Just adding to this, all COIN games (aside from the mentioned Fire in the Lake: Cuba Libre, Andean Abyss, A Distant Plain and the upcoming Liberty or Death and Falling Sky) could be options, as they bot serve the wargamer and the heavy-euro gamers. It is mostly about selecting the theme that you are most interested in (for me that’s now Cuba Libre and in the near future Liberty or Death and Falling Sky). And Vital has other games aside CO2, where I personally really like The Gallerist, and Vinhos has just started a Kickstarter for the new edition. Thumbs up for Polis from me, too. And Hannibal: Rome vs Carthago could be another option, at least if 2 players is enough (both Hannibal and Polis only play 2). And there are Histogames with some wonderful titles, for me it’s Wir sind das Volk which is a very thematic political euro about the two german countries from 49 to 89, but if you need 3 players there is Maria about the war between Austria-Hungary, France and Prussia, or for even more players Friedrich. Maria and Friedrich are no options for me, sadly, as they require 3 players minimum (the 2p variant for Maria doesn’t get high notes).

No, many campaigns started to do proper research on ways to ship and get much lower shipping costs. And that’s not just the bigger companies with existing connections. Quite often there are ways to settup direct delivery to hubs in EU the production factory has connections with, or similar solutions. Sure, if you get Cthulhu Wars, your shipping will be around 50 $ for a base box – but that’s a big pile of plastic and maps and stuff in a gigantic box. We are not talking Cthulhu Wars here, though. A base game at a price of 59 $ just doesn’t fly when you throw in shipping of 40 $. It is way out of proportion. At that price I would expect something along the 10-15$ range. Maybe 20$ if there is plastic of noticeable weight included.

No, many campaigns started to do proper research on ways to ship and get much lower shipping costs. And that’s not just the bigger companies with existing connections. Quite often there are ways to settup direct delivery to hubs in EU the production factory has connections with, or similar solutions. Sure, if you get Cthulhu Wars, your shipping will be around 50 $ for a base box – but that’s a big pile of plastic and maps and stuff in a gigantic box. We are not talking Cthulhu Wars here, though. A base game at a price of 59 $ just doesn’t fly when you throw in shipping of 40 $. It is way out of proportion. At that price I would expect something along the 10-15$ range. Maybe 20$ if there is plastic of noticeable weight included.

Yep, Thief’s Market is the answer for the question Dice Bazaar poses, at least for me. Custom dice, better (well, this is of course totally subjective, I just happen to like it better) artwork, cheaper price and for me no shipping costs, which means 17$ vs 42$. Earlier delivery, too. And a well-known company with solid track record.

Yep, Thief’s Market is the answer for the question Dice Bazaar poses, at least for me. Custom dice, better (well, this is of course totally subjective, I just happen to like it better) artwork, cheaper price and for me no shipping costs, which means 17$ vs 42$. Earlier delivery, too. And a well-known company with solid track record.

For Among the Stars (at least the base set – don’t have any of the expansions) you can switch the drafting from closed-hand drafting to open-tableau drafting like with Suburbia. It’s a fun way to teach people about values of cards – they are openly visible, so it’s easy to talk about. Just make sure you only use civs that don’t want to go at other players hands, obviously. When you later do closed-hand drafts, they will know more about what each card can do and how it works.

For Among the Stars (at least the base set – don’t have any of the expansions) you can switch the drafting from closed-hand drafting to open-tableau drafting like with Suburbia. It’s a fun way to teach people about values of cards – they are openly visible, so it’s easy to talk about. Just make sure you only use civs that don’t want to go at other players hands, obviously. When you later do closed-hand drafts, they will know more about what each card can do and how it works.

When I played Wiz-War with my friends, I think we got about 50% of the rules wrong. And it didn’t matter a single bit. It’s just a hilarious “throw stuff at your friends and see what blows them up” session with tons of laughter. Sadly it is too chaotic and too word-heavy (you have to read and understand those cards to make use of them) and in a theme that totally turns off my wife, so usually any of the many other games we have will win. But it is totally fun.

When I played Wiz-War with my friends, I think we got about 50% of the rules wrong. And it didn’t matter a single bit. It’s just a hilarious “throw stuff at your friends and see what blows them up” session with tons of laughter. Sadly it is too chaotic and too word-heavy (you have to read and understand those cards to make use of them) and in a theme that totally turns off my wife, so usually any of the many other games we have will win. But it is totally fun.

Aside from the usual mix of Progress: Evolution of Technology (still happening on at least a every-three-days schedule), Paperback and Waggle Dance, I got some games in from kickstarters and BGG market.

One was Hostage Negotiator with all the expansions. Fun little solo game, gives me quite a good story every time I play it, even though it’s usually a story of carnage and dread. At least last time I saved 5 of 8 hostages and eliminated the abductor, only to be thwarted by the 2nd in command. Damn. If I could have told my sniper to just shoot the last two hostages, I would have won, but so it was a loss.

