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Alright, so it’s out a little later than I would like, but here you go. My Five & Dimes lists and what I think about them.

General Comments. I really diversified this year it looks like. Which I hope to do less of in the future. I really wish that I would play games I love more than playing a game I’ve never played. This year, that didn’t happen much, except with those games that others in my group love that I like as well, and usually am quite happy to play.

Dimes
Werewolf 30 – I don’t see werewolf not making my dime list any year for probably the rest of my life. I love this game, and whenever I get enough people together for a game, I tend to be interested in getting it played and pushing it onto people.

Cities 10 – I played this one for the first time in March of this year at Tennessee Games Day. I loved it, and immediately purchased a copy of the game. It’s got a lot going for it for the insanely quick play time. Most of the plays of this game happen back to back as well, as usually since it’s over in about 15 minutes, people tend to want to try it again. Couple that with three totally different scoring methods, and you have a really great filler that will probably show up for a long time to come.

Nickels
Battlestar Galactica 8 – Love this game, not so sure about the expansion yet, bu this game is really good, with an awesome theme. This one will likely be somewhere on this list next year too, as nearly everyone I know loves it too.

Ghost Stories 8 – I really liked this game a lot when I first started playing it, and we played it several times, but it is starting to feel samey to me now, and I don’t know that it will get very many plays over the next year. I tend to think that Pandemic, BSG, and Shadows will steal back my Coop game plays away from this one.

No Thanks! 8 – Really love this filler, but sometimes forget it’s in the shelf since the box is so small, I need to do like my friend MA and just keep up with lists for different numbers of players of everything that I have available. I need to set up a database before I can do that though, as I doubt I’ll want to update the lists that much.

Race for the Galaxy 8 – Love this game too, and it got a lot of play at the beginning of the year, but suffers from the same problem as some of the other fillers in that I have this one in a small box for space reasons, and I tend to forget about it when we’re looking for something to play.

Zendo 7 – This one has some lovers and some haters in our group, but I tend to find when I’m at a convention, there’s always a little time for at least a few rules to get done.

Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game 6 – This game is so much fun, although it has a lot of luck and stuff, but makes up for it with theme, and with the story you get to tell everyone about how your game went when you are finished.

Manila 6 – Manila is a great little gambling game, that I consciously tried to get played more this year. Glad to see it made the list. I tend to speed this one up a tad by starting them on the 0′s rather than the bottom level. I think that makes it a little more tolerable, by cutting at least 20 minutes off the game.

Bang! 5 – Played a lot at the beginning of the year, when we were still going to the OMGA Group, but this one waned late in the year when we had a core group that met every week. This one will always get some play, just not sure how much among the weekly game group. Probably none.

FITS 5 – Found this one and bought it at the same time I bought Cities. This one has replaced Ubongo as my puzzle game introducer to new people. As this one is puzzly like Ubongo, but has much better and easier scoring.

Manoeuvre 5 – Glad this one made it onto the list too. I don’t tend to play a lot of two player only games, but this is one of the first ones that I have liked to grab when it was appropriate. I really like the different aspects of the armies, and how they interact with each other.

Small World 5 – And finally Small World. Days of wonder game from this year, and not one that I would have picked up if it wasn’t for an insanely good deal. But I’m glad I did, everyone likes it, I like it enough to play it, and my problems with always having the same board can be addressed with a variant online. This one is a good one for introducing Axis & Allies/Risk players to New style board gaming as well.

Conclusion
So, that’s all I’ve got for this year, there are a few that just barely missed the cut, but I’ve decided not to talk about them at all out of respect for the format. Hopefully it will give me incentive to try to get one or two of the honorable mentions into the fray next year.

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, Play Statistics, playlists

I know it’s a bit late in the year, seeing as how it’s the end of February and all. But since the amalgamated stats have not come out yet, I figure I’m still on time.

Dimes
Werewolf – 30
Race for the Galaxy – 26

Fives
Last Night on Earth – 9
Mr. Jack – 8
Pandemic – 8
Blokus – 6
Descent: Journeys in the Dark – 5
No Thanks! – 5
Ra – 5
Tichu – 5

As far as my Dimes go, Werewolf will always be on there, it seems that’s what I spend most of my nights doing while I’m at a Con. Of which I regularly attend two per year. Race for the Galaxy was played bunches when I first got it. But I petered out on it toward the end of the year. I will still play it, it will likely make at least the Fives list next year, if it doesn’t quite make Dimes. It packs so many decisions into a really small amount of time.

On My Nickels list. I’m surprised by Descent: Journeys in the Dark showing up. I wouldn’t have expected it. It is a good game, but I played it more times last year than Age of Steam? Wow… And to Last Night on Earth barely missing the Dimes list. Sorry. I’ll try harder next year. If you haven’t played it, and you love Zombies. What are you waiting for. If you hate Zombies and the idea of Zombies games. You and I share something in common. But Last Night on Earth is a good game where the stories are memorable. I still remember KF our priest suicidal bombing run into a train of Zombies trying to enter the mansion over six months ago!!! Try Asking me about the Le Havre game I played on Saturday six months from now.

