Wrath of Ashardalon is the second release in the D&D board game series from Wizards of the Coast. For those who have the previous release Castle Ravenloft you may be wondering if it is worth your while to own another version of the game.

WOA is in a new setting which means it comes with all new monsters, new tiles, new cards and of course new heroes. The first thing I notice about WOA is I preferred the variety of monster more. Obviously setting the location outside of a haunted castle controlled by a vampire gives you a little bit more flexibility in the types of monsters you can include. Once again the sculpts are fantastic but the thing I am most impressed with is the monsters are much harder.

There are some new rules for doors and a few other things which I am not going to get into in this impressions article mainly because I haven't had a chance to play any of the scenarios including them. The rule book and many of the items are much more organized and address a lot of the issues people were having with Ravenloft. the rules clearly state which pieces will be used in every session and which are scenario dependent. This makes the learning curve much easier for new combers who could be overwhelmed with the amount of items in the box.

In my limited time which as of this writing includes 2 plays of the solo scenario I've discovered the best thing thus far about WOA is the treasures. You can find some really powerful and helpful items.

The tiles are again very nice and of sturdy quality. The cards on the other hand (at least in my copy) left a little something to be desired. Ravenloft is one of the most played games in my collection and I have very little wear on those cards. With the WOA cards I found the corners turning up and showing slight signs of warping within 30 minutes of opening the game. Curles edges and slight warping is expected with cards, but not in that short of time with absolutely no plays. To their credit WOTC has already issued me new cards which is appreciated but I have doubts they will make a difference the cards just seem to be on a different stock.

Overall I think if you loved Ravenloft then WOA seems like a lock. The new setting, figures and rules will keep you busy. If you were luke warm about Ravenloft then you may want to try WOA as the setting an additional rules make the game a tighter experience. However if you loathed the previous game I don't see anything in WOA at this point that would change your mind.

Some items I've acquired recently.

Merchants & Marauders
Haven't had the chance to play this one yet but have done the usualy rules read through and play some test turns. I expect my regular group to be slit on this one. Great concept, quality components and does what i expect. However might be a little too rules overload for some.

I hope to get it to the table this Thursday.




Earth Reborn
This game took a long time to punch and it is going to take even longer to get through the rules with the available time i have right now. What's cool is the way it teaches the rules in small chunks. Conflict of Heroes did this and it is one of the few games I can always remember how to play.

I expect it's some time before this one sees daylight though.

Other games I've gotten recently. Formula D with all the track expansions, the new BSG expansion, Telestrations (This one is a huge party hit) 1960 to play with the wife.

I've got more games then I have time to play right now.

Tonight we're going to look at the Americans in Civilization the Board Game. The Americans may seem like one of the more vanilla civilizations to play but they provide a good starting point for a player who can be flexible and depending on the situation open up any avenue of victory.

The Americans get a random great person, so what you get can certainly dictate how you proceed. However the addition of a great person at the start can be very helpful, especially if it leads to increased culture or wealth.

Because of their special ability to acquire 2 hammers every time you convert trade into production the Americans would do best to put their cities in areas heavily favored to Trade. Cities place near water with harbors can lead to a lot of excess trade that can be converted very easily into units or buildings.

Finally with Currency as a starting tech the Americans can immediately build a market to get their economy rolling. Also the ability to convert incense to gain 3 culture during the city management step means if the Americans can get a good great person draw and get out and explore they can take an early culture lead.

So next time you find yourself playing the Americans don't look around in envy at the other players. Analyze the set up and situation and pick a plan and hold the course. If you do so victory can be yours in a number of ways.

While my copy is set to arrive today I had the chance to play this one last night and my initial impressions are that I loved it. I'll be digging into this much deeper over the coming days but this is really a great game entry in the genre.

We set up for 4 players, the game needed to be punched and rules needed to be explained so that was an hour of time right there. The game itself is pretty easy to follow once you play about 2-3 turns. I think once everyone knows how to play this game could be knocked out in 2.5-3 hours.

As a first game though we didn't even finish and we were close to 2-3 hours in after the initial set up. Part of that is first game normalcy, part of it is not really having a focus on a victory condition and then it comes down to the group.

The game is broken into 5 steps to a Turn and 3 of those steps are done simultaneously, I've marked those below.

Start of turn Actions*
Trade*
City Actions
Movement
Research*

The first two actions should be relatively quick as unless you get a few player haggling over trading something there is not a lot going on. I noticed while we played that many people were constantly counting their trade every round, even when nothing changed to effect it. If you had 11 last round and didn't build anything to alter that you still have 11. Perhaps some scratch paper for the forgetful?

You essentially get one city action per city and you have to determine your production for each city on a turn so this step is the longest. Movement is where combat can come in, but combat is quick and effective so that's not much of an issue.

Finally research is where the game seemed to bog down and it shouldn't You know if you're going to research a tech by the trade phase usually, at the very latest the City Management Phase. So while other players are doing those action you should be looking at your tech deck and deciding what to do.

Anyway enough with the rant on how to play the game, just expect a longer game the first time out.

The game itself was great, I like every mechanic and really can't think of one I didn't enjoy. I'm going to cover these over the next week. I love the 4 ways to victory and last night I really didn't focus on one. As Germany and with my initial set up and the way the game evolved I should of been pursuing a military victory.

However I was all over the place, I think I had the biggest tech pyramid when we quit, I was 2nd in culture which took a lot of doing, had only 1 gold coin in terms of the wealth victory condition and I definitely had the biggest military force. With all that I wasn't anywhere close to winning.

The game suggest not using wonders or two of the Civs in a first game and to simply set up and play a few turns and start a new game. I balked at this notion, however I think it is a really good thing to do. Most players will be too focused on learning the mechanics, looking at techs and exploring to even explore a strategy. Playing even just 3-4 turns will get everyone's feet wet and then make the second game a much more focused setting.

Next time I'll get into the Civilizations and how they differ. For those looking for a recommendation I would say if you like the genre or the computer game you shouldn't hesitate to buy this as long as you have a group to play it with.

I've got several orders in the hopper and I'm just waiting for them to come in. So when i see places have copies of a game i an anxiously awaiting like Civilization the Board Game I become like a 12 year old who can't wait for Christmas morning.

Truth be told I place so many orders that I never know most of the time when something shows up what I am getting but this time I do. Besides Civ the other game I am waiting for is a GMT game. I usually order direct from GMT as I find them a very good company but this time i went online retailer. So while many people are enjoying Labrynith War on Terror I am waiting and waiting.

My wife asks why i don't just play one of the 4 new games I have gotten in the last 3 weeks, she just doesn't get it.

Ever own a game you're really excited about? Really like, it well regarded but just can't get to the table? Or maybe it's a so-so game, or an epic game that can't find it's way to the table.

Recently I've been saving games by playing them solo. This started about 2 years ago with World of Warcraft. That game with both expansions is a monster, one time I played a 6 player game that went 7 hours and didn't finish.

One day the idea struck me to set everything up and play the game solo, in fact I believe their are solo rules out and about but I had my own rules. Simple I control 3 characters and I have a set number of turns to beat the bag guy. I was surprised how much this game was enjoyable as a solo experience and the best part is I didn't have to play it in one sitting.

Recently I bought Runebound a game I played once but didn't enjoy. I remember it being particularly boring in the down time. However as a solo game it plays very fast and is a lot of fun.

Now we cue my favorite game, Combat Commander Europe. I own everything CC related, you name it I have it. I have not once played this game with another player. I'm not kidding I have never found a single person who wants to play probably the best WW2 game on the market. I won't detail how I play a card driven war game solo but it works.

Would I rather play CC:E with another player..I sure would. But I won't let the lack of an opponent stop me from playing a great game.

I played Ascension tonight which is a pretty decent deck building card game and I realized man are companies really starting to milk this formula. Dominion is a great game but I stopped buying the expansion for it a while back. Thunderstone is also a decent game but it plays a lot like Dominion and of course Ascension plays like both of them.

Then I started thinking about the last time I played a game which was really different and well it's been a while. That's not to say companies aren't being innovative, but I really want something to come along and blow my socks off.

I want something I can't put down, can't wait to play and can't stop thinking about. Basically I want the Civ V of boardgames.

Where is that game? What is that game?