The other was Cuba Libre which I got bought from the BGG market. Great COIN game, am an instant fan of that system. Essentially a very thematic, asymmetric ressource management game that is driven by event cards and where you can play each faction that doesn’t have a player with some AI bots. For me it is meant for solo play again. Catapulted itself way up my list of top games.

I got some Sentinels of the Multiverse in again, after some time not playing it, and remembered what is so much fun (and what is not so much fun – modifiers). Funny enough, when I started out with it, I wasn’t too worried by it’s supposed fiddlyness and while playing it then, it really didn’t bother me – I am kinda used to it from playing MTG. But after some pause in playing it and picking it up again, I was quite happy to play it on my tablet instead of with it’s paper version.

Another solo game that snuck in was Soviet Dawn again. I really adore this fast little state of siege game. It’s really nasty, but isn’t too obvious in being nasty and even if you lose, it’s over quick. And since I played both this and Hostage Negotiator, it really drove home the point I noticed about Hostage Negotiator in that it is structured quite similar to solo war games in that you get the “fog of war” effect where you only know if you succeed in an action after you rolled some dice. You can prepare and can make your chances for success better, but there will always be some insecurity. And probably that is why I prefer COIN over some of the longer state of siege games: most actions in COIN games are deterministic and dice only come in in very few places. I have will-wheaton-levels of bad dice rolls quite often …

You don’t drink whisky from cups while playing some deep and heavy euro game. It would look silly and probably hamper your abilities to manage the game.

And I play games according to my current mood – which might be influenced by seasons, but I didn’t analyze my play log. Could be a worthwhile exercise, but I guess it’s heavily skewed towards the new and shiny, so more related to the board game seasons “pre-Essen” and “post-Essen” and “inbetween Essen” 😉

Aside from the usual mix of Progress: Evolution of Technology (still happening on at least a every-three-days schedule), Paperback and Waggle Dance, I got some games in from kickstarters and BGG market.

One was Hostage Negotiator with all the expansions. Fun little solo game, gives me quite a good story every time I play it, even though it’s usually a story of carnage and dread. At least last time I saved 5 of 8 hostages and eliminated the abductor, only to be thwarted by the 2nd in command. Damn. If I could have told my sniper to just shoot the last two hostages, I would have won, but so it was a loss.

The other was Cuba Libre which I got bought from the BGG market. Great COIN game, am an instant fan of that system. Essentially a very thematic, asymmetric ressource management game that is driven by event cards and where you can play each faction that doesn’t have a player with some AI bots. For me it is meant for solo play again. Catapulted itself way up my list of top games.

I got some Sentinels of the Multiverse in again, after some time not playing it, and remembered what is so much fun (and what is not so much fun – modifiers). Funny enough, when I started out with it, I wasn’t too worried by it’s supposed fiddlyness and while playing it then, it really didn’t bother me – I am kinda used to it from playing MTG. But after some pause in playing it and picking it up again, I was quite happy to play it on my tablet instead of with it’s paper version.

Another solo game that snuck in was Soviet Dawn again. I really adore this fast little state of siege game. It’s really nasty, but isn’t too obvious in being nasty and even if you lose, it’s over quick. And since I played both this and Hostage Negotiator, it really drove home the point I noticed about Hostage Negotiator in that it is structured quite similar to solo war games in that you get the “fog of war” effect where you only know if you succeed in an action after you rolled some dice. You can prepare and can make your chances for success better, but there will always be some insecurity. And probably that is why I prefer COIN over some of the longer state of siege games: most actions in COIN games are deterministic and dice only come in in very few places. I have will-wheaton-levels of bad dice rolls quite often …

You don’t drink whisky from cups while playing some deep and heavy euro game. It would look silly and probably hamper your abilities to manage the game.

And I play games according to my current mood – which might be influenced by seasons, but I didn’t analyze my play log. Could be a worthwhile exercise, but I guess it’s heavily skewed towards the new and shiny, so more related to the board game seasons “pre-Essen” and “post-Essen” and “inbetween Essen” 😉

yeah, COIN is fantastic. At least for me it feels quite euro-ish and that’s a good thing for me. It mostly is a very thematic ressource-optimization puzzle. For me at the moment it is Cuba Libre that occupies my brain cycles and I am looking forward to receive my copy of Liberty or Death end of February and Falling Sky later in spring. Another thing I really like about the COIN games is the quality of components. It just feels great to push nice wooden pieces around on a great looking board.

yeah, COIN is fantastic. At least for me it feels quite euro-ish and that’s a good thing for me. It mostly is a very thematic ressource-optimization puzzle. For me at the moment it is Cuba Libre that occupies my brain cycles and I am looking forward to receive my copy of Liberty or Death end of February and Falling Sky later in spring. Another thing I really like about the COIN games is the quality of components. It just feels great to push nice wooden pieces around on a great looking board.