And now for something completely different...

So another of my favorite ways to waste time, that also happens to be vastly less expensive then anything to do with cars or motorsports, is play boardgames.  Not those crappy trivial pursuit games you play when your drunk, no, I'm talking about cool board games (and card games) fitting for a proper geek.

Well, recently a very good friend of mine got married and my gift to them was to photograph their wedding.  The bride wanted to get a gift for Brenda and Me so we suggested some board games, and boy did we get them!  A nice big stack of them!

So far we have played Catan: The Card Game (about 1:30-2:00 hours play time!), San Juan (20-30 minutes, great game, easy to learn and fun), and Samurai which is very interesting and has a bit of chess feel to it.  I just got Memoir 44 in the mail today and am *really* excited to give it a try.

Catan: The Card Game plays a whole lot like the board game for those of you who have played it before,only with just 2 players.

 I found it takes a whole lot of table space to play.  It was alot of fun and if your a fan of the board game but finding more then 2 players is difficult, then its worth picking up.

San Juan has ended up being my wifes favorite new card game.

It plays much like Race for the Galaxy (which is based on this games mechanics) and is alot of fun.  You use the cards in your hand as resources and discard them to "purchase" upgrades and production farms.  Its often a balancing act between discarding a bunch of your cards to bring out larger upgrades or saving your hand and only building small stuff when your forced to build by your opponent (you can skip the build phase if your opponent selects it, but I think doing so puts you at a significant disadvantage most of them time, and quickly).

Samurai probably plays the quickest of the all the games we have played so far.  You can finish a game as quickly as 15 minutes as long as someone isn't suffering from analysis paralysis.

Your goal is to capture the little black pieces seen in the photo.  You do this by placing tiles around it to "capture" it, each taking a turn to place a tile.  Some tiles are specific (can only contribute to capturing a Buddha,  or a rice patty, etc) while some are universal and can apply to any type.  Where you use each type is a major part of the strategy and can make a big difference.  We played it twice and it was a lot of fun and plays quickly.

I have quite a few more I have to get around to testing.  I've managed to pick a lot of them up really cheap on Tanga.com since they run a deal just about every day so a few times a month they end up having something I think I'd like for a pretty good price.

most of the current collection

We still have to give Memoir 44, Neuland, Feudo, Blue Moon City, Kahuna and Blue Moon (card game) a try here soon.  So many fun games!