A pitch for modern board games

Unfamiliar with modern board games? Still playing Monopoly with your family and friends? There's a more fun, varied, exciting and entertaining way to play games.

Check out the video below. I've made many of the same points over time to those unaware what modern board games bring to the table. This video does an excellent job and is entertaining and educational as well.

You know you're a boardgamer when ...

We're in Indiana for the wedding of one of Carol's nephews. I brought two suits, one for the rehearsal dinner tonight and one for the wedding tomorrow.

When I put on my suit tonight, I found some folded papers in the breast pocket. It's been a long time since I've worn this suit so I didn't know what they were as I unfolded them. They were the printed rules for the game Puerto Rico. I have no idea why.

I have a problem.

Ipecac's Emotional Roller Coaster

This is the seating area of the cafeteria in the building where I work.

Whenever I walk by, the thought of the potential for gaming at these tables makes me crazy happy.

An instant later, the lack of gaming at these tables makes me sad.

I am a gamer.

Busiest "month" continues

Things haven't slowed down since we got back from England.

Last Saturday, April 26, Rachel arrived back in America, having had a fantastic semester abroad. After only a few days home, she's currently back at James Madison to audition for some shows and get next fall squared away.

Meanwhile, I've been in my new office for a week and have just about finished getting everything where it needs to be. There were a lot of adjustments and some small crises, but things should be approaching normal tomorrow.

And on top of that, Carol, Ben and I spent all weekend at Game Days, the annual game convention run by the Games Club of Maryland. As usual, it was a great time. The big hit of the convention seemed to be the new game, Splendor. We'll be picking up a copy.

And now to bed.

Autumn Games - Babel

Our 29th game, one of our favorites in the series, is Babel by Hagen Dorgathen and Uwe Rosenberg. In Babel, the players represent various ancient tribes and use their unique skills to build temples. The player who builds the tallest temples is the winner.

The game bits consist of a board, two stone player markers, a number of temple cards from value 1-6 and a deck of tribe cards representing the Medes, Sumerians, Hitites, Persians, and Assyrians. On your turn, you may play cards from your hand to move your stone marker to and from any of the five spots on the board. You may play tribe cards down onto the space where your marker is located and build a temple on that space using temples cards in one of the two face up draw piles. Temples must be built in numerical order from 1 to 6 and you must have as many tribe cards down as levels of the temple you wish to build. So, for example, if you want to build the fourth level of a temple, you must have four tribe cards down on that space.

Card play is unlimited. You may play as many of your tribe cards as you wish on your turn. Since you only draw three per turn, however, you have to be careful not to deplete your hand. A new temple card is turned up at the end of your turn and after the first few cards is of a random value. This makes it even more challenging to build the temple levels in the correct order.

One of the important tactics is to lay down three consecutive cards of the same tribe. If you do, when you're in that territory, you may discard one of the three cards to use that tribe's skill. These skills include stealing your opponent's top temple level (Hitites) (assuming you have enough tribe cards to support it), completely destroying your opponent's temple (Assyrians), moving some of your opponent's tribe cards to your side (Sumerians), etc. The use of the tribe skills is crucial to beating your opponent.

Three Medes cards spell trouble for Carol.

The winner is the first player to build to a total of 15 points of temple levels, so long as your opponent has under 10 points of temples. If the other player has more than 10 points, then you enter the end game where the first player to build over 20 points wins, or the first player to drop under 10 points loses.

Babel has some long term strategy but turn to turn play is all tactics. You have to use what cards you draw, react to what your opponent is doing, try to break up his sets of three tribe cards, use tribe skills effectively, all the while building up and protecting your temples.

Carol and I jockeyed back and forth until she finally got to 16 points at the end of a turn. Unfortunately for her, I had more than 10 points so we weren't finished. Scores went back and forth for a few more turns, both of us getting near 20 and down towards 10 but not quite getting there. Finally, Carol built to 20 points in temples for the win.

Final scores:

Carol   20
Ipecac 14

Carol moves to within one game of Ipecac.

Autumn Games - Flowerpower

Flowerpower by Angelika Fassauer and Peter Haluszka is a tile placement game where two players try to build the largest garden. I've had this game on my search list on eBay for a long time but couldn't find a copy for less than $50. Then, in December, I saw an unused, unpunched, buy-it-now copy for $30! Pounce.

