Tuesday 19th of October
We went directly from work with the car to Gothenburg. After parking we could
board the ferry to Kiel immediately.
We were met at the entrance by a German ompa-bompa brass orchestra. After
putting the luggage in the cabin we got something to eat and sat down in the
library as that a quite calm place. Christina read for her studies and I
prepared for the trip by reading rules. It wasn't too late before went to bed.
After
breakfast we went ashore and walked to the station and bought tickets to Essen.
Good to be prepared with train times through internet, as the lady hardly spoke
any English. We went to Hamburg Dammtor, where we changed to Dortmund, which was
the longest part of the trip. The German efficiency must have been lost, as we
were late to Dortmund and had to take a later region train, which stopped on
most stations before we arrived at Essen Hauptbahnhof. There we took the
Underground U11 to Martinstrasse and checked in at hotel Jung. It seemed as they
had changed around the hotel rooms and we had "got back" a twin room
with toilet in the corridor.
Christina
wanted to read, so I went alone for a preview of the fair halls. On the way I
met Chris Kovac from Toronto, with whom I exchanged a few words. It was easy to
enter the fair as most big ports were opened. I had a few word with the Warfrog
people before continuing. In the used games department, which had moved upstairs
this year, I actually found a copy of Age of Steam in shrink, which was a
real bargain. Probably because most gamers are waiting for the new edition in
December. It made me buy the Scandinavia and Korea expansion as well. I
also got a few more games, as most people in the stands were willing to sell
already today, although they were unpacking and preparing for the next day.
Beside
the used games I met the Swedish Gigantoskop gang, who have published Spank the
Monkey and now their new Kablamo, a
game of Russian roulette. I sat down testing it with 3 of the guys, of whom one
actually is from my home town Borås plus a Japanese guy. I found the game too
be a random and irritating kind of party game. Definitively not my taste of
game. True there are quite a lot of tactic possible, although it requires that
you remember where you have put your bullets, but I couldn't engage any
enthusiasm. Rate 2 of 10. It might appeal to those who love the terrible game Fluxx.
(I actually have a few friends who think Fluxx is good...)
Back
at the hotel Christina and I met Mik Svellov and his Danish friends, as well as
Trond Braut from Norway, with who we followed to the centre and ate at
restaurant Pfefferkorn. We recognised it as a place we had been the first year
to eat.
After
a few hours of nice company, we went back to our hotel and Mik introduced us to
a new game called Neuland by the
small publisher Eggertspiele. The rules are fairly easy, although currently you
have to download the English rules from their internet site. Still it just took
about half an hour to go through them for such a complex game. It gives a
feeling of Roads and Boats, but much simpler and definitively shorter.
You start with a forest lodge and a wood cutter each, but any player can use any
building in the game as long as it's free. There are production chains you need
to follow to finally build the victory point buildings, which are one of each
and with a higher complexity. The main problem with the game is that it is
easily to forget which resources are needed as a beginner, particularly that
each building is built with either wood or stone. Still you have to put a
production marker to it at least directly after you have built it, otherwise
someone else with use it before it’s your turn. There are 3 different kind of
hexes: plains, forests and mountains and with exception of the smelters, all
building can only be built on a certain hex type. If you have used a resource,
you have to remove your used production marker (laid down after they are used)
at the end of your turn. The inactive players had to be rules checker all the
time, as we had a tendency to forget something at least the first half of the
game. The game should normally take 1-2 hours, but we needed around 3 hours, so
we didn't finish until after 2 am. The most interesting new mechanic of the game
is the action handling. Everyone can do up to 10 actions, but you go around a
board with 11 squares with one step for each action you have done. You can never
stop on the same square as another player, as you need to move forward to the
next free square and forfeits those actions and if there is no hole to the big
pawn, you need to do less actions this round. When all have done their actions,
you move the big pawn to the last players place (you can never pass this with
any action pawn). This makes the "last person to always get up to 10
actions the next round, but the other players get less (if not the last person
chooses to do less). In the next round, you are moving in reverse order (last on
action board moves first), there can sometimes be important timing, as you want
to do less actions this round, to go before someone next round. This was I
caught a victory point building from Trond. The endgame was still very close. Rate
8 of 10, although I could have rated it higher if it had been less fiddly.
