Christmas Advent Market

The Advent Market opened on the 20th November. Even on the first weekend there was a lot of people visiting, I have created a Picasa Web album where you can see the pictures I have taken so far. I will be adding more as we go. The atmosphere is really great! There are all these little wooden huts selling everything from soup in a loaf! to Christmas decorations, Krapfen (like doughnuts filled with apricot jam), Gluhwein (of course) and loads more. Everywhere you look there are Christmas trees and candles.

St. Wolfgang produces a special mug each year for the Advent Market and if you buy some Gluhwein it comes in the special mug which you can keep after you have drunk the Gluhwein. We tried the soup in a loaf, it comes served in a hollowed out loaf with the top cut off to form the lid. I had green pea with sausage and Tina had Garlic soup....mmmmm....very tasty!! After the soup I had a beer and we bought some lovely roasted Maroni....chestnuts!


There are horse and carriage rides available round the town, they are decorated with lights and lanterns and sleigh bells that sound wonderful as they pass by. The passengers are wrapped up warmly with blankets and the route takes them past the Schafberg train station, the ferry point and along the lakeside. The boats are all lit with lights and decorated inside with decorations, you can have a ride on the boat from one end of the lake to the other. At the Northwest end is St. Gilgen, they have a wonderful Advent market as well and as well as all the usual huts they have a special display of wooden carvings, especially Kripps, depicting the navitity scene. At the opposite end of the lake is Strobl, again they have a great market with whole tree trunks burning in the streets providing a wonderful atmosphere. The emphasis at Strobl is animals, they have deer, goats, sheep and cows all in pens in town centre providing a great treat for the children who can pet them.

Hope you have enjoyed a little taste of what the Christmas markets are like here in Austria, you can find my Picasa album here for more pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Colin.Jen/AdventMarket2009#

Christmas is coming and my games aren't!

Well, here in St. Wolfgang it is very busy at the moment. Everyone is getting ready for the Christmas Advent Market which starts on the 20th. There are Christmas trees everywhere, little wooden huts are being readied with fir branches, stars and decorations. There is a huge lantern floating on a pontoon out on the lake, which will light up and look great. Logs fires are burning in the street, with chestnuts roasting and gluhwein everywhere.....we can't wait.

News from the gaming front. I have found a great online games store....spiel-offensive.de They have some great bargains on older games and even the very latest Essen releases are very competitively priced. Even better, orders over 40 euro are post free to Austria. I put an order in for 3 games, Assyria, which I read a lot about during Essen, Caylus, an old game I know but a classic and Il Principe. The last one was only 7 euro so quite a bargain. The only trouble is that Caylus was out of stock and I am still waiting for it to arrive in the store. My german being very poor, while I was looking at my order I accidentally clicked the cancel order button.....Doh!! Anyway, I sent an email off and within 30mins I had a reply, in english, saying no problem they would just ignore the cancellation and any more problems get in touch. Good service I think, I just hope the games arrive soon.

Hopefully when the Advent Market is under way I will post some photos....stay tuned.

Happy Gaming!

First game session for a while

Last night I had the chance to play some games with Pauline and Stephen who were over for a week. I thought we would give a cooperative game an outing so Pandemic hit the table. I don't think they had played this type of game before so it was a new experience for them. We played the Normal version and played with open hands to get the feel for it.

Pandemic....so close the victory
These were the roles we drew, Pauline was the Dispatcher, Stephen was Scientist and I was Operations Expert. We started off fairly well managing to keep the infections down, I managed to meet Stephen a yellow city to pass him a that city card to enable him to cure the yellow virus. Soon after we eradicated it altogether. Well, not too shabby. But then we got an epidemic, and few cards after another. We were so close to victory, we had cured the red and black, eradicated the yellow and on the next turn or two Stephen would be in a position to cure blue and claim victory. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out like that. The outbreaks had been steadily increasing and finally with the 4th epidemic card we were finally overwhelmed and the world succumbed to multiple outbreaks and defeat. We all enjoyed the game and found it a real challenge, hopefully we will save the world next time!

Canal Mania is a game by the Ragnar Brothers about building canals across England. I hadn't played it for years and Stephen and Pauline hadn't played at all. I ran through the rules quickly and off we went. This game could just as easily be about building railways, but there are so many railway games out there I suppose canals is different. You are, to a certain extent, restricted to what contracts turn up in Parliament as to whether you can get a viable network going. Unfortunately fortune didn't favour me this time and my pathetic attempts resulted in a fractured and very inefficient system. On the other hand Pauline and Stephen both had decent networks and were starting to move goods cubes for some good points.

