We're pilgrims in an unholy land next year!

A great quote snatch from my friend - both of us are going to Essen next year! We've decided 2011 is the best time since we need to book a hotel early and save up etc. Can't wait! A while off but at least plans are under way!

My first boardgamegeek geeklist!

I decided to put together a geeklist on boardgamegeek based around my experience of being the only guy in a family of five gamers of various ages. I listed our most popular games and what we thought of them and received some good feedback so far; including an 8g tip from a game designer to buy a microbadge!

See the list at :http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/54948/games-for-when-dad-is-the-only-guy-in-a-family-of

Citadels and more Citadels...and goodbye to some games

Today was another Citadels day - with the heating system on the fritz, it was a case of dragging the table in front of the coal fire and sitting down to a couple of healthy rounds of this classic game. It has now become so popular, it is outdoing Zooleretto as our favourite game! First it was a standard round then we introduced about 10 of the * expansion Location cards - these provided a new healthy mix to the available locations and more excitement to the game. We planned a game of Eketorp but we ran out of time.

Also we've decided to sell three games, Mystery of the Abbey (played once), Bonanza (never played) and The Queen's Necklace (played a few times) - hopefully to plough the proceeds into a new game or two.

Games we've got, games we've played and not played (aka Games! Games! Games!)

We have a lot of games. According to my account on Boardgamegeek, I have 77. That's a lot of games for a 3 bedroom house with 5 people in it (2 adults and 3 kids in case you're thinking we're a refugee household or something). But there has been more than that over the years and mostly they are unplayed with. Why? I buy games because they interest me and also because some are collectable. But that is a complete oxymoron in that games are supposed to be played with and not honoured like some sort of Samurai uniform in the corner.

I have a large amount of Games Workshop games that use figures, but they suffer from "Too much time ious" - they have no time period as to how long they will last and that makes us as players not want to play them. Plus also I have to paint the figures - GW games just look wrong with unpainted figures and it makes it worse when you look at the professionally painted ones in the manuals etc. Most GW games also have a fatal flaw that is exploited to the extreme to generate money - the rules state you have to have a minimum of X number of figures and vehicles etc to qualify to play - and to me that is wrong; that turns a game from being fun to a money generator.

Anyhow - away from modern Games Workshop (I touch on older GW games which are a gold mine of fun) and back to the silly notion of not playing games.

I recently sold my entire Advanced Squad Leader set (apart from the three starter kits) because I knew I'd never understand the 2kg rule book, let alone have fun with it. It was too much of a paper driven simulator. So I sold it on ebay. I knew some of the items were rare and out of print; I didn't expect £1057 as a return for my investment.

I ploughed some of this money back into games - specifically Memoir '44. Lucky for battlequestgames, their shop opened just as this money fell into my hands and I spent it in there lol. Memoir 44 is an amazing wargame boardgame that produces much more fun and playability than ASL ever did for me.

It is hard to describe the joy buying and owning a new game brings - perhaps it is equatable to those whole like new luxury cars or handbags and shoes - taking off the wrapping film and seeing the components; especially the bigger games, and more especially the Euro types I have got to know recently because of their extremely high quality components; cards, counters etc. As you can tell I cannot wait to buy another one!

Anyhow, this set me thinking about the games I do have (Around 77+) and how many I have actually played.

Well that's have a look at board game geek at the unplayed games:
3rd Fleet
5th Fleet
7th Fleet
Aquaetto
Blackbeard
Bohnanza
Carcassonne: The Princess and the Dragon
Crescendo of Doom
GI: Anvil of Victory
Gunslinger
Imperium Romanum II
Last Night on Earth
Mancala
Nuclear War
Pirates of the Spanish Main
Star Wars: Assault on Hoth
Tank Commander
Uno Superman
Vinci (not played my own copy)
Warhammer Quest
Zombies!!!

21 games - not good. I will have to have a look at these to see if a) we should get a game in b) they are unplayable by the family and consider removing them from our collection.

Don't play a game for years and suddenly do two at once!

Amazing what a play of a game can do to your opinion of it lol. As today was a rain off for doing anything outdoors, Anita suggested playing a game - Citadels because she likes it so much! Now we were more up on the rules (apart from me finding out that you draw two location cards and only keep one at the start of your turn d'oh), things moved faster and play was more fun this time around.
Last game was a draw between Anita and I - this time Anita slamdunked us again - as it usual when she plays lol.

First play of an old game - Citadels

Wow, we've finally got around to playing this game even though we've had it for years! For ages Anita was put off by the name for some reason but finally I convinced the Tribe to give it a go. And by games end they were glad they did because they all, including me, enjoyed it. The game rules described here are for 5 players, the rules differ for less or more players.

The basic premise of the game is to build a Citadel using cards in hand. The first to eight cards generates a Game End event - a term I coin to mean a certain criteria, score or event that concludes the game or means carry on for one more turn. In this case, the turn carries on until the end of the current turn and then the winner is calculated (see later).

The game from the outset seemed  fairly complex, but once the game was running even Maya knew what to do without any aid. The idea of the game is to gain Location cards, money and build places in the citadel. Also each turn every one gains a special character with an ability that might generate extra or cause another to miss a turn.

The turn is divided into several sections. Firstly the character cards are shuffled and the player with the Gold Crown icon (on the first turn the oldest player) takes the top card and places it face down on the table. Then the next card is placed face up. The Crown character then takes a character card they want and keeps it hidden. The cards are then passed and over and over until the last card is placed face down

The interesting aspect of play is that it is not circular, but decided by numbers on the character cards. The crown holder calls out numbers 1 to 8 and the player with that card gets a turn - their character card is displayed on the table to everyone else. Each player then gets a chance to get 2 gold coins or 2 location cards, then a chance to spend their gold on buying location cards and then utilise the special abilities of their character card - the Assassin for example chooses another character to "bump off" as we call it :) This person is not allowed to say anything but misses a go. This system of a non-circular game means the game is very strategic and no one knows who goes next, who is what character etc means game play is very fluid and no one knows what to expect next. There are 8 unique characters with different abilities.

Then at the end of the turn, the character cards are collected, shuffled and then the Turn starts again.

At first the game was a little slow as we discovered the rules, but it soon picked up and even Maya was happy playing. There was one caveat - one character is the King which when played, transfers the Crown to that player. Maya and at times Roshni would base their decision on what character to keep from the collection on  if it contained the King simply because they like Kings, Princess etc.

Apart from that, an excellent 60 mins game!

Game in progress - Anita on her way to win it looks!

Citadels gets a ringing endorsement from Kavita even though

she only has one card in play!

Roshni carefully considers her next move

Vive la France???

So this was it, another chance at a come back against Roshni and her German army in Memoir 44. She specifically asked for the Germans, and so she is now going to be Axis from now onwards.

This time was the turn of the Resistance against the Germans a few days after D-Day (And look how that turned out in my previous Memoir post!!) - the basic premise of the engagement being to repulse a German surge through the Bocage, taking on infantry and tanks using little more than 3 man groups scattered through the countryside. History said the French forced the Germans back to their starting positions at the end of the day, from the look in Roshnis eye, I could see this was going to be a whitewash!

Mid way through the game, German tanks push through the trees on the French left flank whilst a battered German left flank tries for a comeback in this Allied aerial reconnaissance photo.

A German counterattack by combined infantry and tanks wipe out a brave French unit (you can't see them because they were all taken out with one dice roll!!)

Vive la France!!!! French Resistance fighters make one final desperate charge from the trees!

Zut alors!! Crushing defeat on the French by the Germans! Another win to Roshni!!