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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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Struggle for Rome (Kampf um Rom)
Here’s a review of the latest historical Catan game. The same review in Finnish. Struggle for Rome is based on real-life history: it covers the time when the Roman empire was in decline and the eastern barbarian tribes came to loot and pillage Roman cities and then settled down and started their own kingdoms on…
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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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Latest crush
I’ve got this thing with war games. I’d like to have a tactical level war game in my collection. I like Memoir ’44, it works well for what it tries to be, but I’d like something with more detail, more story to it. However, Advanced Squad Leader and other games like it are way too…
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Age of Steam repackaged
I went and reorganized my Age of Steam set. The box is now reserved for maps, charts and rules (and it’s full — the new Mississippi Steamboats / Golden Spike set will fit, but no more thick sets!). All the bits are in a tackle box. The 24-hole Shakespeare box I had bought earlier held…
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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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Working on the book
Almost two weeks of work done on the book, half days basically (I’m working in the mornings and during the day when the baby sleeps, few hours a day most days) and I’ve already covered over 80 games (these are not full-fledged reviews, but fairly short descriptions in most cases, page or so). The manuscript…
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Board game book
I’m currently working on a book on board games. I happen to know someone, who was just recently made the publishing manager of a Finnish publisher looking to expand their catalogue of non-fiction books, and he asked if I was interested in writing a book on new board games. Well, you don’t have to ask…
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Gaming year 2006
Once again the year is over and it’s time for the year-end report. Here’s 2005 for comparison… Good games published in 2006 Age of Steam: London and Sun, 1830’s Pennsylvania and Northern California — I’ve played one map from each of the Bézier expansions, and loved both. Interesting new concepts, excellent production quality — great…
18VA, Age of Steam, Age of Steam London map, Age of Steam Pennsylvania map, Blue Moon, Blue Moon City, California, Celtica, Crystal Code, Diabolo, DVD Sudoku, Edel Stein & Reich, Elasund, Fjords, Halli Galli, Hamsterrolle, Jambo, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, Mauerbauer, Memoir ’44, Memoir ’44: Pacific Theatre, Nacht der Magier, Rat Hot, statistics, Thurn und Taxis, Tower of Babel, Verflixxt, Viva Topo!, VOC!, year review