Boardgaming in 2023 (first half)

 I have been fortunate enough to be involved in a several monthly boardgame gatherings this year, so far.  However, as far as playing at home goes - we have several new cats (only 1 year old) that are EXTREMELY curious of anything that we try to do on a table top.  That has prohibited a lot of board game play at home.

The boardgame monthly events I am referring to are:

Once a month I lead a boardgame group that meets at a local coffee shop.  We meet on the second Saturday of the month.

Once a month I help lead a boardgame group that meets at a local library.  We meet on the fourth Sunday of the month.

Anita and I try to have at least one weekend away together per month (some months we can't fit it in), and on those times we always take boardgames with us.

There is a local, weekly group that meets every Tuesday night at a game shop.  They play mostly Catan, but are open to other games (especially if I teach them!).

Finally, my weekly Wargame club night sometimes will settle for a boardgame instead of a miniatures wargame.

From all of that, I've been lucky enough to have played quite a few titles, although most of them are lightweight, I have played Clone Wars (the Pandemic version) and also Heat! several times each.  Great games.

Here is my list of played games (from Board Game Geek).

Heat: Pedal to the Metal	4
No Thanks!	4
Spots	4
6 nimmt!	3
Carcassonne	2
Castle Panic	2
7 Wonders: Architects	1
Alhambra: Roll & Write	1
Alhambra: The Dice Game	1
Amun-Re	1
ArchRavels	1
Cards Against Humanity	1
Casting Shadows	1
CATAN	1
Copenhagen: Roll & Write	1
CVlizations	1
Downforce	1
Kodachi	1
Long Shot: The Dice Game	1
Plague & Pestilence	1
Sequence	1
So Clover!	1
Star Wars: The Clone Wars	1
Station Master	1
Ticket to Ride	1
Trekking Through History	1
Tsuro	1
USPS: The Great American Mail Race	1
Zombie Dice	1

The Thanksgiving That Was

Thanksgiving was celebrated with great joy and thankfulness at GwCHQ (i.e. - our family home).  We had plenty of feasting, and a good friend spent the weekend with us (rather than at home, alone) and we had a parcel of other friends join us on Saturday for a game day.  There was supposed to be (perhaps) an RPG session - never happened.  There was supposed to be some miniatures gaming (Frostgrave, Chainmail, and maybe Lion Rampant) - also never happened.  Did that pose a problem?  No, we had a great time anyway!

The guy in the hat kept asking about King of Tokyo

We played a number of board games over the weekend (standard fare - Dominion, Catan, Lanterns, Ticket to Ride, etc), and we played a bunch of Legends of Andor.  Fun game, and it really scratched that "we would like to play an RPG but can't get the whole band together" sort of desire to go adventuring, fight monsters, and complete quests.  I don't know what the German version of the game is like (published by Kosmos), but the version we have (the Fantasy Flight English version from 2012) was fantastic.  One of the best things about the game was that artist Michael Menzel (who paints really stunning maps and images used in a lot of boardgames) was also the game designer.

Board showing the above ground map of Andor (reverse shows below ground)

The basic mechanic is one of using time slices to perform tasks (usually movement and combat against monsters).  This is very similar to the mechanic used in a lot of other games, but immediately Tinner's Trail and (to a lesser extent) Thebes spring to mind.  Also, the many Kramer boardgames that use action points to limit your moves.  But in the other examples, and in Legends of Andor, everyone is doing their actions interspersed, instead of the whole pool of action points all at one time.  Very clever, really gives a feel for doing your actions during a day of adventuring, and it makes the game flow well, and introduce some nice decision making for the players.

To end this recap on gaming over Thanksgiving, I thought I would share a few other game boards that were painted by the talented Mr. Menzel.  Below are boards for Pillars of the Earth, Stone Age, and Castle for all Seasons.  Other than each of them being stunningly beautiful abstract landscapes (showing the country side, and other features important for the game, but illustrating scenes of local activity and inhabitants, albeit out of scale to the countryside), are all also very informative and intuitive in indicating play areas, and active spots, on the board/map.

