Somehow I've been able to get out of the house on two consecutive Tuesday nights to play games at Mike's. Good thing, too, as it was just Alex, myself, and Mike last night. We played two games which pretty much sum up how I currently feel about Euros.
First up was Thurn & Taxis: Power and Postboxes. Or whatever the expansion to the original game is. Play is mostly like the original, but set in Prussia rather than Bavaria, and with the carriages removed in exchange for a "play a card to allow for longer routes" mechanism that effectively gives players an out if they find themselves without a legal card play on their route. I'm not a huge fan of this game, it always feels like so much of how your game goes depends rather strongly on what cards show up in the draft pool when you are starting a route, and I don't know that the expansion made the game better at all.
I've knocked the Discovery mechanism in AoE3, mostly because it a) is necessary to move the game along, and b) the cards can throw the game at the end of play. In T&T, though, you were encouraged to always have a play ready in hand, and if you didn't you could always punt and cash in the route or gamble and hope a useful card showed up next turn. This is the classic definition of managable luck, where you can choose to take a shot or play it safe. AoE3 doesn't have that, at least unless you are willing to devote five colonists, a full turn's worth, to ensure a successful discovery, and then you get a crappy turnout.
Unfortunately, it's gone in the expansion. And I wasn't that hot on the original, to be frank. After a few games, it just felt like you were playing to see what the draft looked like.
A bad sign, as I won the game.
On the other hand, I was not at all prepared to enjoy playing Midgard, but found a 30 minute game that feels a lot deeper than it looks at first blush. The start of the game, where you draft cards from hands going around the table, means that you have knowlege of *almost* all of the cards in play. Then, how you sequence your plays is another brain burner, although it goes by fairly quickly. While I can't say I loved the theme and it felt like there were a *lot* of components for what the game was, I think this may be the first Euro that I've seen in a while where I wanted to play again right away. And I came in last.
And that, in a nutshell, is why Euros drive me crazy these days.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Are You Ready For Some Football?
I know I am. The NFL is the only sport, professional or otherwise, that I follow with any regularity. Oh sure, I watch the women's team beach volleyball in the Olympics just like every other guy, but MLB and the NBA leave me cold. So it was with great excitement that we watched the Seattle Seahawks opening game today. Not only that, but this was the first time we'd gotten the chance to watch them in high def, that is if you don't count the first preseason game they played.
The 'Hawks won over Tampa Bay 20 to 6, but they were aided in the mid-game by injuries to Cadillac Williams, Jeff Garcia, and one of the TB cornerbacks. Their defense was pretty good, at least after the first quarter, which was a big part of their slightly above average season last year. Shaun Alexander was OK, but it took him a long time to get his motor running, and I'm starting to think that he was at his best when he was on a one-year contract looking for something long term. Now that he has it, the fire isn't there. You can say that they don't have the same line, that he was hurt last year, blah blah blah. I base my belief on the simple fact that he dogged it before the year they went to the Superbowl, and he certainly looked to be dogging it today (at least until Tampa's defense got so tired that they couldn't stop my 2 year old nephew).
There were a lot of other exciting games, but it's really about the 'Hawks for us. This is always a fun part of the year, when we can still dream that perhaps the 'Hawks will get back to the Super Bowl. Given that the only real contenders, at least after today's performance, are the 'Boys and the Panthers (in the NFC - I have no illusions that we'd actually win the big game), right now it seems like maybe it could happen. The big question will be how good the Cards and Niners will be, and we'll get a sense of that on Monday night.
I am *so* ready for some football...
The 'Hawks won over Tampa Bay 20 to 6, but they were aided in the mid-game by injuries to Cadillac Williams, Jeff Garcia, and one of the TB cornerbacks. Their defense was pretty good, at least after the first quarter, which was a big part of their slightly above average season last year. Shaun Alexander was OK, but it took him a long time to get his motor running, and I'm starting to think that he was at his best when he was on a one-year contract looking for something long term. Now that he has it, the fire isn't there. You can say that they don't have the same line, that he was hurt last year, blah blah blah. I base my belief on the simple fact that he dogged it before the year they went to the Superbowl, and he certainly looked to be dogging it today (at least until Tampa's defense got so tired that they couldn't stop my 2 year old nephew).
