On Friday whilst at the UKGE, after hearing my plans to only do two days of the expo, Ben invited me to join him and Diego Sunday afternoon to play games.

It was an invite I accepted and said I would see if Jeff was free. Which he was.

So come Sunday afternoon I was at Ben’s abode playing games with Ben,Jeff, Diego and Charlene.

Well not entirely true, the first game I played was with Jeff and Ben only as we waited for the other two to arrive.

That first game was Vivarium. It was a brand new game for all three of us.

Vivarium is played over seven rounds, where you get two turns to draft a card. These cards count towards contracts that you have that will score points at the end of the game, or are more contracts. There is a small majority thing going on at the end of each round based on a tile shown at the start of each round. The winner gets the tile and scores it at the end of the game. During the round the tile gives you some bonus if you draft a card type indicated on the tile.

It was a fun little game. Pretty themeless. It had an interesting tie breaker mechanic that the player that was later in the turn winning the tie. The drafting mechanic using domino like tiles was interesting.

I think that this would be a nice little filler game.

With everyone present we played the deluxe 20th Anniversary edition of Amun-Re. I even had chance to sleeve it that morning without having to buy any new sleeves at the expo.

I love the new art used in the new edition of the game. I also like the quality of life improvements such as larger text on the game board, regular 63mm x 88mm cards instead of those smaller cards. The paper of the rulebook is similar to that used by Stonemaier games for the Wingspan rulebook. The new double pyramid models and bricks are nicer. You could argue that the 3D temple is too large. But I do like it.

When you add in some of the modules new to this edition like we did the table presence goes up with these cool 3D models on the board.

Yes we used the idols module which with our player count added two idols to the board. With the Pharaoh module also added the bidding phase became a bit more cut throat, particularly the two spaces with the idols on. We also had the promo cards shuffled in as they didn’t change the game play.

I enjoyed what the modules bought to the game. But I could easily play without them.

Our third and final game of the day was After Us.

The art looks amazing on this game. It’s the same artist as the new edition of Amun-Re, Vincent Dutrait.

This was an interesting experience.

If I said the game felt chaotic it’d be an understatement. It mainly felt this way because of the simultaneous game play when activating your tribe. I enjoyed the playing four cards and placing them in any order so that you could complete boxes by joining two half boxes on the edges of the cards. You only got to activate complete boxes for their ability. Which could be gaining resources, or trading resources for a benefit.

Although this is a deck-builder, I didn’t feel like I was playing a deck-builder. I think that was due to the chaotic nature of the game.

I did like that any purchased cards went on top of your deck. But you could only purchase one card per round.

Because of the simultaneous nature of the rounds the game played pretty quickly. But that might also have been helped by the tile in play that allowed you to buy five victory points for five batteries. I don’t think I’d play with that tile next time to see if the game feels different.

I think at the moment the jury is out on this game. It needs more plays.

For me this was a perfect way to finish off the UKGE weekend. Playing some of our purchases with friends. Thanks Ben for hosting. And thanks everyone for your company and making the afternoon.

The remaining two days of the English (there wasn’t a bank holiday in Scotland) long weekend were spent gaming.

Sunday saw Marcin and I playing War of the Ring card game.

It was a game he’d wanted to try. And I don’t need much of an excuse to get the game (or any game really) to the table.

Unlike my first game with Nathan where we played The Fellowship scenario. Marcin and I played the two player duel scenario. I do want to try the full four player experience. But I think that playing it as two players and managing two decks each is too clunky.

Marcin played the forces of Sauron, whilst I played the Free people.

It took us nearly three hours to play our game. But it was fun. I love the depth this game has. Those decisions you have to make with your cards. Whether to play, discard or eliminate. It’s tough. Each decision doesn’t just impact your current play and battlegrounds but future turns and the options (ie cards) you have available.

There is an expansion coming out that apparently adds solo and co-op to the game. But shouldn’t these have been in the core game from day one? If that is all the expansion adds then I won’t be getting it. I want more cards. Maybe official scenarios for the remaining two books.

However I bet you are all wondering who won our game. Well it was a win for Sauron once again. Which is a long winded way of saying Marcin.

Bank Holiday Monday saw Marcin playing host again but this time to Jeff, Diego, Dave, and myself.

Our first game of the afternoon was Libertalia Winds of Galecrest.

A poor scoring first round for me gave Dave enough of a cushion for the rest of the game to comfortably get the win.

Our second and final game was Amun-re by Reiner Knizia.

Although out in 2003 a game I’d never played before.

I really liked the game.

The auction mechanic is fun. Particularly when you hit the second era and the plots come up for auction again. The competition to win an auction becomes more cut throat as the plots now have (or should have) pyramids on them also. Which makes them more valuable to get for end game scoring, especially those with two pyramids on.

I could see this in my collection.

Despite the odd rule mistake, which does taint the win, Dave claimed victory for a clean sweep of wins for the afternoon.

I can’t say a big enough thank you to Marcin for hosting the two days gaming. And I didn’t even steal the cute dog he was dog sitting either.

This sounds like a broken record but this has been three great days of gaming with friends that I’ve really enjoyed. A perfect long weekend.

The plan was is Clack could make it we’d play three player Scythe. Otherwise Dave and I would play Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game and War of the Ring the card game.

However I wouldn’t know until Dave got there which plan we’d be doing. So I had no idea how many tables to get out or which game to set up. I hate not being able to get the setting up done in advance of folks turning up.

