Week ending 24th Feb 2013: Hoplomachus The Lost Cities, Innovation Figures in the Sand, Taluva, Formula Motor Racing, CO2, Snowdonia, Morels, Heartland, Homesteaders, Express 01, Love Letter, Le Havre The Inland Port, Phantom, Blood Bowl Team manager, Village, Siberia The Card Game, Coup

Quite a few new games and the highlight was FINALLY being able to play CO2 again with 5 are the highlights of this session. Lets take a look!

Hoplomachus The Lost Cities

A Kickstarter game that was backed by my friend who brought it over to give it a go before deciding on the standalone expansion that is currently on Kickstarter now. This is a quick gladiatorial type of combat game where 2 players pit their heroes and armies in a bid to kill the opposing hero and win the game. This game can also be played as a solo game against various arena animals/creatures. The main focus of the game are chips which are used to indicate your unit as well as health. During your turn, you will draw from a bag containing chips of your army as well as tactics which are like spells. Then you will choose from 4 available chips to execute. It can be either a unit, in which case you "summon" the unit, place it on 1 of 6 summon points and stack a number of red chips underneath the army unit to indicate its health. It can also be a tactic chip in which case the effects of the spell is executed. This game is all about battling and gaining enough Crowd Favour points will allow your Hero to unfreeze and start to move on its own and fight as well. Turn passes from player to player until 1 player manages to kill the opponent's  Hero and wins the game. It is a fast pace easy to learn game. You move close enough so that you can start to whack at someone. Combat is dependant on the dice you can roll and how many hits you have rolled. Each hit will deal 1 damage to the enemy. I won with the opponent's Hero barely even out of the gate because my unit was fast moving. The game comes with 3 different groups but replayability maybe limited because the base set of units are the same. There are some unique units to each group though and they do showcase the power and strategy that is unique to the group. Production quality is quite good as the game mat is similar to those used in the landscape map of Wings of War. Nice thick mousepad like material. Average game for me but I won't say no to playing it again.


Innovation Figures in the Sand

I have loved the base game as well as the expansion but having never been able to bring it out very often, I had to let go my copies. Innovation is quite an intriguing game to me with all the splaying and the icons and now there's an online version which seems to make the game flow much more smoothly. My friend had bought the latest expansion and thus we gave it a go. Figures essentially adds well, famous figures to the game as well as new features to the game. I won't go too much into details but the game now takes longer with all expansions added in as each player needs to have 8 achievements to win. We did not really get to use a lot of the Figures expansion features as we drew more of the previous expansion than figures. Its still quite a challenging game deciding what to go for and what to meld and I realised having a good draw of hand is quite important to progress forward and win. I am still abit meh about the game but i won't reject to another game just to make sure that is how I feel. Components wise, card art and stock are just the same as the base art. If you prefer a nicer art, do take a look at the IELLO version.

Taluva

Played 3 games of this and my friend Jon mentioned about the imbalanced for the first player because he/she will have an advantage in this game. Also, since this plays quite like Chess, if other players are not diligent in blocking others, they could easily allow that opponent pull ahead. I did enjoy my games though as it forces me to think and see where I can block and still score. Perhaps this might make a better 2 player game but I have yet to try with just 2. Components are nice and the final picture looks really good with the different levels and all the nice wooden buildings. I still feel this is a good game.

Formula Motor Racing

A card game about F1 racing by GMT? Really? This has gotta be some form of joke ya? Well lo and behold, my friend had this game in his collection and we brought it out to play. It reminds me a lot of Tiki Topple. During your turn, you will play a card with which to manipulate the current standing of the race cars which are setup in 1 straight line. When the game ends, you will total up the points where your cars are positioned and whoever has the most points will win the game. So its a fast filler that is quite dependant on the cards you draw and how you play them. I think it will benefit more if, like Tiki Topple, the colors that you are aiming for are secret at the beginning. This will not make it so easy for other players to guess what colors you are and target you specifically.

