Top Selling Games

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Games We Have Been Playing

Previous Years Christmas Suggestions

Top Selling Games in the New Year - and at the end of the year, here's the new bit first

The perils of leaving a Luddite with a lap-top! Confident in the memory of having written an up-dated boardgames article, I have not checked that part of the site for months – and I had not transferred the article to the relevant machine. Here's a quick up-date for your belated edification.

Ex Libris is still our top-selling game overall. Carcassone remains the game suitable for everyone, and just in time for Christmas there is now the Carcassone Big Box of several of the expansions together. But the big seller in December is Battlelore, the new medieval/fantasy easy-play board wargame which follows up the huge success of Memoir '44. Strategy games generally have been to the fore, with Antike still steadily gaining devotees a year after its release. The new version of Arkham Horror has also gone down very well, as has the new expansion Dunwich Horror. And, on a completely different tack, Canal Mania has completely sold out at the manufacturer but we still have a few left, having grabbed as many as we could.

So, on the whole, there has been a trend back towards games you can get your teeth into, but the easy-to-midweight games have held up too. The reprint of Through the Desert has pleased many who missed it first time round, and the newer, somewhat longer Hacienda has also gone down well as they both have the great virtue of working well as 2, 3, 4 or 5 player games. Ticket to Ride Europe and Ticket to Ride Marklin, slightly up-rated versions of the original Ticket to Ride, continue to dominate the railway games at the introductory level. Among the plethora of Pirate games, Dread Pirate Bookshelf Edition stands out for its beautiful look (there is also the Dread Pirate Discovery Edition) and Pirate's Cove still holds its own among all the newcomers because it is just so good.

Frank's Zoo continues to top the cardgame list, with Mamma Mia and Sole Mio chasing - these are all suitable for all kinds of people. But right behind is Killer Bunnies, with over half a dozen expansions all selling well. This is the one for all you strange people out there (and often here in the shop too – we're not complaining!)

A few weeks into the new year, what have people been buying so far in 2006?

Not surprisingly Carcasonne: The Count has come top – after all, it costs only 2.99 and Carcassone is a deservedly popular game. The main game itself and the variant Carcassone: Hunters and Gatherers would have rivalled The Count in sales if they had not run out soon after Christmas with fresh supplies not reaching these shores until the end of January, and the first expansion, Inns and Cathedrals, was also in our January top ten.

The Count works rather well, by the way. One of the impressive things about the Carcassone expansions is that they all work together without making the game too fussy, and it all still just fits onto our coffee table so that Sally does not have to move from in front of the fire to play.

Second biggest seller has been Fluxx; I only got round to trying this game last year, and immediately saw why it is so popular. A basic grasp of the English language and the ability to count up to 10 is all that is needed for anyone to play, yet is still holds up as a good lightweight game for the experienced gamer.

Next most popular have been Ex Libris and Hare and Tortoise. At last we have been selling Ex Libris to people in this country, it was very worrying that all the sales of anything even remotely literary were only to the USA. I have absolutely no objection to selling to Americans, but is a relief to know that there are still a few people capable of stringing a sentence together here too. That's all you need to play the game, together with a bit of imagination – it is an excellent after-dinner game for around half a dozen people.

With the return of Rio Grande's version of Hare and Tortoise I have continued with my crusade to get a copy into every local household, this is a true classic and that rarest of things, a race game that still works really well with only two or three people.

And the others holding up well? War of the Ring, now that we have had the time off over Christmas to get to grips with it (some of us do not have as many working brain cells, nor the eyesight for the sometimes tiny text, but it is worth the effort). San Juan, such an elegant playing system, easy to learn but with lots of variety and interaction between the cards. Tantrix, a neat game which can also be used as a solo puzzle. And Bohnanza, simple but slightly mean, still the king of the number-based card games.

We stock a good range of traditional pub games, to save you searching you can click on the names here for an immediate list of what we have of that type. Cribbage is the most popular pub game locally, follwed by Dominoes, darts comes third but we don't sell them. We do, however, have a good selection of Playing Cards, and also stock traditional wooden games such as Shove ha'penny, Skittles and Bagatelle. Quoits is potentially suitable, as is Carrom. We also sell Bingo sets and Roulette sets, popular for charity evenings etc.

It is also worth bearing in mind that many of the recent card and smaller board games fit nicely onto a pub table, take about an hour to play, and go very well with a pint or two of ale. Tantrix also has the considerable advantage of being beer-proof!

HOT NEWS: Trax has returned! This has long been a favourite of mine as an end-of-evening game. As a fore-runner to Tantrix, it requires fewer functioning brain cells, though you still have to keep your wits about you. Hive is also being re-done in a plastic waterproof version though we still have the original very fine wooden style.

