Weed

Cannabis, also known as marijuana or marihuana, or ganja is a psychiatric medication extracted from the plant Cannabis sativa, or more often, Cannabis sativa subsp. indica. But that's not the topic...

I'm talking about card game that was released in 2002 and where players compete each other to grow the most pot plants. At the same time You have to watch out that others wouldn't go too far a head. Sending thieves, hippies, cops and weed-smoking monsters to each other's greenhouse players try to grow plants that would have the most THC (tetrahydrocannabinol - the magic stuff).

The quality of plants varies from one to six (only one six-pack in the box), but the greenhouse only houses five plants without alarming local authorities. And since removing plants from Your own field is always painful You have to consider very carefully which seeds You sow into ground.

Dandelions and Hippies are the most friendly screw-cards in the deck. Dandelions may also be one of the most depressing cards since it takes much room in Your greenhouse and getting rid of it might be a problem. But Hippie comes on Your field, settles down comfortably and starts smoking. Luckily he only takes what he needs - smokes only the lowest-value plant. Of course this might be a issue if You only have the hard stuff...

Cops and Robbers are a bit nastier cards. Cops take away Your most precious plant and skip Your next turn as You are writing an explanation why did You own narcotic substances... If only Estonian laws were so soft... Robber card allows another player take one of Your plant at his/her own choice. We still haven't figured out if dandelions may the the subject for robbery...

The last but not at all the least is the meanest card of the game - Potzilla. Evil weed-addicted field vermin who doesn't stop at nothing. Potzilla may smoke Your whole greenhouse with just one breath.

Even though the cards look like as someone had draw them while being rather drunk they match with the point of the game and enchant it further. The deck contains 54 cards (plus the rules), average play time might be about 30 minutes. Official number of players is 4 but I don't think anything bad would happen if someone sits for the fifth...

In 2006 new edition was released: Weed Deluxe. The number of weed-growers advanced to 8 and many new cards were introduced:

7/10

P.S. Game is not tested under the influence of the corresponding narcotic substance - haven't had a chance...

On the back of the box there is written: "This game is for fun and not meant to encourage drug use. Be smart and don't smoke pot. It's illegal for a reason." Go figure....

P.P.S. Oh-Yeah...Jon Lajoie has made up a new song...

Beowulf: The Movie Boardgame

There's been too long pause. When me and Andrius started this blog we hoped that at least one of us is nice and keeps up the good work... It seems that it didn't work... Well... Let's give it another try...

The game is published by Fantasy Flight Games and is developed by Reiner Knizia. It's one of those games where the best way of winning is screw on others. The cover may seem frightening but the game is rather nice. To be honest it's pretty good entertainment.

Game includes one two-sided gameboard (for 3 phases), lots of playing pieces and three different sort of tiles and bunch of "money." As I mentioned, game takes place in three phases - for each there's different tiles and board. There's only board of the second phase on the picture but the third peeks under the edge...

There are four different type of playing pieces: ships, fortresses, warriors and the hero Beowulf himself. On the base of every piece is their strength. The ship has 1 diamond, warrior has 3. It shows how many times you have to multiply the points the piece collects.

There are also many different kind of tiles. First of all are they grouped by color - in the first phase the gray ones are used, in the second yellow and in the third red ones... There are also numeric value on the tiles. This value is added (or subtracted) to the figures in the same row and column.

So the aim of the game is to get your figures into to rows and columns with the most bonus tiles and at the same time giving minus points to your enemies. It's not that simple as it seems since opponents try to do the same thing to you. There are also many tiles with special abilities. For example Good Counsel allows other player to move your figure from blissful pile of boons into the depth of perils (I exaggerate of course). Some tiles allow you to exchange other tiles (like mead and drunkenness tiles). Gorge may cut your way to many good boon tiles etc...

Beowulf is simple and fascinating game. Perfect for those who hasn't played at all... :)

Number of players: 2-4 ; Average playtime: 30-60 min

The periodic table of boardgames

© Trenton Tron
How many of these You recognize?

#4 Gangster - Godfathers of Chicago

© 2006 Ludoart Verlag, Emilienstr. 43, 42287 Wuppertal, Germany

Wild Chicago in the 20's where four gangs compete to gain control over this fruitful city of crime. With the help of their gangsters players battle each other to be the leader of the Chicago underground - Godfather Al Capone.

