The Knights Templar: Their History and Myths Revealed (Alan Butler)

In The Knights Templar, Alan Butler provides an overview of the mysterious and once-powerful order of warrior monks.  From their creation in 1129 (shortly after the First Crusade) to their violent end in 1307 [when the French King had them declared heretics so he could cancel his debts and seize their assets], Butler walks through their rise, daily life, rules of conduct, participation in the crusades, and more.  He concludes with a section on select legends concerning them- mostly on the vanished Templar fleet and gold.

This was . . . okay.  Rampant grammatical errors and poor writing, coupled with uneven narrative (some things are repeated, other topics skipped) and questionable scholarship normally make for a worthless read.  However, the plentiful illustrations are wonderful (I especially enjoyed seeing Medieval art relevant to the topic), so it may stay on my shelf despite its flaws.

Rating: C 

The New American Commentary on 1, 2 Peter, Jude (Schreiner)

The New American Commentary series looks in-depth at books of the Bible, giving the lay reader background on key Greek phrases and historical context (including authorship, audience, etc.) to help better understand the passages.  I read the section on Jude in the book covering that plus 1 & 2 Peter.

Though in places it seems focused on minutiae, this was a good read.  I never thought I could plug through 90 pages on Jude (the book itself is one or two), but I found it valuable.  It uses the NIV translation, so a portion of the commentary is geared toward how the NIV translated a given text and whether that was the best choice.  The author also mentions alternative interpretations on the translation and meaning (though he makes his preference clear).  I learned a lot.

Rating: A

Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Vol. 1 (Various)

Star Wars Omnibus: Tales of the Jedi, Volume 1 collects four stories, set ~4000 years before A New Hope:

The Golden Age of the Sith
Jori & Gav Daragon are down to their last chance.  Hyperspace navigators, they explore the galaxy seeking safe travel paths.  One random jump takes them to an uncharted corner of space, where they find the fabled Sith Empire, a system inhabited by fallen Jedi who fled there generations prior and enslaved the local populace.  The Sith are divided over the arrival of the newcomers- but newly-minted Dark Lord Naga Sadow sees this as an opportunity to extend Sith influence and dominate the galaxy.  He lets Jori go back to the Republic, secretly placing a tracer on her ship.  She will show him the way . . . and the Republic will soon be in flames.

The Fall of the Sith Empire
With Jori's unwitting assistance, Naga Sadow finds the way to the Republic and launches his assault.  The Republic will need every means at their disposal to succeed . . . and help arrives from unlikely sources.  Defeated, Sadow takes his last ship and retreats to an uninhabited Yavin 4 . . . where his Massassi will build temples that will one day house a fledgling band of Rebels.

Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast-Wars of Onderon
Summoned to the half-savage Onderon, Ulic and his brother Cay hope to bring peace to the war-ravaged world.  But all is not as it seems, for a long-dead Sith, Freedon Nadd, is entombed here, and has influenced generations in the dark side.

The Saga of Nomi Sunrider
Her Jedi husband murdered, force-sensitive Nomi Sunrider and her daughter fulfill his journey by delivering valuable adegan crystals to Master Thon.  Left with nothing, she starts training with him, but spurns any aspect of violence.  When a local Hutt hears of the gems, he sets his henchman on their location.  Nomi must make a choice . . . and with it, decide her destiny.

Review
These are classic Star Wars tales from Dark Horse Comics, looking at the history of the Jedi thousands of years before Luke Skywalker.  The stories are interesting enough, though the pace is lightning-fast and dialogue poor.  Recommended for fans of the 'original' (pre-Disney) Star Wars universe.

Rating: B

Runebound

Today's review is of the 2015 release, Runebound (3rd edition).  For 2-4 players, it takes 2-3 hours.

Overview

Runebound is an adventure game set in the realm of Terrinoth. It is a dangerous place that is home to powerful wizards, mighty warriors, and noble barons. But only the greatest hero will become a legend and live forever in the hearts and minds of the people of Terrinoth. - from the rulebook

Runebound is a scenario-based game, meaning each game will have different objectives, cards, and victory conditions based on the scenario chosen.  After choosing a scenario and setting up the board, decks, and tokens for it, each player chooses a hero to control.  On your turn, you get three action points, which you can use to:
- move
- shop (if in a city)
- adventure
- rest
- train

Adventures are key to the game.  You'll start with almost nothing, and need to earn gold and trophies to buy weapons and gain skills.  You do this by going on adventure (going to a hex with an 'adventure gem' and spending two action points to draw the top card of the matching deck, doing what it says).  Adventures can be quests, events, or enemies, each with specific success conditions.  Meet the condition, and you'll earn what you need (gold, trophies, prestige) to increase your might, preparing you for the final battle.