Croquet works as well on a small but uneven lawn (like ours) as on a big flat one. It is not obligatory to serve cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, but it is traditional, as is a lightly chilled Chablis if you can run to it. Similarly, you are not obliged to drink Calvados while playing Boules, but it is definitely an option. Beer or lemonade for giant Pick up Sticks, Tumble or Jerico. G&T with Quiots?

Spirit Games' wargaming roots go back a long way, with Phil's wargames room still containing scratch-built 1:1200 ships and 1:76 Airfix kits from his school days. That was before 1:3000 ships existed! The army which Sally painted for him as a birthday present (other girlfriends may note that this was a highly effective way of encouraging a long relationship) was based for WRG 5th edition ancients rules. Sadly, there is now seldom the time and brain-power available for setting up more than the occasional DBA or Hordes of the Things - even Andy, closely involved with wargaming for almost as long, and without quite as many other distractions, finds the same problem.

It has to be said, though, that with Andy adding his vast accumulation of miniatures to the Spirit Games stocks, we have a lot of toys to play with if we ever do find the time!

The local wargames scene is quite lively, Burton and District club (BAD Wargamers as they have been known in recent years) are very much still at it, and while Games Workshop's customers have taken brand loyalty to extraordinary extremes, they do occasionally call in to take advantage of our range of dice and must surely sometimes notice that there are other miniatures too. Indeed, there are plans afoot that just might attract their attention - we shall see.

The great majority of our sales of new historical miniatures and rules sets are to Europe and the Colonies, so our perspective on what is currently popular is hardly local. It is clear, though, that naval wargaming is popular at the moment; there was not the expected rush on Napoleonic ships for the anniversary of Trafalgar, but people have been buying fleets to fight everything from ancient galleys to the very latest ships.

Two other areas that have been coming to life after a dormant period are Western Gunfights and Samurai. The modern era on land is fairly quiet after a year of being perhaps more popular than WWII. The interest in Warhammer Ancients has been diluted by the release of Warmaster Ancients, but there is considerable interest in the new Vlad supplement. It will be interesting to see if that triggers a new era of East European games, roll on the Hussite war wagons!

Games We Have Been Playing - Previous write-ups Click here for our current write-up

12 Dec 2007

Tonight we played a 6 player game of Tiki Mountain!.

First impressions is the box and pieces are all very colourful and the theme is just great.

Players take the role of a villager whose task is to race to the top of Tiki mountain and sacrifice themselves to save the rest of the villagers from the Angry Volcano God.

Each turn a player has the option to Discard/Draw cards so that they have a hand of 7 cards.
In their turn they can play item cards, Tiki magic cards or climb(climb better cards)

Climb cards allow you to climb the mountain but you can only play one per turn but you can play a climb better card with it which improves the climb card. There are several tracks up the mountain marked with arrows pointing the way up.

Item cards can be placed on the colourful players mat in either hands (x2) or feets spots. So at any one time a player can not have more than 3 active items. If they want to add another they must discard one already in play. Item's in play are active even when it is not that players turn. Items add different abilities to your villager like better climbing, protection from obstacles or means to avoid disasters.

Tiki magic cards can be used to lay down obstacles like Mudslides, Rock Slides, Gas Vents and Lava flows to hinder the other villagers on their race up the mountain. You can also use them to swap places with other villagers on the mountain and other nice/nasty tricks. To power Tiki magic some cards require you to spend Totems, but you will need 1 of each totem (Fire, Earth and Water) in order to sacrifice yourself to the Volcano God.

At the end of your turn you use a spinner to determine how many totems you collect. Play then passes round the table, certain cards can be played out of your turn (mostly blocking, defensive Tiki Magic Cards). When play gets round to the player to the right of the Angry Volcano God Cards he turns over a Angry Volcano God Card after his turn, the effects of the card happens to all players unless they have cards or items that can help.

Play continues in this way until someone makes it to the Lava pit, to make a sacrifice the player has to end his move in the pit, sacrifice one each of the Totems and then turn over the top Angry Volcano God Card this time they only effect that one player, if they can avoid the effects and when they read the "Is Tiki Worthy" Section and they meet the conditions they WIN.

This was a really fun game and I was impressed how well balanced it was with 6 players as despite it looking initially that one person was racing ahead the mechanics of the Tiki Magic cards, obstacles and Angry Volcano God Cards made it so the end game nearly everyone was at the volcano top and ready or nearly ready to sacrifice themselves.

I would definately play this again and it has that element of trying to get one over on each other as you race to the final goal.

