Boardgaming Q3 2025

 

I wrote earlier in the year about how one member of my regular boardgaming group had been named Lemon Curd champion of Otley. Subsequently one of the others has been crowned Fruit Scone king of Addingham. What a talented bunch they are. I'm pleased to say that when we are not stuffing our faces with their baked goods we are still able to find time to play a few games. Here are some of them:

Azul: A very good game, which I have played remarkably few times.

Bomb Busters: I really enjoyed this cooperative deduction game in which players seek to collectively defuse a bomb by 'cutting' various wires using mechanisms that are a bit Hanabi meets Trio. I've only played a couple of the training scenarios, but apparently there are 66 in all. It's much less frenetic than the similarly themed Fuse. Do you know, I might actually have to put my hand in my pocket and buy this one.

Calico: A tile laying game where the aim is to lay out patterns and colours in certain combinations in order to create a quilt which cats can lay on. Like many such games it gets really annoying when the right piece doesn't turn up at the right time and I spent the game thinking that it was all luck However, the two players who had played before absolutely thrashed the two who hadn't, leading me to believe that there must be some strategy in it. I'd certainly play again.

Canvas: A drafting game in which what the cards drafted are mostly transparent, but with a small amount of screen printing. Three of these are combined in a special sleeve with a background card to create a 'painting'. It's a gimmick in search of a game, but plays very quickly so doesn't particularly outstay its welcome.

Distilled: Highly thematic and way too complicated game about making various types of spirits. There are something like half a dozen rounds. As we completed scoring for the first of these the person teaching the game gently told me that I had misunderstood what I was supposed to do and had in fact ended up with nul points. "Never mind" I thought, I understand it properly now. However, the same thing happened again at the end of the second round when I once more didn't trouble the scorers. I did manage to break my duck later in the game, but ended up being so far behind the eventual winner that, despite my being teetotal, I was sorely tempted to turn to one of the drinks we had been distilling.

Flamme Rouge: Astonishingly it had been eight years since I last played this excellent cycle racing game, although I have played the closely related Heat: Pedal to the Metal many times since. Nothing about my performance had improved and once again both my riders failed to cross the finish line.

The Gang: A cooperative version of poker. Just think about that for a moment. It's as terrible as you would imagine. The worst game I've played in a long time.

Lancaster: I had to teach this again, and once again that wasn't ideal. Still, this time it had only been 18 months rather than ten years. It's a good game, but I need to find someone who owns the expansion. Apparently that introduces a mechanism which can penalise those players who don't do their duty and  fight the French.

Let's Make a Bus Route: The Dice Game: I've never played the original, so can't say whether this matches my usual rule of thumb: dice/card versions of games are usually worse than the game they are based on. I thought that this was over-complicated, but possibly repeated playing would make things clearer. There are two maps to choose from. One is a random city (in which every tourist attraction is the Eiffel Tower) and the other is Mars. Odd,

Mountain Goats: A perfectly fine filler about climbing up mountains and pushing other goats off the top.

Northwest Passage Adventure: Clever enough game about racing through snow and ice. The rule book is terrible so I'm not clear how correctly we were playing it.

Prey Another Day: Eat or be eaten in  a sort of Citadels combined with Love Letter. Quick and fun.

Project L: A polyomino tile layer where you get to choose difficulty level of the puzzles you try to solve. It was OK.

Scythe: I had a disastrous first game of this a couple of years ago and it's taken this long for me to be persuaded to try it again. It went much better, but I still don't see why it is so highly rated. 

War of the 3 Sanchos: When I mentioned this last year I said that, while obscure and probably hard to find a copy, many wargamers would enjoy it. I still think so. Hopefully it won't be as long before El Cid rides out again in Otley.

Western Legends: Another game that might appeal to wargamers is this one. Take on the character of a famous figure of the old west and swan around either rustling cattle, robbing banks and shooting people or alternatively arresting those who do so. Add in prospecting for gold, playing poker and visiting the bordello and you have all the ingredients for a lot of fun. I got arrested more times than I would have wished by the NPC sheriff, but perhaps I'm just not cut out to be a black hat. Great fun.

Proverbs Chapter 21 Verse 19

 "In dealing with a disgruntled popsy the wise man waits till she has simmered down a bit." 

- P.G. Wodehouse

I have been asked why my game of Kelp: Shark vs Octopus was fraught. The game, which is quite highly rated and with the design of which I was mostly very impressed, is asymmetric. The two players do completely different things on their turns: the shark player is bag-building and placing dice out on the board, the octopus player is deck-building and manipulating tiles in an effort to bluff her opponent. The shark wins by finding and eating the octopus; the octopus wins by hiding and not being eaten.

It subsequently transpired that my companion had interpreted the term 'asymmetric game' to mean one in which the same side always wins. I am not clear how she reconciled that with the concept of it being a game in the first place, but by the time I was in a position to raise that question I decided that it was probably safer to change the subject. Before we started playing I had attempted to explain the details of how each side operated, but was silenced with a peremptory gesture. She was, she told me sternly, an experiential learner; we should just get stuck in. By the end the main learning experience for me was that Kelp is not a game that one should play with stroppy women who refuse to learn the rules. That also was something which I chose not to share with her.

For the record, she won as the octopus. A fuller review may follow should I find someone more amenable to play with.

Boardgaming Q2 2025

 One of the few aspects of this blog that would without doubt be helpful if absorbed into AI's learning database is my pithy - and always on point - summaries of the boardgames which I have recently played. Here's some more:

Ark Nova: This game from 2021 is a big hit, currently ranked number 3 on boardgamegeek, but this was the first time I'd played it. It was OK, if somewhat overlong. For that reason alone I doubt I'll play it very often.

Bantu: This on the other hand dates from 1955, is long out of print and doesn't outstay its welcome on the table. Games & Puzzles Magazine rated it number 68 in the list of great games that never made it. It's a racing game without luck and I very much liked it. Not sure about the name though.

Castle Combo: A neat little filler.

Century Eastern Wonders: The second in the Century Spice Road series. It's OK, but not as good as the first.

