December 2005 Archives

Here's my traditional year end review. However, I've worked the format a bit, hopefully so it's more interesting for other people to read. I was inspired by Mark Johnson's post back in 2004, so thanks to Mark!

Here's the deal: first I'll list the 2005 publications I enjoyed. Then come older games I played for the first time and enjoyed. After those I'll mention few games I've continued to enjoy this year and finally I'll list some new games (well, new to me) I tried and didn't like.

After that there's a some numbers.

Feedback on the format would be most welcome. Here's Games of 2004 for comparison.

Good games published in 2005

Antike - One of the best games from Essen. It looks like a Civ lite thanks to the Mediterranean map, but it's more about logistics and efficiency. There's no trading, for example. Brightest idea? The permanent victory points, which make sure the game actually moves forward all the time and doesn't stall.

Caylus - Haven't played this one much, yet, but I'm pretty confident it's one of the better gamer's games in 2005. Heavy, yes, too long, yes, exciting, yes! The game works, and will probably make a pretty good three-player game.

Fettnapf - I went to Essen expecting to find a fun, light card game, either from Amigo or Abacus. I found Fettnapf, which fits the bill more than enough. It's already seen lots of action and earned its keep.

Havoc: The Hundred Years War - Nice card game of drafting. Feels a lot like Taj Mahal. I'm a bit undecided yet... I know I like the game, but how much, that is the question.

Heckmeck am Bratwurmeck - The game has some definite problems (length being the most obvious one), but still - it looks very good and is great fun at its best.

Indonesia - Looks good so far, despite some usability issues. The theme is interesting and the mechanics clever. After Antiquity, buying this one was extremely easy. We'll see next year how it turns out in the end, if I get to play it few more times.

Older games I tried for the first time and enjoyed

Antiquity - A real monster, three-four hours of anxiety, misery and pushing little cardboard bits around. Almost a dexterity game. A very good game for budding citybuilders, Antiquity puts you through some pretty heavy decisionmaking.

Attribute - My new favourite word game, Attribute rewards creative thinking and is a good source of laughs. I'd love to buy it, but this is one of those games that are useless if they're not in Finnish, so I'll keep on playing with my home-made Finnish copy.

Blue Moon - I had my doubts, but not any more: Blue Moon is a really good game. Simple mechanics, clever game play and generally good-looking art make up a very good game that is an interesting mixture of euro game and a collectible card game.

Cosmic Eidex - The best trick-taking game for three, and overall one of the more interesting trick-taking games. Sure, it's a pain to learn if you're not familiar with Central-European trick-taking games, but it's worth it. The cosmic powers add variety.

Dawn Under - The vampire memory game is one of those games I seem to enjoy alone, at least if you look at my GeekBuddies. However, the game was really popular in Jyväskylä, where it was enjoyed by both kids and adults. It's no children's game, but a true family game. The production values are gorgeous and the game is great fun. Don't judge it by the simple memory games you know, but try it. The expansion is fun, but not a must-buy as it's pretty expensive for what it offers.

Dvonn - I played a ton of this on Little Golem and ended up buying it, too. I'm not sure I'll play it often live, as it is an abstract two-player and situations for those are scarce, but it is a good game I'm glad to have.

Industrial Waste - Another new game that I really enjoy. While Industrial Waste falls a bit short of its closest competitors, it's sufficiently short and efficient to see a lot of play time. 20 games is not a bad score at all. Most of those are three-player games; Industrial Waste is already third on my all-time most-played three-player game list.

Lost Valley - Interesting game of exploration and efficiency. The game has its flaws, but I think it's good - it's good fun and plays pretty fast, and that works for me.

Mhing - I knew and enjoyed Mahjong and played it perhaps once every two years or so. In comes Mhing and look: I scored about 20 games this year. Many of them were two-player games with Johanna, which contributes a lot to this game's success. A new 10 game for me, as Mhing is a game I can see myself playing for years and years to come.

