ÿþ<html> <header> <title>My boardgame hobby - Feb to Apr 2006</title> </header> <body bgcolor="#FCFCCC"> <center><h2>My boardgame hobby - Feb to Apr 2006</h2></center> <hr> <table cellpadding=10><tr><td><u>9 Apr 2006</u></td></tr></table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060409_2418.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060409_2418.JPG" width=280 border="0"></a><br><i>Han playing <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8989">Hansa</a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p>Hansa is a Michael Schacht game. Michael Schact has a certain style - most of his games are simple, elegant and clever, like <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/18100">China</a> and <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/5782">Coloretto</a>, which I also own. </p> <p>Hansa is about trading in the Hanseatic league (northern Germany, Denmark, Scandinavia areas). There is a ship which all players share. Players take turn to move the ship and perform at most one action at each port visited. Actions include buying goods, selling goods and establishing market presence. At game end, goods sold, goods in stock and market presence give victory points. </p> <p>I wasn't very interested in Hansa when I first read about it, but upon first play (which was at Witch House, Taipei) I found it to be very clever. Rules are simple, but there is a tricky interaction between the actions you can do, and also you need to watch what your opponents want to do. So I bought the game. However after a few more plays I found it to be just alright - not something I'm particularly drawn to. China is still my favourite Michael Schacht game. </p> <p>This is the first play for Han</p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060409_2419.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060409_2419.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3242">Clash of the Gladiators</a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p>This is a game Han bought from eBay. Used copy but in good condition. In this game, each player has a few teams of gladiators, each team consisting of 4 gladiators. They fight one another and fight animals. The game ends when only 1 player's team(s) is remaining. </p> <p>You get to choose the composition of your teams, and each type of gladiator has its own special abilities. The swordsman allow you to roll one more die, the spearman gives you initiative when you fight, the shield bearer protects from hits, the fork guy lets you reroll your dice, the net guy neutralises the power of one of your opponent's gladiators. </p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060409_2420.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060409_2420.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3242">Clash of the Gladiators</a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p>One interesting thing is this is a Reiner Knizia game. It certainly doesn't feel very "Knizia" to me. Reiner Knizia is one of my favourite game designers.</p> <p>My wife (red) is attacking me (green).</p> </td> </table> <hr> <table cellpadding=10><tr><td><u>1 - 2 Apr 2006</u></td></tr></table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060401_2339.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060401_2339.JPG" width=280 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/16395">Blokus Duo (Travel Blokus)</a>, using <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2453">Blokus</a> pieces</i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> Blokus (and Blokus Duo) is Michelle's current favourite game, having replace <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/106">Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper</a>. We used to play normal Blokus, with her controlling red & yellow and me controlling green and blue. It can be a bit confusing when playing normal Blokus because we need to worry about two colours. We have to play the role of two players at the same time.</p> <p>Sidetrack a bit... Our preferred colours when playing any boardgame are red for her and green for me. We easily get confused if we don't use our colours because we are too used to it now. Anyway...</p> <p>Now we play the real two-player Blokus, called Blokus Duo. Rules are the same, except the area is smaller (14 x 14 instead of 20 x 20), and the starting point is coordinates (5, 5) from our respective corners instead of the corner squares. I think I like Blokus Duo more. </p> <p>And one thing good is a game only lasts about 10-12 minutes. </p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060401_2363.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060401_2363.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/5404"> Amun-Re </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> The weekend of 31 Mar 2006 to 2 Apr 2006 was a great boardgaming weekend (I took a one-day leave on Friday). Simon was in town. Jeanne joined to play, and Yeong Shin, an old friend whom I haven't met for some time, & his girlfriend Joey also joined. </p> <p>This was my first time playing my copy of Amun-Re. I've played twice on the internet, and it was those two games that convinced me to buy a real version. </p> <p>In this game you employ farmers, you build pyramids, you sacrifice to the god Amun-Re so that He will bless the Nile flooding and your harvests. Auctions are an important part of the game and there are some twists to them in this game. E.g. when bidding for a province, if you get outbid by another player, you cannot immediate raise the bid for the same province. Instead, you are forced to bid for a different province. Only if you also get outbid in the other province, you can come back to bid for the first one. Tricky! </p> <p><i>Left to right: Michelle, Jeanne, Simon</i></p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060401_2364.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060401_2364.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/5404"> Amun-Re </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> Look at all the nice pyramids! </p> <p>In the middle of the game, all the farmers and the ownership markers of the provinces get swept away. All players lose all their provinces, and the bidding for provinces start again in the 2nd half of the game. However the pyramids and building stones remain, which makes evaluating the provinces more interesting. </p> <p>At the BoardGameGeek website there is a very well known session report on Amun-Re. Session reports are where people describe a game being played and what happened during the game. It's very useful to get a feel of the game and helps in deciding whether it's a game you'd like. <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/24697"><b>This</b></a> particular session report is quite entertaining.</p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060402_2365.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060402_2365.