CO2

Finally managed to play a 5 player game with ALL the right rules. It certainly took quite a bit of time and can be frustrating at times. Some of the issues Jon mentioned in his rant on BGG I definitely faced for example goals that do not seem fair when faced with so many players (i.e. the UN Goal objective). While you are faced with at most 12 moves in the entire game, these 12 moves will take quite a bit of time for them to finish. Having only 12 moves also severely limits what you can do in the game. Also the tech tree's powers are even more evident in a 5 player game as the player who won was maxed out in several of the tech trees AND had the leader in tech objective card. The action cards in your hands are also more important because they can give you that much needed white cube to rush in and built that power plant before another player can. So while I still love the game, I won't play it with 5. At most 4 will do for me. Time to try the Solo game and see how it fares. Still loving it and I managed to get a set of skull-like stickers to stick on my CEPs. A little pimpin' :)

Snowdonia

Played Snowdonia Variant where players can choose which side they want to begin from and plays up to 4. I think this variant does not create as much competition because it is dependant on which side the players choose. 1 player could very well be all by himself at 1 side without much competition. So I think if I were to play Snowdonia again I will play it in its original version. Its an ok game for me and nothing fantastic as far as I can see.

Morels

Been wanting to bring this simple set collection game out for a go again as it has been some time since I played this. Its still quite a nice game but I am wondering about its replayability. There are already quite a lot of set collection type games in the market and I have quite a few of them so I am not sure, but perhaps I need a few more plays to determine its final value in my collection.  One thing i realise i am disliking is how card games require you to refill the market or the central path where all the cards are by pushing the cards down and refilling from the end of the line. This is amazing tedious especially in this game where its a constant refill every turn. Luckily I sleeve my cards thus they won't wear down so fast but its a hassle to keep pushing cards down the line. I wish designers can stop this "mechanism".

Heartland
A game that I manage to snag at a recent FLGS warehouse sale (first of its kind in Singapore!) This is a tile laying game with a small tech tree at the side. During your turn, you will get to lay a 2-square tile or a 1-square tile (each player begins with the same set of five 1-square tiles). When you lay the tile, you will get to score either victory points or farm points. Farm points are used in the small tech tree and if you manage to max out any of the 5 columns, you will get to score a livestock tile which gives you some points at the end of the game as well. If all of your markers are at or past a certain row where the farm pieces are, then you get to place your farm piece which will net you victory points every round and also prevent other players from scoring victory points on the fields your farm is on. Its an interesting game as you are trying to score more for yourself while at the same time blocking other players. The tech tree seems a bit odd as its possible for a player to max out a column during a turn immediately. Granted we were not very adapt at blocking each other in our first game but still to be able to do so seems odd. Once a farm is out on the board though players start to target the farms to minimise scoring per turn for that player. Components are nice and thick and functional. Art wise is a little bland but functional. Not a bad purchase for the price.

Homesteaders

This time I had a better idea of what I am doing but the game seems to end too early when I am just getting into the grove of the game. One little nagging thing I have with games like Homesteaders is the ability for concurrent play. While I am not saying my opponents will cheat, I would like winning to be not tainted and not due to mistakes or carelessness made by opponents. Of course you can enforce such that each player takes his/her turn before the next player takes his/her turn. This will however make the game possibly unbearably long. It certain has enough buildings to allow for sufficient replayability but since all buildings are available every game, I guess it is possible for you to plan such that each game you will have the most optimal sequence of buildings to select and win the game. I will definitely want to give this a few more tries.

Express 01

Sigh. I really wanted to like this game. I had thought it looked interesting enough to give it a go. Card quality is very nice and art is not too bad. However the game play with the 2nd group seems to fall very flat. It may still work with the right group but I haven't managed to find the right group. The mechanism where cards in your hand are used to purchase items and potentially they can be used as stocks or routes make it more confusing than if you were playing Glory to Rome which has similar implementation of the cards. If there were a solo variant, that may save it enough for me to keep it in my collection.

Love Letter 

Another 2 rounds of Love Letter. Even though it seems light I enjoy it quite a bit. Somehow though I don't really feel the randomness as readily as others do. I still feel that there's some skill involved especially when you are taking the Guard. Love letter for me so far still trumps Coup.

Le Havre The Inland Port

Played 3 games of this 2 player version of Le Havre and loving it much. I still haven't managed to break the 222 barrier and I am wondering just how I can maximize my game play. I tried going by the food route but somehow along the way when your opponent starts to use your buildings your plans start to get screwed. This is also an ideal game for the iOS especially with a very good AI. I wonder if anyone out there has a good strategy can share with me?