Mogul - One of Michael Schacht's good small games. Mogul has a cruel bidding system, where anybody can steal the pot. Typically it's the player right of you, of course, and just as you were going to do the same. This game takes skill! I've learned my timing is terrible in this game, I'm always quitting early. That makes me want to play the game more.

Neuland - Very tight logistics. Excellent game, feels a bit like condensed Roads and Boats. I'd love to have this, but it seems fairly impossible thanks to the low publication run.

Die Sieben Siegel - Very good trick-taking game. Works like a trick-taking game should: you can do well with any kind of cards, if you can play them right and make the correct prediction. That's tricky, of course.

Werewolf - The biggest hit on the Enter magazine cruise. We played over and over again and it was a blast. I haven't played since and I know the situation where Werewolf works doesn't come often, but when the situation comes, I'm glad I know Werewolf.

This list could go further, but I'm stopping here. Many of the games either will or will not make an appearance on the keeper list next year, and that's the ultimate test, in the end.

Games I've kept on enjoying

Age of Steam - Still one of the very best gamer's games. I've been playing the expansion maps, which offer a wide variety of different experiences, all pretty much equally impressive. One of the real gems in my collection.

Geschenkt - Last year's top filler was still played a lot this year, as it arrived so late last year. It remains one of the very best filler games.

Go - Looks like I didn't play a single game of face-to-face Go this year. Well, that's not a big deal - I really like play-by-web Go and I played tons of that. I think my level of play has gone down a bit as my activity has dwindled a bit, but I'm comfortable with that. The biggest rush is over now; the game has settled into my life and might bloom one day again.

Memoir '44 - Most of my Memoir action happened during few intensive sessions, particularly a one with Tommy in June. It's by far my favourite war game, having just the right level of complexity and simulation. It's short enough and very exciting, thus a definite keeper. The expansions are a welcome addition to the base game.

St. Petersburg - Still going strong, even though it didn't get even ten plays this year. Too much competition, particularly from Industrial Waste. Still, I'm looking forward to see how the expansion changes the game.

San Juan - The little brother has found a place in my collection, as it got more play than Puerto Rico. I like them both; the experience is similar, yet distinctly different. Both are very good games that take some balancing and consideration.

Street Soccer - Lots of Street Soccer at Little Golem. I'm actually not too keen to play the board game - this game is perfect in its online form.

The not-so-good, the disappointing, the plain bad

Angkor - Kind of cool, and looks nice - except for the plastic bits - but was definitely too "take that" for me. As a two-player game it was much better, but with more, it just didn't click.

Big Kini - One of the Essen hotties. I didn't get it. It's kind of fun, but feels like it doesn't quite work as it should. It's not broken, but not quite fixed either.

Doom: The Boardgame - What an excellent game - but not for me. I would've loved this ten years ago, but now it's just too big and heavy for such a light experience. It's a good system, though, and a great base for modifications and own scenarios - just like the computer game was.

In the Shadow of the Emperor - I don't know what happened (or didn't happen). I thought the game was pretty cool, the mechanics are definitely impressive and the theme is interesting, but I only played this twice and haven't felt too sorry about it. I'll probably give it another shot and then it's off to trade pile if it doesn't catch on.

Logistico - Tommy could predict my opinion with an amazing accuracy: nice, but... I don't know, it left me cold, even though the idea is great and the implementation is slick.

Monopoly: The Card Game - A horrible Rummy variant. The game doesn't make sense without the Monopoly framework and even with it is pretty weak.

Raub Ritter - Tried at Essen and can't understand why somebody would actually want to play this. One of the most frustrating game experiences ever. Why should I place my piece here, as somebody is simply going to come and beat it? Doesn't make sense.

Who Stole Ed's Pants? - Wasn't quite as good as I expected. The idea is good and game is fun, but the mechanics aren't that interesting and the production values could be much better.

Totals

I played 137 different games this year. I think that's more than ever. Essen was certainly helpful, but it took more than that. Total number of games was 398, more than last year, but not quite as much as the 557 I played in 2003 (that was a manic year, or maybe it was lots of games at BSW, I don't know).