Just a random picture of a few games of CR we played last night.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/neuroshima-hex/id391297152?mt=8

For $2.99 I'm willing to take a shot at this, although it would be better on the iPad

FFG has posted their latest dev diary on the new Civilization game.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=1609

I'm going to get at least one, possibly two play sessions up on this fantastic game over the weekend. I played 4 games today and absolutely loved everyone of them.

While I anxiously await my order to ship, which includes Castle Ravenloft it has come to my attention that many stores already have this game.

Apparently Wizards of the Coast has decided to street date this game. Perhaps that is something they do with all their products I'm really not sure. I however hope it doesn't become the norm in terms of boardgames. It's bad enough that the street date ever came to be for video games, music and movies.

A lot of people think publisher's were the ones who established the street date but that's not really true. The big retail chains were the reason for what we have today. Complaints on stores getting their shipments ahead of others yada yada. You'll even hear tale of shops being fined if they sell games early, something by the way I've never been able to find documentation of.

So it's makes it really puzzling that in a hobby like board gaming a street date would exist, but then again WOTC markets their products well outside the normal hobby channels.

Hopefully by this time next week I'll be receiving a few rather large boxes with games an accessories, by that time I may have actually figure out the rules to Normandy 44.

I really like this nick name that FFG's remake Dungeon Quest is receiving. Really this game is pure luck and randomness, if you know that going in you'll be fine. It's has a ton of replay value because the dungeon is different each time but it's not a dungeon crawler. This is a race game plain and simple. Get in, Get Lucky, Get Loot, Get Out.

I've got a detailed game play session I am working on and will get that up sometime soon. So taking a break from FFG, I went to my next favorite publisher GMT and started to set up a game of Normandy 44 to try and learn it. The chances I'll ever get another person to play it with our slim, but hey what can you do.

This reminds me of all the complex games I use to play back in high school and college, back when my memory capacity for rules heavy games was actually good. So it's going to take me a little time to slug through this one, I feel bad because I put Battles of Napoleon to the side because I grew tired of attaching all the horse riders to the horses. I know many people find paying $70 for a game and having them seperate a blessing for painting purposes, I find it a bit of a chore.

However the real game I am waiting to get my little paws on is this one. This was one of my favortie D&D modules growing up. I was reading several session reports at the Geek and this sounds like a winner. Kind of like Descent with more replay value and a lot less time to play.


Waiting for this is holding up a pretty large order I have with Boards and Bits (wish they would ship partial orders) and I am considering canceling the whole order and doing it as two since rumor has it now this had been delayed til mid September.

It did get me back into reading the 4th edition D&D rules, thinking I might want to partake in a game. Then I saw this video and had second thoughts :)

Tonight (family permitting) I'll be heading back into the Dungeon for another session of Dungeon Quest. I'll see about detailing a session report.

Had the pleasure of playing my two latest FFG games last night, those would be Dungeon Quest and  Space Hulk: Death Angel Card Game. The best part is they weren't even my copies so no lugging of games required.

So here is my gut reaction to both of these game. They are both very fun and both are very tough. I can see these two games playing differently each time they hit the table due to the randomness of the games (especially DQ).

Space Hulk is a co-op game and you're basically taking a squad of Marines and trying to accomplish something, usually hitting a button in the last location. The game rules are really not well laid out in my opinion but the game is easy to understand. There are a few vague items that I am sure can be clarified with one visit to the Geek. Anyway we had a 4 player game and one player managed to survivie the last location and hit the switch. So victory!!!

To be honest I'm not sure if we achieved victory, the travel from the 3rd location to the last and victory all happened in a jumble and I'm willing to bet we did somethign wrong but I was dead so I wasn't paying attention.

Regardless verdict on Space Hulk Card Game is enjoyable game, plays fast and is very tough. 

Dungeon Quest was a game I really enjoyed even though I died 6 turns into the game. I'm a sucker for Dungeon crawl games, especially ones that don't take 5 hours to play.

The gist of the game is you're an adventurer and you're about to plunder the treasure chamber of a sleeping Dragon. I love the randomness of this game, the dungeon is a dangerous place and just surviving is a feat.

As you move into new areas you pick a dungeon tile and place it on the board. There are various room types and most of them do something. For example there is a room that rotates upon entering 180degrees. A room with spider webs, a chasm etc.

When you enter a room whether it is explored or not you have a dungeon encounter. This is done by drawing a card, it can be things as simple as an empty room or it could reveal a chamber to the deadly catacombs. The other choice is certain tiles have a little torch icon which means they can be searched. You do this by drawing from the search deck, this will not always be beneifical as I discovered last night.

There are various other decks as well, one to open doors, a corpse deck, a chapel deck, treasure deck etc. There are only about 5 (maybe 6) monster types and these monsters spawn from the various deck encounters. When a monster spawns you can either flee (recommended) if you have a way out of the room or you can fight.

Combat is very interesting and done with cards and it has counter attacks. After a combat encounter or two it becomes very easy to do and doesn't slow the game much at all. However there is no benefit to fighting the monsters if you don't have to as you get no rewards and healing is something that is hard to come by.

That's probably the biggest thing to understand about this game, it's a race game set in a dungeon theme. You need to get treasure and get out before the sun sets. Oh did I forget to mention sun is going down and if you're not out by the time it sets the Dragon awakens and basically eats your ass.

There is much more to say about this game and I want to get a few more plays in, both games can be played solo. However I think Dungeon Quest will be a popular game around the house. I can see my 7 year old and wife playing this one with me as it is very easy to play and has the potential for a lot of fun..

So I've gotten a bunch of new games lately. Two in fact from the same company FFG. Dungeon Quest which has excellent rules and then the Space Hulk card game whose rules are laid otu very poorly.

I wonder sometimes if rules are actual put into testing like games are? As we're making a game we think what we are writing is clear as day, but we are too close to the subject matter.

Anyway impressions of these games should follow after I pl;ay both tomorrow night.


Oh yes I'm back.

Yes I am still alive. I've been working on a rather large project, that will hopefully be launching sometime in the next 60 days in my spare time. I haven't gamed much since the warm weather hit. Last night I played Duck Dealer, which was interesting. I think I would of enjoyed it more if I wasn't constantly being reminded how most of us where taking turns was considered "wrong" and this is usually not my type of game, collect resources to build more resources. The good news is I didn't come in last :)

I order a load of games last night, I got to see the new Tales game and it looked so good and I knew my wife would play this so I bought it. The rest of my order were mainly war games, which never seem to get played in my Thursday night group which might be another reason why I burned out a bit on gaming.

I'll try and get back to posting here, even if I am the only one reading it.

Just letting everyone know who still reads this thing I got it yesterday. Excellent components, can't wait to play it. I'll get a review up as soon as I get a session in.

Although there is no official word on the Z-man site or at the Geek, Fun again has posted a pre-order for a Pandemic Expansion called On the Brink. The description indicated new roles, a 5th player, new variants etc. I'm sure they got this information from Z-man before posting this so I'd expect something more official in the near future.

Dominion: Intrigue is the first expansion for the popular card game. This is being packaged as a stand alone, meaning you get all the treasure and estate cards you need to play again. Of course with those cards comes the same price as the first game. Another expansion is set for a fall release and that one will be a true expansion.

The War Game from Dan on Vimeo.


This is a video I shot with a Flip Mino, first time I used it and the quality is so -so on the close ups. I was also sick as a dog, in other words this video is purely for test purposes but I thought I would share it.

This game is all kinds of awesome.

That's all.

Tide of Iron: Designer Series, Vol. 1
Talisman Revised 4th Edition Upgrade Pack
Tailsman Reaper Expansion
Tide of Iron: Normandy Campaign Expansion
World of Warcraft: Adventure Game - Artumnis Moondream Character
World of Warcraft: Adventure Game - Dongon Swiftblade Character
World of Warcraft: Adventure Game - Zowka Shattertusk Character
World of Warcraft: Adventure Game - Brandon Lightstone Character
StarCraft: Brood War Expansion

Make your own judgments

P.S. - I got Android for Christmas

I'm going to save my thoughts on the War Game for a full on review. I'll just drop one hint, when you're charging 100+ dollars for a game you better deliver on at least one of these 3 areas.

1. Bit Quality & Quantity - The War Game fails, the bits are too few in number and too big for the board. Think about that for a second this board is HUGE, but the bits are too big. then you don't get enough of them, look I know France won't play much a part in the war but man give them at least one of each unit. Also I don't like that fact that my boards edges already are fettered just from opening the game.

