Board Game Madness: Board Game Madness 5/30

A day late, but now with a juicy nougat filling!

Fun:

Spielbox, the world’s most read board game magazine, is now available for download from BGG. This is the English version! Unfortunately it’s $9 an issue and you’d have to print out the free goodies you get with the magazine on a regular printer.
Dice towers are common, but a card tower, now THAT’s a cool idea!
Go is a serene game. Now couple it with these surroundings and you may end up never returning to society.
Pimp my Game: Sculpted Pandemic pawns. Nicely done!
Pimp my Game II: Buzz Lightyear meets Martian captain. Why didn’t I think of this?!?!
Pimp my Game III: Really cool score track/tile for Carcassonne. You build it into your map!
Pimp my Game: Sculpted Cities and Knights of Catan pieces, also very nicely done
Good Eats: Civilization cake. Mmmmmmmm – edible wonders [gurgle gurgle]
Awesome looking Warhammer battle scene. Looks like something out of Saving Private Ryan.

New Games:

Fantastiqa: New deck building adventure game from Gryphon games where you tour different landscapes, fight creatures and complete quests. Almost reminds me of the old Dungeoneer game. Release September 2012.
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game: Fantasy Flight’s early entry with their new Star Wars license brings you a short 20 minute mission-oriented space combat game of X-Wings vs. TIE fighters. Very customizable, but it looks like it’s going to be one of those games that may require a some number of expansions if you want to do some of the missions. Release July 2012.
Dominion: Dark Ages: Yes, another set from Donald X. No release date yet, but this is a full expansion (500 cards) and a new type of card called a “Ruin”. They are also replacing Estates with Shelters (not sure why). This set seems to be all about the trashing and upgrading (ok, this may be a must buy for me then…)
Doctor Who: The Card Game: Play the Doctor and his friends and defend the universe in this new Martin Wallace game coming in August 2012. Very few details available.
Recent releases: Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small, Richelieu, Web of Flies, BITS, Munchkin the Guild

iOS:

News:

Thunderstone is now Print and Play and free. At least the original set is. The cards are redesigned too. My biggest issue is mixing with the other sets. I’ve done it with Dominion fan cards and you can tell if you have one of the homemade cards.
Dominion is also rereleasing their basic set, but just the victory, treasure and curse cards. These will need to be purchased though. Great new artwork and they’ll replace your beat up cards if you don’t sleeve them.
A joint venture between the Chicago Toy and Game Fair and Live Oak Games gives birth to the Games for Educators newsletter for anyone looking to use games in the classroom.

Recently Played:

Played a bunch of Dominion with the Mrs. last week. We used a new iPad app called D-vault as a shuffler. It’s got the most current sets and also has some really nice features like card logs (no repeats!), minimum number of Alchemy cards, etc. 99c and well worth the price
I took Friday off last week as a mental health day. I finally had a chance to play Mage Knight. I didn’t have the greatest play experience, but I’m more than willing to do it again as I’m a sucker for a good fantasy adventure game. I’ll hold off judgment until I play it again.
Afterwards we played a 3p Haggis game which is always fun.z
That night was also our monthly board game night and I got a chance to try The Castles of Burgundy. As a big fan of Kingsburg, Lords of Vegas and Alien Frontiers, this game was right up my alley. However it took a looooooooooooooooooooooong time to play.
I needed something a bit quicker after Burgundy, so I taught Blood Bowl: Team Manager. Oy, another really long game. J Oh and I broke one of my own rules: Never win the game you’re teaching. Damn me.
My sister-in-law is in town so we got some other gaming in including more Dominion, Ubongo: Duel and Lost Cities.

Happy Gaming!

Board Game Madness