Phantom

Another game of Phantom. This time both of us stored a lot of power on both sides of the tableau and so we were trying to draw Charmer ghosts to draw the Character cards and score. Once that happens though the game went pretty fast. I managed to score my 11 points pretty fast and I won the game. The art is beginning to wear on me because its a lot of neon colors and not aesthetically pleasing. So after a few plays, its kinda unique and interesting but I doubt the replayability will keep it in my collection for long.

Blood Bowl Team manager

Another game where I was so intrigued by the theme of Warhammer that I had to grab it. So far I have YET to play it even once and i was glad to be able to table it finally. Its an interesting card game where you, as a team manager, is laying cards (up to 6 in a round to a maximum of about 5 rounds) which represent your players that are competing for highlights or a tournament for that round. When you play a player, there are certain actions associated with the player which will resolve. Once all team managers have passed, then we will check each highlight and resolve a winner. All will receive the corresponding rewards which may come in the form of Fan Points (victory points), special team cards or even Star Players which will boost your team's capabilities.

Village

Ah, one of my favourites in 2012. I played quite a bit of this once I gotten my own copy and when i was in New York as well last year. Its been quite some time since I brought out my copy to play and boy, am I super rusty. I came in last I think and I am not amused! I used to be quite good with this game but i made some mistakes which probably cost me about 10 points. I wouldn't have won anyway but well it may have made some difference. I used to be able to score quite decently with the Travelling as my main scorer but this game was cut short by another opponent who was aiming to finish the game fast to prevent the winner from gaining too many customer tiles. Still a fun game for me but my friend wasn't too keen to keep the game anymore. Pity as I am looking forward to the expansion and the inclusion of 5 players. I wonder how that will play like.

Siberia The Card Game

Played this with 4 players this time and I am thinking its not suitable for 4. For 2 and 3 maybe but for 4 this makes the game quite hard to control and plan as most of the time, the items you want are snatched up quite quickly. A gripe that I mentioned just now with Morels however is not an issue here as you just replace those cards that were taken by drawing from the deck. There is no need to push the whole row of cards here. Phew! Still average about this game so far as it doesn't bring anything new to the table for me. May not make the cut.

Coup

2 more games of Coup! Taught this to a new player who prefers this to Love Letter. I guess inherently its in my nature to trust someone and with so little clues its hard for me to judge if a person is bluffing or not. So far ALL my challenges have been for naught and I am usually losing in the game of Coup. I did win once tonight though because of my opponent did not pay attention to the coins I have amassed which allowed me to perform a final Coup on him to win the game. So far the "beauty" of this game hasn't really shown itself to me. Lets hope I can get more games in to allow it to shine.


And so that's it, a great week of gaming! :)

Magnum Sal, Core Worlds Galactic Orders, Fairy Tales, Siberia The Card Game, Phantom, Pax, Star Wars the Card Game, CO2, Reef Encounter, Pickomino, The Hobbit Card Game

Not many new games I have played so far but a few good oldies! Lets take a look....

Magnum Sal

I have heard of this game before and was very tempted to get it but I wasn't too sure about the game play so never really got around to it. Luckily my Cult-of-the-New group had managed to get a copy and I get to play! Its so nice to be in a CotN group :P I am very lucky as well! So on with the game. In the game we are all trying to go digging for salt and then return back to deliver them to the King and earn points. So its all about us getting resources and going to the King to score points by turning them in based on the objective tiles available. That is the summarised view of the game. Other things you have to consider are the other players' miners that are in the mine with you that will cost you extra money just to transport salt cubes topside and may even steal cubes away from you. We were working quite hard during the game turning in a lot of objectives whereas only 1 player did not complete any at all till the very last turn and he scored quite a few of the high point objectives to win the game. However it seemed we played a vital rule wrongly, that is after every round, you will take back ALL your miners. This makes a very big change because it will mean that we have to establish our steps down into mine again. Another point that seems wrong is that if you store your cubes all the way to the end, you can score all the objectives that have way higher victory points. If that's the case, it may lead into a stalemate as the only way where rounds will end is when 5 objectives are completed. So jury is still out on this one but definitely requires another play to see where this stands with me.


