A variety of games

In the last few weeks with my brother visiting from London and Steve over from Melbourne, I’ve been able to do quite a bit of gaming. With Chris, I’ve played Twilight Struggle, a two-player game of the Cold War. We made a lot of mistakes as we played, which comes from Chris’s having played with a more experienced player in the past and my not having read the rules. However, we figured out where we went wrong and will know better next time! It plays very well, with a clean card-driven system.

We’ve also had a game of Hammer of the Scots, but made even more mistakes and hope to get a game of it tomorrow with a better grasp of the rules. It’s a campaign for control of Scotland during the reign of Edward I of England. It’s likely to be a good deal bloodier next time around!

With Steve we played a couple of three-player games; Seven Wonders is a really nifty civilization-building game that plays very quickly, but is a good deal of fun. Elasund involves developing one’s power in a city set in the world of Catan. It has a Viking feel to the artwork and provides good scope for sabotaging one’s opponents.

With Steve, besides the DBA day at the AWC, I got in a game of SBH (Song of Blades and Heroes) and another game of DBA. I’ll post battle reports soon.

Finally, with the kids and Chris I’ve had a game of Ticket to Ride, railway building in Europe, and Bohnanza, a beanfarming trading game. These are fun games with more strategy than a lot the family board games I grew up with.