Category Archives: Game day

Third time lucky

Game day

The original plan for today was to play a four player game of Memoir 44. But for reasons (I say reasons because we have no idea why the fourth player never turned up) we only had three players.

Luckily I had decided to grab a back up plan for such a situation. Which we decided to go with.

So instead of Memoir we set up to play Apiary.

Below are the faction and hive mats that each of us used.

  • Utel – The Log (Jeff)
  • Iber – The Warre (John)
  • Carpa – The Langstroth (me)

I actually planted seed cards! The first game I’ve managed to plant any and I do four.

I completed my hive mat, and a frame. Plus upgraded my faction tile.

I think I explored twice during the game, and did one retrieval. After I got a tile that allowed me to retrieve a worker and activate a farm every time I did a research action I was researching a lot. It was getting me a seed card and victory points.

There was a moment early on when I did hate buy a tile to stop Jeff having it. If he’d been allowed to get it, along with his faction ability he’d have gotten two basic resources of his choice every explore action on top of everything else.

I triggered the end of the game, and below is how the scores stood after all the smoke had cleared.

Final scores

I have to say if Jeff or John had those scores in my previous two games they would have won. And Jeff did so much better than I did in my first play.

I’m just taken aback by how high my score was. Especially considering my first two plays.

A great afternoon though despite our original plan falling through.

A Very Tired Gaming Session!

Game day

Sunday was a work day.

Which was going well right up until the moment my head came into contact with some fibreglass sheeting at force as I stood up. You can see the results of said impact in the photos below.

Lots of paper work for the shift leader and additional plasters to stop bleeding later the shift ended.

Ouch!

After the shift I had arranged with Ben and his wife Allie to play new arrival Grail Cup.

Very tired I arrived at their house having never had a chance earlier in the day to read the rules. A flaw in my plan. I never really had a break during the 9 hour shift.

Although this was a minor hurdle to overcome, luckily the rulebook is very quick to pick up and learn from.

The thing that attracted me to Grail Cup was that it shared the card drafting mechanic from Citadels by Bruno Faidutti. Which isn’t a surprise because he designed Grail Cup too.

The art for Grail Cup is by the awesome John Kovalic. He of Munchkin and Dork Tower fame.

Grail Cup

We played a couple of three player games and a four player game. The main difference being the number of cards you get to play in a round. In the three player game you get to play two cards and four players or more just one card.

Otherwise each round starts with players drafting the card from the ones available they wish to play that round to move their standee along the race track.

Then the second half of the round has players playing their card and carrying out the instructions on the card.

First player to get their standee to the finish line wins.

This is light, and quick to play. Which I love. It’s easily a game a family could play together.

I like the addition of the dragon that can be moved by players to slow or stop other players in their tracks. The clover spaces with the random clover token that can be either a really useful boost or a boon that has a negative effect. The farm spaces get you rolling a die that can see first player change. Or a bonus of some kind.

Deciding starting positions on the board is based on the card you draw during setup. The person furthest back becomes first player.

I think that we played three games back to back shows how much we enjoyed it.

Next up Ben introduced me to his hard to get, not released over here yet Oink Games new game Tiger & Dragon.

Tiger & Dragon

I want a play or two more of this game.

I enjoyed playing it.

But by the time we started playing tiredness and the head injury were starting to take their toll.

I don’t think I was getting as much out of the game as I could.

As an Oink game this is not one of their famous small box games. But that hasn’t got in the way of it being highly sorted after in the West.

I can see why. It is a nice game. One that may end up in my collection when it becomes more easily available.

I had an enjoyable couple of hours with friends that kindly hosted. Hopefully we can do this on a semi regular basis.

Bad Guys two, Good guys nil

Big Game Saturdays, Game day

I think one of my gaming highlights of the year has to be the annual gaming day that Jeff hosts to celebrate another year going round the sun. For the record the other is going to the UKGE.

This year like the previous one saw Memoir 44 hit the table with an overlord map.

Our first conflict from World War 2 saw the British forces of Montgomery’s 8th Army go up against the German forces of Rommel’s African Corp at Alam Haifa.

Dave (German General/Commander), Diego, and Katie (a friend and colleague of Jeff’s) were the German forces aka the bad guys.

Whilst Jonas (British General/Commander), Gavin, and myself were the British forces aka the good guys.

Wait Jeff wasn’t playing? I hear you say. Kind of. Whilst we were engaged in bloody conflict he was finishing off the curries for lunch. Then at opportune moments in the cooking process joining us to “consult” with the German forces. Which is a fancy way to say he offered advice to Katie because she hadn’t played Memoir 44 before.

