When I went to our FLGS to look to spend my birthday money (wound up ordering Earth, should be back in stock in 2-3 weeks, yay!), I spotted Rocketmen, by Martin Wallace.
Maryse and I are both very keen on Brass: Birmingham, by the same designer, would that be a good indication of if we’d enjoy this one?
Thanks!
I think Brass: Birmingham is a looser design of Lancashire but still excellent. Rocketmen is vastly different and I didn’t like it at all.
Theres a PYL rocket launch mechanism that doesn’t work as well as it should and a lack of money cards in the later parts of the deck (IMHO).
All right, so liking one does not indicate the other will be to our tastes. Thanks for the info! 
I backed Rocketmen back when it was on KS. It is a pretty big square box with a large board and a smallish deck-builder with too few cards inside. I have been trying to sell my copy for a while. I don‘t even remember if I managed to get rid of it.
If you want a space race simulation try to get your hands on Leaving Earth. If you want a deck-builder: There are tons of better deckbuilders and this has nothing to do with Brass et al.
Definitely a try-before-buy or watch reviews and if you are still interested then… you can probably get a used copy cheaply.
I generally don’t get on with Martin Wallace games but I haven’t noticed people talking about Rocketmen tge way they do either Brass, or Wildlands.
Thanks all! Really appreciate the insights!
More a general question and probably for @yashima but heading to Cologne on Wednesday for a few days. Any games in German that don’t have an English translation that are 1 relatively easy to translate and 2 unmissable?
By relatively easy I mean there is already an English fan translation somewhere and/or pointing google translate at it should work …
The problem is that most of the new stuff will be out for Essen.
Some might have been out for Nürnberger Spielwarenmesse.
I am not currently aware of anything that matches your description.
You might check out the BGG Spiel Preview because some of the games that are listed there will already be available in stores. (I just scrolled through most of the German games announced and … nothing). Age of Innovation is announced for August. But that might be a case of wanting to wait for English rules. And I am assuming it will be released in several languages at the same time. I seem to remember some new 2F stuff is announced for „right now“. Those often have German and English rules.
The only other thing I can recommend is that the used-games market includes a bunch of old SdJ that are out of print and not always easy to find elsewhere for example Thurn und Taxis. (I would have added T&E but as that is getting a reprint soonish…). Check Kleinanzeigen.de if you are interested in anything that might be available for pickup in Cologne.
I mean if you are into that Dorfromantik just won SdJ. I haven‘t played. I am not sure it is available elsewhere. My FLGS had a stack of copies. Every bigger shop will have it. (Also use forum search to find where we have talked about it on here. The talk wasn‘t too favorable I think)
If you cannot find a FLGS check for Thalia. Bookstore chain that has a somewhat okay boardgame selection. And sometimes even good prices.
PS: we recently talked about the German edition for No Thanks being called Schöne Scheisse and packaged in a way smaller box. If you are into small box card games you can definitely check both Thalia and the Müller chain (and any FLGS) for games from Amigo et al… keep a search open to check which games are which 
You could always get the pretty German edition of Sushi Go 
PPS: Anfahrt - Spielbrett this seems to be a not small Boardgame Shop in Cologne. More:
You want to search for „Brettspiele“
As for FLGS, I can recommend Brave New World in Cologne. They have an interesting selection of games!
And here is me in Brave New World yesterday. The English section downstairs had many more games than any of my FLGS in Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Thanks for the help @mr.ister and @yashima .
So what did I buy? Rise of Ix for Dune:Imperium in English … Ah well …
Glad to see you’re wearing a raincoat
To be fair, it was very rainy
Spieleoffensive has a really really cheap offer for “Reavers of Midgard” and while I am generally more immune to “buying b/c it was cheap” these days… 25€ is awfully cheap not to at least consider it. Note: this is not the better known sibling “Champions of Midgard” (which I have not played either). Geek Buddy analysis is a bit too sparse and lacking comments to form a picture.
So has anyone played Reavers and have opinions? The mechanisms on BGG sound intriguing enough for my taste. Set Collection, Worker Placement, Following (Actions), Dice Rolling.
it’s also got multiple use cards. I think the game is mostly about the cards
I can’t say if it’s good or not even if I did own and play it and got rid of it (I think I have a meat token lying around the house from the game though).
I think euros25 is probably worth it for the game as a gamble though.
Has anyone an opinion about 25th Anniversary vs. regular Bohnanza? Is there anything that justifies the bigger box size? Do people actually with 6-7 players, the extra cards and/or variants?
The only differences are:
We own it because our first experience was with 7 players and I like the opportunity to play with that many
Thanks! Interesting, so I take it you think it’s worthwhile at those high player counts?
I own it because it has some of the expansions, my first games way back when were with big groups and it also includes the 2 player mode which is lovely, so overall I have a cleaner box that doesn‘t just fall open and takes just as much space as my previous iteration collection. But if you never played it or only want to play with middling player counts, I think you can stick with just the single base game
I actually started this thread when i was trying to make sense of the differences. Got good information.
Most of the expansions aren’t very interesting. I do think the two different card sets, one designed for 4 to5 players and one for 6 to 7, are nice to have. Playing with more bean types (the 6 to 7 deck) is also of interest as it forces more mismatches and early harvests.
They made good changes to the three fields rules. But you don’t need anniversary for that, just use three fields for three players and don’t allow buying fields at 4+.
I’d say not super important which edition. If player count is more important, or box size, or price, just do whatever.