2. Unique Play Experience - I knew going in the this game was Axis & Allies on Steroids, but if I am staying with that analogy if this game was getting tested for illegal growth hormones it wouldn't get caught for doing anything illegal. While some of the rules are nice, a lot of the advanced rules need to be downloaded off the internet.

3. Support - The web site for this game is an utter mess, certain modules mentioned in the rule book are not even available on the site. This game wasn't just published mind you it's been out a while.

Now if you want to spend a good $15, go out and buy Sorry Sliders. Yes you heard me right, a MB game that doesn't suck. Someone took the Sorry name and slapped it on a decent Dex game.
The game comes with 4 different boards and game types and if you have kids this is sure to be a hit.

I played a lot of games over the break and I have a shipment of FFG games coming my way this week, it feels good to be back in the gaming saddle.

So I decided the first game I would open from my haul from Santa would be this one. The box is large, to accommodate the 3 maps boards that come with the game. The l;larger boards are welcome but I am already noticing warping on them just from the time they were out as I punched the rest of the game.

The games comes with storage containers for each nation and two catch all containers. Inside each container were the bits for each nation already punched and even the pesky infantry units were in their own baggies. From opening the box to getting everything set up took about 30 minutes, a far easier time then The War Game which I'll cover tomorrow.

All the bits and card board were really good quality and the rules are well written. I think I'll be playing this one in the coming week perhaps so I'll have more to say at that point. My only complaint thus far is the boards themselves, we'll see how they hold up.

Still here, wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. Here is some news, FFG has released a bunch of stuff recently.

TOI Scenario Book
TOI Normandy Expansion
Talisman Upgrade pack
Talisman Repaer expansion
4 Character Packs for Wow:TAG
Android

They also seem to be handling getting the games out differently, for instance the games are available on their online store, and then a few days later at your local game shop and finally getting to online retailers. Maybe this isn't different but it sure seems to be more noticeable.

Bill Abner has posted his top ten games of 2008, I plan on doing something like this myself soon. Anyway you should check it out Bill has good taste.

Not board games, but a few that went up while I was away at Gameshark, one of which might be of interest to this blogs readers, the other certainly will not.

Disney Sing It

Going back to Stormreach (DDO)

Remember when you were little and Christmas was coming and you might try and get a sneak peek at what present your parents got you because we all know you can't get a sneak peek of what Santa is bringing. Wait no one else did that?

Anyway my wife was out Saturday and I was getting ready to take the girls to lunch and the doorbell rings and two giant packages we're sitting on the porch. I take them in and they are heavy as hell, especially one of them. I look at the first box to see who it is from, the heavy one and it says Pegasus games, The War Game. the other box says Thought Hammer and it is as big as the first.

I obviously know what is in them since I put together my wish list of games, but man did I need to fight the urge to open those puppies up. So I call my wife and tell her they are there and she says well act surprised, which I will. But I mainly called her to tell her to move the damn things out of my eye sight. Here it is Monday morning and they we're still there, it's almost like she is begging me to open them.

No seriously I'm 42, I'm not kidding.

The pain of being a gamer :)

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last updated. Had Thanksgiving and then took a family vacation for 2 weeks to Disney World.

Lots has been happening on the gaming front and I've ordered a few new games one of which is Android a new FFG game that was pretty much developed in secret.

I'm going to do my best to post more here and finally get this site to where I want it. Life threw me some curves that side tracked me but it's time to get back in control.

KitCon has come and gone and it was an awesome time, the day just flew by. Dominion was the big game this year many people were playing it, at times 3 or 4 games going on. I loved this game at GenCon and I still do. In fact I just got my copy today and played a quick game with the wife, she also liked it and won, always a good thing.

Got to play Axis & Allies, Conflict of Heroes and Warriors of God that day as well. It's nice to play some longer games but even I was weary after that line up. I'm hoping to get in some Combat commander this week along with a prototype play of my game (more on that later) and I also ordered a copy of The War Game which is quite possibly the most expensive and largest game I've ever seen.

It's nice to have time to game again as life is starting to get back to normal.

an entire day of open gaming.

Saturday, November 8th, 2008
from 9:00 AM until Midnight (doors open at 8:00 AM for set-up)
at the Izaak Walton League Cabin, 899 Jay Street, Elgin IL

Food & drink will be available, including the famous BATTLEBURGER.

Several Dozen games! Including:

- CARD DRIVEN WARGAMES
- TRAIN GAMES - 1830, Railroad Tycoon, Age of Steam, Crayon Rails
- CLASSIC AVALON HILL - Diplomacy, Advanced Civilization, Magic Realm,
Titan, Up Front, Gunslinger, Merchant of Venus
- HASBRO - Nexus Ops, Marvel Heroscape
- CLASSIC EUROS - Dominion, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Euphrat & Tigris, Shogun, Roads & Boats, Die Macher, Agricola, Race for the Galaxy, Ticket to Ride, Power Grid, Stone Age, El Grande, Pandemic, 1960 Making of the President, Brass
...AND MANY MORE!

I played COH First firefight twice so far and both times the Germans trounced the poor Russians. It's a very enjoyable game and I'm holding off on my review until I've played more of the scenarios as each one starts to add other features like Smoke, Artillery and Vechicles. You really need to play the first firefight however just to retrain yourself on how you play war games as there is no "not paying attention" in COH. Also the pause between each action takes some getting used to but it really needs to be done.

I also played a solo game of Warriors of God and I will be getting this to the table soon. I have to be very careful who I play this with, there is a major luck element on when leaders die in this game and as I played I could envision several of my gaming buddies bitching up a storm because there plans we're foiled by a leader dying.

Got to play Say Anything this weekend at a Halloween party, this is the perfect party game. You're up in playing in 5-10 minutes after explaining the rules, I think you could teach a monkey to play this in about 20 minutes. Of course with any party game of this type its all about who you're playing with and for some how many drinks have been involved.

This group was perfect, I can say that with 100% certainty. You see you can't have duplicate answers so the first one to put theres in is good and the other have to change it. So as this questions was asked;

Name something inappropriate to have on your desk at work.

The fact that I stopped 2 other female players from writing Dildo because they were too slow is my evidence that it was the perfect choice for this group. Now my regular Eagles gaming group, ehh not so much.

Conflict of Heroes Awakening the Bear! - Russia 1941 - 1942 is one game I am geeked out to play. I read the rule last night and plan to play a solo scenario tonight. The rules are well laid out and the basic concepts sound simple. I really like that as a player you can react to your opponent so this means you have to pay attention at all times. I'll save the rules for when I do the review but know component wise this is how all war games should be made.

The box is damned heavy when you pick it up and of good stock, the counter aren't cheap and are a nice size and stock. The art work on them is also fantastic and the boards are heavy and mounted. Comparing the quality of this game to other new company release like Galactic Emperor aren't even fair as Conflict out classes it in every way.

Unless something at home prevents it, look for a solo play session recap tonight or tomorrow.

Images taken from Board Game Geek

Sometimes as a gamer you just gotta have you some new gaming love. With a pile of games from GenCon I still haven't played I was struck with the mood to spend some money. I usually order from Fair Play games but they didn't have what I needed so I went with Thought Hammer. I ordered Friday and they showed up today and that was the free shipping option.

What did I get?

Conflict of Heroes
Combat Commander Europe
Warriors of God
5 counter Trays, guess why?

Can you guess what kind of games I am thirsting to play right now? To fill out this most wonderful order I also got a copy of Say Anything because we all need some party games right?

I plan to open Conflict first I am itching to see this game. Of course I have a load of video games stacked up to review, Mines of Moria, Socom Confrontation, NWN2 Expansion and Disney Sing It! (not joking I requested it as I have a 3.11 and 5.5 year old girl)

Plus I just got Fable 2, FIFA 09 and Fall Out 3 is next week. Not to mention Left 4 Dead which I really want. I just love this time of year.

We played BSG again last night with 6 players and it was a totally different game then last time. It also played a hell of a lot quicker, I would like to try and 4 player game next time to test somethign out.

Players
Dan - Helo
John - President
Chris - Sharon
Mark - Admiral Adama
Todd - Starbuck
Tony - Chief

The loyalty deck was seeded and passed out, as we would find out later the 2 Cylon cards came out in the initial deal. I started as not a Cyclon but of course stranded. The early game went pretty well since 3 of us had played before and everyone picked it up pretty fast. Our challenges were not very difficult and we made our first jump pretty quickly and moved 2 on the destination deck.

