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UK Games Expo (19th May 2012 13:02:18)
Next weekend is the UK Games Expo at the Clarendon Suites, Birmingham. The main event runs from 9.30am to 5.00pm on Saturday 26th May and from 9.30am to 4.00pm on Sunday. There is also open gaming at the Strathallan Hotel all day Friday and Saturday evening. More info can be found here. |
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Vegas (14th May 2012 20:43:41)
Jan, Bex and I tried the newly-arrived Vegas this evening. For an Alea game it is very light, although I knew that beforehand. However, it's a nice 30 minute dice game with a little bit of managing your dice, screwing other players, hoping for decent rolls and tearing your hair out when things go against you. A nice start- or end-of-evening game. Jan managed to emerge triumphant on this occasion. |
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Farming in Casinos (14th May 2012 20:36:04)
A couple of games arrived today from Nick at Shire Games. Vegas is the latest Alea medium box game from Rudiger Dorn. Walnut Grove is loosely described as Agricola meets Carcassonne |
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Settlers of Catan novel on Amazon (12th May 2012 10:02:20)
I've just noticed that the Settlers of Catan novel, written by Rebecca Gable, is the Kindle Daily Deal on Amazon. Pick it up before midnight for 99p. Here is the link to the book's Amazon page (if you're reading this after Saturday, the price will have reverted to normal, of course). |
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Spielbox #2/2012 (12th May 2012 08:53:43)
The latest issue of Spielbox arrived yesterday. The content included reviews of Santa Cruz, Africana, World Without End: The Cardgame, 23, Walnut Grove and Mage Knight among others. Plus, there is a portrait of Friedemann Friese and a mini-expansion for Hawaii.More details here. |
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Robinson wins again! (1st May 2012 23:02:30)
It's been a while since I last played Friday and I wasn't sure on which hazards to concentrate. However, I was never really threatened with lack of life points and defeated both pirates with 9 life points left.
Score: Fighting (36) + Pirates (30) + Life (45) - Aging (-5) - Hazards (-30) = 76 |
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Game of the Month - April 2012 (1st May 2012 08:38:00)
I played 19 games in April of which 12 were new to me. The new games were Wurfel Bohnanza, Lords of Scotland, City Square Off, Coney Island, Ranking, Crazy Creatures of Doctor Doom, Legend of Drizzt, Little Devils, Africana, Mammut, Dominant Species and Qwirkle Cubes. It was a tough call for game of the month as I really enjoyed the card game, Little Devils, but eventually I went for Michael Schacht’s Africana. |
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Qwirkle Cubes (29th April 2012 19:54:50)
Tried this follow-up to the Spiel des Jahres winning Qwirkle as a 2 player game with Jan. A bit more to think about than the original. Our game had the closest finish possible. Thirteen points down with Jan having just one cube left, I needed to roll two diamonds with my last two dice (1 in 36 chance) to win. Not sure who was more surprised when it came up. |
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Telford Mini-Con (29th April 2012 15:23:07)
I had a good day at Telford Mini-Con yesterday although I only got to play 3 games. This was mainly due to the length of a six-player session of Dominant Species which took about 4.5 hours. I enjoyed it but felt it would have been better as a four player game.
I also got to teach Africana, a new Michael Schacht game that is coming out in May or June, published by Z-Man Games. This was very good with lots to think about and I'm sure it will do well when it is released. The other game played was Mammut which again was a very clever 45 minute game. Thanks to Gameslore for organising the day. |
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Legend of Drizzt ( 18th April 2012 20:50)
I spotted a copy of Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt for sale on Amazon for £32 the other day so decided to snap it up. Hopefully, it'll be here by Friday so we might be able to give it a try... provided Nige doesn't complain too much about yet another co-operative game. This one takes up to 5 players and plays in around an hour.
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Telford Mini-Con ( 15th April 2012 20:43)
Telford Mini-Con will be held on Saturday 28th April 2012 at Shifnal Village Hall. Start time is 10.00am and will run until 10.00pm. There will be a small library of Board and Card Games which may be borrowed during the event but attendees tend to bring games so there's loads to choose from..
Attending
Shifnal Village Hall will accommodate up to 120 people, and cost of entry will be £5. You will get a free ticket for a prize draw.
Refreshments
There are limited kitchen facilities at the venue, however tea and coffee will be available. There won't be food on the premises, but there is plenty of choice within 200 yards of the venue. (Restaurants, Cafe's, Pub's, Take-aways and Shops)
There will be a bar at the event, so you will only need the local pubs for the pub grub.
