Grail Game - Illuminati Crime Lords

 Crime Lords is a stand-alone Illuminati variant.  As the original Illuminati is one of my top ten favorite games, I am hopeful about this one.  I haven’t played it yet, but I added it to my grail list when I found out about it.

 

I finally picked up a copy for $12 US, plus double that for shipping.

 

It was supposed to be complete, and it is.  In fact, the 2 sheets of counters, and 2 sheets of money are all unpunched.

 

With the reprint of Illuminati, I kept hoping that they would reprint this as well, but they haven’t yet.  Now that I finally have one, I expect they will.

 

 

Gangs of Commorragh - acquired

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been watching ebay for a copy of Gangs of Commorragh. I figured that I could always buy a copy of the rules for about $30 and buy the figures later from Games Workshop for $120. Most of the non-figure sets were either too expensive (over $100), or did not include the box.

I was finally able to find a few complete sets that weren’t much more than the cost of the ones that were just rules plus the cost of the figures. I bid on a few but they exceeded my limit.

But persistence paid off and I finally won an opened but complete set for about $100 including shipping. That was totally in my price range. It came and seems more than complete. It looks like it has double sets of reference guides, Get Started booklets, assembly guides, and packs of dice.

I can cross another set off my list. Now I have to save up for Blackstone Fortress.

Grail Games Achieved!

I had a good chance to get a faded copy of the French version of Dune, which includes both of the expansions for about $100 but by the time I got back from holidays, it was gone.

I was able to get a copy of Dust online. It came from Spain. The picture in the listing was for the Fantasy Flight (English) version but they sent the Edge/Ubik (French/Spanish) version. Luckily, the components are language independent and the English rules are available online.

I also found a good copy of Blood Royale. It’s complete and in very nice shape. The event cards aren’t even punched and there are lots of sheets on the pads and the markers aren’t broken as so many are.

I had another chance and was also able to get a different copy of the French Dune for about $100. It seems like it might be missing one of the expanded Treachery cards – but I may reprint those in English anyways. While the Sandworm cover of the Avalon Hill game will stay on my grail list, the Dune game itself is now considered achieved.


This clears the main items on my Grail List.


I’m adding the Games Workshop Battle of Five Armies and Crime Lords by Steve Jackson Games to my Grail List. Doom of the Eldar, Bommerz over da Sulphur River, and Willow are being upgraded to my watching list.

The Battle of Five armies rules are similar to their Warmaster system – which was the fantasy version of their Epic rules. It came with a lot of tiny miniatures which should be easy to paint.

The Crime Lords is based on the Illuminati game system, which is one on my top ten games, but in a stand alone version with a mobster theme. I’ve been watching this one lately and it might be achievable sooner rather than later.

I still have the Mechwarrior Solaris VII sets for Medium, Heavy, and Assault packs on my watching list. As well, I still need cars to complete the WizKids RaceDay 2006, and a Servants of Thebes to complete my Arcane Legions set.

One more Grail game achieved

I’ve got another game off my Grail List. Noble Knight had a bit of a sale, and had an Attack of the Mutants available unpunched so I snapped it up. When I got it, I was pleased to find that inside it also had an unpunched copy of the mini game version included. I’m going to copy the counters onto cardboard so that I will be able to play this with the kids.

When Miniature Market had their sale earlier in the year, I also picked up the six prize packs for Arcane Legions for about $2 each. I am still looking for the Servants of Thebes to complete this set though.

Into the empty slot, I don’t have a game that has been waiting long enough to build up Grail status.
I have been looking at Dust recently as a good candidate. It is a Risk-like game with a lot of bits. It’s based in the same universe as the Tannhauser/Dust Tactics games – with an extended WW1.
I have also been looking at ThunderRoad. It is a Mad Max type of road race game. The rules are simple enough to do without the game itself. I was just too late to pick one up last year, and someone recently found one locally in the thrift store, so it is definitely around and on my radar.
The Willow game also looks pretty good. I remember not getting it back in the day even though I was a big fan of the movie. I might just be able to snap it up without too much trouble though.
Games Workshop has also come out with some new board games. While they look great, and are easy to find, they are very pricey. I am saving up to see about getting The Horus Heresy: The Betrayal at Calth, Deathwatch Overkill, and maybe The Lost Patrol. There is the Battle of the Five Armies – based around their Warmaster system which I wanted but didn’t manage to get before they pulled it.