There were a lot of other exciting games, but it's really about the 'Hawks for us. This is always a fun part of the year, when we can still dream that perhaps the 'Hawks will get back to the Super Bowl. Given that the only real contenders, at least after today's performance, are the 'Boys and the Panthers (in the NFC - I have no illusions that we'd actually win the big game), right now it seems like maybe it could happen. The big question will be how good the Cards and Niners will be, and we'll get a sense of that on Monday night.
I am *so* ready for some football...
Friday, September 07, 2007
New Stuff
Those of you who are wargamers, especially those of you who are fool enough to pre-order games (like me), know that there is quite a bit of product coming out over the next few months. Here are a few things that I'm looking forward to playing once Doug's Den Of Iniquity And Boardgaming finally gets set up (in about six weeks, so this is the only way I get any gaming in while our house is assaulted by Those Who Refuse To Buy)...
Red Star Rising - Yes, Adam, while I did indeed wrong you by incorrectly assuming you were involved in the IGA voting, I'm still helping put your kids through school by buying every game you develop at MMP. I figure I've paid for the part where one child waits for the professor to arrive for five minutes. Happy to help! ;-)
Yet another monster East Front strategic level game, this one looks to have some interesting elements. For one, you can fight the war in *all* of Finland. Which requires you to use an extra map, but since it's the one that has the reinforcement schedule on it, you're probably setting it up anyway. Unless you don't play wargames on your ping pong table, because that's what it's gonna take! The various Soviet armies use combat strength chits, based on whether they are tank, guards/shock, or infantry armies, so even the Russians will be surprised by how well their units function. Unlike a lot of games that use this mechanism, the chits change over time, so all of the crappy ones get removed as their units die while better ones come in during the course of the game. This could be really good, or it could mean Counter Glut, which I'm not a big fan of because I have yet to resort to tweezers.
On the plus side, this will make the game eminently solitairable. I'm really not sure if any of those are real words, but they sound good. I'm not sure this will get on the table this year, but it's one I'm interested in. Extra bonus: Tiny additional map lets the Germans hope they can actually reach Baku.
Great War In Europe Deluxe - What? You say that two maps are for wimps? Absolutely right, as GWiE:D (from now on GWE, as any acronym with a colon is too long) has not two but *three* maps. One for France and Italy, one for Russia and the Balkans, and one more with three insets for the Caucasus, Iraq, and the Levant. Of course, you can always play *just* Europe or the Near East, but what fun is that? The other good news is that each map is completely independent of the others, so you can put them all over the house if you need to. While one side moves and fights in the West (and the Levant), the other side moves and fights in the Eastern portions.
The one problem I have so far is that there seems to be an awful lot of mistakes for a game that is getting republished. The reinforcement schedule disagrees with several counters I've seen, and this is *after* they printed a sheet of corrected counters. Example: two Canadian corps are labeled as entering on strategic turn I, but are listed as coming in on two different turns in the playbook. I'm sure all of this will be corrected in Living Rules, but it's a bit annoying.
The game appears to be a very traditional Igo-Ugo design, but instead of cards to drive political events there are chit pulls, with players able to choose *not* to play some events if they wish. I will almost certainly set this up as a Near East only game for my first playthrough, then it will be the whole hog. Because I'm planning to be able to store games in-progress for long periods of time in the new gameroom, this may actually get played all the way through, at least once.
Flight Leader - Picked up from Mike, who was going to put his copy on eBay. Unpunched, too! One I've always been interested in looking at, and probably one that will not see a lot of play, but I'm a sucker for this era of AH games and the price was right. Plus, not a lot of games out there on Cold War era air combat (Downtown is an exception, another game I'm looking forward to setting up and playing solitaire).