Canal Mania
As the game developed Stephen managed to get a decent lead and when the time came to transport all the goods cubes he kept it to get a very convincing win, Pauline was a close second with me trailing along dismally at the back

Final Scores
Stephen 128, Pauline 104, Colin 73

Essen is here already!

Well, I see I haven't posted for a while .....again...and Essen has crept up on us again. Unfortunately I won't be going but that doesn't stop me reading the blogs, sussing out the new games, reading the rules, following the news stories...phew, it's almost as tiring as actually going. Being on a somewhat limited budget now that I am retired I have to pick any new purchases rather carefully. Also as my playing partners are also very limited, Tina, and Pauline and Stephen when they come over to St. Wolfgang, this does limit the type of game I can pick.
Definitely must be able to be played by 2, definitely must NOT be a wargame, must have pretty bits and not lend itself to AP (analysis paralysis). So, I have been looking at a few games, Colonia and Assyria being I suppose the top of the list. Cyclades also looks interesting, Bruno Cathala's games always worth a look. Will I actually buy anything, again this depends on a number of factors, but I am sure that I will buy something....after careful analysis of all the available information of course, not because of all the pretty colours :)

2 Player Alhambra.....with expansions

Yesterday Tina and I played a game of Alhambra and we thought we would use the latest expansion that we had bought and hadn't tried yet. Expansion 3 has 4 modules as usual, the Thief cards, the 1pt coins in a bag, the trader meeples and the extra wall cards. We used just the thief cards the coins in the bag and the wall cards. Another player joined us for this game....Dirk....he always turns up for 2 player matches. I explained the rules for the additional modules and play started. When you don't pay exactly the right money for a tile you usually get nothing, but with the 1pt coins in the bag for every 2 you pay over the price of the tile you get to take 1 coin from the bag. This helps you to pay the correct money for tiles and get extra turns, very useful.

Alhambra with Expansion 3
Dirk always seems to get good tiles in our games and this was no exception, he led in purple for the first 2 scorings. In the rules for the thief cards it says that you cannot use them before your own turn....well, in 2 player that is a bit difficult, so we just played it that you could. But really we didn't find that we used them much and both had cards left at the end of the game. The extra wall cards we did use, although not until near the end just before the final scoring. Tina had led for all the game I think and with a couple of tiles left in the game she could see that she would win and played a tile card to complete her wall. Her Alhambra was now completely surrounded! For the last couple of turns she denied me tiles that I needed, so I managed to play tile card to complete my wall also, we now had both surrounded our Alhambras.

Tina celebrates victory
We didn't use the traders this time, you get a trader stall with 3 meeples on it which you place anywhere round your Alhambra, if you build a tile of the same colour as one of the meeples on the trader tile you can place it on the just built tile. You can then put another meeple on the trader tile to bring the number back up to three and place it somewhere else round your Alhambra. You then score points depending how many colours of meeples you have in your Alhambra at the end.
All in all I think this is a good expansion, we will try the traders next time. We don't use to many modules, 3 is max, I think it over complicates the game. I also really like the city gates from expansion 2.

Final Score
Tina 150, Colin 112, Dirk 104

St Wolfgang's First Beer Festival

This past weekend was the first beer festival in St. Wolfgang. I think this is just a reason for beer, music and sausage, and that's good enough. On Saturday the weather was just awful, rained all morning and into the afternoon. The Burgermeister was supposed to be opening a keg at 5pm but we didn't get there until nearly 6.30. The rain had stopped and we must have missed the keg opening because we didn't see anything. So we had a beer and listened to the bands for awhile, there were people about but because of the weather the attendance could have been better.
So Sunday dawned.......lovely and sunny....ah, this should be better. Today was the priest's turn to open a keg after a parade through the village of both local bands, choirs and various organisations, all in traditional costume. The place was packed with tables and benches lining the main street, beer stands everywhere, with bosna (local sausage) and bratwurst being consumed with gusto. The parade came at around 11pm and the priest, after a little difficulty with his hammer, opened the keg.

We walked out of the village to a little hotel alongside the lake for lunch, which was very pleasant. We sat on the terrace and watched the ferryboats pass by. After lunch we walked back to the village where the party was still in full swing, the little video clip may give you an idea of the atmosphere. This is better than commuting everyday to smelly London!!