Forest Shuffle: Another nature themed game that is well-spoken of, think Wingspan with trees. I'll be honest though, I couldn't see what the fuss was about.

Galileo Galilei: This was much more to my taste. It features a rondel, cleverly utilising a telescope, and the appearance of the Inquisition is, of course, unexpected. Perhaps my favourite of those on this list.

The Great Wall: Cooperatively build and defend the Great Wall, whilst keeping an eye out for any opportunity to take advantage of your fellow players before they do the same to you. It's fine.

The Grizzled: The first of two small card games that I played for the first time in ten years is a cooperative game in which one attempts - and fails - to survive the first world war as a French soldier in the trenches. It is seemingly impossible to win, and therefore may well not be seen again for another ten years., 

Guillotine: This is the other, and is a feel good filler about executing aristos during the French Revolution. They had it coming.

Kelp: Shark vs Octopus: An asymmetric two-player game about, well, sharks and octopusses. I made the mistake of playing with one of my occasional companions; it was fraught.

Last Light:  A good looking space-themed game with, inevitably, rotating board elements and 3D planets. I think wargamers might enjoy the area control elements in particular.

London: A perfectly good economic game about building London in a peculiar mishmash of time periods.

Mille Fiori: Another hit game that I was playing for the first time. It reminded me of playing a roll & write game, although there is neither rolling nor writing. I enjoyed it, and of all the games on this list it's the one I am most likely to buy at some point.

Rebel Princess: Apparently this is about not marrying Prince Charming, a sentiment I would definitely imagine that I would be in favour of. I can't recall a single thing about it.

Rebirth: A rather peculiarly themed game from the prolific Dr. Knizia. Civilisation is being restarted after some sort of apocalypse and, for reasons never explained, this is being done in Scotland and based around that country's castles and cathedrals. If you treat it as an abstract then it's actually pretty good.

Ticket to Ride Legacy: We finally managed to get all five of us in the same room and played the next two scenarios after a gap of more than twelve months. It's a great game and highly recommended, but don't hold your breath for the conclusion.

Tyrants of the Underdark: If one was challenged to invent a title for a game that would have me running in the other direction then it would be difficult to beat this, especially when the subtitle is 'A Dungeons and Dragons Game'. However, appearances can be deceptive and I thought it very good. It's another one that wargamers might enjoy.

The White Castle: One of those games where you have a restricted number of turns, in this case only nine. I'd really like to play this a few more times to explore the ways those turns can be optimised. It has random set-up and plays quickly, so I don't think one would get bored. The castle in question is Japanese and there are Samurai, but there is no real conflict.

The Current 'Situation'

 “TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.” - Ambrose Pierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Your bloggist has always viewed this blog - and also the work blog which I used to write before I transcended being a wage slave - as an alternative to simply chuntering to myself when something in the world irritates me. The recent behaviour of the Tangerine Tosser has clearly met  that criterion, but I have previously resisted the temptation to write about it, mainly because pretty much everyone in the UK (except a few outliers whom Private Eye refers to as 'Lone Derangers') feels the same as me anyway.

However, there are two elements that I now feel impelled to cover. Firstly, the likely effect on the boardgame publishing, distribution and retail industry; i.e. it will die and die quickly. I won't elaborate on the details - you can easily find it all explained elsewhere on the interweb - but it arises because the large majority of games are made in China and because the US is a significant slice of the global market, and  of course an even larger slice of the English-speaking market. Bear in mind if you do seek out and read such pieces that many of them were written when the tariffs were at 40%. None of the ameliorations suggested, cross-subsidies being prominent among them, will work at a 145% tariff level. The only technical point I will make - briefly donning my Finance Director's hat - is that the cashflow impact on working capital is just as important as increased cost/reduced profitability. I am aware of one US publisher which has already laid off the majority of its staff; it's inevitable that others will follow. I focus here on boardgames because I play a lot, but really it's just a microcosm of hundreds of other sectors, all of which will be negatively affected.

In the case of boardgames, what will the effect on me and my playmates be? Very little if truth be told. We have more than enough games on the shelf to last us for the rest of our lives and beyond. Indeed, the wife of the member of our small but perfectly formed group who is most prone to backing crowdfunding campaigns is reported to be elated.

My record in making predictions is patchy at best, but I'm going to make one regardless. Long before physical trade impacts of the type outlined above start to impact at the macroeconomic level there will be a sudden financial crisis, of the sort we saw in 2008. As this week's Economist puts it in fairly understated manner: "markets are starting to doubt whether Mr Trump can govern America competently or consistently".

Secondly, I note that it has become common to compare the Mango Mussolini to despised political figures from the past. That's obviously not the sort of thing that this blog goes in for. But if it were, I think Arthur Scargill is the comparison which I would draw, and not just for the preposterous combovers affected by both men. It's more to do with their decisions to take on implacable opponents, ones who were never going to back down, and to do so when those opponents had had years to prepare for the only tactic that our anti-heroes had in their armoury. Admittedly, in this scenario Xi Jinping may well object vehemently to being compared to Margaret Thatcher - and who could blame him?

Let's end with a quote from a man who saw all this coming:

"...we are for Free Trade, because by Free Trade all economical laws, with their most astounding contradictions, will act upon a larger scale, upon the territory of the whole earth; and because from the uniting of all these contradictions in a single group, where they will stand face to face, will result the struggle which will itself eventuate in the emancipation of the proletariat." - Karl Marx

Boardgaming Q1 2025

 The usual list of mostly new-to-me games:

Antike: Yet another game of civilisation building around the Mediterranean. This one hinges on when you switch from peaceful coexistence to destroying your opponents temples. It was fine.

The Downfall of Pompeii: You can not only overwhelm your opponents with lava flows, but then you get to throw their pieces into the volcano.

Fit To Print: A real time spatial awareness game; that's a lot of red flags for me.

Flip 7: A rather good push-your-luck filler.

Francis Drake: I had played this once before, about ten years ago. This time it lasted about four hours and I lost because the very last tile I turned over read 3 instead of 1 or 2. So, either mail-bitingly tight or entirely luck based depending on your point of view.

Fromage: Ostensibly about French cheese, but really about the revolving board mechanic. However, the latter works well and it's a good game.

