Sunday Mike brought Talisman and Cosmic Encounter with him. These are two older games, Talisman being around since 1983 and Cosmic Encounter since 1977. Both of these games have been reprinted by various publishers to keep them available for the fans.

I brought out Cartagena (2000), Tsuro (2004) and Bohnanza (1997). Again, these games have been around for a fair number of years, Tsuro being the baby of the bunch at only 8 years old.  I also had to play my current favorite, Kingdom Builder, just today nominated for the 2012 Spiel des Jahres (German board game of the year award).

So what keeps some of these older games in the forefront of people’s imaginations? What makes them classics, worth reprinting years after they were first introduced even with the plethora of games coming out each year? Sometimes, I think, it may just be nostalgia. Talisman and Cosmic Encounter were many gamer’s introduction to board games; their Monopoly, as it were. And that seems an apt comparison to me because the amount of randomness and lack of control, not to mention the time it takes to play Talisman, is very similar.

As for Cartagena, its cleverness surprises me every time I pull it out. Play a card to move forward; move backwards to receive more cards. Simple. But managing your cards and where you leave your playing pieces at the end of your turn are the goals to succeeding in this game. People who figure out these two points will enjoy this game, people who can’t be bothered will never understand.

Bohnanza is a great game for a group of rowdy, extroverted people ready to haggle and trade. Again, a simple concept– you must not rearrange your cards in hand– results in a fun and memorable game unlike anything else. I can understand this being a classic; it’s great for families, serious gamers looking for something light, kids playing something without supervision, and drunks out for some laughs. Those last two are quite a bit alike, actually, aren’t they?

Personally, I’d rather play a lot of these older games in my collection than almost anything released in the last 3 or 4 years. How many games being released this year will become the new classics in 10-15 years? Will Kingdom Builder have a cult following, yearning for another expansion or a fancier version with better bits?

As far as game day went, we had a great time. Well, except for Cosmic Encounter, which I just do NOT get. I’d rather play The Farming Game!

Wil starts by introducing the game and its theme as well as his opponents for the day, then does an excellent job of summarizing the rules.  As the game gets going, you watch what feels to me like a typical game session with trash-talk, back-stabbing, silliness, cussing (it’s bleeped, so don’t worry), and lots of laughter. The half hour show, which I didn’t expect to watch all the way through, was so much fun I didn’t realize the time had flown past.

I highly recommend setting aside a small part of your day to check it out at GeekandSundry.com

The game is for 2 to 4 players, age 8 and over, with a play time of about 45 minutes. If you’re a fan of Dominion and think this is another deck-builder, it’s  not, in any sense; nor is it card drafting or hand-management as you only get 1 card at a time; nor is it area control, worker placement or pick-up and deliver. There are no stocks to invest in, no trading or betting or bidding. The mechanics listed on the Board Game Geek page is “route/network building” and that’s close but still misses. You’re just making points the best way you can manage given 3 random cards that set the parameters, and four random abilities provided by the map layout. And that, it turns out, is more than enough.

Here are the 8 boards that come in the game. You can't build on the grey mountains at all, and only on the water with a special ability chit.

On your turn you show your card and place 3 of your wooden houses (settlements) on that type of terrain, adjacent to previous houses if possible. The “adjacent” rule is very important, limiting where you can go and possibly making your opening move a critical one. If you have built next to a location where the various ability chits are placed, you can use each of those abilities once each turn either before or after building your settlements. Then you draw a new card. That’s it; that’s your whole turn. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?

The secret is in which locations with their special abilities you build next to.  The abilities are:  place a new settlement on a desert (yellow) hex, move a settlement two hexes in a straight line, move a settlement to the terrain type on your card, place a new settlement on the edge of the board, place a new settlement on  a grass (light green) hex, place a settlement on a hex of your terrain card type, move a settlement to a water hex, and place a new settlement at the end of a row of three or more of your settlements.

These nice location summary cards are placed next to the boards as reminders.

When you add 4 of these abilities to your placement options, it can open up your choices nicely. But if you choose poorly, you can find them totally useless in helping you achieve points as dictated by the scoring cards drawn for this particular game.

There are 3 scoring cards (out of 10 that come with the game),  dealt randomly each game. You can be trying to place settlements adjacent to mountains or water, on many horizontal lines or vertical lines, or adjacent to castles and locations. You may be trying to create one very large settlement area or as many areas as you can. Maybe you’ll have to build settlements in each of the four map sectors, or connect locations and castles. Sometimes the combination of scoring cards work together but sometimes they are such that you have to choose which ones to concentrate on.

