New Year Resolutions
So the New Year is upon us and in many parts of the world 2010 has already been ushered in, but to all I wish a Happy New Year! For me, this has been a fun an interesting year particularly in gaming. Many new games were played and many old favorites found themselves to the table. But for the past few years I bought games at an alarming rate where it felt like for every three games I bought I managed to get one to the table before I bought my next three, but this past year I have started to really focus my tastes and start to ask myself “What do I really want from gaming?” And to that question I developed a lot of different answers but through those answers, I realized that about 50% of my collection really needed to go. That was my resolution for ‘09 - To trim down and focus my collection, which for the most part was a success, though I didn’t hit my 50% goal. An amendment to that resolution was to not buy so much, which again has succeeded where a few years ago there’d be two or three “must-have” titles but this year it seems like a “must-have” title for me only came around about once a month.
So again this year I’m looking at doing much of the same - Ship out more games than I bring in. The bringing in part shouldn’t be a problem because my answers to “What do I want from gaming?” really helped in focusing and limiting my purchases. The problem is I know there’ll be games next year that are “must-buys” and the games to ship out are getting fewer and fewer. But this is my problem to deal with (and really not that much of a problem) but this has always been the time of the year to set some goals and I plan on following suit. So if I were to sum it up in one phrase, the 2010 mantra for me is to: Play more of what I own and buy only the games I know will be played.
‘Til Next Time - Happy Gaming
And a Happy New Year
LvT
I had the pleasure of trying out this new game last night, and I gottah say - It’s pretty damn sweet. At it’s core, Summoner Wars is a non-collectible tactical card game, where cards move and attack on a board much like pawns in a board game. In a nutshell, each player begins the game with a single “summoner” and a small cadre of minions. The goal of the game is to manoeuvre across the board and kill the enemy summoner - like in chess, you kill the enemy head honcho, and you win.
A starter comes with everything you need to play - two complete race decks, dice, wound markers, rule book, and a game mat. With the exception of the game mat all of the components are of great quality. The cards are printed on nice stock and feature really great looking art. The rule book is also nicely done, and easy to understand. You should be able to read through the rules and get to playing in ten minutes or so. The game mat is functional, but is simply a black and white print which refuses to lay flat. While not a big deal, it’s quality stands out like a sore thumb when compared to the quality of the rest of the starter. I can imagine that many people who adopt this game will be looking for alternatives, or simply making their own.
Well, like all great games, the devil is in the details, and the subtle rules each race employs are what makes this game really shine. For example, the elves have units that teleport around the board, archers that shoot 4 squares instead of 3, and warriors that automatically hit each time they attack. The orcs are powerful, but unreliable, with some of their units able to move across the board and attack multiple times in a turn, so long as the dice gods are in a good mood. Generally, a given unit has but a single special rule, and it’s easy to memorize them, and begin to formulate strategies with them even before your first game is over. 
Anima: Tactics - 
Horus Heresy:
Recently it seems solitaire games have been making a bit of a comeback. During the golden days of Avalon Hill them and many other companies put out a good amount of these games: Mosby’s Raiders, Raid on St. Nazaire, Carrier, Tokyo Express and Ambush just to name a few. But during that time as computer games started to rise in popularity, the demand for solitaire games started to diminish and it is easy to see why. To design a good solitaire game there needs to be a challenge for the player to learn and overcome. The game needs a system to act as an artificial opponent that acts rationally but in also an unpredictable manner. Where a computer games take all that work and put it “behind the curtain” so to speak, solitaire boardgames puts that behind the curtain work in the hands of the player. In addition solitaire games typically take a lot more development time to really come up with a good system as well as a system that holds up to repeated plays. But all that said there are a handful of those that offer some engaging game play but is also pretty simple and don’t bog down in mechanics and minute details and B-17: Queen of the Skies happens to be one of those games. 
