Christo came over last night for a game of War of the Ring. Like me, he has a copy but has been unable to find a local opponent, apart from the basic version with his son. In a nutshell, we had a great time. It is great to play with a serious gamer.

This was my fourth game and I was the Free People. I went for a Mordor victory from the outset, as I had never seen the Free People even get to the Mordor track before. This was Christopher’s first advanced game. As he confesses in his blog, he was a little passive in attack and did not leverage his Nazguls and minions as well as he could have. Losing Saruman cheaply to an event card, difficult to avoid if you are in your learning game, also stung him. This is definitely a game you win through experience, rather than pure talent.

It still took a long time. We started around 8.30 and ended at 12.30. Christopher sensibly suggested playing on Friday evenings in future. We both found it difficult to sleep afterwards. I find this a lot after games nights as my mind reels from the intensity of the workout.

This is still holding up as a major favourite of mine. I know it is not mechanically the best wargame, and the rules are unclear, but that fades into the background compared to the richness of the story arc. I suppose it boils down to how interested I am in the subject. I have always loved Middle Earth above all other themes, far ahead of other fantasy, sci-fi, modern or historical settings.

We used some player aids, which I think are indispensable:

1. Rather than the fiddly, useless army unit replacement pieces, we used sets of two Wallenstein cubes. One to replace the stacks of figures on the board, and the other to mark the pile of figures off the board.
2. We used Fubar’s Game Tables, which are far easier to handle and clearer than the main rules.
3. We used the strategy map to count fellowship moves, find areas mentioned on strategy cards and differentiate settlements.
4. Sadly, the FAQ is also indispensable. I had it open on my computer so I could quickly do word searches.

Although it might be risky, I am seriously thinking about spray-painting my figures in the colours of the different nations. I found some spray for Airfix model aeroplanes in an art shop in Acton. Does anyone have any experience or opinions about using this type of spray for plastic miniatures?

It was my birthday the other day (34), which gave me the excuse to climax a massive, by my standards, buying spree. Here are my acquisitions:

• Breaking Away – An impulse purchase. It was only £18 from the designer. I am still astonished at how ugly the box art is. It arrived flat-packed, with a box that you assemble yourself.
• San Juan – An obvious buying decision. Almost everyone I trust enjoys it.
• Domaine – I was surprised at how simple the rules are. It is just a pity it is so expensive.
• Louis XIV – I was hesitating, because I have only played Traders of Genoa out of Rudiger Dorn’s ludography, which I found ponderous. On the other hand, Louis XIV looks like a meaty, interesting game in a smallish package.
• Santiago – I played this several months ago at Michael’s. I really enjoyed how cutthroat it was.
• El Caballero – Carcassonne is too light for me, so the Carcassonne on Steroids summary suckered me. I won this and Volle Hütte on German eBay in a lot and I only paid €25 for both. The box, although good-looking, is ridiculously large compared to the contents. I might have to replace it with something smaller.
• Volle Hütte – I know almost nothing about this. The cartoon artwork is very fun and typically European. I will have to upload some pictures to the Geek.

I realise this would be a light month’s buying for someone like Tom Vasel, but it is going to take me ages to get through this.

Over the last two weeks, I have separately met and played games with two ex-pat Kiwis from the BoardGameGeek. I wonder what the chances are of that?

San Juan
I played this once before at BSW, but this was my first face-to-face game. Christo was a good teacher. At first glance, I suspect this is a better two-player game than with more. Like others have said, why play this when you can play Puerto Rico instead?
I love the cleverness of spending cards to activate others. Are there any other games that use this mechanic?
My only concern is that this might be the sort of game that you can play on autopilot once you learn the optimum strategies. Is this true? If so, I will have to stay away from strategy articles, or it will be ruined for me.

I am playing War of the Ring with Christo on Thursday. I can’t wait.

Canal Grande
I am unsure about this. We played with Bruno Faidutti’s variant, using two extra cards in each colour, which I prefer. Southernman was a much tougher opponent than Vanessa, which made it much more fun. It is not top drawer, as the decisions feel easy and the graphics are fugly. I still prefer San Marco by a wide margin. Having said that it is good enough to play occasionally and it will stay out of my attic for a while.

