New to you Jan 11 => Best new game you played this month and why
Andy
United Kingdom
Stockport
Manchester
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Another Year, another New to You list!
What new games did you play in Jan 2011? Share your experiences of the games you played for the first time this month.
Please add your own entry to the list, even if someone has already used the game that you picked as New To You... This helps with generating the statistics for the list.
New To You Metalist 2011
New To You MetaMetalist
New To You Geeklists - Announcement thread
Other Great Monthly Lists
Your Most Played Game (and more): January 2011
New to Your Kids January 2011 - Best new game you played with your kid(s) and why
New To You Jan 2011 => Your best new Videogame
Your best gaming experience of the month and why Jan 11
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Who's the more foolish? The fool or fool that plays after the fool?
United States
DURHAM
North Carolina
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My 4 new games for the month fell into 4 distinct categories.
Best Medium Weight New Game: Glen More
image from user diddle74
Most of my multi-player games come in hour long packets, as that is how long my lunch group has to play. So a game that plays well 2 player but also fits in that one hour window is something precious to me. Glen More fits that perfectly, playing up to 5 too (which is our usual number).
It arrived right at the end of the month so I am still on my initial plays, but I am quite enamored of it so far. It plays quickly and smoothly, needs a little bit of thought, a bit of planning, some resource management. Plus it is clever in how it handles all the different mechanisms which pull in different directions (jumping ahead to get a valuable tile means you get less turns, but then getting less turns means less tiles and less/no points lost at the end for too many tiles).
I can foresee some troubles for this game. Taking too long on the turn could make it drag and I wonder how well it actually does support 5 players - though 2, 3 and 4 look good. I am looking forward to getting to a point where all the players have played (we haven't played a non-teaching game yet) because some familiarity with the tiles is an advantage and working through the puzzle aspect of placing the clansmen and seeing how the game unfolds needs a game under the belt.
Best New Party Game: Time's Up: Title Recall
image from user Werebear
We had fun with this one. My wife is quite bad at remembering the names of things but somehow this one worked out well. Played with another couple and the girls won. We can refine our strategy by not making each other laugh as much. 
Best New Family Game: Forbidden Island
image from user Omahavice
I bought this as present for the family, to play mainly with my two sons. They seemed to enjoy it - we played on the lowest level and were cruising along when a few sudden water's rising and it looked a little tight. I loved how the tension increased through the game and am looking forward to playing more at a higher difficulty. The boys have not requested it again since (they are in a big Lego Star Wars kick) but funnily enough, my in-laws called during our game and sounded interested in the game too, so much potential for family entertainment. So a win for me.
Best Heavy Game: Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game
image from user henk.rolleman
Probably the nicest surprise of the month was my wife ordering this game with some of our Amazon gift certificate. She is a big fan of the computer game and my comments as we were looking at it on BGG were positive enough for her to get it without telling me. A golden moment.
We have played twice, first as Egypt v Rome and second time as a rematch of that same game. Both took longer than I hoped but the game went by quite quickly, which is a good sign. Not quite sold on it yet though and I am not sure what it is exactly. A sort of feeling that despite the swath of options, we'll tend to pick the same Techs and the same Wonders. Premature since we have only played from one starting position really. If we could get it down to a 3 hour game (some help organizing the set up perhaps) I'd be more willing to say we will explore t enough to say whether than first impression is true.
As an aside, I expected Civ:2010 to me the game I'd pick as overall winner, but Glen More proved more accessible and thus won out. The new to me in a year should be interesting.
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Nicolai Broen Thorning
Denmark
Ebeltoft
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January was a great month for gaming in our house with a total of 45 plays, however, of the many different games played, only 1 was new to us, so no decision to be made here...
Vinhos
I am sure this game requires no introduction. A game of producing wine in the wonderful country of Portugal where managing wine production, storage, wine experts, fairs and wine managers are just some of the many, many aspects of the game.
We managed to play the game twice. The first play was a learning experience and one that left us intrigued. Our second play showed me how to proceed. We also managed to cut the game time down to 75 minutes, which means that here is a game that is going to see repeat plays - even if it appears likely that there are certain things that must be done - certain paths to be followed.
I am eager to explore this game further and hopefully dispel the concerns I am harbouring. This is a game that is worthy of exploration, time will tell if it holds longevity.
