First day report. As my hotel WLAN access expires in 12 minutes...

* Immediately as the fair opened, I went straight to the dealers' hall and asked around for Chinatown, only to be told that the only copies had already been sold.

* Then went to play Kaivai. The rules were clearly explained and we played a few rounds. I didn't buy it.

* I picked up Antiquity at Splotter. Of course, Indonesia is the big attraction there. I wasn't able to get a seat but I did observe some rules explanation. I didn't pick it up, and seeing the cost (60EUR), I won't until I have a chance to play. The funny thing is the nice sign they have at their booth that says "Roads and Boats: sold out (last year)."

* Had Caylus explained, but no time to actually play. Doesn't matter, as it looked good enough to buy immediately.

* Checked out Antike, but something turned me off about it. Didn't buy it.

* Had Bonaparte @ Marengo and Friedrich explained to me. I bought Bonaparte but am still not sure about Friedrich.

* Bought the last unreserved copy of Jenseits von Theben.

* Bought Arbos. It's good enough as a centerpiece, and the game is pretty fun too!

* Bought a new Traumfabrik from a used games dealer for 15EUR.

* Played Aqua Romana. It's like a more chaotic and brain-burning Metro. I might pick it up if the price decreases.

* Played Timbuktu. Got really screwed. Not gonna buy it.

* Played That's My Fish (I think that's the name) at Phalanx. Really fun, quick game that's easy to explain-- a perfect opener/closer. However, at 20EUR, it's about 10EUR too expensive.

* Saw a sealed copy of Full Metal Planete for 290EUR!

a friend of mine actually bought an sealed copy of full metal planete for 185 eur.

Wow. Thanks for that. Lots of information in a small posting.

Alot of the 'good stuff' at the dealers are snapped up even BEFORE Essen offically opens. And prices for Full Metal Planete are mad. Saw pictures of people holding copies of Black Vienna and Ave Ceasar. Nice.

As expected Jenseits von Theben sold out. : ) Glad I got mine.

60 EUROS for Indoneasia? YIKES! No thanks.

Essen sounds exciting. Enjoy the rest of the trip and keep posting!

I think I can add a short report from Essen 05 in this thread. My observations:

* The waiting lines to the fair wasn´t as long as I expected. I got in pretty fast.

* The halls were a bit crowded in the first hour, but it got better during the afternoon. (After people had spread out in the halls)

* It was fairly easy this year to get a bag for your games when you bought them. So I didn´t have to bring my own plastic bags.

Ok, I won´t babble more about uninteresting things, onto the games!

* I saw Angkor played alot the first day, but not so much the second day. After I heard a short rules explanation, it did seem a bit too simple for me. Hope for lucky draw of tiles. Didn´t buy.

* I listened to a rule explanation of Parthenon, and it seemed interesting so I joined a short game. A quite fun civilization/trading game. Lots of cards. So I bought a copy.

* "Whats your game?" have done a reprint of Big Manitou and Reef Encounter, with both english, italian and german rules. Both had nice new art, and looked interesting so I bought them too.

* On the second day I saw lots of Oltremare games being played, not just around Rio Grande booth. The new version has quite nice ships and a larger game board. Bought this one too.

* I heard a brief explanation of Havoc: the Hundred Years War, but it did play too much like poker with a different theme pasted. Didn´t buy because I don´t like poker.

* I did buy Indonesia for 60 euro! Big price for a fairly small game. I hope it is worth that money. The game is about trading goods in Indonesia, and you buy and sell goods and companies, and develop the cities and companies. (Seems like the designers stays at my hotel in Gelsenkirchen, so I´ll maybe get some autographs later)

* By now I realized that a popular new german game was Elasund. I found an english version in Mayfairs booth, so I bought it. It looked more interesting and different than Settlers, even if it had "Catan" written on the box. Now I see that the gameboard is missing from the pictures here on boardgamegeek. Maybe I should take pictures of my game and upload it here...

* Another game that was played on several tables in Phalanx booth was Mesopotamia. But it was sold out when I tried to buy it! Already on friday afternoon? Must have been a good game, or they brought too few copies to the messe. It was also sold out in Mayfairs booth.

* Caylus looked good too, so a copy went down into my bag after trading it for a reasonable amount of euros.

