We’ve reached the end of 2014.
The holiday week has been pretty crazy. I received Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Panamax, and the Clash of Cultures: Civilizations expansion from my family. Gina and I played Castles on Christmas Day and had a lot of fun, even though we played with the entire deck instead of just the 22 cards intended for two players.
Then, over the weekend we were visiting my family and played plenty of party games. We played Cards Against Humanity all night Friday with my sister and brother-in-law and some of their friends. Then there was some of Cranium and Rummy 500 on Saturday. It was great to hang out with them and the kids had a blast playing with their new toys.
On Sunday Joe wanted to get a game in, so he and Dana came over for Takenoko. We followed that by teaching them Castles of Mad King Ludwig, which they both loved.
Finally on Monday, Joe had been hankering for another game of Brass. He and Kevin joined me and I managed to win by building a bunch of cotton mills to build my income early, and then building mills and ports in the rail phase. I was helped by Kevin when he decided to build over Joe’s steel mill instead of one of mine on the last turn – otherwise Joe would have taken the win.
Now for some reflections on 2014
I played 40 different games a total of 102 times (~2.5 plays/game)
I had 2 dimes (played 10+ times):
Dominion
Flash Point: Fire Rescue
I had 3 Nickels (played 5-9 times):
Caverna: The Cave Farmers
Eminent Domain
Hanabi
My favorite new game published in 2014 (so far) is: Castles of Mad King Ludwig
My most anticipated game of 2015 is: No clue. I haven’t even looked at upcoming games, since my backlog is too high.
My most anticipated expansion of 2015 is: Terra Mystica: Fire & Ice – I’m still trying to get my hands copy of this.
My biggest disappointment of 2014 was: Snowdonia – It wasn’t published in 2012, but I didn’t play it until 2014. After hearing a lot of good, I found it to be more of the same.
Until next time, happy gaming and have a wonderful 2015!