Flowerpower is pretty similar to the last game we played, Rosenkonig, except there are no cards as a placement mechanism. Each of the one-hundred tiles has two symbols of the ten types of flowers. On your turn, you draw a tile and play it to the board. You may play a tile on your side of the board, on the green strip in the middle of the board or overlapping your side and the green strip. You may not play on your opponent's side of the board with one exception. Three times during the game you may play a tile face down (representing weeds) on your opponent's side of the board to screw up his flower beds.

The goal is to create large beds of the same type of flower. The more flowers you get into a particular bed, the more points you score. Both players' flower beds can extend into the green area. which means you want to play as many tiles as you can in the green area early so that you'll get to play more tiles than your opponent. But be careful, for if your opponent connects into one of your beds and has more of that flower bed on his side of the board, he'll score the entire thing and you'll get nothing. 

Scoring is based on the number of flowers per bed. You need at least 3 flowers to score 1 point, up to 4 points for having 10 or more flowers. You play until neither player can play a tile, then add up the scores.

Blocking your opponent from flower beds in the green area is important.

Flowerpower was fun and oddly relaxing. There's not a huge amount of strategy, but making sure your opponent doesn't take over any of your flower beds does lead to some clever plays. You also need to optimize play on your side of the board and watch for opportunities to place blocking weeds on your opponent's beds.

The final result.

Carol and I each managed to create exactly eleven flower beds. She had two four point beds, while mine maxed out at two points. This gave her the advantage.

Final scores:

Carol    20
Ipecac  18

Autumn Games - Rosenkonig

The next game in our Autumn Games competition was a new one for us, an older game in the series that I bought after we had started playing last year. That game is Rosenkonig (War of the Roses) by Dirk Henn.

The two players represent the Lancasters (red rose) and the Yorks (white rose) battling over the British throne. The game is played with 24 cards, each of which has a sword pointing in one of 8 directions with either a I, II or III at the top, allowing you to move the crown piece 1-3 spaces in the direction the sword is pointing. The round tokens are two-sided Powerstones and mark which side has power in each square on the board. Finally, each player has four single-use Hero cards.

The object of the game is to create groups of Powerstones in your color by the end of the game. Each group orthogonally (not diagonally) connected gets you points based on the square of how many Powerstones are in the group. So, one Powerstone gets you 1 point, two together gets you 4 points, three gets you 9, four gets you 16, etc.

Each turn, a player must take only one of three actions. One, you can play a card. Two, you can draw a card. And three, you can play a card plus a hero card. If you can do none of these, you must pass.

When you play a card, you move the crown piece unto an unoccupied board space and place one of the Powerstones onto that space with your color face up. Restrictions are that you can't move the crown onto an occupied space and you can't move off the board. Plus, you have to move the full number of moves on the card. If you can't do that, you can't move.

Drawing a card is just drawing a card and putting it in your hand in front of you, face up. As all cards are face up, you can always tell what options any move will leave your opponent. You may only have a maximum of five cards up in front of you, so if you have five cards, you may not draw more.

Ipecac's hand early in the game.

Finally, playing a card plus one of your four hero cards allows you to move the crown onto an opponent's already played piece and flip it over to your color. You do this to capture strategic points, break up one of your opponent's groups, or connect two of your groups. You only have four hero cards for the entire game, so choosing when to play them is important.

The game ends when the Powerstones are all played, or both players have no legal play. Highest score wins.

Carol (white rose) holds the lead

As the game started, both Carol and I realized that she had a better grasp on the game then I did. She quickly started making larger groups and I was forced to use my Hero cards to break them up. As we went, however, I started catching on and made some progress. Eventually, I was able to mold a large group in the center of the board that she was unable to crack.

When scoring, Carol and I each had one large group and a number of smaller groups. The point total of our smaller groups was 44 for Carol and 29 for me. Alas, Carol's large group was only 12 strong for 144 points while mine was 15 strong for 225 points, giving me the win.

Final Scores:

Carol    188
Ipecac  254

Next up, our penultimate game, Flowerpower.

Autumn Games - Lord of the Rings: The Duel

Game twenty-six in our Autumn Games is the third game in the Kosmos two-player series based on The Lord of the Rings. Not a classic like Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, neither is it the uninspiring and confused Lord of the Rings: The Search. Lord of the Rings: The Duel by Peter Neugebauer holds the middle ground. A fun card game of quick combat between Gandalf and the Balrog over a chasm, on the bridge of Khazad Dum.

