Trafalgar

Announced is the new Warhammer Historical Game - Trafalgar! This is warfare in the age of sale, evidently (from the data sheets) based on the very playable and successful Man O'War system. There are some sneak peaks and downloads available here.

This one is definitely in my radar.

Tags: wargames

Cold Day in January

Cold Day in January - that means a Family Game Day. We stayed home after church, had some nice sandwiches, and played a couple of family board games.

First we played Streetcar. This was a first time for us. Heidi and I loved it - Anita hated it. For the same reason she hates Cape Horn. In her words -

I can either build a network, or move around on one. I don't like having to do one and then the other, I am too wrapped up in building the right network to enjoy it.

Heidi won Streetcar, and loved the twisty-turny nature of it.

After that we played Zooloretto. Great game, can't wait to get Aquaretto and give it a try (either alone or combined). Anita won by a couple of points over Heidi, and a lot of points over me. Heidi decided to take a break and rest and read a book. So Anita and I cracked a bottle of Austrian red wine. Not too good. Now I know why Austria is known for white wines.

We played some Lost Cities, which is always a good time for 2. Then it was time for dinner (going out with my brother's family for food), so we put it down until later on tonight. More Lost Cities later, but no more Austrian zweigelt, please.

Tags: boardgames

Ticket to Ride - the Dice Expansion

One of the Turnitsa Household's Christmas acquisitions was the Ticket To Ride Dice Expansion. This is a nifty little add on that can easily add to any of the existing Ticket to Ride games (USA, Europe, Germany, Switzerland, or Nordic Countries - but the last might have a slight problem).

The expansion has you roll each turn to see how long of a train route you can build - there are no more train car cards, and the colors of routes don't matter. There are extra dice for building tunnels (in the versions that have them) and rules for ferries, stations, passengers, and collecting new tickets. A nice expansion - it makes for a quite different game, but not an un-enjoyable one.

I mentioned a slight problem with Nordic Countries. With the dice variant, the LONGEST route you can build is only 8 cars long. That works fine for all the other board, but in Nordic Countries there is a 9 car route. There have been two acknowledged fixes for this, including a weigh-in from Days of wonder - they are (1) pretend it is an 8 car route, or (2) ignore it when using the dice expansion. I prefer the feel of the first of these, but what the heck - just play Nordic Countries with the standard cards. It's not as if it isn't enjoyable that way...



Tags: board games, ticket to ride