Shadows of Margath

Never EVER accuse Scrabblette of ignoring you. This afternoon while she was SUPPOSED to be working she popped up every 5 minutes to remind me that she wasn't ignoring me. Guess how much work got done? Nevertheless, I did manage to get a game of Runebound in.

I wanted to play Shadows of Margath but when I looked at it I realised it's a challenge card expansion. That meant I had to play the Rise of the Dragonlords scenario with that expansion. I have a lot of other expansions as well, so I spent about half an hour sorting out what expansions I wanted to use, building decks, and shuffling. Here's what I ended up with:

Challenge Decks:

• Shadows of Margath
• Drakes and Dragonspawn
• Terrors of the Tomb
• "High Lord Margath" from Rise of the Dragonlords - it'd be silly to have the adventure without him.
  

Market Deck:

• Relics of Legend without the banners
• Champions of Kellos
• Walkers of the Wild

It took a few minutes just to log the play on BGG! The character I chose was Varikas the Dead from the base game. I was wondering if I chose a character from Isle of Dread would I be able to count a play of that as well? I've had to move my Isle of Dread bits back into their own box so that all of the expansions fit into the base game box. And I just added four new expansions to my wishlist...

Anyway, when I started the game there were some nice items and allies for sale, all of which cost about 10 gold. I decided to save up for them which meant I was underpowered for quite a while. There were a couple of times when I needed to roll an 11 or be knocked out, but the dice loved me just enough to let me survive. Of course once I got one of those items I became quite dangerous, and by the end of the game I was a killing machine with only about 4 items. Most of the cool stuff seemed to come from the Relics of Legend expansion which is why I rate it an 8 despite the boring banners.

I do like the way Runebound implements a variety of effects using its really quite simple data model. For example, the Spiderweave Shield from Walkers of the Wild. "Activate to cancel up to 2 damage being inflicted on your Hero. Your enemy's damage in the melee combat phase is reduced to 0 for the rest of this combat." My initerpretation of that power is that the enemy gets stuck to your shield and can't hurt you. Cute. And the Knight Beset By Sorrow from Terrors of the Tomb: "The knight owes you his life. Next time you would take enough damage during a Challenge to be knocked out, you may discard this card to cancel the damage being inflicted on your Hero." Cool! And boy, did that come in handy!

After a tough time with the green encounters I raced through yellow and blue and found myself on red much sooner than I expected. I killed a dragonlord and an Unliving Rune, then fought the Skeleton of Margath. As a reward, you get to fight Margath himself. Although I easily defeated the skeleton, Margath was challenging, as he should be. He killed the Knight Beset By Sorrow, both of my allies, and I had one hit point left when I killed him. It was a very tough encounter and a fitting climax to the game.

Even more challenging than being ignored by Scrabblette.

Sands of Al-Kalim

Scrabblette didn't want to play with me this evening so I sat down for a big game of Runebound. I had quite a few unplayed expansions and wanted to test them out - PARTICULARLY Sands of Al-Kalim. As has become sadly necessary when playing Runebound I started by selecting the expansions I was to use. Sands of Al-Kalim, obviously, and Walkers of the Wild and Champions of Kellos were items and allies expansions I hadn't yet tried. Between them they almost provided a regulation size market deck, but I added Relics of Legend anyway. I completely left out the market deck from the base game. I have nothing against it, just that I've seen those cards and wanted to see some of the new ones.

Sands of Al-Kalim is set in a desert region and the goal of the game is to find four legendary things - items, locations, etc. There are 6 cities on the map and 3 lost cities that appear wherever you are when you occasionally discover them. That's pretty neat.

The first thing I noticed was that once I started playing the exhaustion rules right, WOW, it's HOT. You can quickly suffer from exhaustion if you roll the dice to move. I actually thought those rules were a bit silly and changed them in these ways:

• if you start in a town you don't take an exhaustion

• if you use a river/tree die for travelling in lowlands you don't take an exhaustion.

As far as I could tell, according to the real rules the towns wear you out as much as the barrens do, and that seemed silly - after all, you can get water in a town; and I couldn't see why if I didn't take exhaustion for starting in lowlands that I should suffer badly for travelling through them. The real rules seem very harsh, and I'm nice to myself when I play solitaire. In any case, I was scurrying between oases to avoid the heat, so the rules seemed to have their desired effect.