Game is really simple. Board is 6x6 square piece of cardboard that resembles the city of Chicago. Beside that there's also score track where all the points from the game are recorded. For a start all players choose their color and 3 chosen men of that color - these are the player's bodyguards.

Players take turns to place gangsters on the board. You can choose to take the gangster from the deck, from the two up-wards gangsters or from Your personal guards (3 chosen men). You can also move a gangster or shoot one. When the row is full (6 gangsters), the strength of different gangs are calculated. The strongest gang scores the difference between them and the second strongest.

Things get really messy when two of the strongest gangs tie. The result is rather logical - they slaughter each other and the next strongest gang takes over. Simple... :)

There are 36 gangsters all together (9 of each different color). The bullets in the upper-right corner show the strength of the corresponding gangster. The lead bullets are for shooting other players of course.... :)

The score track is for recording each player's score as the game continues. The player who reaches to 17 points first will become the new Al Capone and wins the game. Usually the leader's life isn't made any simpler...

The game is nice and rather good. At least for people who don't tend to sit behind the table for hours as do I. First thing that distinguish this one from the most of the games is the WOODEN box. Even I was suprised. This game was meant to last.

#3 Power Grid

Haven't written something for long time... I've been terribly busy - all the games and stuff... Who am I fooling - I haven't played any boardgames for couple of weeks (except a session of Beowulf with my mother)... All right. As even now I don't have much time to do something really cool I'm just gonna' tell You about a really cool game... For Your consideration - it's 3 o'clock in the morning and I haven't drunk beer for a week now... anyway...

Funkenschlag aka Power Grid is very good economic-strategy boardgame where playeres take the roles of electricity-companys who try to attend as many clients as possible. For that one have to buy powerplants, build electricity lines, obtain fuels and prevent other players to do the same thing...

Game board is double-sided - on one side there's the map of U.S, on the other side there's the map of Germany. Both maps are divided into six areas, each containing 7 cities. Division of that kind allows players to use different parts of the map with different number of players. It's rather easy to follow the borders :)

But that could not be said about the rules. They are rather poorly written. Even as I tried to recall how the game was played I had real trouble chewing though those pages... This of course can't be compared with the complexity of Arkham Horror rules :)

There are many kinds of power plants and fuels. For plants there's importance of price (upper left corner), consumption and type of fuel (down left) and amount of citys this plant can supply with power. WIndmills produce green energy and therefore don't need fuel. The last of them should be thermonuclear powerplant which neither doesn't need any further investment after purchase. The price in the upper corner is not the final price but rather initial price. When player had decided which powerplant he/she would like to buy an auction starts. The initial price may be set higher than base price on the card by the player who put it on auction. Oftentimes green power is rather valuable and that kind of plants are sold for massive price.

There are four types of fuel in the game - coal (brown), oil (black), garbage (yellow) and uranium (red). When purchasing fuel one must consider the current price and future market. Often it's not very wise to buy crapload of coal when You are about to swich Your old plants for new ones (unless they use the same type of fuel). Uranium is rather expensive at the beginning but later on that changes. That of course in the case that no-one uses it in the beginning...

Game is very well balanced - when someone is left behind with buildings he/she has massive advantages when buying power plants, fuel and buildings. It's not nice to be the first. All the fuel will be bought right under Your nose... Not nice at all... With many players it's even more painful since You are left with the worst options ever - to buy high-price fuel or not power Your buildings.

I also brought the expansion from Essen that contains bunch of power plants that can be added to the game. There's some really brutal plants there. The plant on the right is the one I got for free (well, I did have to donate at least an euro to get it but that doesn't matter anyway). But I'm afraid it's only a requisite since the background is a bit darker tone than the rest of the cards. I would be perfect when playing in the dark room.

Great game...Why else did I waited for hours just to get a signed copy of the game :D

I promise I'll be more diligent in the future...

Ca$h 'n Gun$

Some gangsters want to share their loot. And every one of them brought a gun to make the negotiations easier. Prepare to have a lot of fun!

