Spiel: Boardgaming in the UK

During January, I managed to play 16 games of 14 different titles, with 11 of them being new to me. The new games were:

== NEW GAMES ==

Arkham Horror: The Card Game – 3 plays –  8 
First Published 2016

This is a very nice adventure game for one or two players (although I’ve only played solo) and has a nice story-telling aspect to it. I’ve tried two of the characters so far and you need to play each differently to suit their strengths/weaknesses. I’m looking forward to more plays of this.

Noch mal! – 1 play –  8 
First Published 2016

This is another “roll dice and mark things on a sheet” game but this one works extremely well with decisions becoming more critical as you get closer to the end-game. The solo rules work well and the multi-player version has a modest mean streak where the active player can choose particular dice to deny the others access to them. Really good fun.

Basari: Das Kartenspiel – 1 play –  8 
First Published 2014

No surpise here as Basari: Das Kartenspiel is the board game distilled to card game form with very few changes. I really enjoy the board game and this gives exactly the same feel in a more compact package.

The Game: Extreme – 1 play –  8 
First Published 2016

The additional actions on the extreme cards add an extra element to consider in playing your cards as the actions can really hurt you if played at the wrong time. I like that this ramps up the difficulty while not really changing the gameplay. I’m happy to still play the original rules but this version makes a change from that on occasion.

Rent a Hero – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2012

Simple card game of bluffing your way to collecting six different heroes before anyone else. Easy to pick up and good fun as a quick family game.

Römisch Pokern – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2015

Push your luck dice game where you try to form valid roman numerals from the dice and you bust if you can’t. Short play time but needs to be as non-active players are not involved until it gets to their turn. At higher player counts, the downtime may be too much.

Pocket Madness – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2016

I’m a big fan of rummy games and this is another really good example with a Cthulhu theme (although the theme isn’t very strong). I nearly rated this an 8 but the set-up for each round is a bit cumbersome / time-consuming. That said, the gameplay is quick and the two different round-resolution methods makes scoring interesting. Good fun.

Kingdomino – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2016

Nice tile drafting and laying game with tiles displaying one or two of six different landscapes, and groups of connected landscapes scoring based on the number of crowns appearing on that landscape. Another nice family-weight game from Bruno Cathala.

Freaky – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2016

I never got to play Absacker (which Freaky is based on) but this is a nice card matching game where you play cards in columns to try and get four to match one of three characteristics and claim the cards in the column. Most cards collected when the deck runs out wins. Very simple and a good relaxing way to spend 15 minutes.

A Game of Thrones: Hand of the King – 1 play –  6 
First Published 2016

The card illustrations are great but I found the gameplay to be very pedestrian, with turn choices being pretty obvious. I have no need to try this again.

Tiny Epic Western – 1 play –  5 
First Published 2016

Another Tiny Epic game and this one turns out to be my least favourite. The gameplay works but I didn’t feel it was very engaging. I might give it another try but I’d probably rather just play Galaxies.

== STATE OF THE COLLECTION ==

I added 3 new games to the collection: The Dunwich Legacy and Curse of the Rougarou expansions to Arkham Horror: The Card Game and Vienna. I also reacquierd one game so my total collection now stands at 565.

My list of unplayed games has come down from 28 to 20 and my Game of the Month was Arkham Horror: The Card Game.

2016 saw me play 133 games of 119 different titles and 71 of these were new to me during the year. Comparing this to previous years, the games played are down a lot but I had expected this due to my house move and the consequent loss of my regular game group, family bereavements and illness, and general lack of opportunities to play. Here are the totals for the last several years:

Year Total Different
2016  133     119
2015  314     205
2014  335     219
2013  234     155
2012  239     154
2011  200     156
2010  208    157
2009 229    157

My full list of games played in 2016 is here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My most played games were Castles of Burgundy; The Card Game and Molkky which both saw 4 plays – first time no single game has racked up five or more plays. 6 games were played three times, 15 were played twice and 98 of them were played just once. My unplayed games list started 2016 at 20 and fell down to zero at one point but is currently sitting at 28. I need to get this down to single figures again fairly soon this year.

My six picks for the best games I played for the first time in 2016 were Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, Burgle Bros, Automobiles, Dark Moon, Mystic Vale and Steam Time. As with last year, I’ve also done a six picks of two-player games featuring 13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis, Holmes: Sherlock & Mycroft, Matcha, Onitama, Tides of Madness and Hanamikoji. None of the games on either list is a real standout game for me and, as I’ve avoided all the hot Eurogames this year, it’s not been a classic year for gaming for me. Let’s hope 2017 turns out to be a bit better.

As far as the collection is concerned, I sold off another large batch of games in the first half of the year but have acquired quite a few in the last couple of months. Hence the total has come down again from 617 to 561. I’d like to do some more trimming in 2017 so expect to see some geeklist auctions in the near future.

Over the course of December, I managed to play just 12 games of 10 different titles, with 7 of them being new to me. The new games were:

== NEW GAMES ==

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle – 3 plays –  8 
First Published 2016

I purchased this from Amazon US, as it isn’t going to be licenced for release in the UK. A deck builder where you play through the seven books in the series with a new deck to be opened each game (providing you defeat the previous game). The first couple of decks are fairly easy because the game eases you into the gameplay, but the third deck ramps up the difficulty and we were defeated at our first attempt. Very good if you are a fan of the books or films.