Here are the 10 scoring cards with lovely artwork.

When a player puts his last settlement on the board, that triggers the end of the game–scoring occurs at the end of that round. You add the points you earned for the three scoring cards, and three points for each castle next to which you placed a settlement. The winner is the player with the most points, of course. In case of a tie, you’re all equally brilliant!

The components are nice, as you would expect from Queen Games. The colors and artwork are clear, making it easy to see across the game table, and the cheat sheets for the locations’ abilities are a nice addition. I like that the back of each map board has a score track, making it useful as well as eliminating the need for VP or money tokens to keep score.

Each time I’ve played, I’ve had a good time even if I lost. Although the game is simple in theory, there’s a puzzle-like aspect to finding the best way to accomplish the goals set out by the scoring cards. How do I get across the board or build many small areas when I am required to place adjacent if possible? Which ability tile is going to help me the most? Where should I start when I want to make one long horizontal line but the board is full of rivers?

The game may take 45 minutes to play, but it doesn’t feel like that much time has passed because the turns are quick for the most part. There is very little confrontation except when someone builds in your way, which could be on accident or deliberate, depending on the people with whom you’re playing. Around here, you can assume it’s deliberate!

Then we convinced Mike that we should play Risk Legacy next; wouldn’t want to forget it or run out of time!

Here's the setup, my first bad decision.

Mike, Dave and Richard all stuck with their starting factions but I, being the adventurous type, decided to change to the one that was ignored the last time. I also liked their ability to treat their starting base as “fortified”, which gives a +1 to their dice when defending. Mike started again, and again placed his base in North America. Then it was my turn and I chose to switch things up again, moving my start territory from Africa to the northern reaches of Asia. Ohhh, I know, I know. What a bone-head move! But it’s only a game, right?  Richard started in his favorite location, Australia; Dave switched from Europe to South America.

For his turn, Mike spread across his N. American continent. On my turn, I took a couple of territories to protect my base and broke into Mike’s continent by taking Alaska. Well, I could see it from Russia! Then Richard’s turn. Remember that Karma? Yeah, here it came, marching north from Australia. And while I was getting a butt-kicking on one continent, Mike was taking a beating from Dave on his continent. I wasn’t spread as thin and managed a bit of a defense but Mike was seriously hurt. On the next turn he could only reinforce his dwindling defenses.

Karma kicking my butt.

Now came the, possibly, second dumb decision from yours truly. I trusted Richard. Dave was on the verge of winning on his next turn. I asked Richard if he could stop picking on me for one *$#@!* turn so I could take Dave’s second base from him. And I did. But the two-faced man that I married turned around and attacked me again! World domination is not a job for the faint of heart. And so I was left with few resources and no base. A perfect setting for Dave to make a final run through America’s base and into Asia winning his final point with my base.

It didn’t take much, just one word from someone, and we were setting up for a second game. Everyone kept their factions and their start locations with the exception of me starting in the southern part of Africa. I had hoped that a more defensible starting location would be the key to my first win. Oh, how foolish of me.

The second game, trying a different strategy in the initial base location.

Africa getting a double butt-kicking.

After the initial turn where we all take our respective continents, Dave started right in attacking Mike to his north then me. As if that weren’t enough for one peoples to endure, Richard marched his army right over to Africa through southern Asia and attacked me from the other direction.

And as history repeats itself, Mike wasn’t to fare any better this game than the last either. From northern Africa, Richard then continued through Europe to attack Mike on a second front, eventually eliminating all of his men. This forced Mike to start in a new area with a lonely 4 men. They settled in Asia in order to pick off a single man left by Richard to defend on his trek through to Africa. This was a fly bite on the rump of an elephant. There was no slowing down the war machine of my evil husband.

Outside of Mary's Town, Richard ran out of men.

On Richard’s next turn, he got 22 armies, Marched through America, taking its base; then on through Dave’s South America and taking his base; and the final push into Africa where he came up juuust short. Oh, too bad. But, really, when you control all but a few pockets of resistance, there is little doubt of the outcome. On his next turn he had no trouble taking the final point he needed to win.

At this point, I’m beginning to wonder if there is a safe place to start for me. I think next time Africa, but using the old standard, the Australian Strategy:  just sit still and add men until I have enough to break out. Or Mike and I need to gang up on someone.

In truth, the weird thing about Legacy is that the board is totally empty except for your starting locations. No maneuvering for who will take Africa or America; no single, expendable men slowing down your progress through to your target location. But it also must be noted that I can NOT ROLL DICE!!!!