There was lots of good natured banter, lots aimed at me. But when your own side are cheering on your opposite number on the battlefield. I rely on one of my favourite quotes.

“Again, right in the ears, straight to the feelings.” Wil Wheaton Big Bang Theory

Sadly for my “team mates” my opposite number with the aid of outside advice, great cards from her Commander, and really good dice rolls, was kicking the butt of the units under my control.

My team mates were getting what they had been calling for earlier in the game. What’s the say “be careful for what you wish for”?

It was getting so dire Jonas our Commander had to move some tank units to my sector to shore up our forces.

Around midday play was interrupted for lunch. Which was a welcome relief from the whooping we were getting.

Lunch was a selection of four home made curries by Jeff. These are always a delicious treat that everyone attending looks forward to.

Fully fed, the German forces went against history and pulled off the inevitable a points victory.

Game two for the day saw a change in the conflict to the from the North African theatre to the Pacific theatre of war. It also saw a personnel change as well.

With the food all consumed Jeff was able to join in the action replacing Katie who had to leave.

That meant that the American forces aka the good guys at Guadalcanal were being represented by Dave, Jeff (General/Commander), and Diego.

Which meant the Japanese forces aka the bad guys were unchanged from the first game members and role wise.

There was a Sudden Death victory condition for the Japanese. All we had to do was get a unit to an exit marker and leave the area of play through it.

Early on I got a behind enemy lines card that allowed me to make a dash for that exit marker. I was three hexes from the exit marker. A great distraction for the opposition forcing them to attempt to stop the unit. They had one turn to stop the unit or lose in spectacular fashion.

Luckily despite a little shenanigans from Jonas weakening the American attacks to take out my unit. They did indeed stop my lone unit. But it did divert their attention and force them to burn up some cards.

We were in a strong position I was getting control of my sector whilst Jonas and Gavin inched forward in theirs.

We were getting some great cards, and dice rolls. Whilst the opposite was true for the American forces.

Points wise we were inching closer to victory. Although it was pretty close still.

And then Jonas played one two knockout combo. He started with an arial bombardment to clear the exit space, followed by a behind enemy lines card allowing his unit to make a dash for the space and grab the win.

After our glorious victory defying history once more, we chewed the fat whilst enjoying Jeff’s salty tears over the manner of the win.

This was a great day. They always are. Great food, great company. An amazing way to celebrate Jeff getting a year older. I’m lucky he invited me. A big thank you to Jeff for being such an incredible host.

Another cunning plan with an old favourite…

I did pick up from Gavin his Dicemasters stuff (which was originally mine before we did some wheeling and dealing a few years back). And Jeff very generously gave me what bits of Dicemasters he had.

I really liked Dicemasters back when it came out. But sadly Wizkids really fumbled the ball with it. Which is a shame it’s a great game.

However I had been thinking recently I’d like to get back playing it, especially with Nathan. I think he’d like it.

I know it’s a “dead” game. But that just means we can use what I have, and anything I can get cheaply to build “teams” and play. It doesn’t mean we can’t play it or have fun.

What I do need to do is try and remember how to play the game again!

Well, how could you have waited so long?

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

Friday was once again a Fenland Gamers club night.

I got a chance to play Outlive with its expansion for the first time in about five long years.

When I last played Outlive in 2018 the expansion was a mere twinkle in the games designers eyes.

Marcin got me picking the expansion up for him at UKGE this year for him. So I most definitely hadn’t played the game with the expansion.

I was keen to play the game again.

It was great playing this post apocalyptic worker placement game after such a long time.

I came last, so not even first loser. But I did some cool stuff. I had fun.

After a morning taking Mum to get her new glasses adjusted, and installing a new Wi-Fi router (could have done without that small expense) I picked up a handy game or two to play with Dave as I left the house to meet him.

Which is why we ended up continuing the trend started by Outlive the evening before by playing Eminent Domain.

Eminent Domain is another game that last got played in 2018.

I do like Eminent Domain. But this deckbuilder does not get nearly as much play as it deserves, as the gap between plays proves.

We did waste a bit of time setting up. Working out what cards were what. And for me refreshing my failing memory with the rules, as Dave playing the game for the first time learnt them. But that’s the drawback of picking up a game that I hadn’t played in a long long time.

After narrowly losing to Dave I introduced him to the roll and write genre with Trek 12: Himalaya.