Core Worlds: Galactic Orders

I have played Core Worlds twice I believe and while it feels like a deck builder, it has an additional element where you use troops to try to conquer planets that are available in the middle of the board. In addition, there are some core worlds which are like final objectives that you already know how to conquer and thus you can build up your deck to prepare for it. Its not a bad game but it doesn't really capture me or compel me to want to play it many times again. My friend had just gotten the expansion and we decided to give it a go. Expansion adds a few boards which give you extra powers like increasing the number of actions you have. To be able to activate them, you have to turn in your tokens that are already on the boards. To place your tokens on the boards, whenever you play cards that have those mysterious symbols, you get to place a token on the respective board. The expansion does add extra dimension to the game as you could plan now to get certain cards into your deck so that you can place your token on the boards. I found the extra action benefit the most useful though the power that lets you purchase a science card at a 3 cost discount to be quite good as well. Its quite a good expansion for the game so I will recommend playing the game with the expansion in the future. Still doesn't really endear me to the game enough to get myself a copy but I wouldn't say no to playing it.


Fairy Tales

Seems to be a newer version of the game that I had previously. The icons seems to be redesigned now and the rules are better. That is all the changes there is though. The game is a very straight forward drafting game that seems to be a lighter version of 7 wonders. With more players there will definitely be more interaction as there are cards which cause other players to flip their cards facedown and thus not allowing those cards to score at the end of the game. Its light, have very nice anime-style graphics and seems to have a back story but since the rule book is very short they did not include the story. Average light-weight game and worth a play or two.


Siberia The Card Game

Managed to get this game out again for another 2 player game. Light good filler that is easy to teach and fast to play. Might be growing on me. Lets see how it plays with 4 because that will make it more competitive as people will scramble to grab the specialists cards that will grant good benefits. Give it a try!


Phantom

Another try of this seemingly fun 2 player game. This time the gameplay feels like chess to me as we battle it out to try to scare the characters with the most points. I feel that this game if you are not on guard all the time, your opponent may just pull ahead and there is certainly no catch up mechanism. I won with 11-2 points! Definitely give it a try before you buy.

Pax

Interesting set collecting game where you are fighting against Rome unless you are the secret spy which means if Rome wins, you win.  During your turn, you will take 3 cards, one at a time and decide where the cards go. This portion is similar to Biblios as you need to decide one at a time where to place them. Then you get to buy cards and play cards from your hand. You will then get income and your turn ends. Now the interesting part of the game is that to win, you will need to have at least 4 of the sets in front of you that have more cards than those that Rome has. Another way to win is if Rome wins and you have the secret spy card. Its not a bad card game but for my first game at least, kinda hard to beat Rome. Its possible that its my first game and I still haven't figured out some of the tactics yet but I can see how this will be fun. Not sure how well it will do with more players though because with 2 its already quite hard to beat rome. Will like to give it a try again to see how it works with more players.


Star Wars the Card Game

Close in the heels of a very successful relaunch of Netrunner, FFG's Star Wars the Card Game had received quite a bit of hype and I was itching to play my copy. Compared to Netrunner, this has a different engine and seems lighter to play. Dark side will have a death star counter which counts to 12 each of his turn thus the game length is limited to at most 12 rounds. Light side will win when Dark side run out of cards OR having destroyed 3 of the Dark side's objectives. During your turn, play is similar to most LCG games where you get to untap/refresh used cards, draw cards, play cards and fight. FFG tried to weave into the game certain concepts because of the theme and by and large it seems an average game. Not bad but seems to be lacking something. I think being a fan of the show and role playing will enhance one's enjoyment of the game. Some issues I have for example how fast you use up your cards in Edge battles makes it seem odd that a game ending condition is if you run out of cards to draw from and you don't get to shuffle your discards back into your deck. I will give it a few more plays to make a final verdict but as of now Netrunner is still ahead of Star Wars the card game for me.