Definitive the best outsider from this fair.
Thursday 21st of October
We were very tired after just 5 hours of sleep, when we went to the fair. We met
our friends Johan Berglind and Magnus Johansson, but they wanted to just stroll
around first. As usual it was a race to the empty tables.
We
met a couple of Englishmen, Simmo and Martin, with whom we played Im
80 tagen um die Welt (Around the world in 80 days), based on the Jules Verne
famous novel. This is definitively a family game. You can control it quite well,
although lousy card draw can destroy it completely. Quite a nice game to play,
but nothing I will buy, although the theme is very appealing for an old Jules
Verne fan like me. Rate 6 of 10.
I
bought a couple of games, among them Neuland, which had impressed me, but
also Christina had liked it. In hall 5 we met our old friend Frederic Taton, who
had introduced me to many of the gamers in Essen the first time. He was looking
at Antiquity, the new game
from Splotter Spellen, which I also was curious about. But it looked even more
fiddly than Roads & Boats. Maybe I can get the chance to test it
elsewhere, as this is definitively not a game for Christina.
We
decided to try out the game Railroad Dice
nearby with Frederic. Although he is a train game freak, this wasn't his cup of
tea and it seemed as I was the only one to like it. The use of dice as either
money, share buyers or tracks makes it very different from all other games I
know. Rate 7 of 10. Unfortunately we
didn't finish the game, as he had an appointment to eat with his wife Solange.
We
joined him to the restaurant, where we met Stavros, one of the guys who fixes
Belgoludique gaming convention and I got the dates for the next one, which I
felt even more tempted to join again. After lunch we continued by ourselves and
in hall 9 we tried the game Oltremare -
Merchants of Venice, which we had heard good things about. It has a few
similarities with Bohnanza, but it's definitively a much better card game,
although some might find it more complex. We played it with a German guy and the
rules was presented by its Italian designer Emanuelle Ornella. Rate
8 of 10, which is high rating by me for a card game.
Then
we continued strolling around the hall with roleplaying stuff, which also is
quite immense. Christina didn't like all the badly done and overpriced clothes,
particularly as they were referred to as medieval. She is good at historical
clothes, so she still want to see them even if the work is bad.
Back
in hall 11, we entered the Amigo counter to test their game Der
Untergang von Pompeji, which I had translated the rules to be able to play
here. The theme is very appealing to me and the game is played in two phases.
First you set in your pawns (your inhabitants) and then they should escape the
lava in the second phase. The idea is good, but we had a feeling that it was
self playing without no real challenge, rate
3 of 10. We considered the possibility that I had made a big translation
error, but couldn't figure out how it could have been saved, so we donated the
rules sheet to the staff, which seemed to be happy to get them. (Richard
Dewsbery on hotel
Jung actually thanked me later, as he had borrowed the English rules when he
tested the game and recognised my name from this sheet!).
Although
it wasn't so late yet, we went back to the hotel to rest. I opened and checked a
couple of my new games and saw that the content of Bootleggers didn't fit the
content in the rules leaflet. We went out eating on a pizzeria before coming
back to the lounge.