Flash Point: Fire Rescue

After two games of death and destruction, we decided to save lives. Mike had brought Flash Point: Fire Rescue, his newest game. He had played 4 or 5 times with his nieces but hadn’t managed a win so our chances seemed slim but somehow, by the skin of our teeth, with only 2 black cubes remaining between us and a collapsed building, we managed to win by saving 6 people and a dog. It’s a pretty good co-op game, very thematic but also fairly fiddly. And… dice rolling can kill you!

We ended the day as we end many of them, with Ra: The Dice Game. Mike won by a fair margin which means we each won one game this day and beat a co-op game.  I hope that is some kind of good omen for the coming year.

As far as board gaming goes, this has been a stellar year for me. In the middle of June our group of three expanded to four with the addition of Dave. And a great addition he is:  funny, smart, a gracious winner as well as a good loser, and willing to give anything a try.

Richard and I discovered the crayon rail games this year and logged an amazing 53 plays of Martian Rails. In fact it was the final game of the year, played on New Year’s eve as we waited for the year to close. We also played Eurorails 22 times. That’s a lot of crayon rails!

Two other games that got more than the usual number of plays was Defenders of the Realm and Power Grid, both with 11 plays. Defenders of the Realm was played mostly 2-player, while Power Grid has become one of the group’s favorites. Along with Ra: The Dice Game, it will never be turned down.

A bring-your-own-umbrella wedding in the back yard.

On the personal side of the year, our daughter, Cori, got married in a lovely steampunk ceremony in the back yard, in the rain. It was the highlight of the year and will be remembered by everyone in attendance as one of the best weddings ever.

The less wonderful part of life also visited us this year; we lost my mother in July, one of our cats in September, and our Corgi in November. Those were probably the worst six months I can remember in a long, long time.

And so… a new year begins and I wish all my readers a new year filled with hope and love and laughter. And may this year be better than the last.

Here's the chair with the tray forward to allow room to put the doll in the seat.

Here's the chair with the tray back, to hold the doll in place.

One of my husband’s co-workers requested a pair of doll high chairs for her daughters. She had found a picture online that showed the type of thing she was thinking of but it had disappeared before Richard got around to that project. We didn’t have any design plans but we do have plenty of experience so this is the result. I love the sliding tray, so easy but also sturdy.

Richard has recently discovered the joy of scroll saw work so for Christmas he made one of these Welcome plaques for each of our grown children.

With one location as our current quest and four sitting in queue, we were adding at least one Threat to our Threat Level each turn. The couple enemies we did encounter didn’t give us much trouble but then… dun-dun-duuunnn… OMG! Double whammy! Mike had put out a very large contingent of allies and sent them all questing with a total of about 31 Willpower. Whoa, I thought, do we really need all that? (There was about 9 threat in the staging area.) Then we drew our two cards: Driven By Shadow which adds 1 Threat to each enemy and each location! Whew, it’s a good thing he sent all of his guys questing then; we were safe. But wait! We also drew Ungoliant’s Spawn who subtracts 1 Willpower from each character committed to the quest. Oh, nooooo! That was our undoing.

And now for the main event of the day, Mike’s newest purchase, the reason you’ve all come here today: Risk Legacy! There should be no spoilers here since it was our first game and no new rules or rules changes were made, no hidden components were revealed.

The box arrived at the table unopened, the seal stating, “NOTE: What’s been done can never be undone.”  Now if you’re like me, you’d want to try whatever you could to play the game but still leave it so you could start fresh, undoing what choices and changes you’ve made; not Mike. He was determined to have this be the one and only way it would be played. So… make your choices good ones!

On opening the box, we found 4 packets stickered to the lid with instructions on when they could be opened. Lifting the board from the box revealed two rather large compartments also with instructions. On the back of the board is a form for the players to sign and date stating, “We, the undersigned, take responsibility for the wars we about to start, the decisions we will make, and the history we will write. Everything that is going to happen is going to happen because of us.”  Then at the bottom, “The wars started on the following date.” Fun! We all got that tingle of excitement–something cool has begun.

The basic Risk rules apply but the set up is different; you only get one area from which to begin your takeover. The story is about humanity leaving all of the nastiness on Earth and landing on a pristine planet to start anew. Uh-huh, we can live in harmony. Sure. Anyway, everyone chooses one spot as their starting location as long as it isn’t adjacent to another player, and spreads out from there. Each player chooses a faction and customizes it using one of the two stickers provided for each.

