Power Grid and More

I arrived home yesterday to find my Bezier Games Essen set waiting for me on the porch! I opened everything up and carefully packed away my age of steam maps and then broke the shrink on Beer & Pretzals. But the first game up on the agenda was a new prototype from Emanuele. As always, I can't say anything about this game. The core mechanics are there and it could shape up into a pretty good game.

Mike, Jef, and I started to punch out the B&P components, but Dan arrived and we put them aside to start explaining the main game of the night to Mike: Power Grid (w/ the Korea expansion). Power Grid is one of Dan's favorite games, and he has hinted that he would like to play it for some time. This week, without any brand new toys to try out, I finally broke down and suggested that he bring it along. We explained the rules to Mike and we were soon playing. I screwed up (I think) early on and bought a trash plant requiring expensive fuel. But I am sure that I made a plethora of other mistakes along the way. Anyhow, Jef and Dan were very close in the end, but Jef pulled out the win.

I enjoy Power Grid, though I must admit that there are other games that "do what it does" that I like more. Brass is one of these, but, I actually enjoy Wealth of Nations much more as a Power Grid replacement.

After Power Grid, we played Beer & Pretzals. This is Ted Alspach's latest part game and it is fun. Oh, and the components (drink coasters) are of a very high quality and feel great! Each player has a set of coasters that they are trying to throw into a string circle that is setup in the middle of the table. The coasters show pretzals of varying types that also have different values if they are uncovered at the end of the round and if they are inside the string or touching the string or touching something that is touching the string. It's fun, it's quick, and even better, it came with Age of Steam maps. This is definitely an Essen Set that I don't regret purchasing.

And tonight....its PASOS night. And that means Age of Steam!