Traders
Games Lore Ltd will run a small stall with a limited selection of games at the event. If you want a particular game then it will be safer to let them know in advance.
Either contact Gameslore by email telfordminicon@gameslore.com or phone on 0800 970 2731.
Location
Shifnal Village Hall, Aston Street, Shifnal, Telford, Shropshire TF11 8DW.
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Spielbox #1/2012 ( 28th March 2012 12:54)
The latest issue of Spielbox arrived yesterday. Within its 56 pages were reviews of Rapa Nui, Coney Island, Ora et Labora and Villlage among others. There was also a recap of what was on show at Nurnberg and a look back at the career of David Parlett with numerous pictures of Hare & Tortoise. This issue also enclosed a mini expansion of six cards for Navegador. |
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Jerusalem ( 22nd March 2012 22:21)
I've been in London the last couple of days and popped into Orc's Nest yesterday. To my surprise, they had a shelf of half price games on this visit (never seen a sale before) and one of those games was Jerusalem which has been on my wishlist for a while. At £19 I had to grab it, although when I broke open the shrinkwrap tonight, there were no rules in the box. Very odd but the rules are online and I'm not too unhappy given the nice price I paid. I also picked up Lords of Scotland while I was there.
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Back from Limbo ( 17th March 2012 11:00)
And we're back! If you've tried to get on the site in the last week or so, you haven't been able to as someone forgot to put money in the meter. Basically, I hadn't noticed that the domain name fee hadn't been paid and I didn't get a reminder from the registrar, so Nominet went and suspended it. Thankfully, it's all rectified now. That's all for now. Might be back later testing the capabilities of the new 3rd gen iPad which I'm picking up today (or I might be too busy playing). |
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Boardgame Group Map ( 3rd March 2012 23:03)
Karl Bunyan has had the very good idea (although I'm sure many have thought about it before - me included - but he's actually gone and done it) of creating a map of game groups with relevant contact and timing details. I've added our group to the blossoming list. It's interesting: Who ever knew there was a group as far north as York (...or Beyond)?
The map is accessed via the Royal Society of Gamers website (Hmm. Haven't publicised that before). |
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Fluffdaddy's Top 100 2012 ( 3rd March 2012 21:25)
Mark Jackson, aka Fluff Daddy or akapastorguy, has started to run through his 2012 version of his top 100 games. The 2005 and 2010 versions of this were really enjoyable as he tends to highlight those lighter (fluffy) games that really stand the test of time.
I'm looking forward to seeing which games have catapulted themselves onto the list this time around. And how Tumblin' Dice and Schnappchen Jagd are not in there, I'll never know. There is a geeklist at Boardgamegeek but greater details is on Mark's blog. |
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New order from Germany ( 3rd March 2012 11:15)
I've just put in an order for a few games from Allgames4you.de which should turn up next week. Three big box games: Santa Cruz (the new Hans im Gluck release); Helvetia from Glen More designer Matthias Cramer; and Michael Schacht's Africana. On top of that are four little games (just to please Nige): Zooloretto Wurfelspiel; Keltis - Das Wurfelspiel; Wurfel Bohnanza; and Bullenparty.
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1st & Goal: Superbowl XLVI Prediction ( 5th February 2012 23:20)
As I ususally do on Superbowl Sunday, I had a go at predicting the result by playing a boardgame version. The last few years I've used Pizza Box Football but this year, 1st & Goal is the new kid on the block so it seemed appropriate to see how this played out. I used the base game so there were no team idiosyncracies to take account of.
Bottom line - In a game dominated by the Giants, a couple of key fumbles by the New England offence meant they were playing catch-up in the second half but couldn't break down the New York defence enough to make it close. The Giants win the Superbowl.
Q1: The Patriots started the game on their 25 yard line but after one first down had to punt it away. The Giants were initially successful with a 24 yard run play but eventually stalled and had to settle for a field goal. New England's next drive lasted just four plays but they soon got the ball back after intercepting Manning around midfield. Although they again had to punt, the Patriots gathered up a fumble on the return, giving them great field position on the Giants' 23. On the last play of the quarter, a six yard rush brought New England into the endzone for the lead 7-3.
