Yesterday was a rare day off for me at the moment.

I’d spent the morning tidying up an area in my bedroom to have my Raspberry Pi P400 set up for a project. I hadn’t long finished when I saw a message from Jonathan asking me if I fancied gaming that afternoon.

Naturally I responded positively. A time and place was agreed.

At the appointed time I joined Jonathan at the Wisbech St Mary Sports and Community Centre to play some games.

In my bag was the still in wrap Splendor Marvel. Yep I’d been so tired since getting it I hadn’t even opened it up.

Jonathan suggested we give it a play. I was up for that.

It was nice to see Space Cowboys have used a heavier poker chip again. I have a first printing Splendor which also had a heavier poker chip. I prefer the heavier chip. They feel better in the hand. Why am I going on about this? Later printings of Splendor had lighter poker chips in them. There was a lot of criticism about this at the time when it came to light.

There are some differences between Splendor and Splendor Marvel. Not major but some.

The gold poker chip has been replaced with a grey S.H.I.E.L.D. Token. There are four Location Tiles that are double sided and replace the noble tiles.

A new Avengers Assemble Tile has been introduced that is worth three points. This is an interesting addition. On some of the cards is an Avengers symbol. The first person to have three of those symbols gets the Avengers Assemble Tile. However if another player gets more of the symbols in front of them they get the tile instead. So this tile will move around the table. It also introduces the possibility of untriggering the end of the game!

There is a sixth poker chip called the Time Token that is green. The only way to get one is to buy a level three card. You can’t spend the token. However you need one to trigger the end of the game!

There is also an Infinity Gauntlet Tile that acts as a reminder of the end game trigger. To trigger the end of the game you need 16 Infinity Points AND 1 bonus of each color AND 1 Green token.

One thing I wish there was for this version of the game is a play mat. I do like the official Splendor play mat. And yes I could use that. But it’d look odd without Marvel art work on it.

Sadly Jonathan beat me despite me having the Avengers Assemble Tile.

So I have both versions of Splendor (at the moment). But is there room for both in my collection? A bit of me says yes. I don’t have the expansion for Splendor. So Splendor Marvel gives me more bang for my money. I like the additions made to the game, especially the Avengers Assemble Tile and the majority gets it. If I had the original with the expansion I might find it a tougher decision. But theme and the changes mean Splendor Marvel is the one I’d keep out of the two.

We followed Splendor Marvel with one of Jonathan’s games, Tobago.

I’d never played Tobago before. So Jonathan did a rule rundown for me.

How best to describe the mechanics? There is definitely deduction as you try and work out where the treasure is hidden based on the clues for each treasure.

Hand management is there to as you manage your hand of clues, and deciding when and where to play them to help find the treasure.

There is definitely some variety with the use of a modular board.

Manipulating the clues so that treasures are located near to you and not near you opponents is key.

I liked the landmarks and the random placing of them following placement rules, tied in with the modular boards means no two games are going to be the same layout.

I enjoyed the game and managed to amass a lot of the high value treasure cards.

Just so you know how comprehensive my victory was I’ve included the final scores below.

The gaming session was great for a couple of the challenges. But you’ll see that in a future post.

It was great getting some gaming in with Jonathan. It was just what I needed on my day off.

And here we are once more at the end of another post and the photos taken by Jonathan during our gaming session.