CO2

Sigh, the game that broke my heart this week of playing. I have so far played this 3 times and won all 3 times which makes my head swell. Unfortunately after reading around BGG I realised to my horror my wins are all tainted. That is because of some rules that we have gotten wrongly. For example, I realised that market doesnt increase in price if you buy a CEP from the market (the wording on the player aid seems to suggest otherwise). Also to determine ownership of a region, its not based on the number of power plants you have, but the number of types of plant you have. These and a few other rules really made the previous games I played all very tainted and I feel kinda bummed. I must say though that the rules in the game aren't very friendly to go through and judging from the numerous comments and questions on BGG, a lot of other players feel the same. Nevertheless, I still feel that this is a good game and I cannot wait to try it again WITH ALL the correct rules. I do feel that this game may not be suitable with more than 4. I also would like to play it solo and see how it works. A few of my friends though have totally dissed the game which I guess I can understand some of their points but it did not cause me to dislike the game. Furthermore, I haven't really hit most of the problems they have experienced. Then again, I haven't played this game with more than 3 so far so maybe my opinions may change when I do get a chance to table it for 4 and 5. Tomorrow! I will get a nice rematch with hopefully 4 and see how it goes. Oh and I am pimping my CEPs :P Will post pics once I get my copy and the stickers this week! Definitely give this a try. Highly recommended!


Reef Encounter

Now I have heard of this game and its rated quite highly on BGG and been wanting to give it a try. But something (maybe its the theme or the art) seems to put me off getting my own copy. In Reef Encounter, we are essentially trying to feed our parrot fish polyp tiles and score points for each tile fed at the end of the game. Whoever has the most points will win the game. Reef Encounter is a tile laying game where you are trying to grow your coral until a certain size before you feed to your parrot fish. During the game, certain colors of polyps can "eat" or overgrow other colors of polyps. So in this way, player interaction is crucial as you can play to block others and prevent them from scoring points. Another way to block will be the scoring tiles which you can flip and lock in to ensure certain colors will score more points than the others. It is a medium-heavy game as you are trying to obtain certain polyp tiles and play at the right timing such that you can grow your corals and "cash" them in at the right time before other players decide to take pieces off your corals. Quite a good game and I would like to play it again. Not sure why its not creating as much hype here but I am suspecting the theme itself is not very attractive. Its about marine life and may remind people of an aquarium or a fish tank. That could be the reason why its not as attractive as other widely accepted themes like Fantasy or space. Give it a try!

Pickomino

A light push your luck dice game where you roll as many times as you want but each time you have to lock down dice of the same number. If during a turn you cannot lock down any (because they have previously been locked down), then you end your turn and, if you have an existing domino, have to give it up. When you stop, you will take the domino that has the same sum as all your dice added up. The game ends when there are no more dominos to take and players counts the number of worms they have on their dominos. The player who has the most worms will win the game. Simple, light but not that easy to score dominos and you can even steal your opponents' top most dominos provided you have rolled the exact number. For a light game like this, it can drag on too long and overstay its time on the table. Not a game for me unfortunately.


The Hobbit Card Game

Final game I will talk about today is The Hobbit Card game. This is a bridge like Trick taking game where players play either the Good side (frodo etc) or the Bad side (dragons and orcs etc). Starting with the player who has won a previous trick (or a particular character), players will play cards very similar to bridge. If a player has won a trick, then, depending on his/her character powers, distribute the cards in that trick. At the end of a round (when all cards are played), players check to see what cards they have received. Depending on the symbols of the card, players maybe kicked out of the game. At the end of 2 rounds, the Good side will win when they have at least 1 player left alive with a Good character card. The Bad side will win when all Good players have been eliminated. Light filler game that has the character powers as an interesting twist to a well worn game mechanism. The artwork though I think is based on the original novels. Game play wise, is average only for me. I won't want to play it again though.


So that's it, CO2 being the most exciting and yet most disappointing game for me in this whole set. I hope to report better news again once I have finally played it with all the correct rules!

Happy Chinese New Year! And i played: Phantom, Maya, Le Havre The Inland Port, Among The Stars, Riff Raff, Coup, Hanabi, Kemet, Copycat, city of horror, robinson crusoe, legendary

Hey Everyone, HAPPY Lunar New Year!
Its the year of the Snake and I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful year! I am hoping for great things to come, improving and increasing listenership for the podcast and readership for the blog and so far its been quite a good start for me :)

I did some reshuffling and here is my boardgame collection (minus all the items which I am putting up for an auction coming next sunday (if you are interested and in Singapore, please take a look here http://www.meetup.com/Boardgames-Singapore/messages/boards/thread/31278782).