Pillars of the Earth

 

Stone Age

A Castle for All Seasons

So it was a lovely Thanksgiving - with Family, Feasting, Friends, and a bit of Faith.  The year has been very good to us, and we had a great time forgetting about our toils and jobs and school and cares for a while, and enjoying each others company over a gaming table (also, plenty of pie and coffee helped).  Now, on to Christmas!

Casual Game Day - March 12

We had some good friends visit this weekend, and decided to have a board game day.  Mostly we played casual games, and had some good conversations.

Started out with "the cow game" - that is, our nickname for the German card game 6 Nimmt!  If this game has a theme (and it really doesn't) it is the great cartoony art of the cow's heads on the cards.  It is the one time when at our house, multiple people will be talking about hornochsen and trying not to curse their bad luck!

This was followed up by another lightweight, the dice game that we always reach for as filler, whether with gamers or non gamers alike.  Zombie Dice!  This brilliant, but again simple, little dice game from Steve Jackson Games is much more fun than it should be.  And it always allows us to compare various levels of luckiness, and decry the ever-present factor of "kid dice" - that strange luck that accrues to the youngest gamer at the table in a dice game.

If there is a game that is less in need of expansion, or of dressing up with accessories, it is Zombie Dice.  And yet . . . we have both expansions (ZD:2 and ZD:3), but never play with them (well, we did when they first came out, but gentle readers - they are not favorites here at Gaming with Chuck HQ).  And the game does not need to be dressed up.  But I have been thinking of getting some brains for scoring.  Typically we will use a score pad, but the plastic Bag O'Brains option is pretty nice, as are some of the rubber brain pencil erasers.  Perhaps.

We followed up Zombie Dice with The Resistance.  A good game, pairing logic and deduction, with suspicion and hidden roles.  Fun, and of course, the Spy players were quite secretive and kept their cool until the end, when they finally persevered.  One of the few times I've seen the Spy players win, without taking the first round.  But we had a lot of new players on both sides.

Okay, so with a house full of experienced gamers (and two new comers), and a game collection with hundreds and hundreds of titles in it, why did we pick these three?  Simple - we had 7 players, and wanted to do something lightweight.  They were perfect for the mood and the number of players.  Sure, we like 7 Wonders, and have been wanting to try Between Two Cities, with a full table - but that wasn't the mood.  There was brief mention of Caverna, and also Formula D, but we decided to stick with the light stuff.


After The Resistance, we lost two players, and then with five there was a request for Ticket to Ride.  So we got out our 10th anniversary board, set it up, and proceeded to teach two new players how to play.  They left the game convinced that they had to get TtR and also check out some of these other games that we play.  Success.

We broke for dinner, and after dinner, a different subset of the group played Apples to Apples.  A much better, and much less offensive version of the game than that other one (which I won't name, but which actively engages players to lose their humanity).  They had a ton of fun (I did not partake in AtA).

 Were there other games we wanted to play?  Yes, definitely.  Some of the people who visited have been part of various D&D games we have played over the past few years (and one of them, I have played RPGs with since the late 1980s).  But not this time.  We have planned to play next time we get together.

The other thing we talked about playing was a miniatures game.  Several of us have been quite taken in by Frostgrave (from Osprey Games).  A very fun game.  But again, while we compared our recently painted figures (wizards and hirelings) we did not play this time.  Clearly another game day is needed, real soon.

Thanksgiving Gaming pt 2

The holiday was fantastic!  Not only a great time of thanks, and fellowship - visiting friends, wonderful meals, relaxation and conversation - but also a great time for some gaming!

Of the original list from Part 1 of this article, three of the games (Pigpen, X-Wing, Age of War) were not played.  But the other three were, along with some other games that we played and tried out.

Trans-America was a lot of fun.  We played two times, one with four players, and one with six players.  Fun each and every time.  Originally a title from Winsome Games (as Iron Road), we have the printing from Rio Grande games (and Trans-Europa, along with the Vexation add-on).

There was a game of Valley of the Kings - all of the players were new to the game (including yours truly - my first time playing).  We picked up on it pretty well.  By the third or fourth time around the table, all four players had the hang of things, and had a grasp on the "entomb" focus of the game.  The end score, however, was a little spread out.  Top scorer had 45 points, two middle scorers had 26 and 27, and bottom scorer had 16.  Closer next time, I'm sure.