Fives & Dimes

These games I played ten times or more:

1. Industrial Waste (20)
2. Mhing (20)
3. Fettnapf (16)
4. Geschenkt (12)
5. Dawn Under (12)
6. Memoir '44 (12)
7. Lost Cities (10)
8. San Juan (10)

These games I played five times or more:

1. Heckmeck am Bratwurmeck (8)
2. St. Petersburg (8)
3. Werewolf (8)
4. Blue Moon (7)
5. Mogul (7)
6. Lost Valley (7)
7. Die Sieben Siegel (6)
8. Attribute (6)
9. Dvonn (6)
10. For Sale (5)
11. Africa (5)
12. Trivial Pursuit (5)

    Month Metric

    Month metric is simply the number of months in which the game has been played. This year the winners were St. Petersburg and Mhing, which I played in six different months. That's pretty good, considering I played only eight games of St. Pete.

    Overall my top games Month Metric -wise are Puerto Rico, Go and Carcassonne, with 19, 18 and 17 months, respectively.

    Huber happiness product

    The list of games that provided most happiness for me this year had few surprises. Caylus makes a fairly high-ranking appearance, as does Antiquity. Not surprising, since both are long, good games. Power Grid is probably the biggest surprise, since I only played it three times. But, it's a long game as well.

Check out Boardgamers' Pastime, a fairly new blog from Mario Lanza. The entries so far look great and the Tikal logo is absolutely gorgeous.

Also worth checking out is the latest project of mine, Best of Board Games, which aims to link to various interesting board game resources. It's a bit of a work-in-progress at the moment, but since Alfred slipped it out, it's public now...

And why not? Grab the RSS feed for your reader so you'll stay updated when the links start to roll in. I'm taking about zero effort to create a refined and classy look for the blog, as I think it's definitely best read through the RSS feed.

Here's something you don't see every day: a board game website award! The Gone Gaming Board Game Internet Awards is a bunch of awards for the best board game websites in different categories. Vote for Gameblog!

Another: Review of Liberty in Finnish.

Liberty is a Columbia Games block war game about the American indepence war. With the help of French, the Americans try to fight the British for their freedom. The shot heard around the world and all that, you know.

The mechanics of the game are similar to other Columbia block games, particularly the quite popular Hammer of the Scots. The blocks represent troops and allow for fog of war. The combat system is the same. However, the scenario is quite different, and involves a wider array of different units. One particular difference is the inclusion of fleets.

The map, which is a curious long strip, depicts most of the eastern coast of North-America. That's where the fighting happens. There are basically two fronts: south has few cities far apart, while north has all the biggest cities quite close together (and then the Canadian wilderness).

The two armies have similar goals (conquer and hold cities), but very different means and strategies. The English start with a decisive material advantage. However, when the French enter the war (that's decided by a random die roll), the situation becomes more balanced. In the few games I've played, Americans have won every time, but it hasn't been easy. My feeling is that Americans might be slightly easier, butthe game seems fairly balanced.

Once again, I really like the combat system. Each unit has a combat rating that gives its speed (A, B or C) and power (1-4, you need to roll that or under on d6 to score a hit) and strength from one to four, which tells you how many dice to roll. It's clean, simple and allows for all sorts of different units.

Liberty is an interesting game of a quite interesting war. I consider the American Civil War very boring topic for a game, but the independence war is less familiar and thus more interesting. Those who like Hammer of the Scots might want to check out Liberty as well, as the two games are definitely different enough, while the same mechanics mean you don't have to learn another set of rules.

I wrote a review of VIctory & Honor in Finnish.

Victory & Honor is a American Civil War -themed trick-taking game from Ty Douds and Jolly Roger. It's for four players, and while it can be played individually, it's probably best played as two pairs. That's the way I've played it.

It's one of the tricky trick-taking games. The biggest specialty in Victory & Honor is definitely the fact that there are always three tricks played at the same time. The different tricks also control the flow of the game: turn moves to the direction of the trick played. If I play on "right flank", next up is the player on my right and so on.

