Thank the lord Counter magazine only comes out four times a year

On the day my Counter magazine arrives i sit up till 2 reading, then lie awake thinking about whether i agree/disagree with the reviews. I think if it were a weekly i'd have to turn to sleeping tablets.

The February issue is my favourite as it lists the contributors top 5 games from the previous year - it always provokes a lot of mental debate about what my own top five would be (and when i have finished playing the highlight 2009 games i'll post them on this blog)

I was delighted that the editor of Counter, Stuart Dagger, selected 'A Brief History of the World' as his number one. It's retro, it's more about the experience than winning ,it eschews clever mechancics for straight forward game play - in short everything that a game should be.

The Tower of Babel , The Library of Alexander and Reuters

For most board gamers newish to the hobby ( in my case returned) BoardGameGeek has inspired many purchases, inspired wish lists of obscure and wonderful games and provided hours of games related browsing. With over a million users and an open approah to contributions the amount of information is amazing at times bewildering. After using the 'Geek for a while we get to know which reviewers are trustworthy in their opinions and which are fan boys. It is a great resource for rules translations, player aids and debating the merits of different games, games companies and genres. It's democratic nature is both it's strength and it's weakness.

For a source of boardgame information which can be 100% trusted then i recommend you turn to Counter Magazine. It is a quarterly publication, looks like an Old Boy's magazine and is a paper only publication. Don't let that put you off - it is a gold mine of boardgame knowledge with the reviewers all being game experts with thousands of games played under their belts - if they say a game is good - believe it! If it receives feint praise then you know what means. Counter runs to about 100 pages of dense text, including reviews, industry comment and general articles about gaming. The annual subscription is £14 and is, in my opinion, the best investment a boardgamer can make. It's also quite funny in an Anciene Regime sort of way.

Counter, being a quarterly publication, is not where i turn for up to the minute industry news and for that i go to BoardGameNews - the 'Reuters' of the boardgame world, a website that gets the hot stuff before the 'Geek and you don't have to spend five hours searching for the latest snippet as it is laid out in easy to read fashion. It also has regular writers who are industry figures and have opinions worth reading.