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I'm Commander StatSig and this is my favorite bee on the Citadel
United States
Takoma Park
Maryland
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I am laaaate this month. Just never got around to doing this. Oh well, for posterity (particularly so next year I can do the "new to you a year ago" comparison).
New to Me Game of the Month
Arkham Horror: The Lurker at the Threshold Expansion - I told myself I didn't need any more Arkham expansions. I have an already-idiotic six of them already (read: all except Lurker) and only get to play Arkham in the range of 5-10 times per year as it is. I should be still feeling out my current expansions approximately until the heat-death of the universe. But I am weak.
Well, in fact, my new copy of Lurker is still in shrink. I bought it after a friend brought over her copy of Lurker for a sleepover-with-Arkham party we did this month. We had dabbled with the Relationship cards from the expansion before, but I generally don't count using a tiny portion of an expansion as an expansion play (for example, I always use the Injury/Madness cards from Dunwich, but don't log them every time I do without the rest of the expansion). This was the first time we actually mixed in all the bits of Lurker with the base game. Like most Arkham expansions, Lurker is made up of a bunch of separate bits, so I'll address each separately:
-New cards. Always at the heart of an Arkham expansion. Didn't really see enough of the Mythos cards to say much other than they're the usual goodness. An interesting new type (2 gates open, no doom added) of Mythos popped up once or twice, and they're pretty freaky. The new items are particularly good, I think; more than anything, I loved the new Spells LatT added. FINALLY there are spells that allow Investigators to help other investigators' combats or other associated tasks. This is something I'd wanted for awhile (even way back in the base game I mistakenly thought I could use "Enchant Weapon" to help other investigators) and it adds a nice bit of player interaction to the usually-solitary combats.
-Relationships. More "interaction between players." They're simple but good, and the fact that you permanently lose all relationships (don't draw new ones) when devoured gives a nice impetus to not die. They're easy to forget with the millions of other things going on, but they're helpful (which also makes them a nice tool for softening the game slightly) and give a bit of nice flavor.
-New gates. NASTY, in a good way. The particular jerk out of all of the new gates surprisingly isn't the one that devours you if it opens on you, but the freaking MOVING GATE. Not only does it bumble around the streets, spewing out monsters during surges and sucking up investigators who were just chilling out in the downtown, but you can't seal the freaking thing once it's moved out of its unstable location, making it nothing but a ticking time-bomb toward the "too many gates open" lose condition, a necessarily evil that you have to close but can't seal. One game we almost sealed the damn thing anyway with the Shaman, but then she was LiTaS and things got worse from there. The double-gates (go to two different locations) give a nice balance, though, because though they're hard to close, they wipe the boards of two symbols' worth of monsters. So the new gates aren't unbalanced and add a nice flavor that makes them just a little bit more annoying (in the good way). I could see permanently trading out the other gates for these.
-The Lurker/Pacts. Interesting. Not totally sure how I feel about this Herald yet. I like the idea of taking pacts that may be momentarily helpful but long-term dangerous (similar to joining the Black Goat cult, though I've STILL yet to have that happen), but the way they worked in the games we played, it often turned out either to be a non-issue (everyone was too afraid to take Pacts) or the Pacts were game-breakingly helpful. In particular, the fact that you can, for example, take one of the Pacts that lets you spend Stamina or Sanity for Power, then use the Power for Clues can let an investigator who popped out of a gate without any Clues to seal the gate anyway. They might die further down the line, but in the late-game this almost seems like a no-brainer move. Still, it was fun and I don't have a problem with it. I liked the tension whenever we had to resolve a Revelation card, particularly once we had several pacts in play (we had people taking pacts for allies, particularly when a Rumor came up that required an ally to be sacrificed in the streets..).
Overall, this is a nice, flavorful expansion. I waffle on whether I like modular expansions with lots of independent bits, but all the individual components of LatT work well. Solid small-box expansion.
Plays: 2
Rating: 8
Honorable Mentions
Ingenious - This is my "late to the party" new-to-me game, but in my defense I have played it online a few times, just never in person. Got this in a math trade and it's quickly become a new solid game for my partner and I to play and to which to introduce non-gamers. Ingenious is a nice mix of simple rules with solid, thoughtful gameplay. I love Knizia's "Your score is what you're worst at" shtick from this and some of his other games. It promotes diversity, but giving a bonus turn for maxing out a particular color gives a nice distraction that sometimes causes people to lose sight of their end goal. Games are usually pretty tight, and the board looks really pretty as it develops. Just a solid game all around.
