Our new friend Kevin McKenzie was still in town on business (we gamed with him last week), so we invited a few folks over for some gaming at our home on Wednesday night.  Attendees were Ken and Brandon Rude, Mike Deans, Kevin Graham, KC Humphrey, and Kevin McKenzie.

Domaine

KevinM, Julie, and I played this last week, and Kevin was eager to give it another try.  I was of a similar mind, but Bus sounded even more interesting to me so I passed and Mike Deans joined in.

I don't have a lot of detail on how the game went, but it sounded like a struggle between Kevin and Julie.  Julie discounted her chances as the game drew to a close, but apparently a mine monopoly belonging to Julie that they had forgotten to score turned out to be the clincher - Julie won the game.

You may have noticed the poker chips in the photos.  When we were in Vegas recently for Christmas, I was hell-bent on picking up some high quality poker chips.  After some research and advice, we discovered the Gamblers General Store and found a great set of chips (these aren't cheap!).  Besides using them for card games (mostly Texas Hold'em), we also use them as replacement money for games that have cheap currency (paper or cardboard money usually).

Bus

This was on my must-play list, mostly because it is so highly regarded by Mikael Sheikh, with whom I gamed in New York City last summer.  He even implemented an online version of the game that I am now ready to try.  KC has had this game on loan for quite a while and he offered to teach Ken, KevinG, and I how to play.

This is similar to some of the other transportation-oriented games I've played, and it reminds me the most of Paris Paris (though Bus is a bit deeper with more choices).  It has some very interesting mechanics.  The basic idea of the game is to provide bus transportation for folks in the city by building routes that connect to buildings (homes, offices, and pubs).  Depending on the time of day, all of the people on the board will desire to go to one building type (morning - work, evening - pub, night - home).  There is a great description of the mechanics of the game over at Funagain (read Ben Baldanza's review from Counter), so I won't go into much more detail here.  I like games with an economy of difficult choices and the opportunity to look ahead a bit and strategize.  Bus certainly has this, and I liked it very much.  I found myself trying to predict what moves the other players would make and trying to optimize my moves.

I got off to a decent start and was in the lead or close to it the entire game.  I made some bad building choices towards the end, and on my last move I really needed to move 3 people to their homes to guarantee at least a tie.  Unfortunately I could only move 2 of them, and my efforts to disrupt Ken's last move didn't pan out because he had a solid backup plan.

I'd like to pick up this game, but I'm very frustrated with the production quality (I'm having similar reservations about the game boards in Columbia Games' block games).  The boards were very warped, hardly stayed together, and were difficult to read.  Have the newer printings of the game improved on this at all?  Leave me a comment if you have opinions either way.

Pizza!

KC (man this guy is prolific!) introduced another one of his game prototypes - presumably he dreamed this game over just in the past week.  I didn't play it, but it looked fun and on the surface seemed to have some similarities to Mamma Mia!.

From the comments I heard during and after the game, this sounds like a good one and will be worth a try in the future.

Scream Machine

I read some favorable reviews of Scream Machine in the recent issue of Counter so I requested that this come out.  KevinG owns the game and offered to teach Julie, KevinM, and I.  The theme is building a theme park that will attract the most visitors - that's how the scoring track goes.  This is a card game that has some interesting mechanics, but unfortunately the card design makes it very difficult to keep track of ride types and scoring.  The designers could have spent some more time thinking about the human factors.  A fun little game though, but probably not one I'll be interested in purchasing.  I actually prefer Roller Coaster Tycoon to this game, and I know the kids would as well.

Board games have been coming out a lot at home so far this year.  Last weekend, we brought out Age of Mythology again.  One of my goals in playing the bigger wargame-like board games with the boys is to get them to start comprehending strategy.  Not specific strategies, but rather just the notion of having some long-term goals, and devising some short-term plans to achieve those goals.  All too often in these games they just start attacking without thinking about the consequences.  In three player games this can be a major weakness, because often the player who avoids conflict will come out on top.