Second curiosity is in the scoring. Cards, ten on each four suit, are divided into troops (1-7) and generals (1-3 stars). Troops are worthless without generals. Generals itself are worth one to three points and the troops are worth the amount of generals you have in the same suit. Players score points individually, not as pairs, so it's critical who gets the cards.

There are also some troop cards with special functions. Scout lets you dictate where the next player must play his or her card. Artillery captures the opposing card next to it (so artillery on your left flank will capture the right flank card of your left hand opponent). Cavalry wins the trick, if it's the last card played on that trick.

Using these specialties is one of the skills needed in this game, as is the control of the game flow. Unfortunately those skills won't help too much, if your opponents have all the generals. Unlike some other good trick-taking games, VIctory & Honor gives only limited means to survive bad hands. That's the only flaw in the game.

Well, that and an incredibly bad rulebook. It's very hard to learn the game from the rules, even though it's really not that difficult. It is complicated, so it would've needed good rules to make the system crystal clear. Now it'll take some trial and error to get everything right.

However, if the theme appeals to you and you have a regular group that's ready to play the game a lot, it's definitely worth it. Casual trick-takers will find other games that are give more enjoyment with less effort.

Saturday was the big games day of the weekend, when Tommy and Stefu came all the way from Vantaa/Espoo and were joined by Robert of the local gamers. We started around noon and played almost 12 hours straight. It was pleasant, efficient and very entertaining. Here's what we played:

Flix Mix. I played this with Robert when Tommy and Stefu hadn't arrived yet. It's a great game, I like it. My rating (which I just bumped up to nine) stands out as the highest of the 18 ratings in the Geek. It's criminally under-appreciated, as it's definitely one of the better speed games, basically because it has a very nice and almost slow rhythm to it.

Ubongo was my only wish, and Tommy was happy to fulfil it, as he really likes the game. He's also quite an evangelist: Geek has nine Finns giving the game an average rating of 8.11, and all of them were introduced to the game by Tommy.

I enjoyed it. It's basically a tile puzzle, where you have to form a certain shape with three or four different pieces. You can flip the pieces, that's what caused me some trouble at times. Faster players get gems, and the highest amount of same-coloured gems wins the game. The scoring is kind of arbitrary, and the fastest player isn't a certain winner. Not bad at all, though the box is way too big.

Timbuktu was the first big game we played. It seemed confusing and even a bit stupid at first, but during the game's few rounds, it got better on each round. Players are moving their caravans to Timbuktu, and every now and then the robbers will strike the caravans. Everybody gets some information, in sets of three cards: which spots the robbers strike, which line they choose and which goods they steal. There are five combinations each turn. Everybody starts with one and they'll get rotated twice so you eventually end up seeing three.

So, you can guess a bit, gamble on odds, deduce stuff from other players' actions... I had luck with my pepper camels, until in the final round I couldn't get any information on pepper thieves and I had to guess and I guessed wrong. Timbuktu is a good game, because I didn't mind that. It was an exciting finish and that's all good and well.

I'm thinking about getting Timbuktu. If it makes it to the selections of the local store, I might go for it. It's deduction game, but not too heavy on brains (unlesss you want to really think about it), the whole gambling aspect of it makes it fun and exciting.

Antike. Wonderful game! It's a good game, and I played a good game. Once again I was the Germans on the Western Med map, once again Tommy was the Romans. I started with some iron cities, then moved to gold and started getting scientists after picking up two kings. Four scientists later I built five fleets on my cities to score a navigator and then produced marble to build six temples for the last missing victory points.

I finished the game two points ahead of Robert and four points ahead of Tommy and Stefu. Stefu got stuck in the corner as Phoeniceans. He was completely surrounded by Robert's Greece. At one point he built a huge army and did one 10-minute turn when he attacked out. However, that was as pointless as it was long, as it only gave him one point from the navigator he got. Lesson to learn: if you get stuck, start getting that knowledge fast.

