I visited today’s board game club session quickly. Petri and Hannu were free and easy to rope into playing Preußische Ostbahn. I had a bonus, too, as a friend of mine (Sampo Sikiö) had recently done a new, much prettier board for the game.

It’s wicked cool, too, and makes playing the game a lot more fun. While I don’t mind the Winsome Game look, I still enjoy games that look nice and having a really good game look really good makes sense, right? Attached is a small detail picture of the Sampo’s board, that shows the style of the redraw. You can see more at Sampo’s Flickr page.

Anyway, we delved into it and I must say I played a darn good game. I felt like I was in control. After a slowish start, I got into a good lead position and was able to align my interests with Petri, who was last at the time. So, plenty of useful actions for me, as we had plenty of common shares. I gave Petri’s Bayer Rails a good money boost which we then used to good effect, gaining some pretty nice dividends.

Hannu was left alone and that hurt him a lot. He did recover and had the game lasted a little bit longer, he would’ve likely reached second place. Perhaps. Lots of what-if there. Still, I had strong interests to quit the game early as I was clearly the money leader but less clearly the income leader.

Unfortunately the keys to ending the game were in Hannu’s hands. I should’ve bidded more for that second Preußische Ostbahn share, which was the crucial slip of paper — I gave up around $35 or so, but it would’ve been worth closer to $50, I believe.

Well, it didn’t matter. Hannu didn’t prolong the game much, but instead drove the Ostbahn to Berlin, ending the game. A bit of frustration, there, but as it secured my victory, I don’t mind.

Preußische Ostbahn is a really good game. I really, really like it.

After a quick round of Set I headed home, where my favourite boy was already anxiously waiting for me. My 2.5-year-old son has a serious crush on me, he wants to do everything with daddy these days. It sure warms my heart to be the target of so much affection.