Gameblog

Category: Session reports

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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);…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Games with Gargoyle: Yinsh, Dungeon Twister, Blue Moon

    Yesterday I had a small "welcome to Tampere" games session with Mikko, also known as Gargoyle (you might remember him from Gone Gaming). We met in the Konttori bar for some two-player games. First up was Yinsh, which we both have played little. Our skill levels seem to match, as the game was quite enjoyable.…

  • Pub session: Tower of Babel, Aqua Romana, Celtica, Elefant

    I’ve been on vacation this week, and took the opportunity to have a small game session in a local pub. It was a decent environment for games, though there was exactly two tables on the non-smoking side that were lit well enough. Not an ideal environment, and if possible, I’ll still prefer places where you…

  • Games with Olli: Gipf, Zèrtz, Crystal Code, Celtica

    Olli made a quick visit yesterday for some games. We started with Gipf. Now, played face-to-face with a real board and the correct rules, I think the game’s actually pretty good. My play-by-email experiences didn’t do the game justice, I suppose. Now it was definitely fun. I think I’ll be playing more of this, especially…