Kniffel Duell and Vinci

I played Kniffel Duell for the second time this evening, and have to
say for a game that is essentially a Yahtzee tug-o-war, it's rather
fun. I've always been fond of dice games, but not especially Yahtzee
because of the lack of player interaction. Kniffel Duell solves this
nicely by making the game a tug-o-war. It makes good two player
filler.

I've played Vinci seven times now, and played this evening with only
three players. First of all, I had forgotten how reasonably quick a
game it is with three player (probably about an hour). Second, I
don't think I will ever play again with public scoring. Hidden
scoring not only avoids the analysis paralysis that occurs in the end
game, it leaves a little bit of mystery and prevents players from
spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to hit the leader, and
hence speeds the game along. This remains in my top ten games,
overall. For the curious, the full top 10 (strategy games, excluding
dexterity games, party games, and word games) is: RoboRally, Battle
Line, Settlers of Catan, Lord of the Rings, Vinci, Traumfabrik, 6
nimmt!, Schnappchen Jagd, Bluff, Euphrat & Tigris.