The month of June worked out to five Wed evenings of gaming. In addition we had a special gaming session with our guests Chris Brooks and Erich Litch from the U.S. on a Saturday afternoon, making six gaming session in all. One of our sessions had a high attendance of 12 players.
Chris brought us three new games, Louis the XIV, For Sale, and Sticheln. New blood. By the end of July I am hoping to receive a number of other games waiting for me in America, to be brought back by my brother after his vacation. These games represent the fine art of trading games, trading Geek Gold, and auctioning.
As usual, I'm envious of all of you going to conventions all the time, Origins, BGG.con, Essen, etc... Some day when I'm rich and famous, sigh.
In the meantime, here is what we played this month (group activity only, doesn't include my personal plays):
My Game Prototype #1 x 7
The fiasco of my first attempt to publish this is detailed on my blog (the money was almost in my hands, man!). I'm now sending out feelers to other publishers. If anyone out there is interested in publishing a variably themed tight card game crossing Modern Art and Geschenkt, let me know. So far it has received a lot of good feedback, and we played it at every session this month.
Advanced Squad Leader
This one is played only by my son Eitan and a local guy named Ran, both of whom don't play anything else. They managed to make it to the club once this month, and will probably make it again once next month, but I think Eitan isn't going to continue with it. None of the regulars in the group, with the exception of David K, is interested in wargames.
Cities and Knights of Catan
My family has played this out, but some of our members are just discovering it. It will likely be played on low rotation.
Cosmic Encounter
I've been playing this for more than 20 years. We are now playing Ben's copy of Mayfair's version, and it's still good.
Cribbage
This is what gets played when two newcomers are left to fend for themselves for 15 minutes.
Dvonn x 2
I think I am beginning to understand the first part of the game, and it doesn't really impress me. The second part of the game is much more interesting.
El Grande
A fun five player game. El Grande is great, but on low rotation, which is good, as it is long.
For Sale x 2
New game for us. It was enjoyable. Not as enjoyable as Geschenkt or my own game, but good enough to play once in a while. A lot of people seem to think much higher of this game than we do.
Louis XIV x 2
Also a new game for us, and very enjoyable. I wasn't so happy with Goa, although the rest of my group liked it much more. This one I like better, although I only played half a game. Like Goa, the designer finely tuned the game to perfection and then seems to have wrecked it with unnecessary pure luck elements that you can neither control nor plan for. Why?
Magic: the Gathering x 3
I always lose to David, and these were no exception. Playing eight years now, haven't bought any cards for seven.
Princes of Florence x 2
We had this game for a while, and it suddenly had a revival. People realized that they liked it a lot. I actually though that I had stopped liking it, but now realize that I was wrong (or that I needed a break from it). It is still really good. I play with a few very small tweaks for five players.
Puerto Rico x 3
The GAME. Still going strong, and usually played with various buildings from my expansion sets (we didn't inflict that on Chris, however).
San Juan x 4
A heavily player filler game. Not top tier, in my opinion, but quite good.
Settlers of Catan
The usual intro for newbies, and they tend to play it at least several more times after being introduced to it, until they hit their first game of screwy dice rolls.
Starfarers of Catan
This is still relatively new to us, and enjoyed more than the other versions, but it is really long, and the pieces break easily.
Tigris and Euphrates
Unfortunately, aside from myself and Saarya, my group just doesn't like it. Go figure.
Tikal
Also not top tier for the group, nevertheless a game enjoyed when the regular games have been overplayed. I like the game better than that, but it does seem to lack an oomph, and there is a strong runaway leader problem.
Traumfabrik
A classic auction game, the group likes this once in a while, and I like it almost as much. Best strategy is conservative and directed play.
Web of Power x 2
A few mechanisms seem a little broken and unfinished, as I noted last time, but the general idea is solid for a light game. My group seems to think it would play better without the cards altogether.
Happy gaming,
Yehuda
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