There are other cards to aid you.  Skill cards (which you obtain by the 'training' action and play by paying trophy cards you earn from adventuring) can be a big boost, as can asset cards (weapons, clothing, and devices you buy in markets across the realm).  Scenario-specific story cards (unveiled as the time token reaches certain places) provide more opportunities for improve.  You'll need all the help you can get for combat (an interesting "token-flipping" system). 

game components; image from here

Each scenario ends by battling a 'boss' of some sort.  Destroy him and win!

Review
There's a lot to like about this game.  There are lots of choices, the action point system is good, and the rules are elegant and simple enough (for how much there is going on), with nice ways of keeping it challenging as characters increase in power.  A few dings, though:
- it takes a long time to set up (since you have to customize decks, etc.)
- the dice are of poor quality (had to apply stickers to each side yourself, sometimes they come off)
- the game seems to take forever (we played with 3; can't imagine playing with 4)
- the ending seems anticlimactic (perhaps because we were tired at the point and just wanted it to be over)
Overall, I think this is a good game; a few tweaks could make it great.

Rating: B+

An Introduction to the New Testament (Carson & Moo)

An Introduction to the New Testament is precisely that.  Professors D.A. Carson and Douglas Moo walk the reader through each book of the New Testament.  Generally speaking, for each work they provide contents, occasion, author, date, audience, recent study, contributions (to Christian understanding), and a bibliography for further reading.

This is an excellent resource.  I read only the section on Jude (see previous post), but was impressed with the amount of information conveyed succinctly, the fairness of the treatment, and overall quality.  This one goes on my wish list.

Rating: A

Letters to the Church (Karen Jobes)

In Letters to the Church, Karen Jobes delivers a survey of Hebrews and the General Epistles- 8 New Testament books in all:
- Hebrews
- James
- Jude
- 1 & 2 Peter
- 1, 2, & 3 John

For each, she looks at many background topics, to include:
- why the book is important today
- audience, occasion, date, authorship
- outline and theological overview (looking at genre & themes)
- canonicity
- challenges presented by the text

I read only the section about Jude (to prepare for an upcoming study); it was excellent.  Well-presented, scholarly yet accessible, informative, intriguing.  It's a handy reference.

Rating: A

The White Box Essays (Jeremy Holcomb)

The White Box Essays is a 200-page book included in The White Box, a box full of generic components to enable users to design their own game.  The Essays (25 of them) cover a wide swath of ground, including game mechanics, writing rules, the bits you use, how to playtest, and how to promote your game before (and after) publishing.

I didn't expect much from this, but was pleasantly surprised.  It's not my favorite book on gaming, but it had more good tips (and realism) than I expected.  For example, one chapter walks through an actual game contract the author had signed, explaining each component of it and why it's necessary (or optional).  Another chapter looks at how much you actually get per board game sold (spoiler: next to nothing) due to publishing, distribution, and marketing costs.  Another discusses the pros and cons of crowdfunding your game (like on kickstarter).  The value was more in publishing-related matters (over half the book) than in game design (just a few chapters at the start).  The author is what I would consider a mildly successful game designer (his greatest hit is The Duke), which I appreciated- this wasn't some megastar writing a "you can make millions too" book.  Overall, if you're going to design a game and want to get it published, I'd read this.

Rating: B

The Hobbit Card Game

Today's review is of the 2012 release, The Hobbit Card Game.  For 2-5 players, it take 30 minutes.

Overview
The Hobbit is a trick-taking game with some twists.  Players take the role of a character (there are 5- Bilbo, Thorin, Gandalf, on the good side, Smaug and Bolg on the evil).  The good side competes against the evil to take tricks, with the winner distributing cards as they wish- based on their character 's rules (see below).

Cards have number, color, and symbol.  The number and color determine who wins the trick (highest number in suit wins, unless trump color (purple) is played- then highest trump card wins); symbol depends on which side you're on:
white star: heals one point of damage (good side) or does one point of damage (evil side)
orc helmet: does one point of damage (good side) or heals one point of damage (evil side)
brown pipe: gives the receiving player one extra card in the next round

Here's the twist: each character has different card distribution restrictions.  Quoting from the rules:

• Bilbo must assign one card to himself, assign one card to another player, and discard the remaining cards. 
• Thorin must shuffle all the cards that were played in the trick facedown and randomly assign one to each player, flipping it faceup. 
• Smaug may assign up to one card to each player, including himself. Then he discards any cards he did not assign (this could be all cards in the trick). 
• Gandalf assigns cards exactly like Smaug does. 
• Bolg must assign one card to another player and discard the remaining cards.