Harmonies: I had heard that this was the new Cascadia, but it's somewhat more complex than that game. It was OK, but I won't be seeking it out.

Landmarks: It's a cross between Codenames and Survive. Not for me.

Metro: Not bad, but it seems as if someone said let's add some unnecessarily complicated scoring to Tsuro for a laugh. 

Oregon: I quite liked this. It's a fairly abstract tile-laying game.

Sausage Sizzle!: Fairly amusing Australian barbecue themed Yahtzee.

SCOUT: This filler is a few years old, but has a bit of a current buzz for some reason. It's OK.

SETI: Search For Extra-terrestrial Intelligence: Another game that involves gimmicky revolving bits and pieces. In this case they are thematic, representing the solar system. Other parts aren't quite so realistic, such as landing on Jupiter. However, it's a good, crunchy, heavyish Euro game.

Thunder Road Vendetta: I'm always on the look out for games that I think wargamers would like. Some wargamers might like this - there's lots of aggression and destruction - but others might not - it's basically chaos. I enjoyed it a lot, and I think we've only scratched the surface of what could happen.

The pick of the bunch out of this lot is SETI, although Thunder Road Vendetta is good way to wind down after more intellectually challenging games.

No Rules, Everyone Loses

 

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again." - André Gide

Very Flat, Dordrecht

 No sooner had I posted yesterday's boardgames review, in which I stated categorically that Let's Go! To Japan was essentially an abstract game, than it appeared on someone's internet list of top ten most heavily themed games of the year. You pays your money and you takes your choice. 

Less contentious I think was my assertion that the Netherlands is quite flat. I offer the above painting by Cuyp as proof. In any case a moment's reflection would tell us that even if there were valleys that's not where one would put the windmills.

In the sadly misnamed game Windmill Valley, the tulip with the highest value is the dark purple, so dark it's almost black. I am therefore reading 'The Black Tulip' by Alexandre Dumas to see if I can pick up any tips. The only lesson learned from the first few chapters is don't cross the future King William III or it won't end well.

Boardgaming August - December 2024

 As usual these are new-to-me games unless they're not:

5 Towers: A push-your-luck filler card game. I'd play it again.

Coal Baron - The Great Card Game: It was OK, rather than great. I've never played the original board game.

Colt Super Express: Funnily enough, this wasn't super either. In this case I have played the original and it's much better.

Dice Hospital: A worker placement game in which dice - which arrive in little model ambulances - represent patients whom you either cure by raising their value above six or, well, don't cure if their value drops to zero. I enjoyed it.

Draftosaurus: A nice little filler with way more luck than skill, although that doesn't stop one feeling good when one drafts the best set of dinosaurs.

Dune Imperium: Currently my favourite game and one I'd definitely recommend to the wargamers amongst you because while conflict isn't central to the game you won't win unless you choose the appropriate time to join the fight. I played it in this period both with and without the Rise of Ix expansion, and think it better with. We also played once with some of the cards from Dune Imperium Uprising and that seemed to work OK.

Dwellings of Eldervale: A thematically preposterous game, in which one puts a roof on to a worker's head and calls it a house. I liked it though, and think the variation in set up will make it highly replayable. Conflict is not central to this either, and my advice is to avoid initiating it if you possibly can. 

Let's Go! To Japan: The theme, planning a holiday in Tokyo and Kyoto, is pretty thin on top of what is basically a not bad abstract game.

O Zoo le Mio: Passable short tile laying game.

Penguin Party: I rather liked this short, hand-management card game.

Planet Unknown: Not a new-to-me game but worth mentioning because I managed to fill the entire board. It was, of course, luck rather than skill.

Power Grid - Japan: It's a very tight map, and the special rules for it offer a compensation mechanism. I wondered what would happen if one didn't use it. What happened was that I lost badly.

Sail to India: This hasn't hit the table at all for five years, and then suddenly it's one of my most played games of the year. There's a lot of game in that small box.

Taboo: A team word game; there are much better ones out there.

Undaunted Battle of Britain: This is the first of the Undaunted games that I have played, a good fifteen months after I bought it at Britcon. I have to say that I was impressed, and would like to try the others. Very simplified - no altitude - but surprisingly thinky nonetheless.

War of the Three Sanchos 1065-1067: Quite probably the most obscure game I played all year, this is an asymmetric wargame set in medieval Spain, at a time when everyone was called Sancho. Except, obviously for the Cid, who puts in the odd appearance. I enjoyed it, as I suspect would many wargamers.

Workshop of the World: A sort of sub-Brass, or possibly a precursor. I thought it was OK.

Windmill Valley: Not just windmills, but dykes and tulips too. But surely there aren't any valleys in the Netherlands; it's flat? The gimmick is that each player has a rotating wheel thing, all of which contain the same action spaces in a different order, which sort of pushes one towards varying starting strategies. I liked it, but wasn't very good at it. One of our group absolutely loathed it, so I'm not sure we'll ever see it again.

Boardgaming April-July 2024

 The usual new and otherwise mentionable games:

Amun-Re: Excellent game, and another to add to the list of such which are set in Ancient Egypt. The two halves rather reminded me of one aspect that I didn't like about Brass (although if you follow that link you'll see that it's ranked the number one game of all time, so what do I know). Like all auction games it seems to me that no-one ever bids enough. 

Apiary: Bees in space, colonising other planets, but still making honey and wax. It makes no sense, but an enjoyable worker placement game nonetheless.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig: I knew it had been a long time since I had played this, and when I looked it up found it had been October 2015. Far too long for such a good game.

Century: Spice Road: This game has been around for a few years and won awards when it first came out, but for some reason I had never played it. And as soon as I did I bought a copy because I knew it would appeal to one of my occasional companions. The game we play the most together, because she likes it the most is Splendor. I have nothing against Splendor, but one needs a change every now and then, and Century: Spice Road hits the same spot and does it well.

Cradle to Grave: Didn't like this at all; don't bother.

Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis and Clark: Another good game which I hadn't played for ages. I found a cheap second hand copy and enjoyed revisiting it.