* Doris & Frank new games was called Arche or Ark in english. Looked nice, light and fun. Didn´t buy since I didn´t see any english version.

* Then I looked around for used copies of old wargames in the dealers area, but they sure know how much they are worth. Didn´t buy Barbarossa: Army Group North for 115 euros or Ukraine´43 for 53 euros. But I found a new copy of Mighty Endeavour for 30 euros. And that was reasonable.

And thats it for this year. Now I´m going back to my hotel. Tomorrow is going to be a long drive back to Sweden.

Thanks for the Essen reports.

Now *play* those copies of Caylus and post reviews and ratings, OK?

Well let me add my experiences of the Thursday, the day I was at the fair. For starters, as I was wearing my BGG shirt, I was spotted by Mister Derk himself, who was busily interviewing someone at the Z-Man Games booth. He turned his attention to me and my friend, and asked us a bit about what we were after and so on. By then I already had a copy of Parthenon under my arm, for a very good price of 35 euros, and my main buy of the fair. It was nice to meet him, and I thanked him for the wonderful site he started and still diligently maintains. He had an idea about how to have to do less maintenance, I'm sure he'll share it with all of us when the time comes... Anyway, I'll keep an eye out here to see if I get featured on BoardgameSpeak!

Driving from Holland, near Rotterdam, we encountered no traffic there and back again (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) on the three hour journey. The traffic started at the Kasse of the Messe, but was efficiently dealt with by the ticketsellers. Once inside, around half past ten, I found there to be plenty of walking and breathing space the first hour or so. Later not so much, but it was okay. I do plan on going two days next year, because this was really a spot-and-buy trip, I didn't take the time to sit down and play anything.

My purchases: Parthenon, Pecunia Non Olet, Angkor, Hazienda and Um Reifenbreite. I was a bit impatient with that last one, because I bought it second-hand for 9 euros in the old elongated box, then saw it about two minutes later for 5 euros brand-new in shrinkwrap! Oh well...

I was a bit disappointed by the prices. There were some good deals (the wonderful Santiago for 10, San Marco for 7,50, Oltre Mare for 16,- and I got Angkor for 18,-), but they were more exception than rule it seemed to me. I was mostly disappointed with Eagle Games and their pricing on Railroad Tycoon. Both Railroad Tycoon and Parthenon have a retail price of 50 dollars. Parthenon I got for 35 euros and Railroad Tycoon cost... 50 euros! Come on guys, that's daylight robbery, selling them yourselves at retail prices. Even if you calculate transport costs they could easily have sold them for 40 euros, maybe even 35 like Parthenon.

That aside, my first Essen was fun and tiring, though I found it to be smaller than I expected (is that possible?!?). Maybe someone knows why halls 1, 2 and 3 were not used, and were they used in years previously? For those of you there this weekend, enjoy!

Interesting news so far. I will be driving down tomorrow. It's only two hours from where I live, so no excuse really.

Any particular deals I should be looking out for? Anything that is not to be missed? I'll only be there for the afternoon, so I guess I'll have to run Spiel '05 commando style

I don't have a Geek Shirt ... so I guess I'll have to spot Derk before he spots me ... then again, I'll just be following the impact sounds of the f-bombs and distraught faces of verbally assaulted german game designers

Evening-of-first-day and second day report:

* Carcassonne: The Discovery introduces some distinctly non-Carcassonnish scoring mechanisms (but OK, to be honest, I haven't played all the last 25 Carc expansions/editions so maybe some of the scoring mechanisms here have been introduced in other variants). The colors of the game are also really hard to distinguish in low light. It would be a nightmare to explain the different ways of scoring. Didn't buy.

* HAVOC. Well, there's been a lot said about Havoc, but I didn't really like it. No time to explain why...

* Angkor, while having luck in the tile draw (as a previous poster noted), still has plenty of room for strategy. There's also a strong screw-your-neighbor element. It was actually pretty fun, but I won't buy it because screw-your-neighbor games don't go over so well in our group.

* Ok, while Alexander the Great is not a new game, we played it anyway because we couldn't get a table for Mesopotamia. Alexander is a really clean, elegant game. However, even though we only played two regions, I could see tedium creeping into the game. Didn't buy.

