Tell us about Spiel, Baron

I didn't get to the Krimsus Krimskrams-Kiste stand, but one of their new games is a German language edition of Hogshead's Adventures of Baron Munchhausen by James Wallis: a game of telling tall tales, much enjoyed by role-players. Das ERSTE, by Ralf Sandfuchs, is an introductory role-playing game. Other new titles were: Am Rande des Gletschers (At the Glacier's Edge) by Anja and Patrick Menon and Höhlengrölen by Mark "Krimsu" Sienholz. The former has the theme of tribes trying to survive in the Ice Age. The latter also has a prehistoric feel, but the anachronistic theme of forming bands by collecting musicians (cards).

I was surprised to find Phalanx Games on the Amigo stand, but apparently they have a distribution deal with the major company. Phalanx's speciality is beautifully produced board wargames - think Avalon Hill with German production values. The new release is Waterloo by Alexander S Berg. Coming soon is a multi-player game of intrigue and conflict in ancient Rome: Nero (also credited to Alexander S Berg) is set in the "year of four Emperors".

Queen Games had one brand new game, Krone & Schwert (Crown & Sword) by Klaus-Jürgen (Carcassonne) Wrede. Another game I didn't have the opportunity to play, this is for 3-5 players aged 10+. Other games from Queen this year include Dschunke (Junk - in the oriental ship sense), Wallenstein, and a children's game with a frog theme, Freche Frösche. The only one I've played is Dschunke, which is a typically clever design by Michael Schacht. The game involves placing goods in various of five junks sitting in the harbour, while trying to out-manoeuvre your opponents so that you get the opportunity to score points. It's a bit too intense for me, so it only gets 6/10. Dirk Henn's Wallenstein is set in the Thirty Years War and has been getting some good press: one I'm looking for an opportunity to play it.

Richard Breese was present as R&D Games and had brought lots of copies of Keythedral along. Many of these had been pre-ordered and the rest sold out on the first day. It's an interesting game; one which I think is best summed up as 'intricate'. The rules are fairly straightforward, but dovetail and interconnect so that the effect is like opening up a watch to see the complex interplay of the simple components inside. Basically, players are competing to gain the tiles that represent parts of the cathedral. Getting these requires resource cubes of various kinds. The basic resource cubes come from the fields that make up the 'board', while others are bought with basic resources.

The 'board' is formed from octagonal tiles representing fields. In the gaps between these are the diamond-shaped tiles of the players' cottages. Each cottage allows a worker to be deployed into a neighbouring field so that the player can get the appropriate resource. The order in which this is done is chosen by the players each turn, so players can try to block each other - particularly when certain resources are in demand. On top of this, cottages can be upgraded to houses, allowing two workers to be deployed. Players can also build fences to cut off other players' cottages. And then there are 'law' cards, which can be bought with resources and give the player some special advantage (extra resources or a cheap trade, for example) when played.

The game impressed me on first play, though it seemed to be over surprisingly quickly. I suspect that subsequent games will take longer, as players realise the significance of their actions - particularly the set-up - and think harder about each one. 9/10 provisionally.

Given how big Ravensburger is, it was surprising to find just a couple of new games on its stand. The first of these is a card game tie-in to Die Zwei Türme (The Two Towers) by Reiner Knizia, aimed at a 9+ market. Kopfsalat by Bertram Kaes has the interesting minimum age of 16, which suggest a more adult theme. Puerto Rico was also in evidence (alea being a Ravensburger subsidiary) and there were a number of games released earlier in the year.

Pueblo (Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer) is an interesting multi-player abstract game. It's played with plastic blocks: these are built up from four cubes such that there are two cubes in each of the three dimensions (I know this doesn't make sense, but it's the best description I can manage!). You start with a number of blocks in your colour plus the same number in a neutral beige. Everybody plays in turn (alternating between their colour and neutral), adding a piece to the pile in the middle of the board. Then you move a pawn round the outside track and score penalty points against the players whose colour is visible along that row/column. It's a brain-burner, but not as bad as some! Hence it's not really my thing, but I give it 7/10.

To me, Schmidt Spiele is best known as distributor for Hans im Glück. But they do publish their own games. This year these include ReAction by Maureen Hiron. This is a fast and furious, Racing Demon-type game. Players get a hand of cards, each with a number and letter on. Control cards indicate what players can play. For example, = means same letter or number: so if one player plays D3, others can play Dn or x3. Alternatively, + means one better: so onto that D3, you can play En or x4. The idea is to play quickly - this usually involves much clashing of hands! The first to get rid of all their cards wins. I think the person who played last has an advantage and can get rid of several cards in sequence before anyone else gets in. However, it's not a game for thinking about, it's a game for doing! 7/10

Also on show from Schmidt was Lumberjack, a dexterity game from Alan Moon and Aaron Weissblum, and a couple of kids' games by Reiner Knizia.

Michael Schacht's own imprint, Spiele aus Timbuktu, had a three-piece set of new train games: Crazy Race, Mogul and Station Manager. I saw lots of British players carrying the shrink-wrapped sets, and I expect to get a chance to play them soon.