I noticed in my limited experience that the SoAK allies were less useful than in the base game. I certainly didn't find a Jirta the Fierce - I mostly hung out with a camel driver and a djinni who was no tougher than me. It was hard enough work keeping myself alive in the desert let alone a bunch of other wimps, so I didn't use allies as much as I usually would.

I also realised I only needed to defeat one red encounter to complete the game. The one I got was the naga who was VERY VERY TOUGH. I only survived by sacrificing the camel driver, using the adventuring equipment, and tapping almost every item I had. It didn't help that I rolled badly. It seems to me that I usually roll very well in this game and that helps me like it. By the way - after I defeated the naga I got my 4th quest and just had to defeat a blue to complete the game. It was a bit of an anti-climax. The naga was the highlight of the game.

My character was Tahlia the Thief whose special power is to inflict one damage once per round in a phase where she successfully defends. That's as good as another attack, so I was motivated to raise her stats in ranged and melee, specialising less than I usually do. I guess in exchange she only does 1 damage and that made life tough against the naga. I liked that power - it made me adapt my style of play.

I managed to pick up a relic which gave me +2 melee. I already had 2 weapons, but according to the rules you can have two weapons and a relic as well. That was a pretty nice item but I felt like I had 3 weapons and that was wrong. There are a lot of relics in the expansion decks, so some characters might get lucky by accumulating a few of them.

By the way, the Quest Tiles - a very small tile to put your character card on - was a complete waste of time. I'd rather put my character card flat on the table. I just didn't understand the point of that. However I did like the "creatures move" story event which allowed you to repopulate encouter spaces. That was better than sunbursts, I thought.

Anyway, I had a good game, struggling around the desert avoiding the sand storm. It took a long time to get my first legendary thing, but the second was something which allowed me to summon lost cities. For the third I had to travel from A to B holding my breath or something, so I summoned the City of Clouds and flew in one turn. Then after I killed the naga (to be allowed a fourth quest) I flew to the place I needed to go to for my final legend

For my next Runebound adventure I'd like to do something like Shadows of Margath with Walkers of the Wild and maybe the Terrors of the Tomb. If only Scrabblette will ignore me again...

My Favourite Thing To Do By Myself

With Scrabblette exhausted after a hard day streetwalking in Las Vegas and the kid tucked up safely in bed at his mum's place, there was only one thing on my mind: Runebound. I had a couple of expansions I hadn't tried out and I needed to get to them before the next batch arrives.

The expansions in question were The Dark Forest and Terrors of the Tomb. The Dark Forest adds plant-based cards to the encounter decks, and Terrors of the Tomb does the same with undead. I planned to use them both together but I was afraid of bad shuffling causing me to just get the same old cards as always, so I went through the decks and removed all cards that mentioned Lord Farrow or Vorakesh. Then I realised that those cards included all of the events with sunburst symbols, and there were none of those in the new decks, so I had to add those back in. Then I shuffled in the new cards and had a deck I hoped would provide me with a decent adventure.

My Ally and Item deck, by the way, has Relics of Legend and Artifacts and Allies already in it. It seems to spit out a lot of allies, so maybe one day I'll make separate Ally and Item decks.

I chose Landrec the Wise to be my character. He's from the Island of Dread expansion and I hadn't used him before. His special power is to spend 3 exhaustion to change the order of combat to magic/melee/ranged, and he has 5/2 magic to start with. That sounded interesting so I hunted down his cool little miniature and plonked him in Tamalir. By the way I always use the "Shorter Runebound Variant", i.e. 4 XP per upgrade. Even by myself I don't want the game to go too long. I don't use any Doom Track - I like to control the pace of the game myself.

Just after I purchased my first upgrade I drew that card Defiance in the Face of Darkness where 3 towns get face down cards in their market stacks. I went around collecting them. The first was an ally, Gareth the Black, who costs 9 gold, and I got him free. His melee is 5/3. The second was Brothers of Stone, another 9 gold ally. They aren't as powerful as Gareth but they're decent. Thereafter my combat strategy was to attack with the Brothers of Stone in ranged, Gareth in melee, and myself in magic. Usually the encounters died during the melee phase. Occasionally I would defend in ranged myself if I didn't want the Brothers to get hurt.

