A couple of games of Norenberc

Having got Norenberc before Essen on pre-order (gotta love the printers that White Goblin use), yesterday me and the wife played a couple of games. We used the brewer (obviously), the printer and the hatmaker. In the first game the price the guildmasters set was high all game. We was both struggling for money throughout the game.

We had both noticed that the guild shields would be a big scoring factor at the end of the game and tried not to let the other get to many. I think in a game of more than 2 the impact of shields would not be as great. Tina got the townsman that gave you money during the income phase depending on how many craftsman you had. Tina (wife) chose the brewery, she had 6 I had 2, that eased her money problems a tad.

That game ended, me 34, Tina 31

The second game was a little easier regarding money, when you have a guild master at 2 and you see the next one up is 7 gives some opportunities. The shields came out about even over the two games. Score for this one was, me 29, Tina 23.

I must say that this game plays fairly quickly with 2, first game was under and hour and the second 45 minutes. The game gives you some good decisions to make but is in no way a brain burner. Tina likes this game a lot so will get some more plays :D

Essen is here

Well, not open to the public yet, but press day. And Boardgame Geek has live streaming for game demos. Go here for gaming goodness.....

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/essen-2010-geekbuzz#

I have been playing Norenberc and Rattus and Rattus: Pied Piper. Tina liked Norenberc best but I think the character tiles we used for Rattus were not the best for 2 player. Another game with different characters I think.

Essen 2010.....comes to me.....early!

For those of you that read my post of Sept 1st you will see that I pre-ordered a bunch of Essen games from White Goblin Games. According to White Goblin these were to be dispatched after Essen had finished. Imagine my surprise yesterday when a big parcel arrived on my doorstep filled with gaming goodies. Fantastic.....after my wife told me to wipe away the drool I proceeded to rip the shrinkwrap off of them and....drool some more. Seriously, I opened all the games and punched them out and checked that all the bits were there, as I did this I noted that all the components were really first rate. Thick cardboard, crisp punching, colourful clear printing and solid boards not warped.

As I pre-ordered I also got the extra bits that were going to be available at Essen, for Rattus: Pied Piper, four more characters, for Khan, golden yurts, for Norenberc some more townsmen and for Aztec Empire, four sun cards. All present and correct.

So a big round of applause for White Goblin Games, I can enjoy my Essen a week before Essen.....if you know what I mean.

Happy Gaming!!

Oh, by the way, as this was supposed to be a Christmas present Tina said 'you can keep 2 games but 2 are going away, you can have them on Christmas day'.....Doh!!

London is not only the capital of England!

It's also what looks to be a really good game from Martin Wallace. As usual I have been checking all the up coming new releases on Board Game News for this month's Essen. One of the games that caught my eye was the new Martin Wallace game, London. I downloaded the rules and read them through and was impressed enough to place a pre-order. I missed the Limited Edition version but what did that give you, a few wooden bits so no great loss. I have always liked card games and this is essentially card driven and it also plays 2, a big plus for me. Martin Wallace games have generally passed me by, Age of Steam, the Wallace classic was raved over by the group of players I used to play with, they collect all the maps and generally think it's the bees knees. It made my head hurt every time I played it and I didn't enjoy it at all. I also owned at one time, Princes of the Renaissance and Byzantium, both of which I sold. The BGG video feed from Essen looks great, I watched last year and it does give a great impression of the convention without actually being there....no substitute really though.

More impressions of FIFA online from EA sports. There was a major update and the end of September and ever since then all I seem to get is disconnections midway through matches. The problem is pretty wide spread with many players getting frustrated because each disconnection gives you a 0-3 loss, not even the option to replay the game. So we will wait and see what happens...I know this is still Beta so can't complain too much.

The weather here in St. Wolfgang has been glorious for the last few days and today there is a walking day with 4,000 walkers gathering for a walk around the surrounding area and lunching in St. Wolfgang....more beer and wurstl!!