It's very simple to pick up the rules, but a little longer to work out what are the best items, tiki magic cards to use and when.

Overall very enjoyable and will definately be dragged out when I raid the cupboard again.

Paul.

5 Dec 2007

Tonight we played a game of Hameln
Based on the story of the pied piper this is quite a nice looking game with some beautiful pieces.

The game is played over 3 Rounds, each round ends when the last King Rat is placed in house.

Each player starts the game by placing 2 people on the board in either the female or male section of a house. Each player takes it in turn to place one person, and they can not put all their pieces in the same house you have to share with other players as these represent marriages.

On each players turn they have to take one of the following compulsary actions:
1. Male Influence - Activates houses where they have a male person inside producing a good (meat, cheese, bread or ale) or a florin.
2. Female Influence - Activates houses where they have a female person inside produce a child ready for marriage. or a florin (depending on the house)
For options 1 & 2 it also activates the opposing function for the other player in the house (ie player one chooses Male influence, player 2 gets the female influence)
3. Sell Goods Player can sell as many goods as they want for money. Meat = four florins, ale = three, cheese = two, and bread = one. Alternatively they can take a random rat trap token good cube.
4. Marry and move into a house Player may marry one of their children in the church, but there must be a another player child available of the opposite gender. The owner of the male child pays the cost of the house they move into, whilst the player whose turn it is selects the house.

By using option 1 or 2 you generate Rat activity, each house has a figure which states how many rats appear which are placed on white space around the house. When all the white spaces are full a King Rat is placed in the house which can no longer be activated as it is overrun.

After the compulsary actions a player can choose to do one of several optional actions:
1. Buy The Cat You pay the bank 4 florins or if another player has it the bank gets 3 florins and the player 1. The cat removes 1 rat token of the players choice. The cat also scores at the end of the game.
2. Buy Influence Look at the influence cost track and pay amount indicated, receiving the influence. Marker is then moved changing the pay/influence ratio for the next player.
3. Bribe the Pied Piper Player places money on one of four Pied Piper spaces. The Pied Piper always moves to the space with the most money on it.

Play continues like this until all the King rat are out at which point the pied piper removes all the rats from the area attached to the square he is currently in, plus all the King Rats. Rats are also removed from the inner market area. Each player who has children in the church now pays the amount of florins indicated on the pied piper square or place their child on the first available space on the road to Transylvania each of which is worth negative points.The pied piper then moves to the square with the 2nd largest amount of money or clockwise. Player order for the next round is then determined by influence score.

After the 3rd round scoring occurs, 1 point for the cat, 1 point for the player to finish the game. Player with highest value of Rat Traps scores 3, players with most influence score 3, 2 or 1 (Top 3 Only). Most money gets players 5, 3 or 1 point and players score points for each house they have a person but only if it is not overrun. The negative points are then scored for children on the road to Transylvania, player with the most points wins, ties broken by influence track.

The game is novel and by the very nature of the gameplay makes players form partnerships which then influence how you take certain actions through your turns.

Overall I thought it was a fun game but a little frustrating to play at times, not helped by the fact on the night we played a major rule wrong so that once a player had activated a house we did not remember to allow the other player in the house to take the opposite action.

I think if I play this again properly I may get a better opionion of how the game plays as the way we played it made it that certain players were left with little or no choice of what to do on their turn.

Paul.

28th November 2007

Tonight we had a 5 player game of Hamburgum which Richard brought along.

The aim of the game is to build prestige and the winner is the player with the most prestige points at the end of the game.
Prestige is gained by making donations to churches, each church has five bonus prestige tiles. The first gets you a straight five prestige points. The rest give you prestige points based on how many you have of a certain thing multiplied by certain amount. These bonus tiles, apart from the straight point one, can be scored at any point (usually when it will score you the most) but are any unscored ones are scored at the end of the game.

What you can do each turn is decided on a Rondel with tasks marked around it. You can move up to 3 spaces round the Rondel for free any more and you have to pay in prestige points.

The Rondel is made up of the following Tasks:
Dockyard
Where you can pay resources to build ships in the docks which are used to trade goods. There are 3 docks marked 1, 2 & 3, everyone starts with a ship in the no 3 dock which allows then to trade up to 3 items of the same good for the current value marked on the board. The price goes down as people build the relevant buildings giving them additional goods. When a dock gets one more ship in then players all the ships are moved down to the next smallest dock (Except for the new ship placed). If they are in the last dock when this happens the ships are removed from the board back to the owners stock.

Sugar
This produces 1 sugar + any additional sugar given by buildings.

