The Christmas is coming, by which I mean Essen. There’s a pile of new games getting published, but I’m really not very interested in most of them. I mean, there’s plenty of nice stuff coming, but in the end, I don’t really care.

I must say we’ve had excellent service on the Board Game Society forums, where Oskari has been reading the rules to just about every Essen release and has already posted 15 reports. Great stuff.

However, there are few titles I’m definitely interested in:

• The Winsome Essen set (Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, Preußische Ostbahn, Wabash Cannonball Erie Expansion and AoS: Texas, Oklahoma & New Mexico). I’m on the list, so I will buy this. For the record, I don’t care whether John Bohrer or Martin Wallace is right. Whatever’s going on between those two guys, I don’t let it come between myself and some good games.
• The Queen Games version of Wabash Cannonball aka Chicago Express. I’m interested, but I think I’ll wait and see if they’re doing a Finnish translation of it.
• Duck Dealer, which is the odd new Splotter game. Buying and selling cheap crap in the world of intergalactic trade? Complex planning, infrastructure development, route-building… From Splotter. 100% non-avoidable. Must-buy. Won’t think twice. Something that needs to be bought pretty soon, though the 1500 copy print run will last for a while. Only 200 copies available in Essen, so having some patience helps.
• Le Havre from Uwe Rosenberg — Agricola 2? I actually don’t know much about this, haven’t bothered to read all the reports, but yes, definitely interesting.
• Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm is mostly a question of when. Great game, interesting expansion, a must-buy.
• Dominion is interesting, particularly since there’s a Finnish edition available. I’m not rushing to buy it, but wouldn’t mind a review copy… (hint, hint).
• Steel Driver is Martin Wallace’s idea of developing Prairie Railroads further. Since Wabash Cannonball shares the same roots, this’ll be an interesting comparison.

And that’s pretty much it. I’m pretty sure there are copies of both Duck Dealer and Le Havre available in Helcon, so hopefully I’ll get to try them there. There will be an obscene amount of new games to try, actually, since Markku from Board Game Society has begged dozens of demo copies of games from publishers. That’s easy, since the games can be picked from Essen and sent to Finland by the Society work mules visiting the fair. So, any Finnish gamers interested in the new stuff should simply head to Helcon in late November.

Edit: Added Steel Driver.