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 :)