Flashback Friday - El Grande
Love it or hate it? Do you still play it?
“It’s hard to overstate the significance of El Grande’s publication. It basically established a new kind of board game, one in which players strove to have the majority of pieces in different geographical areas of the board.” - Larry Levy
It's been almost 25 years since El Grande was published. It won the Spiel des Jahres in 1996. It is still in print and has sold over half a million copies. But mostly it is know as the game with the cube tower.
Do you remember the first time you played El Grande? When was the last time you played it? What do you think?
More on El Grande
Dave, that is the first time I think I’ve heard anyone say that it needs the expansion! I have had the Decennial Edition since it came out and I still have never once played with the additions.
Also great but very unsung- El Caballero.
I like pronouncing every province with a noticeable lisp
Black Barney wrote: I like the sound the captains make when they get dropped in the Castillo
I like pronouncing every province with a noticeable lisp
Bullshit - you don't play games !
Michael Barnes wrote:
Also great but very unsung- El Caballero.
Yes!
I have only played El Grande once or twice, and enjoyed it. I might have bought it if it were available, but all that you can find here is the big box at the hundred dollar mark.
I own El Caballero because I found it in a bargain bin. The tile placement aspect of it is appealing to me and ties in really well with the area control aspects. And boy is the game mean. There's a lot to it. I think I wrote about it in the "what are you playing" thread, but I think if this game had meeples or cubes instead of the kind of rotating tiles, (i recognise you'd lose one of the tactical aspects of it though, but, just saying), it would be a lot more well regarded.
And then, the first time you played it, trying to make sense of this really strange new sort of game, convinced that the translation of the rules must be wrong.
Josh Look wrote: Hot damn, the Big Box has to be some sort of daily deal on Amazon today. $56 or so, CSI and MM are in the $80+ range.
That's actually what it's been for a while now. I've had it on one of my lists on Amazon for a year or two. It started at $70 but it's been hovering around the high 50s for at least the past year. I've never pulled the trigger on it for some reason or another. I've played it (and liked it), but don't own a copy. I really shouldn't spend more on games right now...
What surprised me the most is that it's a very chaotic game! Very un-euro like.
This is also the first game where I've been tempted to break down the box and reconstruct it into something smaller since all of the components take up roughly a third of the actual space.
Daughter loves the base but the wife found it dry... as
She still managed to beat me by one point.