Category: Syndicated

Hoplomachus: Origins saw a few plays single-player (the solo trials, allthough since my delivery missed the Xanadu map – which they will send to me ASAP, so it’s just a case of waiting – I can only run 2/3rd of the scenarios and so was mostly going for trial 3). Fun tactical skirmish game and the solo trials give a nice way to learn the game and provide a brain twister to find a way to break that scenario (when you do you are ready to move up to the next trial). Should provide quite some fun for weeks and months to come. And Rise of Rome is already sitting in the cupboard, so there is more solo content there.

Progress: Evolution of Technology got some more play again, as almost every week. We introduced it to friends on sunday, and it might be a hit with them, too. It’s just a plain fun and easily teachable, but still deep enough game. All time favorite.

Legends of Andor: Travel to the North hit the table on sunday again with our irregular group. As allways a great experience and a wild ride. The game really keeps up the story and we all love the per-day discussions around the table what actually is our plan. The discussion is much longer than the actual execution of the actions of each hero. Great puzzly coop game.

I got some Soviet Dawn in again and it slowly gets to be my favorite State of Siege game, just because of it’s very fast setup and short play time. Good filler game where you aren’t too annoyed when the dice are not with you.

And with my wife I got Wir sind das Volk for a first two-player game. We only played the first decade so that she gets a rundown of all available mechanisms and it was great, so I really hope it will come to the table more often. I am a big fan of historic games and she likes games with realistic theme, so this might turn out to be a hit.

Non-gamer-friends/family usually don’t react to it, because they often don’t have any idea towards the extent of the collection. I don’t bother to describe that part to them, because as with any hobby, people outside the hobby just plain don’t understand.

Proudest wins probably are some of the close wins we pulled off in our Legend of Andor plays – it sometimes really came down to the last day and the last few actions. Allthough with the Travels to the North I noticed they are far more forgiving and often have a moment of “lull” on the last day where you just have time enough to whipe up the last few things you have to finish. The first box and the Star Shield legend were much tighter towards the end.

Hoplomachus: Origins saw a few plays single-player (the solo trials, allthough since my delivery missed the Xanadu map – which they will send to me ASAP, so it’s just a case of waiting – I can only run 2/3rd of the scenarios and so was mostly going for trial 3). Fun tactical skirmish game and the solo trials give a nice way to learn the game and provide a brain twister to find a way to break that scenario (when you do you are ready to move up to the next trial). Should provide quite some fun for weeks and months to come. And Rise of Rome is already sitting in the cupboard, so there is more solo content there.

Progress: Evolution of Technology got some more play again, as almost every week. We introduced it to friends on sunday, and it might be a hit with them, too. It’s just a plain fun and easily teachable, but still deep enough game. All time favorite.

Legends of Andor: Travel to the North hit the table on sunday again with our irregular group. As allways a great experience and a wild ride. The game really keeps up the story and we all love the per-day discussions around the table what actually is our plan. The discussion is much longer than the actual execution of the actions of each hero. Great puzzly coop game.

I got some Soviet Dawn in again and it slowly gets to be my favorite State of Siege game, just because of it’s very fast setup and short play time. Good filler game where you aren’t too annoyed when the dice are not with you.

And with my wife I got Wir sind das Volk for a first two-player game. We only played the first decade so that she gets a rundown of all available mechanisms and it was great, so I really hope it will come to the table more often. I am a big fan of historic games and she likes games with realistic theme, so this might turn out to be a hit.

Non-gamer-friends/family usually don’t react to it, because they often don’t have any idea towards the extent of the collection. I don’t bother to describe that part to them, because as with any hobby, people outside the hobby just plain don’t understand.

Proudest wins probably are some of the close wins we pulled off in our Legend of Andor plays – it sometimes really came down to the last day and the last few actions. Allthough with the Travels to the North I noticed they are far more forgiving and often have a moment of “lull” on the last day where you just have time enough to whipe up the last few things you have to finish. The first box and the Star Shield legend were much tighter towards the end.

Not bad as unuseable, but bad as in “irritating like hell” would be the german rules fir 1989 from Spielworxx. They are a german publisher, why the hell are there so many translation errors in that rule book? Really obvious ones in headlines even. Yikes.

Not bad as unuseable, but bad as in “irritating like hell” would be the german rules fir 1989 from Spielworxx. They are a german publisher, why the hell are there so many translation errors in that rule book? Really obvious ones in headlines even. Yikes.

Yeah, that one is really bad. I don’t think you have a chance to play from it uf you don’t have at least basic play down with the “big” Eminent Domain. And even then ut leavea a lot head scratching for the first game, They better had left out some promos and added mire complete rules.

Yeah, that one is really bad. I don’t think you have a chance to play from it uf you don’t have at least basic play down with the “big” Eminent Domain. And even then ut leavea a lot head scratching for the first game, They better had left out some promos and added mire complete rules.

