Ok my liking of Love Letter is becoming more of an obsession! Officially this is my fifth version of the game. This version of the game is the Kanai Factory Limited Edition.

This uses the art work from the original Japanese release of the game.

I actually like this art work a lot. I can see how the art may not be everyone's cup of tea. But I do like the cartoony look, along with the pastel colours. Another thing I like about this version is that there are also two promo cards that allow you to change the gender of the princess, ie use a prince and also an alt art version of the princess.

After watching the season Tabletop episode where they play this game I had a look for it. Strangely enough it was not to be found anywhere, or if you could it was the usually Amazon stupid amount from a third party. However I believe this scarcity was there before the Tabletop episode aired.

But then again it could be due to Tabletop and that people snapped it up when they saw it on the list of games to be played in season 3 that was released before season three started airing. It's what I did with Marvel Legendary. I had been undecided about buying the game over the Summer. I'd watched reviews, and game play videos. Knew I was going to buy it, and had placed it high on my to buy list. But hadn't got to that point that I was going to buy it. Then in September Wil Wheaton put up the list of games for season three of Tabletop. I knew then that as soon as that episode aired I'd want to buy it, and the Tabletop phenomenon of games getting hard to buy after being on the show, would just upset and frustrate me as it would be sold out. So I went and bought it there and then (not regretted it once) before supply dried up.

From the art work, to the title of the game, this game has a look and feel of eighties rock bands, or Jack Black and Tennacious D. I'm really looking forward to playing this one with my friends, with big hair eighties pomp rock blasting in the background.

Look Wil Wheaton is a geek God ok. How could I not pick up the Wil Wheaton promo card for Five Tribes? It had to be done. I just need to track down the other promos from this years International Tabletop Day that I want. Well the Ms Day Dead of Winter promo would be nice for starters.

What is it about promos that I like? Well they aren't necessary to enjoy a game, so not needed. However for me I like them because it's like personalising the game. Ok technically there will be other people out there with the same promo in their game. But it makes the game feel to me like it is mine.

It may if the people have played the game before and not seen the promo add a small bit of variety to the game, a “oh I've not seen that before” moment.

What I don't like about promos is when companies only hand them out at certain events, or limit them to kickstarter only. I side with Tom Vassel here and that I don't mind a time window of exclusivity, however they should be made available to everyone to get easily after that period has expired. White Wizard games I think have (hopefully) got the approach spot on. Next year they will be releasing a 2014/2015 promos card expansion that will be all the promos from the kickstarter, OP events etc from those two years. I'll be buying this to get the only promo I'm missing the Star Market.

Making these promos easily accessible to fans of the game (it's community) shows that the publisher cares about the games fans and doesn't want to see them fleeced having to pay heavily inflated prices on eBay to get the promo that a lot of the time was FREE!

Sadly this is not the case with a lot of the publishers.

The Ticket to Ride 1910 expansion has been on my list for a long time. Finally I've crumbled and bought it.

The Game of the Year expansions for VivaJava the coffee game the dice game also arrived. There are a couple of mats that are purely decorative as the Lord of the Beans one (as shown above) illustrates. The thing is with kickstarter this expansion came with some dice called Angry Dice. This is a separate mini game Dice Hate Me sell, however they are also used in the Angry Dice expansion that adds an aggro element to the game. However this expansion doesn't come with these dice and therefore you have to buy the dice separately. Like most things these aren't available in the UK, and I've tried looking very hard using my extensive Google ninja skills. Ordering the dice from the Dice Hate Me store sees a whopping $60 shipping fee for a $15 order ($5 for Angry Dice and $10 for a card version of a Brewing game they do), madness. I've actually had to resort to asking a big favour from a friend in the US if he could order the game for me. Even then they charged him $15 for shipping.