I haven’t played any of these though. A game has to be very special, like the Dune game to achieve Grail status without even being played.

Diplomacy – plastic – wood – metal

Back in the day, I remember watching some friends at a drop-in center playing with a risk board but not using any dice. They were playing using a variation of the Diplomacy rules. This was my first exposure to the elegance of Diplomacy.

In the back of Computer Science class, they played Diplomacy in spare time with the teacher. It often got to the point where David Fyfe would have so many units that he didn’t have to write down his moves like the rest of the players so would have an advantage in that he wouldn’t forget to schedule orders for units. This was the first place that I got to play Diplomacy with wooden pieces.

I played it at GenCon a few times and had some great experiences there. I picked up a set that contained plastic pieces and was later able to find an older version that had the wooden pieces. Having two sets actually made it easier to discuss strategy on some of the games.

At Keycon this year, the Dandy Lion con suite was holding a raffle. Some of the items were dvds, cds, and games. When I saw that they had a copy of the Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast/Avalon Hill version of Diplomacy with the metal pieces, I was quite excited. I didn’t get it when it came out due to the cost plus the fact that, even though I love the game, I really don’t get to play it all that much. I bought 20 tickets for $10 and put 1 in for a cd set, 5 in for a set of 3 CheapAss games, and 15 in for this. I would have bought another 20 tickets for it but there didn’t seem to be more than a handful in already.

I wasn't at the draw - having confirmed that I didn't need to be - but popped in on Sunday to find out that my tickets had won two prizes - both of the game packs. The Diplomacy game had been opened but when I checked it out, it was unpunched. I could not see any metal figures at first but, checking under the insert, found all of them still individually sealed in the plastic.

I'm very excited to cross this grail version off of my list. I'm just torn about opening it to play, or keeping it sealed. Unfortunately, it's a choice I will probably have to wait quite a while to have to decide.

Tannhauser - complete

Having had time to go through the Tannhauser deal, it was very complete. It looks like it is missing a few basic tokens from the basic set, like smoke, and fire tokens from the Daedalus but nothing major. I ordered another Daedalus, a Frankenstahl, and an extra Itami (to paint red) to complete my set. I also ordered the last novel – Enigma, and picked up a Sky Full of Stars for Babylon 5 Call to Arms, and a Za! 30 Minutes or Free.

This means that I now have all of the Tannhauser set unless I want to continue into Dust Tactics, and I have crossed another minor item off my Grail List.

We did get a chance to set up Tannhauser at Jimcon and started to play it but, since I always forget that Jimcon only goes to 4pm on Sundays not 6pm, we had to stop before we got into combat. We only had time to pick our load outs and had a few turns of moving before we realized our error. Still it was interesting enough to warrant picking up the remainder. I look forward to playing a full game of this while on holidays after Christmas.

Grail Games - curent

Those games that are still on my grail list are currently pretty small.

I’m looking for a copy of Dune and the expansions. I would ideally like to get a copy with the sandworm on the cover as that was the one I kept seeing at Cellar Dweller about three decades ago. It always tempted me – but I hadn’t read the books back then and never picked it up. Now that I have read the books, I would love to get this but it seems so would many other people. The info was on Colin’s site to make your own but the data seems to have been compromised. I’m not interested in the Fantasy Flight reprint – Rex: Final Days of an Empire because the theme, rather than the gameplay, is what’s drawing me to this. There are usually some Dunes on ebay but I am not yet willing to pay over $100 for a game I haven’t actually played. I may have to play one of the Rex: FDoaE just to see if the gameplay holds up enough to afford a set.

I saw an ad in the back of Dragon magazine and sent away for the Attack of the Mutants mini game. I remember it being fun enough to play. That copy is tucked away in one of my boxes through three moves. I would like to play it again and have been occasionally looking for the full Yaquinto version. I never got into the Yaquinto album games in the day but have picked up a few since then – Demon’s Run, Adventurer, and United Nations. I always had a fond spot for them from the catalogs but just never picked them up while they were easily available.

I’ve played Blood Royale. My friend David has it. The one time we played, we noticed that there was a finite amount of armies and stockpiled them. This led to an arms race and the game quickly evolved into the wargames sub part of the rules instead of the marriage/bloodline main part of the rules. Still, even that held up well enough. I would like to get a copy to try this again but it seems pretty rare.

Those are my three big ones at the moment. I’ve got a few more that are lesser needs but would still be very nice to fill the holes in my collection.

