Niagara arrives!

Our latest family addition, Niagara, arrived today after our surprise win on Ebay! I doubted very much we would find a copy for sale, let alone one for auction, but one was going in Mint condition and we won with one bid! We also had our doubts it would be Mint condition, so we had taken a gamble because parts could be missing, but the owners said it was 100%. We got it today and had a good look through - not only was it 100% complete, but there was also 2 extra gems (instead of one) of each colour!

I've had a scoot through of the rules and it seems very good - although the rules do cover many pages, a fair amount is for Examples and diagrams. The dynamic of how the river flows is brilliant - the board is placed upon the upturned lid and base, so a waterfall hangs over the edge of one box edge. The board has a channel cut into it with plastic discs representing the river water. The canoes used for going up and down the river to get the gems to win the game, float on the discs. At the end of each turn, more discs are pushed into the start of the river, causing the other discs to move along the channel, penny-pusher style, eventually causing one or more to fall off the waterfall edge, taking any hapless canoes with it!! Players use Paddle cards with numbers on them to navigate the rapids, between 1 and 6 and a cloud card to manipulate the weather (for better or worse), thereby increasing or decreasing the speed of the river each turn. It does sound a little complex, but the rules compress into one side of paper in a Summary, so hopefully it'll be pretty cool to play.

We will try it out on Sunday.

Death Angel - space hulk card game ultra cheap!

I saw this one when it was first previewed and I thought Hmm maybe. I found it it had solo play built in and thought again, ok, maybe, but later. I checked out the price and saw Andy had got it in for £20. Again not bad, but I thought I'd wait until Christmas. Then I noticed someone selling it on Amazon for £10 + p&p brand new! One left in stock! I grabbed it straight away as I knew it was going out of stock all over and I thought I could have it put away for Christmas.

Weekend play

Just played one game this weekend - Nordic Ticket to Ride; and I won by a staggering 148points to 114! Tried to introduce Roshni to Back to the Future but a lot of the aspects of the incidents from the films, not the game play, were lost on her as she'd not seen the film in ages! So we stopped and said we'd watch the films and give it a go again.

Also took a stroll to stretch the legs which just happened to pass Battlequestgames :) Popped in for a look around and got talking to Andy about Back to the Future. He mentioned it was based on Fluxx and loaned a shop copy to try out. Turns out it's a pretty cool game after a quick rules check and solo play. Try and squeeze a game in with the family before it has to go back. Also the Disaster at Dieppe add on for Memoir is due in next week, so I hope to collect on Thursday.

Managed to also secure a second hand copy of Niagara - Anita found a second hand copy on Ebay going cheap and because we were not 100% if it was for us, we got that instead of a brand new one. Hopefully with us in a few days.

Memoir 44 Hedgerow Hell arrives!

Yay! In super quick time (just over a week), Hedgerow Hell arrives in a box full of polystyrene packaging. It looks great, especially the little trucks!

Great Scott! It's Back to the Future!

1.21 gigawatts! Yay, one of my all time favourite films has been made into a game! And a great game too! I'd seen this previewed on Boardgamegeek and heard it was based on a previous game called Chrononauts. I picked up a copy from Battlequestgames at the weekend as it was a cheap purchase.

Both of these have been released by Looney Labs - Chrononauts had been very successful, but was supposed to have several bugs in the game play. Here, these have been ironed out apparently. Hard to say for me because I haven't played the original, but this version I can say is excellent.

The idea is that you have a series of cards, line A to D, number 1 to 6. Each card represents a moment in time, an event or storyline. And as in the films, if something is done in one part of the timeline, such as Older Biff giving Younger Biff the sports almanac, this has effects which Ripple down the timeline. This is shown in practise by flipping cards marked by the Event or Linchpin as it is called. Each Linchpin has a number of Ripplepoints it affects - such as if Older Biff gives Younger Biff the sports almanac, this has all sorts of connotations down the timeline such as Biff willing millions, killing George McFly, marrying Marty's mother etc.

The idea of the game is that you play as one of the descendants of a character from the film. I have read complaints that these characters have no background or depth as they are not seen in the film or if they are, don't have any characterisation. The aim is the character has three things to do in the timeline, set it in a particular way. Some want George McFly dead, some want him publishing his story. Some want Marty to get injured in a car crash, others don't. The idea is to take a card in hand and use one of those cards in play. This might involve placing an object on the table that will help you with another card. For example you can't use the Mark 2 time machine (the flying one), unless you have the Mr Fusion card in play. The time machine cards allow you to "edit" these Lynchpins as how you see fit, thereby affecting the timeline.

Some cards allow you to affect a specific event and only that event (Such as the metal pie tray stops Buford Tannen from shooting the blacksmith - Doc - in the back), some cards allow you to change any other time event if you have X card in play. To win, you have to have your three Lynchpins set, the timeline set how you want it then finally change history, stopping Doc inventing the flux capacitor. Even this may not win the game because there is 5 cards for this linchpin and only one is successful!

It's an interesting game to play - I've played it a few times by myself against another fake player. It is a very sublime game because you think it is very quick, that you can change a few items and you've won, then suddenly someone changes an event again causing another ripple then you are loosing!!

One caveat - you must have seen Back to the Future to play this!! Lol - Roshni and I tried to play, but the lynchpins didn't make much sense as she couldn't remember much of the film - so we all sat and watched BTTF part 1!! Part 2 up soon.

New game! Nordic Ticket to Ride. And a replay of Ticket to Ride Europe

Crikey it is turning into a game fest couple of months - games ordered, preordered, purchased from afar - apparently the new Space Hulk and Back to the Future card games are out soon too which I'll take a look at (Although Anita has put a bit of an embargo on game purchases for a while). Friday I picked up a copy of Nordic Ticket to Ride, a snow bound version of the popular train game, covering the Scandinavian arena and parts of Russia. It uses some of the rules introduced in Europe (Tunnels and Ferries), but leaves out Stations and some of the rules introduced in the Marklin Edition. Very nice version - up to 3 players only - using white, black and purple trains. The cards are lovely, the European size and the trains/carriages are covered in snow. There is even one huge 27-point link between Finland and Russia! This is one great game - lovely for two players over a glass of wine! Anita beat me by 3 points! 

Then we had a go at Ticket to Ride Europe - Anita had big reservations when we first got this - the rules for tunnels especially seemed overly complex, when added in with Stations and Ferries. Therefore we've not played this one for a while, but with the experience from the Nordic one, we played again and found it very enjoyable. 

Disaster at Dieppe and Hedgerow Hell battlemaps ordered!

The latest Memoir '44 battlemap Disaster at Dieppe and the rare out of print Hedgerow Hell have been ordered (HH from the States, so I have a week or so wait for it...)!