Q2: The euphoria of scoring had obviously got to the defence as New England gave up 30 on the kick off return, followed by 45 yard and 32 yard completions to restore New York's lead 7-10. On the second play of the Patriots' next drive, they coughed up the ball giving the Giants great field position just 23 yards from the New England endzone. Two superb run plays took the ball in to give the Giants a 10 point lead but things were about to get worse as the Patriots fumbled the kick off return, leaving the Giants in even better position on their opponents' 21 yard line. The Patriot defence eventually brought themselves back to life to stall the Giant offence but still had to suffer a field goal 7-20. New England had time to get a field goal and prevent their opponents from scoring again to leave the score 10-20 at half time.
Q3: The Giants returned to the field feeling pretty happy and were content to keep things tight and wind down the clock. However, the Patriots defence still couldn't stop the mon the key plays and Manning capped an 80 yard drive with a 10 yard touchdown pass midway through the quarter 10-27. New England made some progress on their reply but still were forced to punt as the quarter drew to a close, not helped by giving away a crucial offensive penalty. The Giants ended the quarter on their own 42 yard line.
Q4: By this time Manning was mixing up the plays and New England didn't seem to be anywhere near the same wavelength. Another touchdown left the Patriots 24 points adrift with too little time left. At least, Brady started to make some headway but the giants were happy to give away short yardage and eat up the clock. A New England touchdown with a couple of minutes to go brought up the inevitable onside kick but the Giants succeeded in recovering it. Another first down gave them a further field goal attempt but it fell short leaving the final score 17-34. The New York Giants are Superbowl champions. |
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Friday on Saturday ( 5th February 2012 12:40)
Yesterday saw my 4th play of Friedemann Friese's brilliant solo deckbuilder, Friday, and my first win. Woohoo! Going into the pirates, I only had one life point left so wasn't very confident but I had a number of cards giving me extra life points. These gave me the flexibility to draw extra cards and I managed to get Robinson to escape the island with 2 life points left.
Score:
Fighting (36) + Pirates (30) + Life (10) - Aging (-5) - Hazards (-24) = 47 |
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Holiday gaming ( 11th January 2012 22:59)
Jan and I have just returned from a week's holiday in Tenerife where we had brilliant weather, a nice hotel offering plenty of activities - Archery, French Boules and others. Two wins at the French Boules - archery is clearly a game of millimetres and I was millimetres the wrong side of the line every time.
Managed to smuggle several games over to the Canaries and back again thankfully, as I got stopped at Customs on the way out as their scanner was showing a large amount of organic matter. Not sure why as I'd only taken LOTR: TCG, Ra: The Dice Game, Cafe International: TCG, Gloria Picktoria, Coloretto, MR: Jack the Ripper, Dominion, Mijnlieff, Archaeology:TCG, Stich Meister, Gold and Keltis: TCG.
Got to play five of them including two four-player games of Coloretto with my Dad and Jan's stepdad. Even though it took them a while to grasp the rules, Geoffrey (stepdad-in-law) won the first and Rod (Dad) won the second. The good thing was that, after the first game, they both wanted to have another game straight away. |
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2011 Roundup ( 1st January 2012 12:28)
2011 saw me play 200 games of 156 different titles (interestingly, just one fewer than the 157 different titles played in both 2010 and 2009, although the total plays is down a bit compared with 208 in 2010 and 229 in 2009). My full list of games played is here.
My most played game was Lord of the Rings: The Card Game which saw 8 plays. All bar one of these was in May when the game was first released but I played again just yesterday and I'd like to play some more in 2012. I'm still exploring the mono-sphere decks and haven't yet progressed beyond the first scenario so there's plenty still to try out, even though I will not be buying any of the expansion packs.
No other game reached 5 plays and only Nefarious saw four plays.  Of the 156 titles, 125 of them were played just once, again due to my focus during the year in getting my unplayed games list down. It started 2011 at 29, dropped all the way to zero in June and is now sitting at 16.
2011 seemed to produce several really good games. My six picks for the year -which I'll be publishing on my Trickylight site tomorrow- included two meaty gamers' games (Trajan and Vinhos), a couple of middle-weight titles (London and Pantheon) and two excellent but different fillers (Biblios and King of Tokyo). I've also done a six picks of solo and two-player games featuring LOTR: TCG, the surprisingly good Revolver, Famiglia, Gold, Mijnlieff and Zertz (which I got to play for the first time in 2011). All in all, a pretty good year. Let's hope 2012 is just as good. |
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