And so it begins...again!

Happy New Year!!! Mark and I are going to start the New Year by playing board games with friends. What better way to ring in the new year? Even better, I get to start the other two of my three challenges once midnight rolls around. I can't wait to get started!!!

Now this picture is not my actual board game library...yet! I'm working on it, but according to my record on Board Game Geek, I currently own 106 board games. As you can see from this picture, that's a drop in the bucket.

My goal is not to collect board games for the sake of collecting board games. I truly enjoy this hobby and I am looking for experiences with friends - both old and new. Learning anew board game is such a thrill for me. I never expect to win - in fact I rarely do. Winning the game is not really the point for me. Interacting with interesting people who enjoy similar activities is the point. What do you enjoy doing?

Rules Matter: 7 Wonders Duel

As mentioned in my last post, my husband, Mark, is helping me work on some board game challenges that were posted on Board Game Geek. The only one that we've already started is the challenge where we play one game 100 times. We chose 7 Wonders Duel for this challenge and so far we've played this game 10 times.

During our 9th play of this game we ran into the problem of not having a particular resource - in this case paper - which is needed to build wonders and other improvements. It wasn't until the very end of Age II that one paper resource became available to one of us, but was not available to the other. This lack of this particular resource colored the play of this game HUGELY.

I posted about it in my 1 x 100 challenge geeklist that this was an interesting aspect of this game that we had discovered because of this challenge. Val Ofiesh (BGG User ID: SpaceAlien) posted that there was a rule in 7 Wonders Duel that allowed you to buy the missing resource from the bank. My. Jaw. Dropped. upon reading this. I had never even conceived that this might be a rule.

Last night Mark and I pulled out the game again while we waited for some other friends to finish up a game and we checked the rules. Sure enough, the rule that allows you to buy missing resources from the bank was there. Not only that, but the cards that allow you to buy resources at a discount from your neighbor also apply to the bank. We were blown away!!! We immediately started playing  a game and were astonished at how this one obscure, hidden, barely mentioned little rule totally changed the strategies we followed and even how the game flowed. AMAZING!

Thanks Val Ofiesh (SpaceAlien) for pointing this out to me. I can't wait to try this game some more to try out some different strategies!

Goals for 2016

It has been twenty months since I last posted here. I simply have not had anything I felt was worth talking about that anybody would want to hear about. Well, that's about to change! I have accepted THREE board game challenges posted by various people on Board Game Geek. In this post, I'm going to discuss board gaming and the challenges. In future posts, I'm going to talk about my progress in meeting each of these three challenges in 2016.

Board Gaming Hobby

I love board gaming! Until a few years ago, I did not realize it was an actual hobby. Now that I know it, I am having a great time exploring and playing games with a great community of wonderful people. I have made some amazing friends in this community. Even better, it's a hobby that my husband, Mark, and I can enjoy together. We play games at home in the evenings. We go to game nights at the friendly local game store (FLGS). We also go to MeetUp.com events at local libraries and restaurants where we play games all day and late into the nights. We also go over to friends homes and have friends over to our home to play games. Finally, two or three times each year we go to board game conventions!

Board Game Conventions?!?!

Yes! Board Game Conventions attract anywhere from hundreds up to thousands of people every year. In April each year there is ConQuest SAC and in November we attend ConQuest Avalon. Both are held here in Sacramento, CA and attract 300-500 people. Mark and I have ambitions to attend some of the BIG board game conventions like PacifiCon, DunDraCon, GenCon, or Origins. GenCon gets more than 50,000 people each year and they recently announced that they are expanding their convention into the football stadium next door to the convention center where they usually have this convention. That's BIG! One day we WILL get there!

Challenge #1: 10 x 10 in 2016

This one challenges me to play 10 games 10 times each by the end of 2016 in order to explore the depth and permutations of each of these games. I had to work with my husband to come up with this one. We needed to agree on 10 games that we could each play together 10 times each. I might play some of these with people other than Mark or with other people and Mark, but the date of each play of each game will be recorded including who played and who won.

The rules of this challenge also allowed for either a "Normal Challenge" which allowed you to swap out a game for another stand-by game or a "Hardcore Challenge" which cannot be changed once it's posted.We decided to do the Hardcore Challenge and this is our list of games:

10 x 10 in 2016 Hardcore Challenge

1. 7 Wonders Duel  V
2. Munchkin
3. Machi Koro
4. Pandemic
5. Power Grid
6. Yedo
7. Zombicide
8. Lords of Vegas
9. RoboRally
10. Guillotine

Challenge #2: The 52 Game Challenge

This challenge is designed to get me to play 52 different types of games over 2016. The types are listed below. There are only 50 listed because #32 is a "trilogy". 