Another game that David had that we played was a small press game called ‘Za! 30 Minutes or Free. It was by a company called Howling Falcon. The play was okay and I always wanted to upsize the game to store in a pizza box, using Hot Wheel cars as counters. I hadn’t seen a copy of it in many, many years but I finally saw one on ebay.

I never got into Battletech back in the day but did get some of the Mechwarrior when it came out. I was even one of the judges. By the time they got around to releasing the 4 sets for Solaris VII I was already less interested. I finally picked up the Light Mech set. I had plans of upsizing the mechs to play a larger version but will need to pick up the Medium, Heavy, and Assault packs.

While I don’t follow NASCAR at all, I did like WizKids RaceDay racing game. I have all but one promo from the 2005 set but I am missing about half of the 2006 set. I will need to get a box of the 2006 set but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

I got into Arcane Legions a couple of years ago when they were blowing it out at Valleycon, after it stopped being published. I was able to get all the booster figures (thanks to the booster sets), and even got the Roman War Machines and Han Dragons but was unable to get the Egyptian Servants of Thebes. I could still get the 6 League packs and another set of the booster sets, but am in no rush until I can get the Sphinxes.

Grail Games - achieved

Grail games are those that you have not yet added to your collection – either for too high a price or lack of availability. The internet has made it easier to find those games but it has also made the value of those games more known. It also has exposed us to a lot more games that we wouldn’t have known that we needed to have. I’ve been lucky enough to have gotten most of my grail games over the years but more are always being added to the list. Most have been ones that I had a chance to buy at one time but didn’t, some are ones that I didn’t become interested in until long after they were out of print.

Circus Imperium was one of my early games. I played it at Gencon and tracked down a copy. I ran it for many years at various conventions and my wife eventually tracked down another copy to have. I even tracked down the miniatures but haven’t bought them yet as I keep using my scratch built ones.

Conquest of the Empire was one of the Milton Bradley Gamemaster series. My friends and I had each bought one of them to have the set. I bought the Fortress America, others bought the Axis & Allies. My friend later gave me the Conquest for one of my birthdays. By then I already had the Broadships and Boarding Parties.

Space Crusade was another game I first played at Gencon. Gloria, a friend of a friend, brought one back for me from the UK. There are two supplements but I don’t expect to even be able to get them.

I’m not sure where I first played the Aliens board game - I believe it was at a Wingames. The rules used to be online but I was finally able to track down a copy. I even managed to get a copy of the Aliens RPG last year. I’m still missing the Aliens board game expansion though.

Star Wars The Queen’s Gambit disappeared shortly after it came out. I was able to get a copy at retail ($80) in a Thunder Bay game store while we were visiting my wife’s sister.

I wasn’t into LARPs as much as many of the locals. I did get the Star Wars Live Action supplement but never got into the White Wolf set. I was intrigued enough to eventually get Cthulhu Live – both the first and all the books for the second edition. I haven’t picked up the third edition yet but it remains one of my games that I hope to play one day.

I used to play Car Wars back in the day. We had the pocket box sets, the Deluxe sets, and most of the supplements. When I found out about 5th edition it had already been out of print. It took a bit of time, but I was able to get all the books through ebay.

I never played the old FASA Crimson Skies but I do remember the big board at Gencon with the buildings under plexiglass as being impressive. I did play, judge, and enjoy the remake when it came out from WizKids. I finally decided to get the old version as well. It took a bit of searching, but I was finally able to track down the boxed set and all the books and supplements.

I remember the Space:1899 game when it first came out. While interesting, I never managed to get it. Much, much later, I was able to get a copy of Ironclads and Ether Flyers. The rules seem fun enough that I picked up the reprinted rules of Sky Galleons of Mars/Cloudships and Gunboats. While great, I was missing the maps and ships. I started making some ships out of balsa but got side-tracked. Luckily, I was just able to win a boxed copy of Sky Galleons of Mars on ebay for a good price.

I’ve picked up most of the new Hasbro/Avalon Hill games except all the Axis and Allies variants. I’m still missing the pretty copy of Acquire, the Diplomacy with the metal figures, Betrayal at House on the Hill. I was missing Nexus Ops (now rereleased by Fantasy Flight - but I just won one as well). I’m not really chasing those down yet but I had a copy of Monsters Menace America in my hands at Valleycon for $25 and put it down to complete a quick sweep of the rest of the dealer’s room. As soon as I did, it was scooped up by another. It took four or five years before I was finally able to find another for a decent price.