This is a fun introductory roll and write I think with just enough challenge to keep more experienced players engaged.

I did managed to summit our first mountain, narrowly failed the second mountain by 2 points, and was not close on the third and final mountain.

With me getting points for the first two mountains, and Dave claiming points for the third. We ended the expedition a draw.

However I had other reasons for introducing Dave to roll and writes. The next ones I want to play with him are Three Sisters and Motor City. Yep we will be going from the safe paddling pool where Dave has just dipped his toes in the water to dropping him in the deep end!

Splish, splash!

‘T was in the darkest depths of Mordor

Game day, LCG, Lord of the Rings, LoTR, star wars

I spent a very enjoyable few hours today round Jeff’s playing LoTR themed games punctuated with a delicious bowl of chicken and mushroom curry.

We started our gaming with War of the Ring the card game.

Jeff played the free peoples of Middle Earth. Whilst for a change for me from the last couple of plays I’ve had I was the minions of Sauron.

Mordor won in the end by a narrow couple of points.

Jeff was a little unsure of the game and thought he needed a few more plays to decide. But he thought it had potential.

Our second game after a break for lunch (the chicken and mushroom curry washed down with coffee) was LoTR the living card game revised core.

We played the introductory scenario seeing as it was Jeff’s first time with the game.

Luckily Jeff had done some homework and had watched a couple of YouTube how to play videos. So no teaching required.

Jeff chose the starter decks for our play and went elves, leaving me dwarves.

I’ve already written about this introductory scenario so I’m not going to repeat myself here.

Suffice to say the combined might of the dwarves and elves won.

Unsurprisingly Jeff really liked LoTR LCG. I had a strong suspicion he might. After all Jeff loves Arkham Horror LCG and they are similar mechanically.

Which reminds me the previous evening John and I met up and played Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

John played Obi Wan, whilst I went with Ashoka against Ventress. We played at the padawan difficulty (3 missions).

Even though the game was brutal against us and beat us (we needed another two turns minimum to win) Jonathan enjoyed this implementation of the pandemic engine.

I have had two gaming sessions with two of my oldest and closest gaming friends. Who these days I don’t get to game with as often as I’d like. So to get to spend quality time with them sharing great games was a Summer highlight.

Two venture in to the taiga

Expeditions, Game day

Yesterday I had to cancel the planned D&D session so I could look after mum. Friday night whilst I was at game night mum fell over and banged her head on the sideboard. I wanted her to rest, and make sure there was no concussion.

So yesterday evening I messaged Ben to see if he was free to play Expeditions this afternoon depending on mum and how she was feeling.

This morning after a gentle start to the day I checked on mum to make sure she was ok. Her head was still a little sore. Which was expected. But otherwise seemed ok

I’m still blown by just how quick the game is to setup.

Luckily no teaching the game was required as Ben had already watched the Watch it played video a couple of times.

So this is how our champions and mechs matched up.

  • Olga & Changa with Odin’s Wrath – me
  • Anna & Wojtek with Highlander – Ben

I’ll do the tl;dr first I enjoyed Expeditions as a two player game.

Obviously it felt a little different to the game Friday. Mainly because the board was less congested with mechs there was no blocking of spaces. Which on the odd occasion is done deliberately, but most likely by accident.

It was funny because Ben and myself didn’t have to do a refresh action until right before the end of the game was triggered. In fact the more powerful all three actions turn after the refresh was our final turn. As my three actions allowed me to get enough corruption tokens, and claim my fourth and final glory token.

How did we play so long before having to do the refresh? Tile and card abilities. They allowed me and Ben to stay out cycling our activated cards back to our hands more or less as regularly as we wanted without skipping a turn. Granted we don’t get that more powerful turn. But being able to get an action plus a recycle was more useful.

Once I triggered the end of the game and the final scores calculated I snuck in a victory.

Our final scores

We followed up our game of Expeditions with a game of Lakshadweep. This Indian boardgame had an interesting eco inspired theme. However it is pretty paper thin.

The art is very functional and children bookish. Which sums up the level it’s aimed at I think.

The game itself is very Carcassonne inspired with its tile drafting and placing on a combined area.

It felt very Carcassonne light.

The game wasn’t unpleasant but I’d rather play Carcassonne.

I had a great afternoon with a good friend. Who kindly listened to me unload about the mornings family missives. You don’t want to know.

