Visiting Essen
isn’t too ambitious when you live in the UK, but right now, while we are still
in our first 12 months of gaming, the idea seems all too intimidating, so for
me, getting excited about Essen releases
is more about getting excited about games that I might play or add to my
collection in the next 3 months. I was pretty excited for GenCon releases and haven’t heard half as much about Essen so
haven’t felt the excitement so much, but when I’ve looked into it – there are
more than enough games to get excited about!
My information about Essen releases has come from a combination of the Essen 2015 Preview on
BoardGameGeek https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/174654/spiel-2015-preview
and the Dice Tower Essen preview videos.
I cannot personally vouch for its accuracy.
10. At number ten
is Hengist.
This one just creeps onto the list because I am a still intrigued by
Uwe Rosenberg’s 2-player series. Admittedly I am yet to try them, but it’s not
for want of trying! The little I’ve seen of this game reminds me in some way of
Lost Cities, which for me is a good thing. Probably one I want to try before I
buy, but still interested.
9. At number nine
is Prodigals
Club which is somewhat of a sequel to Last Will. I have only played Last
Will once, but I really enjoyed it and would definitely consider adding it
to the collection, but if I try Prodigals
Club and prefer it in any way then perhaps I’ll get the newer game instead.
8. At number
eight is Dice City. I am only interested in this one because I’ve never
played a dice crafting game and the idea is intriguing. I do worry that this
will be another themeless ‘city building’ game like Machi Koro or Flip City,
but I will try it if only to look at a new mechanism.
7. At number
seven is Poseidon’s Kingdom in this case because it looks really cool
and unique. The rolling wave that drops dice all over the board is probably just
a gimmick, but it still draws me in. It also causes me some concern that the
game will be too heavily luck based. But so long as it is short then I can be
OK with that a times. I may be entirely wrong, but this game reminds me of a
hybrid of Survive! Escape from Atlantis
and Rampage/Terror in Meeple City, both of which I like!
6. At number six
is Ticket
to Ride: UK and Pennsylvania Maps. As a gamer in the UK, there is a
certain excitement for seeing your own country ‘put on the map’ with Ticket to Ride. We currently only own Ticket to Ride: Europe and only really
play that with my parents, so it would be nice to expand and this map pack
sounds like it creates 2 new gamer versions which sounds much more appealing
than just different geographical maps.
5. At number five
is 7
Wonders Duel. My level of excitement for this one has actually dropped
after we played the 2 player variant of the original 7 Wonders game and found it pretty playable. However, with so many
reviews and some reviewers saying it is better than 7 Wonders (still one of my favourites) I am still keen for this
2-player game.
4. At number four
is The
Castles of Mad King Ludwig: Secrets. The base game is one of the first
games we bought when we started getting really into board gaming after our
first visit to a game night at a local gaming store. It is a firm favourite and
the first expansion is hotly anticipated by our shelves.
3. At number
three is Thunderbirds. It’s a Matt Leacock co-operative game. Enough
said. We still love Pandemic and Forbidden Desert and even Forbidden Island
sees table time for a quick 15 minute game. There is also some nostalgia for Thunderbirds
as a theme so I’m really crossing my fingers that this game is a hit!
2. At number two
is Raptor, which I’ve been excited about since the
Dice Tower previewed it at GenCon. 2-player, great designers, unique theme, asymmetric
game – all of these things make it a must buy for me.
1. And finally
number one is Pandemic Legacy. It’s certainly not a unique number one for
this style of list, but I am really keen to try my first Legacy game. Pandemic is currently in my top 5 games,
so surely I’ll love this one. I just need to schedule a regular group of 4
players and we can jump right in!
So that’s it. I only picked up two of the games which were
on my GenCon list for top ten most
anticipated, so my game shelf has rather a relaxed attitude towards the new
games coming out at Essen. Let’s see how it is looking in a couple of month’s
time!
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