Jacob, at least, is starting to grasp the concept.  There was much less fighting in this game, and he set out to try and build the wonder by the end of the game.  I opted for my usual strategy of building the most buildings and largest army (mostly by not fighting very much).  This was the closest game to date - Jacob finished with the largest army and came close to building the wonder at the end.  If I hadn't converted favor into victory points late in the game, forcing it to end a bit earlier, Jacob would have caught me and won the game.

We were given Metro by some friends for Christmas and it quickly became a favorite of Julie and Jacob.  This is the sort of game they will bring out after school when I'm not even around - that's how I know it's a favorite!

This is a fun, quick, light game that I simply have not figured out.  I've come in last or second to last every time I've played, and have never been in contention.  Maybe I just think too much.  Jacob's strategy of ignoring all but 1 or 2 of his lines, and striving to maximize those seems to work pretty well.

If all goes well today, there will be a barrage of postings as I clear out the backlog.  It was a busy week and I just didn't have time to touch up and post some photos from various events:

• The chess tournament last weekend
• Some informal game playing with the family
• A game night we held last Wednesday
• A wrestling tournament yesterday
• Some more game playing this weekend

Let's get things started with the chess tournament.

Just read on the Gamewire that Fantasy Flight will be re-releasing Titan: the Arena and will call it Colossal Arena.  I haven't played the original Avalon Hill version before, but I've heard great things about this game.

I took three Archer Glen chess teams to the Chess Odyssey Winter Olympics on Saturday.  This was a big deal for everyone involved - all but one of us (coach included) had absolutely zero competitive chess experience!  The three teams played in the Warrior division, which consists of unrated players.  This doesn't mean the competition wasn't tough though.

There were three other teams playing in this division - two from Cooper Mountain, and one from the Portland Chess club.  Our strongest team did very well, finishing third overall and winning the bronze medal.  The player on the first board on our best team won a trophy for best player on his board!  Overall I'm very proud of all of these kids for showing up and competing against other kids that clearly spend a lot more time practicing than we do.  It was a long day (8am - 5pm) but they hung in there till the end.

I'm experimenting with a tool called Womcat, referred to me by my friend Greg.  This is a decent way to organize bookmarks, and I have provided some brief notes on each.  There are a few cool features about this tool, which is why I am trying it instead of just making my own HTML page of links:

• It automatically provides an RSS feed to my bookmarks.  You can subscribe to this if you like and receive updates as I edit the list.  If you are bold enough to run Womcat yourself, you can aggregate my bookmarks into your own.
• It has the ability to maintain what are called “weak subscriptions” - pages I don't necessarily read, but are likely to contain links to interesting spots.  Womcat will check these weak subscriptions for me and tell me what outbound links they have in common.  Good way to find new content.

Anyway, I've added it to my nav links on the right.

There have been many shut-in hours over the past 5 days - a perfect opportunity for some family gaming!  These reports span several days, starting last Friday evening and ending this evening with our out-of-town gaming guest Kevin McKenzie from Dallas, TX.

Lord of the Rings Risk: Trilogy Edition

This is quickly becoming a family favorite, or at least a favorite of Jacob and Matthew. As I've mentioned before, this version is very playable if for no other reason than the countdown mechanism that limits game length.

This time we squared off using the standard 3-player rules, with Jacob and I playing the evil forces and Matthew playing good.  Every man for himself though - Jacob and I were competing with each other.

I started conservatively, trying to consolidate at least one region and waiting until I had territory cards to turn in to rapidly grow my forces.  I also used my leader to take a few sites of power, granting me additional action cards.  My patience paid off and I was able to keep Jacob and Matthew from consolidating regions.  Risk has a runaway leader problem, and that was certainly the case in this game.  I won based on victory points when the ring came to Mordor.

A Game of Thrones Boardgame

Around 11am on Sunday Ken Rude called me to see if we were up for some gaming in the afternoon - a perfect opportunity to bring out A Game of Thrones!  This game is meant to be played with five players.  I was a bit concerned about Matthew's ability to comprehend the rules for this game - this is the hardest one he has tried so far.  He did fine understanding the basic mechanics if not the overall strategy.