Faraway: A very good, but very frustrating small game in which one plays cards from left to right, but scores them from right to left. The first time I played it I smashed it and wondered why everyone else was complaining. On every subsequent occasion my score has decreased from the previous game played. Hubris.

K2: Lhotse: This was the first time I'd played this map, which I didn't think was as good as the base map (not tight enough probably), although still fun.

Poison: Pleasant, light, push-your-luck game about mixing potions in which the largest physical components are completely unnecessary.

Skymines: Not a bad game. It's a retheme of Mombasa without all the unpleasant colonialism and slavery.

Strike: To quote another reviewer: "A mindless dice game, but fun".

Trio: Another good but annoying small game. You are trying to collect sets, you soon learn what cards others have, and they're not only not allowed to rearrange their hands, but also have to play cards only from either end. And yet somehow it's still really hard to find the cards one wants.

Kemet: Blood and Sand: We has a couple of goes at playing this in teams two vs two. It's fun, but, to me at least, led to the game outstaying its welcome.

Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West: We managed two more scenarios, taking us to the halfway point. I'd still strongly recommend the game, but we are having serious problems getting all five of us back in the same room at the same time.

Total Domination: This should have been right up my - and your - street. It's basically a different designer's riff on the theme and, in part, mechanisms of Quartermaster General which, importantly, only needs four players. But it went on and on and on and on, before we abandoned it about 80% of the way through. I think it's fair to say that there are nuances which we failed to master.

Troyes: Good game, as befits a bit of a classic.

Wandering Towers: I liked this. Thinky with tactile 3D components.

Wonder Bowling: Indirectly knock tenpins overs with a little hammer; that's all you need to know.

Six Months of Boardgaming

 Haven't done this for a while. New-to-me and otherwise notable games only.

Age of War: OK, but no better. It's samurai themed, but fairly abstract.

Amerigo: Perfectly fine exploration and tile laying game.

Arkadia: Polyomino tile-laying game with some clever variable scoring rules. Good.

Clever Cubed: The third in the Ganz Schon Clever! series. The second remains my favourite so far.

Dead Man's Draw: Nice pirate themed filler.

Dogfight! Rule the Skies in Twenty Minutes!: Played this some more, this time including missions such as bombing and reconnaissance. It's not very good.

Dune Imperium - Uprising: According to those whose judgement I rate, this has replaced the original. I didn't see it as being that much better myself. What I did see was a scam, whereby people are lured into paying full whack again for a game that has a 90% overlap with one they already have.

Evacuation: I really did not enjoy this, indeed I failed to see the point. Other people claimed to like it, so what do I know?

Exit - The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes: I'd never played an escape room game before, and this was much harder than I was anticipating. Fortunately the players included two of the sons of one of my regular companions, both of whom turned out be much smarter than either their mother or me, and so we managed to solve the puzzle. I'd certainly do others in the series, but only when surrounded by younger and more flexible minds than mine.

Faiyum: We gave this a go with four players and it was proved to be a very good game at that number.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal: A fine, fine game; highly recommended. There's loads of stuff in the base box which I still haven't played with, but enjoyed the circuit from the expansion which we tried.

The Hunt: A very enjoyable asymmetric two-player game about the Graf Spee raiding merchant ships in the South Atlantic at the outbreak of WWII and the Royal Navy's search for it.

Imperial: This is Diplomacy with added cash. We only played it because there were six of us, but it turned out to be well over the heads of most of those taking part. I'd like to give it a go with stronger players.

K2: Climb the world's most dangerous mountain and, if you're lucky, come back down again. I've always enjoyed this and snapped up a second-hand copy of the big box version containing the base game and all the expansions.

Kemet: Blood and Sand: This is an updated version of the original Kemet, which I had played and thought was OK. I was more enthusiastic this time, although whether that's changes in the game or changes in me I wouldn't like to say. 

Lancaster: Haven't played this for years, and ended up teaching it, which wasn't ideal. It's a good game, sort of about the Hundred Years War, but not really.

Magic Rabbit: Likeable, and short, cooperative game where rabbits have to be sorted into numerical order without any communication.

Mesopotamia: Did they carry stones on their heads in Mespotamia? Did they always execute messengers? Reasonably theme free, but nonetheless interesting, pick-up-and-deliver optimization game.

Modern Art: There are four types of auction in this, which was at least three types too many for my brain. I did very badly.

Nusfjord: Will it be wood or will it be fish? Either way money is scarce and the turns you will have throughout the game are even tighter. Difficult to do well against anyone who has played it before.

Obsession: Downton Abbey the board game. I enjoyed it a lot more than the first time I played it. Worker placement with differentiated workers.

The Quacks of Quedlinburg: A popular game that I had never played before and enjoyed when I finally did. Involves push-your-luck and bag-building, both mechanisms which I enjoy.

Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West: Don't worry, no spoilers here. I'd never played a legacy game before, but am enjoying this one. We have played four of the twelve sessions that will make up the whole thing and so far it has exceeded our expectations.

Vegetable Stock: Fun filler.

Wallenstein: Thirty Year War themed, but certainly not a wargame. The main gimmick is a tower into which your armies are poured to resolve combat, but my advice is not to fight if you can avoid it.

World Wonders: Yet another polyomino tile laying game, but with a neat money track concept. It also has nice wooden wonders of the world which get placed alongside your tiles. 

I went to Airecon, the large local boardgaming convention, for the first time this year. It was very good, I caught up with a lot more people than I ever do at wargames shows. The highlight was the bring-and-buy, which is also something that never happens at wargaming shows.

Boardgames June-September 2023

 This is the usual mix of new-to-me and, well, some not new-to-me at all games:

7 Wonders Duel: I hadn't played this in quite a while. It's a really good two player version of the original, which achieves the difficult feat of replacing the card drafting with something just as good.

Canal Mania: Sort of, but not exactly, Ticket to Ride with canals. There's an added element of pick-up and deliver, which was the bit I failed to get to grips with and so ended up way behind. I'd like to play again, just to prove I'm not completely useless; or possibly just to prove that I am.

Clank! Sunken Treasures: I'd never played this version before, but it was fun, with an 'inability to breathe' twist. I also played Clank! Catacombs, and that's still the one I'd recommend.