I completed a couple of quests and got some gold... not that I'd been spending much gold because there were no useful items coming out. I lucked out in Forge and bought a Soul Burn - expend 1 stamina to do an extra 3 damage on your magic attack.

With such powerful allies and a useful spell like that I started going for the blue encounters. They were quite dangerous so I started using my special power and the Soul Burn to generally do 5 damage in the first range of combat. Even the blues can't handle that. I didn't feel I was strong enough to take on the reds so I journeyed around for a while fighting blues and looking in the market stacks. I found Jirta the Fierce who seemed more useful than the Brothers of Stone so I hired her. Eventually I managed to find a Shield of Glyphs (+4 when you defend) so I decided it was worth giving the reds a go.

As it turned out the reds weren't as dangerous as I remembered them, and the Dragonlords Carnovax, Eregax and Fromax quickly fell to the power of Soul Burn. Actually Jirta was required to finish off Fromax, but that was only her second attack for the game.

So, what did I think of the game? Well, the two adventure expansions are interesting, but it irks me that they don't change the plot of the adventure. I'm not going to just shuffle them into the encounter decks - that would dilute the story, and I only play for the story. However they don't come with any story of their own. So I'm not such a big fan of those two decks. My favourite of the small deck expnasions is easily the one with the giants - The Scepter of Kyros. I think if I do use these expansions again I'll keep them separate, and maybe choose from the forest expansion if the encounter is in a forest and from the undead expansion if the encounter is on a plain. Mixing them in doesn't work for me.

In any case, solitaire Runebound is a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours if, like me, the stories in your head can keep you amused.

By the way, here are my house rules:
1. It costs 1 gold to remove all wounds and stamina counters from a character or ally during market phase. A couple of times I played I found myself injured and penniless and doomed, which was boring.
2. If after you roll 4 or 5 movement dice you can't go where you want, you can go 1 space anyway.
Playing solitaire, the movement dice don't matter in theory, but I use them to guide me. I will occasionally change path when the dice tell me to.

On Order

Scrabblette is off to the U.S. on a taxpayer-funded junket, but she's bringing back games for this particular taxpayer so let's not bitch too much. Here's what's on its way to various locations around the U.S. for her to collect.

Taluva - I just can't get those sexy bits out of my mind, I must have that game! When I went to place my order last week it was out of stock at Boards and Bits. Then it came into stock but I had to wait for Scrabblette to decide whether she wanted to buy anything. Then it went out of stock again. I ended up ordering it from Amazon instead. I didn't want to.

Urland and its expansion - For some reason, I decided that because I couldn't get Taluva I had to order this from Boards and Bits instead. I have Primordial Soup and EVO, it would be silly to not get the second game in the trilogy, huh?

Runebound expansions - Yes, I do like Runebound and I intend to play some of it with myself while Scrabblette's away. I ordered the Sands of Al-Kalim and about 6 smaller expansions. I've avoided the class decks because they're not so useful if you play solitaire.

Fiji - My Friedemann fetish continues. My kid is starting to love him too.

Hey, That's My Fish! - Scrabblette likes abstracts, and this is the highest rated abstract I don't already own. Oh yeah, this and the next 3 games are coming direct to me from the FIGS in Melbourne. B&B didn't have this in stock the first time I looked, then unhalfbricking got it, and I decided that since Julian games with me and Tom doesn't make it over here so much, I'd get it from Julian.

Cave Troll - I'm not sure I'm going to like this one, but I'll see. I first tried to order it with Orcz and Arena Maximus, and they both turned out to be turkeys, so I'm scared.

Funny Friends - I need my own copy so CyberKev doesn't know when I'm holding my swingers' parties. Baby psychotic tornado sister liked it so much she'll demand we play it next time she visits. Which reminds me, I'd better order some food in for Pete.

On the Underground - Yes, it's another train game! I like Trans Europa a lot, so I thought I'd push my luck.