The second run was going fine, we again moved up the jump track quickly without incident although some questionable skill cards were kicked in, more then the destiny deck could screw us with. Then we got back to back Cyclon ship cards. Next thing we know we've got 2 base stars, something along the lines of 8 raiders and 4 civilian ships just sitting targets. I can't recall who did it but I'm pretty sure we FTL jumped out of there since we were one away from auto jump and escaped any combat.

The destination deck afforded us another 2 which meant we we're at the halfway point and the loyalty deck made another run. I got the sympathizer card and since all system were in the Blue I became the lame sympathizer Cylon. I call it lame because you get no Super Crisis card but you can still deal some damage.

The third leg got a little hairy part way through as I was able to bring in ships from the crisis cards, but the players managed to jump again this time getting a 3. I was wondering how long it would be before my 2 cylon brothers revealed, as it turns out not much longer. Not far into the 4th leg the two other cyclons revealed (John and Chris) and while all that was happening two of the 3 players we're in the Brig only the chief was roaming free. We got a base start on the board and ships we're every where.

It looked grim for the humans as they weren't in a position to FTL jump, their fuel was at 1 and actually one of them wanted to just end the game, to which we all said no. The humans managed to get out of the brig, nuke the base start and get to the ftl jump. But the destination cards weren't in their favor as both of them called for a loss of fuel and it was game over.

Again the humans failed to win a six player game and like last game their situation ramped up the later in the game we got. This is definitely in line with the theme of the show, the question arose if the humans could actually win. I think a 4 player game would give them a better shot, but i still think it is achievable.

While I still love the game, I think reactions we're a bit mixed afterwards. Some liked it and wanted to play again and others were on the fence. I'll say this if you don't enjoy cooperative games then you won't like this game, there is some downtime when it is not your turn even though you're always involved.

What tends to happen during a 6 player co-op game is side conversation start up, not only between players but onlookers who want to see a game that's technically not released yet. These conversations can extend the play time, I think we could of finished 30 minutes earlier if we didn't have to deal with distractions. You''ll also need to be able to get into a game like this, some game players just aren't into the theme of a game, they just play it an evaluate it like a text book instead of getting into the theme / setting.

All in all I think BSG is a fine game and I would play it whenever someone asked me to, I just think you need to know what the game is before you site down for a 2-3 hours game that may not be your cup of tea.

Some of this may be old news and some of it new. Talisman was canceled for XBLA back in August apparently. Twilight Creations Zombies!!! is going to be making an appearance on XBL and PSN in 2009. Also in the works as previously mentioned is Tide of Iron, Wings of War and Blood Bowl.

I picked up the recent XBL title Age of Booty last night and only played the tutorial and came away less then impressed, more on that as I delve into it.

I can't believe it's been over a month since I've updated. Life has taken it's huge sacks of stress and tea bagged me with them repeatedly. I haven't played a game since that BSG game, that's a long time.

I should be attending Eagles this week which is the local group and hope to get in some gaming time, then there is KitCon coming up November 8th and if you're in the Chicaog land area and want to get in on a day of great open gaming let me know.

News wise I'm out of the loop but now that the dust has apparently settled I plan to get back into the blog and gaming, winter is coming after all what else is there to do.

On the electronic gaming front I've been picking up more assignments from Gameshark, money is tight right now so every bit helps.

Last but not least I am looking for people who would like to help out on this blog and take it from blog status to website status. I'm looking for someone to monitor news items and of course reviewers. Just so we're clear no money is involved, you would be doing it just for the sheer joy of it.

Talk to everyone soon

I wish I had something to blog about, we've got two big sits launching next week in Australia so I have been pulling double shifts for like 3 weeks. I haven't played a game since that BSG post, I still have unopened stuff from GenCon.

Light is ahead next week when these launch.

My GenCon Part 1 report is up on Gameshark, this is video / pc game related only so you can check it out if you want. Also and interview I did with David Gaider is also up on Gameshark, David is one funny guy and if you don't buy Dragon Age will come to your house and beat you with a severed arm.

Can I say again I so want to play another game of BSG right now. I wish I had 4 clones of myself.

Consider this a teaser because I have so many thoughts in my head after last nights first play of BSG that it's going to take me a while to write them up but here is one for you. The BSG board game is one of the best games I have played.

Not this year.

Not recently.

Pretty much ever.

How can I make that claim after one playing you ask, well I'll pen that post later. I'm also quite sure that not everyone will feel this way, in fact I bet of the 6 player game last night there might be some who didn't enjoy it, but if you enjoy a co-operative game with a twist element like Shaodws over Camelot then I can't see you not liking this game.

Kudos to Mark from Eagles for pretty much blindsiding me and I think the other human players last night when the shit had hit the fan. It was much like watching a sci-fi flick, you know the good guys up against incredible odds, the tension builds and the hero's barely escape.

We had all of that last night, except thanks to some excellent playing we didn't escape. No quite the opposite I felt like I got punched in the stomach, someone ran over my dog and ran off with my wife.

When a game can get those kind of emotions out of me, well then it immediately goes to the top of my internal lists. The game also is very true to the show and it's atmosphere with the added benefit of getting to say motherfraker a lot.

As the title says, BSG FRAK YES!

Most of you have probably heard by now that Battlelore has been sold to Fantasy Flight Games, you can see the FFG press release here. I'll have more to say about this at a future time, anyone who reads this blog knows I am a big FFG fan.

I think what Days of Wonder has done here is nothing short of crappy. They have misled the Battlelore community for over a year know. Promises of expansions and taking the game new ways was nothing but a lot of hot air apparently. For their part anyone who pre-ordered the Troll expansion is going to get it for free, but that didn't stop them from selling them less then a week ago at GenCon for full price.


As I said once I see what FFG does with the line I'll comment more, but transitioning to a new company and then formulating a road map for the line is a time consuming thing. So for Battlelore fans we're looking at another long year with nothing new.

Somehow I forgot to mention this upon my return from GenCon but both of these games are coming out to your console service of choice. Wings of War was on display at the FFG booth and it looked decent. With no one around to tell me what was going on though I gave it a brief look. This is due out winter 2008.

Tide of Iron was not on display and is due Spring 2009, I really can't comment much more. I assume a press release will be on the FFG sight soon or on other services. Actually it was the guys over at the Nut and Feisty Weasel who posted something earlier and reminded me this was announced.

In a word GenCon was a zoo this year. I have boat loads of pictures, saw a lot of games as well. Because i was covering for Gameshark as well my first two days were loaded with electronic game appointments.

I'll be doing more on the games I picked up but consider these general notes.

FFG
Well aside from surprising everyone with a limited release of Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones Card LCG, Tomb of Ice the new descent expansion, the new Arkham Horror Kingsport Expansion and the Moto GrandPrix game not much else happened.

Actually FFG was out in force, demoing pretty much everything they could and several proto types. The crowds at their booth was larger then normal. Conan was on display, TOI Normandy and huge demos of AT-43 and Confrontation: The Age of the Rag'Narok.

In fact they werre giving away 2 copies of AT-43 and Confrontation every hour and I was lucky enough to score Confrontation. Despite many efforts I could never hook up with Jeremy from FFG for some interview time, GenCon being what it is it happens.

Flying Frog
I got a little time to speak with both Jason and Scott and look at A Touch of Evil and of course I picked it up. I had a feeling I could of scored a review copy but I feel supporting a smaller company like this is warranted. Flying Frog has several games in the works and they are not all Horror related, I hope to get some follow up time with the flying Frog Team in the future. I am looking forward to playing this one soon.

Days of Wonder
DOW flew under my radar, frankly I forgot they were there until Day 3 and I missed some pre-con notifications. Both TTR Nordic Countries and Battlelore For Troll and Country where there for sale in limited quantites. I am really disappointed about missing the Troll expansion.

Valley Games
While I didn't pick up either one of these games, one of my gaming buddies scored both Titan and SuperNova from the show. Each one was there in very limited release. I did get pictuers of Titan that I'll get around to uploading.

Surprise Games
Dominion - This card game doesn't come out until Octboer but let me tell you it is instant crack. many people were inside Rio Grande games room (smart move having their own room outside the hall) playing this repeatedly. The game is going to coem with 500 cards and because you can use 12 different buildings (out of 36) in each game being adaptable is going to be a key. This is a sure fire hit, I gurantee this is going to be popular.

