Game: Tinners' Trail

Thread: Re: JKLM - Pre-order

magnus1515 — 2008-10-16T00:53:17+00:00

Excellent! I just preordered my copy, but I live in Michigan so I hope it will get here before the Holidays...

Thread: Re: Tinners' Trail looks to be in stock for $60 + shipping @ funagain

kneumann — 2008-10-14T22:38:42+00:00

Basiliv wrote:
JKLM pre-orders look to be much cheaper than that (you'll need to sign in to see the prices):

£20.00
+ £2.50 p&p

$34.40
+ $4.30 p&p

€25.60
+ €3.20 p&p

Those are much better prices (especially the shipping). Do they indicate when they would be ready to ship?

Edit: Nevermind, I saw they indicated December 2008 in a prior post. Thanks

Thread: Re: Tinners' Trail looks to be in stock for $60 + shipping @ funagain

Basiliv — 2008-10-14T22:24:10+00:00

JKLM pre-orders look to be much cheaper than that (you'll need to sign in to see the prices):

£20.00
+ £2.50 p&p

$34.40
+ $4.30 p&p

€25.60
+ €3.20 p&p

Thread: Re: Tinners' Trail looks to be in stock for $60 + shipping @ funagain

jarjar26 — 2008-10-14T21:06:59+00:00

Shipping for Quebec/Canada is 26.50

Thread: Tinners' Trail looks to be in stock for $60 + shipping @ funagain

kneumann — 2008-10-14T20:22:42+00:00

Not sure what shipping cost is.

Link: http://www.funagain.com/control/product/~product_id=019205

Image

adamdynris — 2008-10-12T15:24:49+00:00

Thread: Re: Airmail Shipping Times?

matthew.marquand — 2008-10-11T23:11:59+00:00

rgmnetid wrote:
I got surface shipping. Arrived 8 weeks + 2 days later.

Ordered 08/13/08
Received 10/10/08

8 weeks + 2 days for me as well.

Thread: Re: JKLM - Pre-order

DavidNorman99 — 2008-10-10T20:35:37+00:00

thepackrat wrote:
*sigh*.

Are there any component upgrades between the original and reprint?

B>

The standard of the graphics will be improved.

The rulebook will have some of the errors and omisions corrected (hopefully all, but I'm not making any guarantees...).

I'll discuss the blue cubes with Markus.

Anything else that people think we should be considering?

If you're at Essen, come and visit us on 5-55 - we may have some graphics samples available by then.

David.

Image

capt yid — 2008-10-09T03:01:06+00:00

Tinner's Trail at the Congress of Gamers, 2008 + Rockville, Maryland

Thread: Re: JKLM to Republish Tinners’ Trail

KrisVerbeeck — 2008-10-08T12:35:21+00:00

wmshub wrote:
dcorban wrote:
ohgodpleasenoonementionanimeeplespleasenoonementionanimeeplesWouldn't it be cool if all the blue cubes were shaped like sheep in this new printing...
Wouldn't fish be a less confusing choice?

The fish could also be used in that farming game. Since now you pull out foodcoupons instead of fish out of the water.

Thread: Re: Playable by 2?

chilliface — 2008-10-06T17:16:36+00:00

I've played a few 2P games on Tinners' and it seemed to work quite well. We reduce the available action resources in each of the 4 rounds to reflect the fact that there will always be someone left wanting.

The auction usually goes ok just by standard bidding.

If you have access to the game give it a try and post back what you think.

BTW. This is a great game.

Thread: Re: Tinners' Trail your Best Next Step Game

EvilTimmy — 2008-10-01T16:12:33+00:00

I like your ideas for a 2-player game. Someone else has also suggested making the auctions one-time blind bidding in a 2-player game. Combined with your ideas it just might work.

Thread: Re: JKLM to Republish Tinners’ Trail

RDewsbery — 2008-10-01T13:54:22+00:00

caesarmom wrote:

Actually, I've been quite pleased with the quality of JKLM's recent games. They've come a long way since the days of Cities and Guilds.

Then I take it that you've never seen a copy of their first game, Dwarves? Trust me when I say that JKLM had already come a pretty long way from there just to get to Cities and Guilds.