Dogfight!: Rule the Skies in 20 Minutes!: Yet another lot of exclamation marks! I'm undecided about this, mainly I think because we made the mistake of playing the introductory scenario too many times without moving on to one of the more advanced missions. It's also fairly abstract.

Earth: Meh. I could see this possibly being popular in a world where Terraforming Mars didn't exist.

Expeditions: I have gone on record as saying how much I disliked Scythe, so I was surprised to rather enjoy this 'sequel'. Of course it's no such thing, simply a different game with similar setting and artwork. I never take any notice of theming for Eurogames so that was fine by me. There's very little player interaction so it can be a bit dull when it's not your turn.

Faiyum: A game of draining swampland as advisors to Amenemhet III. We played it two-player and I'm keen to see how it might differ at higher player counts.

Flashpoint: Fire Rescue: I don't generally like cooperative games, but this one's not bad. The roof fell in and killed us all, as it generally does in my experience.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal: I'm going to keep including this one in these lists, just to reinforce how good it is.

Hey, That's My Fish!: What is it with the exclamation marks? I'd never played this filler before, but it's quick and it's fun.

Joan of Arc: A draw and write version of Orléans. After we'd finished we all looked at each other and said "I'd rather play Orléans". Not helped by very small and cramped iconography.

On the Underground: A pleasant game about building tube lines in London, where my local knowledge sadly failed to give me any advantage.

Planet Unknown: Great game, highly recommended. It's basically a multi-player solitaire polyomino tile laying game, except that tile selection is via a lazy Susan meaning that most of the time you have to make do with what you're given. There are more things to concentrate on than you can possibly achieve, so full of choices and decisions.

Red7: This light filler hadn't come out for ages, and to my surprise the group to whom I introduced it treated it really, really seriously and it took forever to play.

Shoot for the Stars: An overproduced little game which exposed just how useless most people seem to be when asked to think about well known things in numerical and quantitative terms. How can anyone not be able to estimate approximately the longest age that a tortoise has been known to live to (*)? I won by a mile.

The End of the Triumvirate: A three player game in which you play Caesar, Pompey or the other one. I really enjoyed its combination of military conflict, trying to raise money and the need to retain political support.

The King is Dead: A very good game which also requires precisely three people and therefore doesn't come out too often. Appeals to players who like to sit there and think "If I do this he will do that, but then she might do this, and then....".

Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries: Another three player game; you may be able to guess that the regular group has been a couple of members down for much of the summer. The map was new to me and I liked its tightness.

Truffle Shuffle: The truffles in question are chocolate, but despite that I didn't really care for it.

* As a hint, it is possible, though disputed, that the same individual tortoise was owned by both Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin.

Board Games April/May 2023

 I have played sufficient new-to-me boardgames in the last couple of months to make it worth writing them up. Here they are, plus a few others of note that have been revisited. Before anyone asks, I still haven't had another go at Scythe.

Black Fleet: A card driven game with ships on a map, where everyone plays all three of pirates, merchantmen and the navy. Good game.

Blueprints: Enjoyable dice drafting and arranging game in which everything I did turned out to have been done earlier and better by someone else.

Cascadia: If I describe this as pleasant it isn't meant to anything other than praise. It's an attractive tile-laying game about wildlife in the Pacific Northwest.

First Empires: I'd never heard of this, but liked it quite a lot. It's a like a roll and write, but without any writing; also involves tech trees.

For Sale: This is one of those games that I had been aware of, but had never played for some reason. It's reminiscent in some ways of High Society and I really liked it.

Hadara: Once again, a game I'd never come across which turned out to be a goodun. Card drafting, set collection, minimal theme.

Hanamikoji: Geisha's Road: A newish two player game. I've never played the original, but this variant is very good. Both players try to attract geishas to their tea house by taking the same four actions as each other, but choose the order in which they do them. It's thinky, but in a manageable way.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal: Now this one I had heard of, because it's been a bit of a hot favourite, no pun intended. It's a card driven Formula 1 game reminiscent of both Flamme Rouge and the Waddington's Formula-1 game I used to play with my cousins in the 1960s. Tremendous fun and highly recommended.

Ice Flow: Another game not seen for years. I love this game, was really pleased to get it to the table and I won as well, so all is right with the world.

K2: Broad Peak: K2 is an excellent game. I had never played this expansion, but it turned out to be every bit as good.

Lost Ruins of Arnak: A game from a coupe of years ago that had a lot of buzz. I finally got round to playing it and thought it deserved the praise it got. Amongst other mechanisms, it's a deck building game in which, for once, you stand a fair chance of getting to play any good cards you buy.

Quartermaster General: Cold War: This one hadn't been played for years, but I had two games of it in the last few weeks. Both times I played the West and both times I came last. It's not quite as good as the WWII version, but still excellent.

Quantum: The third game that hadn't been out for a yonk. It went down well, and I was informed that it's out of print and much sought after on the second-hand market. I'm rich. The game features dice as spaceships and might well appeal to wargamers.

Revolver: Once again it had been several years since Colonel Ned McReady tried to stop the Colty gang escaping to Mexico with the loot from their raid on the bank in Repentance Springs. I'd don't think I'd like to play this all that frequently - it runs on rails a little bit - but it's well worth bringing out from time to time.

TransAmerica: A railway building game you could play with those for whom even Ticket to Ride is a bit challenging ruleswise. The rules might be simple, but there's still quite a lot of game there, especially with six players. Apparently it's out of print and much sought after on the second-hand market. Having said that, I was so taken with it I bought a copy on eBay for £25 without any trouble at all. Perhaps my copy of Quantum hasn't made me rich after all.

Trekking Through History: More to do with history than trekking: there are lots of 'interesting' facts on the cards, but the time-travel theme is very pasted on. It's a drafting, set collection, push your luck game, and a good one.

Twilight Struggle: I'd wanted to play this game for years, and then it seemed like I was playing for years. It is very, very long. There's no denying that it's a really good game, a remarkable design in fact. But did I mention how long it takes? I won as the US, thereby redeeming my failure to win the cold war on either of my attempts using Quartermaster General; my success was almost entirely due to being able to play John Paul II immediately followed by Solidarność.