Longer than a John Bonham drum solo

Game day, game night, Twilight Imperium 4

As planned our four player game of Twilight Imperium 4 (TI4) with the Prophecy of Kings (PoK) expansion took place yesterday.

Which meant Dave, Diego, Jeff, and myself gathered indoors round two tables pushed together on a hot July afternoon.

The previous evening I had confirmed that there was no booking of the community centre. It was important to know before hand if we had any time constraints (other than the place closing up for the night) before starting so we could make adjustments.

As per usual I arrived early to start setting up and merge the PoK expansion with the core game. I punctuated this with a triple quarter pounder cheese burger. Hey a galactic empire marches on its stomach.

When the others arrived there was still a little setup left to do, plus choose our factions.

Dave and Diego went with factions from the core game, whilst Jeff and I went with one of the new factions from the expansion.

The factions chosen were as follows:

  • The Nomad – me
  • The Universities of Jol-Nar – Dave
  • The Argent Flight – Jeff
  • The Mentak Coalition – Diego

By the time we finished setup (including choosing factions) nearly an hour had passed! So a 1:15pm start was really 2:15pm before our first expansionist actions were being taken.

For me TI4 (or earlier editions) is the board gaming version of epic stories like Lord of the Rings, or the Foundation series.

To be fair it might be quicker to read either than play TI4.

TI4 is an epic game. Not just because of the scale of it (it’s a massive table hog) but the inter-galactic warring factions fighting for supremacy has this epic grandeur feel.

The first few rounds were void of any conflict, and were mainly factions racing to grab planets to get the resources needed to build up their fleets for defensive and aggressive purposes.

Our first space battle was between Jeff and Diego over Mecatol Rex. Even after that skirmish combat was a rarity until the later stages.

I did quiet well developing my technology. It helped my Commander (part of PoK) enabled me to produce my command ship for free. This enabled me to develop War Sun technology and take Jeff on and rebuild very quickly after any losses.

We had two epic battles in the middle of the galaxy.

I liked what PoK bought to the core game. The leaders, mechs, factions. And it didn’t bring any real extra overhead to the game.

As a four player game we got to choose two strategy tiles each. Which was nice having two to activate. Although the second tile may not have always been one you had wanted.

We actually finished playing around 9:40pm. Yes I can see you doing the math. That’s about seven and a half hours of playtime.

A little longer than I had calculated. I’d estimated about five hours. But now you know why earlier I had checked about any bookings.

The thing is whilst you are playing you are so engrossed in the game that you have no idea what the time is. Before you know it seven hours plus have passed.

Ok you do get a hint during play when you miss phone calls asking where you are. But hey is it my fault I forgot to warn mum the game was likely to run a long time? Heck she got a McDonalds delivered out of it.

Anyway after the space dust had settled Dave’s turtling empire ended up victorious.

This was truly an epic afternoon and evening with great friends. The way a Summer Saturday truly should be spent.

A New Campaign A New Beginning

Charterstone, Game day, Stonemaier Games

Literally five years to the day since I last played Charterstone we started a new campaign.

There had been a failed attempt to play the game during the pandemic using the digital version. It’s embarrassing how quickly that fell apart.

This new campaign was with Ben’s copy of the game. The other difference being instead of a four player game we were going to be playing at the full player count of six players.

Sadly life put a scupper on that so it was for this session anyway down to five players.

I really enjoyed returning to the world of Charterstone. My only regret about my previous adventures there are that we didn’t finish the journey. Which has got me thinking I wonder if Jonathan would be interested in returning to finish what we started? I’m pretty sure Diego and Jeff would be up for it.

We managed to get the first two games of the campaign played. And yes games are that quick.

Our first game saw Ben hording assistants and getting ridiculous bonuses when he did stuff. So it wasn’t surprising that Ben won that game. However I did managed to achieve two of the round objectives, plus hit my goal of hitting the thirty point mark. That was important because that meant I could fill in three stars towards getting a reward. You get to fill in one star for each ten points you have. The stars are also worth ten points each at the end of the game. This first game also saw me not build a single building. Although I did open a crate.

Game two saw us carry over everything from game one. So Ben was starting with a massive assistant advantage.

However that didn’t translate into a win this time. That honour went to Jeff. As Charlene and Jeff unlocked minions the rest of us were starting to feel left out. Luckily the crate I opened in game two also gave me a golem minion. Once again I managed to hit the thirty point marker. Plus build three buildings. We all had started developing our charters.

