According to BGG, I own 33 "games" from 2009-2010. There are a lot of asterisks there. Fifteen are expansions, and five are rework jobs on older games. That leaves (wait for it) thirteen actual games from the SdJ-eligible period. Of those thirteen, I've played precisely five. Which, almost miraculously, is the same number of nominations the SdJ has.
The nominees, then, for the 2010 Inaugural Spiel des Alfreds are:
Tobago,
Campaign Manager: 2008,
Phantom Leader,
Soviet Dawn,
and
The Barbarossa Campaign.
(Three solitaire wargames! Who could possibly have envisioned such a thing?)
Anyway, I figured I had two ways to go. The first was to write them all up at once into one 6,000 word monstrosity. The other way is to take one game at a time, in a series of five 6,000 word monstrosities five reasonably shortish articles.
It should be fun. All five are games I recommend, by the way, if you sense you might enjoy such a thing, which is always more enjoyable to write up than bad games. I'm not promising one a day, but I think we can be safely wrapped up in a week or so.
And, just like the SdJ, I have a "just missed the cut" list. These are the top five games I really want to play, but haven't for various reasons:
Battleground: Fantasy Warfare is probably my favorite miniatures system (despite its awful graphics), and I'd been waiting for an historical version for a while. In 2009, Battleground: Historical Warfare came out (on the Punic Wars)...and I haven't played it.
Adaptoid is a game I bought along with Nestorgames' reprint of Mole Hill (which I got signed by Reiner Knizia himself). It's a pretty sweet looking abstract, where you have to grow and shrink your "creatures" to battle the other guy. No clue if it's sweet playing or not; hopefully I'll find another abstracts fan around.
Last Train to Wensleydale struck me, when I opened the box, as a train game that has more to do with some of the real aspects of running a short line train company than any other game: bribing the government, hoping a big railroad buys your hideous little money sink, and buying rolling stock off the scrap heap of larger companies. DOWNSIDE: The board is hideous. I mean, it's really bad. I still have high hopes for this one.
Wars of the Roses fills a box better than any other game I own.
When Friedrich came out, I was struck by the elegance of the system, the beauty of the components, and never got it to the table. In 2009, it's prequel, Maria, came out, and I was struck by the elegance of the system, the beauty of its components, and never got it to the table. Can't wait for the third one!
And with that, we're off...
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