This week, I’m taking a look at Santiago. In this game, you bid for the right to select tiles, bribe one of the players to get irrigation, and set up temporary alliances throughout the game.

There’s a new high-quality (and high-size; episodes are over 100MB) version of BGWS hosted at the Internet Archive. (The link to the high quality-version will normally be at the bottom of the links to the show, and as I have time, I will be going back and adding high-quality versions of past episodes.)

BGWS 009 – Santiago (Streaming Flash)

Download a high-quality .mov or get it in other formats at the
BGWS 009 – Santiago Internet Archive.

BGWS 009 Audio Only

Learn more about Santiago at BoardGameGeek and discuss or recommend this episode there as well.

Purchase this game (and help fund BGWS) through Funagain Games.

If you purchased this game because of Board Games with Scott, then let the publisher, Z-Man games, know!

Discuss this episode over at BoardGameGeek.

Happy Chinese New Year! To honor the new year, this week’s episode is about Mah Jong!

Mah Jong is not about matching pairs of tiles, despite the hundreds of computer games with that name. This is akin to calling a game ‘Cards’ simply becuase it uses playing cards. This week’s episode is a longer one – about 22 minutes – as I’ve decided to cover Mah Jong in depth. After my rush through Friedrich a few weeks ago, people requested that I take longer when the game demands it, so I’ll try that.

I’ve also moved from Imovie to Final Cut Express for editing, so you’ll see some other tweaks here and there.

Board Games with Scott 006 – Mah Jong In Depth (streaming Flash)

Board Games with Scott 006 – Mah Jong In Depth (Quicktime) or other formats at the Internet Archive.

BGWS 006 Audio Only

You can find more information about Mah Jong at Boardgamegeek.

Purchase Mah Jong (and support BGWS) at Funagain.

Here is the handy-dandy reference sheet that I use for play. I do realize that purists of the game will have their own variants – just make sure everyone agrees before play as to the ruleset used.

Want to discuss this episode? A good place to do this is at this thread at boardgamegeek.com. (While there, if you enjoy BGWS, give it a Thumbs Up to make is easier for others to find it as well!)

Side Note – I got the outfit I’m wearing in Beijing when I taught a class there this summer. I kept a running blog of my travels – if you’d like to read about the trip, start at my blog and use the “Next Day” link to read each day of my trip.

Next week, I’ll be looking at the two-player game Lost Cities.

Discuss this episode over at BoardGameGeek.

Based upon a suggestion from a viewer, I’ve decided to look at a game that you can get at your local toy store (as compared to the specialty shops for many of these games). This is a miniature battle game called Heroscape, and you might have seen it advertised on TV. It is expandable in that they put out additional miniatures for it, but not collectable in that you know what you are buying in every package.

Board Games with Scott 005 at You Tube (streaming Flash).
You can also download the whole file in MPEG-4 format (Quicktime) or in other formats from the Internet Archive.

BGWS 005 Audio Only

You can also learn more about Heroscape at Boardgamegeek.com.

Purchase Heroscape (and support BGWS) at Funagain.

(Oh, you can listen to the episode of BoardGameSpeak/GeekSpeak to which I refer at http://files.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamespeak.php?id=18; it’s at about 46:30 in the episode.)

Next week, I’m going to be trying a slightly different form with “Mah Jong In Depth” (and no, it’s not just about matching pairs of tiles). Based on comments from the viewers on the Friedrich episode, I’ll do longer episodes when it’s appropriate for the game.

Discuss this episode over at BoardGameGeek.