Plays: 5
Rating: 7.75
Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game - Picked this up during one of those dangerous "Just going in for one game" trips to a game store that explodes into a couple-hundred-dollar splurge. If it makes me look any better, the splurge was actually at my partner's urging; I was pretty firm about only coming in for the Exodus expansion to BSG, but at their prompting I ended up getting Castle Ravenloft, Lurker at the Threshold, and Pentago, as well. And I'm not the least bit sorry about it.
Castle Ravenloft is simpler than I expected. From the ginormous box and accompanying $60 price tag, I was expecting something FFGian in proportion with 40 pages of convoluted rules and a 4-hour playtime. In fact, Ravenloft is a surprisingly straightforward game. Teaching takes about 10-15 minutes for all but the little exceptions that pop up during play, and the game plays in an hour to 1.5 hours easily. It's very much a sort of pared-down Descent: Journeys in the Dark or HeroQuest without a GM sort of experience, and works well. I have some qualms about the vagueness in how many monsters and cards work; since the game uses both "square" (1/16th of a tile) and "tile" as a unit of distance, you often end up deciding exactly where monsters or items are placed based on what's most useful for you. This adds some strategy to the game and no doubt will provide some of the most important decisions as we get more experienced, but I think I'd prefer a slightly more structured experience. Still, the variety of adventures and the promise of further replayability by the variety of powers for adventurers (currently we've just been doing the book-suggested starting powers) means this should have some staying power.
Plus, it's a lot harder than I expected! We're co-op veterans at this point, and I've done my fair share of D&Ding in the day, but we got slaughtered our first two plays of this, even after playing on Easy mode. We finally won a game with 5 players on the first group adventure, but just barely. This will take a lot more practice! 
Plays: 3
Rating: 7.5
Egizia - Worker placement tends to be a genre for very long, tense games, and so Egizia is an interesting variation. Sure, there are tough decisions and some resources are tight, but it never feels nearly as tooth-and-nail as a game of Caylus or Le Havre, which puts it in a nice lighter spot. It's interesting and fun without being as draining as its heavier cousins. Plus, it has a very limited length of 5 rounds, keeping it to a reasonable amount of time. The downriver-only worker placement adds an interesting dimension to the decision about whether to jump on a spot your opponent wants, as you may be severely limiting your future choices by doing so. The Sphinx cards (which are random game-end bonuses you can accumulate for yourself secretly) give a good direction to the otherwise kind of directionless building (all of the monuments are pretty much the same in terms of building, with the small distinguishing features not really enough to give a good idea of which is most beneficial to you at a given time). Other than the fact that people seem to have a lot of trouble understanding the one-regular-worker-only-plus-possibly-the-Joker rule for building (which seems simple to me but has gotten a LOT of "Wait what" whenever I've taught), the game is straightforward and plays well. Decent worker-placement game, but nothing I think I need to own.
Plays: 2
Rating: 7.5
Loopin' Louie - Barely anything to say here other than it is stupid fun. So stupid. So fun.
Plays: 4
Rating: 7
7 Wonders: Manneken Pis Promo - Not much you can say about a mini-expansion like this. I like having more variety in wonders. The A side (steals powers from other wonders) usually doesn't seem to amount to much more than being a duplicate of one of the nearby wonders, but it's fine as it is. The B-side is weird. I played it once and it caused me to focus too much on resource diversity, distracting me from doing more important things. I slightly resent the whole jokey "buy a beer" thing because I'd rather the jokes are kept to the rulebook, but I know that makes me a little curmudgeonly. Needless to say, we don't actually do that part of the wonder (especially since I detest beer  ).
Plays: 2
Rating: 7
"Meh"ntions
Pentago - My partner and I are always looking for good "restaurant games" that we can bring with us to play while we enjoy a bite to eat somewhere. Back in Athens, GA, this category could mean all sorts of games--we regularly played Carcassonne at our regular pizza joint, even fit Agricola onto the table a couple times there. Here in the DC area, restaurant table space is at a premium, which means we need small-footprint games to play, making things like Pickomino go-to games for having with dinner.