There was a seven player game of Elder Sign, where the intrepid adventurers ventured into the haunted museum One More Time to do battle with the minions of some outre, alien being.  Lots of dice rolling, tension, etc, and a win just in time.

There was a mad, mad round of Walk the Plank.  Further comment prohibited by the decency board.

A really good game (four player) of Lords of Waterdeep happened.  Great time.  We did not use the expansion, but probably could have, for more mayhem.

The game about the Justice League, defending the Watchtower, that is available only from Target - Justice League: Axis of Villains - was brought out.  It is a super hero themed Fortress Defense game, only this time four of the members of the Justice League (Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and the Flash) are working hard to keep a batch of DC Comics villains away.  Lots of fun, and I got to be Green Lantern, one of my favorites.  (why is there no Aquaman in the game?)

Finally, there was a game of Pandemic, to round out the board games.  As with Waterdeep and Elder Sign, none of the expansions available were used, but the base game (this time with four players) was quite good regardless. The roles we had were Dispatcher, Scientist, Medic and Researcher.  We played at the basic (Introductory) level, and we barely won.  The Player Deck was about to run out, even though we already suffered through the four Epidemics.

We also were treated to a short run through of Adventure Maximus - a (sort of) mix between a roleplaying game and a card driven strategy game (although in this case, it is fantasy adventure in a sort of Adventure Time type setting).  Very much fun.

The power of Theme for Boardgames

So, just recently, I attended another session of the Fredericksburg Game Guild - this time it was a Sunday night meetup at the local game store - Game Vault.

First, a few kind words about Game Vault.  A very nice store.  I met the owner (Cathy) as well as some of the guys who work behind the counter.  Knowledgeable about games and gaming, certainly willing to entertain different opinions and interests, and eager to help a customer.  The store is clean, has all that a game store needs (drinks, bathroom, plenty of game space, lots of in-stock product, nice environment, and handfuls of gamers in the store doing what that tribe does...).  I enjoyed my time there, and will likely be back.

Second, the game we played - Stone Age.  Great game, from Rio Grande games (originally Hans Im Gluck, but I have the first English edition, from RGG, from 2009).  Worker placement, dice for tension, lots of win strategies - what's not to like?  And a ton of caveman jokes.

But playing Stone Age got me thinking.  Along the lines of the theme idea we had during our last gameday at the house - where we combined three games, to come up with a melded theme.  The games were Age of War, TransAmerica, and Trains - melding the themes of Japan (Age of War and Trains) with Railroad Building (TransAmerica and Trains).

Theme is separate from mechanics, but theme is important also.  At least to us here at Gaming With Chuck HQ, its important.  So I started thinking about picking a theme (as in the case of Stone Age - primitive man, prehistory, caveman - you choose one), and then trying to come up with three games (of different types of mechanics) to go along with that theme.

Sticking with Prehistory, lets go with:
1. Stone Age (worker placement)
2. Settlers of the Stone Age (civilization building)
3. Fossil (set collection)

Equally, just pulling from titles that either are currently, or used to be, part of the GwC library - these could have also been counted in:
4. Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (tile laying)
5. Bitin' Off Hedz (roll and move, racing)
6. Neolithibum (dexterity)
7. Triassic Terror (area control)
8. Sticks & Stones (wargame)
9. Trias (area control)
10. Og (wargame)
11. Dino Hunt (dice push your luck)
 - probably some others I am forgetting...

Depending on the group, I might include Carcassonne: Hunters and Gathers in for Fossil.  If I wanted to shorten the session, I might include Dino Hunt instead of Settlers of the Stone Age.  All of these have a similar (or at least within the same family) theme - but very different mechanisms.  Even the similar ones - such as both Sticks & Stones and Og being hex-and-counter wargames - they are very different from each other.

Boardgame Meetup - Fredericksburg Game Guild

I attended my first meetup with the Fredericksburg Game Guild last night, which met at the England Run Library, in Fredericksburg.  The Group gets together several times per week and per month, for different meetings in different venues - and the individuals I met last night seem like it is a very good group.