1. A game that take 4+ hours to play - Firefly - Played 01/02/2016
2. A classic game - The Game of Life - Played 01/08/2016
3. A game that became a movie - Jumanji
4. A game published this year (2016) - Dr. Who: Time of the Daleks 
5. A game with a number in the title - 7 Wonders 
6. A game designed by someone under 30 - Bohnanza (Uwe Rosenberg was <30 when he designed this game) 
7. A game with nonhuman characters - Merchant of Venus (Classic Version) - Played 01/09/2016
8. A funny game - Munchkin 
9. A game by a female designer - Qwirkle (Susan McKinley Ross) - Played 01/08/2016
10. A game with a mystery or thriller theme - T.I.M.E. Stories (Mystery Theme) - Played 01/16/2016
11. A game with a one-word title - Fluxx - Played 01/08/2016 
12. A game from a "system" - 504 - Played 01/04/2016
13. A game set in a different country - Yedo (Fuedal Japan) - Played 01/19/2016
14. A game based on historical events - Axis & Allies (World War II)
15. A popular designer's first game - RoboRally (Richard Garfield)
16. A game from a designer you love that you haven't played yet - King of New York (Richard Garfield)
17. A game a friend recommended - Nefarious - Played 01/05/2016
18. A Spiel des Jahres winning game - Alhambra (2003)
19. A storytelling game - Gloom 
20. A game at the bottom of your to-play list - Forbidden Island 
21. A game your Mom loves - Monopoly 
22. A game with a horror theme - Elder Sign 
23. A game more than 100 years old - Chess (1475 A.D./C.E.)
24. A game based entirely on its cover - Fortune & Glory
25. A game you hate that you've played at least once before - Poo
26. A game named after a person - Justinian
27. A game you can finish in under 15 minutes - Loot Letter (Based on Love Letter)
28. A game with antonyms in the title - The Good, the Bad, and the Munchkin
29. A game set somewhere you've always wanted to visit - Istanbul (Turkey) - Played 01/08/2016
30. A game that came out the year you were born - Alexander the Great (1971) 
31. A game with bad reviews - Phase 10 (Tom Vasel HATES this game)
32. A game trilogy -
    Pandemic
    Pandemic: Contagion - Played 01/08/2016
    Pandemic: Legacy
33. A game from your childhood - The Wizard of Oz Game (1974)
34. A game with triangle-shaped components - Zombicide (Noise Tokens)
35. A game set in the future - Outpost 
36. A game set in a school - Zombie Dice 3 (School Bus) 
37. A game with a color in the title - Red Dragon Inn 
38. A game that made you cry/sad - Dead of Winter
39. A game with magic - T.I.M.E Stories: A Prophecy of Dragons
40. A game illustrated by your favorite artist - Euphoria (Jacqui Davis) 
41. A game by a designer you've never played before - Codenames (Vlaada Chvátil) 
42. A game you own but have never played - Ogre
43. A game that takes place in your hometown (or as close as possible) - Hang Town (Placerville, CA) 
44. A game that was originally published in a different language - Power Grid 
45. A game set during Christmas - Holiday Fluxx
46. A game designed by someone with your same initials - Aye, Dark Overlord! (Chiara Ferlito)
47. A game with 8+ players - One Night Ultimate Werewolf 
48. A game with a controversial theme - Cards Against Humanity
49. A game based on or turned into a TV show - Battlestar Galactica - Played 01/01/2016
50. A game you have trouble getting other people to play - Dixit

A few clarifications:

1. The list may be completed in any order
2. The same game may not be used to satisfy multiple criteria

Challenge #3: 1 x 100 Challenge

In Support of Deeper Exploration of Games this challenge is to play 1 game 100 times and write about the experience as you're going through it. I will actually start this challenge in December 2015 and there is no time limit on finishing it. The idea is to log each time that it is played to see if your game play or strategy in playing the game changes over time. 

For this challenge, my husband and I have chosen 7 Wonders Duel. It's a game we can play together or I can play it with friends. This will help me to get my 100 plays in faster. I will log my plays here on Board Game Geek and make a note when unusual things happen. I will also occasionally report on my progress here. However, I will not be posting a blog post for every single play. 

An example of an unusual play is this: Mark and I played one game where one resource was randomly and completely removed from the game at the start. The rules say to randomly remove three cards from each deck. Usually this does not do much to impact the game. However, in this one game it totally removed paper as a resource from the game. Due to the fact that several of the wonders needed 1-2 paper resources to get built, it became impossible for Mark to build any of his wonders. I got the one-and-only viable paper/glass resource and was able to cobble together a win from there.

There. That's my hobby goals for 2016. Stay tuned for future updates here. Watch this space!