Portable Adventures: Lair of the Rat King - I have Battle of the Bands which is a very good silly card game that the kids like a lot. They LOVE Santa Claus becoming a junkie and the producer dying in a bus crash (game after game) and all the other nonsense. This and the next game are in the same series by the same designer, so I'm expecting good things. I ordered these from the publisher's on-line store.

Portable Adventures: 8th Grade - My nephew is in 1st Grade so he may not understand this one and may not be able to read the cards for a while yet, but my niece is in 7th Grade so this should be right up her alley.

Trashing Ameritrash

My mum once told me "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all". I think at the time I'd been served curried sausages for dinner. Anyway, my personality is such that I was a whole lot quieter after that. But she never mentioned anything about blogging.

I've been watching the amazing events at BGG for the last few days and wondering what side of the argument I'm on. I like free speech, but I want people to shut up. I respect Aldie's decisions, I wish he didn't have to make them. I like Barnes' wit, I can see how he rubs people up the wrong way. But rather than go down that path too far I'm going to give honest opinions on games.

I can't tell you what Ameritrash is but I know it when I see it. Railroad Tycoon. Axis and Allies. Twilight Imperium 3. Many many games that I choose not to play. I'll admit it, I'm not a big fan of Ameritrash. Yes, I'm a Eurosnoot. So shoot me... with your tiny little plastic guns. I'm a mathematician at heart and I love to see mathematics at work. A Steiner triple system is mathematics, totalling the result of 2d6 is not.

BattleLore: I'm a fan of the Command and Colors system, rating each of them about an 8. Do they count as Ameritrash? It's hard to classify a game published by an American company that sells because of its tiny little plastic armies as anything else. So I have to admit I do like the C&C Ameritrash.

Railroad Tycoon: Takes way too long and isn't very interesting. The bizarre financial exploits of the 19th century railroad barons should be confined to history's shame file, not celebrated in games. I rate it a 4 because I was feeling kind that day.

Twilight Imperium 3: Takes way too long and isn't very interesting. The designer took some Euro ideas for this game but they didn't save it. Aimed at people who don't have a life, this game is completely unrewarding as you spend several hours building an economy so you can build space ships that you can lose with a dice roll. Only Americans can love this game - it gives them an opportunity to understand the Star Wars program. It's also aimed at people who think you should wage war just because you can... as opposed to Eurosnoots who know that you only engage in conflict if you expect to gain more than you lose, such as petrodollar hegemony for example.

Arkham Horror: As much as I aspire to despise all American culture, I often fail. Violent Femmes are awesome. House M.D. is awesome. H.P. Lovecraft is awesome. This game does a fine job of animating Lovecraft's milieu, and I admire it a lot. On the other hand, I try to avoid playing it against other people. It takes a very long time and you're at the mercy of the cards. It's also quite complex. I give it an 8, but I only want to play it as a solitaire game.

Heroscape: I bought a couple of sets of this because the bits are so cool and they were very cheap. We played once and even the kid didn't like it. Cool bits, no game. You've got to ask - are these people selling games or are they selling plastic? Of course Hasbro doesn't care. I gave it a 4.

Runebound: This game is similar to Arkham Horror in that I love the theme so much that I must play the game, but allowing other people to play as well would spoil it for me. I like to go off on a trip by myself... This is my favourite solitaire game and ... well just read my lengthy session report. I give the game an 8.5 at the moment, and I'm still buying expansions.

Nexus Ops: I only have time for one more item, so I'll make it a different one. I very much admire the design of Nexus Ops, I just didn't have fun playing it. I think the way VPs are awarded for small goals is very very good, much better than TI3, but I don't really want to play a game where I build stuff and then people trash it. It's too depressing. There's not enough maths. It's just being horrible to people, even though there is a good reason. I'm torn between disliking this game for that and admiring it for its success in achieving what it set out to do, so I sat on the fence and gave it a 6.

It seems the only Ameritrash games I like are those that play with 1 or 2 players. Sitting around a massive game board for 6 hours with people beating on me is just not my idea of fun. I'd rather play St Petersburg.