Thread: Re: JKLM to Republish Tinners’ Trail

caesarmom — 2008-10-01T13:24:22+00:00

ProfT wrote:
My only caveat on this is to hope that JKLM keep with the same high quality Board and bits.
They are not exacly Eagle when it comes to production. But then they are still in business

Actually, I've been quite pleased with the quality of JKLM's recent games. They've come a long way since the days of Cities and Guilds.

Thread: Re: JKLM to Republish Tinners’ Trail

ProfT — 2008-09-27T22:39:10+00:00

thepackrat wrote:
RDewsbery wrote:
Given the time involved for most reprints, I wouldn't worry about a JKLM reprint hitting the shops just yet.

That's very true, but JLKM couldn't be any slower with Tinner's Trail than Valley are being with Liberte, could they?

B>

My only caveat on this is to hope that JKLM keep with the same high quality Board and bits.
They are not exacly Eagle when it comes to production. But then they are still in business

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

EvilTimmy — 2008-09-26T16:31:25+00:00

Bolger wrote:
The thing is, this is good enough.
No, this one really isn't
And "good enough" has never been a hallmark of Tom's history of reviews. They've been excellent with a well-structured format.

Thread: Re: The Best Darn Mining Game!

Abstractite — 2008-09-26T15:44:45+00:00

Tinners' Trail is a great mining game, but I don't know, I can't wait to play Cavum. (Actually, I haven't played either, but I'll take your word for it and think that TT is better for right now.)

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

Bolger — 2008-09-26T15:33:46+00:00

There are always ways to improve in anything we are doing. The thing is, this is good enough. Tom, I really appreciate all the work you put into reviews and other aspects of gaming. Please keep up the good work!

Thread: Re: The Best Darn Mining Game!

duartec — 2008-09-26T13:56:01+00:00

mr_mrholmes wrote:

Nice session review. TT is deceptively simple but has a nice depth that draws you back to it again and again. I think, like Brass (another Martin Wallace game), this will rise and rise through the ratings as more people discover it. I know that Warfrog has sold out of the original 1500 print run but hopefully another games compnay is coming in with a new edition.

Mark

Mark JKLM is going to reprint this great game! Hopefully other people will be able to enjoy it.

Cheers
Duarte

Thread: Re: The Best Darn Mining Game!

mr_mrholmes — 2008-09-26T10:59:28+00:00

Nice session review. TT is deceptively simple but has a nice depth that draws you back to it again and again. I think, like Brass (another Martin Wallace game), this will rise and rise through the ratings as more people discover it. I know that Warfrog has sold out of the original 1500 print run but hopefully another games compnay is coming in with a new edition.

Mark

Thread: Re: Tinners' Trail your Best Next Step Game

custom golf clubs — 2008-09-26T10:38:27+00:00

about 90 min with 4

Thread: Re: Tinners' Trail your Best Next Step Game

Pozman — 2008-09-26T08:20:46+00:00

Nice review

Any idea of the average gaming time?

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

Liggur — 2008-09-26T06:41:08+00:00

In a video review, I would expect to see more of the game, rather than have bits of it flashed infront of the camera on occasion. E.G. Have close-ups of the bits when you are describing them.

Thread: Re: Wednesday Night Gaming: The Copper Track is Broken

punkzter — 2008-09-26T04:59:02+00:00

Haha.

Thread: Re: Wednesday Night Gaming: The Copper Track is Broken

game_boy — 2008-09-26T03:22:24+00:00

... and you're a copper session reporter too!

Thread: Tinners' Trail your Best Next Step Game

custom golf clubs — 2008-09-26T00:38:27+00:00

Review of TINNERS’ TRAIL
By Jon LaChance

Theme of the game:
You are playing an ore mining company in Cornwall, England in the early 1900’s.

The Board
The game board is a beautiful map of the Cornwall.
PLUS The board also contains all of the following:
-Money Track, a very ingenious device to eliminate the need for paper or coin money. I really like how this was incorporated.
-ore selling prices
-Turn order and Action reminder areas
-Available developments supply depot
-Order of play column
-The Time Track. Again I like how this was done, compact but elegant.
-External Investments / Victory point matrix area. Again I like how this was done.

