-
Rick Baptist
United States
Redlands
California
-
Okay, Reiner Knizia and I haven't physically met, and certainly haven't had a spat (although that bow tie angered me a bit). But, whether he knows it or not, he's largely responsible for getting me into the hobby. Well, Reiner and a few orcs.
My first exposure to eurogames came from Dr. Knizia in 2001 while I was on my Lord of the Rings kick. Being a fan of the novels, I remember watching the preview on my old computer (on dial-up, no less) and just being amazed. And after watching the film (a couple times) I was in love. This had me going to the store and buying bestiaries, spin-off novels, and all the other geek things geeks do. Along the way, my dear mother purchased Lord of the Rings for me, and thus directed me to this very column ten years later. Oh, what a ride! You know, I still remember punching out the chits in that game, setting it up for the first time, and absolutely trying to convince anyone and everyone to play it with me. I had my future wife play it, my video game friends, family members, co-workers -- we all played it and all had a good time doing it. Heck, I remember pulling this out at work with one of my superiors and playing it DURING WORK HOURS. We would set it up at an unused desk in the corner and literally walk by and do our turn every so often. At the time, I would have rated it at 10+ if I were on BGG -- nowadays I put it at an 8 with some nostalgia thrown in there somewhere. It's a fine game, but a bit more abstracted than I probably wanted. But what did I care? It was a game on LotR -- two of my favorite things.
From there, I found The Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne online, received Heroscape Master Set: Rise of the Valkyrie for Christmas, and my hobby was born. But there's no denying that initial impression that Knizia made, and I have to think a lot of LotR fans have gaming birth stories quite similar to mine. Now, being new to this whole thing, I started expanding the way I felt comfortable. First up was the expansions to Lord of the Rings, of course. Then there was War of the Ring and its expansion (which I never even opened ... now that's another story). And then I started looking for other Knizia games. After some trial and error, I found out that while I am more interested in his lighter works such as Ra and Lost Cities, I respect his older classics that I don't necessarily enjoy. I learned about all kinds of new mechanics (for me, at least!) and styles of game. (**To tie into the LotR theme here, Lord of the Rings: The Duel by Peter Neugebauer is a game that I still enjoy but oft-maligned on BGG for reasons I have yet to understand. Again, an abstracted LotR experience but I have no trouble easing myself into that scene in the movie when I play. So give it a shot because you can get it for cheap!**)
So I alluded to Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation in the title of this blog, something most of you probably picked up on. I've always heard the game referred to as "Advanced Stratego", which immediately threw up every shade of red flag I could envision. What I imagined was definitely not something I wanted to put any kind of time or money into. Even presented with an opportunity to buy this for $10 brand new a year ago, I turned it down. Unheard of (especially if you know me!) But recently, my 6-year-old asked to play Lord of the Rings with me -- he always inquires on daddy's games, and this one I wasn't so sure would fly with him, but it's a co-op so I pulled it off the shelf. Somehow, he loved it -- this with no idea what the story is at all. I gave him and my daughter a brief run-through and we were off. Even my daughter enjoyed the end, as it was a particularly close endgame (I sacrificed myself so they could toss the ring in). We've played it several times since, and also since learned The Duel and enjoyed that. So when I saw Confrontation at the auction for what turned out to be $5, I had to do it. Warning: I went into this with ZERO expectations. Absolutely none. We played our first game a few days ago, and oh my -- another abstracted LotR experience. A rather plain-looking set of components with nice art and some text. But I have to tell you, we had a glorious twenty minutes of fun.
I'm going to sound like a total fanboy right now, but this game is absolutely incredible! Confrontation looks like it's going to bore your socks off, and it honestly looks like it's not going to work at all. But the game is almost flawless in my mind. It's abstract but it's SO not, because the text on the pieces carry the theme so well. And the game-end condition to try to get Frodo to Mordor plays out so much better than I could have imagined. I consider this an abstract game, a genre I usually have no interest in at all, but Knizia has worked wonders with this and put theme and an actual good GAME into Stratego. I played it again right afterward as the other side, and the experience is even better once you understand what each piece does. Just one play with both sides and I'm hooked, and I want to get it out again today and go. There's nothing better than a gaming surprise, right? This is why I enjoy playing so many games (a forthcoming article!)
I've gushed enough on Confrontation, but I thought the parallels of my gaming life were interesting. I was but an infant ten years ago with the Tolkien/Knizia tag team, and now I'm a bit older and wiser, still enjoying the discovery process (and Tolkien/Knizia) just as much.
     
Some recent gaming tidbits:
Along with a good amount of family gaming, I've gotten out of the house recently to see two other great families. Mike Sarsoza's gamedays are becoming stuff of legend, and I always enjoy my time there. A month ago I introduced a guy who was new to the hobby to Cyclades, one of my favorites. The game was epic, and I ended up beating him on an attack die roll to win. I could tell he really enjoyed the game as he sat there afterward analyzing what he could have done differently. I brought Cyclades again and we all got another chance to play. This time it was a sound whooping from the gaming virgin, riding Athena and the philosophers for the win. I'm not sure if the strategy is a terrific one to count on with experienced players, but there were enough of us that were new to the game that it worked quite well. I heartily recommend Cyclades -- several paths to victory and the way they work is like a built-in timer. Oh, really excited for the next gameday over there -- we've got a Diplomacy game scheduled (insert little girl shriek of joy!)
Yesterday was another visit to the Udvardis house, and the standout game there had to be London. Very simple to understand after a round or two, different paths to victory (again) -- the whole thing I would quantify as a light-to-medium euro and I thought it was quite clever. The theme of the game is to rebuild London after the fire, and take it all the way into the 20th century. I managed to get two Underground cards late in the game and scored a large amount of points with them, but unfortunately lost by one point at the end. A good game, though, and looking forward to playing again.
|
|
