guest post from Han: Rant for 2011

Something a little different, a guest post from my long-time gaming buddy Han. The last time he posted something here was... (trying to count...) a very long time ago.

---

2011 was a tough year, I sat for my last professional exam and frankly I am getting too old; struggling between working, studying and family. The good news is I still managed to get in a fair amount of gaming and it certainly helped to maintain my sanity and kept me going; a moment of joy amidst all the strenuous work and obligations.

Memorable games of 2011:

• New games:
1. Merchants & Marauders (1-hour game for us, this shows how fast we are playing)
2. Sid Meier’s Civilization (another 1 hour game, it’s like a filler game for us)
3. Dominant Species (takes 3 hours however fast we played)
4. Nightfall (got both expansions)
5. Omen: Reign of War (beautiful art work, hope to play more)
6. Labyrinth: War on Terror (1 play, incomplete)
7. Sekigahara (1 play)
8. Washington’s War (1 play, incomplete)

Merchants & Marauders
• Older games only played this year:
1. Maria (cool 3-players wargame, I preferred this over Friedrich)
2. Liberte (another Martin Wallace classic)
3. Here I Stand (highlight of our gaming last year, refer to Hiew’s session report)
4. Successors (3rd Edition, interesting game where political struggle with marriage, legitimacy, assassination, betrayal and even Alexander’s corpse will influence the military struggle)

Maria

Here I Stand
• Unimpressed new games:
1. 51st State (sold it to Hiew after 1 play, too dry for me)
2. The Adventurers (components are cool though)
3. War of the Roses: Lancaster vs Yorks (didn’t like the double guessing stuff)
4. Irondale (definitely not as impressive as Omen)
• Unplayed games - There are of course loads of unplayed games, but my 2 grails are:
1. Magic Realm (tinkering a bit on Realmspeak, comfortable with rules up to magic, natives, multiple combat)
2. 7 Ages (have not completed 1 game yet, someone should make an iPad version)

My gaming group:

The core members are Hiew, Allen and I. I am fortunate to have them as gaming buddies because we play fast, I mean, we will try to do simultaneous play whenever possible (even making moves in advance sometimes before our turn) and will tease and label each other AP (analysis paralysis) if he’s even slightly slower. We are not rules lawyers, we allow re-dos and take-back moves if someone misses something unintentionally; no one is a sore loser.

Sadly, I will be leaving them in 2012 as I will be going for overseas training for the whole year.

iOS boardgames:

I have an iPad 2 and it’s a great time for boardgaming on the iOS platform.

I get to try older games that I seldom play anymore (Puerto Rico, Caylus), long games that I am unlikely to play face to face (Titan), games that I have never tried before (Loot and Scoot). My favourite is Ascension, Chronicles of the Godslayer.

But because of the announcement of games having an iOS version, there are games that I will not be getting the hard copy such as Yggdrasil, Summoner’s Wars, Thunderstone, Le Havre, all the Victory Point games. Can’t wait for Through the Ages to come out.

Kids games:

I will try to play more games now with my kids; they usually enjoy playing with the game pieces. The games they can make their own decisions are Rat-a-tat-cat and Angry Bird the Card Game.

Games that they have played with assistance include:

1. Space Crusade
2. Talisman
3. Tales of the Arabian Nights
4. Monsters Menace America
5. Battleball
6. Awful Green Things from Outer Space
7. Castle Keep

Tales of the Arabian Nights

Trading:

Looking at my collection, I realise that I will not miss half of them if they were gone; unfortunately Malaysia does not have an active trade market. By the way, I am the number 1 trader in Malaysia according to BGG with the grand total of 8 trades. I do get a lot of trade requests but most of them think I am in the US as the Malaysian flag is very similar to the US flag if you are not looking carefully.

Most gamers are nice folk but I got a bad apple this year. Some dude from Canada asking me whether I am willing to sell/trade my copy of Nightmare before Christmas TCG (starters plus a few booster packs). Looking over his profile, his group only plays horror-themed games, which is intriguing as I am a horror fan myself. I offered to give him the game for free asking only for the cost of international shipping. In short, he got the game but I never heard from him again, well, I am just disappointed, naïve me.