I will need to find a place to secure them when my brother and family comes over! :)
Over the last 2 weeks or so I played quite a number of games including most of the new games that I have bought from Boardgameshop.eu. Speaking of which, I must praise the shop for having an updated collection (mostly Euro games since, well they are a shop in Europe) and quite affordable shipping rates which makes the games more economical to obtain.
Now lets get on with the games I have played:

Phantom

I bought this game having only read the reviews on BGG (and there wasn't must information on it yet) as also a filler for my packaged delivery to bring down postage costs. I was eager to give it a try and was I surprised at the fun I had with this little game. Phantom is a 2 player game where players are trying to scare this group of people in a haunted mansion. First player to reach 11 points wins the game. There are 4 locations in the mansion and during your turn you must activate each of them in the order that you choose. When you activate a location, you may pass or play a card. There are 2 types of cards in our hands, Ghost cards which belong to 1 of 4 types and have 1 of 6 characteristics; Place cards which may provide "scare points" as well as increase the number of ghosts that location may hold. If after you activate a location and your "scare points" meet or exceed the scare limits of a single character in that location, you would have successfully scared that person and win points based on that person's character. It is a straight forward set collecting light-medium weight game where you must decide how to position your Floor and Ghost cards in order to be able to scare and score points. There is also much player interaction in the game as there are Ghost cards which will allow you to steal an opponent's ghosts or even Floor cards. For our very first game, we came in surprisingly tight and it was down to the last character in the game to determine the winner. Both of us agree that this is a good game and would like to play it again. The card quality is matt and quite thick but that also means you should sleeve it to allow for ease of shuffling. Artwork is also not too bad. I would recommend you to try before you buy.

Maya

We played a 2 player game of Maya which have additional items like the ladders and the priest. Rules are still the same except that if you manage to combine 2 pieces of the same colours together in the same pyramid you get to place a step/ladders at the bottom of that pyramid. At the end of the game you will score 1 point if you have majority of ladders/steps in that pyramid. In addition, if you manage to complete a pyramid (all pieces are the same color), you will be able to place a priest on the top of the temple which will also give you 1 point. Its not a bad game but there are some quirks I think. For example, you may end up doing only 1 possible move during your turn but these instances probably occur nearer to the end of the game where its very hard to be able to find something to move. Fun game and a must try!

Le Havre: The Inland Port

Played another game and it still holds a lot of appeal to me. The way you need to keep looking at your opponents's board and try to predict what he is trying to do and timing your moves just right is a very fun mechanism for me. This feels quite different from a 2 player game of the base game and plays quite fast. I guess the lack of needing to feed makes this version not as stressful as the base game. I predict there will be new buildings in a future expansion (similar to Agricola All Creatures Big and Small) and I will look forward to getting it. Only problem is for people who have never played Le Havre the base game, they will find it hard to visualize why the mechanics (while streamlined from the base game) function in this manner that seems a little bit counter intuitive. For new players, be patient with it and after a few plays I am pretty sure you will be able to enjoy it like I did.

Among The Stars

I have heard of this game but wasn't too interested in it. The game is very similar to Suburbia but with a space theme and drafting mechanism. You will be drafting a card each turn and then building the card you drafted into your space station. You could also discard it to get money or to build a power reactor. Then depending on the card you played, you may score instant points and move up on the score track. Pass the remaining cards in your hand to your neighbour and then rinse and repeat till all cards have been used up and that is the end of a year. The game lasts for 4 years and then players count up their secret objectives + race (each player has a unique race with special traits/objectives) and whoever has the most points wins the game. Unlike suburbia this has more player interaction as you can perform actions to steal money etc from your neighbour. Artwork wise its pretty nice as it has very obvious colours to easily tell what each building provides and its an ok game. I did not do too well with my first game though so that was a bummer. The game also requires a lot of space because of the way people can grow their space station in all different directions so having a big table is a must to play this game. All in all, I would say this is a try before you buy.