Game three is going to be very interesting. Ben won’t have his big assistant advantage. All of us bar Jeff can carry over an extra item of our choosing (I chose an extra resource). Plus we have more powerful buildings out in our charters. Oh and I nearly forgot peril tokens were unlocked by Charlene.

We finished off the session with a game of Vaalbara.

A very nice card game which I’ll talk about another day. It’s hot and I need to cool down

Despite the heat, it was another great afternoon gaming with great friends. I look forward to our next game (or two) in the campaign.

My Precious Sunday!

Game day, magic, MtG

This weekend has been a busy weekend for your FLGS. It’s been yet another MtG prerelease weekend. These are happening a lot more often these days as WotC push out more and more product in their blatant attempt to lighten your pockets and bank accounts.

But it doesn’t take away from the fact that a MtG prerelease is a valuable source of income for the LGS.

There has been a lot of buzz and online chatter about this latest set The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth for one reason or the other.

The main one that affects this weekend and sales of the very expensive Collectors Boosters is the one of one card The One Ring hidden in one of them. In the run up to this weekend various individuals and businesses put a “bounty” on the card. Last I heard before Friday was one MtG retailer offering over one million dollars to the lucky individual who pulled it (within one month of the prerelease).

Guess what’s been selling like hot cakes this weekend?

My local FLGS sold out of their stock of the Collectors Boosters, and barely sold any draft boosters.

I don’t know if other stores had the same. But it’d sure be interesting to find out.

I wasn’t going to attend any prerelease events. But I did manage to score a couple of prerelease kits and the new starter kit, and held my own prerelease event this afternoon with Dave.

I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan.

Funny enough it was my other passion in the early Eighties and the home computer boom that introduced me to Tolkien and Middle-Earth.

Thanks to the software house Melbourne House who did The Hobbit adventure game, and it’s follow up The Lord of the Rings Part 1. Both coming with copies of their respective books. I was introduced to hobbits, elves, and dwarves.

I ended up reading the books to help me solve the many puzzles and situations I would come across.

During this time I got to see The Lord of the Rings animated movie on vhs. Yes the video revolution was great for geeks like me. The animated movie was only part one. Part two was never made. The movie ended just after Helms Deep if I remember correctly. It’s also of interested that during its making they started running out of money, so they used an animation technique called rotoscoping. Which was basically filming actors in orc outfits and colouring over them! It does give the movie a unique look and feel.

I have such fond memories in the mid Eighties sitting in a large beanbag in my spare room rays of light coming through the window, reading my leather bound, gold leaf lettering on the cover edition of The Lord of Rings.

My first RPG that I played was the Middle-Earth Role Playing game whilst I was studying for my HND down in Brighton.

Then whilst married getting the thirteen cd edition of the BBC radio play production of the book. Wow such an amazing production. Apart from Tom Bombadil they got the book captured perfectly. I soon added the BBCs production of The Hobbit. You can just close your eyes and imagine you are there. I even have both on Audible.

I could go on. But that’d bore you. I think you could say I’m a big fan just not one that can quote chapter and verse from the books or lore.

Dave and I had a blast building our decks to play after cracking open our prerelease kit boosters and participation packs. This was a first for Dave as he was getting to experience his first sealed game.

I love that excitement, anticipation of cracking open a booster. Nothing quite like it in gaming. It’s so addictive.

I went green/white aka Selesnya, whilst Dave went Red/Black with a splash of blue aka Grixis.

I went with cards that generated food tokens and did things with them. I surprised myself with the synergy. If this had been a proper prerelease I’d have never been that lucky with my cards.

There is some amazing art on these cards. I dare to say WotC and the artists they used have taken things to another level.

And it felt so thematic playing the cards. I’ve not felt that with MtG in a long time. Granted I’ve not played a set since that awful Strixhaven set. But playing the cards was such a joy.

The Starter Kit decks also got a couple of plays. They too were fun. There was a nice balance to them.

I had a great afternoon playing some MtG with a friend. As a Fathers Day goes the only way I could top this if I had spent the time with Nathan. But he called me which is all I need.

A hot Sunday afternoon

Game day

A very hot Sunday afternoon saw my friend Jamie and myself meeting up to play some board games.

We started off with a two player game of After Us. You can read a rather long winded not saying much post about it here. We had fun. Despite leading on the points front for the majority of the game, Jamie caught up and overtook me to get the win.

After my apes had their butt kicked it was time to start climbing in the Himalayas by playing Trek 12: Himalaya.