A game of El Grande

El Grande board layout...who's nicked the Castillo?
El Grande, one of the first german games that I bought, waaaay back. I have the Rio Grande version so the text on the cards didn't matter. After a couple of years I thought the game so good that I bought all the expansions as well. So, when was the last time I played......good question because I can't remember. That good uh! There are so many games and only so much time to play them that, well that's life.
Anyway, with Pauline and Stephen heading back to the UK, well yesterday actually, we played El Grande last week.

Enjoying El Grande
We played the basic version, this is the classic area control game and I ran through the rules quickly. No one had played before, only me and as I said I can't remember the last time. After the first turn I think the importance of the Castillo had become apparent, because quite a few caballeros went in there. Some of the cards do have the option for some lovely screwage of your opponents but we played friendly....I think! I really enjoyed playing again and the next day started to have a look at the expansions, which I really hadn't done in much detail before, it was just nice to have them. It plays 2 so I think I shall have to get Tina to try some of the expansions with me.

Final Scores
Pauline 101, Stephen 95, Colin 91, Tina 71

Some more Games.....

Well, this was last week, so I am a bit tardy with my post again. Anyway, 3 player session with Pauline and Stephen, Tina couldn't make it. Accompanied by some tasty plum cake curtesy of Stephen! First up we finally got around to playing Carcassonne - Mayflower. Pauline and Stephen have had this for awhile and this is the first time it's hit the table. Normal Carcassonne rules except that you build from one edge of the scoreboard, representing the coast of the New World I suppose. Exploring Westwards....there are two Surveyor meeples that move West one row every time a feature is scored.....ummmm. Gives something else to think about, because if any of your meeples are left behind the Surveyors on an unfinished feature they get removed. So you could leave a potential scoring opporunity for another player.

Carcassonne - Mayflower layout
As you can see from the picture, we didn't think it through before starting to play because the tiles are going to stretch a long way in one direction. We had to remove the scoreboard and keep moving the tiles so we had enough room to play them all!
We found it difficult to score a farm as you needed to surround it with tiles (a la a cloister in normal Carc), and it was likely to get left behind the Surveyors. I think it adds a nice twist to the basic game and I enjoyed it. As you can see the scores were quite close.

Final Scores
Pauline 107, Colin 93, Stephen 92

We followed up with a game of Thurn & Taxis, Pauline had played this before but Stephen hadn't. I like this game a lot, planning your routes etc. It does get a bit frustrating when the card you really like gets cleared just before your turn though. I had a pretty awful time in this game and came a distant third place. Pauline got a few bonus chits including the Bayern one.

Me, looking reasonably calm considering my performance
Final Scores (Coach Card, Bonus Chits, minus coaches left)
Pauline 10+16-3 = 23
Stephen 10+5-6 = 9
Colin 7+6-8 = 5

Creepy, spacey sound effect whooshes us forward to Wednesday of this week (19th)

Stephen has gone back to the UK for a week, Pauline came round for a chilli and of course, a game. It's been really hot here for over a week now, too hot to sit on the balcony an the only time it's bearable is in the evenings. So what better way to cool down than a nice Chilli!!
I have had Morganland (Aladdin's Dragons) for a few years now and I think I have only played it once up until recently.....little story about buying this one. We went on the bus to Salzburg one year we were here on holiday and went to a shopping mall outside of the city, never been there before. Of course there was a kids's toy store in there, but toy stores over here have proper games in them too. Not just Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. Anyway I didn't see anything I fancied until, on the way out by the checkout they had a bargain bin, and I saw....Morganland, shrink-wrapped....10 euro. Well, you can guess the rest!!!
So, Tina and I had played one game a few days ago and I thought we could try it tonight with 3 players. The board is quite large and very colourful and the game has nice bits as usual with German games. I explained the rules and off we went. I seemed to be the only one going for the magic spell cards which came in very handy during the game. I think we all underestimated the power of being the start player as there were quite a few ties which are broken in start player order.

Morganland, board layout
We all enjoyed the game, it played smoothly and didn't outlast it's welcome if you know what I mean. I think both Pauline and Tina would go for more magic spell cards next time, they got a bit cross when I decimated a space of their counters with one....he! he! The tiebreaker is the most scroll artifacts, but Pauline and I both had 7 artifacts and one scroll each so we shared the win.

Until next time.....Happy Gaming!!