Each player has a deck with twenty-seven cards. Four duels will be played, three preliminary and one final. For the preliminary duels, each player will draw nine cards from his deck, play six, and save the remaining three for the final duel. After three rounds, during the final duel, the players will play all nine remaining cards; careful planning is important so that you have some good cards left.

Scoring is done on the cool bridge on which stylish wooden figures represent Gandalf and the Balrog. At the end of the game, whichever piece is closest to the top of the bridge, wins.

First round card play

The cards themselves are pretty clever. On the right side is an attack strength, indicated by zero to four "magical symbols". On the left side is a defense strength, also indicated by a number of magical symbols. All cards are played next to each other in a line, so the card you are playing defends against the card played by your opponent, then attacks the other player's next card. For every undefended symbol, a point is scored, moving your cube up the energy track. After all cards are played in a round, the difference in the players' progress on the energy track determines how much the winner moves up the bridge from one to three steps.

Each deck also contains a few special cards like the Balrog's Whip, which allows the player to pick up and reuse an already played card, or Gandalf's Magic which lets him discard a card played by the Balrog. A timely play with one of the special cards can turn around a duel going badly.

After the fourth duel, the player higher up the bridge wins. If both are on the same level, the winner of the final duel is the winner of the game.

The Balrog and Gandalf at two points each.

Carol started out by crushing me in the first duel and moving up two steps. I tied the game up during the second duel. During the third duel, I went ahead by moving up a single step. Carol managed to win the fourth and final duel, moving up another step, and putting the game into a tie, which means she won.

The end of the Final Duel

Carol wins Lord of the Rings: The Duel, 3 to 3 with the tiebreaker.

Autumn Games - Druidenwalzer

Yes, it's another Fall, and after a long break during the Summer, we return to finish off the series.

I consider Druidenwalzer by Michael Rieneck to be one of the most beautiful games in the series as well as one of the most challenging. The art by Andreas Steiner is lovely and the gameplay, based on Mancala, is filled with subtle strategy while getting tighter and more tense as the game progresses. Carol, on the other hand, hates it.

Please note that what is to follow are a lot of references to spirits, faeries and other flighty topics.

Each player represents one of the two Druid cults, The Suns and The Moons. Each cult has four trees it protects from subversion by the other cult. The player who subverts two of his opponent's trees wins the game.

Each player starts with Druids (colored cones) on three of his trees. Only trees with Druids may be subverted by the other cult. Each tree has five Spirit cards with a value from one to five below it. When a player plays a Spirit card from his hand onto a tree, the Spirits dance, and a tree or even multiple trees might be subverted.

The game is set up and ready to go.

On your turn you have three choices. You can play a Spirit card, discard a Spirit card, or Move a Druid. Moving a Druid is the easiest, you simply move one of your Druids to an unoccupied tree. Since only trees with Druids can be subverted, you are now protecting the empty tree. Of course, once you've lost a tree, you have a Druid on every tree, so moving a Druid is no longer an option.

Discarding a Spirit card from your hand or one of your trees is a way to get weak or problematic cards out of the way. Unfortunately, you have a limited number of cards so if you discard too many, you become vulnerable to losing a tree from lack of cards.

The main action in the game is playing a Spirit card. You place a card from your hand onto a Spirit card pile in front of one of your trees, then move the Faerie Ring onto that tree. Each tree has a number from one to four and the tree you choose determines how far the Spirits will dance. The card itself determines in which direction, clockwise or counter-clockwise, the Spirits will dance, as well as which Spirits will dance. For example, if I play a value 3 Spirit card with a clockwise arrow on tree number 2, all 3 value Spirit cards from both players will move clockwise 2 spaces. The idea of the dance is to get the higher value Spirit cards to move below your trees, while getting the lower value cards to move below your opponents trees.

One of Ipecac's trees has been subverted by the Sun Cult.

After the dance, Druid conflict occurs. Except for the tree with the Faerie Ring, you compare the value of the Spirits protecting the trees with like-colored Druids. Generally this means that at least two trees will be in conflict every turn. The trees with the lower value Spirit get a subversion token. The winning cards are discarded and new cards flipped up in their place. If a tree gets six tokens, it is subverted and flipped over to represent its new allegiance to the other cult.

If one of your trees is ever emptied of Spirit cards, you have until the end of your next turn to get a card down on that spot or the tree is subverted.