Village Rails: A very small box which contains a lot of game. It's more trains, with tile laying being the route building mechanism. I'd happily play it again.

Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs. York: No sooner had we got fed up with playing the period with miniatures than it turned up as a boardgame. Think Kingmaker, but with the mechanics occasionally not really matching the theme. I enjoyed it - I won by a distance both times we played it - but I'm not sure I'd recommend seeking it out specially. 

PotCXIXpouri

 “Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.” 

-Lemony Snicket

The lack of posts here is not because I begrudge the time to write them, or indeed the sheer hard work necessary to maintain the high standards for which this blog is known. It's not even because I'm not doing stuff, it's more that I've not only done that stuff before, but increasingly I have also written about doing it before.

One area in which that doesn't particularly apply is boardgaming, where I have played a fair number of new-to-me games recently, and I shall return to that subject shortly. One of those games had a Wars of the Roses theme, which reminds me that the new version of Kingmaker was released last week. It looks good in the photos and some of the revisions seen intriguing - pre-packed factions for example. However, the estimated playing time is up to five hours, and that alone means that I shan't be bothering.

Anyway, back to stuff I've done before and have now done again. Firstly there was the Stephen Daldry production of 'An Inspector Calls', which was just as good as ever. Secondly there was Walter Trout, who was...etc. etc. Trout, who looks in remarkably good nick for a man in his seventies with a transplanted liver, played at the King's Hall in Ilkley and rather bemused the audience by referring to the great views as the band drove over the mountains to the town. The views are indeed great, but you would have thought that someone from a country where they really do have mountains would have spotted that Ilkley Moor is relatively low rise. 

Last but not least there's wargaming, where we trotted out that old favourite Möckern. Actually, it's not particularly a favourite of mine; the French always win. However, there aren't that many published scenarios for Epic C&C Napoleonics, and even fewer for which I have the figures. On top of that I already have the map and OOB printed and to hand so laziness won out. It still gave an enjoyable game though. I shall only include the one photo, but it does show the defining moment of the evening. For those not familiar with the Epic rules, two cards are played each turn; one from your hand and one from a shared tableau. Peter, playing the French, chose Cavalry Charge from the table and followed up with Bayonet Charge from his hand. If you're going to play, play aggressively. 

First Quarter Boardgaming 2023

 Just (mainly) the games new to me.

Anno 1800: This was fun; it's only a shame that I didn't listen more closely to the explanation of how one was likely to win. It's a tech tree game really, but the point of advancing up the tech tree was quite clearly described as being to attract new people to one's territory and then keep them happy. I managed the second part OK, but when we came to add up the scores I had a pathetically small number of inhabitants all of whom were wallowing in low scoring luxury. I'd like to give this another go.

Clank!: Catacombs: The original Clank! was a good game, but this much better. The main change is a modular board, which means that each game is different and allowing players to wander off in different directions, although the size and shape of one's table may influence this in practice. I really liked this.

Fürstenfeld: Economic game about brewing. I wasn't hugely enthused.

Mosaic: A Story of Civilisation: The subtitle is actually 'A Story of Civilization', but the blog must maintain its standards. This has tech tree elements, with a bits of set collection, area control, resource management and indeed very abstracted military conflict. The absolute best bit about this game is how quick each of one's turns is, meaning very little down time. On the other hand with five players, it does go on a bit, although by the third time through we had knocked an hour off the duration. Worth a look.

Mush!Mush!: This isn't a new-to-me game at all, but I can't resist writing about it because it was six years since it last got played. It's a husky racing game, with a clever central mechanism and works well with higher player counts. I hope to get this back to the table this year.

Scythe: This game is currently rated 16th overall on boardgamegeek, which inevitably means that I don't like it. I've had numerous opportunities to play it since it came out in 2016, but never bothered because I didn't think I'd enjoy it. Admittedly that judgement was mainly based on thematic and aesthetic grounds. It's set in some sort of alternate 1920s history in some sort of unspecified geography, precisely the type of fantasy/post-apocalyptic/steam-punk bollocks that gets right on my wick. Furthermore, it has a combination of a few ridiculous looking plastic pieces, which are not in scale with each other, and a few equally random sized wooden meeples making it a visual abomination. Anyway, I finally played it and hated it. I have been persuaded to give it another go tomorrow on the probably specious grounds that it will grow on me second time around. We shall see.

Newish boardgames

 Lack of posting means lack of boardgames reviews, which is a shame because I've played one or two good ones. These are the games I played for the first time since I last did a roundup:

Concordia: In the finest tradition of the blog, having said that these are new games let's start with one I had played before a few years ago, but couldn't remember at all. It probably didn't help my memory that we played on a different map, this time Britannia. In my previous review I said that I chose a strategy and stuck to it despite the fact that it was a wrong one. This time I chose  strategy, stuck to it, and it was the right one. Not a bad game.

Dandelions: This is a roll and move game, which is about as old-fashioned a mechanism as you can get. However there are a couple of simple twists which, combined with its very short length, make it a neat little game.

Dune: Imperium: This is the pick of the new games I've played and it's easy to see why it is so highly rated. I don't want to suggest that wargamers are only interested in fighting, but this game combines worker placement with a combat system. You don't have to fight every battle, but you'll have to take part in some if you want to win. The combat part reminds me of Condottiere, which is high praise, in that it's crucial to decide when to go all in and, equally, to judge when ones opponents are going to do the same. Highly recommended.

Endless Winter: Paleoamericans: Another big, heavy new game with a buzz around it. It was fine, but fell a bit short for me. In particular while the first three of the four rounds it is played over were quite meaty in terms of decisions and actions, the final round was a big anti-climax. It also takes up a vast amount of table space.

Glasgow: A game about building the second city of the empire, so lots of tenement tiles. I probably need to give this another go before passing judgement.

Kluster: A strange game, or perhaps activity, with some very strong magnets. 

Lacrimosa: Based on the writing of Mozart's Requiem, so top marks for unusual theme. It's OK, quite reminiscent of Rococo, a game I like. I have a ticket for a performance of the Requiem in May next year; that will probably get a longer review than the game.