The good part of how all this is printed is there really is no “up side” on the board so nobody is at a disadvantage based on where they are sitting.

Instructions
The instructions were very well written and had a are illustrated to show board setup, and describe the game play. There is even a “player aid” on the last page that you could copy, laminate, and give to players as a reminder sheet.

The gameplay
Explanation of the game takes 15 minutes. Understand the actions available and how to use them is fairly straight forward. Mastery of this game could take a little longer.

The game plays over (4) TURNS and each turn consists of the following 7 Phases:

1) Determine Ore Prices
Simply roll the 3 dice and add them up, look at the chart and there you have it

2) Available Developments
Simply fill the development depot with the correct amount of “Steam Pumps”, “Miners”, “Docks/Boats”, “Drainage Pipes”, and “Railroads”

3)Player Actions
This is the meat of the game. Each of these actions cost you “time”, and some cost you “time and money”. You only have 10 time points to use each turn so USE THEM WISELY.

What actions will you choose??

Will you start an auction bid on a mine location & build a new mine? (costs money)

Will you take a miner from the depot and increase your mine capacity?(costs time)

Will you build a drainage pipe to drain water from your mine and an adjacent mine territory (note this also reveals more ore in your mine)? (costs a lot of time)

Will you Grab a steam pump from the depot and pump the water out of your mine? (Costs time)

Will you build a dock and increase the capacity of your mine while also taking out some water? (costs time)

Will you build a railroad in your mine territory to take out some water from your mine territory and all adjacent territories? (costs more time)

Do you want to spend some time getting ore out of the ground in that fancy new mine of yours? This costs time and maybe money (if there is water present), but this is the only way to get money back, you need to sell the ore to get more money..

Do you need a little money and you want to spend some time selling pasties?

Or do you want to be the first person to “PASS” and become the “starting player” for the next TURN?

So many choices and so little time to do them, OH, and if one of your competitors gets to the depot before you, and takes what you wanted, you’ll be out of luck.

4)Sell Ore
You take the ore you mined in this last turn and sell ALL of it for the market prices indicated. You now have MONEY, and hopefully lots of it!

5) External Investments
The only way to get Victory Points is to “Invest Outside of Cornwall” You spend your money to purchase investments, and at the end of the game these investments are Victory Points (vp). The earlier you invest the more you make!
For example $50 invested the first turn nets you 60vp while that same $50 invested on the last turn is only worth 30vp

6) Prospect
If there are open territories with no Tin or Copper showing the first two players each get to choose one territory and roll for resources. The appropriate number of Tin, Copper and Water are then added to that new territory.

7) End of Turn
The game only lasts 4 TURNS. If this is the end of turn 4 the winner is the one with the most victory points with the following Tie-Breakers
Most money
Most tin and Copper left in mines on the board
AND LAST but not LEAST the First person in play order
(maybe PASSing out early on the last turn will get you the win in a very tight game)

Use with Younger Players
I believe this game could be played with a 9-10 yr old but only if they have played several other types of euro-games. This is NOT a gateway game, but might be a very good “next step game”.
Some issues the younger players may have trouble getting are:
1)turning $$ into Victory points
2)Spending “time”, If they have played THEBES then they might do just fine.
3)Keeping enough, but not too much money for next round, In all honesty I think adults will struggle with this too.

Playing with just 2-players??
The box says 3-4 players, I believe this game could work very well with just 2 players. Most of the auctions come down to just 2 players bidding for the space so I don’t see that being a real big problem. I think you would need to make the board a little smaller, if you made (4) of the empty territories and 2 of the starting territories “off limits” this would create a proper playing area to make the game tight. I would also make money be a "Hidden aspect" of the game with just 2 players. This would require you to have your own money or pokerchips for a 2-player game but it would add a lot to a 2-player game.

Who will like this game?
This is not a “Gateway Game”! It is definitely a “Next Step Game”. At it’s heart I think this is a classic “Euro-game” where “A+B=C” and C is turned into D. It is a little bit of an Economics game, but I think it is more of an efficiency game. The theme is very well done, and all the bits and board are top notch. When this game gets re-printed I would recommend it for anyone looking for a next step game.