Pentago looked interesting at the game store, and is small and easy-travel enough that it looked like a decent buy during the aforementioned game-store-splurge. It's a simple enough abstract; place a marble, rotate a corner of the board, try to get 5 in a row. The rotation gimmick is what makes the game, and does a decent job. We've yet to have a game get even within 5-10 moves of a tie; it's too easy to miss your opponent's sure-win moves when the board changes position so frequently. The beginning of the game is a bit slow--there's a good dozen turns of positional jockeying that rarely come close to requiring a lot of thinking. But as the board fills up, it becomes slightly more intense as you try to figure out how your opponent might be able to shift things to sneak in a 5-in-a-row where you can't see it. Plays quickly (about 10-15 minutes) and is thoughtful without being as brain-burny as I expected from an abstract. Plus it thoughtfully comes with a snap-on plastic lid for the board so you can travel with it without the box if you'd like.
Plays: 7
Rating: 6
Cyclades - Man, I wanted to like Cyclades. I read the rules and thought it sounded like an interesting, tense game that combined the abstract positional conflict of something like Tigris & Euphrates with an interesting bidding system reminiscent of Vegas Showdown. Instead, I got a wargame with very little actual war and a lot of one of my generally disfavored mechanisms, "gang up on the leader." My one five-player game of this was a lot of positional jockeying in a dull way (rather than the tense and constantly-changing sense of T&E) and a lot of "No don't hit me, look, he's two moves away from winning" whining. It just didn't mesh well, and a bit too much seemed to come down to things like what monsters came down and how the dice treated people; when there's only four-six actual battles during the game, luck of the roll doesn't balance out much. It's a pretty game, and I'd try it again (I'd think it might be interesting to try 2-player, in particular), but it certainly wasn't nearly as fun or cool as I expected.
Plays: 1
Rating: 5.75
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Bo Link
United States
Nashville
Tennessee
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7 Wonders - 7 plays -
What else can be said about this game? It's the new hotness, and it totally deserves being placed on that pedestal. I love this game, and I think it's one of the best fillers available.
Jump Gate - 2 plays -
I can see why this was selected as Games Magazine's Game of the Year. It's a solid, space exploration card game. There are quite a few moments for clever play with the special powers available, and it combines set collection and area majority seamlessly. I just might have to pick up a copy to play with my family.
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Steve Duff
Canada
Ottawa
Ontario
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Lightish month, but a clear winner.
Merchants & Marauders
Preliminary rating: 9
I had some initial apprehension when author Christian really emphasized that this was not a eurogame, but I went ahead and purchased anyway, because I really wanted to support him after all the crap he went through to get this published. He deserves a hit.
And I think it delivers. It's just plain fun to sail around, pick up rumours, events, trade goods, or go plain ol' buccaneering on someone's %^&.  We mostly just attack the NPC's rather than each other, but it still works that way.
It's a testament to the great design that this is already one of the most houseruled games on BGG. This isn't a fault, it's a strength. You can lengthen the game, shorten it, add players, make combat easier, harder, more or less frequent, tweak the balance between playing as a merchant vs a pirate based on how you or your group plays. Just amazing.
Shear Panic
Preliminary rating: 7
As longtime readers would know, the awesome components in this are definitely part of our enjoyment. But the game is pretty good too. A simple game of choosing an action from your limited board, which causes the sheep to shuffle positions on the table. Highly tactical, as you want to position your sheep in the high scoring spots just as the scoring begins. I like how you have to decide if now is the best time to use a certain move, or save it for later. Also, the four different types of scoring means that once you have a good position for one scoring, you really have to work to get into a completely different position for the next scoring.
Queen's Necklace
Preliminary rating: 7
Fairly standard set collection game, with cards that provide special powers spicing things up. I liked the interesting decreasing cost system of the cards, as each turn that a card goes unpurchased it becomes cheaper. So if you wait, you might be able to buy multiple cards next turn. Or, purchase that one great card you really need right now, as it may not be there next turn. Special powers allow you to steal cards, look at a players hand, adjust the relative values of the four gems you're collecting, etc, pretty common for a Faidutti design.
Three times in the game there's a blind bidding phase, where you simultaneously bid for all four gem types. Special event cards can again be played in this phase, to do things like cancel the bidding in a gem you're poor in, double your return in a gem you win, etc.