Designers That Are Not As Good As Kris Burm

There are a few designers that get me excited - Bruno Faidutti, Friedemann Friese, Doris & Frank, Mike Fitzgerald, and of course Kris Burm. Reiner Knizia does not - I've played too many of his crappy card games to not be wary. Klaus Teuber doesn't either - although Settlers is a masterpiece he seems reluctant to try something really new. Wolfgang Kramer doesn't either - although he's made some masterpieces such as Tikal and Gulo Gulo, he's made some dross like Australia and 6 Nimmt! as well. However there are a number of designers that I just can't get emotional about either way, and it's those that I'd like to discuss today.

Rudiger Dorn (Goa, Jambo, Louis XIV, Traders of Genoa) - I own 3 of Dorn's games, and have played Louis XIV as well. Strangely, Goa and Traders of Genoa are games that I've only ever played with the kid, and been unable to motivate or organise myself to play with anyone else. My favourite of his designs so far is Jambo, and it's by far the simplest as well. Maybe I find his games a bit too complex?

Martin Wallace (Railroad Tycoon, Age of Steam, Runebound) - due to his tendency to design long train games, and my loathing for them, it's a wonder that I'm including Martin Wallace in this list at all. However it's an enigma to me that he also designed Runebound, probably my favourite high-Ameritrash game. I should keep an eye on his releases in case he comes up with another gem. (Note that Francis Tresham is not on this list at all.)

Dirk Henn (Alhambra, Metro, Timbuktu) - I used to own Alhambra, but it has the distinction of being the first game I ever traded away. I just thought it was boring. Timbuktu looked very exciting but three and half hours later I'd played more of it than I ever wanted to. However Metro is quite a neat little game although it's in the class of "CyberKev owns it so I can play his copy enough to satisfy me". It's possible that one day there'll be a Henn design that I really really love.

Alan Moon (Ticket to Ride, Diamant, Elfenland, Happy Dog, Pony Express, Union Pacific) - I've previously blogged about Alan Moon and his train games. The poor gentleman suffers from choosing a genre I don't like very much, as demonstrated by my very high opinion of Diamant and Elfenland. Sadly Happy Dog was an unfortunate Kniziaesque crappy card game. (Crappy card game is almost a genre by itself, isn't it? I might write more on that one day.) Maybe one day Mr Moon will design something that really hits the spot for me. Maybe San Marco is it?

Sid Sackson (Acquire, Bazaar, Can't Stop, I'm The Boss) - OK, so the man is a legend, but so is Boy George and opinions vary on him as well. I find Acquire to be mostly a bookkeeping exercise, which is not really what I want in a game, and Can't Stop gets a bit dull after a while - I find Diamant to be a much more interesting example of that genre. However I like Bazaar a lot, and I'm The Boss is a very clever and fun game. I look forward to trying out more of his designs.

Stefan Dorra (Amazonas, For Sale, Hex Hex, Pick Picknic) - I like Amazonas a lot - nobody on BGG rates it higher than I do. It feels a lot like Elfenland or Ticket to Ride with a theme that I enjoy. For Sale and Hex Hex are a bit worn out for me, but I still like Pick Picknic. My nephew thinks I gave it to him for Christmas 2005, but if so why does he only play it when I'm around? A Dorra design is always worth investigating.

The designers I've discussed above have some good designs - enough to keep me interested - but not enough to get me really excited about a new release. Maybe they have great games that I haven't tried yet? If so, please let me know and I'll hunt down a copy.

Wish List Retrospective

In February last year I posted an article called Top of the Wish List about what games I was hoping to acquire. Here's what really happened:

I really did get: PitchCar (with the expansion), Arkham Horror, Saboteur, ZERTZ, Gobblet, Travel Blokus.

I no longer intend to get: Zombies!!! 4 - The End (I want Zombies 2e instead), For Sale (I'm tired of it), Fairy Tale (the kid wasn't interested).

I haven't yet got: Havoc: the Hundred Years War (exclusive to funagain, where I don't shop), History's Mysteries Card Game (can't find it).

The current top of my wish list is: 7 Runebound expansions, Ta Yü, Maharaja: Palace Building in India, Waldschattenspiel, Taluva, Fiji, Portable Adventures: Lair of the Rat-King, Zombies!!! Second Edition, Skybridge, Urland, Taj Mahal, Memoir '44 - Pacific Theater, Hey! That's My Fish!, and the Doom expansion. I guess I won't end up getting all of those, but at the moment I can't choose which to leave out.