* Raubritter has this kind of mechanic which actually exists in a lot of games but I don't know the name for it. It is the "put pieces on things to get points for them and the last person to put their piece on it gets all the points" mechanic. Didn't buy.

* Fettnapf is a simple card game that is even more pointless than 6 Nimmt. Didn't buy.

* Aloha is a Cwali game that looks pretty nifty, but it suffers from a really terrible rule that makes the game awkward and fiddly. Unfortunately my WLAN lease is expiring so I don't have time to explain that... didn't buy.

* Played the new Alea prototype. A dice-fest. Won't buy when it comes out.

Those who have gotten this far will notice that I actually didn't find anything worth buying today. But I still had fun trying everything out.

* Patiently waiting for reports on E&T das Kartenspiel, Hazienda and more Mesopotamia *

Thanks for the reports everyone!

I second that. Thanks everyone for posting here!

I read in a blog that Hazienda feels similar to Through the Desert but "without the tension." Hmmm...I'll wait for a more thorough review on that one. I hear Ca$h 'n Gun$ is a lot of fun though.

There are but two games I'm awaiting additional reports on: Indonesia and Daimyo.

Fawkes,

Rick Thornquist gives Mesopotamia "thumb up":
http://www.gamefest.com/news/feature_detail/3367_0_3_0_C/

Thanks Mark, already saw it, which is why I'm asking around for more impressions.

Cheers

I would love to see some reviews from Essen on the new Sagacity Game Freyas Folly... anyone play it/like it/loathe it? My boss Phil was in Essen with Don Bone & I have been waiting with baited breath to see if he bought me any prezzies?!? Especially as he made me work on my birthday so that he could go to Essen from Australia!

I'll probably be playing Hazienda today, also Kreta and Angkor, I'll put up my Personal Comments on those games, so have a look there tomorrow.

imple card game that is even more pointless than 6 Nimmt

blasphemy!!!

Keep those reviews coming Mr. Bortonen!!

Yesterday I've no problem to buy it at Phalanx - friday afternoon, about 5 o'clock. I mean, when I asked one, they said they have sold all the English ones (I asked in English), but I said I had no problem with a German one. Then I have bought a Dutch one in the end. Well, I can't speak a word in Dutch, but one of my geek-friend is learning, so he'll be happy to see, I hope.

But, as I was alone as my finger, I hadn't tried anything, so I can't say anything good about Mesopotamia - except it seemd good .

In case you missed it here is a list of other blogs...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geekforum.php3?action=viewthrea...

That thread is cross-referenced to this one, and now this one to that!

There are some positive comments on Freya's Folly and some others out now...

Enjoy,

Pierce

Any news on Shogun (Queen's new Japan-themed Wallenstein game)? Is it actually at the show? One of the Gamewire photos showed a Shogun poster on the Queen booth...

I didn't know they were reprinting Wallenstein under a new theme. Does this Shogun have a BGG entry yet?

Aha, here's some info:
http://www.gamefest.com/news/news_detail/3329_0_4_0_C/

They're not retheming Wallenstein. They are making a new game called Shogun that uses a similar system to Wallenstein.

Back from a really exhausting day at Essen!

First impressions were the fair was somewhat larger than I remembered, and there was a whole lot more RPG / LARP content and people.

The Days of Wonder booth (they were in a large open area with lots of gaming tables) was somewhat disappointing. Sure, it was nice to see games played on the huge panaroma versions of Shadows over Camelot and Pirate's Cove (theres pics on the Geek), but there was very little else of interest. One small expansion for Mystery of the Abbey (which had already been included in my German base game). They also sold some pre-painted knights for Shadows over Camelot for 2 Euros. Most disappointingly they offered a bundle on all three new expansions of Memoir 44 for 45 Euro ... only they already sold out on the Thursday Those did look nice though.

I have really been pumped about the Fantasy Flight line-up for this year. Unfortunately, very little was there at Essen. None of the Runebound expansions made it to the fair due to printer problenms they told me.

Also, I had Descent on my must buy list, which was sold at the fair for 75 Euros! Unfortunately, I was really turned off by the game. Sure, it's a huge box, however a lot of the components looked really fiddly and worst of all for me, the minatures included were really oversized, unattractive blobs of plainy colored plastic. I really don't get that. When you throw so much plastic at me, give me lots of minis not totally out of proportation mega-critters. All in all the game looked targeted at a much younger audience. Too bad, I wanted to like that one

The real show-stealer was the Fury of Dracula prototype that was being demoed. The game looks gorgous! I watched the group playing for some time, but not enough to compare it in detail to the GW edition. They claimed to have this out for Christmas. I have to have it!