Keltis: Neue Wege, Neue Ziele
Preliminary rating: 6.5
While technically an expansion, there's enough rule changes, new components, and a radically different board that makes this feel like a very different game than plain Keltis.
We found this version extremely tight and difficult, we could barely even trigger the end game of advancing a certain number of pieces into the high scoring area at the top of the board. This is because the paths cross in various ways, so the piece you've been moving with yellow cards now needs pink cards, etc. So, it's possible now to have multiple pieces that need the same colour cards to progress. I don't know if it was just the random distribution of the cards or what, but I ended up pretty much stuck for the last third of the game, mostly discarding and drawing, hoping to pick up something I could use (and rarely getting anything). This difficulty definitely affected the enjoyment, but we've only played it once so far.
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Corey Allen
United States
Humble
Texas
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My parents came to visit in January as a late Christmas, and they are big fans of Oh Hell!, so we decided to play a bunch of different card games and see which ones we all liked. None of us have played any of these, so it was a new experience for us all.
Best Game of the Month
Mü & Lots More
Mu was by far the top game we played with my parents. We liked the bidding aspect, and how your partner can change every round. Also, even when you are partners with someone, you don't necessarily want them to make their bid, and there are plenty of opportunities for partners to work separately either toward a common goal or toward selfish goals. After playing several games with my parents, my Wife and I downloaded the iPad version and have played many games vs the computers.
Great Games
Word on the Street
Word on the street, although not a cardgame, was another huge hit with my parents. We played at least five times during their weekend trip, and each time felt different & tense. It was great fun trying to pull the letters back and forth from one side to another, focussing on certain letters to score for your side, or to prevent the opponents team from scoring. One downfall, though, was that after our five plays, we had exhausted the entire deck of cards. We shuffled them all back up (due to the cool divider that lets you know when you get back to the beginning) but we were recognizing the cards before, and it was too easy to go back to the really good long words to score many letters, especially at the beginning of the game where all of the letters are still up for grabs.
GiftTRAP
GiftTrap was the perfect game to play during this occasion. We had my wife and I and my parents, celebrating a holiday of gift giving, and we got to learn more about each other and what we want & value in life. This was a great experience of learning about other people as well as playing a game trying to guess your opponents choices. Really cool. It was difficult to remember which side of the board you are moving your gift, since both sides score points each match, but that was a minor annoyance.
Good Games
Chicago Express
Chicago Express is a fun, simplified version of the "Heavy" train games. It plays pretty quickly, and due to only 3 role options on each turn, you don't have any AP problems. It starts out semi-slow, but gets pretty fun once people have multiple investments in different railroads, and you have to find a way to improve your position without improving everyone else's. I just got the expansion(s) to the game, and I think we are going to try that out.... tonight!
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Betrayal is a game with very few meaningful strategic decisions, but still manages to deliver a fun experience. You spend the first half of the game walking around aimlessly, having thematic encounters, and your character seeing things that aren't there, but then the whole game dynamic changes, and you have a 1vsAll battle. The first half of the game could pretty much be seen as the "setup" to the rest of the game, where you randomly distribute items, skill ups, & setup the board, but the game is so quick that it doesnt seem like a drag. Also, if you read the events thematically, they can be pretty spooky.
Decent Games & Mixed Feelings
Claustrophobia
Claustrophobia feels very similar to D&D Castle Ravenloft, but instead of being a cooperative 4vsGame, it is a 1v1. I'm not a huge fan of 1v1 games, and this one plays decently well, but isnt very exciting. I like the mechanics and the idea that hit points restrict character choices, but the character choices aren't all that different to cause a meaningful decision on which spot to place the damage peg. I'm adding this game to my trade pile, and I think i'll stick to Castle Ravenloft (and the soon coming expansion)
The Bottle Imp
Bottle Imp was another trick taking card game, where trump is constantly decreasing throughout the game, and a twist that every time you win a trick with trump, you take a bottle, and you don't want to be the last person to have the bottle. It was a fun first game, but there isn't much depth to this one.
Fairy Tale
Fairy tale felt exactly the same as 7 Wonders, but plays fewer players. Both games can be enjoyable as a filler, but lack any real meat to have a substantial experience with.
Negative Experiences
Catan Dice Game
This game holds true to its roots, and you have the same resources with the same building costs; however, zero player interaction. This was a snoozefest as I waited patiently for the game to end so we could play something where you could make a meaningful decision.