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, Game Collection, Play Statistics, Stories

In my very first Board Game Purge Post, I said I was listed as owning 270 games in the BGG Database.

Back then, and still today, that number is actually fairly padded because a lot of expansions, and add-on’s etc. are listed in that number as well.

I’ve just closed off 2008, and I checked my profile. I have 262 games listed as owned…

So, all the games I’ve sold, I’ve managed to drop only 8 games lower in the database. I’m not quite sure I understand why. I know my shelves are noticeably more thinned out. Did I add that many expansions?

I know I did add about 6 more Age of Steam expansions this year. Which manage to fit in the Age of Steam box. So that’s part of the number. Most of those are really just sheets of paper.

I only made two major game orders this year, the first being in February, the last being in December. I did pick up two games at BGG.con, Battlestar Galactica and Galaxy Trucker.

Aside from that, I have not added any games, each of the game orders was about 8 or 9 games maybe. So with all I sold at Tennessee Games Day, along with all I sold at BGG.con, I’m not exactly sure where they all came from…

I still need to go through my profile and make sure my owneds actually match up with what I have I think.

Anyway, I’ll still be on a purge goal next year I think, though I’m not sure there’s very much chaff I can cut anymore, I feel fairly bare right now.

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, Game Collection, Play Statistics, Purge

I posted a geeklist with my BGG.con Experience. I don’t want to duplicate that here, so if you’re interested, head on over: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/36959

As far as pictures. I took the camera and snapped a few, I don’t have them loaded in yet. But I will soon, and I’ll attach them to this post.

written by Chris \\ tags: BGG.con, Boardgames, Play Statistics

This past weekend was the aforementioned Tennessee Game Days that I had mentioned earlier.

I packed up the Girls on Friday afternoon and headed that way. It’s not to far. I was meeting Judy (Val’s Mom) in Mt. Juliet in order to drop the girls off for the weekend with Nana. Plus it left All of us out of Mom’s hair for the weekend while she set up for a Yard Sale.

I mainly went to hopefully go a long way toward helping me on a board game purge. I think it’s safe to say I accomplished my mission there. I sold almost everything I took. Ended up making enough money to pay for the hotel and any food I ate. As well as the gas there and back. Also had a few extra bucks to put into the bank account and pay off a few bills. But the main goal. I dropped about 40 games off of my shelves and closets. This was the key.

I had some problems. Alot of the stuff I had put higher prices on, in order to have them not sell so that I would have to bring them home, ended up being the first things to go. That was a little bit disappointing. But of course, I didn’t take anything “mission critical” or the like. Everything I took that I was interested in. I have some ability to be able to play should I really want to. Either here, or in Memphis or the like.

As far as the games. I had a great weekend filled with lots of games.

Race for the Galaxy got played a couple of times. I really like Race more and more. But it is getting played alot, just because it fills an almost perfect niche. I still don’t have a copy for myself. That’s one of the things I am looking for eventually.

I tried a couple of notable new games. Through the Ages, Brass, and Wabash Cannonball.

Through the Ages was really good, albeit a long game. I really liked it though, and it did feel like a nice build your engine civ style game. But again, still took a long time, and the pieces are quite fiddly with all the tiny bits of wood and stuff you have to use to acknowledge your people and advances.

Brass was kind of meh to me. I didn’t think it was all that great. I had not really been wanting to play it all that much. But I love Martin Wallace games typically and it was being played, so I figured why not. Well the card draw kind of felt limiting to me. And it had a lot of similar feeling that Canal Mania did. A game which I did not enjoy at all. It was only okay. I would play it again, but beyond another time or two, I’m not sure this one will be a clear staple that a couple of the other Martin Wallace Games have become (*cough* Age of Steam *cough*).

Wabash Cannonball on the other hand. Was a 45 minute melding of a game concept that I absolutely enjoyed. A train themed economic game, you buy and sell shares in railroad companies in the coal area of the U.S. during the industrial age. Streamlined to the nth degree. What you are left with is pure economic maneuvering and gameplay with complex diplomatic set ups which make a person your friend one turn, and your enemy the next. This game is sparse on the components, only a paper map, a few wooden cubes, and some cut out pieces of paper. But the design of this one is great, and one I could see becoming a truly fast filler with all kinds of meat behind it. However, Replayability with the same people over time might suffer because of the lack of random elements in the game.

A few other things got to the table as well. I love these game weekends, because though I slow down and like to chat and talk to people, and friends I haven’t seen since the last convention. You still get way more gaming in than you hoped or even cared too. I got to play Breaking Away, Medici, Survive, Crokinole, Um Reifenbrite, Attika, Java, Pandemic, Ra, and a couple others here or there. Had a blast, I hope circumstances will allow me to make it back again next year.

written by Chris \\ tags: Game Collection, Kids, Play Statistics, playlists, Purge, Tennessee Game Days