Thread: The Best Darn Mining Game!

custom golf clubs — 2008-09-25T23:01:49+00:00

Finally got to play Tinners' Trail after a week of fondling the bits and reading the rules and all I can say is WHAT A GAME!

The brilliance of the game is that the price of the Tin and Copper changes from round to round. Yea it is done with dice, but who cares, IT WORKS! As for the folks who were complaining about the "shortage of blue cubes" I think they need to start pumping water out of their mines before they begin to mine for ore. We had no shortages and there was some very bad (for us) rolls of that darn Blue die. (Personally I think it is loaded to come up as 3 or 4)

ROUND 1
At the start of the game 2 gigantic rolls provided $10 Copper and $7 Tin. My first thought was I had better make $$ while you have the chance. I managed to mine $57 worth of Copper and Tin while the next three players managed $57, $47, and $37 respectively. I tried the go for broke VP strategy shelling out $50 for 60vp while the next player sold $40 for $48, and the others spent (I think the smart move, as this left him plenty of capital to spend next round) $30 each.

Round 1 conclusion
This left 2 of us very poor for the next round and this made it difficult to mine for ore, even though it was almost at a record low on price. From my standpoint I was selling a lot of Pasties

ROUND 2
A mediocre die roll left Tin and Copper selling for $5, and $4 respectively. Having almost no money I was forced to sell ~~my body~~ oh wait a minute that was in a later game, actuall i sold Pasties for several days of round 2 and I finally managed to scrape up a little bit of money with my last bit of time and used my last day to mine some Tin so I didn't get skunked on the VP track for round 2.

Round 2 conclusion
In hindsight I maybe should have as spending a little money for very few VP's.

ROUND 3
The dice were a little better to us on the market with Tin and copper selling for $6, and $5 each for the 3rd round. In the 3rd round I took some chances and bid on some "undiscovered territories", winning the bid is useless if the roll of the dice comes up 3water, 0Tin, 2Copper as it did on me 2x.
Round 3 conclusion
The next time I am going to let those territories go and only build where I can see some cubes because 3Copper, 2Tin, and 4Water beats the alternative.

ROUND 4
The final round provide more of the same with a medium good die roll negated by the "-1 in last round rule". I still didn't have very good mines, everyone. By this time the others had gotten most of the water and some of the Tin and Copper out of their mines, but it was close and in my desperate attempt to get some victory points I bowed out 2nd. In the last round i managed to get 21 victory points and end up with $1.

The final score was
(Mr Ethan) Yellow 107
(Mr Jack) Green 97
(ME)Blue (91)
(Mr Todd) Red 89

Overall a very good game. Not too heavy, not too light, but just about RIGHT!

In my opinion this is The Best Darn Mining Game!

I look forward to my next play because it turns out that, you guessed it we got a few rules wrong.

1) Only one improvement of one type in a territory, a few of us had multiple miners at one mine.

2) When you pick "steam pump" you get the entire stack! (OOPS! we only took one disk when multiple were available in rounds 2, 3, and 4)

3) The steam pumps restock all the way back in each round, so there are 4 stacks a (3),(2),(2), and (1) available in the final round. This also might have helped everyone out in rounds 2 and 3

Thread: Wednesday Night Gaming: The Copper Track is Broken

punkzter — 2008-09-25T16:07:55+00:00

Tinners’ Trail Week Three: Taken to the Hoop

I recently read a book entitled “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. One of Friedman’s ideas was that the dotcom bust ended up fueling the current technological advancement of many foreign countries by first laying the cable necessary for internet connectivity and then, following the bankruptcy of those companies that paid for the cable, providing that cable at a very cheap cost. What does this have to do with my recent game of Tinners’ Trail you may ask? Well, if this game has any predictive power towards future industry in Cornwall, we may suspect that there will soon be a tremendous upswing Copper wiring and all benefits that arise from the abundant supply of electricity.

