Lots of Boardgaming recently

There has been a lot of boardgaming in recent months for the staff of GwC.

This includes the local weekly boardgame night at Moxie games (the game store here in Columbus) every Wednesday.

And the weekly Saturday meetup somewhere around town with the Meeples of Columbus.

And, while school was in session, there was the monthly Boardgaming session in the Computer Science department of Columbus State University.

And there was the Atlanta Game-o-Rama - which the entire staff, minus cats, attended for all five days.

Coming up in July, there will be ConGregate, which the staff intends on invading for the purpose of helping out in the Con Suite, and also encourage the proper application of Boardgaming.

Through all this, there have been a number of new titles that have made their way into the GwC repertoire as regular games.

One of the most commonly played, lately, has been Lords of Waterdeep.  Great worker placement game.  Extremely well balanced, and lots of different ways to get what you need - which is victory points from fulfilling quests (achieved by collecting adventurers, by applying your workers to different worker collection schemes).

Waterdeep.  From http://deusuum.deviantart.com/art/Waterdeep-Nights-158933817

Lots of tablet play of Le Havre (on the iPad) had been taking place lately, and a tabletop showing is scheduled for an upcoming Wednesday night.  Speaking of the great Uwe Rosenberg, the staff of GwC recently played some extremely satisfying games of Agricola, including some teaching games (for new players) at Game-o-Rama.  Also, one of the newer Rosenberg titles, Glass Road, is scheduled to make an appearance soon.

I'll take the wood option.

At the most recent (June 7) Saturday meetup, two new games came out of hiding - Suburbia by Ted Alspach, and also Portobello Market, in the Playroom gateway games series.  Suburbia is a great strategy player's game, again with lots of ways to victory.  Portobello Market is a game of building (in this case, market stalls), not too deep, but sort of fun.

Stalls at Portobello Market in the 1950s, fifty years after our game ended.

A recent, coveted acquisition is that of the Mayfair edition of Cosmic Encounter (with the supplement, More Cosmic Encounter).  These two boxes recreate everything that Eon ever did with the original.  One problem?  The cards are somewhat worn.  So, against the usual practice and policy of the Games Archivists and Librarians Guild here at GwC, these cards have actually been put into sleeve protectors.

From BGG - perhaps the best version of the game?

This Wednesday's game night (June 11) is due to include a first time playing of Russian Railraods by Ohley and Orgler.  Definitely looking forward to that.

Real Russian Railroad.  Note the lack of strategy gamers.

Saturday is due to include some Boss Monster, played recently, and fun enough that it is worth promoting and teaching to others.  Also, the new word game, Concept.  Both of these are lots of fun, and worth spreading around.  Concept could easily become a gateway game to those who like party games and word games.

Just imagine how awesome a version of Boss Monster would be with Don Bluth art, a la Dragon's Lair