Dutch company Splotter Spellen rolled up with three new games, the most interesting of which seemed to be VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie - Founding the Dutch East Indies Company) by Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga. The game is based around the struggle to control the fledging company and dominate trade with the East. The other two were Cannes - Joris Wiersinga, Jeroen Doumen, Tamara Jannink and Herman Haverkort - and Oraklos by Tamara Jannink and Joris Wiersinga. For some reason I've never got into the Splotter games and have not tried these.

I'm afraid the Warfrog guys have come up with my game of the show for the second year running. This was Age of Steam and is the latest development by designer Martin Wallace of the game system that started with Lancashire Railways and New England Railways (both published by Winsome Games) and progressed through Volldampf (from TM Spiele). Production is up to German standards, with a full colour mounted board and lots of good, thick cardboard pieces and wooden blocks. Apart from one unfortunate printing error on the board, the only thing that lets the game down is the rules, which suffer from typos and a lack of structure. The game, however, is terrific. Like the others in the series, the heart of the game is generating income for your 'company' by moving goods from town to town along your railway lines. The destination of the goods is indicated by their colour, which allows some planning ahead. What's different is that in this game you build the track between cities by laying tiles (in good 18xx style, though less complicated). In the previous games, it's been a question of bidding for pre-defined sections of track.

Around this central mechanism is a lot more. To start off with, players bid for turn order. However, the first thing they do after this each turn is choose one of several special actions, which include building first and moving goods first! Another action is Urbanization, which allows a town on the board to be upgraded to a city. This introduces a new destination for goods (in fact some goods can only be moved to an urbanised town as there isn't a city of that colour on the board at the start). Laying track on the board must be paid for by cash, which is raised by issuing shares. However, dividends must be paid out on each share after the company has received its income each turn. With ongoing costs, companies usually need to issue more shares in the early turns just to cover their costs. Key to success in the game is judging this correctly. The key to failure is never breaking even!

I could go on at length about this game - click here for my review of Age of Steam - but suffice it to say that it gets a resounding 10/10 from me.

The big news at the Winning Moves stand - apart from the success of Trans America - was Leo Colovini's Clans, even though it was only on show in prototype form. Several visits to the stand didn't get me an opportunity to play the game, so it will have to wait for the production version to arrive.

Trans America (by Franz-Benno Delonge) is licensed from Winsome, who published the game as Iron Road. An English language edition of Trans America is available from Rio Grande. The game's board is a map of the USA, showing a number of cities across the country, set into a triangular grid. The cities are colour coded into five groups. At the start of the game, you are dealt a card in each of the colours, giving you a set of cities that you need to connect.

Each turn you play a couple of pieces ('matchsticks') onto the board along the grid. From your chosen starting point you extend your network, joining up with cities and lines that other people have laid. Once you are linked to other people's networks, you can extend anything you're connected to. This usually means that things build gradually until the interconnections are made and then expand rapidly. As soon as somebody connects their set of cities (which can be on someone else's turn!), play stops. The other players score penalty points for each additional piece they still need to play to link up their cities. If nobody's reached the critical number, another round is played. The critical number is reduced after the second round, so a game usually lasts two-three rounds. Of course, it's the player with the least points who wins. The game is not too demanding, plays quickly and is fun. There's clearly a luck element in the cities you get dealt (some are closer than others), but it doesn't overwhelm the game. I give it 9/10.

Warfrog's US ally is Winsome Games and they had limited supplies of a couple of new games. Lokomotive Werks by Dieter Danziger and Max Michael's Roundhouse both sold out by Friday.

Zoch were making much of their Spiel des Jahres prize for Villa Paletti and this game had a stand all to itself. On the main stand Zoch had two new games. König der Maulwürfel is a children's dice racing game from Günter Burkhardt; Virus & Co is a card game by Frank Stark and Jörg Spiegelhalter.

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Final round-up

Let me finish with a quick round-up of a few other notables at the show. Francis Tresham was in evidence, but without anything new for us. As usual, he was on the Mayfair stand; they were showing off some of their new English language editions of German games. I should also mention that I hardly ventured into the large areas of the show occupied by the RPG and CCG games companies. My forays indicated that there were even more stands catering to live action role-players: supplying latex (I hope) weaponry, costumes and props. I was impressed by a large new stand for Tilsit Editions, the French company best known for big semi-wargames (Joan of Arc etc). This seems to mark a major new marketing push from them, but I didn't identify any new games apart from several licences: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, Angel and others. Interestingly, the big player in France, Descartes (who publish board games under the Eurogames label), was distinctly low key this year. Games Workshop was very noticeable, showing off a new range of Lord of the Rings material.

I'd like to conclude with my thanks to the organisers, Friedhelm Merz Verlag, for another fine show. The figures show that some 148,555 people attended the fair over its four days. They got to see 578 exhibitors, drawn from 21 countries. I can't speak for the other 148,554, but I'm definitely looking forward to the next Spiel: 23rd-26th October 2003.

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