Boardgame Geek

My friends and family know I'm a geek. I was into D&D when I was in High School; I was in the Spanish Club, the Chess Club, etc. One thing I've always loved is gaming. My family always played the classic games: Monopoly, Yahtzee, Sorry, Aggravation, Mille Bornes, Uno, etc. Dad taught me chess, then my older brother, Randy, picked up a copy of Risk. From there, he and I headed into the realm of wargames (hex and counter games). In junior high, I met several other people into the same kind of games and the list of games we played grew enormously. We played Afrika Corps, Ogre, Starship Troopers, Tobruk, Caesar at Alesia, Richthofen's War, Tactics II, Kriegspiel...
Anyway, I still play games regularly with my brothers and nephews: Heroclix, Blood Bowl, Heroscape and so on, but I don't often get to play the more complex time-consuming games. I have a shelf full of games that haven't even been played, but despite that, I bought a new one recently and Randy and I have been playing a turn or two every other evening. It's a game from Columbia Games called "Hammer of the Scots," about the Scottish wars for independence (Braveheart). There are detailed reviews of the game at boardgamegeek.com, which is a treasure trove of information about gaming. So far, we're up to the year 1301 (each turn represents a year) and as the English, I haven't made much headway into Scotland. I did manage to eliminate William Wallace, so all is not lost. The Scottish nobles frequently change sides, so it's a very dynamic game.
I'm going to fix up a room above the cellar soon so I can set up a game and leave it set up without cats and kids mucking it up, so maybe I'll be able to dust off some old unplayed games and give them a work out. Steve Bishop, are you still out there? I've got a challenge for you....