Capping off it’s three week reign as my Wednesday gaming groups game of the month, Tinners’ Trail provided yet another fun filled night of gaming. Interestingly, this game also marked the first time that almost every one of the “issues” brought forth about the game were made oh so evident. First, we did run out of water cubes. Mining, simply put, was expensive. My fix for the short supply of water has been to use a couple of nice blue dice kindly supplied by StrikeZone (for free) at Origins. Second, as I hinted at earlier, the price of copper was abysmal for the entire game. In fact, in the last round, it reached the wonderfully low price of 2 pounds per cube. Third, and this is tied in with the second issue, the dice were just not in my favor. And still, I enjoyed the experience. I recognized that, yes, copper was just not paying off, but I also recognized that I made some serious blunders in my Time Point strategy and my location along that track. I was outright outplayed by Dan at a number of critical points, and Tom was able to clearly out-mine all of us (especially in the third round).

At the end of the critical first round, Tin was selling at 6 pounds, and Copper was at 4 pounds. Tom had done a very good job of securing those mines that allowed for quick and cheap extraction of Tin yet he ultimately decided to start off slow and only acquired 18 victory points.

Round 1 Score:
Brad: 24
Tom: 18
Mike: 18
Dan: 24

The second round must have been tough for all of us. I know that I reduced myself to around 7 pounds, an amount of money that provided to be woefully inadequate in comparison to the cost of mining on a flooded board. Coupled with the low cost of Copper and a number of mines that were overwhelmingly Copper, I was only able to acquire 5 VPs at the end of the round.

Round 2 Score:
Brad: 24 + 5 = 29
Tom: 18 + 15 = 33
Mike: 18 + 10 = 28
Dan: 24 + 10 = 34

Ah, round three. Copper finally rebounded to a selling price of 8 pounds. And I was still unable to harvest an adequate amount to rebound. In fact, I acquired the fewest victory points of everyone at the end of this round. I mentioned earlier in the report that I was outplayed by Dan on a number of occasions. In one instance, I had 4 time points left and Dan had 3. My goal was to keep pushing people up the track until I could, like last week, acquire some good mines cheap. I had a particular spot in mind, already dewatered and re-supplied via an adit that I had placed in the previous turn. I had 2 pounds, however, and I was not going to go higher than 1 pound for each of the two mines I hoped to build. Ultimately, I believe that I put the mines up in the wrong order, allowing Dan to take over my mine and leaving me with a random spot, that failed to produce. At another point, my goal was to pass first (I still had 2 action points left so I felt that I was safe) and take the 3 steam pumps first in the last round). Dan had two action points as well, but passed before me, and to make matters worse, took the very action I desperately needed. Anyhow, by the end of the third round, I had only extracted enough ore to acquire 24 victory points…a mere trifle when compared to Tom’s 44.

Round 3 Score:
Brad: 29 + 24 = 53
Tom: 33 + 44 = 77
Mike: 28 + 32 = 60
Dan: 34 + 32 = 66

Then into the fourth round. After Copper plummeted to 2 pounds at the end of the third round, and noticing that all of my mines were essentially dedicated to the hope that Copper would pay out, I knew that I was done. I tried to gain the necessary improvements to extract that worthless copper as best as possible during this round, but a lack of steam pumps or other water clearing technologies limited by ability to do this. Both Tom and Dan extracted their ore with ease, and scored 21 points each as I watched from the sidelines.

Final Score:
Brad: 53 + 18 = 71
Tom: 77 + 21 = 98
Mike: 60 + 15 = 75
Dan: 66 + 21 = 87

Well, three weeks in a row and we all continued to enjoy the game. I thought that I had a coherent strategy planned out going into this game, but subtle mistakes and good strategies by my opponents quickly derailed me. I think that Mike’s final score is not a good indicator of his game play last night, nor is Dan’s, as I believe that both were very close to catching Tom at all points in the game. But the final Kudos has to go to Tom, who won the right auctions, invested in the correct improvements, and ultimately, to misquote my e-mail to him after my decisive victory last week, “Took ME to the hoop!”

Thread: Re: auctions??

game_boy — 2008-09-25T02:37:40+00:00

Dearlove wrote:
custom golf clubs wrote:
can a player win more than one auction per turn?? I assume yes as long as they have the $$ to pay for it.

