Tuesday saw a gaming session that would most likely not have happened if I hadn’t changed jobs.

In all likely hood I would have had a shift.

It sounds and looks like I’m hating on my old job. But I’m not.

I loved being a shift leader, and really loved the folks I worked with. And I miss them a lot.

It’s just that days off during the week shifted around, and usually when others were not free. It played havoc with getting together for D&D.

But this post is about the games we played Tuesday.

As this was a weekday daytime gaming session we needed to host the session somewhere other than our usual place (it’s closed during the day). Charlene very kindly opened up her home and played host.

We started off with a game of Trekking Through History.

There was only one way to describe how well I did in this game. Pathetic.

Lucky I enjoy playing the game. Despite doing really badly score wise I did take some really cool treks through time.

I do love that element of the game, and the stories you can tell with the cards. One moment you are painting in caves, the next helping write a play with Shakespeare.

But those history books will show Marcin won the game.

Our next game was one of the current hot games of the moment, Flamecraft.

Charlene’s daughter joined us for this game because she really liked the game.

I know Charlene said her husband was very competitive when playing games. But experienced gamers are a different type of competitive.

This would be a learning experience for the daughter.

I really liked Flamecraft.

The copy we were playing was a pimped out retail version. Which meant it looked pretty cool on the table. From the lovely plastic dragon figures to the wooden resources. I did like the gold coins. They had a nice weight to them.

But to pimp out the game like this takes it from an affordable, value for money game, to a too expensive for what it is game.

It’s definitely a gateway game.

Which if it looked like this at the retail price would be a must buy, and sell even more copies especially to non-gamers. But I can’t help feel that a non-gamer playing this pimped out version (or Kickstarter version) would feel cheated when they opened their retail copy.

Having said that I think this game easily stands up there with classic gateway games such as Catan or Ticket to Ride.

I like how completing an objective makes the shop you are currently in more rewarding the next time you or another player visit it.

I would like to see a bit more variation in the dragon powers.

Overall it’s a nice game that Jeff won.

How did Charlene’s daughter get on against three ruthless gamers? She held her own. But learnt that when given a resource we ain’t being generous. Especially when she can’t keep the extra resource because she already has the maximum allowed. So we get the bonus/reward and she gets nothing. I’m hoping in future games she uses that tactic herself.

We finished off the afternoon with a game of Dune Imperium with both expansions Rise of Ix, and Immortality.

I really do enjoy playing this game. Even more so despite it being a space hog on the table with the two expansions.

Since getting the Rise of Ix expansion this game saw the most tech tiles bought in a game. I think this was more to do with the tiles that came out.

None of us used our house token to reset the trade row this game. But this is something I’d house rule if I was just playing the base game. It fixes a complaint some have about the game.

I did trigger the end of the game with one round to spare.

My emphatic victory with 13 points was not only the highest score for all the games I’ve played to date.

It was made even more sweeter because I took an alliance token from Jeff. That point swing is massive in Dune Imperium where victory points are hard to get, and scores so tight.

Plus earlier when I got to take a random intrigue off of Jeff the one I got scuppered Jeff’s end of game scoring plans and gave me one to aim for. Which I was able to pull off with a slight change to my plans.

I had a great afternoon gaming with friends. And a really big thank you to Charlene for opening up her home to us, and for providing pizza.