Category: Weekend gaming
Maricopa Con 2015

Maricopa Con 2015

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Last weekend I went to Maricopa Con at the Mesa Convention Center. It was my first time going, and despite the mild funk that set in halfway through the day (it is summer in Arizona where temps hit 113), I had a lot of fun gaming.

I’m also fortunate to have gone with a friend, so I wasn’t wandering aimlessly trying to awkwardly jump into games. I’ve done that before when I went solo to BGG Con, but it’s easier when you’ve got tables upon tables to scour. Maricopa Con consisted of one large ballroom and a smaller room (which ended up being more pleasant and chilly).

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Fourth of July binge-gaming

Fourth of July binge-gaming

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My friends and I decided to do a marathon 2 days of board gaming for July 3 and 4. I haven’t done that much non-stop board gaming since I went to BGG Con.  We hunkered down for two days at my friend’s house, complete with 2 medium-sized dogs running around beneath the gaming table, and played some pretty epic heavy games.

We all arrived at 1 p.m. on Friday and first up on the agenda was Fief 1429 France. Oh, Fief … The last time we played Fief, a really tense fight broke out between my friends over one guy telling a new-ish player what do to, which was really to his advantage, and other players got really mad because then it was tipping the scale over game play. So I thought we weren’t going to play that for a while, but, two weeks later, here we are. They rationalized that they wanted to play it again because we now had 6 players, instead of 5 during that game we don’t speak of anymore.

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Milton Bradley’s Shogun: The game with many names

Milton Bradley’s Shogun: The game with many names

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A few years back, I purchased a used copy of Shogun, the Milton Bradley version from the 1980s. It was recommended to me by a friend who had said that the game was way better than Axis and Allies, another Milton Bradley game from that era that I also owned. At the time, Axis and Allies had been the longest and most complicated game I had played (this was in my early stages of the hobby), and when I saw a pretty decent used copy of Shogun a few days after the recommendation, I snatched it up right away. And then it sat on my bookcase for years …

That is, until last weekend. I finally rallied 4 other players to tackle this game with me, and we set the date to play. We all looked up the rules online so that we would be ready for combat on game day. Of the 5 of us, there were two of us who hadn’t played it before, one of them being me. We all laughed that for such an old game, many of us still had a version of this Milton Bradley gem. The game, originally called Shogun, changed into Samurai Swords during a re-release in 1995, and was renamed Ikusa during the 2011 re-release under a different company.

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Laughter and inside jokes in Monikers

Laughter and inside jokes in Monikers

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I first saw the game Monikers on the Shut Up & Sit Down website. The guys did a review on it, and I seriously could not stop laughing at their video.  I totally wanted that game for my next party game night with my friends.

So I finally bought it online and tried out with my group of friends. And like I predicted, it was super duper hilarious and fun. We were still taking about our game a few days after game night. I don’t usually play party games, but if it’s with the right folks, I’m down for anything.

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Introducing board games to non-gamers

Introducing board games to non-gamers

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Gamehaus Cafe in Glendale, CA. I wish Phoenix had something like this! This place is awesome.

Hi, folks! I’m back from being out of town and totally feel recharged. And guess what? I got some board gaming in during my time away.

So the beginning of this post actually starts about a month ago. I get a text message from some friends in Los Angeles, telling me that they’re at GameHaus Cafe and that they’re thinking of me.  I actually visited this place about a year ago when I was in town; I didn’t get a chance to play as I was on my way to a wedding reception, but I did get a chance to take some photos and pose nerdily in front of the massive game library. Seriously folks, this place is amazing. You need to check it out!

Anyway, my friends aren’t board gamers at all, but they were invited by another friend who also wanted to check the place out. They were amazed by the sheer volume of board games out there they had never heard of, especially games in the back room where you need to drop off your ID. So they said next time I’m in town that I should bring some games when I visit their pad.

And that’s my cue to let the flood gates open into the world of board gaming …

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Recap of International Tabletop Day

Recap of International Tabletop Day

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I got to play Lords of Waterdeep for the first time.
I got to play Lords of Waterdeep for the first time. Here are some of the quests you can collect.

Last Saturday was International Tabletop Day. All my meetup groups around the Valley were hosting their own special event. I ended up going to a friend’s event at his home and then moved over to my usual biweekly gaming group event. It was nice to see friends who don’t usually make it to all the events, so there was some time spent catching up on everybody’s lives.

The first game I played was Lords of Waterdeep. Strangely enough, I’ve never had a chance to play it before. I love the heavy crunchy games, and this game has never been suggested during my usual meetups. It’s a great game though that’s on the short side that introduces the concept of worker placement for new board gamers. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

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When it helps to cooperate … well, sort of

When it helps to cooperate … well, sort of

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In CO2, if the pollution isn't stopped, it's game over for all of us
In CO2, if the pollution isn’t stopped, it’s game over for all of us.

There are a number of gamers out there who refuse to play cooperative games. I get it … if you’re going to spend hours playing a game, you want there to be one clear winner, preferably yourself. I myself don’t mind some cooperative games (you all know I have much love for Arkham Horror).

But recently I’ve gotten a chance to play a few games under the “One winner but we can all lose” variety. It would fall under semi-cooperative but I don’t particularly like labeling it as that as it can mean games with hidden roles and traitors, such as Battlestar Galactica, another game I love, love playing.

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Return of Saturday gaming

Return of Saturday gaming

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Last Saturday was my first all-day Game Day of the year. It was nice to get back into the swing of things, especially since I felt like the new year came and went so quickly because I got sick.

I attended Game Day with my biweekly group, and boy did I get a lot of gaming in! What made it especially fun, too, was that all my favorite gamers were free that day to play along as well. We all started with a light game of Mysterium. I was not the ghost this time, which was a bit of a relief. There’s so much pressure to guide the investigators to the correct item, location or suspect. Sadly, we ended up losing as not all 6 investigators were able to pick the correct items.

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Russian Railroads and holiday White Elephant

Russian Railroads and holiday White Elephant

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Hello, peeps of the Internet! It’s been quite a hectic December with the holidays and major life changes, but it’s been a great week of board-gaming.

I was happy to play my new copy of Russian Railroads this week. I actually received the game a few weeks ago from my BGG Secret Santa. On the BGG website, you sign up to be assigned a Secret Santa target and send $50-ish gifts out into the world. The person who received me was super duper generous, as I had received three large games, as well as a donation in my name to Oxfam so some impoverished family would receive a pair of goats. The other two games I received were Android: Netrunner and Lords of Vegas. I’ll keep you posted when I finally bring them to a gaming night.

My uber-generous Secret Santa gave me so many gifts!
My uber-generous Secret Santa gave me so many gifts!

So this week, I played Russian Railroads three times this week. I do love the smell of freshly punched-out cardboard …

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Mysterium weekend

Mysterium weekend

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I took my brand-new copy of Tajemnicze Domostwo, also known as Mysterium, to gaming on Saturday afternoon, and much to my surprise, it got played three times in a row! According to Google translator, the Polish translates to “Mysterious Property.”

I had purchased the game at BGG Con after playing a game in the Portal Games booth. A worker had billed the game as a cross between Dixit and Clue. I was intrigued and sat down to play a game. After playing it and seeing the beautiful, mysterious artwork, I immediately purchased it. Good thing, too, as I had bought one of the last few copies at the convention!

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