At the end of a round, any player with two or more points of damage is eliminated.  The good or evil side win based on who survives.

sample of cards; image from here

Review
This game has some positives.  The art is beautiful, the rules are simple, and the twists are fun.  On the other hand, gameplay felt lacking . . . I'm not sure why.  Perhaps it all comes down to Thorin- his character is not exactly an asset to the good guys.  You don't want him to win tricks.  A neat twist, but a detriment.  And unbalancing the good & evil teams (3 on 2- 3 on 1 if four players) may make sense but can present challenges.  In the end, for a fast trick-taking game, this is okay and worth a look, but you may be dissatisfied.

Rating: C

Odin's Ravens

Today's review is of the 2016 release, Odin's Ravens.  For 2 players, it takes 15-30 minutes.  Note: this is the second edition of this game.

Overview
In Norse mythology, Odin would send his two ravens all over the world to bring him information about Midgard (Earth).  In Odin's Ravens, you and an opponent are each one bird, racing (in opposite directions) around the 'world' (a line of two-sided cards).  Each turn, you'll play one or more flight cards from your hand matching terrain(s) in front of you to advance as many spaces as possible; you can also play Loki 'trick' cards to alter the landscape (by adding cards, removing them, rotating them, and more).  Then you draw 3 cards, one at a time from either your flight or Loki decks, and await your opponents move. First to go around the board (up one side and back the other, in opposite directions) wins!

view of the board (image from here)

Review
For a light, fast-playing two-player game, this is a winner.  The Loki cards are a lot of fun and help balance out poor situations encountered with unfortunate flight card draws.  It doesn't have a lot of depth, but it doesn't need to.  The main dings are with the cards themselves- their coating makes them difficult to deal and shuffle for some reason- and laying them out as prescribed takes up more table space than you'd think.  But overall, this will appeal to many.

Rating: B+

1775: Rebellion

Today's review is of the 2013 release, 1775: Rebellion.  For 2-4 players, it takes 1-2 hours.

Overview
In the New World, tensions have boiled over.  The Americans are rebelling against their British overlords, and it's come to war!  In 1775: Rebellion, players are either rebels (Continental Army and American Militia) or loyalists (British Regulars and Loyalist Militia).  Each player controls armies (represented as cubes).  Each turn, you'll place reinforcement units, move them, and fight your opponent.  Game end conditions depend on the scenario you play (three are included), and generally involve controlling the most colonies.

This is a card-driven game, meaning your movement possibilities each turn is dictated by the card you play (one card, for example, allows you to move three armies up to two spaces each).  Whenever you move an army into an area controlled by an opponent, combat ensues.  Other units (Native Americans, Hessians, French) can come into play depending on special event cards you can play or movements you make.

board and components; image from here

Combat is pretty basic, a back-and-forth dice-chucking affair where you can hit, flee, or decide to move your forces elsewhere based on what you roll.

Review
Simple to learn and fast to play, this quasi-educational area control game is pretty decent.  The board is beautiful, the flavor text on cards gives interesting history, and things are pretty straight-forward.  I didn't like one aspect of combat- even the winner in a conflict can be forced to make units flee, which seemed odd (though 'fled' units come back into play the next time you reinforce).  And I wish the cards would allow you to move more army cards (though perhaps limiting combat possibilities each turn is necessary to keep the game moving).  But overall, this is a nice game.

Rating: B

Grimm's Fairy Tales (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm)

Grimm's Fairy Tales, a classic collection of worldwide renown, was first published in 1812 by the brothers Grimm.  Originally containing 86 stories, subsequent editions eventually expanded the selection to 211 (the seventh edition in 1857). Today's review is of an audiobook (ISBN 9780147526366), which presents 21 of the tales unabridged, each of which is read by a different person in "an award-winning cast," including Alfred Molina ("Doctor Octopus" in Spider-man 2). 

This is a great collection, wonderfully read.  Some tales will be familiar to many (Rapunzel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel), but beware- these tales are unaltered from their original form, meaning these are not the Disney versions.  Gruesome and violent things will happen.*  Some tales are bizarre, but all have a moral of some kind- frequent themes include doing good to all (despite hideous appearances) and the deceiving ways of (and eventual justice for) those who do evil.  If, like me, you want to sample the originals without going through all, this is the way to do it (it takes 3.5 hours to listen to this collection).

Rating: A

*making a fascinating study in what 'suitable for children' must have meant 200 years ago.

Germany: Enchantment of the World (Jean Blashfield)

Germany: Enchantment of the World is a kid's book covering the basics of that land- geography, nature, history, law, economy, language, culture, and daily living.

This is a nice resource for kids and adults alike.  The author covers the basics succinctly and gives a good overview in under 150 pages, filled with plenty of images.  I learned a thing or two, was reminded of our years there, and recommend this to anyone planning a trip there.

Rating: A-