Boardgames

[Auzette]

Sounds like a nice, nostalgic boardgame Christmas, Gwyn!

My Christmas was STUFFED with board games, and I was in Heaven!!!!!

Dominion: Seaside - Crazy new additions to the game make this an absolute winner.

Castle Panic - Kids ADORE this game, it's their new favorite in the vein of Pandemic

Mystery Rummy (Jack the Ripper) - Tense and fun, like the other MR games.

Endeavor - One of our meatier games, this one is good but not necessarily conversation provoking. Love it, but it's not for everyone

Samurai: Card Game - So so, it's more of a puzzle than a game.

Warhammer:Invasion LCG - Decent game, a Magic:The Gathering Lite, but amusing nonetheless

Airships - Yahztee with blimps theme! Clever

Sticks and Stones - Vote still out.

Pocket Battles - Haven't played it yet. Looks intriguing, but not probably a heavily played game I suspect. It's reall hard to find someone that will agree to play a game with you that's called "Pocket Battles". Sigh.

CardCassone Card Game - WAY less lame than the Ticket To Ride Card game, not earth shattering but an amusing filler.

Small World expansions - Worth the money.

Roma II - MUCH better than the original. Having the card text printed on the cards (instead of having to guess the icons and match them up to a cheat sheet) means we've already played this more than the original.

Monopoly Deal - Had a tournament last Sunday, twelve people in a points round, followed by a "Grand Championship". People LOVED it, the games are quick, and it was fun enough that they've already planned the next one.

[splusmer]

Gabriele just got Small World from a friend of hers.  We'll have to have that friend over to dinner so she can teach it to us (I expect one of the bigger blocks to us playing more games is that neither of us really likes to have to learn the game on our own before being able to teach the other).

[splusmer]

My game closet is currently nearly unusable (too many games to fit on shelves), so I'm looking into organizing ideas to help clean it up.  During the search, I came upon this picture, which gives me ideas for how to solve my other problem, a surface to play games on, particularly ones I might want to leave set up for long periods (notice the sliding game table in the middle of the shelving unit):

[Pokke]

For those who want to see what it's all about, a friend of mine made a video of Essen Spiel 2009.
Check out the chaos! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcnmx_4LJuY

[splusmer]

Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  Oh my...  Spiel!  *drool*

I recognize a lot of those games' names from discussions in the game 'casts I listen to, especially after the Spiel des Jahre awards.  Aldie didn't look like what I'd expected (but then how often do people look like what you imagined?).  Stronghold looks cool. although that one unnamed game that looked like it had actual 3D walls on the board did too.

[splusmer]

When picking up my wargame today I couldn't resist finally getting Hive, especially since it's a fast two player game (always like those for after-kid-to-bed-play-in-front-of-TV sessions with my wife). I also got the iPhone version to help me learn (may have Gabriele get it too for the times when we're waiting around somewhere and don't have the munchkin to entertain).

[Pokke]

Excellent game! Enjoy!

[The only thing is dislike about it has nothing to do with the game itself, but it's about that terrible uggly plastic "bag" that comes with it and which completely contradicts with the zen-like beauty of the pieces. Easily solved of course... ]

[splusmer]

Played my first game of Puerto Rico last night.  I came in second by just a couple of doubloons!  I can trace my loss to a single oh-so-clever decision on my part late in the game, too.  Pretty rare when you can do that!  It was a lot of fun, but that was partly because it was my first game night in months--just a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.  Only game I had time to get in, but worth the time.

[Venture]

That's one of the awesome points in Puerto Rico is that you can look back and see where you should have done (or not done) some action.  Still one of my all-time favorite games!

[Venture]

I'm thinking of printing out and playing this little game.  A solitaire space infantry squad game.  Decent reviews too!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/66781/space-infantry

[splusmer]

You know, that's the kind of thing I'd almost take to a high-quality print shop (where I might be paying a couple of bucks a page or more).  Would sure be nice to get the components well-mounted, too--I wonder if my pre-school Elmer's glue skills would be up to the task?

[Venture]

Looks like Lock n Load picked up Space Infantry for P500. Saves me the trouble and cost of printing it out all nice by myself!

http://www.locknloadgame.com/default.asp

[Gwyn]

You know, that's the kind of thing I'd almost take to a high-quality print shop (where I might be paying a couple of bucks a page or more).  Would sure be nice to get the components well-mounted, too--I wonder if my pre-school Elmer's glue skills would be up to the task?

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but around here you can take paper stuff to a frame shop and they will vacuum press it onto foam-core board for you, if that works.  They can probably vaccum press it to any kind of base if you provide that as well -- it's just spray adhesive on the back of the paper part and a quick pass through the press.  I've had things with fold creases in them go through this and come out beautifully, so it'd probably be great for your purposes too.

You could use a spray adhesive on your own, too.  It'd do a better job than even the best Elmer's glue skills but could still result in air bubbles or small creases.  The vacuum really does the tidiest job.

[splusmer]

Ooooo!  I could mount every single one of my wargame maps...  I can just see my wife's look when I tell her I need a closet (or a whole room) just for foam core boards! 

It would be a good idea for the games I actually intend to play--the folding and unfolding can really mess the maps up quickly (sometimes they come with cracks in the finish right from the printers, and it only gets worse).  I have one map from a game I got from eBay where the guy laminated it so it could roll up, and that's always a possibility too, but the ability to create a "mounted" map sounds really cool.  Thanks for the suggestion!

[Cragmyre]

On another forum I read about Colosseum being on sale for just over 20 ( comes to about 30 w/shipping ) - not sure if others here would be interested, but here is the site: http://www.cardhaus.com/cgi-local/shop3.pl/SID=7873095272959784325/picture=139467

[splusmer]

I believe I've posted in the past about Petroglyph's board game, Panzer General: Allied Assault (which was a spin-off of their card-based/turn-based game on, I think, the 360, which was in turn a spin-off of the old Panzer General PC games).  Well, in addition to the "Russian Assault" version of Panzer General, they're now releasing Guardians of Graxia:

http://www.petroglyphgames.com/bg/guardiansofgraxia/about.html

Hey--it's boardgame Fantasy General!