Board Game Goodness

Last Friday several friends and I placed an order for some board games and they showed up today. It’s like Christmas in October and it was quite a haul.

Normally I order all my games from http://www.bouldergames.com, but the one game I really wanted from them was out of stock so I was able to consider some other options. I stumbled upon this other website called http://www.boardsandbits.com that had a flat rate shipping of $12 for an order up to 40 pounds. Now their prices were slightly more than Boulder Games (about .75 on average), but when you consider how that would affect the shipping price, I think it balanced out in the end. However since Boards and Bits didn’t have everything I wanted I ended up placing a second much smaller order from http://www.funagaingames.com. I’m not a huge fan of Fun Again games since their prices are slightly high for online and they charge through the nose for shipping ($15.87 for the 4 games I got from them verses $12 for the 18 that I ordered from Board and Bits).

They were both ordered on the same day and came from the same side of the country so ironically they arrived at the same time (Boulder Games would have shipped by Wednesday).

For those of you who might care, this is what I managed to snag:

Wings of War: Famous Aces

Mark and I both picked up a copy of this game. I’m pretty excited to try it out, the cards are rather tiny and I wish they had been made bigger, but the quality seems to be pretty good. The other interesting part is that while this is a 2 to 4 player game, they include many different planes so that you can combine sets and play with more people (which is always a nice touch considering the fact that we rarely have 2 to 4 people at game night.

Colossal Arena

This is the new Fantasy Flight remake of the Reiner Knizia classic Titan: the Arena. I cannot wait to jump into this game. The game starts out with 8 creatures which everyone bets on which one they think will live until the end of the battle. Each round one creature is killed until only 4 are left. You can place new bets each rough, but they decrease in value. Players use combat cards to help decide which creature gets the axe. This should be a lot of fun. It plays 3 to 6 players.

Bang: Dodge City Expansion

Nathan (who also picked up a copy of BANG!) and I both ordered the new Bang expansion. More BANGing is to be had as you can now play 8 players instead of 7, lots of new bad guys, same killing fun. This one will hit the table soon.

Lost Valley

This is another one that I’m pretty excited about. I’m a huge fan of Goldland, though I haven’t had much of an opportunity to play it lately, and this one keeps in the same vein (of Gold) as that. In Lost Valley players are prospectors in the Klondike. “The game is played on an expanding map of rombs and triangles. Players move along the edges of the tiles, trying to accumulate the most gold nuggets. (The game was originally called Nuggets!) The triangular tiles contain special locations such as trade posts, Indian villages and river sources.

Players start with limited equipment and most collect resources from the board and pay money to improve the equipment. Better equipment decreases risk but costs nuggets and never completely eliminates risk. Exploitation of local resources will cause players to move farther afield and require better types of transportations (horses, carts, canoes).” Should provide for some exploring goodness.

Some how I ended up with a whole pile of German card games:

Die sieben Siegel – http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8129
Coloretto Expansion – http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/12614
Die Fugger – http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8130
Verrater (The Traitor) – http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/72
Meuterer – http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/902
Dschingis Bohn – Bohnanza Expansion – http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8174

I’m pretty excited about all of them. Die sieben Siegel (7 Seals) is a trick taking game. Coloretto is well, Coloretto. Die Fugger, Verrater and Meuterer are more board game like in their nature, but those are all in German so these will take the right group and a bit of work to get through our first playings. JoAnna picked up Ghengis Bean as she is the bean nut of the bunch.

Blue Moon

Keeping with the card game theme, I also picked up the new expansions for Blue Moon (another Reiner K game). This scratches my itch for CCG without it having to be collectible.

Alhambra Expansion #1

I totally love Alhambra so you know I’ve got to pick up the expansions. The first expansion is really a collection of 4 different expansions that you can used by themselves or mix and match as desired.

The first one is the Visors. Each player has a Visor token that they can activate and purchase 1 building out of turn for exact change. Once your Visor has been used, he must be reactivated to do so (which is one action).

The second expansion is the exchange. Mixed into the money cards are exchange cards which show two currencies on them. A player would pick this up instead of money. During his turn (or the Visor if you are using that variant), a player would use the exchange to purchase a building using the wrong color of money. For example, if you had the yellow – blue exchange, you can use yellow money to purchase a blue building or blue money to get a yellow building or a combo there of. However the exchange only has a one time use (only good for one building) and then is discarded back into the money pile.

The third is the building huts. There are piles of building huts next to the market, several for each color type of building. They are free to take which means you can only get one on your turn (since you are not paying exact change for it) and may only have 3 in your Alhambra. They act as a multiplier when they touch like buildings and can be worth 0, 1, 2, or 3 depending on how many tiles they are touching.

The last expansion is sort of a bonus card. There are 6 I believe that match specific tiles (the only tiles that do not have any walls on them. If you build that tile into your Alhambra and have the bonus card, then the bonus card counts as having an extra building of that color. The bonus card can be revealed at any time.

Needless to say, Alhambra is going to hit the table sometime soon.

Maharaja

Now I know very little about this game, but when Brian and Mark rave about it, then you know you’ve got to pick up a copy and give it a try. Plus with names like Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling behind it, you know its some goodness you’ve got to try.

GolfProfi

I bought this game with my buddy Tom in mind. It’s from the same guys who brought us TurfMaster but it’s about golf. I mean how can you go wrong with that. The neatest part about this is that you keep track of your handy cap and as you get better you can use different clubs (dice).

Santiago

I also picked up Santiago, which a year after its release is getting a lot of buzz as folks find out about it. I don’t know a whole lot about it other than what I’ve read, so here’s something stolen for the Geek:

“Appropriately enough for the hot summer we’ve had this year, the game is about sufficiently watering the fields. And not only watering them; the fallow ground must be cultivated too. To accomplish this, a number of tiles denoting various plantation types come into the game each round. The tiles are auctioned off such that each player gets one, and the tiles then placed onto the game board along with an ownership marker that also indicates how plentiful the tile’s yield will be. Whoever bid the lowest in each round gets to be the canal overseer and decide where a canal will be built that round. The other players may make suggestions to help the canal overseer decide, and back up their suggestions with money. The final decision is always wholly up to the overseer, though.

At the end of each round, players determine what the water supply situation looks like. Should a plantation not be sufficiently watered, its production drops dramatically; should it happen more than once, then that plantation may revert to fallow ground. At game’s end, naturally only the cultivated land counts. Each plantation is counted according to type – the bigger the better. But since the ownership markers play a role as well, the same plantation can give drastically different points for different players.”

Sounds like a winner to me.

Cloud 9

I had tried to find an original copy of this game since the artwork was so much cooler, but alas, I had to break down and settle for the new one, but a 8 bucks, I guess I cannot complain.

So there you have it, a completely wasted post for the rest of you.