Oh, this game is fun. Rules are more than easy. There are three steps of the rules, one following by more complex. So you start from basics – guns and bullets. 1, 2, 3! – Everyone is pointing a gun to somebody! Some bullets are real deal, some are blank. If you want – you can leave the fight, but you won’t get any money, sweet money.

The next level – everyone secretly gain some kind of power, like – second gun, or grenade, or you become a shareholder of the undertakers (get money for every killed gangster). Now let’s spice it up a little bit more – one of the players becomes a cop. He must make a phone call to get reinforcements and, of courese, to stay alive to testify. No one knows which player is the police. That’s where manipulating skills comes in handy.

The next great thing is the foam guns. They stick in to your hand real nice. You can’t let them go. Try it. Ah.. Funny thing – standard game version have black guns, while the American version have orange. I wonder why?

Graphics are nice. All the characters are typical mafioso: big bouncer Igor, El Toro holding a “guitar’ case, ‘80s black undercover cop Huggy, classical

style mafia Tino, punk Mr. Black and of course very sexy Lotus..

Good job, Repos! Would recommend it to a friend (or invite him over to play).

#1 Agricola

First things first. And that's Agricola that's usually pronounced wrong (the accent is on the second syllable as usually in Latin - agRiccola or something...). The game has taken the first place from three-year leader Puerto Rico and leads by 0.07 points...

Agricola is a game where You have to manage Your farm. Idyllic, nice place but the neighbours aren't so sweet - they don't rape Your daughter if that's the first thing that crossed Your mind but they keep grabbing stuff before Your nose. When You decide that the trees have grown long enough Your neighbour has already cut them down. When You decide to go fishing You notice that the pool has already emptied by Your neighbour and probably with a dynamite. And if You decide that it's time to have a baby You see Your neighbour.... Well, we'll get there...

After opening the box You don't see any way to get all that stuff back there. It's really much. The box should weight 2.3 kilos - haven't measured mine. The good thing is that the pieces are wooden (except the cards and the board of-course). Looks good.

There are also a whole bunch of cards - 360 to be precise. Why do You need so many of those, You ask? Well, it seems that Uwe has secured that every single game wouldn't be the same. Most of the cards are divided into two decks: Occupations and Minor Improvements. Every card is unique (ok, I've seen some cards with the same text but the pictures are always different - and who reads the text anyway, uh?).

The board is actually composed from one big action-field-board and farms. Every player has a little piece of land that is divided into 15 spaces that You can use for different purposes. At first You got house of two rooms and nice young couple who have to use their hands and heads to get some food on the table.

The point of the game is to place Your family members on the action spaces on the main board. You can mine clay, quarry stones, get some sheep from... erm... woods (ok, I admit it, I got no decent explanation for that), plow fields, sow, bake bread, build rooms and fences (to keep those sheep) and of-course have sex... If one player has already placed his/her family member on the action space the others can't use it in this round.

Every now and then there are harvests when every father have to feed his wife and children. Also the crops are ready to harvest and also animals breed (if there's at least two of them, but I guess we all know that). If You can't feed Your family You have to go begging - and that means penalty points. There are also some alternatives. Playing a special card You can go to the granny's place and eat her refrigerator empty.

If You have some animals You got also the right to kill them. But to keep them You got to build some fences, else they run back to the woods. You can keep one of them in the house but I can't imagine a cow chewing my games.... wait... aaah, now I see it - oh terror...

One space surrounded by the fence can keep up to 2 animals. That can be doubled when building a barn in that space. And if You have larger enclosure You double all the spaces with just one barn...

And of-course You can cook the animals You killed to feed the youngsters. You can also bake bread but it's much more messing with. But You can always eat raw grain and carrots...

The number of players in the game is 1-5, but with certain rules it's much better with 6. Then one of the players plays gypsies who don't have their own land so they have to build on the others farms... It's fun and looked like this:

United Boardgamers start their hard work

Hi all boardgamers

I presume this is the very first inter-Baltic boardgaming blog that has been created this far. We try to bring You all we can see and hear about the boardgames in our little countries, trying to cover all three - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Let's see how we'll manage...

I don't know what's the situation in other Baltic countries but in Estonia the boardgaming keeps growing and what can we do.... boardgames are cool and expand our imagination. So what else to do with them but play.

What else can I say? Let's get on with it :)