Obsession: It is seemingly obligatory to refer to this as 'Downton Abbey the board game', notwithstanding the fact that the game is set in the Victorian period whilst the soap opera - or so I understand, obviously I've never seen it - takes place between the wars. I thought it was a very average worker placement game, but perhaps that was sour grapes after I bust a gut to marry above my station only to find that it was temporary and I had to do it all again the following turn.

Spirit Island: A co-operative game, but better than a lot of others I have played. We successfully defended our island against the invaders, but no real thanks to me as it turned out I had not fully understood the victory conditions so the end came as an abrupt surprise. 

Take it Easy!: Quite an old game - 1980s I think - about laying pipes and using a bingo-style mechanism. I genuinely thought I was doing very well, but it's a spatial awareness game, so it turned out that I wasn't.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition: A card game version of the bigger game. I didn't really see the point.

Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam: A twenty-minute version of TtR with the same core mechanisms, but a smaller map and fewer pieces to place. The latter change in particular means there is absolutely no room to mess about; you have to be on it from the start. Very similar, and equally good, is Ticket to Ride: London. 

Villagers: If the original source material for Dandelions is Ludo, then this is Happy Families with Mr Bun the Baker replaced by Lumberjacks, Speelunkers, Freemasons and, well, Bakers. It's fine.

Walkie Talkie: Passes the time until you realise that there aren't any enforceable rules, and it therefore probably isn't actually a game at all.

Lukewarm

 And I'm not talking about the weather which, at nineteen degrees and raining, is about par for high summer in a normal year in the lower Wharfe valley. Last night there was a full turnout in the legendary wargames room: Peter (*), James (**), Mark (***) and me. We had a first game of 'Soldiers of Napoleon', a new set of rules which are creating a bit of a buzz.

And the verdict: they were all right. I got the impression that the others were more enthusiastic than I was, but it all has to be interpreted in the context of us almost certainly not playing them correctly on this first occasion. I like a card driven game, so that aspect was good. It uses a system whereby each card can be used in a variety of ways, but only one can be chosen each time you play it. It's a very common mechanism in boardgaming, but I'm not sure whether I've ever come across it in wargaming before. I also quite liked the relatively simple idea it uses to encourage one to switch successive activations from one command to another. Combat resolution seemed very bland and I was bemused by artillery being so underpowered and vulnerable on a Naploeonic battlefield. The biggest disappointment was the much vaunted 'How goes the day?' concept of one playing a small section of a larger battle with what happens elsewhere affecting what's happening in your sector. All it actually amounts to is rolling dice every turn and the winner getting some victory points.

We shall carry on next week, with the biggest challenge being to stop James introducing house rules before we've even finished the first game.

* Who I'm very pleased to say looked well after an unavoidable absence.

** Who seemed a bit out of sorts; perhaps it was the heat.

*** Who was wearing shorts. I know one can't expect everyone to live up to my standards - I always wargame in a tie and sleeveless sweater - but really!

All you women, now stand in line...

 ...I'll give you some lovin' in an hour's time

It's a long time since I did some boardgame reviews, and it's even longer since I combined them with a Ronnie Hawkins track. Let's start with the recently departed Hawk:

And on to the boardgames:

7 Wonders Duel: A two-player version of the original, which is equally good. It doesn't really work with one of my regular playmates whose Peace Studies degree - featured here once or twice in the past - precludes her from ever engaging with the military side of things, meaning she loses an awful lot of games by being conquered. It highlights what to me is an obvious practical flaw in being a pacifist, namely that one has rejected one potential solution before one even knows what the problem is.

Bargain Quest: This is a clunker. To start with it's about heroes fighting monsters, which is not really my sort of thing. But the twist is that the players don't even get to take the part of the heroes. Instead you play shopkeepers seeking to lure the fighting men into your shop to fit themselves out with armour, weapons etc. Who on earth thought this would be a good idea?

Carcassonne: Great game for two people, bit slow with more players. We only play with the Inns and Cathedrals expansion.

Cat Café: A roll-and-write game about cats and the ludicrous things that people buy for them. Probably best to visit a mad cat lady to orient yourself before you play it. Not a bad little game though.

Concept: This is a sort of cross between Codenames and Pictionary with no drawing involved. To my surprise I rather enjoyed it.

Cover Your Assets: I enjoyed this one as well, possibly because the winning strategy was obvious to me, but not apparently to everyone else, which meant I won with ease.

Fairy Tale Inn: Despite the theme and the spatial awareness part (it takes place on a kind of Connect Four vertical grid) I like this. It needs a wider variety of characters; given how many fairy tales there are, there should be plenty of scope. It's a two-player game.

Ganz schön clever: A very good roll-and-write game where you try to choose dice in such a way that they give you not just as high a score as possible, but also the best bonus combinations. It plays up to four, but I prefer it with two as you get to do more. The sequel Doppelt so clever is just as good, although I haven't yet cracked the best strategy for the blue dice in that one.

Half Truth: It's a trivia game, but one that caters for varying levels of confidence in one's answer. Not especially memorable though.

Jaipur: A two-player trading game, which is quite unusual in itself. It's an enjoyably tight game in which one has to choose one's moment to collect camels for fear of the next cards being drawn all being jewels.

Lost Cities: This is a cracking two-player card game, ostensibly about explorers' expeditions into the unknown, but actually a challenge to avoid throwing away something your opponent may want without clogging up your own hand with dead wood.

Patchwork: Another good two-player game. Get buttons into your design early is my advice.

Pit: Now here's a blast from the past, 1903 to be precise. I doubt that I had played it for fifty years. Still good fun in the right environment.

Power Grid: Excellent game. We played the China map and I won.

Qwinto: Das Kartenspiel: Not available in English - I think my copy is Dutch - it's a flip-and-write version of a dice game. Despite the cards only being laid out in a two by two matrix I struggle with the spatial awareness aspect. Pathetic really.

Qwirkle: I got this out to demonstrate it to  a couple who were looking for a game to play with their 8 year old grandson. Given that they were completely bladdered when we did so I'm not sure how well they were able to judge it; your bloggist has become very censorious in the years since he last had a drink. For the record, I think it would be a good game to play with one's grandchildren.