Tomb - I knew little about Tomb but it was a Dungeon Crawl where each player controlled a party of adventurers and is advertised as playing in 90 minutes (a stretch) and the first play didn't disappoint. There are 84 characters which you build your party from meaning it has a lot of replayability.

Rattlesnake - A bit on the lighter side but a game with magnets has to work to go wrong. Definitely something for the familty and perhaps a nice two player for a break from the serious.

Disappointments
Jamaica - Really not worth $60, very disappointing. Beautiful to look at though.

No Shows
- Scenario book for TOI
- No Gears of War demo
- No Tales of the Arabian Nights reprint (Novemeber is the word from Zed)
- No Hannibal Generals (haha had to get that in there)

Overall GenCon was as expected, no real show stoppers or exciting news that I saw or heard. For whatever reason the show seemed more crowded then last year and I didn't get as many games in as I wanted.

Oh and congratulations to fellow Eagle Todd Sweet who won the Catan Champions Tournament, no small feat I tell you. I heard he pocketd a nice bunch of prizes including the insane 3D Catan game worth about $400.

I'm bushed after a whole load of appointments todayo just some general notes for now.

- FFG had the Battlestar Galactic game for sale, scored a copy. Also Tomb of Ice Descent expansion, Game of Thrones Card game, Arkham Expansion and some others. Many upcoming games on display and prototypes as well. I'm meeting with them tomorrow.

- Touch of Evil the next Flying Frog game is also here in limited supply. I scored a copy of that as well.

- Tomb from AEG is also here and I got one of those.

- Meet with maqny PC companies for Gameshark, Turbine has a strong showing here.

Haven't eaten since 7 am.

I've only manage to play Galactic Emperor once this far and it was a 4 player game. Game time was around 2 hours or so. I can see that once everyone knows the game that this can be played in 90 minutes easily.

First impressions upon opening the box weren't great. The chits are made of some really cheap card board, the ends frayed just from punching the pieces. We'll see how long they hold up, the game board and the ship miniatures were fine however. I also was not crazy about the printing on the chits either, some of the color choices are very hard to read. In fact I could find the purple home sector, I thought I was missing a piece. Luckily the manual shows the names for all the home sectors, only by seeing the name and then closely examining the tile did I see the icon to indicate the purple home world.

The rules are simple enough that you should be playing in 20 minutes, some of them are open to interpretation (I made an FAQ on the Geek) and other important rules are found in the sidebar of pages. However once you know how to play none of that really matters.

So all minor quibbles aside what do i think of GE?

It's one fun game

I was actually surprised to find that I enjoyed GE much more the WOW:TAG. The game definitely has strategy involved and knowing what the roles do and when to play them is the key to success. Through proper use of roles i was able to win the game easily and I fought only 3 battles.

Early game is a bit on the slow side as empires expand and start planning for conquest, by mid game skirmish start and by end game is usually a dash for Victory points in any way possible. The role mechanic is straight out of Puerto Rico , the combat Nexus Ops or Starcraft but it all works very nicely.

The main complaint I have seen is the lack of theme and here I would concur, the different empires are nothing more then a color choice. Much more could have been done by giving them unique abilities, bonuses or even weakness.

As it stands after one playing I really enjoyed this game, sure it's not original in any way but it sure is fun, in the end isn't that what gaming is about?

World of Warcraft the Adventure game is certainly a departure from the WOW: Board game. I've had a chance to play this game three times so far. The first was a 2 player game, then a 3 and finally a 4 player jaunt.

I won't be detailing the rules as this isn't a review and the rules can be found on FFG site. The goal is WOW:TAG is to be the first to acquire 8 Valor Points. This is done primarily by quests although there are certain space on the board which allow you to acquire these points as well.

The board itself has an Arkham Horror feel to it in terms of layout and art direction. In every game we've had a hard time finding various places, something that will change with added play I am sure. The art itself is very good on the cards, board, ability cards, my only complaints is the text on the challenge cards is very small. My eyes aren't even close to perfect but I've played with people who do have great eyesight and they have trouble reading some of the cards.

So the game has an adventure game feel, Talisman and Runebound come to mind although I think this game is better then both of those. On a turn each player moves, explores, does a challenge (event) and then manages his character. Most turns take 2-10 minutes, with the average turn about 4 or 5 and this includes combat.

In terms of downtime there certainly isn't a lot unless you get a player who doesn't look at their abilities during his downtime. My 2 player game was a learning game and it only took about 90 minutes. The 3 player game took just shy of 2 hours and with rules explanation. The 4 player game however took over 3 hours, there was rules explanation but the main culprit was over character management from a single player. This game should never take 3 hours, granted a lot of it comes with quest draws and knowing the way to win the game is to finish quest, not gather loot.

The characters have a good variation and I found playing some a lot easier then others, it's hard to speak of balance after 3 plays but each time a different class won the game. The quests are interesting enough to keep the game enjoyable after multiple plays but there is a good amount of luck involved in draws. In game two we were all around 3 or 4 valor points and a player happened to draw a quest card to eliminate another player, which is no easy task unless the other player is currently hurt which he was. So just through that random draw and luck he won the game out of no where.

On the whole WOW:TAG is a decent game, I will continue to play it and see how my feeling change on it. It's definitely primed for expansions, not only charcter expansion but Map ones as well.

Is it the perfect Adventure game? For me no I am still looking for that but right now WOW:TAG is a solid game that will see a lot of table time at least for a while.

I'll be heading down to GenCon next week and my schedule is fast filling up with meetings. I'll be spending some time with Turbine to learn about the LOTRO expansion, new D&D content and some information on my first MMORPG Asheron's Call. It's amazing that product is still going strong.

Also should be meeting with Bioware for some DragonAge, hopefully Some Champions online coverage and there are a few others on the schedule. Publishers of computer / video games are pretty active when it comes to setting up interviews, I've heard from exactly zero board game publishers about coming by their booths. In fact I actually had to pursue them in order to set up meetings.

I don't want this trip to be all work, in fact wasn't the intent at all so I'll hopefully be reporting from down their on much board gaming news. If anyone is going down and wants to play a game give me a shout via email.

Well both Galactic Emperor and WOW:TAG are her, punched and rules read. I hope to play both this Thursday and I am having a gaming session at my house on Sunday. Will post some impressions, possibly a review then.

But file this one under the "moo moo" department. Boardgame news is reporting that 4 expansion character packs for WOW:TAG are on the way at $12 each. I guess i can see how these can turn around so quick, the miniatures and some tokens are right out of the wow boardgame, characters and classes identical.

Your thoughts, feel taken advantage of with this news?

Well I finally got my copy of Galactic Emperor and I haven't even punched it yet. I also have Wow:TAG on the way, probably Monday and the 4th edition D&D books just to read.

If this was the dead of winter not only would I have punched GE, I would have soloed it by now at least once in preparation for playing. But it's not winter, it's beautiful summer and I have two little girls. So besides playing golf on the weekends I am spending time with them, going to the pool. Playing "monster" in the back yard, watching movies.

I'll tell you what my 5 year old has a mean play mobile collection, when we set up the whole thing we have two castles, enough guys for an army of 20 for each side, horses, catapults, pirate ships and dragons. Her collection is so good that they are going to feature it on display at the local rec building, she is so excited for that.

So gaming time might seem on the down side, there is always GenCon next month, but I'm enjoying my summer. Here is hoping you're doing the same.

I saw a post that indicated Galactic Emperor should start shipping the end of this week. I really can't wait to give this a try along with the new Wow game.

Other then that I don't have much on my radar, GenCon is coming up next month and I'm not sure what I'll be looking to score down there. Overall it has been a quiet spring, I guess last year saw so many releases I wanted that this year seems tame in comparison.

I played a game of Marvel Heroscape with my 5 year old the other day and she beat the living daylights out of me. She is really into superheroes right now so it is cool to seem here enjoy this game, too bad I doubt there will ever be any expansions.

If you have any news or game suggestions please drop me a line as my work is eating up my time to scour the internet for news.

I'm a big computer role playing gamer, I just love all the old school games like BG2, Icewind Dale, Eye of the Beholder and a lot of the newer titles too. I think I got 4 good years of play out of NWN1, don't get me started on NWN2 which is a steaming pile.