So all in all, very little of interest at my Number 1 bookmarked booth.

A word about prices at the fair. FFG was selling at retail price, or actually what seemed to be a bit above it. Arkham Horror went for 50 Euro, which I can easily get cheaper elsewhere. Most publishers were giving discounts, with the extreme being Twilight Creations who practically gave away their stuff. I picked up Hidden Conflict for 15 Euros, a tile based strategy game with interesting artwork. Didn't pick up Midevil, because, me being an idiot, had it ordered at retail plus shipping beforehand.

Splotter had a small corner booth and were demoing Indonesia, which has a real understated elegance to it, both in presentation and what I could gather of the gameplay. The box is beautiful, the board and other playing bits have this faded, antique look to them, with nice wooden pieces. I am not too keen on trading games, but this one almost had me. Of course, there was no Roads & Boats, but they sold the expansion. I was tempted to ask what the deal is with R&B, since demand seems to be there, but I overheard some other people asking, and decided to move on.

There were plenty of second-hand and normal retailer booths mixed in with the publishers. While I am sure the real bargains were gone beforethe fair even opened, there was still a good selection there, even some rarer stuff. Also, a surprisingly well-stocked war game specialist, where I picked up some stuff that is harder to find in Germany.

Slightly off topic here, but still worth mentioning, there were several niche publishers of both board and RPG games present. Those for me, were a much more satisfying experience than the big league publishers. Almost all of them were really approachable, friendly and gave very good demos of their products. There is just something about a group of semi-professional designers and the spark in their eyes that reminds me of why this is all so much fun in the first place!

In the end I didn't spot Derk. But man, Saturday was also probably the worst day to attend ... it was absolutely packed to the roof. I did spot Klaus Teuber though, who was signing Catan boxes at the Galleria Kaufhof booth. Catan is not my bag though ... I was briefly considering slipping him my new ASL Starter Kit 2 to be signed for the sheer anachronism of it ... but he seemed to be such a cheerful and friendly guy that I didn't want to bother him.

So all in all ... for me it was a mixed show ... didn't see what I came to see, but saw (and bought!) lots of stuff that I never heard of before.

(To answer some questions/points posted here: Shogun is not at the show (at the Queen booth there's a large poster for Shogun that reads "2006"), Havoc is indeed not "just like poker" (but is similar to poker in the same way that Mystery Rummy is similar to gin rummy), and Hazienda has exactly one mechanic in common with Through the Desert and is otherwise nothing like it!)

I was mostly solo today, owing to the fact that my two gaming partners were either busy winning a place in the Settlers championships semi-finals or hanging out with distant relatives. Because of that, I didn't have as much leverage to join games today, so I spent most of the time just doing circuits of the various halls and deciding what to buy.

* Played Hazienda. The game is easy to explain/learn, with the "several paths to victory" thing that I always look for in a game. But... I don't know. It is not sufficiently different from other games that I have to warrant the space in my luggage. Didn't buy.

* Had a demo of Warumono 2. A crime-themed hidden-identity game from Japan, with an somewhat disappointing roll-and-move mechanic. However, it will hopefully do the trick as a short 20-minute opener/closer with some tension and laughs. I probably wouldn't have bought this in a normal situation but I wanted to have more than one unique/limited edition game from this year, dammit.

* Finally had a proper Cash & Guns demo. It's nice with the foam guns and all but the 3 or so games I've seen over the past few days looked dull and repetitive. Didn't buy.

* Checked out Tempus. There seemed to be a rising buzz about this game before Essen, then I read a lot of negative comments about it just before I arrived at the show. But just by reading the rules and watching a game in progress I would have bought a copy, had there been any available. It does seem to scratch the itch that games like Vinci can't reach.

Besides Warumono, I still didn't feel the need to buy anything new. So I snatched a few older games in English that would be relatively expensive in Finland. Days of Wonder was selling English-language versions of their games so I got Mystery of the Abbey, and one dealer was selling English copies of War of the Ring for the miraculous (at least for me) price of 35EUR. Somewhere along the way I got a sealed Flowerpower and some assorted Adlung card games.

