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Pillars of the Earth for four
Yesterday I got a group together to play Pillars of the Earth. Last time I played, I wasn’t thrilled about the two-player game. The four-player game is much better — yet still I dropped my rating from eight to seven. First the good parts: with four, the game has plenty of tension. As just about…
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Railroads in Scotland (with insects)
I met Ilari today for games. Finally I was able to get Age of Steam Scotland — the free print-and-play two-player expansion — on table. Age of Steam in general doesn’t seem like a brilliant two-player game, but with a good map, it turned out be a rather pleasant experience. The thing about the Scotland…
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Games day with Tommy
As the tradition goes (last year, the year before that, the weekend before that, the year before that…), I met Tommy for a day of games. So, this year it was just me and him, and just a single day. It was great fun nonetheless. We kicked off with 1860: Railways on the Isle of…
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Board game club session: Himalaya, Beowulf
This post contains affiliate links to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links are marked with a €.Yesterdays’ board game club session started with Himalaya. I’ve played it before (during our mega Saturday in December 2005), but this time we had the correct rules and all. It was fun. We…
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Fighting for the chateau
I met Olli over Combat Commander: Europe yesterday. If I count solo games, this was my fifth game so far. I’ve played the first four scenarios and one randomly-generated (had to try it; the generator is easy to use and works well). Scenario four has a group of Germans holding a Belgian chateau against Americans.…
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First impressions of Combat Commander
My copy of Combat Commander: Europe arrived on Monday and after evening spent with a knife cutting off the counters, I got the game ready to play. I met Olli yesterday for a quick battle. We played the first scenario, a simple meeting engagement between small Russian and German forces. Explaining the rules to Olli…
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Board game club session: Quackle!, Great Wall of China, Imperial
Excellent session at the board game club today, I got to play everything I wanted! Quackle!, maybe better known as Snorta! for you foreign folks, was a silly game. It’s nice, but I much prefer Halli Galli when it comes to games like this. Quackle! seems to require a very specific atmosphere (read: very giggly);…
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Age of Steam in Northern California
We played a game of Northern Californian Age of Steam today. It’s a harsh map. You can notice it on the first round, when you survey the map for possible starting locations and find — nothing. There’s a distinct lack of good starting positions. San Jose is of course tempting — it’s a huge three-hex…
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Board game club session: Struggle for Rome
Yesterday’s board game club was a bit of a short affair for me, but I got what I wanted: a game of Struggle for Rome, the new historical Catan game. It’s pretty neat game, I think. There are lots of standard Catan elements, but lots of new. The most interesting feature is the way the…
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Knizia games: Blue Moon City, Tower of Babel, Through the Desert
I met Gargoyle and Laura for a session of Knizia games, as it turned out. We started the games with Blue Moon City, which turned out to be quite a sweet game. 40 minutes of fairly intense hand management stuff, with room for clever moves. We played twice in a row, and in the second…