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/823"> Lord of the Rings </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> Yeong Shin is an old friend from secondary school whom I have not met up with for some time although he is also working in KL. He has played some games with me only once before. It's my first time meeting his girlfriend Joey, so she's new to boardgames. We started with <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/11">Bohnanza</a>, which was lively and engaging. </p> <p>After that (past midnight) I decided to teach them <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/823">Lord of the Rings</a>. It's my first time playing with 5 players. Since Simon & Jeanne have only played once, and Yeong Shin & Joey are new, we played the very easy level (Sauron at 15). The first few scenario boards seemed too easy and everyone seemed to be doing alright, but at the last scenario board Mordor things turned bad. We nearly lost the game due to reaching the last event on the event track. We managed to win without any hobbit getting killed.</p> <p><i>Left to right: Jeanne as Merry, Simon as Pippin, Joey as Fatty (there <u>IS</u> such a character in the book), Yeong Shin as Frodo</i></p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060402_2366.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060402_2366.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/823"> Lord of the Rings </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> This was just before drawing the tile which could have lost us the game, if it were an event tile. </p> <p><i>Left to right: Joey as Fatty, Yeong Shin as Frodo, me as Sam, Jeanne as Merry</i></p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060402_2367.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060402_2367.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/823"> Lord of the Rings </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> At the end of the Moria scenario (2nd last), we managed to maneuver Fatty (orange) to become the ringbearer, because he (well, she, since Joey was playing Fatty) was the least corrupted at the time. So we were quite confident that we could win when we started the Mordor scenario. But we were hit by event after event (events are usually bad) and barely managed to reach Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring.</p> </td> </table> <hr> <table cellpadding=10><tr><td><u>Feb 2006 - Mar 2006</u></td></tr></table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060220_1860.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060220_1860.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/19526"> Elasund: The First City of Catan </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> Elasund is by Klaus Teuber, designer of the well-known <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/13">The Settlers of Catan</a>. If fact, Elasund is based on a book which is in turn based on the Settlers of Catan game.</p> <p>Elasund is just slightly more complex than Settlers of Catan. It is definitely more vicious. Although you can't trade resources, there is still significant player interaction because you can use other people's permits (against their will, of course) and build over other people's buildings. </p> <p>This photo shows the early stage of a two-player game.</p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060220_1861.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060220_1861.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/19526"> Elasund: The First City of Catan </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> This is near the end of the game. All those cubes placed on the board means victory points achieved. Similar to Settlers of Catan, everyone races to reach 10 VPs. There are multiple ways of gaining (and losing) VPs - building on squares with windmill icons, building certain buildings, building the church, building walls. </p> <p>Another similarity is rolling two dice. However the luck factor seems to be less. </p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060305_2045.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060305_2045.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/432"> 6 Nimmt! a.k.a. Category 5 a.k.a. ™ŸwSΘ a.k.a. [r4YLr</a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> My sister likes Category 5 a lot. The whole family playing boardgames / cardgames on a Sunday morning - now that's quality time. :-) This was on Sun 5 Mar 2006 - the day after Shee Yun's birthday celebration. The whole family stayed home the whole day playing games and finishing up the food which we couldn't finish during the party.</p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060305_2049.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060305_2049.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2453"> Blokus </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> Now this is a miracle - we actually managed to get my father to join us to play. My sister and I have tried to persuade him many times before but were unsuccessful. He even got a bit philosophical about Blokus, stating that it's like a game of international relations, and also complaining that it shouldn't be called Blokus because it's not really about blocking. </p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060305_2054.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060305_2054.JPG" width=280 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2453"> Blokus </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p> When I first played Blokus, my strategy was just to block others as much as possible. After a while, I thought it was actually not that important to block others. It is actually more important to make sure you can work around other's and continue to expand. So I intentionally do not block others. Instead I place my piece in such a way that I can have more "corners" to continue placing other pieces, and at the same time I don't block my opponent. And then after a while, I thought both are important - you should get spots for expansion AND at the same time block your opponent as much as possible.</p> <p>Now Michelle has a yet different strategy. Just build in your own area first and let others come to you. As they approach, you can plan how to use your pieces to fill in the blanks they leave behind. I have yet to try this, but she has been very successful with it. </p> </td> </table> <table cellpadding=10> <tr> <td width=410><center><a href="hcs_20060322_2242.JPG"><img src="hcs_20060322_2242.JPG" width=400 border="0"></a><br><i><a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/503"> Through The Desert </a></i></center></td> <td valign=top> <p>I actually self-made this game when I was in Taiwan. Now that I think back about it, I'm amazed I spent so much effort doing it. I actually self-made quite a number of Reiner Knizia games using cheap playing cards, Go (ôVËh) pieces, Microsoft Powerpoint, generic game pieces etc. I did Samurai, Through the Desert, Battle Line, Modern Art, Ra. Ra was the toughest to make. It has about 200 tiles. Now I own real copies of Ra, Through the Desert and Modern Art. </p> <p>Now I have bought a copy of Through the Desert by auction. The price was cheaper than retail price in Malaysia and also cheaper than if I buy from USA. </p> <p>I like Through the Desert a lot. Reiner Knizia describes it as "It's like life. You have many choices, but you can't have everything. You need to choose what you want to be."</p> </td> </table> <hr> <center>Back to <a href="http://hecose.tripod.com/boardgame/boardgame.html">boardgame page</a><br> Back to <a href="http://choksienhiew.tripod.com">homepage</a></center> <hr> </body> </html>