7 Wonders!

Also today I bought 7 Wonders...it looks great! More on it later.

Start of the Christmas play list!

Christmas holidays....so....

Snow...check
School holidays...check
Work holidays...check
Time for some games...check!

It's getting a bit hard to convince everyone to play a game these days, especially Kavita as a) shes a teenager b) she has loads of homework to do and c) it's probably no longer hip and cool to play games with the folks and the younger siblings but we don't care; I much prefer playing these games as a family than in 2's and 3's. Besides it's good to get a distraction from work once in a while that doesn't involve the television or my own personal vice, the Xbox.

Today we got out a selection of games and picked two to play - the new family favourite Niagara and Citadels which we haven't played in a while. Anita won Niagara with some tactical uses of the river flow to collect that all important pink gem right at the edge of the falls and again with Citadels, although Kavita got 8 locations as well in the same round, Anita had all 5 coloured districts and more gold value cards. In all a great little play and I hope we get to play tomorrow. I am hoping we'll get a game of Aquaretto in as we've had it ages but never played it!

Gaming in front of an open fire

An open fire as in cosy, coal and logs and not in the guns n bullets variety. Anyhow we decided to crack open a few games with our backs to the lovely glowing fire. Firstly it was all time family favourite Zooleretto. It was a hard fought game between myself, Roshni and Maya. This time we used the proper "Remove an animal depending on the number of players" - we removed Kangaroos and Flamingoes. This made the game go so much better as we didn't end up with a surplus of animals each at the end. There was still room to make plays for each others spare animals and even run out of animals before we'd completed Pens. The game felt much much better. Roshni won in the end.

Then came a couple of games of Mayas all time favourite, Diamant. This involved all accept Kavita as she was doing homework. Such an easy concept yet devilishly addictive - it requires a combination of luck and nerves to make sure you outwit your opponents yet come out with enough gems to make the effort worthwhile.

Maya won the first round, whilst Anita won the second.

More online gaming - joined Yucata

After a full get together with David during a lunch break last week, he's introduced me to another couple of online gaming websites - one to me that stood out was Yucata - a German game site that supports English. I joined it as it had quite a few games I've wanted to play - including Stone Age and Fearsome Floors :)

Meeting of minds

Finally managed to meet Dave Estall today, another boardgamegeek-er who is literally based around the corner from work. He'd said about popping in during lunch as he often works at home; and today I happened to be walking past as he was parking up. Great to meet another gamer offline - he kindly invited me around - saying the next time he'd be working from home was at lunchtime this Friday, so I'll make the effort to pop over. Hopefully we'll be able to get some quick games in during these up and coming cold and wet Winter months!

Trying to set up a VASSAL game...

Hmm, not since last weeks Memoir game have I had an opportunity to play a game with anyone - and I'm still trying to set up a remote M44 game with Matt via Vassal. He should be downloading the files today and hopefully we'll be able to set up some games in the near future.

Breakthrough at Kiln! Memoir '44 star player Roshni wins again!

Breakthrough at Kiln - December 1941, after the German attack on Moscow had ground to a freezing halt, Russian forces tried to cut them off; in this scenario Roshni as the Germans had to break through the heavy defensive Russian lines to a frozen river in the south. They also had to make a feint to the left to draw Russian forces off, aware from the breakthrough.

The start, heavily entrenched Russians prepare to hold off the 

German drive to the frozen river to the South

A push is made for the Russian trenches - badly hit Germans 

still manage to force the Russians to retreat 

Flee!! Out of the blinding snow, German tanks rumble on!

The German troops, biding their time, then push out 

of the city ruins and charge the trenches

With the right hand Russian defences broken and the centre tank forces 

destroyed, there is nothing stopping the German forces successfully making for 

the river as History dictated.