Board Games

I am a fan of German games - and my wallet is glad that many of these games are being released here in the states by Rio Grande Games and Mayfair Games.

My collection in pictures

Game companies

Rio Grande Games

A major repackager of German games. I am not fond of their website though.

Mayfair Games

The original German game licensing company. They mainly do "Settlers of Catan"

GMT Games

Wargame company. They have a cool program called P500 - where they don't actually publish a game until they have apx 700 pre-orders. I have acquired 4 P500 games so far.

Multi Man Publishing

They have the rights to ASL and some other Avalon Hill wargames. They also have a pre-order model for their new games. (Note 7/20/05 - not sure they are actually in business anymore - I pre-ordered Shifting Sands from them - but my follow-up email on its status has gone unanswered)

Cheapass Games

James Ernest's game company. Inexpensive (dare I say cheap?) games. In my experience about 25% are good, 25% suck, and the remaining 50% have an interesting concept (but could have been refined a little more). He has a subscription model for selling his games.

Days Of Wonder

Game Sellers

Search For a Game on Multiple online stores

FunAgain Games

Good prices (with a price match guarantee) and reasonable shipping. And they have reviews of the games on their pages.

Boulder Games

The best prices and reasonable shipping. Has some reviews in the price list. Tell them Dave Fandel sent you (that way I get a $4 credit :) [Web site kind of sucks these days though]

Cardhaus

Haven't actually ordered from them - but it looks like good prices (roughly 30% off on what I looked at.) [And it was free shipping on orders > $100.]

Boards and Bits

Haven't actually ordered from them - but it looks like good prices (roughly 30% off on what I looked at) and flat $10 shipping.

Thoughthammer

Haven't actually ordered from them - but it looks like good prices (roughly 30% off on what I looked at.) and they also have flat price shipping.

Game Surplus

Looks like they have competitive new game prices.

Fine Games

New and used games - ok prices and shipping.

Game reviews and info

BoardGameGeek

The Game Report (Peter Sarrett)

The Gaming Cabinet (Ken Tidwell)

Tao of Gaming (Brian Bankler)

Boardgame Stuff (Matthew Gray) [includes a game rating/recomendation system]

Chris Farrell's Gaming Blog

Other Links of interest

A bunch of Game Author Reviews

ConSim World

Relative Range

Current Favorite Games

Euphrates and Tigris (Mayfair)

Use your King, Priest, Farmer and Trader and play tiles to collect victory points in ancient Sumeria. Hasn't gotten a lot of play recently. (Reiner Knizia)

Medici (Amigo/Rio Grande)

My favorite bidding game. Fill your warehouse, but don't overspend. (Reiner Knizia)

El Grande (Hans im Gluck/Rio Grande)

Oh No! Paratroopers from the Castillo. A game of controlling provinces in medieval Spain by placing tokens and moving the King. (Wolfgang Kramer/Richard Ulrich)

Shark (was Flying Turtle)

Place tokens on the board to expnad companies. Buy and sell stock. Bankrupt your opponents. Reissued by Rio Grande Games with modifications.

Carcassone (Hans Im Gluck/Rio Grande)

Generate a countryside with the tiles you draw. Place your tokens as farmers, thieves, knights or monks. [ Personally I'm not that keen on the expansions ]

Puerto Rico (Hans Im Gluck/Rio Grande)

Each turn you choose a role (Mayor, Builder, Trader, Captain, Settler, Craftsman or Prospector) which everybody can execute - but you get to first with a bonus.

Modern Art (Hans Im Gluck/Mayfair)

Actually my copy is the German version - which I got as a birthday present (Thanks Tim!) Bid and collect art works - always realizing that only the most popular art works will be valuable at the end of a round.

Then we have the short two player games

Battle line (GMT)

Lost Cities (Kosmos/Rio Grande)

Finally we have the two player wargames

Up Front (Avalon Hill)

World War 2: Barbarossa to Berlin (GMT Games)

Part of a series that they refer to as Card-driven Games. You have to decide when playing cards how exactly they will be used.

Old Favorites (as of 2/20/2002)

Settlers of Catan (Mayfair)

Settle an island with limited resources and locations. One of the Mayfair licensed games.

Elfenroads (White Wind *1)

Travel around the countryside on giant pig, elf-cart, unicorn, dragon, raft, and magic cloud in an attempt to visit all 25 elf villages.

Santa Fe (White Wind *1)

Lay railroad track across the American West - collecting bonuses for connecting new towns and attempting to maximize the number of rail lines that touch towns you control.

2038 (TimJim/Prism *2)

This is sort of 1830 in space. There are some play problems (mainly that normally the number of TSI shares are closely tied to end wealth in the short game), but overall it is a lot of fun.

History of the World (Avalon Hill)

Except for the 7th Epoch this is a fairly well balanced game of expanding civilizations. I need to try playing it with one of the bidding options and see if it works any better.

Iron Dragon (Mayfair)

One of the "crayon-rails" games (so named because you draw railroad tracks in crayon on a laminated map). This is the one set in the fantasy world setting (elves, orcs, etc.) The others (which I also own :) are Eurorails, North American Rails, Nippon Rails, Australia Rails, and British Rails.

*1 White Wind games was the imprint of game designer Alan Moon. I was one of the last people to join his 2000 club and buy a complete set of all the White Wind games (Elfenroads, Elfengold, Elfenwizard, Santa Fe, Freight Train, Mush, and Fishy). The best of these are listed up above. [ElfenRoads now available from Rio Grande as Elfenland, Santa Fe is available from GMT, and Freight Train is available from Mayfair - all in slightly tweaked formats]

*2 TimJim/Prism games was the imprint of game designers Jim Hlavaty and Tom Lehmann. They produced Outpost, 2038, Mystic War, Suzerain, Time Agent, and Age of Exploration. They were supposed to do a French Revolution card game - but went out of business in 98.