Paydirt - I'm a big NFL fan, so I'm thrilled to finally get a copy of this old SI title that AH added to their stable in the late 70's. Chuck, who is a fan of the game, tells me that someone usually puts out team data for purchase on the web. Certainly not a solitaire game, but one that I may feel is a bit more of a game than a ride (like Pizza Box Football, which is fun but a bit limited). I think my nephews may like this one (the 30+ year old ones, that is).
A few of the other games I want to see hit the tables in my new room in the next year:
WW2: Barbarossa to Berlin - A great game at WBC-West that fell apart when Chuck blinked on getting Overlord and then got the coldest dice I've seen in a while. At 10 hours, not likely to come out much, but now I can play over a few days or weeks (or months) so it will see much more table time.
A Victory Lost - Definitely a good solitaire game, although one I may play ftf as well. I look forward to figuring out how to use the Soviets early on, then withstand Mannstein's riposte.
Ukraine '43 - Follows on nicely from AVL, but with a completely different designer and system. This is another game that has an extra minimap, and table space hasn't allowed many of these in the past. Simonitch also did Ardennes '44, using the same system, but I'm not sure how excited I'll be about yet another Bulge game.
Europe Engulfed - This one will be a bit more of a challenge, as it won't tolerate being stuck in an art desk as cardboard counter games would. Still, Mike and I enjoyed this one and I really want to see how well it works with the diplomatic/political rules in the early game. I may solo this one, but also may play with Mike if he can devote enough time in a short enough period. May become my semi-permanently set up game.
It is my goal to start working through the hundred plus wargame collection I have and set up and play as many as I can in the time I'll be exiled to Charbonneau. While I expect this will take some time away from my WoW religion, at the same time I've really never had space where I could leave a game up for more than a few days without dirty looks from my wife, or risk the cleaning people getting a bit overzealous with a feather duster (at one point, they actually picked up every single counter on the 3rd Fleet board and dusted it while it was set up on the dining room table. I told them that level of devotion and diligence was not only unnecessary, but undesired!).
Hey, I gotta get *something* out of this move... Just a few more weeks, baby.
Red Star Rising - Yes, Adam, while I did indeed wrong you by incorrectly assuming you were involved in the IGA voting, I'm still helping put your kids through school by buying every game you develop at MMP. I figure I've paid for the part where one child waits for the professor to arrive for five minutes. Happy to help! ;-)
Yet another monster East Front strategic level game, this one looks to have some interesting elements. For one, you can fight the war in *all* of Finland. Which requires you to use an extra map, but since it's the one that has the reinforcement schedule on it, you're probably setting it up anyway. Unless you don't play wargames on your ping pong table, because that's what it's gonna take! The various Soviet armies use combat strength chits, based on whether they are tank, guards/shock, or infantry armies, so even the Russians will be surprised by how well their units function. Unlike a lot of games that use this mechanism, the chits change over time, so all of the crappy ones get removed as their units die while better ones come in during the course of the game. This could be really good, or it could mean Counter Glut, which I'm not a big fan of because I have yet to resort to tweezers.
On the plus side, this will make the game eminently solitairable. I'm really not sure if any of those are real words, but they sound good. I'm not sure this will get on the table this year, but it's one I'm interested in. Extra bonus: Tiny additional map lets the Germans hope they can actually reach Baku.
Great War In Europe Deluxe - What? You say that two maps are for wimps? Absolutely right, as GWiE:D (from now on GWE, as any acronym with a colon is too long) has not two but *three* maps. One for France and Italy, one for Russia and the Balkans, and one more with three insets for the Caucasus, Iraq, and the Levant. Of course, you can always play *just* Europe or the Near East, but what fun is that? The other good news is that each map is completely independent of the others, so you can put them all over the house if you need to. While one side moves and fights in the West (and the Levant), the other side moves and fights in the Eastern portions.
