by Mike Fogus
I've been trying to keep a list of my three favorite games discovered every month. I try to limit it to three, but I'll also discuss some of the other games that I played that were also new(ish) to me. Without further ado, here are my favorite three discoveries for the month of February 2016.see the previous entry...
Xiangqi
Even after a lifetime of playing Chess, Xiangqi is surprisingly tough for me. That's not to say that I'm a great Chess player, instead I thought that the game's tactics would be obvious. Instead, the piece synergies and movement limitations are unique enough to throw me for a loop. For example, the whole palace limitation of the General and Advisors is intriguing but definitely something that I still have trouble integrating into my search. Further, when I first thought about the elephants I was struck how worthless they seemed. However, after a half dozen games I see now that they are very important to palace defense, but I'm hopeless so far in making them do so effectively. One other point (amongst many others) that has tied my brain into knots are the cannons and their reliance on other pieces for capture. This is very different, and it twists my mind in a good way. I look forward to playing more games in hopes of discovering how they can be used more effectively.
Gipsy King
I've had Gipsy King for a while, but only had a chance to play it this month and I'm sorry that I waited so long. In any case, on first blush the game doesn't really seem like a game at all -- totally obvious. However, once you realize that the depth of the game comes from the turn-queue management then it really opens up. The game is almost entirely tactical, but that being the case it plays breezy and is a great super-filler. I typically do poorly on games that are centered around manipulating turn-order, so it's no surprise that I've yet to win a game so far. I've only played this with 3 so far (which has been great), so I'd like to get a few 2p games in to see how different it is.
Patchwork
However, my favorite game discovered this month is Uwe Rosenberg's Patchwork. This is a stupendous game with the perfect marriage of a few of my favorite things: time track, simplicity, elegant economy, quick play and polyominoes. With such a simple set of rules (the rulebook is one of the best I've ever seen) it's amazing how deep the game can get. The game is all about the delicate balance of 2-3 concerns (turns, spaces, income) and it blows my mind. This is a top-50 game for me without a doubt. I'm tempted to devote a month to Uwe in the future.
Speaking of which, with the addition of Patchwork to my collection it hits me that while I like the Rosenberg heavy games that I've played (Agricola> Le Havre> Caverna), it's his smaller, lighter games that really have staying power for me. Patchwork easily finds a place amongst the my personal Uwe pantheon: Klunker, Bohnanza, and now Patchwork.
Good show Uwe... good show!
February was a strong month for abstracts, but I did get in one other that I liked called Virus Wars. VW is a neat little pen and paper game that I enjoyed very much and really look forward to playing on some upcoming plane trips.
In the Euro-realm I got in a few "classics" that I've always been curious about. For about 12 hours I was sure that Le Havre had overtaken Agricola for my favorite worker-placement joint. First of all, the game is slick and plays intuitively and has some nice decisions along the way. As a nice feature, I LOVE the fact that you only have one worker. Too many times than I can count I've been blasted in Agricola by failing to make worker-babies or making too many worker-babies and so I was initially enamored by the fact that I didn't have to think about that aspect. However, after sleeping on it I came to realize that although I hate worker-pool growth, without it Agricola wouldn't have that tasty scarcity that I love about it. Le Havre is a tight game, but it just didn't give me that throat-tightening feeling... though I'm willing to believe that I may just need more plays to get there.
More so than Le havre, I was very excited to play El Grande. I've never heard a bad thing about this classic and so I had high expectations going in. Thankfully, the game was fun and lived up to the hype. It's not a perfect game for me, but I did like the Risk-like feel and it had some very nice opportunity for interaction and some negotiation. I'd play this again in a heartbeat and if someone would release it with a Game of Thrones theme I could get my wife to play every day.
Finally, I managed to get into a game of Formula De with Wayne and Knut and it was way more fun than I ever would have imagined. For various reasons I have a deep seeded dislike for all things car-racing, but I did like this game -- probably because it came with a bunch of awesome dice.
Fillers are always fun and thanks to Wayne I discovered a couple of neat little dice-rollers: Hostage Negotiator and Bottom of the 9th. There's not much to say about H.N. except that we played it as a co-op and had a good time yelling at the good and bad dice rolls. However, 9th was a nice nostalgic experience that took me back to my childhood filled with and terrible sticks of gum, Topps cards, and Strat-o-matic dice rolling. It was fun. I especially liked the speed-rolling to "simulate" beat out a ground-ball -- or not.
Finally, in the statute of limitations category I got in a game of Triominoes with my younger son while waiting at a local community center. I think I must have played this many many years ago... I could stand to wait many many more to play again. That's all that I'll say about that.
Onward to March (and perfect information)...