Himalaya. This strange game was a candidate for Spiel des Jahres. I finally got a chance to try it. It's basically a mix of pick-up and delivery, programmed movement game (like RoboRally) and a majority game, with a clever Samurai-like scoring.

Players are moving between villages. Movements are programmed by laying out tiles: you choose if you want to move on ice road, dirt road or paved road. You can also perform an action in the villages. Action is either picking up stuff or fulfilling a contract. Contract involves paying stuff cubes, so collecting the cubes is pretty important.

There are few catches. The cubes have different values. When you pick something, you take the cube with the lowest value of those that are present. You can also take just one cube from a village each turn. It is also possible to wait on your turn, not doing anything - that might be a good idea sometimes.

When you do a transaction and fulfill a contract, you get two out of three options. First is economical: you get yaks. Each contract is worth three to nine yaks. Second is religious: you can build a stupa. Stupas are worth one to three religious points, depending on the size of the village. Third is political: you can send out a delegation. Delegations (again one to three members) are played on the spaces between the villages.

In the end the winner is decided by an elimination process. First you eliminate the player with the least religious power. His or her delegations are removed from the board. Then you see, who has the least majorities of delegations on the areas - he or she is eliminated. Of the two players remaining, the winner is the one with most economical power (three-player game works pretty much like Samurai).

It's an interesting system, but it has some potential for kingmaking. I'm not sure if that's a big problem or not. I do know we played the game wrong: we only chose one option, which meant the board was a lot emptier than it should be and there was little fighting for the majorities. Oops.

Anyway, I found Himalaya to be interesting. It's pretty good - I wouldn't probably buy it myself, but I'll definitely play it again. It was pretty fast, too: we used a one-minute timer on the programming phase and played the game in 70 minutes. Lack of time wasn't a problem in the programming, but it's more fun, if you have to rush it a bit.

Hazienda. I was eager to give Hazienda another go. It's definitely not a bad game, even if it's a bit - well, safe might be a good word. Ours was an interesting match, as Stefu took a quite extreme tactic. He built a huge land mass on one side of the board. In the end it was something like 14-15 land pieces. Of course it had several animal chains to it, but he touched only few markets.

It didn't matter, as he won the game. And why not? With a hacienda, that chain was worth many points. Me and Tommy tied just six points behind him with more markets. Tommy had the most, but I had other sources of points. Tommy could've been one point ahead of me, but he made a wrong move on the last turn and I didn't feel like mentioning it to him...

Well, anyway, Hacienda is a pretty good game. I mean, it's timed just right, there's plenty of good tension as you feel the pull to several different directions but it's not too anxiety-inducing... It's all really well done, yet it feels a lot like any other game. A very solid eight, but by no means a must-buy for me.

Domaine - a really vicious game. Our game saw a bad start for me (not a single border card), lots of idiot moves from me and total domination by Stefu and Robert. They both got four income pretty fast, while me and Tommy had to do with just one. It all ended pretty ugly, when I missed a possibility to build a 16-point kingdom, which Stefu did after me, winning the game hands down.

I mean, I know Domaine is a cruel game, but this match... It just wasn't any fun. I don't think anybody really enjoyed the game. I know I'll let the game gather a dust for a while, and I also bumped down it's rating. It can be fun, but it can be misery, and that's not good - kicking someone when he's already down is just ugly.

Fettnapf. Stefu wanted to try it, so we played a round. Robert was the Fettnapf-magnet this time. A bit of trivia: I've got the second most games of Fettnapf on Geek.

Victory & Honor has been on Tommy's list of my games to try for a while, and finally it happened. I paired up with Tommy, while Robert and Stefu formed the other team.

And boy, did we crush them! After a less-impressive first round, all the good cards seemed to flow to Tommy, and we ended up winning the game 162 to 82 (and we had 83 points after the second round out of four), mostly thanks to Tommy.