Riff Raff

We ended the night with an agility game with awesome wooden bits and a very unique component - a loopsided ball bearing. Each player will choose a card from identical decks and then simultaneously reveal the card. The player who played the highest number will go first. Each player during their turn will take an item from an identical set and place it on the space corresponding to the number he/she played. If you tip the boat (its balanced quite precariously) then you can attempt to catch the falling pieces and place them onto the board. If you fail then your turn is over and you keep all pieces that have fallen. This continues until the cards have all been played or when a player has all his/her pieces on the boat. With the introduction of cards, it does add a slight tactical decision making to the game. You want to be the next to place items when the ship has just been cleared or has very few items. If you  play a card that requires you to play after someone has just put in the same space, then its very likely you will fail and have more pieces to keep. I sucked at agility games and this was no exception. Components wise this game has top notch components. So if you are into party/agility games or a light game with friends (especially when drunk), then I will recommend you to try this game out before you buy.

Coup

Finally managed to get myself a copy of this game that has been generating a lot of hype in 2012. I have played this about 6 times so far and I am beginning to warm up to the idea and concepts on how to play the game. Basically you have 2 cards face down (You can see them of course) in front of you which will represent your lives in the game. During your turn you can play an action. Whenever someone plays an action, anyone else can counter (by declaring that you do not believe the player) and if they are successful, the action is blocked. If at anytime, anyone is not successful when countering an action because they were caught bluffing, then they will lose a life by flipping over the card. If you have to reveal both cards, that means you are out of the game. The last player standing wins the game. Not a bad game but I need to get used to all the bluffing and challenging actions or basically, knowing how to read a person. Now I can see that this game is only vaguely resembling Love Letter and is a whole different animal. In Love Letter you are not bluffing so there isn't a need to think further and thus caters for the simple game that it is. In Coup there is a need to bluff and try to get away with things. This is quite dependant on the group then as if they are role playing along or cajoling others, then the game will be quite fun for everyone. So Love Letter I feel is more accessible and easier to play and Coup is quite dependant on the group of players. Both will still be in my collection and I would heartily recommend anyone to give both Love Letter and Coup a try!

Hanabi

My friend managed to retheme the game of Hanabi into a Christmas theme and I was eager to bring it out for my colleagues to play this co-op game. Now if you know me, I don't really like co-op games because I feel a need to compete but I had quite a lot of fun with my regular group and the original game of hanabi that I wanted to see if I can recreate the same fun and laughter we had with my other groups. What surprised me right at the start was how my colleagues all mentioned they don't want to coop! They wanted to compete! Hahahaah.... that was music to my ears :P We still manage to give it a go though and I think I manage to recreate some of the fun and face palm moments. I love how my friend manage to capture the spirit of Christmas with fantastic and creative art and I am glad to have this copy.

Kemet

One of the new releases from Essen, Kemet is touted as Cyclades successor and from the same publisher as well. I had Cyclades previously and did have fun with the game so I was eager to give this a go and see just how it plays. Kemet surprised me with what it is and how different it is from Cyclades. In Kemet you are trying to be the first to score 8 points (shorter game) or 11 points (longer game) which will trigger the game end and the player with the most points wins the game. To achieve this, during your turn, you will place 1 of your action discs onto your player board to trigger an action. Things that you can do include recruiting soldiers, move your troop, earn prayer points (currency), increase your pyramid level and purchase power tiles. This actually a Euro war game with an Egyptian theme and a worker placement mechanism. The game actively encourages you to wage wars and engage in battles with your opponents as this is 1 way to gain permanent points in the game. On the board, there also 5 temple areas where you can control to gain temporary points but these areas are easily wrestled away as you can pay 2 prayer points (which is the currency of the game) to teleport to obelisks on the map and there is one located at every temple. My initial thoughts were that this is an ameri-trash game because it has nice components and even nicely washed figures which are usually staples of an ameritrash game. So I am very surprised when I realised after playing that this is a euro game that requires players to interact with each other to win the game. Art is pretty good and the components are excellent. Figures of the scorpion, snake etc (these are the "heroes" or special units of the game) are also very nicely washed and even stamped at the bottom of their bases. I am also surprised that none of the units had warped blades as they are quite small and looked fragile. The other big component are the pyramids that look like 4 sided dice. The pyramids and the levels they are at will allow you to purchase power tiles depending on the levels. They look so cool and most players will start throwing them once it is out of the box. But alas they are just used as place holders. My first game took way longer than it was supposed to be because I did not realise we all started with 10 troops thus allowing us to wage wars right from the get go. My 2nd game was way better and it was really close with all 5 of us nearing the 8 point mark and we had 1 epic final round to determine the winner.