And that's basically it. It sounds confusing and can be for a couple of turns but you get used to the strange flow of the game pretty quickly. Deciding what value of Spirit card to play on which tree and being able to visualize all the moves that will occur and the ramifications of those moves is challenging. And as the game goes on, it gets tighter as you have fewer trees and Spirit cards left, limiting your options.

Carol started out strong, hitting my trees pretty hard and I was the first to lose a tree while having five subversion tokens on another. Frankly, it looked bad for me, while Carol's damage was more widespread across all four of her trees. With our options decreasing, I managed to subvert one of her trees, and then another before losing any of mine. As you can see below, one of my trees took no damage, while one of her tree's only took one.

Endgame.

I really enjoyed the game and its challenges. Carol still hates it.

Final scores:

  Ipecac 2
  Carol   1

Game 25, Druidenwalzer, goes to Ipecac.

Autumn Games - Elk Fest

Game 24 is a flicking game. Yes, you read that right, a flicking game, Elk Fest by Hermann Huber. As such, it is the simplest game in the entire Kosmos two player series and takes very little time to play.

In Elk Fest, each player is trying to get his or her Elk, Jule or Ole, (admittedly, the game pieces are actually  moose) from one riverbank to the other. You do this by flicking with your finger any of the six stepping stones and moving your Elk from stone to stone to cross the table. The rules are pretty simple. You get two flicks per turn and can move your Elk any number of times before or after a flick. To move, the Elk moves his front hooves onto a new stone, with his rear hooves moving to the stone the front hooves started on. If you drop the Elk into the water (he touches the table) then your turn is over and the other player gets three flicks on his turn. The player whose Elk touches the opposing riverbank first, wins.

Jule starts out.

One thing to remember is that after the initial turns, the players can flick any stone, so moving the stones near your opponent's Elk is an important defensive move. Most of the time, though, you're moving your Elk and your own stones, until the Elks meet in the middle of the table and things get momentarily congested.

Ole gets close to the riverbank.

My Elk, Jule, was the first to get in range of the opposing riverbank, but I muffed several flicks. Carol gave me more chances by missing several shots herself, but in the end was able to get in range and move Ole onto my bank.

Ole makes it for the win.

Game 24 goes to Carol.

Autumn Games - Lord of the Rings: The Search

In my eleven through twenty game update, I mentioned that we had a game coming up that was nearly unplayable.  Meet that game, Lord of the Rings: The Search by Peter Neugebauer.

The Search is definitely one of the stranger of the Kosmos two-player series in that it's theme is completely and utterly wrong. One player plays Frodo and the other Sam, searching Middle Earth for the One Ring and then racing to Mount Doom. Yes, you read that right. Neither has the Ring and they're both competing to find it and destroy it. What's more, finding the Ring isn't necessary to end or win the game. Once you've located and raced to Mount Doom, you count up the points and determine a winner. Oy.

I will say this up front. This game has a terrible reputation and few fans. I had tried to play it years ago with the rules included with the game and failed spectacularly. However, with the correct translation of the rules available on Boardgamegeek, the game became playable. Not great, but at least playable.

The two players start on the Shire tile, placed in the center of the table. The players alternate drawing and placing tiles until an 8x6 cross of tiles is created. Then the game commences. On your turn, you play one tile down to the board from your hand of three tiles. The terrain on the new tile must match terrain on every adjacent tile. If you create a complete, enclosed region, you immediately place an Encounter Chip matching the terrain on that space, some face up, others face down. Mountains are always two tiles while other regions can be huge. If you can't legally place a tile, place one upside down as a sort of "wild" tile.

Once you've placed your terrain tile, you can move your Hobbit to a bordering region. This is where the size of a region becomes important. If you're in a large region, you can go to any of the many bordering regions, while small regions have less options. If there is a Green or Yellow Encounter Chip (representing good characters or items) in the new region, you take it. The chip will provide some assistance to you, either in battle with the Brown chips or through special actions such as extra movement or turns. Brown Encounter Chips  (representing enemies) may require you to fight a battle. If you lose a battle, you skip one or two turns, delaying your quest, but if you win, you gain victory points. Blue chips (representing other characters or items, including the One Ring) can only be reached when you have a boat, which can be purchased with two Brown chips in your possession.

And basically, that's it. You wander around, trying to pick up as many chips as you can, defeating as many enemies as you can. You're not really searching for Mount Doom as the last tile placed on the board becomes Mount Doom. If you're closer to it when the game ends and you have the most points from the tiles, get to it and win the game. If you have fewer points, keep collecting chips while your opponent rushes to Mount Doom.