I chose the Enclave of the Bear because one of my cats’ name is Bear. Oh, like none of you would do that!! I chose the attribute that lets me conquer a territory if I roll a natural 3 of a kind and defeat at least one defender. Cool but tough to do. The other choice was for the defender to subtract 1 from the lower defense die in the first territory I attack. Might have been more useful but not nearly as cool!

Richard took the Saharan Republic– I think he liked the hot chick with a gun! He chose the ability to maneuver to any territory you control even if it’s not connected. The other choice was to make the maneuver at any point during your turn. Oh, that might have been useful if you’re not sure which front someone is going to attack. Alas, tis done.

Dave liked the military outfits of the Imperial Balkania and chose to give them the ability to round up rather than down when dividing your territory and population for new recruits. His other option was to be able to draw a card even if you didn’t conquer a territory but you have to have expanded into 4 or more territories. That can be tough to do except at the beginning of the game when almost everything is empty so I think he made a good choice.

The final faction is the Die Machaniker. We group chose to let them have their starting base be fortified if they are defending it. The tossed ability is that your territory cannot be attacked again this turn if you defend it with two natural 6s.  I think we made the better choice and I would be happy to get them the next time we play.

We rolled and Mike got to start. He chose to start in one of the southern territories of the US. I chose North Africa, Richard took Australia, and Dave settled for a spot in Europe. During the course of our 45 minute game, Dave was attacked from all three directions at one point or another. I came very close to winning when I took his base and then headed towards Mike’s all in one turn. If Mike hadn’t put up such a good fight in the one territory between me and his HQ, I would have made it. Instead, depleted, I watched as Richard took the win. He got to be the first person to sign the board and he created a major city and named it.

We have added a couple of “scars” to the board, two Ammo Shortages which makes the defender subtract 1 from his higher die, and a Bunker which lets the defender add 1 to his higher die. And Mike has added a minor city, naming it for one of his two sons. we really enjoyed this and all look forward to whatever changes we will see in the future. You noticed that the factions have spaces for 4 more large stickers and a smaller one just under the name– can’t wait to see what those will be! Unfortunately, that probably won’t be until after the new year.

Until then, Happy Christmas and a game-filled New Year to all!

Bolide is a car racing game originally produced by Ghenos Games in 2005. They advertised it as a “revolutionary” car racing game and were immediately pounced upon by many who had played it as Racetrack using a pen and graph paper. I say if you want to play it with a boring piece of paper and a pen, go for it, but I’d rather play on a big, picturesque board (roughly 27 X 38 1/2 inches) with nice little plastic cars in eight colors with matching pawns.

The board is two-sided. This is the French track, the opposite side has a British track.

The “revolutionary” part of the game is in the physics-driven mechanism for moving your car which simulates the inertial effects of speed and turning. The faster your car is going, the wider the turning radius it will need so you are forced to slow down or run off the track. This is done using a pawn that exactly copies the movement your car just made to mark a target location for your next move.

The eight cars with their corresponding movement pawns.

An example of movement: any space with the coin is a valid point for the car's next move. His current speed is 5, counting from the car to the marker.

Your movement can be to the point occupied by the marker or any point that is within two spots of the marker. In this way you can speed up or slow down by two on your turn. The two-spot limit prevents you from zooming around a corner at speed seven which would place your marker for the next move out in the middle of a field, and make you some sabertooth tiger’s dinner.

This has been a “wow” game for me and everyone I’ve shown it to. It may not be revolutionary to some but it was a new and clever mechanism for us. It is also fun if you have the right people. You can not, I emphasize “not”, spend five minutes planning out this move, the next move and the one after that. Fly by the seat of your pants, rely on experience and/or intuition, and have a good time.

A shot from our last game. That's my blue car in the back of the pack with only two spots on the track available for my next movement.

We started with Mike’s new game. Is that a surprise, that Mike has a new game? No, not even a little bit.

Gears of War is a cooperative game based on a video game on the Xbox. Not having a ‘box, I can’t comment on how well it integrates the video game into a board game but as a board game, we had a blast with it. We started with the first scenario, slowly breaking us in to the rules and game play, and we managed to beat it without too much trouble. Since it was fun and all set up, I suggested we try the next scenario which Mike said sounded tough. Know what? He was right. About half way through, the Berserker babe laid two of us down and her cohorts gathered around the final member of our party for the kill. One thing I especially liked about the game play is that taking a wound means you discard a card from you hand. This hand management aspect neatly represents a lack of choices and control. The more wounded you are, the less you’re able to do. I won’t run out to add this game to my collection, but I’d be happy to play again.