The one problem I have so far is that there seems to be an awful lot of mistakes for a game that is getting republished. The reinforcement schedule disagrees with several counters I've seen, and this is *after* they printed a sheet of corrected counters. Example: two Canadian corps are labeled as entering on strategic turn I, but are listed as coming in on two different turns in the playbook. I'm sure all of this will be corrected in Living Rules, but it's a bit annoying.
The game appears to be a very traditional Igo-Ugo design, but instead of cards to drive political events there are chit pulls, with players able to choose *not* to play some events if they wish. I will almost certainly set this up as a Near East only game for my first playthrough, then it will be the whole hog. Because I'm planning to be able to store games in-progress for long periods of time in the new gameroom, this may actually get played all the way through, at least once.
Flight Leader - Picked up from Mike, who was going to put his copy on eBay. Unpunched, too! One I've always been interested in looking at, and probably one that will not see a lot of play, but I'm a sucker for this era of AH games and the price was right. Plus, not a lot of games out there on Cold War era air combat (Downtown is an exception, another game I'm looking forward to setting up and playing solitaire).
Paydirt - I'm a big NFL fan, so I'm thrilled to finally get a copy of this old SI title that AH added to their stable in the late 70's. Chuck, who is a fan of the game, tells me that someone usually puts out team data for purchase on the web. Certainly not a solitaire game, but one that I may feel is a bit more of a game than a ride (like Pizza Box Football, which is fun but a bit limited). I think my nephews may like this one (the 30+ year old ones, that is).
A few of the other games I want to see hit the tables in my new room in the next year:
WW2: Barbarossa to Berlin - A great game at WBC-West that fell apart when Chuck blinked on getting Overlord and then got the coldest dice I've seen in a while. At 10 hours, not likely to come out much, but now I can play over a few days or weeks (or months) so it will see much more table time.
A Victory Lost - Definitely a good solitaire game, although one I may play ftf as well. I look forward to figuring out how to use the Soviets early on, then withstand Mannstein's riposte.
Ukraine '43 - Follows on nicely from AVL, but with a completely different designer and system. This is another game that has an extra minimap, and table space hasn't allowed many of these in the past. Simonitch also did Ardennes '44, using the same system, but I'm not sure how excited I'll be about yet another Bulge game.
Europe Engulfed - This one will be a bit more of a challenge, as it won't tolerate being stuck in an art desk as cardboard counter games would. Still, Mike and I enjoyed this one and I really want to see how well it works with the diplomatic/political rules in the early game. I may solo this one, but also may play with Mike if he can devote enough time in a short enough period. May become my semi-permanently set up game.
It is my goal to start working through the hundred plus wargame collection I have and set up and play as many as I can in the time I'll be exiled to Charbonneau. While I expect this will take some time away from my WoW religion, at the same time I've really never had space where I could leave a game up for more than a few days without dirty looks from my wife, or risk the cleaning people getting a bit overzealous with a feather duster (at one point, they actually picked up every single counter on the 3rd Fleet board and dusted it while it was set up on the dining room table. I told them that level of devotion and diligence was not only unnecessary, but undesired!).
Hey, I gotta get *something* out of this move... Just a few more weeks, baby.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
The Realtor Strikes Back
Actually, not really. But it makes a great title!
Our house went on sale last night, and we were awakened this morning at 9:15am (amazing how you don't sleep well when you have a house you're buying but not one you've sold) by a realtor wanting to show the house. I take that as a very good sign, although the buyers decided not to offer because the place was "too noisy". The level of noise we get in our house is about the same as you get anywhere within two blocks of the Village proper, so I'm not sure they should have been looking in this area, or even in an urban setting at all.
I am predicting that we will get an offer, for less than we want, within a week, and an offer we will accept within three.