Carol and I went back and forth, collecting chips as above. While large regions give you greater movement options, they reduce the amount of Encounter Chips you can capture. Near the end, I created a bunch of smaller regions to get more chips I could reach. Finally, I turned up the last tile and quickly made my way to Mount Doom and we scored the game.

Final scores:

   Carol     22
   Ipecac   30

I like the art on the chips and most of the bits are nice. The terrain tiles are a disaster of clashing colors and weird angles, as you can see. I wouldn't mind playing again to see if there are any other strategies, but I suspect there aren't.

Game 23 goes to Ipecac.

Recent Doings and Such - Memorial Day Weekend

Our annual gaming weekend went very well. Carol does an amazing job providing food for 30+ people for three days. I played lots of games with old friends, stayed up until 3 AM every night and had a great time.

Yesterday, my annually designated "day of rest" following the gaming weekend was interrupted by jury duty. Maryland has a "one-day, one-trial" policy meaning you will spend one day or be assigned to one trial and then won't be called again for at least three years. The last time I was called was probably fifteen or more years ago. I was assigned to a jury but the trial ended in a mistrial during deliberations when one juror didn't show up because she thought the court was closed due to the weather. The judge was not happy with her.

To add insult to inconvenience, to get to the court on time, I actually had to get up earlier than I usually get up for work. My juror number was 256 out of 341 which gave me some hope that I wouldn't get called. They went through the jurors fast, though, and I was called into courtroom number 7 as part of a group of sixty potential jurors. The trial involved the armed robbery of two men at a bus stop by a guy with a knife. We went through voir dire and I indicated that I was a government attorney as did several others. They started seating from the lowest numbers and managed to seat a complete jury and an alternate at around juror 236. I was sent back down to them jury lounge where they were passing out the $15 check and dismissing us. My service was over!

I had been concerned about getting assigned to a trial because of my unexpected missing of work last Monday and Tuesday. Of course, once I sat in the courtroom and went through voir dire, it all started to seem interesting, and I was a little disappointed I didn't get seated.

I had lunch, went home and took a four hour nap.

Having thirty plus people over? Here's what not to do.

This weekend is our annual gaming get-together, bringing many of my former college and law school friends (and their families) mostly from out of town to join us for a weekend of gaming. All told, we'll have over thirty people to game Friday night through Monday afternoon. I usually take off from work Wednesday through the following Tuesday to prepare the house, then clean up and recover afterwards.

Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly. Last weekend I started to get neck and shoulder pains which then amplified and hit me hard after I went to bed on Sunday. I had a miserable night of laying like a corpse and not being able to rise without substantial pain. When I "woke up" on Monday, I couldn't turn my head in any direction, my whole head hurt and on top of that, I had a sore throat. So I missed work Monday and Tuesday and wasn't feeling well enough to be able to take advantage of the extra time.

I went to the Doctor on Tuesday morning and was prescribed a muscle relaxant and heavy duty painkiller. The effect was pretty quick and just in time for me to get up Wednesday morning and start cleaning the house. I still have just a little bit of pain, but nothing that's stopping me from what I need to do.

And as soon as I started getting better, Rachel got a huge sore throat. The doctor thinks she may have strep. Awesome.

Autumn Games - Hera and Zeus

Next up was one of our favorite games in the series, Hera and Zeus by Richard Borg, depicting an epic struggle within Greek mythology.

In H&Z, one player (me) plays the father of the Greek gods, Zeus, while the other (Carol) plays Zeus' wife, Hera. Zeus has kidnapped Hera's favorite human, Artus, while Hera has kidnapped Zeus' lover, Io. The players battle it out to rescue their hostage by playing various mythical figures.

While the beautiful artwork varies between the player's decks, each is identically strong, consisting of numbered cards which represent the card's strength in battle (0 to 7), to cards with no combat value but some mythological power, and some cards with both. The game starts with each player drawing nine cards and playing three face down in front of him to make three columns across from the other player's. Throughout the game you will play cards down into these columns.

Hera goes first. On your turn, you have as many actions as you have columns. Actions include playing a card down into the playing field, drawing a card into your hand, attacking an opposing card in your opponent's front row, or playing a mythological action card from your hand. When you play down onto the playing field, you can put the card anywhere, even in front of other cards, with a maximum of four cards in any one column. The cards in your front line may fight the cards in the same column from the other player.

