Wow, my family ended up with nine new games on our shelf this Christmas! As far as I know, all of these were picked up at Viking Hobby, so they did pretty well by us this season.
Any guesses as to what we’ll be doing in our spare time for the next few months? 
I picked up a new game last week: “King of the Beasts Mythological Edition” is a 2- to 5-player card game. It plays very fast, maybe 5 or 10 minutes for experienced players. I’ve had a little trouble teaching it to my family so I tried the “learn it by playing it” trick, and they all got it right away. Everybody has enjoyed it so far, but we’ve only played about 4 games so I don’t know about it’s replayability.
One thing we have found out is that the cards are a bit flimsy, as they’re already starting to show signs of wear. These cards are nothing like those in other games by Playroom Entertainment, e.g. Killer Bunnies or Sitting Ducks Gallery. Since the cards represent basically the entire game, I think Playroom should have put more production emphasis on the cards. They could keep the price down by shrinking or eliminating the box and/or cardboard insert.
I’m going to stick a tally sheet in the box so we can keep track of exactly how many times we play this before the cards become unusable. Given the already evident wear, I have suggested to Jess (Viking Hobby) that she not re-stock this game until the company does a better job on the cards. Too bad, because it really is a surprisingly interesting little game.
Check the BoardGameGeek ratings for this game.
I can’t find a website for Viking Hobby, only a few listings in online phone “books” and such. I give out their business cards all the time, but I need an online listing that’s easy to find and uncluttered by a bunch of advertisements. So here it is!
Viking Hobby
916-483-6885
4713 El Camino Ave.
Carmichael, Ca 95608
![[ Yahoo! Map ]](http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/mp/gr/mplogo.gif){kind=small}
They’re open Monday-Friday 10:30-6:00 PM and Saturday-Sunday 11:00-5:00 PM.
If you’ve coming east on El Camino, be advised that you cannot make a left into their parking lot–the road is divided right there, so you’ll have to continue down to Greenfield Way and make a U-turn. Alternately, you can go north on Mission past El Camino, and go around the block: right on Hazelwood, right on Greenfield, right on El Camino, then into the parking lot. It sounds like a pain in the ass, but if traffic on El Camino is heavy, it’s much easier than a U-turn!
They stock boardgames,
miniatures,
models,
historical reference material, paints and painting supplies,
all kinds of good stuff!
I’ve been patronizing this store for about 25 years (!), introduced my kids to boardgaming, miniature painting, and model building here. If they don’t have what you’re looking for, they can usually order it for you reasonably quickly. Tell Jess or Mark that Jim from the Boardgames Meetup says “Hi!”
I stopped by Viking Hobby today and got to chatting with Mark about the top-rated games on the ‘Geek. Until today, I only knew how to find the rank of a particular game, and there’s no Internet access in the store, so I told him that I would check out the ‘Geek after work and see if I could find such a list. It turned out to be pretty easy. To save other folks the trouble, I’ve included a link to the highest-rated games on BoardGameGeek. I’ve printed out the first page (the top 29 games) of this list, so that Mark and Jess can keep it at the store for reference.
I guess it’s sort of predictable that I own the first- and second-ranked games, and the third-ranked game is high on my wish-list.
I’ve got the community room at the Arden-Dimick branch of the Sacramento Library reserved for boardgaming this coming Wednesday, July 20th from 19:30 until 21:30 (7:30 pm to 9:30 pm for those stuck on 12-hour clocks). I’m posting this event on the Sacramento Boardgames Meetup, and I’ll also be putting up flyers at Viking Hobby and possibly other appropriate locations. (I should probably post something at the library itself!)
I don’t know what games I’ll be bringing yet. As soon as I know, I’ll post an update here.
This will probably become a regularly scheduled event for the 3rd Wednesday of each month. I hope to move the start time up to 19:00 for subsequent meetings.
Update: I spelled “Dimick” wrong–doh! (I doubled the M)
Update #2: This event is now posted on Sacramento Boardgames Meetup.
Update #3: Changed the end time to 9:30 pm.