Fabled Fruit – 1 play –  8 
First Published 2016

This is a very good worker placement / set collection game from Friedemann Friese where you only play with a fraction of the locations in each game but subsequent games start off from the set of locations that you finished the last game with. Play is very straightforward and very quick as you race to complete your sets or mess with other players’ hands to slow them down. Interested to see how each game changes as you play more.

Hanamikoji – 1 play –  8 
First Published 2013

I’ve been intrigued to try this ever since people got to play it at Essen but it doesn’t look like it’ll appear in the UK for a while so I created a homemade version and really enjoyed the way the game plays although it can be over very quickly if things don’t work out the way you’d planned. I’ll definitely be getting an official copy as soon as I can.

DREIst! – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2016

Simple card game of trying to get rid of your cards before your opponents can, by playing to rows or columns to make a row of three or more cards of the same colour or a column of three or more different colours. The solo game has a neat way for your AI opponent to play cards and my one play was very close.

Limes – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2014

I’ve been curious to try Limes for a while and picked up a copy just before Christmas. Reminiscent of Carcassonne, you’re laying tiles and placing meeples to try and achieve the best score when you have completed a 4×4 grid. Nice puzzle and plays identically as a solo and two player game.

Dice Stars – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2016

This is a very good “roll some dice and mark off things on your score sheet” game. The solo version that I’ve tried was a good challenge as the AI player scores each turn based on what dice you’ve left in the pool, which adds another element to think about when choosing which dice to use yourself.

Exploding Kittens – 1 play –  6 
First Published 2015

I got a chance to play this over Christmas and I quite enjoyed it despite me being first to be eliminated. The card play is fairly obvious but it’s meant to be played fast and you can never be sure of the outcome. I particularly like the fact that the deck acts as both a timer and to add to the tension as it is depleted.

== STATE OF THE COLLECTION ==

I added 18 new games to the collection: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, Carcassonne: Star Wars, Basari: Das Kartenspiel, Noch Mal, Dice Stars, Legends, Arkham Horror: The Card Game, Limes, Romisch Pokern, X Nimmt, Schwupps, Freaky, DREIst, Sea of Clouds, Pocket Madness, Rent a Hero, The Game: Extreme and Abyss. I also reacquired 1 title so my total collection now stands at 561.

My list of unplayed games has shot up from 15 to 28 and my Game of the Month was Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle.

In November, I was lucky enough to spend two weeks cruising around the Caribbean with Jan and, although I took several two-player games with me, we tended to do other stuff rather than play games. We did get to try seven titles over the course of the fortnight but I’m not sure if my mind was elsewhere as I had to suffer the indignity of losing all seven. (Call yourself a gamer?)

Over the whole month though, I managed to play just 9 games of 9 different titles, with 7 of them being new to me. The new games were:

Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu – 1 play –  8 
First Published 2016

Familiar yet different. This was an excellent revamp of Pandemic, changing a number of elements of play and yet retaining the overall feel of the original. I really enjoyed this and was beaten fairly easily playing it solo with two characters. Looking forward to playing it again.

Tides of Madness – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2016

This was also familiar yet different, but this is much closer to the original with just the addition of insanity icons to some of the cards to give another factor to weigh up because, as well as trying to score points, you also need to avoid gaining too much insanity as this can cause you to lose. Good stuff and a slight improvement on Tides of Time in my view.

Multiuniversum – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2016

Interesting puzzle game that I’ve only played solo so far. You’re collecting card combinations to use to close portals, which will gain you VPs while also hopefully closing the right mix of portals for bonuses.

Matcha – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2015

Very clever two-player only card game where you’re trying to outwit your opponent to win ingredients for the perfect blend of tea. Some tough choices in picking which cards to play and working out what your opponent is trying to achieve and yet it plays really quickly. Very nice game that should see a fair bit of play.

Dice Heist – 1 play –  7 
First Published 2016

Simple yet fun game of collecting dice and then gambling when to try and grab the loot from four different museums with three different types of loot presenting different scoring opportunities. Light and family friendly. This was Jan’s favourite game we played on holiday.

HMS Dolores – 1 play –  6 
First Published 2016

A prisoner’s dilemma theme mixed with a rock paper scissors mechanism sounds an interesting mix and it sort of works but, with two, it fell a bit flat – and, to be honest, I’m not sure adding more players would make it more engaging. Pity.

The Lord of the Rings: Journey to Mordor – 1 play –  6 
First Published 2015

Perfectly playable yahtzee type game with a LotR veneer but the decisions were reasonably obvious and the outcome of the race against the nazgul seemed to be purely down to the luck of avoiding rolling nazgul symbols. I’d play again – and I want to see if the advanced variant makes any difference, although I suspect it is marginal – but there are several other dice games I’d pick before this if asked.

I added 7 new games to the collection: Tiny Epic Western, HMS Dolores, Dice Heist, Lord of the rings: Journey to Mordor, Flamme Rouge, Honshu and A Game of Thrones: Hand of the King. My total collection now stands at 542.

My list of unplayed games is unchanged from last month at 15 and my Game of the Month was Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu.

My kickstarter copy of Tiny Epic Western has finally arrived. Very nice production and the gameplay looks interesting. Hoping to play soon.