Sticheln
I thought this game might be okay after reading the rules, but in play, it turns out to be a pretty random experience. Since so many cards count as trump, and you don't have to follow suit, you can play anything you want in your hand each hand, and can completely decide whether you want to take or pass every trick. It does have some interesting elements, but they were drowned out by the complaints of the other players that were having a frustrating experience.
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Mikael Ölmestig
Sweden
Halmstad
Halland
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I know I am a little late to the game, but I have been extremely busy since the beginning of the new year. That doesn’t mean I haven’t got any games played as it works great as a stress reliever. Anyway, here are the games...
Fürstenfeld * 1 play *
As with previous months best game (Sid Meier’s Civilization) I am little concerned about the longevity of this game, but as of now I quite like it and want to play it more. The game is about supplying goods to the local breweries in order to build a palace. You sell ingredients you produce to one of the breweries to get income and prices changes due to supply and demand. After that you allowed to build up to two buildings by paying the cost and place it on one of your six spots. The buildings are a deck which you draw from every turn and the buildings you don’t build are placed at the bottom of the deck in any order, which means they are recycled. Palace parts are like other buildings (but get more expensive as more are taken), so one of the main decisions in the game is when to switch gears.
Market manipulation games are not a personal favorite, but maybe because it is quite simplistic make it easier for me to like it and comprehend. Instead this is more of a hand management game, especially with the advanced game which involves some deck building (nothing like Dominion though). As I said earlier I’m not sure about how it stands up with repeated plays mainly because of concern about the balance of the buildings, but the game feels fresh and fun.
Key Market * 1 play *
Economic games are near and dear to my heart (even if I don’t play them often enough for me to buy them) and this has some really interesting things going on. The game takes part during the seasons of two years and starts out in a not terribly productive winter. During the game you harvest crops with your workers and sell or use them. Later in the game you retain your workers in order to get points. To your help there are several guilds which grant you special abilities, but are also worth points.
The money is really tight in the game, so this is not for those of faint of heart. The rules are pretty straightforward, but I found in my first game that it isn’t easy to follow your plan because you have to carefully manage your economy.
Constantinopolis * 1 play *
Starfarers of Catan * 1 play *
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158.
Board Game: Troyes
[Average Rating:7.81 Overall Rank:35]
Felix Rodriguez
United States
Somerville
Massachusetts
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Thanks to Unity Games, as well as christmas gifts, I haven't played this many new games in a very long time so I might as well post them here...
Great Games:
Troyes: Best game of the month. This is a dice game where it doesn't necessarily matter that much if you roll low - just buy your opponents dice! Although some parts have unnecessary rules and others don't seem strategic enough, the whole package saved what I thought was a pretty JASE bunch of games in UG.
Glen More: There's nothing really new in this game, but everything seems to tie together in a way I find fascinating.
Famiglia: A very simple two player card game that probably doesn't have that much depth but I find entertaining from start to finish. This gets mad props for being a fantastic lunch time game.
Code 777: I never wanted to play this having been turned off by the deductive simplicity of "What's that on my head". But this one is so much better. It shoots up to my must buy pile on a single play.
Good Games:
Washington's War: The box says 90 minutes, and I'm a sucker for short wargames. The box doesn't lie. This is short, sweet, and full of great decisions. It doesn't make it to the great category because it has a little too much rule chrome for it's length (a 24 page rulebook!), but it's good once you get around that.
Egizia: Straddles the line between good and average. The game is fun and the basic mechanic is fantastic. Similar to Glen More but even more interesting. But outside of that basic mechanic the game punted in a bad way. I'm bummed this wasn't the GOTY contender it could have been.
Average Games:
Kaigan: Like the above game this game has a great mechanic. I loved the mix of action selection with Coloretto. But like the above, it's too bad the rest of the game is boring. I hope someone takes this mechanic and makes a different game out of it.
Wallamoppi: I acquired this from the trade pile for something I didn't care for. And it was a good trade because the wife likes it. But really this is just a Jenga variant with a timer. Fun, but certainly nothing special. Except the timer is a marble going down a ramp. That part is awesome.
20th Century: Take O Zoo le Mio. Add Industrial Waste. I like both of those games, and I like this one. but it couldn't be more derivative. There's no reason to play this over the other two.
Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game: I just played one game against my wife who hated it. So this could really be better against other opponents. So far tho', it just seems like a more complex MtG but without any real justification for it. I was hoping for another Blue Moon (Best CCG/LCG ever!), but this is definitely not it.
7 Wonders: Lots of props for going up to 7 players in a short timeframe. I might get it just for that. But really its way too simple to hold my interest for too long. Better than Fairy Tale tho', so if you like Fairy Tale run to your local store and buy this.
Dixit: Gorgeous game. Worth playing once just for that. The game itself is enthralling but now that I've seen all the (amazing) art, the shine wore off very fast.
London: There's a great idea here, but the game uses artificial restrictions to limit your options. For example, the game hurts you if you hold extra cards in your hand when running your city - so you have to play cards before running the city - and because you need cards after you run a city then your next move is buying property. repeat. I'm not quite sure why - I'd rather these limitations were removed. I've no doubt this game is deep, one of the deepest in the card combo world. I just didn't find it all that fun.
Spot It!: A speed game where you try to find matching symbols. Comes with all these variants that all end up being the same game of matching symbols. It was a good time waster but I don't need to play it again.
Bad Games:
Luna: So very JASE. There's nothing inherently wrong with this game so marking it as bad is probably harsh, but I was so bored.
Ziegen Kriegen: This could have been interesting, if it wasn't totally random.
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159.
Board Game: Troyes
[Average Rating:7.81 Overall Rank:35]
Chris McGowan
United States
Arlington Heights
Illinois
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11 New to me in January - quite a busy month.
The "A" games for the month.
Troyes stood out as the best "gamers game" for me. We only played it once, but it was quite good. I like the way the dice are used and borrowed from other players. As we become more familiar with the cards (of which you only see a third each game) I expect the gameplay to move quicker. Appears to be many paths to victory in one of those "subtle" conflict Euro games.
Glen More was a close second. A well thought out Alea offering. Once again a lot going on and the game moves along pretty quickly through the 3 "ages" and with really only 3 scoring items it seems condense. Prefer with fewer players and rather enjoy the dice playing Godzilla with 3 players.
Ticket to Ride: Europe Played this 3 times on a visit to a friends place in Minneapolis. I really enjoy the tunnels and stations aspect of this one. Pointed out a few rules to the non-gamer couple which should make this more appealing to them with 2 or 3 players. I probably prefer this to Marklin which I own, but don't see myself buying it soon.
Blokus Trigon has been played a few times now. I enjoy regular Blokus with 2 or 4 and this fits the bill when we have 3. It's interesting to see people try to figure out how to place the triangular pieces.
The next tier - "B's"
Blue Max - started the New Year with a play of this using 3D planes on telescopic stands. I got blasted out of the air early, but returned to do the same later with a Pilot Kill shot and sweet move in the air. Fun.
Shipyard - played it three times and still not sure we're getting all of the rules right. The # of propellers on a ship is perplexing to me - we allowed unlimited which seemed wrong. An interesting exercise in shipbuilding and navigation.
Too Many Monkeys - had a great time playing with my friends daughter (age 7) and son (age 4). The 4 year old was so excited to see us playing a game together - neat. The 7 year old summed up the game with "It's all about how lucky you are with the cards." how true, but people made this game fun.
The "C's" for January.
Exscape - a Knizia filler game that was good for the end of night. more dice!!!
Palatinus - one of my owned and unplayed games that I was able to get to the table. We played with 2 and not sure if I like it too much - there appear to be better "tile laying' games out there.
Ponte del Diavolo - another one crossed off my owned and unplayed games. I got schooled by a chess player in this 2p abstract bridge building game. Will try again.
Merchants of the Middle Ages Had heard very good things about Die Handler and thought I would enjoy the game based on my previous likes/dislikes. However, the game felt very "blah" and I got "stuck" a few times holding items which never shipped out and never quite sure what the value of cards are. Glad I did not spend my money to find out I disliked the game.
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Alexandru Stanuta
Romania
Bucharest
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January has been a decent month (regarding new games), but without the amount of games as in November or December. Still, there is an excellent game which I had played!
* my ratings and comments regarding these games will be based on all the games played till now
New to me in JANUARY: Three games
Hansa Teutonica
In January – 2 plays (4-5 players)
Till now – 3 plays (4-5 players)
This is one of the few games that really impressed me after just one play! I knew about it since it had been the hot game of Essen 2009 and I wanted to play it since then. Maybe I am a little biased regarding it, since I had won all the games that I played. The only thing that keeps me from buying it is that I don’t know how good it is with just 2 players.