I usually don't post personal info, but if you're interested in seeing what my crib looks like, there are pictures on RMLS. The address is 7424 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR 97219. Given that I'll be living somewhere else in a few weeks (hopefully sooner - now that all of our furniture is in the garage we might as well rent the new place for a couple of weeks before we close), I figure that any boardgame-following stalkers have a limited window of opportunity to cause harm to me or my family. Bonus - our dog Hallie snuck into the shot of the deck. Sadly, she's got her "crazy barber" cut on, so she isn't as cute as she is normally.
One last bit of news: we have the new place inspected tomorrow, so I should know a) if we'll really end up buying this house, b) what interest rate we can lock into, and c) ask if we can rent a couple of weeks ahead of time to get in and take care of the wallpaper, painting, and popcorn ceilings.
I feel like my BP is up around 210/160.
Plus, I can hardly wait to set up all three maps for Great War in Europe Deluxe (which I finished clipping tonight)! This from a man who has had about three hours to devote to World of Warcraft since August 20th. Right.
Our house went on sale last night, and we were awakened this morning at 9:15am (amazing how you don't sleep well when you have a house you're buying but not one you've sold) by a realtor wanting to show the house. I take that as a very good sign, although the buyers decided not to offer because the place was "too noisy". The level of noise we get in our house is about the same as you get anywhere within two blocks of the Village proper, so I'm not sure they should have been looking in this area, or even in an urban setting at all.
I am predicting that we will get an offer, for less than we want, within a week, and an offer we will accept within three.
I usually don't post personal info, but if you're interested in seeing what my crib looks like, there are pictures on RMLS. The address is 7424 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR 97219. Given that I'll be living somewhere else in a few weeks (hopefully sooner - now that all of our furniture is in the garage we might as well rent the new place for a couple of weeks before we close), I figure that any boardgame-following stalkers have a limited window of opportunity to cause harm to me or my family. Bonus - our dog Hallie snuck into the shot of the deck. Sadly, she's got her "crazy barber" cut on, so she isn't as cute as she is normally.
One last bit of news: we have the new place inspected tomorrow, so I should know a) if we'll really end up buying this house, b) what interest rate we can lock into, and c) ask if we can rent a couple of weeks ahead of time to get in and take care of the wallpaper, painting, and popcorn ceilings.
I feel like my BP is up around 210/160.
Plus, I can hardly wait to set up all three maps for Great War in Europe Deluxe (which I finished clipping tonight)! This from a man who has had about three hours to devote to World of Warcraft since August 20th. Right.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Offer: Accepted
And we have a place to go when this place sells! They came back $8000 over what we'd offered, but we decided to stand firm and they caved. All it would take is ten seconds trying to get into the master bath shower/spa tub combo (with the attendant hitting of one's head on the shower door rail) to realize that there was significant work required on this house. The bathroom has moved near the top of the to-do list after getting the mirrors off of the dining room walls and removing the popcorn ceilings! And removing wallpaper and painting.
Oh my, what *have* I gotten myself into.
We've spent most of the weekend so far trying to prep our place for viewing. There is really an astonishing amount of work to do, from putting everything not nailed down into a box in the garage (I am officially fine with spending whatever it takes to have someone else box up and move our stuff), to carrying medium sized pieces of furniture down the stairs or around the horn (all the way around the end unit on the street when the stairs has gotten a bit tricky to navigate). However, the place is very close as I type this on Sunday morning, and we're hoping to finish everything but a very few items so that we have little or no work to do on Labor Day.
I am too old for this.
Oh my, what *have* I gotten myself into.
We've spent most of the weekend so far trying to prep our place for viewing. There is really an astonishing amount of work to do, from putting everything not nailed down into a box in the garage (I am officially fine with spending whatever it takes to have someone else box up and move our stuff), to carrying medium sized pieces of furniture down the stairs or around the horn (all the way around the end unit on the street when the stairs has gotten a bit tricky to navigate). However, the place is very close as I type this on Sunday morning, and we're hoping to finish everything but a very few items so that we have little or no work to do on Labor Day.
I am too old for this.
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