“Executive Privilege” (Watergate, #2)

In early 1973, Richard Nixon seemed stronger than ever. The voters had just handed him a landslide electoral victory, a massive mandate for the next four years. Yet within 20 months, his position would crumble, and his presidency would be no more. The cause of his downfall was – of course – the Watergate scandal. As we’ve seen in the first part, through 1972, most Americans did not take much note of the break-in or the irregularities in Nixon’s election campaign finance. In 1973, however, the connection to politics became evident during the trials of the Watergate burglars and then spread when the existence of a secret taping system at the White House became known. Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency, but the reverberations of the scandal kept rippling through America.

A “Third-Rate Burglary Attempt” (Watergate, #1)

Watergate. The most famous of all political scandals. A salacious mix of illicit surveillance, dubious finance, and open felonies. And the president of the United States embroiled in it. Of course, the topic is not only fascinating to politicos, journalists, gossips, and everyone out for a quick buck – but also to the designers and players of board games. Thus, here’s the first half of a two-part piece on Watergate in history and board games – from the mood at the Nixon White House in the early 1970s over the break-in at the Watergate complex itself to Nixon’s irregular campaign finance.

Farewell 2022 – Historical Games!

Games + History = Life.

Here are the three that gave me most life this year!

You can read the other Farewell 2022 posts here:

New-to-Me Games

Historical Fiction

Non-Historical Games

Historical Non-Fiction

The Best on the Blog

Farewell 2022 – New-to-Me Games!

There’s a lot of things that happened this year which I didn’t have on my 2022 bingo card… but let’s not dwell on that and talk about board games instead!

As the year comes to a close, I’ll do my usual end-of-year posts: My personal top three in a range of categories. As tradition commands, we’ll begin with the games that I played for the first time this year… Another thing I didn’t have on my bingo card was how many good new games I played! Here are the best three.

You can read the other Farewell 2022 posts here:

Historical Fiction

Non-Historical Games

Historical Non-Fiction

Historical Games

The Best on the Blog

Half-Year Gaming Report, 2022

Another year is already half-way over! Can you believe it? …I guess with everything that’s happened since January 1 (Pandemic! War! Inflation! Supreme Court!) I should be surprised we haven’t filled the history books for three years yet. In these historic times, it’s nice to take on different perspectives, learn from the past or at least get away from the present with the tried-and-true method of (historical) board gaming. Here’s what I did so far this year – the numbers, the games I played most often or were otherwise remarkable, and how I stand in relation to my board gaming goals for 2022.

SPIEL Essen 2019: Most Anticipated Historical Board Games

How fast a year goes by! …I say, not because New Year’s is rolling around, but instead the SPIEL board game fair at Essen. But to each their own holidays, and SPIEL is the Christmas for the tabletop gaming faithful. Four days of playing, trying, and buying. 160,000+ visitors. As I couldn’t go in 2018, I am doubly excited to attend this year again. Therefore, I’ll share my list of the most interesting board games with a historical theme released or demoed there this year. Have fun!