A few words about it. The players are merchants in Hanseatic League, who try to win prestige points. Everyone has a personal board, which contains 5 areas: the “keys” – a multiplier for VPs based on the town network; the “actions” – the number of actions a player can take during a turn; the “coloured cubes” – the type of office a player can open in a town; the “book” – the number of merchants/traders a player can move in one action and the “bag” – the number of merchants/traders a player can move from stock to his supply.
There are 5 activities a player can do during a turn: allocation of traders/merchants – moving them from stock to hand; placing a trader/merchant on the board; displacing an opponent’s trader/merchant; moving traders/merchants and claiming a route. These are done by using traders (wooden cubes) and merchants (wooden disks) from player’s supply, based on the limitations from the personal board. After claiming a route, a player may open an office in a town included in the route or upgrade one of the areas from his board (in a few special towns).
The game plays very fast (90 minutes a game with 5 players, four of whom were newbies) and the interaction between players is fantastic. For example, if you want to displace an opponent’s trader from the board, you have to “pay” one trader from hand and the opponent receives an extra trader to place, together with the displaced one. In case of the merchant, the “payment” and the “bonus” evolve to two traders. This means that there are a lot of blocking and displacing during a game.
The Good:
+ it plays fast
+ it’s full of brain-burning decisions
+ there are many strategies to victory
The Bad:
- the beginning is a little scripted (everybody goes in the south to increase the number of actions)
Verdict:  (If it plays with two players as good as with five, it will become a 10 for me!)
(Pictures taken by kilroy_locke and kneumann. Thanks!)
In the Shadow of the Emperor
In January – 1 play (3 players)
Till now – 2 plays (3 players)
This is one of those games for which I cannot figure a decent strategy. It’s true that I played with only 3 players and I think the best number of players is 4. With 3 players, the game is not tight and it’s easy for one player to take and hold control of two regions.
The game takes place in the Holy Roman Empire and the players are aristocratic families that fight for influence and for the Emperor throne. Every player begins with a number of points that he can allocate to take action cards. These cards allow him to place barons/couples in one of the seven areas, to move them, to build a city, and many others.
At the end of the turn, electors are “elected”, based on the power of the players in all the regions. If someone took the “rival” card, there is an emperor election.
There are two great mechanisms in this game: aging – all the barons/couples have age (15/25/35/45) and at the beginning of the turn get old. Of course there are actions that let you rejuvenate your people and age the ones of the opponents. The second great mechanism is descendants. Based on the colour (blue or pink) of most of the cards that you used, you can have a boy or a girl. The thing is that the boy is more useful in long term (you receive it as a baron of 15 on the board), but the pink cards are more powerful than the blue ones.
The Good:
+ new and exciting mechanisms: aging and descendants
The Bad:
- it’s pretty loose with three players
- it ends too quickly
Verdict: (The rating may increase if I will play it with 4.)
(Pictures taken by mdornbrook and scottredracecar. Thanks!)
Tikal
In January – 1 play (2 players)
Till now – 1 play (2 players)
I have wanted for a long time to play at least one of the famous “mask” games from the duo Kiesling/Kramer. I played Tikal with only 2 players and, although I liked it, I think it’s better and different with more. The only problem I see with more players is that it could take very long if there are AP-prone persons.
In this game, the players take the role of explorers in the jungle, in search of lost Mayan temples and treasures. When is someone’s turn, he must draw a hexagon and place it on the map. Everybody has a number of action points, which they use in order to put explorers on the map, dig for treasures, explore temples, move explorers and many more. This continues until someone draws the volcano tile and a scoring round takes place. There are 3 intermediary scoring rounds and a final one.
What I enjoyed most in this game is that it has many different mechanisms nicely melded in order to create a great gaming experience. It has tile placement, action points and set collection.
The Good:
+ many mechanism mixed together
The Bad:
- don’t play it with AP-prone people
Verdict: (I think that I will love it, if I get to play more.)
(Pictures taken by cmgames and lalagonca. Thanks!)
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Indianapolis
Indiana
Brussels
Brussels
favorite time of the month for my ever expanding wishlist though