TimMierz's 2011 in Board Games

[TimMierz]

I love board games. They're my biggest hobby, and I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful girlfriend and family, besides some regular gaming groups, that will happily play many games with me.

I had a good year for games. My girlfriend Kayleigh and I traveled to Indianapolis for our first GenCon, which was the first gaming convention for both of us. It was wonderful being surrounded with games! We didn't really do many events, mainly spending time in the dealer's hall where we got to try out a great number of games, meet people with the same kind of enthusiasm for games as us, and see what was up and coming in the world of games. I got to see the people behind The Game Crafter, and even meet someone who knew my game The Golems of Ymhet and we got to play a few times. A wonderful experience we hope to keep reliving.


Kayleigh during a game of Famiglia during GenCon


My imitation of a Summoner Wars goblin at the Game Library at GenCon

[TimMierz]

Besides GenCon, I got to try a lot of other games. Here are my top 5 games that I learned this year:

1. Ascending Empires, Ian Cooper, Z-Man Games, 2011
Ascending Empires continues to blow me away. In this space exploration and combat game, the games feel amazingly different from me. I've played just a handful of times, but they'll have their own character. The most recent game had aggressive blockading and very little researching. Before that, an early Battleship rush led to a great fear of the big ship. Other games have pairs of players launching large quantities of ships at each other, sometimes there's more of a peaceful development of cities and colonies. And within all this interesting strategy is the uncertainty of the flicking, which can be played safe or risky, with the puzzle pieces' joints causing some frustration but not enough for this to not be my game of the year!

2. Summoner Wars, Colby Dauch, Plaid Hat Games, 2009 (original)/2011 (master set, the version I have)
A finely crafted army duel game that is threatening to take the seat away from Neuroshima Hex, Summoner Wars has each army plays with different feels and strategies, with combat being at the right level of unpredictability to allow swings and surprises without it overwhelming the whole game. I got the Master Set at GenCon, got six other armies as gifts, and bought two more last week at a game store during a Redemption tournament. I don't plan on doing any custom deck building with this, but I don't need to - it plays wonderfully out of the box.

3. YINSH, Kris Burm, Smart Games, 2003
YINSH is my favorite of the original GIPF series, all of which I learned this year. It's not as confusing to new players as PUNCT or ZERTZ, and it feels like it has more meat than DVONN and TAMSK. GIPF is close, but YINSH's intrinsic balancing, with players closer to victory having fewer pieces at their disposal, is a mark of genius. Lookahead is difficult but rewarding. Pattern recognition is key. Rewarding to play, more rewarding to win!

4. Travel Blog, Vlaada Chvatil, Z-Man Games, 2011
Travel Blog was a surprise hit. Mainly acquired to continue my Vlaada collection, it ended up being a great party game! As few Americans, even geography-inclined ones, know European geography too well, it's a fun race to wonder if Latvia is near Armenia, or if Moldova and Kosovo touch. Players are scrambling to pick quickly and intelligently, a tough combination to make work! The USA map is somehow even more challenging, probably because it's less interconnected than Europe and some long routes are inescapable. And now I know Nebraska touches Missouri!

5. Montage, Joli Quentin Kansil, Gryphon Games, 1973 (original)/2011 (reprint)
Montage rounds out my top 5. While I haven't played it very much, it is a fast-moving clue-giving/word-building game that I am extremely excited to keep playing. Get your partner to guess your word before both opponents. The number of letters as well as some possibilities for certain letter spots are known, and a couple levels of decoding are needed to go from clue to solution. I hope it's easy enough to get the exact number of 4 players to keep playing, because this seems like a sure winner.


The box for Ascending Empires, my game of the year

[TimMierz]

I got to play a ton of games a ton of times. I use BoardGameGeek to log my game plays, and it says I've logged 1,404 game plays of over 100 unique games.