Combat is simple. If I want to use one of my front cards to attack its opposite number, I flip mine face up, declare the attack, and my opponent flips their card up. If they have a number card, we compare numbers and the smaller number is defeated and discarded. (Yes, it's somewhat like Stratego.) Cards behind it in the column move up one space. If the defender's cards have a mythological action, that action is activated and resolved.

The mythological cards have a variety of powers. The Medusa, for example, turns anyone who attacks her into stone but is defeated by the Hero or Amazon. Pythia (strength of 0) has several powers including being played from your hand to look at your opponent's hand or turn up all the cards face up in one column, or played on the playing field to beat the most powerful cards, Poseidon and Nemesis. Pegasus (strength of 1) can be played into the playing field as a numbered card or can be played from your hand to attack a card in your opponent's hand or on the playing field. There is a Hera card and a Zeus card and while they're played, you get four actions a turn, regardless of the number of columns. Sirens let you draw a card from your opponent's discard pile, while Hades lets you put a card from your own discards back into your hand.

What is really interesting about H&Z is that there are numerous ways for each player to win. You win if your opponent is forced to discard their hostage (Io or Artus) through combat or various mythological cards, if your opponent can't use all his allocated actions, if a player starts their turn with no cards in their playing area, or when Pandora is activated in the same column or hand as the hostage. Strategically, while you want to expand quickly to get your powerful cards into play, you have to be careful not to draw your hostage from your deck too early because the only time it's absolutely safe is when it's in your draw deck.

Ipecac's paltry forces

I started out badly, challenging one of Carol's front cards before I had built up my playing field and so was reduced to two actions for a couple of turns. I recovered and was lucky that Io stayed safely in my draw deck for a long time. There was a lot of back and forth with Carol having the upper hand most of the game and me struggling to keep up.

Unfortunately for her, Carol drew Argus and had to either get him down to the playing field or keep him in her hand where I might find him with Pegasus attacks. She put him down into her biggest column which was opposite an empty column on my side. I played Pandora opposite of this column and Carol attacked. Attacking Pandora is bad as it destroys all cards in the entire column for both players. In this case, that included Argus, giving me the game.

Ipecac extends his lead.

Autumn Games - Gone Fishing

Game twenty-one of our Autumn Games series was Gone Fishing by Michael Rieneck, one of the lighter entries of the Kosmos two player series.

In Gone Fishing, one player represents two Anglers (fishermen) out for a day of sport and the other represents the Fish the Anglers are trying to capture. Each player plays one round as the Anglers, working their way around a lake, and one round as the Fish, trying to avoid being caught. Players only score points when they're the Anglers, and the highest score after each have had a go is the winner.

The board is a four by four grid on which sixteen Lake tiles are placed by the Fish player so that the other player can't see them. The tiles include ten fish in a number of values, worthless junk like a tire, hat and shoe, and a diver who is also worthless but never comes out of the lake when caught. Surrounding the lake are a bunch of piers from which the Anglers try to catch fish in the row or column where they are moved.

Once the tiles are set, the Angler player moves one of his Anglers clockwise any number of spaces. The Fish player must then reveal to him one tile in that row or column. Typically, you show the Angler a tile he can't catch or one of little value. To catch a tile, the Angler now plays one of his twelve Catch tiles (three tiles each of values 1 to 4). If he plays a 2 value Catch tile, for example, he'd catch the tile two spaces away from his Angler. He keeps whatever he catches, unless it's the Diver, discards the Catch tile from the game, and then must move his Angler an additional number of spaces, equal to the Catch tile played. Since the Angler only moves his two Anglers once around the lake, he has to be careful to not move them around too quickly. The diminishing number of Catch tiles also starts to limit his options.

After the Angler catches a tile, the Fish player can then move three Lake tiles through empty spaces. This is key as it allows him to move fish out of danger and onto spaces the Angler can't reach with his remaining Catch tiles. Early on, there isn't much room to maneuver, but as the tiles start being caught, good tactical moves become possible and really important.

Finally, each player has a few special tiles they can play on their turn. The Angler has one tile that lets him peek at a Lake tile and one that prohibits the Fish player from moving tiles that turn. The Fish player has three special tiles, two tiles that move an Angler forward one pier, and a tile that lets him switch any two tiles.

After one player has played the Angler, the two players switch, and the other plays the Angler. At the end of that round, whoever caught the highest value of fish wins.

