tokens, need I say more?
Honorable mentions: Pantheon - best game with the most gods and Dungeon Petz - best game with the coolest monsters.
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Chief EGG Head
United States
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Well, Christmas is over and I had a great time stuffing myself with Christmas goodies at the relatives. All in all a great time even if my Secret Santa recipient hasn't acknowledged receiving the gift that arrived in November according to the tracking.
I had fun with a different sort of gift giving Happy Holidays Giveaway - Finished
and it seems most of those folks were excited to pass on a game to someone else for the holidays. I hope they all enjoyed it 
I did give some games away for Christmas and got invited to play Hungry Hungry Hippos with 4 yr old Sophie. I think my hippo was too full from Christmas dinner to win!
Hopefully will get some more games in today
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So trying to figure out how to give your opponents long routes and yourself short ones is the challenge. As usual it took a while to figure out how the heck expropriation works again. This is a great game but it takes a few plays to get it straight. It doesn't help that the rules are a mess. I usually have a hard time explaining why a plot should be a street as well. I can see it in my head but it's hard to give concrete reasons sometimes.
