March Gaming at the Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club

The Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club roared through March, playing the following games:

Blue Moon City - Played for the first time. This is an area control "series of conversions" game. Seems ok, theme is pretty divorced from play.

Bridge x 2 - The classic four-player card game. It's great when we get in a 12-round round-robin with four players.

By Hook or By Crook - A blind bidding game with a paper-rock-scissors outcome, too blind and too much bidding for my tastes.

Checkers - Under-appreciated by gamers, this doesn't get much play in our group.

Chess - Also doesn't get much play in our group. I play it very tactically.

Children of Fire: the Board Game - Another area control game with blind bidding, but not as much blindness. The theme is integrated into the game, but there are a few rules issues and you have to set a round limit at 10 rounds.

Cosmic Encounter - A classic crazy game of aliens, diplomacy, and alliances. Elijah always wants to play this, but somehow I never get to play it myself.

Dvonn - Perhaps the best abstract Gipf game, hidden patterns within seeming randomness.

Geschenkt - A nice, very quick, dirt-simple filler card game for up to 5 (and even 6) players. Great for new players.

Go - A perfect abstract game for two players.

Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation x 3 - A quick intense fantasy board game for two players. Reenact the Lord of the Rings in 10 minutes.

Mykerinos - An enjoyable and compact area control game. Not much theme integration, and a little like a lite version of Louis XIV with some elements of Caylus.

Netrunner - A grand old CCG, quite fun.

Power Grid x 2 - Gaining in popularity, oddly enough. This is a great meaty game, but heavy on the math calculations and often dependent on the luck in what plants flip up in the market.

Prototype - I try these occasionally.

San Juan - A nice medium-weight card game, with a good system, but desperately needs a few expansions to keep it interesting.

Taj Mahal - A great weighty game of resource management, bluff, area control, and set collection.

The Menorah Game - I don't know how many more plays this will get before the published version comes around, but some people will continue to want to play it because of the original Jewish theme.

Tichu x 3 - A much easier, but still good, four-player card ladder-climbing, partnership, shedding card game, with flavor.

Tigris & Euphrates - An excellent weighty board game of conflict and territory.

Zendo x 2 - A much enjoyed game of induction, where one player sets the rules and the others try to guess them.

Yehuda