I like the new games as well, but I discovered something the other day. For me a crpg needs the "C" and by that I mean I need to be sitting over my 27 inch monitor and playing on the computer. Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I have a 9 foot 1080p screen in my house and when I play a game like Mass Effect on it I fall asleep. Actually some of the best sleep I have ever gotten was playing Oblivion on my 360 in my recliner.

So on a whim I picked up ME for the PC and I have been loving it, and not once have I nodded off. Then I started thinking I burned through the Witcher, played BG2 for the 10th time and even started playing Fallout 2 again. But put me in front of a huge screen with 7.1 sounds and I am going night - night.

I just couldn't figure out why and then it hit me, i need to be uncomfortable. Maybe I need to be shifting in my old PC chair which creeks and sounds like it is gong to give way every time I shift my weight. Maybe the worn plastic on the right hand arm that scratches me every 5 minutes is what keeps me going through the endless banter.

So with Fall Out 3 coming out this fall I've decided I am going to PC route, my ass may hate me when were done but at least I know I'll finish it.

I'm going to guess that World of Warcraft The Adventure Game is very close to hitting shelves. Every day this week FFG has been posting a designer article on the game. I recall this happening right before the Descent Road to Legend Expansion, and I have not played that yet for those wondering. I have a habit of buying games no one wants to play.

TOI - Have one friend who will play it
Descernt - Nope can't get a regular group
WoW - Get this on the table about once a year and never finish a game because it is too long and tedious.
Hannibal - Can't get a frigging sole to play this and it is a fantastic game as I have played it by myself several times and force my wife to play it once. (still waiting for the payback on that one)

Anyway I pre-order WOW:TAG even before these articles were posted because I was looking for something better then WOW The Boardgame. Someday I'll write an article why WOW:TBG failed.

Last year at GenCon I stumbled upon a game that was relatively unheard of called Last Night on Earth. The guys who produced it were super cool and while the booth was very crowded, probably due to the hot girl who was one of the characters in the game being there, I wanted to try it out because of course it had Zombies.

I instantly liked the game, I had several friends who had wandered by tell me they thought the game was weak however and for some reason this prevented me from buying it right away. Each day I came back to the hall I wandered down there until on day 3 I finally bought the game.

Today LNOE and it's expansions Growing Hunger are hits and I can't find anyone who doesn't enjoy the game, including said friends who thought it was weak. So it was with great interest I read this report from origins about the companies next game A Touch of Evil, the Supernatural Game (don't judge it by it's title)

What little I read up to this point had me thinking it might just be a simpler version of Arkham Horror which is one of my favorite games. I'm glad that the game, while having some similarities doesn't sound like a knock off and Flying Frog has earned a must buy from me.

Here is hoping the game is on sale at GenCon this year.

Finally some information. 4 characters sounds kind of small but the rest of the game and also some of the reports on the Geek have me excited.

Raise your hand if you've read anything on World of Warcraft: the Adventure Game.

Anyone...anyone at all?

Here is a game that is scheduled to arrive in July according to the FFG website and the only information that can be found is a single forum poster on BGG who played the game for about an hour.

There is nothing about this game anywhere, I can't understand that. The cynic in me thinks that speaks very badly for the game. People are speculating that Wow:TAG is just a Runebound clone in Wow clothing.

I could write a whole article on whats wrong with the first Wow game produced by FFG and I actually own it and all the expansions. So you would think that FFG would need to knock this second one out of the park. Spread some information, build some hype, let people know that combat doesn't consists of endless die rolls trying to emulate the online games combat mechanics.

The lack of information is alarming, at least to me. My instincts tell me to stay away, as my old pappy always told me. If it sounds like a Murlock, looks like a Murlock and God forbid smells like a Murlock... well you know the rest.

Sorry for the lack of posts, last week was my birthday (6th actually) and it was a crazy week. My daughter who is 5 was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz school play. I had a golf tournament on Friday and Saturday and one nice case of the stomach flu Sunday. All things considered a wonderful birthday weekend.

I was hunting around for some news to break tonight and frankly it is pretty quiet. FFG has updated their upcoming products page and finally the BSG and Conan board game are up there. They also are having a Descent painting contest which I will enter only because I painted my figures.

On the gaming front I haven't played much of anything with the exception of Boom Blox on the Wi, great game. I see MGS4 drops this week, not sure if I will get it way too many cut scenes for my tastes.

I await my copy of Galactic Emperor, I was discussing it with Michael Barnes from F:AT and Gameshark briefly and I'm sure he will be posting a review if he hasn't already over at F:AT. Someday I dream of being on the reviewers list :)

Other then that the only game on my radar is the WoW Adventure game due in July, thing is there is not one lick of information on it from FFG which makes me kind of worried.

Anyway I'm going to start pulling the content I have been working on and finish it off for posting shortly.

Last night instead of playing multiple games which is what I typically do on a Thursday night I hunkered in to do my best
Sam Beckett impersonation and played a game I'd never heard of called Time Agent.

In Time Agent you take on the role of one of the races and you're going back in time to try an alter events to make your race the leaders of the galaxy. Once you've done that then you want to shut off time travel by altering it's discovery.

Each Race varies in their start position. We did a random dram and I got the Bulrati who happen to be the current masters of the universe. Which makes playing them a bit of a challenge your first time out, and also a bit annoying.

Each race has a starting resource point and victory point position on the track. Victory points are simple enough you want the most and when you have it you want to turn off time travel. Resource point allow you to collect income each turn, which you spend on time machines, time agents or squads and a few other special things that you can do. The most important things you do with your cash is flip event. For example there are 3 time travel event, to shut them all off requires 125 credits, plus paying for the agents, time machines and of course sending them back in time costs money.

So the goal fore everyone else but me was to go back in time, find event pertaining to your race and alter them. So altering the outcome of a war for example would give someone more RP and VP and remove it from the other person(s) involved. I think you can see where this is going, as the Bulldogs everything flipped is against hurts me. With events spread out all over time and space it puts you on defense and it is really hard to cover every event.

If I played this game again I would have a better strategy as the Bulldog people. Looking at the board and the chits this game can look intimidating, but in truth the rules are simple and make sense on the first run through and there is a good deal of strategy too it.

My only complaint is the game seems to grind at the end, as all the events get turned and each race is then trying to disable time travel the game can drag. Because you really need to protect those event you've reversed with your squads . seeing how this was a first game for everyone I think a future game would eliminate a lot of that. It's also very nice their is little to no down time during play.

I would recommend that most people try this game at least once, I'm not sure if it is something you would play a lot. But I could see it being played 1-2 times a year.
Photos courtesy of BGG.

I'm back, did anyone miss me. Vacation love it, hate it when it ends. Spent the better part of 3 days just trying to catch up with work, haven't even looked at a game (board, video) in about 2 weeks. Luckily I've got game night tomorrow and I'm looking forward to playing something.

I've got plenty of vacation stories but none of them fit for this blog. Although I did get a flat just a mere 100 miles from my house in the middle of bum lick Indiana. couldn't fix the tire and apparently every place closed at 5pm. So I needed to stay over night in South Bend, wasn't a great way to start the trip.

The best part of the story is the object which causes the flat was a bone, think on that for a minute. Animal dies, decomposes on the highway and a piece of bone breaks of and bounces around for who knows how long. Then right before I get to the spot it's at it ends up angled at the exact degree it needs to impale itself in my tire. I gotta say that is some impressive luck.

Lets see whats on tap, I've got a Singstar review coming up. I've got a few video reviews i am going to try and finish off in the upcoming weeks. The first being on Pandemic, my video reviews are going to have a little twist to them so stay tuned for that.

Oh best thing yet, I got turned down for a press pass at Gencon. Yep I have this blog and write for several sites and nope no luck. Considering the "press" I saw at last years event I am quite stunned by this.

Alrighty enough ranting for now, I'll be in touch.

Things are going to be pretty quiet here for the next few weeks as I am traveling and won't return until around months end. I think once I am done with this trip I should be able to resume a normal posting schedule.

I've got a lot of content that is just a few edits away from being posted on this site, some of it written and some of it video / audio related. Hopefully June will be the month I can get back into the site full swing.

As any good gamer knows a hobby remains a hobby until it pays the bills.

