Thanks for your thoughts on Vikings. I've been contemplating getting it and had about decided that it was a "no". When I saw that it was one of the games you'd played, I thought, "Oh-oh, she's going to convince me to buy it." I'm glad I was wrong. :) I think your ho-hum attitude has slipped over to my house, too.

Doin' the Cha-Cha!

Got to love the Dancin' Dice!

Mike - we needed you there for the DD game to liven it up. Too many poker faces!

Mary - I'm all ga-ga over Runebound right now. All my lust for new games is being channeled toward RB expansions! I'm not sure why I'm so apathetic about games like Vikings these days. If I can figure it out it would make a good blog entry. Despite my distaste for some of the Ameritrash rantings a while back on BGG, some of their comments hit a few chords with me. Perhaps it is just a phase.

And yes, my attitude has likely invaded your house too if you are excited over Tide of Iron! :-) I'm not quite ready to tackle that yet. Maybe if they added elven units it would tempt me. Battlelore is likely to be my next obsession.

Tide of Iron isn't that hard to learn really and beats Battlelore all to pieces (I made a pun!) as far as I'm concerned. Check out the brilliant review by isaacc.

I share your same opinion of Vikings. I played twice back in April, trying both the basic and advanced versions. Neither excited me terribly. It just felt "there", with no spice or anything to excite me. It isn't a bad game ... it is just bland. Like you, I would have rushed to acquire the game a few years ago, but now I don't feel the need to own or play it.

I need to play Age of Discovery again, but I'm having a difficult time overcoming my horror over the mission cards after my initial playing. I'm going to play it again ... eventually ... before passing final judgment.

Regarding Tide of Iron, I differ from Mary's assessment. I find the game a challenge to learn, even with a wealth of Squad Leader experience under my belt. The game is good, but very, VERY fiddly with lots of rules.