1821

Nope, but it seemed too good a bargain to pass up and my recce indicated that quite a few scenarios are pretty solo friendly to boot.

1822

Holy crap is that pretty.

1823

Essen is coming… who is going? I will be there for the 1st time ever on Saturday and will pick up my preorder of Samurai Spirits by Antoine Bauza… looking forward to!

1824

I love the concept, so I ran a game of it years ago, and it was pretty terrible. Another friend picked it up last year and we tried it again, with pretty much the same results.

My opinion on it is that it seems like it could be interesting, as long as everyone was super familiar with the system and you had all the options open and a ton of stuff going on, but to get to that point you have to play some learning games which are a boring, repetitive slog. Solo might be better. I’m honestly curious to hear what you think of it once you’ve played.

1825

I’m not going (never been, sadly), but the yearly local (Seattle) board game mini-con Sasquatch is happening over Halloween weekend, and they’ll have a couple hundred Essen new releases. I’d love to know what I should keep an eye on to check out.

1826

I’ll be there (for the 6th time IIRC). Though most of us will only do Thursday/Friday/Sunday at the Messe, and skip it on Saturday to avoid the worst crowds.

Not really excited by any of the Essen releases, to be honest. But then again I’ve also not had the time to do proper research or rules reading, so I’m relying on summaries and impressions from friends. There’s a few of auto-buys (Chimera, Uruk II, Hansa Teutonica expansion), a handful of games I’m willing to buy untested on thursday if nobody else does and we didn’t get a game in (Greenland, Mythopia, Deus, Fresh Fish reprint, Deus), one game where I’ll at least want to leaf through the rulebook before buying (Die Staufer; would buy it just on the designer/publisher combo, except for a blurb that suggested the game had a significant blind auction component), and 50+ games that I could try but am not going to buy untested.

1827

I played a number of games this weekend at a small convention.
51st state/New Era/Winter - As Hepcat mentioned earlier, great theme (the Nueroshima Hex universe). I really enjoy this game, it has a lot of icons and you will need a cheat sheet for quite a while.
Freedom - A somewhat lite but heavily themed game about getting slaves from the south to freedom in Canada. Did not finish this game, but it seems challenging.
Bang, the dice version. A fun, faster version of Bang!. Followed this with Resistance and Coup for a trifecta of social deduction games.
Northwest Passage - A tile laying game with some work placement; trying to discover the northwest passage. I want to point out that i was first discover the passage, leaving my boat and using my sled to return to Greenland, but lost as someone else returned 2 months later with his boat and more information. I liked it and would definitely play again (but not too often).

1828

oh my goodness. Why did nobody tell me about For The Crown by VictoryPointGames? Chess meets Dominion!!!

I…Want…That…Now…

(is it good??)

1829

Newbrof,
Enjoy Essen. Very jealous. Lots of good stuff I want to see this year including Aquasphere and Lords of the Ice Garden and Onward Venus .

Also watch Rhado’s review of For the Crown. It should give you a good indication if it is for you or not.

1830

Has anyone here tried Clash of Cultures? It looks really good, but I’m afraid the length may kill it for me.

1831

I really like Clash of Cultures – the biggest critiques I have for it is that yes, it’s still a bit long (3.5 hours on a first-time play, probably closer to 2 - 2.5 once you know it well), you have to meet and answer a military strategy with military of your own (you’re not going to win if you stick to, say, a straight culture strategy in the midst of that), and that the base game can feel a bit same-y in that there aren’t any unique civilization features/leaders, etc. The last critique is being answered with the expansion this year which will give a TON of content and some pretty cool civ features. But overall, it scratches my Civ itch the best out of the various options out there (haven’t tried TTA, but the lack of a map makes me certain it’ll likely be great, but not scratch the itch the way CoC does).

1832

Yeah, Clash of Cultures is good. You do have to like longish, fairly involved, direct-conflict games (which I do). My biggest complaint isn’t any of the ones MMDuran mentioned, but the fact that you are presented at the beginning of the game with 48 different technologies. Figuring out what to get, and it what order, is daunting. But worse than that is trying to remember what techs you have, what they do, and when to use them is somewhere between difficult and impossible. If you played the game regularly, I’m sure you’d get the hang of it, but if you play it only a couple times a year (like me) then you’re going to forget.

1833

On the bright side, the expansion also offers… more tech! And it varies per civilization. ;-)

I get that. And even when you do learn the techs, there’s no simple answer as to what your build order should be (I consider that a plus). Some techs are pretty obviously great for the early game, but will cost you precious Food to learn, whereas you could learn other techs that would make those techs far more cost-efficient to buy but that’d slow you down a step as, well, you have to buy those techs. And that’s before you even factor in the fact that techs can provide culture or happiness, both of which are useful both tactically and strategically. :)

I think it’s pretty great, but I’ll caveat that with having only gotten it to the table twice. I think if you’ve had any experience with Merchants and Marauders, from the same designer, that might inform your feelings as they’re different in theme and mechanics and yet have similar game design philosophical underpinnings, imnsho, which lead them to feel similar when you play them.

1834

Oof. I didn’t like Merchants and Marauders at all. I’m glad I played Clash of Cultures first, or it might have put me off trying it!

