Essen 2006 - The Big Publishers
During our little Tour d'Essen we tried to get an idea of the big crowd-pullers. Halls 12 and 11 belong to the big (mostly German) publishers. The games that we found to be promoted most heavily in terms of advertising space were:
- Hans im Glück: Thurn und Taxis (winner of Spiel des Jahres 2006), Taluva, Kabale und Hiebe
- Kosmos: Kampf um Rom, Die Säulen der Erde
- Ravensburger: Die Baumeister von Arkadia, Das verrückte Labyrinth (20th Anniversary)
- Queen Games: Shogun, Der Dieb von Bagdad, Alhambra - Das Würfelspiel
- Days of Wonder: Battlelore
Thurn und Taxis
From this list, Thurn und Taxis was probably played the most on "zillions" of tables (always full, of course) spread across multiple booths in several halls. The October issue of German gaming magazine Spielbox contains an expansion to this Andreas Seyfarth game. It is called Der Kurier der Fürstin. This expansion generated some interest but since both Shelak and I are subscribers we did not have to pay too much attention to secure a copy. We did not find the time to play this expansion (yet) but it will certainly add more spice to the SdJ winner (English rules available at Spielbox, here).
Battlelore
Battlelore was probably the game generating the most hype. In advance to the fair publisher Days of Wonder had already created some buzz with prominent articles and interviews on Boardgamenews, The Dice Tower or Garrett's Games and Geekiness. Although the game is not yet released Days of Wonder had taken several (mostly German) copies directly from the factory and set up several tables that were extremely crowded. We were able to play Battlelore on Thursday afternoon. A lot of people were walking by who seemed to be intrigued by the game and were already aware of it. During the game, I was wondering: why can they not hold the publishing date for the single most important event of the year? I presume, missing Essen fair sales causes a substantial financial impact. But when I think of it: the game comes at 70.00 EUR. That's a whole lot of money that some people might not want to spend while present at the exhibition floors. However, pre-ordering it, immediately earning two additional free miniatures is probably an incentive where everybody thinks: no problem, this might make a great Christmas present. Well, now, that I have played Battlelore and seen the hype that DoW has generated I can truly say: yes, it is totally, one-hundred percent worth it. Full stop. Exclamation mark.Taluva
Taluva has really impressed me. We were able to play the game for the first time on Thursday late evening. Our game finished 5 minutes before the fair closed their doors. And this title has surprised and impressed me a lot. It is simple, yet a lot of depth can be created. Of course, it is not a gamers game but it's probably one of the better family games I have seen this year. Note, this game is not language dependant, except for the rule book and the little player aid cards (although these will probably be translated and posted to BGG soon).
Kabale und Hiebe
The title Kabale und Hiebe is a pun on Schiller's play Kabale und Liebe. Instead of Intrigue and Love one might translate this as Intrigue and Blows. The game is published by Hans im Glück and designed by Lutz Stepponat who also had his own booth at the fair. The card game comes in a small box (Carcassonne-expansion size). The players get the same set of influence cards in their color showing characters with a different point value. Some characters also have interesting special abilities. Players compete for a set of targets each with a different victory point value (one card for each player per round). Each round, players have to place a number of influence cards below a target card. The number of influence cards is required to be at least equal to the number of victory points underneath the card. When a player places a card it is first placed facing down. The card will be revealed only after the next player puts one of their influence cards in the corresponding columns. Special abilities allow players to heavily interact, e.g. the Entdecker card moves throught columns and reveals several other cards "for free".
We enjoyed a three-player game on Thursday. This family game is an interesting filler with a lot of interaction. Overall we did not decide to buy Kabale und Hiebe, but maybe it is an interesting Christmas present.
Kampf um Rom
Kampf um Rom (Battle for Rome) is this year's incarnation to the Settlers of Catan family. Klaus Teuber has designed a game in which ancient tribes first start to plunder and then continue to conquer cities of the Roman empire. The game is played on a map of Europe consisting of Settlers of Catan hexes. The game contains many familiar elements from the original Catan game but also adds many new features and mechanics. The game has a new mechanism allowing players to move their tribes across the board to get them into a proper position to attack Roman cities. It is not a wargame since players cannot attack each other but it is probably as close as a Catan-game will ever get to a wargame.
Conquering a Kosmos table is probably the single most difficult thing at Essen. Lucky as we were, we got our chance to play Kampf um Rom on Friday. The game took about 90 minutes plus an additional 20 minutes to understand the rules (unforunately, no Kosmos "game explainer" was available at the time to assist us). In the beginning I found the game to be really fascinating as it combined many familiar elements from previous Catan games with the exploration / plundering theme. However, as the game was progressing, something did not feel quite right. The game started to become a little bit langatmig. The turns started to become more and more repetitive and all we were waiting for was enough resources to conquer additional cities to finally hit the 10 victory points. In the end, Shelak was the first to reach these 10 points and seemed like the clear winner as my 7 points certainly were way behind. However, Raven pulled off a scoring firework and managed to reach 10 victory points as well. In the end, Raven won this extremely close game by a margin of 3 gold ducats. Can you imagine how much fun the rest of the day must have been for Shelak? ;)
Die Säulen der Erde
Die Säulen der Erde was the second game heavily promoted by Kosmos. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to play the game. The game was played by a group before we were able to get their Kosmos table. They seemed to like the game although it took about 2 hours to complete the game. The game certainly was extremely well-produced and the Cathedral that had to be build during the game consisted of nice components. The game has received an extraordinary review in the Spielbox magazine. Maybe, just maybe, this might be a good idea for Christmas... ;)
Shogun
This Dirk Henn design was majorly promoted at the Queen Games booth. Unfortunately, we were not able to play this game. Since I have heard a lot of good things about the sold-out Wallenstein - which is supposed to be a rather similar game - I decided to buy Shogun without looking any further. The map is beautifully designed, the components look top-notch and the tower of randomness is cool in itself. I hope to get this game to the table pretty soon. Let's see if the 35 Euros have been well invested...
Der Dieb von Bagdad
Der Dieb von Bagdad (Thief of Baghdad) was the second big Essen release by Queen Games. The game was advertised with as many posters as Shogun and got a lot of attention. We were able to play Der Dieb von Bagdad. Since our game explainer did not really focus on the "why" we had a hard time at first. He just wanted to get us going, I believe. However, playing strategy board games is particularly difficult if you do not know what your goal is. No goal, no strategy. We therefore had to ask a couple of times for rule clarifications which started to annoy me. The game itself was a lot of fun and Shelak decided to buy a copy. We used Sunday evening to play another game as we all wanted to try again with 100% awareness of both rules and the overall objective of the game. This turned out to be a lot of fun. Der Dieb is certainly a game we will play more often in the near future...
Amigo
If you are wondering: Amigo was a real disappointment this year. I already own Um Krone und Kragen which is a good filler game but other than that they did not have much to interest me. Neither did the republished version of Il Principe peak my interest, nor did the numerous card games that were available for play. Maybe we were overlooking something (then please, please tell me) but their portfolio did not seem to be very strong this year.