I like the game, but after this match it did move to my sale list. It's not a bad game - I still rate it 7 - but it has problems. First of all - it's got awful lot to do with the cards you get. If you have good cards, you are very likely to win. Second, it's a difficult game to play. If I play with less experienced players, I want something easier. If I play with experienced gamers, I want... well, something else. Victory & Honor lacks a spot in my ludological system. Not to mention the rulebook, which is horrible and the cards, which look boring.

Urland was a Robert's game Tommy had requested. Urland is an area majority game, basically, where players control prehistorical beings that live in the seas and begin the evolutionary process that leads to walking on land.

The game has an interesting structure. First player gets three numbers, that correspond to islands on the map. He or she chooses one island to score. Second player takes the remaining two, but does nothing else. Third and fourth player play their turns. The island is scored. Then the original second player draws a new number and starts a new round as the first player.

That's interesting, but also annoying, when you have to spend two turns doing nothing every once in a while. It does make the game a lot faster, which I understand was the goal. And hey, at least it's something different.

I had the worst early game, I was left without any victory points for a long time. I managed to climb up to compete for the second place, but Tommy was already far away from the rest of us and eventually won the game.

Obviously these area majority games aren't quite our cup of tea. I suppose me, Tommy and Stefu are more into these optimization games where other players can't foil your plans with unnecessary hassle, but Urland was definitely too chaotic. It reminded me of Mammoth Hunters: both have good ideas, but aren't that interesting games. At least Urland has super cute Doris Matthäus art. That saves a lot!

Industrial Waste. Sauna was supposed to be warm at this point, but I had screwed up and put it on timer (so instead of "stay warm for three hours" I had chosen "start warming up in four hours"). So, another game while we waited for the sauna to warm up for real. Stefu was new to the game and indeed had some accidents. Otherwise it was a tight match.

Puerto Rico. Robert left at this point - strange guy, he's been in Finland for years now and still doesn't like sauna - and we continued with just the three of us. Stefu wanted to play good old Puerto Rico, and so we did. I played a perfect game: start with sugar, get coffee, build Guild Hall and collect the full set. Stefu shipped some, and lost just a point for me. Tommy was out of tempo and lost badly. It was a seriously good match.

Big Kini is one of the hyped games of Essen this year. I wonder why, because it wasn't too special. The process of playing is fun, sort of, but somehow the game felt a bit broken. Like something important was missing... The game also ended prematurely - the length is good, but the game "arc" doesn't work.

Big Kini is about populating islands and voting oneself to high political positions. Items can be collected and islands discovered to gather points. The different strategies didn't feel too balanced. The shortness is probably the worst problem. Tommy also had a huge advantage as he had a two-spot breeding ground on his starting islands. I have no big interest to play Big Kini again.

We finished the weekend on Sunday morning with a final game of Industrial Waste. It was epic. Tommy was well ahead, but couldn't finish the game, so me and Stefu caught him. The final scores were 74-74-73, and Tommy won the game with a tiebreaker. Amazing game, really great entertainment.

All in all, it was a very good weekend. We played lots of games, very fast and efficient. I played several good new games, particularly Timbuktu stroke a chord with me. Domaine was a big disappointment, but otherwise even the weaker games like Urland were interesting experiences. Thanks to Robert, Tommy and Stefu for good game session!

After playing the game yesterday, I wrote a review in Finnish of Maaali! aka Tooor!, also known as the new edition of Finale.

Tooor! is a fairly simple football game. Each coach fields a team of 11 players. Each player has a value from one to five, depicting the skill and the strength of the player. Actually, there's four values for each player, one on each side of the rectangular player tile. Whenever player is used, the tile is rotated 90 degrees, so the values of the players fluctuate during the game. Someone might lose their touch, someone will warm up later in the game.

The game is played in six rounds. On each round, the coaches choose tactic cards. Higher tactic card gets to attack first. The tactic card shows a set of players by their position (forward, middle, defense). Coaches choose the players they'll use, total their values and roll dice (0-3) to give some randomness.

If the attacker has a higher total, the attack is succesful. One of the attacking players faces the goalie; success means a goal. If the attack fails, the defender gets to attack. After the possible return attack the round is over.

