Category: Board Games

Roleplaying and board games reviews, podcasts, videos and interviews

Some of my Favorite Games

I’ve been a bad blogger. I haven’t written anything for this blog since January 15, and here it the last day of March. My sponsor, GMS Magazine, tried to jog me into action a month ago, and it almost worked, but I got busy or lazy or both. It isn’t hard for me to get lazy–I was born that way. And I was working like crazy on Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls in January and February. I’m still working like crazy on that game, but I could have found time to say something about other games I’ve played or liked.

X-Wing

Well, I had a buddy over yesterday for an X-Wing game day, and after playing my third game, I was hooked. If you want me to just cut to the chase, here goes: X-Wing is the smartest, most entertaining fighter skirmish game I’ve ever played. This says a lot, because I’ve played probably twenty of these games, from Full Thrust to Renegade Legion to Battle Fleet Mars to A Call To Arms; I’ve got a lot of experience with these games and X-Wing is easily the most approachable and tightest. The draw, for me, is that the game hits that magical sweet spot where complexity and practicality intersect. Very few games ever hit that spot, generally erring either on the side of simulation or oversimplification. X-Wing, however, gets it absolutely perfect, with enough complexity to make it a game worth playing while having very simple, understandable, and intuitive rules that don’t get in the way of the players. It literally blows every other fighter combat game into itty bitty rippy bits.

Coup

Much as technology and my bank balance tend toward miniaturization, there seems to have been a recent trend for compact, fast but beautifully formed games, ‘microgames’ I believe the kids are calling them. The poster boy, or rather poster princess, for these recent offerings is undoubtedly the well-regarded Love Letter, a game that revolves around you passing a note of affection to the object of your amorous desires without the knowledge and interference of your fellow players. Brilliant.

[Review] D-Day Dice

The whole idea of the game is that you play Australian, French, American, and British forces attempting to storm a beach and take out a Nazi bunker. This is accomplished by rolling dice every turn in order to gain resources which will allow you to progress through the mine-laden terrain.

[Review] Trajan

Trajan is a game from the labyrinthine mind of designer Stefan Feld, who also sired Castles of Burgundy, amongst others, into an unready world. Like many of his oeuvre the connection between the actual gameplay and the goodest of good emperors is perhaps tenuous, but you don’t buy a box of this many pastel wooden bits for a gung-ho weapon wielding imperial simulation, you buy it for the chance to experience the interlocking mechanics brought forth from the designers brain, and, given time, hone or even perfect your use of them.

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