Solitaire Runebound

So a few weeks ago I had a Sunday morning to myself, so I sat down for a game of Runebound. Today and yesterday I have been off work sick, and played two more games. Long-time readers of this blog might remember an article called "It's Here! It's Here (Part 6 of 6)". Well I wrote that when I received the Runebound expansions, and it has taken since then to get any of them played. I mixed the item and ally expansions into my market deck and I was ready to go.

The first expansion I played was The Scepter of Kyros, the one where the giants are attacking and you have to beat them off. It is played on the standard map, and adds a few green cards and yellow cards and completely replaces the blue and cards with giants. The blue and red cards from the original game are based on the dragons / dragonlord theme, so the expansion does a pretty good job of replacing the story. What I liked most of all was the new challenging opponents. It felt really good to kill my first giant, and damned fine to kill the last one. I actually had a moment of difficulty in this game (playing solitaire you can take your time and risks are minimised) - I had to face Incantim the Runecaster whose special ability is For each Rune Item you possess, all of your Hero's and Allies' damage values are reduced by 1. That meant because I had 3 rune items I couldn't hurt him. I'm not sure how I eventually beat him, maybe I used one of them up somewhere else. It's a bit disturbing how the game can throw impossible situations at you, but more on that later.

The expansion I played yesterday was Crown of the Elder Kings. In this one the players are competing with Vorakesh who's trying to raise Margath; they want to destroy the dragonlords and regain the throne of the Elder King. Whatever... just tell me the victory conditions. You need to collect a set of 3 blue cards, in competition with the other players who are trying to collect intersecting sets. This expansion seems very much to be focused on player interaction, and didn't work particularly well solitaire. I had an ally who got a Before Combat 3 damage magic attack, so I stomped all over most of the opposition and then my first 3 blue cards were a set. I didn't think this adventure was very interesting solitaire. I also had a problem that most of the market items I drew were allies, and so there was nothing to spend my money on - I ended the game with 38 gold. Just a bit boring :-(.

This morning's adventure was the big one, Island of Dread. It has a map overlay, new names for the towns, replaces all of the encounter decks, adds the Island of Dread mini-map, as well as a silver encounter stack and 8 or so new adventurers. The adventurers are compatible with the base game (e.g. no IoD-specific skills or powers), so they live in the same box now. I am thinking of getting the Midnight expansion for the new characters as well. Island of Dread is interesting because it does away with the blue encounter spaces altogether, instead adding sea voyages and sea encounters. The difficulty of those encounters ranges from yellow to red, so voyaging at sea is a risk. However I found that there was more gold in this adventure than in the original, so I was able to buy a couple of decent items early in the game. Just as well, because I was the minotaur character (Spikilocks?) who is not allowed to hire allies, and I needed to be tough.

As I progressed through the game I was able to complete three quests. I don't know what effect they have, but I felt vaguely satisfied about that. I managed to build up a very impressive set of magic items. The cursed something caused extra damage to me if I missed on an attack, but hurt my opponent at the same time. I had some armour which caused damage to my opponent if I defended successfully. I had something which gave me +4 on defence. I had a mace which was +4 in melee, and a mace I could activate for another 2 damage in melee. I was an absolute killing machine... until...

Enter the Silite. This challenge ignores all damage from ranged and melee attacks. What the?! I was doing 5 damage on my first melee attack, so that's nasty. In fact, I had 0 damage for my magic attack, and no allies, so I was unable to hurt it. Hmm... I decided to take the power literally. My armour inflicted damage if I defended successfully, and that's not an attack... so I spent a couple of rounds successfully defending against the silite and then it died. Was that fair? I don't know, and BGG is down so I can't ask. It seems fairer than "this creature will kill you because you can't hurt it". I could have run away, but where's the fun in that?

So shortly after that I headed off the Island of Dread with buckets full of unique items and the captain who allows you to rearrange the top 3 items of the silver deck. Good old Cthulhu himself was there, so I stuck him on top and bashed him up. I had the book that screws him over, the sword that never misses, and a heap of other cool stuff, and he didn't have a chance. I don't know how well I would have gone without that captain's power though, the other silver guys look tough.