My two go-to games for that purpose are Paperback and Waggle Dance. Paperback is a neat deck builder that has word building (think Scrabble, but with fun included) as it’s basic mechanism with deck building used to improve the letter collection you have available with lots of interesting effects on those letters. The good thing with new players is that they can get into the game and be active very quickly, because you can at the start just build words to compete and already make quite a bit of victory points that way. And you learn the abilities of cards and the value of different abilities during play.

Waggle Dance on the other hand is a worker placement game where your workers are bees, represented by dice. You roll your bees and in a round claim worker places and after all bees are sent out, you reap the benefits of those actions, trying to make the most honey by collecting nectar, getting eggs, getting new bees and stuff like that. Very cute graphics and easy game play, but deep enough to give people something to chew on. The actions are well founded in the theme and I noticed that everybody I taught it could grasp most of the actions immediately and got into the play within just a few rounds.

Other than that, if I have people at the weekly game night who are really having problems with playing, I can pull out some coop games. My favorite for that is Forbidden Desert, because again the theme really carries the game, and the “complex” stuff (handling the desert storm and other book keeping stuff) can be done by a “game master”, so they only need to concentrate on running around and doing stuff.

With bigger groups I actually had good results with Smash Up!, too. Yeah, it can be a bit “mathy”, but for us it usually ends up a group effort to count through base powers for each player, which has the added benefit of everybody being still involved. The good thing about Smash Up is that the game play can be really very simple, at least if you pick the factions for the new players (or make suggestions of good combinations and give them some pep talk about what direction a faction takes). But it has the problem “rules are on the cards”, so you need people with at least some experience with that type of game, otherwise they will be too stumped by it. It’s more a second game, than a first one (Paperback is a good introduction, because there they will get the idea of cards with rule-breaking abilities).

My two go-to games for that purpose are Paperback and Waggle Dance. Paperback is a neat deck builder that has word building (think Scrabble, but with fun included) as it’s basic mechanism with deck building used to improve the letter collection you have available with lots of interesting effects on those letters. The good thing with new players is that they can get into the game and be active very quickly, because you can at the start just build words to compete and already make quite a bit of victory points that way. And you learn the abilities of cards and the value of different abilities during play.

Waggle Dance on the other hand is a worker placement game where your workers are bees, represented by dice. You roll your bees and in a round claim worker places and after all bees are sent out, you reap the benefits of those actions, trying to make the most honey by collecting nectar, getting eggs, getting new bees and stuff like that. Very cute graphics and easy game play, but deep enough to give people something to chew on. The actions are well founded in the theme and I noticed that everybody I taught it could grasp most of the actions immediately and got into the play within just a few rounds.

Other than that, if I have people at the weekly game night who are really having problems with playing, I can pull out some coop games. My favorite for that is Forbidden Desert, because again the theme really carries the game, and the “complex” stuff (handling the desert storm and other book keeping stuff) can be done by a “game master”, so they only need to concentrate on running around and doing stuff.

With bigger groups I actually had good results with Smash Up!, too. Yeah, it can be a bit “mathy”, but for us it usually ends up a group effort to count through base powers for each player, which has the added benefit of everybody being still involved. The good thing about Smash Up is that the game play can be really very simple, at least if you pick the factions for the new players (or make suggestions of good combinations and give them some pep talk about what direction a faction takes). But it has the problem “rules are on the cards”, so you need people with at least some experience with that type of game, otherwise they will be too stumped by it. It’s more a second game, than a first one (Paperback is a good introduction, because there they will get the idea of cards with rule-breaking abilities).

Well, Golem Arcana was far less a board game with integrated technology than a video game with integrated physical pieces.

But the demise of Golem Arcana should be a wakeup call for boardgames with tech, too, for the simple reason that it reminds us of a simple fact: companies work for money and if money doesn’t come in in the right amounts, they will drop an activity. And if that is the digital product your board game requires, you might be in for some hard times.

I really don’t understand why board game companies don’t make their apps open source at least. I understand why it didn’t happen with Golem Arcana – there is nothing aside the app that actually is the game. But with board games like XCom or Alchemists, what you are selling is the game and the app is just a needed part, so it should be in your own interest to make sure you have as minimal backslash from decontinuation of your product (which sooner or later will come, no doubt) as possible.

Well, Golem Arcana was far less a board game with integrated technology than a video game with integrated physical pieces.

But the demise of Golem Arcana should be a wakeup call for boardgames with tech, too, for the simple reason that it reminds us of a simple fact: companies work for money and if money doesn’t come in in the right amounts, they will drop an activity. And if that is the digital product your board game requires, you might be in for some hard times.

I really don’t understand why board game companies don’t make their apps open source at least. I understand why it didn’t happen with Golem Arcana – there is nothing aside the app that actually is the game. But with board games like XCom or Alchemists, what you are selling is the game and the app is just a needed part, so it should be in your own interest to make sure you have as minimal backslash from decontinuation of your product (which sooner or later will come, no doubt) as possible.

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).

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.