Copycat

Finally manage to play Copycat another Essen 2012 release. This is a euro game which borrows other games mechanisms and to weld them quite smartly into a single game. Because this is a euro game, theme wise it suffers for me. Artwork also seems a little kiddish and thus I did not appreciate it as much as others. Gameplay wise, I can see how the various game mechanisms are nicely woven together to create an intriguing game but I only got this like halfway through the game though. First thing you do is draw 5 cards from your deck. Then choose one of the cards to bid for position. That card you used is discarded. Once player order is determined, in player order, players will then place their workers on the various available cards on the board which will allow them to activate an action. Once all workers are on the map, in turn order again, players will activate these workers and perform their actions accordingly (i.e. shred card, gain money, gain VP, buy a card). Rinse and repeat till one of 2 end game conditions are triggered. While I can appreciate how these different mechanisms work together, the theme falls woefully sort for me. I think this is the case where I am quite put off by the bland art. I wouldn't mind playing it again but I am definitely passing on getting a copy for myself.

City of Horror

From all the Euro games we went into an ameritrash game and boy was it trash lol. Its primarily a negotiation game where in you are also trying to strategically move your people around the board so that you are always in a majority and thus can vote someone else's character to be eaten by the zombies. At this point our group was pretty tired and we were learning this as a new game which is not a good combination to have. During your turn, you choose a location card and then every player simultaneously reveals the card. In turn order, players must move one of their characters (each players start off with 3 in a 5 player game) to that new location. Then each location is resolved. If there are enough zombies to meet that location's requirements, then players in that room will need to vote to feed someone to the zombies (Urk!). The game ends after 5 rounds and players' characters must have the antidote for them to survive the airlift and score points. Incredibly there were only 2 players left with characters at the end and I lost by only 1 or 2 points. I think our regular group has moved on to euro games nowadays and perhaps that is why most of us weren't enjoying the game. This game is a super MEH for me!

Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island

This is another co op game which I purchased to play solo. I have read that it is a very fun thematic game therefore I pulled the trigger and wanted to see for myself. In a turn, the phases are as follows: first you draw an event card and resolve the event. If it bumps another event out (there can only be at most 2 event cards that are revealed) then you will have to perform a threat action as depicted by the event card that has been bumped out. Next you get resources depending on which tile you have set up camp on. Next phase you decide where you want to place your pawns on the various available action spaces. After that is done, you will execute the actions by visiting each action space in sequential order and using the pawns After all actions are done, if required, roll the weather dice to determine how much suffering you are subjected to. Finally, check if you are sleeping out in the open and feed yourself. A turn is done and the game repeats and will end depending on the scenario that you have chosen. So far I am having fun playing this game solo even though I have not won the scenario yet. One problem I have with the game is the way the rulebook is written as it is not very intuitive and may be unclear at times. Luckily a FAQ has been provided and this should prove helpful when I next play. I have heard that in real coop mode, the game is also as tough if not even more. I will continue to play it as a solo game and will recommend this game.


Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building game

Played another solo game of Legendary. I am intrigued with the different villans and super heroes so wanted to try a different combination. This time Magneto was threatening earth again by converting everyone into a Killbot! Rogue, Storm and Emma Frost, the 3 ladies of XMEN are tasked with stopping Magneto and to contain the killbots within the city. If 5 killbots escape, they will be able to propagate across the globe and Earth would be lost! The initial part of the game was trying my best to ensure none escape and I was defeating enemies left and right. However somewhere into 30 minutes of the game, I realise I should just focus on defeating Magento. As I have been storing up my attack power with a lot of cards, I was able to defeat Magento in 2 consecutive turns. I ended the game with 28 points. Legendary reminds me of Thunderstone but much improved. You cannot just keep building up until you are ready to face the Mastermind. Instead its a constant management of villans running amok in the city areas as well as keeping your hand lean and trim to be able to defeat the mastermind eventually. There will be expansion for this game sometime near GENCON 2013 and they will be adding 17 super heroes! SEVENTEEN! I wonder if this game though will survive in my collection till then ;p Stay tuned true believers!

So that's a wrap, a lot of typing and a lot of cool games played!