So far this year, I have not gotten much board gaming in, but I still want to keep a log of all the games that I play and try to do the 10x10 challenge that I saw on Board Game Geek last year. The 10x10 challenge is playing 10 different board games in your collection, at least 10 times a year. Now while that might sound easy, it is spreading game plays among at least 10 different games and also playing them frequently enough. I am curious of what games I play the most, what games I play the least, what type of games I should sink most of my money into while purchasing games.

So far this year, I have played three games of Star Realms against my fiance and Bang!: The Dice Game once. I won two of the three Star Realms Games against my fiance which were with the new Crisis Expansion packs. I really enjoy the new cards but I am unsure about the Black Hole event as one of the games my fiance bought her first card on the first turn of the game and got hit for 8 damage due to the fact she already played her cards out. If it was every player except the current or after the turn was over and she got to redraw it would be balanced. That set her so far back it made it almost unfun, though I got hit by another event for 6 or 7 damage later on. I still have mixed feelings about the harmful events but I am going to keep playing with them to see if my opinion changes any.

My fiance won one and when we played a four player Bang!: The Dice Game, she also won as the renegade which is very hard to do. I rolled 4 arrows, then rerolled 3 more arrows causing the indians to attack and killing me before I got to resolve any dice at all. Everyone else pretty much died to arrows very early on. The game ended on the second full turn around which is very unsual for the game. I do like Bang!: The Dice Game with five or more players typically as it adds in more bluffing due to the Deputy. It was still a great time though.

I will not include plays from apps, due to the fact that I have already played a ton of Star Realms, way more than 10. We skipped doing board game night this week or there would be a larger list of games here. One thing this will also help me do, is keep track of the unplayed games so I can bring a few of those each week to my gaming group and try to get plays in with those. I don't want to keep games if we never play them either, which is another thing I am looking at. The games my gaming group enjoys most right now are lighter non euros, though there are a few euros that we will play. As long as a good theme is coming across and it isn't bogged down by rules they will have fun. They don't like super mathy games or low interaction games. I don't think bringing out Agricola or Puerto Rico would go over well with the group. I bought Sail to India, and still haven't gotten though a full game of it. My gaming group does enjoy Istanbul though remarkably, though I guess understanding what you are supposed to do and why and how it ties into the theme works better in that game than Sail to India. Using the same cubes for ships, technology upgrades, vip markers and markers for money is a bit confusing and abstract to theme, though it seems as though it works well as a built in "catch up" mechanic for the game.