1835

yes, I learned from that video about For The Crown… it looks like I could totally enjoy it. Ordered from a german shop here …
btw. VPG is not at Essen according to the hall maps floating around, too sad. They have a nice catalogue…

1836

Thanks everyone for the info on Clash of Cultures. I’m dumping Robinson Crusoe (such great potential but in the end is just meh). I’m thinking of trading for that.

Newbrof, Take pics and let us know what we should be on the lookout for back here in the states.

Finally for anyone who likes 1 Night Werewolf (and who doesn’t) kickstarter has the expansion for $25. Spend 30 and you get the game (supposedly) before next year. Good deal as it will proabably cost 19 online and 25 at your FLGS

1837

Back from Essen … man, I do hate it to realize that I don’t have enough money to buy all boardgames on sight! (and not enough bags to store them)

It was crowded. My favourite place was Hall 2 where they had the VictoryPointGames, GMT games and other imports… I was so close to pickup Navajo Wars
but I already picked up Darkest Night and the 1st Expansion With an Inner Light.

I picked up 2 Expansions for LOTR LCG (Lord of the rings card game)

And my preorder of Samurai Spirits by Antoine Bauza (7 Wonders, Ghost Stories)…
I hope it is not too frustrating for my family, because that is all they get ;) (this or Darkest Night, but I guess that’s too dark as a family game)

So I picked up only coop games… hm…

I almost, almost picked up For The Crown (by Darkest Night designer Jeremy Lennert), Chess+Dominion … but this was already ordered online (and is expected
to be delivered in 2 weeks)… note to myself: do not order games, just before you go to Essen!

This would have been helpful (not the cigarette)

igyWc5Z.jpg?11835×1445

My plan initially was to pickup the new Kosmos 2 player game, Jäger and Späher (Hunter and Scout), a workerplacement type card game set in the stone age.
But when I finally found it, I already spent all my money. No problem, this game will be easy to get in stores here.

I think if you go to Essen as a European or German, you should focus on import games from US/UK… because everything else should be available
in stores here soon after Essen.

I regret that I did not pickup the OOP game Colosseum from Days Of Wonder (some shop had a new copy for a regular price).

I think Orcs, Orcs, Orcs by Queen Game is worth a look. Tower defense coop game. Could not find Panamax, but that could be
something interesting (bottleneck mechanic for transporting goods).

I have no idea what game of the show was, or if there was something especially hot, but I saw many copies of Nations The Dice game, LOTR Battle of the Five Armies, Evolution, Krosmaster Arena (reprint)
and 7 Wonders Babel. Those stick out, maybe because I was interested to get them myself…

I will be back next year for sure (and better prepared). Lessons learned: some exhibitors do only take cash

1838

Just a quick note, I played I mission of Guardians Chronicles with my friends. Its a pretty good game, tense close fights, lots of choices to make, and the wound system is a interesting mechanic that I didn’t get at first.

This game really needs a FAQ, two rules had to be house ruled because the manual was so unclear about them (about trait checks and opening doors). The event card that lets me summon any villain also feels a little weird as I summoned the Presidents Mutated Daughter (she’s the toughest Villain), but hadn’t created her yet. Other than that I liked it as much as Sentinels, Sentinels Tactics, and waaay more than Heroes Wanted.

The minis were nicer than I was expecting with everyone fussing over them. I was fine with them, they were not super great and the mystic guy was kind of bent back, but they were nice and had good detail.

1839

Did you happen to play or see Onward to Venus, Kanban or Alchemist? I’m interested in seeing how those turned out.

1840

Along with 3 fellow QT3 forumites from London, UK I was there for the 4 full days. It was our first time there and “overwhelming” would be a good word for the experience with “overload” being another and finally, “fantastic”.

The one disappointment for me was missing out on getting a copy of Dragon Scroll by Fragor games. The two brothers that make up Fragor games apparently make one game each year for Essen and produce just 1000 copies, with any further copies being dependent on a publisher picking up the game for reprint. Having never bought or even played one of their games before I wasn’t ready to pre-order and that turned out to be the only way to get a copy, since when I arrived 1100 Thursday they were sold out and just handing over pre-ordered boxes. Looks pretty.

The 4 of us play-tested at least 12 games over the 4 days, probably more and I think play-testing is the heart of the show for me. Some of the hosts facilitate this by framing up a simpler, shortened version of a game and other times it’s just a case of recognizing when you’ve spent enough time to know whether it is a buy or not for you and your group.

Between the 4 of us we came away with 16 new games and are having fun discussing which we’ll play first. Several of those games were totally unplanned surprise purchases, including a crazy Mexican wrestling die game, Luchador! which just grabbed our attention as we attempted to walk past it.

Luchador!+Mexican+Wrestling+Dice!+kickstarter+preview.JPG1200×900

My personal purchases were -

The Battle at Kemble’s Cascade
Surely unique and getting good reviews, this is a boardgame version of a scrolling shmup video game from the late 80s / early 90s era.

Evolution
Another board-game that is kinda like a video game, this time Spore. You evolve species as herbivores or carnivores and attempt to eat as much food as possible as the “win” condition by game end, using a range of traits like “fat tissue” that lets you accumulate food and “hard shell” that protects against predators.

Star Realms + all the expansions + a play mat. I’m in the QT3 League of Leaguelets and loving the digital version but having 2 base sets and the rest of this stuff opens up 3 and 4 player variants that aren’t available in the digital game . . . yet.