Church
This allows you to make a donation to the church of your choice. You can make as many donations as you can afford to make. Each level of donation has a cost associated with it and this goes up the more donations are made. Players leave markers on church's to indicate the level of donations made. If you managed to complete a church you gain the right to build buildings anywhere in the city without restriction. Each donation to the church nets you a bonus scoring token, the first gets you 5 prestige points the others give you prestige points based on how many you have of certain things.

Trade
This allows you to buy or sell goods, using your ship allows you to get the best price for you goods. You can always sell goods without a ship for a base £30 but this is a last resort move.

Cloth
This works the same as the sugar one.

Guildhall
This allows you to build a building provided you have made a contribution to a church. you can only build out from a church you have dontaed to or adjacent to a another one of your buildings.

Beer
This works the same as the sugar one.

Trade
Same as the other trade.

The resources you can buy are Wood, Clay and Bells. You can only ever own one bell and these are only used to complete churches.
Once a church is completed that player takes a church piece from the board and places it on the church he completed. This reveals the number of prestige points he gets for this. Play ends when the sixth and final church is complete when players score any unscored bunuses and the player with the most prestige wins. Players gain prestige at the end for every £100 they have, resources and goods can be sold at this time for £50 each.

Each turn in this game is pretty quick so the game plays through fairly quickly. There was an element of taking actions to scupper other players actions and scoring, especially near the end to prevent leader run away. In the end the scores were fairly close.

The pieces are very well made and the board is both large and colourful.

I did enjoy this game and I would play this again now I have a better understanding of what priority to do things, but have a slight worry that without any random elements and the same group of players it could become very samey.

To round the evening off we played a couple of games of Buckets, an old favourite which always goes down well and is quick and easy to play.

Paul.

21 Nov 2007

This week Neil brought in his copy of Agricola to play. There is a LOT to do in this game the idea is to build up your farm by adding rooms to your farm house, ploughing crops, managing livestock, upgrading your buildings.. etc etc etc.

The game is played over 14 rounds, each round you get as many actions as you have people ( you get more people by adding rooms and using a specific action in the game). At the start of the game there are certain actions you can take by placing one of you people on them, you also have cards in your hand which consist of occupations and advancements. You need to take a specific action in order to place these and they usually cost a certain amount of resources which are collected by taking other actions.

As each round progresses you get more actions you can take, for the first half of the game, after 3 rounds, you need to be able to feed your people (2 food each person) so you need to have this ready, if not you get a penalty which reduces your final score. Later in the game you only have 2 rounds before this happens making your choice of actions very important.

There is a lot to do and think about in this game, not helped by the fact that a lot of the special card are still in german (so having to keep asking Neil what they meant). Neil had done a fine job of adding English translations to the vast majority of cards which helped a lot.

I liked the game, but on first play I did find it fairly complicated in as much as there was rather too much to think about and kept changing strategy through the game as people used the action card I needed. I think I would possibly like it better 2nd time around knowing a bit more about what each card does and knowing where I went wrong the first time. It is a long game to play especially with the 5 people we had playing it so this is going to be one of those games you will devote a full evening to playing. Never the less it was enjoyable.

Paul.

31 Oct 2007

This week we were again in two groups, as we had quite a few players in store.
Our group played a game of Infernal Contraption with the new expansion Infernal Contraption 2: Sabotage!.

The original game of Infernal Contraption is a very neat little game where players compete to build their contraptions and consume the resources of the other players. Each player receives a power core and the cards are dealt evenly between all players to form their parts pile. Each player then takes 7 cards from their own parts pile to form their hand.

On each turn the player may place one card onto their machine for free any additional cards must be paid for by discarding a card from their hand into the scrap pile in the centre. Cards are added either to the main line or as a plug in. Each card has different coloured and shaped sockets and these must match for a card to be added to the machine, there are some universal sockets which allow anything to be connected.

The machine is made up of the following parts:
The Main Line: Each players machine is built in a horizontal line.
Plugs: Cards placed vertically on top or bottom of the Main Line.
Terminals: Any card in machine attached at only one socket.

The parts come in various guises,
Power Sources (Provide additional power)
Contraptions (Create the effects of the machine but require power)
Upgrades (Modify Performance of attached contraptions)
Consumables (One-Time effects removed from game after use)

Players are eliminated when their parts pile is depleted at which point their hand and machine parts are taken out of the game. The winner is the last Gremlin standing with parts left in their parts pile.

In the new expansion their are more upgrades, consumables, power sources and new Sabotage Cards. These are all mixed in with the cards from the original game and the game is played as before. On your turn you now have the option to play a sabotage card (if you have one) on an opponents machine these are played like any other card but can only be played as plugs. Throwing a spanner in an opponents works helps even out the game making it a little longer but keeping it interesting. This is a fantastic little game which adds an interesting twist to the original game.