Tomorrow I'll try to play the games that are high in the Fairplay leaderboard that I haven't played/had explained yet. This means Il Principe, Big Kini and the new Lookout game (End of the Triumvirate?).

And for people who are worried about games getting sold out, there are still tons of Il Principe copies left, and a significant number of Antike copies.

Short comments on games I played in Essen (some with Scott and some without).

* First thing on Thursday we played a few rounds of Kaivai. It's a nice looking game and I rather liked it. Some of the optional actions seemed rather unbalanced/uninteresting related to others (it's fairly expensive to play the same action on a turn if someone has already played that action before). Didn't buy it.

* Played Aqua Romana. Kind of like Metro. Didn't like that, don't like this. Didn't buy it.

* Played Timbuktu. We played only one round but Scott got already terribly beaten. Liked it a lot. Didn't buy it but we got a copy for a friend so I'm definitely playing it in the near future.

* Played That's My Fish! A very nice filler with lots of opportunities to screw your fellow players. I agree that 20 EUR is a bit much for the game. Didn't buy.

* Played Carcassonne: The Discovery. The system works differently from the original and like Scott said the colors blend in a bit too much. Had to get it though since my wife likes Carcassonne and I'm hoping to get her play this with me. It was only 12 EUR anyway.

* Played Havoc: There seems to be a lot of buzz around this. We played one game and it was okay but maybe the expectations were just to high to appreciate it. Got it and will definitely play it again soon.

* Angkor: Nice looking game and kind of nice. We played two games and both of them seemed to and short. Didn't get this.

* Alexander the Great. Like Scott said we played this because all the Mesopotamia tables were full. I liked the game a lot. It's all about optimizing and trying to guess what others are going to do. Not sure if it is worth 35 EUR though... Didn't buy it.

* Raubritter. Terribly boring game - in a word pointless. Place tiles and if it is a castle put your knights on board and see them being overrun by other player's knights. Lost the game so this might affect my opinion...

* Fettnapf. People call it this year's geschenkt and I agree. Simple game, quick to teach, whole lotta fun. No idea why Scott hates this (or 6 Nimmt!) so much :-) Bought for 5 EUR.

* Aloha. Not overly impressed. Nice thing is the 'push your luck' aspect. Otherwise fiddly as Scott said. Didn't buy.

* Mesopotamia. A nice game. Reminded me about Tikal. Quick to play but a bit low on interaction and I guess can get boring over time. Didn't buy.

* Key largo. People seem to like this but it isn't my cup of tea. Nice graphics and fine pieces but again quite repetitive and boring. Didn't buy.

* Hazienda. Some say this reminds them about Through the Desert. Never played that so can't say. We got a very good explanation of rules for this. Poor guy had to explain it to my 'distant relative' 12 year old boy in German and to Scott and me in English. He did it very well though. I liked the game. It's light (although there are many things to do), fast and looks nice. Didn't buy.

* Der Untergang von Pompeji. This is not completely new but sat down to play it at the Amigo booth since they had a special table for it. It's a bit different game and I guess it could be very interesting with 3 or 4 players (I played it with two). You first place people in Pompeji and you are trying to get as many guys on the board as possible. Then the volcano slowly starts to erupt and the lava flows to the city. Now you are trying to get your guys out of the city as fast as possible. Since you take turns in placing the lava tiles in the city you can block or burn player's pieces. Didn't get it but would like to play it in the future.

* Oltremare. Also liked this. A friend got it so I will borrow it from him.

* Quo Vadis. A reprint of an old game. Nice fast game. Got it for a friend so will probably play again.

Other games I bought without trying:

* Caylus: Read the rules and it seems exactly the kind of game a like. Will probably try it tomorrow.

* Euphrat and Tigris: card game. I read that it's like E&T but faster to play -> 12 EUR well spent.

* New maps for Funkenschlag. These will wear out fast ...

* Elasund. Some good reviews. Probably can convince my wife to play it so got it.

* Kosmos Sudoku for the wifey.

* Durch Die Wuste and Traumfabrik for me. 13 and 15 EUR respectively. Would have to pay a total of 60-70 EUR for these two back at home.

New maps for Power Grid? Are they like new countries to play on?