Gaming this week...12/4

I'm hosting again this week on Thursday 12/4 at 7pm.

I have a few new games still that could use more play (JD had a couple too). One of them is Battle Star Galactica....which seems to be a hit in San Antonio...

BGG con!

(playing Ghost Stories)

Just a summary....because there is just too much I could say...

Games that ROCKED: After the Flood (already owned), BSG, Space Alert, Chicago Express, and of course Dominion (but I've had that one for a while)

Good games: Middle Kingdom, Sylla, Traders of Carthage, Ghost Stories, Cities (best Carcassonesque filler game I've played), le Havre (very nice, easier, longer but more forgiving than Agricola....feels like it has more breathing space, more wiggle room....will most likely pick up), Steel Driver (preferred Chicago Express because of the way stocks and dividends work in CE which is more like 18XX). Duck Dealer was pretty sweet, but we played with one key rule wrong; a replay with the right rules will likely place it under "Rocked" above.....now, if i could only find it at a reasonable price...


(Le Havre)

Crappy games: Surprisingly none. I didn't play a single crappy game. Hurray!

Unlike BGG 07, had the pleasure of playing games I already own/know like RftG, GtR, King of Siam, and Cuba. It's nice to play stuff you know already.

Other thoughts:
-Tom Lehman is a cool guy. Very humble, professional, and sharp. He signed my worn copy of RftG. I heard rumors of playtesting the second expansion at the con...
- Roll through the ages looks intriguing
- The new Through the Ages apparently will get a nice facelift (at least to the player mats, which is what they had at the con).
- Wasabi sold like hotcakes. May not be the next Puert... Agricola, but it sure looks sexy.

Reporting from BGG CON '08

If you want to learn more about my whereabouts and my thoughts on games during BGG.con, you may want to check out any of the two links below:

Twitter profile page:
http://twitter.com/r3gamer

RSS feed:
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/17198900.rss

(The pic shows me learning Shogun at BGG.con 06.... how time flies...)

Le Havre

Has any one gotten a chance to play Le Havre yet? My copy should arrive tomorrow!

Pitch Car, Sprain Muscle...

As seen at my place last Thursday...

We (JD, Lewis, Mike, Joseph) started the night with Pillars of the Earth with the nifty 5-6 player expansion. Wow, this new expansion really adds a lot without bogging the game down too much. Firstly, it make the game more replayable by adding more cards to the mix. In the original game, some types of the cards where present in EVERY single game making things easy to predict to some extent. Now, that's not the case. The expansion also adds additional action slots to use your master builder on, making your decision on where to place them twice as hard. And now that I've read the book since the last time I had played the regular game, it was even more enjoyable. Thumbs up from me.

With Lance joining the bunch, we all played Pitch Car on the living room floor. Nope, my table is not big enough when you add all the expansions. Someone sent me an email saying that their legs hurt the next morning from all the squatting to pitch their car... hehehe. It was pretty darn fun. Mindless dexterity games are a blast. I think you do get more precision when you are more comfortable playing the game on an actual table, but it was darn fun.

Last but not least, Lance, JD, Lewis and I played 2 games of the highly acclaimed Dominion. Not complex at all, easy to explain, quick, and addictive....what's wrong with that? Nothing IMO. Could play this 10 times in a row...


TODAY....I just finished my first game of solitaire Race for the Galaxy against the robot AND lost on the tire breaker!!! It was really my fault; I decided to change strategy midway, making me lose some steam along the way. In the category of solitaire games, I think this is better than solo-Agricola because your fake opponent accumulates cards AND scores LIVE. There's no preset score to beat. You have to actually beat a "preprogrammed robot" that plays its own actions, but also responds to what you do. Pretty darn nifty. It must have been a nightmare playtesting this sucker (the rules are pretty intricate, but become second-nature after 1 game). Looking forward to trying out some of the other expansion stuff.

All in all, a very satisfying week, specially when you play 4 out of (undisclosed number) of games and expansions previously purchased that I still hadn't tried.

Next week some of us are going to BGG con!!! YEAH! I'll try to post some stuff here.

Gaming this Thurs...

Once again, I unfortunately can't make it to League City gamers. They are meeting tonight at the Cafe Express on Bay Are Blvd. I just arrived from Seattle, and NEED to get more sleep.

So, if interested, swing by on Thursday 11/13. I'll be hosting again at 7pm. I should be getting some new games in the mail today. Pitch Car may see some play....

Thanks SABG for the cool pic.

No gaming at Chez Robert this week

I'm going out of town late this week. Fortunately I got my fix over the weekend at Midnight Comics where I got to play: Tribune, Mykerinos with expansion, Duck duck go, Stone Age.