Sagrada: A rather pretty game where you lay out coloured dice to imitate designing a stained glass window. The theme doesn't really carry forwards into the scoring, but it's all perfectly light and pleasant.

Shanghaien: As the name might suggest the theme is shanghaiing sailors in Shanghai. Neither the rules nor the scoring are that intuitive, but when you get the hang of them it's a good, thinky, two-player game. It's out of print though.

Splendor: This is the game I have played the most in recent months. It's not a gamers' game, indeed most serious gamers turn their nose up at it, but when playing with non-gamers it hits the spot. No real theme, but easy to pick up and with very tactile components. There are a variety of strategies and the winning one will inevitably be something your opponents are doing.

Spyfall: Not for me, but then social deduction games never are.

Startups: From Oink Games, this is a small but interesting game that was perfectly OK. You really have to put to one side anything you might know about the way that investment in start-up companies actually works.

Trek: Another old game, 1960 this time, but not one that I had played before; mountains not stars. We played with an original copy, with the rules printed in the lid and poorly moulded plastic pieces. It was inevitably unsophisticated, with a lot of 'take that', but also relatively short. I'd have another go in the unlikely event that I bumped into someone who owned it.

Targi: I think I might have mentioned before that this is my top recommendation for those seeking a two-player game. It's excellent. 

Wingspan: One of the best-selling games of recent years. The gameplay is fine, although there isn't a great deal of player interaction, and it's certainly very nice to look at.

Zillionaires On Mars: I'm not generally a fan of auction games, mainly because no group of players ever seems to collectively judge values in a way that makes them work. Inflation on Mars seems even worse than on Earth and all bids are in zillions, which I'm not sure makes it any easier to pitch them at the right level.

Maquis - New Content

 I have mentioned before that I own a number of solo board games, and also that I virtually never play them; they didn't even get brought out very often during lockdown. Of course that is more to do with me than with any problems with the games themselves, which are mostly clever and challenging designs. That is certainly true of what I think is my favourite among them: Maquis. It's a game that thematically appeals to me as well, as one takes the part of the French Resistance and tries to complete various missions of sabotage, spying, infiltration, propaganda and the like without being caught by the collaborators of the Milice or by the occupying German forces. A second edition has just been published containing additional missions and associated playing pieces. The additional material was also made available as an expansion to those owning the first edition.

Obviously I don't need to explain to fellow wargamers why I would buy extra bits for something that never hits the table in the first place, and so I inevitably sent off for a copy. The missions in the original had their difficulty coded at one star (easier) or two stars (harder), whereas the new missions are given a rating of three stars. I never found any of the first lot of missions - you have to complete two within the allotted number of moves in order to win - to be easy, and these new ones are as difficult as you'd expect. I have so far failed badly to 'Destroy the AA Guns', the main problem as I see it being that the surest route to get weapons is via an air drop, you can't have an air drop if AA guns are present and you need weapons to get rid of the AA guns. In fairness, the resources available have improved including the availability of forged documents so one can bluff one's way past patrols instead of shooting it out with them. There's also now a 'Fixer' character, who can provide whatever you want, for a fee of course.

So, still highly recommended as long as you overlook the fact that I don't actually play it much myself. Having said that, I shall certainly be giving all of the new missions a go before I put it back in the cupboard. Next up is 'Free the Resistance Leader': 'A resistance leader has been captured and will be transported away from town soon. Free him from the occupiers...or make sure he at least can't tell them his secrets'.

2020

 It has long been a self-indulgence of mine to write an extensive post at the end of each year outlining in completely unnecessary detail things, mainly cultural, that I have done. For reasons that I don't need to explain I find that this time around I can't be arsed. A year ago I summed up 2019 by saying that it had been, as I had predicted, worse than 2018. I make no claim that I extended that to forecast a miserable 2020 as well. Still, Trump lost - several times in fact - so it wasn't a complete wash out.

When I looked back at my diary I was rather surprised at how much  I had actually done in the circumstances, although oddly enough I seem to have read fewer books that the previous year. I played nine wargames - none since March 2nd - and traditionalists will be pleased to note that one of them was Sidi Rezegh.

Quite a few two player boardgames have hit the table at the Casa Epictetus. Conscious that I haven't suggested a boardgame in quite a while can I point you towards Targi, which I highly recommend to those whose bubble only includes only one other (*); and it's even better with the expansion.

Of course many people have left us this year. One to whose music I have been listening a lot since he died is John Prine. So let's wrap up the year by listening to him tell us just what he's doing right now:

                                                        “Hope

                                                         Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,

                                                        Whispering 'it will be happier'...”

                                                                      - Tennyson

Peace and love to you all.

* at a time

Light relief

"This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers." - P.G. Wodehouse

And also, I would suggest, suited to whatever emotional and psychological state in which we find ourselves. I myself have retreated to the Blandings novels of Wodehouse, from the first of which that quote is taken. I do still read the newspaper, of necessity concentrating on the bits about the various incompetent, delusional and self-obsessed leaders in whose hands we find ourselves, and the not unrelated fact that we're all going to die. However, I also actively seek out those few articles which offer a complete distraction from current worries, and so was extremely pleased to find the story in today's Guardian about Amanda Liberty.

The piece reported that Ms Liberty, a young lady from Leeds who is engaged to a chandelier, had failed in her complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation after being nominated for a Dagenham Award by a columnist in one of the tabloids. (For those not familiar with the London Underground, Dagenham is three stops past Barking) It would seem that while the media are forbidden to mock people because of their sexuality, that only applies when the object of the their affection is a person and not, well, an object.

This is all very amusing - except possibly for any innocent light fittings in her vicinity - but what really grabbed my attention was the dawning realisation that I had met the lady in question, and indeed had recorded the event in this very blog. It would seem that she adopted her current surname whilst in a previous relationship with the Statue of Liberty, a period when, as I saw with my own eyes, she would go about her everyday business dressed up as her beloved. The people of Yorkshire are, as they are always pointing out to anyone who will listen, not quite the same as those from elsewhere.