Vancouver, Canada (May 12^th, 2008) – In a few weeks the railway adventure game, Ticket to Ride, pulls into Xbox LIVE Arcade – the premier destination for digitally distributed, high definition, original and classic games. Based on the internationally renowned board game, Ticket to Ride features simple rules, fast play and is expected to be a great offering for the growing casual games market which draws over 200 million online players per month worldwide.

Ticket to Ride challenges players to plan cross-country rail routes across North America and visit all the city stops in-between. Although the game can be learned in under five minutes, players face strategic and tactical decisions that vary with every turn as they connect distant cities and race to complete the most routes.

Ticket to Ride will support play with up to five people on Xbox Live or four people on the same console and supports the Xbox LIVE Arcade Vision Camera for hours of family-friendly fun.

Ticket to Ride is based on the board game by noted game designer Alan R. Moon. Days of Wonder released the game in early 2004, becoming the youngest game publisher to win the world’s most coveted game prize, the German Spiel des Jahres Game of the Year Award. With a following in over 30 countries and availability in 11 languages, the board game has an international following.

Ticket to Ride is the debut title for Playful Entertainment, BC’s first independent console video game publisher. Started just under a year ago, CEO Sean Murch saw an opportunity for a small company to challenge industry heavyweights for a piece of the interactive action.

“The industry has been dominated by the big players, but digital distribution and alternative financing are leveling the playing field,” notes Murch. “It’s a David and Goliath story.”

Working with local investment companies, Playful started building a multi-million dollar fund in April, called the Vancouver Interactive Entertainment Fund. The fund will finance video game titles. It's the first of its kind in the country and one that allows individual investors to participate directly in video game revenues.

Murch, a 15-year veteran of the traditional & interactive industry, got his start as a film & game producer working with Francis Ford Coppola, Nelvana, Radical Entertainment and Electronic Arts. His goal was to create a company that could operate quickly, fairly and decisively in the fast-paced world of gaming

Last Thursday I had my first chance to play War of the Ring thanks to my friend Todd. We had planned this for a week so i was able to briefly look over the rules which made Todd's explanation a lot easier.

I concluded from my read and Todd concurred that playing the dark forces would be an easier attempt for my first game. As he went over the rules and some basic strategies with me, he made it pretty clear that the good guys usually win by getting the ring to Mt. Doom and that while them only needing 4 points by conquest as opposed to my 10 made it seem and easy task it wasn't.

I was pretty slow in getting my special characters into play and also didn't spend a lot of early game time mustering forces. It was certainly a mild disadvantage not having a general idea of the event deck cards as well.

For the most part I thought I was doing pretty well, I was keeping the Ring from moving and my dark forces were slowly capturing cities. What I failed to comprehend is that while it certainly felt like there was no military threat I should not of left my cities and keeps undefended.

Todd built a force in the Shire and also one in the Elven wood and I had nothing to stop his forces coming out of the shire and I made the mistake of bypassing his held up forces in the wood for an easy 2 point victory spot.

This left me wide open and pretty much powerless to stop these two forces from moving into two of my locations and securing a military victory. So what did I learn about War of the Ring.

1. I simply loved it and I think I'll end up buying it, I doubt besides Todd I will find anyone else to play it but it would pain me not to own that game.

2. You can't play conservative as the bad guys. Unfortunately that is the way I play most of my war games and in this case it doesn't work. You need to eliminate Rohan fast and then move your forces up from the South.

3. Get your special characters out asap and start using their abilities.

All in all I had a lot of fun even though I suffered an embarrassing loss. I can't wait to play it again.

Don't think my lack of postings means I have given up blogging, nor sir. Work has been overwhelming of late and I'm just plain out of energy when I get home. News has been a tad slow as well, the GOW board game I mentioned is definitely in the works however.

This weekend my local gaming group had their bi-annual convention known as Kit Con which is not really a convention at all but just a day of open board gaming. I had a golf tournament in the morning, which my team won, and didn't arrive until 4:30 in the afternoon which meant my play time was going to be limited.

I stared with a game of Mare Nostrum and the Mythology expansion. I was a little worried how this game would play since no one I know has said anything positive about it. Truth be told I loved it, as did the people I played with. The end game was a bit of a let down as I tied with another player for the win. But all things considered it is a very easy civilization game to get in to. I can't wait to play it again.

After we finished we were waiting for a game of Struggle to finish, and I am none to happy I missed out on playing that. So while waiting I played a game of Capes and Cowls with Dave. I really like this game but It's so hard to acquire I'm pretty certain i could make a nice chunk of change if I sold it. Dave beat me as we drew random Heroes and I ended up with nobody with ranges attacks.

Next up was Game of Thrones the Storm of Swords Expansion which I think makes the base game a lot more enjoyable. The problem with GoT is I always want to play it and by about 5 turns in I remember I don't like it that much. It's really odd that I continue to want to play this game.

At about 1 am we started playing a game that I can't recall the name of but which was a bit original. The goal of the game is there was a story and that we needed to each create a character in it and speak a sentence of the story, take short hand notes of what we wrote and by games end see if anything we said scored. I made it to about 2am and then I realized if i didn't leave that instant I wouldn't make the hour drive home.

On the whole it wasn't a great Kit Con for me because I am used to getting their at 9am and playing games all day. I was glad to get to play Mare but there were a ton of games i missed out on and didn't get to play.

I wouldn't exactly call this confirmed since I haven't seen a FFG press release but I saw this posted on the Geek. Apparently FFG has gotten the rights to create a Gears boardgame and have it out by fall in time for GOW2. There are a lot of things that don't add up, for example how is FFG going to design and get a game published by Fall. Anyway more information at the link below.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/12444.html

Got this on Friday and haven't had a chance to post it yet.

Images here.

We are excited to announce two new products in anticipation of next week's GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas - The Memoir '44 Campaign Bag and Merlin's Company - an expansion for the popular Shadows over Camelot board game.

The Memoir '44 Campaign Bag is the definitive storage and travel solution for the Memoir '44 Game System. The Memoir '44 Campaign Bag is specifically designed to accommodate even the most demanding Overlord player, and will hold up to 2 complete copies of the board game, plus all current expansions; or a single copy of the game with all its expansions, with room to grow.

Merlin's Company is an expansion for the popular Shadows over Camelot board game. It introduces a host of new characters - including 7 new knights and Merlin himself - to the Shadows over Camelot epic. The wise old wizard is now a full-blown independent character in the game, complete with his own figure. He travels the board lending guidance and a helping hand to the embattled knights.

The Campaign Bag is expected to be available in June, while Merlin's Company will ship in July.

My review of Rocketmen is up on GameShark, I really didn't like this game much at all. Plus the edited out my great parody of the Elton John song at the end, which was probably for the best :)

I'm a big fan of Ticket to Ride and I love some of the expansions but as I've previously stated I'm not too thrilled that the only announcement I've seen from Days of Wonder has been a card version of TTR. How about some Battle Lore news?

Anyway I received an email today about pre-ordering this one. See below.

As much excitement, fun and nail-biting tension as in the original Ticket to Ride board game, but now in a portable card game format ideal for travel.

The Ticket to Ride Card Game is for 2-4 players ages 8 and older. It includes 96 train cards, 6 Big Cities Bonus cards, 46 Destination Tickets and a rules booklet. Playing time is approximately 30 minutes.

The Ticket to Ride Card Game is now available for pre-order at the Days of Wonder Web Store. It is expected to ship and be in stock at your local game store around June 6. Order yours today!

I've been on a little bit of a mission recently to find some solo games, specifically war or fantasy themes. I just order Field Commander: Rommel and I hope it arrives this week. As any war gamer knows it's sometimes hard to find opponents so when a good solo game comes along it's like come early. By all accounts FCR is a very good game so I'll let you know once I get it.

In other news I see that War of the Ring is now shipping again. I'm ashamed to say I have never played this game, although I have wanted to for so long. I've got so many new games I haven't played yet it seems a little crazy to order a new one. Someone let me know how good it is so I have an excuse.

Finally if you're in the greater Chicago area the club I belong to is holding it's Spring Gaming day called KitCon on April 26th. It's a great time and lots of games are played. If you need further information go here.

D&D Goes Online

This actually sound fairly interesting to me but I can see possible problems. The main one is charging MMO prices for a product you can only use when you get a group of people together and only when one of them has created an adventure.

When I played RPG's pretty heavily we often got together once a week, if I'm paying $15 a month for 4-6 uses a month is it worth it?