Ipecac's catch.

I started out as the Angler and did pretty well, catching 24 points of fish, including the large 6 point fish. Carol was only somewhat effective in moving them into positions I couldn't reach.

Ipecac sets up the tiles.

On Carol's turn as the Angler, I was much more effective at moving my fish out of the reach of her Anglers. She didn't catch the high value 6 point fish, but did catch a lot of small fry.

Carol's catch

I enjoyed Gone Fishing which is certainly lightweight, although there is some strategy involved. As the Angler, there's also a memory element where you try to remember the revealed Lake tiles in order not to waste your Catch tiles. As the Fish, there are lots of tactical decisions as you try to limit the Angler's options.

Final scores:

  Ipecac  24

  Carol   17

Ipecac retakes the lead.

Autumn Games - Eleven through Twenty

We started this series in early September, 2012, and now nearly five months later, we've played our twentieth game. Doesn't sound like a lot, actually, but that averages out to one a week, which isn't too bad.

The name of these ten games was definitely "Carol". After ten games, I was ahead seven wins to Carol's three. She made short work of that, winning games eleven through fourteen and tying it at seven each, and then winning three of the next four, taking a big lead. All in all, I managed to squeak out only three wins to her seven, tying the series at ten each. While most of my wins were close, Carol's wins tended to be blowouts.

Here's what we played and the winner.

• Blue Moon - Carol
• Jambo - Carol
• Settlers of Catan Card Game - Carol
• Tally Ho - Carol
• The Pillars of the Earth: Builders Duel - Ipecac
• Odin's Ravens - Carol
• Dracula - Carol
• Times Square - Carol
• Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation - Ipecac
• Perry Rhodan The Cosmic League - Ipecac

Half of this lot was new to us. Of the new, I especially enjoyed Blue Moon and Perry Rhodan, but I thought they were all good. Carol liked the new games Pillars of the Earth and Tally Ho. Jambo and Perry Rhodan had some similarities in the way you buy and sell goods and the game flow, but this was a pretty diverse group of games, most unlike any other in the series. The simplest ruleset was either Times Square or Tally Ho, but both had some subtlety of strategy that I enjoyed. Settlers took up the most table space by far, requiring a large table for two players, while Times Square took up the least.

Jambo

Blue Moon

Times Square

As we head into our final group of games, we still have a few new games and some classics we've saved till the end. We also have one game that Carol is dreading and one that's universally recognized as unplayable. Next up will be Gone Fishing!

Autumn games - Perry Rhodan The Cosmic League

Our twentieth game was a new one for both us us, Perry Rhodan: The Cosmic League by Heinrich Glumpler.  Perry Rhodan is a popular science fiction book serial in Germany.

In Perry Rhodan, each player is a trader, moving his ship among the six planets of a solar system, picking up and delivering goods and passengers. Each delivery gets a player the currency of the galaxy, the Megagalax, and the first player to 70 Megagalax wins. At the start of the game each player has five cards in hand, one container for holding goods, and may replenish his hand by one card at the end of his turn.

On your turn, you may execute up to two Planetary Actions, one Flight, and may play up to two Intervention cards. Planetary Actions are (1) load a container, (2) unload a container, or (3) buy a technology. Loading and unloading is pretty straightforward. You take all of the cards on your current planet that have the same destination and put them on your container card. Containers can only be loaded once until they reach their destination and are unloaded, at which point the container can be reloaded with goods destined for another planet. When you unload goods, you get paid the value of the cards in Megagalax and flip the cards over to reveal the next destination on the other side. If you flip two cards that have the same destination, they are removed from the game, meaning that the goods available for shipping is constantly dwindling.

Buying a technology requires you to pay Megagalax to play a card from your hand to the table in front of you. Technology includes things like additional Containers for shipping goods, additional replenishment actions so you can redraw more cards at the end of your turn, and cards that let your ship move faster, farther, or execute Planetary Actions from orbit. The first technology card you play cost 1 Megagalax, the second 2, and so forth.

Taking one Flight on your turn means moving your ship from planet to planet. At the start of your turn you roll a die and may move that far. If you roll a one, you get to roll again and add the new number. What's interesting is that traveling towards the star is more efficient than traveling away from it (gravity and all) so it's faster to travel inwards.

Intervention cards can be played out of your hand. They let you do things like steal goods from the other player, execute an additional flight, switch the positions of the two ships, load goods from another planet, and deliver a passenger for 3 Megagalax. They can be cancelled by the other player playing an identical card.