This is a game I've been wanting to try since seeing it first at GenCon, and it didn't disappoint.  Some of the things I like about this game:

• The theme is fantastic, especially if you have read the great books by George R. R. Martin.
• It is a light wargame with a number of interesting mechanics and very little randomness.
• The Westeros cards, which represent global events that affect all players, create a very interesting dynamic and potentially giving each game a very different flavor.  For example, in our game we went about 6 straight turns without mustering (new military force production), which made it very challenging to expand and forced a strict economy on military.
• Great production value.  The cards, game board, and wooden pieces are brightly colored and very high quality.

Jacob started the game very aggressively, attacking my navy in the first turn.  He paid the price though, since I was able to counter-attack and control the seas near his home, effectively creating a naval blockade.  Matthew was scattered in his strategy and had a difficult time keeping focused on short-term goals.  Brandon played passively and, as house Stark, didn't make the necessary push southward to gain victory points (there are few cities in the north).  So it was essentially a battle between Ken and me.

Ken had a bit of an advantage starting in the south - as house Lannister I was caught in the middle and had to fend off all of the players.  It was still a very close game, with Ken winning (score 9) and me a close second (score 8).

Lord of the Rings Boardgame - Sauron Expansion

Monday evening Matthew requested a game of Lord of the Rings the boardgame.  This was the first Reiner Knizia game I ever played, and arguably the game that brought me back to boardgames two years ago.  The original game is somewhat unique in that it is a cooperative game - players work together to try and defeat Sauron and destroy the one ring.  Jacob volunteered to join us if he could play Sauron, a feature provided by a solid expansion to the game.  Not to be left out, Julie joined us to play the role of Merry (Matthew was Frodo, I played Sam).

The base game is challenging enough to win, but with the Sauron expansion it is extremely difficult for the fellowship to succeed.  Jacob enjoyed playing the evil role and worked hard to thwart us at every turn.  We did better than any prior try though, getting into Mordor for the final race to Mt Doom.  Actually, only Frodo (Matthew) made it that far - Sam and Merry spent too much time carrying the ring and were destroyed by Sauron at Shelob's Lair.  Frodo didn't make it to Mt Doom, and our final score was 52.

Roller Coaster Tycoon

This is on the bargain shelf at Toys R Us and Amazon these days, and for $5.97 I figured we couldn't go wrong.  My mom was nice enough to get me an Amazon gift certificate for my b-day, and this was one of the games I ordered.

We were all thrilled with the quality of this game.  It is light fare, but much more than a typical roll-and-move mass market game.  This is an auction game at heart, and has some decent economic decisions (value of capital in hand vs. investing in a ride that may not procude enough visitors by game end).  My only criticisms are:

• While visually appealing, the board is very hard to navigate.  Finding where certain attractions are can be tough.
• The end-game was abrupt - we turned over month-end cards in 7 or 8 consecutive or near consecutive draws.  I'm going to look for some variants that bring a slightly more measured approach to game end.

Overall this is a solid game and easily worth the $6 investment.

New England

I greatly enjoyed my two prior playings of this game, but had been hesitant to bring out with the family.  New England is a pretty abstract game and is light on theme.  There was a discussion on spielfrieks recently about this game, and I shared my thoughts on this topic, arguing that it probably isn't a great family game.

I think I was wrong in my comments - this could be (and probably is) a great family game.  Some reasons why:

• It plays pretty quickly - I taught the game and we played it through in about an hour.
• I coached Julie and Jacob to not spend too much time trying to stop other players, and to instead focus on their own goals. New England can be a vicious game if you work hard to thwart your opponents' plans.  This doesn't mean you have to play that way.
• The theme was appealing to Julie (pilgrims settling in New England in the 17th century).
• Scoring always seems to be close, keeping everyone in the game.  In the three games I've played, I would guess that the average scoring differential from first to last has been about 4-5 victory points.
• There is very little downtime or turn angst - play moves along quickly, and there's always something to do on your turn.

I think this one will come out again soon with Julie and Jacob.  I'm not sure Matthew is ready for it yet, but I'll give him the choice of joining in our next play.