And the time points.

Note that the answer is yes because nothing says you can't. But also if the answer were no, why do you have six minehead pieces?
To make up for not enough water cubes?

Thread: Re: auctions??

Dearlove — 2008-09-24T18:16:25+00:00

custom golf clubs wrote:
can a player win more than one auction per turn?? I assume yes as long as they have the $$ to pay for it.

And the time points.

Note that the answer is yes because nothing says you can't. But also if the answer were no, why do you have six minehead pieces?

Thread: Re: auctions??

GeoMan — 2008-09-24T17:55:47+00:00

Yes, they can.

Thread: auctions??

custom golf clubs — 2008-09-24T17:04:56+00:00

can a player win more than one auction per turn?? I assume yes as long as they have the $$ to pay for it.

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

kowalskie — 2008-09-24T10:00:29+00:00

I really like the 'high energy' style of your reviews [the current top 100 is really great] but on this one it does seem too 'scattered' and a few important things are missing...

had i not played the game i wouldn't really get much of an idea of if i would like it or not [i do. a lot] from this review.

keep 'em coming though!

malcolm

Thread: Re: Wednesday Night Gaming: A Second Game of Tinners' Trail

zefquaavius — 2008-09-23T19:02:16+00:00

Yeah, Tinners' Trail is great! I'm glad you're catching up with me in plays!

Thread: Re: JKLM - Pre-order

Innovan — 2008-09-23T18:06:29+00:00

Allegedly, more blue cubes could be included.

Thread: Re: JKLM - Pre-order

dcorban — 2008-09-23T17:56:00+00:00

What could possibly be upgraded? It's already a high quality board and good wooden bits. Real tin and copper ore?

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

ropearoni4 — 2008-09-23T15:05:19+00:00

Hmm...too much coffee, prehaps? I didn't mind the review, but throwing the pieces at the camera (sorta) was less needed, and took away from the review. I'll stick to the written word; I think I can read a review of Tom's in the same time he could tell it on a video review, and the written word comes off much clearer with gameplay examples and more opinions on why or why not it is liked.

I did like the idea Tom has Candyland in the background of his games shelves. 'lets see a video review of candyland. :P

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

TGov — 2008-09-23T13:17:31+00:00

I really enjoy these quick reviews, I get tired of watching 30 min reviews sometimes. Those kind of reviews are great for learning a game, but I can get a good idea if I am going to like it from these short vids. If I find something that interests me in these short reviews, then I can do the leg work myself and find out for sure if it is something I want to buy

Thanks Tom!

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

Seth_Logan — 2008-09-23T11:45:49+00:00

No need to appologise, I mean to do no harm.

Well, a good place to start, would be to slow down. You tend to move around a lot with your body, in the same (fast) pace as your explanation. It draws attention away from the subject.

Also, do more cutting and leave the board flat on a table or something, when trying to explain. Picking it up and going through the motion with a board in your hands, doesn't make your statements better.

last but not least: you have choosen a more difficult format. If you want to influence people, then you have to be more convincing yourself. This - unfortunately - was not convincing me of anything. Scott and the others have it easier... they just want to tell something. Opinionisers have a more difficult task. And don't take my word for it: look at your elections!

Again, good luck!

Logan

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

TomVasel — 2008-09-23T11:25:19+00:00

I was rambly on this game - doing a more complicated game perhaps isn't the best in my format. My apologies to everyone!

However.

I am not trying to be like Scott or others. My reviews are meant to give you my feelings and impressions of why I did or didn't like a game in my reviews. They sound quick because I mean them to be like that.

And as for practicing - I'm still learning how to do this newfangled video stuff. Listen to the early Dice Towers. I'll get better!

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

Seth_Logan — 2008-09-23T06:06:13+00:00

EvilTimmy wrote:
This one is terribly rambling and I think Tom is losing his grip on his review format as he cranks these videos out at a record pace. Slow it down man, it's not a race!