Paul.

25 Oct 2007

To start the evening off we split into two groups to play some quick games so Sal could join in a game later.

Our group played "It's Alive" which I have to say is a fantastic little game, I lost but did not come last. It is a set collection and auction card game where players compete as mad scientists trying to bring a monster to life. Considering this is a home made product the quality is very good and I really liked the theme and gameplay.

We then split again to play two more games, our group played "Around the World in 80 Days" which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The game follows the story of Phileas Fogg and the players compete to complete his epic journey around the world. You pick a card each turn which determines an additional action or bonus you can use. You then use travel cards to move along the journey, each leg requiring specific types of transport. You have to make decisions as to whether to stay behind and hope to get transport that will take less time to move or move ahead quickly to get back to London.

The first and last player at each destination get a bonus chit which awards travel cards, event cards, gold or increases other players travel by a number of days. Winning is determined by the total number of days taken to get back to London unless everyone takes more than 80 days in which case the first person back wins.

There is a detective piece which can be moved around which adds an additional 2 days on your journey if your piece ends its turn on the same location. Each travel card has a number of days travel marked on it and these are added to your travel time when used, if you have two modes of transport the same type and value you only score the number of days for one (which can be quite a saving). The balloon event card or additional action (as determined by the travel card you picked up) allow you to roll a D6 instead of using the travel value of one card, this can significantly reduce travel time for that leg. As my first play of this game coming 3rd and fairly close to the 2nd player (we played with 4) felt quite good.

Carole's Group played Nix Fur Ungut!
Nix Fur Ungut! is a type of Yahtzee with cards, you have your hand of numbered cards to create hands to play, there is also a Joker to use to make up any hand, these are not allowed in the fifth and final round.

various options are :
Two, three or four of a kind
3 or 4 card straight
Single card
No card option
And others

Once you have played your first hand you place a counter on the appropriate sliding scale of points against the type of hand you have played,
This continues until all five rounds have been played, you also have a double point counter that you can use at any time, score counted up at the end, highest wins.

This is a good and quick game, you need to be careful you don`t play your best hands too early because if someone else has the same hand their counter could push your counter along the sliding points scale to a smaller score. All in all very enjoyable but I think the more players the more strategic you would need to be.

Then Carole's Group Played King's Breakfast: (Report by Carole)

You are at the Kings breakfast and need to eat as much as you can but not exceed the amount of food the King has or you don`t score any points at the end.

The number of cards is determined by the number of players, cards used each turn is double the number of players, the cards are placed face up for players to choose the type they want each turn and all of that choice is taken, or take one card from the deck. Once all players have chosen the remainder goes to the kings Breakfast table.

Play continues until the last full deal, any remaining cards are disguarded. There are also Emerald the dragon cards which eats two random cards from the Kings breakfast pile, these are taken from the game.

Scoring - If you have more than the King in any one type then your cards of that type are taken out of the game, no score.
If you Have the same or less than the king you score your number of cards times his, as this example ;
King has 5 Bottles of wine, you have 4 bottles of wine, you score 4x5=20 and so on for each type of food [there are 7 types]

This game was entertaining with 3 players but may benefit from having more. Good game.

Paul.

10th Oct 2007

Phil decided he would buy himself his other birthday game and chose Power Grid.
This is always a favourite game involving bidding for various powerplants, resource management for the supplies for the power plants and building of cities.

The winner is the person who can power the most of their cities in the final round where hopefully you have balanced power/expansion just right!.

I had a really bad game where I ended up with more power capacity then cities due to bidding on power plants too early and letting myself get hemmed in and losing out on cheap expansion routes.

On the plus side, seeing as Phil bought this for his B'day he won the game quite successfully and he was ahead for a lot of the game so Very well done!

Paul.

26th September 2007

We played a quick game of Bloody Legacy to fill in while we waited for a few stragglers to come in. In the end it really was a quick game as several 5 damage point cards came into play taking lives in rapid succession.

We then played Hollywood Blockbuster which is a very easy game to play and very entertaining. Players compete to complete films by bidding on cards representing directors, actors, special effects, camera's etc. There are various oscars up for grabs based on Best film / Worst film and first to complete films of specific colours. These Oscars and points awarded for completed films (based on star ratings of components making up the film) go towards your final score.

Finally we played a game of On the Underground, the goal of the game is to build the most successful Underground lines and in doing so gain the most points. You can gain points by connecting your lines to various destinations on the board, and by having the passenger use your lines to travel from station to station. The player who has best balanced the demands by the time that the deck of destinations is exhausted will be declared the winner.