There
we played Candamir - die Ersten Siedler, the new adventure game by Klaus
Teuber. I had made notes from the ProfEasy tutorial and it was in most cases
enough to get around and play it. We played with Matt (owner of Spielboy.com
site) and his friend Patrick. The game is very family in it's combats, as if you
combat and fail, you can continue, although you miss condition, which is equal
to movement points. You try to fulfil requirements from 4 different village
inhabitants, which requires 3 different kind of raw material. Those fulfilled
requirements gives victory points and you should also fix at least 3 for a
certain villager and than you get an extra (like knights in Settlers), which can
be taken by someone else who gets more points. You can also pick up ingredients
to potions when you are moving around. In every turn you start by trading, which
wasn't much done and then either Moving OR Build & Brew, that is fulfil
requirements or brew potions to add +2 on a die roll, heal +2 or force everyone
else with equal or more VP to lose condition. Every player has their own
character with different statistics on Charisma, Battle, Accuracy and Strength,
which are used in combat and resolving adventure cards, which might increase you
stats, as well as found experience counters spread out on the terrain map.
Christina saw quite soon one thing and that was that collecting cattle and goats
was a quick and easy way to fulfil the requirements, meanwhile the other of us
played as an ordinary adventure game, that is building up our characters well
first. This strategy would have been easily counteracted, if we had seen it, by
using it ourselves and then everyone could have continued as us. Patrick seemed
to dislike it, but we other liked it quite well. Rate
7 of 10.
Then
we played Oltremare for the second time with Anders Fager (designer of Hellgame)
and his friend Christian. Christian seemed to like it and played well, but
Anders couldn't be engaged in it as
he thought it wasn't enough conflicts. We were still suffering from the late
night, so we went to bed around midnight.
Friday 22nd of October
We met Johan and Magnus at the fair, as I had reserved places for the new Alea
prototype Louis XIV - Ränkespiele am Hofe des Sonnenkönigs, which is
designed by Ruediger Dorn. At the table beside we said hello to Greg Schloesser
and his friends Dale Yu and James Miller. It 's an influence type kind of game,
which is very promising. It's also different, as you have 12 turnable character
cards on the table. The main goal is to solve different kind of quests, which
comes in 3 difficulties. Each gives an advantages in the next rounds (totally 4
rounds), so you prefer the difficult ones in the beginning and easier ones in
the last round. You can also get single points by collecting shields. You play
cards, which make you put 3 influence markers (2 if a joker card) from your
private reserve, on a certain character, although it's only on the first one you
need to put at least one of the markers on this character, but the rest can be
put on a character diagonally from this, and if you still have a marker left you
can continue diagonally to this one. After you have played 4 of the 5 cards you
got for the round, you start to check each character and who has the most
influence. If someone wins the influence, he gets the advantage (mostly a tile
required for the quests) for free, but he puts his marker in the outer reserve.
The other may pay for the tile instead, if it's not only just the first player
who gets it (often on the opposite side of these character card), but they get
the marker back to the private reserve instead. If someone has won a quest tile
for free, then the character tile will be turned for the next round. On some
character tiles you have to set a certain amount of markers to get and then all
get the advantage. It could be both money or tiles and sometimes shields. You
will also get a single tile for each quest tile, which remains at the end and
cannot be used. Most important is to get “crown quest tiles”, as they works
as jokers for all other kinds. There are some luck of draw of the quest cards
and influence cards, but it can be counteracted quite well, so generally it
seems to be a good game. Rate 8 of 10.
After
this game we went with Magnus to Schmied spiele counter and got to test a copy
of Im Schatten das Kaisers. First we had to sit on the floor, but
halfway through the rules we got a table, which was much more comfortable. This
is another kind of influence game, with a new nice twist. All your characters
have voting capabilities for the Kurfürsten, as well as bishops, and these have
the possibility to vote for the Emperor, which currently is one of the players.
The twist is that the characters start out as 15 year old and ages through
turning the counters between each round. They can also marry a woman and get two
votes together. You start each round with getting income (basic = 6) and use
this income this or following rounds to buy blue or red cards. Like alchemist to
either age or make a character younger, marry a character, buy a city, move a
character etc. If you have used a majority of blue cards, you will have a boy
born for the next round, otherwise you will have a girl, which you either have
to marry to another player for a victory point or send to a monastery for a
gold. It's a nice game, but not enough good than I can play someone else’s
copy. Rate 6 of 10.
