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Helcon 2006
Helcon 2006 was a blast, and the most successful event of the Board Game Society history with almost 100 participants. I was there for the Saturday (limitation caused by being a parent; unfortunate for the gaming, but rewarding in other ways). I didn’t play that many games, but as you will see, sometimes (well, often)…
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Die Säulen der Erde first thoughts
Played a game of Die Säulen der Erde with Johanna yesterday, while the baby was sleeping. It was reasonably enjoyable. Nothing special — I’ve rated the game as 8 right now. As many of you have heard, there’s more than a passing resemblance to Caylus, but I think the comparison doesn’t hold too far. At…
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Da Vinci’s Challenge
I played Da Vinci’s Challenge with Johanna yesterday. She hated it, and I didn’t like it much better. Basically it’s a simple abstract game, where pieces are laid on a board with a Flower of Life pattern. It’s nice, except the game is somewhat boring, counting points is tedious as you must check carefully to…
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Quick touch with Pentago
I played Pentago, the Finnish game of the year, yesterday with Johanna. My darling wife was amazed when she heard that was the winner. She may not be a hardcore gamer, but she isn’t clueless either! The game sucks, simply put. It’s your typical naughts-and-crosses on six by six board; one board quadrant is rotated…
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Celtica
I got a review copy of Celtica, the much-dismissed game from Kramer and Kiesling. I don’t get the really bad ratings; the game has an average of 5.2 now, I’d expect something above 6 (like the 6.4 for That’s Life! — I think the games are on pretty equal level). We played with Johanna, and…
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Age of Steam in Pennsylvania
Yesterday I went to the Board game club with a mission: I want to play Age of Steam! It took some trying, but I got a group of four together to play 1830’s Pennsylvania. It immediately leaped to the top of the ranking: it’s one of my favourite AoS maps. The trick of the map…
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Board game club: Terra Nova, Viva Topo!
Board game club was a big hit yesterday, with almost a record crowd of over 20 gamers. I made a quick visit and had time for just a few games. I’ve wanted to play Terra Nova to get it off my system. Now I tried the game with four players and found out my expectations…
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Einfach Genial with Johanna
Johanna wanted to play something, so I offered Einfach Genial. I know she doesn’t like abstracts, but instead prefers more imaginative, theme-rich games, but I thought this could work… and it did! It’s not one of her favourites, but she enjoyed it. Of course, Einfach Genial is far from the world of serious high-skill abstracts,…
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Hacienda at SpielByWeb
We played a game of Hacienda at SpielByWeb. It was a pleasantly quick match, just a week. You can see the final results. I won, but it was a bit of a surprise. I was the only player to try the massive land chain -strategy, so perhaps that was it? I made a mistake, though:…
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Pacific Memoir and rats
My last board game session this summer involved me, Olli and Memoir ’44: Pacific Theatre. The latest Memoir ’44 expansion turned out to be a blast. We played two scenarios. Japanese counter-attack on Guam was faster thing, while playing through the Iwo Jima Meat Grinder took almost an hour. Both were interesting, well-developed scenarios. The…