Grand Cru is one of several wine-making themed games released at Essen this year.  Each player owns a vineyard (board) where they will place the wine they make and any tiles they buy – each tile shows either one type of vine or a special action.  There are 5 types of wine each represented by a different colour (which represents a type of grape/vine).  Players take out loans during the game (each worth 7 cash) but must pay interest each round.  Each round players take turns performing just 1 action each.

Developing a Vineyard
As an action, a player can choose one of the newly drawn, face-up tiles and start an auction for it by placing one of their markers on their bid price (1-6).  On their turn, any other player can use an action to raise a bid (max price 6).  If a player is still the highest bidder, they can use an action to buy that tile.  Also, a player can use an action to immediately buy any face-up tile (whether being auctioned or not) for 7 cash. Read the rest of this entry »

Asara piqued my interest because it’s by Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling – the designing partnership that created games like Tikal, Torres and the more recent Tikal II.  Over 4 rounds, players build towers to score victory points (VPs) based on their colours, height and quantity and most VPs wins.  Now this all sounds like standard stuff but Asara has some clever game mechanics that makes it very entertaining.

Each round players receive 20 cash and some worker cards (which come in 5 different colours).  Then, players take turns performing one action each until all players have used all of their cards.  To take an action, a player must place 1 of their worker cards face-up onto one of the limited set of spaces for worker cards next to the selected action.  However, if a worker card has already been placed on that action’s spaces then any new cards for that action must be of the same colour as the card already played.  If a player can not (or doesn’t want to) play a matching colour card, they can place any 2 cards face-down instead. Read the rest of this entry »

Prior to Essen, The Boss caught my attention when I read the rules so I pre-ordered a copy and I’m glad that I did.  The Boss is a simple but very clever game of deduction, bluffing and risk-taking with a gangster-theme.  The game lasts 3-5 rounds and the winner is the player with the most cash.

In the centre of the table is a row of cards each showing a different city (the number of cities depends on the number of players).  Each city has its own specific set of cards – each showing either an amount of money or something bad.  One card of each city is placed face-down next to that city – this is what the player who controls that city at the end of the round will win.  The remaining city cards are shuffled together and then dealt out to the players which gives them 5 each.  As each set of city cards has a different colour card back, players can see which cities their opponents have cards for but not their values. Read the rest of this entry »

Era of Inventions has a potentially dull sounding theme – patenting inventions and manufacturing patented items.  However, do not be fooled, Era of Inventions is a great placement and resource management game.

Over 8-10 rounds, players gather resources (materials, money and development cogs) so that they can build factories, invent devices, take out patents, and build inventions.  Doing this scores victory points and the player with the most VPs at the end of the game wins.

Each round, players take turns placing their 2 or 3 action markers on any the 6 different actions they wish to perform that round.  There are only 2 spaces for action markers next to each action so players must try to secure the actions they want before opponents fill up the spaces.  Read the rest of this entry »

When I first read about Luna before Essen, it sounded a bit odd as it focused more on priests travelling around islands than the game play.  However, it’s a game by Stefan Feld (Macao, Roma) so I was interested to see what it was like and, fortunately, I got the chance to play it at a recent games night.

The game lasts 6 rounds and the goal is to score the most victory points (VPs).  Each player starts with some novices and a shrine which are spread across 6 islands and it is here where most of the gameplay takes place. Read the rest of this entry »

In 20th Century, players try to make the largest and best nation by the end of the century to score the most victory points (VPs).  The game lasts 6 rounds and uses 2 main currencies: money and science.

Each round starts with the players bidding for landscape tiles which each show a number of cities and railway lines.  Each city has icons showing what they produce (money, science, VPs and recycling) but cities will only produce these resources if they are populated.  Regardless of how many cities are on a tile, a player only receives 1 population marker for each tile they buy. Read the rest of this entry »

In Navegador, players are Portuguese explorers discovering new lands and making money from trading or processing the resources from the new colonies.

The core game mechanic is the rondel – if you’ve played any of Mac Gerdts’ other rondel games (Antike, Imperial, Hamburgum) then you’ll know the deal.  If you’ve yet to play a rondel game, the rondel is a circle split into 8 sections.  On their turn, a player moves their piece 1 to 3 spaces clockwise around the rondel.  The space that they land on determines what action they can perform that turn.  A player can move more than 3 spaces but, in Navegador, each extra space costs 1 ship (which isn’t cheap but can be invaluable). Read the rest of this entry »

In Fürstenfeld, players are trying to build their palace.  To do this, they build buildings so they can harvest hops, barley and water to sell to the breweries for cash.  Each round players draw buildings cards, produce goods, sell goods, build buildings, and discard cards.  It sounds, and is, simple but there are several interesting game mechanics at work.

First, each player has a board with spaces for 6 buildings and, once they have built 6 buildings, any new buildings must be built over an existing one.  Second, each player has their own deck of building cards and they draw a few cards each turn; however, they can only keep one card (sometimes more with certain buildings) into the next round.  Any discarded cards get placed under their draw pile so may appear again later in the game.  Read the rest of this entry »

Mord im Arosa is a very unusual game.  If you like pure tactics with zero luck then I doubt this is a game for you; however, if you just want a fun game that anyone can play then this will be of interest.  Two murders have occurred in the Hotel Arosa and the player with the least evidence against them will win the game.

During the game, players drop wooden cubes (evidence) into the pyramid of card boxes that make up the hotel.  There is a hole in each floor so the cubes may end up on any floor and players need to listen to them as they fall as they will need to predict which colour cubes are on which floors.  At the start of the game, two  red cubes get discovered showing the floors where the murders took place.  These are placed on the board (showing the hotel’s floors) which will also be used to record where any evidence is found.

On a player’s turn, a player can try to incriminate other players by announcing which colours they think are on a specific floor.  When revealed, any players guessed correctly place cubes from their supply equal to those revealed onto the corresponding floor of the board.  Read the rest of this entry »

I played Merchants and Marauders again yesterday and, once again, we all thoroughly enjoyed it.  As I mentioned in my review, it contains all the cool pirate actions you could want as well as lots of variety.  The naval vessels and non-player pirate ships (NPCs) moved a lot more than our last game which also added more variety and action, especially for me as I had bounties on my head so I spent time avoiding the stronger ships.

Merchants & Marauders really is a first-class game and one I’m really pleased I bought.  I know we will play it a lot more too.  Below are some further thoughts:

Battles at Sea
The players were still quite pleasant to each other so there were very few player-versus-player combats.  I tried but just couldn’t succeed at my scouting roll when it mattered so my “easy prey” human opponent managed to slip by me; however, we did have a couple of fights.  First, one player totally destroyed my already very badly damaged ship as I’d just completed a couple of merchant raids.  Their seamanship skill of 3 versus my 1 made it an easy win (I couldn’t use my seamanship of 2 because they had a bounty on them).  Read the rest of this entry »