“It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled
It’s been a long time since I did the stroll
Ooh let me get it back, let me get it back
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from” Led Zepplin, Rock and Roll

It’s been a long time since we gamed at The Luxe.

But last night we finally returned to our gracious hosts for a test gaming session with limited attendance.

The plan was hold a game night at The Luxe. See how it went. Review the evening and make a decision about restarting regular club nights.

Our game for the evening saw Lost Ruins of Arnak hit the table. A game that joined my collection over a year ago and remained unplayed until last night. I hadn’t even punched the cardboard until Tuesday when I discovered I hadn’t even done that.

Naturally I arrived a few minutes before the designated start time for the evening to get set up. It’s a little thing but it does ensure that the majority of our game time is spent playing and not setting up and packing away.

And that brings me to my main comment about the Lost Ruins of Arnak. It’s a lot of setting up. Lots of fiddling about with mixing up tokens and placing them on the board, shuffling decks, shuffling of piles of tiles.

Once you start playing it’s a lovely game, a great mash up of deck building and worker placement. I can see why this was getting a lot of buzz when it came out.

I love how it’s 5 rounds and that’s it. It forces you to focus. And seems a popular mechanic in some great games (Imperial Settlers and Wingspan come to mind). Like those other games you are left wanting at least one more turn. Which I like.

Also like those other games you start off not being able to do much and as the game progresses you are able to do more and more on your turn as you buy items or artifacts to make your deck more powerful.

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Naturally there were misplays and a need to refer to the rule book on a regular basis through out the evening. Our impression of the rule book was it wasn’t great. We found trying to find information not easy due to it being spread over multiple pages, if it had what you were looking for. Plus on more than one occasion we found that it was also unclear in the information it was giving. I think our best example of this was artifact cards, buying them and using the ability straight away.

I loved that new cards (unless an artifact) went on the bottom of the deck. Getting to use the new cards quicker is cool.

The research board is a great addition as you race the other players up it to claim bonuses before the others.

I was surprised how few sites we explored to. In the end there were 4. I think it’s more that we all got distracted by the research board at the cost of exploring.

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Jeff took the honours and romped home to the victory. Sadly I came last by a point to Jonathan. So now I got to live with that until I can return the favour and crush him.

The general consensus around the table was we liked Lost Ruins of Arnak. Definitely a game we want to get back to the table (aren’t they all?)

It was felt the evening went well. We all felt safe enough. The precautions our host have in place to mitigate risk were excellent. Although the cinema wasn’t busy, no crowds in the foyer. So we decided to go ahead with holding regular gaming sessions again. But at a slow, cautious pace. What that means is instead of weekly gaming sessions on a Friday they will be fortnightly. As for the monthly meet up. Before starting that up we decided to get some feedback from the club members about the best night to hold that.

For those interested we are asking that those attending are either vaccinated against covid and/or have taken a LFT (which is negative) in addition to any requirements that our hosts The Luxe require.

I’m hoping to get Dune Imperium, Star Wars Outer Rim, Rolling Rome and Vampire the Masquerade Vendetta to the table over the coming weeks.