For yet another week I managed not to win a single game, on the other hand I didn't come last in all of them so there is hope!

Paul.

12 September 2007

We had enough people for 2 groups of 4 this week. One group played Phonecia and the others played Blue Moon City and Mission: Red Planet.

Sal & Phil joined the later group with myself and Carole, Sal had not played either game so I attempted badly to explain the rules. I managed after a fairly even game to win the Blue Moon City game mostly down to having the the right cards at the right times.

In the Second game things went a little wrong for me I completely misjudged my strategy (if indeed I ever had one) and winded up getting the lowest score ever on Red Planet of 20. Carole won with a large score of over 70.

Paul.

Summer Time...

...and the living is, well, rather hectic. We had to make the most of the sunshine once it finally arrived, and updating my blurb on the site went by the board. Also, being the holiday season, the Wednesday evening sessions have been quite quiet, and some old favourites have once again kept us happy. We have tried some new ones, though, and they have all gone well – all I have to do is remember them, over a period of several weeks, with a brain that mostly holds data for about 48 hours. At least it means that any I can remember have made a firm impression, but expect the details to be minimal.

Blue Moon City has been a favourite with some of the regulars since it came out, and when I joined in one night I, too, enjoyed myself. It is the sort of positional game which I take to readily; the aim is to collect crystals by being in the right space at the right time, but you also collect cards, which govern movement, and dragon scales, which allow you to move the three dragons around the board, conferring useful bonuses. The “board” is, in fact, a set of 21 tiles so the set-up is very variable; the resultant 5 x 5 board is quite a small area to operate in, but with a typical move being a couple of spaces it is surprisingly easy to find yourself in the wrong place as scoring opportunities pass and new ones become imminent. This is largely down to what the other players are doing, so the game is satisfyingly interactive. This does mean, though, that plans are constantly adjusted, requiring pauses for thought, so a 4-player game is likely to take a fair bit longer than the hour suggested on the box.

JKLM's new game Phoenicia was demoed at Games Expo back in June, and has gained many fans since then, including me, not least because I beat Richard the Lawyer in my first game. Interestingly - to me, at any rate – this was achieved by a sudden sprint to the finish, concentrating on victory points at the expense of production points, which would have been fatal if the game had gone on for another turn. This was how I beat him at our first game of San Juan*, and it highlighted similarities at a fundamental level between two games which, in detail, are very different. I found Phoenicia to be a satisfying game with its own distinct flavour, with a number of different routes to victory. Resource management with a feeling of a story behind it. Nice.

Another game that featured at Expo was War on Terror; at that stage I had only a demo copy since I wanted to be happy that it was not just a gimmick. I could have sold a dozen copies on the basis of the bit that is a gimmick – the Evil Empire balaclava – and had also satisfied myself that it is also a well made and well thought out game, but did not have stock in time. At a recent Wednesday evening session we finally had a full game of it, and everyone enjoyed it. It is the current equivalent of the classic card game, Nuclear War, which should have been CND-approved since it made the point that total destruction of everything was the likely outcome, though it seldom produced that reaction. I can guarantee that neither the American Neo-Cons nor their UK cousins Neo Labour will approve of War on Terror as it makes several telling points, but it is also a proper strategic board game which also slightly favours the good guys, insofar as you can work out who they are. The essence of the game is that you need to expand to get more oil revenue to build the cities which will give you lots of happy citizens and a game win. Most of the time you cannot make direct attacks, but instead insert terrorist cells into your opponents' areas and then move in after the destruction. The snag is that it is a lot easier to create terrorists than to remove them – just like in real life – so those cells end up being used against you by the other players. If you give up on your empire altogether and turn terrorist – which you have to do if you completely run out of money or settlements – you can only win a joint victory, as the terrorist players only get one turn between them. So to beat the other players properly you need to stay a Good Guy, albeit somewhat tarnished, which gives the game a bit of moral kudos, too.

Another strategy game that has been well received is Exalted: War for the Throne, which we played around the same time. It is a just-above-Risk-level game, and in fact shares some features with Antike, though does not have a mechanism to bring it to a close in the same way and therefore not suitable for pub play. You can win through your armies controlling most of the land area, or through your ships controlling all the in-shore areas, but also by accumulating 50 Essence points. Since these are used to boost your performance in battle, and you need to win and hold areas to get them, it at first seems unlikely that you could ever build them up to that level, but in fact two games at least have been won locally that way. It makes the game different while using mostly familiar mechanisms – a good reason to give it a try.