Not my words, but resembles my thoughts

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

Seth_Logan — 2008-09-23T06:03:37+00:00

Hi Tom,

I like your written reviews, but your video reviewing definetly needs more practice. I'm not saying this to insult you, but I quit halfway through the video. If you care to know what made me do so, feel free to PM me, or take a look at Boardgames with Scott or the video reviews of Bookshelf games for the type of video reviews I do enjoy. Good luck!

Cheers,

Logan

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

EvilTimmy — 2008-09-23T04:59:37+00:00

thepackrat wrote:
A little more description of what happens on turns and what the players are doing, or the battle against creeping water might have added a little content to this.
Yeah, I'm surprised how little Tom explains what a player does in the game and how little he refers to the visuals of the game board and pieces. If I didn't already know the game I'd be lost.

This one is terribly rambling and I think Tom is losing his grip on his review format as he cranks these videos out at a record pace. Slow it down man, it's not a race! Focus on keeping a standard format like you have for the written reviews.

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

BrenoK — 2008-09-23T01:20:05+00:00

All in all, when my boardgaming friends asked me what I expected of the game, I said "I expect it to be a good game, not as good as Brass, but solid nonetheless. An 8 out of 10".

I've played it twice, 3 players. And yeah, a good game, an 8/10. Nothing unmissable, but quite fun and will probably see frequent play (considering how nice the depth-to-speed factor is in this one).

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

Gamer_Dog — 2008-09-23T01:01:38+00:00

This is a good game. I think the auction mechanism is a little weak in that you are forced to auction defensively (there is no minimum) but the way it all comes together is a very good compact design. I'm a fan of MW designs generally, btw.

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

docreason — 2008-09-22T23:49:39+00:00

I like Stone Age and I like Martin Wallace designs. This definitely sounds like one to keep an eye on.

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

thepackrat — 2008-09-22T23:26:41+00:00

The rules clearly support you, cubes are placed out everywhere where there are cubes printed (all but 8 areas), and then all three dice are rolled to determine how much additional water/tin/copper goes there. Perhaps Tom was thinking about the midgame when all the known quantities have been picked up but not all the areas have been propected yet.

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Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

BrenoK — 2008-09-22T23:18:30+00:00

Wait, do players only get to know what cubes will be in the region after they win the auction?

From what I've played, that only happened if you auctioned off one of the spaces that don't start with any cubes and didn't get "prospected" during the start of each one of the rounds.

At the start of the game, we rolled for every space that had cubes printed on it.

Dunno, I wasn't the one that read the rules, but rolling after each auction would add quite a bit of luck to the game, even if it is what the manual says it's the way it should be played (Thankfully, I have no problems with house rules)

Thread: Re: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

thepackrat — 2008-09-22T23:12:53+00:00

A little more description of what happens on turns and what the players are doing, or the battle against creeping water might have added a little content to this. Good review of the theme, though.

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Thread: [Video Review] Tinner's Trail

TomVasel — 2008-09-22T22:01:28+00:00

Quick Comment: A solid Wallace game that plays in a quick amount of time. Fits the theme, but good strategy will be elusive.

Youtube Video

Thread: Re: JKLM - Pre-order

thepackrat — 2008-09-22T17:06:23+00:00

*sigh*.

Are there any component upgrades between the original and reprint?

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Thread: Re: JKLM - Pre-order

StyxParadox — 2008-09-22T16:47:49+00:00

thepackrat wrote:
So, since someone has to ask, what are the differences between the editions?

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Maybe just is not numbered and signed like the first 1500.

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Toynan — 2008-09-20T14:41:48+00:00

Score board at the end of the game. Red wins.

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Toynan — 2008-09-20T12:03:15+00:00

Near the end

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Toynan — 2008-09-20T11:53:29+00:00

During the game, my red two mines

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Toynan — 2008-09-20T11:51:12+00:00

set up of the early begining of the game

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Toynan — 2008-09-20T11:49:51+00:00

Close up on a worker

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HRune — 2008-09-07T12:54:03+00:00

Mostly empty mines close to the end of the game

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trawlerman — 2008-09-06T19:57:27+00:00

1388 of 1500! I'm a lucky man! Get yours at Essen! There aren't many copies left!!!!

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Kovacs — 2008-07-26T20:44:54+00:00

End game of our first 3 player game