So I enjoyed the Island of Dread a lot. There's enough risk to get me excited, and apart from the silite ambiguity nothing impossibly deadly. The sea adventure system works pretty nicely - you need to be a little bit worried about travelling by sea but not too much. The silver encounters really are scary, and the red ones are worth worrying about as well. This is my favourite expansion so far.

July in Review

Well, what a good month of gaming has just been completed! I recorded 83 plays, again my second-highest total ever. Nacht der Magier was 10 of those because it is such a cool game and I only bought it at the beginning of the month. There were also the many many games played at ConVic4 early in the month. It looks like I won't be writing any more reviews from there, it was all too long ago.

Apart from ConVic4 and my gaming birthday party, gaming highlights of the month were:
* two Tuesday night gaming sessions with my sister and her kids. I am trying to make a new tradition of playing games with the kids on Tuesday nights.
* first play of Cleopatra and the Society of Architects at BookRealm
* the game of Mystery of the Abbey at GWAN
* my solo play of Runebound 2e with the Scepter of Kyros expansion where you have to fight a horde of giants
* new games acquired including Hive, I'm The Boss, Hare and Tortoise, Saboteur, Cleopatra, Xactika, China, Balloon Cup...
* my first ever trade - I sent Alhambra to Lindsay Scholle and he sent me Escape From Atlantis which at least has a chance of being played.

Also, what does this mean? I'm not sure yet.

Hey, You Should Play...

My augmented BGG stats have changed a little in the last couple of weeks. I changed the front page quite a bit so that users have more character - I link to your BGG avatar, show your number of plays, how many of the top 50 you've played, and since 1am this morning, what game you need to play soon. The number of plays and number of the top 50 are simply to promote pissing matches between users of the stats. I was pleased to note that only Karlsen, TMJJS and ekted have recorded more plays than I have. And I thought you guys were hard core! 36 more plays and I can get myself into second place...

On the page for each user I have added "Games You Like But Don't Even Own". What if your geekbuddy who owns Puerto Rico leaves town? Or someone puts the robber on him? What would you do for your Puerto Rico hit then? Here's my top 10 games I like but don't own:
* Rheinlander - CyberKev has it, but I want to get it so I can play it against someone other than him so I have a chance to win
* Hare and Tortoise - is on its way from unhalfbricking as we speak. I know just who to play it against, too.
* Tikal - Critical Mass has a copy, but I haven't bought it yet because there's a limited number of people I would play it against. I might even buy Mexica and Java first, but to be honest I don't get many chances to play games of this complexity.
* Euphrat & Tigris - I know a couple of people with copies, but I don't have a ready source of respected opponents. When I find the perfect woman who plays Gipf, she will probably play this one with me as well.
* Puerto Rico - let's be fair, this game is as common as muck :-). I might buy it just because the rule book is beautiful.
* Evo - I definitely need my own copy given how difficult it is to get hold of Mikey Hayes these days!
* Himalaya - a good game that you don't see around, and I am excited about the other Tilsit titles in that range as well. When Funatical starts importing these I will probably get the lot.
* Attika - I've only played once so my 8.5 rating is not solid. I can't think of a consistent source of opponents for it.
* Ra - another Mikey Hayes "I'll teach you this great game then go do something else" Special. Aren't this and Puerto Rico from the Alea big box series? Might as well get all of them, I know I'll need Princes of Florence some day.
* Key Largo - the kids I play with will love this game one day, but we have to wait till the littlest can actually read and add up. I don't think it will get consistent play with adults. Another of the Tilsit range.