Carol and I stayed pretty close during the game. There's a similarity to Jambo in that you constantly gain victory points and then must spend some to increase your abilities. I really enjoyed the planning that went into efficiently picking up and delivering goods and the way that clever card play cold foil your opponent. We both added technology and moved cards quickly. As we approached the goal of seventy points, we were almost out of goods to ship. I managed to secure the last couple of valuable lots and made it to seventy just ahead of Carol.

Final scores:

  Ipecac  70
  Carol    64

And with twenty games down, the series is tied 10 to 10.

Autumn Games - Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation

Now that the holidays are past and our household is back to normal, Carol and I have resumed our Autumn Games (although it's no longer Autumn, I'm keeping the name.) Our 19th game was Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation by Reiner Knizia.

As you might guess, Confrontation is based on the Lord of the Rings books and films and features artwork by John Howe who did artwork for the movies. One player plays the Fellowship whose goal is to get Frodo and the One Ring to Mordor while the other plays the forces of Sauron trying to either kill Frodo or get three evil minions into the Shire. If any of these goals is met, the game ends with a win for that player.

The Fellowship is ready to move out.

The board represents Middle Earth with sixteen areas such as Moria, Eregion, Gondor and Dagorlad The Shire and Mordor can hold four pieces, the Mountain spaces in the center can hold only one piece, while all others can hold two pieces. There are a few other geographical features which affect movement, including a tunnel through Moria which is great for the Fellowship unless the Balrog stands guard.

Each player has nine pieces in the game, each with a unique power and each representing a member of the Fellowship or an individual or group working for Sauron, such as Saruman, the Witch King, Orcs, or Shelob. On your turn, you move one of your pieces one space forward (a couple pieces can move more than this or move in different directions). If there's an enemy piece in that space, you fight. Since you can't identify the enemy piece from the back, there is some risk involved in attacking. (If this sounds familiar, it is similar to the game Stratego, although Confrontation requires a LOT more thought and strategy.)

The powers of the characters are mostly thematic and add to the fun of the game. For example, Aragorn has flexibility of movement and can attack in any direction, not just forward. The Flying Nazgul can attack any single Fellowship piece anywhere on the board. Gimli automatically defeats the Orcs if he encounters them while Legolas automatically defeats the Flying Nazgul. Sam's strength is only 2, but if he's in a space with Frodo and they're attacked, he takes Frodo's place and his strength becomes 5.

Combat is a simple affair. Each piece has a combat value ranging from 0 to 9. Each player plays a card to add to his value and the highest total value wins. The losing piece is removed from the board, while ties result in mutual annihilation. Each player also has Magic cards which can be played instead of a number card. These allow you to retreat, ignore the other player's number card, automatically kill both pieces, etc. The Dark player's cards have higher number values and the Fellowship player has an extra Magic card.

The Honored Dead await the next game.

What's remarkable about the game is how well balanced it is. Despite having eighteen game pieces, each with a different power and different goals, the two sides are evenly matched. I've played dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and it all comes down to strategy. There is no luck involved.

To make sure we both had an equal chance, Carol and I agreed to play the best out of three games. For the first game, I randomly drew the Fellowship. While Frodo managed to move towards Mordor and avoided death, he moved a little too slowly and before he could evade the last of Sauron's minions, Carol moved three pieces, the Black Rider, the Flying Nazgul, and the Orcs, into the Shire for the victory.

We switched sides and Carol took over the Fellowship to nearly identical results. Frodo evaded capture but I was able to get the same three pieces, the Black Rider, the Flying Nazgul, and the Orcs, into the Shire. This was a bit unusual because games usually end with the death of Frodo or the dunking of the One Ring.

Mid-Game.

For the final game, we randomly drew and I was once again the Fellowship, which had lost both previous games. I was more careful this time not to let Carol get any three pieces too near the Shire and combat took a huge toll on our pieces. But I gave as good as I got, resulting in my last four pieces being the four Hobbits which I thought was cool. Sam, Merry and Pippin gave their lives to save Frodo and soon it was the lone Hobbit against three Dark pieces.  Carol did get one into the Shire, but seeing that her remaining two pieces were too far away, I slipped Frodo past them to Mordor to destroy the One Ring and Sauron.

Frodo in Mordor for the win.

Ipecac wins Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, two to one, and moves one behind Carol in the series.