It looked like it was plan B. It’d be Dave and myself gaming.

We started off with Star Wars the deckbuilding game.

Dave was the “good guys” as he described them from the movies in their white armour, aka the Empire. Whilst I was the rebels. We used the suggested first/learning game setup from the rule book, with the optional rule allowing you to bribe neutral cards from the Galaxy row and place them in the discard pile and not your deck. The victor would be the first person to defeat three bases of the opponent.

Our first game was over relatively quickly with the rebels rushing the empire bases to get the win.

We enjoyed that first game so much that we wanted to play again.

Our second game we used the Whole Galaxy rules which basically means you are using all ten base cards. You are also playing the first to four bases defeated. It’s described in the rule book as the way the game was intended to be played.

It was another rebel victory.

Our remaining games were with the secret base rules. This is where apart from the starting base you choose four other bases and the rest go back in the box unseen. So your opponent has no idea what bases you have chosen.

I like this version of the rules. It gives you moments in the game where when you have to select your next base you regret not having one of those you put back in the box as it would be better for where the current game is.

We played three games using the secret base rules which saw an empire comeback to level the score at 2-2. Luckily the decider was won by the rebels.

So we spent the afternoon playing Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game with the War of the Ring Card Game not getting a look in.

Yes we both thought the game was that much fun that we were happy just playing that.

There are some nice touches to this deckbuilder that make it standout. Some I’m only coming across for the first time, others I am familiar with.

I think the first most obvious difference is the galaxy row or trade row. Only being able to buy your own faction cards or neutral ones is huge, and can be annoying if the cards hate you and it is full of the other sides cards! But the fact that you can attack the other sides cards in the galaxy row to remove them, and get a benefit for doing so is a nice touch.

Then there is the force and the tug of war that can be. The benefit of having the force with you is that some cards require you to have the force to trigger a more powerful benefit. For instance Darth Vader does even more damage if the empire has the force.

I like the bases and the benefits they give you either as you reveal them or as an on going ability.

There were some turns were I was getting some nice synergies/combos and drawing extra cards, getting cards for free and into play straight away.

It’s not a big thing but having the two coloured cubes to track attack and resources during your turn is really handy. It does stop you losing track and miscounting, well greatly reduces it.

Then you get fanboy moments as characters like Luke and co appear in the galaxy row and you hope that your opponent doesn’t track them before you get a chance to buy them.

The game itself has characters from the original trilogy and Rogue One. Although there are some notable characters missing. In one game I was just missing Luke to complete having the whole gang.

I really like the game. I think when I introduce Nathan to it so will he and I’ll be buying a copy for him.

Two copies does allow you play a 2v2 game for which you have to download the rules from the FFG website.

Look the bottom line is if you like deckbuilders, especially the aggressive ones like Star Realms then you will like Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game.

Friday it had looked like I wouldn’t be able to make the planned days gaming round Diego’s on Monday.

I had shared my car woes on the Messenger group set up to plan the days gaming, and that I was not able to make it.

From that posting Charlene and Jeff both very kindly offered to give me a lift.

Both very generous offers that considering neither lived near me and would have to go out of their way to pick me up, I felt I had to turn down.

If a friend needed my help I’d go out of my way to help them. But ask for help? I can’t. It’s very hard for me to ask for help or to even accept it. Call it a personality flaw. But that’s me.

In the end Jeff direct messaged me saying he’d pick me up at 10am, and I could show him where Diego lived.

I was less of a detour for Jeff than Charlene. So there was a little less guilt accepting the generous offer.

The morning of the bank holiday celebrating our newly crowned sovereign King Charles III Jeff was a little early. Luckily I was ready.

Our days gaming started with a game of Terra Mystica.

I’d never played this before, and like one of my students hadn’t done the homework assigned to us by Diego of watching a how to play video.

I enjoyed the game and would like to play it again to explore the options more.

It struck me as very much a game where you have to play to the strength of your faction.

With the dragon lords I was playing I think I could have been a bit more aggressive in my expansionism. I was very aware of my limited power tokens (if that is what they are called). But my issues were during the early stages of being too expanding and running out of power tokens, and also generating enough workers. In the last couple of rounds I had the problem of having lots of power tokens and not nearly enough workers to use the tokens with.

I did spend most of the game trailing far behind on the scoring track, but a late surge of points during the final scoring from the priest tracks got me enough to draw last place with Diego.

Jeff and Ben shared the victory. Apparently there is no tie breaker in this game!

Our next game was Cat in the Box. Which Diego just romped away with the victory. Apart from the last round he was scoring over five points a round. It should be noted that Ben scored zero points the whole game.

Our third and final game of the day was Red Rising.

Ben won this game also. However as a five player game it played a lot quicker than I thought it would.

I had four cards I was holding onto from my initial hand as they allowed me to use them as either any named character or colour during the end scoring. I thought these will be really useful. Did I get any other cards that they could be used with? No. didn’t see any come out either.

I also spent a few rounds trying to get a third red card, which never showed up. And I couldn’t get to the one in one of the columns. That stopped me getting a cool combo that would have netted me over five helium in two turns.

Ben took the victory in this game while I was denied the first loser position by a couple of points. Diego took that honour.

I had a great day gaming with amazingly kind and generous friends.

There was only one way to finish off such a great day. Buying Mum a Chinese take away to celebrate her birthday (which just so happened to be the same day as this one off bank holiday). Yes I left Mum at home looking after the mutts on her birthday.