Also why go through all of this effort if you character model isn't a true representation of your character? According to the article I can create a male fighter, give him a giant ass two handed sword and dwarven armor but he has none of that in the game session I am playing.

It's a crying shame that Neverwinter Nights wasn't given a true expansion from Bioware, instead we got NWN2 from Obsidian who delivered a toolset that was harder to use and had less built in features. It was awesome that we could create outdoor environments in NWN2 that weren't tile based, but they made the simplest of task from NWN1 like creating a creature or items very difficult. NWN2 was a failure on many levels and it will never even sniff the jock of the NWN community but I digress.

So while I like the concept of what they are doing with D&d 4th edition and the online aspect it sound sort of half assed. I'll still check it out but there are already programs out there that allow you to do what they are attempting and some of them are free.

Where have I been, I'm actually happy that some people have emailed and asked that. Don't worry I am not pulling a disappearing act I am in this blog for the long haul. Frankly put work has been kicking my ass, I'm so stressed out when I come home I've been feeling sick to my stomach.

Whats odd is I have found a nice outlet for my stress and that is figure painting. I'm almost through all of my Decent figures and when I want a break from those I hop over to my Battlelore figures. I'm not very good at this and the last time I painted anything was back in the late 80's, but I am getting better with each figure I do.

I'm not sure why painting is so relaxing to me, it shouldn't be trying to get everything just right, all the details. Perhaps the key is their is a reward at the end, no matter how bad or good the figure ends up. I invested my time, worked through it and it had an ending.

That's something I can't say about my current work situation as i have several clients that require so much attention and their is no end in sight. I'm not talking figuratively here, I mean literally as one client is just going to require daily attention until they leave us which could be never. While that is a good position for my company to be in, that's not what I signed up for and it certainly doesn't fit my personality.

In other news I just submitted by review of Rocketman Axis of Evil for the 360, in short stay far away, very far.

I've previously written on the tale of Key Largo before which is the last game designed by Paul Randles one of the designers of Pirates Cove. Last night was my first chance to play Key Largo with my gaming group and we had a full five player game.

The Object
The object of Key Largo is simple have the most money by the end of ten days. You acquire that money mainly from sending divers down for buried treasure and selling them at the market. You can also make money by taking tourist Dolphin Watching but the real money is made through salvaging the wrecks on the ocean floor.

The Components
The game comes with some rather large wooden pieces to represent your boat, a number of chits of items you can buy like hoses, weights and Tridents. A nicely illustrated board, lots of fake money and then plenty of cards to represent the treasure you find on the bottom of the ocean. I didn't find any of the components cheaply made at all.

The Theme
The game is set around the islands you pillaged during Pirate's Cove, or at least it is loosely based on that concept. The theme of being a salvage captain and sending your divers down works pretty well. I found it odd that the obstacle chosen for the divers were Sea Monsters and that the Trident was used to fend them off, I would of expected possibly a spear gun and Sharks perhaps. It's not a big deal and the art of the divers and the board represent that fun, humorous family ton so it works.

How it Plays
The dynamics of Key Largo are simple enough to get up and going fast. A first time game with 5 players and rules explanation only took about an hour. I think this game can be played in anywhere from 40 minutes to just over an hour depending on the size and group.

Players start with $100, a boat and a single diver. They also have a set of cards which allows them to do various actions, more on that in a minute. Then depending on the number of players you place wrecks down around the board of varying depths (shallow, medium and deep) in a 3 player game for example there are 3 shallow, 4 medium and 4 deep wrecks. Wrecks are stacks of 5 cards placed face down.

So the game is runs over 10 days, that's how much time is left before the hurricanes roll in and wash out all diving for the season. Each day is broken into a morning and afternoon, so effectively you have 20 turns of game play.


Each player has a set of cards with actions on them, you must choose two of these cards and place them face down on top of each other. The top card is your morning action and the bottom your afternoon action. What this means is you can only perform one of your actions once a day. After ten days you count up your money and unsold treasure and whomever has the most is the winner.

The Action Cards
Search a Wreck Card
Your diver goes to one of the wreck decks and draws the top card. Each wreck can only have one boat so there is a start player token and it passes each turn. If more then one player chooses a wreck action then they place their boats clockwise from the start player. You can also hire up to 3 divers, so you could be drawing 3 cards from a diving expedition.

You might remember the different wreck depths? Well in order to dive at medium depth each of your divers needs a hose, to dive at Deep depths each of them needs two hoses. So if for example you have 3 divers and two of them have 2 hoses but one of them has none you can only dive at a shallow wreck.

The wreck decks consist of either treasure or a monster. Treasure comes in the form of goods, gold, artifacts and jewels. When you draw these they simply go into your hand, a monster card just means your diver found nothing. There is a way to counter a monster, it's called the Trident. If you have one of these you can simply ignore the monster card and then draw another card from the wreck depth.

Finally each diver can have a single diving weight which allows him to discard it to draw another card off the wreck deck. When that's a lot to cover, but its best to explain everything here as searching a wreck is the key to the game.

Go Dolphin Watching Card
This card has you take tourists out to see Dolphins and collect some meager cash, how much depends on the day of the week but Friday - Sunday pay the most. There is an optional rule that frankly must be used for this card or else the Dolphin watch card will almost never get played and it's called encounters. Each time you go Dolphin watching you draw an encounter card and can keep it to use later. All encounter cards are beneficial, for example you may draw a card that allows you to immediately sell the last card you drew from a wreck deck.

Buy Equipment Card
I pretty much explained what the 3 different pieces of equipment did under the Wreck card. Just know you can only buy two items on each visit to the shop and each diver can only have 2 hoses, 1 Trident and 1 weight each.

What I am going to do is use this spot to explain the one dynamic that is going to come into play for this card and the remaining two and the one that makes the game interesting and it is the changing market. The number of people who visit the shop at the same time determines the price of goods. A hose might be $30 if you're the only one there, but if two people visit its $40 and if 3 visit its $60. In other words try and shop when people aren't around.


Sell Goods Card (ie visit the market)
This is how you make your money and of course making money is the key to the game. Up top I mentioned the 4 types of treasure goods, gold, artifacts and jewels. Well of those four only three of them can be sold at the market, jewels are never sold.

Each treasure card with the exception of Jewels has two numbers printed on it. The number of crates and the end game scoring value. As an example I might draw a Gold card and it will say 5 crates of gold and have an end game value on it of $100.

Much like the shop, the markets values for selling go changed based on the number of boat captains selling their haul. Gold always sells for $30 a crate, Good sell for less when there are more people an oddly enough Artifacts sell for more if there are more people.

Getting back to my example if I went to the market to sell my card which had 5 crates of gold i would make $150, 5 crates multiplied by the market of $30. So whats the other value you ask, the $100? There is a good chance you will not sell all your goods at market instead of them not counting towards your final score you get the value on the card, in this case $100. Jewels only have a value on them and it is usually a nice sum like $200. I should also mention that you can only sell one type of good per visit. So if I sell Gold I can't sell goods, but I can sell as many gold cards as I want.

Visit the Tavern Card
This is where you can do any of 3 things, the most important of which is buy another diver. Much like the shop, more people here means it cost more to hire a diver. Each boat can only transport 3 divers and no more.

You can also buy the tavern a round of drinks for $20, this allows you to pick two treasure decks, look at whats in them and then reshuffle them. Finally another option rule is hiring a thief, which allows you to steal a card from another players treasure hand.

Conclusion
Key Largo is a decent enough game, there is a pretty good theme here and the rules seem well balanced. The one thing I really love about it is the lack of downtime, everyone is doing their things at once and the game moves. The optional encounter rule should always be played with, while the thief rule I could live without. The game lacks any kind of drama really short of pulling a monster card and most late game strategy revolves around trying to out guess your opponents and be the sole visitor at the market.

Who is it for?
Pirate's Cove fans, people looking for a nice family or dinner party game which plays fast and has no confrontation.

Who is it NOT for?
People looking for a very strategic or heavy game. If you scoff at games like TTR, Pirate's Cove or That' Life stay far away from Key Largo.

Congrats to Mike P. I'll be shipping your expansion pack out tomorrow. I ended up with only 41 entires for this contest. My site traffic is significantly higher then that, which I consider pretty good for a blog who I didn't officially start investing time in until this past January. Maybe people just don't want free stuff.

Anyway I hope to get some reviews up really soon on Key Largo, Pandemic and a few other titles.