I’m not dead! I’ve been consumed with the much-anticipated Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft. To the unfortunate detriment of some of my other activities, most notably writing R0, Blizzard has created yet another home run sequel, a worthy addition to an already excellent game. It might even inspire a future article on what makes a great sequel.

Anyway, reader Ephraim Glass encouraged me to stick with the blog, the hobby, and the Invasion game, still in my mind. Step one was blowing off WoW tonight to visit demo game night at a local gaming store. I saw two games demoed. First was 10 Days in Europe. If you’ve ever played an old family game called Rack-O, it’s like that, but with a map instead of card ranks. I would recommend it to someone with kids–it’s light and you’d learn the geography pretty fast–but not of particular interest to adult gamers.

The main attraction, though, was a game called Beowulf by the prolific Dr. Knizia. The box looked immediately familiar–it’s the same size and illustrated by the same artist as the Lord of the Rings game. Although this game borrows elements from Lord of the Rings, it rings even more strongly of Taj Mahal.

Like Lord of the Rings, the primary resource is cards, which come in five categories (fighting, might, alliances, seafaring, and wit, plus wilds). Additionally, the game is laid out in a specific sequence of events where certain cards will be required and others will be available. This lets players plan out a long-term strategy.

The heart of the gameplay is in the auctions. There are about 9 or 10, and each one requires each player to bid two of the five types of cards. There are two types of auctions; in one, players go around the table bidding or dropping out, like in Taj Majal; the other is a one-secret-bid auction. In both cases there are a list of result choices ranging from great rewards (victory points, extra cards) to penalties (a VP deduction, a “wound” which must be healed by game’s end or be a large point penalty). For example, all of the outcomes of the Beowulf is Crowned King event are good–but some are better than others–while only the highest bidder in the Battle with the Dragon event wins out (gaining a large amount of VP) while the others sustain wounds. The order of preference is not always clear-cut, so the winner gets first choice, second place gets second choice, and so on.

There is a rather large element of luck–in fact, the relevant places on the board are clearly labeled “RISK.” In an auction event, this gives the player the opportunity to reveal two cards from the deck. If either one matches the ongoing event, the player gets to play them–for free. If not, the player has to drop out of the event and suffers a scratch as well (scratches are relatively easy to remove, but three add up to a wound).

Like Taj Mahal, there is a strong element of picking the right battles to fight–victory is achieved by not throwing resources into losing battles. Unlike Taj Mahal, the score comes linearly, not quadratically, and the makeup of your hand will make some fights much easier than others for you. This makes Beowulf much less cutthroat than Taj Majal. I like this about it, because I find winning cutthroat games not all that satisfying, and losing them can be very frustrating.

The balance hardly needs to be mentioned–it’s quality Knizia work and the luck factor is there on the table. The production values are nice; there aren’t all that many components but they all seem pretty sturdy. I’ll see if I can get myself a copy; it has lots of the calculating appeal of Taj Mahal without having to bury your competitors or hapless first-time inductees.