We
went together to the restaurant to have a late lunch. There we met an elder
couple from Switzerland, but both spoke Swedish well and the lady had lived in
our town Borås for a while! There we also saw the Swedish game designer Dan
Glimne at the same table, although we never spoke with him. Magnus wanted to go
shopping now, so we went away by ourselves. I wanted to test Camelot Legends,
but Christina was less keen on it, so it finished that I bought a signed copy
anyway and hoped it would be good enough.
After
some coffee and small doughnuts, we had strength to “fight us” into the
Queen Games booth and test Flandern 1302.
We got a table and found a German couple, Sasha and Steffi, with whom we played.
They loved the game, but we thought that it felt just like another, simpler
influence game, although there is apparently quite a lot of planning and timing
in the game. Rate 5 of 10.
The
time was soon 7 pm, so we left and went back to the hotel waiting for Johan and
Magnus to come there with the car. It was slightly difficult, as Johan had just
been there once. We ate at a pub nearby, although it took longer time than
anticipated. Magnus told us that he had bought around 50 games, but it was the
first time for him in Essen and he had only 25 games before...
Magnus says: "I spent less than 15 euros per game on average. Smaller
games, like card decks normally costs around 5 euros and large boxes you can
find from 15-25 euros. This is less than half of the price level for games in
shops in Sweden. Futhermore most games never appear in our shops."
Back
at the hotel we played the newly bought Bohn
Hansa, that is Bohnanza as a board game. It turned out to be a nice
game, although we didn't use the trading as much and cleverly as we understood
that we could have done. As we started late, we wasn't finished until midnight
and they went back to their hotel. Rate 7
of 10.
Meanwhile
the lounge had filled up with many more or less known gamers playing everywhere.
I spoke a few words with Bruno Cathala who was playing his new prototype La Malediction de la
Momie (=the curse of the mummy), which at least has a nice
appearance, although I didn't got to know much about the game itself. He played
with Anye Sellers from Dancing Eggplant Games and a couple of unknown guys. I
also spoke with Trond, who played Ys
with two Norwegians: Johanna and Ruben and they apparently knew about me from
the Norwegian board game forum, which I’m attending sometimes, as well as from
my site. According to Trond, Ys is a game which shares many traits of Morgenland.
It was time to go to bed as we had to go up early.
Saturday 23rd of October
After breakfast we took U11 to the railway station and the first train to
Dortmund. We got some sandwiches to eat, as it wouldn't be any lunch today. Next
train change was in Hamburg Dammtor to Kiel, where we arrived around 3:45, in
good time for the ferry, so we had something to eat at the station. Christina
spent the evening to study, meanwhile I unpacked and checked all of my games.
Sunday 24th of October
We arrived well in Gothenburg at 9 am and just had to drive back to Borås,
where we arrived just after 10 pm.
It
seems as all those Essen trips have different character. This year it was
unfortunately less gaming than I was used to, but I hope to catch up with this
on the convention in Borås in 2 weeks.
My
list of new games:
·
Lost Valley, 20
Euro
·
Bootleggers, 40
Euro
·
Age of Steam,
27 Euro (used in shrink)
·
AoS expansion #3
(Scandinavia & Korea), 12 Euro
·
Candamir – die
Ersten Siedler, 23 Euro
·
Return of
Heroes, 35 Euro
·
Neuland, 45
Euro
·
Railroad Dice,
30 Euro
·
Oltremare –
Merchants of Venice, 12 Euro
· Bohn Hansa, 20 Euro
· Camelot Legends, 20 Euro
·
Das Zepter von
Zavandor (based on Outpost), 30 Euro
·
Runebound
expansion – Shadow of Margath, 6 Euro
·
Ticket to Train
expansion – Mystery Train, free
Carl-Gustaf
Samuelsson
Christina Arrindell
This site is created and maintained by:
Carl-Gustaf Samuelsson