England Run Library - the meeting rooms are down the hallway you can see to the right.

The shortcoming of the weeknight meeting at the library, of course, is that it is time constrained.  They meet from 6-9, which isn't a bad length for a meeting, but about 1 hour too short, if you want to play two meaty games.  It is time, however, for a reasonable length game, and maybe a short filler or two.

Last night I played two different titles, one new to me, and one somewhat familiar.  The first was the new title - Room 25.  The folks in the game were really excited because the theme is evidently based on the very successful and very popular trilogy of Cube movies.  I don't know anything about them, sadly.  However, I get the gist of the game.

The people I played with were extremely friendly and fun to play with.  The guy who owned the game, and introduced it to us, was very pleasant and did a good job of introducing the rules.  The game, however, was one I probably won't play again.  As I mentioned in my notes on Board Game Geek, this was a perfect example of a game session where "I loved the group, and had a good time, but I wasn't really crazy about the game."

Components of the game Room 25 *

The components of the game were excellent, and the idea (using programmed movement to explore a maze that the players have to escape from, together) was pretty good.  I like how 1 or 2 of the group members might be working for the Prison Guards.  But overall, there just didn't feel like there was enough going on.  And it felt like the end game was decided a priori.  In both our sessions, there was little (or nothing) that one side or the other could do about changing the endgame situation, over the last 3 or 4 turns of the game.  And considering that once the endgame mechanism is triggered, there are 5 or fewer turns left, that is not so good in my opinion.  Maybe an expansion will come out that will change things, or a similar theme but different mechanics.  I hold out hope to become impressed enough to play again.

---

The second game that I got to play was... Glass Road.  This is a great game by Uwe Rosenberg.  Unlike many of his other titles, this is one that could be played in as short as an hour or so, by experienced players.  There is a lot going on with this game, with a very large decision space, and a lot of potential strategies that the player could take, in order to try to win.  It has great components, terrific theme, and excellent mechanics (with some innovations too).

Layout of game, showing player map of countryside, with terrain tiles and building tiles *

The theme is basically, the players are all competing manufacturing interests in Medieval Germany, building up the facilities and resource sources to enable them to be profitable manufacturers of glass and bricks (similar processes with similar resources required).  Game play is in turn, selecting roles, and then carrying out actions related to those roles.  Actions involved either collecting resources, modifying the consist of your local countryside (filling in ponds, digging sand pits, harvesting forests), and then building facilities that benefit you in some way.  Great game, as always, and a bit lighter than other Rosenberg titles.

Setting up to play - from Game night at Moxie (Columbus, GA)

The very clever resource clocks - also from Game night at Moxie (Columbus, GA)

I had a great time playing, with three other players all of whom were new to me, and will always happily play this one again in the future.

Overall, the meetup was a great success for me.  I met some really nice local gamers - some of whom are also Roleplayers and Wargamers - and I plan to attend some more in the future!  Hopefully next time I'll get to teach a game or two to some people.  Nothing is better about the gaming hobby, than sharing with other fans.

---

* = These images are from Board Game Geek

Boardgaming Evening

Gaming with Chuck HQ (now in historic Stafford Virginia - "George Washington played Settlers of Catan Here!") was recently a scene to a pleasant autumn Boardgaming evening.  All of the staff members (and two of the staff cats) were present, as well as a local visitor.  We originally had three things on the menu, bringing together a nice suite of themes and different styles games.  The original plan was to play Reiner Knizia's Age of War dice game from Fantasy Flight, also Franz-Benno Delonge's Trans America, and finally capping it with Hisashi Hayashi's great deck building game, Trains.

The thinking was this - these are three very different games, mechanically.  But the themes were the connective tissue.  Age of War is themed for Feudal Japan.  Trans America is themed for Rail Empire building.  And Trains is themed for Rail Empire building in Japan.  Voila - secret sauce is made!  The mechanics, however, are what made the mix very interesting.

