August '07

It was mostly a wargamey August. (I also played some Eurogames, see below). I played A Victory Lost for the first time. Great game. I also played Shifting Sands and Paths of Glory for the first time. Not having played card-driven games seriously before, I can now see what the excitement is all about. I owned Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage (Avalon Hill) for many years but could not find an opponent to play.

As August wore on, more Shifting Sands and A Victory Lost games were played. Loved these new wargames. Can't wait to play and analyse each game more. As a result, I made a conscious effort to wade through the sketchy online introduction to the VASSAL engine and managed to understand how to use this wonderful program. Downloaded lots of modules. They are really great! Spread the word to two of the most serious wargamers in my games group, but only one of them actually enjoyed moving virtual counters instead of the real stuff. The Russian Campaign 3rd Ed is next on VASSAL for me.

Other games that I played in August were:

Gloom - I did not think much of this one.
Lost Cities - still love this.
Diamant - good for laffs.
Blokus - I still cannot get my head around the question of how an effeminate game like this came to be called 'Blokus'.
Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery - a bit lukewarm on this new game. A hybrid mish-mesh of mechanics blended into one big box with lots of colourful plastic miniatures.
De Bellis Antiquitatis - I won the annual local DBA competition with my Ptolemics.
Subbuteo - got third place in the local tourney with my coluourful Croatian team.
Advanced Squad leader Starter Kit#2 - good, tense stuff.
Domaine -an underappreciated dumbed down version of Lowenherz. This could possibly be the best dumbing down of a classic game in the world.
Dungeon Twister -I finally got to play this after many false starts. This pointless game should be re-titled using only the first four letters of its current title.
Transamerica - unlike the movie of the same name, this game encourages fans to play it straight.