The latest feature added (this morning) is analysis of what games you like but haven't played recently. I figured I would just combine your rating and the days since you'd recorded a play for it, and that seems to be working quite well. I tweaked the weightings till my own list looked sensible. As I play some of those games and my list evolves I will consider whether it's working or not. Here's my top 10:
* DVONN - I last played in about November I think. It was the first of the GIPF series I played, and I now own all of them. Yes, I do need to play it, and that's a good recommendation. If only my slave boy liked it.
* St Petersburg - we haven't played since winter (Down Under) last year, and I would like to play it again.
* Hansa - played only once at ConVic2, and I'd like to play it again. It's a strange game, my rating may move after I play it.
* Set - played for a brief period in July last year, and haven't found an appropriate audience since. I was obsessed with it for a few weeks.
* Vinci - last played in December with Brendan and Amanda. Because I rate it a 9, it ranks up there with the 8s I haven't played since July. That makes sense to me. I might take it along to Critical Mass soon.
* Trias - One of my favourite games - an analytical game where you're trying to screw people and not be screwed yourself. It fires the same synapses as Domaine does. I know I've played it this year at GWAN, but I rate it a 10 so it's time to do it again. Mr Lapdance wants to play, so when I find him we can do it.
* Runebound 2e - This is a weakness in the system. I played Scepter of Kyros a couple of weeks ago, but recorded it as a play against the expansion rather than against the base game. I am in no rush to play the base game again. We need some extension metadata :-(.
* Doom - we haven't played for at least 15 months, but I want to get the expansion and then we can give it a go. It's not that I don't like the game, it's just difficult to find the time to play it. Also it's an experience game, when I prefer analysis.
* Settlers of Catan - I did play this several times late last year, but my last play of the game was only in June and was recorded against the anniversary edition rather than the base game. Another expansion metadata problem!
* Odin's Ravens - Maybe slave boy will play this against me? Since the disruption to my family life we have been playing fewer games at home together. We have a game of Return of the Heroes which has been in progress so long I have forgotten the rules.

The game recommended for you to play on the front page of the stats is simply the top of your list. I'd be interested in hearing how the recommendations work for other people.

It's Here! It's Here! (Part 6 of 6) (and why that makes me sad)

Finally, AT LAST, after 13 or 14 weeks, my BIG parcel has arrived. Here's the contents: Settlers of Catan Anniversary Edition, Polarity, 7 Runebound Expansions, and The Adventures of Harley. The Settlers game is thankfully undamaged, and I have hardly even looked at the Runebound expansions yet. We played Polarity several times tonight at Book Realm, and it is a WILD game. To see all of the magnets on the board quiver as you take one past to make your move just blows me away. I showed an 8yo kid how it worked this evening, and his jaw just dropped when he saw the magnets standing up. It really is stunning. One flaw is that the linen game board is crumpled, so I'll need to iron it in the morning to improve the quality of play. The Adventures of Harley is a game aimed at 4yos, and it really is pretty much at that level - not much for Dad in there. However I had to buy it because my kid's name is Harley, and I thought he'd be impressed. Also it is about a dog, so the game will see at least some play with the cousins. And one day there might be actual 4yos to play against.

The Settlers game though, makes me sad. Back in February when I ordered it, my life was very different. I was (as far as I knew) living in a happy 3 person household, and would continue to do so until the kid finally found a wife and got out of our hair. So I had a good 10 years planned of playing 3 person Settlers with this magnificent set. Regular readers of the blog will see the flaw in this plan - the kid's mum had been thinking about leaving me all year, and told me so the same day I bought Carcassonne (mentioned in an earlier post). So now I live in a 1.5 person household, which is pretty sad if you have the nicest 3-4 player game in the world. Cyberkev, Ozvortex, assorted other Arnold Horshacks: you're welcome to come play with us, but you'll never replace her.

While I'm maudlin, I'll continue with that theme. It's not *just* losing a wife, it's the breakup of my family game group. See, now you're all crying! I had been carefully teaching and nurturing this game group for a year and a half, and although Mum didn't much like games, there were some she would play with us. Mystery of the Abbey, Wyatt Earp, Mystery Rummy Rue Morgue, Mystery Rummy Jack the Ripper, Gang of Four, were all games that we three played together and that I will associate with her for a long time yet. Lost Cities and Mystery Rummy Jekyll & Hyde were games that she and I played together - games which I bought in an attempt to spend more time with her and so come closer to her. I bought Frank's Zoo because I thought she'd love it, but it seems even a thoughtful idea like that isn't enough to bring someone back when they want to go.

Ah, life goes on. I have been quite happy for the last few days, revelling in the thought that I could meet my next love at any moment, and occupying myself with assorted projects such as interior decoration, getting a decent car that won't try to steal Cyberkev's games, and learning how to feed the kid; but this reminder of how content yet ignorant I was in the recent past has been an unexpected hiccup. Praise the Lord for juniper berries...