Gears of War towards the end of the first scenario.

Next was a serious change of pace from the co-ops and deck-building games we’ve been playing recently:  Formula D. Mike introduced us to Formula De years ago when we first started gaming together and I enjoyed the push-your-luck style of this racing game enough to buy my own copy when it was reprinted. I love the personal cards that keep track of a player’s Wear Points and the gear they’re in, but I really, really wish the cars were of better quality like the original.

Mike's lead after making it through the street of potholes.

I wanted to try the city side of the map which adds some new features to the original. There’s a stretch of street that is badly in need of repair, possibly causing damage to cars racing over the rough spots; there’s an area with grumpy citizens who may shoot at the loud cars racing through their neighborhood; and there’s a police station where the racer with the fastest time past it is rewarded with Wear Points. The final touch to the street racing is the personalization of your car and driver, each with a special ability that may help them through the race.

We ran a one-lap race, Mike taking the pole position and Richard at the back of the pack. Mike started off with a substantial lead which lasted until he blew through a corner half way through the race and spun out, causing him to restart in first gear. The crowd went wild… well, at least I did. I caught up to him and passed him in the final corner. It was only after the hand-shaking and award ceremony were over that Richard mentioned that Mike could have thrown his radio at me as I passed him. That was his character’s special ability. Depending on the roll, that might have done me enough damage to take me out of the race!

And the little red car is across the finish line! Richard's blue car crashed in the foreground.

Power Grid has become one of our staple games so I didn’t think anyone would complain when I suggested it, this time with the central Europe map. As we become more comfortable with this game, we also become more aggressive. Well, maybe that’s just me.

Richard became cornered early in the game which slowed him down and made Mike my main competition. When a power plant came up that used 3 garbage to power 6 cities, that fit me perfectly because I was already using garbage. With my fistful of money I fought Mike for it until it was mine– for a measly $85 when it started at 30. Towards the end of the game with the possibility for anyone to win, one of the last power plants to come up was another one that powered 6 cities. If I won it, I would be able to power 18 cities and keep Mike from being able to power 17. If Mike won it, he’d be able to power 17 and so would I but he had more money to build to the requisite cities. I kept upping his bid until we were around 80 again, Richard also in the bidding because he needed another big plant as well. Mike pointed out that he had over $200 and I told he he better bring it. Ooooo, scary, huh? And tense. Mike finally dropped out after Richard bid $110. And evil person that I am, I let him have it and kept my money for building to cities. This cut Richard too short of money to buy enough materials, giving me the win. It was glorious!

Final positions: I'm blue, Richard is red and Mike is black.

After a break for supper, veggie chili and banana cake, I wanted to see how a trick-taking game I’ve had for ages plays and said it would only take 5 minutes. Bargain Hunter, like many trick-taking games these days, has a theme to try to explain the twists in traditional card games. In this game there are 6 colors in numbers 1-9, and you are collecting bargains (a particular number card) which everyone knows. After taking a trick, you set aside any bargain card you took onto your Bargain pile and the rest go into your Junk pile. The Junk pile is sorted through at the end of the hand (Spring Cleaning) to look for possible new bargains which will be your new target for the next hand. I had a hard time even explaining this game since it feels so weird to me to paste a theme onto a traditional card game but we finally made it through a couple of hands with only a couple clarifications. We played a whole game, 6 hands, which took us a little more than the five minutes I’d asked for. We each had a fair pile of Junk to cancel out our Bargains sure that not a one of us had a positive score so we were surprised when Mike had a point and I had two! It’s an interesting game but it needs more play time to become comfortable with it. Richard remarked that he’d like to play it again so I know he liked it even though he came in last with -1.

The final game of the day was Eurorails, one of the crayon rail games. Richard and I have played our 3 versions more than any other game I own but we’ve never been able to play it with more than 2 people so this was a little different for us. And great fun. There’s just something about the planning and logistics of these games that touches some part of your brain that no other game can touch. Our game lasted about 2 hours which is pretty good for 3 players but we helped Mike find cities and goods on the map, and when visiting a city to pick up goods, you just say, “pick up such-and-such” and another player got the chip for you while you keep on counting your movement.  At a point when my train was next to Mike’s, Richard told Mike to throw his radio at me! I can see that this is going to be a running joke around here, throwing your radio to slow down your competition. I like it.

It was a very good day of very good games. I’m only sad that Dave couldn’t join us.