That's about exhausted the memory banks, I really mustn't leave it so long till the next instalment.

* Of course, he has been careful to ensure that it has not happened again, in either game.

Phil.

Old Favourites

We've been at the old favourites at out Wednesday night sessions lately, so the new games have not been getting the try-outs that they need. But on one recent occasion we had several of us feeling brave enough to try Khronos, which had been describes as Tigris and Euprates plus the fourth dimension. Now Tigris and Euphrates is a particularly good game, but quite hard to get the head round first time, and full of tactical subtleties, so the extra complication of playing on three boards, representing three time periods, sounds quite scary. But strange to relate, I soon felt that I knew roughly what was going on, even if coming second to last indicated otherwise.

Khronos is, in fact, reasonably straightforward, and the main rules can be explained in a few minutes. The first board represents a time when castles are what you want most; whoever has the biggest military building in a group of buildings scores the value of the civil buildings in the group. On the next board/time period, religion is all the rage, and the biggest Abbeys get the loot – again, scoring the value of the civil buildings. Finally, in the Age of Reason, the biggest civil buildings are wanted, and they score for both of the other types that they are attached to. You can't actually build buildings in the last period, you have to build them in an earlier period, and with a bit of luck they are still there when the Age of Reason comes along. Or another player may build a building in the same space on an “earlier” board, and your building vanishes in a puff of anomaly. I think that this is one which we will be playing again soon.

For the record, the other games played that evening were Scotland Yard - still available after all all those years, and still a good fun game - and Game of Thrones, which I would have been playing if I had not been at the Khronos. I've only played it the once, but was impressed, the only problem being that it can take just that bit too long for a mid-week session. We all got to bed rather late. If truth be known, that's the third week running that some of us have left the shop well after midnight; the previous week we had had a good game of Metro, and then moved on to Circus Imperium, FASA's chariot-racing game from 1988. As ever, it took longer to get organised than expected, and I felt a bit guilty at keeping everyone up – especially Carol, as, having trampled her with my frenzied beasts as she tried to get back into her crashed chariot, I was later forced to hijack her chariot when mine lost a wheel, callously tossing her inert form onto the blood-soaked track.

To finish on a less gory note, a couple of weeks earlier we played Traumfabrik, the original version of the here-at-last Hollywood Blockbuster. It was every bit as good as I remember it being, it stands alongside Ra as a game that did not look like my cup of tea but immediately won me over. The only changes made for Hollywood Blockbuster are in the names of the studios, films and stars; publishing the original in Germany they got away with using real names, the US-published version has had to make them up. It's fun working out who they really mean, anyway.

Phil.

Oh dear oh Lore – and other games I was thrashed at over Christmas

We had a good heap of people round for games-playing this year, and a good time was had by all. The surfeit of food and booze has in fact lasted well into the new year, but what counts for real life in the games industry is gradually reasserting itself, and I have won a game of pool, so perhaps there is yet hope of winning a board game at some stage too!

I am getting to grips with Battle Lore, in the sense of learning the rules (which is dead easy if you are familiar with Memoir '44), but the only battle I have won was against someone with no gaming experience at all, let alone the decades of wargaming that I have under my belt. Sally had not played it before last Saturday, but immediately joined the growing band of opponents who have handed me my head. I was doing OK until her Earth Elemental got going.

Having heard good things about Hey, That's my Fish I arranged for Father Christmas to drop a copy down our chimney (an advantage of having an old house – real chimneys for easier access), and it is an ideal filler – also the type of game that Sally usually beats me at, which she duly did. Game of the gathering was Mission Red Planet, played twice, and people have been steadily coming into the shop for their own copies. It is easy to get the hang of, moves along at a good pace while offering plenty of options each turn, has nice pieces; hard to win if your astronauts keep being blown up on the launchpad by evil devious opponents, though. Why did I let these people round? Oh yes, season of goodwill...

Closest game was Canal Mania, going to the second tie-breaker. With two opponents unfamiliar with the game, I came so close to actually winning...and came last in the end. But I do so like that game.

We had a successful game of Gloom using the expansion Unhappy Homes for the first time; the extra cards slot into the system nicely, but they have used plastic with a slightly different finish, which makes some of the wording even harder to read. I managed to miss out on a game of On the Underground – it went well, and looks interestingly different from other games with a similar theme, so I should at least have collared someone for a full description, but I was busy getting beaten at Hive at the time (at least I managed a draw in the first game.) The UK distribution for the new version of Hive is now expected in February, by the way – it is being done in the style of Trax and Tantrix, and the three games will complement each other very well.