Age of War is mechanically a dice game that preserves the same structure of the game Risk Express.  Now, this same mechanic found its way into Elder Sign, but in that game, the simple "assign dice to targets; complete all targets to capture a goal" mechanic is complicated with many, many different options (some goals require targets to be completed in order; many different benefits exist to help the player such as equipment and spells; extra targets can creep into a goal, in the form of monsters; there is a whole meta game around the basic mechanic; etc.).  But, since the admirable dice game, Risk Express was on the "to acquire" list for Gaming with Chuck HQ for quite some time, this new version out (with a feudal Japanese theme, no less) is very welcome.  And as a game it does not disappoint - it is a pretty easy game, simple to play, and fast turns, but there is enough strategy going on, and possible paths to winning, that there is some amount of decision making - a bit more than many dice games, a lot less than many more complicated games. Just enough to make you feel as if you are waging a campaign to capture the country.

Age of War - excellent components, in a small box. *

Trans America is mechanically a network building game.  It has a rail empire theme, but unlike many railroad themed games, there is no concept of cargo or passengers to pick up and carry.  The focus on railroading in Trans America is much more strategic than that of merely pushing cargoes around - it is of building a network of rails to connect cross-continental cities.  As a game, it is pretty simple to explain and play, but it still has some good decision making built into it - chiefly of timing.  As in - do you push and build your own network, or concentrate somewhere else and rely on your opponents to fill in the network infrastructure that you can also make use of , later?  A fun game, and if there were such a thing as Trans Japan, we might have tried that, to fit in with the theme.  There is a Japanese tie in for the game - in 2002, Trans America won the Japan Boardgame Prize for Best Foreign Game for Beginners.  Something interesting to look out for - a document of 20 different Trans America variants.  Mixed in with the Vexation variant (which typically ships with Trans Europa), there is lots there to complicate or change this simple little decision making game.

Excellent components from Trans America - Dinner table accessories, not included. *

Once we played Age of War and Trans America, however, we then broke for dinner (excellent Chinese food), and decided to watch Dr. Who.  We'll get to play Trains next time, I'm sure.  I wanted to bring up the mix, because I thought there were some interesting aspects to the three games we had originally planned for.  More game days are definitely needed.

Trains - next time, definitely. *

* = images from Board Game Geek.

Game Day at our house, last weekend

So, we had a number of folks come over our house last weekend, and play some games.  There were some new people we had met in Columbus - Jason and Kylie, as well as Bob and his college aged daughter Amber, and our daughter Heidi brought her high school friend, Sailor Ann, over to play.  It was a great mix, and we had a great time.

Games played included big games of both 6 Nimmt (also called Category 5) and Bohnanza (using the supplemental cards, which I believe now come in the base game).  Both of those games were a big hit!  The Cows of 6 Nimmt were easily matched for excitement and funny comments by the Beans of Bohnanza.  As usual, with our German version of Bohnanza, without German speakers in the game, we made up our usual funny names for the bean (poopy bean, angry bean, etc).

German version (that we own) of 6 Nimmt - "6 Takes It"

Some of the many, exciting, cows - or Hornochsen, in 6 Nimmt!

The Rio Grande (U.S.) version of Bohnanza - we actually own the Amigo German version

The eleven types of Beans in the basic game, and first expansion, plus the Third Bean Field card

These games had everyone in a great mood, and it was made even better by dinner - Anita served up some delicious home made chili and corn bread muffins, and we then followed up with Cake that was made by Amber.  She decorated the cake with the cover art from Ticket to Ride.  The TtR cover art was on the top of the cake, and the scoring track was around the side of the cake.  It was a quite good confetti cake.

We then split up into two groups - one group played Ticket to Ride, and the other played Ticket to Ride Europe.  In addition to the basic game, there were some extra pieces used in the North America version - they used the wooden replacement train pieces that we own, as well as the Halloween Fright Train pieces from Days of Wonder.

Finally, after the Ticket to Ride fest, the evening rounded out by the remaining five gamers (myself, Jason, Kylie, Amber, and Bob) playing a game of Power Grid.  We used the standard US board since not too many of us had played before, and it was a really good time. 

All-in-all a great social event, and a great boardgaming get together.  We'll do it again in about a month.