Players have some event symbols in the corners of their tiles. Those are checked when the tiles are rotated and might cause a player to get a red or yellow card or an injury. That adds to the decisionmaking - there's definitely some. Sometimes you must, for example, use your weaker players to make them better. Using a really good player helps score goals, but that player might become very weak afterwards - is it worth it?

Tooor! is a fairly simple game, but it offers some good decisionmaking. The die has a good role in the game: it creates uncertainty, as you can't be sure if your attack will succeed, but the luck isn't too strong. All in all, it's a pretty nifty little game. I just didn't like it. I found the game boring and not much fun. I'd definitely recommend it to a football-loving children, they might like it, but it's unlikely I'll play the game again.

I wanted to try the Memoir '44 expansions and invited Olli H. over to give them a go with me. Here's what we played:

We started with the Suomussalmi scenario from Eastern Front. It's the only Winter War scenario and thus a must. It's also quite an interesting one. Russians are holding the village of Suomussalmi, which is really well defended. Russian also have a division on the corner of the map. They are stopped by a Finnish roadblock (well, they can cross the frozen rivers, but that's risky). The rest of the Finnish troops are ski troops surrounding Suomussalmi.

I played Russians and managed to keep Suomussalmi, but still lost. I had trouble with the delayed Russian command (orders you give are for the next turn) and lack of right flank cards. Olli managed to take units here and there, destroying only one unit from the Suomussalmi defenders. The scenario was good, I'd definitely want to try it playing the Finnish.

The second scenario was from Terrain Pack. Schwammenauel Dam offers dam-exploding fun. Germans hold dams they try to destroy, while Allied forces try to capture the dams. Allies have material advantage, but the terrain is mountaineous. There's a time pressure to capture the dams before the Germans sabotage them, as that's worth four victory points.

In our game Olli wasn't even near, so it wasn't too hard to win the scenario. With better luck for Germans this scenario should be pretty nerve-wracking for the Allied player. So far this ranks amongs the best scenarios in Memoir.

Last one we tried was Knightsbridge from Terrain Pack, because it uses the desert map. It was really bad. Just desert, with few terrain effects, and loads of tanks. It was a real dicefest. I won, but only because I got an Armor Assault card, which was total overkill in this scenario. Boring! I won't play the scenario again.

I wanted to try Tooor, which is a remake of Finale, one of the first games in the Kosmos two-player game series (with a Geek id 388, it's ancient). It's a football game. Players choose attack strategies, choose the players who'll perform them, total their values and roll a die to give some random effect. If the attacker wins, they'll get an attempt to score, otherwise there'll be a return attack. Repeat that six times and you get a game.

The players are turned 90 degrees every time they are used. Each side of the player cards has a different value - a player might get better during the game, or perhaps weaken. That must be considered while choosing players. There are also yellow cards, red cards and injuries.

It's kind of interesting, but didn't quite hook me. The fun was missing, somehow, it was all very mechanical. The game hit my trade pile right away; I'd much rather play StreetSoccer.

Finally we played Blue Moon. I thought Olli might be the right guy for that game, since he's a casual Magic guy. My guess was correct: he liked the game a lot, and we ended up playing five matches. Now it's clear: Blue Moon is a really good game.

It's a really good mix of a euro and CCG. The decks are simple enough to play without intimate knowledge of the cards, but it gets better when you know what you're using and what your opponent's deck has. The mechanics are simple, but the interaction between the card effects is very CCG-like (and unfortunately the need of FAQs is too).

Of all the decks I've played so far Mimix is my favourite. Not for the seminaked women (though the pregnant woman on Call Spirit of the Battlefield is kind of neat), but the interesting cards! The Shamans and the Calls allow interesting juggling. Olli likes the Terrahs, it seems.

So, pretty good session, I'd say! I'll definitely have to play more Blue Moon, that's for sure...

Since Ta Yü is generally available for a very cheap price (well, at least in Germany), I thought translating the rules might be a good idea. Thus, I present to you: Ta Yü rules in Finnish.