My most played: Dominion (125 games), What's My Word? (71), Malta! (55), Space Alert (53), Awesome Bots (50), The Golems of Ymhet (50).
Also getting at least 25 plays: Shadow Hunters, Prolix, Setback, Big Boggle, Redemption

My main man is the Czech board game designer Vlaada Chvatil. This year I played 12 different games that he designed: Space Alert, Travel Blog, Through the Ages, Sneaks & Snitches, Galaxy Trucker, Pictomania, Arena, Prophecy, Dungeon Lords, Bunny Bunny Moose Moose, Graenaland, and Merry Men of Sherwood! I received a thirteenth, Mage Knight, for Christmas but haven't gotten to play it. A fourteenth, Dungeon Petz, exists but I don't have it and I'm not chomping at the bit for it.

Every New Year's, I get together with Kayleigh and her brothers for two solid days of gaming. Here is a log of everything we played. It's great to carry on tradition!


Us after a successful Space Alert mission


In Redemption, I didn't play any this year until July, when I taught Kayleigh how to play. By November, we went to a tournament hosted by John M in Danbury, CT, and Kayleigh and I won the Sealed Teams event! Just last week we went to another tournament, and she won Booster Draft (while I won T1 Multi). I ended with exactly 25 plays of Redemption this year, and I'm glad I'm back in! The playgroup is great, and Roy and some others even made a guest appearance at last week's tourney!

My decks right now are a revision of my classic Genesis/Rome deck and a Job/Judas deck that played pretty well in the tournament (losing 5-4 once and winning the others), but I am really not well-versed on the new cards. I'm getting used to them though!


Kayleigh and others at a November tournament


If you read this much, sorry for making you read so much! Yay games!

[Alex_Olijar]

Good to see you back on here Tim. Brad talks a lot about Summoner Wars. I should probably try it...

[TimMierz]

Summoner Wars is certainly worth the time of anyone who enjoys good card-based duels with some randomness but more than enough strategy to make up for it. I imagine most Redemption players would enjoy it, even though it's got very little in common with Redemption. It even allows for deck building, although I'm not interested in pursuing that area. You can get either of two starter sets for $20 or less, too. The Master Set that I have costs around $40 but also has 6 armies instead of 2, and a nicer board.

[The Schaef]

I didn't see Eminent Domain or Core Worlds in that post; have you tried those yet?

[TimMierz]

I have not played either of those games. However, some other 2011 games I've played include Risk: Legacy, Pictomania, King of Tokyo, Rune Age, Artus, Lord of the Rings Card Game, and Star Trek Expeditions. My thoughts are generally positive for Pictomania and Rune Age, and neutral to bad on the others.

[The Schaef]

I really want to start a Legacy campaign in my boardgaming club to see how it goes with the same group consistently.

I kind of liked Expeditions (though clearly it's a classic Knizia math exercise) but Fleet Captains was considerably better.

[TimMierz]

I've only gotten one Risk Legacy play in so far, which I know is barely playing it at all, but more will happen. It was also my first Risk play in probably at least a decade. The teacher was about to explain the differences between Legacy and regular Risk and I had to stop him and teach me how regular Risk worked.

I like very few co-ops - they almost never excite me. Space Alert is the only true co-op game I actively like. Expeditions was doomed to me from the start, but I played anyways, and it played like any other co-op: go through some motions, but without playing against anybody, it's not nearly as fun. Space Alert at least feels like you're playing against the computer and often against yourself. But that's a discussion for another time.

[STAMP]

I just saw Risk: Legacy the other day in the specialized gaming store here in town.  I hardly ever go into the store but TJ had a WoW tournament.  I was just browsing when I saw it.  In fact, I was actually looking for Risk: Black Ops.  Just reading the back of the box it sounded very interesting.  I'm intrigued enough to spend some of my Christmas money on it the next time I visit the store. 

[Prof Underwood]

I watched the Dice Tower's review of RISK:Legacy on Youtube (longest review I've seen from him), and found it VERY informative.  I really enjoy his reviews of other games, and would suggest anyone interested in this game to check it out.