Last weekend we had some friends visiting us with sole purpose - 1856. We have played it together couple of times already and with every play they like it more and more... and despite of what everybody's saying it's not too difficult to teach. First time it was 40 minutes to explain the rules... unlike first times of Vinhos, for example :) But nowadays I believe that Vinhos can be taught as well with 30mins.

Anyway, as I had more 18xx-experience than visitors, I took different approach this time, with trying to maximize the income, instead of evil scheming. Nevertheless it was an very interesting game, as one of my companies got never higher than it's par price (67) and it got also out of yellow zone only during last set of OR's. But this was also one of my keys to victory, as comp being in brown zone I was able to purchase 80% of it's stocks - and then run it with two permanent trains. It wasn't planned but turned out as an excellent opportunity... just like another move with receiving the presidency of CGR. Those two combined ensured me first place with my wife being second (by ca 1000$) and then one of the guests by also ca 1000$.

There were times when I thought that 1856 is "the bestest evar" in 18xx-series... but now I'm not sure if it's even in my personal TOP3. 1817 has an excellent M&A side, just like 1841... the classic version of 1830 is very cut-throating (but not the variants) - and also 1861 (that's either hated or loved - but mostly hated) with it's high learning curve in being totally different from others.

Tuesday Gaming Night. First I had couple of plays of Making Profit, then Incan Gold and No Thanks - was lucky in all those games. Then Kingdom Builder with 5 players - got my personal high score with Shepherds - 52 points when game ended. Bad thing was that with other two scoring cards (Citizens and Lords) I got only 18 points in total... but luckily my solid lead with Shepherds gave me victory this time. Excellent game. Suggest, like Mikko says :)

Left early, due to UEFA Euro 2012 - Go, England!

Friend of mine organized small Bootcamp during last weekend, so only wargames were played there. First we started with my personal favourite: Combat Commander + Mediterranean. I lost almost all melees there and opponent refused to advance (I wonder why) after discovering to what wing I had my heavy MG's hidden. I was defending as Germans and lost finally as was not able to push back the waves of Romanians. First I was excited to play as defender but later I discovered there were only quite a few defender-special cards. Good game, anyway.

Pocket Battles: Celts vs Romans then. Small and fast game and pretty nice one, too. Set up armies and then attack. First round was bloody and furious, managed to win the game after first attack of second round :) I'd say that the virtue of this game is in it's shortness. Wargame filler, I'd even say.

Sekigahara. My first game of this (some months ago) was a failure, as I rushed into battle with the leader I was supposed to keep safe at any cost (insta-win to opponent). This time I picked my battles, got majority on one wing and then moved slowly towards enemy's main castle. After defeating first point of resistance overran small army group - and to my big surprise it contained their major leader. Yay!

Next day started with No Retreat. I played as Germans and therefore had a blast with my panzers driving towards Moscow and southern troops having fun near Sevastopol. And then autumn started. And winter. Long winter. With spring turning also into winter :) What this meant was that my panzers were next to Moscow but were not able to retreat or attack either, so they just built the defence and waited for summer. Luckily southern front was able to break through the enemy lines (as majority of Russian troops were defending Moscow) and conquer Sevastopol plus several other smaller cities. As a result of this I gathered enough victory points to achieve victory, without conquering Moscow.

After that it was time for "Game of the weekend" - Virgin Queen. I knew nothing about it, except it was based on Here I Stand (I hadn't played). Sides were selected randomly and I got to play as Ottomans. They had quite straightforward strategy, as I found out quite soon - as having no interest in catholic-protestant power struggle nor political power play, they just raised the armies and conquered everything they could. And - it proved to be succesful as after 5 hrs of play and conquering Madrid with Ottomans I was declared as winner :) The beauty of this win was the fortunate flow of events: Ottomans were always first in turn order, so my troops in Spain were able to start the siege of Madrid with no problems - but the siege was always solved only during your next turn. Luckily I had in my hand event card "Gregorian calender" that allowed one power to make his move anytime he wanted - even immediately after his own original move. So I started siege, declared the use of gregorian calender - and successfully conquered Madrid.

God's Playground. This game we played even twice. First time was late Saturday night (with finishing appr. 2AM) and after that we discussed about several possibilities and strategies for about hour more... so it was natural to have another blast at Sunday morning. Excellent game with plenty of possibilities - I really wonder how did it happen that I had no information about this game earlier at all....

Then it was time for something lighter, so we choose Nexus Ops. I had played it only once several years ago and had not very good memories about it... but this time the mechanics felt pretty good. Simple movement with enforced battles and increasing victory conditions. Nice one.

And for the end, another of my high-rated favourites - not especially wargame, though, but more like economy-war game, i.e. Brass. You can see that Wallace was most played designer this weekend :) Nobody had played it for a year or so, but the feeling was good... remembering the combinations, setting yourself to have 4 actions in a row etc etc. Brilliant game, worth even just for an experience. With 3 players it went a bit more than 2 hours.

Oh, and of course we played my game - Making Profit: The Boardgame (received couple of samples at Friday) - do I have to say that it's a good game? :) Originally I was planning to have one game and listen to the comments then... but it ended in 6-7 plays in a row. Surprisingly good feedback - and this game can be preordered now as well :)

Besides the boardgames, sometimes it's good to try something different for variety. Hattrick, for example - an online football (soccer, eh) team management game. It's simple enough (you don't need to worry at level "where should my left footed forward or right footed defender play") but allows also tactical/strategical planning and skill management, if you want that. If not, you can just put your team together and have fun - almost like I do :) Actually I played this game first during 2002-2007 but lost motivation then and team was suspended after some time. Now I registered again and managed to win my division on 6th (lowest) league, therefore moving higher into 5th.