Obviously I like roll and writes. I do have a few in the collection (22 at the last count according the tags I’ve added to games in bgstat). So a while back when I saw a review for it on YouTube (and for the life of me I can’t remember which channel it was I saw it on) I was intrigued. Especially by the theme (we’ll come back to that in a mo). So when I saw it for sale at UKGE with the expansion I finally caved and bought both the base game and it’s expansion.

Now folks who know me longer than I have been blogging about board games will remember that originally this very blog was an outdoors blog! (The posts are no longer on here) I love being in the outdoors, backpacking, sleeping in the middle of nowhere with great views, being up high on the UK mountains. I’ve taken that love of hiking to holidays in the Swiss Alps and French Pyrenees.

Heck I got Strider from a family holiday to the Brecon Beacons, and picking him up when he was ready to leave his mum was my first wild camp.

I love the outdoors.

Why am I not doing this stuff now? Well life got in the way. As it does now. I don’t want the day to arrive when I can do multi day trips again, or go do my dream trip of visiting New Zealand. (I’m getting a bit emotional as I type this next bit) As that means mum is no longer with me.

So you can see the mountaineering theme of Trek 12: Himalaya really appealed to me.

We started off playing the trek mode for the game. This is basically picking one of the three included maps and playing the game using the core rules. As per the rule book suggestions we used the Dunai sheet (see photo below) for this first learning game.

Each round the two dice are rolled and each player chooses one of the following to do with the result:

  • Use the higher of the two values
  • Use the lower of the two values
  • Use the difference between the two values
  • Use the sum of the two values
  • Use the product of the two values

However there is a catch. There’s always a catch. You can only do each of the above a max of four times during the game. So you have to really think about when you use each of the above.

You are also restricted on the max value you can write in a circle. A regular circle is considered to be normal terrain so the max value that can be written in it is 12. Difficult terrain (with a thicker boarder) can only have a max value of 6. If you have to write a value higher than the max the space can hold you draw a sad face instead! Each sad face at the end of the game is worth minus three points.

You start off being able to place the first number you have anywhere on the map. After that each number has to be added to an empty space adjacent to a space already containing a number.

In Trek 12: Himalaya you are scoring points based on chains of numbers (ie 3,4,5,6) and groups of numbers (ie a group of 2’s).

Any number not part of a chain or group at the end of the game is orphaned and gets a sad face.

We enjoyed our initial game so much we played the campaign or expedition mode as it is know.

This adds assist cards to the game that you can claim by having a group of 0’s,1’s, or 2’s. You are allowed a max of three of these at a time. Any you don’t use during a game can be traded for points at the end.

These assist cards are useful as they can give you an extra addition to perform, allow you to put a number anywhere on the map, plus other useful powers.

There are also challenge envelopes that get unlocked at the end of a game before starting the next one if the condition has been met to open it. From the two that I’ve opened so far they have added more assist cards, a fourth map pad, and guides (they increase the power of certain things).

Expedition games are played over three maps, and the victor is the player with the most reputation points. In our game that was Jamie right up to the last game. He had gotten points from both the first two maps whilst I had zero. Then I smashed the last, most difficult map and got a shed load of points to grab the win.

We really liked Trek 12: Himalaya. We played four games back to back.

On the roll and write difficulty level scale it is not even close to being as difficult as a Three Sisters or Hadrians Wall. The rules are very simple. It’s the decisions that you have to make that make it so enjoyable.

I was kind of reminded a bit of Rolling Japan/America when it came to placing the numbers on the sheet. I got that vibe from it.

However you are trying to get those chains and groups, and it gets more and more difficult as your options start to run out on how you get that number you need.

Having the three maps (or more once unlocked) makes the trek mode enjoyable as you can tailor the difficulty of the game you want to play. With the expedition mode that looks to have so much replay ability as you unlock the extras and try and beat previous scores. Plus it doesn’t wear out it’s welcome. The games were fairly quick, so you can do an expedition easily in an evening and not have it hanging around.

I don’t do solo modes of games. So I can’t comment on how it plays solo.

But I do love this game.

Our final game of the afternoon was Three Dragon Ante.

We used the Iron Clay poker chips that I picked up at UKGE for this instead of the cardboard chips that come with the game. They are nice. Feel really great in the hand.

Before I write lots about Three Dragon Ante I want to play this with more than two players.

But we had fun playing it despite an initial misplay. There are some interesting decisions to make during the game.

Plus I won.

I had a great afternoon gaming with Jamie. It was just what I needed on such a scorching weekend.