I'm the Boss

Before the holidays I got an email from Kevin McKenzie, from Dallas TX, telling me that he would be in the area doing some work.  He found me through his gaming group, one of the groups I contacted when I traveled to Dallas earlier this year.  Kevin wanted to find some gaming action, so I hooked him up with a few local groups and invited him to our home.  We were hoping for a few more people, but the ice and snow kept everyone else away.  No problem - with the built-in gamers right here in the house we were in good shape.

We started with a 5-player game of I'm the Boss, a family favorite negotiating game.  This can also be a vicious game, but we kept it light-hearted and had a good time.  I lingered near last place most of the game - it seemed like everytime I was close to finishing a deal, Jacob would send away one of my associates on a business trip. Julie played a strong game and came out on top.  The game ended quickly when we rolled a 1 on the first possible end-game deal tile.

Balloon Cup

While Julie helped Jacob and Matthew to bed, Kevin and I squared off on a game of Balloon Cup, a great two player card game that Kevin had never played.  Kevin picked up the gist of the game very quickly, and grabbed the first two trophies in the game.  The final three were hard fought, with both of us in striking distance of victory.  I managed to win a race that gave me enough prizes to win the final three trophies in one play.

Domaine

Kevin requested this as our "heavier" game of the night - he had never played it, and I had only tried it once at Kevin Graham's recently.  This was a Christmas gift from the Rude family.  Julie joined us for a three-player game.

The competition was much stiffer this time!  Kevin is a quick study of strategy, and immediately decided that income would be important and sought to build a domain with mines as quickly as possible.  I wasn't as focused in my strategy, and lost out on some early opportunities to get some income.  Julie got some knights out early in a key domain as well, setting her up well for expansion and completing her domain.

In the end it was a two horse race, and I wasn't in it.  I'll write this off as a learning game.  Similar to Settlers, I think it is very important in the opening to get more production.  At mid-game, Julie and Kevin were taking actions 2 out of 3 turns, while I was at best taking actions every other turn due to poor cash flow.  Kevin pulled out a 40 point victory shortly after the card deck expired.  He played a solid game, but Julie deserves credit for a very strong first game.

That's all for this report - Kevin should return next week and we hope to get the right mix of people for a playing of A Game of Thrones.

The weather here has been nothing short of remarkable.  The schools still haven't re-opened, and I didn't even attempt to get into work today.  The warmup predicted yesterday never came, and the temperatures hovered around freezing all day.  Around 6pm I finally ventured outside to clear the sidewalk.  Looks like schools will be closed again tomorrow - my trip to Denver was called off.  Should start to warmup by mid-day tomorrow.

Another good list reflecting on 2003, this time from Rick Thornquist of “gone cardboard” and “gamewire” fame.  I agree with his list, though there were several that I didn't play (Mammoth Hunters, Yellowstone Park, Fish Eat Fish).  Fortunately, the ones I didn't play were generally on his “worst of” list.

Family and friends were kind enough to support my gaming habit, and here's what my take was this holiday season.  I still haven't played Metro or A Game of Thrones but hopefully that will change over the next week or so.

• Acquire - true, I had never played this game before.  After two plays with the family, I can't believe I had missed out on this one for so long!  And, surprisingly, Jacob and Matthew both requested the second play of this game, and proceeded to teach two of their friends on New Years eve. 
• Diplomacy - haven't played this in 20 years, but felt like I should have it on my game shelf. 
• A Game of Thrones (boardgame) - I've heard great things about this and can't wait to play. 
• Hammer of the Scots - A bit expensive for what you get, but it looks fun.  Jacob and I played last night, but I made the mistake of letting him play the Scots and I crushed him pretty easily.  Next time we'll switch sides and see how things go. 
• Metro - A gift from a co-worker.  I haven't played yet, but Julie was excited to see this one turn up since she enjoyed playing it at our recent gameday.  Any board game the wife likes is OK by me . 
• Domaine - A gift from a friend.  Jacob and I enjoyed playing this earlier in December and I look forward to more plays. 
• El Grande - Got to play this while in Arizona earlier in the year and liked it, so Julie picked it up for me.