Totally another area is World of Tanks. Like a friend of mine said: "Tanks - you can't go wrong with them". In theory it's team play with tanks, but in practice you're pretty much on your own. In random battles (I only play them as I'm not in any clan) the goal is simple - each side has 15 tanks and your side win by capturing their base or killing all enemies. After the battle, based on your inflicted damage, capture points, etc etc you get experience and money. With experience you can research new tanks/equipment, with money you buy them. Oh, and if you get killed/damaged during battle you have to pay the repair cost - so especially in higher tier battles (with more advanced=costly tanks) the result is not always positive. Despite of reaching tier 7 (out of 10) with some tanks I admit I'm still pretty much on n00b level there.

And of course 18xx PBEM - to scratch my that itch. Thanks to playing by e-mail I've had a chance to try out lots of different 18xx titles and chat with people with similar hobby - from Finland to Poland to Portugal. Actually I'm even participating in "5 Nations 1830 Tournament" at the moment - representing the Finnish team as legionnaire - and it's pretty much fun. My group consists of people from Quebec, Rome, San Diego and London - pretty cool.

Tuesday Gaming Night + some solo play yesterday. Second play of Blood Bowl: Team Manager - The Card Game - and another second place. But when considering that I played with elves (vs orcs, kravens and chaos) it was quite a good result. This game is still fun when you imagine a bit what may happen on a field - like when elf tries to tackle orc :) Fortunately elves had their ents with them - and when 5-star Deeproot appeared on court, nobody wanted to mess with him. Oh, and the ultra-violent flavour texts... "Hey, Bob, did you see that hit? - Yes, Jim, no need for toothpick for him anymore!"

Wiz-War. If you pose a threat, people will harass you. And you're not going to survive in 1 vs 3 situation :) First time to see player eliminated - unfortunately that player was me :)

Rune Age. More I play it, more I like it solo (although I'm not normally very fond of solo playing). It's just that the PvP combat seems a bit... pointless. Esepecially if you win only by defeating Enemy - like in Dragonlords scenario. I'm also suprised that there is so much variety packed into this card game: you can play it solo, competitively, in co-op mode and also in 1 vs many mode (i.e. everybody vs First Player). And there's expansion coming out as well. Interesting.

Last weekend was quite loaded with games - another boardgamer had birthday party. First we started with 7 Wonders + Leaders expansion. I had played with this expansion once, really long time ago so I basically remembered nothing about it and had to be briefed about rules. Neither of my neighbours was rich of resources so practically I could use only those I produced myself. This set certain limitations and at the end I just struggled to avoid the last place (7p game). Next game (6p) I had already better understanding and built as many resource cards as possible, so thet during third age I was able to build all kinds of structures with no purchases. Managed to get decent leaders and guilds, so won this game. I'd say that Leaders adds a lot to the base game.

Blood Bowl: Team Manager - The Card Game: I was afraid first that this game depends on knowledge of American Football with quarterbacks and so on - but luckily it was quite simple area control (if I can say so?) card game. The flavour texts are excellent, though, and with good crowd there's lot to laugh about. 4-player game was quite tight at the end with scores 34-34-34-31.

Invasion from Outer Space: The Martian Game. This game was another I've had doubts about regarding being the possible LNoE clone with just another theme pasted on. Luckily it wasn't - instead IfOS was quite fast ameritrash in a good way: lots of cards, lots of dicerolls. The only complaint I had was that with 4 players you had to gather 8 VP's (sorry, Terror Points) - and you can get them by mainly conquering different locations - but the alien strength varied by race from 2-4 and it was quite important modifier for conquests. Yes, you guessed correctly - I had those 2-strength brainiacs - but as the gameplay is quite volatile I was the one who managed to conquer the capital by successful card combinations. I'd say that short gameplay is what makes this game good - you'll know that one way or another - it will be over in 30-45 minutes, so you don't have to worry about unlucky dicerolls for long.

Last couple of plays of Giants have been really disastrous - I've been last by large margin and I don't even have an idea about what I'm doing differently, compared to times I won several games in a row. But it's still a good game, though.

London is a game with simple rules yet elegant design. Building large or small city, taking loans or building reliable income source, managing poverty... lots of decisions. This time (4p game) I took out 3 loans quite early in the game and managed even to pay back 2 of them at the end of game - but at least I had nice money reserve during game so was able to build and purchase almost as much as I wanted. City size was equal to burroughs I owned, so no poverty from running the city - and as a result of one city card I got also no poverty from cards in my hand. But the game end was triggered a tad too early so after all I lost first place with tie breaker :)

Rune Age is a strange game. First time I played (3p), it left a quite meh-impression. Second time, solo, it was much better - fast and furious. Third time (2p) it fell again on meh-side... dunno... perhaps it's the direct confrontation that somehow beats the excitement out of it? Must try more...

Isis & Osiris - nice little one. I don't normally like the memory-elements in game mechanics but in this case I'll make an exception. You just have to remember on scale "good-bad" to play it, so even I can manage it :)