I’m a little lacking in sleep at the moment. For once, it isn’t my regular gaming schedule that’s to blame, but instead the recent announcement by the BBC that Peter Capaldi is going to play the Doctor. Like the Doctor Who fan I am, I stayed up to watch the live telecast. In England, it went out at 7 pm. In America it was around 11 am (at least for people I correspond with). Where I was in Australia? 4 am Monday morning.

Yes, I could have taped it, but I was up listening to the cricket anyway, so I just stayed away that extra half-hour and watched it live. The choice of new Doctor? Fantastic. Couldn’t be happier about that. The rest of Monday was spent somewhat in a daze. I’m very glad I don’t work on Mondays. I’m more awake today!

The weekend also saw the World Boardgaming Championships in the US and the announcements of the winners of the Charles S. Roberts awards. You can see the full results here. I tend to pay attention to these awards to see if there are any games I should get – although, to be fair, I’m likely to have the ones I’m interested in already. Such is the case with Andean Abyss, which took out the best post-WW2 wargame; I’ve only played it two or three times, but it’s high on my list of games to play again when I can get four interested players. A game on the Columbian Counterinsurgency, it is quite a fascinating game.

Andean Abyss is a game that a regular group of boardgamers should be able to play; it’s by the same designer as Labyrinth, and some of the mechanics were first seen in that game. The game is properly for four players, but missing players can be replaced by “AI” rules which also allow the game to be played solo if you’re that way inclined. It’s an asymmetrical game, where each faction has their own special abilities – indeed, the government plays very differently to the other three factions.

Meanwhile, more games of Maria beckon. Maria is a 3-player wargame about the Austrian Succession. The rules are very, very simple and involve a deck of playing cards to resolve conflicts – it’s a very interesting system, where you need to play cards matching the suit of the area you’re in. They add to your strength, and one player plays cards until they’re winning and then the other plays cards, and so on until one player is losing and chooses not to play cards any more (or maybe they’ve run out of cards!) The three-players is handled very well, and the switching allegiances makes it very interesting to play.

I’ve got a lot of photos from recent games; I’ve been meaning to write some reports, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. With any luck, I’ll post a report on a recent game in the next few days.

Oh, and I’ve just fallen from grace – I’ve ordered my first mobile phone.