Lost Cities
There is not much to add to what countless others have said before. It is a classic and the best light two-player card game I have tried. I took a gruesome thrashing.

I hope I can meet up with Southernman again before too long. He was a really nice guy. It is great to have a game playing friend near my family’s cottage

The main reason I was attracted to reading boardgaming blogs was the signal-to-noise ratio, compared to Spielfrieks. Things have changed in the last 20 months. The ratio is still fine, but the bandwidth has grown exponentially. This is not a problem with blogging, because you can choose to filter only the blogs that interest you. The problem is that I look at the other blogs and I am blown away by how good some of them are. I am not sure I would even read my own blog amongst the competition.

Luckily, Alfred has chosen to help us by aggregating the best blog posts. I wish he would trackback to the posts he recommends (pingbacks are easier), but otherwise it is a great idea and I am grateful.

I have recently been listening to Have Games Will Travel, a podcast about RPGs and boardgames. I asked Paul a question I have been wondering about for years, but did not know who to ask:

I am a hardcore board gamer now, but I got into gaming through RPGs. I used to love RPGs as a teenager, but have not played one for almost 20 years. Please could you do a show for someone in my position? I am sure you would get plenty of interest. What I am after is suggestions for a game I might be interested in.
Basically, as a father and working man I have found that I just do not have enough time for RPGs these days, at least in the old style. I want an RPG that takes the work out of it. Something generic like GURPS would be good, but something that does not require 3 hours of work just to generate a character. Additionally, it would be good to have an RPG that has lots of highly detailed published adventures with pregenerated characters, so we can get going with the minimum of fuss. At the same time, a combat system, where you can use miniatures would be fun. Combat as detailed as GURPS is out of the question and something as unbalanced as D&D would offend the board gamer in me. I would also like to avoid the fantasy stereotypes, unless it’s pure Lord of the Rings, but on the other hand, some of the subjects mentioned on your weblog sound a bit too way-out for me. Cannibals in concentration camps? No thanks.
In a nutshell, I suppose what I am after is something very accessible, rather like Ticket to Ride is to boardgames.

Almost immediately, he responded in his podcast. (It is strange to get a reply to an email through your headphones.) He recommended Savage Worlds, although he said the modern incarnations of D&D or GURPS have evolved into something I might still enjoy.

Inspired by this, I read the Test Drive rules. I am pretty impressed. It is almost everything I want. The system is simple, but looks elegant. The game settings are interesting and varied. The introductory module has pregenerated characters, little cardboard hero miniatures and maps to fight on. The module looks like it could easily be finished in an evening, which is very important. You could almost say it’s a Germanisation of RPGs.

I will try to persuade my group to give it a go.

Things have been quiet since the birth, but not totally dead.

Canal Grande
I played this with Vanessa at the hospital. We used Bruno Faidutti’s variant of adding more building cards to reduce the proportion of special cards. This improved things, but it felt more ponderous than I remember and the card art is still fugly. I will probably not bother with Adlung games again.
Downgraded to 6/10.

Age of Steam Scandinavia
This is a nice map. I really like the new coastal goods movement action, but I wish it had been explained better.

Wallenstein
I still like this, but I wish movement was more dynamic. I miss the drama of sweeping into Asia with hordes of troops, as in Risk. This slowness makes it much more difficult to peg back an early leader. I wonder if the basic setup rule that distributes players evenly over the map would be more fun, especially as it would cut game length?
Downgraded to 8/10.

Age of Steam Korea
I just finished a long PBEM of this. The map was very unpredictable, due to the variant movement rules. It might just make an intelligent game a little too clever.

Blue Moon
Christo from the BoardGameGeek suggested we meet up because we live close by, so we arranged to play Blue Moon at a pub.
We had a great time, and not only because this is an excellent game. I will have to buy a complete set and connect with Christo again soon.
Rating: 9/10.