I want to try the play-by-web Puerto Rico at PR-Game.com. The interface is, erhm, interesting, but I want to see how it turns out. I'm missing Puerto Rico action, so I thought that might be a good avenue.

So, anyway, I started a game for four players. Hop in if you're interested. Players of all skill and experience are welcome. The game is called "A blast of cold".

Phil Schwarzmann from Finland for Thought, who you also might know from Spielfrieks or BoardGameGeek, hosts a weekly live podcast called Radio Free Finland.

Every week he interviews some guests about a topic or other, and this week I was on the show. We talked about board games, Finnish blogosphere and my experiences in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Even though my English was particularly shaky for some reason, you might want to listen to the podcast: Tarja Halonen & Board Games... takes you to the page with the mp3 files for download.

The other guest was from Tarja Halonen's presidential campaign. If you've watched Conan O'Brien recently, you might remember how Conan looks just like Tarja Halonen.

I'm flattered: Tom Vasel wanted to interview me for his Interviews by an Optimist series. The resulting interview talks about board games in Finland, evolution of board gaming, blogs and whatnot. It's pretty neat, if you ask me.

It was something I have thought about and wondered for a while now, and the answer is yes: you can fit the base game, both expansions, the extra map and all sorts of stuff you printed from the web into the Memoir '44 box. It isn't a perfect fit, but everything goes in the box and the lid stays closed, so I count it as a success. Now I just need some medium-sized ziploc bags to keep the armies separated and small bags to sort the tokens and it's perfect.

Here's a list of games. Can you guess the order behind this top ten?

1. Go
2. Puerto Rico
3. Carcassonne
4. Die Macher
5. St. Petersburg
6. Age of Steam
7. San Juan
8. Gang of Four
9. Sunda to Sahul
10. Lost Cities

It's a list of games I've mentioned most often in this blog. Go and Puerto Rico really stand out (mentioned in about 70 entries), others are between 30 and 20 entries. The titles are links to the lists of entries where the games are mentioned.

You can find this information from the sidebar from now on: List of games I've mentioned

Johanna was having a movie night with her friend, so I invited guys over for a friendly game of Age of Steam. To advance my mission to play all the maps, I chose to use the German map - despite one of the players being a newbie.

It was a tough fight. I thought Berlin would be a good place to start and built my empire in that corner of the map. Everybody else seemed to start on the southwestern side, which indeed has more cities. That left me quite alone, which of course suited me. However, I took too many shares in the beginning, which made my financial situation pretty ugly.

It's an interesting map. The very expensive foreign terminals were used, somewhat, and we even saw a connection to Wien on the last turn. I got lots of peace and quiet in my corner while the others were fighting a lot, but in the end my network wasn't good enough and the production got quiet and I failed to deliver longer routes. Too bad.

Last auction was particularly bad: I was going to bid all my money to get first to get Locomotive and two six-link deliveries, but Robert screwed me by bidding 14 before me (I had 13, total). I would've bid that even to become second, but I couldn't and got last. Ilari took the Locomotive before me and all I could deliver was one five and one four. That did it for me. Even a second five-link delivery would've put me on tied first place, it was that tight.

Who won? The newbie, of course. It has to be said that Olli M. is definitely one of the brighter guys in our club, so it wasn't like he was totally clueless. My score was ruined by 13 issued shares. Olli had one income less than I, but only ten shares. Well, it was a good match, lots of excitement and tension. Age of Steam is definitely one of the best games I have; too bad it takes so much time I don't get to play it as often as I would like to.

After that we tried my prototype. It's not a four-player game, that much is obvious now. It should work if you play it in pairs like the two-player game, but with four individual players the system just doesn't work. Well, it's good to know that.

To wrap up the evening, we played a quick game of Mogul. Once again I got rid of my cards too soon and spent the rest of the game doing nothing. Olli amassed a huge amount of cards and despite being penniless all the time (and taking, like, ten loans - the bank ended up with just three coins) got to sell most of them to secure a clear victory. As I said, he's a bright guy...