At the extra-sozzled end of the room people were trying The Christmas Game, basically Ludo dressed up for the occasion, and the new version of Atmosphere. Personally I would have been much keener to strangle the person doing the Gamemaster's voice than finish the game, it reminded me of local radio car-dealer adverts; “You WILL buy a car from us because you are puny and weak and will do as I say” - it makes sure that I would never buy a car from them, and makes sure that I will never be tempted to play Atmosphere, either. Still, chacun a son gout, and all that.

Time to wrap this up before the Wednesday night gaming session starts. It could be Settlers with the new Event cards, or Ark with the recent expansion. It's still too early in the year for anything too demanding!

Phil.

It may be quiet but we're still gaming

The Wednesday night gaming sessions have been quiet affairs, with a number of people away at this time of year, but we have been trying some new games with JKLM's Celtic Quest going down well. I must hastily order some! We have also played more Parthenon, which has been criticized in some heavyweight gaming circles for its dependency on luck but I do not feel that that this is a valid complaint. It is really about risk assessment, there are always several options open to each player so that they can steer a course between excessive optimism and excessive caution. The last game was very close, I think I am getting the hang of it, ultimately it was a bit of poor decision-making at the last moment that stopped me winning. I blame the re-opening of the pub opposite the shop.

This week we had expected to have another Celtic Quest but found ourselves with a full set of players for Warfrog's Liberte, which one of the several Phils had been bringing along, but for which we kept being short of a quorum. We also had the advantage of having someone who had played it recently - two of us had played it before but well beyond the range of my memory. I vaguely recalled it as a rather intriguing game with a nice feel for the history which it was based on, and that is just how it came across this time too. It got the thumbs up all round, and was won by a new member of our group who is more used to roleplaying. A bit of a dark horse, I suspect - there were definite signs that he was picking the system up despite his look of innocent surprise as he galloped through from the back to take the lead on the last turn.

Liberte has been a slow seller for Warfrog and I have never understood why, I have always kept in in stock as a point of principle and last night's game vindicated that decision. I believe that their stocks are finally running out, get one while you can!

Phil.

Previous Christmas Suggestions 2

(If there is a link to the game it is still available from us)

This year has seen the return of some real classics which helped the boardgame revival of the last ten years. Through the Desert is remarkable in that it has the look and feel of a serious strategy game - it is loosely based on the classic Japanese game of Go - but always takes just 40 minutes to play. This means that it is suitable for new gamers as well as established enthusiasts. It plays well through the range of 2-5 players too. An absolute must-have.

Another essential for those who missed it first time round is Ra. A set-collecting game where the main question is how far you wish to push your luck, so with gambling all the rage it should not be hard to enroll new players. 3-5 players, takes about an hour lots of variety in how it plays according to which tiles come out of the bag.

Samurai, Torres and Tikal are other anxiously-awaited returns - again, good for new and experienced players alike. Tigris & Euphrates is also back, a game of immense stature but definitely a level up in the need to use the grey matter to get to grips with it.

At the really light-weight end of the spectrum Guillotine has been republished at last. Dead simple, half an hour's head-rolling fun, it was just becoming well-known when it disappeared. An ideal quick after-dinner game.

The Host Your Own Race Night which had just come out 12 months ago has gone down a storm, so now there is a 2nd Edition, a dog racing version, and Lagoon Games have come up with their version, Complete Horse-Racing Night. Their Whodunnit Mystery Night is handy, too, as several of the original How to Host a Murder range are now out of print. The Host your own Murder Mystery range is good but still small, and there are some new ones in the Murder Mystery Party range.

Finally, a mention that amidst all the splendid games that we get to try out here, we can still always be tempted by a game of Mah Jong, and we have an even wider range in the shop this year. And if you already have everything mentioned above, keep a weekly eye on our What's New section!

Previous Christmas Suggestions 1

We have had several new variants or expansions of the Christmas parlour games, such as Cranium Cadoo and Cranium Zigity, and have topped up on the stocks of the How to Host a Murder, Murder Mystery Party and Host Your Own Murder Mystery ranges as these seem good at stopping the relatives actually killing each other. For those who play word games, Buyword looks most interesting – Scrabble with bidding and so does Letterflip (Lexicon meets Stratego?). The new breed of DVD-based games kick off with Host Your Own Race Night.
For the more serious gamer a Boxing Day game of War of the Ring or Game of Thrones is a must.
And to counter any threat to get the Monopoly or Cleudo out, I particularly recommend Fearsome Floors, Citadels, Bang and San Juan. Bucket King makes an excellent after-dinner game, and nobody, but nobody, can get away with claiming that Fluxx is too hard for them. It's good fun, too.

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