War, trading and hot rats

I met Olli for the first proper game session after Nooa's (that's the name of our boy) birth. It was fun, to have a small break from baby care and maintenance.

We started off with Memoir '44, since that was high on Olli's list. He had played Battle Cry before, so rules explanations were minimal. I chose my favourite scenario, Saverne Gap. It's just so good... I won, too! I have now won the scenario with both sides. It's a good scenario - the Germans are overwhelmed by Allied forces, yet the constricted nature of the corridors helps even out the game.

Olli introduced me to Jambo, which had intrigued me before. I enjoyed it, which seems fairly rare for a Rüdiger Dorn game - I just don't seem to click with his designs. Jambo is my hands-down favourite of his work. The game casts players as African traders, buying and selling stuff. The difficulty is to get suitable wares together. There are lots of special cards that help, but limited actions each turn.

It was quite pleasant. I think it's a fairly lucky game, the cards you get affect how you do, but I enjoyed the process nonetheless. Winning the game didn't hinder my enjoyment a bit, of course. I'd definitely play it again, and I'm also curious to see if Johanna likes the game.

To wrap the session up, we played two rounds of Rat Hot, a small two-player tile-laying game from Michael Schacht. Players try to connect their items while avoiding rats - if three rats of your colour are visible in the end of your turn, you lose.

The game is good - laying the tiles has enough twists and turns to keep things interesting, and the rats are a beautiful final touch. The result is a quick and a fresh game. I'm not sure it's interesting enough to buy, but if I played more two-player games, I think I could buy this (and sell, when I got bored with it - I doubt it's a keeper).